Once Upon a Lifetime

In April we got to escape down to one of our happy places 😊

We stayed with someone who has cared for Maddie since she was 2, and it was great to see her because she is expecting her own baby the end of the summer!

Maddie and I headed down to Disney after she got out of school on Friday and we told our friends we would meet them at Magic Kingdom since she works from home till around 5 or 6. Maddie and I still hadn’t watched the ‘Happily Ever After’ fireworks at magic kingdom ever 😳 (when she was a baby, she was afraid of the fireworks and I’m not the mom who wants to endure watching her kid freak out over something I can remove her from 🤷‍♀️) so we were excited to finally see them in person!

It was great to see the meet and greet with Ariel was back and we finally got to do ‘Enchanted Tales with Belle’ for the first time since Maddie was a baby! Plus we got a few of our favorite snacks here like the spring rolls, dole whip and a caramel apple 🤩

We didn’t stay till Magic Kingdom closed that night, but we didn’t leave right after the fireworks either and Maddie and I waited for about 45 minutes to get on the ferry to go back to the TTC- where I still had another 20 minute walk to my car 😳 plus our friends live about 20 miles away- but once you add the theme park traffic to that we got to their house at midnight 🤪

It was really great to spend time with our friends and see their new home with the nursery for the baby due this summer! We got our own room and bathroom and it absolutely felt like a nice hotel 🤩😃 Maddie was also really excited to see their doggies because she’s grown up with them and doesn’t have her own.

Saturday morning we slept in a bit since I decided to get genie+ and reserve some lightning lanes for a bit later in the morning since we were up late the night before. We started the day in Epcot where we got Maddie’s all time FAVORITE dish from the Flower and Garden Festival: SHRIMP AND GRITS 🤩🤤😋

We met Daisy when we came into the park, and she loved Maddie’s outfit 😍🥰 we got to ride ‘Soarin’ (my favorite at Epcot 🤩) and living with the land (also one of our must-do rides in this park) and we tried a couple of new things from the flower and garden festival- like the shrimp tempura 🍤😋

We took the Skyliner over to Hollywood Studios in the afternoon where we got to ride our top 3 favorite rides! And they are all in Toy Story Land 🤩😃

We decided by the late afternoon that we were exhausted, so we hopped back on the Skyliner to go back to the car so we could go back to our friends house… this ended up taking about 3 hours because of the time we chose to leave (which led to traffic) and stopping for food 😑. It was still a great day! 😍

6Sunday we also slept a little later than we originally planned, but it worked out. We went to Animal Kingdom with our friends and we didn’t have a whole lot on our agenda for the day besides getting a couple of snacks and riding ‘Navi River Journey’.

We found that bunny right next to Eight Spoon Cafe in Animal Kingdom 😍 so cute! That flamingo cupcake was delicious! I recently learned that my child loves ribs 🤣🤪 We had a hard time leaving the park since we knew we had to drive home straight from Animal Kingdom, so we stayed later than I planned. It was nice to get a full day of activities in, even though it was departure day.

This was the first time I took Maddie to Disney and we didn’t stay in a hotel! It was great to be able to visit the parks and our friends at the same time! It also added a lot of driving for me, which doesn’t have to be a deal breaker- but it can be depending on the situation 🤷‍♀️ We are super happy that we got to take this unexpected weekend getaway, which was made possible by our friends 😀❤️😀

#Disney, #Disneybudget, #Disneysnacks