Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique #DaileyDisneyAdventure

When we first started talking about going to Disney, I knew we would have to take Jessie to the "Princess Hair Salon," especially after we decided we would be at Disney on her birthday. We scheduled her appointment for that day, which was our last day there. Every other day, if we asked her what her favorite part of that day was, she would proclaim "the hair salon!"

We had a 9 am appointment, so we were allowed in the park early. It was so nice to be able to walk down Main Street with no crowds [and get that family photo with Cinderella's Castle in the background -- a must get photo]!

We were a little early so we spent time looking through some shops that were open (Maggie & Rocky headed towards Splash Mountain in hopes of avoiding a long wait). Jessie found a necklace with her name on it. We put on her Cinderella dress and headed to the salon! I am glad we decided to bring her own dress. While the dresses there were beautiful, Jessie didn't seem interested and was happy with her own.

Once we checked in, we didn't have to wait long. Our Fairy Godmother in Training was very sweet (and Jessie was very shy) and Jessie was very good -- she sat still and took it all in. They keep the girls turned away from the mirror so they get a big reveal moment.

She got to pick out her eye shadow colors and got sparkly nail polish -- and we got to take it all home -- also included a comb, sash and a draw string bag. It didn't take long to do her hair (lots of teasing to get the "bun").

Hair and make up done, her Fairy Godmother in Training got her a new birthday button, her sash ready and then sprinkled her with magic dust, ready for her big reveal.

She swiveled Jessie's chair and Jessie was so excited to see herself. She giggled and bounced with excitement in her seat. The photographer got some great shots of Jessie seeing herself for the first time.

We then went back to the princess gift shop for her photo session. She was a little shy with the photographers, but one (Lowell) got down on her level and got her to giggle and be silly and be comfortable. He got some really cute shots of her.

This was such a great experience.  Every cast member was friendly and seemed to really enjoy what they were doing.This was so worth it -- everything came down to the look on her face when she was turned around. And every so often through out the day, she would ask "Mom, did you let me do this because you knew it would make me happy?" Of course!

Epcot #DaileyDisneyAdventure

Epcot is kind of a strange park. It doesn't have a lot of thrill rides -- it feels more adult than the other parks. I personally was looking forward to walking through the World Showcase Pavilions and trying out foods from the different countries. In hindsight, I should have planned our food a little better this day. Jessie, especially, needed a bit more than the protein bar I gave her at the hotel and she had a bit of a melt down after we left The Seas with Nemo & Friends. More on that later.

In an effort to check out the monorail, we took the boat over to the Contemporary and then road the monorail -- Mistake #1. This added WAY too much time to our travel time. The girls enjoyed riding it and it was nice to get a little mini-tour of Epcot when we arrived, but we had to switch trains and it didn't seem to add anything to the trip. I think we all would have been fine with skipping this.

At Epcot, we looked for a spot to have breakfast and grabbed coffee and cupcakes at Starbucks. We then headed towards The Seas with Nemo & Friends. Jessie noticed the Water Artist and we stopped to watch him for a little while. He even invited Maggie to help him finish Minnie's bow!

The Nemo ride was okay (Jessie got a little scared in the dark parts), but the best part was when we got close to the end and realized we were seeing REAL fish as well. The girls LOVED this part of Epcot and probably would have been happy to spend all day here. The Sea Base is 5.7 million gallon aquarium. They loved watching all the fish, looking for the rays, manatees and dolphins. We missed the dolphin show -- the overhead speakers were a little hard to understand so we weren't sure where to go to watch. We did catch the tail end. 

We were also able to catch Turtle Talk with Crush while we were at Sea Base. This was really cool. Live talking with a cartoon character? The kids sat up front to really interact with Crush [Maggie wanted to go again because she couldn't think of a question the first time around and wanted to ask him something!]. The technology involved in a show like this is simply amazing [and we saw the technology again at the Magic Kingdom]. Crush even got annoyed when someone's cell phone went off!

We started walking around a bit trying to decide where to go next. Jessie wanted to be able to go right up next to some of the flowers and that's when the meltdown started. We ended up in the Land Pavillion where Rocky and Maggie were able to check out the Timon & Pumbaa Circle of Life [Maggie said it was boring] while I got them a Fast Pass for Soarin' [awesome per Maggie]. I got Jessie some food and we chilled for a bit and decided what she wanted to do next -- meet Alice in Wonderland.

