Disney - Continued

Lilly in the car early in the morning on our way driving from Atlanta to Orlando...

she was so excited but so tired!

Two weeks ago, Jon updated you about our first day of Disney, which as I will remind you, was definitely magical. An easy drive down, a beautiful hotel room, a High School Musical Parade (twice!) and American Idol (which was probably Lilly's favorite show the entire trip) at Hollywood Studios (formerly MGM), a magical dinner & fireworks experience at Cinderella's Castle, and a few rides, including Lilly's first roller coaster, Goofy's Barnstormer. We got back to the room at almost midnight, after a completely wonderful day. Which means, of course...
... our plans for the next day were ruined. Not ruined, actually, but we had to switch gears.

Originally, we were planning on hitting Magic Kingdom first thing (arriving at 8:30 for a 9 am rope drop opening), riding all our favorites, and back to the room by lunchtime. Yeah, right. Lilly was still getting used to the 8 hour time difference from New Zealand, plus the late night out... So we decided that in order to make this the most perfect trip, we had to be flexible. Plus, we did 5 rides during our late night the night before (It's a Small World, Winnie the Pooh, Goofy's Barnstormer, Carousel, and Buzz Lightyear), so we were already ahead with what we had accomplished. Looking over the schedule in my head (the actual Excel spreadsheet schedule never had to be consulted because I had memorized it), I knew that our only deficiency was that we didn't have a solid block of time at Hollywood Studios due to the stupid Star Wars weekend that we wanted to avoid. So, Wednesday was a sleep-in day and then on to Studios.

Unfortunately, I didn't get the memo regarding sleeping in, so I woke up at 6:30, walked down to get a cup of coffee, and walked around the entire lake of the resort. I sat in a hammock, strolled by the pool, and called the two people who might be awake at that time of day (Melanie, and my mom). Finally, Jon & Lilly arose, they went down to breakfast (Pepper Market) while I got ready, and then we were off. We arrived at Hollywood Studios around 11 am and went directly to Toy Story Mania to get fast passes (it typically has a 2 hour wait, and our fast pass was not until 5 pm). From there we went to the Backlot Studios Tour, as most everything else had a long wait, and then on to Mickey's Clubhouse for the 12 pm show (Lilly loved singing and dancing along). By the time it was over, it was 12:40 and about 100 degrees, but I really wanted to catch Beauty and the Beast (a broadway-style show), so I sent Jon ahead and stopped for an ice cream bar to tide Lilly over until lunch, and cool her off. The pro's of this decision: she loved the ice cream, and we caught the once a week version where they have sign language interpreters, which I loved seeing. The downside: it pushed our entire schedule back, and Lilly was not only a big mess eating her Micky Bar, but she also didn't pay attention to the show because of the ice cream. Oh well. After it was over, we got lunch at a nearby bakery (great sandwiches, chips, cookies, etc.), and skedaddled out of the park so that an overtired Lilly could catch a nap.

We arrived back at Coronado Springs by 2, and Lilly took a nap by 3. We all fell asleep, but had to wake Lilly up by 4 so that we could get to our dinner that night. Which meant, Lilly was a cranky girl, bless her heart, for the next hour until we got to the Grand Floridian for 1900 Park Faire for dinner with Cinderella, the stepsisters & stepmom, and the prince. She had a great time before dinner dancing to a band upstairs (and we went up to wave to them for awhile), and finally we went into dinner. Cinderella is her absolute favorite, so Lilly was very impressed that she saw her two nights in a row. The prince swept Lilly off her feet with his charm. But the hit of the night was one of the stepsisters, who made us laugh and Lilly loved. The food was great too - a buffet with lots of options, including a variety of salads, international foods, a kids buffet, and a dessert bar. Lilly especially loved the endless supply of cantaloupe.

Lilly charming Prince Charming...

Lilly loved Cinderella except she was a little shy up close in person.

But she was totally impressed by the stepsisters!

After dinner (around 6:30), we were all exhausted from the heat and the late night the night before. In order to not push ourselves too much so that we could keep early hours the rest of the week, we decided to head back to Hollywood Studios for just one ride (using the hard-to-get Toy Story Mania fast passes). As we were parking the stroller, I handed the fast passes off to Jon and... one dropped into a grate in the ground. Just our luck! I played the good guy and said I'd sit out (even though it's a new ride we all wanted to ride), but Jon told the ticket-checker about the situation and they waved me through. Yay! So we all rode after all. It was actually a pretty cool ride; although I would certainly not stand in a 2 hour line for it; but certainly worth riding using a fastpass. We got back to the room by 8 and went right to sleep.

Next up... will our early night mean that we'll have a relaxed and refreshed

experience the next day at Animal Kingdom? To be continued...