100 Days of Wonder – #100
This lovely towel art was left for us at the end of our last trip and finally, it’s time! So Mousekeeping, we’re coming! We are at the airport hotel ready to fly in the morning.
I worked this morning and it’s taking me a while to wind down and switch off. I’ve just taken work email and Teams off my phone and am slowly getting into the Disney headspace. I’m looking forward to creativity, fun, active rest and silliness. I’m looking forward to seeing what towel art we get and I’m looking forward to smiles, joy and wonder.
See you on the other side.
100 Days of Wonder – #92
I’ve been thinking about two things today. The first is the idea of less doing and more being and the other is constant change. They’re not necessarily related but at the moment in my head they are because, with just over a week to go I am in Disney mode. It’s probably unbearable for anyone else but my Disney mode as been activated (wait, what? It’s always active, it’s just got a boost). So at Disney the temptation is definitely to be doing. I have commented in previous posts about planning and ticking things off a list and rushing from ride to ride or attraction and how I don’t really get it. But not rushing things and not having a list to tick off, doesn’t mean we are not ‘doing’ heavy. And sometimes being doing focused means that you forget to be right there in the moment. Often if you are doing, you’re not really being. Doing means you start and finish something. Doing has outcomes. That’s why I bake or cook when anxiety is high, that’s why doing admin work and being busy is great when you’re stressed because it feels like you are taking action and sorting things out. And sometimes, doing is of course exactly what is required. But often what we actually need is less doing and being busy and more being, more acknowledging the moment we are in right now, more breathing, more presence.
At Disney there is always something new (looking forward to seeing the Moana inspired Journey of Water this time), and that increases the temptation to do. Every trip there has been something new to see or do, a new ride, or even a whole new area such as Toy Story Land or Galaxy’s Edge. That temptation to ‘do’ those things so easily slips into pressure and a feeling of disappointment if we don’t manage it. And I just never want Disney to be about that. It’s not about doing for me, it’s about being there. Of course I like to do things but I want to do them fully present. I want to consciously be while I am doing the things. Most of the new attractions we didn’t do the first visit after they opened. The queues were too long, the areas around them too busy. It took years for us to ride the 7 Dwarf Mine Train and we didn’t go on Flight of Passage in 2017 because, frankly I won’t stand in a queue for 4 hours for anything. We walked through Galaxy’s Edge in 2023 but we didn’t go on the rides. We’re quite good at focusing more on being and just enjoying being together, soaking it all in and letting the stories play out in our heads.
I chose the picture of the Tree of Life from January 2023 because it is both about doing new things and the constant changes at Disney and about being rather than doing. I think it was our first full day and we were both pretty tired. We couldn’t decide whether to stay for the Tree of Life Awakening light show. We’d never seen it although I think it has been running since 2016 so there would have been at least 2 trips where we could have seen it. So it was something new, something cool to see and do. But it also felt like we were staying just for the sake if it when we actually wanted to go back to the resort and go to bed. In the end we had about 45 minutes before the show and it somehow seemed silly to leave so we found a spot, sat ourselves down and just people watched for a bit. Leaning against a tree I think, or maybe a low wall, we both nodded off for a bit. We were leaning on each other and just enjoying being together without really doing anything. We nearly forgot we were waiting for the show and we definitely forgot we were surrounded by 1000s of other people. The show itself was wonderful. We stood up when it began and watched in wonder, in our own little bubble, just us, alone in a sea of people. Then we went ‘home’ and fell into bed happy. Moments like that are where the magic is!
100 Days of Wonder – #85
Happy 4th Sunday in Advent! Here’s Christmas tree number 4 added to the other 3 – this time from the Animal Kingdom. Again not my photo, a Disney stock photo that came with one of our downloads. I hope you are having a lovely Sunday. Mine has been lush so far. I slept late, had coffee in bed with Odin-cat keeping me company. I started to sort out my running gear for our Disney trip so I don’t end up in a last minute having to wash stuff panic in just over 2 weeks’ time. Then I had more coffee and a mince pie with Kath and her mum who dropped by. And I watched a flurry of snow flakes fall from the sky but not settle and then the temporary darkness turn back into glorious blue sky and sunshine. It’s a day with no plans. That’s made me think about how we plan Disney. I have said several times before that planning is part of the fun – and it really is – but I also see so many social media posts about extreme planning. We don’t plan Disney down to the last second like some do. When we had the Deluxe dining plan previously a lot of the planning simply revolved around where we were going to eat – that determined which park we would need to be in when. That dining plan doesn’t exist anymore and the general plan requires less planning because there are fewer sit down meals available. We have park hopper tickets so we can move between parks as we want and therefore our itinerary is far less fixed. We won’t spend money on Lightning Lanes (or whatever we are calling paid for access to skipping queues for popular rides this month), we’ll just roll with it. That might mean long wait times for some things and we might decide to queue for things, or we might not bother but the one thing we won’t do is rush from ride to ride. I don’t really understand people who try and rush round and do all 4 parks in 1 day. It just doesn’t sound like fun. But each to their own.
It seems to me there can be a fine line between planning so as to avoid stress – I have a plan for making Christmas dinner for example, with timings and instructions to myself – and over planning which just causes stress. Disney seems to bring out the latter in people. Although maybe that’s coming from a particular perspective of having the privilege of having been lots and the luxury of time. We are not trying to ‘do’ Disney World as a once in a lifetime holiday and nor do we have to cram in all our must dos into a weekend. And in addition, our must dos are not necessarily rides. My main must dos are to walk up Main Street USA and breathe, to sit watching the gibbons and stand watching the manatees, to listen to the Japanese drummers and get a popcorn bucket with maple popcorn. I think the only ride I would be really disappointed to miss is the Winnie the Pooh ride and that’s not because the ride is brilliant but because it’s the centre of my Hundred Acre Wood where I recharge ready to head out to explore some more.
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