Vacation pt.2--UPDATED :)

 On Tuesday, we went to the Magic Kingdom.  It was SO exciting!   After you park, you either take a ferry across the lake to the entrance, or take the monorail.  Since one of the boats was sitting in the dock, we walked right on.  This is the view of the Magic Kingdom across the water! 

 Had to get a picture in front of the Mickey Mouse flowers at the main entrance!

 (I kept being reminded how hard it is to get 7 kids to all make decent faces and look at the camera at the same time!)

 As we walked down Main street, this group of "townspeople" were singing.  Such a fun atmosphere!  No time to stop and watch though, we only had one day to squeeze in as much magic as we could!  I just snapped a picture as we walked past!

 Another neat "show" was this trolley of people ala "Meet me in St. Louis".  The song "Clang, clang, clang went the trolley" played as these performers rode on the trolley, then stopped and got off and sang and danced. 

 When we first walked on main street we saw Rapunzel off to the left.  Since this is a favorite character, we decided to go ahead and get in line.   After 20-30 min. of standing in line, Rapunzel had to leave and we were a bit annoyed at the wasted time.  We got out of line and headed to tomorrowland with our lesson learned! 

Seeing the characters around the park really was a highlight.  Of course, most of them (especially the princesses, fairies, and toy story ones) had significant lines in order to see them.   We did get to greet a couple of characters in tomorrowland since we had time to kill while others rode certain rides, but other than  that, we just pointed and "oohed and ahhhed" when we saw them.

It was an awesome day to go!   The weather was nice and we hardly had to wait at most of the rides!   I loved that ALL of us could go on most of the rides!   You just can't do that at most amusement parks!

Our first ride was the Buzz Lightyear ride.   When we first walked in, Baby Sis was unsure what to think, but as soon as she saw Buzz (there was a huge replica of him talking to you as you walked through to the ride), she was totally fine.  We sat on the ride and she immediately put her hand up on the joystick in the middle.  She loved it!

This is a picture of the picture that showed up on the screens after we got off the ride....that's why it doesn't look great, but I like how you can see little Baby Sis sitting there, with her hand on the joystick)

 The Dad and big kids went on Space Mountain next (hardly any line).  The younger ones and I took this time to meet Stitch--who had no one waiting in line to see him at that time.  The kids were shy at first, but once they saw how friendly the characters were, they warmed up.

 We also got to meet the futuristic Chip and Dale.

There was a decent line for Buzz, but Big Sis took the little ones while The Dad and I took a turn on Space Mountain (still no lines--yes!!)  The boys took Little Bro. on the Buzz Lightyear ride like 2 more times so that is why he isn't in the picture with Buzz.   Little Bro. LOVED the Buzz ride!

 Next we headed to Fantasy Land.

--We rode the teacups (Little Sis loved Dad spinning fast--Baby Sis did not want to go very fast with me and Middle Sis),
--Peter Pan (Baby Sis was a bit scared cause it was pretty dark--she turned her head into my shoulder and closed her eyes for most of the ride),
--and the 3D-interactive movie Philharmagic (we all loved the movie...smelling the smells, getting a little wet when the mop on the screen dumped a bucket of water, feeling the wind...we all loved it!)

The white rabbit was the last character we took the time to see.

 The girls begged us to go on the carousel, but Fantasyland was a lot more crowded and we made them wait until the line went down. 

 In the middle of the afternoon we found a spot to wait for the parade.  I used to always skip the parades, but I am so glad we didn't skip this one.  I didn't realize how much our kids (especially the little ones) would love it.   We got to see many characters, including most of the princesses. 

 This is Baby Sis' face as she watched.  She would point and say "Princess!"  and then point to the disney princesses on her shirt and say "Cinder-ella!" 

Before the parade, we tried to go to Toon town.  We ended up stopping at Goofy's Barnstormer ( a bit of a kid-friendly roller coaster).  I had read that it is only 1-minute long and it has some pretty good drops and turns.  Little Sis was able to go on this with her older siblings and Dad (even though 2 of her older siblings wouldn't even go on it).  I am told she thought it was "Awesome"!   We then rode the train around the park for a little break.  As a testimony to my tiredness...I do not have as many pictures of our time later in the day!

We visited the Haunted Mansion and tried to make ALL the kids go on it with us, but after the first room, a couple of the kids flatly refused to go any further!   Luckily, they had an exit right to the side (as if they knew my kids were going to need it).   I promptly left with the freaked out children and we waited for the others.   

I tried to tell them it wasn't that bad...from what I remembered...but when the others came out afterward, they said that for some reason the ride kept stopping and it made the ride a little freakier--so I ended up being glad I listened to my more sensitive children and they were spared that experience!

