Disney Discoveries

What did I expect for my first trip to Disney World since 1984? Hard to say. But here are some things I didn’t expect:

How solicitous our 16-year-old granddaughter, Kinley, was to us. It was her trip, after all, but she was constantly concerned about our welfare and if we were having a good time. (We were.) Of course I’d expected to enjoy being with her! That was the point. 

Motorized vehicles everywhere. Many older people (close to my age or older) were in wheelchairs being pushed by relatives, but most had rented their own “scooters” and enjoyed using them.

Cool weather. We’d planned well for weather in the nineties, but we didn’t get it until our last half-day there. Rain cooled things down beautifully.

Rain. Every day. But it didn’t slow us down, and seemingly no one else, either. The rides were up and running as soon as the rain slacked off, and so were we. I took my raincoat and an umbrella, but my raincoat was soon soaked and my umbrella was left in the room on a day when rain didn’t look imminent and was. I soon learned not to worry about my hair before we left the room!

Breakfast in our room almost every day. Kinley had brought some delicious peanut butter/chocolate chip scones she had made, so we had that and bananas for breakfast in our room each day but one. (That was our delightful breakfast in Cinderella’s castle where we met so many Disney princesses.)

Beautiful children. Everywhere. I was fascinated that there were so many children almost as beautiful as my own grandchildren! And even though we saw a few meltdowns, far more children were intrigued and engaged by what they were seeing.

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Big children in strollers. I never heard, “You wanted to come to Disney—now get out and walk like the rest of the able-bodied people here!” But I was tempted to say it myself. Dads carried the babies so the school-age children could ride the strollers.

Masses of parked strollers. At every ride.

 

• Soarin’. I’d only heard about this ride, but we managed to get Fast Passes to ride twice, and it was so worth it. The feeling of flying over the Taj Mahal with the scent of jasmine
  or the Egyptian pyramids with the dust and sand blowing or seeing the incredible Iguazu Falls, just the way we saw it in Argentina—all amazing. I’d been told about it, but words didn’t do it justice.

How delicious the food was. From a sit-down dinner at the Moroccan Marrakesh to Dole Whip cones in the Magic Kingdom, the food was terrific.

How expensive the food was. ‘Nuff said.

How far apart all the parks are. I didn’t even understand the concept of four different parks until I was actually there. I could have spent more time at each.

How perfect the princesses were. Kinley got about 30 autographs from characters, and the princesses looked just like the animated ones. Not enough time to see everything. I now have a better understanding of why people return time after time; it’s hard to get it all in during one trip. We had four full days and half of two others and still felt rushed and missed a couple of things we’d wanted to do or see.

How much we walked. I knew we were going to be walking a lot, but really! A couple of days we walked over 23,000 steps—almost ten miles! I knew we’d walk a lot, but in the past I’d been excited about walking 12,000 or 14,000 steps.

This was Kinley’s choice for a sixteenth birthday trip and it was wonderful! As we explored Walt Disney’s kingdom, we talked about the offer we’d given our grandchildren—a trip of their choice within the 48 states when they are sixteen.

So if Landry chooses Disney, I’ll be 86. Yep—just rent me one of those motorized scooters and I’ll be ready to go!