Thursday Jan 30- Travel Day
We headed to Memphis bright and early around 6:30 to make it through security and boarding for our 11 o’clock flight. Check in and security was interesting and a little hectic with a 4 year old and a husband that has only flown once before but we made it. We walked all the way to the very last gate on the B concourse and waited for our flight. We quickly learned that it would be a very full flight with 2 groups of preteen cheerleaders with tons of Pom poms heading to Disney to cheer nationals. It was a very smooth flight and we landed in Orlando about an hour and a half later. We gained an hour on the way there so it was around 2 pm when we landed. We made our way through the airport to Mickey’s Magical Express to take us to our resort. This was so exciting for all of us.
We made it to our resort, All Star Movies, about 3:30. We checked in and got Grant and James first Trip buttons and me a birthday button. I got so many Happy Birthday wishes with that button. After getting checked in we went to our room. We had a preferred room in the Fantasia building very very close to the pool and the food court. We dropped our bags, checked out our room, and headed out to explore the resort a little bit. Our first stop was the Toy Story Building. We were hoping to get to stay in this building but it worked out better being in the Fantasia section anyway. The Toy Story section had a kid size RC Car in the entry way followed by a door to Andy’s room that was so big it made you feel like a toy. There was also a larger than life Buzz Lightyear, Woody, Bo Peep, Rex, toy soldiers and their bucket for the stair case to the second floor along with huge blocks.
After we explored that area for a little while, we got on the bus and headed to Disney Springs. We visited a few shops including A jewelry store where we got a free Disney souvenir necklace, Under Armor, Ron Jon surf shop and the LEGO store. Grant really enjoyed racing the lego cars with a ton of other kids. They had life size LEGO structures of Elsa and Anna, Buzz, Woody, RC, The Hulk, a huge dragon in the water, and Cinderella. After playing here for a little while we made our way to the Disney Springs photo pass center and had some pictures made with our Memory Maker pass. Once these were done it was time for our first dinner reservation at The Rainforest Cafe. James and I ordered a primal steak to share and Mom ordered Bollywood chicken and shrimp. Grant had a pepperoni pizza. We enjoyed watching the rain storms and Grant enjoyed seeing “Ivan and Ruby” (gorillas and elephants) and all the birds and fish.
After dinner, we went to an open air dance party and let Grant ride the train and carousel. We also looked around at the toy store and visited Goofy’s Candy Company. Grant picked out a massive Mickey Mouse shaped chocolate chip cookie dipped in chocolate and found a carnival style fun house mirror to be the most hilarious thing ever. Before we headed back to our resort we stopped at the Ghirardelli store and got the most decadent chocolate brownie. We sat down to eat it and spotted the silhouette stand. This was the only souvenir I had my heart set on for this trip and let me tell you it did not disappoint. I’m not sure what I had in mind, but it definitely was not what we experienced. I had thought maybe this was a digital process. But I was so wrong. I sat down and held Grant in my lap while a very sweet cast member literally cut out his profile using a regular pair of scissors and did it completely by hand. She captured the most perfect image of my boy down to his super long eyelashes! My heart was so so happy in this moment. This was our first little bit of Disney magic. I knew we were going to have the most wonderful time. After finishing only half of our brownie, we walked back to the bus and caught a ride back to our resort. Once we got there we went to the food court to pick up our souvenir refillable mugs. Grant and James have a tradition of doing penny presses anywhere that has them. Disney proved to be huge for this tradition for them. They made a ton of them starting with ones in our resort food court. After that it was back to the room to rest up for our first park day the next morning.
Cagle Family Adventures 