We decided that the best park to start with would be Fantasyland! After all, you can't start a Disney vacation without some Disney magic! And to me, Fantasyland is the most magical! We hopped on our hotel shuttle and headed to the bus parking lot at Disneyworld. We were all super excited and couldn't wait to ride rides and have a ton of family fun! Kian and Ella were really excited. Neither of them had ever been to Disneyworld or Disneyland and they had NO IDEA the type of awesomeness they were in for. I'd been to Disneyland twice (maybe 3 times) before but never Disneyworld and I was jumping out of my skin! My parents went to Disneyworld for their honeymoon, and I pointed out that it was kind of cool that they were coming back with 3 kids. Cute huh? Well, I had no idea that the park was surrounded by water, and that you had to take a ferryboat over! It was a cool surprise! It was so fun to watch Cinderella's Castle get closer and closer! I was in awe of how pretty the castle was! It's much bigger than Sleeping Beauty's Castle at Disneyland. Once we got on land again we got in line to enter the park! We all had these cool cards with a Disney character on them that we had to hand to the people at the entrance, and then you would scan your finger! It was a cool little machine that would light up and spin. It's hard to explain. It was cool, just take my word for it!
We got to the front of the park and stopped to load up on sunscreen and drink some water. Seriously, Florida humidity makes you feel thirsty ALL THE TIME. It's crazy. And then we took a picture in front of the train station and sign that said "Let the Memories Begin!" We then headed onto Main Street which is so cool! It seems bigger to me than Disneyland's Main Street and there was so much to look at! I could spend all day on Main Street, it's just so cute! We took some pictures and then headed toward the castle! I had to get some shots of the kids in front of the castle! What I LOVE about the castle is they are always playing a Disney song around the castle and almost every time we walked by, it was the theme from "UP." Kian and Ella couldn't wait to explore the park and look at the castle as close as they possibly could without going inside it (because you can't during the day). We looked at the wishing well and threw in some coins, and then waited in line to meet Merida from Brave. But after about 10 minutes the kids decided they wanted to go on rides instead. So, we went over to Peter Pan's Flight! The kids loved that one. They liked how we got to ride in a ship and go up in the air! The ride broke down for a minute or so, but then we kept flying! Actually, a lot of rides broke down while we were there. And by a lot I mean, like, 4. That's probably not that big of a deal considering how many people were at Disneyworld in August! TONS. Anyway, after that we looked around and went over to the new part of Fantasyland where they have Belle's cottage, Beast's castle, and Gaston's Tavern. It's really cute they've done with that area! They also built an Ariel ride and Prince Eric's castle in the distance. They were still working on the Snow White mining ride, but from the pictures I saw, it looked like once it was finished, it was going to be a blast! We ate some lunch at Pinocchio's Village Haus (which had yummy gluten free mac 'n cheese by the way) and relaxed for a bit. I was really impressed by the way they handled my allergies in all of the parks. I thought I was going to have a hard time finding any food to eat and that I would have to bring my own snacks, but I was delighted to find out that there were quite a few gluten free options! It made my experience less stressful! We went to Liberty Square, which is really cute. They don't have liberty square at Disneyland. It's modeled like 18th century America and all of the buildings are just so cool. Plus there were guys ringing hand bells with tricorne hats on. It was cool. We went on the Haunted Mansion (on of my favorite rides) and had a blast. Kian seemed a tad bit spooked but had fun in the end I think. We also tried on some hats and bought some mickey ears! We then went over to Frontierland, my favorite! The kids shot old rifles and we watched Country Bear Jamboree. It's a classic. We of course had to go on Splash Mountain! I fully expected the kids to not want to go, but to my amazement, they wanted to ride it! I didn't ride it until I was in 8th grade. Maybe I'm just a wuss? Ella LOVED it. And Kian did it, but he didn't want to do it a second time! I was really proud of him for even going in the first place though! Ella wanted to do it 60 more times. We tried to get on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad but couldn't get a fast pass, so we decided to ride it the next time we came to Fantasyland on our last day at the parks. We absolutely had to go on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride! Kian and Ella were both so stoked for that one! I think it's safe to say that it was Kian's favorite of all the rides! Ella loved being in the boat! It was cool to see how they added Captain Jack to the animatronics! Every time I'd been on the ride in the past, they didn't have him! Towards the end of the night we snagged THE PERFECT spot for the light parade, but it got cancelled because of thunder! We were so sad! It was seriously the perfect spot, right in front of the castle. But we got to see the fireworks show, which was SPECTACULAR! If you've never seen a fireworks show at a Disney park, then you don't know what fireworks shows are all about! The cool thing is they played videos ON the castle and lit it all up. I wish so badly that I had a picture of this, but by the end of the night my phone was always dead from taking pictures all day! We certainly wore ourselves out our first day and our feet were killing us by the time the park closed! Needless to say, we all slept hard when we got back to the hotel. Except for me, because my parents snore!
View from the ferryboat
Ariel ride
Main Street
Our perfect parade seats
Entrance
All lit up
View from the train station!
Pirate mickey ears! Cute boy
Silly girl!
Castle
Cute boy looking out at the main street
Goofy!
Wishing well!
Side of the castle
Cute girl looking at the view!
Gaston's Tavern
Love Main street
Love this one!
Main Street stores at night
Walt Disney statue
Tangled area!
