“It was gorgeous.”

“Just phenomenal.”

“Such an amazing experience.”

This was how seniors Ashley Jones and Julian Coronado described their recent trip to Disney World with Naperville Central’s Choir. Their trip consisted of four jam packed days, consisting of visits to the four Disney parks, a Cirque Du’ Soleil performance and the opportunity to perform live at Epcot, a Disney World theme park, with famous actor Neil Patrick Harris as the host.

On Nov. 29, the students met early at the school in order to take a bus to the airport, and they flew down to Orlando. Excitement was mixed with fatigue among the students, especially in Coronado’s case, who slept through the plane ride.

“It [hadn’t] hit me yet that I was going to Disney [when I was on the plane],” Coronado said.

“It really hit me once we got there. I was walking around in Downtown Disney with a bunch of my friends. I bought a make-it-yourself-light-saver. I was flipping out, and I just thought (it was) the coolest thing on earth. When I looked around, I realized ‘I’m in Disney World right now!’”

The days of Disney started with a wake up call at 7:15 a.m. sharp. Tired but excited, the choir students took a bus to the specific park of the day and were told to “go nuts.”

The days prior to the concert consisted of going on rides, meeting Disney characters and just hanging out at the parks. On top of this, there was the grand finale each night. The first was a show at the Cirque du’ Soleil, which did not fail to amaze Coronado.

“[The performers] were during really ridiculous hard tricks. It was blowing my mind,” Coronado said. “The magic of it really kept us awake.”

The second night the choir students watched a light and firework show displayed on the castle of Magic Kingdom, and the night after that they saw “Fantasmic,” before using their after-hours passes to Hollywood Studios.

“‘Fantasmic’ was a light and water show,” Jones said. “It was stuff you can’t even explain. It was just gorgeous.”

After three days of magic at the Disney Parks, it was finally time for the the “Candlelight Processional,” the show which the students had traveled so far to perform. Dressed in long golden robes, the choir marched across Epcot to reach the stage, where they would sing alongside other high schools and Disney’s own “Voices of Liberty.”

“We all met in a little stage area, (quickly) ran through some of the songs (and then) we went into positioning,” Coronado said.

The show started with the entire choir walking through the audience, singing with a candle light in hand.

“When I got up on stage I was very moved, and I choked up,” Jones said. “It was just beautiful, [such] a beautiful experience.”

Coronado remembers being rather surprised when he first walked into the crowd, by how many people there were. He had not expected such a big turn out.

“[When] I saw how many people did come, I got really happy that they would get to experience all this fantastic music,” Coronado said.

After the two performances which, according to Coronado, went by too quickly, fatigue set into the choir students. With barely any sleep in the past four days, it’s no wonder that the brink of exhaustion had been reached. The students flew home Tuesday afternoon and was back in school on Wednesday.

According to Jones, the trip turned out to be more than a Disney World vacation but a bonding trip for the entire choir.

“It was just very emotional, and I met so many new people,” Jones said. “I have memories to last me a lifetime.”