Disneyworld: Part 3

Day 5, Thursday

Thursday we slept in and then headed over to Epcot - we took the boat over though when we left later, we realized how silly that was. It took a quarter of the time to walk back to the hotel. Who knew. We hit a random bunch of rides, but Hazel liked the Nemo ones the most. There was one show, Turtle Talk with Crush, that was really fun. Hazel also really liked the various aquariums they had around. We even did the Spaceship Earth ride (that’s what’s in the giant shiny golf ball thing). Overall, I was a little sick of the greenie/tree hugging I felt was getting shoved in my face the entire time I was there, but maybe it was just me. We went back to the hotel to relax (and learned that it took much less time to just walk) and clean up for the TaxHawk get-together that night.
We met up with the rest of the company and their families for ice cream and then to watch the fireworks show they have at Epcot. It was also completely amazing. It was fun to see everyone, especially since I hadn’t gotten to see most of my co-workers since we moved in April. Big thanks again to TaxHawk for footing the bill for this whole vacation. :-)

Day 6, Friday

Animal Kingdom was the only one of the parks we had hit yet (no, we’re not counting the waterparks) so that’s what we did on Friday. We headed out relatively early and went straight for the Safari since everyone said that was “the” thing to do at Animal Kingdom. Overall, I think we were not that impressed. It was cool, but I’ve seen zoos that are better. Also, they were having some kind of crowding problem, so when we were moving, the driver would never stop for us to take pictures, so as a result, most of my safari pictures are blurry. They were just animals, but still - it was a bummer.
One of the cool things about Animal Kingdom was actually all the zoo parts. They have a bunch of walking trails, some for bird areas, some for big mammals, etc. We walked the one side (Africa) and then decided to go somewhere for lunch. I picked because I was feeling decisive and unfortunately, it was not my best decision of the vacation. We expected a sit-down restaurant in Disneyworld to be pricey, but the Yak and Yeti was even more than expected. I got a good drink, but everyone else’s was apparently pretty bad. The food was ok, but not worth the money honestly. On the upside, they seemed to be aware of some of their shortcomings and had us fill out a survey, so maybe they’ll improve in the future. After lunch, we walked through the other side of the walking trails (India) and got to see a bunch of tigers close up. Hazel really liked that and alternated between calling them tigers and tiggers. :-) Part way through that, it started to rain. Then it started to POUR. Maybe it’s just living in Arizona that’s got me to unused to rain but it seemed like a pretty heavy downpour to me. We started waiting it out under the trees, but that didn’t last for long. At least Hazel had fun splashing in the puddles.
The next thing we hit was the bird show. That was really fun to see. It really is amazing what you can train a bird to do. The coolest part by far was the bald eagle. That bird is just breathtaking. Hazel really liked the owl at the end. I’m guessing it’s because of Owl in Winnie the Pooh. :-)
After that, we decided to clear out before the afternoon parade and head up to the petting zoo area. Honestly, it was a pretty pathetic excuse for a petting zoo. They had goats, a llama, a pig and a small cow. We could get better petting zoo experiences down the street from our old condo in Utah. Oh well. We spent some time out of the rain and heat at the big building they had up there, so that was nice.
That night, we swam and then walked back over to Epcot to see that fireworks show again. The spot we got wasn’t as good as the spot we got with everyone from TaxHawk, but it was still pretty good.

Day 7, Saturday

Saturday was the Seveys last day, so we all just slept in and then the Walls relaxed while the Seveys got packed and checked out. They left Noah with us while they headed back over to Epcot to do Soarin’, which is a ride Alex likes from the California Adventure part of Disneyland. Then we just ate and hung out until it was time for them to leave. It was so good to have that week to be with them and Austin just isn’t close enough, in my opinion. We really miss you guys.














We (the Walls) just relaxed in our room the rest of Saturday afternoon and watched the very lame TV channels our hotel had to offer (6 Disney channels and not one was playing cartoons). We decided that for our last night in Florida that we wanted to go back and see the Magic Kingdom fireworks again. We went back a little earlier this time so we could get back to Fantasyland before the parade started and we were hoping that the lines would let up a little bit during the parade so we could do more rides. We’re not really sure if the lines did let up that much because it was a Saturday night, so it was probably going to be busy no matter what.
But Hazel and I rode the teacups and Dumbo and the carousel again. And then we all went on Winnie the Pooh again and the Snow White ride. We had wanted to go back to the front of the castle for the fireworks, but they ended up roping off the way we were planning to walk back because it was where all of the fireworks fell during the show. That and the overall crowd made us decide to watch the show from the back of the castle. It ended up being a very interesting decision.
The fireworks show is obviously orchestrated to be viewed from exactly where we were on Wednesday night. But from our location Saturday night, we got fireworks in surround. Most of them were actually set off from behind the park but a bunch are set off from the castle itself, so we were between the two sets. It was SO loud but really, really cool. Hazel loved the fireworks and I think she liked being able to see so many. After the fireworks show, we headed straight back to the hotel. We decided to wait for the second bus so that we could have our pick of seats and a place to put the stroller, but it still wasn’t a terrible wait.

Day 8, Sunday

Everything went pretty smoothly the next morning in getting packed up and checked out. We didn’t have to check out until 11, so we had most of the morning to take it easy. The Beach Club did have us fill out a survey before we left, so I felt somewhat vindicated being able to tell them exactly what was wrong with them. From the tenor of the questions, they are already aware of some of the more common complaints. Here’s hoping they actually make some improvements. Because the Magic Express (Disney’s airport shuttle service) gets you to the airport 3 hours before your flight time, we decided to go to a sit-down restaurant in the airport - it was so yummy!! And about half the price of any meal we ate at Disneyworld. :-) The flight back was pretty uneventful, though neither of the kids slept as much as they did on the flight out. Our pilot seemed drawn to turbulence though - I had a bigger stomach drop on the flight than I had for any ride I rode the entire week in Florida.
There was a bit of excitement when we got back to Phoenix. Some miscommunication happened with our ride home and the young man Jacob had arranged to pick us up came in his Suburban instead of in our Suburban. This wouldn’t have been an issue except that I forgot to take Hazel’s car seat out of our Suburban way back last Sunday. So, our ride showed up, but we didn’t have a car seat for Hazel. So Jacob rode back to the house with him and got our Suburban and came back for us while I camped out at the airport with the kids. They were both wonderfully behaved, so it really wasn’t as bad as it could have been.
As expected, Daisy about had a heart attack when we got home. We were all happy to be home.

A few more notes:
Again, a big thanks to TaxHawk for taking us all out there. We never would have done it ourselves, that’s for sure. Disneyworld is certainly an experience. I’ve never done anything quite like that. It’s all so big that it is pretty intimidating. Taking a trip like that with a two-month-old is not impossible.














I wouldn’t recommend it, but it’s not impossible. If you’ll notice, Speed and Noah got mentioned very little in these posts, mostly because they just ate and slept and sat in the strollers. They were both very good boys, which we were all very grateful for.
One of the really good things that came out of this trip is that Jacob has said that there’s a very good chance we’ll do a day trip to Disneyland in a few years when Hazel is older. :-) From talking to Alex (who’s been to Disneyland way more than the rest of us), Disneyland has most of the stuff we all really liked about Disneyworld, but in one park instead of five. It was a fun, crazy, stressful, memory-filled week. I’m glad we did it.