Disney's Epcot Park: Spaceship Earth & The Garden Grill

Disney's Epcot Park was really a lot of fun! It had all sorts of engaging activities and hands on things for the kids to do. Some of the rides were super fun at Epcot with all sorts of futuristic themes. The giant silver ball was the most exciting thing upon entering the park. The first thing the boys wanted to do was to go inside that giant ball. And so we did! Inside was a ride called "Spaceship Earth" and was like a spaceship ride through the ages of time of the earth and then into space. It really was pretty amazing and the boys, loving spaceships and space themes anyway, absolutely loved it! We actually went on it again later that day since it was such a hit!!

We ate dinner at the Garden Grill Restaurant, a restaurant that actually spun around as we ate dinner. Of course it spun super super slow so as to not bother with dizziness or making people sick as they ate, but it was really neat. The boys would look up and see one scene, and then a few minutes later they'd look up again and see something completely different! It was exciting! We also got to see Mickey, Pluto, and Chip & Dale, which was fun! Since our kids hardly watch any TV, these characters didn't mean a whole lot to them. I think for some kids, the characters from the TV shows are like heros, but they definitely weren't the highlight of Disneyworld like sometimes is assumed. Rather, they enjoyed the spinning restaurant much more!! Kaylee actually was terrified of the big strange characters. She eyed them with interest but with a guard. As they come closer, she would edge away from them. If they got too close she would lose it and break out in tears. We got the perfect shot of Pluto coming towards Kaylee and Kaylee's reaction to him. She just was ready to jump out of her high chair and scurry away as fast as she could with a look of terror. What a cutie!!

Disneyworld: O'Hana Polynesian Resort

We ventured out of the Disneyworld parks to have an emaculate supper at the Polynesian Resort in a restaurant called O'Hana. The dining style resembled Tucanos from Provo, UT where the waiters and waitresses continually bring out meats of every possible kind and grilled vegetables on skewers. However this restaurant did not have red or green markers to tell the waiters to stop or go. So that food just kept on coming!! We could watch all the meat be grilled on large flat grills and there was live Hawaiian entertainment the entire evening. During the middle of dinner, they announced the traditional "Coconut Races" and insisted that all the kids come forward. Each child received a real coconut and a broom. The point of the game was to sweep (or roll) that coconut around the inner perimeter pathway throughout the entire restaurant. What fun!! It actually was a whole lot harder than it looked because those coconuts would roll off every which way. The kids enjoyed this a whole lot!! Our dinner bill came out to be about $175 for the 7 of us!! However, we lucked out since we were on the Disney dining plan, it was all covered as a "table service meal." I loved that whether we ate at Rainforest Cafe (a casual dinner restaurant) or a crazy expensive quality restaurant like O'Hana, it meant the same on the dining plan! It was great!! We then walked around the Disney's Polynesian Resort and were amazed at the scenery, the quality, the grandeur of every square inch of the resort and pool area! Nate insisted that next trip we stay there instead!

Disney's Animal Kingdom: Dinosaur Land

One of the highlights of Animal Kingdom was Dino Land. As much as the kids love to ride on special rides, its a lot of walking and waiting before experiencing the excitement of the ride. So, the thing they loved most of all was exploring and playing at Dino Land. Dino Land had a huge excavation area where kids could just play in the sand and work at uncovering huge dinosaur bones with paintbrushes and buckets. This sand was not ordinary sand, it was large granules of sand that were multicolored. This made it more fun because the texture was so unique. Jaxton could have stayed in the excavation sand the entire day and would have thoroughly enjoyed Disney's Animal Kingdom with just that! Kaylee equally enjoyed the sand pit. She only tasted the sand twice, rather she enjoyed running it through her fingers and toes and finding it stuck in her sandals. She was intrigued with the stuff!

Cooper enjoyed the sand a little, but he rather enjoyed the other half of Dino Land, a giant playground made out of dinosaur bones, slides, and pathways, stone stairways and bridges. He loves to climb and explore, so had a ball with Dad running around exploring the dinosaur bones and caves.

Lastly, Dino Land had a simple kids ride. Even Kaylee got to ride in it! Jaxton rode with Grandpa and Cooper rode with Grandma, while Nate, Kaylee and I rode together. The boys enjoyed manually working the dinosaur they were in to go up or down and tilt front or backwards. It was a lot of fun!!

Disney's Animal Kingdom: Safari Ride

Nate ran to get us fast passes for the popular safari ride. It was a good idea, because this ride was a main highlight! We got to ride in giant safari jeeps through the jungles and safari looking at unique animals. Kaylee slept through most of this one, just fell asleep in Nate's arms and then woke up again to see the pink flamingos! But the boys and all of us thoroughly enjoyed the ride. We saw an animal that was bred half giraffe and half zebra. Very interesting! We saw hippos, alligators, rhinos, elephants, everything under the sun! Even the driver took on the role of a real safari guide, teaching us all about the animals and warning us of problems up ahead. Then she'd speed up super fast to avoid a stampede, or ask us to keep a look out for poachers in the area. It was a super fun ride!!

