Don’t worry. Were you worried? Probably you weren’t even worried, but no, we didn’t go all the way to buttfuck Orlando, Florida and NOT go to Magic Kingdom. We went. Twice. Three times, really, if you count having dinner at Cinderella’s Castle, and there’s no reason in the world you shouldn’t.

Magic Kingdom is the first among the foursome, first among its peers, first in our hearts and minds when it comes to Disney World. Walt had this amazing vision for it, so he built it to be weirdly inaccessible, meaning the nearly 53 THOUSAND people visiting it DAILY have to bottleneck through one teeny tiny, wholly inadequate entrance that can only be reached via ferry or monorail.

Once you’re in, though, you’re golden. Main Street welcomes you with its sparkling stores, its roaming barbershop quartet known as the Dapper Dans, the balloon vendors and the cotton candy vendors, the random characters milling about (we ran into Abby Mallard from Chicken Little fame, who grabbed my hand and skipped off with me toward the castle like we were the best of friends). Mickey and Minnie are known to hang out in Town Square. The Plaza ice cream parlour sells a sundae called the Kitchen Sink and it’s a LOT of ice cream sold literally in a kitchen sink. There’s a crystal palace where Winnie the Pooh and friends are known to brunch, and a nice green space where Mary Poppins strolls about underneath her parasol. And right in front of the castle is a large roundabout where all the parades do their thing, and man oh man are there parades. If you wanted to, you could park yourself in a shady central location and just be entertained by parades all day long. There’s the Festival of Fantasy parade,  a lovely thing where all your favourite princesses meander by on themed floats and the Move It! Shake It! Dance and Play It! parade where floats are parked for a good half hour and a high energy show is happening on each float, featuring standard characters like Goofy, but also some fresh ones, like Zootopia‘s Judy Hopps. And then there’s Mickey’s Royal Friendship Faire which happens 6 times a day right on the steps of the castle. Sir Mickey is joined by friends including Anna, Elsa, and Olaf in a musical spectacular. And those are just the ones we caught.

We rode: Haunted Mansion, which the kids declared “not that scary” with some relief; Pirates of the Caribbean where we got a little wet; Dumbo the Flying Elephant, which now has a component under the big top where kids can play in a little circus-themed playground while you wait. We avoided the spitting camel in front of the The Magic Carpets of Aladdin. We climbed the Swiss Family Treehouse which was stupid given the enormity of my bad ankle. It hasn’t spoken to me since. Some of us did Barnstormer, a roller coaster friendly enough for even our anxious kiddos; everyone enjoyed The People Mover a couple of times, because it oddly became one of Brady’s favourite “rides” and I have no idea why but didn’t object because despite its surprisingly long line, it is a 16 minute sit that my throbbing ankle (I swear it had its own heart beat) was always grateful for. Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin is a lot of good fun, even if my sister thought my steering was rubbish and took over half way through. Jungle Cruise, soon to be a Dwayne Johnson/Emily Blunt movie, is an absolute must, and a favourite of my brother-in-law, who has a special appreciation for corny dad jokes.

And on our last day, when my ankle was a special shade of purple that communicates ENOUGH rather effectively, Sean and I did a secondary tour of the park called sit and eat (and drink). We went to Gaston’s pub and drank Lefou’s Brew. We went to the Cheshire Cat Cafe and had a cat tail pastry and a Wonderland slush, complete with candy-coated straw. That’s where I also enjoyed my favourite ride at Disney World: a clean women’s washroom with no line!

