May 7, 2011

• Disney in the Dark

   It was night time on our second day. After a refreshing recharge (and change of clothes) in our room, we headed back out. At night, they shine different colors of lights on the castle so that sometimes it is purple, sometimes pink, sometimes other colors.

   

           

   

  What drew us from our cozy hotel lair? We had dinner reservations at Mom’s favorite Disney restaurant, Ohana!

  

   

  Ohana, as you probably could guess from the fact we are wearing leis, is a Polynesian place. It was one of the most interesting restaurants I’ve gone to. There is no menu. Your only options are “Yes, thank you,” “More, please,” or “No, thanks.”  First, they brought us some bread (no butter) which tasted slightly of pineapple. We ordered our drinks (sodas), and they brought us salad–just greens tossed in a dressing. It was simple and tasty. (Good thing, too, as we also had neither salt nor pepper.)  After the salad, they brought out pork dumplings with a sweet and sour sauce and chicken wings/little legs.

  

  They were awfully good. The next course arrived. This appeared to be ramen noodles with broccoli and green beans. Once again, very tasty.

  

   

  And then, the main course–insane amounts of meat! They cooked the meat on skewers and brought them around. There were four choices: pork, chicken, beef, and shrimp. And they were perfectly seasoned!

  

   I was pretty sure I didn’t care about the shrimp, and I ate one and confirmed my suspicions. I tried the other three, and I thought that chicken would be my favorite, until I had the beef. Then I had the pork. And I had more pork. And a little more…

  But I had to save room for dessert. It may sound “iffy,” but OH MY!  It was pineapple bread pudding topped with bananas, caramel sauce, and ice cream. YUM!!

   

  

   

  Now, what would a Polynesian restaurant be without music? We had a floor show where a Hawaiian woman would come out with her ukelele and play and sing and do fun stuff with the kids, like having kids push coconuts around the restaurant with brooms or learn how to hula. And we got leis. Leis for days…

   

    

   

  After our supper, we decided to take advantage of The Magic Kingdom’s midnight closing time. We stood at the monorail gate and chatted, and all of a sudden, we heard a CLUNK. There is nothing louder than the sound of a child’s head hitting concrete at 10:30 at night. A little girl had been sitting/messing around on the gate and fell off backwards. OUCH! I hope that she was okay. 

  When we got off the monorail, Mom was delighted to see that we had stumbled upon the Parade of the Seven Seas. She said that it had been years and years since she last saw it. The “parade” is a line of animated lights in the lagoon in between EPCOT and Magic Kingdom. The lights make it look like they are moving, and I think they might also be on moving platforms. Not sure about that. It was neat to see!

    

   

  Into the park we headed. Main Street, USA, the first thing you see when you walk in the park, is so pretty at night. Mom showed me a building that she said used to be a store but now was something else. We went to investigate and were not sure what it was. There was a worker there, so we asked. She said that there was a movie on one side, but on the other, you could go in and meet the princesses. And tonight, the Frog Princess, Belle, and Cinderella were there. And there was no line. MEET THE PRINCESSES? NO LINE???? I was so excited!

  There they stood in a room, and we walked right in.  I did feel a little stupid “meeting the princesses,” and I even told them so. But it was cool!  The first one was the Frog Princess. Not only did she look like her character, she acted like her. She said I had a nice dress, and we joked about shopping at Target (which she joked and pronounced as “Tar-Jhay” (French))

  

   

  Next up was Belle, and she kept in character super well, talking about the characters in her story and asking if I knew them and if I had tried the “grey stuff,” and if I had a Wardrobe to help me choose my gowns.  I answered back as if she were the real Belle, but I did say, “I know it must be weird for a 41 year old woman to be excited about meeting the Disney princesses, but hey!”

  

   

  The final princess was Cinderella. CINDERELLA!! My favorite of them all! She was just as vapid in person as she is in the movies, perhaps even more so.  We forced Mom to pose with me for this shot. She was not nearly as excited about meeting them as I was.

  

  What did I take away from meeting them? If you ever want to feel really, really ugly, stand next to a Disney princess.  And supervise small, tired children around concrete and gates.

  • 6:28 pm
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