Birthday Wishes Come True by Carly Piniaha

16th birthdays are literally, once in a lifetime. They are celebrated immensely with sweet sixteen parties or other big events. I recently turned sixteen and it had become my time, as many others before me, to decide what I wanted to do for my sweet sixteen. Now, I'm not much of a party thrower myself so those ideas were not in my future. Without any ideas, I decided to just celebrate with my family and friends. My parents on the other hand had other ideas. They set up an amazing 3 day weekend where I got to go to Disney with one of my best friends, Mikayla.

Disney had always been one of my favorite places. I mean it's a place to go on fun rides and meet princesses, and what little girl wouldn't love that? Though I’ve grown out of meeting princesses, (sorry Rapunzel), it still holds a special place in my heart for all the fun things to do there. It’s much nicer to spend the majority of our time riding on the various rides there are than waiting online to get an autograph and picture. Throughout the whole trip we were able to ride all the roller coasters in the park, which is an added bonus.

Disney, holds true to its slogan as happiest place on earth. The people who work in Disney are some of the nicest people you will ever meet in your life. Even though they deal with thousands of people every workday of their lives. Everywhere I went they would wish me happy birthday or just strike up any random conversation. The employees made my Disney trip ten times more enjoyable just from their kindness.

On the first day, we went to both Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. We started off in Hollywood Studios and ended the day in Animal Kingdom. I’ve always loved the Star Wars rides in Hollywood Studios, even though in all honesty I haven’t seen all of them. Animal Kingdom was one of the most interesting parks with cast members putting on shows in the middle of streets almost every twenty minutes.

The second day was the day we went to Epcot. I had been most excited to go to this park because of the Japan section. I have been studying Japanese for a little over two months, and I was trying to push myself to speak Japanese while I was there. It’s very nerve racking to do this, for me at least. So when I was able to speak to the employees from Japan in Japanese it was a big accomplishment for me.

The final day we went to the Magic Kingdom. At seven o’clock they closed down the park and opened up for a Christmas festival. We were able to stay for this and rides that usually were 130 minutes or more went down to ten. The castle was lit up with hundreds of Christmas lights and was one of the prettiest sights in the park. At nine o’clock they even had a parade where the whole main street had “snow” coming from the tops of the buildings.

I am so thankful for my sweet sixteen I ended up going to Disney. It was an all round great experience that outweighs any party I would have had. My parents and Mikayla were able to make my 16th birthday one that will be unforgettable.