DISNEY WORLD!!! Spring Break 2015

Blogger's note: This post was supposed to be published over a week ago, but for some reason, my mobile app didn't upload it. This is the only post I have so far detailing my Spring Break Adventure at Disney World; all the other nights, I was too exhausted to do anything but collapse. You can ask my sister. I kept falling asleep when I was supposed to be helping her plan the next day in the parks. I probably will hit at least the higlights at some point, though, because the trip was AWESOME!!!

Hi, friends! 

It's Spring Break, and I've arrived at Walt Disney World with my family! We're staying at the Art of Animation resort. My bed folds out of the wall and can be used as a table during the day. It's kinda cool.

Tomorrow we're going to Animal Kingdom! Should be awesome. Disney World is my absolute FAVORITE place to go on vacation, and I've been looking forward to this trip for a long time.

This is our first Disney trip using MagicBands. So far, I'm a fan. Your park tickets, room keys, and charge account are all on the Bands. They're completely waterproof, conveniently attached to your wrist so you don't lose them, and you can personalize them, too!

We didn't do a whole lot today. We checked in, ate at the food court, and wandered around the Art of Animation resort as well as the Pop Century resort, which is just across the lake from our area and easily accessible via a bridge.

Very excited about this week. My family and I have made some FastPass reservations (because that's a thing now). My sister and I are going to do a little casual DisneyBounding. We brought a few green accessories for St. Patrick's Day. We've got a few dinner reservations at some cool restaurants, too!

Until next blog, have a magical day!

French Dreams

When I was but a wee high schooler, my French teacher used to say that it was a sign that the French language was really sinking into your brain if you dreamed in French. This later led to a couple dramatic outbursts from my classmates: "I GOT MY FRENCH DREAM!!!"

I've had a handful of French dreams since high school (but who really knows, since I never remember my dreams?). The first time I dreamed in French was when I was either a freshman or a sophomore. I think that, at the time, I was eagerly preparing for a trip to Disney World, and I wanted so very badly to speak French to the French people working at the French Pavilion in Epcot. The problem was that I really didn't know that much French at the time. So I memorized one phrase and practiced it often: "Je voudrais un croissant, s’il vous plaît." (I would like a croissant, please.)

And then I had a dream that I was either in Epcot France or Real France, about to go to a restaurant, and I was practicing that one phrase over and over in my head before I got there.

So I guess I had that phrase down pretty well.

French dreams are on my mind today because I had another one last night (along with some weird nonsense about Downton Abbey in a huge modern-day bathroom). As I've gotten better at speaking French over the years, my French dreams have slowly become more sophisticated.

Last night, I dreamed that I was staying in France with a host family again. I was sitting down to dinner with them for the first time and feeling a little bit nervous. The details of the dream are fuzzy, but I do remember specific bits in which I was speaking real French to them, asking where I should sit and such, and they responded to me in French. I also fell asleep, sprawled across the table, because of some serious jetlag (always happens to me- although usually I only fall asleep while I'm standing up or walking).

Although the dream kinda took a lame turn after dinner was over and everybody had gone upstairs to bed except my host mom and myself. She asked me a question I didn't understand the first time (I swear it was just garbled nonsense my brain came up with to make me feel stupid), and when I asked her to repeat it, she switched to fluent English. My dream-self was very taken aback and thought, "Hey, that's cheating! She's not allowed to do that!" But that was the end of the French.

Spring Break - Day 3

Note: I didn't take a single photo while I was at Epcot yesterday. So if you're only looking at this post for the pretty pictures, you're about to be disappointed.

Day 3 was Epcot day! Yay! Except for one thing: It was really, really, really freakin' cold. In Florida. Jeans and double-jacket weather (and still cold) in Orlando. During Spring Break. So not fair. It got a little warmer as the day went on, but it was still very windy and unfairly cold.

There was a little snafu with the extra magic hours thing. A ton of people showed up at the gates around 7:30 and expected to be let in at 8 (myself included). They didn't actually let us in until 9. It was really awful because we were just standing outside the turnstile in the freezing cold. It's probably the worst experience I've had in all of my many visits to Disney World. All is forgiven, of course- anybody can make a mistake, and Disney makes, in my opinion, fewer mistakes than most amusement parks do. But still- waiting outside in the freezing cold for an hour and a half while knowing the entire time that you're actually in the state of Florida...

I like Epcot a lot. I could wander around there for hours. Our first stop was Soarin', of course, because the line grew quickly and the wait time was close to three hours before we could blink. We scraped by with only a twenty minute wait, and the ride was delightful. I like Soarin' because it's entertaining without being too wild and crazy, which means I can enjoy it with my whole family. Disney is good about making rides like that. While it does have wild and crazy thrill rides, it also has some that the entire family can enjoy without necessitating the title "kiddie ride."

