Nory Report III: In the Third Person! After 3 Years, the Final Update! NEW 2/6

Welcome back! And congratulations on little Simba's arrival into the world, he is precious :) !!
 
Yes, of course, we were sitting here wondering what Nory did next....you don't even want to know how much popcorn I went through! popcorn::

Congratulations again on the arrival of son. What a handsome dude! He looks like he could just start up a conversation with you.

Regarding the update, wow, I'm really impressed by those peoples' ghost costumes. And yeah, I bet the Haunted Mansion is the place to be a cast member during the Halloween parties.
 
Welcome back to the DIS with one extra passenger - extra small. pixiedust: Simba is a gorgeous little boy. And I remember exactly where I was on October 23rd - coming home from Disney world!

Thank you for posting pics of your lovely little boy and those Halloween party pics are greet. Some people really do have some amazing costumes, don't they? We saw something similar this past October.
 


Yay!! You're back!! Huge congratulations on the birth of Simba!! He's such a cutie!!

I really enjoyed reading your TR so looking forward to it continuing but know how much work newborns are!!

SG x
I can't imagine how you handled two at the same time! :scared1:

Nory!!!! :yay::yay::yay: Glad to see you back! And welcome to the Dis, Simba!!! He is so adorable!! :goodvibes

Welcome back! And congratulations on little Simba's arrival into the world, he is precious :) !!

Welcome back and WELCOME to your precious little Simba! He is absolutely gorgeous, congratulations!

Thanks, guys! No argument from me about his adorableness, preciousness, or gorgeousness!

Yes, of course, we were sitting here wondering what Nory did next....you don't even want to know how much popcorn I went through! popcorn::
:rotfl:

Congratulations again on the arrival of son. What a handsome dude! He looks like he could just start up a conversation with you.
Check him out in this outfit (made by a friend of ours at our shower, where everyone got extremely involved in onesie decorating). He looks like he's about to start discussing 401Ks or something:
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Welcome back to the DIS with one extra passenger - extra small. pixiedust: Simba is a gorgeous little boy. And I remember exactly where I was on October 23rd - coming home from Disney world!

Thank you for posting pics of your lovely little boy and those Halloween party pics are greet. Some people really do have some amazing costumes, don't they? We saw something similar this past October.
I guess that means my October 23rd was quite a bit happier than yours was! :goodvibes And isn't it awesome, the way some people go all out with their costumes? I thought about dressing up, but felt a bit silly doing it solo.
 
After her quality time spent with the happy haunts, Nory headed over to Fantasyland.

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She suspected that lines would be shortest at this exact moment -- when partygoers were still just arriving, but regular day guests were all gone. And sure enough, when she reached Peter Pan, she witnessed a miracle: a ten-minute wait at 7:00. She decided to make a quick pit stop first, though. And naturally, when she returned, the wait was twenty minutes.

Go figure, she thought. And even though twenty minutes was still a ridiculously short wait for Peter Pan, it was longer than Nory felt like waiting. So she moved on, to Snow White's Scary Adventures.

When Nory was little, this ride had terrified her more than any other. When she was a teenager, it had bored her to tears. This time, surprisingly, she found herself enjoying it. She knew, now, about how revolutionary Snow White had been to the world of animation -- the first full-length animated film, the first animated film to win an Oscar, and a true labor of love for the fledgling Disney Company, which barely had the funds to survive back then, much less to make such an extraordinary movie. She also knew that Walt and the Imagineers had gone out of their way to ensure Snow White's Scary Adventures, one of their first theme park rides out in Disneyland, maintained the same narrative flow as a film. The ride set was so similar to the film, in fact, that Nory could almost pretend she was actually in the movie.

Did they make this ride less scary than it used to be? she wondered. Then her vehicle entered the forest, and she was surrounded by tall, threatening trees with terrifying faces. Oh. No, still scary!

