We were so excited for our May trip to Orlando! I had spent HOURS every day trying to get to know Disney's new "fast pass" system called Genie Plus. I was excited for our time away.
Kayla is finally old enough that she needs her own seat on the airplane. They recommend that kids sit in their car seat on the plane. Kayla hated sitting in her car seat. She was a little scared of the plane ride and wanted to be held. She was crying and kicking the chair of the person in front of her. Eventually, I just grabbed her out of her seat and held her. She was a lot better once she was held.
Mom lent us a mobile hotspot from the Cleveland library since mine didn't come in time. It's great because Kayla can watch all of her shows/go on Youtube whenever/wherever we are at.
Our first day in we went to Miller's Alehouse for lunch! I loooove their zingers, we make sure that we go at least once a trip!
We stayed at the Sheraton Vistana Resort and really liked it. We had a one bedroom but it was very spacious. They also had a whole bunch of pools that we really enjoyed. Our favorite was the cascade pool. They had a shallow section that was between 1-2 feet deep that Kayla LOVED to play in. She was walk and swim around. Our first day, she and I went to the pool while Cody went to pick up groceries. We ended up hanging out in the pool for our 3.5 hours.
We came back from the pool and ordered Dominos for dinner. Kayla ate a piece of pizza and then fell asleep while holding a couple of garlic sticks in her hand! She was exhausted!
The next morning, we went to Chef Mickeys!! I have always wanted to go here and I was super excited. Cody was able to snag us a 8:45am breakfast time.
Their breakfast was pretty good too. We all enjoyed the food, but what you really come for is the characters!
The characters come right to your table and interact with you. They take pictures, do autographs, and give quality attention to each guest. It was wonderful! The restaraunt is a decently sized venue and it can take a little bit for the characters to come over by you. It's also a circle shape so you can't always see the character's easy either. But right when we got there, Mickey pretty much was right up to our table!!
After that, Kayla was turned around the whole time on "character watch." She was looking around to see who she could spot.
While we were there, Kayla decided that she didn't like Goofy and that he was "scary." A lot of things were scary this trip that weren't in the past. She kept saying "No Goofy. Scary." So we passed on getting to meet Goofy.
She loved the other characters though! Donald Duck got a BIG hug.
She was SUPER excited to see Minnie!!
Happy Girl!
Ohhh she booped her nose!
High five!
Family picture with Minnie!
Every hour or so, the character do a dance and walk around to the "making biscuits" song. It was overall a great experience and I can't wait to do future character dining opportunities!
Next we went to Sea World for the day. About a week before we left for Sea World we were walking in our back yard and a big fish jumped and took off... it startled both Kayla and I, and every since she's been saying that fish are scary and that she was afraid of fish. Sooo we were interested to see how our Sea World day was going to go. We started our day in Sesame Street land.
Once Kayla saw the Sesame Street area she took off running to hug the Elmo and Abby statues. She was yelling, "Elmo! Elmo" as she was running.
Giving him a hug!!
We went into the shop area and she went right over to where she knew characters usually are.. and hip hip hurray it was Elmo!! We got in line and there was virtually no one in line... we waited a few minutes to see him.
We actually got in a line a few times because she kept wanting to meet him and it was such a short line.
Afterwards we went on some kiddie rides in the area. She really enjoyed the kiddie rides.
Mommy and Kayla on the Elmo train. What a great picture Daddy took!
We arrived just in time to listen to Big Bird read a story.
Picture with Big Bird.
Then we went around and played with her wand in the area.
Next it was parade time. Sesame Street has the most fun parades in my opinion! I love that they stop dance/sing songs and stay for a while.
Kayla only moderately likes the parades. She'll watch them, but she wasn't super into it. She didn't want to participate and was a little scared at times.