We also hit Test Track, which has recently (or at least since our last visit) been redone and is now sponsored by Chevrolet. The crash test dummies are gone; now the focus is on testing the performance of cars the riders specifically design. Each rider scans his or her park ticket or room key at the beginning of the ride and designs a vehicle, which stays connected to the card throughout the rider's time at the attraction. The rider scans the card at a terminal directly before boarding the ride. As the ride vehicle goes through each of the test phases, scoreboards at each test phase show the score of each rider's car design. After the ride, the riders can race their cars against others, make commercials for their cars, and take photos to be emailed home. All this is available thanks to the new scanability feature of the cards. The building and ride vehicles look sleek and shiny and new; I love the changes. I'm still a little nostalgic for the crash test dummy days, though. The first time I rode that ride, I thought we were actually going to crash right into a big wall.

The other attractions we hit up on that side of the park were oldies but goodies: Living with the Land and Ellen's Universe of Energy. Always good. Ellen is always funny, no matter how old her footage seems these days. And who doesn't love Bill Nye the Science Guy? The other attraction we visited was definitely an oldie: Michael's Jackson's Captain EO in 3D. The usual corny 3D tricks were plentiful, although the theater seats shook, rumbled, and bounced in a way that I haven't seen before. You guys, when Michael Jackson claps his hands, all the seats in the theater jump. You'd better believe it.

A great part of our day was spent in World Showcase, and most of that time was spent in pursuit of food. We attempted to sample food from a bunch of different countries, but long lines and lack of food options left us largely without food. We grabbed a few things from Morocco. I got stuck chewing the chewiest stinkin' piece of lamb in the entire world while the rest of my family gobbled down the rest of the food. We ended up eating bratwursts and hot dogs at Germany. We browsed around in France a little bit, which I enjoyed, although I got a little irritated at my family's insistence that I go speak French to the French staff. To be honest, I did kind of want to chat them up. But as always, I could think of nothing to say. That was an awkward disaster of a conversation waiting to happen.

"Bonjour!" "Bonjour." "Comment allez-vous?" "Bien, merci. Et vous?" "Très bien, merci." "..." "..." "Okay, good talk."

Maybe I'll think of something to say by the time we go back on Friday. If not... Heck, I'm studying abroad this semester and I'll speak nothing but French for an entire month. I think I'll be okay.

We had dinner at the pub in England. It was lovely, except we had to wait outside for around half an hour even though we had reservations and it had just gotten cold again. I had cottage pie. It was tasty. Our waitress had an awesome British accent and she was from Devon, a place about which I know very little, but I think it has an awesome-sounding name.

So Epcot was full of awesomeness as usual, but it was just so cold that it was sometimes hard to enjoy. I'm hoping the warm, sunny Florida weather comes back before we have to leave and go back home.

Spring Break- Day 2

Did you enjoy the teaser for the Day 2 installment? I hope you did, because that's the only art you'll be getting for a little while. I'm a little limited in cartoon supplies here at the hotel.

But Day 2 is a tale of epic proportions. It's a tale of discovery, a tale of magic. It's a tale of heartbreak, tragedy, and misfortune. So let's get down to it.

Day 2 was the designated Magic Kingdom day. It was yesterday. But I was too tired to write about it yesterday, so I sketched out a quick doodle with the hotel pen and notepad and then I hit the hay. But we definitely had some adventures that ought to be recounted.

We woke up early and got to the park a little after 8 A.M. It was one of the "extra magic hours" days, so the park was open early. The weather was beautiful- a little cool, but still comfortable. I was dressed in perfect park-going gear: t-shirt, shorts, sneakers, and a pretty new hair clip. I have long bangs that I wear off to the side; if I don't clip them back, they fall into my face and eyes without fail. I forgot to bring hair clips, so I grabbed some new ones at a gift shop. There were silver-sequined Mickey Mouse heads on them, and I was quite fond of them. Just one little clip perfected my ensemble, rendering me ready for anything as I stepped into the Magic Kingdom. Since we had gotten there so early, my family and I were able to hit up a lot of the major attractions with little to no wait. Like, for real. My sister and I walked right onto the Dumbo ride. Anybody who's ever ridden that ride knows exactly how amazing an accomplishment that is. (Don't judge. You're never too old for Dumbo.)

