Updated 7/28 - SWGE Preview trip planning! - Coooo-rrect! Mom/Daughter Do WDW—A Feb 2019 TR

[d-train]

Between all of your photos of you so enjoying every moment, and this:

Ride Count: 16 (Soarin, Haunted Mansion, Pirates, SDMT x2, Winnie the Pooh, Space Mountain x2, Peter Pan, Splash x2, Big Thunder, Aladdin, Jungle Cruise, Swiss Family Robinson, Little Mermaid)

And the awesome upgrade at ASMu, this so looks like a best day ever moment!
I so enjoyed reading your story of how the day unfolded from Epcot to MK!
Thank you for sharing! I’m so excited to perhaps have part of that experience in only 26 days!

 

[CartyGirls]

I am loving this report and I didn't even get to page 2 I have the Haunted Mansion buggy with the sayings on my desk at work. I drive people nuts when they ask what it is and then I tell them to hit the button. Then I lip sync the sayings

 

[Lesley Wake]

As we were finishing up, we saw some more animals on the savanna: giraffes and those big horned deer things, but I couldn't get a good picture. It was neat to see them though. And then the waiter came back with the drum circle and sang Happy Birthday to Mom! She'd heard them singing to other people and so kind of knew what was coming, but she was a good sport anyways. I totally filmed it.

My Mom gave me the evil eye when I suggested getting them to sing Happy Birthday to her! I decided not to push it, so we skipped that!

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

Nah just kidding--you can do it! Be strong! And then gorge yourself once you're at Disney!

That is basically the plan...

 

[Araminta18]

Between all of your photos of you so enjoying every moment, and this:

And the awesome upgrade at ASMu, this so looks like a best day ever moment!
I so enjoyed reading your story of how the day unfolded from Epcot to MK!
Thank you for sharing! I’m so excited to perhaps have part of that experience in only 26 days!

Thanks! I hope your trip is fantastic--less than a month!!

I am loving this report and I didn't even get to page 2 I have the Haunted Mansion buggy with the sayings on my desk at work. I drive people nuts when they ask what it is and then I tell them to hit the button. Then I lip sync the sayings

aw, thank you! The Doom Buggy is awesome--we have it on this little shelf on the stairs down to our living room, so every night when we go downstairs to watch tv/relax we press it. But having it at work sounds way more fun.... LOL

My Mom gave me the evil eye when I suggested getting them to sing Happy Birthday to her! I decided not to push it, so we skipped that!

Mom gave me lots of evil eyes...didn't stop me! Though honestly I didn't try to get people to sing to her...they just did! Which is the best of both worlds: I get to see them sing to her without getting the blame for instigating it.

That is basically the plan...

Good plan. I'm rooting for you!!

 

[Araminta18]

Before we begin this installment (that I know you are all on the edge of your seats for...), look what I found at Target yesterday! I was doing some quick grocery shopping and found some Disney Magic!

Totally made my night! They're really good. They are a bit different than the Mickey Premium bars (those are bigger, and I think the chocolate is thicker), but still delicious, as most Mickey-shaped things are. If you see these, I recommend picking them up--scratches a little bit of that Disney itch.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled trip report...

Disney Springs and Epcot Extra Magic Hours!
Tuesday, February 12 (part 2)​

We left Sanaa at about 2:15, pleasantly full and ready to head to the outlets. It was still calling for rain in the afternoon, so we figured shopping would be a good way to beat the rain. I will admit, I did not fully think through that both the outlets and Disney Springs are mostly outdoor malls. But...that's for later.

We grabbed an Uber to get to the Vineland outlets: Mom's first time in an Uber! She was a little worried about the security of it at first, but I explained how it basically works (ie, verify the name, the license plate, you can send your itinerary to someone, etc) and she felt a bit better. Then she had a grand old time chatting away with the driver--I think she likes Uber now.

It started raining a bit while we were driving there, but it was a light sunshower and ended pretty quickly, thankfully.

Unfortunately the trip itself was a bit of a bust: not really much at the Disney outlet to grab our interest. Mom was looking for a stuffed animal for my little brother, and this was the entirety of the offerings.

I did grab a pair of sunglasses for $4, so that was nice. But overall, not as big a selection as I was hoping. Oh well!

