Disney Recap: Jedi Training Academy

 Just joining us for the recap?  Check out all of the previous Disney World posts here!

As I mentioned in my post about Hollywood Studios, there is a mad dash for Jedi Training Academy.  Once they made it through the gates, Brian picked up Jake and walked as fast as he could without running to the sign ups! (though he admits that at one point when there were no cast members around, he did break into a small jog)  :-)  He booked it so quickly that when he got to the sign ups quite winded, the girl who was working there actually put her hand on his arm and said "Calm down, sir.  You made it!" 

The whole process of making it to sign ups and getting registered took about 10 minutes, just in case anyone else is trying to plan their morning there.  They asked Jake a few questions such as his age and if he was ok going up on a stage by himself...clearly, we needed to prep him a bit more because he initially responded no!!  Brian had to have a pep talk with him, they asked him again, and he (very hesitantly) said yes.

We were signed up for the 11am show (could have been in the 9:40am show, but we had a conflicting fast pass + reservation at that time, so we moved it back), and Jake had to report back at 10:30am to prepare for the training (the preparation basically consisted of getting his robe and being told the rules)  Brian left to go get a spot in front of the stage, and I stayed with Jake then walked with him to the training.  Here he is, lined up with his fellow Jedis, waiting to start :)

"So then we're going to get our light saber, and fight darth vader...like this!"

Then it was time for the show!

Once the training was over, the bad guys came out, time to put that training to use!

Short video of just Jake's portion of the training:

Longer video of a lot of the whole session:


 Training = success!!  Receiving his certificate:

So, in summary...we had to get to the park absurdly early, make a beeline to beat all of the other children behind us once the gates were open, then give up an hour in the park that day.  But you know what?  It was worth every minute.  Jake is still talking about how it was one of his favorite parts of the trip, and it was so much fun to see him up there!  If you have a kid who is at all into Star Wars, I would definitely recommend fitting this into your day!!
 

Disney Recap: Hollywood Studios

Just joining us for the recap?  Check out all of the previous Disney World posts here!

This was the day that I was most nervous about: we were heading to Hollywood Studios and hoping beyond hope that we would be able to get Jake signed up for the Jedi Training Academy that is offered there.  I had heard that there is a mad dash at park opening to get to sign-ups, and that they often fill up very quickly.  While Brian more or less went along with whatever I said we were doing for the entire trip and let me plan the whole thing, this was the one thing that he had an opinion about and said he'd do whatever it takes to get Jake into it.

So, there we were at 7:20am at the gates of Hollywood Studios!  The bus ride from our resort was much faster than we anticipated (less than 10 minutes!) so we were literally the first people at one of the turnstiles that morning.  Go us!  Fortunately, they had success and were able to secure a spot for Jake in the 11am show!  Phew, now we could move on with our day (I'll do a post about the training all by itself, it deserves a solo post!)  And while walking over to meet us, Brian and Jake ran into Stitch!!

The first thing we went on was Toy Story Mania, it was so much fun for everyone!  We rode it standby first thing, and we had fast pass + reservations for it late afternoon, so we got to go twice.

Grandparent love!!

Next up was Star Tours; all of the grown ups loved it, Jake didn't care for it, Liam was too little to ride.

ready to take on Darth Vader!

After that, we made our way over to our next Fast Pass + reservations: Tower of Terror and Rock n Roller Coaster!  This isn't the best quality (picture of a picture) but check out that back row of crazies on the Tower of Terror:

I have no explanation as to why I look like I am imitating the claws of a wild animal.

We made some time in the afternoon for character meetings....first up, the army men from toy story!  Liam was funny here, there were 2 identical army men and he insisted on meeting them both and getting them both to sign his autograph book :)

Next up...one of their favorites (note their matching shirts!)...JAKE!!

