Well, I can't believe we have had to leave the happiest place on Earth.

Day 1

We arrived early, dropped our bags at the hotel and then headed for Magic Kingdom. It was a pretty miserable day but we were lucky enough that within 30 minutes, we had pictures with Ariel, Princess Tiana and Naveen and had riden the Pirates of the Caribbean. We wandered around, riding any rides with a short line, having more photos with characters and enjoying the Christmas atmosphere before heading on the monorail to Epcot, where we had dinner at Biergarten (with enormous 1L beers!) followed by the Candlelight Processional, with the Disney Orchestra, a mass choir and guest narrator, Thomas Gibson, where we enjoyed Christmas carols. We stayed for the Illuminations at close, which is an amazing laser and fireworks show.

Hours in park - 11

Day 2

A slightly later start, we headed to Magic Kingdom and did some rides and more character greetings before lunch at the Crystal Palace with Pooh, Tigger, Piglet and Eeyore. We spent the day at the Magic Kingdom, doing loads of rides and trying to get to as many characters as we could find! We had tickets to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party where they close the park to only those with tickets. There are extra character greetings, some in Christmas costumes, and parades and it's the first night of the Holiday fireworks. We decided to head to Toon Town to see Mickey and Minnie and got distracted by the fact the line for the Princess greetings was only 15 minutes…so in we went. And, lucky us, all the princesses had there princes with them! Hopefully the photos from the Disney people are great!

We got free hot chocolate and holiday cookies (nothing that exciting actually…) and then, who should we stumble upon….the seven dwarves!! So we lined up for a photo and then Brianna went to stand up and kind of took Dopey out in the process but luckily Tara actually had her wits about her and managed to right him before he hit the floor! We watched the fireworks which were absolutely amazing! They only went for about 15 minutes but they were clever and the soundtrack was perfect.

Hours in Park - 13.5 hours

Day 3

Headed out early to Hollywood Studios. We decided we would try to do everything at Hollywood Studios in one day so that we could finish all the other parks for the rest of our trip. We started out well, doing most of the rides and got fast passes for a few of the bigger rides early up. We went and saw American Idol (2 of the contestants were really good - we were swung in voting as one girls family was sitting in front of us), 'Lights, Motors, Action' which is a car stunt show and was amazing to see how they do things!

We managed to get on Toy Story Mania (if you don't have fast passes by 10am, you have to wait over 2 hours for a ride so luckily we got fast passes!) and we went and saw Fantasmic, which is a laser and light show and is brilliant! We did a few more rides and when the park closed at 9:30pm, we went to over to Magic Kingdom…well, Tara pyked and went to bed!

At Magic Kingdom, we watched the Main Street Electrical Parade and Pete & Elliot wished me a happy birthday =)and we rode some more rides, as the crowd thinned out and finally got home very early in the morning….

Hours in Park - 18 (yes, that's the right number!!)

Day 4

My Birthday!!

Woke up to some wonderful presents and cards (including an 'It's My Birthday' set of mouse ears!!) and Emma, Tara and I headed to the Magic Kingdom, after Emma and I had only about 6 hours of sleep! We did a few rides and saw some characters (including Peter Pan and the stepmother and 2 stepsisters from Cinderella!) then met up with Brianna for our Princess lunch.

Cinderella met us in the lobby and we had a photo all together and then we climbed into the tower. It was beautiful...we met Ariel, Sleeping Beauty, Belle (whom Ariel called a noodle after she photobombed our group shot!) and Snow White...and the food was great! We got wands and a wishing star, like the kids do (our hostess was finding us quite amusing!) and we had a great time!

We then headed to Epcot for a few hours to do a few more rides before going to Downtown Disney for shopping and icecream!! We got home about 11:30pm so another long day!

Hours in Park - 10

Day 5

Today we visited Animal Kingdom. We arrived quite early and did really well with fastpasses to get on all the rides. We saw Finding Nemo - The Musical (quite cute and very well done!) and also a Lion King show and a bird show. Brianna got to get up on stage and try to take a photo of an owl as it flew towards her...it barely cleared her head!

We met Baloo, King Louie, Flik, Rafiki, Pochontas and Jinimy Cricket!! A great day but with Animal Kingdom not being as large as the others and an early start in the morning, we had an early night.

Hours in Park - 11

Day 6

Emma and I headed out early to ride a few rides that have long lines and we weren't able to get fast passes for so headed to Hollywood Studios to do the Rock n' Roller Coaster, which was awesome. 0-60 in about 3 seconds to start the ride and Aerosmith soundtrack to fly along to!

We then headed to Epcot to meet Tara and Brianna and do the couple of rides there that we had missed. We also managed to get pictures with Mulan, Mary Poppins, one of the tapdancing penguins from Mary Poppins and Bre'r Rabbit and Fox. We had an early night and were back at the hotel by 6pm to pack. We were going to head back out to Magic Kingdom for the fireworks again but after sitting around for a bit, we couldn't be bothered and had an early start for Key West the next day so bed it was.

Hours in Park - 8

We picked up a car today and other than using the windscreen wipers instead of the indicators and driving a bit close to the right hand kerb some times, I don't think I'm doing too bad a job for a first day! The drive to Key West took about 8.5 hours. We stopped in Lake Placid for lunch and then kept going all the way to through the Keys. The sunset was amazing and it took us a while to find a parking spot! Bikes are everywhere along the streets and with it being Christmas Eve, half of them have got fairy lights through their spokes. We had a late dinner at an Italian restaurant called Mangia, Mangia which did very nice pasta! Oh, and the place we are staying is very nice too! We have 2 seperate rooms in a guest house, which is very cute!