We then grabbed another Uber to take us to Disney Springs. I didn't realize they have essentially a dedicated drop-off point over at the extreme west side. I imagine that'd be really inconvenient if you're running late for a dining reservation or something, but since we were just shopping, it wasn't a big deal. We browsed through several of the shops on that end, including Disney Style, but didn't end up buying anything. As we came out of Disney Style, it started to pour! Luckily we were close to the indoor portion of Disney Springs so we ran for it, and didn't get too wet...phew!

We looked around at Ever After and Uniqlo, and then I realized it was almost four o'clock--we needed to get over to the Polite Pig! I read a post on Disney Food Blog or something about how Gideon's chocolate chip cookies are sold at the Polite Pig starting at 4pm each day, and apparently these are the best chocolate chip cookies ever, and they're huge. I figured we had to try them, so we headed over there and I got in line while Mom grabbed a seat. My timing was off though: I got to the counter at 3:58 and they told me they don't sell them until 4 on the dot, and so I should just get back in line. There were 5 people ahead of me and by the time I got back up to the front, the cookies were mostly sold already! Everyone else was buying several...I just wanted the one. But luckily, we got one of the last ones!

The cookie is huge, and very delicious. It tastes almost more like cookie dough rather than a baked cookie, but Mom and I prefer the dough anyway, so that was definitely a feature, not a bug. It was super rich though: we only ate about half of it. Saved the rest for later. A bit expensive, but good.

After the cookie, we kept wandering through Disney Springs. We stopped at Amorette's to buy a cake and discovered that they sell crepes now! If Trevor had been with me we definitely would have stopped and got one. He's a big crepe fan.

We of course also looked in the newly renovated World of Disney. I'm not a huge fan; I liked the character of it before, but it does look cleaner and slicker now. The decorations by the cash registers are pretty cute though: static images most of the time but every minute or two Tink brings one of the pictures to life and it plays a 5 or 10 second clip from the movie. Super cute!

We looked in the Marketplace Co-Op, and the Art of Disney, and basically that whole side of Disney Springs. I love looking at all the art in the Art of Disney, but I have no more wall space! Bummer. I did love this Sleeping Beauty piece though:

I finally got myself one of those custom chocolate-covered rice krispies, and then we headed back into the center of Disney Springs to stop at the Ganachery and Sprinkles. But on the way, we saw this sight that I've almost never seen: Aristocrepes was open! I totally texted Trevor the picture.

At the Ganachery, Mom got one of their chocolates and I got a chocolate bar and most importantly several of the "test tubes" of chocolate crunchy pearls. So good. I love the Ganachery. I found out later that the CM gave Mom a chocolate truffle lollipop thing as a birthday treat...I was apparently busy picking out chocolate pearls when he gave it to her, and Mom was quite sneaky about hiding it! Chocolate--every woman for herself!

After the Ganachery we stopped at Sprinkles to use the cupcake ATM. It sounds more exciting than it is, honestly. But still, how can you not like the ability to buy cupcakes without having to talk to a human being?

Our plan for the night was to head to Epcot for the Broadway concert series with Ashley Brown and Josh Strickland, so when we realized it was about 5:45 pm, we figured we better start boogeying over there if we wanted to make it for the 6:45 concert. Off to the bus stop we went, and we had good luck! A bus pulled away right as we got there, but a new bus came almost immediately. We were the only people on the bus, and the driver played recorded birthday message for Mom! I'd never heard that before. It was pretty neat--made Mom smile.

We got back to the hotel at about 6:20 and there was an Epcot bus there waiting to pick up people and go. So Mom got on the bus and I ran back to the room to drop stuff off (namely the chocolates and the cupcake and the Amorette's cake). When I got back out front, there wasn't an Epcot bus on the board, so I decided to take an uber to Beach Club and go through International Gateway to get to the America Pavilion for the concert. But of course, since I was in a hurry, it took 10 minutes for the uber to arrive. I arrived at Beach Club at exactly 6:45 and then RAN to the America pavilion...I was drenched in sweat but I got there at about 6:55. The bus apparently took Mom a while to, as she only arrived a couple minutes before me. Luckily it wasn't too crowded so we were still able to get a seat and catch the second half of the concert. It was great:

Ashley Brown was the original "Mary Poppins" in Mary Poppins on Broadway, and Josh Strickland was the original "Tarzan" in Tarzan on Broadway. We arrived in time to hear Ashley sing "A Change in Me" from Beauty and the Beast, Josh sing "My Strongest Suit" from Aida, Ashley to sing "Monster" from Frozen, Josh to sing "Santa Fe" from Newsies", and then they ended with "Supercalifragilistic" from Mary Poppins. It was really good! They seemed to be having a great time, and their voices were fantastic. Ashley pointed out that there was a family in the front row with all the kids dressed as either Mary or Bert--they were super cute!

