We celebrated dd's 1st b-day at WDW(and lived to tell about it!)*EPILOGUE p.6, #81*

[Tasha+Scott]

Day 1: The Drive Down (the evening of April 29, 2006)

First a little background on us so you can feel like you know us and we aren’t just some strange Internet personality that is sharing our vacation with a bunch of strangers. My name is Tasha and I am 25. My dh is Scott and he is 27. We married young. I wasn’t quite 19 and dh wasn’t quite 21. We have been married 6.5 years now. We’ve had our ups and downs just as any couple but we are very happy and as in love as ever. Sappy, I know, but it’s true! We had our beautiful little girl on May 5, 2005. Quite a wonderful day to have a baby I think. It was the beginning of the 50th celebration for all of us Disney lovers. It was also Cinco de Mayo. And she has quite the memorable b-day…05-05-05. See, I told you it was a good day to have a birthday! She was, however, 4 days late, caused me severe back labor and an emergency c-section. But you take the good with the bad and it’s all worth it when you get to hold that wonderful little person and know that someday you will be taking them to WDW! See where my priorities lie?

I had been to WDW several times as a child and teen since I not only used to live in Florida but most of my family (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.) still does. I went twice after dh and I were married but both times he stayed home and worked. I went with my mom and younger brother the 1st time and just my mom the 2nd time. I finally convinced dh to go with me in June of 2004. We went only 2 weeks after I got back from the trip with my mom. Yep, I was Disney spoiled that year. I wanted to show dh absolutely everything and we only had 4 days to do it since we also planned to go to Sea World 1 day and Universal Studios 1 day and Islands of Adventure 1 day. So we were complete commandos during those 4 days. We were crazy! We practically ran from ride to ride and took advantage of EMH. Back then you had to pay $12 for the bracelets to stay after the park closed though. Now of course it is free as long as you stay onsite. But anyway, we had a fantastic time but we were always in a hurry and never really stopped to take in any of the scenery or do any of the smaller things. It was all about the rides, a quick counter service lunch or/and dinner, and one night we managed to take time to watch Spectromagic. But we even skipped Wishes. No time for that as we had rides to ride while the other park goers watched the fireworks. We were able to pretty much walk onto any ride we wanted during the fireworks so that’s what we did.

We had such a fantastic time that we talked about going again the following May of 2005. But around July 2004 we started talking about starting a family. We decided that we were ready and that we would start a family first. We completely thought for some reason that it might take a few months before I became pregnant so we thought it was possible that we might get to go in May 2005 afterall and that I would be somewhere between 4-6 months preg. But nope! I got pregnant right away and was due to have our little one May 1, 2005. So out went the WDW plans for 2005 since dh’s job only allowed him to take his vacation time between April and August and going in April was way too close to my due date and we decided we didn’t want to go during the summer months with a newborn. So we began talking about maybe taking our baby when she turned 1. I mean that was the perfect time of year for a WDW vacation so why not?

Well, our dd was born May 5, 2005, as I mentioned earlier and we pretty much began the early planning stages of a May 2006 trip. Unfortunately every time we thought we would be able to go something would happen that made us postpone planning our trip. We finally thought everything was okay and actually booked a 4 day stay at the WL for Kylie’s 1st b-day, but then dh’s company was bought out in October and they completely screwed his pay periods up and it hurt us some financially and we didn’t know when or if it would get any better. We even thought dh might have to look for a new job but we were playing the waiting game for a couple of months there. We decided to cancel our trip and go the following year, sometime in 2007. We were disappointed but we decided that would be best. But then, things straightened up with dh’s job and he got a raise! Plus, 2005 was the first year I had not worked since I was about 16. And on top of that we had Kylie that year so we got a pretty good income tax refund. Dh said around January to start planning a vacation, that we were going to WDW! Woo hoo! He didn’t need to tell me twice! So planning I did. We decided not to stay at the WL this time because we knew we could stay longer and have more spending money if we stayed at a value resort. Plus, the theming at the values would probably appeal more to a 1 year old I reasoned in my mind. So we booked a trip for Pop Century for April 30-May 7, 2006.

The next several months seemed to go by sooo slow! Dh was getting burnt out on work since we did not take a vacation at all in 2005, unless you count the 2 weeks he took off when Kylie was 1st born to help me with her since I had a c-section and all. I was ready to get away too. I made our ADRs since we were on the dining plan and I tried to plan things that I thought would be good for Kylie as well as my very picky dh. I bought everything you could think of to bring on our vacation. I looked on allearsnet.com and read the email newsletters every week. I read things on the DIS and did just about everything you can think of until there was nothing else I could do but wait!

But miraculously one day the waiting was over and it was time to go! I packed our bags, we loaded up our car and we were on our way! We decided to drive through the night for several reasons. Gas prices were high and we weren’t sure how much it would cost to get down there and back so we didn’t want to spend any unnecessary money on stopping at a hotel for the night on the way there. Plus, we figured Kylie might sleep the whole trip if we drove at night. We also knew traffic wouldn’t be as bad. We filled up my gas tank (around $40) before leaving and went to KFC for dinner. We had the buffet. I did not like it but I am not a huge KFC fan but Kylie seemed to really like it. And something happened that had never happened before. Kylie suddenly decided she NEEDED to talk to everyone she saw! She has always been loud but she never really talked to strangers before. But suddenly she turned around in her highchair and started babbling at the top of her lungs at a couple at another table. She also began waving at them, telling them “hi”, and then there was another 1st. For the first time ever, she smiled this cute smile where she practically crinkled her entire face. Luckily she is at an age where people think she is adorable and don’t seem to mind when she is nosy…which is lucky because little did we know this would not be a one time thing, but an every meal type thing from now on! I asked dh if I could turn around in my seat and start saying “hi” and “bababa, gagaga” and kicking my legs and flapping my arms at them to see if they would find me half as cute. Dh said no. Darn. It might have been fun!

We finished our meal and washed up and we were on our way. Kylie did in fact sleep pretty much the whole trip. We were making great timing too, better than we had anticipated. And we discovered my car gets great gas mileage. We only had to fill up one more time on the way down and last time we rented a car and had to fill up about 3 times so this was nice surprise. It also meant we saved money on gas! So more money for souvenirs or something! Woo hoo!

Day 2 (aka the first official day of our trip- April 30, 2006):

We stopped the following morning after being on the road for nearly 10 hours and ate breakfast at a McDonald’s/gas station. Kylie woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed and once again began to flirt with a couple sitting at a table near us. I think this may prove to be embarrassing when she is older but right now everyone is fooled by her charm so it was okay. We finished breakfast and continued our journey.

We made our way onto the Florida Turnpike shortly after breakfast and I was a bit delirious from lack of sleep as well as excitement. So I would wait for passing cars to get right beside us and I would start to do this extremely obnoxious stupid dance for them. I got a few looks and double takes which I seemed to find really hilarious. Much to dh’s dismay that only encouraged me to dance even more! :banana:

Suddenly we saw our exit and were finally there! We had made such great timing that we arrived about 2-3 hours earlier than we thought we would. We arrived around 9:30 a.m. I told dh I didn’t think a room would be ready for us that early but that was okay. I was so excited and just couldn’t wait to be there. Kylie had slept all night so she was set to go as well. And even dh couldn’t contain his excitement, although he didn’t dance for anyone much to my disappointment. :guilty: We pulled into the parking lot and got out. I was such a giddy idiot that I kept giggling and smiling this gigantic moronic smile as we made our way to the lobby. Dh kept rolling his eyes but even he couldn’t hide a smile. We had arrived! We were finally there! Let the fun begin!

TO BE CONTINUED...
Up next:
The nearly naked parking lot experience
The lost binky episode
and dinner (and reviews) at the Whispering Canyon Cafe

part 2: page 2
part 3: page 2
part 4: page 2
part 5: page 3
part 6: page 3
part 7 & 8: page 3
part 9: page 4
part 10: page 4
part 11: page 5
part 12: page 5
Epilogue: page 6

ETA: Pics have been removed as of July 22, 2006. I hope everyone got to see them before I removed them! ~ Tasha

[momrek06]

TASHA: Your baby is absolutely beautiful princess: !!! And I love your Trip Report!!! :love: Waiting for MORE.... :thumbsup2



(p.s.: you had me a tad bit confused with the April 2005)!!!

[Tasha+Scott]

(p.s.: you had me a tad bit confused with the April 2005)!!!
Oops, I didn't even notice I did that! :rolleyes1 Thanks! I fixed it!

[daisy_77]

Your DD is soooo cute! I am enjoying your report! Looking forward to more! Thanks for doing this! :goodvibes

[Minniespal]

Tasha ~ Can't wait to read more :goodvibes

[DisKim]

Hi Tasha! Great report so far! I can't wait to read more. Kylie is soooooo cute in her Cinderella dress.

[VanniGirl]

What an adorable little girl!! Can't wait to read more :goodvibes

[Strawberry Lemonade]

Hi Tasha! Sounds like you were off to a great start. Can't wait to read more.

[luvsmickeymouse]

Sounds like you had a great trip. How was POP Century, we are going in August for free dining and staying at POP century. Just wondering how it was. Kylie is beautiful and you sound like a great mom.

[nicolemarie]

We pulled into the parking lot and got out. I was such a giddy idiot that I kept giggling and smiling this gigantic moronic smile as we made our way to the lobby. Dh kept rolling his eyes but even he couldn’t hide a smile. We had arrived! We were finally there! Let the fun begin!

Arrival at Disney does this to me, too. And my husband. And our two children. There's nothing like it. Thanks for sharing your vacation with us.

[nucpharm29]

Tasha--great report so far! :goodvibes Can't wait to read more--Hey, just a quick question--where did you guys start your drive from? If we move back to Arkansas this summer we may drive to WDW in Sept. Just wondering how the trip was for you. Love Kylie in her princess dress!

[kaysmommie]

Enjoying your report so far. Your little girl is adorable! :sunny:

[annie1995]

Your daughter is adorable! I can't wait to read more!

[llij]

Tasha - It sounds like you had a great start to your vacation! :cheer2: :cheer2: Kylie is such a cutie pie! :goodvibes I can't wait to read more.

[lillygator]

What a cutie!! and we have the same Cinderella outfit! :)

[shellynn24]

I can't wait to read more!

[Jennygt]

I am 5months pregnant now and would love to do wdw for dbaby's 1st bday, look forward to hearing your experience! :goodvibes

[Tasha+Scott]

Sounds like you had a great trip. How was POP Century, we are going in August for free dining and staying at POP century. Just wondering how it was. Kylie is beautiful and you sound like a great mom.
Hmmm, well, I will go into it in more detail in my trip report but basically it depends on what you prefer and what you are used to. I liked Pop b/c Kylie enjoyed the theming and everything is close to the main building. I stayed at CBR a couple of years ago and hated how spread out that was. But I will say that I hate bus transportation now. I didn't mind it before Kylie but I refused to stand on a bus with a 1 year old especially since she's only 19 lbs and very active and wiggly and some of those bus drivers take turns too sharply and stop too suddenly and I worried she would get hurt so we often had to wait for more than 1 bus as it was usually standing room only. And the stroller can be a pain when the bus is packed but dh is the one that dealt with that. I would prefer a monorail resort or 1 that has a boat when traveling with a baby/young toddler but we will probably stay at Pop again next trip to save some money and again for the theming since Kylie will still be little and probably enjoy the theming still so that should tell you that it wasn't too bad. And if you aren't traveling with tiny kids and strollers then it really isn't bad at all. It is nice for the theming for kids and the value price too. But as far as transportation you definitely get what you pay for! I also prefer deluxe and moderate pools for the slides but that is not a deciding factor for me in the end. All in all, I liked it enough to stay at again but would stay at mods or deluxes if money wasn't an issue.

Tasha--great report so far! Can't wait to read more--Hey, just a quick question--where did you guys start your drive from? If we move back to Arkansas this summer we may drive to WDW in Sept. Just wondering how the trip was for you. Love Kylie in her princess dress!.
Well, we live in the Fulton, MS, area really close to the AL line...but since we decided to eat at KFC we drove to Amory, MS, and started from there. We drive through Columbus, MS, going through Tuscaloosa, AL, then Montgomery and Dothan, AL, and then take I-10 and I-75 through FL to the FL Turnpike. It is a very easy drive to navigate. It usually takes us anytime between 13-14 hours to get there but this time we managed to get there in about 11.5 I think! And we didn't even have to speed. The way home was a different story since we were tired and didn't want to come home. That seemed to drag on forever and we did end up stopping for the night on the way home. I love to drive there personally and have been doing it with my mom and brothers and then dh for years. But Arkansas is 2-3 hours from us (if we go through Memphis) and I have only been there once so I can't help much there I'm afraid!

What a cutie!! and we have the same Cinderella outfit! :) Ah, then you know how excited I was when I found it at Walmart for only $10! Especially since Kylie is still so small and the character costumes are usually too big for her. If I remember correctly your youngest is only a couple months older than Kylie, right?

Anyway, I have not even begun working on the next installment. It's not that I don't want to but Kylie rarely lets me on the computer during the day anymore. I am always surprised when she does let me. She is napping on me right now (which is rare, guess she was tired!) which is the only reason I have a free moment. So it is always night when I can get on here and a lot of times I have a lot of other things to do after she goes to bed too. I am telling you all this b/c I don't know exactly how long it will be before I can finish the next part of my report but I promise I will try to get to it as quickly as I can! Bear with me! ;)

[vald1977]

:wave2: Hi Tasha,
I'm loving your trip report so far :) ! Can't wait for more :thumbsup2 .

[Tasha+Scott]

Kylie has decided to sleep in REALLY late today so I actually have a little time to work on my TR! Yippee! :cool1:

Still Day 2 (or still official 1st Day of our stay)

We continued to make our way toward the entrance to the lobby with me still giggling like a mad woman and dh still rolling his eyes. I noticed several people with gloomy expressions on their faces rolling their luggage behind them toward the Magical Express bus stop area. I knew that in a week I would also have that bummed out look but for now nothing could bring me down!

We entered the lobby and got in line to check in. We had left our luggage out in the car and all we brought inside with us was Kylie (I think it’s the law to bring your child with you instead of leaving her in the car in Florida but I’m not sure!), her stroller, and our money, confirmation numbers, and things like that. While in line I made the mistake of asking dh if I should change shorts or if he thought I looked okay. I had decided to wear these cotton navy blue shorts that normally I would only wear to bed or while exercising. They are so comfortable though and comfort was my main concern when thinking we would be on the road for 13 or 14 hours. I had completely expected to arrive around noon and figured more than likely they would have a room ready for us, as that has been our experience in the past. I had no idea we would make such great timing and arrive by 9:30 a.m. I had planned to go to our room as soon as we got there and change clothes and freshen up a bit before heading out. I knew our room wouldn’t be ready this early though, especially since I planned to be picky and request a certain area so I thought I’d better ask dh what he thought.

“So do these shorts look okay or should I change? It’s okay to be honest. Really, I won’t be mad!” I could see the wary expression on his face but he was honest. He told me that they were fine to sleep in but he would never wear something like that in public! OMG, so now I am so self-conscious thinking about all the people at KFC and McDonald’s and the gas station and now the lobby of Pop Century that have seen me looking like a homeless slob! Okay, I think to myself, I will just change in the bathroom after we check in. No big deal, right? Yeah, you people don’t know me well enough to know that it very possibly could turn into a big deal when I’m involved. You’ll see!

So anyway, we make our way to the front of the line and approach the next available CM. I give her my “official” papers that WDW had sent me a few weeks ago hoping this will speed up our check in. It does. We have no problems. I do tell her that we would like a room in the 50s section, either Building 1 or Building 3. Either will do but I want to be close to the main building. Nothing is terribly spread out at Pop but after being on your feet all day at the parks most people are tired by the time they reach the resort for the night and I am no exception. The closer the better IMO! And yet, I am too cheap to pay the extra money for the “preferred” location as it really isn’t much closer than the 50s building which is not going to cost me any extra like the preferred location would. I also liked the location b/c I knew that the icons to these 2 buildings was Lady and the Tramp and I knew Kylie would love this. We have 2 dogs ourselves that Kylie completely adores when she isn’t busy beating them so Kylie is really into dogs right now when she isn't busy beating them. The CM says she can get us a room in Building 3 and I am satisfied. She does say our room isn’t ready yet though and that is also fine since that is what I was expecting her to say. I tell her we would like a refrigerator and a crib as well and she says no problem. She hands us our folder full of all the info. that they tend to give you at check in. We are on the dining plan this trip so she explains that our room key is also what we will give the waiters/waitresses during our meals. It also is our park tickets. Can I just say how I found this very convenient? I loved that all of this was on one card, instead of 3. She tells us to call back after 3 to find out our room number. Of course we are sure our room will be ready before then so we don’t plan to wait that long as we are not patient people when we have been on the road for quite a while and are tired. We know we won’t be able to wait until 3 if we don’t have to.

We are now officially checked in and I have completely forgotten that I look like a homeless freak for the moment. We go back out to the car and head to the parking lot of our building. I start preparing Kylie’s diaper bag with things I think we might need before we actually go to the park. This leads to an unexpected discovery. You see, when I was preg. with Kylie I had the hardest time finding a diaper bag that looked girlish. Everything seemed to be geared towards boys at the time so I ended up buying a baby blue Winnie the Pooh bag that looked like it was gender neutral compared to the rest. It was a huge bag though and as time went on Kylie didn’t require as much so I switched to a much smaller bag. Well, I realized it would probably be too small for WDW and the big bag was something I did not want to use again. I wanted something in the middle as well as girlish and cute. So imagine how excited I was when I found a cute PINK diaper bag with butterflies at Fred’s for only $5! I bought it and I brought it with us. However I discovered it wasn’t quite big enough for Kylie’s formula, bottles, sippy cups, sun block, money, change of clothes, diapers, etc. And no, I didn’t think to check until AFTER we got to WDW! Long story short we carried this stupid bulging bag with us that morning and it wouldn’t even zip. Thankfully I had brought my cute little bag that I bought at WDW on our last trip. Best $20 souvenir I ever bought! That became Kylie’s diaper bag for the rest of the trip and that thing may have looked small but it was practically bottomless it held so much! I also wised up and dumped a bunch of the powdered formula into a Ziploc bag every morning instead of toting that stupid bulky can everywhere. On top of that I let dh put our money, room keys, etc., into his wallet and I locked my huge pocketbook in the safe so that eliminated that waste of space as well. Yeah, yeah, I am rambling about a stupid diaper bag and it’s pointless but it was a bit of a big deal at the time! I told you anything can end up being a big deal with me, didn’t I?!

Okay, back to more important matters since I can sense your boredom. I had completely forgotten that I wanted to change shorts until after we had driven to our section’s parking lot. By this point I don’t feel like looking for a bathroom to change in but I also don’t want to scare little children with the shorts I am donning so I ask dh if he thought I could get away with changing right there since nobody was around. (You probably see where this is going, don’t you? You think you do, but it actually gets worse than what you are thinking!) Dh says he wouldn’t b/c somebody could walk up at any second. I shrug him off and say I will sit in the passenger side of the car and I will be quick and nobody will notice. I am rather smug with my brilliant idea at the moment. He sighs and says okay and he serves as my official watch-out.

I find a more presentable pair of shorts to wear, have dh reassure me that my shirt looks fine and won’t scare kids into therapy, and proceed to change in the parking lot. I manage to pull my scary shorts off but I get them stuck on my shoes! Yes, people I am now half naked and cannot get those stupid shorts off my feet! Dh is now laughing hysterically as I am frantically trying to kick them off and he tells me people are coming. He’s laughing though so I think he’s messing with me. I giggle and say something like yeah, right! He then starts saying, “No, Tasha, I am serious! I can see an entire family complete with kids and grandparents coming!” I see that he is in fact serious which sends me into a panic and I still cannot get the stupid things off my feet. Somehow or another they are tangled…stupid children scaring, homeless-looking shorts! I now hate these things and vow to burn them.

I manage to get them off and can see the people coming! OMG, these poor kids are going to be more traumatized by seeing me half-naked than they would have if I had just kept the shorts on! I try to quickly put my other shorts on but I am going too fast and nearly fall in the parking lot! I regain my balance and finally manage to get them on, and just in the nick of time! Just as I am pulling the shorts all the way up the family is within sight and they glance in our direction. Nothing to see here people! Just a lovely couple and their lovely child enjoying the scenery of the parking lot! :rolleyes1 That was a close one! I eventually do forgive those evil shorts and wear them to bed a few nights later.

Ah, well, Kylie just woke up so I will have to finish the rest later! So…

TO BE CONTINUED…
Up next:
The lost binky episode
And Dinner at Whispering Canyon Café (complete with reviews)

[llij]

:rotfl2: :rotfl2: :rotfl2: :rotfl2:

Tasha - Good job with the second installment of your trip report! I'm laughing now as I imagine you trying to get your shorts changed! :teeth:

I can't wait to read more!

[OhMari]

We do a lot of road trips and I wear comfortable clothes. We once drove form midnite till 7:00 a.m. to Mall of America. I get out of our vehicle and my kids are screaming at me to change my clothes. They didn't want to be seen with me wearing sweats and nike flip flops. I had to do the quick change in our vehicle too. Hope you can find time to do your trip report.

[angel*lady]

Great trip report! Looking forward to the rest! :sunny:

[momrek06]

Okay, back to more important matters since I can sense your boredom.


TO BE CONTINUED…
Up next:
The lost binky episode
And Dinner at Whispering Canyon Café (complete with reviews)


TASHA: NO WAY...we are not bored at all :sad2: . I love TRIP REPORTS :love: !!! Your trip is awesome!!! Keep going with ALL the details!!!! Looking forward to the NEXT installment!!! :thumbsup2

[gottalovethem]

very funny Tasha. I'm enjoying your adventure. I need to get back to mine some time this weekend! It's hard with little ones at your feet :sunny:

[Tasha+Scott]

STILL Day 2 (I know, I know! I’m hoping to finish that up in this installment though!)

Now that my clothing is halfway acceptable we are ready to officially start our day as well as our trip. We had eaten breakfast only a couple hours earlier so we aren’t terribly hungry just yet and we have no room to go to so we discuss what we want to do. We decide to go to Epcot. I honestly don’t know why but this seems to always be the first park we choose to go to on every trip. I LOVE Epcot! It is my 2nd favorite park. Only MK beats it in my book! Dh likes it but it is not his favorite or even his 2nd. It’s more like his 3rd or it may even be tied for last with MGM to him, I can't remember. It is always the one we find most relaxing when we are tired for some reason though so Epcot it is! We go out to the bus stop and are lucky enough to arrive just as the Epcot bus pulls up and there is not a very long line so we are able to sit down and not have to worry about standing. So far this day is turning out okay, I think to myself.

We arrive at Epcot and I marvel at the beauty of the scenery. We are there during the Flower and Garden Festival which seems to be the only time I have ever been to Epcot and yet I still always find it so gorgeous! Kylie is in a great mood and all smiles and dh is starting to get over his weariness in anticipation of things to come.

We decide to have a few photopass pictures taken since we were given a voucher for a free 5x7 for staying at Pop. It’s FREE! How can I turn that down? We then head to Spaceship Earth. I am not sure exactly how Kylie will handle the ride as this is a new experience all around for her so I make sure her binky (or pacifier to those of you that don’t know what a binky is) is clipped to her outfit and we make our way to the entrance. We practically walk right onto the ride. Kylie does okay throughout most of it but toward the end she started getting restless since she wanted to get down and play. She is not the type to sit still unless something REALLY interests her and unfortunately Spaceship Earth became boring to her after a while. As we are going down backwards on the ride she keeps trying to climb all over me and is fussing to get down. I’ll admit that was one long ride once she started doing that! It still wasn’t too bad as I was expecting her to get restless on a few rides and she didn’t get scared or throw a tantrum or anything so it was okay.