We headed to the International part of Epcot and found Alice. We were the last people in line before her break -- a wonderful cast member, who had probably turned others away, let us stay in line for this time frame. Jessie was so excited [and I didn't realize she liked Alice so much], but very shy. She entertained the people ahead of us in line a bit -- after the meltdown, I was surprised she was in such a good mood. She did take a picture with Alice and got autographs for herself and Maggie, but she wouldn't talk to Alice. Same thing happened with Mary Poppins, though we almost didn't get a photo there! We met up with Rocky & Maggie in England and then headed to France for ice cream at L'Artisan des Glaces! We each got a cone to enjoy and then I got to start my Wine Walk! My post about the wines is on Fine Wines on a Budget.

Maggie decided she wanted to try to meet Aladdin and Jasmine, so we headed over to Morocco and ended up waiting about 35 minutes as they had just gone on break when we got there. We were all tired, hungry, hot and a little crabby at this point. The girls waffled on whether or not they wanted to meet them and whether or not they would get autographs or photos. In the end, Maggie got nice photos with them. We found a place to get slushies in Japan and then to Italy for my 2nd wine tasting and some lunch. Tutto Gusto Wine Cellar was the only thing open at 3 p.m. in Italy. The food (and wine!) was good, but the adult portions were VERY small. The kid's portions were almost twice the size. I had a panini with fontina and salami that was served with a wedge ceaser salad -- probably the best ceaser salad I've ever had.  I also enjoyed the Chardonnay, Tenuta Di Nozzole Le Bruniche.

After deciding we were done meeting characters, we took the boat back to Future World to check out Journey into Imagination with Figment and Spaceship Earth. The girls enjoyed Figment, especially the interactive part at the end where they had the opportunity to jump and play where it was air conditioned! Spaceship Earth was almost exactly as I remembered it 15+ years ago. But the interactive play was new to me [maybe we skipped it as I was with friends]. And Maggie is now happy to tell people that the attraction is "a little outdated."

Epcot wasn't very crowded, which was a huge plus for us [none of us enjoy large crowds] and the bus ride back to the hotel was quick and much easier than attempting the monorail had been! I'm not sure I could have done much more planning to make our day smoother, other than nail down where and when to eat! We were still hungry when we got back to the hotel and I believe this was the night we ordered in pizza -- gotta love room service! [which I must say our room service delivery was top notch. I don't want to call him the delivery guy because his presence was much more than that. He treated our pizza delivery as if he were serving in the fine dining restaurant.]

And I did get my family picture [even if Jessie doesn't look thrilled -- at least she wasn't crying and it is pretty much her facial expression in all the family photos from the trip].

Breakfast at Chef Mickey's #DaileyDisneyAdventure

Our first "official" Disney event was breakfast at Chef Mickey's. We were able to take the boat from our hotel to the Contemporay Hotel. It was a short ride and a beautiful morning.

This is a buffet with lots of great choices, including the infamous Mickey Mouse Waffles. I think my favorite was the cheesy hashbrowns! Good coffee. And of course, the main, only, reason for this meal was to meet Mickey Mouse & friends. 

The characters go around the room and visit each table individually. This "dance" is amazingly organized. No one is missed. 

Jessie was a bit shy to start and we have a few pictures with Rocky's arm "protecting" her. She soon warmed up and really seemed to enjoy it.

Our meal ended with a little "happy birthday" celebration: a cupcake with a candle & Mickey Mouse candy and a card signed by all the characters. It was the first of many.

Animal Kingdom #DaileyDisneyAdventure

I think the Animal Kingdom was the park Maggie looked forward to the most. I knew the safari would be a huge hit, and I was right. We got a bit of a late start on the park as we had breakfast at Chef Mickey's and had decided to drop a few things off at our room so we did a bit of backtracking. We still got to the park with time left on our Kilimanjaro Safari Fast Past. There was a bit of a line, so I was happy to use the Fast Past. Maggie and Jessie were both thrilled to see so many different animals so close up! Maggie thought it was so neat to see the lion sitting on what seemed to be Pride Rock. We even got to see a baby black rhino just one day old. Maggie and Rocky attempted to keep track of which animals we saw for the Wilderness Explorer badges, but as Maggie kind of lost interest, we just enjoyed the ride.

