A Magical Place

You know all that stuff I read prior to going to Disney World about it being a magical place was just, you know, stuff. Whatever. Well now that I have experienced it with a 5 year old, I have to agree, it is just magical. We refer to it as "the happy place." Everyone there is happy - the workers, the visitors, the hotel staff, the people in the airport. We did not run into one uptight person in the 8 days we were gone. All weekend, as we were getting acclimated back to Chicago weather and life in general, Dallas kept saying, "I want to go back to the happy place." We even had Griffin saying it! So with that said, let me tell you about our amazing trip.
We arrived on Wednesday night and stayed at an airport hotel which worked out great. My parents drove down from Hilton Head so they had a car and were able to pick us up.

Wednesday morning we drove to Animal Kingdom Lodge to check in and most importantly get our passes to the Parks. We decided to tackle Epcot first. We hopped on the bus and were there is a jiffy. First stop, "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience" in 3-D. This is actually important to the whole story so this is why I'm sharing this. Griffin did NOT like this at all. He did not like the things coming at him in 3-D. He actually cried and I had to take him out.

It was not crowded at all so we were able to do everything we wanted and only had very short lines to wait in. The Test Track was probably our favorite and we did that 3 times. We ate lunch in Mexico (which wasn't very good.) We only visited Mexico and China because these areas weren't too interesting to Griffin. He was much more interested in things like "Mission:Space" and the aquarium. We are Disney Visa card-carrying members so we had a private character meet 'n greet which was fun. Here's a pic from it.

We ended up back at our hotel room around 8pm and Griffin was anxious to go swim in the amazing pool at AKL. The adults were able to sit at the bar AND watch Griffin swimming at the same time - very smart on their part!

The next morning we headed right over to Magic Kingdom. Our first stop, Stitches Great Escape. It was a movie type thing like the 3-D movie from the day before. Guess what? Griffin hated it, cried and I had to take him out again. Poor guy. But then we hit the rides and he was happy as can be. He loved them all. The faster, darker, louder, the better for him. He loved Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. We stayed here most of the day then headed back to Animal Kingdom Lodge for dinner at Boma. It was awesome and I highly recommend it. We went BACK to get in some more rides and to see the parade. We walked over 10 miles this day (and actually the day before as well!)

Our final morning was to Animal Kingdom, just a short ride from our hotel, the Lodge. We went straight to the Tree of Life to the "It's tough to be a bug" 3-D movie. Can you guess? Griffin hated it. I can't believe the three (RANDOM) things we picked to do first at each park where things Griffin did NOT like at all. He said, "Mommy, I get to pick what we do first tomorrow on the cruise!" I can pretty much say without a doubt, my son is NOT a fan of 3-D movies!
We did all the rides here and took in the Lion King Show and the Nemo Show. Both were awesome, amazing actually. And I highly recommend them to anyone (young or old) who goes to AK. We stayed until about 6pm. I was so tired and ready to rest but not Mr. G or Dallas. They hopped on the bus and went over to Magic Kingdom and took in their favorite rides one more time. They stayed until 10:30pm! It was all I could do to stay awake before they got back!
Sunday morning we spent some time on the grounds of the Lodge - the playground, the lookout areas and of course, the pool. Then we headed out for the Disney Cruise. I think I'll save that part of the trip for a new post!