Our journey began with our family, my sister's family, and my parents checking in at the Des Moines airport at 5:15am on a Thursday. Sooo early...but that's what you have to do if you actually want to arrive at Disney at a decent time. We took two flights and got there safe and sound. The kids did great and even napped on the second flight...couldn't have been easier. And this little introduction takes us to the fun stuff...our trip.
Isaiah chewing on beef jerky at the airport before we left from Des Moines.
Simba's ready to go too!
Ava's ready with her puppy. It was early...but they were so excited!
Disney has this really cool transportation system called The Magical Express. It's a decked out charter bus that takes your luggage and you from the airport to the resort. The seats are either red or blue and are covered with stars. They play Disney cartoons while your riding that make your arrival even more exciting! Here are the kids and Isabelle waiting in front of the sign.
Ava, Kevin, and Isabelle on the bus together
Mommy and her Boo
Daddy too
This is one of the TV screens that played the video. The picture you see is the symbol for the Magical Express. This bus took us to our home for the next 10 days...Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort...a real paradise!
When you walk along the sand and the paths that lead you around this resort, these are the types of trees and plants you see. I didn't get a picture of all the gorgeous flowers. It really does look like the Caribbean!
Ava and Isaiah at the check-in area. Once we checked in they both got balloons and Ava got a magic princess wand and Isaiah got a sword.
We always rent a stroller down there. It's such a great deal and is so helpful at the park when the kids get tired. The kids took lots of naps here and it helped us to get from one place to the other FAST! I think this one was brand new. It was a really nice jogger!
Here are a few pictures of the resort. There are my parents leading the way. This resort has 2112 rooms in all...and remember this is only one of the many, many, many resorts on Disney property.
A picture of what the outside of our part of the resort looked like.
More pictures of the resort...
...so pretty!
The huge pirate pool! Each section of the resort also has their own pool.
The kid's section of the pirate pool
The Nemo themed room...two double beds...
dresser and entertainment area...
...a glimpse of part of the bathroom...
...an eating area...
... the bay window of our room...
...and when you open the door of our room...this is what you see.
Now it's time for a little Downtown Disney...the place where they have lots of shops and restaurants.
Grandpa and Isaiah downtown
All the kids in front of either Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum
Isaiah wanted his picture in front of this elephant by the Rain Forest Cafe.
If you love Christmas...you'd love this store. It's decked out for the holidays all year long! We always leave with few new ornaments for our tree. Ava picked out a Tangled ornament and Isaiah wanted the symbolic lamp from the Pixar movies.
Downtown Disney is filled with amazing toy stores. They have giant toys to help decorate the walking paths. Here is a huge display of tinker toys.
The kids posing in front of Daisy and Donald.
This store is a kid's dream!
The kids were playing with the Mr. Potato head display area. They don't play with these at home anymore but they thought this was so cool. Isaiah ended up with a collection of Star Wars Mr. Potato Head pieces.
How cool is this!
Isaiah and Andy building their own Lightsaber.
The ceiling in this store had a huge train track that carries different toys around...the detail with everything at Disney is amazing. Everywhere you look something catches your eye.
Ava with one of her new stuffed animals...a cat from the Aristocats.
A picture of the biggest store there...The World of Disney.
They have statues everywhere...Ava posing with Cinderella...you'll see them with the real Cinderella in other pictures.
Ava and Princess Aurora...aka...Sleeping Beauty
The Lego store is a huge WOW! The next few pictures you will see are displays at Downtown Disney and they are all made of Legos...yes everything is made of those tiny Legos! This one is of Prince Philip in Sleeping Beauty fighting Maleficent as the dragon.
A Lego family
A dragon that is built in the water surrounding downtown
The Seven Dwarfs from Snow White
Snow White kissing Dopey
Buzz and Woody
RC the car from Toy Story
The first restaurant we ate at down there...T-Rex.
This place is similar to the Rain Forest Cafe. It was dark inside and had tons of cool dinosaurs that moved. They also had meteorite showers.
Instead of Build-a-Bear they had Build-a-Dino
Ava with her new dinosaur...Isaiah got a green one...I think he was in the restroom when I took this picture.
The following are pictures I took of the inside decorations...this one was the ceiling by our table.
Eating dinner
The volcano chocolate cake and ice cream dessert. So fun!
The merry-go-round there. The kids had to ride this of course.
Well, this ends chapter one of our trip...our first day. I have over 600 pictures that I will be posting. It's going to take a while so I figured I'll make our trip like a book with chapters...different days or themes for each chapter. So stay tuned for Chapter 2 tomorrow!
My Three Happy's about our first day:
1) Arriving safely and just taking it all in again.
2) Shopping at The World of Disney again...that place has everything you could ever want!
3) Seeing the amazement in Ava and Isaiah's eyes as they saw things from our first trip and found new things they had never seen before.
