Day 1:
We flew down to Orlando early Saturday morning and arrived at our hotel by lunchtime. Charlie did great on the flight, enjoying the Elmo sticker book that I had hidden in his backpack and playing with John. Liam and I sat across the aisle from them, and Liam slept quietly for most of the flight. Check-in went smoothly, and our luggage arrived promptly, as did the personalized mouse ears and autograph book package that I had pre-ordered for Charlie. (Charlie later dubbed the hat his "helmet ears," but he refused to wear them except for a brief time one evening.)
The weather was cool and threatening showers, so we decided not to head for any parks that day, and instead headed to Downtown Disney for dinner and some shopping. On the bus on the way there, Charlie asked if he could get "a manimal," and he ended up picking out a Goofy. We returned to the room in time to get in our pajamas before the nightly light show on Bay Lake began at 10pm in front of our hotel, within view of our balcony. Charlie got to stay up late and watch it, setting a precedent for the rest of the week (unfortunately).
Day 2:
We decided to make Sunday Magic Kingdom day. We started out walking over to the park just in time for it to open first thing in the morning. We headed straight for the back of the park to ride Winnie the Pooh. We had our first character sighting, and Charlie got autographs from Pooh and Tigger. He was shy, as we expected, so the autograph book was great to break the ice. He got just close enough to hand them the book.
He really liked playing in Pooh's playground area that was just the right size for toddlers, and we had to beg him to leave there. He rode the Dumbo ride with John, and we had some pizza for lunch. As soon as we realized that Charlie was tall enough to ride with John on the speedway, we made our way over there. I could barely see Charlie's head peeking around the steering wheel as I watched them round the final bend in the track.
Charlie was getting tired, and we had early reservations for dinner at our hotel, so we went back mid-afternoon, stopping to see Pluto for autographs on the way out. I think it was at some point during this day that Charlie learned to like riding on John's shoulders. He must have seen another kid doing that with his dad while waiting in line for a ride. We also caught him calling out "Mickey, where are you?" a couple of times.
We had a great dinner at Chef Mickey's that night. The food was wonderful, and meeting the characters was great. Although Charlie did not eat much, he seemed to really enjoy it. It was "extra magic hours" that night at Magic Kingdom, so we went back after dinner to enjoy a few more rides. We really enjoyed the short lines that the smaller crowds and cool weather afforded us.
Charlie was on the flying carpets (which he later called the "flying placemats") when the nightly fireworks started. In an effort to quickly get Charlie indoors away from the fireworks (which scare him), John took him on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. When he came off, he said "I don't like pirates." But it was still better than watching the fireworks! Even a couple of days later, when we walked by the Flying Carpets again, Charlie remarked about that ride having fireworks.
As we left the park that night, Charlie perched on John's shoulders, we saw Donald Duck walking along, and Charlie exclaimed, "Donald, look at me! I'm on Daddy's elbows!"
Day 3:
We started Monday at Hollywood Studios. We went straight for the Toy Story ride, which we'd been told was the best ride at Disney. We got our Fast Passes for later in the morning, then caught the Playhouse Disney show with Little Einsteins, Mickey Mouse, Handy Manny, and Winnie the Pooh. Charlie was really tired, and really didn't enjoy meeting Woody and Buzz at the autograph session we caught after the show.
We had our second Character Dining experience this day for lunch. We had to wake Charlie up to go in (he had fallen asleep in the stroller). It started raining lightly before lunch, and after lunch we spent a little time walking around the park, dodging raindrops as we could. Charlie built a custom light saber by the Star Wars ride, though he was too little to actually go on the ride. John and I traded off going on the Toy Story ride with Charlie (since he didn't need his own ticket), and both really enjoyed it. After that, we headed back to the hotel for some rest.
Around dinner time, we tried taking the monorail over to Epcot, but Charlie was still tired (having refused to nap much), and Liam was fussy (probably gassy), so we only stayed long enough to ride the Nemo ride (which Charlie LOVED), and headed back. It was cool and rainy, and both kids were fighting coughs, so it was just as well. Charlie would not have enjoyed the fireworks show later, anyway. Again, we ended our night with the light show on the lake.
Day 4:
On Tuesday we headed back to Magic Kingdom, and got in the park early because we had a Character Dining reservation for breakfast before opening time. It was a great chance to get some photos in front of Cinderella's castle with no one else around. Charlie really got friendly with the characters at this meal, having worn off his shyness by now.
