Our original trip plan included meeting some friends on our first day in Orlando at Downtown Disney. I can never imagine travelling to Central Florida and not making a Disney stop somewhere. Sad...but true. I was content with Downtown Disney though. We had also scheduled a couple of meals on Disney properties, so my "fix" could be satisfied.
As we were travelling and I still hadn't heard a final confirmation from our friends, I mentioned to Rebekah that if they couldn't meet on the only day we had available, would she be willing to change up our plans and head on over to the Magic Kingdom instead?
Really? What kid would say no?
It has been six and half years since Bekah was there...half of her lifetime ago. And for the last year or so, when Abbey has pined away at how much she has missed going there the last few years, Bekah has always added how she likes Disney...but not as much as the rest of us (specifically, Abbey and I). I can't describe to you my joy at seeing her create new memories. She wanted picture after picture in Fantasyland and Main Street because they were "so beautiful".
One of the questions asked by our ticketing cast member was "Is this your first time here?" He still gave Rebekah a First Time button because it had been so long, but the button she chose to wear read "Happy Birthday" with space to write her name. Having cast members all day tell her "Happy Birthday," "Happy Birthday, Rebekah" and the most cherished by her, "Happy Birthday, Princess!" had her beaming from ear to ear for most of the day.
This was our first visit to the newly expanded Fantasyland and it was quite enjoyable. Abbey kept following all of the updates and didn't want them to "destroy her childhood memories". But the only ride to close was Snow White...and it was time. New rides, including The Little Mermaid and an interactive storytelling with Belle are great additions.
My child that is torn between kid-dom and adulthood even took a stroll through the water play area! Another fun side I don't often see of Rebekah was her desire to shop. Out of my three girls, she hates it the most...so her constant requests of "Can we look in here?" were beginning to put me off a little...because I too, don't like to shop. When I kindly asked why the sudden interest, she said, "Because it's not clothes...it's fun stuff." I think having birthday money from the grandmas helped too.
The first ride we rode was Buzz Lightyear's Space Command and for the first time, one of my children promptly skunked me. Half way through the ride, she had the maximum 999999 points. I blamed it on being forced to use my left hand to shoot because of my seating location. Yeah...she didn't buy that and promptly took a photo of the score with her iPod as proof for her siblings that she's finally better than Mom at rides like these. Have I ever mentioned how competetive I am? And that a few of my kids have picked that up from me?
She really didn't have a great desire to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, but accomodated me with the caveat "As long as we can ride in the front of the train". It was too busy to be given a choice and we ended up in the second from the back row. But she loved it and we went back again later. She really enjoyed Splash Mountain too. The hill scared her quite a bit, but the complete ride of the Song of the South story more than made up for the brief plunge into the briar patch. She was enthralled with the whole ride because she never knew Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox and Brer Bear were all inside the mountain before.
Something else Disney has added since I went with Abbey almost four years ago is two different interactive adventures throughout the park. One is a treasure hunt throughout Adventureland with Jack Sparrow. It's difficult to describe, but you are given a map and a cardboard "key". You get registered and find your first location on the map. You go there, use your key and something happens...either a cannon fires, water sprays, a skeleton rises out of the water or all three! There were at least three different adventures and the one we did was a lot of fun.
Much later at night, we found another Villian interactive game on Main Street. There are multiple adventures and they could include every part of the park, except Tomorrowland. Ours was in Adventureland again. Merlin needed us to stop Jafar. Rebekah was again given a map, a "key" and this time some spell cards. When Merlin (or Genie) asked you to cast your spell, you simply held up the card and something would happen. For example, if you used Flynn Rider's card, multiple frying pans would be thrown at Iago or Jafar. The spell for the elephant from The Jungle Book meant the villian would be trampled by a herd of elephants. We had a little difficulty getting some of the "spells" to work, but she loved every minute of the adventure. She was really getting into it...or so I thought, until I saw another child walking up to one of the interactive areas (which happened to be in a fireplace!) carrying a large, leather-looking portfolio with pocket dividers (similar to baseball collecting) and he had multiple pages of spell cards to choose from. This kids was a pro!
Both of these adventures are free and could easily consume hours of your day. Rebekah did the villian adventure for about 30-40 minutes and when some of the cards weren't working, I finally asked if we could move on to the rides as the park would be closing in about an hour anyway. I could see though that if you were there for multiple days, you could easily take an afternoon when the ride lines are long to do these fun, interactive games.
The last fun part of the day was seeing the park decorated for Fall. The only other time I've been there in September was in 2005 when Hurricanes Charlie and Francis had recently struck and Hurricane Ivan was on its way. Ivan missed us, but either Disney wasn't doing their big Halloween party yet or just weren't decorating as early. This time though, it was September 3rd and on Main Street, it was already Fall. When Abbey and I went in November 2008, all of the Halloween decor was down and our timing of her birthday (November 10th) coordinated with the first day of their Christmas party.
The decorations were beautiful and I can see why people would return year after year for the Halloween party. But this much more northern, Southern girl found the 90+ degree temps a little difficult to get in the mood for crispy leaves and Autumn colors.
I knew we'd have fun, but my girl who had recently proclaimed herself to "like Disney, but not as much as the rest of you," left the park with tired feet, but a huge smile and a whole new batch of memories. I don't know if we'll return anytime soon or ever...but to be able to spend this day with her was nothing short of magical.
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