"Where Dreams Come True..." Pt. 1

Hi there!!

Do you remember spring break? Well I certainly do! Because GUESS WHAT!!! I. WAS. IN. A. DISNEY. PARADE!!!!!!!!!!! I still can't belive it myself, but I was!! So here goes the long and fabulous story of my spring break!!

So to start off my trip we got up at 5:30am and started driving....and driving....and driving...for ELEVEEN HOURS!!! But here's the plus, we did get In-and-Out. So we got there and we pull up to Sofia Simmons relatives' house and there like, "Wanna go to the beach?" and we were like...UH YESS PLEASE!! So we went to the beach and saw some pretty amazing views and ate fantastic quesadillas.

The beach! Right to left: Sofia, me, Sydney
Photo Courtesy of: My mom :)

Then we checked in to our hotel the Double Tree. Pros: we got free cookies every time we passed the fount desk (which was like three times a day) and it wasn't too expensive and all six people in my family got a bed. Cons: we were a mile away from disney making it very hard to transport me there at 7:00 in the morning, and we didn't get magic hour (which is basically like a extra hour in the park that you get if you stay in a Park Hotel) Anyway we made it, tired and exhausted, so we fell asleep as soon as our head hit the pillow.

So the second day we were up nice and early at 6:30!! We quickly got changed and I was dropped off at Taylor's and for twoish days Mrs. Volmrich invited me to be her third daughter. I got ready with Taylor and off to the park we went. We were sent to a large conference room with 12ish other studios from all around the world! Groups from Australia and Japan were there!!

The "too American" Merchandise

Anyway we did our parade routine one at a time (and it was really strange that everyone knew the same routine even though we had never met before). They really liked our studio and we all felt great about the dance! Then we were sent off to pictures and our whole group was squished together. After that we were given some merchandise that Willoughby and Taylor dubbed "too American" for their liking. Then me and Taylor rushed to go eat food and change out of our costumes. We put on our costume for rehearsal then had to take it off to walk through the park and then put it back on backstage. So after rushing to make it too Small World to meet up with the rest of our group we were ushered to Backstage Disney, which is basically a special part of Disney behind the park where all the performers go including the characters. Backstage we saw Ariel, Peter Pan, Aladdin and Belle! We were sent to change and then sat at a restaurant type place for at least an hour where we were harassed by large bugs. Then we were put in lines for the Parade. We were put dead last which you might think was a punishment, but they said we were one of there favorite groups and they wanted to finish strong. We were right behind the

PARADE!!
Photo Courtesy of: My mom :)

Australian group who were very nice and had the most charming accents. Then the Parade loop started!! I was so happy when I saw all the people lining to streets ready to watch us. I couldn't help but smile the whole time! But near the end all of us were literally and figuratively dying. We scarfed down water at the end and Taylor forgot to bring her inhaler so she was actually dying. After we got done we changed and congratulated ourselves, WE DID IT!!! Me, Taylor and Rian ended up riding a few rides before dinner at Rainforest Cafe in downtown Disney. They me and my family headed home and I took off my stage makeup which I had had on for 14 hours. GO STAGE MAKEUP!!

But WAIT there's more!!! Please come back tomorrow for part 2 of my fantabulous adventure! Thank you so much for taking the time to read my blog and I hope it was entertaining!! STAY TUNED!!

- Ali Grace