Disney World Land and Sea Vacation

Warning... this post is very long. Read at the risk of recalling all the times you have been made to sit and look at someone else's vacation photos and suffered severe bordem as a result.


I have been struggling with how to organize this post to really convey all of the memories we made on this trip and have realized that there is just no way to capture it all. Instead, I am going to upload a few of the over 400 photos we took to try to highlight some of the moments we shared. Let me preface the photos with just a few words.

First, this is a trip that we have been planning for many years and I am just thrilled that it met the years of anticipation.

Second, I had moments of fear that we would be draggin' our sweaty, sleep deprived, hungry children from line to line forgetting all together about the wonder of each event. Thank to Tony's explicit planning we did not wait in ANY lines on the Disney World leg of the journey (except for the one ride I chose on a whim and that was still only a 10 minute wait). We went with smiles from ride to ride. We laughed when we got soaked on the Kali River Ride and happily traipsed along during the afternoon storms in our brightly colored ponchos. Tony is a man of action and for that I owe him for making all of these memories so wonderful.

Third, here are the logistics. We rode everything from trains, to trams, to buses, to vans, to cars, to planes, to boats to ships, to escalators on this trip. We stayed in the Port Orleans Riverside Resort the first 3 days. We walked Downtown Disney, visited our relatives at the Animal Kingdom, enjoyed food and fireworks at Epcot, hit every ride at the Magic Kingdom that we wanted to from Dumbo to Splash mountain and even swam and played at the resort before heading to the cruise. We spent 4 nights aboard the Disney Wonder. Our ports included Castaway Cay for a day of adventure that included snorkeling, sting rays, swimming in the ocean (a first for three of us) and floating. Then on to Nassau where we made our way through a very rainy straw market and were saddened by sheer poverty, inspired by innovative hard work and awed by a crazy traffic system that relied too heavily on ones horn. Then back to Castaway Cay for the most relaxing day of all. We earned hours of lawn chair time watching Aidan and Nadia enjoy the waves and we even sailed a little Hobie Cat. We spent another day in Orlando, this time in a non-Disney hotel (the only part of the whole trip I would not recommend). We went back to the Magic Kingdom and tried out the things we missed the first time around.

Of course there were low points...seasickness, plane sickness, puke in the pool that was on the hush hush, one cranky afternoon when naps did not happen... but really those were so few and far between all of the magic and wonder that they will not be a part of the memories for long.

Now for the pictures... In no particular order!

We got the beat. Apparently it is some sort of feel it in my toes kinda beat too!

Lion King is amazing! AGGGH, it has me buns!
Would you take a look at the size of the fish that caught me?
Wait a minute, are we in China?
Oh look, it is uncle Goofey!
Relaxing all cool next at the bow of the ship just catching some waves.
Building a moat on Castaway Cay.
Catching the waves when most of the cruisers were back on the boat a little too afraid of overcast skies.

Aidan the TigreNadia the Unicorn
This is a picture of the Orlando Airport Boogie Shake Down Dance after smuggling some 'dirt and worm' pudding that was apparently laced with speed and pure joy into the airport terminal.

OK, so they were in chronological order. You caught me.