Family vacation: Walt Disney World with small kids

Six months have been passed by and the beautiful memories of our Orlando trip still lingers in my mind. There were some not so good flashbacks during our stay in the awesome Animal Kingdom Lodge but I will only dwell on the good ones of course. Our first trip wasn't so bad. We did our homework and fairly enough we expected the events that were waiting for us at Disney World. We stayed there for 4 nights and 5 days with our little sweetlings ages 4 and 2.

Weather. From sunny California to sunny-rainy Florida, the weather reminded us so much of the tropical climate in the Philippines. It was beautiful! The trees are oh so green and the smell of nature is undeniably around. It's really warm and it actually feels good when it rains. Given the weather we packed the following items:

- raincoats for everyone (daddy, mommy, big sister, small sister)
- comfy clothes for warm weather (shorts, capri pants, shirts, sleeveless tops)
- extra shirts and bottoms for the girls
- face towels or small towels to fit inside the backpack
- extra shade for the double stroller
- raincoat for the double stroller
- enough diapers and wipes for the whole trip

Nice weather at Epcot.

It's also important to wear a very comfortable shoes as this trip will be full of walking activities. We took the red eye flight from LAX to Orlando because we do not want to waste the first day for the flight alone so the girls were still sleepy during the first hours of the day. Who wouldn't? We are three hours behind Florida time.

Just landed at Orlando airport. Excited much!

Our vacation package includes the convenience of Disney World taking care of our luggages from the airport to our hotel room so we didn't have to worry about carrying loads of stuffs to drop them off to our room instead they took us straight to the park. So before our trip we already have everything with us in the hand-carry.   Mistake number one: Packing the princess gowns of my little girls in our hand-carry completely slipped my mind. We were reserved for lunch buffet on our first day with the Disney princesses and we wanted it to be extra special  :( but nevertheless, they enjoyed the yummy breakfast with their favorite princess characters in their spring get-up :)

Lunch buffet and princess parade lead by Princess Aurora.

With Princess Ariel.

Food. We also have the Disney Dining Plan. It's an option we decided to include in our trip so we don't have to worry about where to eat and how much to spend on every meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks). There are many participating restaurants inside Disney World that accept the plan. We just present them our room key at the cash register and they deduct the points that will be reflected in the receipt. That way we'll know how many meals we have left at the end of the day. It's paid in advance. Was it worth it? Confusing sometimes but yes yes and yes!

Breakfast with Disney Junior characters.

Morning stroll at Magic Kingdom.

Character dining is the best but hold on! We noticed that breakfast style buffets have much lesser choices than lunch and dinner buffets so we reserved only one character dining during breakfast. If you decide to avail the Dining Plan, use it wisely. Buffet style and character dining are twice the points used in every meal than a regular dining restaurant. Use most of the dining food plan for lunch and dinner buffets or sit-down menu restaurants with menu that looks expensive because you'll never go wrong. (Best tip!) You can also talk to the chef about certain foods you want on your table. This specially goes to the group with any member of the family who has food allergies or someone on a special diet. By the way, they also gave us two medium-sized Disney character cups on the first day of our breakfast. I'm not sure how they decide how many cups to give to their guests but this is where we can enjoy free refills of any refreshment from the restaurant in the hotel. We fill them up after breakfast so we have drinks on our way to the park. How neat is that?

Asian-styled fried chicken.

First dessert of the day: a trio of sweetness!

Our room. It's gorgeous! Bienne and Cielo absolutely loved it! Every morning the girls would go out the balcony to see the wild animals just outside the yard. Zebras, Ostriches, Giraffes, Antelopes are some of the animals we hear at night. The idea of taking the girls to the most affordable African Safari trip entered our mind but of course it will take years for us to do that but who knows maybe someday it's gonna be a dream come true.

View from our balcony.

