My Musings: Sisters Disney Trip

In early November 2019, my beautiful sisters and I had a fun filled weekend at the happiest place on earth! Being in Disney with my family, is my happiest place of all, we had so much fun! We flew in to Long Beach airport, my favorite way to fly to Disney, dropped off our luggage in our room at the Park Vu in, our favorite hotel for Disney, it is literally across the street from the park entrance, and made our way to Downtown Disney for dinner.

Beth and I have a tradition of eating at the Jazz Kitchen the night we arrive at Disney. Neither Jenny or Karin had eaten at this magical restaurant, so we were so excited to introduce them to it's fun atmosphere and mouth watering food. My favorite dish at the Jazz Kitchen is the shrimp and grits, it is so delicious. I talked it up so much everyone at the table ordered it, but I went rogue and ordered one of their specials.

I love ordering the banana's foster because they make it table side and it is quite the show. The Jazz Kitchen is a Ralph Brennan restaurant, and it was the Brennan family that invented the delicious bananas foster dish! I have had the immense pleasure of having this famous dessert at the original Brennon's restaurant in New Orleans!

After dinner, we slowly strolled back to our hotel, while enjoying the sights, sounds and smells of Downtown Disney. I always love taking a moment to watch the artists at work at Marcelines Confectionery.

Window shopping is also so fun here, how adorable is this Figaro purse?? It looks just like my kitty Dinah, who is named after the disney kitten in Alice in Wonderland. If Dinah had turned out to be a boy, (she was a rescued feral kitty, so it took us a while to figure out if she was a boy or a girl :)) I would have named her Figaro and called her figgy for short.

The next morning we were up early and were so excited to head to the parks! It had been a little while since I had been to Disneyland, and there were so many new things I couldn't wait to experience.

I love getting all dressed up in my Disney clothes and jewelry!

We got lucky and the weekend we planned our trip, was the opening weekend for Christmas in the parks. So, everything was freshly decorated for the holidays and there were SO MANY holiday treats we needed to sample. We made sure to pick up the food guide on our way in.

I always make a Disney Treat list whenever I go to any Disney Park. Disney is always switching up their food options and there is always something fun and new to try. Plus, I have my regulars that I have to get every time I go, namely the divine raspberry rose macaron from Jolly Holiday!

We did pretty well! By the end of our two days, we had crossed almost every treat we wanted to try off the list. We tasted all the ones with a Christmas tree next to it.

V got to come with us since we didn't want to leave Reece alone with a baby and a toddler, that would have made for a very long weekend for him.

The castle is always so beautiful during the holidays.

We wasted no time getting our first churro. There were so many new flavors to try! This one was sugar cookie flavored with a "milk" dipping sauce. To be honest, I didn't know how they were going to make a churro taste like a sugar cookie, I thought it would basically just be a churro with less cinnamon and more sprinkles. But Disney worked it's magic and it totally tasted like sugar cookies! I was amazed!

We passed it around while in line for peter pan, our first ride of the trip!

Next up, V's favorite ride, Dumbo! She literally skipped the entire way over.

They have completely redone the queue area for this ride, which was very much needed, it is so magical now! Not to mention, much cooler with all the new shade.

Time for another churro! This is the sugar plum churro. I already knew it was going to be weird before tasting it, but we just couldn't resist trying it. It was a weird combination of tangy, sweet and sour. It wasn't horrible, but we didn't love it.

K so this post is making it look like all we did was eat, which we did a lot of, definitely not denying that, but I didn't take pictures on most of the rides we rode so just know we did more than just eat all the foods.

I was really looking forward to eating at the Tropical Hideaway, it is a new quick service eatery that wasn't open last time I was in the parks.

It took over the spot of Aladdin's Oasis, the seating area looks over the Jungle Cruise river.

The menu here is pretty small, but everything on it is delicious. Their main offerings are bao buns and fancy dole whips. We didn't try out any of the fun dole whips, but we tried all three flavors of bao buns and they were all so delicious. This is such a great new snack to be able to get in the parks. It's super quick, very portable and easy to eat on the go, and it's not a sweet, it's pretty healthy and has some protein to it. These might become a regular on my "must haves" disney treat/snack list.

I was so excited to ride the jungle cruise and see it all dressed up for the holidays. None of my family have seen the full on Jingle Cruise and I so badly wanted to share it with them. I was so sad when none of the decorations were put up throughout the ride. This was the second time I had talked up the Jingle Cruise to my family and had it fall through. I asked a cast member what the deal was and they said ONE guest complained about it so they don't do it anymore. I was so sad! They did say if we made a comment about wanting it back at city hall it might come back if they get enough people asking for it.

We still enjoyed our cruise sans the Christmas decor, Jungle Cruise is always a good time.

Next up, Splash Mountain! I will only ride this ride if I have ponchos covering every inch of my body. I usually like one for my legs and seat and on for my shoulders and head. I may have even wore a hotel shower cap one time... I hate getting my clothes wet on rides.

I hadn't ever noticed this adorable little bluebird's house before.

PS they just announced that Splash Mountain is going to be converted to a Princess and the Frog ride and I can NOT wait for that to happen. Tiana and her movie have been my favorite ever since it came out. I just know Disney is going to make it the most magical ride ever!

We had lunch reservations at Cafe Orleans so we made our way over to New Orleans Square.

V had bought this Porg in Galaxy's Edge earlier in the day, that gets its own post coming up next. She named her Morty, and she was so silly and naughty, she was always doing things that made us say "oh Morty"

The best appetizer of all time.

These special beignets were on our treat list, they were hot chocolate flavored. This was another time when I was like, ok so these are just going to taste like chocolate, not necessarily the drink hot chocolate. But yet again Disney got me, these beignets totally tasted like drinking hot chocolate, especially with a little bit of the cream on top.

After lunch, Beth, V and Morty headed back to our hotel for a nap. The rest of us headed to Fantasyland to ride the tea cups and cruise around Storybook land.