I know that it's amazing to think that such a thing can exist, but it does! Let me give you a little bit of context for this trip before I start to rave about it.
My grandfather was in the hospital for a month from about the end of January to the second to last week of February. He was diabetic, and ended up passing away due to complications with his multiple surgeries. While he was in the hospital, my mother was taking care of my completely dependent grandmother, and practically had to move in with her. This meant that she had to move away from her home, and was suffering from "Stranger in a strange land" syndrome. I decided that this was unacceptable, and looked up the first available reservation for dinner at Be Our Guest, booked it, and bought us both tickets. My grandfather passed away two weeks before this scheduled trip, and the whole family ended up together for the memorial. As my sister was down from Baltimore, we decided to bump the trip up a week, and we went on the 28th instead. The point of the trip was a vacation for my mother, where she didn't have to pay a dime (because Disney was too expensive to go). So, my sister and I split the cost of it all and treated her. It was the best trip that I have ever had to Disney. The three of us were there together for the first time since I was in middle school (I'm going on 21 years old), and we were able to do everything that we wanted to do.
We were all suffering from this devastating loss, and we still are, but we needed this Disney trip so that we didn't go completely insane.
So, what made this trip go so well? Well, I'll tell you! We rode Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, (Splash Mountain was closed), The Haunted Mansion, Winnie the Pooh, It's a Small World, Pirates of the Caribbean, the new Little Mermaid ride, and Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin. I know that it doesn't sound like a lot of rides, but it's all the rides that we really wanted to ride.
Now let's talk about the food. I had heard about this stuff called "Dole Whip" and I kept thinking, "It's soft-serve ice cream, what's the big deal?" It's a big deal! It was so light and fluffy that I thought it would float out of the bowl. I got the pineapple-vanilla swirl, and my mom and sister got the orange-vanilla swirl. The orange tasted just like a dreamsicle. Then, for lunch we went to the fabulous Be Our Guest restaurant in New Fantasyland. We got in line and the cast member with the menus told us that it was going to be a 70 minute wait, but we decided that it was worth it since we'd never done it before. It was really just under an hour. We sat inside the ballroom, and it was probably one of the coolest dining experiences that I have ever had. They wheel out the food on little tea-cart looking things, and in spite of the sheer number of people in there, (every table was full), service was actually pretty quick. It just seemed a lot longer cause we were so hungry. I would highly recommend the braised pork. It comes with mashed potatoes, green beans, and a few other vegetables like red bell peppers and stuff. I practically licked my plate clean, and that's saying something because I loathe mashed potatoes.
From there we shared a mickey pretzel in Tomorrowland (yum), and then for dinner ate at the Liberty Tree Tavern. The wait wasn't too bad there (it was around 7pm, so the parade was going on and people were camping along the route), and the food wasn't too bad either.
In addition to all of this, because the park was open for extra magic hours, we stayed a little bit later than we normally do. I think the coolest part about that was that the fireworks started while we were on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and we were able to watch the show while on the ride. After that we were able to see the second go-around of the parade (we usually skip both the parade and the fireworks in favor of beating the crowds and getting home at a decent hour).
The only thing that bothered me, and even then I came to accept it after the whole thing was over, and it didn't even bother me too much while we were there, was the new FastPass+ system. We had not really heard about this change beforehand, and were extremely surprised when the paper fastpass machines at Space Mountain were tarped over. We were directed to the FP+ station, and went on our merry way. We were, however, distressed to find that we could only get 3 fastpasses, and at how long the queue was for the kiosks. We finally reconciled ourselves to the process when we realized that we normally didn't get more than 3 fastpasses in a day anyway. Ultimately, the only problem that I have is with the way that it is done. The line for the FastPasses should not be longer than the lines for the rides themselves.
But, as I said, it didn't bother me too much, and the trip was an overwhelming success. We even managed to get our tickets upgraded because they were having a special deal for Florida residents, and my mom and I were able to get two more days at Disney for only $30 each!
Again, so worth it! I hope that your next trip to Disney is as successful as mine was, but in the end, it all is completely dependent on the way that you look at it. If you go determined to have a good time, you will :)
