Showing posts with label Magic Kingdom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Magic Kingdom. Show all posts
Saturday, 1 March 2014
140-Disney-Character 'Ultimate Tweet' Announces All-Night Disney Side Pa...
Disney has announced another 24 hr kick off to summer! I was excited to realize that we will be at the house for this amazing event. I asked our kids if they wanted to spend 24 hrs at the Magic Kingdom and received a very definite YES. We will try and post some live updates from the park on our Twitter account and put an event report here on the blog. Now do I dress up as a hero or a villain?
Thursday, 29 August 2013
What do you mean the kids go back to School next week!
I can't believe how fast the summer has flown by. The last post I wrote I told you all about how busy we were during our 2 weeks in Florida. What I don't want to do is leave the impression that our visit was all work and no play! We did manage to squeeze in some fun. So without a big into a summary of our FUN!
Well I will say that Windsor Palms itself provided tons of fun for the family. The kids wanted to try out everything. They didn't manage to do that but they did do a lot. The resort pool was a big attraction. I would have thought with their own pool at home they wouldn't be that interested, but I was wrong. For Sarah the big draw was other girls. She managed to make a new friend every time we went up there. Both kids had to check out the hot tub, they thought it was to hot, I thought it was amazing!
Since we knew this would be a working vacation we let the kids have a little fun we might not have done otherwise. We let them go a little crazy with the arcade games. Christian had tons of fun racing cars and Sarah found every game that gave a prize, and she wasn't shy if the machine didn't cough up what she was owed. Off she'd run to the concierge to get what was due to her. There was also ping pong and pool tables but we didn't get to that.
The next big adventure was booking a movie in the theatre. The kids poured over the selections and settled on Bolt, the regular version, not the 3D version. Neither of our kids are wild about 3D movies for some reason. The told the concierge and he put it into the computer for the next day and later that night we looked on the TV at the community channel and there was their movie on the screen! They thought this was great. So the next morning we headed up and they went to their movie and I headed to the gym. I managed to squeeze in that one workout. Not my normal routine but better than nothing at all.
We wanted to try our hands at tennis or basket ball or volley ball but time did not permit. We saw lots of other people enjoying the amenities though and that is great to see.
I told you about our trip to LEGOLAND so I won't bore you with another recap of that adventure. We also went to Mini golf, the exact name of the one we actually went to is escaping me right now as it wasn't the one we were planning to go to. The good thing that came out of that miss direction was that they had some baby Alligators and for a mere $3 the kids got to feed them, which was a big hit.
My cousin and his family came to stay for the last few days and it was a great distraction for the kids. They'd never met these cousins as they live far away so it was fun for them. And it was great that they weren't complaining about how bored they were. We had planned to hit Disney, Magic Kingdom to be specific during our second week but we were so busy we didn't think we'd be able to do it. So as a surprise for the kids we extended our trip by a day and booked a night at the Caribbean Beach Resort.
So we got our tickets (park hopper passes for the first time) and headed to Epcot, met up with Mickey, hung out with Figment (Sarah's favourite) and went to school with Nemo. We then checked into our hotel, cleaned up, left the car and headed over to the Magic Kingdom. Toby and I were so tired I think we fell asleep waiting for the bus and on the bus (to and from the parks, we were good if we were moving). We first headed to New Fantasyland and I must say it is impressive. We got our fast passes for Under the Sea with Ariel, which was a great ride. The animatronics are pretty impressive. The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train is an immense presence and I can't wait to see it finished. Another first was seeing the Electric Parade at Walt Disney World and seeing Wishes fireworks! It was an action packed and very long day.
In the morning we had some breakfast and then let the kids burn of some steam at the pool before the very long drive home. In addition to all the above fun we also got to meet our Property Managers, John and Elizabeth and our Realtor Shaun. After talking and emailing Shaun for over a year and a half it was great to finally meet!
In the end the kids told us it wasn't the 3rd worst vacation ever, it had moved down and was now the 6th or 7th worst. Next time can only be more fun! Thanks for stopping by. I hope to update the blog with upcoming events in the area and any changes to the property. Enjoy your long weekend!
Well I will say that Windsor Palms itself provided tons of fun for the family. The kids wanted to try out everything. They didn't manage to do that but they did do a lot. The resort pool was a big attraction. I would have thought with their own pool at home they wouldn't be that interested, but I was wrong. For Sarah the big draw was other girls. She managed to make a new friend every time we went up there. Both kids had to check out the hot tub, they thought it was to hot, I thought it was amazing!
