Walt Disney World Winter Vacation: 2019 (Part 2)

(This post will be picking up where Part 1 left off. Just a reminder, there are two dolls who are coauthoring this post with me and their words have been labeled and color coded to avoid confusion over who is speaking.)

Treesa: The day after I got sick, we went to Disney's Animal Kingdom park. Although the park is known for its live animals, Stormy didn't like the idea of getting too close to the windows of the animal enclosures. Gala didn't seem to mind though.

Gala: Treesa took a bunch of pictures.

Treesa: Unfortunately, this is the only photo of Gala with an animal that turned out at all, due to lighting conditions and reflection. Gala did say no to getting her picture taken with any of the local lizards.

Treesa: These little guys were all over the parks, sunning themselves in any convenient spot.

Gala: I didn't want a lizard jumping on me.

Treesa: I was pretty sure that wouldn't happen. But I could see that Gala was scared, so I didn't push her too much about posing for a photo.

Treesa: This picture of Gala on top of a rock wall was also taken at Animal Kingdom park. Stormy, meanwhile, preferred getting her picture taken with some of the flowers that made up a portion of the park's landscaping.

Stormy: I liked the pretty flowers.

Treesa: And here's a photo of a 'butterfly crossing sign we saw in the park.

Gala: But we didn't see any butterflies.

Treesa: I think it was the wrong time of year for them. Anyway, the day after that, which happened to be my birthday, was spent at Magic Kingdom park. We visited a lot of the classic attractions, like Pirates Of The Caribbean.

Stormy: The pirate ride was scary. There were skeleton pirates, and canons shooting, and at the end the buildings were all on fire.

Treesa: We also rode on the Jungle Cruise, only it had been given a holiday overlay and was called the Jingle Cruise. And here's a photo from the preshow of another classic Disney attraction, Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room

Gala (singing): All the birds sing words and the flowers too,

Treesa: It's 'and the flowers croon', Gala. Croon is another word for sing.

Gala: Stormy got scared when the building came to life.

Treesa: Gala means the part of the show when the tiki idols sing. I'll admit, the Enchanted Tiki Room finale may be a little intense for youngsters.

Stormy: But I liked the singing birds part.

Treesa: To get back to the trip, this next set of photos was taken at the Swiss Family Treehouse attraction.

Gala: There were lots of steps. It took Treesa a long time to walk up all of them.

Treesa: Okay, Gala. I know I need to get in better shape. But we need to finish writing about the trip right now.

Treesa: Here's a photo of the Cinderella fountain at Magic Kingdom park.

Treesa: And speaking of fountains, here's a picture of another fountain that we saw the next day at Epcot. If you look closely, there's a stream of water shooting out from one of the 'launching pads'.

Gala: The water kept jumping back and forth! It was really cool.

Treesa: Here are a few more photos of Stormy posing with some flowers. This shot was taken at the United Kingdom pavilion in Epcot's World Showcase.

Treesa: And this photo is from Epcot's China pavilion. Unfortunately, that's the last photo I have with Stormy or Gala in it. Like I said at the beginning, it was difficult finding photo ops for dolls their size. Also, I've noticed that when I'm on vacation I often forget to take pictures. Oh sure, I'll remember to drag a camera around with me day after day. But then I get so busy trying to make the most of the trip that the thought of stopping to take pictures completely slips my mind. Not to mention the Disney parks have a 'no flash photography' rule for many of their indoor attractions.

I really wanted to get a picture of Gala and Stormy at Be Our Guest Restaurant. (My family had breakfast reservations there the day before we were scheduled to fly home.) I even packed a table setting from the discontinued Disney Happy Places line for the dolls to share. Unfortunately it was so dark inside the restaurant that I could barely see what I was eating.

Gala: And the fruit bowl had lots of melon in it. Treesa doesn't like melon.

Stormy: But all the food smelled good.

Treesa: Anyway, I guess that about wraps it up. We got back home a week and a half before Christmas. It was a nice vacation overall, though the first several days it felt like my family and I were running around so much trying to see everything that I wasn't getting the time to enjoy anything. I was so exhausted in the evenings that I skipped a lot of the nighttime light shows and fireworks.

Gala: But we saw the show where the elves rescued Santa!

Treesa: That was Jingle Bell Jingle Bam at Hollywood Studios park, and I'll admit I enjoyed that one. Still, it wasn't quite the vacation I'd imagined when we first booked the tickets at the beginning of the year.

Stormy: Me either, too many scary things.

Treesa: I'm sorry, Stormy. But think of it this way. If you hadn't gone with me, you would've wondered what you missed out on.

Anyway, I think it's past time that I got this posted. Goodbye for now.

Signed, Treesa (and Gala and Stormy)

Walt Disney World Winter Vacation: 2019 (Part 1)

Hello friends and visitors. It's Treesa again. Back in December of last year, I took a roughly week long trip with some family members to Walt Disney World resort in Florida. I knew I wanted to take some photos for the blog while I was down there. However, I've learned a few things about traveling with dolls since I first started blogging. For example, when I brought Odessa with me to Ocean City, New Jersey back in 2018, the poor doll spent most of the vacation stuck in the hotel room, alone. This experience made me realize that, on longer trips at least, it might be a good idea for me to travel with more than one doll. That way they can keep each other company if I'm not around.

