thanks all - we really did have a great time, and the weather was fabulous every single day - not a cloud in the sky, sunny and warm
.
On with the TR -
My littlest niece is the same age as my DD was the first time I took her to DLP, and its surprising how kids like different things - my DD was all about the characters, the parades, the shows, and rides were last on her list at that age. With littlest niece, it was (certain) rides, followed by certain characters, then the parades, and then the shows. She didn't want to see any of the parades more than once, and she wasn't that fussed about Animagique so we didn't do Cinemagique or Playhouse Disney. She liked Stitch Live though (obviously
). She loved the Dragon under the Castle and every time we passed through the castle we had to go visit the dragon, see what she was up to lol. Pirates of the Caribbean was her favourite ride -
For the first time ever at DLP, I bought a ride photo - from, you've guessed it, POTC. It was our 3rd ride in a row on the same boat, we just kept asking to go around again, and by the 3rd time we were the only ones in our boat, no-one in the boat in front, and no-one in the boat behind, so it really was like we had the ride to ourselves
.
Peter Pans flight was another favourite with my littlest niece, she also enjoyed the Snow White ride, Pinocchio ride, and even Phantom Manor (although she was freaked out by it first time, it was the stretching room that scared her, so when she asked to do it again she just shut her eyes in that room and cuddled into me). She hated BTM though - so we only did that the once with her.
A lovely lady we met on our 2nd day was leaving that day and gave me some pause gourmande vouchers, and 2 DLH fastpasses, which my older girls used on ToT. They did ToT a lot over Thursday and Friday, basically any time we were in the Studios they were off to ToT! They also did BTM with fastpass a few times, and they did RC racer together, and Parachute Drop using the single rider line, to great effect. While they were doing their rides in the Studios, I was invariably on either Slinky Dog or Cars ride with littlest niece
.
My DD and older niece also did the race to Crush on Saturday morning after the first hour of EMH in the main park - they were on and off before 10am (I trained them well
).
We also saw Dreams! twice this trip, the parks closed at 9.30pm so it was just about perfect timing for us, a full day in the parks and then Dreams, then back to the hotel to bed. The new scenes for me for Dreams! are the Brave and Lion King segments - I wasn't sure about this because the Jungle Book scenes were some of my favourites in Dreams! in the past, but I will accept that Lion King makes an acceptable replacement - and I love the Brave addition, we were all tapping our feet and singing along to that bit. With my littlest niece being only 5 I knew I'd have to find a decent spot to see Dreams! - first night we found a litter bin to perch her on, near the entrance to Discoveryland and on the hub, and the rest of us had good spots to see everything from there. Second time we went back to my go-to spot - in the bench alcove area on the hub, near the Fort entrance to Frontierland. The girls could see well from here as they were behind the crowds and a little elevated as they stood on the kerb at the fencing.