Pool Party: Disney 2016- Day 3

Boy oh boy- I can assure you that one of the worst sounds I have heard in a long time was the sound of my alarm going off at 6 am on Thursday! There were tears involved in getting up that day...but luckily the kids didn't cry..
BUT we had a surprise for the girls that morning- We had booked breakfast with the princesses!!! I had asked on facebook if the kids should wear princess dresses or not, and almost everyone said YES! So I packed their Elsa and Anna dresses for them to wear to breakfast. Let's just say...they were not thrilled about my desire for them to wear these itchy dresses to our undisclosed location. Both kids complained. The. Whole. Morning. Looking back...why didn't I just say OK, and let them wear regular clothes? We were all too tired to deal with itchy dresses. I knew this! But my fear was that every other kid at the breakfast would be wearing princess dresses, and if I didn't make the girls wear them, then they would be upset when they didn't have them on. We shall call this "Mom fail #1" for the day. Oh well- lesson learned! And my advice....if your kid doesn't want to wear princess dresses...don't make them! Everyone will be happier if they are comfortable and not complaining. And there were several other kids there not wearing princess dresses, so they would not have felt left out.
Back to our day...
We headed out about 7:30 in our itchy princess dresses to catch the shuttle. This is how Macie Claire felt about getting her day started.

She eventually perked up, but it took a while!
We got to Epcot just in time and got in line for our breakfast reservations. The girls still had no idea what we were doing. I will add- that next time we will just tell them what we are going to do and not make it a surprise. I think that the anticipation of knowing where we were headed would have made it more fun for them. But Brenna finally figured it out as we were standing in line what we were doing, and they were both excited!
As we got in the door, Belle was standing there for a photo op for everyone. The girls informed us that they had already seen her the day before when they stared in her play. But I told them that we didn't have her autograph in our book, so we should probably get it! And I did some serious explaining that since she sees so many kids in one day, that she wouldn't remember them from the day before....

From there they took us to our table and told us we could go to the fruit and muffin bar. Josh and I enjoyed it, but the girls just picked at it a little. We eventually got a plate of eggs, sausages, and bacon. Once again, the girls picked at it. It wasn't great food, but it was good.
As we ate, the princesses came around one by one to sign autographs and pose for a picture. The lighting was awful, so our pictures aren't great. But we did check some princesses off of our list!

Cinderella!

Snow White!

Aurora!

And the highlight for Macie...Ariel!

They even had a "parade" that the kids cold walk around in.

Can't you just feel their excitement??? See it in their eyes?? Me neither.

While I am very glad we went and experienced the princess breakfast- I can safely say that it isn't something we would do a second time if we were to go back. The girls enjoyed it, but not to the extent that I thought they would.
From there, we went back to the hotel to change out of our princess attire. We were then ready to go to Hollywood studios!

Miss Hollywood herself was ready to go! Thanks Aunt Bit for her cute shirt!

Josh had done some research and had us fast passes for the Toy Story ride and the Frozen Sing along show. The Toy story ride was broken down when we got in line, but we waited it out and it turned out to be so much fun! It was a 4D interactive ride, and the kids loved it as much as the adults did!
The Frozen Sing Along show proved to me just how great of a Daddy Josh is! It was a room full of little girls singing their hearts out to "Let it Go!" ok ok- It wasn't just the little girls singing... I may have been joining in too. I can't help it!

The actors were so good.

And at the end of the show- it SNOWED!! Technically it was just bubbles, but it was so neat!

And after a Frozen sing along, the logical thing to do next was meet Olaf!

Warm hugs!!

We rode a few more things at Hollywood and talked with the girls about our afternoon plans. We had booked them an appointment at the Bippity Boppity Boutique for that afternoon. But it was at the one at Downtown Disney, the shopping area. So we would have to leave, go change back into the itchy dress up dresses, and go over to the boutique pretty quickly. We gave them the choice of keeping that appointment or staying at Hollywood studios. They chose the boutique! So we made plans to leave early enough to go do that.
But first there were a few characters there that we hadn't seen yet!

Pluto! He had to hold his ears out so that they didn't cover the girl's faces!

Macie was so excited to see Doc McStuffins! But this is when I realized that my Brenna is growing up... She was a little too "big" to have her picture made with Doc.

The first thing she told me was to send this to Maylee and show her that she met Doc McStuffins!

Brenna did deem Princess Sofia worthy of a picture though!

From there we headed straight to the hotel to get ready for the Boutique! Once again- I had heard that kids needed to wear their princess dresses to the boutique. But this time I did give them the option of wearing them- they decided to take them with us so that they didn't have to wear it there! So we did just that!
We found this in our room upon our return! Our cleaning ladies loved to leave the kids toys in different lay outs! The girls thought it was way too cool. I felt like I was back on a cruise ship!

So we packed up and headed to the front to catch the bus to Disney Springs. This is where the day went south....
We waited for a while and no Disney Springs bus had shown up, and our appointment was approaching. So we decided our best option was to just pay for a taxi to get us there so that we wouldn't be late. Sounds simple enough, right? That's what I thought.
Our taxi drops us off at Disney Springs (aka- Downtown Disney), which was an area I hadn't really studied and knew nothing about. It looked like a big outlet mall. We started walking and looking for a map. None to be found. So we walked some more- except faster because we only had about 15 minutes until our appointment. Finally we stopped and pulled it up on our phones on google maps. It turns out this place is a long strip with no way to get from one side to the other without walking straight through.