We were lucky enough to snag a reservation at the Beauty and the Beast castle restaurant, Be Our Guest. We ate in “Belle’s favourite room”, code for the paying guest’s least favourite, but it was still pretty cool, the walls crowded with majestic oil paintings featuring recognizable moments from the film, and a life-size music box feature of Belle and her Beast waltzing around. The main dining room is of course the ball room, where you can see it snowing outside despite the actual blistering Florida sun, and the last dining room is the forbidden west wing, very dark and atmospheric, with the enchanted rose under a glass dome and a portrait of the prince that morphs into the beast every 7 minutes. The menu has suitably French fare on hand (though accessible enough for all palates, gauging by my sister and her family who are very plain eaters) but the best part is dessert, which proudly features the grey stuff (there’s a line in the song – “Try the grey stuff, it’s delicious. Don’t believe us? Ask the dishes!”) No need, you can just ask me, and: yeah, it’s very good. It came in a white chocolate tea cup, betwixt a truffle and a macaron, on edible stained glass. The kids got a white chocolate tea cup too, but they got edible paints and set to work creating their masterpieces, which, honestly looked like trash to me, but they were proud enough to insist that photos be taken. Before we left, we got to meet the Beast, though he’d been by to take a bow during our meal (which is quite presumptuous of a host, if you think about it). This restaurant may seem unassuming but for me it was also the biggest thrill ride in the park, because at the end of the meal, when presented with a bill for $400, my card was declined. Or rather, the last $17 of it was declined. I shame-facedly handed over a $20 bill and made eyes at Sean that communicated basic human emotions such as ohmygodwhatdidido and howdidispendallthatmoney and canweevengethomenow? Your heart really seizes when you hear the words visa and declined in the same sentence, so I didn’t stop to think that never in the history of declined, overtaxed credit cards, does the machine ever spit out “well, she’s good for $383 but not that last $17.” That’s not how credit cards work. Luckily, between Sean and my sister, whose hearts were working normally, and the waitress, who was very bad at her job, it was determined that she hadn’t put through my card at all, and the $383 was from another table, and the whole thing was a huge misunderstanding which only shaved about 90 days off my lifespan, probably. Anyway, don’t you worry about that waitress; her 18% tip was worked into the bill already, no hard feelings allowed.

Anyway. We had a super fun time at Magic Kingdom. We had a super fun week at Disney. We spent 6 days between 4 parks and did not see everything. Not even close.

…think we should go back?

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Epcot is probably the weirdest of the Disney parks. It’s home to the World Showcase – basically, 11 countries have pavilions dotted around a large lake. You can pick a pearl in Japan, drink tequila in Mexico (and seem some wonderful Coco-inspired folk art), ride Frozen Ever After in Norway, and eat poutine in Canada. Belle is seen in France, Snow White in Germany, Mulan in China.

It also houses Future World, which will test your mettle with rides like Test Track (build a car for the future, and the whip around the track in it!), Soarin’ (actually feel like you’re flying – not for those with a fear of heights), and Mission: Space, which is a NASA shuttle simulator that once made me want to die.

But most of our time was spent in the other end of the park, home to Nemo and friends. The Seas with Nemo & Friends gives you a fun, musical recap of the movie and spits you out into real-life aquarium. Kids who have been kept within strict arm’s reach all week have a bit of room to run and explore as tunnels lead you through the waters of Disney’s many impressive tanks, filled with clown fish like Marlin and Nemo, and blue tangs like Dory, and an awful lot more. Brady loved to spot the turtles, and Jack was more entertained by the human diver who appeared to be doing some caulking. Their dad was happy to see some manatees while the rest of us played spot the shark and count the rays. There’s also Turtle Talk with Crush, which is a fun, interactive show, wherein the cool surfer dude talks directly to the kids in the audience. We had so much fun with the fish, we decided to go for lunch at the Coral Reef. That sounds a bit cruel, doesn’t it? Especially since Sean DID order the mahi mahi. Okay, and I had lobster mac and cheese. The restaurant features an entire glass wall that gives live views of a living coral reef. Each table gets a card (that looks suspiciously like a menu) so you can spot and identify the fish within. I especially loved the unicorn fish, which are totally a thing!

