I was pretty tired when the wake up call rang. It had taken me until 12:30 to finish packing everything up. Naturally Dh and the kids were asleep well before that.
I had promised Jedi that he could take the call. He was sleeping on the far side of the other bed. I had to climb over Eeoyre to get to him.
Poor Eeoyre, he sobbed himself to sleep last night over the stroller. Well, maybe it wasn’t all about the stroller.
To Eeoyre, the stroller represented his childhood and now that he was on the cusp his 10th birthday he was afraid of leaving his childhood behind. He started off being upset about leaving his stroller and it morphed into his fear of turning 10 and the fact that he felt double digits meant he wouldn’t be a kid anymore, to his fear of starting his new school in September. (In our school district French immersion starts in Grade 5.)
“How can I get time to slow down?” he kept asking. I had no real answer for him other than the fact that you had to enjoy the moment you were in.
“I don’t want to grow up” became his mantra that night. I tried to joke with him about becoming a lost boy in Nevernever Land but he wasn’t in the mood.
So it wasn’t just the stroller he was upset about. Last night he agreed to let the stroller go. He knew it was old, broken and that he didn’t need it anymore. He didn’t like letting go of it. But he said his goodbyes and thanked the stroller for carrying him and his brother and sister safely all these years. Dh and I flanked him as he said his goodbyes. It felt a bit like a military send off. I took a last picture of the stroller and Dh wheeled it out into the world.
I never asked Dh where he took the stroller, somethings are better left unknown.
Eeoyre went to sleep after that. His siblings were still up playing loudly and watching TV but Eeoyre was so spent that he quietly sobbed himself to sleep regardless of his environment around him.
Looking at him now, you wouldn’t be able to tell how upset he was a mere 10 hours ago. I climbed over him to wake up Jedi.
“Wake up Honey!” I whispered. There was no response. I tried again a little louder.
“Jedi, Jedi, the phone is for you.” He turned away from me. Now I know that if he misses the call, he will be miserable this morning and we will be blessed with yet another morning meltdown. As we were checking out this morning and then heading to the parks I didn’t think I had that extra energy to deal with him.
As I’m sitting there listening to the phone ring thinking the Universe has it in for me Eeoyre wakes up and says. “I’ll answer the phone Mommy”.
Well wouldn’t you know it? Miraculously, Jedi pops out of bed, hops over Eeoyre and says “My turn” while sticking his tongue out at him.
Let’s hear it for sibling rivalry. I just knew it had to come in handy some day.
So Jedi answers the call. I wake up Dh and Cindy and we all hurry to get dressed and packed up. Okay so we all didn’t hurry. I hurried and ran around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to make sure everything was packed and everyone was dressed. I had the bags to go on the plane to check in but I also had to make sure I had the carry on bags complete with a bathing suit and change of clothes as we had most of the day before our plane left.
I had originally planned for us to be there for rope drop (It all seemed feasible while I was planning the trip at home). However, when we talked about what we wanted to get done today I knew we could relax a bit. We wanted to do the carousal of progress, Splash Mountain, buzz and Dh wanted to eat a big breakfast.
I had 1900 park fare booked for a late brunch but as we had used up all our dinning credits it would have had to been OPPs and Dh wasn’t buying that. Not when we still had counter credits left. So I cancelled it.
We hauled our entire luggage in one trip to the main building. It felt like a really long walk. I wanted to call luggage service but Dh didn’t want to tip anyone. Next time I’m calling no matter what Dh says.
No one spoke about the stroller. It was like we all agreed not to talk about it. Of course, it also could have been that we were all so angry about having to haul our luggage that in our anger we forgot.
Once again, Dh did a disappearing act. He told me he would be right back while I was at the baggage station checking our luggage in. I asked him where he was going and he gave me his famous twinkle smile and said, “you’ll see”. That was code for I know you won’t approve so if I don’t tell you then you can’t stop me. I was not pleased as it meant I then had to drag the kids with me to check out as well.
Speaking of disappearing, last night after the kids were settled Dh told me about getting the money back for Nanny’s Cirque du Soleil ticket. The policy is quite clear. You are not supposed to get your money back but Dh decided to give it a try anyway. He told them that Nanny was called away at the last moment as her Aunt had passed away. Now in case you have forgotten, Nanny was indeed visiting her Aunt but in celebration of her 90th birthday. Her cousins had changed the date of the party, which affected our Disney vacation. So Nanny left early. Anyhow, Dh was pleased as punch at getting the money back.