After the show, we decided to stick around for the beginning of the 8 pm concert and catch what we missed. In the meantime, since we didn't really end up having dinner, I ran to France and got a Brie bowl from the festival booth. I wanted to get the Musical Float from the booth by America, but their slushy machine was broken, so only brie for me.

The brie was really good though. I should have gotten two. Yum.

We moved up for the 8 pm show, but the sound mix was off or something--it was ridiculously loud. So we ended up just staying for the beginning two songs that we missed from the earlier concert (Soarin from High School Musical and Strangers Like Me from Tarzan).

Epcot had Extra Magic Hours that night, but since it was only 8:10 or so, I figured we could ride Test Track and be done in time to watch the fireworks, then we could do Soarin or whatever else we wanted for the Extra Magic Hours.

Yea...I was not the only one with that idea. Test Track must have been down earlier in the day (despite the rain that didn't really end up happening), because the fastpass line was a full 30 minutes long. RIDICULOUS. We should have done single rider or something...such a misstep. And Test Track is fun but for me (and in Mom's opinion too) not worth a full 30 minutes in line.

We got off the ride just as the fireworks started so we ended up speedwalking towards the center of Epcot and ended up parking ourselves at the Future World end of the bridge into World Showcase and watching from there. We couldn't see the globe, but we could at least see the fireworks.

I grabbed this picture on our way the bridge.

And I'm a bad Epcot fan...we ended up leaving before the show was actually over, because if you can't see the globe, it looks like the show is over before they start singing the song "We Go On". Ooops! We were heading over to Soarin' but we did get to see the fireworks finale since we hadn't quite made it into the Land pavilion yet.

On the bright side, there was no wait for Soarin! We got assigned center section but middle row, so decided to try it, see what we thought from a sslightly different row.

We liked the top row better. We ended up riding twice more, waiting for top center both times. Mom made lots of friends in line, encouraging people to wait for the top center too. Some listened, some didn't...Mom still tried. There were no waits the whole time, so that was really nice too.

We thought about staying longer but we were really hungry and the food court at the hotel closed at 11, so we decided to head back and get some food. But! We couldn't leave without pictures!

As we were walking out, the workers were waving goodbye to everyone and they saw Mom's birthday button and full on sang "Happy Birthday" to Mom. It was super cute! Mom felt all special, despite her protestations about not liking attention--she was grinning the whole way back to the resort. It was just a really sweet gesture. I love it when the CMs are in good moods and they do lovely things like that, that they don't need to.

We made it back to the resort with 5 minutes to spare! As we were deciding what to get, one of the CMs who was "earning [his] ears" came up to Mom and gave her a happy birthday cupcake!

Pixie dust magnet, I swear. This is one of the few pictures with Mom's real smile

We ended up both getting chicken avocado sandwiches. They were...ok. The chicken was dry and the sandwich needed mayo or some other condiment, but the fries were good. I wouldn't plan on eating here but it did the job.

Back at the room, we were getting ready for bed and Mom whips out her chocolate truffle lollipop that she got from The Ganachery and was all "want some dessert?" So much sugar! But worth it.

This is Mom's "I'm sharing, but only a little!" face.

Chocolate and sugar notwithstanding, we were exhausted and fell into bed, ready to sleep. No early morning tomorrow!

Fun with Metrics:
Steps Walked: 29,553 or 12.3 miles
Ride Count: 12 (Primeval Whirl, Flight of Passage x2, Navi River Journey, Everest x3, Safari, Test Track, Soarin x3)

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Awe, what a nice day. I love all of the birthday magic your mom is getting. It sounds like your whole trip has just been so magical, except perhaps the TT wait time.

