Magic Kingdom & Animal Kingdom!

And now I'm happy to start posting pictures from our second fabulous vacation to Florida! I can't believe we had two dream vacations within 2 months, but it was amazing and we loved both trips.  They were both pretty different, for various reasons.  This, the second trip, had more Disney days.  We were worried that spring break crowds would be difficult, so we did some park days at the beginning of our trip (because we thought the true spring break crowds would be more the 2nd week, and we were right).  The kids & I flew out 2 days before Matt did (they were super-good on the flight, thanks guys!) and we got a day at Magic Kingdom before he arrived.

We got some fun rides in before it got too crowded.  The teacups!  Fun!




I don't like to wait in long lines to meet characters!  Fortunately for me, the kids aren't crazy about waiting in long lines to meet characters either.  The white rabbit didn't have a line, and I think he was actually the only character the kids met up close this time.






Zoe and I didn't go on the Haunted Mansion ride, but we did ride the paddleboat twice!  Once just ourselves, and the second time with Grandpa (who just barely missed the first ride).  Fun!




We were all really excited about Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.  It's one of our favorites.  Zoe put on her "ride shoes" (the double-thick flipflops that take her height all the way to 40" so she is tall enough for some really fun rides) and she even enjoyed it this time.  Pierce and Spencer weren't scared at all.  (I don't think Spencer was ever scared on a ride.  But Pierce didn't like all of them - he likes this one though!)




We rode the rafts over to Tom Sawyer's Island and had a fun time exploring.  This is a fun fort we got to climb around.  The kids especially liked the escape tunnel. :)







We did some more fun rides, then got caught in a torrential downpour!  We were so lucky that we all had ponchos (from going on Splash Mountain, which everyone really liked - including Zoe).  We still got sort of soaked, but had a great night.  We caught the fireworks, which were lovely, and Teresa has some nice pictures that I should bring over.


The next day we spent some time in Hollywood Studios, somehow I didn't take any pictures there (?), and Matt arrived that evening.  The next day we went to Animal Kingdom (my favorite park). We got a fun picture of all of us in front of the Tree of Life.


We got to go on some of the other zoo walks.  They do such a good job.




This is in the safari ride - one of our favorites.




It got crowded in Asia, so we got a fastpass to Mt. Everest, and headed to Dinoland USA.  The kids ran around for awhile, and then played in the sandbox.












After some Dinoland fun, we watched the parade.  I have bits of videos of it - this one is fun because it shows the kids at the end (sort of).


Here's Mt. Everest, our favorite ride.  Pierce rode it again and liked it this time!  I think the yeti video is less scary after multiple ridings.  SUCH a fun roller coaster!


We rode on the roller coaster as many times as we could manage, with some pretty thick crowds.  One time we went single-rider and I took this video.  It's the whole ride so a chunk of the video is just darkness. :)


We did lots more things, and had a lovely day and evening in Animal Kingdom.  Fun!