St. Thomas

I traveled to the US Virgin Islands for a three day, two night business trip.   John and I were there 10 years ago on a cruise stop with friends.  The guys golfed and the ladies went to the beach, so we didn't explore the island much.  I didn't get much time to explore this trip either, but I can report back that it's beautiful and I wouldn't want to rent a car there!  Traffic drives on the left side of the road and the roads are windy and narrow. 

The most notable part of the trip was the flight home, since the bulk of my time there was spent in meetings.   En route to Miami the power went off (while I was in the middle of watching Magic Mike XXL on my console) which caused the flight attendants to do a hurried dash through the cabin.   A few minutes later the captain announced we would be landing in Nassau, Bahamas due to an issue with the aircraft.    After landing rather uneventfully and unloading at the gate, we learned that we would be sequestered in Bahamas due to U.S. Customs requirements until a replacement plane could be sent to pick us up.   Since we were in the USVI, no passport is required, and there would have been people on our flight traveling without who couldn't "enter" the Bahamas (or have the ability to re-enter the U.S. if they had).   Three hours later, a new, empty plane from Miami arrived and took us on the 45 minute flight there.   Turns out our original aircraft lost an engine and the protocol is to immediately land at the next available airport.   Makes sense to me!

The strangest thing to me was that the crew that flew our replacement plane to the Bahamas did not fly us to Miami.  They deemed the replacement flight to be a continuation of the old flight (i.e. gave it the same flight number) and the old crew flew and tended to the flight.   The "rescue" crew sat in the couple of empty seats in first class as passengers.

 

Disney Day 5: Cinderella's Royal Table

The day William had been waiting for the whole trip:  breakfast with the princesses at Cinderella's Castle!  Ok, ok, he was indifferent. . . .but I had a discount card, darn it, and I wanted to go!  We had a late flight, so we went back to Magic Kingdom for another morning while the Kansas City crew got up early to head home.  

All little "princesses" get a wand and all "knights" get a sword at the meal.   William was very impressed with the suits of armor in the castle!  He was less excited about talking to the princesses and acted shy, but they were all incredibly skilled at carrying on their one-sided conversations in character.

Snow White (who was SO HARD to hear in the bustling breakfast crowd due to her intentionally faint voice) asked if he was Bashful and then tickled him while saying that's what always worked on Grumpy.   

Princess Aurora talked with him about his sword and being a brave knight like Prince Philip.   My favorite part about this picture is photobomber daddy in the background. 

 Princess Ariel sat down at our empty chair and started to sign the autograph book when I gave her a concerned look.  I couldn't tell if she had flipped the page over from Sleeping Beauty's signature, and she said, "Oh, I'll make sure your collection is perfect!  I love collections."  She told William she would tell Sebastian hi from him.

But my favorite was Princess Jasmine.  William was being super shy by this point and wouldn't even give him name.  She discreetly looked at the inside of his autograph book where he had already printed his name and said, "Oh, your parents haven't named you yet?  I'll give you one!  You look like a William!  Oh, can I call you Will?  Then you can call me Jazz.  We'll be Will and Jazz!"    But the BEST line was as she was leaving and she said, "I'll see you in 10 years when I'm your favorite princess!"

I spent a few minutes when the crowd cleared out to take pictures of the inside of the castle.  It was neat to look around and view the rest of the kingdom out the window.  John and I joked that the place was covered in glitter - not surprising considering all the dresses and glitter sprayed hair from the little girls.  I took a picture of the "dirty" staircase as we were walking out but I don't think the effect is obvious. 

Outside we ran into Sir Fletcher who challenged William to a sword fight.  After William couldn't stop laughing Sir Fletcher called him "Sir William Gigglepants."  That, of course, just caused more giggles. 

We rode a few more rides and took a few more picture and then headed home to start dreaming of our next trip! 

 

 

Disney Day 4: Magic Kingdom and Epcot

Sunday was our last full day at Disney World.  We started it off at Magic Kingdom with the plan to hop to Epcot later where we had evening Fastpasses.  We headed straight to the newest ride:  Seven Dwarfs Mine Train which we had loved during the party.  The wait (due to our aggressive maneuvering down Main Street at rope drop) was only 20 minutes, and there were cool fans and fun games to play in the queue.  And before we entered the 40 minute long Space Mountain line, we needed some cupcake and Starbucks coffee nourishment!

 

 

 

 

After a relaxing and delicious lunch at Be Our Guest restaurant (highly recommend the cupcake with the "grey stuff" on top), we left Magic Kingdom for some rest and play time back at our hotel before rallying for an evening at Epcot.   We rode Spaceship Earth and Test Track (a group favorite!) all together and had some delicious treats at Food & Wine before the grand finale dinner in Italy.  I was really proud of all the foods Aiden tried and seemed to enjoy!  He even liked several things that I didn't!  This appears to be the day on our trip when I got tired of taking photos!  We have a few Photopass pictures but very few from my camera.

 

 

Disney Day 3: Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom



Saturday morning we were up and on the bus bright and early to be at Hollywood Studios when it opened for morning magic hours.  We had Fastpasses for Toy Story, Star Tours and Tower of Terror. Since Jedi Training Academy is on hiatus, we had a lot of flexibility in our schedule.  Our plan was to rope drop Toy Story so we could ride it twice that day.  Unfortunately the ride was down from 8-10 a.m., so we only got to ride it the one time with our pass, and we had to rework our touring plan.  

 

 

This trip was definitely a "growing up" trip for us.  Not only did we ditch the stroller, but William was finally tall enough for the last set of thrill rides:  44 inches to ride Space Mountain and Expedition Everest.   He loved them both!  He also agreed to ride Tower of Terror again (he had done it at 4 1/2 at WDW and at 5 at Disneyland and regretted it!) - twice!

 

 

The weather was hot and steamy, so we were happy to have a lunch reservation at Hollywood Brown Derby to rest our feet and have some delicious food and drink.  I love the super glam look that William is sporting wearing my sunglasses at the table.   On our way out after lunch, John doubled back to get a souvenir Boba Fett mug.  I love this picture almost as much as the R2D2 popcorn bucket picture I got at Disneyland in 2014!

We park hopped to Animal Kingdom just in time for a downpour.  We waited it out in the Photopass shop where we browsed through our pictures from the Halloween party and earlier in the day at Hollywood Studios and shopped for Magic Bandits - little buttons to put on your Magic Band.   No surprise, we walked out with the Star Wars set.

 

 

We did a quick walk around the park to assess lines (too long), ran into a friend from home at one of the Wilderness Explorer activities, and then waited in the standby queue to ride Expedition Everest to much success before heading back to Bay Lake.  The photo below is a little tough to see but the red/orange lights are emergency vehicles evacuating the monorail that broke down.  We ordered pizza to the room and I went to bed early that night so I missed seeing Illuminations at Epcot out our living room window.  That's ok; I enjoyed the sleep!

Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party Photopass