Our Second Trip of Firsts

Lots Of Pixie Dust!

I almost didn’t make Madilyn an appointment at Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique. I had asked her about it at our 180 day mark, but she showed no interest. She said I could do her hair in our hotel room like I did on our first trip. After Christmas, I found our vacation planning DVD from our 2012 trip and popped it in. After watching the section about the boutique, my little girl warmed up to the idea. We were only about 45 days out when I called to see if they had any appointments available. They had one that fit perfectly into our schedule so I booked it for her. I used some of the money my parents had given Maddy for Christmas to order her dress from disneystore.com. I showed Maddy several different dresses, but she let me choose which one to buy for her which made me very happy!

We walked into World of Disney around 12:15 to check in for her 12:30 appointment. We were given a buzzer and told that we could walk around the store while we waited. We loved the magic mirror near the boutique! There was a dad there with his daughter who made it particularly entertaining! I liked the look of the deluxe Anna dress I ordered for Maddy better than the ones they were selling in the store, though. I picked out a really cool 3D looking picture frame for myself and Maddy chose a small Tinkerbell snow globe.

Our buzzer didn’t go off until 1:05 and we were ushered into the seating area inside the boutique itself. The area was really jam packed with people and there wasn’t even a place for us to sit down. By 1:30, I was getting a little irritated. Our fairy godmother in training came up and introduced herself to us. Her name was Sterling and she was SO NICE! She took Madilyn into one of the changing rooms and ran a comb through her hair. She got down on Maddy’s level and asked her if she would like to be the princess of the day. She said that the princess of the day gets to get have her hair and make-up done in the front of the store where everyone can see her. My attention-hound daughter was all over that idea!

If any of you read our first trip report, Madilyn was selected to get the rose from Belle and her prince at the end of the show in Hollywood Studios. It was a really magical moment for her, made all the more special because Belle is her favorite princess.

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I thought Madilyn was super lucky to be singled out to receive that rose and it appears her luck continued into this trip. I can’t say enough good things about Sterling. She made my daughter’s (and my) day truly magical!

When we came out of the dressing room, she called out for a royal photographer to help escort the princess of the day to the front of the store. She led Madilyn through the store, yelling out “Make way for the princess of the day!” and of course all the cast members and a lot of guests waved at her and cheered for her! Madilyn loved every second of it!

The photopass photographer walked ahead of us, snapping photos as Maddy made her way through the store. I hosted a Memory Maker share on Facebook and I definitely got my money’s worth! Prepare to be bombarded with photos (a mix of mine and those from Memory Maker).

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Madilyn was seated at the store front window. There was even a little bench for me to sit on while she was getting all done up.

Here is Maddy sitting on it!

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I love love love this picture!

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Sterling let her pick out which color comb she wanted. Maddy chose purple. She also gave us the choice of leaving Maddy’s bangs out or putting them into the bun. I let Maddy make that call and she chose to leave them out.

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This was our view outside the window!

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People would stop outside the store front window or just inside the store and watch Maddy getting her make-over. Sterling reminded her to smile and wave to them.

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Maddy chose a tiara with pink rhinestones. They also had white and blue.

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As Sterling worked her magic with Maddy’s hair we chatted about favorite princesses. Sterling said she was one of the few fairy godmothers in training who isn't tired of Frozen. She said she just loves the movie! The photographer made a bad face and said that she prefers the classic princesses like Cinderella and Belle.

To be continued...
 
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That is awesome Maddy got to be Princess of the Day! It's little things like this that truly make our trips magical.
 


Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique Continued

After Maddy’s hair was done, Sterling started on her nails. Maddy chose “bibbidi bobbidi blue”. I forget what Sterling called the pale pink that was her other option. Maddy was able to take both polishes home. They are surprisingly durable and dry really quickly! I am not embarrassed to say that Maddy adn I are both wearing the pink now!

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Then she was able to choose her blush, lip color, and two eye shadows from the make-up palette.

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At this point Sterling gets very serious. She tells my daughter that she will do her make-up for her, but she wants her to understand that she is already beautiful without it. I think that this is something every little girl needs to hear! I don’t know if all the fairy-godmothers-in-training say this, but I was impressed that Sterling did! As she was doing her make-up, she also told Maddy how important it is for a princess to be beautiful on the inside as well as the outside. She told Maddy that it is more important to be kind that it is to be beautiful.

