A Magic Trip to Orlando

Last Thursday, Carter woke up to his Grandma and Grandpa.  They were in town to watch Parker while Carter, Mom, and Dad took a trip to the "Happiest Place on Earth" - Disney World.  Mom had a conference at Disney World and the package they provided made it an easy call to have Dad and Carter share in the fun as an early birthday present for our soon-to-be three year old.  After preschool, we went straight to the airport where Carter diligently watched our plane get readied.

He was a real trooper on the ride out sitting quietly in Mom's lap and did not bother any of the passengers (Chuggington playing on his LeapPad may have had something to do with this).

We rode the tram to the main terminal and Carter was excited to sit on the tram window and waved to everyone we left at the station... then he went on telling anyone that would listen that he was going to Disney Land.

We quickly made our way to our ride to the hotel, the Disney Magical Express.  Carter's excitement really peaked once on board.  Then the videos of Disney World and all the characters started as we left the airport and he was literally bouncing on his seat excited.

While Mom checked in Carter worked on his coloring techniques (he is getting better at staying inside the picture these days) in the hotel lobby.  He managed one Woody drawing before the Pluto cartoons next to him grabbed his attentions. 

By the time we checked in and dropped our carry-ons at the room (our checked bag would magically make it to our room a bit later) it was almost 6:00pm and going to the parks didn't make sense.  But that didn't stop us from giving Carter a little taste of the fun in store for the next few days.  We took the bus to Epcot and quickly walked to the monorail station to take a ride towards the magic kingdom.  Carter was all excited to see the large Space Ship Earth ball at Epcot, and was even more excited when the monorail came to station.

We took the monorail to the contemporary resort for a quick dinner.  Dinner was fun as the restaurant was right next to where the monorail stops inside the hotel and Carter would watch all the monorail trains come in and out as we ate.

Before we could leave, Carter ran to a gift shop.  we thought ahead about this and made sure his room card was not authorized for any purchases.  Check out what the little man looked like after five minutes in the store!

On the way back we tried for a nice father/son photo in front of Epcot, but Carter's continued excitement and amazement made sure he couldn't keep eye contact with the camera at all.

We quickly returned to our hotel, the Disney Coronado Springs Resort.  It was a beautiful resort with a great pool and nice layout the limited traffic and noise.

Carter enjoyed his evening walk around the resort prior to bed, but the day of travel got the best of us and we had a big day/week ahead of us and needed to get our rest.