It was really hot, so we got some ice cream while waiting for the Festival of the Lion King! I had set up a Fast Pass, but the wait time was short, so we thought we'd use our Fast Pass on something else and went in. To start, our seats weren't very good, but as the show was about to start, we were able to move up so there was no one sitting in front of us! The girls enjoyed the show. Jessie liked the "circus monkey-men" (acrobats dressed like monkeys who did tricks during "Hakuna Matata"). Maggie liked the show, but wished Pumbaa and Simba weren't animatronic.

We had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe, which both girls thought was too loud with the passing "thunderstorms," but they both ate most of their lunch. Maggie and Rocky went on a spinning/flying ride called TriceraTop Spin. I couldn't talk Jessie into it, so we just waited in the shade [it's too hot, Mom]. Maggie liked the ride because you could control if you went up or down.

Next up was "It's Tough to be a Bug" in the Tree of Life. Maggie thought it was neat and Jessie liked most of it, but some was scary. We also went to "Finding Nemo: The Musical" I think this was my favorite part of the Animal Kingdom. It was a puppet show with the puppeteers actually in the show and not just operating the puppets. The musical was fun, colorful, toe tapping, humming the songs later type of show.  

Overall, I think the Animal Kingdom was fun, though I wish it had been cooler. We left soon after Finding Nemo to hit the pool. We missed some of the "big" rides (though Jessie probably wouldn't have wanted to go one the splash ride), but we didn't have the energy to go to yet another area. I think this park would benefit from a railroad to get you from one side to the other. We saw a few characters in passing, but the girls weren't in the mood to wait in line for anything else. The pool was a welcome relief to us all.

There are a lot of "extra to-dos" at this park (like the Wilderness Explorers -- plus the girls didn't really want to talk to strangers/cast members) and I think those are probably there for people who have been there before as it just felt like work to us.

The Wilderness Lodge - A Review #DaileyDisneyAdventure

When we worked with our travel agent Samantha last fall, I asked for a variety of options and for her opinions on them. She gave us options in each price range and I did some research on my own. Some of the factors I took into consideration as we looked included:

Maggie checks out the bed in relief of FINALLY getting to Disney.

• Proximity to parks
• Size of the rooms
• Discount percentage
• Cost (over all and per day)

After looking at our options, we decided on the Wilderness Lodge. The final decision came down to proximity to the parks [Wilderness Lodge is near the Magic Kingdom and Epcot] and room size. The Wilderness Lodge is a Deluxe Resort and if we were going to have 4 of us in one room for 7 nights, I wanted a little room to move. 

The Wilderness Lodge has boats every 20 minutes to Magic Kingdom and the Contemporary and buses every 20 minutes to all the parks. We ended up using a combination of every type of travel, including the monorail, but next time we'll only use that if we are at a hotel on the monorail. It just ended up taking too much time.

This is a beautiful hotel. As with everything at Walt Disney World, once you get to your stop, you kind of forget there is an outside world. The resort has the "wilderness" feel, right down to a smell of leather throughout the hotel. 

Our room was very nice. 2 queen sized beds and a small balcony, that I was at first disappointed it overlooked the parking lot. Until that night when we heard some loud crashes -- just as we were starting to think about calling the front desk, we realized it was the fireworks: we were able to see the highest fireworks from the Magic Kingdom. So, even though we never actually went to a park to watch fireworks, we got to see/hear them every night!

Beautiful landscaping surrounds the hotel. A wide variety of flowers and plants. Lots of rabbits that Jessie had to look for each time we headed to the boat dock. We didn't see half of it I'm sure. We spent our first evening just wandering around.

The girls were, of course, happy to see the pool. We ended up spending a lot of time in the pool, which was a nice way to cool off after spending time in the parks. The pools had life vests for little ones to wear [even Maggie wore one a couple of times] and Jessie got brave enough to let go and "swim" on her own many times. The main pool had a small slide. They also had a splash park, but Maggie was too tall and Jessie wasn't interested in the splashing. They had a smaller 24 hour pool hidden away with jets coming from the bottom. Both girls enjoyed attempting to swim through the jetted water. The water in both pools was incredibly warm, but cooling enough to make it nice.

The hotel had a beach area with soft sand. We weren't able to go into the water, but it was a nice area to play and watch a nightly movie. We never stayed for a full movie, but Jessie & I did watch enough of "Maleficent" for me to be curious to see the entire film.

