On Tuesday morning we sent the big girls to school, Husband to work and I finished packing with the not-so-helpful Miss E. She added her own choices to the suitcase, insisted on trying on clothes as I packed them (hers, her sisters', mine or Daddy's, didn't matter) and helped pack and sample snack bags for the plan.
By noon, everything and everyone was loaded into the car, we grabbed a quick lunch and were headed for the airport. With perfect timing, we met my parents in the airport parking lot. We borrowed Grammy's sit-n-stand stroller and it was a perfect choice for the trip, enough room to store a few items and the kids loved riding in it. Papa had some health complication this summer, after the trip had already been planned. He's recovering but needed a wheelchair in order to enjoy the trip with us. So with two girls in the stroller and one on Papa's lap, we headed onto the shuttle and into the airport. It was a grand adventure for the girls. (Especially E, who was flying for her first time.) They searched for the airplanes out the windows and much to their delight, spotted the purple plane Daddy had picked out for us (Southwest Airlines). We had a relatively short flight to Vegas, which they spent diving into the backpacks and snack bags I had packed for each of them. In Vegas, we hurried to find our connecting flight and grabbed a quick meal on the way. The flight to Orlando was much, much longer and even though we supplemented with more snacks and activities, the kids got restless quickly and we resorted to watching Tangled on Daddy's kindle. We arrived at the airport, collected our luggage and made our way through the deserted airport to Disney's Magic shuttle service. It was almost 1 am so we put the kids in pajamas before boarding our bus.
We arrived at the hotel around 2 am, stumbled off with half asleep children (and a sound asleep baby), where we were met by kidsister, eagerly awaiting our arrival. She led us to our room and we quickly got everyone in bed.
We stayed at the Art of Animation resort in a family suite and it was perfect! Our room was themed Finding Nemo with plenty of colorful and clever decor. Grammy and Papa shared the master suite with E in her crib, Husband and I claimed the murphy bed (which folded into the wall behind the table), kidsister and A shared the sofa bed and L made a bed from the couch cushions. We made good use of the kitchenette and kidsister had it well stocked for our arrival. We ate breakfasts in our room as we readied each morning and packed a picnic lunch most days. Once we got to explore the resort more by day, we loved it even more. The pool area was beyond amazing, decorated with Finding Nemo and dripping with Disney goodness. The large pool was paired with a splashpad area, both of which the girls loved, especially the underwater speakers! They played music which could only be heard when you were under the water. The resort was huge, with a Cars complex (complete with pool), Little Mermaid building and more that we never even explored. There were games and activities hosted throughout the day, the large souvenir store, an awesome arcade and cafeteria style dining. More on all that later. But in short, loved loved loved it. and would highly recommend.
Miscellaneous tips for flying with kids:
--airport security has a family line, usually with a shorter line. Which is good because it takes forever, especially since have to collapse strollers and such. Luckily, kids don't have to take off their shoes. That would be an automatic extra ten minutes for us.
--suckers are the best airplane treat. helps relieve pressure in their ears.
--ask for lids on your drinks. They usually remembered on the kids but I had them cap mine as well since it could easily get bumped. The girls were thrilled they could get hot chocolate.
--we took puzzles from the dollar store (they're small and inexpensive if we lose pieces), coloring books, look and find books, sketch pads (they drew pictures to give the princesses), grab and go packs (5x7 pack with a coloring book, crayons and stickers, usually $1 at WalMart) and best of all, a pack of pipe cleaners. Those will entertain my kids for hours.
--their other random favorite was 2 books Grammy had found with suction cup characters to place and move around on the different activities pages.
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