See the big parking lot on the top left of the picture? By the West side? That's where our cab dropped us off. See the buildings on the top right of the picture? Past the Marketplace? The furthest one is where the Boutique was located! It was a bazillion degrees. We were already tired and our feet hurt. And we were running late. BUT BY GOLLY THIS IS GONNA BE FUN! My oh my. It wasn't pretty. Our phones were telling us that it was a good 2 miles to the boutique from where we were. Tempers were short. Kids were whining. I considered passing out from the heat and humidity so that I could ride in an AIR CONDITIONED ambulance, but decided the time I would have to lay on the hot concrete wasn't worth it. So I forged on. I only wish I was exaggerating.
But by the grace of the Lord above, we made it! Only a couple minutes late, still married, and with 2 living children. I was sweating so bad that I was 100% miserable and not in the mood for a "fun" experience. Lucky for our kids, we love them. So Josh and I both put on our happy faces and pretended to be excited.
I got the girls dressed in their oh so comfy princess dresses (insert sarcasm) while we were all still pouring sweat. Jealous yet?? But it did brighten our mood when the Fairy God Mother appeared like magic in our dressing room mirror! This was a definite turning point in this experience. And then we waited for it to be our turn...

Smiles had returned to all of our faces by this point. Mainly because our internal temperatures had fallen somewhere below the boiling point.
Finally they called both girls back and led them to their chairs where their princess transformations would soon take place!

Each girl got to pick their hair style from a list. And the styles they chose fit their personalities perfectly. Josh and I got to sit on a couch an watch as they both enjoyed the pampering of getting their hair, makeup, and nails done! It really was the neatest experience!!
Watching these sweet smiles almost made us completely forget the chaos of getting here! I said almost.

See that hair sticking up like Alfalfa from The Little Rascals? That is a good visual of how much GOOP they put on Macie's hair. I've never seen anything like it in my life. I had no idea how I was going to get it all out!

In true Macie fashion, she picked a hair style that included a crown.

Brenna chatted it up with her stylist the entire time. Go figure.

My sweet princess

After they were done with their pampering, the stylist sprinkled magic fairy dust all over their hair. (also known as glitter dust). And then they paraded them around....

And took them into the special photo spot....

To say that they enjoyed this was an understatement!!!! I am so glad that we made this appointment and kept it. If I could give advice on the Bippity Boppity Boutique it would be to book EARLY and make sure you can get into the one inside the Magic Kingdom- which is located inside Cinderella's castle. That would have been ideal. But since we didn't know about it in time, we had to do this one. The experience was the same, I have been told. But it would have been nice to do it inside the Magic Kingdom. My second tip would be to make the appointment for first thing in the day. That way they get to enjoy being "made up" for the entire day as they go around the park. Because we had to take what we could get, ours was at 3:30 in the afternoon. So they really didn't get to enjoy it as much as I would have liked for the price we paid. Yes- it is a hit to the ole' pocket book. But it is so worth it to watch them be pampered! I would cut somewhere else to do this. It's kind of a once in a lifetime thing. I don't think we would do it a second time, just because they have already experienced it. But I do think that every little girl that goes to Disney should get to experience it at least once!!
Our princesses and their Prince Charming!

Princess close-ups:

I would expect nothing less than for Brenna Grace to choose a hair style that involved crazy hair colors. The teenage years frighten me with this one, y'all.

See how shinny her hair is?? GOOP! So. Much. GOOP! But I honestly don't know how they would have done it otherwise. And it did look SO adorable on her!

From there we decided that we would cancel our reservations for dinner that we had and get reservations at a restaurant in Disney Springs since we were already there (and did I mention hot and tired? Yes? Just checking!)
So we made reservations at Paradiso 37, Taste of the Americas. It was on the water, and looked like a neat atmosphere. In my opinion, it was "ok". Not bad but not amazing either. I think my opinion of it had something to do with it not being very cool inside and the sun shining in my eyes through the whole meal. Man- I sound like I had a horrible time... I really didn't! But after you put your feet and legs through 8+ miles a day for 2 days in the June heat, you need simple things like good air conditioning to fully enjoy a meal! We were all just thankful to be sitting down and relaxing.
We discussed the remainder of the night while we were sitting at dinner. I think it was a unanimous vote to call it a day in the theme park department. We just needed some DOWN time if we had any desire to keep going the next day. So we voted to spend some time in the hotel pool that evening!
Now- here is why I suggested that you make your Boutique appointment for early in the day.... we spent money on this experience (which I don't regret at all!!) and 3 hours later, they were about to jump in the pool and wash it all out. Poor planning on our part. But the thought of floating in the pool and relaxing for a while made me totally ok with it!
The kids had seen the pool on the day we got there, and had wanted to go down the slide they saw since. And my feet and legs were very happy with me for the break!