We had that, too, but it had rained from about 3:30pm to 7ish, so I knew it was going to be bad when it finally did open back up.

 

[Araminta18]

Awe, what a nice day. I love all of the birthday magic your mom is getting. It sounds like your whole trip has just been so magical, except perhaps the TT wait time.

We had that, too, but it had rained from about 3:30pm to 7ish, so I knew it was going to be bad when it finally did open back up.

Yea, I just was not paying attention at all and didn’t think about how the TT line would be. Oh well—like you said, overall a fantastic day.

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

Totally made my night! They're really good. They are a bit different than the Mickey Premium bars (those are bigger, and I think the chocolate is thicker), but still delicious, as most Mickey-shaped things are. If you see these, I recommend picking them up--scratches a little bit of that Disney itch.

My shop rite had them too! I was probably a little too excited about it.

There were 5 people ahead of me and by the time I got back up to the front, the cookies were mostly sold already! Everyone else was buying several...I just wanted the one. But luckily, we got one of the last ones!

What! That is crazy!


Sounds like your mom had a great birthday day!

 

[Araminta18]

My shop rite had them too! I was probably a little too excited about it.

Glad I'm not the only one!

 

[Araminta18]

Cinderella's Carriage!
Wednesday February 13th (part 1)​

As you may imagine, we slept in today. I woke up around 8 or so, and spent a lot of time organizing receipts and stuff, but we didn't actually get up until around 9 or 9:30. At this point we'd visited all four parks, ridden pretty much everything we wanted to so far, so we decided we'd go back to Hollywood Studios in the morning for more Tower of Terror and Rockin Roller Coaster, and then head to Magic Kingdom in the afternoon and spend the rest of the day there. But first, breakfast!

Dark chocolate banana cupcake from Sprinkles. Yum. Mom got her oatmeal from the food court the night before, so her breakfast was a bit healthier. But not nearly as yummy!

We headed to the bus stop in the rain (blech rain), but soon enough, the bus came. We got on the bus to at 10:15, and arrived a little bit before 10:30. Bus selfie!

Where did we head first? Tower of Terror, of course!

We were going to ride Rockin Roller Coaster next, but it went down. So... we ended up grabbing a fastpass for Muppetvision which we used but didn't ride (I was trying to go through all three of our pre-booked fastpasses so I could get another fastpass for Tower of Terror), and then there was a fastpass for the Frozen singalong, so we decided to actually see that show. It was hilarious!! Mom really enjoyed it. Honestly, I can't recommend this show enough--the historians are hilarious.

And it was nice (as always) to just sit and enjoy--we'd walked all the way up from Tower of Terror to Muppets and back to Frozen, so time for a sit.

After Frozen, Rockin Roller Coaster came back up! It looked like it had only just barely come up when Frozen got out so we hurried on down there, hoping to get in line before everyone realized it was back and the lines got long. Success!

As we got off we saw that the fastpass line had gotten much longer, so apparently word was out! We headed back to Tower of Terror for one last ride, leaving the crowds to RNRC.

Mom still loved it, but she says the elevator is too heavy when it's full. Disney After Hours totally spoiled her!

After that ride on Tower of Terror, it was about 12:45, so we decided we were ready to head over to the Magic Kingdom. More pictures first! I figured Mom had to get some photos with the Hollywood Tower Hotel in the background.

They had the Hollywood Studios clapboard out for a prop at the park exit so we got a picture with that too.

The photographer tried to get us to do a fun pose, but he described it really weird and we....didn't quite get it! It didn't turn out too bad, but it makes me laugh.

We didn't wait hardly at all for a bus, luckily. At that point, the rain had almost completely stopped, but it was getting a bit cold. And of course today we didn't bring our jackets 'cause we'd brought them on other days and didn't need them. Oops!

Our plan was to go to Gaston's Tavern and get a giant cinnamon roll for lunch. But! We ended up making a few detours on our way in--I got my new pack of Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom cards, and then as we headed up towards the castle, we realized the crane taking down the lights off the castle was gone, and so the path by the wishing well was open! Yay!

You can never have too many castle pictures, I believe.

Our next detour? A picture with Cinderella's carriage! They'd announced they were having it out for pictures in honor of Valentine's Day, and I really really really wanted a picture with it. I assumed the lines would be super long, but as we walked by, the line wasn't bad at all! They had a whole path blocked out and it was only about half full. So, Mom was a good sport and we hopped in line.

