When Allen asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday, I of course chose Disney World. Since we go so frequently, we try to do something different during each trip, and we knocked out a few unique experiences over this particular weekend.
We made reservations to stay at Port Orleans – Riverside, as we had never stayed there before. As always, using our Annual Passes got us a great deal!
Allen can schmooze with the best of them, so upon checking in on Friday afternoon, he mentioned we were there to celebrate my birthday – and voila! They upgraded us to a Royal Guest Room.
Now, I’m sure they mostly reserve these upgrades for children, because let’s face it: this room was insanely themed to Disney princesses. There was even a backstory! Ahem: Princess Tiana had invited all of her princess friends to join her in New Orleans, and they left behind some of their most prized possessions (I’m paraphrasing). There were magical touches throughout the entire room, including the piece de resistance: a light-up headboard (not kidding).
One of the things I was most looking forward to while staying at Port Orleans was taking the unique transportation from the resort. Once we got settled into the princess room, we took a boat to Disney Springs from Port Orleans – French Quarter (because obviously we had to grab some beignets before doing anything else).
Once at Disney Springs, we were able to peruse the new Town Center area, which is basically like a fancy mall, but a fancy mall at Disney is better than a fancy mall just about anywhere else. We had a delicious dinner at D-Luxe Burger and I grabbed a free birthday cupcake at Sprinkles.
We returned to the resort that night and walked around a bit, but headed to bed early, since we had breakfast reservations at Be Our Guest the next morning.
Anyone who knows me, knows that I am not a morning person. It takes something significant to get me out of bed on the weekends, and on my birthday, no less. Well, I’d say a chance to get into Magic Kingdom before rope drop is as good a reason as any!
We were able to catch the bus from the resort at 7:30 that morning, which gave us ample time to make our 8:25 reservation. (“Catching” might have included a bit of running when we saw the MK bus heading our way….)
When I was doing research before our trip, I learned that Early Morning Magic was also occurring that morning. This turned out to be a huge advantage for us, because several of the rides were open for guests! We took several (near-empty) photos of Main Street and Cinderella’s Castle, and then hopped onto multiple rides before and after our reservation, including the notoriously long-lined Peter Pan’s Flight and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train.
Because we were at the park so early, we were able to get into even more rides with no wait time. Now that I’ve seen how the other (early) half lives, it will definitely be harder in the future to wait a significant amount of time for a ride (basically, like, 20 minutes). It was a great feeling, watching the park fill up and knowing that I was able to do everything I wanted before noon. It was a magical morning indeed!
I’m going to gloss over much of the rest of the day, since Allen covered it in detail in a prior blog post, but let me recap: fun day, awesome friends, great food, and feeling very loved.
We enjoyed the rest of the evening at the resort, by hanging at the pool bar and partaking in another round of beignets (what? It was my birthday!). I also showed off the princess room to our friends, who also marveled in the intricate details (hence why we’re friends).
The next morning, Allen and I ate breakfast at the resort, and were able to take a few more fun photos. I was sad to leave – but I would definitely stay at the resort again (princess room or no)!
Till next time!
Whittaker's Wondrous World 
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