The magic of Disney

David, Elizabeth, and I just returned from a week at Disney World. It was such an awesome vacation - everything about it was perfect from beginning to end. We took advantage of the deals Disney was offering to upgrade to a one bedroom apartment at one of their luxury resorts. The accomodations were absolutely incredible, and I'm afraid we've now been spoiled for all future vacations. Plus, staying on the Disney property gave us quick access to all of the parks. We were able to peruse the parks at our leisure during the day, then still have time to swim and relax back at the hotel in the late afternoon and evening.

Elizabeth has recently become obsessed with all of the Disney princesses, so it was a perfect time for her to go to Disney World. One of our favorite parts was just watching how excited she got over everything. Her very favorite place at Disney World was Cinderella's Castle.



This was how she looked when she first saw it:



Then, she spent several minutes just standing and staring at it:



Her obsession with the castle continued throughout the entire week. Anytime she saw it, she would yell out, "There's Cinderella's castle!" If you've ever been to the Magic Kingdom, you can probably understand that we heard that A LOT, because the castle is in the middle of everything and you can see it from almost everywhere. In the evenings, the castle also changed colors, and she thought that was just spectacular, especially when it was PINK.



She also loved the rides. She wanted to ride everything she could, and was quite disappointed whenever we told her she wasn't tall enough to ride one. She fell in love with the one rollercoaster she was tall enough to ride (the Barnstormer), and we ended up riding it about a half dozen times throughout the week. That was funny in itself, because she'd spend the whole ride telling us it was going too fast, then as soon as it was over, she would beg to ride it again!

Other favorite rides of hers were the Snow White ride, the Peter Pan ride, and It's a Small World. That's another ride that we probably rode a half dozen times, and I think David and I will be singing the song for quite a while:





Before we left, my dad asked us to take a picture of Elizabeth with the "pink elephant." I tried to tell him that the elephants on the Dumbo ride were gray, but he insisted that he remembered a pink elephant. When we saw this in the It's a Small World ride, we had to take a picture of it, just to show Dad that he may not be entirely senile yet!



The Tea Cup ride was also another one of Elizabeth's favorites:





Unfortunately for David, that ride makes me sick, so he got to ride it with her every time!

Elizabeth also asked to ride the Dumbo ride several times:





But, we finally figured out that was mainly because of the great view it gave her of Cinderella's Castle:



All of the rides were so much fun that we actually had to coax her on her typical favorite - the carousel:




One of the rides that was an unexpected hit with both Elizabeth and David was the Toy Story Midway game, which used 3D graphics and let you pretend to play all the carnival games:



Elizabeth also enjoyed playing on some of the very cleverly designed playgrounds throughout the parks:






It came as a surprise to David and me, but even more than the rides, the highlights of Elizabeth's week were getting to meet some of her favorite Disney characters. Fortunately, we had scheduled several character meals, so we got to sit in the air conditioning and wait for a lot of them to come to us. Here is the Disney menagerie that she encountered at meals throughout the week:

June and Leo from The Little Einsteins:







Along with Goliath the lion (from the JoJo show, which none of us was familiar with):



We also got to eat with Mickey and his crew:












As well as the Pooh characters:










Her absolute favorite meal was the lunch we got to eat inside Cinderella's Castle. Beforehand, she got to meet Cinderella's Fairy Godmother:



Then, we all met Cinderella:



Then, throughout the course of the meal, which was set in a neat castle setting:



She met Snow White:



Sleeping Beauty:



Belle:



And, her favorite princess - Ariel (as a human):



To wrap up the show, they gave all the "little princesses" present, their own "Wishing Star" and wand, and helped them all make a wish. Elizabeth took it very seriously:





She was very disappointed when her wish did not come true!

As a testament to the inexplicable appeal of the characters, Elizabeth also chose to stand in line for quite a while to meet her favorites, including Ariel (as a mermaid):





And Tinkerbell and her friends:







She would have waited to meet even more characters if we had let her. But, by the end of the week, David and I were just happy to not have to hug anyone in the middle of a meal or wait in the heat for any longer than necessary, so we started to quickly shuffle her by anyone we saw in costume. (Although, Dick Vitale was also staying at our hotel, and I think David would have stopped and hugged him if given the chance...)

And, with the weather so hot, she also got to enjoy a lot of yummy cold treats:






We also took advantage of some of the shows to sit in air conditioning for a while and relax. She absolutely loved the Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Lion King shows. I think we have another future Broadway fan on our hands!


By the end of a day at the parks, we were all exhausted:



So, we spent a lot of time cooling down and relaxing at the hotel pools in the afternoons:







Elizabeth's swimming skills and confidence actually improved very dramatically over the course of the week, so David's going to continue to take her to the pool throughout the rest of the summer just to get her even more used to the water.

We all had a fabulous time. It's going to be hard going back to reality!