A: Askwiths

How could A be for anything else but our lovely travel companions?! It was great to be away with the Askwiths again, who knew what they were doing far more than we did, kind and full of fun.

B: Breakfast

One of the staff at Sophia’s nursery told me how good breakfast is at Disney. We weighed it up and watched various Tiktoks before deciding to go for it. I agree, it was definitely worth it! There were so many choices and it was all very tasty. It was good to start every day with a full stomach and not arrive at the park tempted by every food truck we passed, right away at least!

C: Cinderella

This is one of my favourite pictures of the trip! Sophia was in her Cinderella dress and I was in a long top in a similar colour.

D: Dragon

Did you know there’s a dragon under the castle? It moves, makes noises and it’s absolutely massive. Sophia was not a fan.

E: Elephants (and other rides)

Most rides were renamed by Sophia. She was a big fan of elephants (Dumbo), horses (Carousel), aeroplanes (Orbitron), music boats (It’s a Small World) and the teacups.

F: Fitbit

People said Disney would be tiring, and they were not wrong. My Fitbit logged at least 15,000 steps every day.

G: Getting value for money

I started this game when we went to Thomas Land for the day last year. I take the total entry cost and divide it by the number of times people have been on a ride. In this case, I divided the total by the number of meals eaten, rides enjoyed and character/parades experienced. By the end, it was £10.97, and I was pretty pleased with that! The quality of everything is absolutely wonderful, so it’s totally worth it.

H: Hotel Santa Fe

We stayed at one of the Disney hotels as we bought a package that included hotel and park tickets. If you stay in a Disney hotel, you can access the park an hour before everybody else and shuttle buses run about once every 15 minutes. We stayed at Santa Fe, known as the ‘budget’ hotel, but I have to say, it was absolutely brilliant. It was perfectly clean, the room was made up every day and the staff were so nice. I wouldn’t stay anywhere else if we went again, especially as we were so busy in the day that we really only needed somewhere to lay our heads at night.

I: It’s a Small World

This ride was surprisingly brilliant, see my separate blog about it here.

J: June weather

Whereas it seems like it was somewhat miserable weather in the UK, the weather was delightful in Paris. We applied suncream a couple of times a day, and I wouldn’t have wanted it any hotter, but after the soggy spring we have had, some blue skies were very welcome indeed.

K: Knitting

I didn’t get a huge amount of knitting done because we were so busy! But I did have a quiet few minutes by myself waiting for a parade, and it meant I could take this snap:

L: Lunch with the Princesses

Again, I’ve written about this already. It was very exciting and we had some beautiful moments, but it was horribly exciting for our two year old. Read more through this link.

M: Mickey Donut

A huge mickey shaped donut stuffed with nutella. Absolutely delicious and worth the hype!

N: Nathan/Mr Disney Dad

In the planning stages of the trip, Nathan was quite clear that while the rest of us were going to Disney, and he was just coming along with us. He was not ‘going to Disney’ – although obviously he was! Anyway, in the end, as you can see in the photos, he seemed to really enjoy himself!

O: Olives

Who would have thought that we’d go so far to be reminded that Sophia loves olives?! Every day as part of her breakfast she had a little pot of olives, and on the first day she ate all the olives off my salad. I found it so funny that with so much food on offer, her consistent favourite was olives.

P: PYM kitchen

On our last night, we treated ourselves to a meal at PYM kitchen over in the Studios Park. I’m kind of out of the loop with Marvel – Winnie the Pooh, Cocomelon and Frozen are much more our speed now. However, even I could see how cool this place was. The food was delicious, with both large and tiny versions of food, like mini burgers and a burger so big it was served in slices like pizza! They were making fresh pasta, which Soph loved, and I was gutted that I couldn’t try and of the fillet steak which was being carved up, because it looked just my kind of medium-rare! I didn’t get any pictures, because I had a flashy light migraine at the time, but I do know that we all enjoyed ourselves, and I would highly recommend this restaurant.

Q: Queen Elsa and Princess Anna

Possibly the most magical thing to happen all week was Elsa and Anna waving at Sophia from the float on the parade, because Elsa spotted that Sophia was dressed as Anna, so Anna said ‘You’re me!’. We knew we wouldn’t be seeing either of them at the lunch, so it was amazing to see them at the parade, and that they were looking out on our side as they passed!

R: Rollercoaster

Although Sophia and I didn’t do the big rollercoasters for obvious reasons, she was very taken with the Slinky dog ride. Soph preferred the outdoor rides that went fast to the indoor ones which are games or have lots of surprises and glow in the dark figures.

S: Sad Disney Bingo

This was a little game that Nathan and I developed as time went on. I’ve talked about it in a separate blog.

T: Theatre (Lion King)

After our interesting lunch with the Princesses, we headed over to watch the Lion King show. It’s a cut down version of the stage show, with key songs and lots of dancing and acrobatics. Although she was a bit unsure to begin with, once the big curtain opened and they started singing, Sophia was mesmerised!

Nathan asked ‘was that good Soph?’

‘yes!’

‘What did you think?’

‘I didn’t think!’

Being the musicals fan I am, I was delighted that it was the thing she most wanted to do three days in a row!

U: unexpected feelings

I was looking forward to this trip. But I was really bowled over by how brilliant it was, and by how it would make me feel. For starters, we were took busy to think about church, let alone talk about it! Although it was busy and full on, it was a break from work in the proper sense.

I was also amazed to find myself crying with joy at various points, especially Sophia’s reaction to things. I cried when she saw Elsa and Anna, and when Kristoff came and said hello to her, he glanced at my tear streaked face and I’m sure he must have thought I was crazy! But there’s something about the music and atmosphere in the whole place that just lifts the spirits.

V: Velcro

A random one, but we decided to switch to the old baby changing bag for the trip because it holds so much. It’s also handy because it’s got velcro tabs that attach to the handle of the pram so you don’t have to carry it the whole time. However, we had forgotten that the velcro has worn down and no longer really works. So Nathan and I could frequently be heard saying ‘bloody velcro!’ as the tabs came away from the pram.

W: Wristband

I wasn’t pregnant when we booked the trip, so it was just good luck that I was coming to the end of the second – and, in my experience, easiest – trimester when we were at Disney! If you’re pregnant, you can provide proof (I took my MatB1 form), take it to the entrance and they will give you a white wristband which lets you cut pretty much every queue. You still need to queue in shops, and you can’t cut lines to the big rollercoasters (because you aren’t allowed on them!) but the smaller rides can be accessed quicker, as can the character meets, the parades and the park itself.

I am now completely spoiled by this experience though. I don’t know how I’d go again and stand in a queue for more than 15 minutes!

X: Extremely large salad

On the first day I had a salad at one of the restaurants in the Disney village. It was absolutely huge and it could have fed a family of four.

Y: ‘You’re practically perfect in every way!’

One character meet we did was Mary Poppins, Bert and one of the penguins. Sophia has recently become a big fan of the film, especially when the penguin waiters dance in their restaurant, so Sophia loved it! Mary said to her ‘I’m sure you’re practically perfect in every way!’

Z: Zazu and other animals

The Z in this exercise is always hard! But thankfully, even though Zazu didn’t feature in the Lion King theatre show, he was on the Lion King/Jungle Book float along with lots of other much loved animals.

As always, thanks for reading!