I decided to bring two of my Kelly-sized dolls with me to Walt Disney World, thinking that they'd be easier to tote around than my larger dolls. However, it turned out that finding photo ops for such small dolls was a lot harder than I realized. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, let me introduce you to my two doll traveling companions. They're going to be helping me write this post, with their words labeled and color coded so that you readers know who is speaking.

Treesa: This is Gala.

Gala: Hi!
 

Treesa: Gala is a redressed Fruitastic Happy Apple Marisa doll by Mattel. This explains why I named her after a type of apple. If you're familiar with the original outfits from the Fruitastic line, this also explains why I color coded her words in green. Gala's rather adventurous, so I thought she'd enjoy getting out of the house and touring 'The World', as some books refer to the Walt Disney World resort.

Gala: We went on lots of rides, and saw lots of shows, and Treesa went shopping a lot. She bought keychains and pins and...

Treesa: Okay, Gala. I think they get the idea, and I still have to introduce the other doll who came with us.

Treesa: This Funville Sparkle Girlz doll with pale blue hair is named Stormy Weather. Would you like to say hello Stormy?

Stormy: (quietly) Hello.

Treesa: Stormy's a little shy, but when she found out I was going to Walt Disney World she begged to come along.

Stormy: I wanted to see Elsa.

Treesa: Stormy is a huge Elsa fan. She has a coronation Elsa figurine that she carries around with her everywhere she goes.

Stormy: I took Queen Elsa to Disney World, but we didn't see the real Elsa.

Gala: We saw Cinderella's stepsisters on the merry-go-round!

Treesa: Gala means the Prince Charming Regal Carrousel in Fantasyland. One of the official Disney photographers was taking pictures of Anastasia and Drizella on the carousel horses. Speaking of pictures, let's take a look at the photos I took on the trip.

Treesa: This picture was taken on the plane as we were approaching Florida. I was trying to photograph some interesting looking cloud formations with Stormy beside the window.

Stormy: The clouds were really puffy and lumpy. Treesa thought they looked like snowdrifts.

Treesa: I thought it would be fun to have Stormy pose with her arm stretched out towards the window, like she was Elsa and the clouds represented Elsa's ice magic. Unfortunately, my camera was having trouble with focusing and with the low light conditions inside the plane. This was the best shot I was able to get, and by the time I took it the cloud formations were nearly gone.

The next day was spent at Disney's Hollywood Studios park. I wanted Gala and Stormy to see as much as possible, so they rode around in my fanny pack with the zipper slightly open.

Gala: So we could peek out but nobody could see us.

Treesa: The first area of the park we checked out was Toy Story Land. Gala and Stormy seemed to like the idea of a place that showed humans what it was like to be toy-sized.

Gala: But Stormy got dizzy on the spinning spaceships ride.

Treesa: Gala means the Alien Swirling Saucers. I got a little off-balance on that one myself. I think I liked the Fantasyland Mad Tea Party attraction at Magic Kingdom park a little better. Riders on that one have a bit of control over the spinning.

Anyway, here's Gala standing in one of the giant Tinkertoy pieces at Toy Story Land.

Treesa: And here she is on a giant domino bench.

Gala: We watched the green army men play drums too! They threw the drumsticks up in the air!

Treesa: There were other things we checked out while we were at Hollywood Studios park. We walked around the then new Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge area. If the designers were going for a fully immersive environment, they nailed it. Gala and Stormy actually seemed a little nervous when they saw stormtroopers walking around and questioning park guests. I think The Voyage Of The Little Mermaid live show that we saw next was a little more their speed.

Gala: No it wasn't! It was too fast! It kept fast-forwarding stuff! I didn't like it.

Treesa: I agree with Gala that the show cut down the story quite a bit. But I understand why it was presented that way. If the show had gone through the whole movie in real-time it would've been so long that park guests would've been waiting forever to get in. However I'll admit, it wasn't one of my favorite live shows that we saw on the trip.

Stormy: I liked the bubbles.

Gala (to Stormy): You were scared of the sea witch.

Treesa: Our next stop was the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular. Gala thought it was very exciting, and a little scary.

Gala: Stormy thought it was a lot scary.

Stormy: There were big fires, and loud booms, and the man almost got squished with a big rock!

Treesa: It's okay, Stormy. Remember what I told you? The people who do the show want it to look dangerous, but they're really very careful to make sure everybody stays safe. Okay?

(Stormy nods)

Treesa: We actually didn't get to see as much of the park as we wanted to that day, because I got sick and threw up right after lunch. My brother thinks it was food poisoning. But I felt better later that evening, and made it back to the park in time to get a seat for Fantasmic. My family and I were staying 'on property' at Disney's Pop Century resort hotel, and we had park hopper passes for the trip. So I was able to take the Disney Skyliner back to the hotel and rest awhile before rejoining my family at Hollywood Studios park. The photo below shows the Skyliner in action. It was taken at Pop Century, but on a different day.

Treesa: I'll admit, when I first found out about the Skyliner I was a little nervous about trying it. But taking the Skyliner was so much more convenient than taking the buses, even though it did get a little chilly up there in the sky gondolas.

Stormy: I didn't like when we flew over the lake. We saw alligator signs near the lake at the hotel.

Treesa: I tried to tell Stormy that the Skyliner is safe. But then she overheard other members of my family talking about an accident that had happened when the Skyliner first opened and she got nervous.

(Stay tuned for Part 2.)