We exit the ride and then decide to head over to Universe of Energy since it is scheduled to close for rehab the very next day. We put Kylie in her stroller and make sure her binky is on her and head for the ride. We get to the stroller parking section, get Kylie out of her stroller, and head to the entrance. About ¾ of the way there I notice she doesn’t have her binky. I am not sure how she will do on U of E without it since that ride is a bit long as well. I ask dh if he has it and he says no. I never saw her drop it so I figure it must be in her stroller. Dh heads back to her stroller and confirms that it is gone! She had lost it somewhere along the way. That is when I realize that even though I brought 5 binkies from home (just in case) I had forgotten to put any in the already bulging pink diaper bag! Figures, right? So I ask dh if we should go ahead and ride U of E anyway or skip it for now. He says we should ride it and he thinks she will be fine. So we go inside and decide to give it a shot. Once again, Kylie finds part of the ride interesting but quickly gets bored toward the middle of it. This is when I realize that this ride really is way too long and that the only interesting part is the dinosaurs and that part is over too quickly. Funny how I never noticed that until Kylie pointed it out to me. Hmmm…

I decide to fix Kylie a bottle while we are on the ride to help keep her calm. She really didn’t need a bottle but hey, I was desperate and it did work! The never ending ride is finally over and I tell dh there is no way I am doing anything else until I get her another binky. He agrees. We are left with 2 options. We can leave the park and go all the way back to the resort or we can buy her a new binky at the park. This is a tough one for me since I hate the idea of leaving the park just for that but I also hate the idea of buying a binky at the park since they definitely charge you way too much for almost everything there. The cheap side of me lost this one though. I figured Kylie probably needed her diaper changed anyway (this is how I rationalized this ridiculous purchase in my mind anyway) so we headed to the Baby Center. I changed Kylie and bought her a new Nuk as well as new clip on for it. It cost me nearly $8! Sigh, this child is expensive! Did anyone ever tell you that babies are expensive? Well, they are…especially when they lose their binkies at Epcot! The Baby Center at Epcot is really nice though. It was also nice to get into a nice air conditioned room so it wasn’t all a loss. This would not be our last visit to Epcot’s Baby Center either but thankfully it would be the last time we made a purchase there!

After we were done at the Baby Center I was starting to finally feel the exhaustion creeping in. I had not been to sleep in more than around 28 hours by this point and it was starting to catch up with me. Plus, it was very hot right then. It was now around 1 p.m. so I had dh call on his cell phone to see if our room was ready. It was. We left the park and headed to our bus stop (I guess I didn't have to buy the binky at Epcot after all but I did need the clip so it worked out either way.) One bad thing about staying at Pop is how far away the bus stop is to the entrance of the parks. Pop is the newest resort and it is also a value so it is almost always the furthest bus stop in relation to the other resorts. This is normally no big deal unless you have been on your feet all day or you are really tired. Just thought I’d throw that in since some of you will be staying at Pop and might like to know that.

We arrive back at the resort and head to the food court before going to our room. Dh wanted to buy refillable mugs since we are such good law-abiding citizens and would never dream of reusing our 2004 refillable mugs from a different resort. Besides, we forgot our old mugs anyway! :rolleyes1 I will say that although dh got a lot of use out of his refillable mug it was practically a waste of money for me this time. For one thing, we rented a refrigerator this trip and I stocked it full of bottled water that I bought at Walmart. Plus, if you are on the dining plan you automatically get a drink with any meals you eat in the food court whether you have the mug or not. We didn’t think about that so we ended up having extra water to take with us to the parks when we ate at the food court (which we only did 2-3 times) which was nice but not really necessary since I brought so much water with us. Plus, I am not a big soda drinker and about the only thing I do drink is water so the only thing I put in my refillable mug was apple juice anyway. Oh, well, though, I’ll know next time and at least I do have a souvenir now. I also got the one that fits into the cup holders in my car so I can always use it when I go out I suppose.

After we bought our refillable mugs we took a quick look in the gift shop. This was our first stay at Pop but I had done a lot of research about it beforehand. So I did know that the food court and gift shop were somewhat connected before we ever arrived. A lot of people talked about how this was a good thing but I thought it made it seem a little too crowded and crammed and did not like this at all. I like it when they are separate personally but even that wasn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things since we didn’t spend our whole trip in that gift shop anyway. Thought I’d add that too though in case anyone was wondering.

After browsing briefly in the gift shop we headed to our room. We were on the 2nd floor in building 3 and stayed in room #3259. It was a bit small but that wasn’t a huge concern since we don’t spend every waking minute in the room anyway. Dh told me to stay in the room with Kylie and he would unload the car. We had a bunch of stuff and I told him it would probably be better if he requested something to load our luggage on but my dh is a stubborn one and he refused. Okay, whatever. While he was gone I checked to make sure we had a refrigerator and a “crib”. Check and sort of check. The “crib” is actually just a playpen. I had read that online though so I wasn’t surprised. That was the reason we decided to get 2 full-sized beds instead of just 1 king-sized bed. We knew there was a possibility Kylie would refuse to sleep in the playpen and might end up in the bed with us and it would get crowded. We decided 2 beds would be better and that if she did end up sleeping with us that dh could have 1 bed and Kylie and I would share the other. That was one of the smartest decisions I ever made! I am getting ahead of myself though…

Dh returned a while later hot, sweaty, out of breath, and loaded down with our junk. He gave me a look and told me he had to go get the rest. Uh-oh, my over-packing was earning me some evil looks from my sweet dh. Oh, well, I told him he should have gotten something to load it on, didn’t I? He ended up making 3 trips back and forth to the car and the last trip he took Kylie’s stroller and loaded it up too! After he got back he told me that I had better drink every one of the bottles of water out of the 24 pack case he had just carried in, lol! I managed to drink 14 I think. I got a lecture when we left to head home about how I was supposed to drink all of them but I just smiled.

I unpacked our luggage and put everything on hangers, in drawers, in the bathroom, on the sink, etc. I tend to over pack but we never forget anything really important at least. Plus, I never realized how much you have to pack when you take a baby/young toddler with you out-of-town for a week! A good majority of the stuff was Kylie's. After I was done unpacking I tried to get Kylie to take a nap but she was too excited and wound up wanting to check out our new temporary living space. She set out to explore the room. Thankfully I had also brought outlet covers and had plugged those into the outlets since I knew she would want to explore. I may over pack but I am prepared for things such as that at least! I gave Kylie a few toys that we had brought her in case of boredom and let her play and explore. Dh and I attempted to rest for a little while. I couldn’t sleep though knowing Kylie was awake and playing in the floor. Dh did doze for a little while. I decided to watch tv. I was thrilled to discover the wide variety of channels we got! Last time we only got a handful of channels and most of those were WDW related. This time we had a lot to choose from. I watched some Lifetime movie (can’t even remember what now) for a couple hours. We then started getting ready to leave for our reservation at the Whispering Canyon Café at the Wilderness Lodge. Dh had never even seen the WL (other than in pictures) and I was excited to finally show it to him as I knew he would love it. I had never eaten there but had read good reviews so we were eager to get there. Plus, we had not eaten anything since 7 that morning and we were starting to get hungry.

We headed to our bus stop only to discover that a lot of other people were also headed to the MK. We weren’t able to get on the first bus that stopped. We were first in line to get on the next bus though. We arrived at the MK and headed to the boat launch that takes you to the WL and Ft. Wilderness. We ended up just missing the boat and had to wait till it came back 10 min. later. When it came back we were once again 1st in line and had 1st pick on where to sit. We chose to sit at the very back so Kylie could see the water and the scenery. She loved the boat ride! I did too but I always do.

By the time we arrived at the WL we were late for our reservation! Dh was stressing about it but I wasn’t. I figured the worst that would happen is we would have to wait for an available table as I didn’t think this would be completely booked up. I went to the front and told the host we had an ADR but that we were (16 min.) late. He looked it up and told us that was okay and gave us our buzzer. I swear to you that as soon as we sat down in the waiting area the buzzer went off. We waited about 30 sec. and were seated! You can’t beat that, especially when you are late to your own reservation!

We ordered milkshakes for our drinks. We were thrilled when our server told us that you can now order milkshakes as your drink on the dining plan. I know it didn’t used to be that way from everything I had read and heard. So we ordered milkshakes- chocolate for me and strawberry for dh (Kylie had a little of mine and LOVED it!) and we ordered the all-you-can-eat skillet. While waiting on our food we watched the chaos (er, I mean, entertainment) going on around us. Kylie loved this place because it was LOUD and she fit right in. Every time any screaming, yelling, or hollering went on Kylie would join right in! She was entranced with all that was going on around her and I was glad she could be as loud as she wanted there without disturbing anyone. Our food arrived and dh ended up being stingy with the ribs and wouldn’t share. Kylie ended up eating most of the baked beans and I mainly just ate chicken and potatoes. That was okay though as I am not a huge meat eater and I do not like baked beans. We ordered our dessert to go as we were stuffed!

Here are our reviews for the WCC:

Kylie: Good food! I can get loud! Tables are close together so I can be nosey! Love it!
Scott: Good food, I like to eat and it’s all you can eat! Love it!
Tasha: Okay food, atmosphere is just okay. A bit crowded and very noisy. The noise didn’t bother me at all but if you don’t like noisy restaurants or kids running by your table riding pony sticks then this is not the place for you!

I would go back in the future when Kylie is a little older simply b/c I think she would love how she can join in on the fun. It's a great family place. If not for Kylie I wouldn’t care one way or the other. It was okay but nothing I feel the need to do again. Out of all the meals we did on the dining plan that week I think this was probably my LEAST favorite. I still enjoyed it but I don’t think it even compared to the others. Dh would go back though (he rated this his 3rd favorite out of the 7 table service meals we ate) so I guess my opinion may be in the minority here!

After dinner, we toured the WL for a few min. and dh did fall in love with this resort. He is the one that decided he would rather stay at Pop for a week vs. staying at the WL to save money. He regretted his decision after seeing the WL. He liked it that much! After dh saw the WL we got back in line to board the boat. I was hoping we might make it in time to watch Spectromagic but I knew we were pressed on time and might not make it. It was also EMH that evening at the MK and it was also the last night POTC was going to be open before it was under rehab again and that is by far my favorite ride! I was determined I would get to ride that at least once or twice.

Well, we arrived and had to wait in line to get our bracelets for EMH and the line was moving so slow. Finally someone in charge realized how slowly bracelets were being put on and finally told the CMs to start just handing them to people and not to worry about putting them on us. So we grabbed our bracelets and put them on ourselves and headed inside. Due to the long wait to get our bracelets we got inside during the middle of the Spectromagic parade and it was jam-packed! We had already missed half the parade so we decided we’d watch that another night and TRY to head to POTC. That was an uphill battle and then some! We made it down most of Main St. but there was no getting past the crowd at a certain point so we just stood there until the parade passed by us.

After the parade passed by us we joined the mob in the street trying to go down Main St. I could not believe all of the people that thought it was smart to try to cut in front of my stroller! I am sorry to those who left that evening with sore ankles, really I am, but it was way too crowded to be trying to cut off a moving stroller! Apparently these people had never seen me drive! After running over about 50 people (again, sorry!) we managed to get out of the mob of people and headed towards POTC. Most of the park-goers were looking for a good place to watch WISHES at that point so we walked right onto POTC and were able to ride twice with no wait. I was so tired though that it is a bit of a blur to me now unfortunately! But did you know they changed the dog at the prison scene? He is not a yellow lab type dog anymore. He is now a floppy-eared, spotted, mangy-looking type dog. Interesting. :scratchin

After we rode POTC dh decided he wanted to ride BTMRR. I told him that was fine and asked him if he wanted to ride Buzz after that and then head back to the resort. He said an emphatic yes since BTMRR and Buzz are his 2 favorite rides. I told him that Kylie and I were heading to Tomorrowland to wait for him and to go there and meet us in front of Buzz when he was through. Kylie fell asleep in her stroller during the walk to Tomorrowland. It also was starting to get chilly which surprised me. We live in Mississippi and our weather tends to be hot and humid like Florida and we had just gotten over a heat wave with temps in the mid 90s so I sure wasn’t prepared to be chilly in Florida! But it was and all we had brought was shorts, tank tops, t-shirts, (and onsies and sundresses and things like that for Kylie.) I had brought a couple of receiving blankets with us but had not thought to bring one to the park with me. Okay, no sweat. Dh will be here before we know it. WRONG! I waited and waited and waited and it got chillier and chillier and chillier!

After a while I decided I needed to do something to keep Kylie from getting too cold and I was pretty tired of looking in gift shops so I covered her up with a cloth diaper that I use as a “spit rag”. This is when having a smaller child comes in handy. It covered most of her body much to my relief. After about 45 min. Kylie woke up and I fed her a bottle. It was getting late, the park was still pretty crowded, despite the EMH, and I was freezing. Okay, now I was starting to get irritated! I called dh on his cell phone and asked him where in the world he was. He proceeds to tell me that he has looked all over the park for me! “Uh,” I ask him, “Did you bother to look by Buzz Lightyear since that is where we agreed to meet?” He tells me he can’t find Buzz. Okay, then how can he say he had looked all over the park I wonder but instead I ask him where he is. He is by the Tea Cups. Okay, that’s not too far from us so I give him directions on how to get to us and tell him if he gets lost again to ask someone that works there for directions and they should be able to help him. Okay, he’ll be here any min. now at least. WRONG!

By this point Kylie has woken up and is no longer my smiling happy angel. She is tired (it’s now past her bedtime and I had expected to have left the park before now), hungry, and more than likely chilly. I make her a bottle and I feed her and that helps but then she doesn’t want to be put back in her stroller. 20 more min. has passed and dh is still no where to be found! I am really getting annoyed now! I am tired and cold as well and there is no cloth diaper to keep me warm darn it! I call dh back on his cell phone and ask him where he is and this time I can hear the annoyance rising in my voice but am trying to remain calm. He tells me he is by Dumbo! WTH?! How can he only be by Dumbo? He says that he asked a CM for directions and they gave him bad directions. Yeah, okay. I am not buying it. I remember now why I am always the navigator! I tell him to stay put and that we will find him! I realize if we wait on him to find us that it will be morning before he does. It is a bit of a hassle since Kylie did not want me to put her in her stroller and it is way too difficult to steer her stroller with one hand while holding her in the other arm in that type of crowd. I ran over so many ankles while steering with both hands. Can you imagine how awful it would be for ankles everywhere if I steered with only 1 hand?! I decided I had to put Kylie back in the stroller. This royally pisses her off and she starts to throw a tantrum but I plop her $8 binky in her mouth and she calms down. For $8 it had better calm her down anyway!

About 5 min. later we are at Dumbo and we walk around the entire ride and don’t see dh. I am about to lose it now. I am fuming! What part of “stay put” confused him? I am so pissed I could…:furious: Oh, there he is! Lucky him! He is very sheepish and apologetic and I decide to forgive him and let it go. I do tell him however that Buzz will have to wait until another day since Kylie and I have had enough. He agrees and he did get to ride BTMRR twice so he was satisfied too.

We go to the bus stop an hour and a half before EMH ends and I about faint! The line is ridiculously long! OMG and I am sooo tired by this point and it’s cold out! Ugh! What can you do though? Besides I imagine it would be a lot worse when EMH ends anyway! We get in line and Kylie has once again fallen asleep. An hour and quite a few busses later Kylie wakes up. She is back to her happy smiling self and starts flirting with people in line. They just don’t know how deceptive her charm can be and she has them right where she wants them. She has a great time waiting in line and is so happy that it eases some of my tension at least. Finally we get on the 5th bus that stops for Pop, I think, and we don’t have to stand so that's always a plus. I am so tired by this point that I would probably have stood despite my fear of holding Kylie while standing. Thankfully I didn’t have to though.

We get back to the resort and somehow manage to drag ourselves to our room. I get Kylie ready for bed and then attempt to get ready for bed myself. Kylie suddenly becomes very clingy and doesn’t want me to put her down and she doesn’t want Daddy at all! She cries as I get ready for bed and Scott can not console her. After I am ready for bed I pick her up and I already know this is not going to happen but I decide to see if she will sleep in the playpen. Nope, she isn’t having that at all! I am so tired so I grab her and put her in bed with me. We kiss Scott goodnight and he gets into the other bed and we all fall asleep. I was so tired and by the end of the night things were not going so well and I had started wondering if this trip was worth it or not. Kylie was being exceptionally good most of the day but it just didn’t feel as magical as previous trips for some reason. I was really hoping it was because I was so tired and that the trip would pick up once I got some rest. Tomorrow is another day so we shall see!

TO BE CONTINUED…
Up Next:
Kylie’s 1st Interaction with the Characters
Dinner at Le Cellier (complete with reviews)
And Kylie’s Magical Duck Experience

[ryan840]

Great report Tasha. I can't even count the number of times I've thought to myself "she's exactly like me"! I have to laugh about you being cold at MK, we're from MI and thought it was great that night! I am now convinced that we were on POTC at the same time, we rode it once before and twice after Spectromagic (and fought that same crowd with a DOUBLE stroller :crowded: ) If you saw a little boy chasing a laser pointer outside the entrance that was us!

[vald1977]

Still loving the report, Tasha :sunny: ! Thanks for the tip about the outlet covers. I'll have to put them on my packing list :thumbsup2 .

[gottalovethem]

Hi Tasha. I'm exhausted reading about your day. I'm curious, after waiting for the buses so much did you opt to drive later in the trip?

[Tasha+Scott]

Lol, Ryan! I knew that anyone from up North probably would enjoy the weather that night and would think I was crazy for thinking it was cold! There were people swimming in the pool during that crazy weather and my thought was, "No freakin' way!" You can tell who the southerners are compared to the northerners, can't you? :teeth: I am cold when the weather hits 60 degrees, lol!

Day 3 (May 1, 2006)

I had decided after our long drive and lack of sleep the day before that we would start the day late and sleep until whenever we naturally woke up. Unfortunately for me I slept for about 3 hours and that was all! I had a hard time staying asleep with Kylie in the bed with me. She always sleeps in her crib in her own room at home and she has slept through the night most of her life so this was new to me. Sure, she sometimes takes naps with me in my bed during the day but that is for an hour or 2 and never at night when it is dark and I might be disoriented. My mom instincts are actually pretty good and I am a VERY light sleeper but I couldn’t help but feel panicky that she might roll off the bed or something while I slept. So I didn’t sleep, not much anyway! Kylie and Scott slept very well though. I’d say they got at least 9 hours although that detail is a little blurry to me now. While Kylie and dh slept into the early afternoon I watched yet another Lifetime movie! We don’t have anything except basic cable at home since we don’t watch a ton of TV anyway so I don’t get Lifetime at home and there was really nothing else on TV at the time. Really, there wasn’t! I don’t remember what I watched that day either truthfully.

Finally, dh woke up and took a shower and started getting ready for the day. Shortly after that Kylie woke up as happy as ever. That is the one thing I enjoy about her when she first wakes up. She almost always wakes up with a huge grin or giggle!

After getting Kylie ready to go and getting ready ourselves we headed to the food court for lunch. We were on the dining plan so we were able to get a meal, drinks, and dessert! Plus, we had our refillable mugs. So we had burgers (well, I had philly cheesesteak wrap), cheese fries (which dh has decided has made the food court worth it since he is obsessed with cheese on his fries!), 2 bottled waters (which we took to the park with us), and 2 rice crispy Mickey head treats (mine was chocolate covered and I saved it for a couple days later, dh’s was just plain and he ate his after his meal), and we had coke and apple juice in our refillable mugs. I tell you, you get a lot on the dining plan! Last trip it seemed we never had enough water and this time we had plenty, not counting the water I brought with us. So, 2 thumbs up for the dining plan from us! And I guess I should add that we saved about $300 with the dining plan! It’s not free dining of course but since we aren’t able to go during that time of year it was still a total score for us!

Anyway, after we ate, we headed once again to Epcot. We had left without really doing much the day before and I was anxious to do a little more there so Epcot it was. The wait at the bus stop was no problem. I think someone asked if we ever drove to the parks or just took the bus the whole time. Ah, this was such a big issue with me on whether we stayed at Pop or not. I knew that I would not want to stand on the bus while holding Kylie as she is not the type to sit still and I was really worried about her getting hurt. I also didn’t think dh would enjoy folding our stroller and lugging it onto a bus, especially a crowded bus, over and over. I liked the idea of staying at the WL and taking the boat to MK and then the monorail from there if we went to Epcot. It would have been much easier since you don’t have to fold the stroller and most of the time you can get a seat and not have to stand except during the busiest times like park closing and things like that. It would have meant a shorter trip this time though and that is why dh did not want to stay there and chose Pop. I asked him if we could take our car then if the bus became too much work and he didn’t really want to do that. His feeling is while he is on vacation he wants a vacation from everything including driving since free transportation is one of the perks of staying onsite. I told him that if it got too bad then I wanted to drive to the parks though. He reluctantly agreed but I could tell it wouldn’t happen easily. So no, in the end we never did drive our car there or anything. We took the bus the entire time but most of the time we didn’t have a long wait and it wasn't too bad. It was only when we stayed late at a park that we had any real wait so it wasn’t too bad. I still don’t regret not staying at the WL b/c I think we would have been too rushed had we had a shorter trip. Dh was regretting that he didn’t pick WL though b/c he did get pretty tired of loading the stroller on the bus, lol, but that was his decision.

Okay, now back to our trip. We arrived for our full day at Epcot. The first thing we did was ask a Photopass photographer some question and I can’t remember what now honestly but it led to him telling us about Character Connection and for that I am grateful. I would probably have just walked right by it and never gave it a 2nd glance if he had not told me about it. We entered Character Connection and I immediately loved how this was set up. Nice and air conditioned, out of the sun. Plus, there were several separate lines for characters and after you were done with one character you moved on to the next. To make that even better the lines were never excessively long. Silly mommy forgot to bring her own camera inside though so we were stuck doing Photopass pics only. This was the moment of truth though! Kylie had been terrified of the Easter Bunny only a couple of weeks earlier so we didn’t know if she would be okay with Mickey and pals either. She had recently discovered Mickey at home though and knew who he was so we were hoping that would help. It was our turn and Mickey was the 1st character. At first she just stared at him funny. Then he started playing with her and she grabbed his finger. Before we knew it she had warmed up to him and was biting his nose and smiling at him! What a relief! How sad would it be to realize our dd did not have the appreciation for characters? I would have had to reevaluate my parenting skills for sure! After Mickey, she saw Minnie, Donald, Chip and Dale, and Goofy and Max. It was so awesome the way she got all excited for each one! That’s my girl! We skipped characters on our last trip as dh had no interest in them at all then. I was determined by the end of this trip he would be a character convert though and this was phase 1 of that plan. So far he was neutral toward them at best but there would be plenty of other opportunities I thought with an evil gleam in my eye! pirate:

After character connection we headed to The Land pavilion. I grabbed a fast pass for Soarin’ and we got in line to ride Living with the Land. Living with the Land has always been one of my favorite rides so it was a must-do. Kylie fell asleep in line and slept through the entire ride. Traitor! :sad2: Anyway, after L w/the L we headed to Circle of Life. I normally skip this one but I thought Kylie would enjoy it and she was awake now. She did enjoy it and kept squealing at Pumba, Timon, and Simba throughout the whole thing. Again, she is at that age where people turn around and just smile at her. I am sure that will change in a year or 2!

