Turning 40 at the Happiest Place on Earth

Who says Disney is only fun for a child's birthday? 

This year Stu turned 40. We threw a party for him at our house the weekend before his birthday. It was awesome. I took the liberty of booking a room at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort for a mid-week birthday extravaganza minivacay. 

Coronado Springs Resort

The kids and I have stayed at Coronado Springs before. You can read about it here. The Resort is nice.  It is located in the Animal Kingdom Resort section of Walt Disney World's Orlando property. At the time of writing this (May 2018), the Resort is still undergoing a major renovation. The rooms have been overhauled and they are beautiful. Currently, they are constructing a massive tower which will hold more hotel rooms and convention center space. The project is expected to be completed in early-mid 2019. Don't let the construction deter you... this is a great time to get excellent rates at this Resort. 

We arrived on Stu's actual birthday. After we checked in, we chilled in the room for a bit, then drove over to Fort Wilderness for our dinner reservations at the Hoop Dee Doo Musical Revue. It is a MUST in my opinion. At least once, you need to experience this. 

I suggested Epcot after dinner. Epcot was the Park with Extra Magic Hours that night (these are hours when the Parks are only open to current Resort guests, check the My Disney Experience app or your hotel front desk for specifics). Even though we LOVE Epcot, the kids were tired. Riley really wanted to just go back to the room, and once we got there, Reagan was cool to sleep also. 

We needed our rest. A full day was on the horizon. 

Animal Kingdom 

We decided to spend the first half of our day at Animal Kingdom. We could have taken advantage of the Extra Magic Hours, but we opted for sleep instead. My babies like to sleep. And I like to let them. 

On the parking lot tram

My Disney Experience app told us that the Avatar rides were closed. So, we headed off in search of Expedition Everest. Reagan was psyched to ride. Riley, not so much. He's ridden before, but this time he really did not want to. I didn't push the issue. Riley and I had fun killing time.

Reagan and Stu had a blast. Stu texted me when they were getting on the train, so we knew to watch for them. Stu's the one waving obnoxiously from the top. Hahaha. 

Next up was DINOSAUR! This is one of our faves. On this day, we had FastPasses for Epcot at night, so I could not get anything booked at the AK... as you know, only one Park per day. Bleh. So, we waited. It wasn't too bad. And the kids LOVE this ride too. 

We ate lunch in Animal Kingdom. There is this great food spot in Dinoland. We eat there almost each time we are in Animal Kingdom... and even more odd is that we sit in the same spot most of the time. 

This was the oldest one I could find... Reagan is 2 (almost 3). We were going through a photo-bombing stage, that's why my sisters look a tad sillier than normal.

And here's Reagan, about 8 years later. My fam got a kick out of this when I sent it to them. If you happen to sit at "my table", tag me on Instagram (stucrewfun)!

So this post ended up being longer than I was expecting it to be. I will continue Stu's birthday extravaganza Disney vacay next time. We still have so much to share! See ya real soon!