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Trip Report Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Brrrrrrrrrr

It's time to report on our first mother-daughter trip to WDW!

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If you’ve ever wondered what happens when you take a 4 year old to Disney in early February in record-breaking cold… buckle up.

From 2/2–2/6, we somehow travel with both sunscreen and mittens. We flew out of Boston optimistically thinking things like, “It won’t feel that cold in Florida, right?” Reader: it did. There were puffy coats in the Most Magical Place on Earth. There were goosebumps in line for rides. There were moments when I questioned every life choice that led to me saying, “Let’s go in February!”

And yet.

There were also shrieks of joy. So. Many. Rides. The kind of fearless, hands-in-the-air, “Again! Again!” energy only a four-year-old can sustain on pure adrenaline and Mickey-shaped snacks. Nora conquered attractions like a tiny theme park warrior, equal parts princess and chaos gremlin.

Of course, no toddler-centric Disney trip is complete without the full emotional range of the human experience. We had magic. We had meltdowns. We had tears (some hers, some… undisclosed). We had triumphant parade dancing and dramatic collapses over the wrong color straw.

Here we go!!
 

MickeyPretzelEnthusiast

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Here we go!

When: February 2-6, 2026
Where: Pop Century
Who: me (Annie) and my 4 year old daughter (Nora)
Why: a couple reasons. 1) in the past few months I turned 34 and she turned 4 - double bday! But mostly this was a way for us to spend time together just us 2 after I had my youngest (Ella) in September

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(We are already planning Ella's first family trip for March of 2026! (note that I did NOT say February. NEVER EVER AGAIN)

My husband Ian held down the fort with Ella and our dog Gus while we were gone. He actually had a great week bonding with Ella and it was quite meaningful for him too :)

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The day before we left was a decent snowstorm, so I was pretty worried about our ability to make it to Orlando, especially given that this was a shorter trip for us. A few days before I even tried to change our flights to head out early or come home a day later but could not get ANYTHING hotel wise.

Fortunately when Monday morning hit the snow was gone!

I woke up around 445 and got ready and last minute toiletries packed up.

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I got Nora up around 530 and she was SO excited that Disney Day was finally here. We had started a countdown chain at the 3 week mark and she got to pull off the last chain.
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My dad picked us up around 6 and then we made the trek from Maine to Boston to head to the airport. Security was a breeze!
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Someone couldn't contain her excitement.


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We went and made sure our gate existed (lol) and then grabbed some Dunkin to munch on.

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We were next to a gentleman a generation or so older than me who was very kind to Nora with all her wiggles while coloring.

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We ended up going for a walk around the gates, explored a bit, quick bathroom break and finally it was time to board!

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MickeyPretzelEnthusiast

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
This is going to be fun!

(And I love the new take on your old title!)

Can’t wait to read about your girls’ trip!

Yay! Can’t wait to hear all about it

Nora looked so excited 😊

Cannot wait for the next exciting instalment. Love the photo of you with the girls.

Girls trip!! You both look so excited! Can't wait to hear all the details.

We were there at the same time! Eager to find out if we were ever in the same area at the same time!

Love a mother/daughter trip, so many good memories of my girls at that age. And loving Nora’s excitement

Looking forward to seeing more!

Yay! Can’t wait to read all about it!

Episode 4 Nbc GIF by Brooklyn Nine-Nine


Let’s keep this show on the road!!

We had a window and a middle seat. This was Nora’s first time in a seat without her car seat and she was PUMPED.


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We also don’t do personal screen time for her on devices like tablets so she was in heaven with the in seat entertainment. It truly kept her happy the entire 2.5 hour flight.

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The gentleman who we were chatting with at the gate ended up in the aisle seat next to me, small world! We talked for a bit about his adult and high school aged kids, college (mostly because I work at one) and how fast time flies as a parent. He really was the best seatmate you could ask for when traveling with a toddler!

Before we made our descent the pilot informed us that it was a toasty 32 degrees in Orlando and the plane full of New Englanders groaned 😩

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We landed early!!! And then sat on the runway for 30 minutes waiting for a gate….. thank goodness for that in seat TV y’all.

This is the time that Nora decided to loudly tell everyone over and over that she had to pee but would NOT be going until we got off the plane. Cool cool.

EVENTUALLY we made it off and dashed to the closest bathroom.

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While I missed doing the first monorail trip of our vacation, the ease of being in terminal C was PRETTY nice. We had our bag in no time and headed to get our Mears bus.

It took about 25 minutes to arrive, during which time I had Nora doing wind sprints to burn energy 🙈

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Once we made it on our bus there were two seats left… not next to each other. I could feel myself start panicking but before I could go into a full blown spiral a woman offered to switch so I could sit with Nora. A kind stranger and crisis averted!

Our bus started out at AoA and went to Pop second, so it was a quick trip!

Before long we were seeing the sign 🥰

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When we dropped off at AoA Nora was a little disappointed we weren’t getting off. We stayed there December of 2024 and she remembered it fondly!

Onto our destination though!

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Home for the next few days ❤️

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It was around 2PM at this point. We had Chef Mickeys plans at 515 and it was freezing out. I wanted our room SO badly. I committed myself to wait in line to see if we could get one assigned to us.


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No such luck. We got our birthday buttons made instead and decided since we were on the dining plan we would go grab a snack and activate our refillable mugs!
 

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