Shanghai | Disney!!

So I didn't think I had it in me to blog about another day at Disney so soon, but the girls are constantly asking to look at pictures of themselves (especially Ev's - she loves to see herself as a baby), and it is always so easy to pop open the blog and show them all the pictures of them! I am not much of a scrapbooker (read: none at all) so this really is the best way for me to document their childhood.  They love it, I love it - so here we go, Shanghai Disney! Grab a cup of coffee, or two, this post is a doozy!

The entrance to Shanghai Disney is crazy long! You can take the metro really cheap to get there and I think it takes about 45 minutes from where we were staying, but for not too much more money - you can hop in a cab and when traveling with our kiddos, we will often choose the most convenient way to travel over the cheapest way so 30 minutes later we were pulling into the passenger drop off line about an hour before Disney opened - we heard the crowds got crazy so we wanted to get there a little early.

The girls loved pointing out the princess that they knew on all of the signs!

On the way to the main entrance, you see part of the Disneytown - love love love that they have regular/Western restaurants for you to choose from (once you are in the park, there is a back entrance in and out so you don't have to wait in long lines!) and of course we found a Starbucks! A giant one!! The nice employees there gave the girls a sheet of stickers which kept them entertained while we waited in line.

Ev's loves posing with any cutouts/fake animals! We were happy that we got to have a dose of Halloween!!

Our first look at the castle - it is the largest Disney castle to date and is really quite spectacular!!

We had a game plan as soon as we arrived - rides first, princesses second.  We headed straight to the 7 dwarf's mine train because I knew that Emma would love it.  We tried to see if Everly was tall enough, but she still has a couple of centimeters to go, so Emma and I went ahead to ride it while Everly and Dad went to the find the spinning hunny pots.  There were no waits and I think both kiddos enjoyed their special time with mom/dad.

We met back up with them and Emma and I caught the tail end of Wes and Everly riding together.

We rode a few more rides - The many adventures of Winnie the Pooh!

And took the hunny pots for a spin again! This Disney has spinning hunny pots as opposed to teacups and so it felt special/different this time around.

Back to the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and much to our surprise - there was an error during the ride and we had to be 'rescued'! This has never happened to us before, but the girls loved being able to walk through the ride - they gave us tickets to come back later in the day.

Next, we scooted over to Flying with Peter Pan since it was time for our fast pass! And feeling quite accomplished with how many rides we rode, the lines for the rides started to get quite a bit longer so we made our way over to the princesses. 

I have been asked several times which park did we like better Hong Kong or Shanghai and this is what I would say.  Hong Kong was so much better for the princesses - they were spread out, had short lines and when a princesses turn was done (they would take breaks every 20 - 30 minutes) you knew whether you were in line or not.  At Shanghai, there was only one princess meet and greet - the line was about 30 minutes long (super long for kiddos) and the princess that you saw when you arrived was not always the one you got to meet.  For instance, we were in line to see Cinderella, but by the time we got to the front, it was princess Belle.  Not a huge deal, unless your child has their heart set on meeting Cinderella #Emma ;).  The rides were better and we planned better at Shanghai.  And the Shanghai castle definitely wins!! So it is a toss up - I think we might re-visit both while we are here since they are just a short 2 - 3 hour flight away.  

Rant over, it was time for princess Belle.

The girls were pretty smitten per usual :).

And I swooned watching them per usual ;).

The look on Emma's face would tell you it wasn't too bad getting to meet Belle and not Cinderella.

Evsie's face gets me every time when it is her turn to pose with the princess :).

Time for hugs bye bye!

Love the way Emma is kicking out her leg :).

And then it was time to meet Mickey Mouse!!  A little bit of hesitation at first...

And then all in for our favorite mouse!

I loved the background for this and that you got your own personal time with Mickey and the way Ev's was looking up at him!

My fave!

Their faces!!

Maybe on our Christmas card??

High fives and hugs goodbye!

And Mickey feeling overwhelmed with all of the love he just received ;).

One final hug from our littlest Disney lover :).

And then we hopped to the back of the park to say hi to Pooh Bear!

Everly loved him quite a bit :).

While Emma was definitely a bit more shy and cautious of Pooh Bear - we have no idea why!

The last picture I have with both strollers ;).

The castle was a work of art.

We got the girls some popcorn and then waited in line for the Frozen show - the show was in Chinese, but the girls didn't care - they really liked it!  My favorite part was hearing Everly gasp, "Elsa came out of the movie!".

After the show, we walked over to one of the different 'lands' and caught up with these animals - I am embarrassed to admit, I have no clue who they are.  Doesn't make a difference to Everly - she loves them all!

Just look at that sweet smile!

And then we caught up with this guy - who had ridiculously long monkey arms ;).

Which made for some really funny hugs since Everly is so small!

High fives bye bye!

The girls were checking out their options - when we went to Disney when they were smaller, they didn't really ask for any toys, but now they ask for everything! So we have a rule, one toy (within reason) and once they pick it out - that is it for the day.  They normally get the same thing which works out well for everyone, especially momma ;).  But here, they decided to hold out.

We walked back along main street to see if we could meet some of our favorite friends!

We found these two silly guys :).

One of my faves from the day!

Big hugs from Pluto.

And Ev's eventually warmed up to Goof!

Then we found Minnie - she is definitely one of the girls favorites!

Emma is clearly as happy as can be while Ev's is a little unsure of it all ;).

And I apologize to bring this post to an abrupt halt, but I am having internet connection problems but want to go ahead and post what I have so far - more to come :).