Coming home to Nebraska

We left Westgate and drove our rental van back to the airport. Orlando airport had a new FAMILY security line, and it's just for families with small children. It was so quick and painless (unlike our experience in Kansas City), we were only in line for a few minutes and we didn't have to get patted down! After we got through security, we had breakfast at Burger King and then walked to our gate to wait for our flight. The kids were pretty good while we waited, except for Clair, who was a WILD woman! :) She even tried to get out the emergency exit door! Luckily, she wasn't strong enough to push it open!

The flight home was good. Everyone slept except for Samantha & I. Clair and Alden were angels and slept almost the whole way home. We didn't connect anywhere, so we had a solid 2 1/2 hour flight, which I think helped them a lot. When we got home to Kansas City it was COLD!!! And when we got back to Nebraska is even COLDER!!! Luckily we had our neighbor boy scoop our driveway before we got home because it had snowed the day before and the drift was quite large! We were all EXHAUSTED! Doug's parents brought pizza for supper and we all just relaxed, as we knew it would be a long week of school & work!

Our last day at Disney World! :(

On our final day at Disney World we started with an EARLY rope drop at the Magic Kingdom. The gates opened at 8:00am - which was different than the whole week earlier (they opened at 9:00am) - and that threw a lot of people off! We got to the parking lot at 7:00am! We were the 8th car in the lot! It was still dark outside when we got on the monorail! And it was misting, so I think people got a late start because of the weather - but NOT US!

Everyone woke up feeling good!
We were the 2nd family in line at our turn-style!

We got a front row spot for rope drop!
This is our view into the park as we waited for the countdown! No one can stop us!
We ran to Dumbo and we were on it as it ran for the 1st time that day. As you can see, Clair is SUPER excited! :)
We rode Dumbo 2 times in a row - I took the girls the first time and then Doug took the girls the 2nd time.

Alden & I had fun on our last ride on Dumbo of this trip!

Our next stop was the Tomorrow Land Speedway! Our kids LOVE that ride! I took Alden while Doug waited with the girls (Clair isn't tall enough to go on it yet, so we had to take turns.)

Next, Doug took Samantha and I think we was scared for his life!! :)


Doug wanted to ride the Astro Orbiter (It is on top of the People Mover.) He thought it would be just like Dumbo, only higher. Well - he was WRONG! It was down right scary! It went so fast that you felt g-forces as you were going around and around. I almost felt sick, and Doug - well - he was VERY sick after it. Alden didn't look so good either, but Samantha & Clair seemed to love it. (I was really scared hanging on to Clair as we were going, because all that was holding us in, was a really loose seatbelt, but we survived!) We went on Buzz Lightyear after that because there was absolutely no line! It was crazy how thin the crowds were during the 1st 2 hours we were there!

After the Astro Orbiter - Samantha & I walked to Frontier Land to ride Thunder Mountain one last time. The castle looked abandoned because it was 8:30am and not many people were in the park yet!
We stopped to take a picture of a replica of the Liberty Bell.
While Samantha & I were on Thunder Mountain, Doug took Alden & Clair on the People Mover (Alden's favorite ride). On the way there, they bumped into Stitch! Who Alden still calls Ditch.

Alden put his hands up on the People Mover because he thought it was going fast! (Doug & Alden share a bond that I will NEVER understand - because that ride is SLOW!) :)

We met back up a little after 9:00am and got in line for the Tangle Meet & Greet (which started at 10:00am). We had tried to do this on the other days we went to Magic Kingdom, but the line get long fast and does not move. The movie was awesome, so I knew we needed to wait it out! Doug took the kids and walked around for awhile and get fast passes. This was easily the longest we waited for anything on the trip. 45 min but we got to split it up because you could switch who was in line.

Once we got inside the Tangled Meet & Greet area, the kids got to color a picture while they waited for Rapunzel and Flynn.

When Rapunzel & Flynn arrived, they sang and danced with the kids and then met each family individually.

