Here is the back story:
With a big summer ahead of us, Lisa in her new role at Meredith College, TJ starting a real paying job as a Camp Counselor, Grant heading off to Camp for a month, and me heading to Kentucky for a summer assignment, there isn't a lot of down time for Lisa and me. A modern family with teenagers, we are busy!
Nonetheless, I was able to find three days on the calendar for Lisa and me to get away after the boys were gone and before I go to Ft. Knox. I hinted to Lisa that we should use our Disney Vacation Club membership to go to Walt Disney World for a few days and spend a day at Epcot. Lisa said yes under the condition that we could stay at the Polynesian Resort - a very exotic, and very hard to get resort. Lisa picked it because she hung out in the resort's lobby back in February when I ran the Disney Princess Half Marathon. She commented along the lines of, "I want to stay there!" I went on the website and was Waitlisted - the Disney equivalent of "nice try, but sorry, no." Then two days later I received an email that our reservation went through for a suite with a view of the lake and Magic Kingdom! This was a win.
However, as they say in the commercials, "Wait! There's more!"
Moving forward, I made reservations at some awesome Epcot restaurants. Pizza in Italy. Steak in Canada. We even scored a reservation at the Villian's Lair, a DVC member only lounge at the top of Bay Lake Tower about thirty minutes before the fireworks at the Magic Kingdom. Everything was looking up for a short and wonderful DWTK (Disney Without the Kids) trip.
Then came Tiana's Bayou Adventure.
For the uninformed, Tiana's Bayou Adventure replaces the former Splash Mountain, a log flume ride with a 50' drop. Splash Mountain was problematic with its theming - or at least the history of the film the theming was taken from, Song of the South - and it was ready for an update. Honestly, retheming the ride based on the Princess and the Frog makes perfect sense. The water, music, and characters from the movie easily fit into a get-wet ride.
The refurb has been closely watched by Disney Files for months. Because it rises high into the sky it is easy to see over the construction walls around it and fan pages and blogs are full pictures and theories of the ride's story line. There are official videos out there demonstrating the state-of-the-art animatronics. Then, Disney released the official opening date for the end of June.
Fittingly, Juneteenth.
I found the registration page and with nervous anticipation, I watched the timer on the window count down from the 3 hours and some odd minutes when I first entered it to 0:00 and was redirected to the website. Starting at 352 in line, I watched the number quickly go down until I was in and entering our information and clicked submit.
We. Got. In.
It makes me grin just thinking about it. Disney has always been a member of this family. The Brown family has had many wonderful memories with Disney: races, cruises, vacations, holidays and even nights in front of Disney+. We are looking forward to another one very soon! Some of the very first people to ride a new Disney attraction!
In fact, we're almost there!
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