The Solo Trip – Day 4 – 11/05/2010

Today was the best day of my entire vacation. That is all.

I decided to go to the Magic Kingdom for rope drop. When I arrived, I heard Christmas music. No way could it be….yes it was. Not only was I able to see the Halloween decorations my first night, but I was able to see the gloriousness of the Christmas decorations my last full day there. I went through bag check, then lined up with all the other people in front of the Magic Kingdom Railroad. The emcee emerged shortly after and said that Mickey was on his way. Sure enough, here comes Mickey on the train, with a bunch of other characters!! Also on the train was the family they were honoring for the day. I was astounded. That was one of the happiest moments of my life. Mickey had everyone count down from 10 to open the park…I tried my best to count through my tears. When they reached 0, they shot out streamers, and dancers from the railroad were waving to everyone as we stampeded into the Magic Kingdom.

First I headed toward the Jungle Cruise. I pretty much walked right onto the ride. Unfortunately, our skipper was terrible. However, it was nice to see all the friendly animals in the morning light.  Next I went to Pirates and got right on that as well. I was amazed at how few people were there at that time. As you will all later see from my future Flickr pictures, I took snapshots of the empty streets. I was kinda dancing on said empty streets as well.

Then I decided to go into the Swiss Family Treehouse for the first time. It is beautiful in there! I took many pictures, including one from the top. I love the detail they put into it. Walking through there wreaks havoc on legs which don’t get the exercise they should (i.e. mine), but it was worth it. When I left there, I marched to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. I rode it by myself like the big girl I am! After having tons of fun on that, I sat on benches across from Tom Sawyer Island for a short while and just relaxed, enjoying the view.

Next was Splash Mountain. Five-minute wait, people! SOLD! I sat in the back and a family was in the first two rows. At the ending splash, our faces got soaked. Only the mother had wet clothing, but the faces of myself, the husband, and two kids all had soaking wet faces LOL! I had never seen anything like it before. Next I was uber brave and rode the Haunted Mansion by myself. That had been a lasting fear of mine and I overcame it! The ghosts were nice enough to not stop the doom buggies at any point, thankfully. If the buggies had stopped in the séance room, I would have probably fainted.

After that, I decided to go see the Hall of Presidents show. I was emotional at Abraham Lincoln’s speech for two reasons - #1. He is my favorite President and #2. It’s Disney. Everything makes me emotional at Disney. Anyway, I break the stigma that show has because I never fall asleep. I find it extremely interesting, and I love watching the Animatronics to see which Presidents are moving when attention is not on them.

I then had a delicious lunch at the Columbia Harbor House. That place is seriously in my top 3 favorite eateries on the entire Disney property. THEN I went on the Haunted Mansion again. Am I nuts? Yes. Did I have the time of my life? Yes. The ghosts were not as sweet this time. They decided to stop our vehicle right at the end, so I was face-to-face with Miss Bride who says, “Hurry baaaaaack.” Yikes.

Next was Tomorrowland. I tackled the Wedway People Mover once, loving every second of it. The next ride was Stitch’s Great Escape. That was horrible. Now I know why everyone hates it. It was a waste of time and Disney seriously needs to close it soon. I can think of much better possibilities to take its place. Next was the epic masterpiece that is the Carousel of Progress. Love it to pieces! Seeing Uncle Walt’s vision through that show always makes me purely happy. I hope they keep it there forever. I went on the Wedway again after that.

Heading out of Tomorrowland, I stopped at a snack stand and grabbed an Edy’s Strawberry Bar. Mmmmmm. Yummy yummy! I sat under a tree in front of the Adventureland entrance and thoroughly enjoyed it. Then I saw that Captain Jack’s Tutorial was going on, so I joined the crowd. I stood to the side to watch. No lie, people … he saw me singing along to “Yo Ho” with him and he pointed at me and said, “YES!” LOL! Then I received a couple of raised eyebrow glances from him. I won’t go into it here, but … Captain Jack Sparrow and the Cast Members who portray him are sexy. That is all. I went on Pirates after that to celebrate the pirate awesomeness occurring at that moment.

I had a FastPass for Peter Pan, so I hopped on that and enjoyed every second of it. The Cast Member running the ride was named Briana, so we were laughing about how special we were LOL. Then I went on Snow White. Did not enjoy it so much this year. There was an impatient guy behind me, and this lady in front of me, whose family joined her in line toward the front of the queue. He did not like this and started complaining. So there I am, monkey in the middle, with people in front of me and behind me, arguing. I’m thinking, “Really? Must you be doing this now?”

As I was exiting the ride, I called Shelley (@shelleycaran) to ask her where she was. She was explaining to me but I didn’t understand. All of a sudden, she says all too nonchalantly, “Look to your left.” I look and there she is. LOL! I was able to meet Princess Zoe, her lovely daughter, who is too precious for words. We headed to Tomorrowland first. We got on Wedway and Buzz. Okay so you know when a child does something that warms and melts your heart? While on Wedway, she reached over and hugged me. Then on Buzz, she held my hand. <3 Such a sweet little girl. After that, we met up with Shelley’s husband, Dave, on Main Street USA. We watched the flag ceremony, which was a first for me. That was absolutely lovely. We all rode the Jungle Cruise and happily laughed at the awesomely corny jokes. We then rode Pirates and the Haunted Mansion. We all walked over to Tony’s and met up with John (@disneyworlds) and Nicole (@njoysiscaretti).

The six of us marched happily to Thunder Mountain. So here’s the thing…for a long time now, I have been wanting to ride this at night. I was ecstatic. The only bad part about this was that it was quite cold out. I believe Nicole wanted to strangle me right there. But we survived it! Shelley sat it out, but Dave, Zoe, John, Nicole and I went on. Although it was very cold, I had the time of my life. Such a memorably cold moment! LOL. As we went around the corners, Nicole & I were screaming, ‘WEEEE! WEEEEE!’ 

When we got off of the ride, Todd (@tperlmutter) was there with Shelley. So we all walked over to Tony’s together. This night was SO magical, I cannot even begin to describe how much fun we all had. Dinner was fabulous. I believe we were the loudest ones in the restaurant. The Carans had to leave after dinner. It was REALLY sad saying farewell, especially to Shelley, since we had hung out together almost each day I was there.  ALREADY I was on the verge of crying.

Todd, Nicole, John, and I shopped the Emporium a bit. I found an adorable Thumper charm for my bracelet, and John bought me a Cheshire Cat charm. <3 I wear that bracelet almost every day now. After browsing the Emporium, some Cast Members began to close off entranceways. We kinda panicked and made our way out on Main Street. We started to walk slooooowly (we did NOT want to leave) toward the exit. After a group hug, Nicole mentioned feeling magical. Then, it happened…she and I got on the ground and made snowless snow angels. And you know what? That was one of the most memorable moments of my life. Laying on that ground and looking to the left, seeing the beautiful castle….then as we were lying there, she mentioned how dirty the ground probably was, and we got up. LOL. However, we did not care because we were living the moment!

As we made our way out, I could not stop looking back at the castle. I wanted to treasure every moment, and it looked so beautiful. Nicole and I spotted a Candylane Garden, and a guest was nice enough to take our picture in front of it.

Officially, that was one of the best days and nights of my entire life. It was TERRIBLY hard to say goodbye. I managed to hold my tears in while saying goodbye to them. We shared hugs, laughs, and then split ways.

When I got onto the ferry, I cried my eyes out the entire trip back to the Wilderness Lodge. Not only was I leaving Disney World which is hard in itself, but I was leaving great friends. I will always remember this day and cannot wait to tell my kids all about it.