Disney Trip...in detail!

Day 1~Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Wow….what an amazing day it’s been. I think we started counting down this trip on Meg’s calendar when there were 70 some days left. It was definitely worth the wait. Her reactions today were worth every second of that wait. Our day began bright and early. I got up at 4:30, at just before 5am she literally bounced into my room already dressed. She even had her tennis shoes in hand. I’d been preparing her for weeks that she was going to have to wear her tennis shoes for most of this week (not something she likes to wear because as you can imagine they are sooooo not girly enough to go with any of her outfits). Anyways, we got the tennis shoes on and tied as tight as I could tie them (yet another shoe quirk of hers, don’t ask!) and then the tears about having to wear them. It was after all 5am so rational thinking wasn’t gonna happen. Thankfully, Greg did some sweet talking and all was well. I have no idea what he said and he refuses to share his secrets with me, but I didn’t really care at that point. She wore the shoes and was happy as can be about it.

We left when we’d planned on leaving and had no major delays, but Meg and I were actually the last ones to board the plane. They weren’t waiting on us, but it just so happened that as we were coming up they were making the final boarding call. I considered it pretty good timing really, why did we need to sit and wait in the airport terminal when we were headed to Disney to stand in lines and wait for an entire week, right???? Meg was beyond excited on the plane. When it finally took off, she just giggled and giggled and giggled with glee. The Sappy Mommy in me started to come out and I got a little teary eyed. Seeing how excited she was just made me overcome with emotion for a brief, fleeting moment. I got a hold of myself quickly though. We read a book, watched part of a DVD, colored and had a snack and drink on the plane. The time went pretty quickly.

Our plane landed around 9:15 and by 11:00 we had caught the shuttle to our hotel, checked in, and caught another bus to Hollywood Studios. It was amazing and super easy. Disney Vacations make this a breeze!

Meg was in instant awe in the park. She wanted to ride a ride, but I quickly discovered that a lot of HS is show/movie kinda stuff (go figure, right????). We did go ahead and get a FastPass for the Tower of Terror (it’s a ride and she wanted to ride a ride so don’t think I’m mean!) We spent our early afternoon on the Star Wars simulator and a Muppets 3-D show. She cracked me up at that. Every 2-3 minutes, she would reach out in front of her like she could really touch them. There were also several times when things “flew” at us and she was always ducking and swatting in the air at them. We also played for a while on a Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground and then saw a High School Musical 3 show, where she got chosen out of the crowd with a few other kids to go up and dance with the Cast Members. (This is probably a good time to mention too that my camera was stuck back at the hotel with my stored luggage…yeah, I forgot….duh!!!!!!!!) After that it was time for our character lunch. What a yummy lunch it was although she was way too excited to eat much of anything. Several Playhouse Disney Characters were there (JoJo and Goliath, and Little Einstein’s June and Leo gave her autographs) There was also dancing and singing there that she got to go join in on, so she was thrilled again.

After lunch, we rode the Tower of Terror. I was shocked she rode this, as it is pretty intense. She did alright with it, but I can’t say she’d do it again. When it was over and I told her it was over, she just kept saying, “Is it really over, I mean really over now Mommy?” The picture was pretty funny, because I was all huddle over her holding her in. She did manage to let many strangers throughout the day know that she rode it! We also saw a Beauty and the Beast show, went on a Back lot tour that showed lots of neat special effects, and a Little Mermaid show that was really cool and made you feel like you were under water and the big hit of the day was meeting a REAL prince! She got to meet Prince Caspian from The Chronicles of Narnia in a private little setting. It was very neat how they had it set up. She had a few minutes to speak with him in a private room and he asked her some questions like where she was from (her response…Greenfield J, like he would just know where that is, right?) and if she had any animals. He ended up getting an earful about Vanna, Belle and Molly and all the other animals at Mamaw and Papaw’s.

One final thing about the day, she really is starting to get the hang of the pin trading thing and is finding that to be lots of fun. She will walk right up to cast members and tell them which one she likes. The hard part is deciding which pin she’s willing to part with. We are even finding that other kids in lines will hint at certain pins they like, but she’s hasn’t been so quick to pick up on that just yet. I’m sure it won’t take long though. So far today she managed to score two princess pins that she traded Mickey’s for. We’ll see what happens tomorrow at the Magic Kingdom!