We got to check out New Fantasyland, which really is something special. The Ariel ride is cute and fun (the "Under the Sea" part rocks and the Ursula animatronic was mildly terrifying) and there's a TON of Beauty and the Beast stuff. Beauty and the Beast is my favorite Disney movie ever, so I was pretty giddy. There's a gift shop (naturally), Gaston's tavern, Belle's cottage (my inner little girl longed to go listen to Belle read a story), and the Beast's castle.

That castle...

...blew me away. The ballroom looks JUST. LIKE. the ballroom in the movie. Aaaaah! There's even snow falling out on the balcony.

How beautiful is that? It's just so decadent and wonderful... "Be Our Guest"? You don't have to ask me twice!

Just look at that dessert. LOOK AT IT. It was delicious, and there were a ton of other cupcakes to choose from as well. The entrees were mostly French (or French-sounding). I had a croque monsieur, which is like a hot ham and cheese sandwich. It was tasty. The service was pretty good. You order and pay for your food close to the entrance (you know, after you walk across the stone bridge and through the hall of talking suits of armor) and then you find a seat. The staff give you a red disc sort of thing with a rose on it (naturally), which you take with you to your seat. Some liveried waiters track your table down using the locator in the rose disc and deliver your food on large trolleys. It's fantastic.

The ballroom was the best dining room of all, but there were also two side rooms available. One, I believe, was supposed to be like Belle's enormous library, but instead of books, there were gigantic "portrait" stills from the movie. In the center were the rotating figures of Belle and the Beast in their famous ballroom dance. The other room was the West Wing, and it was delightfully spooky. It was dark, had ripped-up decorations, and even had a portrait of the Beast in his human form- complete with slashes and claw marks in the canvas. Wonderful.

We had a good time in the Magic Kingdom, although some members of our party got tired faster than the others. Since we had already done just about all of our favorite attractions, my mom and sister went back to the hotel around 3:30, after my dad clobbered us all at Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin. My dad and I stayed behind to catch up on a few last attractions and watch a parade. We found a pretty nice location on Main Street about half an hour before the start of the parade and got comfortable to wait for a while. We chatted about stuff. After a little while, I felt a strange thump on my head, as if a large insect had crashed right into it. An immediate reaction from someone standing nearby corrected that theory, much to my dismay.

Bird poop. A bird had swooped down and let loose on my dad and me.

I had bird poop in my hair.

Disgusted and appalled, my dad and I all but ran to the nearest bathrooms we could remember seeing (in Tomorrowland). I'm sure I was bright red the entire way there. The whole time, I was thinking, "Don't look at me. Don't look at me. Please don't look at the bird poop in my hair. Please, please, please don't stare at me. I can't believe I have bird poop in my hair THAT IS SO GROSS!!!"

When I finally made it to the restroom and fought my way through the slowly-moving people who seemed as if they were having a very hard time deciding which stall to go to, I discovered that there was an alarming lack of mirrors. So I held a wet paper towel in one hand and my iPhone set on its camera mode in another and tried with difficulty to wipe the poo out of my hair. I had trouble finding much, which was alarming. It was a pretty solid thump, after all. After a moment, I found it.

It was on my brand new silver-sequined Mickey Mouse head hair clip.

A wide range of emotions filled me at that moment. Dismay at losing the hair clip (there was no washing that; I would never get all the bird poop out of the sequins), bittersweet pride for the brave and loyal hair clip that had given its life to protect my hair, but most of all amazement at how the bird had managed to hit that one small spot on my head. I threw the hair clip away, wiped out whatever was left in my hair, and then rejoined my dad. We decided that prompt showers were in order, but since the parade was due to start in just a few minutes, we might as well stay and watch it.

The parade was nice. I love Disney parades; it always makes me giddy to see my favorite characters rolling down the street on a float, and the music was fantastic as always. I think the name of the parade was "Celebrate a Dream Come True." I'm all for that. However, as soon as the parade was over, my dad and I were anxious to get back to the hotel and hop in the shower. We did so, although when we got there and I finally found a mirror, I noticed something to top off the misfortunes of my day.

You see, I had an idiot moment. I went outside for several hours at a time while in the state of Florida and I didn't put on any sunscreen. So now I have sunburn all across my nose and cheeks. Owwwww.

So a few rather unpleasant things happened during my trip to the Magic Kingdom. But those things aren't enough to put a damper on the day. I had such a great time running around and riding all my favorite rides and seeing the parade. And New Fantasyland was incredible and well worth the anticipation. So many awesome things from my favorite Disney movie... and I even found the table settings for my wedding in the gift shop! Now I just need to find a groom. I should ask Cinderella's fairy godmother for advice on finding a prince...