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In need of an antidote after the darkness of Snow White's world, Nory decided to go find Winnie the Pooh. Now that it was dark, the construction walls marring Fantasyland made it a bit more difficult for her to get her bearings, and it didn't help that the entire entrance to the Pooh ride had been detoured. But Nory persevered. There was no line whatsoever, so she walked directly into a honeypot to join Pooh and his friends in a very blustery day.

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Bouncing with Tigger and hanging out with the trippy woozles and heffalumps was lots of fun. But rather than riding again, Nory decided she should probably do a little more official research.

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She knew that some crucial portions of the novel would be set in Its a Small World -- in fact, the Small World material had come to her in the shower one morning even before she left for Disney. So she rode it, twice in a row. Some people might consider that torture, but it was Nory's favorite ride when she was little, and she still holds a very soft spot in her heart for the singing and dancing dolls. Perhaps that's why it had sparked much of the idea for the whole premise of the book, in the first place.

She also took about a million pictures.

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CONTINUED IN NEXT POST
 
CONTINUED FROM LAST POST

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By the time Nory exited the 1960s forget-about-communism-lets-have-world-peace land, the early Halloween parade had already begun. Nory wasn't sure she'd watch the parade that evening -- she had a whole other Halloween party to attend the following night, after all -- but she did know that if she wanted to see it, the later one would be far less crowded. Hoping that enough trick-or-treaters had been drawn away by the colorful floats and the catchy music (destined to remain stuck in her head for days to come), she thought she'd give one of the candy lines a try. She was interested in the Alice and Wonderland-themed trick-or-treat route on the path between Toontown and Tomorrowland. But she was foiled again by the incessant construction walls, and ended up in some other, less spectacular line.

While others seem to focus intently on what candy, exactly, they receive at Mickeys Not-So-Scary Halloween Party -- whether they get enough chocolate to help justify the admission price, apparently -- Nory didn't really care. Trick or Treating certainly wasn't a focus of the evening for her. As far as she's concerned, she can get candy for herself anytime she feels like walking to the corner store! But she was happy to take a little break from the rides, and to get a little sugar to help keep her energy up. She ended up with one mini Snickers, and a few pieces of other candy that tasted like childhood (Nerds, Smarties, Spree). She popped an apple Laffy Taffy in straight away, then tried not to break her teeth as she ventured into Tomorrowland.

A star to show Evil, from wishes come light, she thought to herself as she walked past the shiny buildings of the future. How can she get a star? Is it a real star, or a metaphorical star, or what? She mulled over this solitary line of the prophecy all the way to Space Mountain. The wait said five minutes, and that was just as long as it took to walk through the empty queue. Nory requested a seat in the front, this time, and quickly remembered why she loved this ride. With no heads blocking her vision, she genuinely felt like she was hurtling through space, like she could just reach out and grab one of the stars affixed to the rafters above her.

That's an idea, she thought.

On her way out, she was so deep in thought that she rather mindlessly followed a mother and son who were walking in front of her. A CM motioned them down an unfamiliar turning, and Nory followed.

They turned a corner, and there they were: back at the loading area! They had bypassed the entire queue to exit, and the entire queue to enter, and got to ride twice in a row!

Nory didn't sit in the front this time, but she wasn't complaining.

***
 


well well well! It would appear I unsubscribed but I'm back! Simba is adorable! So so very cute. Congratulations!

Last update makes me really want to be in the front for SM. I've never done that. And a magic re-entry? :thumbsup2
 
eandesmom said:
well well well! It would appear I unsubscribed but I'm back! Simba is adorable! So so very cute. Congratulations!

Last update makes me really want to be in the front for SM. I've never done that. And a magic re-entry? :thumbsup2

Thanks, Cynthia!

I swear, it's like a completely different (and much better) ride sitting in front.

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards
 
Hi Nory! Congrats on the birth of your beautiful baby boy! I promise he will sleep some day :)

I love your writing style! How is your book coming along? I am enjoying your TR - as I sign up for yet another one, I find it is hard to keep up, but I'll be around eventually!
 
Hi Nory! Congrats on the birth of your beautiful baby boy! I promise he will sleep some day :)

I love your writing style! How is your book coming along? I am enjoying your TR - as I sign up for yet another one, I find it is hard to keep up, but I'll be around eventually!

