Disney Vacation - Day 1

I have been planning our Disney trip for months--we decided a while back that Em was the perfect age to go, and that we'd take her for her fourth birthday.  Since her birthday gets into Spring Break season and we wanted to avoid the times when schools were out, we landed on the first week of February.  I booked the resort and started making plans.  It seemed like it would never get here, and Em was super excited too, so we talked about it all the time.  

On Saturday, February 1, we drove down to Brunswick and spent the day and night with Mick's parents--we thought it would be a nice bonus for Em to see Grandma and Papa on the way, and it broke up the trip for us since we weren't checking in until Sunday.

We left pretty early Sunday morning and drove the remaining 3 1/2 hours until we were finally greeted by Mickey and Minnie!

The weather was beautiful and in the low 80s--we all got excited as we approached our hotel, the Contemporary Resort.  This is the one where the monorail runs right through the hotel!

We got checked in quickly and headed out to catch the bus to Hollywood Studios for the afternoon.

There were a few things we really wanted to do at Hollywood Studios, but not an entire day's worth, which is why we planned it first.  We saw The Little Mermaid show,

and all week, I tried to grab every Disney photographer I saw for these family shots--we bought the Memory Maker package, which meant every time we had a picture taken, they scanned my MagicBand and it showed up in my online account.  Definitely worth it, since we otherwise wouldn't have any pictures of all three of us!

The first character Em saw was Jake from the cartoon "Jake and the Neverland Pirates."  Not even one of her favorites, but she got super excited to see every character!

She liked Kermit since she got to stand up high to pose for this one.

And then Princess Sofia--again, not one of her favorites, but since she recognized her, she wanted to meet her.

Then we saw Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater.

And Em found some wildlife she liked too!

One of the main reasons we wanted to go to Hollywood Studios was the Beauty and the Beast live show. Em was in love--it was about a 30 minute show with live singing and dancing to all of her favorite songs from the movie.

 

It was really well done,

and we had great seats close to the stage.

We had dinner reservations at Mama Melrose's, which guaranteed a reserved seat at the Fantasmic! show that night.

It started at 7pm, and poor Em was exhausted.  She hadn't taken a nap all day, and fell asleep on my lap while we were waiting for the show to start.

Luckily, she woke up pretty easily and was in a great mood for the show.  We were glad she didn't miss it!  I think the end was her favorite part--all of the characters on this huge boat that sailed through.  By the end of the show, we were all ready to get back to the hotel, and so glad we had Em's stroller!

When we got back to our room, we found this awesome surprise!  Mickey and Minnie had come by and left a gift for Em--it was a signed photo, balloons, a white chocolate Mickey, and Mickey and Minnie dolls!

Em could hardly contain herself, and asked if Mickey and Minnie gave her those presents because she had been a good girl.  We definitely got some mileage out of that throughout the week--it was almost like Santa and Elfie watching her!