Disney World!!!

Although it took a while to recover from the trauma of the train ride down, Disney did NOT disappoint.  Bad weather and all!

We stayed at Coronado Springs Resort.  I had won a free night there through Magic for Less Travel and I could not have been more pleased with the resort.  It was HUGE.  When we arrived and checked in, bell services got our bags, check in was super fast and then bell services took us by golf cart to our room.  Which was a good thing because after 19 hours on a train, all I wanted to do was get to our room and change in to clean clothes!

The theming of the resort is southwestern and just beyond beautiful.  I've stayed at a lot of Disney resorts but this was our first moderate resort and I do believe we will stay here again.  Our first day (although 3/4 over by the time we arrived), we went to Magic Kingdom because it was open until midnight.  So after getting to our room and doing a quick freshening up, we ran to the bus stop which was fairly close to our room and hopped the bus to Magic Kingdom.  It drizzled a little bit but we were just so happy to be there that it didn't matter.  We ran like crazy people from 6 p.m. until midnight.  I don't know how we were still walking at that point but we slept very well that night!

We slept in a little the next day and didn't get up until 8:30.  Then we sort of just rolled out of bed and decided to not hit the parks right away but to go for a swim.  I am so glad that we did.  The pool was amazing.  There was a great water slide and after 15 minutes of trying to convince Michael to try it, it was a chore to get him to get off of it and leave! I'm not going to lie to you, I went down about 5 times myself before finally letting myself sit in a lounge chair and just enjoy the sunshine while relaxing.

After a quick lunch up at the main building, we went back to our room to shower and change and then caught the bus to Hollywood Studios - which was also open until midnight that night!  What I soon learned about my young son was that he is a thrill ride enthusiast!  I was hoping for a little less enthusiasm but he just loved it all so much that I had no choice but to let him take the lead.  We rode Tower of Terror twice and Rock N Roller Coaster twice.  My favorite ride was Toy Story's Midway Mania - which I made him ride.  Twice.  LOL!

We ate at Pizza Planet, we shopped, we ran all over the park and yet even with all of the time that we had, we missed a lot of things because they did not stay open all day.  I was a little disappointed but the things that we missed were trivial and the stuff that we did do was awesome.  We did leave the park by 11 p.m. and were fine with it.  Back in the room we realized that our trip was almost over and we'd have to check out in the morning.  I was so sad that it was so short!

We were up at 6:00 a.m. and out of the room with bell services taking our bags by 7:10.  By 7:20 we were completely checked out and at 7:30 we were boarding the bus to Epcot that had early morning extra magic hours so we could be in the park by 8:00 a.m.  

What hit me immediately when the gates opened was that there were no photographers.  I was a little alarmed but figured it was because of the early hour.  Well, when the park opened to the public, I still could not find one.  Now I'm mad AND disappointed because we had gotten our picture done in the other parks and I wanted one done in Epcot!  By 11:00 it was looking pretty gray out and by 11:10 it was raining.  I thought it was just that quick Florida rain but that was not the case.  By noon it was a full-blown storm with thunder, lightening and severe winds!  Luckily we had our emergency ponchos and although the weather slowed us up, we still were able to do almost everything.  Michael even rode Mission Space alone because I was too chicken to do it!

Except getting my picture with the Beast.  It's too upsetting to even talk about.

On our way out of the park at 3:30, we FINALLY found a photographer.  He got some shots of us and that slightly made me feel better.  We took a round trip tour on the monorail and headed back to the resort to pick up dinner and snacks for the ride home and to wait for our town car.

Can I plan my next trip now???