Since we knew this would be a working vacation we let the kids have a little fun we might not have done otherwise. We let them go a little crazy with the arcade games. Christian had tons of fun racing cars and Sarah found every game that gave a prize, and she wasn't shy if the machine didn't cough up what she was owed. Off she'd run to the concierge to get what was due to her. There was also ping pong and pool tables but we didn't get to that.
The next big adventure was booking a movie in the theatre. The kids poured over the selections and settled on Bolt, the regular version, not the 3D version. Neither of our kids are wild about 3D movies for some reason. The told the concierge and he put it into the computer for the next day and later that night we looked on the TV at the community channel and there was their movie on the screen! They thought this was great. So the next morning we headed up and they went to their movie and I headed to the gym. I managed to squeeze in that one workout. Not my normal routine but better than nothing at all.
We wanted to try our hands at tennis or basket ball or volley ball but time did not permit. We saw lots of other people enjoying the amenities though and that is great to see.
I told you about our trip to LEGOLAND so I won't bore you with another recap of that adventure. We also went to Mini golf, the exact name of the one we actually went to is escaping me right now as it wasn't the one we were planning to go to. The good thing that came out of that miss direction was that they had some baby Alligators and for a mere $3 the kids got to feed them, which was a big hit.
My cousin and his family came to stay for the last few days and it was a great distraction for the kids. They'd never met these cousins as they live far away so it was fun for them. And it was great that they weren't complaining about how bored they were. We had planned to hit Disney, Magic Kingdom to be specific during our second week but we were so busy we didn't think we'd be able to do it. So as a surprise for the kids we extended our trip by a day and booked a night at the Caribbean Beach Resort.
So we got our tickets (park hopper passes for the first time) and headed to Epcot, met up with Mickey, hung out with Figment (Sarah's favourite) and went to school with Nemo. We then checked into our hotel, cleaned up, left the car and headed over to the Magic Kingdom. Toby and I were so tired I think we fell asleep waiting for the bus and on the bus (to and from the parks, we were good if we were moving). We first headed to New Fantasyland and I must say it is impressive. We got our fast passes for Under the Sea with Ariel, which was a great ride. The animatronics are pretty impressive. The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train is an immense presence and I can't wait to see it finished. Another first was seeing the Electric Parade at Walt Disney World and seeing Wishes fireworks! It was an action packed and very long day.
In the morning we had some breakfast and then let the kids burn of some steam at the pool before the very long drive home. In addition to all the above fun we also got to meet our Property Managers, John and Elizabeth and our Realtor Shaun. After talking and emailing Shaun for over a year and a half it was great to finally meet!
In the end the kids told us it wasn't the 3rd worst vacation ever, it had moved down and was now the 6th or 7th worst. Next time can only be more fun! Thanks for stopping by. I hope to update the blog with upcoming events in the area and any changes to the property. Enjoy your long weekend!
Tuesday, 23 July 2013
A Visit to Legoland
I haven't posted in what feels like a long time. We've made our way to Florida and we're hanging out at the house. We are exploring Windsor Palms so we can share with everyone everything the resort has to offer. I was talking to one of the guards at the gatehouse and he was telling me that it's rained here every day for over a month. I checked the weather network and today it was not supposed to rain so we decided to check out LEGOLAND.
Our 7 year old is crazy about Lego, and I mean crazy. If he could he would play with Lego all the time and would own every Lego set ever made, especially Star Wars. Luckily our 10 year old daughter also likes Lego, she though is more of a collector. She has a lot of sets but her prised possession is her Lego Harry Potter sets, she has built them all and has them on display-not much playing happens with them.
So this trip is our first since LEGOLAND opened. We have seen coupons in the Lego Club magazine in the past for a free kids admission with an adult admission, but since the LEGOLAND discovery centre in Vaughn opened I haven't seen any. My brother in law sent some to us on his last trip down in the mail, but they seem to have vanished so this morning we set out on a mission to find some on our own. You can find on line savings but not as good as the one I mentioned above. We stopped at a tourist centre on the way and they also have discounts that allow you to visit a second time within the 7 days following your visit but we knew we wouldn't be able to take advantage of that. The employees at the tourist office said that they had heard of some coupons on Pepsi bottles and at McDonalds. So off we went to find a McDonalds. Our second stop was the McDonalds within a mile of LEGOLAND itself and we got the coupons and not only did we get the buy an Adult admission get a child's admission free but it also included entrance to the water park which we wanted to do! We had some extras which we will leave at the house for others to take advantage of.
