Quite a drive later (Ashlyn was actually pretty good through most of the driving we did... and we did a LOT of it during our week and a half off island), we were at WDW! Yes, I'm aware that you all know I was doing the Snoopy happy dance when we got there.... heck, I'm doing it just thinking about it! Anyway, we checked in to Port Orleans French Quarter and just relaxed before our big park day the next day.
We were only going for one day so of course we chose to go to the Magic Kingdom.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that all the Christmas decorations were still up!!! The castle wasn't lit up like it is during the Christmas season, but the tree and everything else were still up. :) I am not going to put up a whole lot of "extra" pictures because there are quite a few very important ones to put up and I'll focus on those. Anyway, so we took our time going down Main Street and took a few pictures. We were on our way to Toontown so we could make it for rope drop. We had never gone to see the Fairies since the line is always horribly long so we wanted to try and do it this trip. We got to the rope at 9:30 and prepared ourselves to wait until the 10am rope drop. Well, they did rope drop early at about 9:40! We walked quickly over to the Fairies and were the second family in line! YAY! We were pretty much positive that Ashlyn wouldn't want to get too close to any of the characters unless we were right with her. Well, Rosetta (the garden fairy in the movies) came up to her and Ashlyn took her hand to walk over with her! Ashlyn was still a little nervous and all, but Rosetta was really, really good with her and got a hug!
I nearly lost it! I was tearing up so much. Little did we know this would actually be a theme this trip! Tinkerbell was next. I thought Ashlyn would be super excited about Tink, but Tink wasn't as great with little kids as Rosetta was (or maybe she just wasn't warmed up yet). But eventually Ashlyn warmed up and Tink got a hug, too.
Even Vidia got a hug!
Ashlyn had gotten a glimpse of the big cheese while we were headed to the Fairies and I was almost afraid she'd flip out because we weren't going to see him first, but she got distracted by everything else and had fun with the Fairies. Anyway, of course we had to go see Mickey and Minnie next!
Oh my goodness, Ashlyn was so happy! She LOVES loves loves Mickey and Minnie. She gave them both hugs and Mickey even got a kiss!
Throughout the day, when we saw the shows and parades (which we made sure to see them all) she would always wave and yell "HI MICKEY!!!!!" whenever she saw him. ♥ (I originally only put one ! after that but that really didn't explain how excited she was.) After we had left our meeting with Mickey and Minnie, we passed by a shop and realized that she only had a couple of stuffed Minnies... no Mickey! So we had to get her one. :)
There's not a day that goes by that she doesn't play with both Mickey and Minnie at home. :) Since I have so many pictures to share with just the characters, I'm going to skim over most of our day. We went on a ride or two, had some lunch, and eventually made our way back to Toontown because we had to go see the Princesses! This was our first time (not counting the time that Ashlyn was 2 months old) that we didn't have a reservation at the Castle for lunch or dinner. And with the warm welcomes that the Fairies, Mickey and Minnie got, we knew we had to go see the Princesses. They switch out from time to time so on our way there I just crossed my fingers that Aurora (Ashlyn's absolute FAVORITE princess) would be there. Sure enough, she was! Ashlyn was just in awe, I kid you not!
We had bought Ashlyn an Aurora pin before we went there and she was wearing it. Aurora knelt down by her and just had the cutest little conversation with her. It was so sweet. Ashlyn was just staring at her like "you've got to be kidding me... AURORA!" Aurora could tell and gave Ashlyn a kiss on the cheek.
Ashlyn was smiling so big! The Photopass guy got a PERFECT picture of this that we're going to buy. I will share it on here when we get it. It makes me all happy inside. :)
Next up was Belle. Poor Belle. Ashlyn usually adores Belle, but any princess that comes after Aurora is just set up for failure. haha Ashlyn took a minute to warm up to her, but eventually at least gave her a little hug.
Poor Belle again... after Belle was Cinderella and Ashlyn just ran up to her and gave her a hug. I think she finally got over the shock of meeting Aurora and was ready to be excited again. haha
After we left the Princesses, we headed over to Minnie's house. You can't run around in Mickey's house, but you can in Minnie's. So we decided to go ahead and let Ashlyn climb on stuff and explore as she wanted. Aaron also had the great idea of taking a picture of Ashlyn and me on the same chair (well, the one next to it) that we had taken a picture in during our first trip to WDW.
I loved that idea. And they are closing Toontown next month forever so I am really happy we took the picture. Let's see, after all this we saw the show Dream Along With Mickey. We had tried to see this show last time we went, but the second after Mickey came out, it sprinkled so they had to cancel it (they didn't want the dancers or characters to slip). It was during that second that Mickey was on stage that Aaron got the picture of her with the look of utter joy on her face. So we had to make sure we saw this show. It had rained earlier in the morning so they were mopping up the stage hoping to be able to go on. It was the first show of the day, so we were prepared to come back later if we had to. But they only had to delay about 5 minutes and we were able to see the whole thing. We also saw both parades. Oh, during the street party parade, one of the dancers took a liking to Ashlyn and made sure that Woody went over to her during the part that the audience gets to go and dance with the characters and took her hand to lead her into the street to dance! I'm tearing up just thinking about it. :) She got nervous after a second when she realized I wasn't holding her other hand, but it was just so awesome to watch.
Some time after dinner, we saw that Ariel was about to come out to do a meet and greet, so we hopped in line. Ashlyn's eyes got really big and she got super happy when we told her who we were going to see, but she was getting tired at this point (she wouldn't take a nap, but she rested really well and that helped) so she didn't give Ariel as warm of a hello as she probably would have earlier (I'd say Ariel is still her second favorite princess) but she still liked her. :)
Before we headed back to the hotel, we watched the Main Street Electrical Parade. I remember growing up with this parade so I was so excited to watch it again! Aaron and Ashlyn really enjoyed it, too. We also met Ashlyn's twin! This other little girl was about 3 or 4 (the family spoke only Spanish but we were able to communicate fairly well with body language) and they just looked so much alike! It was so funny.
You can tell Ashlyn was out of it and ready to go to bed at this point. :) After the parade we headed back to the hotel.
The next morning we headed over to Downtown Disney and spent some time there. It was a lot of fun. Ashlyn didn't want to leave the Mickey and Minnie statue or the Aurora statue alone. haha It was a fun trip and it was nice to be able to take our time and not worry about Ashlyn needing to go to bed shortly after we arrive, since we usually go around dinner time and only get to shop for a minute before having to head back.
It was such a special trip. It always is, but it was just even a million times more magical with Ashlyn being excited about the characters. I told Aaron that this was her first real trip and just the beginning. :) I'm already excited for our next trip... whenever that may be.
Love the blog. The photos are great. Ashlyn is growing up.
ReplyDeleteLove, Aunt Barb