Anyway, Epcot was fun and all, but we called it a day a bit early because Sean and I were taking the two boys to the Art of Animation hotel for a night, to give their parents a break and to have some extra special fun. The Art of Animation is a Disney hotel on the property that has themed rooms – The Little Mermaid for couples or small families, and suites in the style of The Lion King, Finding Nemo, or Cars. The boys being Cars super fans, we of course chose that one. The room is extremely well-appointed; the couch looks like the backseat of a car, and it folds out into a bed (odd how much this impressed the kids); a table likewise hides a Murphy bed, and that was also so much fun they decided to sleep in BOTH – and did actually switch beds during the night. There’s a coffee table that looks like a map of Radiator Springs, and a chair made of tire rubber, with treads, and the lamps look like traffic cones, and the kitchenette looks like those heavy duty tool chests you’d normally see in a garage. But the real fun is outside: the property is dotted with friends: Mater, Doc, Sally, Luigi and Guido, Ramone, and of course Lightning McQueen. The pool is styled after the Cozy Cone Motel, and a giant orange pilon served as our cabana. But further down, the Finding Nemo pool is even bigger, with a splash pad, and all the fish friends you’d expect to see. And even further are Timon & Pumba, Scar, Simba, and Rafiki, and an elephant graveyard to play in, and lastly, a whole bunch of Ariel’s collection, thingamabobs and dinglehoppers galore, plus Ursula, King Triton, and the Little Mermaid herself, all surrounding yet another pool. We swam, of course, in two of the pools and one of the splash pads. We even watched a bit of Up from the pool, which the boys thought was the bee’s knees.

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Oh and Sean and I went to eat at Cinderella’s Royal Table. You know that big ole castle that’s the iconic backdrop to the Magic Kingdom itself? Yeah, we ate there, no big deal. And we met Cinderella! And her friends: Snow White, Aurora, Ariel, and Jasmine, who asked me if Sean was my “diamond in the rough.” I must have looked skeptical because she then offered “…in the scruff?” and she nailed it because Sean never fails to ‘forget’ his razor when we travel. Not only did we feast on The Clock Strikes Midnight chocolate mousse, and a white chocolate glass slipper, and some Francis Ford Coppola merlot, we had a window seat for Disney’s famous fireworks show. #Spoiled.

Hollywood Studios is a Disney park you used to be able to knock out in half a day. If you are a thrill seeker, you might have done the Aerosmith Rock’n’Roller Coaster (soon to be rebranded as something more relevant), and the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, the one guaranteed to feed your nightmares about elevators for months. I am not that person.

If you’re a movie buff, Hollywood Studios is Disney’s attempt to compete with Universal’s backlot. Its main street, Sunset Boulevard, is meant to look like a Hollywood movie set. And if it wasn’t for the throngs of tourists and the dozens of balloon vendors, and that pesky elevator that drops you to your (near) death, it would. Fittingly, it has the Muppets (in 3D!) and Indiana Jones (live in person, and fleeing that damn boulder). Other than that, it was a bit of a dud. But no more!

About six months ago, they opened a brand new “wing” of Hollywood Studios, called Toy Story Land, and you’re not going to guess what’s there! Okay, you totally guessed, didn’t you? It’s part of the Pixar rebrand. Already there: Pixar Place, where you can dance with the Incredibles in Municiberg, and meet Edna Mode at her gallery, and see Sully and Mike Wazowski on the scare floor. If your little ones are more into Frozen, Elsa and Anna are there to lead a sing-a-long celebration, and Olaf is greeting guests at Echo Lake.

But Toy Story Land is where it’s at for Pixar fans. A giant Woody greets guests as they pass his threshold – literally. Many of the figures speak – Woody, Jessie, Rex, Slinky Dog, and Buzz even goes into Spanish mode occasionally. There are three Toy Story rides in this part of the park, but the whole thing is themed out the wazoo to make it feel like you’ve entered Andy’s backyard. Therefore, the toys are huge, and we humans are tiny. Benches are made out of popsicle sticks. Lightbulbs are hung from pencils. Tinker toys hold bits and bobs together. It’s a riot of primary colours, with Easter eggs galore. I never once tired of being there, crowded as it was, because there’s just so much to do and see. Souvenirs are sold out of a Fisher-Price camper van. Mr. Potato Head entertains youngins who are (im)patiently waiting in line. Green army men go marching by, practicing drills, and occasionally forming a drum line.

