To Harriet Louise: Disney Trip

I've got a bunch of blog posts floating around about life, politics, visits with friends, etc.

But first let's talk about the happiest.

If you know me, you probably know that I love Disney. Not the place, just the whole damn thing. The movies, the brand, the old store in the Massapequa Mall. SO of course, I've been dying to go to Disney since I was a bebe. (Fun fact: In the days leading up to the trip I played some of the old movies for my sister and cousins. They were VHS. 1. The kids were like, "What are those??" 2. During the previews/coming attractions there are commercials for Disney World. If you're older than 20 you probably know what I'm talking about. The commercial starts with kids dreaming of Disney and the parents are smitten, knowing the little darlings WILL TOTALLY BE TAKING A SURPRISE TRIP THERE WOW OMGOSH. The girls got a kick out of them.)

So yes. I've wanted to go for forever. The 15 year old has wanted to go forever. The 11-and-unders were excited, but they had nothing on our excitement. Go figure.

My uncle decided he was going to send us to Disney... and wanted to book the trip for just a few days later. This is the part I'll probably block out. Many, many phone calls were made to Disney. For the most part, their customer service people are really helpful. Their website was slightly less helpful. And by slightly I mean it kind of sucked. (Once the trip was booked the website was really great, though.) Finally, the trip was booked, everything was paid, and I let myself start to get excited.

Being the occasional over-analyzer, I read blog post upon blog post - I wanted to know as much as possible. I've never been on a real vacation (Not trying to sound like an ungrateful b - I've been camping and gone to cool tourist-y places while visiting family and friends and I've thoroughly enjoyed those things. My point is just that the vacation thing is new to me, and I needed to glean a little insight on planning one.) so I felt like there was a lot for me to learn in a really short period of time. I got a few eye rolls from my family when I told them I was researching Disney and figuring out how we should plan the days. They were pretty much in agreement that we should just go and wing it. And really, I think the trip would have been amazing even if I didn't plan things out a bit. But, I'm very glad I did. And I'm just a little proud of myself for doing a damn good job with the itinerary. If (jk - when) I go back, I'm going to plan similarly.

I made some super corny itineraries for each of us (I thought it would be cute for the littles to have a personalized copy with their names on it as a sort of keepsake). Giving them to each kid worked out great. It kept them quiet for a little while during the ride as they each read it, it gave them things to discuss, and it got them pretty excited. It was also good for the littlest one. She's working on reading and needs all the practice she can get - she loved reading things off to us and she did a great job of retaining the info. Throughout the trip she'd come up to me and say things like, "Charlotte, the parade is at 9, and it's not too far from Frontierland and and and..." It was very sweet.

From my Disney-blog-post reading spree, I learned which rides were prone to the longest lines, which restaurants were good for certain times of the day, and for which rides we should try to get Fastpasses. I didn't want to be an over-planner and have the schedule be too rigid, so I only included a few rides/attractions. Of course, the Fastpass rides were scheduled, but I also put on the itinerary that we'd need to do the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and other popular rides first thing in the morning. There were certain rides that almost every blogger said had insane lines, so I got Fastpasses where possible and suggested early morning or late night times if the passes weren't available. I made sure to include a list of what attractions were in each area, so that while it wasn't a strict schedule, everyone would have an idea of what rides they'd want to hit up while we were making our way to or from the Fastpass rides. It all went really, really smoothly. We were only in Magic Kingdom for a day and a half, and we all got to ride everything we wanted. We rode our favorites at least twice. And the longest we waited on any line was half an hour and that was only once. Beforehand I read horror stories of 2-3 hour waits, so I think we lucked out (/planned well). Other than the 30 minute Splash Mountain wait, we typically waited under 10-15 minutes. It was awesome.

Fun fun fun.

Just before the big drop on Splash Mountain, Rose, the youngest one (sitting next to me in that picture), excitedly yelled, "Okay girls! Here we go! Hands up, girls! Hands up!"

