Gladdens in Gadsden: Last Day at Disney

For our last day at Disney, we decided to spend our time at Magic Kingdom. We know that there are only a few times in life, when your children truly believe. Right now, our children believe! I wanted them to soak up every minute of the magic, Magic Kingdom offers.

We were up bright and early ready to ride the rides. Morris and Thomas were now familiar enough with Magic Kingdom to announce where they wanted to go. Big surprise, but we were off to Buzz Lightyear!

After a quick ride on Buzz, we headed to get the most important item of the day. Fast passes for Peter Pan. The Peter Pan ride had been the toughest ride for us to get on all week. The wait time was always 65 minutes plus and that just wasn't happening with our crew.

Success, we got our fast passes. We cruised around the park enjoying rides that we had not previous been able to do while waiting on our Peter Pan ride. After a few quick rides, it was time for Peter Pan. Magical, special, once in a lifetime... all words that described the joy in our boys eyes. If you haven't been to Disney as a child or if it's been a while, you might have forgotten how you sit in a pirate ship, lift into the air, and fly around NeverLand. A boys dream come true. The boys oohed and aahed as we saw Peter, Wendy, Captain Hook, and the Tick-Tock-Crock. I was so glad that we were able to get a fast pass to Peter Pan.

We quickly headed to Thunder Mountain to get our roller coaster tickets before lunch. Morris loves a coaster. Thunder Mountain is old and rickety and it seemed right up his alley.

Somehow I had convinced Morris that we could eat Peco Bills for lunch. After days of chicken and pizza, nothing sounded better than a little Mexican! We did have to roam to a restaurant to get Morris a hot dog but the roaming was worth it. Peco Bills was delicious to us and Morris loved his food stand hot dog There is nothing like a little Mexican food to pep you up.

After lunch we did a few rides, but mostly planned our afternoon around Thunder Mountain! Morris loved Thunder Mountain. I went first to tell Jared and Morris what to expect. You forget the difference in an old school roller coaster versus the safety standards of new roller coasters. Thunder Mountain only has the bar that locks over your legs... no seat belt, no harness over the shoulders, nothing tight to lock you in place. That means a lot of bottom in the air, rocking from side to side, a lot of what if's to someone looking for a thrill. We'll I loved the excitement, but told Jared to hold on extra tight to Morris. Even though, he met the height minimum, I knew he would slip and slide in the seat. Morris loved it. He asked to ride it twice. Thomas and I captured pictures of Morris and Jared on Thunder Mountain and they are great.

Thunder Mountain capped off our wonderful adventure to Magic Kingdom. It was truly a special journey.

High in the sky on Thunder Mountain.

Can you find Jared and Morris? Jared has on a white shirt waving. Look at how tiny Morris looks beside him.

Rides we enjoyed on our last day:

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (Jared/Morris/Amy) - Buzz Lightyear (all) - Dumbo (all) - It's a Small World (all) - Jungle Cruise (all) - The Magic Carpets of Aladdin (all) - Peter Pan's Flight (all)

Our last stop was heading back to the hotel and freshening up to eat in Downtown Disney. I secured reservation at T-Rex's Dinosaur Restaurant months before we went. The best time I could get was 9pm. Seriously, 9pm with two toddlers. The sweet, sweet concierge at the Grand Floridan was great to us. She felt sure she could help me get a better reservation, but we wouldn't know until the day of. We held our 9pm time hoping for a miracle. 6pm... oh yes 6pm... Gladden party of 4. When I checked at the counter on our last day, the concierge told me she had secured us a 6pm dinner reservation.

T-Rex was so worth it. T-Rex is something like the RainForest Cafe. I know that most people wouldn't be excited over a restaurant so gimmicky but the boys loved it. T-Rex is filled with life size dinosaurs that move and roar. Approximatley every 20-30 minutes, the lights in the restaurant dim. A meteor shower begins and the animal move and roar. Thomas was a little scared, but Morris loved it. He wanted to name all the dinosaurs ask the waitress all about them, and even look at them up close.

Morris loving T-Rex. You can see the meteor shower in the background.

The unthinkable happened after dinner... I lost my sunglasses and we lost our photopass. This was all occuring while Morris had an epic breakdown in the Lego store. Sadly to say, the sunglasses were never found, rest in peace favorite Tory Burch sunglasses. The photopass loss about caused a heart attack. It had our most prized pictures in front of Cinderella's castle. It took me a few hours and some hard work on the phone with Disney, but our photo's were recovered and loaded onto my photopass account. So thankful, I set the account up before we left.

Morris with Lego Buzz

Looking back on our trip, I can never thank my mom and dad enough for taking me to Disney. You don't realize the sacrifice and how hard of a trip it is until you go. The sacrifice is so worth it to see the magic in your child's eyes. I feel completely blessed that Jared and I were able to take Morris and Thomas. They still talk about the adventure and want to know when we are going back!

Farwell Disney until we meet again....