See? Not bad. The wait was only about 8 minutes or so. And totally worth it! The carriage is gorgeous!

Gorgeous. So cool to see it! I wonder if this is the carriage they use if you're getting married? I don't think so, based on the Disney Fairy Tale Weddings TV show (that one looks white and clear, without all the gold embellishments). Is this purely a photo op then? Or do they use the carriage for anything? I'm very curious. Also, that seat inside looks...not as cool as the rest of the carriage--it looks like the weird uncomfortable fabric you'd find on a weird chair in your grandma's attic. ANYWAYS.

Anyways, picture taken, it was time for food! It was about 1:45 at that point--good thing we had had a late breakfast. Cinnamon roll, here we come! The line was a bit long, but not too horrible. We ended up getting the fruit and cheese tray too--Mom was saying something about protein? I dunno, I was focused on the sugar. We also got a Lefou's Brew, cause I like slushy drinks, even when I'm cold.

Not a bad lunch to fuel us for a day at the Magic Kingdom! Tune in next time for our conquering of the Magic Kingdom.

 

[StarWarsMomofGirls!]

Dark chocolate banana cupcake from Sprinkles.

That sounds delish! I need to grab cupcakes for breakfast next time!

We didn't wait hardly at all for a bus, luckily. At that point, the rain had almost completely stopped, but it was getting a bit cold. And of course today we didn't bring our jackets 'cause we'd brought them on other days and didn't need them. Oops!

Isn't that always the way...

 

[suse66]

Totally made my night! They're really good. They are a bit different than the Mickey Premium bars (those are bigger, and I think the chocolate is thicker), but still delicious, as most Mickey-shaped things are. If you see these, I recommend picking them up--scratches a little bit of that Disney itch.

Lucky you! I haven't seen them anywhere in Ontario yet.

At the Ganachery, Mom got one of their chocolates and I got a chocolate bar and most importantly several of the "test tubes" of chocolate crunchy pearls. So good. I love the Ganachery. I found out later that the CM gave Mom a chocolate truffle lollipop thing as a birthday treat...I was apparently busy picking out chocolate pearls when he gave it to her, and Mom was quite sneaky about hiding it! Chocolate--every woman for herself!

Chocolate is important!

We were the only people on the bus, and the driver played recorded birthday message for Mom! I'd never heard that before. It was pretty neat--made Mom smile.

Love this!

And I'm a bad Epcot fan...we ended up leaving before the show was actually over, because if you can't see the globe, it looks like the show is over before they start singing the song "We Go On". Ooops! We were heading over to Soarin' but we did get to see the fireworks finale since we hadn't quite made it into the Land pavilion yet.

It's an easy mistake to make.

We liked the top row better. We ended up riding twice more, waiting for top center both times. Mom made lots of friends in line, encouraging people to wait for the top center too. Some listened, some didn't...Mom still tried. There were no waits the whole time, so that was really nice too.

I love top centre too!

We made it back to the resort with 5 minutes to spare! As we were deciding what to get, one of the CMs who was "earning [his] ears" came up to Mom and gave her a happy birthday cupcake!

She really is a pixie dust magnet!

As you may imagine, we slept in today. I woke up around 8 or so, and spent a lot of time organizing receipts and stuff, but we didn't actually get up until around 9 or 9:30. At this point we'd visited all four parks, ridden pretty much everything we wanted to so far, so we decided we'd go back to Hollywood Studios in the morning for more Tower of Terror and Rockin Roller Coaster, and then head to Magic Kingdom in the afternoon and spend the rest of the day there. But first, breakfast!

Sounds like a perfect plan for your day!

then there was a fastpass for the Frozen singalong, so we decided to actually see that show. It was hilarious!! Mom really enjoyed it. Honestly, I can't recommend this show enough--the historians are hilarious.

Oh my gosh, it's the best! When I went in March, I had tears of laughter.

You can never have too many castle pictures, I believe.

There is no such thing as too many castle pictures!