Toy Story Mania! was actually there last time, and it was an immediate favourite. You sit in a cart which shoots you around to different screened arcade games. You point and shoot, shoot, shoot. I am not bad at shooting but terrible at aiming so I am no good at these games but they are still terribly fun and exciting. Sitting beside Sean, I had less than a tenth of his score. Beside Brady, my 7 year old nephew, well, let’s just say I pulled back just enough to make sure that he won. He’s still boasting. The ride’s queue spits you out in Andy’s bedroom, with his door towering over you, a nearby dresser quite imposing, and even the socket of a plug is impressively large. The imagineers (what Disney calls their ride creators) have done it again: every detail immerses you in something that’s just a little more than a ride.

Alien Swirling Saucers was Jack’s favourite. He was days shy of 5 at Disney World, and he talked this ride up BIG time. Toy Story’s little three-eyed green aliens become chauffeurs in this one; their cart tenuously joined to ours as it whips us around at high speed while The Claw dangles threateningly between us all. Jack squealed in delight as his tiny body smashed around between the hard wall of the ride and the soft wall of his aunt.

Slinky Dog Dash is a roller coaster that talks to you as you ride. It’s a custom thing, meant to look like Andy might have built it himself in his backyard, though with higher safety standards of course. The little guys weren’t keen on riding this one so we let their dad and Sean ride it while we did another round of Mania! and Swirling Saucers (!). Sean is pretty sure we missed out, with theming even more impressive than the Everest roller coaster at Animal Kingdom, where the mountain does look like its namesake, and a giant Yeti takes determined swipes at you. In this case, Jessie, Rex, and even Wheezy get in on the action, and some of it is as much fun for those watching on the ground as for those flying by within Slink’s coils.

Sean and I managed to grab a quick lunch at Woody’s Lunch Box and hustled over to meet the rest of our crew to see the Beauty and the Beast spectacle. The little boys are way too young to know who in the heck Belle and the Beast are, but we were going to eat dinner at the Beast’s castle later in the week, and this was a great way to prepare them for it. It’s a condensed musical, with just the highlights of the story woven in (Belle’s father Maurice gets written out), and the boys sat stock still, enjoying every minute. Afterward, Jack worried that perhaps the Beast would not take kindly to dinner guests. “What if he scares us away?” he asked. “I think he’s a lot nicer now that he’s a married man,” I told him, but having not seen the sequels, I can’t guarantee this is true.

Hollywood Studios is vastly improved by the addition of Toy Story Land, but wait, there’s more. Coming March 31, 2019, is Lightning McQueen’s Racing Academy. The boys love love LOVE Cars. It’s their movie(s). So it’s tragic that we missed this new attraction by a matter of 6 piddly weeks. Disney Land, in California, does a better job of paying tribute to this popular movie, but there are no other traces of it in Florida, alas.

Also coming later this year: Star Wars. Goddammit. We really didn’t time this well, did we? Opening this fall: Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. Like Pandora in Animal Kingdom, it’s going to be a whole themed land, modeled on the planet Batuu. We could see some of the construction and it looks vast and really cool. You’ll be able to visit the Black Spire Outpost, pilot the Millennium Falcon, and get thrown into a battle between the First Order and the Resistance. Unlike Cars, though, Disney seems to know that people simply cannot wait, so there’s just enough to entertain you while leaving you wanting more. Nearly every half hour, there’s a show in the center of the park, either March of the First Order, or a Galactic Spectacular. There’s a Jedi training academy for little kids to wield their light sabers, and a ride called Star Tours: The Adventure Continues that’s a pretty intense jaunt with C3-PO through space, at hyper speed, of course. And then there are characters at the Launch Bay – we saw Chewie, BB-8, and potentially got drafted into the First Order by Kylo Ren, who was quite standoffish in the photos, as you’ll see.

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