Disney - Day 1 (Travel)

We left on Saturday, February 22nd to drive to Orlando.  We got a little bit of a later start than we hoped but were on the road by 6:15 am.  Brian was feeling horrible that day so we took more breaks than normal and arrived at our hotel 12 hours later (7:15 pm with the different time zone).  The drive was pretty easy though with only one major traffic delay north of Atlanta which we found a detour around after sitting in traffic for a bit.

As we got into Orlando we picked up some food and took it to the hotel to eat after checking in.  We then unpacked the car and set up the room (mainly blowing up Rylan's inflatable bed).

The Art of Animation hotel has 4 main sections - Cars, Finding Nemo, The Lion King, and The Little Mermaid.  The first three themes are only in the suites while all the standard rooms are decorated with the Little Mermaid.  I had prepared the boys for this and even tried to get them to watch the movie (they'd watched the cartoon several times on Disney Junior when they get up super early).  Somehow by the time we got to Disney, they were excited about the Little Mermaid and even wanted their picture with her outside of the reception area.

These pictures are from later in the week so the room is a bit messy, but they show the details in the room a little (and how small it is!).  I had to take them quick before the kids got in the room and started making a mess so I didn't get to turn all the lights on and they are pretty dark.

This octopus was above where we put Rylan's bed.

He thought it was looking at him so I had to cover it up every night.  Such high maintenance :)

Anyway, after we got settled in our room, we took a walk around the hotel grounds since the kids had been trapped in the car all day.  The boys asked to have their picture taken in front of everything!

The Little Mermaid Section:

The boys were trying to stand in a line with the fish, posed like them :)

The Lion King Section:

Finding Nemo Section:

Besides taking lots of pictures, the boys were obsessed with finding "Do Not Climb" signs.  They were by all the statues and the boys pointed out every one, very enthusiastically.  They can be so random :)

Finally we got back to the room and were in bed at 10 pm (about an hour late for the boys when you factor in the time difference).  We had a semi-rough night of sleep (we are not used to sharing one room!).  At 2 am Carter knocked everything off the nightstand when he turned over and his arm went flying.  And at 4 am, he fell out of bed.  He's never done this!  He's never even had rails on his bed.  Brian and I thought he landed on his feet, but in the morning he told us his head got stuck between the bed and nightstand.

I moved to Carter's bed because the fall freaked him out a little and he eventually fell asleep after an hour for about 30 minutes.  Rylan slept the latest he did the entire trip and was up at 6 am.  We never had trouble getting to the parks early!