Gorgeous. So cool to see it! I wonder if this is the carriage they use if you're getting married? I don't think so, based on the Disney Fairy Tale Weddings TV show (that one looks white and clear, without all the gold embellishments). Is this purely a photo op then? Or do they use the carriage for anything? I'm very curious. Also, that seat inside looks...not as cool as the rest of the carriage--it looks like the weird uncomfortable fabric you'd find on a weird chair in your grandma's attic. ANYWAYS.

Your pictures are fabulous!!!!!

 

[Mightybee987]

I am loving your trip report. Glad that your mom had a pixie dust filled trip for her birthday.

 

[kclark9830]

Ooohhhh, Mickey Bars at home! Yummy. I would love to find them here.

Your day sounds great so far!

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Honestly, I can't recommend this show enough--the historians are hilarious.

Agreed! I'm pretty sure hubby and I had more fun than the 5 year olds A lot of the jokes went over their heads.

Mom still loved it, but she says the elevator is too heavy when it's full. Disney After Hours totally spoiled her!

Haha, too funny.

 

[disneyAndi14]

How fun your trip has been so far, love all the pixie dust your mom is getting for her Birthday! I love all your dessert treats, yum!

You all scored some good FP and did so many rides, always a plus!

 

[Araminta18]

Isn't that always the way...

Right? Oh well-it worked out

There is no such thing as too many castle pictures!

I knew I was among friends! How can you have too many of that gorgeous castle?

I am loving your trip report. Glad that your mom had a pixie dust filled trip for her birthday.

Thank you!

Ooohhhh, Mickey Bars at home! Yummy. I would love to find them here.

Your day sounds great so far!

They seem to be popping up super slowly—I’d been keeping my eyes out for a while. Hopefully you find them soon!

Agreed! I'm pretty sure hubby and I had more fun than the 5 year olds A lot of the jokes went over their heads.

I think that’s why it works so well-the kids love Frozen and the adults are entertained by the jokes . When we saw it there was an Argentinian your group near the front so the historians started throwing in a bunch of jokes/references for them. I was cracking up

How fun your trip has been so far, love all the pixie dust your mom is getting for her Birthday! I love all your dessert treats, yum!

You all scored some good FP and did so many rides, always a plus!

So many treats! So much sugar! But definitely yum

 

[Araminta18]

Magic Kingdom Afternoon
Wednesday February 13th (part 2)​

We'd fortified ourselves with a cinnamon roll and some fruit and cheese; it was time to take on the Magic Kingdom!

What'd we do first? The teacups, obviously. I'd gotten us a fastpass for Buzz Lightyear, but as we headed over there, we saw that there as no line for the teacups. So obviously we hopped on.

Suitably dizzy, we kept heading towards Buzz Lightyear, and got sidetracked by the Peoplemover! Can you blame us? It's the peoplemover.

The CM checking that the doors of the car shut was all sweet to Mom and kissed her hand to wish her a happy birthday. Sounds creepy writing it out, but it was super cute in the moment. More Disney magic!

If you don't take a feet picture, did you even ride the Peoplemover?

And this is a momentous occasion: Mom posed and said "take my picture!" Never happened before...only took 5 days at Disney to get her to that point!

Ha, you thought it was going to be an actual posed picture! Foolish mortal...Of course it's Mom pretending to sleep.

As we rode, I encouraged Mom to try and high five the other cars. Disney was working it's full magic on her 'cause she did! And she got 2 high fives--one as we headed in to Space Mountain and the other as we came out of Space. I'm too chicken to try it, but I'll encourage my riding partner to do it every single time.

Done with that, we were going to head to Buzz for our fastpass, but the fastpass line was out the door and into the extended queue: the CM said it would be about 20 minutes. We decided to duck into Laugh Floor instead 'cause there was no wait.

That was totally worth it. After the peoplemover we were a bit cold, and so being inside was nice. And then Laugh Floor is just hilarious anyways. We both really liked it.

After the Laugh Floor, the Buzz fastpass line was basically gone, so we finally used our fastpass. Try to guess from this photo whether or not Mom liked it.

Nope, she didn't like it at all. The irritation of not being able to see where you're shooting and such really bugged her. I think she's just a sore loser--this is my score:

This is her's:

After Buzz, we gave in and decided we were cold enough that we'd buy sweatshirts. We looked in the gift shop there in Tomorrowland (Merchant of Venus, maybe?) but didn't find anything we liked, so we headed to the Emporium. There we found "Celebrate the Magic" sweatshirts that we both liked but the only sizes they had were Medium and XXL. XXL is a bit big, so we asked one of the CMs and he said these sweatshirts were "all over Fantasyland" so we should be able to find XLs or Ls somewhere in Fantasyland.

