It's a Magical World Pt. 1

 We're going to Disney World!!!!

Or at least, we did already. I felt like I had to yell that first because that's what they do in the commercials and stuff. haha. I picked the last week in January to go for Nathan's birthday and our mom's were both supposed to join, but in the end my mom was the only other to join our merry group.

Our flights to get to Disney World were an adventure on their own. The flight dates had changed but I thought only the times had, so we had to cancel and book new flights to still make it in time. Luckily, with all the COVID hectic stuff, we could do so without penalties and found perfectly acceptable flights to take us instead. Once we landed we went right to our hotel and took a nap!

Disney Springs 1/24/2021

Florida is humid and it lightly rained every day we were there. I gave up on making my hair look presentable the day we arrived and kept it in pony tails and braids. The weather felt so great though that we barely needed light jackets. We spent our first evening visiting Disney Springs. We decided this would be our place to go to kill time or find food if we weren't in any of the Disney parks so of course we had to scout the area and get some shopping and food in to start the trip!

To feed our poor hungry bodies we walked into the Rainforest Cafe, the second largest anywhere in the world except for the one in Animal Kingdom which beats it by only a few hundred feet! We sat at a table in the bar area and proceeded to stuff ourselves silly on delectable offerings. I had nachos that were supposed to be an appetizer but I swear it could have fed all 3 of us! 

To walk off our full stomachs we then proceeded to browse the shops. In an art animation store I kept haunting this beautiful Beauty and the Beast tapestry, until finally I asked Nathan to buy it for me for my birthday/Christmas gift. I'd always said I didn't want a Disney decorated house, but I've changed my mind. It's amazing! I was very close to buying an unframed print as well, but I was already questioning how in the world I was going to get a tapestry including the hanging materials home as a carry-on. 

Nathan was super excited to see their very large store/kiosk for trading pins and we both came home with quite a few more pins to add to our collection. then we wandered into the large Disney store and of course I bought even more stuff including a light Minnie Mouse hoodie more appropriate for the weather and a Haunted Mansion t-shirt. The night wasn't over though until we found the Coca-Cola store! It was not only terribly fun, but they had a bar on the top floor where we all ordered fancy sodas. Mine was a Coca-Cola lime with fresh mint that was crazy refreshing. Mom and Nathan both got maraschino cherry coke floats. But in the store, mom fell in love with a utensil holder but didn't want to pack it home and other kitchen things. She ended up getting an apron and then I helped her find the utensil holder online and we had it shipped to the house and it arrived before we even got home! We knew dad would laugh about mom's cola addiction being in that store so we were sure to send him pictures of where we were. At the very end of the night we walked past an Irish restaurant called the Raglan Road and it smelled so good we made brunch reservations to come back in a couple days!

Hollywood Studios 1/25/2021

This was one of my favorite parks! I had so much fun going on the rides and being in the park. Just sitting on the park bench you can enjoy the Disney magic with the music, the food, and the characters randomly walking about in mini parades. 

I drew these masks for the trip.

I got to go on the new ride Minnie and Mickey's Runaway Railway! It's coming to Disneyland soon. I thought this ride was charming and so much fun. Straight after we headed towards Toy Story Land which I was excited to see all decked out with oversized pencil fences and tinker toy creations. We went on Toy Story Mania which is a video game type ride- which I beat Nathan at! (150,700 to 118,900 HA!) And we went on the Alien Swirling Saucers which was just a fun slightly spiny ride. We didn't do that Slinky ride because the wait was too long and the ride didn't look quite worth the wait.

We visited this charming Walt Disney exhibit about his life and the creation of Mickey Mouse and Disneyland. One of the cast members inside commented on my Miss Piggy mask and I told him I drew it and he said I needed to go work for Disney! He himself told us he used to be a counselor for kids at a NY police department and he had the epitome of the NY accent! When he told us he had applied here and got the call for the job, little did Disney know they were calling a police department! His story with his accent was just awesome. And considering he didn't have use of his legs and limited use of his arms, sitting in a Disney museum and directing guests around sounded like a lot more fun to me!! 

We ate lunch from the ABC Commisary and mom's and my order took a while since we ordered off the allergy menu. But man, my pork carnitas tacos were pretty finger licking good. I was questioning them at first with pickled onion and fresh radishes, but I liked it all. The beans and rice were fine, but nothing amazing.

I was decked out in a Kermit the Frog shirt and Miss Piggy mask and I got many comments on it and people asking if I knew about the Muppet Show being added to Disney+ soon. But I was so excited to go to the Muppet theater and see the Miss Piggy fountain and Kermit statues! I hadn't seen the Muppet Theater in years since they took it out of California Adventure years ago. While waiting for the Muppet theater Nathan was able to secure us a spot to see the new ride Star Wars Smuggler's Run. He was so excited to finally see it in person! This ride is hard to get onto and I have to admit that even as a casual Star Wars watcher, this ride was wildly adventurous and realistic. We had to wait a few hours to actually get on it though. We did get to go on Star Tours right away and that ride is classic. 

We were dubious about going on the Rock n Roller Coaster featuring Aerosmith, but it wasn't as gut-wrenching as we worried and it was nice and air conditioned and the music was bomb! I enjoyed it so much more than I thought, although once was enough for me.

I could only wish they had their shows going because some of them seemed really cool but they were closed due to COVID. Like an Indiana Jones stuntman show. I did collect a LOT of pennies at this park though! Including Muppets and all the Disney Princesses. Every time I saw a penny machine I had to go check to see if it had designs that suited my fancy.

Before we left we grabbed more food and I had a hamburger, which was pretty good considering it's not usually my food forte! Nathan was super happy with his hamburger and I don't remember what mom got but we were all presently surprised with the food being tasty. I even got some extra allergy friendly cookies! They were supposed to have bigger ones but only had snack size so I got 2 bags and I was perfectly happy to accept both. haha.