Journey to Wonderworld

We took Lily to Disney World on Wednesday. Jen's boss was fantastically generous and booked a hotel room at one of the outlying resorts for Tuesday night with some reward points she wasn't using. The whole thing was extraordinarily nice. We checked in with no trouble, and they gave Lily a bunch of Disney stickers every time she turned around.

The service was top notch. Everyone greeted us with the phrase, "Welcome home," which was a gimmick, of course, but a good one. We couldn't have asked for a nicer day. It snowed up in Jersey on Thanksgiving, but it hit 89 degrees in Orlando, and we swam in the resort pool until sundown.

When she got out of the pool, Lily was sure to put one footprint in each segment of the sidewalk. I did that when I was kid and it is such a characteristically little kid thing to do. And she's so serious when she does it. 

Lily was here

After sundown, we hit "Downtown Disney", a bunch of shops near the park, but not inside it. We told her that we were going for some ice cream. She said "Are we on a quest? A quest is looking for something, really hard."

The lego store was pretty impressive. I liked the sea serpent, but when I gushed "Isn't this the coolest thing ever?!" to Lily, she just sighed and shook her head and said, "All right, daddy, it's pretty cool, but it isn't the coolest thing ever." Alas, so cynical, so young.

Coolest thing, ever

She participated in the hulu hoop contest, but she wasn't very good at it, as it was her first time using one. I'm happy that she wanted to stay and watch once she was eliminated, rather than retreating to sulk.

 

We didn't tell her that we would be going to Disney until we were ready to depart Wednesday morning, lest she pester us endlessly. That more or less worked out, though she did wind up somewhat underwhelmed when we did tell her.

She wanted to see the princesses once we got to Disney, so after a purchase of mouse ears, we headed over to seek them out. Belle, Ariel and Cinderella were all there, and they're probably Lily's favorite princesses, so that went over very well.

After that, she wanted to see the fairies, so we got back into an adjacent line and waited to see Tinkerbell and her friends. Lily enjoyed that okay, though she hasn't seen the Tinkerbell movies as much as she has the princess ones, so she didn't have a lot to say to the fairies.

We hit A Small World, which had been Jen's favorite when she was a little girl and then we went on a bunch of rides, including a carousel, and Lily always enjoys those.  

If you've ever been to Disney World, I'm sure you can imagine what it was like. Lots of waiting in lines, followed by two minutes on a ride. Hurry up and wait, as it were. It's funny too, because each feature film seems to necessitate an attraction, and scattered around Disney World are rides based on movies nobody really remembers, like the Hunchback of Notre Dame or the Swiss Family Robinson house. They made me think of vestigial tails.

We caught the 3:00 PM parade in Frontierville, which was rocking a dentist office cover of "Big Iron" that didn't do it for me at all. It came through at about 3:45 and I think Frontierville is the last region through which the parade passes through, so the dancers were looking a little frayed at the edges. Prince Naveen looked like he was having the time of his life, though.  

You're okay in my book, Prince Naveen

When the wicked stepsister (Drusilla, *sigh*, I'm watching too many princess movies) from Cinderella walked past, Lily waved and yelled "I like your dress!"

I couldn't help but notice that they got the whitest guy imaginable to play Aladdin. He's whiter than me, for Chrissake, and I'm pretty damn white.

His skin is the same shade as those pillars

After that, we went on a Safari boat ride, but Lily wound up getting really scared. We comforted her and reassured her, but as we were on a little boat, it's not like they could stop the ride and let her get off. After that we headed to Tomorrowland and saw the Laugh Floor from Monsters, Inc, which all three of us really enjoyed.

We didn't want Lily to fall asleep and be upset when she woke up outside of Disney World, but nor did we want her fighting to stay awake and getting really cranky in the process.  We negotiated a departure at around 6:00 PM when she was still in a good mood and that actually worked out really well. Lily was really well behaved for almost the entire time, and I don't think things could have gone much better than they did.