Galactic Starcruiser! and Magic Kingdom

 Fall break was time for the Justice family to go aboard the Galactic Starcruiser!  What a unique and interesting experience that was!   I'm not sure who was more excited, Brad or the kids! No wait... actually, I do know who was most excited.... and it was someone not pictured here with matching Star Wars backpacks.  These four cuties were pretty darn excited too.

It was going to be a whirlwind of an adventure! From Tuesday to Saturday, we would stay in three different hotels, go to Magic Kingdom, a Mickey Halloween Party, and go to outer space in the Halcyon Starcruiser.  We were high energy and ready for the adventure!

When we arrived in Florida, we checked in to the Fort Wilderness Lodge, which was a beautiful property!  While dad was getting us checked in, I kept the kids entertained taking pictures.

We had a pretty two bedroom amazing suite!

After getting checked in, we went for a walk around the lodge to explore a bit.  We came across our first penny smasher!  These things take credit cards now!

Unfortunately, it was a little chilly outside, so nobody was dying to get into this beautiful pool, but we enjoyed walking around and getting a tour of the place.

That night we had dinner at Storybook Dining where we got to meet some fun characters.

Everyone decided the food wasn't great, but the presentation of desserts was pretty.  She also brought us some heart shaped chocolates out of a treasure box overflowing with fog from dry ice. That was cool.

Then we were off to bed after a long day of travel - excited for our adventure tomorrow when we would board the Starcruiser!

The next morning we had breakfast at the Whispering Canyon Cafe, which we quickly learned that the wait staff does the opposite of whispering.  We had some good laughs about the crazy interactions we had with our waiter, or that we observed going on at other tables.

At one point, our waiter asked if we would need ketchup and when we responded "yes, please" he yelled "Ketchup" really loud and the nearest table proceeded to bring us every bottle of ketchup in the place.  Then later on in our meal, we heard someone yell "Ketchup" and the kids thought it was fun to carry all the bottles over to someone else's table.

Karly wasn't a huge fan.  I think the overall appearance of silliness, and yelling, was weird to her. :)

After breakfast we still had some time to kill so we went on the Resort scavenger hunt.  It took us to all the nooks and crannies of the place on the hunt for different items, and it was really fun.

And then the time came for us to get geared up in our cool space uniforms and head to the port!  The excitement energy was so fun!

While waiting to board, everyone got their datapads all set up and ready to go for their missions.  We each had a unique set up, so depending on ways we answered questions, or completed missions, our individual tasks and participation in events would change.

Then we boarded a launch pod and out to space we went!  The elevator opened up into the Halycon Starcruiser Lobby and everyone was so amazed!  From here on out, every view from the windows was a view out into space.

We had fun exploring the ship, seeing all the unique machines and decor, and then finding our two state rooms.

The mission bridge was pretty incredible.  The views out the windows changed as things in space continued to move around us. It was all incredibly realistic.

We had two staterooms, right across the hall from one another, and the views out each of our staterooms were always different like we were really traveling through space and nobody would realistically have the same exact view, right?!

The kids were excited about their bunkbeds, and thought it was so cool that we had an in-room droid they could talk to, ask questions, and get pertinent info from.  She would even sing the kids a bedtime lullaby if they wanted!  ha ha

Then we continued to explore the ship until the "program" officially started.  Everything felt so realistic, and was done so well.  It really felt like we had been dropped into a Star Wars movie.

We went to lunch at the "Crown of Correllia" dining room. This was our first of many interesting space meals.  The food was very unique for sure! I loved that it forced the kids to try lots of new things though, they did well!

On the upper deck we found the "climate simulator" deck where we could go out and see the real sky, and get some fresh air.  It was the perfect place for our cute little Jedi to do some meditating. 

We met some fun characters and started scanning info around the ship on our datapads, and answering questions about whether we were going to help the light side, or get tricked into falling into the dark side.  Things were starting to get real!

Then the Captain of the ship came out and introduced herself, and introduced the mission and all that we would be able to experience while aboard the ship.

We got to raise a toast to celebrate our time in space, but then unfortunately our celebration was cut short when the First Order boarded our ship.  In came Lieutenant Croy and his Stormtroopers and everything started to get real interesting...  now the fight between the good and the dark side was beginning and we quickly became involved in helping direct new missions to hide the good guys, and keep the bad guys from taking over control of the ship.

That night we got to do bridge training, where we learned to fire the weapons, use the shields and Karly even got to pull the lever which sent us to lightspeed.

That night we had dinner and a show by the Galactic Superstar Gaya.  She entertained us with fun music while we ate some interesting space food, including blue shrimp!  

