"It All Started with a Mouse"

That's my favorite quote/poster I saw in Disney. It was a photo of young Walt Disney walking over the land when they were building and Cinderella's Castle is almost a hologram on the top of the page with Mickey Mouse.

"It All Started with a Mouse"

Yes it did. It clearly is the most magical place on Earth. I'm a Mickey fan. Not a die hard "must.visit.Mickey and spend a small fortune EVERY year" but I love a good trip to Disney.

This wasn't the "AWWWW aren't the boys and girls cute all dressed up as Pirates or a Princess" because CLEARLY my 14 year old wasn't much interested in dressing up like Pirates of the Caribbean. That trip with the AWWW factor will more than likely come in 4 years when Kyle is about to graduate from high school and go off to college and Casey will be 6 and can ya know remember the small fortune her Dad and I shell out for the trip.

A few things come to mind for my NEXT trip.

A) I will never go and stay in the same room with other family members for a whole week.

It isn't that I don't like my family, I just need some privacy. I need to get out of the shower naked, I need my own "sitting" area when I can have control over the TV, where no one else is sleeping and I feel as though I'm intruding on their space.

For this trip it was a 2 bedroom suite that had a pullout in the "living room" area. So my parents had the king and big bathroom, my sister stayed on the pull out bed in the living room and other room with 2 queens was for me, my husband, my son and his friend, Cody. Leaving us to share a regular sized bathroom with no separate quarters for the toilet vs. the shower. So if I was in the shower and someone needed the toilet they either had to wait or use my Dad's. I just need more space.

B) Considering this was my 3rd visit, my sister's 4th and my parents 9th and 11th respectively....we did not need to go 14 hours a day.

We had a "day off" on Tuesday. Really a Day off you ask? We still walked almost 4 miles that day.This was the day my sister and husband each got a massage, people got to sleep in, we didn't go to any theme parks but still went to the Boardwalk to visit ESPN Zone and rent a surrey. Then we went to Downtown Disney for dinner and walked around some more. Whatever we needed to see...we covered plenty and then some in just about 4 to 4 1/2 days. My husband and I would much rather go a little later in the year like early Spring for a week with a 4 or 5 day park hopper pass. Visit 2 or 3 parks in 2 days, take a day off by the pool, visit 2 or 3 parks over 2 days and take a day and go to one of the water parks. Going full blast from start to finish is too exhausting and my Dad didn't get a nap on Monday when he did and he was really crabby, admittedly but SERIOUSLY we don't need to go at that pace the next time.

NOW A & B lead me to C (which is quite a sad but necessary realization)

C) My father can NOT pay for 90% of the trip. I feel as though any suggestion to deviate from his itinerary comes as an insult to him and he feels like we're ungrateful. Even my sister pointed it out.

So I will save save save.....ask my Dad to purchase extra vacation club points for 2011 and have our own suite. Where the kids and I be away from our family. We will only purchase 4 or 5 day passes for Jeff, Casey and I. If Kyle wants to go all 7 days..he can...but I'm not doing it. If my Dad wants to go non-stop, more power to him. I want pool time, I want nap time, I want down time.

That said, here are the highlights of the trip:

Saturday

We arrived and went straight to Magic Kingdom for a lunch reservation at Crystal Palace, which was a FANTASTIC buffet with the characters. We then hit most of the good rides but Splash Mountain, which was closed and Space Mountain because the line was long and we wanted to get a good spot for the parade and fireworks at 8pm.

Rides: Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

Sunday:

We went to Epcot in the morning and afternoon. We hit Mission Space, Test Track and Soaring before heading back to our room for a short nap. Then we went back to Magic Kingdom for dinner at the Liberty Tree Tavern an all u can eat chosen menu with characters. Then we hit Big Thunder Mt. Railroad again and Space Mountain a gazillion times.

Monday was a 14 hour day. We left at 7:30 and arrived back at 9:42pm.