Day 2- Thursday, June 11, 2009

What a whirlwind today was! Disney World truly is a magical place. To think what all we did in about 12 hours time is unbelievable. It’s a shame that I can’t detail every moment to have and remember so I’ve decided a bulleted list of the highlights would be best. Here goes in order from the beginning of our day in the Magic Kingdom to the end:

· Riding the Dumbo ride…this is one of two rides that she has been talking about wanting to do since this trip was planned. She even got the Dumbo that matched the color of her shirt today.
· Spinning on the tea cups with her…..we cackled and cackled and cackled the entire time. I spun that cup as fast as I could and she kept saying “Faster Mommy, faster!” Moments like those are ones that I will cherish forever. The queasy feeling in my stomach went away quickly enough and we are looking forward to going on them again tomorrow. **Note to self…eat a light breakfast!**
· Going through It’s a Small World. A whole ride full of dolls in fancy costumes…she loved it and kept singing the song off and on all throughout the day.
· The Big Thunder Mountain Railroad…this took a lot of convincing on my part to get her to ride this, since she was worried about a big hill that would go “straight down.” I wouldn’t have tried so much, but I knew she’d like it and wouldn’t be frightened, so I persisted and won. We saw the Country Bear Jamboree while I was in the middle of my convincing and I won. When I asked her at the end of the night tonight what the best part of today was, wanna guess what her response was? The BIG roller coaster she on today. She’s looking forward to riding that again tomorrow too, twice hopefully. I made her tell me while waiting in the line for the Pirates of the Caribbean that I was right about it. HA!
· The Magic Carpet ride was the other ride that she had longed to go on that we did. It was fun, but after a roller coaster ride, I don’t think she was all that impressed by it. She did make our carpet bounce up and down that got our stomachs and she thought that was pretty funny.
· Buying her mouse ears. Everyone has to have mouse ears at Disney World right? No surprise that Meg’s is a pink hat with a crown on the front, silver ears and a veil down the back. Very appropriate!
· The Happily Ever After Dinner ….this was her dream come true. It was dinner at the Grand Floridian hotel. She loved riding the monorail there. I even got a little prefix lesson in about mono- and bi-. HA HA! Anyways, dinner was amazing. Great food and even better was that Cinderella was there with Prince Charming. They danced, came around and greeted us, signed her autograph book and took pictures with her. She even got to dance with Cinderella. Lady Tremaine (the wicked stepmother), Drizella and Anastasia (her step-sisters) were also there. They were all very much in character and put on a little show as they went around and greeted the kids. Meg had a dress on that had Cinderella on it and Drizella asked her if her mother made her wear that ugly thing and then told her she felt sorry for her. Meghan told Cinderella she looked beautiful and said something to each of the stepsisters, but she said nothing to Prince Charming when he came by. She just handed him her book and kept eating her food. I had to tell her to put her bread down and pose with him for a picture. When he went away I asked her why she didn’t say anything and she told me it was because he was sooooo handsome. Awestruck by a male at age 5….uh oh!!! She kept going on and on about how beautiful Cinderella’s dress was.
· After dinner, we headed back to the Magic Kingdom and watched the Spectro Magic Parade. It’s a parade full of lit up floats which was very cool. We had an awesome spot right on Main Street and didn’t even wait long. We just slid in a couple of minutes before it started. With there just being the two of us, it’s easy to squeeze in like that. After the parade, we headed down Main Street (along with thousands of others) and found a perfect spot not too far from the castle to watch the fireworks celebration at the end of the night. We were seated right underneath of where Tinkerbell flew over, which was really neat. Meg loved that! The firework display was fantastic.
· Final fun of the day was a late night swim. Why not swim at 11:00 when you are at Disney World, right? It was so hot today and we were pretty sticky that I figured a dip would be pretty refreshing. She thought it was fun to be swimming “in the middle of the night” and it rejuvenated my tired legs for another fun filled day tomorrow. Just a small part of the Magic Kingdom to finish up, then we may check out some of Epcot and/or relax at the hotel pool for a while. Who knows for sure, but one thing I do know for sure….we’ll be having a great time!

