This week my very long distance best friend surprised me for HER birthday by flying in to see me! The only other time she’s been here since we moved was for a day for work so this was very exciting. She tried really hard to keep it a secret until she arrived but ended up spilling the beans last Wednesday. So of course, when your bestie comes to visit you and you live 20 minutes from Disney World what else do you do?! From dancing in each park, losing my bag with everything in it, riding rides and pool days we packed it all in! I thought it would be fun to share some of our shenanigans with all of you this week, I hope you enjoy!
Park Day!
This was such an incredibly fun day! Her birthday was last Wednesday so I made sure she got her birthday button and she got ALL the extra magic! Of course she fought me on wearing the button but she ended up happy she did. She got at least 4 free desserts, so many happy birthdays and even got sang to by Cast Members twice! I also made her do all the PhotoPass pictures which she hates but again, ended up pointing them out that we should do them and enjoying it. Plus we got some of the best photos!
Animal Kingdom
Kelly had a short list of things she wanted to check off while she was here and while all she had on that list was Food and Wine festival in EPCOT…..it quickly had some additions made to it when she realized her ticket was a park hopper. We couldn’t get any park reservations for EPCOT or Magic Kingdom so we decided to start in Animal Kingdom! She said she barely remembered going to this park and didn’t think she had been on any of the rides besides the safari so we had to right that wrong. We scanned in and took her over to Expedition Everest which she seemed really stoked to ride. But before we left Discovery Island the bird show was just ending and we stopped and turned around at exactly the right moment. The birds flew right over her head in the most magical way and she was so excited about it that she cried. She is not a cryer so this was a cool moment. Then she was all excited and thought she would love Expedition Everest…..that was not the case! Hahaha! She screamed bloody murder the entire ride and when I told her we were going to go backwards and do a little loop she was mortified! I was quite entertained!
We got off there she said she hated it and then 5 minutes later said she would ride it again! Hahaha! But in between the cursing me for making her ride that she cried again about how this was just such a magical day and she was just so happy we finally got to do it together. Made my heart so happy. Next we took her to Dinosaur since she had never been on it either and it’s leaving us soon. Well, this is where the day gets interesting. While on the ride I guess I lifted my leg up that was hooked into my bag strap and my bag rolled right out of the ride vehicle! Insert hand on face emoji here. This bag had EVERYTHING in it! My cards, ID and the car keys! A wonderful Cast Member explained what would happen and got to work. If you don’t know, they send someone through on the ride to see if they can locate the missing item. If they find it they notate where it is and that the guest will be returning for it whenever the ride is down or closed. They did locate my bag and said it was safe by a big Dino. Of course this would be one of rare days Dinosaur didn’t go down at all so we had to wait for park close to try and retrieve the bag. At this point we sent my hubby home in an Uber and decided to just continue on and come back at park close. Thank God for Disney transportation! Hahaha!
Magic Kingdom
The Cast Member that helped me with my rookie mistake on Dinosaur was nice enough to give us some Lightning Lanes for our next park which was so above and beyond! We hopped on a bus and tapped into Magic Kingdom for the next stop on the adventure. Kelly had never done Tron and since the Virtual Queue is no more we could go get in line. It said that it was a 60 minute wait but we probably only waited 35-40 minutes tops. She loved the little pre-show area where the screen fades in and you see the bikes take off but also started freaking out saying she thought she would fall off the bikes! Haha! I’m just going to leave the ride picture here for you to enjoy….I feel it says it all on how she felt about this ride.
We did get a Virtual Queue for Tiana’s but when we tapped in there the line was sooooo long and we didn’t want to use all the time we had in MK waiting in line so we opted to skip it. We used our three Lightning Lanes on Haunted Mansion, Thunder Mountain and Pirates of the Caribbean. But honestly, we wouldn’t have needed them, most rides were less than 20 minutes or walk ons. I pointed all the little details out to her in each ride with some nerdy Disney history and introduced her to the pirate my kids always say is Aunt Fish, I have no doubt she was tired of hearing facts and history trivia by the end of this day! I did make her go in the Tiki room with me and we looked like that meme thats been going around of the football commentators where the one guy is dancing and Nick Saban is just sitting there looking at him like an idiot! Hahaha! It was time to head back over to Animal Kingdom and pray they had my bag so we started to head out of Magic Kingdom. I showed her where the entrance to Club 33 is in Adventureland and tried to tap in but, alas, I was denied!