We went to literally every gift shop in Fantasyland (Castle Couture, Sir Mickeys, the one by Philharmagic) and not one of them had those sweatshirts, much less in a variety of sizes! The CM we talked to in one of the gift shops was like "yea, no idea what that CM was talking about; I haven't seen those sweatshirts anywhere". Mom didn't want to just buy a random sweatshirt (especially at those prices) so we gave up and jumped in line for Small World (I'd gotten a fastpass for it during our great sweatshirt hunt). I saw Don Quixote and Sancho for the very first time!

So that was pretty neat. I also appreciate how Small World is long and sitting and inside, so I was totally seeing what fastpass I could get next. I got lucky--Big Thunder popped up! We quickly headed over to Big Thunder and rode that. It was cold, so of course they had all of the water elements going. None of it was working the other day when we rode, but today, in the cold, all the water was going. I think that may have contributed to Mom telling me after the ride that she was ok with a slightly big sweatshirt if I was! So we headed back to the Emporium and bought the sweatshirts. Yay for being warm!

Our next fastpass was to meet Mickey and Minnie, so we tossed on our sweatshirts and headed to the Main Street Theatre! We got sidetracked though: they were doing the Flag Retreat, so we stopped and watched. Our view wasn't the best, but it was pretty neat to watch.

After, we got in line. It wasn't too bad, maybe 10 minutes or so with the fastpass? I really liked the holding room--there were so many fun touches!

But pretty quickly we were beckoned in to meet Mickey and Minnie themselves! It was cute to meet them together, but the meet was very quick. Maybe 30 seconds? I thought it would be a bit more personal, but still fun. They liked that it was Mom's birthday too (since Mickey and Minnie were in their outfits celebrating Mickey's 90th), so that was cute. Minnie gave Mom a birthday kiss.

As we left the Main Street Theatre, we saw Friar Tuck wandering about. That was neat to see!

Next up: Seven Dwarves! While waiting in line to meet Mickey and Minnie I was constantly refreshing the app, and got a Seven Dwarves fastpass for a little bit later. So we were a bit slow strolling up Main Street--I saw a photographer and tried to get us some pictures with the train station in the back. The photographer must have been having a bad day, 'cause the pictures did not turn out.

Oh well, we tried! And don't you like our matching sweatshirts? They were expensive but so worth it. It was cold! And they are so soft...I wear mine all the time.

Anyways, we kept wandering back towards Fantasyland, stopping for more pictures (of course).

Then it was time to mine for some diamonds!

Can you tell we enjoyed that ride? I love our faces, despite them being somewhat washed out. The ladies in front of us did the same thing we did: left the jackets in the room, then had to buy some in the park 'cause it was cold! Disney made bank off of sweatshirts that day, for sure!

After Seven Dwarves, we were hungry, and decided to head to our dinner at Skipper Canteen (one more picture on the way).

We checked in for our ADR at Skipper Canteen and got seated pretty quickly.

We had two waiters, but I think one was in training. They were fantastic, and super nice. I got the steak (SO GOOD)

but Mom got the seafood stew. However, she only likes scallops and shrimp, not really anything else in the stew, so she jokingly asked the waiter if she could get the stew with just scallops and shrimp, but he said yes! The stew didn't even come with scallops but somehow he pulled it off and got her exactly what she wanted. Such a nice gesture. So nice.

Then after dinner, they brought her a birthday cupcake!

I feel like I should be keeping a tally of how many birthday cupcakes and such she got? Feels like a lot. But it was so nice to see her get all the pixie dust and birthday wishes--just spoiling her a bit. Lovely.

Overall, a fantastic meal at Skipper Canteen. Highly recommend it! I've never had a bad meal here.

Anyways, up next? Nighttime at the Magic Kingdom!

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Another great update. You guys were clearly having an awesome trip.

Ha, you thought it was going to be an actual posed picture! Foolish mortal...Of course it's Mom pretending to sleep.

I love it!