Disney Day 5…Joe Time, Agrabah and Bob??

Our final day at Disney is always bitter sweet. We get one last chance to see and feel the Magic but we don’t want to say good-bye…..

In the past we’ve had such a hard time saying so long that we don’t leave until 6, 7, 8, and even once 9pm and that makes for a really hard and sometimes scary 6 hour car ride home. Pulling off the highway running around the car trying to wake ourselves up is NOT a good thing to do.

We’ve matured in our decision making and now we try not to leave any later than 3pm. 😀 Since we have limited time we hit the last few attractions we can, purchase souvenirs, load up the luggage and head home.

The 1st on our list on our last day was a family favorite The Tiki Room! Where the birds sing words and the flowers croon! 🙂

I love the classics. Especially because the music use to be well…music. In the Tiki Room I love the water fountains that transport me back to another era, and I feel Walt’s imaginative hands in the entire experience. It’s a good time! 🙂 

Did you know that The Tiki Room is the only attraction with a bathroom in it? That’s because it used to be a restaurant! Fun fact! 😛 

 

We had been trying over the past week to see Jasmine and Aladdin but every time we came they either weren’t there or were about to leave. The stars aligned on the last day and we finally got to meet them!

 

Jasmine has become Alayna’s favorite Princess and she was dying to meet her. You can’t tell from the photo but she was super excited! She even chose a little Jasmine plush doll as her souvenir at that HUGE World of Disney store in Downtown Disney on our way home. 😀 

I love how Eli shows me the autograph he got in his pictures with the characters. He’s a clever kid! 🙂 Too bad you can’t read it…maybe I need to give them a sharpie next time. 😛

Look at my young man! 🙂 It looks like they are trying to lock him into place…he gets so shy around girls. 😛Walker really impressed us this trip. He really showed us what a mature young man he’s becoming. Jared and I kept telling him throughout the trip how proud of him we are. It’s been a few years since we’ve gone on vacation with just our family. We like to invite other family/friends when we go, but it was great to just have it be our little family this time. It really gave us a chance to connect with our kids and experience them in a different way. I know we probably wouldn’t have been quite as aware of the changes we saw in Walker if we had been traveling with another group. I’m so glad we didn’t miss out! 😀

That was pretty much all we had time for so we left the Park. Walker had purchased a lanyard and 2 pins earlier in the trip so he could start the exciting journey of pin trading. I already mentioned Alayna bought a Jasmine doll, and Eli got an adorable puppy at Build-a-Bear. He dressed him up as a Jedi and named him Pupi-Wan. So cute!

We went back to the hotel to say a wistful good-bye and loaded up the car and headed for home. I had remembered from past trips there is a Bob’s Big Boy I see off one of the exits but we are always in a rush to get home or I space it until we’ve already passed it. I had put it on our ‘to do’ list so we got to try it out this time. 

When Jared and I were kids we loved to go to Bob’s Big Boy. It was THE place to go. The food was tasty and you could mix your own syrups into your sodas and their desserts were delicious!

 

Unfortunately, they all closed in Arizona. You can’t go to Bob’s anymore. So we were stoked about re-living our past!

 

Unfortunately, again…it wasn’t anything like we had remembered. It was an equivalent to a Denny’s. It was sad..very sad. 🙁

I’m glad we stopped though and gave it a try or we’d never really know. It was also fun sharing a part of our childhood with the kids. They thought it was really neat to go where Mom and Dad use to go as kids. 🙂 And as a side note: The kids thought the food was GREAT! So maybe that might mean the food was never that good but as kids you think it’s good??? LOL!

 

We had an AMAZING 5 days and we loved every minute! I love my little family and I couldn’t have had more fun with 4 other people. It was perfect!