Back at it again with another theme! We had so much fun with our Christmas Day quarantine theme that I’ve made a list of other days for us to enjoy between now and whenever we are able to get back to a new normal.
Since the beginning of the year, we have been counting down the days until our next Disney World vacation scheduled for the first week of June, following my cousin’s wedding in south Florida. At the beginning of the pandemic, we felt like we may still have enough time for things to settle and for business to resume as usual. However, two weeks ago, we decided it was going to be best to cancel the trip. Even if Disney does reopen by then, they are going to be taking some of their own precautions with limited entry and a progressive opening i.e. not all parks will open at the same time and not all rides will be open at first. I’m assuming this is to control crowds and transition in their staff. I’ve also seen where Disney plans to have virtual check ins for rides. So when we go back we want to be sure we can experience the full magic.
With all of that being said, I decided to bring Disney World to us for a day! Being Disney fans, we have plenty of things around the house like stuffed animals, magic bands, ears and more to help pull together the theme. During nap time the day before our Disney day, I compiled my ride links as well as printed off and gathered our needed craft supplies (everything is linked below). Then once the girls went to bed, I transformed our family room into all things Disney and gathered our breakfast items on the kitchen counter. Last year, I found a cute ‘Best Day Ever’ banner in the dollar section at Target that I packed for our Disney trip last October but forgot to hang it in our hotel room. So obviously this was the perfect opportunity to use it … come to find that it said ‘Best Day Er’ … so I removed the ‘er’ and just hung the ‘Best Day’ part. It’s the thought that counts, right?
Here You Leave Today and Enter the World of Yesterday, Tomorrow and Fantasy
BREAKFAST
We don’t own the waffle maker that makes the same Mickey waffles as the parks, so we bought the Mickey Eggo waffles to have instead. I also had bought a Mickey silicone mold during a past vacation that we used to make Mickey blueberry muffins. And of course I served them on special plates!
What’s the most memorable part of walking into Magic Kingdom? Cinderella’s Castle! So I had a picture of the castle on the TV and park music playing for the girls when they woke up as well as a station with magic bands and Minnie Mouse ears. Morgan slept a little later than Laney so she and I had our own little dance party in the family room before we made breakfast with sissy. I also found a crossword puzzle on Pinterest for me to do with my coffee while the girls ate breakfast and watched shows on Disney+. It’s a little outdated now but was still fun to do!
CRAFT TIME
While I cleaned up from breakfast, Morgan and Laney colored some of the coloring sheets I had printed out for them.
Our first craft for the day was a 3D Pascal. Tangled has been a recent favorite in our house. The girls each colored their Pascal a shade of green and I helped them cut and paste the pieces together. They turned out so cute! I still have them hanging out in my faux elephant eucalyptus bouquet on my kitchen table.
RIDES: MAGIC KINGDOM
I’ve never really understood why people take the time to record videos of entire rides rather than just enjoying them through their own eyes rather than through a screen, but right now I’m so thankful for everyone who has ever done this because it allowed us to virtually go on these rides!
Before lunch, we decided to ride some rides! First up, Goofy’s Barnstormer and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh! Laney had her magic band on and ready, so I told her to start the ride she had to go tap her magic band on the scanner. For each ride, she loved running up to the fireplace where I had the scanner picture (below) hung to tap her band. I’d say the ride both girls enjoyed the most was Splash Mountain, which is one of my favorite rides. Morgan became my own personal splash zone when she sneezed on me twice after the ride was over. Zip-a-dee-doo-dah!
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Undersea Adventure
Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin
LUNCH
For lunch, I made the girls Mickey shaped peanut butter sandwiches … because the fun of Disney is eating all things shaped like Mickey, am I right?! When I was a kid, my family went to Disney World every year and on our Magic Kingdom day, we would eat lunch at Pinocchio’s, the quick service restaurant right beside It’s a Small World. I would get the kids peanut butter & jelly sandwich (back when they used to actually make them before Uncrustables were a thing) with Chip & Dale potato chips and we would try to sit at a table in the windows facing down towards the ride, as seen in the middle picture.
RIDES: EPCOT
I planned for us to do more at Epcot after nap time, but we ran out of time. Laney has recently asked to ride more rides so we will definitely be doing that soon. The only Epcot ride we did watch was Frozen Ever After because Frozen is Laney’s absolute favorite. We can’t wait for the new Moana attraction to open since that is Morgan’s favorite!
Though we didn’t ‘venture to’ Animal Kingdom nor Hollywood Studios, I have linked some of those rides as well in case you want to ‘park hop’.
Journey into Imagination with Figment
RIDES: ANIMAL KINGDOM
Festival of the Lion (not a ride but my favorite show!)
RIDES: HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS
Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway
Star Wars Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run
Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance
CRAFT TIME
After naps, we did one other craft: Shadow Spray Painting. For this activity, you’ll need card stock, paint, a spray bottle, water, pins and a box. I printed a silhouette on card stock of both Mickey and Minnie. Then, I pinned a piece of white card stock to the back of a cardboard box and then carefully pinned the silhouette on top of the white piece. I then mixed a little squirt of red paint with water and carefully shook it up. The girls then took turns spray painting. This craft is done and over very quickly, so next time I would have several spray stations set up. Morgan was fine to stop when I told her to once she had covered the paper in about 4 or 5 squirts. Laney got squirt crazy and saturated the paper, another reason why I chose to use a thicker paper like card stock. She was having too much fun spraying even after I told her she had plenty of paint on her paper. As you can see, Laney’s Minnie Mouse was almost lost because of all of the paint that dripped down, however, Morgan’s Mickey is visible due to less water and paint.
DINNER
I didn’t have a whole lot of time to prep a true Disney themed dinner, but there are a ton of park restaurant recipes circulating right now in order to do so. But we had pizza in the freezer and we LOVE Via Napoli in Italy at Epcot so I went with that. Yum!
FIREWORKS
The perfect end to any day at Disney is fireworks! Like the ride links, there are plenty of 
castle shows and fireworks shows to be found so here are several to enjoy! We also enjoyed Mickey ice cream sandwiches that Brad had brought home from a recent trip to the grocery store.
A Frozen Holiday Wish (Magic Kingdom)
Happily Ever After Fireworks Show (Magic Kingdom)
Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular (Hollywood Studios)
Epcot Forever (Epcot)
So until we can get back to a new normal, let’s all stay positive, get creative and make the most of this because we are all in this together.
There’s a great big beautiful tomorrow and tomorrow’s just a dream away.
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