magical express worked well & we were on our way to the Old Key West resort in no time. literally NO wait. we walked right on the bus & we were off. once at OKW it took awhile to check in because i wanted a refurbished villa (we had a two bedroom villa...nearly 1400 sq feet...awesome) on the ground floor (no elevators there) that was ready for early check in. no dice. we ended up on the last bus stop (of the 5 at the resort alone) super far away from the hospitality house by 2pish. so we were basically in a condo far off on our own...but it was fully equipped with a kitchen so it wasn't a huge deal. the villa was terrific...very nice, very comfortable, & huge. gus slept in the pack n play in the little laundry room! clay & i shared the guest bedroom with 2 queen beds with luci. housekeeping brought us two bed rails to keep her from falling out. the room had a high chair in it when we checked in. talk about the comforts of home!!
once to our room the fam snacked on some grandpa bread we had brought from home while i ran around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to unpack & get us organized for our stay. this takes awhile when trying to enable 4 adults to be able to take care of two children in a new space (where to put diapers, cups, wipes, clothes, etc.) lu was INCREDIBLY patient and waited over an hour while i took care of that. gus & grandma & grandpa stayed back for gus to nap while clay, luci & i went to magic kingdom. lu was in awe of cinderella's castle...but unfortunately it was closed (they do this a few times a day) so we couldn't go inside. given we had billed the whole trip as "going to visit cinderella's castle" you can imagine her disappointment. when she asked me if cinderella had toys & crafts at her castle it occurred to me then that her expectation was 4 days of hanging out with cinderella in her castle...oops. we tried to distract & told her we'd go to the castle at 6p when the lady said it would open back up. she kept asking if it was 6p & whining that she wantd to see cinderella...ugh...
but we kept busy...rode it's a small world & the dumbo ride. we waited maybe 15 minutes for each ride. while waiting in the dumbo line a nice dad there with his 2 year old told me to head to toontown to find cinderella. i had read that toontown was closed, so i was pretty excited to find out it was open till february! so after dumbo we headed right over to the princess meet & greet...
clay & i weren't sure what to expect so we didn't really say much to her about why we were waiting in line. she wasn't thrilled...
till we got inside & she saw cinderella, belle & aurora...
to say she was a little overwhelmed is an understatement. the sheer awe of seeing princesses in person caused her to be a bit shy & pensive. clay & i were overwhelmed with joy as each princess spent about 5 minutes with her...looking through her little autograph book that we had brought. the intention of the book is to collect signatures & then put a photo of the kid & the character next to the autograph as a memory thing post trip. however our lu being the pea she is, had already filled the photo part with pictures of our family & her 3rd birthday princess party.
each of the princess took the time to look through the book with her. and stop at the princess party photos. and listen to luci name off each of her friends. and then they REPEATED EACH LITTLE FRIENDS NAME back to her. in fact clay interrupted cinderella at one point to tell luci to smile and cinderella put up her hand & told him there would be plenty of time for photos, that she wanted to hear more about luci's book. SOOO SWEET!!!
seriously, clay & i walked out of that meet & greet high as kites...we both told grandma & grandpa (who met up with us after that) that that 15 minutes had M.A.D.E. the entire trip worthwhile. it was so much more of a gift to clay & me than it was to luci. to have the ability to make your child feel the joy & magic that luci felt for that 15 minutes is something every parent should get to experience. we know she likely won't remember how she felt 2 years from now, but we will. it was SUCH a gift.after that we walked through minnie's house & then walked through the castle (it was 6p)...which was underwhelming. we had dinner at pecos bill's cafe - which would have been better had we realized there was a fixins bar for our burgers BEFORE we ate them. oh well. then we headed back to the resort & got some sleep :)
2 comments:
Britt - this totally just made me cry! So hormonal... :)
oh boy. i better not show this to noelle! so glad she had a great time :)
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