We drove the airport, suggesting nothing different than the
countless other long drives down the canyon.
I told the girls we had to drop some stuff off at the airport for dad,
as we’ve done many times before. I
pulled into skycap, left the girls in the car and spent ten minutes checking
bags. As I got back into the car, I was
greeted with the anticipated chorus of “I want to go in!”, “I want to go
somewhere!”, etc. So I told them the
skycap man said there was a plane to Denver, only an hour ride if the kids
wanted to go tonight. We called Grammy n
Papa to see if they wanted to go with us and drove to airport parking. It took much longer than usual but eventually
we parked, cleaned out the backpacks that we just happened to bring with us, loading them with the kid blankets we
just happened to have in the
car. We made it through security, found
Grammy and Papa and excited boarded a plane to Denver. They spent the short flight coloring and
talking, delighting in hot chocolate and gazing out the window. Eventually I told them there was a surprise
in Denver and enjoyed their many guesses what it could be.
We landed in Denver, made it into the airport and found our
surprise: Daddy! He had been on a
business trip and flew to Denver to meet us with three Christmas gift bags for
the girls. Inside they each found a new
pair of Mickey pajamas and we finally told them our great surprise: as an early
Christmas gift, we were on our way to Disneyworld! (We have been planning this surprise since
late summer when kid sister announced her engagement. We wanted to spend some time with her and
getting to know her finacee before the wedding next summer. As an added bonus, we planned to attend
Mickey’s Christmas party and see Disneyworld decked out for Christmas.) The girls dressed in their new jammies and
soon we were on our second, much longer, flight to Orlando. Since it was late, we watched movies until
they were mostly asleep and spent the flight pretty quietly.
In Orlando, at 1:30am, we landed, retrieved our luggage,
sent husband for our rental car, loaded up and took our very tired girls to the
condo we had rented for our vacation.
This was our first Disney trip not staying on Disney property due to
limited availability and expense in December.
But we found a great deal on a nearby condo that was decorated with
Mickey and turned out to be incredible—spacious and perfect for what we
needed. Kid sister had checked us in
earlier and the girls were thrilled to see her.
Unfortunately, the girls did not sleep in as hoped. But
Grammy was super sweet to let Husband and I sleep in while the kids played
quietly and watched tv. Soon Grammy, kid
sister and I made a quick trip to the grocery store and returned home to make
brunch and play through the afternoon.
The girls were delighted to find “Tinkerbell magic”, gift bags waiting
for them (a favorite tradition they remember from previous Disney trips). Each morning the bag would have something new
for them. On our first morning, it was
princess plush dolls that they absolutely loved! They played with them, read to them, took
them in the car, even slept with them every day.
In the late afternoon we headed to Disney. We stopped at kid sister’s apartment to pick
up her finacee and meet her pets. Her
apartment rivaled any good toy store with a huge collection of books and
figurines. Plus she has a dog that looks
like Bolt and is named for Jack Frost, so the kids could have stayed all
day. But instead we went to the Magic
Kingdom for Mickey’s Christmas party.
We headed right for
Fantasyland, the area of the park where both kid sister and her finacee
work. We met several of their friends
and timed it right to hit as many attractions and characters as we could. First stop was Enchanted Tales with
Belle. All of the girls got picked to
participate in the storytelling event and lucky little L played the part of the
Beast and got to dance with Belle. We went
on rides and wandered shops. We devoured
popcorn and stopped for dinner before finding a spot to watch some of the
Christmas party special events. We
watched the stage show and then watched Elsa light up Cinderella’s castle (so
gorgeous!) My favorite part was watching
E when Olaf came on stage, she was so ecstatic!
We met more characters, including Elsa and a very animated Anna. We met Ariel, Rapunzel and Flynn, Cinderella
and the Prince, Peter Pan and Wendy and watched the spectacular Christmas
parade. Meeting characters is always one
of our very favorite parts, the girls are so absorbed in the magic. L usually tried to play it cool but couldn’t
help herself. A dove in for hugs and
stories. And E was especially entertaining
with a nonstop oration of “Did you know?” (“did you know we have your movie?
“did you know I love your dress?” “did you know I can sing your song?”) With some characters, we had met them before
so the girls just enjoyed meeting them and talking to them. With characters we had never met, they girls
got their autographs to add to their photo album. We have them sign on an index card that then
slips into an album. Across the spread,
I include pictures with that character from each time we’ve met them. It’s fun to see the girls get older through
the pictures. We played and celebrated
until the girls were too tired to enjoy anymore. We spent a few minutes shopping and then
returned to the condo at midnight.
