Disney: Day 1
Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party

We woke our kids up at 5:00 am the day we left for Disney and gave them each a present to open to reveal our surprise.  Luke got a Mickey Mouse and Lily got a Minnie Mouse.  It took them a couple seconds but they figured it out and were super excited!

We took a "we're so excited" picture at the airport and Lily's face cracks me up!

When we first started talking about taking the kids to Disney, my first thought was that we had to go during Christmas.  Christmas is my favorite time of the year!  I did not want to go during the summer months because I hate the heat and I wanted to try to avoid the summer crowds.  We decided to get there early on Sunday so we could go to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party.  You have to have a separate ticket for the Christmas Party so be aware that it is extra.  The party time is from 7pm-midnight but you can get into the park as early as 4pm.  I would suggest that if you get tickets to the Christmas party that you either do it the day you arrive or an off day.  For me it just didn't make sense to buy tickets to a park for the day and then buy an extra ticket just to spend more time at a park.  It was really like having another whole day at the park anyway since we got there at 4 and stayed until almost midnight.  The crowd was much smaller as well so we were able to do more.

I planned coordinating clothes for each day as well.  I have lots of friends who do the matching shirts thing but my husband is NOT all about the matching shirts.  :)  He laughed at me because I stacked our clothes together for each day in the suitcase and labeled them with a sticky note of the day/park.  If you know me, this is no surprise.  I love coordinating outfits for us.  :)  Day 1 was red and black since it was Christmas Party day.

When we entered the park, we noticed that Tinker Bell and Mickey Mouse were close so we decided to stop.  Mickey's wait time was close to an hour so we just stopped to see Tinker Bell, whose wait time was only about 10 mins.  This being our kids first time meeting a character they were nervous and not quite sure what to do.  She was very kind and talked to them about pixie dust and flying.

As we walked down Main Street, big floats went by with characters to start the Move It, Shake It, Dance & Play It Street Party so we followed and danced with them in front of the castle for a while.  It was a great welcome to the park.  After the 30 minute dance party, we noticed people waiting in front of the castle so we asked what was happening and it ended up being A "Frozen" Holiday Wish show with the characters of Frozen.  They sang and danced and at the end Elsa "freezes" the castle.  It was completely magical and the castle was absolutely beautiful.  I would highly recommend it, especially if you have a Frozen fan like I do.  She could not believe she was actually seeing Anna, Elsa, Kristoff and Olaf.

After the show we realized it was dinner time and headed towards Tomorrowland.  We stopped at Cosmic Rays and when we finished eating another dance party started just outside of Cosmic Rays.  They had a DJ and Phineas and Ferb were shaking it on the dance floor.  We danced for a while and then headed to the Tomorrowland Speedway.  I was not impressed with this "ride" at all.  The cars were very hard to steer.  You stay on a track and go pretty slow so I could have done without doing this one.  The kids didn't enjoy it much either.  They were hoping for something more exciting.  After the speedway, we headed to Buzz Lightyears Space Ranger Spin.  The kids loved it so much that we ended up riding it twice due to the wait only being 5 mins.

Brett wanted to take the kids to Space Mountain but Lily didn't want to ride it so the boys went on to Space mountain and we decided to go to Dumbo.  :)  Luke LOVED Space mountain but more on this ride on another day.

Right outside the Dumbo ride was a Meet and greet with Minnie, Daisy, Donald, Scrooge McDuck and Goofy so Lily and I hopped in line to wait.  We ended up waiting about an hour bc every 20-30 mins the characters take a 5 min "cookie break."  I wanted to meet as many characters as we could though so we wouldn't have to do it during the day when it was more crowded.  Plus they were in their Christmas attire so that made it more fun.

After the character meetings we weren't sure where to go so we just walked around to see what we found and we happened to run into Ariel's Grotto.  There was only a 10 min wait to meet her so we went ahead and stopped.  Luke wasn't super excited, as you can tell from the picture haha, but he went with us and took a picture.

I love that there were photographers around the park to catch memories for us and right outside the grotto we ran into one.  I am so glad we have these pictures to document our trip.

As we walked around we ran into Enchanted Tales with Belle.  I had a Fast Pass to do this during the week but since there was a 20 min wait we figured we could go ahead and do it and move our Fast Pass to something else.  I thought this was more like a show but it turned out to be a retelling of Belle and the Beasts story with crowd participation.  Lily was chosen to be Philippe, Belle's horse, which was pretty appropriate for my girl who loves horses.  It was a fun little show but it was a little disappointing that we got to take pictures with her, if you were a part of the show, but she didn't sign.

We had never taken the kids to an amusement park before so this was their first experience with rides and characters.  Our daughter, who is 4, is right at 44", the perfect height to ride just about everything.  Not knowing much about Disney World, we went to Seven Dwarf Mine Train.  I figured it would be pretty mild considering it involved the Seven Dwarfs but it was a super fun and exciting ride.  It probably wasn't the best roller coaster to take our daughter on first but we got an epic picture.

I promise she ended up really enjoying the ride, and we rode it several times after this, but we probably should have started with something a little calmer, haha.  I love my son's face in the back too.   It ended up being one of our favorite rides, we did it several times, but I love that we have this picture that we can all laugh about, and yes she thinks it is hilarious.

We ended our night by riding Peter Pan's Flight.  This was another ride that we had a Fast Pass for later in the week that we thought we could ride and get a pass for something else bc the line was short.  The kids LOVED this one.  In the line you walk through the kids bedroom and there are some fun activities while you wait.  Tinker Bell, just a light, flies around the room and gets stuck in a suitcase and drawer and other fun stuff.  You fly over London in a pirate ship and everything was so beautiful.  I wish we had pictures to share but this is definitely one that you should do.

We ended the night with VERY tired 4 and 7 year olds.  It was a very long day of travel and we stayed at the park until midnight.  I was so proud of my kids.