Kayla and daddy watching the parade. While she napped, I finally got to ride Manta!! It was a really intense coaster and I was excited to finally get to ride it! The whole day, Kayla was still scared of fish and kinda threw fits to leave all of the shows that we tried to watch. She also wasn't all that excited about the animal exhibits. So we went back to Sesame Street area to watch the parade again and hung out in that area for a little bit. I had a $10 off coupon that expired that day, so we went into the giftshop and Kayla picked out an Abby purse. With the $10 off and my platinum pass discount, we only ended up paying $5 for it. After that we headed to the front and grabbed some ice cream (which was pretty terrible. We had to wait a long time to pay and our ice cream almost melted and the selections weren't that great). We ended up leaving a little early around 6-7pm and went back to our resort. We ate pizza and then went swimming in the pool. Kayla really enjoyed that!
The next day... *Sigh* was our Hollywood Studios day. I spent months pouring my heart and soul into making our Disney trip great. I studied wait times for rides and genie plus and felt like I had a great touring plan for us. I was so excited the night before out first park trip, Hollywood Studios, that I could barely sleep the night before! I woke up early at 7am and got an instant return time for Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railroad. Our day was set up great and I was pumped!! So we get to Hollywood Studios and we are waiting in line to get in, and with about 5 minutes to the park opening, out of no where... Kayla starts throwing up!! She threw up about 4 times and was crying and upset. It came out of no where. Poor baby! So here we are surrounding by thousands of people waiting to get it and the line starts moving with an upset toddler. And our day just never recovered. All day long she kept saying "no, bye bye" "All done" "stroller" She just wanted to sit in her stroller all day and hardly wanted to do anything. We started by going on Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railroad... she normally likes characters and she normally likes train rides... Well of course the train is driven by Goofy, so she kept saying, "No Goofy, scary." She basically hated the ride. Then she refused to stand in line to meet Mickey and Minnie and just wanted to sit in her stroller. So we walked around the park for a while and got an ice cream.
We went to the Disney Junior Dance party... hoping that she'd like it.
She did ok at it, but didn't participate in any of the dancing or anything.
We took some pictures there.
The had a section across from the Disney Junior area that had benches in the shade and it was a little quieter there. So we sat down and had some snacks. I have to mention that it was super hot in Orlando too, so we had a fan on her to help keep her cool.
Afterwards we went to the Mickey Mouse short cartoon show. She hated it, and forced us to leave in the middle of it.
We decided to try to Frozen show, because this was one of the main reasons why we came to Hollywood Studios. I thought she'd love this show. I gave her my phone to watch and she held onto it when she was nervous, but overall seemed to like the show. I thought it was funny, they had two hosts that basically told "dad jokes" throughout the show. Afterwards we sat down and mobile ordered some food from the backlot express. Our food was ready in about 15-20 minutes and we got to sit and relax while waiting for the food instead of standing in line. We walked right over to the backlot express and there was a separate walk up line for people doing walkup orders, and we showed the guy our number and they grabbed our food for us. It was super easy to do, and I love these feature! The backlot express was also a great place to fill up water bottles.
After lunch, we decided to go ahead and watch the Frozen show again since it had been on of the only things that Kayla liked all day. She ended up falling asleep in the middle of the second show and we cut out a few minutes early. I was happy to see that the actors leading the show changed and had slightly different jokes.
Kayla slept for about an hour-hour and half and during that time, my Lightning Lane actions throughout the day started to come due!! I was super proud of how my lightning lanes worked out and we didn't have to wait in line for any of the big rides. The only ride that we didn't get to do was Rise of the Resistance, this was an ILL ride and on site guests can buy it up until the park opens. Well ROR was broken down in the morning so the people that wanted to ride it for early admission couldn't, so they bought up all the ILL's. I tried and tried to refresh to get another one throughout the day, but never saw it pop back up... and once it came back up it was a 3 hour wait most of the day. But anyway, Cody went to the Star Wars area first to ride the other Star War's ride Smuggler Run while I sat with Kayla napping. When we first walked through that area in the morning, Kayla thought the area was scary, so we made sure not to take her over there while she was napping. When it was my turn, I had to run to the ride basically to make it. And it's not marked well at all, so I had to use the compass on the map portion of the My Disney Experience app to find it, and then to make my way back to Cody and Kayla. I really liked Smuggler's Run! I got to be a pilot (which I read was the best position) and it was so fun! It was a like a big video game that we were in and I was controlling the ship! It was really neat! And if we didn't get the LL for it, I noticed that the single rider's line was nearly empty. Each area needs 6 people, so I guess it's fairly common for single riders to be needed. Afterwards we had to trot over to Tower of Terror because our next LL was due.
