Walt Disney World Trip

On Tuesday, Mark and I got back from a 9-day vacation at Walt Disney World--it was wonderful! This was our third trip there together, and we started planning back in the fall. By the time the trip actually happened, we had been looking forward to it for a really long time! We considered it to be an early celebration of our 10th wedding anniversary (coming up in July).

Since we got home, I've been trying to think about how to post about the trip, and I've decided to go with a few different posts on various themes. We have hundreds of pictures, too, so I'll include highlights along with each post here.

This is the longest trip we've taken to WDW, and we stayed on property at the Port Orleans: French Quarter Resort (more on the hotel in another post). We happened to be there during two major events, the Flower and Garden Festival in Epcot and the first of this summer's Star Wars Weekends at Hollywood Studios. Mid-May is a great time to be there because the weather is beautiful and the crowds haven't reached the crazy summer levels yet.

After our previous trips and quite a bit of research, we seem to have developed some really effective strategies for seeing what we want to see without having long waits, plus we're both in better shape than we were during our previous trips, so I think we were able to handle the activity level better. (We walked anywhere from 7-12 miles per day!)

Also, when we checked in at the hotel, they gave us the red buttons you'll notice in the pics--this was to let everyone know we were celebrating our anniversary. Nearly every cast member (Disney employee) and many of the other guests wished us well, and we even got a few free desserts!

So, to get things started with the pictures, here are a few snapshots of us at iconic places within each of the four parks:

The entrance to the Magic Kingdom

A side view of the castle at the Magic Kingdom

In front of the castle at the Magic Kingdom
Also, notice the statue of Walt Disney with Mickey just over Mark's shoulder.

At Epcot

The Tree of Life at the Animal Kingdom

Sorcerer Mickey's hat at Hollywood Studios

Clearly, also at Hollywood Studios