Back to Animal Kingdom
Back on a bus to Animal Kingdom with a hope and a prayer and some crossed fingers that they had retrieved my bag and had it at Guest Relations. We got there a little earlier than park close and the ride had not been down so we wandered into Pandora since she had never been in there and stopped into Nomad Lounge for a snack and a drink. We had the bright idea to just go over to Dinosaur and maybe we would see them walking out with my bag but they had already taken whatever they had to Guest Relations so away we went! We had another fabulous Cast Member help us there. He went in the back to look and while the door was opening and closing I caught a glimpse of him holding my bag and got so excited!! He came out with it and we both cheered and jumped up and down like idiots, it was great!
EPCOT
Now that we had car keys we drove over to EPCOT to close out the day! We hit Spaceship Earth first after asking some random teenagers to film our dance for us. Next we went to hit up Soarin’ because Kelly went on and on about how it was her favorite ride ever and changed her life when she rode it the first time. Well….I’ve never seen or heard someone be so scared on Soarin’!!! She was not only gripping my arm but also the random French girl next to her who also became terrified! Hahaha! When we got off the ride she said “That was awful, I hate that ride!” She is a conundrum guys! We were about to leave the Land Pavilion when she mentioned she had NEVER BEEN ON LIVING WITH THE LAND! Well I could not let that continue so we hopped on with no wait. She enjoyed it but didn’t see why I was so excited about it so I’ll have to work on that. During the ride we realized it had started pouring down rain but we just decided we would just get wet and hit a few booths before heading out for the night. Word to the wise…the Sparkling Pineapple wine at the Hawaii booth is literally the worst thing I have ever ingested. We don’t discriminate when it comes to alcoholic beverages very much but this ended up in the bushes, it tasted like indigestion! That was the end of our park day so we headed home, soaking wet and super happy!
Pool Day!
The next thing on her list was a resort pool day! I made a brunch reservation at Trattoria on the Boardwalk and we headed there to eat and hang out at the pool. We tanned, swam, got hot and decided to go back to EPCOT because she really didn’t get to go all the way around the world like she wanted the night before. We did the whole World Showcase and stopped at every booth in about an hour and a half to two hours! We didn’t get something at every booth but we did stop at every one to see if there was something we wanted. It was quite the race to get all the way around. We were going to stop in Mexico and ride Gran Fiesta Tour but believe it or not the line was out the pavilion door so passed on that! I took her in the Odyssey Pavilion and she got to experience the talking trash can. She was so excited to get the ravioli’s in the Harvest Hollow section but they were sold out already! The Cast Member said they sold out 11:30am! I had to introduce her to the most fine dining experience in all of Disney World…eating off an EPCOT trash can. We finished up and headed back over to Boardwalk for a little more pool time before heading home. We had to go down the water slide of course and I may have almost died on that because I was acting the fool and didn’t see a turn coming! Hahahaha!
After that it was pick up kids and watching some football practice. Back to reality and work the next day!
Working in Disney Springs
The next two days I had to work and so did she, remotely, so she came along with me and worked from Disney Springs. I set her up in the shade at the Terralina bar and then once it opened I sent her into the Paddlefish bar to work and hang out with the best bartender in Disney. Thanks for taking care of my bestie for two days Adam! It was nice to be able to say hi when I went in to fill my water bottle up and check in on her occasionally. This week is my last week in Disney Springs for now so it worked out nicely.
D23 Screening
Tuesday night we had tickets to the pre-screen event for Agatha All Along at the Disney Springs AMC Theater. It was fun to take her to something like that, I knew she would not like the show but I was here for the commentary. Hahaha! We had some good laughs, she was able to do a little shopping to get things for her daughters and we had a great night in Springs. She doesn’t really know much about D23 and had never done a pre-screen or been to the Disney Springs movie theater so she got to check off some “firsts” as well for this trip.
Dates With Aunt Fish
The boys had to have some time with her too of course! She took them on her usual Chik-fil-a date, picked Sawyer up from school and walked Thatcher man to school this morning. They have the best conversations and it’s cool to know that they have her. Thatcher doesn’t even fully understand that we aren’t actually sisters. It’s so cute!
Now It’s Time To Say Goodbye
As I’m finishing up this weeks post we are getting ready to take her to the airport to go home. The last check on her list was to have my hubby scrambled eggs for breakfast so we got that done this morning! I’m so sad to see her go but feeling so filled up by her visit. There is just something healing about spending time with your soul sister, I hope you all get that experience as well. She will be back in February for the Princess races and I cannot wait! I know this is not a normal post with Disney history or breaking news or a review of a new experience but I thought it would be fun to share this experience with all of you. I always love reading a good POV of a Disney experience or day and I hope you do too. Thank you all for reading along and have a magical day!
