Welcome to Disney World!

Yesterday, I showed you the cruise. Today, I bring you Disney World! It's a childhood fantasyland, and I am a complete child at heart.

Disney stops at nothing to embellish your experience with fairytale decoration and its brand. We stayed the night in the All-Star Sports Resort surrounded by giant athletic gear. We lounged by the baseball diamond pool with a pitching Goofy fountain. All the while longingly staring at that billon-ounce Coke behind home plate. After the late afternoon sun, we drove down the road to the Boardwalk to dine at the ESPN Club. Stuffed with cheese fries, we stopped for a game of miniature golf after dinner. What's vacation without mini golf? This course, though, surpassed all others we have played. The Fantasia Gardens and Fairways Miniature Golf offers a legit putting experience. No bumpers. Long greens. Huge sand holes. It challenged us, and the last hole especially. I came into it with a few-stroke lead, and thanks to a terrible rock bounce, lost by one. But losing by one to a putt-putt pro like Cole is still pretty impressive. All this fun was just a taste of the Disney World experience, so we headed to bed so we were ready for a loooooong day at Magic Kingdom.

The giant Coke in our baseball sector of Disney's All-Star Sports Resort.

We shared the resort with tons of UCA cheerleaders prepping for their national competition.

Cole and Mickey say hello.

We dined over at the ESPN Club on the Boardwalk.

Seriously, one of the best mini golf courses ever.

Are you ready for this? It's Magic Kingdom, fairytale castle and all. The resort bus dropped us off at the front gate, which was a nice resort perk. Upon entering, you knew you were in the Magic Kingdom. The downtown street pushes you right to the feet of the castle. The towers rose into the white puffs of clouds, and we arrived just in time for a show from Mickey and friends. When their "Dreams come true" chant concluded, we pulled out our paper map to find our first ride. In classic fashion, our first ride was the Mad Hatter's spinning tea cups. After the whirling ride, we headed to Space Mountain to stand in the long line. We opted out of the Fast Pass option. We came for the experience, not so much the rides, so we felt the extra cash wasn't worth it. From there, we basically wandered every inch of the park, gazing at the rides and riding a good portion of them — we were inside the park 12 hours after all. As we walked along, we came upon tasty treats, such as a Mickey pretzel and a frozen raspberry lemonade. We also timed the afternoon parade just right. Standing along the route, we saw basically every Magic Kingdom character pass by and wave.

The CASTLE!

As we walked into the park, Mickey and his friends greeted us with a show.

My first Disney World ride: the tea cups!

Flying high with Dumbo. We rode this one later after many of the little kids were gone.

Just waiting in line for Space Mountain. I sat in front on this dark, coaster ride, which definitely added to the experience.

This is a Mickey pretzel sans the ears — snacks before photos.

During the sunniest part of the day, we watched the Festival of Fantasy parade.

All the princesses make their way down the boulevard.

Donald and Daisy wave to the crowd.

Can't miss the recent Frozen sensations.

But, you can't forget the classics.

The parade ended with a hot air balloon float carry Minnie and Mickey.

After a western lunch, Cole takes aim in the Boot Hill shooting game.

Many of the rides took passengers on a story-telling ride, such as Ariel's Grotto. She's my favorite, hence the little Mermaid lamp that still sits in my room at my parent's and the name of my childhood cat, Flounder. We floated along in a shell through an underwater journey and ended with an Ariel and Prince Eric wedding. One of our last rides like this for the evening was The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. My mom, the huge Pooh fan, would have loved this kiddo ride. We rode in a hunny pot through a storybook tale. Part way through, the ride halted and we heard the staff telling us to stay seated. Apparently, someone fell out of their pot. How that happened, we have no idea because the ride was tame. Like no restraint, buckles or bars tame. Regardless, we patiently waited while staring up at a giant heffalump. We just happened to stop in Pooh's trippy, heffalump dream . We were escorted out of the ride, so we only saw the end of the story in the light without animation by foot. On the upside, we received a complementary Fast Past, which we used over on the Peter Pan ride that had a wait time of 90 (!) minutes. We capped off the day of ride with the dated It's a Small World ride that had absolutely no line and a five-horse-wide carousel ride. With our ride desires filled, we flowed with the crowd out into the street in front of the castle for the Wishes Nighttime Spectacular or you could call it a magical fireworks show. Disney filled the air with familiar Disney songs and character voices as fireworks lit up the night sky. Unsurprisingly but totally appreciated, the fireworks matched the mood and theme of the audio blanketing the crowd. If Ursula hackled, it turned dark and green. When Mickey chimed in about dreams, sparks exploded into shining stars. The fireworks show brought the magical day full circle.

We took a ride in shells through the underwater story of Ariel.

Ursula, you are scary.

We wait in line for the Belle story activity.

Obviously, not many people were in line with us.

We didn't know this activity was really meant for small children, but it was cute to watch nonetheless.

Grab some grub with Gaston.

My mom would have loved this cute little place.

We made it back in the evening to ride in the hunny pots and see Pooh.

Unfortunately, someone bounced out of their honey pot, stopping the ride right in front of this giant heffalump.

Just enjoying a carousel ride at the end of the night.

While everyone made a mad dash to the exit, we relaxed and played checkers.

Fireworks light up the sky at the end of our Disney day.

We loved our Disney day, and will probably have to venture back some day to see the other parks. But, I'm more than content with my Disney World experience. It was magical.

And ... stay tuned. Tomorrow, I shall bring you the last haul of our Spring Break journey: Charleston, South Carolina.