After Circle of Life we headed to the Living Seas pavilion. This is also a must-do for us and I knew Kylie would enjoy it. Plus, not to brag, but my uncle designs and builds aquariums for a living and he is one of the ones that helped build the aquariums in the Living Seas. Too bad Kylie is still too young to appreciate that fact. Oh, well, guess we will just have to take numerous trips there throughout her lifetime, right? I know, I’ll use any excuse to go back to Disney! :rolleyes1 Anyway, we viewed the fish, the dolphins, the gigantic Sea Turtle (which I always have to see as I love turtles), and the manatees (also something I love that I always have to see). After viewing all of this we saw the long line for Turtle Talk with Crush. Dh did not want to wait in that line and I wasn’t sure if it was something I wanted to wait in either. I did not fully understand what this attraction was supposed to be despite seeing videos about it and hearing about it. I still had some time left before my FP slot for Soarin’ though so I asked a CM how long the wait was. He said something like 20 min. and said the show was about 12 min. long. Dh did not seem happy to go to this attraction but we went anyway.

I am so glad we did! We did not wait more than 10 min. and got a spot near the front. Kylie was still too little to sit in the floor with the other kids so we sat on a bench. She got so excited when Crush came out. He started talking to the little kids and I guess Kylie wanted to get his attention so she started yelling really loudly. And OMG! Crush talked to Kylie! Basically, he came in her direction while she was yelling, looked at her, and said something like, “Yep, I totally know what you are saying, dude!” Everyone cracked up and that has become one of the highlights of Epcot for me. I knew he was supposed to interact with the kids but I guess I didn’t realize he would actually be able to interact on that level. I thought it was going to be a show that never changes up but it is personalized for each show and it is great! So worth it if you have kids and still worth it if you don’t because it’s pretty funny and cute. Dh was cracking up during it too so he got over not wanting to do it and ended up having a great time.

When the show was over it was now my FP time for Soarin’. I couldn’t get dh to ride b/c he is scared of heights and was afraid he would be terrified on it. I don’t think he would have been and he probably would have loved it (it is so up his alley) but he doesn’t budge when he gets an idea stuck in his head. Dh sat in the Sunshine Seasons eating area and fed Kylie a bottle while I went through the FP line and waited until it was my turn. There were 4 ladies behind me around 60 years old. And let’s just say I never needed to know so much about their weights, their b**bs, or menopause! Yikes! Some people are an open book no matter whose around that’s for sure! I was thankful that I was not put on the same ride as they were b/c I had a feeling they would yak throughout the whole thing and I had already heard enough from them for one day thankyouverymuch. Instead I sat beside a very nice lady and her son and we chatted until the ride started.

Soarin’ is pretty cool, not my favorite ride but still pretty cool. I like the ending but I won’t give that away b/c not everyone has been on it yet. After the ride was over I went to find Kylie and Scott. Kylie was once again asleep! It was a hot day though and we had done quite a bit in just a few hours so I can’t say I blamed her!

It was almost time for our ADR at Le Cellier so we headed toward the World Showcase. First a quick stop in the Baby Center. I love the Baby Centers, especially Epcot’s! Anyway, I changed Kylie and then we were off to Canada. We checked in and were told it would be a few min. There were quite a few people that walked up hoping to get in without a reservation. They were sent away after being informed that they book up weeks, sometimes months, in advance. I made our ADR a few months in advance and I was told that they were nearly booked for the night I made our ADR for even back then so this was no surprise to me. I was really excited to eat here since it seemed like every review I had read for the place was positive. We waited quite a while though and Kylie was getting restless. Plus, I was starting to feel the exhaustion set in again. I had only slept about 3 hours in the past 50+ hours and I was pretty beat! I know we probably didn’t wait as long as it seemed but with Kylie getting agitated and me feeling tired it felt like we waited forever. In an effort to calm Kylie down some I took her to see some ducks. She has a fascination with ducks and has since she was only a few months old. The ducks calmed her down immensely…for the time being anyway.

The buzzer finally went off and we were seated. The only negative things I had heard about Le Cellier was the lighting was bad and the tables were too close together. Well, our table was kind of off by itself so we didn’t have that problem and I thought the lighting went well with the atmosphere. I liked the inside of the restaurant personally. We also had a very friendly server. Unfortunately, Kylie did not do as well in Le Cellier as she had at WCC. It was much quieter for one and she was tired and hungry. We had been trying to hold off on giving her another bottle because she was at the age where she eats whatever we eat and I knew dinner would be there any min. She wasn’t a happy camper though so I made her another bottle and that helped a lot. While giving her a bottle the breadsticks were brought to our table. She spit the bottle out of her mouth like it had burnt her. She does prefer table food to formula at least. I couldn’t get the bread to her fast enough though. The girl was apparently hungry! The pretzel bread was one thing people seemed to rave about. It was good, the best bread of the 3 that was brought, but not as good as I would have expected based on reviews. I ordered the cheese soup and dh ordered shrimp cocktail. He wasn’t feeling the shrimp cocktail if I remember correctly. The cheese soup was good but again I found it to be overrated and it was not the best soup I had ever ordered, that's for sure. I ordered the mushroom filet mignon for my main course and dh ordered the regular filet mignon. It was VERY good but they skimped on the mushrooms as I only had 1 tiny mushroom. The portions are a bit small looking and don’t really come with good side dishes. Dh has raved and raved about how good his meal was though. He loved his filet mignon. This was his favorite meal of the whole trip. I enjoyed it but again, I did find it a bit overrated. We will be eating there next trip though b/c dh loved it and I did like it quite a bit so it will be a must-do next time if that tells you anything.

For dessert we ordered crème brulee to eat then and chocolate mousse to go. It took FOREVER for our dessert to arrive! I was so tired that I actually found myself falling asleep on and off! That is, until Kylie decided she didn’t want to be there any more and I had to hold her to keep her from getting too upset. That woke me up anyway!

Dessert FINALLY arrived and I mean, it really did take a LONG time! Our server apologized for the long wait at least. Dh did not like the crème brulee but I thought it was delicious! Kylie loved it as well which was no surprise since she has a sweet tooth. She was spoiled on sweets this trip and hasn’t had any since we’ve been home so it evens out I guess. We ended up getting the chocolate mousse to go and they designed it into a cute Moose head, complete with antlers, eyes, and mouth! Very cute! Unfortunately we never did eat it so I don’t know if it was any good or not (we actually forgot all about it until it was too late.) And did I mention that the dining plan is a beautiful thing? It really is! Our meal would have cost $104!!!

After dinner, we decided we were tired and ready to head back to the resort. Again, the bus was no problem. We got back to our room and proceeded to get ready for bed. Kylie once again went nuts if I tried to put her down and would not let Scott touch her. She only did this at bedtime for some reason and it didn’t last the entire trip thankfully. The only way to get her to calm down and let me get ready for bed was to have Scott take her outside. He took her down to look at the pool. They were gone for a while and I was starting to worry a little. Finally they came back and dh was smiling. I asked what had happened. He said Kylie got to pet some of the ducks. They came right up to her and they let her pet them! One kept trying to bite her little toes though so dh had to shield those but other than that they were very tame. He even said that some of the security guards were riding in their cart and stopped to watch and were laughing at Kylie and talking to her! I was sooo jealous and still am! I wish he had the camera and had caught that on film but he had no idea that would happen. These are some of the things we never would have thought to take the time to do before having Kylie and now they are some of our fondest memories! She was a very happy child when she came back in our room to say the least!

I was exhausted and could tell Kylie was as well. She ended up in bed with me again but this time I slept ALL night long with no problem and Kylie was fine too. We had ADRs for Chef Mickey’s for breakfast the next day so sleep was a must if we wanted to get up early. This day had gone sooo much better than the day before but I was still exhausted so I was hoping I would be fully rested and able to enjoy our 3rd day even more.

TO BE CONTINUED…
Up Next:
Breakfast at Chef Mickey’s (complete with reviews)
Our day at MGM
The not so fantastic Fantasmic nightmare

[peightonmom]

Great report! We are going in September for Peighton's 2nd birthday. We are staying at the WL. Your DD is adorable. Can't wait to read the rest of your report!

[llij]

Tasha - Once again a great report! The pictures of Kylie are so cute too! :love: I can't wait to read more! :thumbsup2

[Maleficent13]

Kylie and my DD are only about a week apart...I can't wait to take my DD to the World and for now I'm living vicariously through your report!!

[Briarmom]

Loving your TR Tasha!! :goodvibes

Kylie is getting so big!

I was at WDW the same time as you! What are the chances?

[jjk]

Brillaint trip report really enjoying reading them.Your daughter is adorable

[Strawberry Lemonade]

Tasha - great report! I have to admit, I'm not looking forward to the not so fantastic Fantasmic nightmare. We booked the Fantasmic dinner package at the Brown Derby and plan on taking Lucas along. :rolleyes2

[Tasha+Scott]

Briarmom~ I could have sworn you were one of the ones planning to to Atlantic City at the time we were at WDW! If I had known you were going to be there we could have met up! Oh, well, maybe next time!

Day 4 (May 2, 2006)

I had been so exhausted our whole trip up to this point so it was nice to finally get a good night’s sleep! When our wake up call came I woke up refreshed and feeling great. Dh did not really want to get up and to my surprise Kylie slept through the call. That was unusual since she is a light sleeper like me normally. I guess she really was tired. I told dh he could sleep a little longer if he would get in the bed with Kylie while I got ready. He did not argue of course. I figured since they were both tired it would do them good to sleep a little longer. Dh was the one that was the most excited about trying Chef Mickey’s though so I knew he would be in a great mood after a while too.

After I was done getting ready I woke Kylie and Scott. Dh was groggy and not too happy with me for waking him so I said four magical words that made him spring out of bed with a smile on his face: “Chef Mickey’s for breakfast.” We had never eaten there before but it had gotten great reviews and I knew that Kylie and I would like seeing the characters and I knew if it was breakfast food dh would be happy. He is a breakfast food kind of guy. All I had heard about since I made our ADRs is how he couldn’t wait to eat some pancakes! As far as the characters, this was to begin phase 2 of my character convert plan on dh. Bwwaaahhaaahaaa! :stir:

I got Kylie up, changed her diaper, and fed her a bottle. Dh was done showering and dressed by that point so I had him entertain Kylie while I washed her bottle and prepared her diaper bag for the day. This brings up one thing that I absolutely hated about Pop. The water pressure! I hated washing bottles and sippies there. The water pressure in the sinks was so freakin’ low it wasn’t even funny. This is something I probably wouldn’t have even noticed if I didn’t have a child and didn’t have any dishes to wash while there. However, I did have a child and had bottles and sippies to wash every day and the water pressure stunk. I felt like it took forever to wash a bottle due to how weak the water pressure was! On the plus side the shower had a lot of hot water for showers and baths all around so that was a positive anyway. See how fair I try to be? One con and one pro all in the same paragraph! ;)

After preparing her diaper bag I searched for my sunglasses. I cannot go out into the nice sunshine without my sunglasses now can I? Well, apparently I had no choice. My sunglasses were missing! I was so tired the night before that the details were hazy but I distinctly remember handing my sunglasses to dh on the bus ride back to the resort. Kylie was fascinated with my sunglasses and tried to grab them every chance she got so on the bus ride I felt the need to protect them from her claws (uh, I mean hands) and gave them to dh. Dh swears he gave them back to me in the room. Either way they were gone! Okay, I would just have to see if I could find a reasonably priced pair at WDW. Yeah, right! Reasonably priced to me is about $5-10. I am a total cheapskate on sunglasses since I have broken so many pairs and *ahem* lost a few in the past. :blush:

We headed to the bus stop and decided we would look in one of the gift shops while in the Contemporary and see what they had. We arrived at the MK and hopped on the monorail going to the CR. This was our first ride on the monorail for this trip and I was thrilled to be on it. Dh loves WDW but he doesn’t quite get why the monorail is a must-do. :sad2: I always tell him it isn’t quite WDW until you have seen the castle and rode the monorail. He doesn’t get it but I am still working on him. Remember this was only the 2nd time I had taken him so he was a work in progress. I liked that we could carry Kylie on it while still in her stroller but I knew that her staying in the stroller wouldn’t last long. She is as nosey as her daddy. Sure enough, she was fussing within seconds to get out so she could see what was going on too. So I got her out and she enjoyed looking out the window and talking to who knows what the entire ride.

We arrived at the CR and we were actually pretty early so off to the gift shops we went. I had a hard time finding sunglasses at the first 2 I went to which kind of surprised me. Finally at the 3rd one (okay, well it was actually one that connected to the 2nd gift shop…you know what I am talking about if you’ve been to the CR) we found sunglasses. Of course the cheapest pair I could find was $16. I know that is actually pretty cheap for sunglasses, especially at WDW, but I hated the idea of paying that much because I just knew as soon as I did I would find my other sunglasses. That is always my luck. So I decided to wait and look at our resort later.

We headed to Chef Mickey’s to check in and man, does that place get packed! After checking in we were directed to a line to have our family picture made. Our family picture actually turned out decent but I had no intention of buying it since I would rather have a better family picture than one that simply has a sign saying Chef Mickey’s. Does that make sense? If it would have been with a character or something I might have bought it. Ever notice how WDW uses EVERY opportunity to get money out of you. Sheesh! You can’t even eat breakfast without having someone trying to get you to buy pictures but I digress.

Anyway, after doing the whole family photo thing we went to the lobby where Goofy was and got in line. Dh said he would take our photo and I took Kylie to see Goofy when it was her turn. We now knew that she liked the characters from our interaction at Epcot the day before. She was a much easier character convert than her daddy so this should be a piece of cake…I hoped! It was. She looked at Goofy funny at first, probably because he is so freakin’ tall, but after a few seconds she was grabbing his nose.

As soon as we finished with Goofy our buzzer went off. Talk about perfect timing. I had this funny feeling that the CMs were spying on us and had planned it that way to make up for trying to empty our pockets and wallets with the whole family photo thing. That’s okay though because that worked in our favor and they didn’t get any money out of us for the photo either…although I will admit I was tempted to buy it but I had to remain strong and I did. We took our buzzer up to the podium and a host took us to our seats. We were seated in the section that is kind of off by itself near the kitchen but toward the back of the section so not directly beside the kitchen. (Did you get all that?) I know a lot of people hate this section but I liked it personally. It seemed a little less crowded and a little more private. As soon as we were seated our server came and took our drink orders. That is when I realized I had forgotten Kylie’s sippy cup. That was okay as I asked the server if we could get a little cup of milk for Kylie and she said sure. She also let us know how the character meals work since this was our 1st one ever. We could see Pluto a few tables over and she told us we should stay in our seats until after Pluto visited with us because if we didn’t it would probably be at least an hour before he came back around. She didn’t have to tell me twice! A few minutes later Pluto came to our table. Kylie was so enamored with him. Remember how I mentioned once that Kylie loves dogs? Pluto is no exception. He snuck up behind her and surprised her but after that she was all smiles and squealed in delight for him.

After Pluto left Minnie was right behind him. After Minnie left dh got up to go get his food and I stayed at the table with Kylie. He was being very patient but I knew he was dying to get to that food so I couldn’t make him wait any longer. While he was gone our server brought our drinks. For whatever reason she brought Kylie a Sprite. I don’t drink soda all that often and I am not ready to give it to Kylie at her age either so I decided I would have to catch our server’s attention when she came back by. Dh was still getting his food when Chip came by. He snuck up behind Kylie and started rubbing her head. Dh came back to the table around that time and grabbed the camera. Chip would hide every time she tried to see who it was messing with her hair. She laughed when she finally spotted him. He continued to play with her a few more min. before he had to move on to other tables. Kylie was having a blast!

After Chip left I went and got my food. Shortly after I returned our server was back and she apologized because she realized she had brought a Sprite earlier and she replaced it with a glass of milk for Kylie too. I didn’t even have to tell her! We were done with characters for the moment and were enjoying the food. Dh went back for seconds and while he was gone Dale came by our table. Kylie and Dale were very entertaining. Dale played with Kylie more than Chip had and Kylie was just laughing the whole time. Dh came back during the middle of it and Kylie bit Dale’s finger! He yelped like he was in pain and then started acting like he was giggling. The whole thing was pretty funny and cute and the 4 teenage girls at the table beside us were laughing hysterically. We were having a great time!

A few min. after Dale left Pluto was already back at our table! We had seen Mickey come out of the kitchen and head to the other side of the restaurant but he was still nowhere near us. Kylie was thrilled to see Pluto, her main pup, though so it wasn’t all a loss. After Pluto left I went to get seconds at the buffet. While I was gone Kylie and Scott got to see Minnie again. When I returned a few min. later Chip was back, then Dale. We had seen all of the characters twice but STILL hadn’t seen Mickey!

I was starting to wonder if Mickey would ever come our way. We were done eating by this point. I guess our server (who was great btw…I wish I had gotten her name!) realized what we were waiting for because she told us that Mickey should be there in a few more min. She was right! A few min. later he finally got to our section. Unfortunately I heard his CM person asking if he wanted to take a break. I guess he decided to finish our section first and then take his break because thankfully he came to our table and the surrounding tables before heading to the back. He was really quick though. I actually had to go up to him because I think he was about to skip our table if I am completely honest. Kylie got to kiss his nose and he was gone. He went to the next 2 tables and then headed to the back for his break I guess. But at least we finally got to see him even if it did seem like he was a blur of color and then gone.

After Mickey left we left too. I think you pretty much know what our review of this place is but in case you don’t here it is. We ALL loved breakfast at Chef Mickey’s! The character interaction was great, the little dancing and twirling our napkin parts were fun, and the food was delicious. All 3 of us ate like pigs! Even Scott admitted he enjoyed the characters some. The evil gleam was back in my eye as I realized phase 2 of the character convert plan had been a success. We still had a little ways to go with him but we would convert him yet! Kylie had such a great time and would have stayed there all day if I had let her. I think it’s safe to say we will be eating breakfast there again on our next trip! This was definitely one of our favorites. :thumbsup2

After we left Chef Mickey’s we toured the CR. This is something else I never would have thought to take the time to do before Kylie. This trip we had agreed needed to be slower and more relaxed since we did have Kylie and it really was nice and relaxed which I think made it even more enjoyable. It was nice touring the CR and this was the 1st time either of us had been there. I really liked the pool area and beach area and think it would be fun to stay at this resort sometime. Of course if we did dh would want to eat Chef Mickey’s every morning which gets pricey so that might not be a good idea after all!

We finished touring the resort and hopped back on the monorail to the MK. We decided to go back to the room and rest for a while before heading to MGM that evening. We stopped by the gift shop at our resort before heading back to our room and I decided to finally cave in and buy the $16 pair of sunglasses. At least they were kind of cute if nothing else I told myself. Plus, they did keep the sun out of my eyes, right? I really hated buying them so I was thinking of every reason why this was a good purchase. We got back to the room and I went to the bathroom. When I got out I’ll be darned if dh wasn’t wearing my old LOST sunglasses on his face! I asked him where he found them. Apparently housekeeping must have found them because she had laid them neatly on the table by the bed and I promise you they weren’t there that morning. I had bought this stupid pair of sunglasses for nothing, had already cut the tags off, and had already worn them so I knew getting my money back probably wouldn’t happen. I decided I would be wearing them the rest of the trip then to get my money’s worth! I knew that would happen. It’s just my luck! :rolleyes:

Anyway, Kylie was tired and she took a nap without a struggle of any kind. Dh and I rested a while. After a while we turned on the TV and once again put it on a movie on Lifetime. Don’t ask me why so much Lifetime TV? Maybe the heat was getting to me? :confused3 I don’t know. It was starting to get late and we would only have a few hours at MGM tonight so I told dh we needed to get going if we were going to go. He had gotten into the Lifetime movie! He’d kill me if he knew I told you that but it’s true. He was a little upset he missed the ending but he also wanted to do MGM so it was a sacrifice he had to make. He’s a real trooper, my dh!

We headed to MGM and our first stop was The Little Mermaid. Last time we did not see The Little Mermaid as we were pressed for time. I had seen it before and thought it was cute and figured Kylie might like it. Dh hadn’t seen it but I figured he’d like it too since he has a bit of a crush on Ariel I do believe. Kylie thought it was great and tried to “talk” to the cast from her seat. Again, she mostly received smiles. It's a good thing she's still cute and little because she really does have a big mouth! She talks a lot and usually gets really loud!

When the show was over we were waiting while our row cleared out and this man nearly shoved me while I was holding Kylie and rudely said, “Excuse me!” like he expected me to push people out of my way so that he could get out of the building. I was like, “I am going as fast as I can!” and he gave me a pissed off look. I thought 'WTH is your problem, buddy?!' But I didn’t say that as I am genuinely a nice person until pushed too far. Of course when I am pushed too far watch out! :furious: Well, when we finally made it through the exit he turned to the woman beside him (spouse or girlfriend I’m sure) and proceeded to chew her out. He said, “I can’t believe you drug me to this sh*t!” and stormed off cursing her the whole way. Ah, the magic of WDW! I wanted to slap the thug for the woman as I’m sure I would have been doing her a huge favor! Of course she now looked pretty pissed herself but I am sure he was the reason for that and I felt sorry for her. That was the first moron (that’s the nicest word I can think of for this jerk) we encountered but unfortunately it would not be our last. I am so glad we met more nice people than people like that but we did meet a few like him too. I am just glad they weren’t with me. That would have been a crappy vacation. You spend all this money to go to WDW to have some idiot in your party ruin it for you. Ah, but thankfully dh and I aren’t like that so we had a great time! :goodvibes

After The Little Mermaid we went on The Great Movie Ride. I don’t know why but I really love this ride! Kylie seemed entranced with it too. After the ride was over we practically ran trying to get to Playhouse Disney in time for the next show. We got there right as they were closing the door and they refused to let us in. Bummer! We had never been to this before but this was something else we figured Kylie might enjoy and we were too late. We decided we’d do it another day. We headed to Muppets 3D and watched that instead.

After the show ended we were starting to feel hungry. We originally had not planned to eat at MGM but we did anyway. We ate at the ABC Commissary and I made the mistake of ordering the curry chicken meal and fruit for dessert. I thought Kylie would enjoy the rice and the fruit. Dh got the fish and chips. He said it was pretty good. The curry chicken was just awful and the fruit was a little too hard for Kylie to eat. Great. Thankfully we did not use any of our CS credits on our 1st day there so I asked dh if he’d mind ordering me something else b/c I was hungry and I could not eat what I had ordered. It was just that bad! He ordered me the Cuban sandwich and ended up coming back with one for himself as well! He had eaten half his fish and chips and still ordered something else for himself. He said it looked good and he was starving. Okay, that’s his call, lol! The Cuban sandwich was pretty good and the fried banana chips were good too. I might eat there again if ordering the Cuban sandwich or a burger but I will never be brave enough to order something other than a sandwich or burger there again!

I was ready to leave the park by this point but dh really wanted to watch Fantasmic. Now I love Fantasmic and think everyone should see it at least once, don’t get me wrong. By this point though Kylie was starting to act tired and I was a bit tired myself. Plus, the last 2 times I had been to Fantasmic we had a Fantasmic dinner package and had excellent seats in the reserved section so we didn’t have to worry about getting there extra early to find seats! This time we did not do the dinner package and I knew it would get crowded. I also knew we would have to get there early to get good seats. Add to that the fact that you can’t bring your strollers with you into the theater and it made for a queasy feeling in my stomach. Kylie was tired and I knew if she could stay in her stroller she would have been fine and went to sleep. I didn’t think she’d do well sitting on a cement bleacher for an hour or more waiting for a show to start though.

Dh really wanted to see it though and thought she’d be fine. He agreed that if it got too bad we’d leave. We decided to go to The Little Mermaid one more time thinking it might put Kylie in a better mood since she seemed to like it. It did and she really did enjoy that show.

After the show was over we headed to a bathroom so I could change Kylie and then we joined the throng of people heading toward Fantasmic. By the time we got there it was packed. They were directing people to sit all the way at the top in a really bad section. Kylie reacted just as I knew she would. She wanted down. There was no way she was going to sit on my lap that long waiting on the show. If the show had started right then she would have been fine but we still had a good while before it started. She started crying. I told dh I was sorry but we needed to leave. As soon as we started heading out of the theater she calmed down. She was fine as long as we were standing.

