"Travel Tuesdays"... Disney World Day 2

Day 2 of our trip to Walt Disney World was definitely my favorite. That's not to say that the other days were bad, it's just that there were at least 3 really, really fantastic things about this day. 1) Eliana still had no clue that we were near Cinderella's Castle. For those of you who don't know, she had been asking to go to Cinderella's castle since she was old enough to talk. Every time a Disney show or movie came on that showed the castle, she asked to go. She even started saying, "I want to go there sometime, but it's too far away. Maybe on Tuesday or Friday." We even managed to keep her from seeing it when we had a window seat at Chef Mickey's the night before with a beautiful view of the castle. When you first walk into the Magic Kingdom, you still can't see the castle. Below are the series of pictures that we took showing Eliana's expressions once she figured out where we were. She literally said, "It's Cinderella's Castle. It's Cinderella's Castle! IT'S CINDERELLA'S CASTLE!" It was if she couldn't believe we were finally there. We caught the moment on video, but I'm still waiting for my sweet hubby to edit it for me.

"Hey, Ellie, what's that?"

"It's Cinderella's Castle."

"It's Cinderella's Castle!"

"It's CINDERELLA'S CASTLE!!!"

"Can we go there?"

At this point, we let her out of her stroller and told her to run. Those tiny little legs ran all the way from the front of Main St. to the castle. This is not a short distance. We were impressed!

Which brings me to #2 on my list of why this day was so fantastic. Eliana got to meet the first set of princesses for the trip (Cinderella and Rapunzel). She was in awe, and Mommy and Daddy may have teared up a bit (which may or may not be an understatement).

We quickly discovered that Eliana's favorite ride was actually the Carousel. 

Enchanted Tales with Belle was quite neat, but the magical mirror at the beginning scared Ellie, so she was on edge the rest of the time.

Riding the Winnie the Pooh ride. 

Lunch at Be Our Guest was delicious! Here's a tip...keep up-to-date with what the lunch policy is for this restaurant before your trip. Sometimes you can wait in stand-by or you can have a FastPass, sometimes you have to have a FastPass, and you can even place your order ahead of time. Tip: Place your food order ahead of time! We didn't, but the line was much shorter for those that did. Most of the time you can try to get FastPasses for lunch 28 days before your intended visit date. This FastPass doesn't count against your other 3. Oh, and another tip: "Try the grey stuff, it's delicious. Don't believe me, ask the dishes!" Seriously though, it's good stuff.

The child loved the Carousel. 

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the #3 reason why this day was so fantastic. We ate dinner at O'Hana, which was absolutely our favorite meal of the entire trip! O'Hana is located at the Polynesian Resort, and reservations are very hard to come by (if you want to go be sure to book it 180 days before the start of your trip). We tried to find an open reservation to eat there again during our trip (yes, it was that good), but we never got them. 

O'Hana is a family-style restaurant meaning they bring big portions of the appetizers and sides for everyone at your table to split. The chicken wing appetizer and noodles were unbelievably good! They carry around big skewers of various meats for you to eat as much of as you want. Words cannot describe this food. It was so delicious! If you like bread pudding, they serve a banana bread pudding which is apparently a crowd favorite (too bad for me I don't like bread pudding at all, but every one else in our party loved it!). Needless to say, Tanner has already said that our next trip will consist of multiple O'Hana trips (if we can snag reservations). 

Thankfully, my mom was with us to help watch Eliana. Mommy & Daddy got to sneak out the night before during Extra Magic Hours (until 2 AM) for Daddy's first time to the Magic Kingdom! If you have kids, and you have a babysitter, this was absolutely the best time to ride things. We didn't have to wait for anything except Peter Pan! It gave us a chance to ride things we knew Ellie wouldn't want to ride, so we had more time to do the things she wanted to do. It also gave us a chance to ride some of the rides we wanted to check out to see if they might scare her. Seriously, if you can go during these late night hours, definitely try to do it!