The Happiest Place on Earth

As many of you may know, "The Happiest Place on Earth" is...Disneyworld!!! Is this true? No. But should I use this phrase to describe, for example, my ridiculously comfy bed with a good book and some chocolate sitting next to it, I have no doubt that I would be quickly set upon by Disney's trademark infringement lawyers. Setting the misleading advertising aside, (Florida was cold, I don't like being cold, ergo Disneyworld, being in Florida, is not the happiest place on earth) let me tell you about our trip.

We went to St. Augustine, billed as the oldest city in North America. It was very historical--the city includes the oldest fort, oldest house, oldest schoolhouse, etc. But did we visit any of these? No. We went to a chocolate factory instead. Our guide burst in singing "Come with me, and you'll be, in a world of pure imagination," etc., a la Willy Wonka, which is always a good sign that the chocolate tour will be good.

Chocolate Pretzel Machine

Also we got to wear hair nets.

We forgot to take them off after the tour and wandered around the gift shop for a little while with them on. Well, we are a good-looking family--we can pull off any look, right?

After St. Augustine, we went to Orlando. Austin landed us in the Waldorf Astoria, so it was a luxurious vacation.

This is the only picture we have of the room, but trust me, it was really fancy. I loved getting room service and made sure to get--wait for it--the Waldorf salad. We went swimming in the huge pool/lazy river, even though it was hovering around 50 outside (Austin made us!), and the breakfast buffet included an elaborately carved watermelon, so as you can tell, we were living in the lap of luxury.

As far as Disneyworld went, I made us get there before the park actually opened in the morning, so we were first in line to get in on our first day (Yes, I was a little excited). The crowds were slim because it was a chilly morning so we ended up completing most of my intensive 2 day touring plan in about 3 hours. We then went back to the Waldorf and took naps. It was awesome.

This is a picture of us after we sneaked into the park before it opened the second day. There was a line for people with breakfast reservations to go in early, and we had breakfast reservations (in Cinderella's Castle!) but they weren't for until a couple hours after the park opened. Should we have gone in? Well they didn't ask us what time our reservations were for and we breezed through the line. We wandered the empty streets of Disneyworld and gazed at the Saturday holiday crowds massing outside the ropes  until a uniformed man came up to us and asked if we had breakfast reservations. When we said yes, he asked what time they were for. Ummm....

It turns out, he was just checking to see if we had enough time to go meet the princesses! Since it was one thing I hadn't yet checked off my touring plan, we of course agreed and Sammy got to spend 10 minutes with Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Belle by herself, twirling around and soaking up the princess overload.

I feel that the moral of this story isn't what it could be, (Sneak into Disneyworld, get invited to do cool things!) but we all lived happily ever after, so it's still a good story. We probably won't go back to Disneyworld for a while, but it was definitely a magical vacation.