Dh noticed an area overlooking the bleachers where people were standing and asked if I wanted to try that. Not really but I relented. We waited for a while and the show finally started. Kylie started getting fussy again and I could tell all she wanted was to leave so she could get some sleep. So I sat down on the ground and rocked her. I couldn’t see the show but by that point my feet hurt and I was tired and I just didn’t care. I told dh he could watch it and I was fine. I wanted him to see it since I knew how much he liked it. After about 2 min. dh took pity on me and said let’s go. So we did and I was sooo relieved. It also meant we got to the bus stop before a good majority of the crowd which was a relief as well.

I LOVE Fantasmic but I won’t do it again unless we book a dinner package. I had even asked dh if he wanted to book one this trip and he said no. We originally were going to just skip Fantasmic but he changed his mind while we were there. Next time I am booking the package either way just in case!

We got back to our room and Kylie was a living nightmare! Fantasmic was the last straw for her and I think she was overtired. She usually goes right to sleep on her own but not this time. It took about 30 min. to help calm her and get her to sleep. She finally did fall asleep though and of course it was in the bed with me! I didn’t care though. I just felt bad for dragging her to Fantasmic and so did dh. We really had taken the day pretty easy and only did the park for a few hours tops but we made the mistake of staying out past her bedtime. It would have been okay if she could have slept in her stroller but we messed up by taking her out of it and we paid for that mistake at bedtime that night. We learned our lessons though!

Day 4 was wonderful other than the whole Fantasmic/bedtime nightmare. We all had a great day and this trip was now becoming so magical! I no longer wondered if it was a mistake! It definitely wasn’t! I couldn’t wait to see what the next day had in store for us! I fell fast asleep with visions of Mickey Mouse dancing in my head.

TO BE CONTINUED…
Up Next:
Lunch at Sci-Fi (complete with reviews)
Our last day at MGM
Our evening at AK

[momrek06]

LOVING :love: IT, TASHA!!! I am so enjoying your whole TR!!! Looking forward to another chapter.

KYLIE is just so beautiful and with the characters...precious memories for sure!!! :thumbsup2

[Tasha+Scott]

Day 5 (May 3, 2006)

On this particular day we decided to sleep in until it was time to get up and get ready for our lunch ADRs since Kylie had seemed so tired the night before. I woke up first as usual. What is weird is at home I am such a night owl staying up nearly all night. Dh and Kylie go to bed early and rise early. This trip I went to bed a little earlier but not terribly early (probably never actually fell asleep before 1 except on the one night I was so exhausted from lack of sleep) and I was still the first one to rise. I usually was the last to fall asleep too. Kylie is a light sleeper like me but she goes to bed early and sleeps at least 10 hours every night just like her daddy (when he can). It’s neat to see that she already has those things in common with us but again, I digress.

I had dh get in the bed with Kylie again while I got ready and prepared Kylie’s diaper bag for the day. Finally my lazy little family decided to rise as well. After we were ready we hopped onto the bus for MGM. We had an ADR for lunch at Sci Fi so we headed there first thing. After a short wait we were seated at the front of one of the cars. Kylie sat in a highchair at the side of the car. About 10 min. later a cute Japanese couple joined us in the back of the car. Kylie was fascinated with them and kept playing with them and smiling her new scrunched up flirtatious smile. They were just as easy to manipulate as the rest of the people she had encountered up to this point and she took advantage of it.

We had a waiter that seemed like he would rather not have been there. He was all business but at least he got our orders right. He wasn’t very friendly though. We had the onion rings and artichoke and spinach dip for our appetizers. The dip was very good. The onion rings? Not so much. I ordered the smoked ham sandwich and dh ordered the turkey sandwich. My sandwich was very good I thought and Kylie ate quite a bit of it as well. Dh did not like his sandwich at all. For dessert we each ordered shakes. I had the cookies and cream. I should have ordered chocolate. What was I thinking? :confused3 I don’t like vanilla and cookies and cream is basically vanilla with cookie bits in it. That was my mistake though so I can’t complain. Dh ordered strawberry and really enjoyed it. Of course my spoiled little monkey and her sweet tooth started whining until I shared a taste (or 10) with her. Apparently she really approved of the milkshake.

I had read such mixed reviews of the place that I wasn’t sure what to expect and was a little worried. I really wanted to see the inside though as the pictures of the place on allearsnet seemed really cool. As far as our reviews I think Kylie could have cared less one way or the other. I thought she would enjoy the atmosphere but she wasn’t fully awake yet so she wasn’t in her cheeriest of moods. She did enjoy watching Tom and Jerry on the big screen and of course she loved manipulating that poor young couple behind us. But all in all she just didn’t seem enamored with the place. Dh did not like the food and it would have cost us $63 if not for the dining plan. I mean we really didn’t get much and $63 for lunch is steep! He truthfully hopes we never eat there again. He said the inside of the restaurant was “okay” but not something that would make him eat there again. Me? I actually really enjoyed it. I thought the inside was really neat and my sandwich was very good. The price was ridiculous but it’s Disney so that’s to be expected. I would definitely recommend eating here at least once but dh would say no way! So that would have to be your call I suppose. I would eat there again if on the Disney dining plan but that isn’t likely to happen unless Kylie just really wants to eat there when she’s older. Her daddy is just as easily manipulated by her charm so he would go for his “princess” but he wouldn’t do it just for me. I would have to hogtie dh and drag him in screaming but that might actually be fun! I’m sure you can see the evil gleam in my eyes through your computer screen right about now, can’t you?! :teeth:

After we finished our meal we noticed it was nearly time for the next show at Playhouse Disney. We decided to make this our first stop of the day since we had missed it the day before. We entered the building and dh was not thrilled to see we would have to sit in the floor. At least we didn’t get there way too early so I was able to keep Kylie entertained until the show started. She enjoyed the show but she would have loved to get down and crawl all over the floor too if I would have let her. I was happy when the show ended because I have a bad back as a result of fainting and falling on a hard floor flat on my back when I was 12. It hurts like heck to sit in the floor with no back support for long periods of time. Toward the end of the show I actually stood up with Kylie over next to a wall to relieve some of the soreness. Other than that it was a cute show for kids. We will have to do it again on our next trip when Kylie can more fully appreciate it. I would never do it if I didn’t have a child though.

After Playhouse Disney we headed to Rock n Rollercoaster. I had told myself on every one of the last 3 trips I took to MGM that I was going to ride it. I am in no way scared of rollercoasters and before I met dh I was a huge thrill ride seeker. Dh on the other hand is not into rollercoasters or anything that has drops. He can ride a rollercoaster if it doesn’t have huge drops though. One of his favorite rides is BTMRR and I had to trick him a little to get him to ride that the first time. :rolleyes1 There was no way he was going on a rollercoaster that’s in the dark though so I knew I would be riding that alone. I tried to get my mom to ride it with me on our girls-only trip a couple of years ago but she gets motion sickness and was afraid she wouldn’t be able to do it. So I skipped riding it that trip even though I could have rode it by myself. Then dh and I went on our trip a few weeks later and he told me I could ride by myself but we were so pressed for time I decided to skip it again. This time I told myself I would be riding that and Expedition Everest no matter what. I was determined this was the day I would enjoy the music of one of my favorite bands while on a rollercoaster. So off to Rock n Rollercoaster we went and I grabbed a fastpass for it.

I actually didn’t have a long time before my time slot became available for my fastpass. We decided to ride The Great Movie Ride again while we waited. After the ride was over we headed back to my date with the rollercoaster and I got in the fastpass line. I was riding as a single rider so I ended up in the back row with a Japanese boy who was about 15 who was also riding as a single rider. I will say that the only part of this ride that I found the least bit thrilling was the takeoff. That made my heart nearly jump into my throat and the boy next to me and myself both screamed like frightened little girls during takeoff. After the initial takeoff though the boy next to me was giggling and hooping and hollering like a madman. Guess he was enjoying himself. I on the other hand thought the ride was okay but seemed to be over rather quickly and I just wasn’t feeling it the way I thought I would. I guess rollercoasters just don’t have the same appeal to me as they did when I was a kid and a teen. I don’t know. I was happy to have done one of the rides I swore I would finally ride though. I have no desire to do it again unless someone wants me to ride with them though.

*Side note: I still have yet to ride ToT. I am not sure about that one. I think I am going to make that a must-do for our next trip. I need to see what the fuss is all about. I had no desire to ride that previously but now I am intrigued and must give that one a try next time.*

After I exited the ride I found dh and he was getting excited because it was time to head over to the new stunt show. That was on his list of things to do this time. I was not thrilled at the prospect of going to an outside show with Kylie. It meant yet another show where we had to arrive early and keep her entertained until the show started. It’s amazing what love will make one do though. I knew it was something dh really wanted to do so we went. We got there early and got excellent seats. I kept Kylie occupied by giving her sips of juice out of her sippy cup to keep her hydrated. Babies need hydration too you know! I am thinking about making that into a new motto or perhaps making it into a bumper sticker. What do ya think? I know, I know. I am crazy. Anyway, back to my report. I kept Kylie hydrated with sips from her sippy cup and let her play with our $5 mister/fan that we had bought at Wal-Mart before our trip. The child was fascinated with that thing so it came in handy during wait times like shows.

Kylie was being extremely good and we truly had no problems out of her. I couldn’t say that about the family sitting diagonally in front of us unfortunately. There was a mom, a dad, and a little boy who was around 4 years old. It was really hot outside that day and the little boy had had enough. He seemed overly tired and probably hot. He was crying and asking to leave and making a huge scene. There was a dad and son sitting behind us and the dad was starting to get irritated. He was saying, “Can’t these people see their kid does not want to be here? Why are they forcing him? They should get up and leave!” His son was quietly trying to get his dad to shush. I guess he was getting embarrassed. There was also a woman and her dh sitting directly beside the screaming child who were getting pretty irate too. But I should be clear here and say that nobody was really annoyed at the child the way they were at the parents, especially the boy’s mom. She was a real piece of work. First the parents ignored the kid and he got upset and kept putting his hand on his mom’s arm trying to get her attention. She would get this irritated look on her face, roll her eyes, and practically yank the boy’s arm out of its socket by grabbing it so hard and flinging it down as hard as she could. I was starting to get whiplash just watching her do that! When that didn’t do any good she started slapping his arm until there were red marks!

This went on for at least 15 min.! The show had not started and I couldn’t believe anyone thought this show was that important. Dh and I had made an agreement when we had Kylie and had talked about going to WDW for her 1st b-day (or any time for that matter). We decided that when she is really young we are going at her pace and by her timetable. WDW can be a big adjustment for really small kids and I know it’s easy to get tired, hot, and hungry. We decided if Kylie had a meltdown at any time we would leave. I have this thing where I know Kylie didn’t ask us to bring her to WDW this young and I also know I don’t like to disturb people next to us if I can help it. So we decided these 2 things alone were good reason to get up and leave if we needed to. The only exception would have been during meals. We would have tried to calm her but we had to eat. Thankfully the only time she got even a little overly upset was at Fantasmic and I not only got her to calm down but we still decided it was best to leave. I know you pay a lot of money to come to WDW but really is a stunt show that freakin’ important? :rolleyes: Okay, sorry, rant over.

Anyway, after about 15 min. the couple sitting beside the family had moved down the bench and would not sit next to the family. I also think the girl was about to say something. I could tell she wanted to. Before she got a chance the dad finally had enough to and grabbed his little boy and left. I could not believe that the boy’s mom did not get up too! She was going to stay and watch the show! The guy behind us was just as incredulous as I was. Finally after about 5 min. I guess the woman heard all the people muttering about her and was starting to get embarrassed. Or maybe she felt bad for her dh since he had left with their son. I don’t know. All I know is she finally got up and left. I think some people cheered a little, but more to themselves than out loud. I heard a lot of, “About time!” type remarks. I can’t adequately put the scenario into words so I am not saying parents should always give in to temper tantrums or anything like that. It’s just the way the mom handled the situation that was the problem. If you had witnessed it you would have been shocked too. Okay, I just needed to get that off my chest. I still feel kind of bad for that child as I am sure his mommy really gave it to him when she got out of the stadium. Now I really am done ranting about it. Sorry! Moving on…

As far as the Lights, Motors, Action: Extreme Stunt show? Well, I think dh did enjoy it. It was a bit too long for me and I wasn’t too impressed. Kylie absolutely loved the stunts with the cars though but grew bored during the parts where they told you how they did it. I would do it again for my dh or Kylie but other than that I feel no need to watch it again.

After the stunt show was over we decided we were officially through with MGM for the remainder of this trip. I really like MGM but it isn’t the greatest park to me with a wiggly, impatient 1 year old since it is mostly shows. Dh and I had seen everything there before and we had managed to do everything there on this trip that we set out to do and we were ready to leave.

It was EMH that evening at Animal Kingdom. It was now about 3:30 so we decided we would head there. First I stopped at the Baby Center at MGM to change Kylie. Wow! This definitely wasn’t the nice spacious baby center that Epcot had. This place was tiny! Oh, well. I changed her and we left. On the bus ride to AK Kylie became intrigued with a nice German man sitting beside us. She “chatted” (at the top of her lungs) with him. He was laughing as were the 3 women sitting across from us. Kylie has never been quiet but she has always been a bit shy around strangers until she really got to know them. That all ended literally from the day we left to drive to WDW. Remember the KFC story? It was like that the whole trip and it still is now that we are home. It’s like she really came out of her shell on that trip.

Before we knew it we were at AK. I was absolutely thrilled to see Baloo standing off to the side outside the entrance. There was absolutely no line so we went over to see him.

After seeing Baloo we went inside and got our bracelets for EMH. We then headed to Dinoland and got in line for Triceratop Spin. We almost witnessed a fistfight! I kid you not. People were flipping out this day. It was bizaare. We were at the front of the line next to the gate to go on the ride next while they were loading people to ride before us. This lady and little boy sat in the front of one of the dinosaurs and a man went over to the side near the gate and was snapping pics. He was nowhere near the dinosaur though. Another man and little girl got in the back of their dinosaur. This woman completely lost it and started screaming at the man and his little girl to get out of the dinosaur. He looked bewildered and asked what her problem was. Apparently the guy snapping pictures was her husband and was going to ride with them and was planning to sit there. Who in the world stops to snap pictures while they are supposed to be loading on the ride anyway? This ride loads fast and then takes off. There isn’t time to take pics. Well, the lady is screaming and making a scene and literally just going off on this guy. Finally, the husband comes over there and they start all getting into it. I didn’t hear this but dh said the guy called the lady a b*tch. The husband then started cursing at him and about the time the guy stood up and you could just tell blows were about to happen a CM came over and broke it up. He made the man and little girl move and that was that. Ah, only at Disney, right? There must have been something in the water that day or something. I felt bad for the kids that were with these adults during these incidents!

We rode Triceratop Spin and then headed to Festival of the Lion King. After that we rode the Safari. Last trip we ended up missing it and I really wanted dh to get to ride this time and I thought Kylie might enjoy it too. We had several animals cross right in front of us or directly behind us and Kylie thought that was pretty neat. She tried to chat with the animals when they were close to our ride. Dh really enjoyed the safari as I knew he would. The ride was relaxing, breezy, and enjoyable. It was a winner to all 3 of us. :thumbsup2

We then headed to Kali River Rapids as this is dh’s favorite ride at AK. Kylie and I found a table outside the entrance while dh went to ride solo. I entertained Kylie with the mister/fan again and she had fun while waiting on daddy. The kid loves water and I would spray her directly in the face and she would laugh and want me to do it again. We had fun. Dh tried telling me he didn’t get wet last time we were there and rode KRR together. I know that we did but he insists he didn’t. He also said he wouldn’t get wet this time either. I couldn’t resist the “I told you so!” when he walked up with a sheepish grin and soaked clothes!

Now it was my turn to do a ride solo. I was determined I would get to ride Expedition Everest on this trip so we headed to it. We get there and they tell us they are having issues with it and had to close the ride down early. Darn it! That is just my luck. We had not planned to come back to AK again on this trip so now I am racking my brain trying to decide whether to come back or not. We decide we will come back the day we are leaving just so I can ride it before our trip is over.

We head to ITTBAB. The park will be closing in about 10 min. so we have just enough time to watch it. Kylie thought it was pretty cool. I am sure she will not think so when she’s older and she may even be afraid of it but at her age nothing scared her and most things fascinated her so it was great.

After ITTBAB dh went to get our stroller and I took Kylie to look at some ducks. There was a guy talking on his cell phone about business and pretty upset about some proposal not going in his favor or something. I feel sorry for those that can’t or simply won’t leave work at home while at Disney. I know sometimes you have to bring work with you but I would hate to have to do that while on my vacation. :(

Dh rejoined us and we left the park and went back to the resort. Kylie fell asleep and missed dinner. She slept in her stroller while dh and I ate dinner at the foodcourt. Dh had another burger and cheese fries. I had the nachos supreme (minus jalapeno peppers!) which was pretty good. I think it is probably pretty hard to mess up nachos though. For dessert I had the "worms in dirt" (which was actually very good despite the name!) and dh had another Mickey Mouse rice crispy treat.

Kylie woke up when we got back to the room and completely flipped out because I wasn’t holding her. So once again dh had to take her outside so I could shower and get ready for bed. After she came back in she was fine and we all went to sleep. I don’t know why she only chose to do that at bedtime but thankfully this was the last night she did this while we were there. If that is the worse thing she did the whole trip then I think we were doing pretty well! :goodvibes

TO BE CONTINUED…
Up Next:
Kylie’s reaction to Mickey’s Philharmagic
Dinner at Ohana (complete with reviews)
Kylie’s 1st glimpse of Spectromagic

[amarberry]

I'm really enjoying your trip report! My DD will be 2 in July. Kylie reminds me a lot of her :goodvibes . My DD is also a "chatter" and is now getting tons of laughs with the cute and funny things that she says to stranger.

We've had two great trips at Pop with DD. I think that it's a great hotel for toddlers, especially with the Goofy Pop Jets. We are splurging and staying at the Contemporary this fall, but I have more than once thought to myself since booking the trip that maybe we should just change our reservation to Pop! It sort of feels like our Disney home.

Looking forward to the next installment.

[ryan840]

Great report, I finally got the time to get caught up! I was a little disappointed in RnR too, but now that I know what to expect I'll definately be doing it again. I braved ToT (I was sooo scared) and I LOVED it, you have to do it on your next trip, trust me. Kylie was just like my two year old, opening up all the sudden for the trip! It's so fun to see isn't it?

[lovinwdw]

I have to tell you...the picture of your DH & DD sleeping almost brought me to tears it was so cute!!!! :) Great report by the way...i am really enjoying it

[Alice28]

Tasha- GREAT report! Sorry it took me so long to get around to reading it! I hope you were able to go back and ride EE! And yes, you must try Tower next time! It's a fun one! I'm glad you had such a fun trip, except for the Fantasmic fiasco!

[Tasha+Scott]

Day 6 (May 4, 2006)

The sound of the phone ringing woke me up earlier than it had most of the trip so far. We had decided that today we would arrive early at the MK so that we could come back to our room to rest before leaving to go to Ohana for dinner that evening. I must admit that whenever the wake up call would come in I would simply pick up the phone and hang it up. I never listened to who was on the other end. It could have been Mickey, Stitch, or Satan and I wouldn’t have known. I hung up the phone without ever putting it to my ear and got out of bed. Once again the rest of my lazy squad was sound asleep. I was utterly amazed how Kylie could sleep through the ringing of the phone when it was literally within feet of her. At home it can be all the way on the other side of the house and it wakes her up on half a ring. At home we have been known to turn the ringer off during her naps or at night so that she will not be woken up by some inconsiderate person who was not thoughtful enough to be born psychic and know that our child is sleeping. :sad2: Ah, I guess the Florida sunshine and the Disney excitement made her extra sleepy though.

Anyway, I managed to get almost completely ready for the day before Kylie woke up. I was brushing my teeth when the weirdest thing happened. I heard voices. No, no, not in my head. I know that is what you were thinking! I could hear voices in the room next to us or above us or something. This was the 1st time on our trip so far that this had happened. I mean when I would go into the bathroom I could sometimes hear the pipes from other rooms but never actual voices. The voices could have been the television from another room or it could have been actual guests talking. It was muffled so I couldn’t be sure. It didn’t really matter since I could only hear it near the sink and it really wasn’t that bothersome. I just found it odd that I hadn’t heard it until now. I figured our “old” neighbors must have checked out and we had “new” (noisier) ones now. Who knows? Just something I noticed and thought I’d share.

Anyway, shortly after I finished getting dressed Kylie woke up. She woke Scott up too. She was a little restless so I was a bad mommy and I gave her a Cheeto to keep her calm while Scott and I finished getting ready. That is something we had learned while having an early birthday party for her at my dad’s house almost 2 weeks before. The girl loves Cheetos! Every sweet my child likes can partially (if not fully) be blamed on my dad! He has only seen her about 5 times in her entire life and yet he and my stepmom have managed to get her gifts and give her sweets on every single visit! When she was 2 months old we went to his house for his b-day and I caught him feeding her ice cream cake! At her b-day party he gave her Cheetos and she loved them! She also loved her b-day cake but that one can’t really be blamed on my dad since she had cake the day before at a different b-day party we had for her. Yep, she had 2 b-day parties in one weekend and it wasn’t even her b-day yet.

Darn it! I am getting off-track again! The point I was trying to make is that since we now knew she liked Cheetos we decided to play it safe and bought a bag on the way to WDW just in case. I don’t give her a ton of junk normally but I consider it okay while on vacation to let her have something special as a treat…especially if it keeps her from getting upset. It was a smart move, believe me. Those Cheetos came in handy a couple of times. Today was no exception. She ate her Cheeto and was quite content while dh and I finished getting ready for the day.

Then it was time to get Kylie ready. Hmmm, what should “Her Royal Highness” wear today? The girl has a lot of clothes. She received a lot as gifts for her b-day and I had bought her plenty too over the past couple months. Plus, she is on the smaller side and can still wear clothes from the end of last summer! It's great when kids are little. The clothes aren’t extremely expensive. That is especially so since I am not a clothes snob or anything like that. I buy most of Kylie’s clothes at Wal-Mart and JC Penney and don’t have any problem with that. I have no problem with people that spend $100 per outfit on their baby either but that just isn’t in my budget (and my practical...some might call it cheap...side would have a stroke!) so it’s something I will not do any time soon. Anyway, since we were devoting this day to the MK I thought this would be the appropriate day to dress my princess like a princess. princess: I bought a Cinderella outfit at Wal-Mart for only $10! You really can’t beat that! So she was my little Cinderella on this particular day!

