Our week in Disney!

We're home! We spent 6 days in the most magical place on Earth! We also discovered that 6 days is a looong time to be at WDW with kids.... :)

We left last Saturday and made great time. We checked in at Port Orleans Riverside a little after 5:00. Check-in was a breeze because we used online check-in. All we had to do was give them our name and they had all of our things ready for us! We ate at our hotel the first night and it was pretty good. We had the dining plan, so it was free!

We got up the next morning and headed to Epcot. Test Track only had a 20 minute wait and we missed it last time so we got in line. We took Austin with us and he HATED it. That was the start of many meltdowns on rides. We discovered Austin is not a thrill seeker! The next day he wanted to do Splash Mountain. He was jumping up and down and all excited. Then, we went down that first little drop. That was the end of that! He was crying the rest of the way and really came unglued on the last drop! We tried to take him on Big Thunder Mountain since he had been talking about it for months but he started to freak out in the line so Brett's stepdad took him back down. We got on It's a Small World after that and I guess he was thinking there would be a big drop so he whimpered the whole way through that one! He hated anything in the dark. He had also talked about Star Tours for weeks, but cried and screamed all through that one too! Before we got on that one we had signed him up for Jedi training. When we got off the ride, they were doing one of the shows. He saw Darth Vader and started to get nervous. He told Brett he didn't want to do it. Brett talked to him and told him he didn't have to, but it would be a lot of fun. He finally decided to do it. We went back to the hotel for naps (oh and so I could change out of the shorts I was wearing when Logan pooped in my lap!) Brett and I went back and rode the scary rides (with no wait!) and my inlaws brought them back later. Austin was pumped for Jedi training by then. He did great! He looked a little nervous with Vader came out but when it was his turn to fight him, he did it! We were so proud! We let him build his own lightsaber at the gift shop for being so brave!

Another thing we discovered is although they say September is the least crowded time to go, there is ALWAYS a crowd at WDW! I hate crowds so I was excited about having the parks to ourselves, but unfortunalty we did not! I was always nervous we would lose Austin in a crowd. The wait time on rides wasn't that bad, thank goodness! It seemed like there was a lot of familes with little ones and older people so maybe they just skipped the big rides. The wait for the Toy Story ride at the Studios was still an hour long everytime we checked though! We had never ridden it and had heard awesome things about it so when it got down to 40 minutes (about an hour before the park closed!), we decided to tough it out. It was great! We only got to ride once though. Besides that, we pretty much walked onto rides. Splash Mountain had a 30 minute wait the last day we were there, but I think that was because Big Thunder Mountain was closed for repairs. It opened back up right before we left for the day. The wait for the Mt. Everest ride was 30 too but that's probably because it's the best ride at Animal Kingdom! In fact, we did that and the safari and left! I'm not a huge fan of Animal Kingdom! We also discovered after a Summer of crowds, a lot of the rides aren't in tip top shape! They got stuck a lot and some of the animatronics weren't working.

Our hotel was pretty crowded too. It was the cheapest hotel you could stay at and get the free dining plan, so we think maybe that was why. The pool was always crowded. We got to swim one day but the boys had to stay by the stairs the whole time because there were so many people there. We always had the longest line to ride the bus at our stop. Most of the time, it was standing room only. All of the other hotel bus stops would only have a few people. The dining room was always crowded too.

Like I said, 6 days was a long time to be there with kids. I don't think I would suggest that to families with preschoolers! They offer a 5 day hopper with the 6th day free so thats why we did it. Logan got pretty fussy and Austin kept asking to go back to the hotel. By the end of the 5th day, I was a zombie! I felt like I could fall asleep at any time! On our last day, Epcot had Extra Magic Hours so we wanted to stay late but we ended up leaving about 9:30.

We had fun, but we learned a few things for sure! Brett wants to check into getting a cabin at their campgrounds next time we go. We're thinking we may wait a while before we go back! We want to have another baby and have it potty trained! :)