Day 3- Friday, June 12, 2009

I must start this off by mentioning something that I’ve been wanting to write but haven’t yet. Everywhere we go in these parks, they refer to little girls as princesses. They have no idea how much Miss Thing LOVES this. Every time they call her that or say something to her about being a princess she looks up at me with this look like, “How did they know that I’m a princess?” It’s priceless!

It was another great day. It started off by being us being able to view the characters getting off of the train and welcoming everyone into the Magic Kingdom. We saw the closing last night and the opening this morning. Pretty neat! We hurried off to the BIG roller coaster as Meg puts it. We got a Fast Pass first, then stood in the regular line for it which was only about 10 minutes at that point, so she actually got to ride it two more times today. She was even so brave as to ride with her hands up for most of the second ride. Who knew that just yesterday I was convincing her that she wouldn’t be scared to death of it????

She also spent more of her Disney Dollars this morning. It’s been over 90 degrees everyday and they sell these spray bottles with a fan on the end. She keeps wanting to buy one and I’ve kept trying to tell her it was a waste of her $17, but today I finally caved and figured, it’s her money and she keeps insisting, so why not? I must admit (and actually did to her) that it was a pretty good purchase. It made the wait for the parade later on in the mid-afternoon sun somewhat bearable.

We spent some time searching for hidden paintbrushes that give you some kind of special perk on Tom Sawyer’s island, but had no luck with that, so we gave up and went and rode the tea cups again, at Princess Meg’s request. This time, she was giggling and laughing before it even started. After the tea cups, we headed to ToonTown for some kid stuff. The kid roller coaster we rode but, she wasn’t so impressed with. We took the train all the way around the park, which was nice and relaxing and in the shade, but the best part was when we got off of it. We were debating about waiting in line for Mickey’s autograph. I saw a line and actually thought it might be Mickey so we headed that way. It wasn’t. It was Jasmine! We were the next to last people to get in the line and get her autograph and meet her. Meg was sooooo excited. She gave her a big hug and told her that she was her favorite princess. Jasmine touched the tip of her nose and said, “Well then, I think you are my favorite princess!” Meghan seemed to float around for the next hour or so. That was definitely the most favorite part of this day for both of us.

After that we headed to Tomorrowland and did the rides there. She got to drive a race car, shoot at all kinds of stuff in a really cool Buzz LightYear ride, ride in the Astro Orbiter way up high, and laugh at a Monster’s Inc. show (BTW-Grant Hill was visiting the MK today and sat right behind us during this). We also did the Stitch’s Adventure, but neither of us cared for it too much. It was dark and pretty creepy in a silly sort of way.

It was only 2:30 pm when all of that was done, so that’s when we decided we’d head back to the resort for some pool time, but we got sidetracked. The smell of the bakery on Main Street was too much. We stopped in for a piece of chocolate cake and boy ‘o boy was it good cake. Meg even licked the icing off the plate. I would love to go back and try one of everything from that bakery. Since we had the cake and needed to sit and eat it, we decided to wait on the parade. We had a perfect seat and she loved seeing all the characters come right by in front of her.

We did go back then and swim for a while, then we decided we’d check out Epcot. We only had about an hour, but we had time to ride the ride that goes up in the Epcot sphere, Test Track and Mission Space. Test Track was awesome! You ride in a car that seems to be going through testing, it even includes a 60+ mph lap at the end outside and on a track that is above the ground. She loved it! Mission Space was a glorified Gravitron ride from the county fair, but it was pretty cool. They make you feel like you are flying into outerspace by spinning you while you are in a capsule kind of thing. I was worried about her the whole time because she was silent, but when we got off, she was telling me how great it was and she wants to do it again when we go back on Monday. It was neat, but I’m not sure about the spinning thing again.

By that point, it was just about time to head and find a seat for the night show. We headed to Italy, since we were told that was the best place to view it. It was a good spot and we were in admiration once again of the fireworks show. I stood there holding Meg and thinking how lucky I am to be having this great experience with her. What fun!

Tomorrow morning we are getting up bright and early to head to Animal Kingdom. Can’t wait to experience that and see some more neat stuff!