He fussed about eating any breakfast (again a delicious meal), but got close enough with Pluto to feel his whiskers (which we compared to Lucy's). By the time we finished breakfast it was pouring down rain, so we found a couple of things to do indoors (Charlie really liked the Country Bear Jamboree), and then headed back to the hotel via monorail when we realized the radar was showing another big wave of storms coming through.
We spent the afternoon back at the hotel, trying to get Charlie to nap, and finally taking him to the arcade for a little while. We walked back to the Magic Kingdom after the rain cleared, just in time to see the 3pm parade. We rode some more of Charlie's favorite rides (the lines for Buzz Lightyear were non-existent, probably due in part to the weather), and also caught a late dance party in front of the castle before heading off to dinner. Since the crowds were so light, we had great views and Charlie got to dance with some of the characters in the street. We also caught Tigger and Eyeore starting up an autograph session and got in line before it got too long. Before we left the park, we acquired a set of Pixar character bath toys that we had been eyeing for Charlie. He would not let go of them on the way back to the hotel.
We took a water launch over to the Polynesian Resort for dinner, and then rushed back via monorail to our room at the Contemporary in time for me to catch a shuttle to the airport to pick up our rental car for the rest of the week. John had a rough time comforting gassy Liam while I was gone, and I had a nice tour of Disney World, trying to find my way back to the resort in the dark without a map.
Day 5:
We saved Animal Kingdom for our last day at the parks. This was predicted to be the best day weather wise-- still quite cool and breezy but only partly cloudy and we saw the sun. Animal Kingdom was also open extra hours that evening. We packed up our things and got the rental car loaded and headed to the park mid-morning.
We quickly gained an appreciation for the low crowds we had seen on the previous days, as the park was quite crowded with the nice weather. Charlie was tired from having resisted sleep again the night before, and waking early, so at one point he took a nap in John's arms while we sat at a table by the water.
We thought Charlie would love the Finding Nemo musical show, but he really didn't care for it, asking to "go bye bye" several times in the middle. So we decided to skip the Lion King musical show, and instead just rode a dinosaur ride and had some pizza while catching a bit of the Jungle parade. I really enjoyed the animal floats. After a couple of extra rides on the dinosaurs, and buying a small organic cotton Mickey Mouse doll for Liam, we headed on out to get on the road to Sarasota. We arrived there in time to stop at Uncle Rory's house on the way to checking in to the hotel.
Day 6:
Rory had class in the morning, so John and I took the kids to Siesta Key beach for about an hour. I carried Liam in the Baby Bjorn and took photos while John and Charlie built sand castles. I took Liam out of the carrier long enough to put his feet in the sand, and he seemed to like the feel. But most of the time I just tried to keep him out of the sun.
Charlie would not go dip his toes in the water at the beach. I took a few steps in, and the water was cold. We visited our hotel pool as well, but the heater was broken, and the water was too cold for Charlie to swim. John enjoyed the hot tub for a while, though, especially after having carried Charlie around Disney for a few days.
Later Charlie fell asleep for a nap at the hotel, and Rory came over to visit for a while in our room. I ran out to get some snacks to bring back, and then we made it an early night.
Day 7:
We attempted another run at the beach in the morning, this time with Rory. But it was really cold and windy, and our visit only lasted about 20 minutes. We stopped at Einstein Bagels (an out of town treat for us) for lunch on the way back to the hotel. Rain storms came through that afternoon, and Charlie fought napping for a few hours. After being stuck in the hotel for a while, John went back out and visited with Rory for a while before coming back to get us for dinner. Charlie refused to eat his dinner, and it was obvious that the length of our trip was taking its toll on the little guy. Wyatt was sick as well, so we again made it an early night.
Day 8:
We gathered at the hotel briefly in the morning to exchange some belated Christmas gifts and visit for a while more with Rory, Sherry, and Wyatt before packing up to head back to Orlando for our flight home. Somewhere along the line, John became a fan of minivans (our rental car was one). The return trip was generally uneventful, especially considering the snow storms up and down the eastern half of the country that we were sure would interrupt our flight plans. Charlie and John sat in front of Liam and I on this flight, and Charlie got a window seat.
We were surprised when we got home to have had our driveway cleared by friends who knew we were returning that evening. What a pleasant surprise at the end of a long week!