We had LL's to ride Tower of Terror and Rocking Rollercoaster. It was fun to ride all the rides, but Cody and I had to ride them by ourself, because the other one had to stay with Kayla, which wasn't that fun.
While Cody was waiting to go on Rocking Rollercoaster, I took Kayla to see the Lightning McQueen show. She ended up getting scared and wanting to leave in the middle of it.
We ended our day in Toy Storyland with our two LL's for Toy story mania and Alien Swirling Saucers. Kayla was able to come on both of those rides with us, but she didn't really like them. She was definitely scared of Slinky Dog Dash and didn't want anything to do with it. While we were in the park, we ordered food to go from Miller's Alehouse for dinner. Our timing ended up working out perfectly, by the time we got there our food was just getting completed. Overall, we ended up walking 19,500 steps that day. I was really happy with my planning/research... our LL's lined up perfectly and we got everything that we wanted. But it was a physically and mentally exhausting day because Kayla was having such a bad time. I really wished that she would have had more fun during the day. I don't think that we'll be back to any Disney park besides the Magic Kingdom anytime soon.
The next day was a well needed recovery/relax day. Cody woke up with tummy issues himself and felt bad the whole day. So Kayla and I went to the playground area. She really really wanted to swing, but there weren't any at the playground near us... So we went on a walk to explore our resort and we asked around if anyone had seen any swings (nope, they didn't have any).
We ended up swimming for most of the day. Kayla LOVED swimming and had lots of fun in the pool. The resort had several pools, but our favorite was the Cascade pool.
It had a shallow end that was 1-2 feet deep and Kayla love walking around and playing in it.
It also had a waterfall area. Kayla was scared of the waterfall, but thought it was super funny when Cody and I went under it.
She loved Cody doing motor boat to her in the pool! She wanted him to do it over and over again. For dinner, we kept it simple and just got Wendy's.
The next day was our Magic Kingdom day. I nailed Genie Plus again and got us a 9:15am return time on Jungle Cruise!! Woohoo!! We were a little nervous after our disastrous Hollywood Studios day how this would go. We were on the ferry on our way to the Magic Kingdom and Kayla kept saying "All done, bye bye." So we were even more worried... but once we got in she did pretty good throughout the day and definitely had fun at the Magic Kingdom.
We started our morning in Adventureland, which turned out to be a good move. We went on Aladdin's Magic Carpet ride first, and Kayla loved it!! Then we went on Jungle Cruise and I decided to snag another LL for Aladdin again. Jungle Cruise was fun! I've never been on it, but it was a tour guide that tells corny jokes and I think it was super cute. We also saw the Enchanted Tiki Room and Kayla made it through the show!! She liked the singing birds.
As we were walking, Kayla wanted a picture with Pooh.
Then onto Fantasyland!! I mobile ordered us a nutella and fruit waffle from Sleepy Hollow and it was ready after our carousel ride.
Happy family on the carousel! Hopefully she has fun on the one on our cruise in November too!
Kayla excited for the carrousel! She loved riding the "baby horses." She and Cody got in line to go on again, while I ran and picked up our waffle.
Mmmm!! This was a yummy treat!!
Kayla liked taking her bites. We had 3 forks, one for me and two for her. She'd trade me forks... I'd give her one with something on it and she'd give me the empty one.
Ohhh!! Here's both forks mommy! My little goof ball.
Now it was time for the parade. It was hot (you can see her fan on). She was a little scared of a few parts of the parade because they have villians in it. But she really liked the end when Minnie/Mickey and crew came along.
Look at silly Chip playing hide and seek with us.
Here comes Minnie and Mickey!
Blowing them kissy and saying hi!
