New Year's Celebration in Disneyworld

I was up for 23 hours straight while we traveled to Florida and spent New Year’s Eve in the Magic Kingdom. It is absolutely my favorite place to be on that night of the year. They say “it’s magical” because it truly is. :)

This year made us a huge caravan of family members that went with us to the House of the Mouse. My FIL and MIL went down with my brother-in-law and his girlfriend a few days before NYE. On our plane that Thursday was myself and Husband, plus his grandmother. We also helped his cousin and her husband plus three kids on the way down. It’s much easier when you have a higher adult-to-child ratio. Let’s just say that EVERYONE on that plane knew that my three-year-old godson was VERY.EXCITED. to get to Disneyworld. :) It was actually pretty cute.

When we got to Florida, we met up with Husband’s uncle, Uncle's son and son’s best friend, plus the cousin and fiancee who live in Orlando [where we’re headed back for the wedding in May! Yay!].

I believe the final total was 17 for dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern before the fireworks. It was insane – but so much fun!

This is my Tea Cups buddy, Scrappy. And those are my ears. :)

My FIL holding Moose, our godson. He had that look on his face the whole week.

The Magical Express bus dropped us off at the Animal Kingdom Villas, our DVC home base.

The in-laws purchased their DVC membership last year on vacation and it’s such a great thing! This was the first time we stayed on points and I really enjoyed the resort. Our rooms were in the Jamba House, so it gave us the feel of a bigger resort but also all the benefits of the DVC home base as well.

Some rooms look out on the savannah - with giraffes and all kinds of other animals!

We always hit up the Magic Kingdom as the first (and usually the last) thing we do at Disney. We ride all of our favorites, have a Mickey’s ice cream bar, and wait for midnight.

This year we all met up in front of Space Mountain in Tomorrowland and made sure we had a good view of the castle. It was the PERFECT place – after ten minutes of fireworks before midnight, the countdown began and then the sky all around us just exploded into fireworks and lights. They really do it right!

We sent the rest of the family home while we met up with Husband’s friend from grade school and his family who happened to be there for New Year’s as well. The six of us closed down the Kingdom that night – which led us up to 23 hours without sleep!

Here are some other fun photos from the rest of the trip:

Gotta love the Hidden Mickeys the cast members put EVERYWHERE.

In four trips, I had never been on Thunder Mountain. We fixed that on this trip.

Chip and Dale are Scrappy's favorite ... other than princeses, that is.

I love the details outside of the Muppets ride in Hollywood Studios.

I really don't know what's going on here - but that's Meemaw in BIL's hat. Hmm.