Thursday, January 15th

Our journey to Disney begins!

This trip has been a year in the making. We started planning in Feb '08 and were originally booked to go in October. But our trip had to be postponed (thank goodness for trip insurance!) So we rebooked for MLK weekend since Mitchell would only have to miss 2 days of school.

We were on the road by 6am. Mitchell fell asleep pretty quickly (as did I). There is just something about a moving car that makes us sleepy!

We arrived at our resort a little bit after 12:30. Our room was ready so we checked in and got our room key -- which was also our key to get into the parks, our key to the dining plan and our key for shopping. So we guarded them with our lives and I'm happy to report that none of our keys were lost. We headed to the food court at the resort for lunch. After lunch we caught the shuttle to Disney Hollywood Studios. Our trip scouts (my parents and sister) had scouted out the parks and figured out which rides Mitchell would enjoy and which rides we needed to get Fast Passes for. And they were nice enough to get us 3 Fast Passes for Toy Story Midway Mania. So we headed there first and got on the ride pretty quickly. Mitchell loved the 3-D effects and of course he loved shooting at the different targets. I think Dave got the most points, but Mitchell will tell you that he won.

We also went to Muppet Vision 3-D. This was Mitchell's first 3-D movie experience and it was pretty funny. He kept putting his hand out in front of him trying to touch the characters that were coming at him. He also ducked at one point and got upset when I didn't duck.

One of his favorite rides was Star Tours. We rode it on Thursday and again on Saturday. While we were at Hollywood Studios, we caught the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular. I'm not sure that Mitchell was all that impressed with the show.

Our intent was to go to Fantasmic at 7pm. This was the only night it was going on while we were there. However, we went by the area where it was being held and at 5pm, there was already a huge line. They were going to open the doors at 5:30pm. I knew there was no way that Mitchell would sit there for an hour and a half waiting for the show to start. Plus, we were all pretty exhausted from the drive. So we decided to head back to the resort. We ordered pizza from the food court and ate in Mom and Dad's room while we planned our activities for Friday.

Mitchell fell asleep pretty quickly after his head hit the pillow. Thank goodness because our day is going to start early on Friday!