Disney World I: We Met Characters

I am still processing our Disney World trip...and the 230 photos that are left after I deleted the "bad" ones.

It was an amazing time. Completely magical...just like the commercials advertise it to be.

I promise that I'm not turning the blog into a Disney review site, but please bear with me as I try to get some of the details down that I don't want to forget. The next few posts will be me doing just that. Hey...I've got to keep the familials happy.

I think the most memorable part of our trip for Lily will be the meeting of all of the characters. It was definitely her favorite part, which made it my favorite too just because I loved watching her interact with them.

I couldn't believe how "in character" they were, how kind they were, and how they really acted like there weren't 10 more people waiting in line for pictures and autographs.

Memorable moments:
When we hadn't met a princess within an hour of being there, she started to lose interest.

The first two characters we came across were Mary Poppins and Alice in Wonderland. I will never forget standing in line with Lily while she shouted out to them repeatedly..."Mary Poppins! Mary Poppins! It's me, Lily! Alice! Alice! I'm here...over here, Alice!" It was a sight to be seen and heard. And remembered forever.


I had made reservations a while back to do the Storybook Princess Lunch at Epcot. The only princess they guaranteed me would be there was Ariel. The Little Mermaid is one of her faves, so we dressed as Ariel. The past couple of months I kept telling Lily that she'd be having lunch with Ariel. She took me at my word. The sincere and completely heartfelt, genuine tears that flowed when she realized that Ariel would not actually be sitting down at our table to eat...OH MY WORD...I would have spent a lot of money to keep my word the way I had presented it to her. I felt awful. We ended up boxing up our dessert and asking the waitress to take it back to Ariel. Lily was happy with that.

I never want to forget how real every character was to her. She would touch them so fondly...their necks, their jewelry, it was probably weird for the actresses, but oh my...Lily was in heaven. She had very real things to say to each character...completely relevant to the movie they had been in.

One of my favorite moments was when she marched right up to Cinderella's stepsisters and told them that they shouldn't have torn Cinderella's dress! They went back and forth for nearly ten minutes. Lily stomped away truly upset with them. It was priceless. Lots of laughter from the others waiting to meet them.


Snow White proved to be hard to find initially. Lily would not let it go either. Then she spotted her during one of the nighttime parades. She screamed so loud that even though Snow White was quite a distance away, we heard her say, "Oh my!" This was Lily's face at the moment. Priceless.

Jade was a little young to enjoy the full effect of Disney. She did get to meet her favorite character though...Winnie the Pooh. She cuddled right up to him and even gave him a kiss. It was the sweetest thing ever.


I snuggled in close for a picture with the Fairy Godmother hoping to swipe her magic wand...but alas, it was gone. The stepsisters had stolen it earlier in the day...that was her response when Lily asked of its whereabouts anyway. Good thing they were out of sight or Lily might have given them another piece of her mind.

Every character meeting had its own special moments, but those are the ones that stand out most to me. Below is a slide show of the other meetings.