A First Trip to Disney

Disney. What to say about Disney. Its tiring. Its hectic. But none of it was as bad as I thought it would be. I actually think I would be okay with going again… sometime. Though there’s other places to see for that price tag so maybe not.

As we left our 4th park on our final night I asked him which park he liked the best and his answer was, “The smallest one.” and I said, “Magic Kingdom?” and he said “Yeah!” I said, “And what makes that your favorite one?” And he was like “What?! The parades! The fireworks! Meeting Mickey!” And I said, “Yeah those are all really good reasons.”

We did a lot. Each park we did for 1 day and even park hopped back to Animal Kingdom for another ride on Flight of Passage and park hopped back to Hollywood Studios for another drop in Tower of Terror.

Did we accomplish everything we wanted to? Definitely not. And our list didn’t even include all of the Star Wars stuff.

I Genie+ed every day and lightening laned where I could. It adds a cost but it makes the day smoother and you can accomplish more. My only issue is that at times I felt a little detached from being there as I was on my phone refreshing so often through the day to reserve rides and or get better times.

In the end we went to every restaurant I wanted to go. Some restaurants were disappointing (I’m looking at you Be Our Guest) and some were surprisingly great (Hollywood & Vine Seasonal Dine) We didn’t get Dole Whip or Mickey Beignets. But we did do Mickey (and Simba) waffles and 3 character dines (Tusker House breakfast, Hollywood & Vine, and Askerhaus Breakfast). In addition we hit Be Our Guest, Sci-Fi, and Space220.

We saw the daily Mickey performance at Magic Kingdom as well as the special holiday one and the same goes for the two parades. We also saw the fireworks there which were amazing. It was the kiddo’s first time ever seeing fireworks live and in person, at least with me. He was in awe, it was really something just to watch his face during the fireworks.

Speaking of the Magic Kingdom we had tickets to Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party. At the party we got some free treats, rode a couple rides, and spent a whole lot of time dancing the night away with Chip & Dale.

Over at Epcot we saw the Candlelight Processional. Our celebrity narrator was Neil Patrick Harris. Anyone that has known me since 2008 knows how obsessed I used to be with him so it was exciting for me. Simu was there the day we landed in Orlando. I did not run into Simu or NPH at any of the parks. 😦

Since we saw the end of night shows at each of the parks I have to tell you Fantasmic was by far my favorite. The way the films were projected onto the water, I was in awe. I loved how it felt like a full on celebration of the 100 years of magic Disney has created for generations going all the way back to Steamboat Willie. I was so enamored with Fantasmic that I didn’t take any pictures!

I’ll go into more detail in a future post, for now, I just wanted to say Disney isn’t as bad as some people think it is.