Disney Surprise

I had always planned to bring the kids back to Disney before they turned 10 (and become adults in Disney pricing) and that was even more settled when we received vouchers from Jet Blue last year for sitting at the airport for 12 hours. We had done a quick and cheap(er) two days at the Magic Kingdom when they were 6 years old.

Originally, we planned to go in April, but I got a brainstorm when Pete took off an extra few weeks before starting his new job--which he started today, BTW. Let's surprise the kids and go to Disney now!

So, I sneaked their clothes into the suitcase and we sneaked the suitcases into the car, woke them at 5am last Sunday and off we went to Orlando. They were very suspicious when we got to the airport and had completely figured out our destination when we landed. They were thrilled but subdued due to the early rise.

This was the big trip, staying on Disney property, using their meal plan and seeing all the parks, except the water parks. It was very fun and the only challenge is not to spend gobbs of money once you get there. Lots of rides empty out into the gift shop, there is something called the Bippity Boppity Boo shop where little girls can get a bun in their hair for a mere $50 (yikes!). I was stunned by how many we saw who had gotten the whole hair, costume and sash for $200. Crazy!

Katie was longing for the princess treatment, so I appeased her by letting her buy some hair do-dads and putting it in a bun myself. I am very proud of them, though, they played and ogled everything in the shops but didn't whine or beg for anything. I decided to get them some Disney trading pins and lanyards and they had fun trading with cast members and other kids for the last two days of the trip. And, of course, we squished pennies at all the parks.

The trip was great, the weather was sunny and warm, the waits were short and the food was good. Zack was tall enough to go on all of the roller coasters with Pete. Katie and I prefer milder thrills, like the Peter Pan ride :-) Zack and I both nursed colds the entire trip, which meant early bed times, but otherwise we had a lot of fun and did most of what we wanted in each park.

There were other nice surprises--we ended up with a corner room with more space and light and with a trundle bed, so K&Z didn't need to share. Pete and Zack won all day fast passes at Disney MGM and they gave Pete two extra for Katie and me. The kids got free pins from a cast member. We saw lots of costumes characters with little to no wait and Katie scored a free bag of cotton candy for being nice to our food server one day.

The trip home was BUMPY! The flight attendants were not allowed to stand and that always makes me crazy. As it turned out, it was not as bad as I had expected, so I kept my cool for the most part and Katie and Zack were preoccupied with the TVs in their seats to worry too much.

Here are some of the pictures we took (mostly Pete and the whole reel is 430 pictures).