Video of their interaction with Jake:

To be honest, I would have loved for the boys to meet more characters (because they loved doing it), but the lines were just way too long sometimes.  We only had to wait about 10 minutes to meet Jake, but Sophia was right next to him and her wait was probably closer to 30 minutes.  Liam was asking to meet her, but was quickly distracted with the promise of ice cream, so we dodged that bullet.

Face of bliss.

I found Hollywood Studios to be one of the harder parks to tour efficiently, mainly due to the number of shows and experiences there vs. rides.  We also had Jedi Training to take into account (which was at 11am) so we were working around that and our existing Fast Pass + reservations, plus a lunch reservation.  We did get to see a number of shows: Muppets 3D (very cute, kids got a kick out of it), Disney Junior Live on Stage (Liam was mesmerized...the grandparents were good sports about sitting through it, let's just leave it at that!), The Little Mermaid (short, good show, especially since it was air conditioned, it was a nice break to fill some time right before dinner)  I really would have liked to have made it to the Lights, Motor, Action stunt show but it was only running 2 times that day and we missed both shows :(  Same thing with Beauty & the Beast, the timing just didn't work out.  But, I do feel like we still got to do and see a lot, so no complaints here!

After grabbing a quick bite to eat for dinner, we headed over to the 7:30pm showing of Fantasmic.  I had heard great things about this show and while it was certainly enjoyable, I think we were all just done by then.

that was Jake's expression for the entire show.  He had a death grip on my shirt.

It had been a long day, Jake was scared of the show, and I just kept looking around the insane number of people in the theater and thinking "OMG, all of these people are going to be leaving at the same time, this is going to take forever!"  It did take a long time to get out, though not quite as bad as I thought.  Anyway---good show, just not sure it was a good pick for us to stay quite that late for it when we had been at the park so long.  They both ended up crashing in the stroller on the walk out.

 That's a wrap at Hollywood Studios!!

Disney Recap: Magic Kingdom (Day 1)

I have way too many pictures and way too much to share to cram our entire Disney trip into one post, so I figured I'd just split it up and give a day-by-day recap.  So...are you ready for some magic??  :)

Before we begin our journey, I'd like to say that I'm pretty sure that going into this trip, at least 80% of the people traveling in our party thought I was crazy with all of my planning.  There may have been spreadsheets.  There may have been park attack plans.  There may have been instructions given that everyone was to be dressed and ready to get on that bus by 7am that first day or so help me, they would have to face my wrath.  (that last part was imagined in their heads, but I KNOW they were thinking it)  Fortunately for their sake, everyone was ready that first day, bright and early! (too excited to sleep, haha!)  And...I think it's safe to say that everyone understood once we got there why I was being so crazy for wanting to get on the bus early.  It was astounding all week to see how quickly the crowds went from "oh this isn't so bad" to "OMG, where are all of these people coming from???".

Day 1, we were at Magic Kingdom by 7:30am, secured a spot near the front of the crowds so we were ready to go in, then watched the little opening show they do where Mickey and Co. arrives on a train.  Then we were off!! I was on a mission: I wanted to get to Enchanted Tales with Belle first.  It's a new interactive attraction where kids get to participate in the story line and meet Belle.  I had heard it was cute but that the lines can get out of control as the day goes on (and sure enough, later in the day, the line was up to 80 minutes!)

Even though I was on a mission to get us back to that section, I couldn't resist stopping for our first picture in front of the castle (because, really...that's what this was about.  It wasn't about going on as many rides as we could, or running around like maniacs....it was about a family vacation, and snapping their picture in front of the castle for the first time was a must).

reason #982 to get there early: you get the whole castle to yourself for a picture!

Ok, castle shot done...moving on!  We were the first group in Enchanted Tales, and it was as cute as promised!  The kids each had the part of utensils and they ROCKED those roles :)

Video (on the long side) of them in the parade part of the show:

Mission accomplished!  I felt much better after getting that out of the way, so we were able to make our way through the New Fantasyland for the remainder of the morning.