Next it was our turn to meet Mickey Mouse!! Even with our LL it still took us about 20 minutes to get in to see him, but it was well worth it! Kayla was excited to get to meet him today. She had her backpack and wand that she wanted to show him.
As soon as he started walking over, she had her wand out to show him.
Showing him her wand. And he made a heart shape when she showed him her backpack with Minnie Mouse on it.
Family picture with Mickey!
He told her that she remembered her from breakfast from a few days before.
I love how when it's your turn that you are the "focus" for the character. They give such great attention and really make for magical encounters.
High five to say good bye!
Family Picture by the Castle. Afterwards, I went on Splash Mountain (which I think is great! It's such a neat ride, so glad I got to go on it... might be the last time I ever get to because they are re-theming it). Kayl and Cody went to Tortuga Tavern while she laid down for her nap and the area had plenty of empty seats in the shade and it's off to the back so it was nice and quiet there. We sat there for about an hour and half while Kayla napped. It was nice to sit down and get some water. It was a definitely a great spot to take a break during the day.
Kayla got up just in time for the 3pm parade. We actually just happened upon it as we were walking, and stopped to watch it again. I have been playing Disney Emoji Blitz for the past year or two and my favorite emoji to use in the game is Doc. So I totally fan girled him and yelled to him! He looked right to me and waved, I don't think he's used to getting so much attention.
Kayla was excited to get to see Daisy.
Minnie and Mickey again!
Dumbo was the hero of the day! Kayla LOVED Dumbo. Throughout the day, we ended up riding it 3 times.
Riding with mommy this time.
Teacups were... ehhh.. in her book.
We had reservations to eat the Crystal Palace. I told Cody that I felt like I made it by being able to sit down here and have a nice dinner at the park. Growing up, we always packed sandwiches to eat in the car and never really ate at parks because the food was too expensive. So it felt very much like a "I made it moment" to be able to sit down and have a nice meal at the Magic Kingdom.
We made it just in time to see Mickey's Magical Friendship Faire castle show. Kayla hadn't been loving indoor shows or even rides at time point, but the outdoors castle show hit the mark for her.
She really enjoyed it, and we danced in the streets together to the songs. She had her bubble wand going and we just really enjoyed ourselves.
Kayla pointed and wanted to go on the people mover. She liked it at first until it started going into buildings and having dark sections. It ended up breaking down for a few minutes in a dark section too, which she really didn't like.
My LL's were on point today too, we didn't have a single ride that we had to wait for all day. Most of our waits were 5-10 mins long. I heard that driving these cars is a kid favorite, and I remember liking the antique cars at Cedar Point growing up, so I thought Kayla might like this one. Turns out she's still a tad bit small for it.
Then since we were walking by Dumbo, we decided to go back on it!
They had a Dumbo on the ground that you can take pictures in.
She loved it! She didn't want to get out of it. We kept taking picture after picture.
She hopped out to give him a hug. It was hard convincing her to leave. She loved going on Dumbo. It was so nice that the crowds were short because we got to ride it 3 times throughout the day with no waits basically.
Afterwards we went on the Winnie the Pooh ride. I had initially thought to start our day on this ride, but I'm glad that our plan worked out differently. She was ok with this ride and then Peter Pan after it, but she didn't really love either one of them. Even though I could have grabbed LL's for Buzz Lightyear, the Journey of the Little Mermaid, and It's a Small World, we decided to skip them because we didn't know much she'd enjoy them. She's definitely getting into her things are scary stage. I feel like this stage literally started like a week or two before our vacation, but even since she's started saying numerous things are scary to her that hadn't been in the past.
We were going to go home after riding Peter Pan, but Kayla saw the "Baby Horses" and begged to go on again.
How can you say no to that? We ended up leaving a little bit early because we'd had a long day and we didn't think that Kayla would enjoy the fireworks show. We didn't want her to hate the show and then get caught up in all the traffic. So even though it broke my heart, we ended up leaving and missing the fireworks show.