The park itself was not overly crowded, I'm not sure if that's because it's a weekday or because it's been raining so much. We weren't about to complain though, the only ride we waited more than 10 minutes for was the dragon roller coaster. It did manage to rain a couple of times but that was okay as we were already soaking wet. The new Legends of Chima area was fun, a splash pad and a boat ride that sees you spraying others with water and getting wet yourself. The signs say you MAY get soaked, it should have said you WILL get soaked. We didn't dry off until we after we made our way to the water park and intentionally got wet. The ride was fun, but I would save it until right before I went to the water park or right before I was going to leave.
LEGOLAND is definitely geared toward the 2-12 crowd with a few bigger rides to keep the older kids and adults interested. Our kids definitely had fun and with the water park it was a full day. I think you could make it a full day without the water park (especially in the months the water park is closed) if you took in some of the shows which we did not get to see. The water park is not big but it was a great way to cool off and what is there is great. A good wave pool and the joker soaker had lots for the younger kids and adults alike to do. Overall we had a great time, I would only have a few comments about things to be aware of. If you've been to Disney World, this is not Disney. Often the rides loaded slowly even when the line was short and staff didn't always seem to know what they were doing. Every time it rained everything shut down, even if there was no visible lightning. Food pricing was reasonable for a theme park, still too much for what it is though and I would recommend avoiding the fried chicken.
There is lots of Lego merchandise (LOTS)and they do NOT accept the Lego VIP card, which is not great if you collect points or have points to redeem. The kids had their own money to spend but we told them to wait until we went to the Downtown Disney Lego Store to buy anything big because they have points saved that they can redeem. It's a good thing to be aware of.
We enjoyed our day and the kids came home tired and happy. I would recommend it to anyone with a Lego lover in the 2-12 age range. But keep your eyes out for coupons or specials, even with our 2 for 1 coupons it was still $200 for admission. If you have been to LEGOLAND and have any other advise for people leave a comment and if you want to go to LEGOLAND and have a question, ask and I'll do my best to answer. Thanks for stopping by and hopefully I'll have some more posts during this visit. Next up are home reno updates and a stop by Magic Kingdom and New Fantasyland.
Our 7 year old is crazy about Lego, and I mean crazy. If he could he would play with Lego all the time and would own every Lego set ever made, especially Star Wars. Luckily our 10 year old daughter also likes Lego, she though is more of a collector. She has a lot of sets but her prised possession is her Lego Harry Potter sets, she has built them all and has them on display-not much playing happens with them.
So this trip is our first since LEGOLAND opened. We have seen coupons in the Lego Club magazine in the past for a free kids admission with an adult admission, but since the LEGOLAND discovery centre in Vaughn opened I haven't seen any. My brother in law sent some to us on his last trip down in the mail, but they seem to have vanished so this morning we set out on a mission to find some on our own. You can find on line savings but not as good as the one I mentioned above. We stopped at a tourist centre on the way and they also have discounts that allow you to visit a second time within the 7 days following your visit but we knew we wouldn't be able to take advantage of that. The employees at the tourist office said that they had heard of some coupons on Pepsi bottles and at McDonalds. So off we went to find a McDonalds. Our second stop was the McDonalds within a mile of LEGOLAND itself and we got the coupons and not only did we get the buy an Adult admission get a child's admission free but it also included entrance to the water park which we wanted to do! We had some extras which we will leave at the house for others to take advantage of.
The park itself was not overly crowded, I'm not sure if that's because it's a weekday or because it's been raining so much. We weren't about to complain though, the only ride we waited more than 10 minutes for was the dragon roller coaster. It did manage to rain a couple of times but that was okay as we were already soaking wet. The new Legends of Chima area was fun, a splash pad and a boat ride that sees you spraying others with water and getting wet yourself. The signs say you MAY get soaked, it should have said you WILL get soaked. We didn't dry off until we after we made our way to the water park and intentionally got wet. The ride was fun, but I would save it until right before I went to the water park or right before I was going to leave.
