disney: day 1

Disney Day 1 was not the success that we had hoped for, although it ended well (other than rain).  We learned a few things the hard way.  

Being that we didn't get in until around 10:00 on Saturday night, we were pretty slow in getting started that morning.  We left our room around 9:00, got our tickets, and entered Animal Kingdom around 9:30.  I soon realized that I had forgotten our touring plan in the van.  I was super frustrated with myself, but Josh happily ran back out and got it.  It set us back 10-15 minutes, but the girls spotted the largest spider we had ever seen in a tree nearby our waiting spot...we then, moved spots. :)  It was a bit creepy.  

Josh and Claire rode Expedition Everest and had a blast.  Meredith, Amelia, and I sat and waited for them since the ride was a bit intimidating to them.  They would have freaked out for sure.  

Then, we went to A Bug's Life 3-D show.  This was a complete disaster as the bugs come at you, there are evil bugs, bugs get pelted with acorns (that appear to be flying right at your face through your glasses), and huge spiders come down out of the ceiling.  Needless to say, Amelia and Meredith were crying 2 minutes into the show.  As Meredith was wailing and clinging to me, she was shouting, "I hate Disney World, and I wish we weren't here!!!"  I looked at the woman to my left (she was clearly enjoying the show), and I said, "I must get my children out of here...sorry!"  Our saving grace was that there were only 4 people to our left to make it out the exit doors.  Meredith was shaking, crying, and completely horrified.  It was very sad, and it took her about 3 hours to smile again.  I felt terrible.

So much for a fun start to the day!  

Anyway, so then we waited in line for about 40 minutes to see Mickey and Minnie (the sign at the front told us it would be 10 minutes...not so much).  Meredith refused to be in the pictures with them, but Josh and I were thankful for the air conditioned waiting area. :)

So, we decided to do lunch.  It was a nice break for everyone, and people's spirits seemed to lift.  We went into Dinosaur Land (or whatever they call it).  We (Claire, Amelia, and I) rode the Triceratops ride.  Meredith didn't want to.  Josh and Claire rode the spinning time machine (or something like that) ride.  It looked really fun, but Meredith didn't want to ride because it spun (and along with being super-sensitive to anything scary, she also gets motion sickness waaay too easily...the girl can't even swing for too long...poor thing).  Amelia wasn't tall enough to ride that one.  The kids then played in the Boneyard, which is a giant playground with slides and bridges and things.  They all loved it.

We got a lemonade slushie as a refresher to share and changed out of our shoes into our sandals.  Everyone seemed pleased to have more comfortable footwear. :)  We walked back to the Kilimanjaro Safari ride, and it was AWESOME!  We had to convince Meredith to go on this as she was being kind of stubborn about the whole thing.  Thankfully, we convinced her to go because all of the rest of us wanted to go.  It was basically a 20 minute safari bus/ride through an African wild area/zoo.  We saw giraffes, elephants, hippos, rhinos, cheetahs, alligators, zebras, ostriches, and several other crazy animals!!  We all enjoyed it, and it was a nice break in the afternoon.  It also started pouring down rain while we were on the safari which worked in our favor because we didn't get very wet there!  It had stopped raining by the time we got off.

We also saw the tree of life which was absolutely amazing as well...we didn't do the walk through, but I wish we would have had time.  We had awfully whiny children today, and I'm hoping that they're just tired from our long drive yesterday (and the 90 degree heat).  Today was supposedly the hottest day of the week.  Hope so!

We then decided on ice cream bars for our afternoon snack, and Josh and I loved the Mickey Mouse ice cream bar.  Sooo good!!  The rain picked up again and we knew the afternoon parade would be cancelled, so we decided to head back to our room. :)

The rain stopped by the time we had finished dinner, so we walked to the pool for a swim.  The girls were absolutely thrilled to find a big swirly slide at the pool.  I liked the fact that all of the girls could go down the big swirly slide by themselves, and I loved the warm water!  Even though the pool wasn't huge, it certainly wasn't very busy, and we had 2-3 lifeguards on duty.  So great!