We flew down on Sunday and Brennan was a super traveler. He loves airplanes and is perfectly content just sitting in his own seat (as long as there is plenty of candy involved). We had a short layover in Cleveland and did pull out the iPad during the 2nd flight which was longer. We picked up our rental car at the airport and headed to our hotel. We stayed at our timeshare again, Wyndham Bonnet Creek. It is so so so super nice. I highly recommend it! It is an absolutely gorgeous resort and we were in a three bedroom suite with a full living room and full kitchen. The resort has five pools, two lazy rivers, and is on Disney property so a shuttle takes you to all the Disney parks. We didn't see a drop of rain all week and temperatures reached almost 80 each day. It really was perfect!
After checking in, we drove right over to Downtown Disney. Brennan got to ride the choo-choo train and the carousel and see some of the other things he remembered from when were there before. His memory kills me. The day before we left CT, we were looking at pictures from our January trip and he saw a picture of a statue of Stitch at Downtown Disney. With no prompting from me, he remembered that Stitch shot water out of his mouth, so he was happy to see that again. We didn't stay at Downtown Disney too terribly long and decided to grab dinner at Steak-n-Shake before heading back to the room and getting B to bed.
I love how happy Brennan is in these pictures even after flying all day and having no nap. This kid seriously loves this place!
Monday morning we woke up pretty early to attend a time-share presentation (one of the less glamorous sides of timeshare ownership) and then headed to Magic Kingdom around 11am. Since we had just been to Disney in January, we weren't trying to stuff too much into our day. We started by just walking around and then found a Pooh and Tigger character spot.
In January, Fantasyland was closed. It's all reopened now so we headed there and rode the new Little Mermaid ride. It was really cute and I highly recommend it. Brennan's face here cracks me up! As a side note, right before we got in line, Brennan was asking for popcorn. We bought some (overpriced of course, but delicious!) and it helped keep B entertained in the line. I had ziploc baggies with me, so I dumped some popcorn into one of those and he was good to go. We ended up doing this again at Epcot because it lasts awhile and keeps him happy!
Next we went to the Dumbo ride. I was going to ride it with Brennan, so Kyle waited outside the line to snap some pictures. Little did we know, you walk inside and get a pager and enter a indoor playland for kids while you wait. It's a great idea, but I wish Kyle had come in with us because I was exhausted after running after Brennan while he played. The ride itself was super short, but Brennan liked being up high, so that's all that matters.
Next to the Dumbo ride is a little splash pad and if Brennan sees water he goes right for it! Thankfully we had fabulous weather so getting wet was no big deal.
As another side note, Uncrustables are amazing. Brennan has eaten them before, but they worked so perfectly for our days at the parks. I would pack two in the backpack each day and Brennan devoured them! It really helped us save money since we didn't need to buy lunch inside the park.
Right in that same area was a line to meet Goofy and Donald and a separate line for Minnie and Daisy. We did Goofy and Donald first and afterwards walked into a little gift shop and B forgot about wanting to see the other two, which was fine with us! We knew we'd see all the characters on our day at Epcot.
We hit up the carousel next!
Then Brennan wanted to ride the "big orange train", so we headed back to the front of Magic Kingdom. While waiting for the train we saw the beginning of the parade. Brennan was pretty excited.
Recapping this day makes it sound like we didn't do much I feel like, but we were satisfied with our time there and didn't want to push Brennan (or 34 week prego me!) too hard. We rode the monorail back to the bus stops and let B run around that area for a little bit before catching our shuttle back to the resort.
We don't have a single Chick-fil-a in CT, so once we were back to the resort, we jumped in our car and headed there for dinner. Then it was an early bedtime for B since he this was his 2nd day in a row with no nap.
Tuesday morning we slept in and then headed back to Downtown Disney just to eat up some time and let the swimming pools warm up a little because Brennan really wanted to go swimming. Downtown Disney meant another choo-choo ride and another carousel ride along with some posing with statues.
Then we did head back and go swimming. I didn't take any pictures there, but it was so fun! Outdoor swimming in December is pretty cool! We let Brennan nap after lunch in the room and he took a great nap. Can't brag enough about our cooperative little guy. Two days with no nap and then he naps like a champ when we has the chance. We ate at a local hibachi restaurant that night and Brennan was in heaven there too. They even gave him free ice cream!
Wednesday was our day at Sea World and I'll do a separate blog post about that. It was AMAZING! Thursday morning we woke up and took the shuttle to Epcot so we could be there right at 9. We did that in January too and it is our biggest Disney recommendation if you want to meet the main characters quickly and easily. We had a short line to meet the characters in January and this trip there was literally no line. We were the 2nd family to enter and got to have a dance party with Mickey before getting pictures. Seriously so cool! There were only three characters at this indoor spot this time; Goofy and Daisy were in their own separate lines outside.
We also got to meet Jasmine and Aladdin in Morocco and Donald in Mexico along the World Showcase.
We rode a couple of rides at Epcot - Spaceship Earth, Nemo and Friends, ImageWorks, and a boat ride in Mexico. It was fun, but I just don't enjoy Epcot nearly as much as Magic Kingdom. I was also coming down with a cold on this day and I think all the walking from the week was catching up with me; I just didn't feel too good. The monorail was broken (cue tears from Brennan, which caused tears from Mommy), so we rode a bus back over to our shuttle. The plan was to go swimming back at the resort, but we decided we'd do The Pirate Dinner Adventure that night and since dinner doesn't start until 7:30, we knew B would need a nap. We laid him down for a late nap at 3 and ended up having to wake him up at 6 to get ready to go. We used timeshare points for the dinner and we were happy with that, because it was NOT worth actually paying for. Brennan was pretty wiped out and just laid his head on my shoulder almost the whole dinner and show.
Since we got to bed late on Thursday, we were hoping to sleep in on Friday. Brennan granted us our wish and slept until 8:40! It was amazing. I still wasn't feeling too good with my cold, so after eating breakfast in the room and playing a little, Daddy took Brennan to the swimming pool. I joined them down there about 40 minutes later. I love how much Brennan loves the water. We ended up eating lunch in the room and let Brennan take a nap because our friends Josh and Amanda were driving down to meet us. Again I had to wake Brennan up from his nap and we met our friends at Downtown Disney. Brennan was excited to see their two girls, Adah and Michaela. Since Brennan is Downtown Disney pro, we let him show everyone around. The kids rode the choo-choo train and the carousel then we all ate dinner at The Rainforest Cafe. We also grabbed ice cream at Ghirardelli! Then we headed back to the resort to let the kids play in the room. We had a super early flight to catch the next morning, so the kids went to bed and it gave the grown-ups some time to catch up.
Again, B's face in these first few pictures just makes me heart almost explode!
Saturday the alarm went off at 4am and we packed up and headed to the airport. Our trip home went super well and Brennan even slept during the second flight (which was all of about 30 minutes long from Newark to Providence). Auntie Val picked us up in Providence and we came home so B could take a good nap after a long day of travel and week packed full of fun!
I know Brennan is pretty young for Disney trips, but he seems to love it. I know he might not remember it forever, but we have made great memories there. We are already talking about when we might go back again. We are really liking the Dec-Jan timeframe because crowds are down and the weather is so nice. This trip was super relaxing. We had done pretty much everything in January, so this was just a refresher and we didn't feel like we had to spend hours upon hours at the parks. If you haven't been to Disney with your kids yet, I HIGHLY recommend it!
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