Day 4- Saturday, June 13, 2009

Hanging with the animals today! We spent today at Animal Kingdom. There were Extra Magic Hours so it opened at 8am. It was fun to be in line and get to see the park open. We’d heard that the Kilimanjaro Safari was the place we needed to be first, so we headed there. We were one of the first ones off on the safari and it was remarkable! There were giraffes right along the side of the road, so close we could’ve touched them. We had to stop and wait for a gazelle to get out of the road for us, we saw the lions lounging on rocks and the elephant was eating his breakfast. We even saw the rhinos which the guide said doesn’t happen too often. We were pretty lucky. Meg liked all the animals, but at one point the bridge we were riding on began to wobble and shake like it was breaking and she thought that was pretty funny. We wandered through and saw fish, gorillas, birds and lots more. We even ventured to an area where a cast member had animal poop for her to hold. She told me that she really liked that part and was “obsessed” with animal poop now. HA!
We’d been told that we needed to see both Festival of the Lion King and the Nemo Show. They were both all we’d expected and more. The Lion King’s acrobatics performers were incredible to watch and we ended up humming many of the Nemo songs throughout the day. There were a few rides to do there (or ones that Meg agreed to do…Expedition Everest looked like fun to me, but I couldn’t convince her to ride it because it looked like a huge mountain and she was convinced there’d be a steep hill) so we did those. We did NOT enjoy the Dinosaur ride. It was dark and pretty scary and to top it off there were technical difficulties that resulted in us being stopped three different times in the pitch black in a rocking car. Meg was already terrified enough and that didn’t help. We made a stop in the gift shop afterwards and that helped out! J She ended up with a new Webkinz and a t-shirt from our visit to Animal Kingdom. I am truly enjoying watching her decide on what she really wants to purchase. She’s pretty selective and won’t buy anything that’s more than $20.

We had a dinner reservation at Rain Forest Café. She was insistent that she wasn’t hungry and just wanted to go back to the hotel to swim. I insisted that we keep our reservation and eat dinner because I knew she’d think it was pretty cool in there. She was enthralled from the moment we stepped into the restaurant. She kept yelling out "Raaaain Forest Cafe!" We shared food and I was shocked, but Meg devoured calamari. It’s not for me, but when she asked what I was I told her it was like shrimp and she chowed down on it. We ended up with a few more souvenirs from the RF café, including a necklace with her name on it. We were so excited that it had her name spelled right with the “H” in it, that she just had to have it.

When we got back to the hotel (which was pretty early because we were both pretty tired) and swam. She met a new friend named Sarah from Texas. They swam for a long time while I sat on the edge and visited with Sarah’s mom, granny and aunt. It was nice to have a little adult conversation for me and Meg and Sarah had a great time swimming all over. Meg is a little water bug. Her newest thing is swimming under water. She likes to see just how far she can go. We decided to call it a night pretty early tonight, so she’s sound asleep and I’m about to do the same. Disney + June Florida heat= Two tired gals!

Day 5- Sunday, June 14, 2009

Meg’s big day!!! Today was Meg’s choice day, as I didn’t have anything planned and wanted to give her the chance to do what she wanted to. Her first request was to go back and ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. We did that two more times, for a total of five times riding that coaster. That is by far her favorite ride here at all of the Disney parks. We also road the tea cups again and then we went and met the fairies and the princesses for pictures and autographs. She left that area spinning and twirling, she was so excited. She kept saying over and over, “That was so cool!” I have absolutely loved seeing her face when she sees them and gives them hugs. I’ve tried to capture it in the pictures, but they just totally do it. We ended up in another gift shop where she got more stuff…princess stuff this time and a Lady and the Tramp dog. We then shared a Dole Pineapple whip float which was super yummy and headed out of the park. She wanted to go to Epcot to check out more that we didn’t get to do when we were on Friday.
We rode the Monorail there which she loves, and we reviewed those prefixes again too! J At Epcot she really enjoyed the boat ride through the greenhouses and the Nemo clamshell ride. We had a bit of an issue at the interactive Turtle Talk show with Crush. She was sitting in the front with a bunch of other kids, when she looks back at me and I can tell something is up. She mouths that she has to pee, so we had to leave mid-show. She was devastated she couldn’t finish watching to the end, so we went pee, then turned right back around and went into the next show. Guess that’s another bonus of it being just the two of us.