The hotel had 3 restaurants: 1 "quick service" Roaring Forks, 1 mid-level Whispering Canyon Cafe, and 1 Fine Dining Artist Point. We ate quite a bit at Roaring Forks, which was like a fast food restaurant, though we did have to wait a little bit. The food was good and I really enjoyed my chocolate waffles one morning! We purchased refillable mugs there, but after discovering they were ONLY good at the resorts, I wished we had only purchased 2 to share rather than 1 for each of us. We just didn't spend enough time in our hotel to make that worthwhile.

Rocky and I had dinner one night at Whispering Canyon Cafe and, while the food was good, there is nothing "whispering" about this restaurant. They encourage everyone to be loud and to "play along" with singing happy birthday, sending ketchup to the table that requests "more ketchup." and for a couple out for a date night, this was the wrong choice. After eating, we did go over to Artist Point for a drink and the atmosphere was much more what we had been looking for. 

That night, the girls went to the Cub's Den, a childcare center right on site. The cost is $15/kid/hour and a 2 hour minimum. The girls LOVED it. They got to play with all sorts of Disney toys, had dinner, watched a couple of Disney shows. It was a nice night away for all of us!

The gift shop here had a lot of non-gift shop items -- grocery store items for your room. We didn't even go in the gift shop until one of our last days, but I really wish I had known we could get a pint of milk or yogurt there! It would have been really nice for a quick breakfast. As it was, I did use Garden Grocer to deliver some grocery items to us. It was nice to be able to have 24 bottles of water, chips, power bars, sunblock!, delivered to our hotel and not have to worry about carrying it on or paying too much within the park. I received a text when our order was at our hotel and the bell service brought it to our room. We were missing an item initially, but it was delivered the next day when I sent them an email to let them know. I HIGHLY recommend this service. I will definitely use it again if/when we return to Orlando.

Overall, we really enjoyed staying at this hotel. This hotel matched "us" -- it wasn't too flashly, it was cozy and homey. The staff was friendly and helpful; the 2 issues we had with our room were taken care of fairly quickly. We liked that it was closer to Magic Kingdom than we originally thought and the boat ride there was very quick. The buses were great [with the exception of the one to Hollywood Studios that was 40 minutes late AND full -- on Star Wars weekend of all times]. We would definitely stay at this hotel again. We decided the only thing that would have made it perfect would have been if it were on the monorail, but we're even a little iffy on that thought.

Pirates League Review #DaileyDisneyAdventure

Maggie did not want to be a princess. As I knew she would probably like some sort of dress-up, and I knew a friend's daughter had gotten a mermaid make over once, I started looking for the other options. My search took me to "The Pirates League." So I asked Maggie and she thought she would like it and so we made reservations.  

Maggie decided she wanted to be the Pirate Empress (nothing to girly for this one!). Her package came with a t-shirt. We didn't have to wait very long once her name was called. The staff were all in "pirate" mode, with accents and lots of "yo ho" and "arrr". After getting into her t-shirt, the pirate took her to get her pirate name (even though Maggie is an option). She got to roll some dice which determined her pirate name "Kate Shimskull."

Then it was time for the actual make over. She got some eye make-up, a little glitter and some tattoos. A head scarf, eye patch & earring topped off her look. Her pirate make over guide then guided her through the pirate oath and got Maggie to say "Yo Ho!"

With her look complete, we were then led to a secret door where she was given her sword & sheath and a special gift which we aren't allowed to talk about ;)

The final step was to get a copy of her pirate oath with her pirate name printed on it & signed by Captain Jack Sparrow. We then attempted to ride Pirates of the Carribean, but it was experiencing technical difficulties so we decided to try again later (though then opted to not go when Haunted Mansion was not a hit).

Overall, this was a fantastic experience. I love that they have an option for those that are not interested in princesses but still want to do a dress up. I also love that this is open to ANYONE, even adults -- I didn't actually see any adults there. There are 2 "girly" options: Maggie's Pirate Empress and a Mermaid. They also have costume options, but I think Maggie was happy with the t-shirt options. Maggie really had fun and I enjoyed watching her. Total cost, with tax, was $77.

Maggie's thoughts: So I liked how they gave me a t-shirt & bandana with an eye patch and face jewels. I also got a doubloon but I won't say where I got it because it's a secret. I really liked how you get your pirate name. You go to this chest with dice in it and you have to turn it 3 times with a wheel like from a ship. My pirate name is Kate Shimskull.