So, kind of a last minute trip we took this summer, this last couple weeks. It came up as a great opportunity, so we jumped on it. We were going to go to a very magical place. That's right folks - the Family of B's were headed to DisneyWorld!!!!
The girls were beyond excited. We only had 2 weeks to plan, organize, pack, and get ready to go! Disney kind of planning takes months! And we only had 2 weeks. We played the Disney card for the whole time prior to get the girls on their best behavior. ;) I swear it is better than Santa! Haha.
Anyway, we decided this time (as opposed to when we went to DisneyLand last September) that we would drive. We could make it in two days, stopping only one night. We could DO THIS!
So we left on a Thursday, very early that morning. We cleaned and packed and loaded up by 7am, we were off!
We had tons of new games and toys for the car that we brought out for the girls. We had movies and we had Netflix. We also had pillows for naps and snacks too. We were prepared. But possibly the best idea and biggest help was Brad's mom gathering 12 presents (well, really...24..12 for each of the girls) and wrapping them up. Little trinkets or coloring books..just little surprises for them to open along the way every so often. First thing, we split them in two - 6 for the ride there, 6 for the ride home. Then between movies, naps, lunches, and other things, they had the surprise of the presents waiting for them. That was really fun. I liked they were all wrapped...it added to their excitement and took that extra little bit of time for them to open them up (every few minutes helps!). So that was a great idea! Kudos to Sammy for that one! :)
Our first stop was in Lake Charles, LA for a picnic lunch. I had packed sandwich stuff and snacky stuff and I had a friend tell me about a great beachside park we could stop off. It was a great park and was in a great location.
But the mosquitos and sand fleas were horrendous! They were HUGE! And evil. I probably got bit about 20 times in the little bit we were there and those bites sweltered and stayed with me, turning into a little bit of a rash even, until we got back home! yikes.
The girls (as I mentioned before and will mention again) were GREAT travellers. They napped well in the car too! On demand. What more could we ask for...
Next, we drove on and made it to Pensacola for the night. Original plan was to stay close to the beach (might as well get something out of it) but we drove to the beach area and weren't too impressed. Plus it was late(r) so we wouldn't get much beach time anyway. Instead we ate a quick dinner and just picked a hotel right off I-10.
From Pensacola we made it the next day all the way to Orlando - or DisneyWorld anyway.
Our hotel was actually inside the Disney gates. And we knew our hotel/resort would be nice...but holy toledo! It was BEYOND huge. This next picture was the entrance. We thought, driving in, that this was the hotel. No. This was just the "tower" where guest relations was. Registration, etc. There were 8 towers total, with 14-16 stories or so each. There were 5 swimming pools! 9 hot tubs, a lazy river! A miniature golf course and more. It was amazing the size of this place. The name of it? The Wyndham Bonnet Creek Resort.
Waiting to go in, while Daddy checks in...
This was not a "Disney" resort...however, it was on Disney property and within the gates of Disney. So that was convenient too. But I loved that we had so much more space than a regular Disney hotel. I always thought I would want to stay on a Disney resort if we ever went....but now, not so sure. The place we stayed was sooo big and nice and accomodating. The only thing we didn't get to be a part of was the Disney dining plan, which would've been nice, but I'm not sure I'd trade that for what we had at this place. Below are some pics of our "room"... I think it was actually the same, if not more, square footage than our house! 2 bedrooms, a full kitchen, a dining room, a laundry room, 2 baths (one with a jacuzzi bath). Unbelievable...
The living room (not pictured is the full dining room with a table that seated 8)...
The master bedroom - king size bed, full closet, dresser, and TV
The master bath - with a jacuzzi tub, and separate room (behind) with shower and toilet..
The girls room - 2 queen size beds and they had their own full walk in closet and private bathroom, dressers and TV...
Another view of the living room (again, not pictured is the full kitchen behind me, complete with stove, oven, dishwasher..everything)
Brooke staking claim to her bed...
Brad told me I had to take a picture of my OCDness. I packed each of the girls outfits for each day in a ziploc bag. Twofold reasons - 1) it packs tighter, so you can get more together and it keeps the clothes straighter, non-wrinkly and 2) then when you get there, you have all the ziploc bags to use! And boy did we use them. Each day we used 2 for our cool neck strips (that have to soak in water). So glad we had them! Anyway, so here are the girls dressers in their room. ;)
After we unpacked and settled a bit, we headed to the nearby WalMart. We thought we were going to get some cheap souvenirs and possibly our DisneyWorld tickets. We had heard they offered a bit of a discount. However, this plan didn't work out. We did get a couple things and a couple grocery things as well, but we passed on the tickets. It was only $4 difference per ticket per day and if we paid with our Discover card at the gate, we would get 5% back, so we opted to go that route. And I was a bit disappointed in the souvenirs. None of their things had DisneyWorld written on them - no shirts, etc. I was surprised by this, because in California, if you go to the Anaheim WalMart, everything has DisneyLand on it. Not sure the difference there.... :/
After WalMart, we headed to DownTown Disney (which has free parking by the way, another difference from CA and DisneyLand...probably b/c at the DownTown Disney in CA, you can actually ride the monorail to the parks, not at DisneyWorld one in Florida though).
My girls aren't big into Legos, but the Lego store is always cool to look at - some of their displays are awesome!
We picked a non-crowded restaraunt to have dinner at. We ate at a place called Paradiso 37, which was pretty good! Expensive, of course...hey, you are at Disney!...but good.
We ordered chips and salsa and I thought the containers were so cute, I had to take a picture :)
And here's Brad's plate (some sort of salmon burgers I think?) with the cute little fry bucket :)
We lucked out on our table too! We sat in the balcony section, right next to the edge, so we had a view of DownTown Disney and the whole restaurant. :)
We walked around a bit, but headed home pretty early (knowing we'd come back to shop before we left) so we could get to bed and get up early to head to the parks! We had 6 full days ahead at Disney and we needed to rest up.
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