The kids got to hold a stuffed animal that looked like Pascal from the movie.

Alden really liked Flynn! I think they talked about some HEAVY stuff! :)
Samantha showed Rapunzel how to tap dance!

Flynn showed Alden how to smolder! It was adorable!
So happy!

After the seeing Rapunzel & Flynn, the kids & I walked by the Wishing Well and took a picture of the kids on the way to meet up with Doug & Clair again. Doug hung out on a bench by it's a small world and gave advice to random people on how to tour the park. We then rode IASW again.

We ate lunch at Pecos Bills in the Magic Kingdom and then Doug walked back to the Christmas store to pick up the ornament as the kids and I hung out at the front of the park. The masses of people we started to show up at about noon. It was getting hard to walk and we couldn't take the long lines anymore!

We hopped parks to go to Epcot one last time and more space.

We walked to Italy and did a Kidcot Station to color on the kids' Duffy Bears.

The kids were hard at work, coloring their bears!

We walked through the China Pavilion and ran into Mulan!

The kids needed to do one last Kidcot Station in China! The Sam had done a good job of saying "hello" "thank you" and "Good bye" it the languages. She got the biggest reactions in France and China. (I helped out a little bit, to make it faster!)

Alden liked this decorative Mickey Mouse that was in TrenD!

As we left Epcot, we had one final picture taken of our family!

I wasn't quite done with Disney - so I convinced Doug that we needed to go to Downtown Disney for a little bit more shopping! We ate supper at Earl of Sandwich and then did some shopping before leaving Disney property and returning to Westgate to finish packing.

Breakfast with the Princesses on Day #9 of our Disney trip

On the 9th morning of our trip we had breakfast with the princesses at Epcot at the Akershus Royal Banquet Hall! Alden was not feeling the best, so we didn't pressure him into going, but he really wanted to see the princesses! Our reservation was for 8:00am, so we had to get up pretty early. The longer he was up, the better he felt. That was....until....we were next in line to meet Belle. Our whole family got a picture with Belle, but right before that, Alden decided he needed to threw up on me. Surprisingly, he felt a lot better after that and would have been sicker if we wouldn't have met Belle anyway because he would have just cried until he got sick. :)

This is what the park looks like when you are one of the 1st people allowed in! (Epcot opened at 9:00am that day and we got there at 7:45am for our reservation.)

Our group picture with Belle! Alden is looking a little bleak...

The 1st princess to come to our table was Aurora (Sleeping Beauty). Clair didn't like her so much!

Clair didn't like Cinderella either! Alden couldn't quit coughing, so he left with Doug to walk around Epcot for some fresh air while the girls and I finished our breakfast.

Clair did like the Bagels!

Samantha & Snow White - Twins! It could have been Triplets - but Clair was having no part of it! :)

Ariel (Little Mermaid) was the last princess to visit us. Clair at least didn't scream while she visited our table, she was very polite and just looked away! :)

After getting some cough medicine in Alden he was doing much better. The ropes had just dropped at the front gates, so Alden and Doug thought they would pass some time at the charater spot.

Still doing okay...

Having fun...

Should have know he was heading south when he was not thrilled about a one-on-one with his hero Donald Duck. Right after Donald and still waiting for goofy he coughed up some more and gaged on it. So Doug got to run him from the characters to the bathroom to clean up a bit.

Then the girls and I met up with the boys. Doug then gave Alden some benadryl to induce a nap and had decided to give up on the Triaminic chest congestion and stick with just the cough triaminic . He thought the chest congestion medicine was working too good because poor Alden would cough it up and gag.

So back on the monorail we all went towards to the Magic Kingdom and hoping for naps at 9:10am!

So we got back to the Transportation and Ticket Center (TTC) and they were all still awake, however, Alden and Clair's heads were bobbing. So Doug took them for a walk while Sam and I headed to the Magic Kingdom

So just after we split Alden threw up again. Doug got him cleaned up at the TTT and Clair fell asleep while he was cleaning him up in the bathroom. Then they walked....and walked...and walked some more. From the TTC, through the Polynesian to the Grand Floridian and finally to the wedding pavilion. (There is a path connecting it all.)