Hotel pool. We chose to soak in the hotel pool rather than going to the water theme parks. It takes a lot of energy to go there and go back the hotel all wet. It was spring time but it was unbelievably hot as a summer. The hotel pool is perfectly catered to family with small kids.  The kids can borrow life vest for free and towels were also provided as well at no cost but we brought our own life vests because we were not sure if there was a size that can fit our youngest toddler. There were also entertainment like dancing, contests, and surprise freebies beside the pool while the kids swim.

My girls swimming at the zero entry pool. In this picture they are soaking at 1 foot. There are at least four lifeguards in this family pool.

Transportation. Complimentary shuttle buses will take you to different parks such as Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, Downtown Disney, and the water theme parks. They have schedule of drop offs and pick ups at designated locations. Make sure that you know where your bus point of pick-up is on your way back to the hotel. We made a couple of mistakes here because I'm telling you now there are many buses that will take you anywhere inside Disney World. This park is so huge its 1/3 land of Animal Kingdom is the size of our very own Disneyland Resort in California.

The view of Grand Floridian from the monorial.

Outside Disney World. The main reason of the event why we went to Disney World is to celebrate our 6th year anniversary. It was worth it and the girls were so thrilled even while we're still on the planning stage. They love Disneyland so much that when my eldest learned  that we are going to visit a bigger Disneyland she was extremely excited. We planned to visit the nearest church outside Disney World so we had to take a cab. This is our second tip shared by an insider. If you are staying inside Disney World hotels and plan to explore the area outside the park take the complimentary shuttle bus going to Downtown Disney. There are tons of taxi cabs outside Downtown Disney and it's much cheaper. So that's what we did.

Downtown Disney at night.

One of the challenges we expected to meet is the meal for our youngest toddler who has multiple food allergies. I mentioned this in my previous blogs that apart from seafood and eggs, our little girl is highly allergic to cow's milk so we made sure we packed enough milk for the trip - on the plane until the next day. According to my research there's a small grocery inside Animal Kingdom Lodge that has fresh milk and soy milk. Unfortunately, the soy milk they have is not the same soy milk our little girl is drinking she just can't take it. So hubee inquired at the lobby hotel on how they can help us. They gave him a complimentary transportation stub to buy what we need outside the park.

Pictures pictures and more pictures! Don't forget to charge your batteries and bring some extra ones as well. The best fun part of the trip is taking tons of pictures (and videos too!). You'll find photographers wearing Disney uniform in every corner of the park and they are located on the exact spot where they call it the winning background. Our mistake number 3: we failed to order the prints taken from their camera online. It only takes at least 30 days in their file and after that all the pictures in there will be deleted. So if there's a shot that you really like taken from their camera I suggest you order it right away.

Disney World is indeed the most magical place on earth. Hubee and I always feel young at heart when we enter the Disney parks. It was sad that our trip in Florida was short but we did have a great time. Would you believe after just three days of missing Disney World we went to Disneyland Resort? Only thing is our Sleeping Beauty castle now looks smaller than the Cinderella castle in Disney World. We are definitely going back there in the future. Our favorite part of the trip? I'll share it with you in my next blog. Happy travels =)

2012. The year it was.

Two small kids at home and the whole house is a combo of happiness and struggle. My poor blog and this long overdue post about how our year went made me thinking maybe switching to being a working mom wouldn't be such a bad idea :)

2012 was not so kind but I welcome 2013 with full of hopes and aspirations. Now here's a short recap :)

Poms left us in Manila to go back to Orange County on January 2012. My kids and I took a longer vacation to spend more time with the family. Besides, I'm a homemaker I didn't have to worry about going to work and driving the kids to school (but now I would!) Our youngest Cielo Isabelle turned 1 and meeting all my cute nephews and nieces made me feel young at heart. It was also the month when my family I learned that my father has stomach cancer. Indeed, God works in mysterious ways. That must be the real reason why I had to stay for a little longer to spend quality time with my ailing father. My mama was incredible. She was a perfect example of a loving wife and a mother who had the most share of sacrifice among all of us.

