*NEW BLOG SERIES!* Trip Report Tuesday - WDW Day 1

Welcome to my NEW BLOG SERIES, Trip Report Tuesday!  As many of you know, we recently returned from a 17-day Walt Disney World vaca!  During this trip I took over 6,000 photos, my girls each snapped away on their cameras, and my hubby captured hours of video.  Since there's far too much Disney goodness to share in a single post, I decided that each Tuesday for the next 17 weeks I'll be sharing the magical details from one day of the trip.  We spent 10 days in the Disney Parks and 7 days enjoying Disney fun and entertainment outside of the Parks.  I can hardly wait to share it with you!  

Day 1 - Thursday, September 19, 2013

"Surprise!"

Our girls thought we were leaving on Saturday morning.  Have I mentioned that we LOVE surprises at our house?  Our Disney countdown chain still had 3 rings left on it, each of which the girls had plans for. {They took turns ripping off each ring, and the order was very important to them.}   My husband, Jason, woke the kiddos, asking them to tear off the ring for that day before he left for work.  The sun hadn't come up yet, but they didn't question why they needed to.  Our sleepy beauties made their way to the living room and over to the chain of anticipation.  He asked, "Wouldn't it be great if we could just rip a chain and it would make us a day closer to our trip?"  They agreed, but would be shocked by what was coming next!  He ripped one off, then added, "And what if we ripped another?"  He proceeded to do so.  The girls looked stunned, confused, and frankly a little upset because he was destroying their well thought out countdown.  Little One exclaimed, "What are you doing, daddy?!"  He replied, "We may as well rip off the last ring too, because we're going TODAY!"  That's right, we were leaving in 20 minutes!  I'm not sure when I've ever seen them more excited!  It was definitely a magical start to our Disney Day!

About the time the girls thought they'd be hitting the books, we were hitting the sky!

And away we go!  

We begin each trip with a celebratory snapshot at Disney's EarPort store {at the airport, of course!}

The dream that she wished came true.

Way back when Disney first announced their plans for building the Art of Animation Resort, Princess was over the moon (or under the sea?) about the fact that they were creating The Little Mermaid themed rooms.  This has always been her favorite Disney animated movie.  Although, we'd decided to stay at Disney's Port Orleans Riverside for the majority of our trip, we had to spend our first night at Art of Animation as a treat for Princess.  Or at least she thought it would be just for one night ...next Tuesday you'll find that we had another surprise in store for her!

The Little Mermaid section of Disney's Art of Animation Resort

More about this and the other themes throughout the resort in next week's Trip Report!

The who's-it's and what's-it's of our Little Mermaid Room...

After checking in, we checked out the Landscape of Flavors food court.

Jason and Princess enjoyed Create-Your-Own Pasta, I opted for a Create-Your-Own Burger, and Little One chose a chicken drumstick kid's meal.  

After satisfying our appetite for food, we headed to the Ink and Paint Shop to quench our thirst for Disney shopping!  The bright, playful palate fit our mood perfectly!

Disney shopping is an art!  We enjoyed brushing up on what was new in Disney merch.  Obviously their new candy boxes caught my eye immediately!  Chocolate anyone?

New Friends.

In The Big Blue Pool... 

I'm gonna go explore

In the big blue world pool

That I've never seen before

So many creatures

Swimming 'round the sea

In the big blue world pool

And all of them are waiting for me!

One of the things I'd never seen before in the big blue world pool was their sound system!  They have speakers in the pool, playing music that you can only hear under water! As Crush would say it was "totally sweet"!


Later we swam back to our room for a relaxing end to a magical day...

Much more on our thoughts of Disney's Art of Animation Resort in an upcoming resort review!


Hope you'll be back to hear about Day 2, next Tuesday!

A little sneak peek of next trip report!  Day 2 included running Disney, resort exploration, Disney Dessert Date, Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party & more!

Visit my DISNEY! page for magical crafts, recipes, and Disney goodness galore!

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Chatting Over Chocolate! 

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