Disney Characters

This is our last Disney World post. I promise. But I had to share these pictures.

So one thing I learned on this trip is that meeting Disney Characters is a key part of visiting Disney World - it seems that for many kids this is the only thing they care about. They carry autograph books and collect photos, etc. They go to special places and pay for special restaurants etc, just to meet these characters.

We kept our kids interested in rides rather than characters. I especially valued this since the lines to meet the characters were typically the only lines we saw, and they could be very long and slow-moving. And I can't stand waiting in line. So we just waved at Peter Pan or Pinocchio or whomever as we walked by, but never got in line.

But then one morning at Animal Kingdom I happened to see a sign that said there was a character spot to meet Winnie the Pooh, and there was nobody around. So we followed the path past the sign and found a character spot with no line, in fact you can see in this next picture the bored Tigger and Eeyore in the background. Jackpot! We got to see some characters that our kids know, with no wait and no rush. Ruby jumped into Pooh's arms so fast she about knocked him over. So we figured we had the character-meet thing covered.

Now the most popular topic at Disney world, at least with little girls, is "princesses." (They are pushing Pirates for boys). And Ruby has become very interested in princesses. I'm not sure why - somehow stories like Cinderella seem to be more significant for little girls than for little boys. And this blurs with ballerinas and fairies. So she can often be seen at home (and even out around Bozeman) dressed as a princess with a tutu and fairy wings.

A smart thing we did was we bought a cheap Disney Princess dress as Target, prior to our trip, and brought it for Ruby to wear. For a tiny fraction of the cost of buying one at Disney World, Ruby was just as happy. So this covered the "princess makeover" part of the Princess experience.

So prior to going to Disney World whenever anybody talked to Ruby about our trip, she would tell them that she was going to "spin with princesses." - Meaning that she would dance with them. But meeting princesses is like the holy grail of character meetings. We just hoped that she wouldn't be disappointed when she didn't get to do that there.

But then luck again, our last day we went to Magic Kingdom and got there a few minutes prior to opening. When they opened the gates, everybody rushes to get to the most popular rides. We were just kind of meandering down "main street USA" and looked into the character greeting place there. It said it had two princesses - Belle and Aurora (I had to learn my princesses). Not as special as Cinderella, but still princesses, and no wait! So we rushed in. We went to see the first princess (Aurora), and Ruby rushed up to her and whispered something to her. And surprisingly she must have understood Ruby since she jumped up to "spin" with Ruby. Ruby's dream came true!

The other princess was Belle:

But then as luck would have it, there was a third princess too, the most special one - Cinderella! Reder first went up to talk to her. He was quite excited too, and very cute with her.

Reder still wanted to meet Mickey, and as we were just about to leave on our last day, we saw that there was only a short (5 minute) line to meet Mickey. So we got in line. And Ruby fell asleep in my arms! And when she is asleep she doesn't wake up for anything (a few days earlier we tested this with a brass marching band). So we went in and met Mickey and Minnie, as Ruby slept. I passed Ruby over to Katie so that I could take some pictures. Here is a Mother's day picture of Katie and Reder and Ruby:

She still doesn't know she missed Mickey. Sometime we will show her this picture.

And that is the end of our Disney photos. We have plenty more to share too.