Beach behind the Tahiti building. (We stayed in Tahiti while at the Polynesian.)

View of Polynesian from the path to the Grand Floridian.

Pool at the Polynesian Resort.

Wedding Pavilion. (Doug is a nerd and had to map out his "walk" when he got home and it was about 2 1/2 Miles.)

Meanwhile: Samantha and I were on the ferry headed to the most magical place on Earth!

The crowds weren't too bad at 10am this day! Usually there is always a crowd around the castle!

Our 1st stop was the Tomorrow Land Speedway. Samantha got her own driver's license to drive! :)

We made another trip to Toontown! We tried to ride Goofy's Barnstormer, but it wasn't working at that time.

Samantha decided we needed to ride Cinderella's Golden Carousel again, so I decided we needed a mission! Our mission was to get on Cinderella's horse! There is only one horse that was Cinderella's own horse and it had a golden ribbon around it's tail. I kept my eye on it during the group's ride before us and we headed straight for it! I gave Samantha a boost and explained to her why we picked that one. She was beaming from ear to ear!

Next we went on It's A Small World!

Just hanging out, being a princess while we waited for Doug, Alden, & Clair!

One other mission I had for that day was to see Princess Tiana from Princess & the Frog. Alden joined us just in time!

We went to our favorite pictures spots in front of the castle and had some family pictures taken too!

Next up was Pirates of the Caribbean! Alden had to get another new shirt to "clean up" a little bit and he wanted a pirate shirt, and he also got some Pirate Mickey Ears!

As we were waiting for Clair's Mickey Ears to get finished, we saw Pinocchio and took a picture with him.

Clair has ears too! :) All of the kids have their names embroidered on the back of their 1st Mickey Ears! Alden & Sam got theirs on our last trip!

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As we were leaving the Mad Hatter's Hat Shop, we ran into Whoopi Goldberg (literally)!! She was getting some Mickey Ears embroidered too! (She was there was the Candlelight Processional at Epcot that evening - she was the narrator.)

After getting Clair's hat, we rode the monorail back to Epcot...

Samantha got her own Princess Mickey Ears!

Clair was tuckered out!

This is Alden's favorite hallway! There were bathrooms really close and always a bench to wait on!

We walked around to the different countries...

First up was Canada.

Then we walked to France and the kids met Pierre Noel (a.k.a. Father Christmas) and sat and listened to him tell about Christmas in France.

This was supposed to be a picture of the Eiffel Tower in the background, but the son was too bright at that time of day. You can kind of see the reflection in the water behind Doug.

The kids really liked the countries and there were "KIDCOT" stations in every country. They colored a Disney Duffy bear and the people from that country and wrote their name in their language. They got to take the Duffy bear to each country and then saw how the names compared to each other in different languages. The kids still talk about their bears at home and we took a couple extra to color at home when we needed some "disney magic" back in Nebraska. :)

The kids sat and listened to another story in Japan. A Japanese Street Vendor told them about the Japanese New Year.

After Japan, we walked back to The Land Pavilion for our dinner reservation at the Garden Grill.

This restaurant rotates as you eat! It was very neat to have a different view from our seats every few minutes!

The kids loved Chip!

Chip tried to talk to Clair, but she just wanted to eat her bread! :)

Dale was funny! He stole Alden's pirate ears!

Pluto is another one of the kids' favorite characters! Alden loved his whiskers!

Mickey in overalls! You don't see that everyday at the parks!

After dinner, we rode "The Land" ride and learned about the food we had just eaten (most of it is grown right there in the land).

We walked to the Imagination Pavilion and rode Figment again. The kids really love him! We were going to stay for Illuminations and Fireworks, but it was getting cold and Alden was finally feeling better, so we didn't push it. We went back to Westgate for the night and packed a few things because we only had 1 more full day at Disney!