Another Disney Blogger?

Okay, I know what you all are thinking. Another Disney fan girl to blog all of her thoughts about everything Disney? Groundbreaking. (Insert Miranda Priestly GIF here)

But hear me out! There is no doubt that 2020 was a hard year on all of us. Between the fears of the virus, loneliness of quarantine, restrictions on travel, and the never ending groundhogs day of e-learning and working remote – my family and I turned to one of our passions to bring a little bit of joy to our days at home. Disney. From watching our favorite vloggers on Youtube, reading blogs, making copy cat park recipes, or even decorating our home, we found little ways to bring that Disney magic home to us since we couldn’t travel there. This has led me to use this platform as a creative outlet to hopefully bring some magic to your day.

It’s hard to describe what Disney means to me. I think I would categorize myself as a life long Disney fan. When I was young, I had every single VHS that Disney made. My cousins and I would play Disney Sing-a-long videos and karaoke to ‘A Whole New World’ on repeat while fighting over who got to be Jasmine first. I was fortunate enough to get to visit the Mouse himself twice as a kid and I definitely day dreamed of being a member of The Mickey Mouse Club (Hello Justin Timberlake and Ryan Gosling!) But as I grew older, the fandom faded much like a lot of childhood interests do.

I started with going to the WDW website itself and quickly learned that so much had changed since my last trip in 1995. Gone were the days where you could just show up and walk around aimlessly and eat wherever you wanted.

There were things called Fast passes, Magic Bands and acronyms. SO MANY acronyms! You had to make dining reservations 120 days before you arrived. How the heck would I know if I wanted hibachi in Japan or a filet mignon in Canada six months from now? I quickly became overwhelmed and turned to bloggers and vloggers alike to get a better idea of what I needed to do to plan our very special trip.

Once the trip finally came, we rode the most popular attractions and ate at the most sought after restaurants. But, it wasn’t until my husband and I’s date night that I truly fell back in love with the Disney experience. My family took our daughter for the night so Andrew and I could have a night out alone. We got a reservation at the highly coveted California Grill mainly because we love Sushi and heard about some goat cheese ravioli that we wanted to try. We did little to no research on the amazing atmosphere or fireworks experience, but that is what did it for me. Just before 9 o’clock, our waiter came to our table and explained the lights would be dimming and the dinner service would be paused for the fireworks show and he recommended that we head outside to the balcony for the best viewing. We looked at each other and out we went.

We hadn’t experienced any fireworks this trip thus far so we really didn’t know what to expect. The restaurant quickly came alive with the music piped in from the Magic Kingdom and we got to watch “Wishes” for the first time. When the fireworks started and Jiminy Cricket told the crowd to “always let your conscious be your guide” I actually started crying real tears. When the show ended with the children’s choir singing “And all our wishes will come true..” I looked at Andrew and told him, we have to come back here again – and SOON. Just as we arrived home, we booked another trip for five short months later.

I love how I feel when I’m at Disney. I feel so light. Now, I realize that a lot of this is because of the proverbial ‘bubble’ and it’s an escape from reality. But it feels so incredible to not have to worry about work or life or politics or school work, and literally have everything taken care of for you. After all, isn’t that the whole point of vacation? Most of all, I love parenting while I’m in Disney. I realize that is a pretty privileged thing to say, but I do. I love having a week to myself with my kids (and husband, of course.) I get to truly focus only on them and what they want to do and see the magic of Disney through their eyes and experience the creativity of their imagination. It is the purest form of joy.

From that trip in 2016, our obsession – I mean passion – has just taken off from there. Since that vacation, we have been back to Orlando seven times and enjoyed a Disney Cruise in 2019. We love everything about the Disney experience. The food, resorts, parks, merchandise, entertainment, customer service – all of it. It’s brings us so much joy into a world that can be pretty dark, especially as of late. So I hope you enjoy the content I bring to this blog and welcome you to embrace a little bit of the magic along the way.

-Melinda