If you are my friend on FB, you know that I took my kids to Disney World this past week. It was mostly great:
My oldest got to meet Elsa and Anna from Frozen. My youngest got to be made up like a pirate at the pirate's league (the boy version of the bippidi boppity boutique).
My middle child though hit the jackpot of awesome: we rode the 7 dwarfs min train (she says she's been dreaming about it for fifteen years...she's five), Anna wished her a happy birthday by name during a parade (she had a button on with her name), she was featured on the monster's inc laugh floor, she (and her sister) were done up at the bippidi boppity boutique and had lunch with the princesses (she was Snow White), she dressed as Peter Pan and met him & Tinkerbell and danced and crowed. Hell, she danced her way through every ride...even "it's a small world." She was just in the sweet spot age for the place.

The two minor downsides: It's hot and humid in Florida in the middle of June (who knew?). Also, the fastpass plus system is a disaster. After the third ride, you can pick a fourth, but if your three rides are scheduled for later in the day (if you have other stuff planned in the morning or if you, I don't know, want to sleep...you can only fastpass things that are pointless to fastpass. Also, we had a problem where we fastpassed the 7 dwarfs mine train for Monday (I had scheduled that on the first day I could because I knew my daughter wanted to ride it thanks to the commercials on Disney Jr...but it was broken all day. So we had to go to guest services so they could override the system so we could ride it on another day.

Now, it's time to relax at the beach at my mom's place in Tampa.

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When I took my kids to Disney world I had two high points. Lunch in the castle with the princesses and Ariel in the rock grotto into whatever ride that was.

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Elections have consequences.

We did the princess lunch at Epcot instead of the castle, it was the same lunch but the castle lunch was already booked. Plus the Epcot one had better food options.

...and yes, I understand what you are saying...

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At the park when your kids were there? Is anything off limits, Mike?

Poor Ariel...

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Elections have consequences.

Disney is evil.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

Hey Leash perhaps I can offer you a giant glass of go fuck yourself?

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Elections have consequences.

I hope you weren't this mean to Ariel.

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Isn't Ariel's Grotto a Disneyland thing and not Disneyworld? The reason I remember is that after four hours of Disneyland, two of which I waited for the princesses, all I could think about was ritual suicide and Ariel's Grotto had alcohol. I basically paid $100 so that I had enough food and alcohol in me to not care about the fact that I hated every step I was taking. Somewhat related, you know how much fun Mr. Toad's Wild Ride is after you have had a few drinks?

That said, I love Disneyworld. Its such a phenomenal bunch of parks. Glad to hear you guys had fun.

My favorites of DW are still:

- The entrance of the Magic Kingdom. When your kids see it, its just so wonderful. I was a complete dork and took pictures of my daughter's face as we walked up.
- Muppets 3D at MGM. I could literally do this over and over again.
- The Peter Pan ride. Its nothing exotic, but it was a movie I really enjoyed as a kid, so it just has sentimental value.
- The O'Hana breakfast was pretty great.
- The Epcot beer crawl

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Seriously, though, that's cool Cory. Your little ones will remember that forever.

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Absolute truth. When I had my kids walk up to that it was indeed magic.

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Elections have consequences.

They have Ariel's Grotto in the new part of MK. My daughter (the five year old) danced her way through the ride.

I did the same entrance to the MK picture too, from both the boat over (we were staying in a cabin at Ft. Wilderness...which I cannot recommend high enough...your own cabin with a kitchen) and we took pictures of when they turned the corner at the contemporary hotel and you can see the castle...all three jaws dropped and the oldest has been there before.

I am also a sucker for the peter pan ride, we did it every day we were at MK, my daughter loves it when the guide "sprinkles" pixie dust on the bar and it moves forward to close the ship, her favorite character in the Disney universe is Peter Pan, (she has gone as him three halloweens in a row) and so she loves it. So I will ride that ride all the time with her.
We did the crystal palace breakfast and it was great too. the honey french toast was more like a doughnut than french toast but awesome.

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Always good to do things with your kids like that. GOOD DAD AWARD.

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Elections have consequences.

Very cool.

Took our girls 2 times in the last few years.

Had an awesome time!

Hope to go back in the next couple years

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Has anyone done the Universal Harry Potter exhibits? My daughter is not as obsessed as she was, but I think it would be great for her to see.

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

We are going in November. Kids are psyched.

Disney is great. I loved it when we took our kids. Monday at 7pm on NBC is a special on Harry Potter World in Orlando's Universal Studios. I never saw any of those movies but the "world" looks pretty cool.

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

One would hope it's a number of things in a number of places for a number of reasons for a number of prices.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

We were there in May. The new parts weren't open yet. The older stuff was pretty amazing and the new stuff is supposed to be even better. It's by far the highlight of Universal Studios.

I believe it will be absolutely packed for the next 6-12 months though with all the new Harry Potter stuff they have.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

We fastpassed it so we only waited about 10 minutes, but the wait lines were always over an hour. Not as bad as the seven dwarfs mine train though (the shortest time I saw for that was 85 minutes). The disney app on my phone was real accurate for wait times, and considering we went during the busy time, the longest we waited for anything without fastpass was only 30 minutes.

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Also, if you are going with kids who are too short, the rider switch program is brilliant.
My youngest was 2 inches too short for Space mountain so we had to do a rider switch, I took the girls on first then when we were done, my wife got to go...and take the girls with her again, so they got to ride it twice. We did that with a couple rides he was either too short for or just didn't want to go on (tower of terror).

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When done correctly, Disney World is an awesome place for visit for people of any age.

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Here's another story that I was going to put in the "stroller" thread but I'm too lazy to search for it:

We brought a sit & stand stroller that could fit all three kids because walking 8 miles a day is hard on a 7 year old. After we had breakfast at the crystal palace, we came out to where are stroller was parked - which was in stroller parking by a green fence covered with fathead type pictures of disney characters while they are building/fixing something there - a twenty something woman and her friend were trying to take a picture by one of the fatheads of mickey and minnie and our stroller was in the way. While we were walking out, we saw the woman stomp kick our stroller to move it out of the way so she can take a picture knocking it over on its side. My wife was about to go ballistic and before she got "why did you do that?" A security officer was there to escort the couple away and another office apologized to us and comped us a bucket of popcorn and drinks.

As my wife said (with no knowledge of the stroller debate here): "The nerve of us, to bring a stroller. Here. To Disney world. It's not like we are at a bar or something."

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Thank you Donald Rumsfeld.

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Thanks. We may be looking next spring break.

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I texted this joke to the Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor "Why can't Olaf the snowman have children? Because he has sNOw balls!" and put my son's name to the text.

The monster said "we have one from our friend from Chicago" and I was falling off my seat thinking I had snuck that one in, but it ended up being someone else's joke.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Disneyworld affirms my belief that there is someone out there for everyone, no matter the unfortunate physical appearance.

Nothing creepy about childless adults with unlimited travel options spending fairly big dollars to vacation in a child's fantasy land.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

I would have cried from laughing. My middle daughter was Boo during the retelling of Monsters Inc. My oldest was the one helping with the jokes. It was great.

Now I'm back in Pennsylvania. Nice to be in my own bed.

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Did you fly or drive Cory? We are going to plan to go again end of next year when the twins are 2 and my son will be 5. I dont really want to sit in a car for 15 hrs but I also dont want to drop that much cash on plane tickets.

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