9: Magic Kingdom Once More

We had one more day left
on our Disney resort passes,
so our last day at the Magic Kingdom
began at 7am
with an Extra Magic hour
when Eric dropped me and the boys off
before he headed to work.
For some reason, this day was not nearly as crowded
as the other days had been.
By 9am we had ridden 8 rides,
and had two fast passes at our disposal.
This last morning was a lot of fun
and not as rushed as the other days.
The day got even better
when Eric joined us around 1:30pm.
A few final Disney pictures . . .

The boys absolutely loved this.
They got magic cards from disney castmembers
to help Merlin on missions
to defeat the villians.
It was a bit like Harry Potter uses the Force
holding up different weapon cards at the stations.
They convinced us to let them complete
three missions during the day.

At Pirate Training
with Capt. Jack Sparrow . . .

Kacin was picked to come on stage
to take a Pirate's oath
and Capt. Jack touched his head!

I wish we could say
that we stayed until the park closed,
but 1am was just a little too late for all of us.
We headed back to the hotel
for one last night in Florida
around 10:30pm.

And that concludes
Disney World vacation 2012!

7 & 8: Hotel Days

And this is when everyone
but Eric
got a few days of rest.
E had work/conference
on Tuesday and Wednesday.
On each of these days,
the boys and I
spent a few hours at the pool.
We lounged in the hotel reading books
and watched a movie.
On Wednesday,
we went on a walk
and ended up breaking into
another hotels playground
to play and release some energy.
We tried to get a good night's sleep
so we'd be ready for one last day
at the Magic Kingdom.

6: Universal Studios

Harry Potter!
Could that be Hogwarts in the background?

Yeah, this trip was not an exhibition of my photography skills,

the sign says

"Welcome to Hogsmeade"

 Never mind the blurriness--
we checked out the wands.

 And dined at
the Three Broomsticks.

 No Harry Potter visit
would be complete
without a taste of the delish
Butterbeer.

Though this picture
was not intended to demonstrate the crowds,
it does
because this was actually the least crowded intersection
in the Harry Potter area
for the majority of the day.
Really, the whole park was
ridiculously crowded,
which I guess we expected because of Spring Break.
We waited for at least 40 min.
for every single ride.
Which means I spent the whole day
cursing Universal
and praising Disneyland and their fast pass system.

 Hagrid's Hut

While the lines were too long,
the rides themselves were all pretty awesome.
The Harry Potter ride was sweet,
we loved Spiderman,
and the water rides left you absolutely soaked
which was perfect for the hot day.

But the highlight of Eric's day
seemed to be
meeting Mat Hoffman
after watching his bmx/skate show.

5: Sunday

We were all ready for a Sunday.
It was the first day we could sleep in past 7.
I think we made it to 7:45am.
We left our Disney World Resort hotel
and moved to the hotel closer to where E would be working
the next week.
During our few hours between
check out and check in
we rode the monorail around Walt Disney World resort
and took the Ferry near the Magic Kingdom.
We got in to our new hotel in time to watch the last session of General Conference.