 

You want to see the look of pure joy on some kids faces (and maybe some grown-ups, too)?  Watch this video of the Mad Tea Party :)



And some more video fun on Dumbo:


The boys loved the water play area in Storybook Circus:

After a fun morning, it was time to unwind a bit at lunch with Pooh and Friends at the Crystal Palace (for now, I'm just doing pictures...I'll try to do some full dining reviews later on):

Meeting Piglet video:

Feeling a bit more energized, we headed back out to the park!  It didn't take long before Liam was sound asleep in the stroller.  (this kid was the CHAMP at stroller naps all week! Chaos could be going on all around him and he'd just snooze the afternoon away, 2 hours pretty much every day!)

We made a pit stop to get some more castle shots:

Once Liam was awake, we went on a few more rides and then it was time to meet the man himself...drum roll, please......

I had read rumors earlier in the week that a new talking Mickey had been introduced; unfortunately, it seems they rotate that one in and we didn't happen to be there at the right time :(  But that's ok, the kids didn't really care. 

Video of their interaction with Mickey:


Confession: I totally teared up when the boys met Mickey. This is going to sound so cheesy, but I felt like the whole trip fell into place right then.  I did all of this planning, and researching, and hoping that everyone would love the trip for over a year...and in that moment, I was like "Yeah.  That's why I did all of that.  We made the right decision by coming here."

After meeting Mickey, we pretty much wrapped the day up with some quick service dinner, then headed back to the resort to turn in for the night.  We needed to rest up....big day the next day planned for Hollywood Studios!! Stay tuned....

Disney day was finally here!!

"How am I supposed to go to sleep tonight?  This is worse than the night before Christmas!!"

If you think the above quote is from Jake, you would be wrong.  That was what I was saying the night before we left for our Disney trip!  Surprisingly, I was able to sleep ok that night...but I was definitely ready to jump out of bed when that alarm went off to leave for the airport!  It was both of the kids first time flying, so I was a little nervous about that.  Nervous about schlepping all of that stuff through the airport, getting through security, and just about them on the flight in general.  Turns out, I had nothing to worry about (at least on the way down, on the way home was a bit more rocky)  We breezed right through security, kids were angels waiting at the gate, and even angels on the plane. 

I was worried about Liam's ears since he's had so much trouble in the past, so I bought a little bag of jelly beans for each kid to chew on during take off and landing.  They didn't mention anything during take off; Liam was asleep during landing, and Jake just asked Brian why his ears felt funny.  Success!! 

We stepped off the plane right on time around 11:10am....goodbye freezing cold Pittsburgh, hello sunny Florida!  Nana and PopPop were on a different flight, so we waited for them before boarding the Magical Express.  Once they arrived, we made our way to the correct line for the bus (which looked long and intimidating, but moved fairly quickly...I'd say we had to wait about 15 minutes or so to board the bus)  Onward, to the Art of Animation!! 

I'll do a separate post with resort pics and whatnot, but once we arrived to our resort, check in went smoothly and our room was ready (early, score!)  We went to the food court to grab lunch then headed to our rooms.  It was around 2pm at this point, so if anyone is wondering about timing of the transportation and such, there's a good estimate for you. 

The boys, Brian, and Nana hit the pool for a bit while I waited for our luggage to be delivered.  Once we got all of that settled, we headed to Downtown Disney for our first dinner reservation at the T-Rex Cafe.  I would subtract a few points for the loud volume of this place, but they would redeem themselves for atmosphere for kid appeal and the food.  We all enjoyed our dinners, and the kids thought it was super cool.  Well, except for when some of the animatronic dinos came a bit too close to Liam for his own comfort.  But overall, I'd recommend if it you have little ones!!

Too close, Pappy....too close!!

After dinner, we walked around for just a bit but it was getting late, so we headed back to the hotel to get some rest...we had a lot to look forward to, the next day was Magic Kingdom!! 

So, this happened.

Yep, we are back from Disney World....we survived, we had a great time, and we made some amazing memories as a family that we'll never forget.  Details, reviews, and more pictures to come.......