On Thursday Madeline had a 7 am call time and three group dances, plus awards, before noon. That meant I set my alarm for 5 am, and unfortunately I overslept by about 20 minutes. Madeline did not get enough sleep, and she was pretty difficult while getting ready. Andy dropped us at the hotel on his way to work, and we were only a few minutes late for call time.
Madeline’s three dances were all junior large groups: No Bad News, a musical theater dance; Parade With Me, a modern number; and Get Up Offa That Thing, a tap routine. The girls looked sharp and received Platinum points for each dance. The awards took absolutely forever, but No Bad News ranked highest and made it into Sunday night’s finale! That was great news, but it meant that we had to stick around for them to film a video introduction to be played before Sunday’s finale performance. That took about an hour, by the time we waited for our turn.
When the girls were done we were all starving, so three moms and three girls headed for Bahama Breeze, which was nearby and close to my hotel. Unfortunately, we had to wait about 45 minutes for a table. During that time the girls went to the bathroom and took off their competition makeup, and I’m sure they were much happier eating without it. We practically inhaled our food when it finally arrived. After lunch one girl had to go back to the Hilton for a special rehearsal, and the other four of us decided to do some shopping at Disney Springs.
I think I’ve been to Disney Springs only once before, and I’m pretty sure it was still called Downtown Disney then. Someone had said there were a lot of changes, but it seemed very similar to what I remembered. The big girls had ubered there earlier, so I met up with them while the other three started shopping. They went to the giant World of Disney store, so after finding the big girls I went to World of Disney to join them. Only one door to the store was open for some reason, and of course I pretty much started as far from that door as possible.
I eventually found my way into World of Disney and found Madeline and friends, who’d only made it about halfway around. Their plan was to go all the way around once without picking anything up, and then go back and get items they wanted to buy. We pretty much executed that plan, which means we were in the store for a super long time. The line for checkout was dozens of people deep, but there were signs about paying on the MyDisneyExperience app, so I tried that. It’s a system they’re trying out, and it worked great! We scanned the bar codes, paid with Apple Pay, and then went to the closest exit, where an employee checked our QR code and let us out. Way better than standing in line for 10 minutes. Madeline bought a cute skirt, Mickey ears, and a Disney Rubik’s Cube. I got a cooling towel that looked interesting and seemed like it would be useful in the parks. I also admired a rain hat with Disney dogs and cats on it, but I decided not to get it.
Surprisingly, World of Disney had very few magic bands for sale. We thought they’d have a ton, so we asked an associate. She said the Disney CoOp was the place to buy magic bands and that we could even customize ones there. So, after a quick stop for Dole Whip, we went to the CoOp and made magic bands. I had brought my band from Ellie’s December 2019 birthday trip so I didn’t get a new one, but Madeline designed a pink one with Stitch, and the other two made theirs. They only took about 20 minutes to produce, and the rest of the stuff in that store was really fun to window shop for while we waited.
Next we wandered to the Rainforest Cafe shop. Madeline loved looking at all the merchandise. She and her friend did a photo booth with really fun results, and then she became obsessed with making a pressed penny. She had cash on her and got change from the register. After the girls made their pennies we hurried to where we were meeting the big girls, because it looked like it was ready to rain. We met them right by the parking garage and it wasn’t raining yet, but then I noticed Madeline didn’t have her shopping bag from World of Disney! We hightailed it back to the Rainforest Cafe, and she looked in the photo booth while I went to the register. There was a line at checkout, but I saw a bag on the counter behind the workers that looked like the one we lost. Fortunately, it was our bag! Whew! AND we made it back to the garage again without getting wet. It was our lucky day, I guess.
Our friends dropped us back at our hotel, and we turned in pretty early after our busy day.