Disney World: A Birthday Detour

(AKA, “Life is grand when this is your fallback plan”)

A lot of people plan surprise vacations, where all but one or two family members are in the dark about where they are going until the last possible minute. I have always told Zach that as much as I love traveling, I would never EVER want that. I love the months of planning, the building anticipation. I love learning about a place before I go there, researching every option to make sure we are maximizing our time while minimizing our spend. That said, when we decided that leaving Sanibel Island early was the safest and best option for us, we had to make some drastic last-minute changes to our itinerary. And that is how we ended up at Disney World.

When we told Melina on Sunday morning that the tropical storm was headed to Sanibel and we needed to leave early, she was devastated. I quickly assured her that we would find something else amazing to do for her birthday, and she jokingly asked, “like go to Disney World?” “Well,” I answered, “it’s a possibility…” that’s when both girls started squealing. Thankfully, Zach and I had already discussed it that morning and made the decision, but he still had to spend a few hours on the phone with a co-worker who dabbles in Disney travel bookings on the side to get the arrangements made. By that evening, we were pulling into the Fort Wilderness Campground RV Park at Disney World for a three night stay and tickets to two different parks.

We did some research before heading to Orlando to make sure we were comfortable with going to a theme park in the middle of a pandemic. And in fact, from the time we checked in at our campground we have been amazed at the precautions that are taken here. A mask is required any time you are outside of your RV (even when going out in the early morning to walk the dog) and at all times in the parks. The only exception is when you are actively eating, as long as you are stationary and physically distanced from others (so no eating or drinking while walking around the parks). Every person is screened for temperature and symptoms at the entrance. All the lines in the parks are marked every 6 feet so you are always distanced from others. Empty seats are left on rides to make sure that different parties have appropriate space between them. Hand sanitizer is everywhere. Stores and restaurants are strict on their max capacities and enforce distancing very carefully. All payment is no-contact. It really was pretty fantastic, and for those of us that don’t really like having any contact with strangers anyway (um, me) it was a GREAT improvement on the theme park experience!

The campground where we stayed is a sprawling Disney-fied version of a National Park campground that happens to be right across the lake from the Magic Kingdom. The other RV-ers here are serious about their Disney. I’m pretty sure they come here frequently, and apparently the thing to do is to decorate your camp site for the holidays beginning in early November. Melina is so offended by this. “What about Thanksgiving? Has everyone forgotten THANKSGIVING?”

Our neighbors at the Disney RV park

We spent Monday at the Magic Kingdom. We had heard it was much bigger than Disneyland (which we covered in a day a few years back) and figured that we could come back on the second day again if we needed more time. As it turns out, it was almost exactly the same as Disneyland. We still enjoyed our day (Diane most of all), but by the end of the day we had had our fill. We did enjoy some of the differences (the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train was a hit, as were the old favorites like Splash Mountain, the Haunted Mansion, Space Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Enchanted Tiki Room).

Waiting for the boat to the Magic Kingdom

Disney World is already all done up for the holidays!

The big wildcard was the weather. We were just out of reach of a tropical storm, after all! Every hour or so it poured rain on us, and we were soaked to the bone for the entire day. Our shoes sloshed as if we had fashioned footwear out of full water bottles. We didn’t let it stop us, though, and enjoyed the moments when we could blow through a line because everyone else had taken cover from the rain. Still, it was definitely an annoyance, especially since our masks would get soaked and then it felt like we couldn’t breathe from constantly waterboarding ourselves. We had to switch masks a few times. Thankfully, we needed to come back to the RV to walk Zellie in the middle of the day anyway, so we took the opportunity to change into dry clothes, clean and dry our masks, and run our shoes through the dryer. Just to go back to the park and get soaked all over again. Thankfully, Zach thought to bring the GoPro, so we still had pictures of the parks without destroying our camera.

The Swiss Family Robinson treehouse

Ice cream break at the Magic Kingdom (also serves as a mask break!)

Karen & Melina on the Barnstormer roller coaster

Cinderella’s castle holiday light show

Last night I spent hours back and forth to the laundry facility, trying to get everything washed and dried from the monsoons of the day. Strangely, I’d put our shoes in a dryer, set it for 60 minutes, and go back to the RV. When I came back in 45 minutes they dryer would be open, the shoes still soaked, and 50 minutes were still on the timer. This would keep happening until I was in the laundry room when someone was emptying the dryer below mine, and our shoes popped out of the dryer and flew into his back! Boy, was he surprised. That is when I finally realized that the shoes were “kicking” the dryer door open, stopping the cycle after only a few minutes. Ugh! After much trial and error I learned that it took a strip of duct tape to keep the door closed.

Today was the big day: Melina’s 12th birthday! After opening her presents, Zach made chocolate chip pancakes at her request, and we headed to her park of choice: Disney’s Hollywood Studios. The park in general was ok, but the standout was definitely Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. This is a whole section of the park that has been designed to look like a city straight out of a Star Wars movie. It was absolutely spectacular. Every detail was beyond perfect, and if it weren’t for the fact that the crowds were much denser here than in the rest of either park, we would have spent the whole day there. As it was, the girls were giddy over the Millennium Falcon ride, riding it twice. We also tried the blue milk, a fruity, slushy-like concoction that Zach and D liked but Melina and I thought was completely disgusting. Melina forced Zach and me to ride all the other roller coasters with her, but nothing compared to the Star Wars section of the park (in a similar way to how we felt Harry Potter overshadowed the rest of Universal Studios in California). The weather was also better, although there was one torrential downpour that soaked us to the bone yet again. At least now I know the trick to drying shoes in the laundromat…

Birthday presents!

This is 12: clothes, legos and books.

Chocolate chip and banana pancakes

Star wars!

The Millennium Falcon!

Disgusting blue milk

Ice cream break at Hollywood Studios

Chess on the Millennium Falcon!

Amazing details, even when waiting in line.

We ended our day with dinner at the Whispering Canyon restaurant in the nearby Wilderness Lodge. This restaurant specializes in “all-you-care-to-eat” skillets, so we came away completely stuffed. We barely had enough room left for the oreo ice cream cake that Melina had requested…but we managed.