The Princess Diaries

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Our first full day in Florida, we went to the Magic Kingdom. We no more than get into the park, and it starts pouring. Not Hawaiian kine- wait three seconds and it will pass, but good old Florida downpour with no end in sight. We take advantage of the sheltered lines and ride the important rides- Peter Pan's flight, Pooh, It's a Small World and then we head towards Toontown where I know there is a tent with characters. There used to be 2 lines- one led to a room with the princesses, the other friends from Pooh corner. We finally make it to the tent. No strollers are allowed inside and it is literally raining sideways. We stow the ponchos and completely cover the stroller with another and Phil makes the dash out to the "stroller parking". I notice that one line is for the princesses, the other is for Tinker Bell and the Fairies. The wait listed is 70 minutes. Ugh. The line attendant sees Lily's Make a Wish button and ushers us through. We walk right into a circular room with three satin draped areas of different colors. Cinderella waltzes up to Lily and says " What took you so long? I've been waiting for you!" and leads her over to her special nook. At this point I am still dripping from the rain and can wipe the tears away without notice. The kids are all visiting with different princesses- there is no way I can capture it all. I stick with Lily who is chatting Cinderella's ears off like they are old friends. One of the cast members is quietly instructing Phil on how the visit will go, where we will go after to see more characters and giving him this photo pass which is a credit card thing that photographers all across the World scan after taking pictures and put all of our "professional" pictures into the system that we can look at at our convenience- Brilliant. A machine I tell you. I notice Phil has that look he gets when the Broncos are on and I try to talk to him. It really is a different World at Disney. Some people don't get it. We are Disney people. I think Phil is vying for his turn with Cinderella. I'd bother feeling jealous if my emotions hadn't already been maxed out- but let's face it I wanted a turn with Cinderella. The cast member has ushered out all the other guests and is gathering the princesses together. He turns to Lily and says- we have a special treat for you. She climbs up on Cinderella's lap one of the photographers snatches my cameras because like I said, this doesn't happen, it's a magical place and I got a little verklempt. Then the other kids all get a turn and then all 4 with the 3 princesses.

After our visit, we are guided into Tinker Bell's forest with her friends Fawn and Silver Mist. The wait to see her is over 70 minutes long and we are taken right in the back door. It's a strange feeling. It's wonderful not having to wait. I hate waiting in line. And mostly when I saw the wait time I figured we'd see the princesses and skip the Fairies because it was just too long. And I guess that is the point of the Access Pass, because they know many of us practical parents would skip the wait and move on to something else so they don't want the wish kids to miss out. Plus as a good friend put it- we spent our time waiting in the hospital- it balances out.

Bella loves Belle, but until then I had no idea how much she loved Tinker Bell. As the kids are hugging and chatting with her, Bella is practically vibrating. She is doing the hoppy dance she does when she is excited. Finally she spots an opening and grabs onto Tinker Bell's leg like it was a life raft. Very cute.

We did the princess breakfast experience. Usually Snow white is tough to find, but with the dvd being released in October, she's everywhere. We also got to see Ariel with her land legs, and the same Cinderella we met with on our first day. She remembered Lily and was incredibly sweet. Phil and I had much discussion over how they choose the princesses. Cinderella is the Alpha princess as Phil calls her. The PIC(princess in charge), he was amazed how the other princesses would step back for her. They are generally beautiful, but we did see one Ariel and one Alice that gave us the shivers but then they had the perfect voice and mannerisms so I guess it works out. Except for pictures- because you just don't hear the perfect voice in the picture. The only "princess" we didn't see was Mulan and we scoured China at Epcot doing the Kim Possible experience mission thing.