And then she chickened out. And everyone other than me ignored her. I have no shame, though.

So yes. Favorite rides. Space Mountain was my absolute favorite. We rode it twice. Oddly, I liked it better when I wasn't in the front seat (weird, because normally that's the most thrilling spot - it certainly was with Splash Mountain). I thought riding a roller coaster in the dark was just the coolest thing ever. Some of our party didn't go the second time because it had been broken earlier in the day, and Rebecca told me after that she didn't enjoy the second time because she worried about it breaking down the entire way, but I thought it made it more exciting.

I guess my second favorite was Splash Mountain (though, fun-sucker alert, I don't love getting soaked when I'm in regular clothes). It was everyone else's favorite. I loved the balance of thrill (sort of? you know, drops and stuff) and beauty. Some of the rides, like the Ariel and Peter Pan rides, were very slow and somewhat boring but I loved them because they were soooo pretty. I liked that Splash Mountain had the fun but was also really beautiful.

Little aside - the ~~demons~~ kids were just a leeeettle irritating regarding the rides. We used Fastpasses mostly for thrill rides, but we used two of them for the slow rides (Ariel and Peter Pan). When we got off of the roller coasters, some of the kids complained that they were too fast! too scary! and when we got off of the scenic rides, some of the SAME KIDS complained that they were too slow! too boring!

Shut up, kids.

Personally, I always thought Disney would be more about the whole magic thing and less about thrill, so I loved the slow rides that make you feel like you're in a different world. IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE MAGICAL, KIDS, ENJOY IT. I also liked that the "thrill" rides weren't the same as "thrill" rides at places like Six Flags because I totally forgot my motion sickness medicine at the hotel. Luckily, the lack of flips and sharp drops meant I was okay, though Space Mountain left me feeling... less than stellar.

HA. Sorry. Okay, moving on.

So yeah, the rides were great. The amount of detail is crazy. Also, the shows were pretty awesome. We did Mickey's PhilharMagic the first day and looooved it. The air conditioning was a welcome reprieve from the ~~nasty~~ great outdoors and the show itself was so fun. It was nice to see throwbacks to the old Disney movies, and the special effects were amazing. I'm purposely leaving out detail because one of my two blog readers is Liz, and she and I are planning a Disney trip and I don't want to ruin the surprises for her. All I'll say is that I'd be content to go to Disney and just watch this show over and over and not-under again.

Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor was also really cool. Won't lie, I expected it to suck. I thought it would be a five or ten minute clip of lame jokes or something. But! It was interactive and it was hilarious. I want to meet whoever is behind it and be good friends with them. I laughed my ass off the entire time. (One of the guests who was picked to participate was reluctant and it was clear she was nervous... during the mind-reading act, she was told to think of a number between 1 and 40, and she says, "35." Out loud. It was funny.) If it hadn't been after 9 on our last night there, I definitely would have gone for a second show. My cousin remarked that I should look into working as one of the people who make fun of members of the audience. The highest compliment!

The first night, we ate dinner at the Plaza Restaurant and it was perfect because there was a great view of the Castle. The reservation was for 8:45, and by the time fireworks went off, so few people were inside that we were able to watch out the window while eating ice cream. The next night we did the whole stand-in-the-massive-crowds thing for the real experience. The fireworks were terrific and I may or may not have teared up at the very end of Celebrate the Magic when Walt talks about it all beginning with a mouse.

Overall - incredible. I totally get why people go back every year. I also get why they call it the happiest place on Earth. Every single person working there was wonderful. Everywhere you look there's something beautiful. The rides are fun. The "magic" is believable. It's awesome. I can't wait to go back.

* * *
I didn't take as many pictures as I normally would because I wanted to make sure I was actually enjoying the experience. I didn't take ANY of Wishes! But I'm happy knowing I didn't miss anything while I was looking at a camera. Here are a few of the ones we did get: