The holiday season is in full swing here. A singing group that Crystal works with recently put on an Elizabethan evening dinner/concert. It was a festive holiday feast complete with a king, queen and royal court–a fabulous show and when Kai and Nora heard that costumes were involved they were keen to get dressed up as well. Nora’s default of dressing as a princess seemed to work well enough and for Kai it was either a Jedi Knight, an alien or a pirate. The pirate seemed most appropriate. I thought that we could get him to pass for a monk with the help of his Jedi robe but he didn’t have much interest. Monks don’t pack cold, hard steel — pirates do!
A Dinner at Cinderella’s Table
The pièce de résistance of the entire visit (for Nora anyway) was a dinner at Cinderella’s table in the big castle. Early planning on Crystal’s part (like the day reservations opened early in the year) led to a reservation. When very young I believed that the castle was a real castle through and through. Stone, staircases, secret passages and dungeons all the way through. Pirate of the Caribbean was the same way. I thought that the Spanish fort that you wind though in line went back far past what normal visitors could see. As I grew older and more cynical I believed that right behind the facade of the castle it went straight to plywood and storage space for boxes of mouse ear balloons. Turns out that there is quite a bit of “castle” in the castle. Huge fireplaces, suites of armor, stone columns and a massive dinning room with windows overlooking Fantasyland. Beyond that I’m sure its nothing but plywood though.
Nora’s had been looking forward to her dinner with a princess for a long time and been really good about it. While in Legoland in California (which also has a fantasy land of sorts) she wanted to buy a princess outfit. I told her lets wait until Disney and that (in her mind) morphed into a commitment to fully deck her our in princess gear when the time came. She was wonderful about it and extremely patient though. A few days earlier in Animal Kingdom she had to wait while Kai went on the Expedition Everest roller coaster 7 times since she didn’t meet the height requirement. No problem – she was having dinner with princess in a few days! The photo gallery below documents much of the event. Enjoy!