Now that we were all dressed and the diaper bag was ready to go we headed to the bus stop. Kylie was once again the hit of the bus in her Cinderella get-up. I must confess…I don’t always know how to react to the attention Kylie receives. I know that is probably silly but I really don’t. I am not shy by any means but Kylie receives TONS of attention and has since birth. I am biased but I really do think she is a cutie and others seem drawn to her and always have (even before she started "flirting" with them). Of course being the attention hound that she is she makes sure she is the center of attention at all times too. She would smile and flirt at the people in line and on the busses with us. They would in turn comment about how cute she was or how she was a little show-off or something of that nature. I would say something like, “Yes, she sure does enjoy the limelight.” Or, “It looks like she’s fond of you too!” The problem was when these strangers talked to her the entire ride to the park or when she would try to talk to them the whole time or would grab their hands or something like that. I wasn’t sure how I should react. Should I continue to talk to them too? Would it seem rude to turn my attention elsewhere? Or would they prefer to just coo at my child and not have much interaction with me? I know. It’s a silly thing but one I had not dealt with a lot before since Kylie is my first child and she had just started really interacting with strangers on this trip. I told you I can make things into a big deal and overanalyze things sometimes. Don’t worry. It was all okay and some days I talked to the people that were talking to Kylie. Other days I stared out the window or talked to dh. It all worked out just fine. Ugh! I realize how silly that sounds! I really do! Time to change the subject… :blush:

We arrived at the MK and headed to Tomorrowland first. We came to Stitch’s Great Escape and dh wanted to see what it was about. I had read about it on the DIS and must say I wasn’t dying to try it myself as I was not a fan of Alien Encounter and that is basically what Stitch sounded like to me. I decided to let dh ride it first and tell me what he thought. If he came out raving about it I would go on it. If he hated it then I would skip it. Kylie and I waited on a bench for what seemed like a long time. The stand-by time said 5 min. but that was definitely misleading. Kylie was so good. She just sat in her stroller, people-watching. It had not gotten hot outside yet and there was a nice, relaxing breeze. The park also was not crowded yet. Very nice! :thumbsup2

Dh finally reappeared and his exact quote was, “That really sucked!” So I decided Stitch was out for me. We headed to Buzz as we had missed it previously and it is one of dh’s favorites. My score was awful since I was trying to hold my wiggly little girl and shoot at the same time. Dh was gloating about his score though but I can’t even remember what it was. I felt like my gun was stiff but I thought it was probably my imagination.

After the ride was over it was still pretty much a walk-on ride so we decided to do it again. The first thing I noticed was how much more flexible my gun was. I must have been right and my first gun was broken. Just my luck of course! :rolleyes: My score still was really bad since I was holding Kylie. That's my story and I'm sticking to it! Dh had offered to hold her for me this time but I declined his offer since this was his ride anyway. It’s fun but not my favorite. I didn’t much care about my score right then truthfully and was more interested in watching Kylie’s reaction.

After we departed Buzz we headed over to TTA. I LOVE this ride! It is just so relaxing! I guess Kylie agreed because dh nudged me and pointed and when I looked down Kylie was sleeping. Since she was asleep we decided to go on the Carousel of Progress since that is also a nice relaxing ride that she could sleep through. I love this ride too but dh hates it. I don’t know why! I can’t imagine anyone hating this ride but I know people do. It is my mom’s favorite ride so at least I know I am not the only one that loves it.

After the ride was over Kylie woke up and I could tell she was getting hungry so we headed to Cosmic Ray’s for lunch. I got the veggie wrap and pasta salad and dh got the turkey wrap and apple sauce. (Kylie ate all of the apple sauce.) It was okay but I have to admit I really wished I would have gotten the turkey wrap. It looked sooo good! Dh said it was with a smirk. We had the triple chocolate cake for dessert and I had to guard mine from dh because he thought it was absolutely delicious. It was pretty good! Kylie made us share a couple bites with her. Hey, how can you refuse Cinderella?! :confused3

With our bellies full and 2 less counter service credits left on our dining plan we headed to Fantasy Land. We decided to do Mickey’s PhilharMagic 1st. I really enjoyed this on our last trip but I have to say it didn’t even compare to this trip. This became a major highlight for us and this would not be the only time we went to this show. It was really cool because it was definitely Kylie’s favorite attraction. She didn’t wear the glasses but she was so entranced with the show. She laughed, she babbled, and she reached for Donald. I think I have mentioned this before but Kylie has had a fascination for ducks since she was only a few months old. We have what seems like a million rubber duckies for her to play with and duck was one of her 1st words. So I guess it was only natural that she would enjoy this show since Donald DUCK was in it! Anyway, the coolest part was when Peter Pan was standing on the clock hand and Donald came falling out of the sky and landed next to him with a loud thud. When he landed Kylie actually jumped! I could not believe it! I laughed so hard I got a few looks. Dh asked me what I was laughing at and I told him. He didn’t see her do it so I told him we would have to watch it again just to see if she would jump so he could see for himself. This would also prove to me that she really was watching intently. He agreed to do it again later.

We headed to get a fast pass for Winnie the Pooh. Kylie and Scott waited on me while I fetched them. It took me a long time because it seems most of the fast pass machines were not working right or had run out of tickets or something and they had someone working on them. It took me a while but I finally got them. We then headed to It’s a Small World. It was closed in 2004 when we had come so dh had never been on it. Yet he was already dreading it, lol! I’ll admit I mainly wanted to ride it to torture him but I used the cover that we were riding it because I thought Kylie would find it fascinating. She did seem to like it but not anywhere near as much as she had Philharmagic. Dh wasn’t too thrilled with the ride and I am pretty sure he got sick of me singing “It’s a Small World Afterall” and “It’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow” all day long. Hmmm, gee, how was I to know those songs could possibly get on anyone’s nerves?! :rolleyes1 I bet all of you are wishing you had been with us that day, aren’t you?! Anyhoo…

We still had some time to kill before our fastpass time for Pooh so we decided to watch Philharmagic again. This time both dh and I watched Kylie during the whole Peter Pan/Donald falling part and we both laughed uncontrollably when she once again jumped about a mile in the air at that part! It was just too funny! People were once again looking at us like we had lost our minds. We then knew we would have to watch this show again during our trip. Kylie never even glanced at us. She just kept watching the show. She really seemed to enjoy it. She even recognized the pictures on the walls on the way in the 2nd time and got pretty excited. The best part about it was that we never had to wait in line for it. I love Disney this time of year!

We still had time before our fastpass slot so we headed to do something I swore I was going to do on this trip. We decided to go get a Dole Whip. I had read so many rave reviews about these things. People were constantly telling me I had to try one on my next trip so I decided I would. I told dh what it was and he decided to stick with soft-serve vanilla instead. Dh is not too daring when it comes to trying new foods or drinks or really anything for that matter. I completely expected to pay OOP but to my surprise and delight Dole Whips are now considered a snack option on the dining plan! Actually a lot of things were this trip. A CM told me that basically anything under $4 was. That seemed to hold true most places.

We found a table and sat down. This was it, the moment of truth. I took my first bite of my Dole Whip. People had raved and raved about how this was the best thing they had ever eaten in their lives (okay, maybe I am over exaggerating a little, but only a little!) and I was about to see what the fuss was all about. I swallowed my first bite. Huh? This was the best thing ever? Really? Um, okay. :confused3 I have to be honest. I don’t get it. It was simply pineapple flavored ice cream. Nothing more, nothing less. It was not that great or unique to me. Sorry to all you Dole Whip lovers out there but this has got to be one of the most overrated Disney snacks I have ever had. BUT if it makes you feel any better Kylie really seemed to enjoy it. That isn’t really saying much though since if it has sugar in it she will eat it. Sigh…I am going to continue to blame that on my dad for as long as I can!

Dole Whip mission completed and marked off my to do list at least! We were about to leave when I noticed that Rafiki and Timon were only a few feet away and there wasn’t much of a line. We headed over there. When it was our turn I asked the nice young CM if she would mind snapping the picture of us. She said sure. I confess that I don’t yet have a digital camera. :blush: I was going to get one with our income tax return this year but my computer pretty much blew up so I bought a laptop instead. Priorities, ya know? ;) So anyway, I will not own a digital camera until Christmas this year. The point of this is that since we still have our stone-aged 35 mm camera we cannot see what the pictures are going to look like in advance. So imagine how disappointed I was to get our developed pictures back and discover how this one turned out! It was disappointing to see we were completely shrouded in shadows! I will definitely have a digital camera on our next trip, that’s for darned sure!

Rafiki was such a gentleman though! He kissed my hand and bowed to me. I told him I would be going home with him and he giggled. Timon flirted with Kylie and she just laughed and swatted at him. Dh humored us by at least getting in the photo. He was still not sure about the characters but we were working on him and I just knew by the end of the trip he would come over to the dark side! :stir:

After our visit with the characters was over we headed to Pooh. It was now our fastpass time so we were anxious to get there as Kylie really likes Pooh and we were sure she would like the ride. This was going to be our last ride for the afternoon because it was starting to get hot and the crowds were starting to arrive now. It was great bypassing the 40 min. wait time and practically walking right onto the ride. Fastpass is awesome. I will never understand those who choose to wait 40 min. for no reason but that’s their prerogative of course! The only problem we had was that we were told to go to row 1 and it was a bit backed up with other people so we were not all the way to the front. An older couple actually cut us! So we ended up on row 2 instead. What this means is that the older couple ended up on the same ride with us sitting up front and we ended up in the back. Not a huge deal but we were supposed to be up front and I do think it would have been a little better since Kylie could have seen just a bit better. I don’t think the couple meant to do that though as they looked a bit confused and no harm was done so we didn’t get upset. Kylie really did seem to like the ride either way. She also loved coming out into the gift shop.

Another confession…I had decided I would buy Kylie 1 souvenir while on our trip because it was during her b-day after all. The problem was I wanted to get her the 1 thing that she seemed to like more than anything else and for goodness sakes she’s only 1! She likes EVERYTHING! So I decided to watch her with everything at the gift shops and buy her that special something the day we left. She was quite thrilled with all of the Pooh stuff but her room is done in Pooh and she has tons of it already. She also seemed to really like the Donald stuff in the gift shop coming out of Philharmagic (big surprise since he’s a duck and all). What to do? What to do? Hmmm…I decided to wait. I know this was not a huge deal and she’d be happy with anything but as a Disney obsessed nut it had to be perfect. I am not revealing what I got her just yet. You will find out when I post about our final day, our departure day.

We then went back to the resort to just relax for a couple of hours. I gave Kylie a couple more Cheetos to tide her over until dinner that evening. I promise she rarely eats junk at home! It sounds like all I gave her on our entire trip was junk but that was just a vacation thing…really! Dh napped and Kylie played. I think Kylie and I did end up taking a short nap but I can’t recall now.

A couple of hours later it was time to get ready to head to the Poly for our ADR at Ohana. I was so looking forward to eating there! When I made all of our ADRs the CM I spoke to told me that was an excellent choice when I told him Ohana. He didn’t say that about any of the others, just Ohana. I had also heard great things about it on the DIS and elsewhere so I figured it must be good. Besides the CM I spoke to on the phone informed me that he shares Kylie’s b-day so he must be an intelligent, wonderful person, no? ;)

We took the bus to the MK and then hopped on the resort monorail and departed at the Poly. This was our 1st time at this resort and I had been dying to see what it was like. I actually almost stayed there once when I was 11. We lived in Florida then. My mom booked a night at the Poly and made a reservation for the Luau and everything. BUT then the Dolphin resort offered the military a great deal. My dad was in the Air Force (we lived on MacDill AFB at the time) and this was during the Gulf War around 1992 or so. Those serving in the military were offered a 1 night free stay at the Dolphin for 6 people (I think) as well as 1 day park tickets for FREE! Of course Mom cancelled our Poly reservations and our reservations for the Luau. We stayed at the Dolphin. It was free! It was also a great resort so we couldn’t complain! My grandmother and aunt (Dad’s mom and sister) also joined us. So I never did see the Poly. To this day both my mom and my dad still talk about wanting to go to the Poly and the Luau and they are now divorced. Ah, memories. I seem to really be getting sidetracked during this post and I apologize! I am obviously writing too late at night to really stay on topic I guess! I hope I haven’t bored you all to tears yet!

Anyway, I was very excited to finally see the inside of the Poly. Wow! I instantly fell in love with it. I know people talk about it being cheesy and stuff but I guess I am not too hard to please. I really thought it was a pretty resort. We didn’t have time to tour the outside and we wanted to try to catch Spectromagic and WISHES that night so we decided we would go back the next day just so I could tour the outside as well. I was already instantly in love though. :love:

We made our way to Ohana to check in. We then took a seat at a table outside the restaurant with a beautiful view of the water below. A waitress stopped by to see if we wanted to order drinks while we waited. Dh and I aren’t big drinkers but we both enjoy the occasional mixed drink. Dh always plays it safe and almost always orders either a strawberry daiquiri or a strawberry margarita. This time he went with the daiquiri. I decided to try the Island Sunset which the waitress recommended to me. It was very good and dh wished he would have gotten it too after he tried it. Kylie wanted to try it too but don’t worry! She doesn’t always get what she wants! She’s 1! You don’t seriously think we’d let her drink alcohol, do you??? :p

I had time to give Kylie a bottle before our buzzer went off. We were seated in an area overlooking the water with a view of the GF. The only complaint I had was that our table was very close to the aisle so when they did the parades and activities for the kids it seemed like they were right on top of us. Other than that it was a very nice restaurant. Kylie was her usual cheery self while we were there.

I thought the food was very good but it seemed like they brought the next course out before we had barely tasted the previous course! It was all very good though. Kylie was really enjoying the wontons but then I made the mistake of letting her try some of the shrimp. She had never had shrimp before and apparently she did not like it. This is the 1st thing she had tried that she did not enjoy. After that she would not take another bite of anything I offered her no matter how much I know she would have liked it.

Kylie was very spoiled once more though. Our server brought our dessert and then said he had brought something special just for Kylie. He brought a huge, heaping bowl of vanilla ice cream for her! I swear I saw her whole face light up when she saw it. Kylie LOVES ice cream and would eat it all day long if I’d let her! Again, I blame my dad! :sad2: Anyway, for a child that wouldn’t touch anything seconds before she devoured that ice cream. I did not let her have more than a few bites though much to her disappointment. I felt she probably would be on sugar overload from all the sweets she’d had that day if I let her have any more. As far as Ohana goes I thought it was very good and I definitely recommend it. Lots of food and it's all very tasty. Dh says it’s okay but doesn’t care if we eat there again or not. I don’t know why he wasn’t that impressed. :confused3 There was so much food that there was virtually something for everyone. Kylie doesn’t recommend the shrimp for the record though! ;) I liked the shrimp personally in case you're wondering.

CONTINUED NEXT POST...

[Tasha+Scott]

CONTINUED...

After dinner we hopped on the monorail so we could get to the MK and find a good spot to watch Spectromagic. When we arrived at the park I started chanting, “I’m a mommy on a mission!” over and over again as I made my way through the park for a good location. Dh accused me of being buzzed from my drink. Silly boy! Doesn’t he know I’m always crazy? :teeth: We’ve been together for almost 8 years and married for nearly 7 and he still has so much to learn!

We ended up finding a good spot near the Hall of Presidents. I don’t like being right on Main Street because the crowds there are always insane. This mommy on a mission found a good spot and I was proud! I took out a 99 cent glow stick that I had bought at Wal-Mart before our trip to entertain Kylie while we waited. Dh threatened to confiscate it if I didn’t quit acting drunk and swinging that thing at him while chanting, “Mommy on a mission is a success!” Funny...I didn’t feel buzzed. Guess I was just high on life! :lmao:

Spectromagic finally started and Kylie’s reaction was just as I had expected it to be. Lights, colors, and a 1 year old are a priceless combination. Her eyes grew wide and she just stared in awe. After a while she squealed and screamed in delight and even waved at the parade. I was so happy with her reaction since I also love this parade! I remember watching it for the 1st time when I was 4 and I just can’t go to Disney without seeing this parade at least once! I hope to make lots of memories during this parade with my own children over the years!

After Spectromagic was over we decided to watch WISHES. Unfortunately I have always skipped this in the past and this was to be my 1st time seeing it and I didn’t do enough research on it beforehand. I thought I picked a great spot. We could see Tinkerbelle flying out of the castle perfectly! I even took a picture of it but it didn’t turn out. Sadly, we were not in a good spot. :guilty: The fireworks actually were shot on the opposite side of the castle from where we were and our view was blocked by trees! Kylie had fallen asleep in her stroller by this point. Oh, well, we will know better next time. Grad nights was scheduled for the next 2 nights so there would be no fireworks for us on those nights and we were leaving the next day so this was the only night we had for WISHES so we once again technically missed it and won’t be able to see it again until our next trip. Our next trip will be great at least because we now know where to go to view it (and where not to go!)

After WISHES was over we decided to wait to leave the park until after the crowd had cleared some. We looked in some gift shops. Kylie was still asleep. I decided to go ahead and buy Kylie her first set of mouse ears while we were there. I decided on the pink Minnie ones. They also had Cinco de Mayo ones since the next day was Cinco de Mayo. I seriously considered getting those since Kylie was born on Cinco de Mayo but I just didn’t like those as much so I stuck with the Minnie ones and handed them to Scott to go pay for them. While Scott was buying them I walked a few feet behind the counter to get out of other people’s way. I swear Scott watched me do that. I was only a few feet away. I was looking at something and when I looked up Scott was gone! You’ve got to be kidding me! I watched him walk back and forth through the different sections of the gift shop looking for us. He was too far away for me to get his attention though. I’ll admit I was a little annoyed too. I mean we were literally right behind the counter where he checked out! Did he not know how to look in front of him? Instead he searches the rest of the store. How can he possibly get so lost everywhere? He does this at home all the time too. He does not look for things well and they are always right in front of him. Finally I got his attention (about 10 min. later!) and we left. Ugh! :rolleyes2 I literally had to stay by him and not move an inch the rest of our trip for fear that it would happen yet again. Remember how he got lost trying to find Buzz? I did NOT want to go through that again!

We headed to City Hall so I could pick up a birthday button to pin on Kylie’s shirt the next day. Sniff, sniff…my baby would be 1 in just a few hours!

We then headed over to have Kylie’s name stitched on the back of her hat. I thought it was so cool that they do that. I had mouse ears on my first trip as a kid but I did not have my name on it. I don’t know if they did that back then or not but I know I didn’t have it done if they did. The CM working there saw the b-day button in my hand and asked if it was Kylie’s b-day. I told her it would be tomorrow. She said as a b-day gift to Kylie she was not going to charge us for stitching her name. The CM's name was Echo. She was awesome! She said she had worked there since 2003 and you could tell. I think she could probably stitch names in her sleep! She was very nice and if any of you see her you can tell her she has an honorable mention in my trip report! :goodvibes

After she finished Kylie’s ears we headed to the bus stop. It was still pretty crowded but not as bad as I’m sure it was when the park 1st closed. Nothing major happened there other than Kylie waking up and flirting with more people, which was basically the same 'ole, same 'ole.

We went back to our room and much to my delight Kylie did not cry or whine when I put her down so I could get ready for bed. Instead she played with her toys in the floor. This was a nice change from the previous nights. Scott was glad he didn't have to take her outside for once too. She still wouldn’t sleep in the playpen but by then I was used to letting her sleep with me so no biggie. She layed down beside me and instantly fell asleep. I sat there with all kinds of thoughts going through my head. I had a happy yet bittersweet realization as my baby drifted off to sleep and the clock ticked to midnight...my baby was now officially 1!

TO BE CONTINUED…
Up Next:
My baby turns 1 (aka My baby officially enters toddlerhood!)
Scott finally meets his crush!
Kylie’s magical b-day lunch at the Crystal Palace (complete with reviews)
Kylie’s 1st experience in a pool!
Evening EMH at Epcot!

*(As you can see "tomorrow" is a busy and exciting day for us so stay tuned!) :sunny: *

[kaysmommie]

Still love reading your trip report. Kylie is just adorable. I miss my DD 6 being that age. She also loved her first Disney trip. Now we will be taking DS 2 on his first trip this September. I guess we shouldn't watch the parade by Hall of presidents :sad2:. Can't wait to read the rest :thumbsup2

[Tasha+Scott]

kayesmommie~ Actually, watching the parade near the Hall of Presidents was great! We normally pick a spot a little closer to the castle but we always have to get there really early to get a good viewing spot and we couldn't get there early enough from our ADRs so it was already crowded by the time we arrived. Plus I didn't want to wait any longer than I had to with a 1 year old. We enjoyed the H of P viewing area though. The spot we then walked to so we could watch WISHES was what was so awful. We walked to a spot near a refreshment building that was a sort of side view of the castle (it's hard to describe). It was the perfect view of Tinkerbelle coming out but it was the wrong side from where they shot the fireworks and our view was obstructed by the trees. We were not the only ones that made this mistake. We were surrounded by a lot of people that did the same thing which made us feel a little better anyway! We'll know better next time!

[kaymak]

Really enjoying reading you trip report. By any chance, do you know any Childers that live in Fulton? I know it is a pretty small town so I was just curious!

[Tasha+Scott]

Really enjoying reading you trip report. By any chance, do you know any Childers that live in Fulton? I know it is a pretty small town so I was just curious!
It's possible. I am not always good at connecting last names unless I have first names too. If you want to PM me the names I might know them but I'm not sure. Dh works in the Fulton area as well as several other areas in MS and some in AL so he has quite a lot of customers and is more likely to recognize the names than I am. He knows a lot of people in this area.

I see you are from Decatur. We went to the water park there a couple of times before Philadelphia, MS, opened one up. Now we go there instead.

ETA: Dh just got home and he said yes, he knows a John Childers.

[Lovemy3babes]

Great report! I've spent a lot of my morning reading it. :) Can't wait to hear more.

[llij]

Tasha - Your trip report is great! I love seeing all the pictures of your family. Kylie is such a cute little girl. :love:

[spoiltrotten12]

Your trip report is great! Your DD is sooo sweet!!!

Our DD was 1 when we went to WDW last year and was also in awe whilst watching Spectromagic!

[Tasha+Scott]

Day 7 (May 5, 2006…aka Kylie’s 1st b-day!)

Let me preface this by saying this was one of the busiest, most exciting days we spent at the World and for that reason it will probably have more “stuff” than usual. That means that there is a good chance Day 7 will take me a little longer to write. So I may not finish all of this in this post and may have to continue it next time but I will post as much as I can right now! Thanks for bearing with me! Now on with the TR!

The wake up call came early on this particular day but I was wide-awake as soon as the phone rang. I picked up the receiver and hung it back up without even listening. Shame on me doing this every time, I know! Anyway, I was completely aware that my beautiful little angel was now 1! I looked at her sleeping beside me on the bed. I don’t know if I expected her to have suddenly changed overnight or what but I couldn’t help but look for signs of something different. She is our 1st child, a much wanted child, a child that we would literally die for. Her 1st b-day was a big deal to us. Not everyone gets or understands that but it’s just the way it is. She looked exactly the same as she had the day before though. Go figure!

I woke the lazy little family up (again!) and Scott and I told Kylie happy b-day. Then we all proceeded to get ready for the day. I knew exactly what Kylie would be wearing on this particular day. The day before we left to head to Disney Kylie received a package in the mail from my grandmother. She sent her several outfits for her b-day. One was so perfect that I added it to Kylie’s already packed Tinkerbelle suitcase. It was so cute (or I thought so anyway!) and had Pooh on it. What a perfect b-day outfit since we were going to be dining with Pooh and friends for lunch today! My grandmother adores Kylie in ways you cannot imagine and yet she has never even met her! She lives in Florida but we didn’t make it to see her on this trip. We are hoping that my mom, Kylie, and I might make a quick trip to see her next year or something. She is such a wonderful grandmother and no doubt will be a wonderful great-grandmother to Kylie and I can’t wait for her to meet her. Okay, that was my tribute to my grandmother. I think she deserves it since she has done so much for Scott and me (and now Kylie) over the years. As a finishing touch to Kylie’s outfit I added her b-day button that we had received at City Hall the night before.

Oh, yeah, and didn’t we also buy her Minnie ears? Why, yes, we did! We’d better get a pic of that too! So we put the ears on her and snapped a picture!

She didn’t wear the ears long though because they were way too big. She has a small head. You may not be able to tell since she has quite a bit of hair though. She still wears newborn sized bonnets and hats. So the hat literally fell past her nose even though it was the smallest size they had. It took a little creativity to get it to look like it fit in the picture I took!

After the first round of pictures of the day it was time to head out. We left our room and headed toward the lobby. As we approached the doors we saw EMTs and a couple of CMs rushing to a lady who was lying on the sidewalk passed out. I don’t know what happened but they were talking to her as we passed so I am guessing she regained consciousness. I hope to God she was okay! I sent up a prayer that she was and I feel she probably was but still. Not a fun thing for her to have to endure on her vacation, that’s for sure!