On Friday, they did sleep
in, much later than I would have guessed actually. So we got a good night’s sleep, dashed
through a breakfast of mickey waffles and headed out to the Animal
Kingdom. Our first stop was to meet
Pocahontas, one of the few characters left of their “must meet” list. (Last October we met as many characters as we
possibly could for an impressive record of 32! But it did not include Pocahontas
or Jasmine, and the girls have begged to meet them ever since.) So we were off to a great start. We meet Mickey and Minnie, who were dressed
for the holidays! While waiting in line,
the girls drew pictures and then gave them to Mickey and Minnie who made a big
fuss and delighted over the little pictures and letters. We rode the safari and saw so many incredible
animals. I love watching the girls faces
light up, it’s the most priceless part of these adventures. We ate the picnic lunch we had brought with
us before continuing onto a few more rides and shows. L and E braved the roller coaster with
husband, kid sister and her fiancée. E
reported that it was “kind of scary but not fast enough”. And that the yeti was “scary but kind of
cute!” Meanwhile A, Grammy, Papa and I
got a snack and checked out a gift shop.
Each day the kid found a penny press machine so A did that for her
sisters while we were waiting. Grammy’s favorite
show is the Festival of the Lion King and it really was so impressive with
acrobatics and dancing and the kid favorite part, they got invited to join the
parade, dancing and shaking music makers with the monkeys. But the end of the day, the kids were
exhausted. Kid sister and finacee went
back to their apartment since they had to work early the next morning. And we headed back to the condo, stopping at
an on-site restaurant for dinner. It
included a kid arcade and play area which the girls loved! The food was good but incredibly slow. And eventually we were all tucked into bed
again.
On Saturday husband made his infamous “daddy eggs” and we
had a leisurely morning at the condo. We
spent a few hours at the pool. Grammy
and I sat poolside while Papa and husband played with the girls. They did laps around the waterslide and raced
around the lazy river over and over.
They played pretend mermaid games and dubbed Papa the shark. They had a blast trying to steal his hat and
balancing on the inner tubes we brought from our condo. They would have stayed forever but we brought
them home for lunch and after a quick round of showers, headed to Disney
again. We went to one of the resorts,
eager to see their famous gingerbread creation.
An enormous, beautifully decorated Christmas tree stood in the lobby
next to a near life size gingerbread house with incredible details. After marveling over that, we briefly
wandered the gift shop, dreaming and wishing.
Then we took the monorail to Epcot where Papa and Husband were waiting
(since they couldn’t park at the resort hotel).
We had planned to meet kids sister as soon as she got off work and hoped
finacee would be able to get off a few hours early as well, but they weren’t so
lucky. They ended up working longer than
anticipated. But we didn’t mind. We sat on some park benches outside the
entrance and played countless games of “duck, duck, goose”, told stories and
explored. It was still early evening
with plenty of time to play when kid sister and finacee were able to join us. (Between Grammy’s injured foot, my pregnancy
and the overstimulated attention of the kids, these half days were perfect for
us. Full of fun and yet, at least one
kid was unfortunately tired enough to tears every night.) We headed for the back of the park to meet
Jasmine and Aladdin, checking off that last high priority for the girls. The girls were in awe and Aladdin had fun
teasing them about flying so far without a carpet. We had dinner, bringing plates from three
different countries and then wandered some shops, unable to resist. We took in a few favorite rides but the girls
were so tired, they didn’t last long.
They got to watch the fireworks and then we had to tell kid sister and
finacee goodbye since we wouldn’t get to see her again.
On Sunday morning we had breakfast and went swimming
again. This time I joined the kids in
the pool and we had so much fun. We
spent the afternoon reluctantly packing and then split the party up. Papa, Grammy and E were to stay one more night
while Husband, L, A and I started our journey home. We had a quick dinner at the airport and
spent the flight doing projects from their new activity bag and watching
movies. After the two flights and the
familiar drive, we got home about 1 am.
Meanwhile, Papa, Grammy and E got to spend one more evening
with kid sister and finacee. They went
to her apartment to drop off Christmas presents and spent the evening at the
newly remodeled Downtown Disney (apparently now “Disney Springs”). They had dinner at the Indian Jones hanger
bar, went shopping and had ice cream sundaes from the Ghiradelli store (that
was E”s favorite part). And then they
came home on Monday, little E delighting in her one-on-one time with her
grandparents while husband had to work on Monday and the older girls and I eased
back into the chaos here.
Such an amazing trip.
We are so lucky that we get to go so often, both to see kid sister (our
favorite part) and enjoy the Disney magic while the girls are at such a perfect
age.