LEGOLAND is definitely geared toward the 2-12 crowd with a few bigger rides to keep the older kids and adults interested. Our kids definitely had fun and with the water park it was a full day. I think you could make it a full day without the water park (especially in the months the water park is closed) if you took in some of the shows which we did not get to see. The water park is not big but it was a great way to cool off and what is there is great. A good wave pool and the joker soaker had lots for the younger kids and adults alike to do. Overall we had a great time, I would only have a few comments about things to be aware of. If you've been to Disney World, this is not Disney. Often the rides loaded slowly even when the line was short and staff didn't always seem to know what they were doing. Every time it rained everything shut down, even if there was no visible lightning. Food pricing was reasonable for a theme park, still too much for what it is though and I would recommend avoiding the fried chicken.
There is lots of Lego merchandise (LOTS)and they do NOT accept the Lego VIP card, which is not great if you collect points or have points to redeem. The kids had their own money to spend but we told them to wait until we went to the Downtown Disney Lego Store to buy anything big because they have points saved that they can redeem. It's a good thing to be aware of.
We enjoyed our day and the kids came home tired and happy. I would recommend it to anyone with a Lego lover in the 2-12 age range. But keep your eyes out for coupons or specials, even with our 2 for 1 coupons it was still $200 for admission. If you have been to LEGOLAND and have any other advise for people leave a comment and if you want to go to LEGOLAND and have a question, ask and I'll do my best to answer. Thanks for stopping by and hopefully I'll have some more posts during this visit. Next up are home reno updates and a stop by Magic Kingdom and New Fantasyland.
Sunday, 14 October 2012
My New "List"!
It's just a quite Sunday morning here. It's been raining and we have lots of work going on outside that isn't getting done because of it! I thought I'd take the opportunity to make a new "list". For those of you that don't know me I have for as long as I can remember been a big Mickey Mouse fan. I still wear a t-shirt I got on my first visit to Walt Disney World circa 1986. Since then I've managed to take my husband and 2 kids and converted them into Disney lovers (not that that is hard). This whole journey we are on to buy the vacation home in Kissimmee will just enable us to visit Disney World just a little more often and hopefully help others do the same.
Now onto my new "list". I thought I would make a list of things that I want to do at Disney World. Truth be told I would love to visit all the Disney parks around the world but that is a loftier goal. We have been to Disneyland (minus our youngest who wasn't born yet), but their is still Paris and Tokyo and a few Cruise ships left to discover. Okay enough rambling and back to the list. This list is by no means exhaustive. My list is in no particular order.
Thanks for stopping by and reading my "list". I'm going to see what work I can get accomplished today. I might even take a trip the the Halloween store, one kid is taken care of but still have one more costume to go. Take care!
Now onto my new "list". I thought I would make a list of things that I want to do at Disney World. Truth be told I would love to visit all the Disney parks around the world but that is a loftier goal. We have been to Disneyland (minus our youngest who wasn't born yet), but their is still Paris and Tokyo and a few Cruise ships left to discover. Okay enough rambling and back to the list. This list is by no means exhaustive. My list is in no particular order.
- See Wishes fireworks display at Magic Kingdom (MK)
- Main Street Electric Parade (MK)
- Have the kids join the Pirates League (MK)
- Have a Dole Whip
- Attend Mickey's Not so Scary Halloween Party (MK)
- Attend Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party (MK)
- Star Wars weekends at Disney Hollywood Studios (DHS)
- Osbourne Spectacle of Lights (DHS)
- See all the stage shows in the parks (So far The Festival of the Lion King at Animal Kingdom is my favourite)
- Visit a Disney Water Park for the day
- Go on the Tower of Terror (DHS)
- Go on Rock 'n' Roller Coaster (DHS)
- Attend the Food and Wine Festival at Epcot (E)
- Play Agent P's world showcase adventure (E)
- Dinner theatre somewhere in The World
- Stay in a Deluxe resort (we visited all of them but never stayed)
- Have one of the fantastic cupcakes I see pictures of everywhere
- Take my daughter to the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique one more time before she decides she's "too old" for it.
Thanks for stopping by and reading my "list". I'm going to see what work I can get accomplished today. I might even take a trip the the Halloween store, one kid is taken care of but still have one more costume to go. Take care!
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