A Dream Come True....

I have loved Walt Disney World ever since I can remember and after trips there in 1987 (6 years old, don't really remember anything), 1991 (10 years old, lots of fun), 1995 (14 years old, school choir trip...I was away from my family and I had TRAVELER'S CHECKS!!!!  LOL), and then working there in 2001, I came to adore this magical place.

I have always wanted to go back and being able to take my 2 year old daughter just made it even sweeter. Now I had some misgivings, taking a two year old (IMO) is not an ideal situation and August (as I remember) is hot as heck.  I wasn't sure how Mags would do with flying, the characters and having her routine/schedule turned upside down.

If only I could go back to the Sarah of a month ago and tell her...."Hakuna Mata!".  No worries sweetie, just get excited, because you are going to have a BLAST!!!!!

So here's the basic gist of the trip (don't want to bore you with TOO many details)...
We stayed from Saturday-Thursday, at the Treehouse Villas at the Saratoga Springs Resort on Disney property.  We rented two cars for the 7 of us and it was really helpful since we were there with Brian's grandparents and we could do our own thing if we needed to.
The flight was awesome and Mags actually asked for them to do the landing, "One more time?".  We got in and went to Downtown Disney for the night.  It was way too packed, but we checked out World of Disney, which is the best!
Sunday was insanely awesome.  We decided to do Magic Kingdom as our first park of the trip and we made it there that morning for the rope drop (the opening of the park for the day).  It was magical and I got a little misty eyed seeing Mags super excited about it all.  Then we hoofed it back to Fantasyland and walked on to Peter Pan's Flight.  For the most part we had minimal to no waits for all the rides, and the only one that we had to wait for was The Jungle Cruise (only 15 minutes aka nothing).  Basically in that first day we went on every ride that we wanted to go on with Maggie.
She met her first character, Fronteirland Donald Duck and she was a little leery at first, excited but wary, and allowed us to take a pic with me holding her.  Then we found Pirate Goofy at Pirates and again, we took a pic together.
Since she seemed ok with the characters I thought we should try the Mickey/Minnie character meet at the Town Square.  It was incredible!  She was sooooo excited and kept saying, "Oh my goodness" over and over again.  The feeling was mutual for Minnie and Mickey and they acted quite enamored....LOL.
 That night after Mags went to sleep, Brian and I went back to the Magic Kingdom for the Extra Magic Hours, and closed the park at 12am after going on the "adult" rides like Space and Splash mountain (Splash was the gift shop that I worked at, and it has changed since I worked there 11 years ago...it looks good!  And their costumes are 100 times better!!!)

After that day, the rest of the trip was spectacular, filled with fun and wonderful memories.  We hit up Epcot on Monday, with more character greetings and I got to go on "Soaring" for the first time (so awesome!), Mags met Beast (she was a little scared, {he is HUGE!!!} but we still got a pic), and we had an amazing dinner in Germany.
Tuesday morning we did Chef Mickey's at the Contemporary (OMG that buffet was awesome!!!) and then we hit up Hollywood Studios.  Mags got to see the Disney Jr. stage show, which she LOVED ( a little too much, she wanted to run up the stairs and hug Mickey SOOOOOO bad...) and we tried for Toy Story Mania but the Fast Pass at noon was for 8:30 that evening....BOO!!!  Again, after Mags was in bed, we went back and did The Tower of Terror and Star Tours and I got a Mickey Mouse Ears ice cream!
Wednesday was our last day in the parks, so we spent the morning in Magic Kingdom and then headed to Epcot for a spectacular meal in Mexico.
Thursday was a relaxed day, spent packing and then we finished our time in Downtown Disney, this time without the crowds. 

Final words: Extraordinary and When can we go back???

Have 8 minutes to spare?  I made a video....

Just want to look at some pics?  Here are a few of my faves....

Hope you're having a magical day!!!