We got in the MK bus line and once again Kylie was the center of attention. I didn’t even think about how much more attention she would receive while wearing her b-day button. Wowza! It was like she was a celebrity or Mickey Mouse or something! She was taking advantage of her newfound fame and posing like a movie star so maybe people thought she really was one. She is definitely a show-off!

Another thing that happened while in the bus line was that Kylie bit a hole in her binky! And nope, dopey me, I did not pack another one to bring to the park. She didn't seem to mind using it though so I didn't have to buy her another $8 one! Yay! I swore that we would be getting rid of the binkies as soon as we got home from our trip. Aw, well, I confess...it has been nearly a month since we've been home and we did try once which was a nightmare! We managed to get her completely off of formula and the bottle and she only uses a sippy now but she still has that darned binky! Ugh! We are going to give it another shot in a month or 2 but who knows how well that will go!

We arrived at the MK and decided to once again do Mickey’s Philharmagic. We felt it should be the 1st thing we did that day since it was Kylie’s favorite attraction and it was her b-day and all. She loved it just as much as before and laughed and squealed in delight. She also jumped at the Peter Pan part again much to dh’s and my delight. Yes, we loved to watch her jump if you haven’t figured that out by now. It was pretty hilarious. She doesn’t do little, dainty jumps either. She does full-fledged arms sprawled all the way out, leg-jerking, full 10-feet in the air type jumps. It is pretty entertaining stuff to her easily amused parents. It’s times like these that I understand what people mean when they say we need to get lives. Ah, but then I remember that I wouldn’t trade my life with anyone…it’s just that good. So the joke’s on them!

After watching Mickey’s Philharmagic and getting our first jolt of true Kylie entertainment of the day we noticed that it was almost time for Ariel to make her grand appearance at Ariel’s Grotto. I swear to you that Kylie could have cared less about Ariel. She is more into the Mickey type characters at this age, not the princesses. I think we all know it was dh that was just dying to meet her! For someone who never wanted to deal with the characters he was very intrigued when I told him he could also meet the princesses. Go figure! He wanted to meet Ariel and Jasmine. Sadly, he never did get to meet Jasmine. Poor baby! Anyway, we got in line and I could tell Kylie was getting sleepy. We had to wait quite a while since we had arrived before she started greeting guests. By the time it was our turn to see her Kylie was not a happy camper. I had to indulge dh though since this was the moment he had been waiting for and all so he and Kylie headed to meet Ariel. Ariel offered to hold Kylie and Kylie started whimpering and fussing and wanting her “mama”. Ariel said something along the lines of, “Oh, I guess I must be your 1st mermaid, huh?” And my dopey dh actually says to her, “You’re my 1st mermaid too!” with a big sly grin on his face! Oh, boy. She just laughed. I snapped a couple of pictures and then dh’s moment with his favorite fish was over. He was a little disappointed to hear the high-pitched chipmunkish voice Ariel was sporting but that didn’t stop him from bragging to my family after we got home about his encounter with Ariel. It’s a good thing I love him and we have a solid marriage, the knucklehead!

After our brief encounter with Ariel I put Kylie in her stroller and we walked to Peter Pan. It only had a 20 min. wait time which was really good since most of the time when we passed by it the wait time was 50 min. long. Now I like Peter Pan and all but I also know from past trips that there is no way I will ever wait 50 min. to ride it. It just isn’t a long enough ride to wait that long. Twenty min. seemed doable though. I took Kylie out of the stroller and got in line with her. Dh went to park the stroller. Yes, I am one of those evil people that has a family member go do that and then lets him get in front of us in line when he returns. I don’t see the big deal and I never get upset when others do this but I know there are those that get really upset over it. Just thought I’d confess this now so you will know exactly what kind of person you are dealing with here. While dh was gone Kylie fell asleep in my arms. I knew she was tired. Dh returned and we rode the very short ride known as Peter Pan. Kylie continued to nap through it which was fine by me. A well rested Kylie means a less grumpy Kylie!

After Peter Pan was over (I think about 30 sec. later!) dh insisted we head to the Crystal Palace for our ADRs. We still had nearly an hour before our reservation and I really hated to waste it by sitting around but dh has always had this paranoia that if you don’t arrive extra early they are just going to give your table away…even though you aren’t even late. I am used to his quirks though so I humored him. We arrived at the CP and checked in. The hostess informed dh that they did not start seating for lunch until 11:30, which was our ADR time, so that we would not be able to get a table until then. He was a bit sheepish when I gave him my famous, “I told you so!” look but we found a bench and sat down to wait. It was actually kind of nice though. Kylie settled comfortably on my lap and continued to nap and dh and I enjoyed people watching and chatting with eachother. About 15 min. before our ADR time the people started to pour in. It got packed! My one complaint is the way they have check in set up. They really need an area kind of off to the side and not so close to the entrance or something. It was like fighting a mob when it was our time to be seated. When our buzzer went off we had to try to get in front of all of the people checking in just to get inside the entrance. This one woman was so incredibly rude and blocked our way. Dh said, “Excuse me!” She rolled her eyes and would not let him through. Sigh, the poor woman doesn’t know that you don’t keep dh from getting to his food or else. He “accidentally” pushed past her rather hard to get through. Okay, that was one way to get past I guess. So Kylie and I tried to follow him and this same woman steps in front of us and will not let us pass! OMG! What the heck was her problem? Did she really think we were trying to cut her in the check in line or something? Sheesh! Only at Disney! Anyway, it basically went the same way as it had with dh. I was holding Kylie and I calmly explained that our buzzer had went off and we were simply trying to get inside. She rolled her eyes and ignored me so I had to “accidentally” shove past her too! I am not the type to shove someone out of the way but good grief! What was I supposed to do? I nudged her out of the way with my shoulder. I didn’t just right out push her down or anything so don’t worry. Some people get crazy when they think you are trying to cut them!

We quickly reunited with dh and were led to our table. We were pleasantly surprised to see that our table was decorated with streamers and Mickey head confetti in honor of Kylie’s b-day. The CM I talked to on the phone when I made the ADRs had said they *might* bring her a cupcake or something when I asked if they did anything special for b-days but that I would have to let them know about it at the podium during check in. I didn’t bother saying anything at check in but since the CM that made our ADR had made a note of it they honored her b-day anyway!

Since we were one of the 1st ones seated for lunch we were lucky enough to have Eeyore at our table about a min. after we sat down. I took so many pictures at the CP because Kylie really enjoyed the characters here so I will try to only post a few and not a million (which is tempting since I took so many!). Kylie was very excited to see Eeyore but since she could see Tigger only a table or 2 behind him she was more interested in trying to look at Tigger. We did get a couple of shots of her with Eeyore though.

After Eeyore left Kylie was thrilled to see Tigger. He snuck up behind me and patted my head and poor guy. It startled me and I accidentally head-butted him in the mouth! Oops! But anyway, he recovered nicely and spent quite a bit of time with Kylie. He even took the streamers off the table and covered Kylie with them. She loved it! I can honestly say that as much as Kylie loved all of the characters none of them compared to Tigger. She was practically in love with him. She was very disappointed when it was time for him to leave our table and she kept trying to get his attention while he was visiting with other diners. She kept yelling at him which the other diners did find humorous at least. Tigger made her day when he walked by and patted her on the head one last time before leaving our section. And of course Kylie had to give Tigger a kiss before he left!

Shortly after Tigger’s departure Pooh arrived! She wasn’t quite as thrilled with Pooh as she had been Tigger but she was still quite pleased to see him. After Pooh left we decided to go get our food. Piglet was greeting people in the lobby but our server said she was pretty certain he would be stopping by tables in a little while as well. So dh got his food and then I went and got mine. We were having a great time but I can honestly say the food wasn’t the best I had eaten. It was mediocre at best. About halfway through our meal Piglet made an appearance. Unfortunately right as it was our turn they started the parade. Poor Kylie was so excited to see him and couldn’t for the life of her understand why he didn’t come see her right then. She watched the parade in awe and shouted at Piglet as he passed. After the parade was over Piglet came to our table. We had the hardest time getting shots of Kylie looking at the camera. She kept looking at Piglet and then turning at her daddy with a huge grin. Finally she grabbed Piglet’s hand and posed for me. I swear, she knows exactly what she’s doing!

After we saw Piglet we went and got dessert. I got Kylie some chocolate ice cream as a birthday treat. I did not realize they might bring her something. When I got back dh told me that our server said she was going to bring Kylie a birthday cupcake but that she was waiting until I got back first. I went ahead and let Kylie have a few bites of the ice cream while we waited. Hmmm, ice cream always has the power to make her smile for some reason!

A few min. later our server returned with a cupcake, complete with a lit candle. The only bad part was the server made the mistake of setting the cupcake right in front of Kylie and before I could stop her she had turned it over. Thankfully I was fast and had it picked up before the candle could catch anything on fire. She then had everyone nearby sing happy birthday to her. About halfway through the song Kylie turned around to look at everybody with a huge grin on her face and started clapping. (She learned to clap the night we ate at the Whispering Canyon!) Everyone stopped singing and laughed at her and then we finished the song. They then gave Kylie a birthday card signed by Pooh, Eeyore, Tigger, and Piglet which she loved since it had Mickey Mouse on the front.

I must admit that I got a little misty-eyed when everyone started singing happy b-day to her. I quickly recovered when Kylie made us all laugh though. Kylie must have sensed mommy about to shed a few tears and saved the day! That’s my girl!

Anyway, Kylie enjoyed a few bites of her cupcake and while she was eating that she got to see Eeyore, and Tigger, and Pooh again. It made her entire day when she realized Tigger was back!

After seeing the characters again (minus Piglet) we left. As far as our reviews I definitely recommend this place for the experience. The food is only average but they made Kylie’s b-day extra special which we truly didn’t expect and the characters were great!

Once outside we started to get Kylie’s stroller and realized we were in the perfect picture spot. I asked a woman waiting nearby if she would take our picture and she said sure. On the 1st attempt, Kylie was too fascinated with the lake and the castle to look at the camera. She took a 2nd shot but Kylie looked down at the ground so we gave up after that.

We then headed back to the room to rest for a while. I will have to continue this later as Kylie has woken up from her nap. I will try to finish this part of our trip either tonight or tomorrow! Thank you for your patience! :goodvibes

TO BE CONTINUED…
Up Next:
Kylie’s 1st experience in a pool!
Evening EMH at Epcot!

[momrek06]

TASHA: THOSE EYES ON KYLIE....BEAUTIFUL and that picture of her and POOH is FABULOUS...her expression is PRICELESS = such memories you all have from Kylie's first birthday!!! The trip reporting is outstanding...and as usual waiting for MOREEEEEEEEEE!!! :goodvibes

[Alice28]

Love the pic of Kylie kissing Tigger! Priceless! Can't wait to read more, Tasha! :thumbsup2

[ryan840]

Still loving it Tasha, can't wait to read the rest! Reading about Kylies birthday makes me so sad to think my baby is going to be three soon! I remember doing everything you did the night before he turned one, and saying the same thing about him not looking different :teeth: Sadly, except for pictures I can barely even remember that time, it seems so long ago. Hold onto it!!!

[Tasha+Scott]

Day 7 Continued (still May 5, 2006...and still Kylie's b-day)

We arrived back at our room and the first thing we noticed was how mousekeeping had arranged Kylie’s toys. She had received an Elmo water baby doll from dh and I for her b-day and it was lying on the bed with one of Kylie’s rattles in it’s hand and a rubber ducky at it’s side. It was even covered with one of Kylie’s receiving blankets! It was very cute and I wish now that I would have thought to take a picture but I didn’t. We had entered our room with every intention of just resting. However, Kylie was quite wound up and excited after her experience with the characters. It was also pretty hot outside and I had been dying to go swimming since the day we arrived. The pool was just calling our names. I had brought an infant float for Kylie and couldn’t wait to try it out. Unfortunately I realized we didn’t have an air pump and the thing was way too hard to blow up by mouth. Even dh couldn’t do it and I thought for sure all of his hot air would do the trick. Uh-oh, I’d better stop before I get in trouble by the Mr. :rolleyes1

Anyhoo, I decided to call the front desk to see if they by any chance had an air pump. I got a woman that was no help really. She didn’t know what an infant float was and started telling me she didn’t think those type of things were allowed on property! Huh? Okay. I realized this call was not going to lead to much help but I waited patiently. I had to explain what an infant float was and it seemed it took forever until she finally got it (or so she said). She giggled and said, “I bet you can tell I don’t have kids!” Even so, I was surprised she didn't understand what an infant float was. She then called recreation and asked if infant floats were allowed. See how patient I am? I should have just hung up but I waited and waited. I know that infant floats are okay so I knew she still didn’t truly know what that was but I was very nice and polite. She got back on and said why, yes, they are allowed in the pool! Imagine that! Okay but all I had asked is if they had an air pump I could use. OH! Well, now she had to call to find out. Geez! :rolleyes: Finally, she tells me that no, they don’t have one. I finally decided it didn’t matter and we would just forfeit the whole floatie idea and take Kylie in the pool without one. I asked if they had lifejackets and she said she thought so but she wasn’t sure. She was very nice even though she really didn’t know anything. I hope she was able to check people in better than she was able to answer questions.

After my long, unnecessary phone call we put on our bathing suits and slathered on sunscreen. We headed down to the pool and asked the lifeguard if they had any lifejackets small enough for Kylie. She said she wasn’t sure if they were small enough for Kylie or not but they might be. She pointed out where they were and we went to search for one. We found one that was small, the smallest they had, and tried it on her. It fit okay but was still a little big and she wasn’t fond of the clunky piece of plastic so we decided to skip it. She was going to be in our arms the entire time anyway so we figured she’d do just fine without it.

Now it was time for the moment of truth. Kylie had never been in a pool before. She loves baths though and has since her very 1st one. She can be in the worst mood ever but if you put her in the bath she is all smiles and giggles. She's a water baby (just like I was at her age). I figured she would probably love the pool but wasn’t sure how she’d respond to the cold water. I slowly entered with her. She started swatting the water immediately, a very good sign! So we lowered all the way into the water and she was just fine. Scott and I took turns passing her back and forth between us. While dh was holding her I went under water in front of her and came up splashing. She found that quite entertaining. She also enjoyed splashing dh and me. We would put her on her stomach and she would instantly kick her legs and arms in the water. I think my part fish child will be a great swimmer like her mommy and daddy one day. Her favorite part about the pool though was waving at Lady and the Tramp. We swam in the bowling pin pool since it was closest to our room and she had an excellent view of the pups. She also really enjoyed going to the side of the pool and splashing the water at the edge. All in all, the pool was a hit! :thumbsup2

After about 30 min. she had had enough though. We got out and decided to sit on a chair to dry a little before heading back to the room. Kylie kept walking between the chairs and thought that was the greatest thing.

Suddenly I heard a woman say, “I thought I recognized that happy smile.” I looked at the woman sitting in a chair nearby. I recognized her but wasn’t sure from where. She was a middle-aged woman and she just looked so familiar. Where had I seen her? She then said to the man next to her that she remembered Kylie from the bus on Sunday (our 1st day there) because she was such a happy little girl and had laughed and giggled and flirted with everyone the entire bus ride. Ah, yes, I remembered her now. We chatted for a bit. She was very friendly. If I had been thinking about it I might have asked her what her name was and if she was a DISer, but alas, I didn’t. I do know she is from Canada b/c she mentioned how drastically different the weather in FL was from where she lives. Apparently the temps in Canada were still very cold. I cannot imagine what it must be like to go from wearing a heavy coat and all that other winter gear (that I have never really worn before due to living in the south) and then go to Florida and be able to put on a bathing suit and go swimming! I think my body would go into shock or something. We had just left temps in the upper 80s and lower 90s where we live so the heat in Florida was nothing new for us. I can’t handle cold weather though for the record!

Anyway, we chatted with Ms. Canada for a while and then decided to head back to the room for a while. I gave Kylie a bath and then Scott and I both took showers. We decided to rest for a little while and Kylie napped. A couple of hours later we headed to the busses to go to Epcot for EMH.

The one thing we really wanted to do that night was watch Illuminations because although I have been to Epcot several times I have never taken the time to actually watch it. We found a great viewing area and sat to wait for it to start. Kylie fell asleep. Everyone told me to skip the fireworks because it might frighten Kylie. Shows what they knew! Kylie slept through both WISHES and Illuminations and never even stirred! Dh really, really enjoyed Illuminations. I did too but I must confess I am not a huge firework person. I don’t really know why. I enjoy them and find them pretty but I don’t get totally awestruck by them either. I guess this proves to those of you who were still on the fence about whether I am normal or crazy that I am in fact crazy, huh? Still, I was glad to finally see it and it was fun to watch. It was also a beautiful breezy night and very relaxing.

After Illuminations was over we headed to Morocco. This is another thing I must confess I had never done. I had been to Epcot several times and had yet to go to Morocco! I was determined that I would see it this time and I really wanted to eat there as well. We went into the Tangierine Café and it was quite crammed. I told dh what to order for me. Kylie and I then headed outside to a nice secluded table to wait on dh. I never knew it was a bad thing to hold a table while someone else in your party gets the food until just recently when I was reading on the DIS. Huh…who knew? :confused3 Oh, well, add it to my WDW crimes because there was no way I was going to wait with dh for our food with a very sleepy, hungry 1 year old. I gave Kylie a bottle while waiting on dh and sitting at the table was a good call for that I think.

Dh returned with our food and Kylie started fussing since she was hungry. I had ordered the chicken and lamb platter and I let Kylie have a bite of some of the Moroccan bread before I ever took a bite of anything on my plate. Can I just say that by Kylie’s 1st b-day she had tried Moroccan food before I had?! Anyway, the food was okay. I hated the Moroccan salad! It was just nasty to me. The bread and the hummus and something called tabbouleh were quite good. The lamb and the chicken were okay but not anything extraordinary. Dh ordered the Rotisserie chicken with rice and it was very good. I kind of wished I would have ordered that but then what would have been the point of eating at Morocco since I had already had that before? I like to live dangerously and try new foods after all! We had the baklava for dessert and it was okay, but a little too chewy for my taste. Dh didn’t seem to care for it himself. The food here is a toss up. I think it depends on what you order. I am very glad I tried it though.

After dinner Kylie was wide awake and in a great mood so we decided to walk through the World Showcase. I must admit that although it was pretty at night it was almost too dark to really see everything. It was nice to have the park nearly all to ourselves though! While in Germany I decided to try some German chocolate. I got 2 small pieces that were $0.99 a piece! Geez! That’s expensive but I really wanted to see what the fuss was about. It tasted just like a lot of American chocolate I have had but at least I can say I have tried it now. Dh did not like it but he is very picky so that was no surprise.

While in Norway Kylie and I sat on a bench outside while Dh rode the Maelstrom. After he was done he sat with Kylie while I rode it. We literally both had ridden it within a little over 10 min. There was absolutely no wait and we both walked right on.

We then headed to Mexico. I absolutely love Mexico. I love going inside the pyramid. It is so festive and I feel like I am at a real bazaar (sp.?). I also love the boat ride. I know some people find it corny but I have always enjoyed it. Kylie also seemed to find it fascinating.

After Mexico we decided to head back to the room. We headed to the bus stop and we didn’t endure a long wait because for once the busses seemed to have it together. We had 2 busses come to our stop at once and they did it that way several times in a row! They should do that more often! We were on a bus before we knew it.

We went back to our room and Kylie was in good spirits as I got ready for bed. I got her ready for bed, gave her a bottle, and then she laid down beside me and went to sleep. I watched a little TV and then decided to go to sleep myself. Dh was snoring by this point for those of you who are wondering where he was. As I drifted off to sleep I couldn’t help but think of the irony of all the firsts Kylie had done on her 1st b-day. She experienced Crystal Palace. She went swimming in a pool for the first time. She ate Moroccan food for the first time. What a busy and wonderful 1st birthday this had turned out to be! I know she won’t remember it but her mommy and daddy always will and these are memories that we will always cherish. Plus, we have plenty of pictures to show Kylie when she is older and I am sure she will enjoy seeing those since I love looking at my baby albums as well. Oh, and did I mention that oh my gosh! My baby is now 1!!! Oh, how the time flew!

TO BE CONTINUED…
Up Next:
Our last full day at WDW :(
Also our last time at MK for this trip :(
Our last time at Epcot for this trip :(
Dinner at Rose and Crown Pub (complete with reviews)

[vald1977]

Great report, Tasha :thumbsup2 ! Kylie had quite the memorable first birthday :sunny: . Just wanted to ask, did you find the evening emh parks to be overly crowded?

[fizz13]

Hi Tasha :wave:

I just found your report this morning and I'm so pleased I did. Kylie is just gorgeous, I especially liked the photo of her on the morning of her birthday, with her outfit and the bunches :cloud9:so bubbly, happy and beautiful. You brought back happy memories for me as I was there for my youngest's 1st birthday last January and we had lunch at Crystal Palace too, its a great choice for a 1st birthday, as you know. I have enjoyed so many moments from your trip and will be sad when its over, great writing, and thankyou so much for sharing your special memories with us, lets jut hope you get another trip before too long,
Claire xx

[Tasha+Scott]

Great report, Tasha :thumbsup2 ! Kylie had quite the memorable first birthday :sunny: . Just wanted to ask, did you find the evening emh parks to be overly crowded?
MK was the most crowded one. We went to EMH at night at the MK in 2004 and it was wonderful. It was like we had the parks to ourselves. However, that was when you still had to pay for the EMH bracelets which kept some people from attending. It was also a rainy day and a lot of people didn't go for fear that they would be rained out. It was drastically different this time. As I'm sure you know you no longer have to pay for the bracelets. Plus, the weather was great so it was much more crowded than in 2004. Not as bad as during the day but still a lot of people...a little too crowded for EMH for us really. We also did EMH at AK and Epcot and it was not crowded at all at those 2. Those were the perfect times to go to those parks. We skipped MGM's EMH since we had already done all we wanted to do there but I am sure that one wasn't very crowded either. I definitely recommend the nightly EMH! That's our favorite time to go! :thumbsup2 (I hope that made sense. I only got 2 hours of sleep last night so I am not thinking as clearly as usual and it may have affected this post!)

I am glad everyone is enjoying the report so far. I have 1 more full day at WDW to post, a half day and our drive home, and then I will do an Epilogue so I still have a few posts left to do. I am glad you all are not totally bored yet! We had such a great time and I am happy to be able to share about it with all of you! :goodvibes

[ryan840]

Sounds like a great first birthday! What room were you in at Pop? It was probably pretty close to ours! Our room (3106) opened up right to the bowling pool, and we never even got to take advantage of it's convenient location! Can't wait to read the rest.

[byoung]

Great reporting.

[Tasha+Scott]

Sounds like a great first birthday! What room were you in at Pop? It was probably pretty close to ours! Our room (3106) opened up right to the bowling pool, and we never even got to take advantage of it's convenient location! Can't wait to read the rest.
We were on the 2nd floor in room 3259. I am guessing you were on the 1st floor, right?

[TLinden16]

Kylie is so adorable! Sounds like she had a great first birthday! The pictures of her with the characters are adorable! Will you take her back for her second birthday?

Thanks for posting.

[Lovemy3babes]

I'm really enjoying this trip report! Happy 1st Birthday Kylie! What a cutie pie.

[ryan840]

We were on the 2nd floor in room 3259. I am guessing you were on the 1st floor, right?

Yep, we made sure to request it. I didn't want to have to drag all the baby's gear up and down the stairs all the time, and by the time we got in each night I don't think we would have made it up the stairs on our own, let alone carrying two kids and all our stuff!

