There’s nowhere in the world more magical than Disney World. Doubly so when it’s decorated for Christmas. My mom’s side of the family had a trip planned for ages for this week, but I wasn’t able to take the time off work, and I was pretty bummed to miss it. My mom planted a little seedling in Ben’s brain shortly before she left on the trip and he encouraged me to price out a flight and see how bad it’d be to go on such short notice.

Luckily, it was cheap. So last Friday, I booked it to DFW after work and was shortly on my way to Disney World!

I wanted to surprise my mom, so I didn’t tell her I was coming. I planned the whole thing with my aunt and we managed to keep it a secret right up until the moment I walked in the door to the hotel. My mom screamed! She was so surprised and I had so much fun making it happen.

Of course we stayed up way too late and had to get up pretty early the next day to get to the parks, so we all started off operating on less sleep than optimal. Then, we hit the parks. For hours. We tried to get a standby lunch reservation at Be Our Guest, but weren’t lucky enough. We decided we wanted to see the world, so it was Epcot up next. Unfortunately, it was the last weekend of the International Food and Wine Festival, so the park was packed. We couldn’t get in a quick service line that was less than 100 people long, so we ended up getting a little hangry. And by a little, I mean very. We ended up being able to get in to a place in China to soothe our stomachs and then hit France for desserts and espresso to fend off the impending crash.

After we figured out the food, we hit some rides. We got in line at Test Track, but because of the intermittent rain that had been going on all day, it was pretty hit or miss on the service. Sure enough, it went out of commission after we had been in line for about 20 minutes, so we bailed. We went to the Spaceship Earth ride and got on almost immediately. I was really impressed with the improvements to the animatronics they’d made since I was last there in 2013. The motions were incredibly realistic! I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re good enough to fool us in another five or ten years.

At this point, we were running out of steam. We’d already been going for almost twelve hours and we still had another seven to go. So we went back to the room to refresh. I rolled out my legs with a lacrosse ball and the R8 until we were ready to leave again.

Unfortunately, we were just a few minutes late for the fireworks show. We did get there just in time for the projection show on the castle in the Magic Kingdom. It was really beautiful and technically awe-inspiring. After the two castle shows ended, at least half of the people left. At that point, we had about five hours left. We definitely made the most of it.

In the ensuing days, my mom and my aunt and I all attempted to recount every ride we did that night, and we always kept coming up with more that we’d forgotten about so I’m going to give the most accurate rundown possible. We grabbed a quick dinner at Pecos Bill’s, then got on board Big Thunder Mountain. After that, we traipsed over to the Pirates of The Caribbean ride and got on pretty quickly with a FastPass. Then my cousins wanted a Dole Whip, so my mom and I rode the children’s magic carpet ride while they were eating. (The camel sprayed us, which was so rude.)

From there, the park really started losing people fast. Wait times dropped a lot for even the most popular rides. We got through the Snow White mine ride line in about 25 minutes. Peter Pan took about 15 minutes in line before we were riding. Not many people seemed interested in Small World, which makes me fear that they’re going to scrap it for something else soon. But it did mean we got to ride it immediately.

The six year old we had with us was a real trooper – by this time it was getting close to 1:00 AM, but he was still hanging with us without a single complaint, so he and I “raced” his sister on the speedway in Magic Kingdom near Tomorrowland. We won. From there, we got on Buzz Lightyear with no wait and my mom and I took terrible ride pictures on there. Finally, we got in a pretty short line for Space Mountain, which is one of my favorite rides in the park.

My mom is terrified of this ride for some reason, even though she loves the Yeti ride in the Animal Kingdom. We cajoled her into riding and keeping her eyes open this time, and she said she actually enjoyed it. Hopefully she doesn’t forget how not scary it is before we go back and she has to learn the lesson all over again! Space Mountain was a great ride to end things on, especially because it was 2:15 in the morning. As we made our way to the front of the park, “Kisses” played on the castle. It was just one more magical moment to cap off the night.

Our six year old trooper passed out on the bus as soon as we sat down. Disney can definitely do that to you. He was dead to the world from there on out, but he never complained about being tired. That’s a pretty big deal for someone his age. We carried him to bed and got to sleep as quickly as possible. For me, that was 4:00 AM, and I was planning on getting up early to get to the Animal Kingdom to see Mayme and ride the Yeti ride. And that I did. I got about three hours of sleep and then walked to the bus station to get to the park. My legs felt like trash and I was exhausted. I did get a great breakfast biscuit at the stand at Old Key West, though, which made it better.

I loved seeing Mayme again – I hadn’t seen her since my wedding, so we were long overdue! Right now she’s painting beautiful ornaments for Christmas in a store in the Animal Kingdom and naturally they were flawless. We caught up for a while, then I did the single rider line for the Yeti ride and went back to say goodbye before heading back to the hotel, where everyone was still asleep.

Eventually we wrangled everyone out of the hotel room and over to Disney Springs for lunch with my grandparents at Earl of Sandwich before I had to catch the shuttle to the airport. More than anything, I wanted to stay for the rest of the week and hang out with my family, but I had to be back at work the next day, so home I went. I did upgrade to the exit row on my flight home, so I had a little extra leg room.

This weekend just made me want to go back to Disney again soon. (Preferably dragging the whole family with me). I love Disney World. It’s a place where it’s okay to never grow up. You can still find enchantment in things that would seem mundane out in the real world. It’s a haven for wonder and joy, and I cannot wait to bring my kids there one day.

Disney at Christmas Gallery

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