Mia's Birthday Trip - Day 5

We decided to spend our last day in classic Disney fashion at Magic Kingdom.  The next day would start the 50th anniversary of Disney World, so we correctly predicted that crowds today would be a little lower.  It was yet another absolutely beautiful day to enjoy, and we were glad to enjoy early admission again.

We headed immediately to Seven Dwarfs Mine Train as we'd heard how long the line gets during the day.  Consistently throughout the day, the app showed a 45-60 minute wait time.  Thankfully by getting there early we only had about a 10-15 minute wait which was perfect.

From there we decided to start wandering around and ended up on Its A Small World.  We walked right one.  I always love this ride, and I was just so grateful to be there with Mia.

We made our way around to Big Thunder Railroad which has always been a favorite ride of mine (before discovering Hagrid's Motorbike and Everest anyway!).  Mia really liked it too, so we immediately rode it a second time.

We kept on going and found our way to Pirates of the Caribbean and then Jungle Cruise.

Next up was Aladdin's Flying Carpets which was a slow easy ride that didn't really impress Mia.

Mickey's PhilharMagic is always fun and has wonderful music in it.

I convinced Mia to ride the carousel a couple of times.  I always love a good carousel!

We were having a wonderful morning, but eventually lunch time rolled around.  We had reservations inside Cinderella's Castle.  We were given a great table right by a window, so we could look out over the park which was really neat.

This lunch is a three coarse meal.  We both ordered the cheese plate appetizer, and the filet with mashed potatoes entre.  Both were so tasty.

Cinderella doesn't make personal appearances like she previously did, but she does make an intentional connection with every table.  Even though we were pretty far away from her, Mia turned around, and Cinderella smiled and waved right to us.  It's funny to me how I still get excited when a princess waves to me!  We each had a wonderful dessert to our meal too.  Mia had a cheesecake with fresh berries.

I had a chocolate mousse and hazelnut gelato.  Wow, this was a wonderful meal, and I would highly recommend it!

After lunch we wanted to see more of the park and ride more of the rides.  We enjoyed The Little Mermaid ride which has always been one of my favorite Disney movies.

We had to give Goofy's Barnstormer a try.  Mia cried so hard on this when she was teeny tiny; now she recognizes it is a super easy kid ride.

We headed over to Dumbo from here, and we knew we needed to FaceTime Bama while we were in line.  She virtually rode along with us which was lots of fun!

Mia wanted to give Victory Speedway a try, and this ended up being one of her favorite things we did.  We probably rode it five or six times!

If you're going to ride a coaster, you have to make it to Space Mountain.  Mia was a little nervous because this ride is completely in the dark.  It's very different than the other ones she's ridden and enjoyed, but she wanted to try it.  She loved it!  We rode it a couple of times in a row.  From there, we moved over to Astro Orbiters and then the People Mover.

We wandered back over to the Liberty Square area and decided we would just have a little snack for dinner; we were still pretty full from Cinderella's lunch!  I had some fruit while Mia enjoyed a Mickey pretzel.

We rode Big Thunder Railroad a couple more times and then we gave Haunted Mansion a go.  Mia didn't like it very much but I'm glad she gave it a try.

The park was closing early to get ready for Disney's Anniversary celebration the next day, so we knew we only had a little bit of time left.  We decided to head back to Tomorrowland to ride Space Mountain again.  Mia was so excited she was just about skipping down the walkway!  We had a blast, and were so thrilled when we walked off and realized they would let us ride one more time.  Again, we were some of the last people to get on for the evening, and ride this one last time.  What a great way to end our Magic Kingdom adventure.

When we exited Space Mountain, they were directing everyone to head back down Main Street to close the park.  We stopped in one of the gift shops and Mia couldn't help but try this on.

We stopped in the Confectionery where Mia spent her last few dollars on some fun candy to bring home.  This last little bit of shopping was the only time in the entire trip where we actually felt like there was a crowd.  For the most part, there were low crowds which meant virtually no waits for us.  It was great!

We headed on out of the park and took one last picture before getting on the bus back to the hotel.  This was three days in a row we were shutting down the park!  We put together out step counter for the five days.  This shows all of them, even though it's going in backwards order and Universal didn't get all the steps because we left my phone in the locker for awhile.  This has us walking about 38 miles in the few days we were visiting (plus more at Universal); no wonder we were exhausted each day!

On Friday morning, we slept in until after 9.  We were so exhausted!  We took our time packing everything up and loading it into the car.  We had quite a few souvenirs that we had to carefully pack!  We decided to grab a very early lunch in the lobby restaurant, and then we headed on out and started the drive back.  There was a little bit of traffic, but it was an overall easy drive back.

