Here it is!  The day finally came for our girlies to see Cinderella’s castle at Magic Kingdom!  Noelle (7 1/2), Anna Kate (4 1/2), Rose (2 1/2)

Heck yes!  There is a moat!  I’ve always wondered and was hoping it wouldn’t be just park and concrete.  YAY!

 

I was surprised the balcony had fabric curtains on the outside of the castle! 

 

And then… to my surprise, my favorite part of the castle!  I was so excited it all just wasn’t a façade (I mean, I’m sure it is to some extent), but there are tons of little details to make it perfect, which, if you know me, is my dream world!  I love details!  When you walk into the main entrance (left picture), you walk through multiple groin ceilings that connect all the way through to the back of the castle.  OMG!  I’ve always wanted to see multiple groin ceilings in a row (weird wish, huh?  There’s a back story).  I’ve seen pictures of cathedrals and castles in Europe that have them but have never seen them in person.  It was a super big deal (the biggest deal of our house) to have a groin ceiling in the entryway.  One groin ceiling.  I love them!  The symbolism for us to have a groin ceiling in the entryway of our house is to represent our house being our place of worship as well/our dwelling place, where everyone who walks in can feel warm and welcome, the way we are supposed to feel about walking into a church too.  A little piece of history of the church, of detail, that was important to me to incorporate into our home.  Bringing beauty back into architecture.  So, to have this grand surprise today (that I’ve only seen in pictures) was a very huge deal.  This was my WOW moment!  And if you understood how hard it was to get this in our house, and what a feat it is to have multiple ones in a row, you would understand my excitement.  Maybe you do.  It’s incredible!

 

Below each archway, there are stain glass mosaics that tell the Cinderella story; icing on the cake!  To walk through, and tell the girls the fairy tale, with the mosaics as the medium, was amazing!  Their little minds were so busy putting it all together!  The story went in order from Cinderella cleaning for her stepmother all the way through to her riding off with the prince, and these were in line below the groin ceilings.  All the while we were walking, I was also explaining to them that before people could read and write, they passed down stories to their children through pictures, drawings.  As we were in Cinderella’s castle!  I thought this trip was going to be cute, but corny.  I’m sorry to you Disney lovers, but I thought it was just going to be super fun, but surface-level pretend stuff, and here we were walking through a history lesson with the best visuals for that lesson we could ever imagine!  And now they will never forget the art medium of mosaic tiles either.  Art and history, all wrapped up into a little girl’s fairy tale, on the walls of the most visited castle in the world! 

This is the second mosaic.  The picture on the right above, is the third.  And check out the columns… the little mice are carved out with buttons and bows!  I see this stuff in my world, and it’s usually not a good thing.  Normally, it’s a crack in the ceiling or litter on the side of the road, and the extra clutter drives my brain crazy, but today, it was absolutely beautiful! 

 

I guess since Disney was never an option in the past, I never looked up pictures about Disney online because one day, I knew I’d see it for myself; or hoped I would!  This is the back of the castle and the beautiful mosaic breezeway; I didn’t know what the back of the castle looked like.  It’s just as pretty as the front!  To the right of the breezeway, is the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique and to the left, is the entrance to Cinderella’s restaurant (the stained glass windows above are where the tables are located for the character dining).  We would be there soon… but for now, on to Fantasyland!