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Up Next: The Big Reveal!
 


At this point Sterling gets very serious. She tells my daughter that she will do her make-up for her, but she wants her to understand that she is already beautiful without it. I think that this is something every little girl needs to hear! I don’t know if all the fairy-godmothers-in-training say this, but I was impressed that Sterling did! As she was doing her make-up, she also told Maddy how important it is for a princess to be beautiful on the inside as well as the outside. She told Maddy that it is more important to be kind that it is to be beautiful.

What great adive from the FGIT!! I hope we get one as good as Sterling when we go in May!
 
Aww....what a wonderful experience for Maddy and what an amazing fairy godmother-in-training!
 
What great adive from the FGIT!! I hope we get one as good as Sterling when we go in May!

I hope that you do too!
pixiedust:That is wonderful what Sterling said because it is so true

I'm glad she talked to Maddy the way she did!

Aww....what a wonderful experience for Maddy and what an amazing fairy godmother-in-training!

I had read some mixed reviews about the boutique, but we couldn't possibly have had a better experience!
 
The Big Reveal!

Princess dress…check!

Beautiful hair-do…check!

Sparkly tiara…check!

Polished nails…check!

Make-up…check!

The result…one gorgeous and very happy little girl!

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Extra pixie dust!

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Keep in mind that Maddy wasn’t able to see herself until her make-over was finished. Her reaction was priceless!

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We were escorted back to the boutique so that I could pay. Again, Madiyn was announced as the princess of they day. I felt really bad that I didn’t bring any cash so that I could tip Sterling. I didn’t realize that I couldn’t tip her with my credit card. The total cost was $63.85. I also paid for the picture frame and snow globe that we had picked up while we were browsing the store before her appointment. They were $46.76.

We were done just in time for the princess parade. About twenty of the little girls who had visited the boutique that day lined up in front of the World of Disney store. A bunch of the fairy-godmothers-in-training escorted them to the carousel. They blew lots of bubbles and cheered as we walked. Unfortunately Sterling was not able to go with us. She had another little girl waiting for her to work her magic!

After the carousel ride, it was time for us to explore more of Downtown Disney!
 
Exploring Downtown Disney

Madilyn and I had some time left to kill while Jamie was still in the movie theater. The first stop was Basin. That store smells absolutely amazing! Everyone in the store was so cheerful and helpful. I bought a tube of barrel of bath bombs for myself ($20) and a few of the large ones for Marie. I also picked up some of the lip balm for both of us. I spent $42.57 and I’m glad Jamie wasn’t there to see!

This fountain was outside the store. I thought it was really cool, but Maddy looks less than impressed.

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I snapped a few pictures of Maddy with the princess statues outside World of Disney. If you look at the window just to Cinderella’s right, you can see where Maddy spent the morning getting made-over.

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I think the Lego sea creature is so cool!

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And I also loved the hidden Mickey in Maddy’s hair!

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We spent some time in the store, but didn’t purchase anything there.

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We slowly made our way towards the West Side. We looked in several shops. I finally found Marie’s elusive oreo caramel apple in Candy Cauldron. I bought it and a bag of gummy candy for Maddy. I spent $15.92 there. We headed back towards the Marketplace and found a restroom.

I have a confession to make. Prior to our trip, I had never tried Starbucks. Sure, I’ve bought the cold coffees in glass bottles at the convenience stores and I’ve even made my own coffee using Starbucks grounds, but I had never set foot in an actual Starbucks. It was hot and I was getting thirsty so I used a snack credit for a venti strawberry frappe. I wanted something without coffee in it that Maddy would help me drink it. It was delicious!

We sat on a bench, enjoyed the frappe and Disney gummies. This is another one of my favorite photos from this trip.

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Jamie called and we agreed to meet him in front of Fulton’s. We had no plans to eat there (although I would love to try it someday). I just thought it was an easy landmark to spot and about halfway between us.

After we met back up with Jamie, we spent some time in the Harley shop. My husband and I both love motorcycles, although our tastes lean more towards Hondas than Harleys. He still has a street bike and a dirt bike, but mine were sold when I was pregnant with Madilyn. I am starting to get the itch to ride again! We looked in a couple of different high end sunglass stores. I made sure to take Jamie in to look in the Lego store.