The older kids got a fast pass for Splash Mountain (The Dad and I decided to pass on that one--were worn out and had ridden it before) and we headed to Pirates of the Caribbean.  Unfortunately, Pirates had some "rough waters" and after we waited for a half hour , it ended up closing for repairs.  Bummer.

I had been on the Pirates ride a few times in my life, but never with the Jack Sparrow addition!  On the bright side, as we exited we got a free fast pass for any ride (which we actually didn't end up using since their weren't many other rides we wanted to go on that had a long line!).  

 Another bonus was that as we exited the Pirates ride, we happened upon a show that was just starting across the walkway.  The older kids ran off to ride Splash Mountain while the rest of us wandered over to watch the "Pirate tutorial".   As we walked over, this pirate-y "Smee" looking guy was talking about introducing Jack Sparrow!   Sweet!

This show ended up being one of my favorite experiences of the day!   It was just funny and the Jack Sparrow actually did look and sound  like the one from the movie!   They involved the audience and brought kids up to teach them how to fight like Jack with fake swords:

1. Hit the sword 3 times
2. Distract your opponent
3. Flee!

  I loved how they just went with the flow and stayed in character no matter what the kids did or said!
 Baby Sis was raising her arms and doing the actions and clapping along with everyone else!  It was so cute!
 I wish I had taped it, but I did find that someone else did.  I linked to it above or you can google it I'm sure--Of course, the one I saw did not have the same "Smee" dude and the kids at the one I saw were mostly all dressed up in their own "pirate league" garb.  (this is not a great pic. but I snapped it with my phone..)

Oh!  I forgot to mention that sometime in the afternoon I realized that I had forgot to bring diapers and wipes!   (REALLY!?! I mean, how many kids do I have now?  I was SO mad at myself!)  SO....we found out that there are actually 2 Baby Centers in the Magic Kingdom.  It is this little air-conditioned place with a little store for all your baby needs, a room for nursing, high chairs and a microwave for feedings, and, of course, the Disney movie playing on the TV.   Pretty neat!   Luckily, they had a little diaper kit and I didn't have to buy a whole package!

Anywho.....we dragged ourselves over to Tomorrowland for dinner.  On our way, we saw that the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor had NO WAITING.  Baby Sis was asleep, so we stepped in and she napped on my shoulder while we watched the show.   In this show, they also used live video of people in the audience in the show.  It was really funny as well!

Stephan had been BEGGING to go on a certain car driving ride ALL day!   I don't even know what it's called, but 2 people get in a car and the driver gets to step on the gas pedal and steer the car.  Of course, there is a big metal beam that the car sits over so it keeps everyone on track.

We grabbed some expensive Disney dinner and headed over to the car ride.  I had no idea how much my kids would love that ride.  Little Bro got to drive first and they gave him an official Mickey drivers license.  He was SO excited.  Big Bro wanted to go again and was proud of his efforts to follow the track so well that the wheels only touched the beam in the center once. 

Middle Sis. had been BEGGING to go on the Dumbo ride all day.  So it was next on the list.  I took Baby Sis on with me and I was surprised how much I liked it...I mean, when you went up, you really went up.  Baby was not so happy with the height though.   I had us at the lowest position and then told her, "Okay, we're going to go up now!"   She actually kept knocking my hand away from the lever and said, "No up!"  Lol!

We went to find a place for the electric light parade, but were a little late to get a good spot.  By the time the parade was about to start, tons of people started crowding in, filling any available spot.  It was a bit crazy.  We ended up holding the little girls on our shoulders so they could see, but the rest of us didn't get that great of a view.   Baby Sis loved it and kept pointing and saying "Look Dad!"  and "Ooh!"    

After that was  some kind of show projected onto the castle.  It was kind of cool, but I was getting annoyed by the tall people that kept coming and standing in front of us at this point!   Finally, we got to the finale....the fireworks at 10pm!  It was a great show!  So beautiful behind the castle!

We were also VERY excited to get back to our villa for the night!   We were exhausted!   We had a very full and very FUN day!  Everyone slept well that night!

{*Note (to anyone who cares):  We had originally planned to leave the park for a late lunch and go back for the rest of the day.  However, our plans changed after we decided we did not want to do the finger scan upon entry to the park.  Many, if not all, of the major parks require everyone who presents a ticket at the entrance to stick their finger on a bio-scanner.  We just don't like doing that and I had read online that we could show ID as an alternative.

SO...The Dad and I showed our ID....BUT it turned out that they wanted ID for ALL ADULT ticket holders...which included our 16, 13, and 11 year old.  We didn't have ID for them, so the semi-annoyed attendant let us in anyway, but said we might have trouble getting them back in if we leave the park.   So, that is why we decided just to stay in the park for the day (it was the only day we'd be there anyway).  It is a bit more trouble than just complying and putting our finger in the scanner, but it is worth it to me at this point in my life.  Convenience comes at a price and sometimes I don't think the price is worth it.}