Day 2: In Which I Cry
Okay, so Day 2 of our eleven day trip was, without a doubt, the worst day of the vacation. I don't want to skimp on this day, but I also don't want to spend too much time on it, because remembering some aspects of it makes me sad.
When we all go to WDW, of course we want to make magical memories and have fun and enjoy our children. And when that doesn't exactly happen, sometimes some of us become a little bit tearful.
But before I get into the day (which wasn't *all* bad!), I forgot I have a picture from Downtown Disney! We really were there!
Here's Quinn, posing with
Lego Buzz and Lego Woody while Lego Employees actually start dimming the lights to kick us out of the Lego Store.
So, let's set the stage for Day 2. The underlying theme of the day is fatigue. A great way to begin your first park day would be to feel like you usually do when the day is over.
As a result, we didn't even try for rope drop (though we are generally not rope drop people--due to the 2 hour difference in time, getting up to make RD on one of our first few days would be like getting up at 4 or 5 am. So we just don't worry much about it).
We get up around 8 or so and have breakfast in the room. Garden Grocer is, again, a hit! We used the service last year at the Wilderness Lodge and it made things much easier in the mornings.
So now is as good a time as any to mention the ridiculous food restrictions that Quinn and Tim have to deal with, because they will play quite a part in our visit. Liam and I can eat whatever, but the other two are a head chef's nightmare. Quinn is a *very* rambunctious and fidgety little boy. While much of this is, of course, normal for the age, we decided to try an experiment and cut out all food dye and artificial ingredients from his diet. And amazingly, it has really helped. He still talks more than the entire rest of the family combined, still interrupts, still has issues controlling his body--but they are much better when he has a clean diet.
Which is FLIPPING IMPOSSIBLE AT DISNEY.
But we are going to do our best to keep him from eating brightly colored stuff, at least. Aim high, little grasshoppahs.
As for Tim, the poor guy is intolerant of almost everything. Dairy is a no go, soy is bad, and gluten is off the table. At Disney, this leaves Tim with the amazing food selections of salads, fries, and possibly some meat and fruit. And eggs. That's one of the things that makes going to Disney hard--the serious food restrictions we have.
But WE LOVE DISNEY, and we are crazy, so we are willing to try!
With breakfast, I down my usual 4+ cups of coffee. I am useless without it. Even more useless than I usually am. Ha! So of course we knew that the rooms had switched to pod coffeemakers, and I had read that the pods were 100% Arrabica or something, and Tim (coffee snob) says that really means 100% crap. So we ordered some pods from
Amazon and brought them with us.
Our coffee did not taste like crap, so hey, there's a positive for day 2.
Having eaten and gotten dressed and appropriately slathered with sunscreen, we headed out. I had my little bag, two water bottles with filters, and a neoprene sling to hold one of them. That was one of the smartest purchases I made before this trip. We are really not soda drinkers, and while of course we bought water sometimes, I really thought having our own water bottles was the way to go.
(The problem, you see, is I seriously cannot stand the way Disney water tastes. I don't know what they put in it, or what they don't take out of it, but the taste is very, um, unpalatable to me. And I am not that picky--I drink tap water all the time here at home. So I figured two refillable filtered water bottles at $15 total would easily pay for itself, considering those bottles of Dasani are $2.50 a pop.)
Anyway, we refilled those babies everywhere and I have to tell you all that they absolutely made the Disney water drinkable for us. Hey, there's another thing about this day that didn't suck!
The other thing we bring is our ponchos. Tim had purchased TWENTY from the military surplus store before we left--five for each of us. Twenty red garbage bag-esque ponchos. Wait till you see them. They are the height of 2012 Poncho Fashion.
He thought this number would be overkill.
(Hint: That's foreshadowing.)
I put four in my bag. Tim didn't bring any.
(More foreshadowing.)
So off we go to the bus stop. We go the wrong way, because I am in front, and once I got lost hiking on a trail behind a gas station not far from my house. True story. Lesson learned: Never let mom lead the way. We get there eventually, though, and after not too long, a bus to the MK comes along and we get on, and then we stop at four other villages and we are on our way. And then we arrive!
I check my Verizon Mobile Magic app once we get in the gates (because that only works when you are IN THE GATES, not even when you are getting off the bus, getting your bag checked, or waiting on the other side of the gates. That is one picky app) and we ask Liam what he wants to do first. The answer is BTMRR, so we go get FPs.
Let me also take this opportunity to mention that Quinn doesn't like a lot of rides. It can be challenging to tour the parks, because Liam will ride anything, but Quinn won't ride anything if there's a drop. Any drop. And your definition of a drop is probably not his. His definition of a drop is--well, let's just say I was worried he'd hate Peter Pan because of it.
Anyway, Liam and I hit BTMRR, and it's great, and it's OPEN after the refurb and I am so happy because if this one was down in addition to Test Track, I might have cried. Tim and Quinn do something. I don't remember what. Tim doesn't remember either. Trip report fail.
