The Log Dog Blog: February 2022

We took a very quick trip to WDW this past weekend because B1, S1, our niece, and our nephew were there and although we only had about 24 hours together, it was so wonderful to spend time there with two excited little people! Our niece, who is four-and-a-half, was a joy to be with and I was her chosen seatmate on every ride we went on together. C was allowed to join us if the ride was designed for three people (for example, the boats on It's a Small World), but if the ride vehicle was meant for two, he had to sit elsewhere. LOL! I love her so much and I was crushed when we had to leave MK on Sunday to head to the airport.

In our very limited time, we did see several characters, got to enjoy the International Festival of the Arts at Epcot, and find as many of the fiftieth anniversary statues as we could. I also ran into a friend I used to work with who happened to be visiting WDW with her family!

The two best parts of the trip - aside from being there with family, of course - were the pianist at Casey's Corner and the new lights on Spaceship Earth.

The pianist is always one of my favorite things at MK, and we happened to be there right when the cast members started performing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," which is always fun. Then the pianist played by himself and did some ragtime tunes before asking the crowd if they had any requests. I asked him if he knew "The Best Time of Your Life" by the Sherman Brothers, and he was impressed I knew that song, but said he hadn't played it in so long, so he'd play "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" for me instead. So fabulous! When he finished that song, he said, "Let me play you some more Sherman Brothers tunes," and proceeded to play an entire seven-song Mary Poppins medley, which left me crying tears of delirious joy. Finally, he asked some people what they wanted to hear and they couldn't think of anything, so he looked my way and I asked for "Let It Go," which resulted in a sort of impromptu singalong, as people in the vicinity, whether they were sitting or just walking by, starting singing along! I'm telling you, "Let It Go" continues to have a firm grasp on the hearts of Disney fans!

As for Spaceship Earth, they installed lights all over it, so it looks incredibly cool at night, and they also play "The Rainbow Connection" and light up a rainbow! If you thought I'd only cry about Mary Poppins music, think again! It was such a beautiful way to end our Saturday night!

The two worst parts of the trip - aside from having to leave family and return to real life - were the lack of Figment popcorn buckets and seeing that our brick had been removed.

I wanted a Figment popcorn bucket so badly, but because people are the worst and they go crazy over the most ridiculous things, they were sold out and can currently only be found on eBay for completely absurd asking prices. Ten years ago, you could rarely find anything with Figment on it because he was a fairly obscure character. But do you know who has loved him since she first saw him in March 1983, shortly after his Epcot Center debut? This girl! I wrote my fifth grade speech about Epcot Center and Figment featured prominently. I wore a pink trucker hat with Figment on it to school day after day after day because I was obsessed. I haven't bought a ton of Figment merchandise over the years because he's usually associated with one of the Epcot festivals and I just don't care to collect that stuff. However, when I saw that popcorn bucket a few weeks ago, I got so excited and couldn't wait to buy one. Because of the aforementioned awful people, I came home empty handed and very disappointed. Do I realize it's just a popcorn bucket? Yes. Of course. Does that make me feel any less annoyed about the situation? No.

Finally, our Walk Around the World brick, dated 1994, had been on the walkway between MK and Contemporary for over 25 years. As part of a renovation, all of those bricks were removed in the past year or so. It was pretty depressing to see the spot where it used to be.

I'm hoping we can go back with our niece and nephew again soon because it's so fun to experience the parks with them!