Our day at Disney started with a bit of an unexpected adventure. We decided to take the boat across from the parking lot to the park. That was fine. Once we got in, there was a parade going on, so we watched that as it went by. Then, since it was really sunny and quite warm out, we tried getting an umbrella hooked onto Bryce's wheelchair to shade him a little bit. That only took a couple of minutes, but when I looked up, Jacob was gone. We couldn't see him anywhere! We thought that maybe he followed the parade so John headed down that way to see if he could find him. The other kids and I stayed put in case he came back. Pretty soon John came back and had found the end of the parade, but no Jacob. Talk about a parent's nightmare. 10 minutes into the park and we had already lost a child! Sheesh! Anyway, so John went over to customer service to report a missing child and they sent him to another place where they take care of that. He checked in with us in between places, but still no sign of Jacob. When John went in to the other area and reported Jacob missing, they said that Jacob was the first child of the day to be lost. What an honor!
A few minutes after John headed off to that office, I saw Jacob, full of tears, and a Disney employee coming down Main St. I was so glad to see him! I guess he had followed the parade and not realized that we were not with him until it was too late. The way he was treated by the employee was very impressive. He told Jacob to be sure and watch out for us so that we did not get lost again. He had noticed the MAW pins we were wearing and ask Jacob if he liked pins. He then told us to wait for just one minute and he was off. He returned shortly holding a huge amount of pins that he gave to Jacob and told him he could share with his brothers. The boys thought that was just great! After that little incident, the day did improve.
Bryce while watching the parade.
By the end of the parade, Bryce was not very happy. Unfortunately the weather was still a little too warm and humid for his liking.
The umbrella helped a little. Here John is putting my cell phone number on the back of some of the pins in case one of the kids got separated again.
Boys and their pins.
William, Jacob, and Spencer waiting to ride Space mountain. They went on it twice with John and once with me. They took off most of their pins and William's glasses because they lost a few pins the first time through this ride and William almost lost his glasses. It was really nice to not have to wait long for each ride.
Fun on the teacups
While the others rode the teacups, Bryce and I went over and met Tigger and Pooh. I will have to add pictures of this and our meeting with Buzz Lightyear later since I do not yet have our pictures of this. They were taken by the Disney employees and as part of our gift package from GKTW, we receive a free photo disk with all the pictures taken there. If I had realized then that the disk is worth $149, I may have worked harder to get more photos with the characters. Bryce loved meeting the ones that we did met though!
We also enjoyed the Dumbo ride and the Buzz Lightyear ride and many others that I don't have pictures of, but, the last ride we rode for the day was everyone's favorite. It's A Small World won hands down for the best ride of the day. All the kids loved it!
Heading into the ride. It was great because there is one boat that is wheelchair accessible so Bryce was able to ride while in his chair. That made it easier for us and more comfortable for him.
I love this ride anyway, but this time through my favorite part of the ride was watching Bryce and Annalise in total Awe of everything that was happening around them. It's so fun to watch little ones experience something wonderful for the first time and there was a lot of that on this trip!
We didn't get to spend much time in Toon Town which was really too bad because I think Bryce would have really enjoyed that area. Honestly, if I were to do Disney World again, I would have changed a few things. We followed the advice of one of the volunteers and started at one side of the park and began to work our way around. However with 5 kids, it takes way too long to do that and we missed out on some great things because of it. We didn't see even a third of the park. I think it would have been better to really focus on the kid's areas and not even plan on seeing most of it. Don't get me wrong, we did have fun and when we left, we knew we could come back another day if we decided to, so I didn't worry too much about it...at the time.
ANIMAL KINGDOM
The next day we decided that we would hit Animal kingdom and Disney's Hollywood Studios. We had heard about the Safari Ride, so we decided to start there. It was pretty great and again, Bryce was able to ride in his chair.
Hippos
These are termite tubes. They grow so big out here that the elephants will use them to scratch their tusks!
Giraffe momma and her baby
After the ride, we walked through an area where there were apes. Unfortunately they weren't too active this day.
The Expedition Everest.
John, William, and Spencer went on this roller coaster while I changed the little one's diapers. By the time I had come out, they had been on it like three times. I wanted to go on it also, so they boys rode once with me as well. It was a great ride.
While at Animal Kingdom we also saw a fantastic show. It was Nemo and it was very well done. Other than these three things, the park really just reminded me of the Phoenix Zoo. Great animal exhibits where most of the animals couldn't be seen well, with a lot of walking in between. Also, I think we hadn't drunk enough water the day before and a few of the kids and I had horrible headaches. Bryce and Annalise were fussy from about the moment we got into the park and soon the older boys were asking if we could just leave. So a little after noon, we left and headed back to the village. Jacob really wanted to go to Hollywood Studios and ride the Tower of Terror. The other boys wanted to stay in the village. Since I figured the two little ones would also prefer to hang out in the village, I stayed there with everyone else, while John and Jacob headed over to Hollywood Studios.
Everyone ended up being very happy with their decision. John and Jacob had a great time riding the rides and visiting with John's Aunt Victoria who lives in Florida and had met up with them at the park. They were also able to see one of the firework shows which was great because fireworks terrify Bryce so I was not planning on taking him to any of those. The other kids and I had fun checking out the pool and the playground. We then had dinner and ice-cream (and lots of water) and went to be early.
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