We had dinner reservations tonight at Downtown Disney at 6pm, so we caught a bus from Epcot there. On that ride, her loose tooth really started bugging her. It’s been practically hanging there for the past day, We tried to pull it out to no avail. We went ahead and went to dinner, where she fussed and whined about it during dinner. It didn’t prevent her from helping demolish my chocolate cake though at the end. (I should mention here that the Disney Dining Plan is great for many reasons, one of the best ones is that all of your meals include dessert, so we’ve had lots of chocolate cake this past week!) Mmmmmm! We shopped after dinner, where she spent more of her money and yes, it is just about gone now. She bought a Sharpay Barbie doll from High School Musical that has a whole dressing room set of things with her. She blew my theory on not spending over $20 though. Now I just have to figure out how to get all of this stuff home???? I did a little prepacking tonight and I’m not sure how it’s gonna work out!

Back to the tooth. When we got back to the hotel from DD, I managed to pull the it out. I can’t believe my baby girl has lost her first tooth AND will be starting kindergarten! Is it really time for ALL of this?

We took an evening swim for a little while after the tooth came out, then we came back and got ready for bed. She finally went to sleep. She was pretty wound up wondering if the tooth fairy would find her here in the hotel, but fortunately the fatigue of Disney won over and she conked out. Now….let’s hope that fairy finds her here!! ;-)

Time has flown by here and I can’t believe our last day to experience all of this is tomorrow. You can be sure we’ll be making the most of it!

Day 6- Monday, June 15, 2009

It was our last day. I have such mixed emotions. Part of me feels like we really did Disney. We saw soooo much in a week’s time and Meg experienced so many different things, but then there is this part of me that is thinking about a few things that we didn’t get to do. I tell myself though that it is Disney World and there’s no way you could do it all. The bottom line is we had a blast. I just finished uploading pics to my computer and it is so much fun to look at them. I can’t wait to get them all organized to share our stories and memories of this week.

Anyways, details of today. We had a relatively lazy morning, since we really were running out of steam and getting pretty tired. We had breakfast at the hotel and left around 9:30am for Downtown Disney. We spent more time in the World of Disney store (paradise for Meg) while waiting on her appointment at the Bippity Boppity Boutique, but I was able to steer her clear of buying anything else, since suitcase space is extremely limited at this point. Whew! She chose to be Jasmine today and the outfit for it was absolutely adorable. It even had little coins on the shirt that made a clinking sound when she walked. The lady did her hair, makeup and nails. She sat there in the chair and savored every moment. They kept her backwards in the chair until she was all finished and then turned her around. The picture from that is priceless. I love the look on her face! She even got to have a photo shoot after her makeover. What a perfect morning for Princess Meghan!

After the makeover, we had to head to Epcot because we had a lunch reservation at the Akershus Restaurant in Norway with the princesses. It was another great meal. She was, as she has been at all the character meals, so excited she had trouble focusing and actually eating at first, but the food was delicious. We took a picture with Belle first, then Cinderella, Snow White, Aurora and Ariel all came out to meet us. She informed Cinderella that it was the third time she had gotten her autograph and she told Ariel that her Papaw pretended to be King Triton (Ariel’s dad) in the pool. Oh….and just a quick side note….Ariel was actually Asian. It didn’t phase Meg one bit, but somehow it just didn’t work too well for me. I guess job diversity is everywhere and you have to be an equal opportunity employer even when it comes to hiring Disney Princesses. HA!

She had really wanted Jasmine to be there and was a bit disappointed that she wasn’t at lunch, but we heard she hung out at Morocco, so we went that direction after lunch. She was there and Meghan bounced up to her and gave her a big hug. The photographer also made her day by saying how he couldn’t tell who was really Jasmine. Not surprisingly, Meg really enjoyed all the comments from people today about how pretty she looked and all the ones who referred to her as “Princess Jasmine.” She batted her eyes each time and said thank you.

We really wanted to do a couple of more rides at Epcot, but the crowd was unbelievable today and it had been about 100 degrees out, so we decided to head back and go swimming instead. All in all, we had a very fun last day.

Meg had an eyelash on her cheek while in the pool and I put it on the end of my finger and told her to blow it off and make a wish. She wished to live at Disney World. I guess that says it all, right? We made memories to last a lifetime on this trip!