We headed into DTD and had to make a stop by the stage area to listen to the band that was performing that night, and have a little dance session too! I'm pretty sure this was the night that they were in the middle of playing "September" (by Earth, Wind, & Fire - though my kiddos know it from the Trolls movie) as we entered the area, so the girls were excited about that. Both YDD and MDD went and danced with some of the other kids in the area, which is always extra fun when wearing twirly dresses!
Check out that spin!
Awkward mid dance move shot!
MDD gearing up for a pirouette ;-)
After the impromptu dance party, we split up for a bit and I took YDD to World of Disney to look around while DH stayed with MDD & ODD. I believe they were going to use the bathroom and then come meet up with YDD & I at WOD, but ended up walking past a magic show and stopped to watch. YDD was content to browse at WOD for awhile, so I hung out with her until I heard from DH that the show was over and they were heading our way! Once we were all back together, it was time to head into the parks!
Our plan was to go into DL and look for pins for the girls on main street. During our 2015 trip, my mom bought each of the girls a starter set with a few pins and the lanyards, and they did some pin trading with cast members. I had packed their pins & lanyards for this trip too, however we never ended up wearing them or doing more trading. I still wanted to buy them each a pin to remember this specific trip by though. We bounced around between a few shops, and after lots of indecision later, the girls settled on their pins of choice (spoiler alert: they each picked a pin based on their favorite princess). I also finally bought my Beauty and the Beast rose cup, and decided on a pair of ears for myself (black sequin ears with a big gold bow). Yay for fun souvenirs!
Main street was pretty packed at this time of night, so this was definitely a moment of pure luck & timing to get these shots! We were standing in the street after we had finished shopping, probably deciding what we needed to do next, and I noticed that the area immediately around us was pretty empty. Knowing I would only have a few moments to take advantage of that, I had the girls stand together and quickly snapped some pictures from behind them with the castle in the background.
Not pictured: the near meltdown that went on between the two of these pictures
YDD wanted a turn to stand in the middle of the picture, and MDD didn't want to give her one since she's the middle child so her SPOT is in the middle of pictures (I actually think YDD ends up in the middle most, but
) Anyway, we finally settled that and let YDD have her turn to be in the middle, but you can definitely still see the pout on MDD's face here. We had a similar experience with princess dress castle pics and meltdowns on our 2015 trip too, but I actually got a picture mid meltdown then that I will treasure forever and ever. Lol! It's in my 2015 trip report if you wanted to check it out!
We had fastpasses for RSR that evening, and it wasn't super close to our return window at the time, but MDD had requested a ride on Ariel for her birthday so we decided to just go ahead and walk over there to do that and see what else we could fit in beforehand.
A couple of pics I got during that ride through
We did a little looking around in the stores after that, before making our way over to Carsland. The lines at Mater & Luigis were too long to wait in before our RSR return window opened (and we wanted to ride as soon as it did so we could catch WOC right after), so we found a bench and the girls watched part of another Ducktales with DH.
Some night shots I got in the area before we went on RSR
Side note: when I was writing the trip report for the earlier part of today, I had completely forgotten that when I split off from DH & the girls that morning to finish MDD's birthday shopping, I had taken everyone's tickets to get RSR FPs. Not really an important detail, haha, but I confused myself when I was looking at my note on my phone that has the list of all the rides we did and I couldn't remember ever waiting standby for RSR, so I knew we had to have gotten FPs at some point - and I had no note of us being in DCA earlier in the day. Luckily for me, I hoard Disney momentos and still have one of those FPs IN MY WALLET, and apparently I pulled it at about 12:39pm. It pays to be a hoarder, people!
We got in the FP line as soon as our window opened, and got on pretty quickly! I absolutely LOVE RSR at night. It's fun anytime of day, but I especially enjoy it in the dark. It was the first time the girls got to ride it at night and they were all big fans. They wanted to go again, but the standby line was huge and FPs were long gone for the day. Besides, it was time to head over to the Pier!
Up next: Ghiradelli's hot chocolate, a different perspective of WOC, and an unexpected development for ODD!