Then we switch. Tim goes off and rides with Liam, and Quinn and I do Pirates. Last year, this was his favorite ride and he probably rode it 10+ times with Tim, while Liam and I did all the mountains. I was expecting something similar this year.
I was wrong.
Any of you who have been to the MK this decade know that if you time it right, you can basically walk onto Pirates. And that's what we did last year. This time, we go to ride and the line is 20 minutes and the queue is out front and everything. Oh heck no, I say, but Quinn wants to ride, so we get in line and chat for a minute with a nice guy from South Africa. By the time we get in the boat, the nice guy from South Africa is wishing he never opened his mouth to chat because Quinn has told him our ages, birthplaces, favorite foods, BMI, and the time that Liam got in the airport elevator without us and i was scarred for life.
Then we ride. There are the seagulls, the mist, everyone's favorite meanyhead Blackbeard.
And, of course, the drop.
And after said drop, Quinn turns to me and says, with absolute certainty:
"Mom, they changed the ride. That drop is bigger than last year."
I shush him, but he's relentless.
"It IS! They must have done something to the ride! That drop was much scarier!"
We deboat (this is not a word, is it) and I know we're done for. What follows is a good ten minute long conversation about the drop in Pirates. I assure him that I have been planning this trip all year and I know what's been refurbed and what hasn't, and I am positive that Pirates is the exact same ride, and he loved it last year, and it didn't change at all.
He assures me that I am wrong.
RIP, POTC, for I shan't be seeing much more of you this trip. POTC is now off the ride rotation.
We meet back up with Liam and Tim, and I fill Tim in on this new development, and he tears up a little.
The kids play for awhile in the area where the Tiki statues squirt water at you. We warn them not to get to wet. Little do we know, it won't end up mattering one bit.
I love the dude in the back of this pic. Do you ever wonder how many strangers' pics you may be in? The thought frightens me.
We then decide to get a bite to eat. We hit the Golden Oak Outpost, which Tim says has the best fries in all of WDW, and he would know, because there were a few days where fries is all he ate. Crappy WDW diet, holla! Quinn and Liam get chicken breast nuggets and fries (we don't do the
DDP because, with our food restrictions, it just doesn't work), Tim gets fries, and I hoof it over to Sleepy Hollow to get something I've wanted for months.
The nutella and fresh fruit waffle sandwich.
Come to mama, baby.
I chow on that piece of calorically high deliciousness while the kids eat their nuggets, feed fries to the birds, and a few drops of rain hit us.
What's that?
Rain, you say?
I ignore it, because it's only noon and that's too early for the Florida Thunderstorm Activity of Summer, of which I am convinced will be our only rainfall. And, of course, I have no inkling of the massive storms hanging around, because as you may recall, I was watching LOST and packing instead of checking the weather.
We finish up our food and decide we'll get FPs for Splash, and then we go over to Tom Sawyer Island. In the queue behind us is a family with kids dressed up as pirates (someday we'll splurge for the pirates league) and the most awesome Scottish accents. I love Scottish accents, and I think wistfully of my favorite Scot,
Desmond Hume (I warned you) and then the raft comes and we sail on over.
Tim: Wow, it is looking really overcast.
Me: *fingers in ears*
Tom Sawyer island is fun. Tim takes the kids into a cave. I sit down for a minute in the front area by the boat dock. A little girl and her mom sit next to me, and the girl has a blister, but they don't have bandaids. Happily, I do, because I might not have checked the weather, but I have bandaids, people, and they are Angry Birds, which makes the little girl very happy and I get that nice feeling inside from doing something kind, which is immediately squashed because at this point the HEAVENS OPENED UP and began dumping buckets.
I was right under that awning area, so I was fine. Tim and the kids were still out somewhere on the island. Crap. I look in my bag to get a garbage bag poncho and am hit with a slap in the face that I, who is dry and under a lovely awning, have the ponchos.
And my poor family, who is not dry and not under this awning, do not.
After a few minutes, they show up. They were in a cave. The cave flooded. They were soaked. The raft to go back wasn't running, because of lightning, but as soon as they got the all clear we sailed back.
Splash was down, due to lightning. It only ran off and on the rest of the afternoon. We never got to use our FPs.
I am going to tell you right now that I don't even remember what we did most of the afternoon. It was just horrible out, windy, rainy, and would let up a bit but then start up again. Splash was usually down, as was BTMRR, Dumbo, Aladdin, the Speedway, Jungle Cruise--everything my kids like.
I have some pictures, though, so I am assuming we must have done Buzz. Oh wait! That's right, I remember now, because I kicked butt. Boom!
Now brace yourselves, friends. You are about to get the first glimpse of the Red Garbage Bag Ponchos. But it will not be your last, I promise you that.
