As a kid, all of my immediate and extended family would make an annual camping trip to Fort Wilderness in Orlando. Our family is pretty big since my mom is 1 of 8 and I’m the 3rd oldest out of 20 grandkids. Needless to say…family camping trips were a great adventure, always something happening and someone to pal around with.
Most times we would stay at the campground, go to the pools, enjoy the campfire movie nights with smores, play hide and seek on the golf carts with walkie talkies (that was THE BEST!), jump on the bus to Downtown Disney (now Disney Springs), ride the ferry boat to the contemporary where we would play at the arcade, watch the Magic Kingdom fireworks and of course ride the monorail around several times. On the most special trips, we would splurge and go to the parks! It was always memorable and despite the lines, still the happiest place on earth.
The most recent time Jon and I went to Disney was right after we got engaged, 6 years ago! We went to photograph engagement photos for two of our sweet friends! Since then, we’ve talked about getting passes once the boys were a little older and felt that Liam’s 4th birthday would be the perfect time to get them! We grabbed the 4 day passes and over the next couple months, spread out the dates we planned on going. The day after Liam’s 4th birthday, we told him we were going somewhere really special but kept it a surprise until we started seeing the Mickey signs and Mickey shaped telephone pole! He was ecstatic! I’m going to share about our trip to Magic Kingdom in between the photos along with some tips and things we learned about taking two kids to Disney! Enjoy a mix of iPhone and DSLR photos!
Liam really enjoyed the Tram!! He kept asking Landon, “Are you excited like me?!” Disney Tip: SUNSCREEN. You’ll need it forsure. Especially if you have pastey-white kiddos…or fair skin 🙂 We brought two different kinds just in case we needed extra and wore hats! Disney Tip: Liam got a 1st Visit Pin and a Happy Birthday Pin. We stuck them both on his hat and people told him Happy Birthday the entire day! He felt so special!I just love Mainstreet! Disney Tip: We chose to bring the double stroller because Landon is getting quite heavy and I knew I wouldn’t be able to carry him in the Tula all day, plus both of them took turns napping in the stroller, not to mention the extra space we had to put snacks, drinks, diaper bag etc.He tried SO hard to get the sword out of the stone! Check out that concentration!! haha! ALSO…to the left you’ll see the large amount of stroller parking. We brought a smaller bag to take our wallets/phones and camera on rides with us and left everything else in the stroller. That definitely helped lighten the load!Disney Tip: We used the My Disney Experience App to grab our fast passes for some of the more popular rides we knew would have a long wait. It made a world of difference and we basically just walked onto each ride (or waited no more than 5 minutes). Once our first three fast passes were up, we were able to add 1 at a time after that! The first ride we rode was Dumbo! Disney Tip: Pack your own lunch and bring plenty of snacks!! As everyone knows, Disney is expensive so if you were to buy multiple meals throughout the day, a trip to Disney would get significantly more steep in price. I will say we bought Dinner that night and shared everything we ordered. We also didn’t buy soda but brought a bunch of waters and grabbed some icewaters from Starbucks after splurging on coffee..a must have at Disney for us. 🙂
We stopped in some shade and sat on the wall to eat our PB&J’s while a marching band walked by!In the middle of the day, it started getting hot (can you tell by Jon’s face?), thankfully ‘It’s A Small World’ was next on our fast pass list! While Landon slept through one of the most relaxing rides, Liam enjoyed every second of it!While we were waiting for our next fast pass time to come up, we waited in the quick moving line for the People Mover! Definitely a fun one to take the kiddos on. Landon was still snoozing for most of the ride. So handsome!There he is! Rise and Shine buddy!hehe! Had to include this one of Jon mid-sneeze! He was taking a timelapse video and tried so hard to stay still haha!Disney Tip: Mama’s who are nursing, need a quiet place to feed your babe, or need a nicer place to change your little one, there is a building to the left after you walk down Main Street, there’s a room with rocking chairs and AC (Praise the Lord!) and a little kitchen you can buy baby food and highchairs you can borrow to feed your babe!! Some mama friends told me about it and it was a game changer!Balloons… you guys. I just love these so much…for pictures sake. BUT. They are $13 dollars per balloon!! (Please someone tell me if I heard that wrong!) But no thank you! Balloons won’t be the item we splurge on at Disney haha! However… I had Liam stand near them for photos and it worked out perfectly!Little stud muffin.The parades!!! I definitely recommend getting a good seat and enjoying them! Liam hasn’t most of the Disney movies that these characters are from, but I really enjoyed it while Jon cooled off in Starbucks with Landon.I’m pretty sure this prince waved at me!! hahah!High-ho, High-ho, it’s off to work we go!Liam got so excited when he saw Mickey and Minnie in the hot air balloon float!Disney Tip: I did bring my professional camera this trip because it was their first time and I really wanted to document it well! However, it was extra work having to lug a heavy camera around. I will probably stick with my iPhone and take advantage of the photographers all around the park and just pay for pictures if I really want something more high quality than my iPhone. I brought one lens for my camera, the 35mm because I knew I wanted to get wide shots of the castle and surrounding.
Now, time for some family photos! 🙂 We tickle our kids to make them smile muahaha!Real life! I don’t think we got a picture of the two of them smiling at the same time lol. When my camera was put away, we saw a proposal happen!!! I grabbed it out right after! So smart of him to do it while they were getting their photo taken!YAY! Congratulations!! Typical. Liam loves being close to Landon.I’m excited for the day when we can take the boys on Splash Mountain!I got to take Liam on his first roller coaster ride, The Barnstormer!He was super eager to get on and had the biggest smile on his face right before the ride started! He was pretty nervous at different points of the ride but at the end he said he wanted to ride again..and then said, “That wasn’t my favorite (pronounced fa-vert) It was a little scary”. So it’s still up in the air whether he will be a roller coaster lover yet.Happy Boy!! and my cutie Hubby!Turning 4 means gaining confidence to talk to the ladies. hahaThe second parade we saw was so cool because some of the characters got off their floats and danced with everyone!Love all the colors!! And the castle was the perfect backdrop!Once it started getting dark.. we knew it only meant one thing…It was time for…ICECREAM!I really liked the girl who made our desserts.She piled on the good stuff!!!Disney Tip: Grab Ice-cream or another snack a little while before fireworks so you can scout out your spot to get a good view. Then, stay there if you can because it fills up FAST and noone is allowed in the walkway! Now for several of my favorite firework photos! Disney will always have one of the best firework shows I’ve ever seen!Thankfully we were back far enough so that the boys weren’t too nervous about the loud sounds. They both seemed to enjoy it! It was an absolutely magical day! Disney Tip: Go to the bathroom before you leave the park. We totally forgot about how long it takes to leave the park after fireworks. You’ve got to wait in the line for the monorail that will take you to the line for the tram that will THEN take you to your car! By the time we got to the car, it was time for Landon to eat again! However, most everyone in the lines were nice and friendly. Just forget about all personal space and you’ll be fine! Can’t wait for our next adventure!! I’ll be sharing about our Animal Kingdom adventure next so keep an eye out!