My parents-in-law were very supportive from the very beginning. We went to Bangkok. It was a temporary escape or rather a cushion from the hurtful news our family has been taking for the last couple of months. That first time trip to Bangkok was nothing else compared to a happy shopper in an outlet mall in the US. My mom-in-law was right that a hundred US dollars one has in her wallet can stretch a hundred times in Chatuchak and the rest of the weekday market in the city. The idea of a side trip to Bangkok before heading back to California is definitely on my list (if budget permits!) Shoot.

Meeting more friends and more relatives left and right was happiness. Home is where the heart is they say. It's all true. When I see them all they're like placards with a message that says "Stay. Here at home." It was simply one of the happiest moments of my life. I cannot exchange that for a day of bliss in the weekend market in Bangkok (but if I can savor both why not :grin:) Oh and yes, this is also the year where Bienne's iPad mysteriously...disappeared :P

It was heartbreaking when I left Philippines on March 2012. Two people close to my heart were sick and the only thing I can do was to pray for a miracle and hope that God has something even better in store for all of us. I'm good in sealing fear and sadness my heart could take (my own family can attest to that) but when I went back to Aliso Viejo it came pouring out uncontrollably when no one was around. There were questions and more questions I asked and the silent conversations between me and God were endless.

I turned 36 last April 14 and it never felt so good. It seemed like Poms and I were just a couple years ago but now we have two young sweetlings who make our life so much better. That year also we celebrated our 6 years together as husband and wife. Yes there were happy moments and things to be grateful for. After all, this is what we call life.

Poms turned 43 on June 22. The man of my life is my inspiration, a reminder that God does respond to prayers. More exciting events came such as our youngest Cielo's reaching her milestones in advance and our eldest Bienne attending school for the first time. Six years of happy marriage and now we're sending one to school. Time flies so fast I can hardly keep up.

The night of the first day of September is a day in my life that I will never forget. Right after I received the message from my brother that our father passed away I broke into tears. I was very emotional and that call from my mom-in-law woke Poms up in the middle of the night. I cannot recall how our conversation went all I remember was that Poms was already holding the phone talking to mommy and hugging me tight. I don't even remember how morning came all I knew was that I was starting to pack few pieces of clothes for a week stay in Manila. Poms and Bienne were not able to join me so I took our 1 1/2 years old Cielo with me to the Philippines. It was a tough but happy flight nevertheless but yes God provided once again.

Just days after my trip to the Philippines we flew to Orlando where we planned to celebrate our anniversary. Disney World is indeed the most magical place on earth. Still mourning and with fresh memory of my father being laid to rest, I managed to put up a smile and think of all the happy thoughts for the sake of my children and the love I have for my husband. I thought to myself everything will be all right. Our first night wasn't bad either, it was the worse. A phone call from mommy that our dearest sister-in-law Frances who's battling lung cancer for more than 3 years finally gave up. The next day we went to visit the church near the resort. Poms prayed wholeheartedly and the girls who were just really kids and so innocent were sitting silently between us in the quiet place of worship. Me? I was there too not knowing where to start. I sat there the whole time waiting to hear God's voice while reminiscing all the events happened in our lives since the start of the year. If that's considered praying then yes I did pray. We lighted candles for my father and Frances. We offered mass to bless the whole family especially to the ones Frances left behind. No words to describe how to console Peps and the two small kids but I am guessing that faith has made us all stronger and gave comfort to each other.

A couple of months before the year ended, Poms and I got the good news that we are finally settling down in the US for good. We are now in the stage of planning the place to live, work, and where to send our kids to school while waiting for our status to be changed to immigrants. Unfortunately, we were not able to go home last Christmas but we had the chance to spend the holidays with our loved ones in this side of the globe.

See, 2012 wasn't so kind but wasn't that bad either. It was one hell of a roller coaster ride. But faith which I nearly lost in the air has taught me a million reasons why I must stick with it and let tomorrow worry itself.  After all isn't it the only tool we use when things get way out of hand? Thanks to my dearest family and friends who were there during the times I was confused and lost. Special mention to all the people tagged in this post. Thank you all for being part of our lives. You were all amazing!

Cheers to 2013!