Shortly after finding out about Baby #2, we decided to take another Disney trip with Kinsie. We hadn’t been on a vacation in a while, and it will be much harder to travel for a while once the baby is born, so we figured this would be a great time to take Kinsie back to one of my favorite places in the world. She’s a complete Disney freak just like her mom, and she loved Disney World last year at only a year old, so we knew that this year, she would be beyond psyched! For our birthday and Christmas gifts this year, we just asked for money to help pay for the trip, so with the help of our families, we made it happen! Kinsie was pumped for weeks about this trip. She kept talking about going to “Mickey’s house,” and whenever she would see Cinderella’s Castle at the beginning of any Disney movie, she’d scream enthusiastically “That’s where we’re going!”

We had somewhat of a long night of traveling, but Kinsie was an absolute champ. This was her first plane trip in her own seat (thank goodness), and she just sat and watched Elmo the whole way there! Once we were in Orlando, we were transported a few times from hotel to hotel because the placed we booked months ago was overbooked, and she slept peacefully in the rental car…thank goodness considering it was 1:30am when we finally got to where we were staying!

Day 1: Magic Kingdom

This has always been my favorite park, probably because it is by far the most magical. I honestly wasn’t sure who was more excited…me or Kinsie! Ryan and I had planned out our whole day using a few different apps that told us what attractions to visit when considering the crowd and lines, so we were all set!

Highlights of Magic Kingdom:

• Cinderella’s Castle – Kinsie had been talking about it so much beforehand, that she just marveled at it whenever she saw it! We got to see a lot of shows, fireworks, etc. in front of the castle, so we got lots of castle time!

• The Christmas parade – this is still what Kinsie says was her favorite part of the trip. The mid-day Christmas parade was awesome! We got to see all of our favorites…Mickey and friends, Santa Claus, and Kinsie’s absolute fave, Olaf! Disney never fails to make their parades magical and spectacular! Of course, my favorite part of the parade was the pure joy on my daughter’s face!

• Meeting Mickey- Magic Kingdom is the only place in Disney World where Mickey talks, so we knew we had to fit this in our day! When it was Kinsie’s turn to meet him, she was a little overwhelmed and didn’t really know what to do with herself! She did a little nervous dance and was super shy! She was in awe at meeting one of her favorite characters of all time!

It turned out to be an amazing day. It was extremely crowded, but that didn’t impede our fun. The weather was perfect and Kinsie was one happy girl all day! The only time she got antsy was waiting in line to see Mickey…but with the help of the apps we used, that 25 minutes was the longest we waited all day. Our girl was wiped out as soon as we got in the car!

Day 2: Animal Kingdom

This is the only park that closes somewhat early, so we had to fit in all our fun in a shorter amount of time. Again, we used different apps to help us utilize our time. We had a little later start than we wanted since it was a late night the night before, but we still got in most of the attractions we wanted to do.

Highlights of Animal Kingdom:

• The dinosaur ride – this is basically a dinosaur version of the Dumbo ride. You spin in circles for about 1 minute and then it’s done. But with Kinsie’s recent dinosaur craze, she was all about it. She actually cried when it was over!

• The safari ride- this is the best ride in the park…a safari ride to see all kinds of animals and wildlife. We especially loved the hippos, giraffes, and lions.

• The Tree of Life- I LOVE the Tree of Life and trying to spot as many animal carvings as possible in it. Kinsie liked climbing on the alligator!

• Meeting Mickey and Minnie- Let’s face it, with how happy she was meeting Mickey the day before, we had to take every chance we got to meet him again, and this time with Minnie Mouse too! My favorite part was Kinsie’s excited face before she met them! We also got to meet Goofy and Pluto during the day too!

(Kinsie’s excited face)

Again, another great day! The park closed at 7pm, so that left us time to go get ice cream, chill at our hotel for a little while and get to bed before midnight!

Day 3: Epcot

This was the only day we didn’t have an actual “plan,” we figured it could be more of a go with the flow kind of day. I mainly wanted to see the World Showcase, and visit with characters, so that is what we did!

Highlights of Epcot:

• World Showcase (Mexico)- this of course, was my favorite of the countries. I love learning more about my culture and sharing it with Kinsie. They even had a cute little boat ride similar to “it’s a small world,” that displayed lots of Mexican culture in a fun Disney sort of way!

• The Seas with Nemo and Friends- I forgot how awesome this whole exhibit is. There is a ride, then once it is over, there is a huge aquarium exhibit with fish, sea turtles, manatees (my fave), and a shark playground. We all loved it!

• Meeting characters- we got to meet a lot of characters at Epcot! We scouted them out and used our apps to figure out where they would be and when so we could beat the lines. Kinsie basically became BFFs with all of them. How could you not with the sweet little hugs and smiles she gave them?

The only thing we didn’t get to do at Epcot that I really wanted to was see the fireworks. We could have stayed for them, but they didn’t start until 10:30 and we were wiped out! Kinsie said she wanted to go to sleep, and my pregnant body had really caught up with me from all the walking the last few days. Ryan was pretty tired too so we made the executive decision to call it a night before the fireworks.

Our entire trip was amazing. It was the perfect last trip as a family of 3. I loved getting to spend a few days with my with favorite people in my favorite place in the world. And as I’m sure you could tell by the pictures, Kinsie was pretty happy too!