Tess’s 5th Disney Bday: Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Review.
This year we celebrated Tess’s Disney birthday a little earlier than usual due to our house being booked (hey, good problem to have!).
We went down on Wednesday July 17th and came back home on Tuesday the 23rd.
It was so nice having that longer time period as it allowed us to spread out all the birthday festivities and have lots of downtime and chill time.
I’m thankful for that as it was SO HOT and not rushing the whole trip made the heat more bearable 😉
Owning a rental home is an interesting experience. Sometimes we get there and there are things broken or missing. Recently someone broke into our owners closet and used a bunch of our stuff and stole many of the kids toys we’d left down there.
Then sometimes we get there and people leave things.
The people who broke into the owners closet? They took a bunch of stuff (and used our ponchos and ripped them) but then also put random stuff in the closet too – like a birthday crown!
It helped kick off the celebrating 😉
We also got smart this trip and made pigs in a blanket and sausage balls for the trip. The kids love ’em and they are both cheap and easy! Britt loved helping.
The girls loved sharing a room so much at the beach and did so well with it that we let them share for the time at Disney too!
This time that we arrived at the rental house it was an interesting combination of both people breaking things AND leaving things…someone literally broke the lock off of our outdoor storage chest and put three floats inside of it. So. Weird.
But also SO EPIC.
The next morning the kids swam and swam and the girls literally stayed in the pool for HOURS enjoying the new-to-us floats!
The girls made a unicorn float fort in the hot tub and Kye gave up playing with them and opted to hang with Daddy watching golf instead 😉
We always invite Mrs Charlotte to come to all the Disney birthdays (and any other time she wants to come too – we bought the rental house with her coming in mind and LOVE that it has two master bedrooms!).
She drove down Thursday afternoon during nap time and once naps were over…it was time for Birthday Surprise NUMBER ONE!
I have heard so, so many awesome things about Hoop-Dee-Doo Review but it’s something we’ve never experienced ourselves.
I thought it’d be a super fun outing for Tess’s birthday!
Tess is a bit tricky to know WHAT to plan for as she’s so easy going and likes whatever and isn’t hardcore into anything.
The kids had fun guessing what the surprise would be but, duh, no one came close since they’d never even heard of this before 😉
We bought the Category 1 seating which we felt was very worth it for the Luau and also were glad we did for this dinner as well!
We arrived too early, before seating opened, so we took time to walk around Fort Wilderness Camp Grounds and check out the horse stables.
I originally had planned for Tess to experience a pony ride while there but they closed at 3 and I didn’t want to get the kids up so early for something like that.
Walking around and seeing the horses was plenty of fun!
Britt and I did a horse and carriage ride on our girl’s trip and Tess and I did the same one on our girl’s trip – but we’ve never done the one offered at Fort Wilderness Camp Ground. Def on the list to try someday!
I’ve always been curious about the horse stables at Disney. This is where all the horses live and are cared for!
It was neat to visit them all and to see Walt with the horses.
We still got back before we were able to get in and it was funny that a long line had formed.
When at Disney – get in line.
It’s the mentality we naturally have! But the show doesn’t require you to wait in line…because it’s assigned seating 😉
Good to know for next time!
Spear loved walking around and seeing all the people (and Tessie loved chasing him ha!).
Once inside we were seated at our table and given the menus.
Just like you don’t need to wait in line, you also don’t need a menu for this meal – it’s all predetermined other than your drink order and is served “all you care to enjoy family style” which means they keep bringing the food on out until you’re full!
Dinner included YUMMY cornbread, salad, ribs, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn, and baked beans. For dessert there was strawberry shortcake.
It was a really good meal! Kye especially LOVED the RIBS!
I accidentally left the cooler in the car that had Spear’s sippy cup in it. Oops.
He did AWESOME drinking from the straw…even if I did have to keep getting more of them due to the dang cardboard falling apart in his mouth or the cup. I loathe paper straws!
The show was well timed and a super cute theme. It was lighthearted, easy to keep along with, and kept all of our attention.
At
Having Category 1 seating was wonderful. Not only to be better able to see the show, but to be able to be PART of it!
They sang Happy Birthday to Tess and Spear met his first crush 😉
We had many of moments of interaction with the cast and Zach even joined them on stage!
It was AWESOME. And he did a great job!
The video should auto play on this post 🙂
The timing of everything was really well done and Spear did amazing through the whole thing.
I have heard from others, and read reviews, and heard from people we met that night that the Hoop-Dee-Doo review is one of those things that people obsess about and make it something they do every visit.
None of us felt that passionately about it but we did have a great time and enjoyed the entire experience and would recommend it to others and will also be back at some point!
And Zach will totally be framing his achievement certificate 😉
I’m glad I stopped by after the show as the meal is part of the discount for annual pass holders so we were able to get a partial refund on our bill for that. Hey, every little bit helps when you’re at Disney 😉
Sidenote: This picture of Spear? THIS moment hit me hard. He looks SO GROWN. And he was LOVING the show so much and I just wanted to KNOW what he was thinking. It broke my mama heart into a million pieces that he can’t yet tell me...you can read all of my thoughts on his speech delay here.
We all had a super fun night and it was the perfect way to kick off the fun for the birthday girl!
