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.)