[Tasha+Scott]

Yep, we made sure to request it. I didn't want to have to drag all the baby's gear up and down the stairs all the time, and by the time we got in each night I don't think we would have made it up the stairs on our own, let alone carrying two kids and all our stuff!
Lol, we never used the stairs at all either. We took the elevators the entire time. I told dh I didn't mind being on any of the upper floors as long as there was an elevator. I looked online at the resort forum on the DIS to make sure there was one before we left and was happy that there was. We discovered there wasn't one (or at least we never could find one!) at the CBR when we stayed there a couple years ago and it was a nightmare. I refuse to drag stuff up the stairs again!

Well, I still haven't started the next part of my TR due to being very busy the past few days. I am hoping to get to it more this week though. Thanks for all the comments everyone! :)

[missmun52]

great report, your DD is so cute!!

[Tasha+Scott]

Day 8 (May 6, 2006)

I forgot to mention in my last post that after we ate at the CP, and before we headed back to our room, we hopped on the monorail and went to the Poly again. I said I wanted to tour the outside of it and we did. That resort is absolutely beautiful IMO. I love it there and would love to stay there one day. The logical side of my brain doesn’t really want to spend that much just on a resort though when I know we spend more time at the parks anyway. It’s truly beautiful though and if we lived closer and could just go and enjoy a resort for a weekend or something this would be my choice! Okay, now on to day 8.

We decided to head to the MK early again since it seemed to be very nice in the mornings while we were there. The crowds had not yet overtaken the park and there was such a nice breeze in the early hours. When we got to the bus stops, however, we were in for a surprise. The line to the MK was ridiculously long! The Epcot line had about 4 people in it so I had the bright idea to ride the Epcot bus and get on the monorail from there and head to the MK that way. By the time we rode the bus to Epcot, took the monorail to the TTC, and then took the monorail to the MK dh was a bit irritated. He insists it would have been just as quick to wait on a couple of busses for the MK. It probably would have but it was just too tempting to jump on the Epcot bus instead of waiting for 2 (possibly 3) busses just to get to the MK. What was done was done and it was time to enjoy our day.

We planned to ride the things we had not yet done this trip that we knew we really enjoyed. That was the great part about spending a full week at WDW. We didn’t feel like we had to do it all in 1 day. Most days we only did about 3-5 attractions at a park before calling it quits. It really didn’t matter because we were able to go back and do what we missed later on our trip! That was awesome. This was not my 1st trip to WDW by any means but it was my 1st time spending a full week there. Dh and I only spent 4 days there on our last trip before heading to US, IOA, and SW. This trip was just so much easier, so much more relaxing, and we took in so much more. This is how we plan to do future trips since we have a child now and it seems easier this way with little ones and less stressful on everyone.

The first thing we did when we got to the MK was head to the Jungle Cruise. I usually love this ride and couldn’t wait to do it again. There was no wait so we basically walked right on. We had to sit in the middle row and there was a lady and her mother sitting directly across from us. Our skipper was Debbie, whom we instantly dubbed “dull-as-dirt Debbie (aka DADD)”. I am sure most of you know that the skipper is what makes or breaks this ride. We have almost always had a great skipper in the past. Oh, but not dear, sweet, monotone, dull-as-dirt, Debbie! She really did not seem to be into her job at all. She was so quiet and so monotone and she made the ride so completely boring and disappointing! The lady sitting across from us was the one entertaining those around her with her snide comments. For example, DADD said her bit about, “Are you all feeling inspired? Well, you should since this is Inspiration Rock.” Or something like that. Ms. Lady Across from Us said, “Yeah, we’re feeling inspired by your enthusiasm!” Then, toward the end DADD said something like, “Out of all the crews I’ve had you’ve been the…” Ms. Lady Across from Us muttered, “Yep, I think we are feeling the same way about you!” Okay, so maybe the lady across from us wasn’t being extremely nice, but in her defense she said it so quietly that DADD couldn’t hear her and she was doing it in a joking manner. I’ll admit dh and I and our quirky (perhaps gleefully evil some might say!) sense of humor found her to be funny and laughed along with her. Shame on us! Aw, but poor DADD, who must have been trying out for the award for “least enthusiastic CM ever in WDW history”, completely ruined the ride for all of us. Oh, well, there will be other trips…I hope!

After the Jungle Cruise disaster we headed to the Haunted Mansion. There was no wait and we were thrilled. We got all the way up to the doors when a CM came out and told everyone that the ride was experiencing “technical difficulties” (don’t you just love being told that?!) and would be shutting down while they tried to fix it. Somebody asked how long they thought it would be until it was operating again. The CM said it could be 5 min. or 5 hours. Okay. Well, I didn’t mind having to come back. I just hoped that we didn’t leave only to find out it was working again in only 5 min. I figured the attraction would be packed by the time we made our way back to it. Oh, well, life goes on and so did we.

We decided to head to Country Bear Jamboree. Kylie absolutely loved this and kept talking to the bears and the heads on the wall. She was rather loud as usual. It was pretty cute. The guy sitting next to us doesn’t seem to think she is too cute though apparently! I think that he is the 1st person ever who has not instantly been fooled by Kylie’s charm. Oh, wait, now he is smiling and laughing at Kylie! Aw, looks like Kylie has won another round. She must have a hypnotic gaze or bribes people with money or something. I don’t know. Dh and I were not nearly as into CBJ as Kylie was. She really enjoyed it. I enjoyed watching her reaction but wasn’t feeling the actual show. Dh slept through it so I think you can guess what he thought of it!

We had been planning to grab lunch at Pecos Bills anyway so when we realized that the show exited into Pecos Bills we decided to just go ahead and eat lunch then. We ordered and found a table. I had the chicken wrap and cheese fries and dh had a double bacon cheeseburger and cheese fries. We both had the peanut butter brownie mousse for dessert. The whole meal was good but man was that brownie delicious! I felt sorry for poor, deprived Kylie. She couldn’t understand why her mean parents would not share the brownie with her. We will not allow her to eat peanut butter until after she is 2 since the food allergy to it runs in my side of the family and we’d rather be safe than sorry. Somehow she managed to survive without it though. Will wonders never cease?!

After lunch we headed back to the Haunted Mansion. Talk about perfect timing! They had just gotten the ride running again and we were able to walk right on! Unfortunately it seemed like it was still a little “off” though. The ballroom part didn’t seem right. The spirits were barely showing up. I am guessing that is where the technical difficulties were. If not, then I guess I was just losing it! It also seemed like the ride went faster than usual, like they were rushing people through. Maybe that is why we were able to walk right on.

So far things weren’t going as well with the attractions as we had hoped but that was okay. We were planning to do Mickey’s Philharmagic one last time since we knew how much Kylie loved it so all was not lost! Sure enough Kylie loved it just as much as the previous 3 times we had done it. And of course she jumped at the Peter Pan part again much to her demented parents’ delight! This time she even attracted the attention of the couple sitting next to us and they laughed at her too. After the show was over we let her look in the gift shop at all the Donald stuff one last time.

We were about to leave the park when I told dh we should ride the CoP one last time. Now remember…dh absolutely hates this ride with a passion and I absolutely love it! He so did not want to ride it again. BUT I said something about how Kylie had slept through it last time and she missed the puppy in it. Kylie loves puppies! How could he resist letting Kylie see the puppy? Guess who won? I'll give you a hint. Dh is the one that is the most easily suckered by Kylie's charm over anybody else. She's a daddy's girl and he can't help but give in to her! It is not a problem right now, although I am sure it will be in the future.

As we entered the Carousel of Progress Kylie seemed to be getting sleepy. She saw the dog and was very excited. She kept trying to get down to get to him and yelling at him. However, in the part where the power goes out, Kylie’s power went out too. She fell asleep as soon as the lights went out. When the lights came back on Dh glanced at her sleeping peacefully and gave me a look. I could tell he was not thrilled we were there since Kylie was sleeping anyway. I just giggled to myself. I can be so cruel sometimes! But hey, she really did like the puppy…until she fell asleep!

The weather was now in the 90s and the crowds were starting to pour in so we decided that would be our last attraction at MK during this trip. It was kind of sad knowing that this time when we left Main Street it would be for good for this trip. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry and I didn’t! I was quite proud of myself for that accomplishment! It was still sad though.

We went back to our room and dh was out in minutes. Kylie was incredibly wound up though and I wasn’t feeling sleepy either. I decided to take her to the pool again, this time by myself. I told dh of our plans and he murmured something that sounded like an, “Okay. Have fun and be careful!” Kylie and I got ready and headed down to the 50s bowling pin pool.

We had a blast playing in the water together and waving at the Lady and the Tramp icons again. My sweet little girl is part fish, just like her mommy. After about 30 min. she decided she wanted to play between the chairs again. She gave me a run for my money as I was constantly chasing her. She found this incredibly hilarious and began to turn it into a game. I like to call this game, “Try to get away from mommy…she’s old and out of shape…let’s see if she can catch me!” Okay, so I’m not old but I imagine I am to her so you can see where I got the title from. After another few min. of her giggling and me frantically trying to keep up with her we decided to go back to the room. Did I mention that at this point Kylie couldn’t even walk yet? She could cruise along anything though so she was just as fast as any walker (possibly faster) as long as she had something to hold on to and I was tired from chasing her!

Once back in the room Kylie and I bathed and got dressed in fresh clothes. Dh slept through all of it. When I finally woke him up he swore to me he had just laid down. Um, nope. He had been sleeping for at least 2 hours by then! He rested a little longer and then he had to get up and get ready since we had ADRs at Rose and Crown Pub that night. I also wanted to go the Character Connection at Epcot one more time before they closed for the evening. Last time we had gone I had accidentally forgotten to bring my camera inside and the only pictures we had were on Photopass cards. I knew I did not want to buy the Photopass CD on this trip and did not want to buy a lot of Photopass pics either. So I decided if I wanted the pictures I would have to go back and take them myself. I also wanted to let Kylie see Donald Duck again. She had only seen him once and it was at CC so we figured he’d probably be there again. Wrong! When we got there we discovered the only ones there was Pluto, Mickey, Minnie, Chip and Dale, and Goofy. That ended up being okay though as Kylie was very excited to see them. She wasn’t really awake when we saw Pluto and Mickey but by the time we got to Minnie she was all smiles! Even dh was starting to enjoy the characters. Operation Character Conversion was starting to work!

After seeing the characters one last time we decided to snap some pics from the Flower and Garden Festival. It is so pretty at Epcot during this time of year!

As we admired all of the greenery and scenery we made our way to the UK in the World Showcase to check in for dinner. We checked in and admired all of the Pooh shrubbery at the UK while we waited for our buzzer to go off. I definitely had to snap pictures for Kylie’s album since I know how much she likes the Pooh characters and all.

Our buzzer went off shortly after and our hostess showed us to our table. I think my only complaint about the Rose and Crown Pub would be how crowded it gets. They cram you in the tables and booths like sardines! I guess that isn’t really their fault though, is it? I mean, that was actually a good sign. It meant that this place seemed popular which I was hoping meant that people thought the food was really good and weren’t just there for the beer!

We had a very nice server named Christopher from Wales. I just loved his accent. He seemed to only be about 19 but I could have listened to him speak all day! My great-grandmother was British and I remember loving her accent. Unfortunately she died when I was 3 so she is but a vague memory now. Anyhow, Christopher was very polite and efficient and was very nice to Kylie so he gets 2 thumbs up from me!

For our appetizers I ordered the fruit and cheese plate as I knew Kylie would love it. She did! She ate almost all of the cheese and crackers herself! Dh ate all of the grapes. I guess I got some of the cheese, but I can’t remember what kinds exactly. It was pretty good. Dh ordered the Prawn cocktail. He wasn’t crazy about it but I thought it was also pretty good.

I had not been looking forward to eating here at all actually. I had planned this meal at dh’s request. He really wanted to try the fish and chips. I am so not a fish person so I knew I would be ordering something else but had no clue what. I also had to choose something that had things Kylie could eat as well. Well, it ended up working out great. Dh ordered his fish and chips and I ordered the grilled steak. The grilled steak also came with mashed potatoes and green beans (that Kylie could eat) and Yorkshire pudding. I have never liked Yorkshire pudding! My mom used to make it often when I was a kid since we do have a bit of British blood in us and that is one recipe that has been passed down throughout the generations. I am also half-Italian and I think my Italian blood overshadows my British blood or something, lol! Anyway, the point is I still do not like Yorkshire pudding and I did not enjoy it at the R & C Pub either! But the rest of it was sooo good! The grilled steak was absolutely delicious! It was so much better than the filet mignon we had ordered at Le Cellier IMO. Dh took one look at it and was instantly regretting his decision about the fish and wishing he had ordered the steak instead. Being the sweet wife that I am, I took mercy on him. I gave him half of my steak. I have already said I do not like fish but I’ll admit his fish did look pretty good and it smelled good too. So I traded half my steak for half his fish. And lo and behold, that was some really good fish! I actually liked it! So did Kylie and she ate a good majority of it. She and I ate like pigs! The food was so good. My mouth is watering just thinking about it!

For dessert dh and I both had the Guinness chocolate cake but it was way too rich for us and neither of us could finish much of it. We were pretty full by that point anyway so it was no huge loss.

If you haven’t guessed, I definitely recommend eating at the Rose and Crown Pub! I think this was by far my favorite place to eat for the food alone! I also loved Chef Mickey’s for breakfast so that’s a close second. Dh’s favorite places to eat were Le Cellier for dinner and Chef Mickey’s for breakfast. I think the Rose and Crown Pub was so good that I was even able to forgive the crammed seating arrangement. Kylie also left with a cute plastic cup from Epcot that our server said she could have. She is still on a sippy cup at the moment but I know we will transition to a plastic cup soon enough and I know she will love having her very own Mickey Mouse cup. All in all I say the Rose and Crown Pub is a must-do dining experience!

After dinner we decided to leave Epcot. I was pretty sad walking out as I knew we wouldn’t be returning again until our next trip. I snapped a few more pics on the way out, as it was getting darker.

And the cruelest picture I took at Epcot? It is a sign that says ‘Thank you for visiting the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival.’ It just reminds me that we had to leave, that our trip was nearing its end! It was like it was mocking us and continually reminding us that we would not be back. Stupid sign!

We sadly left Epcot and made our way to our bus. We headed back to our room and Kylie fell asleep before we ever started fully moving. She woke up after we got to our room. We decided to head to the Walmart in Kissimmee. We always end up stopping there at least once during our trip it seems like. I had promised to get someone’s kid a souvenir and I wasn’t about to pay a lot of $$$ for one and I knew Kissimmee had some nice souvenirs for much cheaper than the prices at WDW. We also were about out of formula. We had enough to last that night but not enough for the ride home. So we decided a trip to Walmart was in order.

Kylie fell asleep in the car on the drive there. To my surprise when we went to get her out of the car she never woke up! That is not like her at all. I guess the sun and excitement from our trip had really worn her out. She is such a light sleeper so I was shocked that she never woke once while we were in the store. I bought a Disney t-shirt for the little boy and a can of powdered formula for Kylie. We paid and headed back to our room. Kylie still had not woken up even once! Could this mean she might sleep in the playpen and let mommy and daddy have the bed all to themselves on our last night there? Could this really be a possibility? I wasn’t holding my breath!

We got back to our room and Kylie woke up briefly. I changed her diaper and gave her a bottle and once again she was out. Dh put her in her playpen and we both stared in anticipation. Surely she would throw a fit, stand up, and reach for us with her pitiful little arms and pleading eyes. Nope! She rolled over, sighed, and continued to sleep! I covered her with a blanket and dh and I quietly got ready for bed. She still hadn’t stirred. OMG! I might actually get to sleep without a squirming toddler stretched out on me! These are things you take advantage of before you become a mommy, let me tell you!

I climbed into bed and dh laid down beside me. This was the 1st night we had shared a bed all week since Kylie had been sleeping with me the entire trip. I gotta admit I was feeling a little crammed with dh in the bed with me though. We have a king sized bed at home so I am not used to sharing a full sized bed with him! Either way we adjusted just fine and got a good night’s sleep. Kylie slept in her playpen the entire night, never stirring! I guess she knew it was our last night and had decided to give me one night of freedom!

Dh and I drifted off to sleep knowing full well this would be our last night in our room at Pop, our last night at WDW.

TO BE CONTINUED…
Up Next:
Do I finally get to ride Expedition Everest?
Our afternoon at DTD
Our near head-on collision on the drive home

[missmun52]

another great installment :thumbsup2

[ryan840]

Still loving it Tasha! Kylie is so cute, I miss that age so much. I love watching the baby grow- its bittersweret to see him grow so fast, yet I can't wait to see him at different ages. We were at MK with you again, doing the same things you were! We ate lunch at Pecos Bills, and did CoP fairly early in the day but I don't remember what time we did Haunted Mansion... Can't wait to read the rest.

[fancythemouse]

sounds like a great TR is heading our (Disers) way....can't wait because I leave in 4 days for my first trip :]

[Tasha+Scott]

Still loving it Tasha! Kylie is so cute, I miss that age so much. I love watching the baby grow- its bittersweret to see him grow so fast, yet I can't wait to see him at different ages. We were at MK with you again, doing the same things you were! We ate lunch at Pecos Bills, and did CoP fairly early in the day but I don't remember what time we did Haunted Mansion... Can't wait to read the rest.
Well, geez! I wish now we had made plans to get together or something! It sounds like we did just about everything at the same times, same parks, anyway! Hopefully we will get to meet up on a future trip some time! Oh, and I am loving this age too. Kylie started (finally) walking like crazy this week and she is just so much fun to watch. She is so proud of herself and it is very cute! I get a little sad knowing how fast she is growing up but I am like you and I can't wait to see what she will be like through all of the different stages as well. Okay, I am not looking forward to the teen years quite as much, but you get the drift! ;)

fancythemouse~ Have a great trip! I have only been back a month but it already seems so long ago! :( I hope to read a TR from you when you get back!

missmun52~ I noticed that your ticker says it will be baby's trip to WDW. How old will your baby be when you go?

[Tasha+Scott]

First of all, let me apologize for not posting the next installment of my report sooner. It has been so busy here the past week or so. Kylie started walking a couple of weeks ago and now she is really on the move, so getting to my trip report while she is awake is nearly impossible. I have been trying to work on her scrapbook some after she goes to sleep as well so I don’t get on here quite as often at night (other than to check my email and catch up on surveys and a few odds and ends) as I used to. Yeah, she will be 14 months on July 5 and I have only managed to do 7 pages in her scrapbook so far! I am just now getting around to it and I swear to you that I have about 400 pictures from her first year alone! Anyway, that is not really relevant but just thought I’d let you all know why I have been MIA for a week and a half. So anyway, on to the last day of my trip!

Day 9 (May 7, 2006...aka Day of Departure)

(*Let me apologize in advance. Although this was a really nice, relaxing day for us, it was not one of our more interesting days. I apologize. Hopefully you will still be able to make it to the end without dozing!*)

The plan for today had originally been to get up extra early, check out, eat breakfast, head to AK so I could ride Everest, go to DTD, and then head home. Ah, but sometimes plans change!

First of all, Kylie had been so tired the night before and was still out cold when the wake up call came. I hated to wake her up. Scott also wasn’t budging. I’ll admit I was feeling a bit tired myself so we were pretty slow at getting up and at ‘em this particular day. When dh and I finally were up and ready we woke Kylie up. She was pretty tired still but I knew something that would perk her right up. The girl loves the water so I thought a bath might do the trick. Yep, worked like a charm.

After Kylie was ready and everything was packed up we loaded up the car. Okay, so dh did most of the loading himself by making a couple of trips using Kylie’s stroller as a storage rack but Kylie and I helped him with the last load. After the car was loaded up we headed to the front desk to check out. We had to wait in a little bit of a line but that was okay.

After checking out we headed to the food court to eat breakfast. We were out of dining plan credits, other than 2 snack credits, so we paid cash for a couple of breakfast meals. Forgive me but I did not write any of the details of this particular day down and I am going strictly on memory here so I truly do not remember what we ordered. I know dh had pancakes though. He always gets pancakes without fail. I don’t remember what I got. I do remember Kylie had fallen back asleep while we were ordering our food so she skipped this meal.

Anyway, we ate our meal and headed to the bus stop for AK. We were running late and it was packed! It was also really hot out. We waited in the line for about 10 min. Dh and I began to discuss a realization we had both just come to. We were running late and it was not that likely that we would be able to get on the first bus that stopped for AK. It would likely be the 2nd, possibly even the 3rd bus. By the time we would get to AK it would be packed and I would have to get a fast pass for Everest. It would probably be a good 2 hours or more before my slot became open to ride it as well. After discussing this we decided it wasn’t worth it. I know, I know! I had the chance to ride Everest and I decided to pass on it. I really did want to ride it but I just didn’t feel up to it then and I knew there would be future trips at some point. I figure I will ride it on the next trip…hopefully!

Right about the time we had decided to skip AK the bus to DTD was pulling up. There was about 2 other people in that line. Dh and I looked at each other. Without saying a word, we both headed toward the DTD bus and hopped on.

Kylie woke up as she always did whenever we would get on a moving bus. She didn’t like missing an opportunity to be the center of attention apparently. After we had loaded there were about 10 other people that followed suit and I guess Kylie realized she would have an audience. She was now wide awake and talking and screaming and grabbing at everyone. Oh, but of course that was absolutely wonderful as far as all the mere mortal fools she had possessed were concerned!

We arrived at DTD and began to look around. Dh said he wanted a new baseball cap as his souvenir. I also had to decide what to get Kylie. I wasn’t really sure if I wanted anything or not but I knew if something caught my eye I would get it.

Like I said I completely forgot to write down the details for this day and am going on memory so I could not tell you everything we did at DTD but I will try to tell you as much as I can recollect. I know we went in the Christmas store, and Pooh Corner and all of the connecting stores to that. Kylie loved looking at all of the Pooh things. Her nursery is done in a Pooh theme so I was tempted to buy her a stuffed Owl since he is the only character that we don’t currently have. She really seemed to like him but I still wasn’t sure. Geez! She’s 1! Why make it harder than it has to be? Because she is my 1 year old and my life was forever changed when I had her and I love her more than I have ever loved anyone or anything (other than Scott!) and I just had to get her the perfect b-day present/WDW souvenir. I just wasn’t sure about the Owl so we decided to look around some more. Of course we had to stop and take a few pictures along the way. Unfortunately, some of the best ones of Kylie came out blurry! I was using a cheaper film than I normally do on that day and I blame it on that!

I have decided that DTD is full of wonderful photo ops that I had never noticed until this trip. Hmmm, interesting. Taking things at a slower, more relaxed pace really opened my eyes to so many things this trip.

After snapping various pictures along the way we headed to World of Disney. I just knew that this would be the place where all our souvenir dreams would come true. And it was. We looked in there for quite a while. I didn’t really see anything that I really wanted. Well, I did see a few really expensive things but I was looking more along the lines of $25 and under for myself. It was fun walking around and seeing all of the little “princesses” that had just come from the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique salon. I had visions of Kylie having her hair, makeup, and dress done there someday. Then I saw the price. Uh, well, we’ll see. Gulp. It can get pricey!

Anyway, after testing various stuffed animals pretty much during our entire stay the one that seemed like a hit and the one I kept coming back to was the Chip and Dale stuffed animal set. Kylie was so fond of Chip and Dale at Chef Mickey’s and at Character Connection. She also really liked the stuffed animals. Yep, that was the one! I had finally picked the perfect souvenir and was feeling quite proud of myself. I was beaming with pride when dh looked at me, rolled his eyes, and said, “Okay, so you have finally achieved a lifetime goal. Now can we PLEASE go look at the hats?!” Men! They just don’t understand. I was still very satisfied for finally finding the perfect souvenir for Kylie though so I let his sarcasm slide.

