O.M.G.
Who knew that a new job and preschool and kids growing up in general took up so much time! I am here to finally (hopefully) finish this thing! I also apologize in advance, because I did minimal picture taking on this last day because I just wanted to soak it all in!
We left off with SJ taking over Main Street and headed to Adventureland for our next FP. It was time to take a cruise through the rivers of the world. This is one of my favorite attractions! My grandpa was known for having extra dry humor...he would have been the perfect skipper!
We had a great time and the jokes were as good as ever. After we disembarked our boat, we headed across the way to take one last spin with Genie and Aladdin. We didn’t have a FP, but the line moved fairly quickly. While we were waiting, there was a family of four in front of us and they were dressed super fancy. I kept thinking “there isn’t any restaurant here that you would dress like that, and even if you went to California Grill or something prior, wouldn’t you swap out your heels for more comfortable footwear!?” I kept stalking trying to see if I could figure out what the getup was all about. As soon as they boarded, I learned that the dad was “a suit”, but my eyes weren’t good enough to actually read his name tag. Makes sense now, but I would still make an outfit change.
From there, we decided to say goodbye to Adventureland and head to Fantasyland. By now, it was probably around 6pm, but literally almost all of the FP for the day were gone! We headed over anyways to check out the wait times, but everything was packed! We made the choice to just walk around and enjoy the sights before making our way back to Main Street for the castle lighting and Happily Ever After.
We stopped in front of the garden view area to take some pictures, but someone was not cooperating!
Goofy boy!
We hung out here for a minute before we got kicked out. And I think
@Mander was here for the fireworks party this night?! Sorry we missed you!
We got lucky (so I thought) and found a spot right on the curb of Main Street by Casey’s. There was a family there with a girl about 2 years old that we instantly became Disney friends with. They were hungry and everything was so busy. I recommended that they try mobile ordering for Casey’s because we had such a great experience with it. They tried it and LOVED it! They even got us a Coke and fries for helping! Disney friends are the best!
As we were waiting for the castle lighting, a large Brazilian tour group took over the sidewalk right behind us. At first I thought it wasn’t going to be that bad, but it was way too much for me (and Tim, and our new friends). No sense of personal space whatsoever! Our “great location” was also not so great, because people decided it was best to cut between us to get to the other side of Main Street. H and the girl from the other family were sleeping, and these people were barging through and using our strollers as handles to make their way through the crowd. The castle lighting was already going on at this point, and I was starting to get in mama bear mode. Tim and I made the decision that we would move to the park entrance to watch HEA and hope we could find a good spot.
I don’t have much to say about the castle lighting because, A. I’m vertically challenged, and B. I was too busy removing people off of my backside! But the top half of the castle looked great!
We said goodbye to our new friends and pushed against traffic to get to the front of the park. We ended up cutting through the shop which worked out nicely. We browsed for a bit, but didn’t end up buying anything.
The front of the park was near empty, so we found a great spot right by the flagpole with the perfect view of the castle. And then, the unexpected happened. This random guy parked himself right in front of me. Let me tell you, he was like 7 feet tall! And, there was empty concrete all around us! Tim looked at me and I’m 99% sure there was fire coming out of my ears!
Before I could go all Donald Duck on him, Tim made the rational decision to ask if he could just move over a little bit. He turned around, laughed and said “oh, am I in your way?” Insert all the swear words!!! Yes, you are a giant and you are in my way. And then, we hear a little snicker from like 10 feet away and it’s his family! His wife (in a snobby tone) says, “why do you have to be so tall?!”. UGH!!!!! I was probably over reacting at this point, but it was our last night in the happiest place on earth and I was not happy.
Tim calmed me down and the show started. Like I said earlier, I had no idea what to expect. I purposely didn’t watch YouTube because I wanted to experience it first hand with my 3 boys! I am so glad I did this! It was better than I expected (and I had high expectations because I loved Wishes). I was holding H and SJ was on Tim’s shoulders. It was picture perfect. I was crying and just living in the moment. After it was done, Tim put his arm around me and I lost it. How could this trip be over already?! How is it that we are so blessed to be able to create these special moments with our kiddos, and they are loving it as much as we do? This place does something to you. They don’t call it the bubble for nothing. You literally forget about the world outside of you. It is a place that you can go and experience hakuna matata first hand.
I didn’t want to leave. We stayed in that moment for a while, and I was so thankful that Tim understood. I know he puts up with my crazy love for this place, but at that moment, I knew that he felt it too!
We walked as slowly as we possibly could back to the bus stations. It was another packed bus ride back to the resort with the boys flirting with everyone around them. I couldn’t believe our trip was practically over. But really, this was just the beginning of our family making Disney memories!
