Disney in A Day

Last week the girls and I took a wonderful weekend trip to visit my Grandparents(and Mom!) in sunny central Florida. (You can read my recap post HERE)

While we were there, we took a day trip over to one of the most magical places on earth…..

Disney World!

My Mimi and Pa live about an hour away from Walt Disney World, so it is easy to get over there and spend a day enjoying everything WDW has to offer!

One of the biggest things on my Pa’s bucket list has been to take the girls to Disney, so this trip was really, really, really special and also really important.

If you remember, we did a day trip to Disney Land last February(and I waddled my third trimester self around the park!) so it was fun to compare a day trip to Disney World.

I had a few people mention that they would love to hear what I thought of taking a day trip- so I’m here to share all of that with you! But, you should know, that for me, I don’t care about doing all of the things and seeing all the people and trying all the stuff. A few rides, a few characters, a souvenir. That’s good enough for me! And that has been perfect for Abigail. Someday we hope to do the week long, full blown Disney vacation, but for now, I have loved just doing a simple, no plans, laid back Disney experience with her(and now Mabel too!)

We used their onsite parking and took the monorail into the park. When we came to Disney as kids, my little brother famously called it the “mamarail” and the name has totally stuck. So if you ever hear me referencing a “mamarail” now you know where it is from.

With my Pa currently going through chemo, we waited until the very last minute to know whether we would be going to visit. The girls had had the sniffles/coughs and we didn’t want to risk exposing him. So, I didn’t have time to order cute matching shirts for the girls to wear, but I did manage to find these cute shirts at Old Navy on super short notice!

Abigail’s Shirt/ Mabel’s Shirt

The night before, Mom and I had booked three fast passes for times that we thought we could get and that Abigail would enjoy. We booked “It’s A Small World”, “Dumbo”, and “Thunder Mountain”. Unfortunately, there was some crazy unexpected traffic on our way over(think multiple car wrecks and stop and go traffic..ugghhhh) that we missed our time for Small World. Since we had some time before we needed to get to Dumbo, we were able to stop and meet Princess Aurora right when we entered the park!

Fun fact: My Pa’s nickname for me…for basically my whole life, has been “Queenie”

Aurora greeted me before she even greeted Abigail and said, “My you’re looking quite beautiful today, your Majesty.”

I’ll just say, she knew who she was addressing.

Sleeping Beauty might have been my favorite part of the entire day! (If you can’t tell by my bazillion pictures from it) She was so engaging and talked to Abigail for a really long time. She noticed that Abigail’s autograph book was from Disneyland and said “Oh! You’ve been to my castle! How does it look?” and she talked to her about finding a dream prince(But said she needed to wait a few more years before that) and they discussed riding Samson to and from her castle. It was precious.

On the way over to Dumbo we stopped for a photo op, but even though it was cloudy out it was crazy bright. So this is all we ended up with. It is worth mentioning that the weather was gorgeous! Not too hot at all, just right for walking around.

Abigail selected my Mimi to ride the Dumbo’s with her and with our fastpass they basically got on immediately.

Sorry for the mid chew photo Abigail- but I love this picture of my Pa!

We stopped for a post character + ride snack and drinks while my Mom and Mimi scoped out our plans. Old school map and new, lol.

We decided to head over to Small World next to see what the line was like, and, just because Disney is awesome like this, my Mom explained to a worker how we had missed our fast pass time because of traffic, so they went ahead and let us get in the fast pass lane.

It was really awesome getting to do a ride that every single one of us could ride together! And what do you know, I think Mabel liked it the most out of all of us. She was mesmerized!

After Small World we decided that we were ready for some lunch, so we settled on “Harbor House” and had a fantastic lunch. It was the perfect spot for us to sit, put up our feet, nurse and change a baby, and recharge for some more Disney fun.

While we were sitting there eating, I suddenly realized that we were going to miss the afternoon parade. I was incredibly bummed about this since that was probably the highlight of our trip to Disneyland last year. But, fortunately for me, just as I was having these thoughts- a torrential Florida downpour started happening outside. Suddenly I wasn’t so disappointed about missing the parade anymore!

After lunch we decided to head over to the Princess area since it is indoors. But on the way Miss Abigail spotted the merry go round and realllllly wanted to ride it. So she hand selected her Pa to ride with her and off they went to ride the carousel!

After this we headed to the Princesses. We could choose to meet Anna & Elsa(longer wait time) or meet Cinderella & Rapunzel. Abigail met Cinderella at DL last year, but Rapunzel was on her list of characters that she really wanted to meet, so that is the line we decided to wait in!

Both of the Princesses were wonderful(of course) but Cinderella was particularly fantastic.

Apparently the bow on Abigail’s Minnie ears had gotten knocked a little funky and Cinderella noticed right away and fixed them for her.

I wish I could tell you what Cinderella is saying here, but I can’t remember. All I know is that I can’t get over the look on sweet Abigail’s face.

Rapunzel was cute, she noticed Abigail’s Disneyland book too and then mentioned how Pascal would love the inside of it because it is green and obviously that is his favorite color!

After the Princesses, I could tell that Abigail was getting super tired and so I asked her if she was ready to go home? She said that she was! So we headed to a gift shop to pick a souvenir(she said she already knew she wanted to get a Mickey to go with her Minnie that she got at Disneyland) and then made our way out of the park!

But not before we stopped for some pictures!

The photographer finished taking pictures and my Pa said, “wait. Take one more.”

And then he did this.

And my Mom and I both just lost it. And I’m crying again just looking at this picture.

So much love between them. I’m so lucky that they’re my Grandparents.

A larger than her sister sized Mickey made it out of the park with us.

And both of these girls were ready for some mega car naps!

As I was saying.

So, if you’re keeping track:

We got to the park around noon and left a little after 5.

We were able to meet and greet 3 characters and ride 3 rides. We had lunch, a snack, and shopped in a gift shop.

And if you ask me, that was a pretty perfect day at The Magic Kingdom!

Have you been to Disney World before? What is your favorite thing to do there?