One good thing about these ponchos is that in a sea of Disney ponchos, we stood out like a sunburned zebra. We could spot each other from across the park. I was happy for that unintended perk. Oh, who am I kidding? I wasn't happy about those dang ponchos at all.
Blurry pic with Zurg
This one's a little better. No idea Quinn's who giving the thumbs up to.
During one of the periods where the rain lets up, the kids have a snack:
And make pressed pennies:
I had no idea making pressed pennies was as exciting as waking up to find Santa came to visit, but Quinn thinks so.
By this time, it's getting close to our 'Ohana dinner reservation, so we head on over to the monorail and make our way to the Poly.
I have never been to the Poly, so I'm super excited to see it. And I was not let down--it is, of course, beautiful. But the 2nd floor of the GCH is mobbed so bad that I can't even tell where the podium for 'Ohana is. We are early, because we didn't want to be in the wet MK anymore, and so we tool around in the gift shop for a bit before checking in and receiving the dreaded Disney Buzzer (or, as I affectionately call it, Yet Another Stupid Thing for My Kids To Fight Over). I contemplate getting a drink at the bar, but before long the thing does its buzzy light up dance and we go in.
To the worst WDW dining mistake I had ever made.
I had read lots of reviews of 'Ohana, and looked at the menu, and i thought Tim would be able to eat the meat and it would be okay. He thought it would be okay, too. They brought our bread and Quinn didn't like it.
Uh oh.
Then some appetizers came and...Quinn didn't like them. (I did, though. What is *in* those noodles?)
They also brought Tim his lapu lapu (see first post) and something for me that I remember nothing about except it was green and coconutty and sweet.
Sometime before the food started coming out, the kids were called up to do coconut races and everything. Liam and Quinn went up and after a couple minutes Quinn came back, saying he didn't like it. Liam stayed up there, though. I thought he was enjoying himself.
(Still more foreshadowing.)
Quinn didn't like the noodles. He didn't like the salad. He didn't like the potstickers. He didn't like the meat. He wanted pizza.
He was pretty upset that 'Ohana doesn't have pizza. Or nuggets. Or fries. Apparently that is all he wanted to eat.
So now we have a husband who can't eat half the food, a child refusing to eat ALL the food, one child up pushing a coconut around with a broom... Wait a sec. How long has he been up there?
He stayed up there through the appetizers.
He stayed up there during the meat.
He stayed up there during the whole time the singy lady is still going on and singing songs about family and cousins and stuff and people are slow dancing, but we aren't because we are dealing with Quinn not wanting to eat anything, and WHERE IS LIAM????
Finally he comes to the table. I'd say it was close to 45 minutes that he was up there. And he is almost in tears. Because he felt like he couldn't leave.
This was, I think, our low point. It was stormy. We were all exhausted already. I was the only one eating at a rather pricy meal, aside from Tim, who ate some chicken and beef. Thankfully, Liam did have food on his plate when he got back, so he was able to eat some.
Then the bread pudding was brought out, and Liam didn't want any, and Quinn didn't want any, and Tim can't have any, and I ate 2.5 servings.
Then we left. And I cried. Because I had booked that reservation, and it was a huge flop. Family style restaurants are obviously a huge problem when you have a picky kid like we do, and a husband with numerous sensitivities.
I don't know what happened with the singy lady, or why she had kids up there for the better part of an hour, but apparently we stumbled upon another parenting fail by not telling Liam that he could leave and come back to the table whenever he wanted. I still feel awful thinking about him, how he felt he couldn't leave.
His little lower lip was trembling when he came back to the table and my heart just broke.
We paid the bill and couldn't get out of there fast enough. And then I cried some more, because what kind of a trip were we going to have if it stormed every day? And if we were this tired already?
We felt like the trip was doomed.
We had planned to go back to the parks after dinner, but decided to scrap that, go back to CBR and go to bed. We all needed sleep.
Back at the room, we had a little happy discovery--the camera charger we needed had successfully arrived and was in the room. Now at least I could use something other than my phone for pics. Amazon Prime saves the day.
Since that went so well, we also decided to order some things from Zappos to make a rainy stay more tolerable. Tim ordered waterproof boots for himself, boots for the kids, and a couple other things to help us stay positive and dry during any storms that may hit us. And my VIP Zappos account would also get the stuff to us quick.
Amazon prime. Zappos VIP. Yes, I do a lot of online shopping.
With that, we are done with this day and are ready to regroup for Epcot tomorrow. Epcot is one of my favorite parks, and Tim's too. And the kids love it. AND it has bunches of indoor rides, so if it does rain, we are optimistic that we can still have a fun day.
And we have our first of three character breakfasts tomorrow--Cape May, at the Beach Club! So we better hit the sack.
Tomorrow is going to be a better da...zzzzzzzzzz
Oh well. Hindsight is 20/20 vision, or whatever that saying is. 