Thanks, Tammie! And thanks for joining in!

The book's coming along...much slower than I would like, but obviously I've had quite a bit of real life stuff keeping me busy! I've got maybe 3/4 of a draft done. It still needs lots of work, but I'm pretty happy with at least big chunks of it so far! Hopefully I'll finish it up eventually!
 
Score! Bonus ride on SM!

What a fun evening at the Halloween party! My experience is the candy gets better and more plentiful as the party comes to a close.

More great pictures. I love the hippo in IASW!
 
Nory, Simba is absolutely precious...thank you for sharing the photos.

Loved your pictures of the Halloween Party. We didn't go this year, but I had a good excuse. We planned a surprise 60th birthday trip for hubby (TR now in progress) and we went to the Christmas Party instead.

Can't wait to read more. Oh...and hope that May trip becomes a reality for you.
 
Awww I also have a serious soft spot for iasw! No matter how much DH protests, I have to ride it every trip!
Bonus Space Mountain ride? How awesome! Loving where your plot-thoughts are going too.
 
Score! Bonus ride on SM!

What a fun evening at the Halloween party! My experience is the candy gets better and more plentiful as the party comes to a close.

More great pictures. I love the hippo in IASW!
That ended up being my experience, too, with the candy. I ended up with enough of it to bring home, I was eating it for weeks!

Nory, Simba is absolutely precious...thank you for sharing the photos.

Loved your pictures of the Halloween Party. We didn't go this year, but I had a good excuse. We planned a surprise 60th birthday trip for hubby (TR now in progress) and we went to the Christmas Party instead.

Can't wait to read more. Oh...and hope that May trip becomes a reality for you.
Thanks, Kat! I'll have to catch up on your report...it's taking me a while to get caught up with everything around here! (Not helped by the fact that I'm mostly reading TRs on my phone, and the mobile app doesn't tell you on the main screen who started a TR, it just tells you who posted last.)

Awww I also have a serious soft spot for iasw! No matter how much DH protests, I have to ride it every trip!
Bonus Space Mountain ride? How awesome! Loving where your plot-thoughts are going too.
Thanks for the plot feedback! I'm with you about IASW. I think I would consider it bad luck to go to MK and not ride it at least once!

I'm intrigued! I hope we'll see the book soon! :goodvibes
I hope so, too! :rotfl:
 
Let's see...if I continue to post twice a year or so, how long will it take me to finish this darn thing? :lmao:

Seriously, though, this time it's gonna happen. I'm bound and determined. I see you all rolling your eyes, saying, "Whatever, Nory, we know better! You'll tease us with a post or two, then disappear for months!"

What makes this time any different? Well, something major -- IT'S ALL DONE. This whole TR. It's completely written, the pictures are all processed and uploaded, it's divided in a Word doc into handy chapters. So now I have no excuse! (Plus, it took me months to finish, and I don't want all that work to go to waste!) Thanks to little Simba (10 months old already!) I probably can't guarantee daily updates, or anything, but I can guarantee at least twice a week (on my babysitter days). Scout's honor. If I disappear again, I owe each of you a Dole Whip.

To get you all feeling charitable about my long and predictable absence, here is a picture of Simba, showing off his single tooth:

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And of Simba's first trip to WDW, this past May (and his dad's first trip, too). Almost unbelievably, I've been on NINE Disney trips since the one featured in this TR.

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And now, let's get back to this trip from 3 years ago! To sum up: I went to WDW in October 2000 to research a young readers' fantasy novel I'm writing that's set in the Magic Kingdom. I decided to write the TR in the third person, as practice. I got pregnant, had a baby boy, and disappeared from the DIS for a long, long time.

This chapter is the very end of my third day; there are one and a half days left to go.