Disney's Animal Kingdom: The Tree of Life

Disney's Animal Kingdom was a magnificent park! Everything is just so beautiful and well taken care of. The crowds were not terrible and the fast passes were wonderful! The first and most amazing sight caught our attention as we entered the park: The Tree of Life. It was a magnificent ginormous tree with carvings throughout the trunk and roots of animals and animal life. It was not real, as the boys were able to point out, but it just looked amazing and it looked real! The carvings were so extravagant and detailed, they were amazing to just look at. There was a pathway that took us around and through the roots of the tree and under some of the roots as well through what seemed like short caves going under and through the tree. The boys of course were fascinated with the size and the beauty of it. And they immediately asked if this was the one from the scriptures. Indeed it is not, but its neat to see something that would resemble the Tree of Life from Lehi's dream.

Disney's Hollywood Studios: Toy Story

Also at Disney's Hollywood Studios is an entire street designated to the movie Toy Story, which is a big hit in our home. First we ran into a real live army man, one of the green toy army men from the movie, but lifesize and real!! It was a man that had painted his whole self green, face and all, and when he moved he took on his character, by moving kind of robot like, the way they do in the film.

Next, we waited in line (well, Nate waited in line for 30 minutes for us) to visit with Buzz and Woody. This was one thing that just couldn't be passed up. Especially for Cooper, Buzz and Woody are his heroes. It was fun watching the boys get a couple minutes to interact with these characters. They didn't talk, but they gave high fives and hugs and Cooper let them know that his birthday party was all about them! Fun times!!

Last, we checked out the real live "Pizza Planet." This was pretty exciting for the kids. Even though we didn't use tokens, it was just as much fun playing around with all the arcade games. I didn't realize this strange boy was in the photo until afterward, but I was trying to capture the Pizza Planet logo up by the ceiling to prove that we actually went to Pizza Planet!!

Disney's Hollywood Studios: Beauty & the Beast

The first event we were able to see upon arriving at Disney's Hollywood Studios was the Beauty & the Beast live performance. And for the first experience at Disneyworld, it truly was pretty darn amazing. Cooper confessed that it was one of his most favorite things while at Disneyworld. He was fascinated with it. We had watched the video a couple times last summer in Utah at Grandma Hutchinson's house, so he kind of remembered the story, but he especially was fascinated at how the beast turned nice and when he did so, he turned back into a man. The costumes were extrinsic and the performers were brilliant! It was really a fun performance to watch. Even Kaylee was enthralled with it and sat still on my lap just gazing at the action before her eyes, not sure what to think. We all really enjoyed it!

DisneyWorld Vacation 2012

We had planned our Disneyworld trip for almost a whole year.  Finally, it was time to actually go and we were all so excited!! It was a great family adventure!!  Grandma & Grandpa Routsong were able to come along with us.  The kids had so much fun with Grandma & Grandpa and with all the fun sights to see and things to do, it was overwhelming!!  We had a lot of fun for our first family Disneyworld adventure!!  We had 4 Disneyworld base tickets, which took us to a different theme park each of the 4 days were stayed there.  We went to Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom, Epcot, and Magic Kingdom.  We could have spent an entire week at each park, so of course we had to pick and choose what was most important for our family to see and do.  We did a lot of research beforehand, trying to figure out what not to miss out on for the ages of our kids.  We also set up the Disney Dining Plan which was included in our package.  This way, we got 1 fast food service, 1 snack, and 1 tableservice meal for each person in our group, and for each of the 4 days at Disney.  The boys often shared a fast food meal, and even Nate and I were able to share sometimes, so these meals really went a long way.  We paid nothing for food during our entire trip.  My favorite was when we had a sit down table service meal that ended up costing us $175 for our group of 7 to eat there.  However, the fees were all waived as part of the Disney Dining Plan!  Now that's a deal!  

 We stayed at the Disney's Caribbean Resort Hotel.  It was all decked out in Caribbean looks with a tropical flair!  All the rooms opened to the outside, rather than inside a building, which made it even more outdoorsy and Caribbean-like.  The resort had 5 small pools among the many buildings, and then at the main clubhouse was a huge central pool with waterslides, lookout points, a big splash pad with pirate ship, and even poolside games and dancing.  Also in the middle of the resort the buildings surrounded a big pond with sandy white beaches to mimic the caribbean.  They had hammocks available and lawn chairs.  It was a very relaxing and enjoyable atmosphere.  We enjoyed our hotel and resort.  

 Inside the main clubhouse building, everything was decked out in a Spanishy colorful atmosphere.  There were 5 or 6 different food places and a gift shop.  We spent most of our breakfasts there. 

 The resort had a bus service so that every 15 to 20 minutes busses going to each park would circle through all the Disney resorts.  So we would go out to the bus stop and watch for the bus that stated the park we were headed to.  Then we'd hop on and it would take us straight to the front of the park.  It was great!!