Ahhhh, the beach!

As easy as we take it at Disney (compared to most folks), we still truly appreciated the two days at the beach before heading home. We found a public beach about 10 minutes away from the condo and spent all day Saturday there. Wyatt played in the sand with Pop and in the water with Ray-Ray and rested on a lounge chair under the umbrella with Mimi. It was a beautiful beach with lots of shopping and a boardwalk/pier full of fun. We ate dinner at Bubba Gump's and that was a fun restaurant with great food. Rachel, Wyatt and I even headed back to the beach on Sunday morning to squeeze in a little more sun before we had to head to Orlando to catch our flight home.

Madiera Beach is very beautiful and I would definitely go back to that area specifically again. It's about an hour or so away from Orlando and down the beach from Clearwater. I hope the oil stays away from that coast!

Hollywood Studios

So all year long I was planning to take Wyatt to Animal Kingdom this year. Since we go to Disney just about every year, we don't have to plan the marathon full day of park each day kind of thing. Last year we did Magic Kingdom which is still my favorite, but I thought this year he would get a kick out of the animals instead. But these last few months he has really gotten into "Cars" and "Toy Story" movies so I researched Hollywood Studios where these characters can be seen and decided to go there instead.

Yes it is pouring rain, but look how happy he is to see Mater and Lightning

As much as he loves Buzz and Woody, he did not want anything to do with them in person! At least we didn't have to wait in line too long. We were in the right place at the right time and jumped in line right before the character greetings started for the day.

Michael and I went to Hollywood Studios (or MGM as some of us old-schoolers still call it) several years ago and it had completely changed since then to make it much more kid friendly. There are still alot of shows which isn't always so kid friendly, but overall I think it has improved greatly. Since the strain on the economy has slowed down attendance at the parks, there are more limited feature presentations. The finale/fireworks show called Fantasmic only plays on certain nights so I wanted to make sure we went on a night it was shown because Wyatt really likes the Sorcerer's Apprentice cartoon on Fantasia. The other major thing I wanted him to see was the Pixar character Block Party Bash (afternoon parade). Pixar is Disney's CGI animation studio and those are the movies that Wyatt is most familiar with so I knew he would love it!

Well since the Fantasmic show wasn't until Thursday, we waited until then to go to Hollywood Studios. It was by far the crappiest day of weather we had there. All other days were extremely hot...but they were dry. It wasn't too bad until about 3pm when a storm started rolling in and they cancelled the parade. Then it poured rain for about an hour and we were all soaked to the bone. Wyatt fell asleep in his soaked stroller with a dry jacket covering him but when he woke up he was freezing so we had to buy a new outfit which was cute but ridiculously expensive. We stuck it out for the Fantasmic show and the rain ended and we got seated early in the large stadium and relaxed, waiting for the show to begin at dark. Well Wyatt only made it about two minutes into the show until it was too loud and scary for him. I had seen the show several years ago but I did not remember it being so scary. Essentially Mickey is having nightmares about the Disney villians and then he remembers he has power over his dreams and triumphs in the end. Poor Wyatt didn't make it far enough to care that there was a happy ending. Michael took him out of the stadium so Mom and I could watch the rest of the show. We soon met back up and headed back to the hotel. It wasn't the best part of the trip but it sure will be memorable!

other cool places

After the big Mickey dinner on Monday, we relaxed by the pool and went shopping at Downtown Disney where we found this refreshing splash fountain outside the toy store. Wyatt got soaked but it was REALLY hot that day so it felt amazing to cool off like that.

One of our other big plans for the week was a meal at the T-Rex Prehistoric Cafe at Downtown Disney. I saw a video on the Disney website of the inside of this place and thought that Wyatt would love to eat with dinosaurs! BUT...when we stopped in there three days before our reservation, he was TERRIFIED by the animatronic dinosaurs at the entrance to the place. He clung to us and screamed not to go in there. After we left though, he kept asking to go see the dinosaurs. We went back by there the day before our reservation and he was curious but still not comfortable so we just cancelled the reservation. We went back by there one more time before we finished our vacation and not only did he go in...he screamed when we had to LEAVE! We didn't get to eat there but we did get him some plastic play dinosaurs that he loves to play with. This is a very cool restaurant and even though we didn't eat there, I would totally recommend it! We will definitely put this on our list for next time!

This is just the front entrance...the pictures don't do it justice. There is a glowing blue cave room and a monstrous octopus/giant squid thing hanging from the ceiling over the bar. And there is a build-a-dino workshop store too. We did take him in to play in the dig pit and look for buried fossils.

Vacation Recap

Ok so we've been back from vacation for 2 weeks now but I'm just now getting around to posting pictures on here. Michael took Wyatt out for breakfast this morning and unfortunately "sleeping in" for me does not go past 8:30am these days so I thought I'd take advantage of this quiet time.

We actually booked plane tickets for this trip instead of the looooong car ride with a 2 year old...totally worth every penny! And we found that if we extended our vacation by going a day early and staying two days later, the plane tickets were significantly cheaper. Luckily we were able to book one night at Disney's All-Star Resort before we moved to our usual spot, Old Key West. And we were also fortunate enough to be offered the use of a condo at Madeira Beach for the last two nights.

This is our first night there, the All Star Resort was very nice and clean and totally affordable for a Disney Resort. Wyatt showing his happy face and modeling the Mickey towels that welcomed us to our room.

On Sunday we moved over to our regularly scheduled reservation at Disney's Old Key West resort and had some time by the pool and reacquaited ourselves with our "home resort". On Christmas Day (6 MONTHS IN ADVANCE) I booked a character dinner at Chef Mickey's for that Monday night of our vacation. We never did the character meals growing up...there were 3 of us and it would have been tooooo crazy expensive, but since Wyatt is an only child (for now) and spoiled rotten, he is reaping the benefits of his status. So this was everybody's first character meal and it was well worth the money as a true Disney experience. The food was excellent! They have a special section for kids with chicken nuggets, Mickey shaped mac and cheese, french fries, etc...and it was a buffet but I've never seen gourmet food like THAT on a buffett before! The dessert table was way beyond belief as well! Each of the main characters (Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, Pluto) came by to each table in order and spent a few minutes with every kid.

Posing for pictures on the balcony/observation deck of the Contemporary Resort (Cinderella's Castle in the background)