When Travis told me he had a work trip in Orlando in September, I thought it would be a great excuse for a little family getaway! He flew down Tuesday to attend some meetings, and then I drove down with the kids Wednesday. It should have taken us 7.5 hours from Charlotte...it took us almost 10!
{Not pictured: Lucas screaming in the backseat for 2 hours}
The ride wasn't awful; I just wanted to be out of the car. We finally arrived at our hotel. (We stayed at this hotel, versus a Disney one, because it's where Trav's work stuff was.) I didn't realize the mile long walk it would be to get to our room (no seriously, it took us 15 minutes to get from the lobby to our room), and had figured I would worry about all our stuff in the car later. {I really just wanted to get out of the freaking car.} Well, Trav was at a work dinner till late, and I really didn't want to wait for him since it was almost 9 PM at this point. Thankfully, the super nice valet guys offered to help me out, and even took Ella for a ride on the luggage cart!
After that craziness, we all crashed. The next morning we had breakfast on the little piazza they have.
The whole hotel was set up to resemble Italy. It was really nice! And a little more authentic than the Vegas hotels that are "Italian" (Venetian, Palazzo, Bellagio, etc). Ella really liked all of the stationery Vespas they had around the plaza!
Trav had meetings that morning, so we hit up the pool. It. was. fabulous. I could live at this pool.
Lucas liked it too :)
We wrapped up our morning by ordering lunch at the pool!
After naps, it was time for dinner at Chef Mickey's!!!! So, it is really hard to get a reservation here...but my friend Sarah told me about touringplans.com. Basically, you pay like $12 for a year membership and access to their website and wealth of Disney knowledge. They have a reservation finder where you enter in what day(s) and time(s) you want to eat at whichever restaurant, and then they text you when someone else cancels their reservation. So that's how we got in to Chef Mickey's like a week before our trip!
This was the BEST thing ever. It's a buffet, so the food is not the best, but you are totally paying for the experience. Ella loved every second, even though she doesn't look like it in these pictures. She was so into it though. And, she even ate ALL of her food! That never happens.
How lucky that the very first character to come to our table was Mickey himself!!
Ella asked about 250 times where Daisy Duck was. She was the only character from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse who wasn't at Chef Mickey's...anyone know why that is?! Anyway, we told her she had to wait till we went to Disney World to meet Daisy.
Minnie Mouse was totally Ella's favorite. Hands down. She took forever to get to our table, but was well worth the wait!
Such a fun dinner. Pretty sure Ella wants to eat there every night.
After that excitement, the next day it was time to get on another Vespa!
And of course we headed back to the pool.
Ella was SO sad to learn she couldn't go down the water slide (she was an inch too short), but we found a little play area next to the pool that helped take her mind off of it!
After nap, we got ready to take a little boat ride to Universal! But first, a quick Vespa ride! At this point, she had gotten on all of them at least once.
This was Lu Lu's first boat ride!!! He liked it!
Since our hotel was on the Universal property, they give you a free boat ride over to Universal. We didn't actually go into the park, but we walked around a little bit and saw the famous globe that was always at the end of my favorite shows on Nickelodeon as a kid (anyone else remember that?!).
No surprise here, look who wanted to play in the water...
We ended our day meeting up with some friends from NC who were in town for a softball tournament for some Hibachi! Ella loved feeding the fish at the restaurant.
Girlfriend loves hibachi. Like, really really really loves it. She ate almost everything. Except the chicken. But she loved the soup, noodles and rice! #carblover
Next up: our day at the Magic Kingdom!!! I'm going to do a separate post on that, so come back soon! :)
It looks like you guys had a really fun time. Ella looks so mesmerized by all the Disney fun. You totally amaze me with your travels. We took Madeline to the beach this weekend. It was a 3.5 hour drive and I think she cried for over an hour of it.
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