The novel, for the record, is 3/4 done. Proudly maintaining the same glacial pace for all writing projects! :thumbsup2

***

It was already after 8:00 when she completed her second journey through space, so Nory decided she’d better get a snack and find a spot to watch Hallowishes, the special Halloween fireworks. She’d heard so much about the corn dog nuggets from Casey’s on Main Street, she thought they’d make the perfect pre-fireworks snack.

Soon enough, she was forced to consider America’s favorite pastime as she stood in a non-moving line at the restaurant.

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Only a few people stood in front of her, but it still took twenty minutes before she could place her order. In her entire trip, this was the longest line she stood in. And when she finally got her coveted nuggets, they were disgusting. She’s inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt, and to believe that they are good, typically. But in this case, they tasted like they’d been sitting under a heat lamp for far too long.

She ate a few on her way to her Wishes-viewing spot, then threw the rest away. What a waste!

Though Nory stood against some railing, on the path between Tomorrowland and Main Street, she decided not to bother setting up her gorillapod and camera for the fireworks. She’d save that for tomorrow. Tonight, she’d just enjoy the show.

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Soon the lights dimmed and the narration began. For the next ten minutes, Nory was mesmerized by the stunning, multicolored fireworks and the recognizable Disney-villain songs. And the finale—oh, the finale!—when fireworks went off in a complete circle around the park, and the sky was light as day—made Nory hold her breath in amazement. She joined the rest of the park in enthusiastic applause when it was over, thrilled that she would be able to watch it all over again the next night.

Now, with only an hour until the late parade would begin, Nory made a shocking decision: to skip it entirely. It had been a wonderful day, and she didn’t want to push it. Better to go to bed early tonight, and then stay as late as she wanted tomorrow. She leisurely poked through some of the shops on Main Street, hoping to find a good Halloween Party pin, but they didn’t have any out—apparently they’d moved them to the pin shop in Frontierland that year—and she wasn’t crazy about this year’s crop of Halloween T-shirts, either.

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So it didn’t take long before Nory was once again saying farewell to the pumpkinheads, and heading back to her Polynesian home.

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She vaguely remembered reading that she could walk from the Transportation and Ticket Center—the destination of the Express Monorail—to the Poly, so when she saw that the Express Monorail line was far shorter than the Resort Monorail one, she decided to take her chances. She hadn’t been to the TTC in years, since back in the ‘80s, when they’d drive from the Vacation Villas—a Disney resort that no longer exists—to the TTC on their way to the Magic Kingdom. So she was a bit confused when she climbed down from the monorail into a vast land of concrete.

She had no idea where she was going. And the place was pretty deserted. Like a big empty parking lot. At night.

Luckily, she spied a CM speeding around on a Segway near the bus stops. She walked up to him and hollered, “Excuse me?”

He did a nifty little spin, then stopped right in front of her. Show-off, she thought.

“How can I help you?” he asked.

“Am I right in thinking I can walk to the Poly from here?” she asked. Man, I sure hope I was right about this!

“Yep, the path’s right over there,” he said, and pointed off into the distance.

Nory thanked him, and walked away. Thank goodness I asked! she thought. She never would have found the path, otherwise.

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Soon she was walking along an empty path through the velvety night, surrounded by the Florida foliage, with only the occasional light to guide her. She could still hear the Halloween music from the Magic Kingdom, in the distance. And even when she entered the Poly grounds proper, there wasn’t another human in sight.

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A few people swam in the volcano pool, but other than that, it was a quiet and contemplative walk back to her amazing room.

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She poured herself a glass of wine and sat on her patio, watching the castle change colors in the distance. She had planned to think some more about the prophecy. But instead she just sat there, feeling perfectly content.

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Then she went to bed. Tomorrow was her last full day, and she wanted to make the most of it.
***
 
I was just searching through my old posts from 2010 to find something else, and I stumbled upon a comment I made on your PTR and I thought, "Oh yeah, Nory was writing a book! I wonder what she's up to now?" How funny that you updated this old trip report TODAY. I have good timing. :laughing:

The baby's adorable! They're a great reason for not getting things done. :love:

(Confession: My husband and I never finished our 2010 trip report and now I kind of want to resurrect it....)
 

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