I thought while planning for our DW 2014 trip, I would take a stroll down memory lane. I cannot believe how little all of our children are!!!

Here is a repost from September 2011 from my old blog:

**Editor’s Note: I am going back and documenting our Fall 2011 Trip to Walt Disney World. On Saturday, September 17, we visited the Magic Kingdom.

After the Prez and Mo left for the Swamp, I was alone in the Magic Kingdom with four children ranging in age from just turned 13 down to 5. 🙂 They did great though and it really wasn’t hard. Still, I survived the MK ALONE with four children. I wish I had more photos later in the day, but I was more worried about returning to the camper with four children in tow! 🙂

Here we are entering the MK for the first time for 3 of our children! Excitement is HIGH! It was IMPERATIVE on this day that we all had on matching and BRIGHTLY-COLORED shirts. I chose red (alone with 4 kids!).

And the obligatory picture in front of the castle! Not bad!

As we entered the Castle, Li’l Miss was starting to ask a lot of questions. At this point, we also pulled her dress out of the bag, and then she really wondered aloud what was going on—we told her we would be eating breakfast IN the castle. She squealed and couldn’t contain her excitement. We didn’t tell her who else would be joining us though. They really do this right by calling you in by family name and introducing the princesses by first name. I HIGHLY recommend this if you have a princess in your family who adores the Disney princesses. Li’l Miss definitely thought they were the real deal!

This is the moment the Prez pulled two tix out of his wallet and handed them to Mo. Shock is an understatement. We had to tell him, “Yes, you are going TODAY to see the Gators play Tennessee at the Swamp.” He was speechless, which is RARE for our Mo.

Here is Li’l Miss awaiting our call into the castle. She was just so excited and beautiful too! The four big brothers just wanted to eat already, but they played along.

This photo is inside the castle. It is really cool to see the inside of it!

And here she is. By this time, she has spotted some of the princesses as they are working the tables. They come to each table and it is very well-orchestrated. I have to say some are better than others, but none of the princesses disappointed in the castle. Li’l Miss told Ariel she was her favorite, and Ariel took a lot of time with her. Belle was the sweetest though. All of them were kind and some played along with the boys who said they didn’t care for princesses!

You go up on the elevator, but get to walk down the winding staircase, where they have stained glass windows of each of the Disney princesses. Very cool. Can you tell which big brother was ready for some rides already LOL!

Normally, you get your photo made with Cinderella upon entering the castle and meet the others up in the restaurant. Cinderella was backed up when we got called though, so they allowed us to go on and eat and come back by to see her after. This was perfect because they actually escorted us to the FRONT of the line “for your inconvenience.” THANK YOU! We were given a professional type photo as part of the meal. I’ll try to scan that later! Cinderella was also very sweet and ribbed the boys when we did the family photo for the package.

This lady popped into this photo out of nowhere LOL! I thought it was hilarious when I saw it!

After breakfast, which we had a 10:50 seating so it was really an early lunch (we had a light breakfast at the camper; totally recommend this for Cinderella’s Royal Table if you like Breakfast foods), the Prez went over the rules with all of the children staying with me. I have to say Curly, Larry, Li’l Dude and Li’l Miss were gems and didn’t give me a minute’s trouble. I did allow Curly and Larry to split off from me and the littles for a couple of hours, which allowed them to ride several rides and just have some time to be on their own. They amazed me with coming back a few minutes before our meet-up time and they then stayed with me for a couple more hours with the littles. We headed back to Fort Wilderness via the water taxi, which drops you off right at the campground, late that afternoon.

This is Larry and Curly on Big Thunder Mountain. The littles were tall enough but Li’l Miss refused to go on, and the boys weren’t quite old enough to take Li’l Dude w/out a parent. We did some swapping so he could ride, but I was put out with Li’l Miss. As it turned out she rode it later in the week when we returned to MK and LOVED, LOVED, LOVED it (which I knew she would). Li’l Dude handled it so well though. I was proud of his attitude. You can see the two boys in the red shirts. Curly is holding on for dear life. He doesn’t love roller coasters. Larry rode any and all he could on this trip and loved them!

Right after I let the big boys take off on their own, the littles and I ran into Woody and Jessie. They were fun, but we had to wait awhile b/c they kept needing breaks. I can’t imagine how they get in these suits. It was HOT this day. We were all sweating and all used our snack vouchers from the day before and this day for WATER!

The littles and I spent most of our time without Larry and Curly in Fantasyland, taking in Pooh’s Ride, It’s A Small World and the Carousel and a few others. We encountered very light crowds for MK so it was a good day to ride a lot of these in Fantasyland. Their favorite time I think though was just playing in the little miniature house at Pooh’s Corner!

I wish I could say I took pics later at the pool, riding the boat back to the Fort or when the Gator fans came back but I was too pooped! We went to bed fairly early preparing for our next day at EPCOT, which happens to be our family’s favorite park. We love it!!! So next up, Day 2 at EPCOT!