And (as if I didn’t already get a ton of photos of Madilyn during her make-over) we stopped for a few more photos. These are just a few of them!

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Since we only had a few hours before it would be time for our dinner reservation, we hopped on a bus back to Boardwalk Villas.
 
A Date With Goofy

We spent a little time in our room freshening up before dinner. At 6:30 we took the elevator down to the Boardwalk and walked to the Swan. Before our trip, I searched the internet high and low and could only find a handful of reviews for Garden Grove and the majority of those were for breakfast. I really wanted to try the Friday night seafood buffet, so much so that I actually added a night and day to our trip so that we could be there on a Friday night. Any excuse is good enough for more time at Disney, right?

When we checked in at the podium outside the restaurant, the lady made sure to tell us that the restaurant is not on the dining plan. While we were on the dining plan, we end up paying out of pocket for one meal every trip. I told her that as long as they take Visa, we were in good shape! They must have a lot of people try to use the dining plan there. I asked what characters would be out that night and was told that we would see Chip and Dale as well as Goofy and Pluto. From what I had read online, I was only expecting two characters so this made me happy!

The restaurant is so lovely!

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Our waiter took our drink orders and told us to help ourselves to the buffet. He said that he would be bringing out stuffed lobster tails for the adults as well as a basket of fried seafood. We fixed our first plates, but had just sat down when Chip stopped by for a visit.

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You can see some of Madilyn’s plate in the picture. Jamie and I had prime rib, boiled shrimp, and rice on our first plate, but most of what Maddy chose came from the children’s buffet. She had corn dog nuggets, chicken nuggets, macaroni, mashed potatoes, and some fruit. The boiled shrimp were excellent. They had a lot of flavor, but were messy to eat. The fried shrimp and calamari were also really good. The lobster had a nice flavor, but the texture was a little chewy. I’m not enough of a foodie to know if it was the variety of lobster of if it was just a little over cooked. It wasn’t the best I’ve ever had, but it wasn’t bad either.

Dale was not far behind Chip.

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The character interaction here was better than we experienced at any other character meal on this trip. The characters were in no rush and were perfectly happy to dance around with Madilyn. There were a lot of empty tables and also a lot of tables with no children so that may have helped.

Maddy’s favorite character has always been Goofy so she was very glad to see him and show him how pretty she was!

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Pluto also came by and gave Maddy a hug, but I didn’t take any pictures of him. My hands were pretty messy at that point because I had gone back to the buffet for some crab legs!

Jamie got us an assortment of sweets. There was a chocolatey tart that he really liked, but nothing stuck out as all that special to me. My fruit-head daughter had some fresh fruit for dessert. I’ve never seen anyone eat as much fruit as she does!

The restaurant was beautiful and we enjoyed the character interaction and most of the food. Our meal was $106 plus the tip. I’m glad we tried it. If I were to go back, I might like to try breakfast.

There was a smoking area right outside the front entrance of the Swan. Jamie liked that! The view of the Dolphin was pretty. The spotlights shining on the palm trees kept changing colors.

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Somebody slipped into this picture!

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After dinner we headed back to our room for one last night.

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We walked around the pool before we went up to our room. It looked like it would be fun, despite the creepy clown, in warmer weather.
 
Update as promised :)

Breakfast with the Princesses


We got up early on our last morning at Disney. I started packing our things before we left the room and I put the “Do Not Disturb” sign on our door. I didn’t want Mousekeeping to think we had already checked out. I can’t remember if we walked or took a boat to Epcot, but we arrived at the back entrance at 7:45. We were held there for about five minutes before being admitted into the park early for our 8:05 breakfast.

Jamie stopped for a quick cigarette and we headed left through England towards the Norway Pavilion. We waited in a short line to get checked into Akershus.

We had a couple of photos taken with Belle.

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We ate breakfast at Akershus on our 2012 trip and were very impressed. Madilyn had great interaction with the princesses, especially Aurora. This time all the princesses were very rushed. Thankfully, we had already met most of them at some point during this trip. I was really hoping for a different group, but we saw the exact same princesses that we had seen the last time around: Belle, Cinderella, Snow White, Aurora, and Ariel.

I didn’t even have time to take a picture of Cinderella, but we had several good ones from our day in Magic Kingdom, so it wasn’t that big of a deal.

With Sleeping Beauty.