In the morning we went to Animal Kingdom and hit Expedition Everest, the Safari, Dinosaur, the Expedition Trail, Primeval Whirl and the show "It's Tough to be a Bug". We had some lunch then left there and went to MGM Studios. At MGM we hit Tower of Terror and RockN' Roller Coaster about 3 times each, we did the back lot tour and Great Movie Ride before having dinner at Sci-Fi Movie Theater in cars watching old cheesy sci-fi flicks. VERY COOL! Then we hit the big rides 2 more times and headed home. My Dad wore his very expensive pedometer the whole week and this day we did close to 12 miles.

Tuesday was our "day off".

I slept in til 8am. Kelly had a massage at 10, Jeff was 11. We had a nice breakfast. Then around lunch time we headed to downtown Disney to eat and catch a bus to the "Boardwalk". There we walked around, hit a brewery, ESPN Zone, rented a 3 bench surrey and rode around the lagoon twice. From there we headed back to our room for a short nap and I actually read. Then we headed to Downtown Disney to Raglan Road (this amazing little Irish Pub) for dinner. Have I mentioned how AMAZING the Disney Dining plan is? IT's great. We walked around and kind of shopped and then headed back.

Wednesday

This was by far my FAVORITE DAY. We had a tour with Dolphins in the Depth at Epcot. You get a private tour of "The Seas" and you get to interact with the dolphins. Greatest things...all the money goes to their conservatory to take care of them and they only take tours up to 14 a day...so with our group of 7....we were the only ones. This was an amazing thing and I managed to get into the wetsuit without much trouble. (I'll post pictures below) Then we had lunch at The Land, another ride on Soaring and Test Track then off to the World Showcase. After that long walk we had dinner in "Mexico" and waited for the fireworks there at 9pm.

Thursday was our warmest day at 78 degrees or so.

This was a "split" day. We headed to Animal Kingdom to hit Everest and the safari again. Then we did the Rapids ride and got pretty wet. Actually Jeff was SOAKED. From there we headed back to Magic Kingdom to ride Splash Mountain, walk through the Castle and Space Mountain again. My Dad decided not to stay in favor of a nap so the boys stayed and came back on their own. From there we headed to the very elite restaurant on the 15th floor of the Contemporary Resort, California Grille. Very upscale, good food but not much for a beer selection and they didn't enforce their dress code so it took something away from it. In my opinion. The best thing by far was that we were still there when Magic Kingdom started their "Pirates and Princess" private party fireworks. So for the 3rd time in a week we saw the most magical fireworks. This time from the observation desk outside. It was fabu.

Friday was our last full day there

We headed to MGM to attempt to see the Stunt Show since it was closed all week. Despite some rain they performed. We also hit Tower of Terror and RockN' Roller Coaster about 3-4 more times EACH. We also saw the Indiana Jones Stunt Show and rode on Star Tours. From there we headed to Downtown Disney to SHOP. Considering my laundry list of people I wanted to buy for...I didn't spend all that much. Then we gave the boys some money and cut them loose. They went to Wolfgang Puck's Express for pizza and then headed to DisneyQuest. There they met 2 girls from Boston. The adults headed to Captain Jack's restaurant and ate, drank and were merry for Jeff's b-day. Since we were out of meal plans at this point we paid cash for this dinner. We spent on ONE dinner MORE than we paid for ONE full 7 day meal plan. UNREAL....but oh so good and worth it. We tried to go back to the room and have some fun but everyone was really tired and not so jolly anymore, especially ME.

Sat we had to check out by 11am and our bus didn't come til 3pm.

We had a nice breakfast, packed and headed to downtown Disney to just kind of chill out. Kyle and Cody met up with their friends again, rented little sprite speedboats for a 1/2 hour and hung out til we had to leave.

Considering we left the gate at the airport 45 minutes late we still arrived in Chicago on time.

Funniest thing that happened: Kyle tried to get a security guy to get Jeff and I to stop kissing in line on Space Mountain. After much grilling of Kyle the guy said "they're your parents, they are the boss so I'm gonna give them this switch pass and they can go in the express line and ride OVER AND OVER AGAIN without you so you don't have to watch them kiss ok?" So we did..once and then I let Kyle and Cody ride a few times.

Best Memory....

Right Here: