The Disney Diaries: Celebrating My 21st Birthday at DisneyWorld!

Hello lovelies!

I apologise for such a long wait but I have been very busy with my final few months of University, but I have finally put together my Disney photo diary for you all to enjoy! (Hooray!)
As some of you may have heard, last summer I went to DisneyWorld Florida for my 21st birthday, it was honestly the most amazing experience/holiday of my life! I did so much over there and made some amazing memories. I really hope you enjoy this post as this is by far my most favourite Blog post ever and I really hope you enjoy all the photographs :D At the end of the photographs I have explained what I did throughout the variety of places I went to, so hope you enjoy reading! <3

Animal Kingdom: I visited the Tree of Life, The Festival of the Lion King show, was Goofin’ around with Goofy and Pluto as well as Mickey & Minnie mouse and conquered my fear of Winnie the Pooh haha! (inside joke). I also conquered my first rollercoaster of the holiday, Everest and went on a jungle safari where the giraffes came right upto the vehicle.

Epcot: Meeting as many Disney characters as possible: Belle, Aurora, Chip & Dale, Snow White and Alice, all of which I got signatures in my autograph book. I went for lunch in “Italy” which was delicious and explored the futuristic rides and exploring different countries and the cultures within them.

Disney Hollywood Studios: So many rides to go on, I loved the Rockin’ Rollercoaster, had lunch at Pizza Planet, failed to get Phineas & Ferb to sign my book due to the rain (boo!) watched the Indiana Jones show and the car stunt show, both were awesome!

Mall at Millenia: A cheeky shopping trip. I had my heart completely set on Victoria’s Secret as there isn’t one near where I live so I made the most of it and bought some gorgeous things to bring home with me.

Downtown Disney: Mainly visited for evening meals, lots of souvenir shops, awesome fake volcano outside of the Rainforest Café that went off, Planet Hollywood, my favourite part was Splitsville bowling alley, it was so much fun and on a night you could have a cheeky beverage at the bar where there was a man playing live acoustic music. The day after my 21st I had my first legal American drink here at this small margarita bar which was delicious!

SeaWorld: I began the day with a ride on the Manta which was awesome, was hoping to have a go on Kraken but it rained so it got closed off, nightmare! I also got to pet some Stingrays and then went to watch the dolphin show, followed by Shamoo show, had food at the Village Inn diner and my favourite part of the day had to be the petting/feeding the dolphins at dolphin cove. Awww!

Universal Studios: This side was where the likes of The Simpsons were and Despicable Me. I also got to see one of the parades too which was cute. I had lunch at Hardrock Cafe followed by a quick trip to the NBA store. It was here where I had such a panic. I went on the Rip It Rock It roller coaster which was awesome for the fact you could choose what song you wanted to have playing as you went round, I chose ZZ Top's Gimme All Your Lovin' however when I went round I could feel the harness feeling like it was going to spring open as I was going round and for someone like me who was just getting used to roller coasters, I found this horrifying to the point where I came off the ride hyperventilating, it was horrible! Let that be a warning to everyone to take extra care when getting fastened in on rides. That is actually why I had a fear of roller coasters in the first place, as I feared I'd fall out from a large height. Luckily I was okay in the end and soldiered on!

Islands of Adventure: It was very Marvel and comic books based which I loved and also Jurassic Park. I had spent all of this time upto this day going on lots of roller coasters to psyche myself up for the big one aka The Hulk ride. As many of you may not know but I had quite a fear of them, note the word "had" as I feel I came back from this holiday having overcome that fear and found a lot of them to be enjoyable bar one (read previous paragraph). Anyway when I first walked into the park I headed straight to the Hulk as I knew if I didn't go on it then and there then I would never do it and I went on it and thoroughly enjoyed it! After feeling very victorious and even though I'm not a mega fan of him, I headed over to see Hazza P (Harry Potter World) and tackle the Dragons, I did the blue ride first and then came straight off that and onto the red one, feeling dangerous ;) and then I had lunch at Hardrock Cafe. The final image was when I came off the Pop Eye ride soaking wet, I hadn't been to Florida since I was about 8 years old and one of my fondest memories was myself and all my family on going on that Pop Eye ride dozens of times and being absolutely soaked so I had to go on it for the sheer sentimentality of it.

Magic Kingdom/ My Birthday: As I was away on holiday without the family I had brought all my birthday cards with me so on the day I opened them all and my family rang me throughout the day to wish me happy birthday which was cute. I had lunch at Gaston's tavern where the lady let me have my drink for free as it was my birthday, throughout the day I overheard little kids going "look mammy, it's that girl's birthday". If you've never been to Disney on your birthday you can basically pick up a badge as you walk in and a cast member writes your name on and as you walk around fellow cast members and randoms wished me happy birthday, I even had some random old guy sing to me which was brilliant! It made up for the fact my family were not around to share the day with. I met Ariel and got her to write in my autograph book "Happy 21st Birthday, love and fishes, Ariel" my life was made. I also got to ride on Prince Charming's carousel, The Little Mermaid ride was amazing, all the mechanical pieces showing the key parts of the film was fantastic! Again I revisited some rides that I remember when I was a kid, the first being "It's a small world" which I remember going on as a kid hundreds of times with my Mam and my Gran, just hearing the song made me feel really emotional and nostalgic of all the fond memories and lastly Splash Mountain which I remember going on with my family and my Gran sitting on the driest seat as she thought she wouldn't get wet and we all came off the ride pretty dry however my Gran was drenched, bless her it was hilarious!On the evening of my birthday, I had one final birthday present and that was a birthday dinner inside the Disney Castle!!! It was honestly the most amazing experience ever! You go in and get a photo with Cinderella, then wait for your name to be called out: "Princess Kate!" and ascend the staircase to this huge room, I ended up getting my table moved to the window so I was able to watch the firework display from the window which was magical! The food was delicious and the waitress that was assigned to me was lovely and sang happy birthday to me when she brought my desert out. We even got some souvenirs from our visit which was a fairy wand with "Cinderella's Royal table" on it, a sword and a copy of the photo with Cinderella from the beginning. Also whilst waiting for our meal Ariel, Jasmine, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty came around to get photos and sign autographs. It was the most amazing birthday experience of my life, such a perfect way to spend my 21st!

Magic Kingdom #2: The final day where I could use my tickets into the parks so decided to make the most of it and revisit some of the parks so I could either go on certain rides again, try and go on ones I missed out on and also make a few purchases from the gift shops. I decided to travel in style and got the monorail to Epcot and then got the ferryboat from Epcot to Magic Kingdom, it was a lovely time of the afternoon, sailing along as the sun was setting. So pretty!

I'd never travelled like that before in Florida so I wanted to have that experience at least once. So I'm happy to have had that. I had headed over to Magic Kingdom specifically to watch the Firework display as a final Disney farewell as the last time I was at Magic Kingdom I was inside the castle so I didn't see it from the outside. It was wonderful to experience the display in those different ways. It was amazing, I took a ridiculous amount of photographs of the huge variety of fireworks and it was the perfect way to round off such an amazing holiday, experience and of course birthday! <3

Thanks for reading! <3
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