TravelwithMitsugirly

Walt Disney 2020

Day 4: Disney Springs: A full day of spending more money than we ever thought we would and taking a walk through the jungle to eat.

Sakari was up at the crack of dawn for school and not only did our internet not work in the house but Sakari's hotspot wasn't connecting either. As she sat there in frustration, I woke the hubby up because I had received a message from the property manager. She said she "called the house" but not sure what she thought that would do seeing how the phone, internet and cable was out. But, she said she called Spectrum and they seem to think the "amplifier" was unplugged. She said it was located upstairs in the loft and needed to be plugged in.

I started breakfast and the hubby went upstairs to diagnose and repair the problem. He found wires everywhere in the loft and a plug that was not working. I guess the breaker had kicked. However, when he kicked the breaker back on, it still wouldn't work. So, he had to unplug it, drag it across the room, and plug it in somewhere else. WALAH, it worked. We were back in service again and I'm pretty sure Sakari was let down about this because she now had classes until 1:30pm.

As Sakari finished out her school day, I did a little cleaning and watched the weather. It was a little chilly out today so we decided pants and a hoodie would be best. At 1:30pm, we off and ready to head to Disney Springs.

We put the address in our GPS and off we went. As we passed places like Sea World, I hear Sakari say "ARE WE GOING THERE??????". Of course I had to let her down and tell her no. Our GPS led us around in circles around DS and down the road and another U turn and I thought we would never find how to pull into this place.

Now although this is pretty much a shopping mall with things to do, they have this thing blocked off like the president was coming. When you park in the garage, you have to take an escalator upstairs. There you are directed to walk to the other side of the parking garage and around these barriers and then circle back down to the side you were on. There you would be stopped so they could take your temperature and have you walk through the metal detectors and then release you. Thank goodness Sakari didn't have any weapons on her this time.

Back down a set of escalators and you have arrived at your

destination.

Off we would go exploring the area. It was so pretty and

I wouldn't discover just how big this place was or how

much we missed on this day.

I immediately spotted the hot

air balloon. Only another day I

would discover it's not a hot air

balloon at all.

It was HUGE and so round!

We took a walk around the lake, stopping at intervals for me to rest my leg. It was a cloudy day, which gave off the appearance of being cold and dreary, but honestly, it was pretty nice out as far as the weather temps. Very comfortable and with walking around, at times a little warm.

Continuing to walk around the lake we spotted Santa's sleigh and reindeer parked at a dock. How cool.

Sakari loves her some lizards. But, these were different than any kind we had seen in the past. they were a brownish red color. There were also a lot of shells and snail shells in the area.

Prior to coming to Orlando, I had read up on Disney Springs during my planning stages. I knew the days that we would not be at a park, I would need to find something to keep my mini me entertained with. I purposely picked a home with a private pool so that the days we weren't going to a park, we could stay home and swim. That quickly changed up when I seen the temps for that week. (Predicted temps in the 30-40s at night and 60-81 during the day) During this planning, I found that this place had a "Christmas Tree Stroll". When I looked at a map, it looked to be in an area at the end of the "mall" area. But, I would later find out when we arrived that these trees are situated throughout the entire shopping mall area (which is huge). It was neat to spot them here and there and you just never knew what you'd find. We made it a game of trying to figure out what each tree represented before looking at the description.

There are 12 trees total and include:

*Mickey and Minnie

*The Lion King

*Haunted Mansion

*Princess and the Frog CAN YOU GUESS WHICH TREES ARE WHICH?

*Frozen

*Mulan

*Toy Story

*Star Wars

*Pluto

*Disney Parks

*Jungle Book

*Fantasia

We continued our Happily Whatever You're After shopping spree as well. Speery, Ugg, Lego, Coca-Cola Store, Uniqlo, World of Disney, Disney Style, Disney's Days of Christmas and so many more. We gave new meaning to "shop to you drop" to the point we had to buy a backpack to put everything in as we went along. LOL

I ended up finding the cutest little Mickey ears Disney World Christmas ornament. The price on it said $29, which is outrageous for a bulb! But, that's the Disney Trademark and they make loot off it. I talked myself into paying that much for the bulb and the hubby agreed, as always, saying "Get whatever you want and if it's what you want don't worry about the price, it's memories". So, get it I did. However, we made it up to the counter and she rang it up and it was $45. Wait, what???? She said the "regular" Mickey ears bulbs were the $29 and this one was personalized. Wait, I didn't have anything personalized. I got it off the wall with a bunch more that looked like that. She said it came pre-personalized with the "Walt Disney World" and "2020" written on it. So, that made it more. Ugh, that's the only reason why I wanted it versus a "plain" Mickey ears bulb. Bait and switch I tell ya. If it's personalized and all the bulbs in that area I got it from is like that....maybe you should make the price sign reflect the REAL price. Well, hubby said "get what you want" and I wanted it.

As we shopped, Sakari decided that she wanted a plaid and

black Disney shirt. This came as a real shock to me. I questioned

her over and over about is she sure she would wear it. Disney

logo crap isn't cheap and I didn't want to make a "spur of the

moment" purchase that she'd never use again. She assured me.

You see Sakari has NEVER been into Disney. Not Mickey, not

Minnie not anything. She's never had a desire to go to Disney

World and when I mentioned going for Christmas her reply was

"never really wanted to or no thoughts of it have ever crossed

my mind". LOL But, after I showed her the rides that it had there,

she was game. I wanted her to experience it at least once. Once

she becomes an adult, if she ever wants to go there again, it will

be up to her. But actually wearing a Disney item I never expected

out of her. But, I'm happy to say she has worn it a lot since the

day we purchased it. She's just not in to "kiddie" looking apparel with characters on it.

This was at the store we purchased her shirt. Even though we didn't ride the tea cups at Disney, it made for a good picture opportunity and she did say "Hey, I remember seeing that at Disney".

The Lego store was pretty neat here and they had created a lot of characters out of Lego's around the outside of the store...even a dragon was in the water and so cool. This is more Sakari's style. ;)