Disney in One Day

On the plane and ready to go! 

My husband. God bless him. He loves Disney. Really, really loves Disney. Our vacations haven't been lining up right and he wanted to go to Disney with some of our friends. We talked about it. I said, "ok, have a good time." He booked the flight, on our one year anniversary. Yes, our one year anniversary. Needless to say, I was angry, I had approved the trip, not him leaving me for Disney, on our anniversary.  Finally, we came to the conclusion that I would have to come with him for a day to celebrate our anniversary.

I've never really liked Disney. Since I was a kid. It seemed fake and cheap.  I was five years old when I went to the magic kingdom the first time. I was disappointed, at the age of five, when Cinderella's Castle seemed small. I expected a real castle, like the ones in England.  I guess my perception of Disney was pretty well cemented at that point. The second time I went was just with my mom. She's great and all but when you are 10 or 12, you don't really want to hang out with your mom but she gets props for  trying. The last time I went I was in High School. It was not the trip of a lifetime. I was with my choir class and I was miserable. Probably for no reason but none the less, it was not a good experience.

Magic Kingdom streets, empty after rain 

Going to Disney was not something I wanted to do, but  Randy was ridiculously excited. I reworked my work schedule to have two days off in a row and we went. We left Grand Rapids on a Sunday morning and I returned on Monday night. Randy continued to stay for 5 more days.

I rode a lot of rides in the short time that we were there. It rained, a lot of people left and the park was pretty slow soon after we arrived. We took refuge in the hall of presidents during one of the storms. This was a place I remembered and liked.  We didn't stay for the show, although now they have Barack Obama and it's way more updated than the last time I was here.  When the rain came down it was like a ghost town. Luckily it stopped pretty quickly, but the crowds didn't come back. I think people didn't trust the weather so they all went to dinner.

Some of the rides we went on were, The Haunted Mansion, Space Mountain (my favorite), It's a Small World (still has creepy puppets), Aerial's Grotto, Pooh's Honey pot, Thunder Mountain, we walked around the Swiss Family Robinson Tree house, Pirate's of the Caribbean, Jungle Cruise, the TomorrowLand Speedway (I was terrible at driving), Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast, and finally I was fascinated by the mosaic in the Magic Castle.  I did not remember that at all.

Our anniversary menu 

Amazingly manicured topiaries 

We stayed at the Disney Resort, Saratoga Springs. It's amazingly easy to find transportation to and from the resort. It has buses to and from the monorail, and the monorail goes to some of the parks Magic Kingdom, Epcot and through some hotels. There is lots of transportation all around Disney. Buses go to all the parks, Animal Kingdom and Hollywood studios.

 We took a boat to get to our restaurant for dinner. We went to Narcoossee's and it was delicious.  Outside on the water around the restaurant there was a light parade.  It was pretty awesome. Then we went back to the park to ride some more rides because we stayed at a resort the park didn't close for us until 2am.

When we returned after dinner we saw another light parade on land. It was amazing to see their costumes. We also caught the end of the fireworks. Every night they have extraordinary fireworks, a tinker-bell that zip-lines down the magic castle (who wouldn't want that job?), and the light parades on the water and around the kingdom. It is an amazing place. The people that work there are amazing too. We got our picture taken with Aerial from the little mermaid and I was so amazed by how the cast members stay in character. It's really and truly amazing how everyone that works there seems to love their job.

The best time to go seems to be in the middle or end of April and probably after spring break and before summer break. The lines seemed to be pretty short. Overall, it was a great trip and I wished I had more than a day to stay (shocker).  It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and the topiaries were amazing. I can see why Randy loves it so much and it's part of why I love him so much.  I want to go back and see the Animal Kingdom and Epcot for sure and spend more than a few hours.