My Favorite Disney Memory by Bird

Welcome to our special “Disney Memories Week and Giveaway”! This week, while I’m on vacation, we are celebrating Disney’s year long “Let the Memories Begin” theme: each day, one of our great writers will share a favorite Disney memory….and will provide you with a chance to win a $50 Disney gift card. From now until Sunday July 10, you will have up to 2 chances to enter each day by commenting on the blog post and/or our Facebook page.  The more days/times you comment, the more chances you have to win. (But please, to be fair to everyone: only ONE blog entry and ONE Facebook entry per person per day…)

Please note: ONE winner will be selected from all who enter by midnight ET, on Sunday, July 10.

And welcome also to our newest writer, Bird, also known on her blog as DisneyBird. We are so thrilled to have her join us, and share as her first official post, such a great memory! 🙂

And now, Let the Memories Begin!

Having just returned from Walt Disney World only a month ago, I have so many fresh, vivid memories to choose from. This was a very difficult task to pick just one. Picking a ‘favorite’ was practically impossible! While I can’t say for sure which of the many special moments was a true ‘favorite’, I can tell you that this one ranks right up there with the best of them!My little guy, Bubby, is two years old. Some thought he was a bit too young to fully understand going to Disney and said he’d forget two days after we’d return, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to take him! When we finally sprung the news on the kids that we were going to Disney, it took a little explaining to Bubby that we’d be flying on a plane to go see all his favorite Disney Junior pals. It wasn’t long before he got it though. I still remember sitting in a restaurant on Mother’s Day and the waitress come up to check on us… Bubby, out of nowhere, tells her (and all those in close proximity to us) that he was “going on a plane to go see Mickey Mouse!” In days following he’d tell everyone he encountered, on his own, without any prompts from us either… And who said he didn’t understand it?!

We arrived on a Saturday. We met some characters here and there, around Epcot… on Main Street. We even had a breakfast at Chef Mickey’s Tuesday morning. I thought for sure he’d be ecstatic meeting Mickey there in the restaurant, right at our own table. To be honest though, he didn’t want anything to do with him. Don’t get me wrong, he had fun. He really enjoyed seeing Pluto, but the long awaited meeting with Mickey wasn’t what I had hoped it was going to be.

Later that very evening the kids and I had a last minute reservation at Tony’s Town Square Restaurant, which is where they’ve now moved the Meet & Greets with the Princesses and Mickey & Minnie. Having shown up for our reservation a bit early, but not early enough to really venture off we decided to wait the 20 minutes to go ahead and visit Mickey & Minnie again. You know, since he was off work from Chef Mickey’s now and would probably be out of his chef attire (wink, wink).

The wait was posted at a respectable 20 minutes. We’d seen it as low as 5 minutes and as high as 45 minutes at times. Mind you, our reservation wasn’t until 8:45pm, so it was already past 8pm and it had been a long day. Patience should have been in short supply by now, but my kids must have been ‘pixie dusted’ because they were doing pretty good at keeping themselves entertained as we waited outside one door, were past the door, only to realize it was another holding room and not quite Mickey yet, and then to another room, and finally to Mickey’s area.

When we finally made it to Mickey’s room, we were the last in with a few families ahead of us. We could see Mickey as soon as we walked in and Bubby’s smile seemed to get a bit bigger. Mickey & Minnie were taking their time with each family, which was just fine with me. This only means they’d spend some great time with my family as well. As we waited and only seemed to inch closer though, Bubby began to get more excited. Aside from Donald and Pluto, Bubby had more preferred the characters from a distance, and after the meeting with Mickey that morning was a bit of a letdown, I wasn’t expecting much here. We rounded the banister and had one family visiting with M&M and one in front of us. I tried keeping the kids occupied a bit longer by taking photos with the “Magician Mickey prop” while we waited.

All of a sudden Bubby just couldn’t wait to see Mickey any longer. He was giggling and yelling for Mickey, trying to get his attention. I was completely surprised by this. I tried and tried to get him to calm down. He wasn’t crying or anything just very excited and I didn’t want him intruding on another family’s time. It was taking all I had to keep him back. Thankfully there’s a little bit of a wall there, or he may have flown right into the other family’s photo! The family in front of us was getting a big kick out him (and me trying to contain his excitement, too, I’m sure). As the folks were wrapping things up, the family in front of us told me to go ahead. “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it,” I’d told them, “we could wait.” They laughed out loud at that! They thought it was adorable how ecstatic he seemed to be, and insisted that since they’re children were older they could wait a few more minutes. Their kids even encouraged us to go ahead! I was blown away by their generosity!

Just as I thought, once we were up Bubby got shy. He didn’t run to Mickey as he’d made out that he would only minutes before. Instead, he wanted to be held. Big sister went ahead. She had her moment with the famous duo as we inched closer. Bug introduced her little brother to Mickey and he could tell he had a shy one on his hands. He started with a little tickle and the wall came tumbling down. To hear my son giggle like that, and see this huge smile on his face… I’ll never forget it. It honestly brings a tear as I write this. He just laughed and laughed. That smile could have gone on for daayyys!!

I’m not sure what the difference was from that morning to that evening, but this was the reaction I was expecting. This was the moment I was waiting to see. After all the times he’d told everyone we encountered that he’d be meeting his pal Mickey, I could only picture it in my head. Never did that picture turn out as great as these!

Question 1 (answer below in the comment section): Tell us in the comment section below, about your child’s best reaction to a character! Don’t have kids? Tell us which characters you’ve encountered instead. I can’t wait to hear all about them!

Question 2 (answer on our Facebook page): Tell us which character you’d most like to visit on your next trip to Disney and how long you’d be willing to wait to meet them.

Want help planning your Disney vacation? Find out how the FREE services of a Disney World travel agent can make it all simple…and save you time and money too!

Brittiany, better known through the blogosphere as Bird, is happily married to her best friend, “Boo”. They have two beautiful children- daughter “Bug”, age 7, and son “Bubby”, age 2. They live in Kentucky and aren’t able to make it to Disney as often as they’d like. That doesn’t keep them from believing in the Disney Magic though! While she may not always be planning her own trip, she’s always planning one. Bird enjoys helping others have an amazing, yet affordable time in Disney without missing out on anything! She hopes to one day work for Disney in some aspect. With Walt’s encouragement, “All your dreams can come true if you have the courage to pursue them” she hopes to make that dream a reality. In the meantime, she is happy helping others through the tips, information and reviews she shares on her blog, DisneyBird.