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With Snow White.

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You can see that Maddy is wearing the same Anna dress she wore the day before.

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The hot items that were served family style were all very good on both occasions, but the lingonberry muffins from the buffet that I thought were so good on our first trip were a real let down this time. In fact, none of the items we tried from the buffet were all that good. Honestly neither of the restaurants we revisited this trip were quite as good as they were the first time. We were more impressed with a couple of the new to us restaurants we tried.
 
The Last Few Hours At Disney

Dining Plan Balance -$9.63 - $112.78 = -$122.41

After breakfast (and my honey’s mandatory post breakfast cigarette), we headed straight for Test Track. The park had just opened and the wait time posted was already 20 minutes. Once we had designed our car, the line stopped moving. The ride was down. We waited for a few minutes. Jamie said that he needed to find a restroom so he left Madilyn and me in line. We waited a few more minutes and did end up getting to ride. Unfortunately, there was no photopass photo of this ride.

We headed towards the back exit and caught a boat back to The Boardwalk. Maddy changed into some more comfortable clothes and we finished packing. We weren’t in a real rush so we took our time packing and enjoyed a few last minutes out on the balcony. We carried our carry-on bags to bell services and our checked bags to the airline check in desk. That desk was literally right below our room! We received our boarding passes (Early Bird Check In was totally worth it for us!) there as well and were told that the bus would be taking us to airport at 3:00 for our 6:30 flight.

We took a boat back to Epcot and spent a good bit of time exploring parts of the World Showcase we had missed the night before. Madilyn started coloring a Duffy in England and worked on it through several countries. I know that she had it stamped in England, France, Morocco, and Germany. I wanted to meet Aladdin and Jasmine in Morocco, but the line was really long and moving very slowly so we didn’t meet them this trip, either. I used our last two snack credits in Germany for cookies which I ended up giving to my parents when we got home. In Norway, Jamie was sweet enough to offer to buy me a bottle of Laila. I love the way that perfume smells so I took him up on the offer. Now I get to smell like Epcot every day!

We were heading to Soarin’ for our first FP+ experience of the day, but were side tracked by a certain bear. Disney did a really great job marketing this guy while we were there. There was a movie about him on every night and the book that followed the same story line was widely available.

Duffy liked the Duffy fan Maddy had colored.

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We rode Soarin’ and headed to Mission Space for our next FP+ experience. We all really love both of these!

It was time for us to head back to The Boardwalk and catch our bus to the airport. We were walking through The World Showcase when a wall opened and out came Minnie, Pluto, Brier Bear, Stitch, and Pooh. I had heard of Characterpalooza in Hollywood Studios, but I wasn’t aware that this happens in Epcot! I didn’t take out my camera as we really needed to head back to the room, but since Maddy was one of the only kids in the immediate area, she was able to get hugs from Minnie and Pluto. It was a really nice farewell to Disney!

We refilled our mugs at Boardwalk Bakery. Neither they nor Seashore Sweets would swap out our remaining three quick service credits for snacks. They said we could buy a meal, but we weren’t really hungry. We were hoping to get some sweets to take home with us, though. I sent Disney customer relations a letter after we got home addressing the very magical and not so magical experiences on our trip. A few days later, I received a phone call from an extremely nice cast member. She gave me some non-expiring fast passes for a future trip and a $15 refund for each unused quick service credit.

We collected our carry-on luggage from bell services and waited about fifteen minutes for the Magic Express bus to pick us up. Unlike the bus that brought us to Disney (which only had about six people on board), this bus was pretty full. We took the fake-o-rail back across the airport.

The line to get through security was pretty long, but moved quickly. I was concerned about my new perfume which was in my purse, but no one said anything about it. Once we made it through security, Jamie got a Mountain Dew and I got a mocha frappuccino from Starbucks.

Maddy enjoyed looking out the window at our ride home.

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My grandmother called to check on us just before we were called to board the plane. Our flight home was pleasant and uneventful. I do love the attitudes of Southwest’s flight crew. They were really fun to be around! For example: “In the even that you do need to put on your oxygen mask, start with your own mask then move to the child with the highest earning potential!” Hillarious!

Once we landed in Birmingham, we grabbed our bags, took the shuttle back to the parking lot, and headed home. We did stop at Chick-Fil-A in Tuscaloosa.
 

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