I am so thankful that I had this trip and time with Mia.  She is such an amazing young woman, and I truly got to see it on this trip.  She is bright and a joy to talk with.  She has such varied interests and is great at keeping conversation going.  She is helpful, encouraging, and so kind.  She is adventurous and a ton of fun.  We made millions of memories on this trip that neither of us will forget.  What a fantastic trip!

Mia's Birthday Trip - Day 4

Wednesday morning arrived, and we took the Skyliner over to Hollywood Studios.  Jackie had given us a tip that the Star Wars area is super crowded first thing in the morning but then settles down later in the day.  We decided to start out in the Toy Story area.

Toy Story Mania is one of my favorite rides here so I was excited to get back to it.  I'll admit Mia won the shooting competition (twice!).  Then we decided to try Slinky Dog coaster which we'd heard was pretty fun, and we both enjoyed it.

Next up was Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway which was a cute little ride.

Finally, we couldn't wait any longer.  We headed over to Star Wars.  Mia is a huge fan of this series, so this was an amazing place to hear.  I've never been a big Star Wars person, but I'll say this was really cool.  The details here were really well done.

We decided to start out by actually having a slightly early lunch (like 11:15) at Docking Bay 7 to avoid some of the crowd.  Mia really enjoyed her Batuuan Beef and Crispy Topato Stir-Fry while I enjoyed my Fried Endorian Chicken Tip Yip.  My Batuuan Dasani water was pretty fun to see.

Now, it was time for some rides!  First up was Galaxy's Edge in the Millennium Falcon.  This was fun to walk through and see; both of us were then assigned to be engineers on our adventure.  I think we did pretty well.

After this we were able to go ride Rise of the Resistance which was really cool.  It's a whole experience and was a lot of fun.  We also walked to do the original Star Tours ride which was fun.

As we walked through the park, characters were out and about though you couldn't get too close.

I'm glad we couldn't get too close to this guy; watch out Mia!

We took a couple of snack breaks during the day.  The Batuuan Coke products were really cool, and we had to try to the Blue milk (and the green milk too even though it doesn't appear in the movies).

So many cool pieces all around this area of the park.

Finally, the big events of the day arrived.  The main reason Mia wanted to take this trip to Disney was for two experiences only at Hollywood Studios.  First up was making your own light saber.  You get a special admittance ticket and then a Jedi master tells you all about light sabers and how they are unique to each Jedi.

Mia picked the purple kyber crystal to go inside her Protection and Defense hilt set.

The Jedi master leads you through building your set.  Since he was standing right by Mia, he talked with, encouraged, and assisted her which gives a special memory.

Then comes the nerve wracking part of connecting your hilt with the saber part.

Finally, when the time is right the Jedi master gives the word and everyone can remove their saber and light them up.  I have to say, this was a really cool moment!

This was awesome for my Jedi!

After that awesome experience, we moved over to the other really cool one that Mia was excited about.  She got to build her own droid!

She picked a R2 model instead of a BB8 model, and she decided to go with a black and grey color scheme.  She carefully put it all together.

Once it's all together, you get to take it to a neat area outside where you can test it out and get to know it better.  This was really fun!  I'm so glad she had the opportunity (and saved up money) to do both of these experiences!

After playing around Stars Wars and enjoying it, we walked over to have dinner at the 50's Prime Time Cafe.  It was really delicious!  Mia had pot roast, and I had fried chicken.  We both enjoyed it and then we really liked dessert too: brownie a la mode for Mia and apple crisp for me.

We had a little bit more time before the park closed, so we headed back over to Star Wars land.  We wanted to soak up every minute!  We stood in line for Rise of the Resistance and just when it was time to board, there was technical difficulties so we had to leave.  We got to walk through the backstage exit though so it was kinda cool to see that.  They gave us all a fast past, so we headed over to Galaxy's Edge and walked right on.  This time, we were assigned to be pilots which absolutely made Mia's day.  Because I actually get a little motion sick on 3D rides like this, I switched places with someone else and was an engineer again.  Mia was on cloud nine getting to pilot our ship and she did great!

When that was over, we saw they were allowing people on Rise of the Resistance again, so we got back in line.  Again, we were in line when they closed so we were some of the last one to ride.  It's such a cool ride; I'm glad we got to experience it one last time.

When we exited the ride, the park was closed, so we had to head on back.  We rode the Skyliner back to the hotel which is just a peaceful way to end the evening.  Again, we showered and fell into bed happy and exhausted after another fantastic day.