The next day was another well deserved relaxation day. I think that's a great pace for Orlando. To go to a park one day and then have a relaxation day the next. I think that 3 days in the parks is about perfect and a 4th day can be done by pushing it.
Kayla had a good time in the morning playing on the playground.
Then we had lots of fun pushing each other on the hammocks.
Then it was time to pool hop! We went around to the various pools in the complex.
With daddy in the large pool.
Daddy's girl!
Family fun time in the pool.
Silly and happy baby!!
Here we are back in "our pool" the Cascade pool was definitely our favorite.
Next day was our Seaworld Day. It was the start of their summer them, electric ocean. We definitely slept in and got there around 11am. We were going to go right to the Dolphin show, but Kayla wanted to leave because she was afraid of the water tank. "Scary fish, no fish." "It's not a fish honey, it's a dolphin." "No big fish, all done, bye bye" so we left the show and went to Sesame Streetland.
On our way there, I noticed that Sea World's new coaster was a walk on... so I was like shoot... can't pass this up, so I hopped on it. Meh... it wasn't that great at all. It's honestly their worst coaster in the park. After I rode that, Kayla saw the Sesame Street sign and ran yelling "Elmo, Elmo" and hugged the statues.
We went on a bunch of kiddie rides and then got to meet Cookie Monster.
We watched the Sesame Street Parade.
After the parade, we stopped for a pretzel/lunch and noticed that it looked like rain was going to be coming in. So we decided to go run to the Elmo Rocks show. The show was nearly starting and we were worried there wouldn't be seats... no fear... hardly anyone was in the show. I'm not sure why it was so empty in the park. Maybe because it was supposed to storm during the day? It was actually supposed to rain/storm during our entire trip in Orlando. I was so bummed and was sure we'd get rained on every day. But a tropical storm ended up moving up to Georgia and missing us, and then any time there was rain it seemed to hit all around us, but never really hit us at all. We were super lucky. They even shut some rides down for a few minutes at Sea World because they expected a storm with lightning to blow in, but it ended up missing us entirely. So I think that helped factor into our light crowds for the day.
The electric ocean decorations glowed in the dark and were really pretty at night.
Since Kayla seemed a little nervous about fish, we decided to check out the penguins. This turned out to be a great move!!
She was very interested and excited about the penguins. We got there right as they were being fed so they were all active and swimming around.
It was great that the penguins were swimming in the enclosure, because Kayla wasn't afraid because they were birds, but it proved to help get her more comfortable by water exhibits.
Happy girl with mommy!!
Loving to look with daddy.
Happy family visiting the penguins.
Afterwards, we took her to see the turtles and the manatees. She was excited for seeing them, and she didn't even care that much that fish were in the tank with them. So this was a great first step. I really wanted to go to the dolphin show which she had made us leave earlier in the day... so I thought that maybe if we built on our newfound comfort levels with the water tanks... maybe she could do the show. So we ran over to the underwater dolphin viewing area next door, and we made a big deal about trying to tickle their bellies and how nice they were... and how fun it would be to watch them do tricks...
So we walked into the dolphin theatre to try to catch the last dolphin show of the day and she was fine. She actually LOVED the show and really enjoyed watching it. She really wasn't scared at all... phew!!!
So we decided to push our luck and try watching the killer whale show. She actually fell asleep and took a nap throughout the whole show and she even slept for a while during at Voyagers. We had to sit in a less than optimal area because we were in the sleeping child section, which is the only area that they allow strollers in, but it was still ok! The killer whale shows just aren't what they used to be... the whales barely do any tricks/jumps. The show is more so about why it's important that they are there, how their medical is done, and more about education then a fun show to watch. No more Shamu.
By the time we were done eating it was around 8pm, but we were told before that after 4pm someone new would be in the character area in Sesame Streetland, and Kayla really wanted to meet Abby Cadabby. So we trekked over there and to our extreme pleasure it was Abby and Elmo!! Woohoo!! Kayla's dream!!
Kayla was really excited to meet Abby! She wanted to show off her new Abby purse.