Kylie and I accompanied dh to the hats and t-shirts department where dh debated over a cap with the Pooh characters on it and a cap with Donald Duck throughout the years on it. Hmmm, it looked like my character conversion plan might have worked. He was seriously wanting a hat with characters on it! Bwwwhhhaaahhhaaa! I told you I’d get him, my pretty, and his little girl too! Okay, enough Great Movie Ride and Wizard of Oz scene for me! Anyway, he finally decided on the Donald hat. We payed for our purchases and headed to the scrapbooking store. We looked in there for a while and viewed our photopass photos while there. We didn’t get any since we had to order our free one online and I did not want to pay $15 for any of them while there. It was nice that we were able to view them though. I am sure the CM enjoyed us wasting 15 min. of her time as well. Oops! Oh, well, she was very nice anyway!

After we were done looking in various shops dh said he was hungry. I had heard so many good things about Earl of Sandwich so we decided to eat there. It was pretty crowded inside. Dh ordered while Kylie and I got a table outside. I fed her a bottle while waiting. I don’t remember what we ordered anymore unfortunately. I do remember it was really, really good though and dh thought so too. It was so nice sitting outside people-watching from there. There was this incredible breeze blowing at us and it felt great. It was just so perfect. I was feeling a bit sad because I knew that we would be leaving to head home after we finished our lunch.

I stalled as long as I could as I was just in no hurry to leave. Dh finally told me, “It is time.” And we left. We headed to the bus stop. We met a nice couple with a few kids. Their youngest reminded me sooo much of Kylie! It was uncanny. She had her hair in a little ponytail, just like Kylie’s often is. Her hair was the same color, and her eyes were big and blue as well. She was around the same height and weight and just resembled her so much. She even had the same Elmo binky! Then a woman asked the couple how old their youngest was and they said she had turned a year old the Friday before Kylie’s b-day! They were only a week apart. How ironic! Anyway, we talked to them while waiting on the bus. Their little girl was so much quieter than Kylie on the ride back though. I guess they didn’t share the same set of lungs! Kylie quickly fell back into her routine of what we now like to call, “Look at me, all of ye peasants, and baste in my beauty and charm!” Okay, I am exaggerating but Kylie does love the limelight as I have said before.

This particular bus ride back to the resort was bittersweet as it was our last bus ride of the trip. Dh kept snickering because I was pouting the entire ride back. When we did get back I saw a bunch of happy people smiling and giggling stupidly pulling luggage behind them, heading to the front desk to check in. Apparently they were just arriving as we were about to depart. Stupid people! Didn’t they know they should have had some respect for those that weren’t just arriving, for those that were sad to be leaving? Oh, yeah, I know. I remember Day 1 from my TR too. I was one of those giggling fools a week earlier! See how fast time flies? I couldn’t believe our trip was already over! All joking aside, I really do sincerely hope all those that arrived after us had a great time just like we did!

We had 2 snack credits left so we decided to use them before we left. Dh bought another rice crispy treat and I bought what I at first thought was an orange sherbert bar. Wrong! It was an orange juice bar! Yuck! Frozen orange juice is so not up my alley! Kylie liked it though. I have determined that if it even looks like icecream she is going to like it! I let her have a few bites before throwing it away.

There was a woman sitting at a table beside us. She was a little “off” to put it nicely. She was acting really weird and asking us some very strange and personal questions. She also kept trying to stroke Kylie's arms and hair and was giving her creepy looks. I told dh it was time to go! I can’t describe it but this mommy instinct kicked in and I may have just been paranoid but I did not trust this woman or the way she was looking at my child! Dh had the same feeling so we took off almost as soon as we had sat down! It has been nearly 6 weeks since then and I still don’t think this was just an overreaction on my part. You just had to be there. I really think this woman was odd and I did not want to find out any more about her!

We went into the gift shop and blended in with the crowd. I actually looked behind me to make sure she didn’t follow us. Thankfully she didn’t. I did find a picture frame I really liked while browsing in the gift store and decided to buy it so it wasn't all a loss.

We then headed back to the 50's building's parking lot. I glanced behind me yet again to see if "crazy lady" was behind us. She wasn't. We took a few pictures of the resort grounds along the way to the parking lot.

When we were almost to the parking lot we saw something that made our last few min. at the resort very magical for Kylie. We saw a family of ducks that consisted of a mommy, a daddy, and at least 6 little ones. Kylie was quite fond of them.

We loaded into the car and made our way out of the resort. I was very sad to say the least. There is nothing quite as disheartening as the end of a wonderful vacation, is there? And of course the exit sign was like a kick in the stomach!

See you real soon? I wanted to scream at the sign, “WHEN? WHEN WILL YOU SEE ME? I NEED A DATE AND A TIME!” But instead I snapped a picture and silently prayed that it wouldn’t take us 5 years or something to get back.

The ride back home that evening was interesting. I don’t know why but I felt sooo tired. This is just not like me normally. I think the trip was just finally starting to catch up to me. Dh wanted to drive straight through which is something I am pretty accustomed to but I just didn’t feel like I would be able to do it. Finally we decided if we stopped and got something to eat that maybe it would be just the burst of energy I would need. We stopped at Perkins. We do not have any Perkins in Mississippi. I had only eaten at Perkins one other time and we had awful service and mediocre food on that occasion. But I thought oh, well. This may not be so bad. It wasn’t. The food was decent and we had great service.

Kylie kept flirting with an elderly couple sitting behind us and the man was actually a bit sad when he and his wife were leaving. He made sure to talk to us a min. and say goodbye to Kylie. Kylie’s new friends were gone but there was a family with 6 kids sitting in a room near us and all of the kids kept trying to come peek around the corner to see Kylie!

It was okay at first but after a while it finally got to Kylie. She did something she absolutely never does! She burst into tears and started crying hysterically! To this day I truly do not know what happened. I don’t know if it was from too much attention or what. I wouldn’t think so since she had loved all of the attention up to that point but that’s all I can figure. Nothing else was wrong that I could see. I held her in my lap until she calmed down and then I put her back in the highchair and she started eating her dinner again like nothing had ever happened. The crying and screaming episode lasted less than a minute. Odd. The mom of the kids did finally tell the kids to quit trying to peek around the corner and distract Kylie though. I’ll admit I was pretty thankful when the kids did finally quit trying to get her attention. She seemed fine after that. I really do think she had finally just had enough and was tired and hungry and just wanted to eat and leave.

So we ate and headed back to the car. What happened next made my heart literally jump into my throat! This was one of those "life flashing before your eyes" moments. It was dark out and we needed to cross lanes to get back onto the Interstate. Well, there was no oncoming traffic so dh started to go across the road only to notice the cement in the middle of the road. He is not used to these, even though they are everywhere in FL. Anyway, he couldn’t cross over because of it and he turned to go around it only to find himself going the wrong way! Thankfully the oncoming traffic was stopped at a red light and saw what dh was doing. He had a lot of horns beeped at him but noone hit us. He managed to get up to the red light and turn into the correct lane. I know my description is probably pretty hard to understand but that is the closest I have ever been to a head-on collision and it was a bit unnerving! In dh’s defense I didn’t see the cement either. Of course I was still so tired and was in no shape to drive anyway. I started thinking dh probably wasn’t either even though he said he felt fine.

We headed back on the Interstate but I was just so tired and knew I couldn’t drive straight through. After nearly having an accident I wasn’t comfortable sleeping while dh drove so I asked him if we could stop for the night. He insisted he was fine and I should just sleep while he drove. I just couldn’t do it. He acted annoyed but he finally pulled off the exit in Live Oak and we found an Econo Lodge and checked in for the night. That ended up being a wise decision. Kylie slept in the bed with me and she and I were out within minutes of laying down. I actually fell asleep before dh for a change!

The next morning we all felt better so I was really thankful we had stopped. I put Kylie in her carseat, handed her Chip and Dale, and she held onto them for dear life and eventually fell back asleep. She slept most of the drive home.

We continued the last part of our journey and arrived home May 8 at around 5 p.m. This date has been such a significant date for us now for 2 years in a row. May 8, 2005, was Mother’s Day and it was also the day we got to bring Kylie home from the hospital. This May 8 was the day we arrived home from WDW.

There really isn’t much to tell about our arrival home. It was pretty uneventful. Dh and I were both too tired to cook and we didn’t have any groceries in the house anyway so he went and picked up some fast food. He also stopped by his mom’s and picked up the mail and a gift that Kylie had received from my aunt while we were gone. Other than that nothing else happened.

We had a wonderful trip and we were sad to be home but we were also pretty relieved to be home. We have so many wonderful memories from Kylie’s 1st b-day that we will never forget. We will cherish them forever. We are thankful to WDW for this and I think they are thankful to us for our money! It’s an even trade I guess!

TO BE CONTINUED…
Up Next:
Epilogue

[ryan840]

I loved your trip report Tasha, it was great. I still haven't had time to do mine, it's been a crazy amount of time since the last installment! How creepy of that lady touching and looking at Kylie, I'd have run the other way too. When my oldest was 12 days old a lady came up to us and asked if she could smell his hair! I was so shocked and put on the spot that I looked to DH to answer, who was just as dumbfounded and said yes... You wouldn't believe how closely I watched her and how tight I held him.

Once again, we were in the same place at probably the same time, we did DTD before leaving as well! I'm sure sometime in the not too distant future we'll be there at the same time again and we'll definately have to meet up for a bit.

[mask_w03]

Great TR and glad to see your DD loved so many of the rides. We are taking DD there this Nov/Dec for 2 weeks and going 100% at her pace, but still have family coming so we can do some of the rides together that we really want to do (plus family who is down in FL will come with for a day or babysit for a little bit). Loved all the pictures and she is so cute!!!

DH 26
Me 23
DD 14 months

[mjmcca]

My kids are 4 and 5 and they have been going since the oldest was 9 months. Going at the kids pace is best. They love Disney now My oldest had been bugging me to take him to the other Disney the one in California. He saw Sleeping Beauty Castle on Disney 411 on the Disney Channel about a year ago and knew it was a different Castle. So far I have been able to put him off.

[vald1977]

Still loving the report, Tasha :sunny: ! What a fantastic first birthday Kylie had princess: .

[fizz13]

:sad2: So sorry your report is over, I will miss hearing about Kylie's adventures. Wish you all well and a speedy return to the land of the Mouse (or ducks ;) )
Claire xx

[Tasha+Scott]

:sad2: So sorry your report is over, I will miss hearing about Kylie's adventures. Wish you all well and a speedy return to the land of the Mouse (or ducks ;) )
Claire xx
Well, if it makes you feel any better I still am planning to write an epilogue to this when I can find some time...hopefully next week! It won't be part of the trip but it will be part of my report, lol!

Glad everyone seemed to enjoy it! We had such a fantastic time and I was more than happy to share it with all of you! Thanks for sticking with me throughout the whole reporting process! :goodvibes

[Tasha+Scott]

Epilogue

Ah, so it’s been 1 month, 2 weeks, and 2 days (but who’s counting anyway?) since we arrived home from our magical WDW vacation. It seems like it was a lifetime ago already.

Since we have been home Kylie has literally changed from my sweet little baby into my sweet, keeps-mommy-on-her-toes, toddler. I swear it just happened overnight, pretty much since the day we got back. Okay, so I guess there were signs but I chose to ignore them and live in denial of my baby leaving infanthood for as long as I could.

The day after we got home she had her yearly check up with the pediatrician. We were told she was a bit underweight for her height and age but no worries. She’s a healthy, happy child and I refuse to stress about it since I know she eats plenty. She has been off formula since the week after we got back and a few days after that we got rid of all of her bottles and she never even noticed. She is quite fond of her sippy cups. I was surprised at how easy the transition was. Unfortunately, trying to get rid of that freakin' pacifier has been no picnic! We have decided to just wait and try again in a couple of months. It's just not worth the power struggle with her right now.

She has changed so much in the past month it’s unreal. She started walking a few weeks ago and is just all over the place now. She is starting to say quite a few words. I think she can say somewhere between 10-15 words, although some are easier to understand than others. She is now brushing her own hair and gets mad if she sees me brushing my hair. I immediately have to hand her the brush so she can make herself look pretty as well. She is very awkward with the brush but my little diva is quite proud of herself while she is doing it!

She has begun giving hugs and even says, “Awww!” when she does it. It is because when she first started giving out hugs we would say, “Awww!” because we thought it was so sweet. She has decided it is worth repeating that everytime she does it now which makes it even sweeter! Yep, she knows how to manipulate me as well as anyone else!

She has become increasingly interested in her Touch and Feel books and wants me to read them to her constantly. When I finally get tired of reading them, after the 65th time of doing so, she will sit in the floor and flip through the pages and talk as though she knows the words. It is quite entertaining to listen to a 1 year old try to read a book!

She has been clapping since our 1st day at WDW and recently she has begun to blow kisses. She likes to play “hide and seek” now and will hide behind furniture, behind the curtains, in the hall, you name it. She will wait till we say, “Where’s Kylie?” in a sing-song voice and then she will dart out of her hiding place with a huge grin and start giggling at us. She does this to the point of exhaustion with dh and me all day long! It is rather cute the first 2000 times though!

We were very worried about how sleeping with me while at WDW would affect her once we were home. Fortunately, it hasn’t hurt her sleeping habits one bit. We put her down in her crib at 9 p.m., give her “binky”, cover her with a blanket, turn on her Winnie the Pooh mobile, tell her goodnight, close her door, and she goes right to sleep! If anything, her sleep habits have actually improved since returning home. She has always slept just fine in her own room and in her crib at night. BUT she always took naps in the bed with me. That is, until we returned home. Now she refuses to sleep with me and will only take naps in her crib. She has even started letting us know when she is tired. When she is sleepy she will come to me and lay her head on my leg. I’ll ask if she wants to go “night-night” and she will reach her arms up toward me. At night, she does this with dh as he is the one that puts her to bed which is her choice. Afterall, she is a spoiled daddy's girl!

Yep, my little girl has magically morphed into a toddler! I knew it was bound to happen but I didn’t expect it to happen so soon! She is still the sweetest little thing though and I am now in denial that she will one day throw a huge temper tantrum and display “terrible 2” moments. Please, don’t ruin my delusional fantasy! I want to live in my fantasy world a while longer! Anyway, that is the update with Little Miss Center of Attention for those that might actually care!

As far as me, I did the same thing I do after every WDW trip…I obsessed on when we would take our next trip, where we would stay, what we would do, etc., etc., etc. I do that every time though until the freshness of the trip finally starts to wear off. I go through big-time withdrawal upon first returning home. It usually goes away somewhat and it now has. I know, I know! I should be banned from the DIS for even saying that, right?! Well, anyway, as of last month I had our next trip planned for Kylie’s 2nd b-day. I knew where we would be staying, what we would be doing, where we would be eating, and when we would be leaving. It was just a matter or waiting until next year!

However, as is often the case, the novelty of the trip has started to wear off and now I am thinking along other lines. The trip to WDW was really expensive and we really should have put the money toward better uses but I figured Kylie only turns 1 once, right? Okay, so that was my excuse. Dh and I just really, really needed to get away so it was a good use of the money this year in our eyes. However, we aren’t really sure it would be a good idea to go again next year. It’s a huge chunk of change and we are currently only on 1 income since I quit my job to be a SAHM. We make it just fine but we really have to save and use income tax money to go to WDW. So we decided WDW is out next year.

Then, a few weeks ago I started really getting baby fever. This brought on the huge, “When Should We Have Another Baby” debate. I was starting to think a 2 year spacing would be good between Kylie and her future sibling as I have always wanted my children somewhat close in age like my brother and me since we are and always have been really close. Dh was thinking a 3 year gap was better. Then, he changed his mind and said 2 would be better so they would be closer in age and have more in common. BUT I had changed my mind and decided 3 would be EASIER on ME!

SO, we then decided we would probably start trying for another baby summer of 2007 (and aim to have a spring 2008 baby) so we should take one last vacation as a family of 3 in the Spring of 2007. We still didn’t want to go back to Disney because of the whole “too much money” factor though. So we thought, hmmm, how about St. Augustine? I have been twice since dh and I were married. I went with my mom and brother in 2000 and again with just my mom in 2004. I absolutely love it there and have been trying to convince dh into going for years! He has finally decided he’s into the idea.

Okay, so overall what have we decided? Well, it’s still about 10-11 months away so this is not set in stone by any means, but as of right now we are thinking we will go ahead with the St. Augustine plans. We are thinking about going mid-May and spending about 5 days there. That will leave us money to put in savings and to pay off several bills as well. Pretty responsible of us, huh?

As I have said though I really don’t know what the future holds. As of right now I am not sure how Kylie would react to having a sibling since she is used to being the center-of-attention but that may change in a few months. We might decide to go ahead and have another baby next year after all. I really don’t see that happening at this point but I really can’t predict the future so I am not going to say it won’t happen and then have to eat my words later. KWIM?

That is the plans with us for now in case any of you were wondering.

As far as our trip in May, what can I say?! I had so many people, including my own mother, give me a hard time for choosing to take a baby to WDW. They said I was crazy, she wouldn’t remember it, it would be too much for her, and we wouldn’t have any fun.

Were we crazy? Well, sure, we are a little crazy. Anyone that has ever met us can verify that but I don’t think we were crazy to take her to the World. Will she remember it? Nope, probably not. Dh and I will though and we took so many pictures that I am sure she will enjoy seeing when she’s older. And she really had fun in the moment and that’s what counts. Was it too much for her? Nope, not by a long shot! She actually was up to doing more than we had ever anticipated and was all smiles most of the trip…not counting that awful Fantasmic fiasco (but we won’t dwell on that)! Did we have any fun or was it as awful as people said it would be? I can honestly say it is by far the best trip we have ever taken!

Kylie was really such a delight and we learned to slow our pace to match hers. We did things that we knew were baby friendly. We had so many “firsts” of our own on this trip since we relaxed more. We resort hopped to see several different resorts. We ate character meals which were so much fun and I would never have thought they would be. We took time to see all of the many ducks that Kylie adores. We had time to sit and relax and people-watch and enjoy the breeze. Overall, we just relaxed and enjoyed the smaller things more. I love the “go, go, go” mentality that I usually have as well but this was even better! It was so nice to not feel rushed and we owe that all to “making the mistake of taking a baby!” So was it worth it? Um, yeah, it was worth it times 100!

And before I forget, thanks to everyone who has followed along with this trip report. Thanks for the compliments and the feedback. It was nice to share this with you and hopefully in about 2-3 more years (depending on how our plans go or change!) I will have another TR to share with you…only this time it will be with a preschooler (Kylie) and a 1 year old (future baby #2) if all goes according to plan! Until then, enjoy that Disney magic and never fear the thought of taking an infant to the World. It is one decision I will never regret!

[vald1977]

Tasha,
Great TR :woohoo: ! I can't tell you how much I enjoyed it. I can't wait to take my little princess: in a few months.

[Tanya90210]

thank you so much for sharing all of that!! wonderful trip report and great closing...

I will be doing one for ya here in a few months... going out for the free dining :thumbsup2

[angel*lady]

Great TR! Thanks for sharing!!! :sunny:

[pumba]

the photos say it all.......I loved your report and your little princess.......she is adorable. Thanks for taking the time to show us all that this is waht Disney is all about.....

[tashasKraz4WDW]

Hi! Tasha... I would just like to say thanks so much for sharing something as special as your daughters 1st b day with us... Your daughter is a true little princess and I really enjoyed the pics of your family... Its been a real blast reading your t.r and I found it hard for me to part away from my comp while reading it.. Now that ur t.r is complete what ever shall I do.. :sad2:

[Tasha+Scott]

Oh, wow! I am very honored to see another Tasha on my thread! ;)

Thanks again for reading and commenting, everyone. I hope you all know that your kind words definitely made sharing our adventures all worth it! :)

ETA (July 4, 2006): I have decided to leave the pictures up for a while longer since there are still people reading this thread.

[fizz13]

Hi Tasha :wave:
Thanks for the beautiful epilogue. I remember that i turned around one day and my youngest baby all of a sudden just wasn't a baby any more, it really does sneak up on you. Those photos say it all about the fabulous time you all had together, her smile would light up a room :goodvibes
Good luck with all your future plans and will keep an eye out for a trip report around 2009 ;)
Much love and pixiedust, Claire xx

[lillygator]

Hi!
Sorry your TR came to an end!

BTW - I have heard an easy way to get rid of the Binky is to cut the rubber part off...she will soon become disinterested. My baby uses one and I haven't tried this yet but plan to soon!

[Tasha+Scott]

Hi, lillygator! Thanks for the tip about the binky! She has actually bit a hole into her binky with her teeth twice in the past and she screamed bloody murder until we replaced it. I am not sure if cutting the rubber tip ourselves would end up the same way as when she punctured it with her teeth or not but anything is worth a shot, right?! I think we will be trying to take it away once more when she is about 15 months (only a little over a month from now) and see how it goes. We will probably end up trying that just to see if it works. Thanks again! :) And wish us luck!

[ryan840]

Great ending Tasha! We got the same flack for taking DS last year when he was 21 months, but we would do it again in a heartbeat (obviously, since we took the baby this year at only 9 weeks :teeth: ) Just like you said, we knew he wouldn't remember it but we would! This year was a different story- he hasn't stopped talking about how much fun it was, and he pretends to ride Pirates (did I raise him right or what!), IASW and Winnie the Pooh all the time. Oh, and every plane that flies overhead is going to Disney World of course. That'll be Kylie next time!

[kathymc]

great report and your daughter is a doll. whenever the debate comes up about how young is too young for disney we should point them to your trip report. even if she wont remember it - you sure will!

[RunningthruDisney]

Thanks for the great report. Your daughter is a adorable. I had my sister read it and now she is going to join us in January with her family. Her twins will be 28 months. I just kept telling her they would be fine and my parents will also be there to help. :)

[3princesses+aprince]

Wow, i think that was one of the best trip reports i've ever read. The end brought a tear to my eye. I think it was because when we went last year it was the week before my youngest daughter's 1st birthday. And oh the memories we will have forever, and the pics we will be able to show her. My 1 year old loved the ducks too. And our next trip is planned for November 1-8 2007., so my baby will be a preschooler.

[Sandy22]

Great report! I'm planning a trip with my DDs and your trip report gave me some tips for touring with young ones.

[keenercam]

Tasha --
Great TR! I LOVED seeing all the pix! Congratulations on creating such an awesome journal of your trip. You definitely have to cut and paste it into a document to save for Kylie. We took our kids to the world when DD was 5.5 and DS was 9 months old. He swears he remembers the trip even though we know he couldn't really. I think he has seen the pix and video so many times that we have imbedded "memories" in his brain! :teeth:
Thanks again for taking the time to share so much detail. You've actually convinced me to try Rose & Crown on our next trip!

[Tasha+Scott]

I am really happy to hear that my report has inspired others to take their infants/toddlers to WDW. I have no idea how it is with a child over 1 but I know 1 and under is rumored to be the easiest age to take them. It was definitely easy for us and I definitely recommend taking them this young. And bonus: They are FREE at this age! ;)

Kylie is starting to get into that fussing to get her way or fussing when she doesn't get her way phase so who knows how she will be at 2?! I guess we will see what it is like vacationing/traveling with a 2 year old when we head to St. Augustine next May! Wish us luck in advance! ;)

Cam~ I have all of my report saved in a Word document. My printer seems to have gone bezerk and isn't printing. I guess I need a new one. I plan to print this out for her and save it for her so she can read it when she is older as well. Of course you see how long it is! I will have to stock up on some printer paper! And, yum...Rose and Crown Pub!!! The grilled steak is delicious! And so is the fish and chips (and I normally don't like fish)! I'm drooling here!

Thanks again everyone! :)

ETA: Pictures have been removed as of July 22, 2006! I hope you all were able to see them before I took them down! ~Tasha