Karly wasn't so sure about any of this suspicious looking food.

Then Chewbacca and Rae boarded the ship and we were on some very important missions to help keep them hidden from the Stormtroopers.

The kids also got to do lightsaber training which was so fun!  The machines on the wall would shoot out laser beams and they would have to defend and fight them off with proper lightsaber moves.

They also scanned droids for various clues and info.

There was lots to do to help solve clues, and keep the dark side from finding out what was going on.  By the time we finally got to bed that night, it was late and we were exhausted!

The next morning was our port day!  We were up bright and early and took our transport pod to the planet of Batuu.

The planet Batuu was Star Wars land at Hollywood studios in Disney World.  We had an early morning entrance so we had to take a quick "Star Wars" break and go on a couple other big rides in the park we wanted to go on.

Slinky Dog was our first ride of the morning.  Some people weren't too excited about this, but did agree to try.

Eden and Bentley loved it and were cute little seat mates.

By the end of the ride - Olive was glad she went but not a fan.

And Karly was not a fan and was not sure she was glad she went.  Her cute little face kills me.

We also went on the new Mickey and Minnie's Railway ride and then headed back into Star Wars character and spent the rest of the day exploring Batuu. Even within the park, our data pads had plenty of work for us to do and data to collect by finding hidden clues that linked to things that was happening on the ship.  We have been to Star Wars land before, but this time was unique!

We stopped for a little shade break at one point and Kylo Ren and some storm troppers were walking by, stopped in their tracks and walked up to us and gave Olive a hard time.  She loved it!

We went on all the Star Wars rides.  It's fun to do these together as a family now that everyone is finally big enough!

Then at the end of our day we made a final stop at the Droid Shop so the kids could build their own droids.  They loved it!

Then we got back on our space pod to take us back onto the ship.  The kids were so excited to drive their droids around with all the other kids.

No day was complete without some blue and green milk!

Blue shrimp was part of our dinner, which was interesting.  Karly was grossed out just looking at it. ha ha

Then the kids were back in the swing of solving problems and playing along with the story.

It all came to a big climax at the end when Kylo Ren boarded the ship and him and Rey had a pretty epic battle.  In the end, the good side won and we celebrated with space fireworks.

During our time there we had a fun family photo shoot and got tons of great pictures.

The girls also took part in a space fashion show.  They did awesome walking the runway.

After a late night of celebrating our big win, we got some great sleep and were up early the next morning to get back to Earth.  Goodbye Halcyon Space Cruiser!

Back on Earth we went first to check into our hotel for the night.  This time we stayed at the Polynesian Resort, which was beautiful!

We enjoyed some Dolewhips and then spent the next couple hours enjoying the pool and water slides.

Later that afternoon we went to Magic Kingdom for Mickey's Halloween Party.  So fun!

We all had some simple costumes to wear - it was a Halloween party after all!

We had fun going on all the favorite rides - Haunted Mansion being one of those!

This time was Karly's first time on Thunder Mountain.  She kept going back and forth about whether or not she wanted to try.  

Even in line after she agreed to go, we had to keep talking about what to expect.  I think Slinky Dog the other day really scared her.

Even getting on the ride she was so nervous, but still wanted to try.  I was so proud of her for pushing through!

And we didn't get an "after" picture,  but I'm happy to report that she LOVED it!  We ended up going on it a couple times.

Then we got to watch a really fun Hocus Pocus stage show and an awesome Halloween parade.

We loved the parade so much, and then finished the night on several more rides.

Olive was very brave and went on the Seven Dwarfs mine ride for the first time.  In this pictures she was gripping on to the ride for dear life.  She wasn't really a fan of this one.  But the cool part was they got to see the fireworks from the ride which they loved. And we were so proud of her for trying something new!

After a very long day (which remember - we started our morning on another planet), we were all very exhausted after our Halloween Party and closing down Magic Kingdom.   It was such a fun day, and so much more manageable doing these long days without toddlers and babies! ha!  These guys were party animals for sure!  We slept really good that night.

On our final morning of the trip, we had a yummy Ohana breakfast with Lilo, Stitch, Mickey, and Pluto. This resort was bringing back memories of Hawaii and I think we were all wishing our flight was taking us back there instead of back home.

This statue was facing the hallway into the restaurant, but it also meant this was the view from our table.  Every time someone tried to talk to Karly, they just saw these bum cheeks behind her.

And then we were off to the airport - ready to head home!  It was a whirlwind of a trip, out to space and back again, landing in Disney World for a Halloween Party, and then back home.  We sure packed a lot into our fall break this year!  Thanks for all the expert planning Brad.  We are grateful to have so many fun and unique family experiences!