Disney 2015 {Days 1 & 2}

Disney! Need I say more. We had the best "whirlwind" vacation last month! We arrived at Disney World on a Friday and left on the following Monday. We covered two parks in two days.

We tried our best to make our Disney vacation a surprise for the littles, but a slip from a well-intentioned family member...ahem...Lola...and the littles were onto us. They knew the trip was coming, but didn't know the date, so they were still pleasantly surprised on the morning of the trip. I surprised them with Disney-themed goody bags and these tees to announce our trip.

Mom fail: I took off my everyday lens to take the picture above and left it on our dining room table. We were almost an hour into driving before it hit me. Chris offered to drive back home, but I knew that it would put us almost two hours behind schedule. Therefore, almost all of my vacation pictures were taken with my phone:(

We jumped right into our vacation once we arrived at Disney World, or should I say, we jumped into our hotel's pool. The littles insisted on going swimming that night before dinner. I snapped this picture during their thirty-minute swim. Other than sleeping and getting ready to go to the parks, this was the most time that we spent at the hotel.

That evening, we had reservations at Chef Mickey's for a character meet-and-greet meal with Mickey and his friends. The character meals are a great way to meet Disney characters without having to wait in long lines.

This picture was taken while we waited on our table.

We were also celebrating a very lucky girl's 7th birthday that weekend! She received a birthday card with the autographs of the classic Disney characters and a cupcake to celebrate.

We met some our favorite Disney Characters!

...and, the mouse of the hour, Mickey Mouse!

The littles had a great time celebrating!

The following morning, we woke up early to spend the day at Epcot...but not before taking a few pictures at our hotel.

Epcot!

Lots of pictures were taken during the day and I can't possibly explain what was going on in each of them, so I'll just share:)

As you can tell from my photos, Evan was my little ham...and I loved every minute of it:)

After reading several Disney blogs, I decided it might be fun to let the littles trade pins. I ordered a lot of 20 pins from Amazon. Chloe enjoyed trading pins with the cast members. (Evan wasn't into trading.) However, Chloe lost at least four pins during the trip. The backs would fall off or they would fall off during rides. It was a real chore to keep track of them.

I gave the littles a roll of quarters each and pennies to make pressed pennies during our trip. There were pressed penny machines everywhere, so even when the littles didn't purchase something at a store (and believe me, there was lots to purchase), they still felt like the got something. It was the best $20.40 ($10.20 x 2) spent on the trip.

I could do a blog post about the food at Disney alone...but ain't nobody got time for that! Let's just say that the food was delish! We purchased the standard Disney Dining Plan, so I made sure that we maximized every dollar spent on it.

We ate lunch at Sunshine Seasons. The staff was sweet enough to wish and sing "Happy Birthday" to Chloe.

We dined with Disney princesses at the Akershus Banquet Hall that evening.

After being led in, we met Princess Belle.

We also met Cinderella,

Snow White, - She was our favorite. Chloe said that when she dies that she'll be the next Snow White:/

Princess Ariel,

and Princess Aurora, A.K.A Sleeping Beauty, a girl after my own heart.

After dinner, we took these pictures.

Another blog post could be the hats of Disney...but ain't nobody got time for that, so I'll just share these pictures.

After dark, I didn't take quite as many pictures. We headed home during the Illuminaries to avoid the mass exodus afterwards. We made it twelve straight hours at Epcot, so we were pretty tired. We spent the following day at the Magic Kingdom, which I will share in an upcoming post.