Whoops-a-Disney

February 14, 2022 / Missy Goodnight / Leave a comment

Well y’all know when I get really stressed out I sometimes find myself booking a Disney vacation, right? Ope! It used to be that Jerimiah would stop me, or at least slow me down a bit, make me consider other things like vacation days, school days, shit that is important in other people’s minds, not mine. But a few weeks ago when I was all, “Damn dude, I’m feeling like I need to escape to Disney for a few days,” he was all, “Sounds about right.” Did you catch a, “No, Missy! That’s not a good idea?” in there? No, I didn’t either.

It feels like it all happened so fast, but listen this time I was having a hard time booking an actual hotel room. You know we like to stay on property because duh, but we only have about five days because Jackson has a long weekend coming up so we decided to focus in on there. But that’s a quick turn-a-round time for Disney and it’s a holiday weekend so we were not finding anything. Like nothing. All the hotels were sold out. I even went as far as to Google, “Why is Disneyworld so freaking busy?” and I got a bunch of responses but mainly it was that it is their 50th anniversary and people have been actually saving for years to go this year and also pandemic and also life sucks right now and Disney makes it better (for some people. Some cool people.)

But in the end, I called Disney and they made it work for me because again, it’s Disney, and just when you think it can’t happen, something magical happens.

So we leave Thursday for five days and we are staying at Disney’s Port Orleans Resort, which is great because we love New Orleans, but not the actual New Orleans (Jackson spent one weekend there and said he never wants to go back) so we are going to get the whole NOLA experience without the headache of people vomiting on you on Bourbon Street or someone yelling at you from the streetcar or a hotel falling on top of you. It’s a win/win.

For those of you Disney nay-sayers I wish I could say something that made you love Disney, but alas, I just recently stopped trying to do that. I have realized that some families just aren’t cut out for the world of Disney. To the rest of you, see ya at Epcot!

Ears up.

Jackson and I LOVE the teacups! Daddy and Mama, not so much!

Mama’s first time at Disney last spring!

Disney World, Part Three

March 22, 2020March 22, 2020 / Missy Goodnight / 1 Comment

If you’re still around this is the third and last installment of our whirlwind trip to Disney World back when Jackson was in first grade (the perfect time to go). We did a three-day park hopper ticket, and we stayed on property which afforded us some perks. Day one was Animal Kingdom and Epcot. Day two was Magic Kingdom and Epcot (we LOVE Epcot) and day three was Disney’s Hollywood Studios and then we ended our night and our first trip to Disney at Magic Kingdom where we got to meet Anna and Elsa and see the best fireworks show we have ever watched. Again, Disney just gets us.

At Hollywood Studio’s we rode some awesome roller coasters like the Rockin’ Roller featuring Aerosmith (Jackson was all,”Who’s Aerosmith?” Face palm. Then was terrified of the speed, then said he didn’t like Aerosmith and never wanted to ride that ride again. See pic below!) We saw a car chase with a whole blow up scene, walked some familiar streets, and I got to FINALLY see the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids playground which I have literally dreamed about since it was built when I was a kid! Jerimiah was less impressed than I was, but Jackson and I had a great time climbing on the giant ants, just like in the movie!

Everything was giant at Hollywood Studios! Even the characters! We got to meet the Monsters Inc. guys here, along with Doc McStuffins, Jake, AND Sophia! We were big fans of these three when Jackson was little! We even found our way over the Hotel of Terror and the Haunted Mansion. What fun!

Disney Pixar Studios is there as well, and the Star Wars people. I have never watched Star Wars, and Jackson is ehh about the whole thing, but when the Storm Troopers came through he did stop and stare. He was a little nervous around them. But then we saw a cool Star Wars 3D movie, met Darth Vadar, and learned how to battle with light sabers and he was feeling much better about the whole thing.

Jerimiah and I really liked Hollywood Studios. Jackson was a little less happy with it, but we think he was a little young for that particular park, and not knowing the Star Wars guys very well was difficult. We want to take him back now, we think he’d give the Aerosmith ride another shot! Haha! Plus, the Tower of Terror and Haunted Mansion kinda spooked him. Again, 11-year-old Jackson would probably be better suited for this park.

By this time it was our last night at Disney World and we wanted to end it at Magic Kingdom. We got to see the fireworks at Epcot, but we wanted to see the Castle fireworks, and there were a couple of princesses that Jackson had told us he didn’t want to see, then faced with the idea of not getting to see them, he changed his mind. He did in fact want to meet Anna and Elsa, so we ended the night eating popcorn and drinking hot chocolate under the finest fireworks display we have ever seen at Magic Kingdom. It was the best way to end our whirlwind trip!

First came the Electrical Parade, then came the fireworks and awesome lights on Cinderella’s Castle. It was magical, just like Disney World, and we wouldn’t have wanted to end it any other way.

As you can see from Jackson’s expression in the above picture, Disney World was well worth the money, time, and planning. It lived up to every expectation that we had, and in most cases blew right past our expectations. We are forever fans and will go back anytime. Wanna come along?!

Thanks for reading about our trip to Disney. I’ll leave you with a couple more pictures from some cool things we found around our hotel.

And remember to always believe in the magic!

Disney World, Part Two

March 21, 2020March 17, 2020 / Missy Goodnight / 1 Comment

When I left you, we were making our way to Cinderella’s Castle in an old-timey car that you can catch a ride in if you are up early and committed. And that’s what we were. After all, this wasn’t just Jackson’s first time at Disney World, this was Jerimiah’s first time and mine as well. We didn’t have childhood that afforded us a special trip like this, so we knew, even though we only had three days, we were going to make the most of it. And that’s exactly what we did. As a recap, we bought a package deal with Disney, which I highly recommend, because it comes with perks. We also added the “Photo Package” to our deal, because you know how I like pictures. Which I also recommend because it totally freed me up from ever having to take pictures. With the photo package, you just find a photographer, and there are a ton of them, scan your Magic Bracelet, and ask them to take your picture. They have all sorts of cool shots to do, and every night you can download all your pictures. I have over 500 pictures from our three days at Disney, and I took about 30 of them. The rest were awesome ones like these:

That right there, that’s Cinderella’s Castle, the most magical of places. This was early on during day two of our trip and we had big plans. Huge! First stop was the castle.

Those yellow buttons we had on said “This is My First Time!” and we all wore them proudly. And see how we are all in sneakers, that’s your best bet. Because the first day we walked 15 miles. The second day, well, we walked even more. And rode the shuttle bus. And hopped on the monorail. So yeah.

Even thought it was the first week of January, it’s Florida, so it was just light jacket weather. The highs were in the fifties, the lows in the 40s, but all the hotel pools are heated, so no worries there. Though to be honest, we didn’t swim. Not once. We left each morning and headed to a park, and got back to our room so late and exhausted each night we passed out before we could turn the lights off. Well, they did. I stayed awake and looked at all our cool pictures of the day.

At Magic Kingdom we spent the whole day doing all the things! We met Alice (my one wish) and the Mad Hatter after we rode the Tea Cups. We rode every ride we came across. We met every character we saw. We even saw one of the day parades and visited the Hall of Presidents. But after all that Jackson still insisted we go back to Epcot. He REALLY loved Epcot. So after a bite to eat for dinner at one of the casual places at Magic Kingdom we headed back to Epcot to close that bitch down on our second night. Here are more pics from the second day, including my favorite of us, the one on Splash Mountain. It’s such a metaphor for this trip, and for how we live our lives. Everyone else was covered and cowered. We were free with our hands up screaming our minds out. Cause that’s how you do things. 🙂