Disney

Star Wars

Frozen Sing-A-Long

So embarrassed!!

Pandora

Dinosaurs

Festival of Lion King

Simba pretzel

Trace pretending to be in my belly like last time.

Safari ride

Animal Kingdom

Poor Mom

Epcot

Trace cracking himself up...

China

Brats in Germany

On our date walk

Yummy desserts from France

Kianna hoarding macaroons and her chocolate tarts

Rizzo

Bella

We spent three nights in Orlando trying to experience the Disney parks. Our first day was spent at
Hollywood Studios. One of the highlights was the newly opened Star Wars rides. Trevor especially was in Star Wars heaven. They did a great job of recreating the exhibit. Trevor and I also loved the Frozen Sing-A-Long. We embarrassed the girls and had a blast doing so! Another highlight was the Tower of Terror. The ride involves getting in an elevator, while strapped in chairs, and then the floor drops out from under you. It was super fun!

The second day was spent at Animal Kingdom. We got there nice and early and immediately headed towards the Avatar Flight of Passage ride. We weren't able to get a fast pass for it, so wanted to do it first thing. However, as we were speed walking there once the gates opened for Early Magic Hours, a worker redirected us away from the line. By the time we came back around, there was a four hour wait. Ugh! We ended up standing in line at the end of the day for two hours. Part of the fun is waiting in line and seeing the amazing world they recreated. They really bring the movie to life. As for the ride itself, my family loved it and well me, not so much. The ride involved riding on an avatar simulator and flying through Pandora. Lets just say it didn't end well for me...

Other highlights at Animal Kingdom were the Festival of the Lion King, where Kianna loved belting out the Lion King songs. We also enjoyed the Kilimanjaro Safari where we saw giraffe, elephants, flamingos, rhinoceros, etc., The last time our family was at Animal Kingdom was in October 2008 when I was very pregnant with Trace. I wasn't able to ride it at that time, so it was fun to experience it this time. We also bumped into the Hass' and had lunch with them. They have season passes so they were able to give us some Disney tips.

Our last day was spent at Epcot. We decided the rides were pretty lame, but loved the food. We ate ourselves around the world sampling things from various countries. We had poutine in Canada, lefse in Norway, brats in Germany, churros in Mexico, tiramisu in Italy, tartes and macaroons in France, hummus and kabobs in Morocco, and Trevor had beer from around the world. We actually let the kids go on a ride by themselves and had ourselves a little date walking around the park on our own. It was a fun day.

We can now say we've been to all the Disney parks and still prefer Universal Studios to Disney. The lines are shorter and the fast passes are better. Disneys fast passes have to be booked 60 days in advance and you only get three for each park. You can't book more fast passes until you've used up all three. Whereas at Universal, you don't have to prebook fast passes. Every ride has a fast pass line, which is much shorter than the other lines, so you spend less time waiting in line. We also like the rides better. It's hard to beat Harry Potter world. We ended out time in Orlando by visiting our favorite restaurant from last year, Cow Fish. We had burgerushi and yummy shakes. What a great end to our mini vacation!

PS- Our Rover lady takes the best pictures of our dogs! They love her house and were on their own mini vacation with her family.