Birthdays in Disney World

 

We had talked to Sean about his 10th birthday being extra special as he crossed into double digits.  But, with COVID, everything was a giant question mark.  Would we be able to have a fun birthday party with friends?  Would he be able to go to a water park and spend the night with his best friend?  Would we be able to take a special 10th birthday vacation?  As time got closer, we finally made the decision (and Sean agreed) that Sean and I would go to Disney World for our birthdays and that would be his gift.  I'm actually quite proud of him for giving up the idea of getting presents and appreciating the time we got to spend together traveling.  

Was it easy?  No.  Traveling during a pandemic was definitely stressful.  I lost a lot of sleep leading up to the trip every night questioning whether this was the right thing to do or not.  But, in the end, we had an amazing time and felt very safe!

We left on Sean's birthday (a Thursday) on a 12:40pm flight.  Our neighbor, Shelley, drove us to the airport after Sean attended his morning meeting with his class.  We grabbed Subway in the airport before our flight took off and it was relatively smooth.  We even met the pilots in the Subway line!  

We landed in Orlando and headed to the Magical Express in the airport to catch our bus to our resort on Disney property.  Within a half hour we were off to Pop Century on the Magical Express!

We checked into our room digitally on the app and placed a mobile order for dinner at the quick service restaurant on property.  We enjoyed pizza, salad, and breadsticks at an outside table after doing a little shopping in the gift shop.  We finally checked into our room and it was so adorable!  Sean loved the channel with the park hours and the Disney music.  Anytime we were in our room we had that on.  We quickly got settled and changed into our bathing suits to head to the pool for the rest of the evening.

The pool was a bit chilly, even though it was heated.  We made it work!  We swam, I visited the pool bar for some beer, and we caught an amazing Florida sunset.  They were doing an outdoor movie of Lilo and Stitch so we made sure to catch a part of that.  We also played some Uno in our room and enjoyed a special birthday cupcake for Sean!  He even lost a tooth in our room (he was holding onto that one until we arrived)!  I'd say he had a great day!

We fell asleep watching Hocus Pocus on Freeform for the 31 nights of Halloween and thoughts of Magic Kingdom in our heads!

Friday morning, my birthday, we woke up bright and early ready to eat some Mickey waffles and ready to head to Magic Kingdom.  We placed a mobile order for breakfast at our resort, showered and dressed, and were off!  Breakfast was delicious, the line for the bus was short, and we were walking into Magic Kingdom by 8:30am (a half hour early!) and in line for Seven Dwarfs Mine Ride after snapping a few pictures and videos on Main Street.  I might have cried seeing the castle again!  

It was an absolutely magical morning in the park!  We were on and off the Seven Dwarfs Mine Ride (the ride with the longest wait) in 20 minutes and off to Splash Mountain.  We stopped at Peter Pan first since the wait was unbelievably short.  We would Facetime with Scott and Evan every now and again to show them the park and update them on our progress with rides.  So, within an hour of park "official" opening of 9am, we rode Seven Dwarfs, Peter Pan, and Splash Mountain.  It was amazing!

We moved over to Adventureland and did Pirates of the Caribbean and Magic Carpets.  I enjoyed a Dole Whip Float and we bought a souvenir popcorn bucket to have for a snack.  At this point, we were super lucky to catch the Disney Villains Calvacade coming down Frontierland with Chip and Dale and the Country Bears out to see too. We enjoyed our snack watching the random parade!

 We got in a super long line for Haunted Mansion, which by the time we made it close to getting inside, shut down for a 10 minute cleaning cycle.  But, as always, it's so worth the wait!  We loved it!  We waited in a short line to check out the gift shop too.  And then it was lunch time.  We placed a mobile order for Cosmic Rays over in Tomorrowland and walked over that way.  

We stayed in Tomorrowland after lunch to head over to Space Mountain (a 20 minute wait - unheard of!).  I had to buy a Fuelrod in Tomorrowland to charge my phone.  I brought a portable charger, but brought the wrong charging cord (darn iPhones).  After Space Mountain, we did Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin and the Carousel of Progress.  I've never done that ride so it was a nice 20 minute break to sit and learn about the history of technology.  

We had one more section of the park to conquer before calling it a day. My favorite section - Fantasyland!  We went to the spinning teacups, Barnstormer, Dumbo, and Under the Sea.  I seriously love all of those rides!  We had a blast with minimal waits!  

We were done with rides by this point and ready for dinner.  My birthday dinner request was Pecos Bill in Frontierland and their Nachos!  Yum!!  We ate outside and watched the Villains come by again.  My other request was to just sit and enjoy Main Street for 30 minutes.  We shopped a bit and headed out to the buses to head back to the hotel and swim.  

I had one of the best birthdays and capped it off with some "Pool side iced teas" (long island...), swimming, and Freeform 31 nights of Halloween and The Nightmare Before Christmas).  

We woke up on Saturday ready to head over to Hollywood Studios.  Once again I ordered a mobile order breakfast that we ate outside on the patio and we tried to take the Skyliner.  A cast member recommended the buses as a time saver so we got out of the Skyliner line and went to the front of Pop Century to get a bus....but, there were no buses!  After talking to another cast member about it, he hailed us a cab - free of charge!  Talk about Disney magic!  We arrived right at the opening to Hollywood Studios and got in a half hour early to get in line for Slinky Dog Dash in Toy Story Land.

Toy Story Land was pretty amazing, but pretty crowded!  I'm glad we got on Slinky when we did.  We hit up Toy Story Mania afterwards and Sean kicked my butt!

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We walked over to get in line for Aerosmith's Rock'N Roller Coaster after.  There was a 40 minute wait and we re-filled our popcorn bucket to give us a little snack.  Sean was pretty scared while waiting in line.  He wasn't tall enough last time to ride this and he knew it was "intense".  But, despite his tears throughout the ride, he thought it was "pretty good".  It's a scary ride!

Our virtual queue for Rise of the Resistance in Galaxy's Edge was getting close.  We had booked that with success at 10am when the park "officially" opened.  We grabbed lunch at Rosie's All American Cafe and got lucky sitting under an umbrella eating while a quick shower passed through.  And then it was time to head to Galaxy's Edge.  The rain had cleared up and holy cow...Galaxy's Edge was amazing!

We rode both of the rides and loved it, walked around and took it all in, watched Rey and Chewie make an appearance, saw Storm Troopers, and shopped!  My last request was trying the "Blue Milk". It was pretty good!

We decided to do Toy Story Mania one more time after that, shop a little bit, grab some snacks, and call it quits.  As much as I wanted to do the Tower of Terror Sean wasn't feeling up to it.  The rain started again so we got to use our ponchos I bought, but I think we were both exhausted.  

We rode the Skyliner back to the resort and loved it!  I'm so glad we were able to experience that.  Sean wanted to shop in the gift shop to make his final selections.  We went back to our room to pack our bags and Sean insisted on swimming one last time, even though it was drizzling.  We did a mobile order dinner late that I picked up to bring back to our room, complete with one final cupcake.  Yum!  We watched the Addams Family in bed together and dreaded our early start the next morning to head home.

The Magical Express picked us up at 5:30am Sunday morning to head home. The airport was empty, our flight was pretty smooth, and we were excited to see Scott and Evan!  It was so nice to be home together, but we already miss Disney!  Sean even shed a few tears about leaving.  It really is so magical!