It was SO great for her to get to see them. And turns out we were really lucky to get to see them, because our turn was at 8:27pm and they cut the line off at 8:30pm and turned away the last two families that were in line. And they gave absolutely NO warning. At 8:30pm they were ok, Abby and Elmo are leaving, and everyone was like what... Why did you let us wait in line or tell us that it was closing at 8:30? It was TERRIBLE. I felt so bad for those families. Even worse, the person ahead of us some like a 40 something woman and a teenager who took like 10 minutes with Elmo taking picture after picture. They should have cut the line off or warned people ahead of time. They should have moved that woman and her daughter along. It was terrible that they handled it the way that they did.
On the way out, Kayla wanted to stop to dance at the electric ocean party and then she wanted to stop at the dolphin nursery. Apparently, dolphins either go to sleep or get very curious about people at night time. Lucky for us they were curious when we were there!!
They kept coming up and stopping and looking at people. It was really neat!! Kayla was trying to attract them to us and it wasn't really working... so almost in a panic she runs over to the stroller and goes "my purse! my purse!!"
She ran back over and held her purse up... and it worked!! The dolphin came over to look at us! It was really neat. And after a while a lot of people went to watch the night time show, so it was just us with them.
I had a hard time pulling her away from them! She was curious in the night time show, so we made our way to see it, and she got scared once the fireworks started going off. So we made our way out, and actually had a decent view in the parking lot. It was a really nice Sea World day.
I love that these pictures are included with my platinum pass! The background looks so much better than the green screen. Getting these professional pictures and having a short wait time to meet the characters really made this a great experience!
Elmo picture!
Abby Cadabby! So excited that we went back and that she was there because this is the first time we got to meet her.
Cookie Monster!
Kayla loved the curtains at our resort. She kept going in them and saying, "Me Ghost!" and then she'd try to get me as a ghost.
Because we stayed late at Sea World on Friday, we decided to stay in Orlando for an extra day. We used our Hyatt points and stayed at a Hyatt near Universal. So we had plenty of time to get packed up and leave in the morning and we didn't have to rush off to the airport. We packed our stuff up in our car and then went to the Shertan's pool for the day. We had a good time swimming and playing.
We ended up going to PF Chang's for dinner!! Yum!! Kayla slept during it and then woke up super crabby. We actually left dinner kinda quickly. We were planning on getting ice cream, but we thought about scrapping it because she was throwing a tantrum. However, after getting back to the hotel room and eating she was better. So we decided to go to the chocolate factory in Univeral's city walk!
This was a long adventure for ice cream. By the time we got there, parked, walked to the place, and waited in the long line for ice cream... it probably took us a good 1-2 hours. Now I really like this ice cream place, and the stuff they serve is pretty good... but I'm not sure it was worth the effort we put in to get it. We were at City Walk around 8-9pm on a Saturday night before Memorial Day and phew it was PACKED! We really deserved that ice cream treat that we got. Haha! I think in the future, I'd definitely come to this place if I was in the area... like going somewhere else in city walk or going to Universal but I don't think I'd make the trek all the way out here just for this place again.
On Sunday morning, we got up REALLY early and caught out flight home. Luckily, Kayla slept pretty much the whole flight home which made for an easy flight. We had a nice trip to Orlando. We definitely had our ups and downs. I am really proud of how my Genie Plus selections worked out and I'm glad that all the planning and research that I did paid off. I really like the Shertan where we stayed. I think that we would definitely stay there again. The only thing that I didn't like was that they didn't have a regular bathtub, it was a giant jetted soaker tub which made giving Kayla baths difficult. But our room was nice and pools were great. I think Kayla's favorite part of the trip was probably swimming in the pools. She loved the water and had a great time every time that we went. I think that I'm learning that Seaworld and Magic Kingdom are definitely our jam for a while longer. I think we'll stay away from the other Orlando parks until Kayla is a little bigger and can appreciate them more. But I do think that she got a lot out of our Magic Kingdom day and I would definitely go there again soon. I also would love to get to do more character dining activities because that was a lot of fun! Overall, I think that we had a really nice trip to Orlando, and can't wait for our next trip!