Little did I know that Dh was at it again. Earlier in the trip I showed a picture of Jedi sleeping with a Stitch stuffy. Once at the beginning of the trip the stitch stuffy got caught in the bed frame and we couldn’t find him for a day. Then a couple of nights ago, it appeared Stitch was gone for good. I took apart both beds and had packed everything up looking for him. He never did show up. Dh had phoned housekeeping to look for it with no luck.
Well, Dh wasn’t taking “Sorry” for an answer. He disappeared to talk to housekeeping in person. Of course I didn’t know this at the time. I was already at the food court with the kids before he returned.
“I got it,” he says waving a piece of paper at me.
“What?” I said.
“They gave me twenty-five dollars” he finished.
I really wasn’t in the mood to play this game.
“I have no idea what you are talking about. I only know that I’ve had to deal with the kids while you disappeared to who-knows-where. My patience is low so stop beating around the bush and spit it out”.
Dh looks all offended. Like I had no reason to be put off by him.
“Hey. You don’t have to take that tone with me. I’ve done nothing wrong” he says.
Nothing wrong. He thinks he’s done nothing wrong while I think he’s hardly done anything except say we can’t have help dragging our luggage a mile and a half. He’s obviously not taken in the fact that I am stressed out by packing up and checking out. He’s remembered to put his razor in the right back. How stressful could packing up be? He’s totally missing the empathy thing here.
“Just help me with the kids okay?” I say. “I’m tired and hungry”.
“Of course. When don’t I help with the kids?” I’m thinking does he really want to get into it here, now? I swallow my resentment and push past it.
We got the kids organized and had a quick breakfast. Then we took the bus from the main building (the south bus stop) to the MK. It was 9:15 already. Still I was pleased to have accomplished so much. I was also tired already.
The south bus stop was packed. We had become one of “them”. We had melted into the free dinning crowd. I tried to reassure myself that since we were only doing three rides that it would okay. We missed the first MK bus. It was packed before it even reached us. Darn that POR loop. It was 9:30 before the next one came. We squeezed in. While on the bus Dh and I resumed our conversation.
“ I went to see housekeeping and they gave me a credit for $25 to replace stitch”. He says.
“But Jedi was okay with stitch missing and quite frankly we have enough stuffed animals. You didn’t need to” I reply.
His body posture sags a bit. I’ve taken the wind from his sails.
“It’s a credit. We don’t have to use it for a new stitch. We can use it for whatever we want.” He says straightening back up.
Eeoyre is eavesdropping. He’s so excited that Jedi will be able to buy a new stitch that we stuck with that plan. However the stitch was only $14 plus taxes so we had some money to put towards a “Cars” baseball hat for our nephew.
We entered the Magic Kingdom gates for the last time. Had our last first castle sighting of the trip and booted our way to splash mountain.
Luckily there was only a 10-minute wait.
Cindy and Poppa sat out. Poppa wasn’t feeling too well today. He barely even ate breakfast.
After Splash we took the train to toontown. I hadn’t been on train yet.
Here are the kids on the train.
I thought toontown would be packed but it was still okay. The kids went through Mickey and Minnie’s houses and played in Donald’s boat.
We stayed there longer than I had planned as Poppa kept leaving us to go to the washroom. He was looking a little gray underneath the tan. He was trouper though and kept up with us.
We used some snack credits and got frozen lemonades and popcorn. Yummy and so refreshing, as we finally had to deal with the heat and the sun.
We grabbed fastpasses for Buzz and headed on the carousal of progress.
I love that ride. I miss the old song. It went something like “Now is the best time, now is the best time, now is the best time of your life”. But that’s all I remember. I’m going to have to search for it on the internet sometime.
The kids enjoyed it. We still had some time to kill before our fast passes so we picked out a new Stitch for Jedi and as I mentioned a hat for my nephew.
At first, the search for stitch didn’t seem promising. All the stuffed stitches in the store were a baby stitch that came with a blanket. Jedi liked the idea of the blanket but wanted “his” stitch.
Dh asked the CM’s if they had any other stuffed stitches anywhere. The said they didn’t think so but one went into the back to look for one.
Wouldn’t you know that she found one. It was Jedi’s stitch. The CM thought it was amazing because she said she looked there yesterday and didn’t see it but today when she went into the back there this one was. Only the one.
Jedi didn’t think it was amazing. He was convinced that it really was his stitch and that he had escaped our resort room to go to the parks and ride on rides and then waited at the store for Jedi to come back and get him. We couldn’t get him to think otherwise and frankly I gave up trying. I think I even started to believe.
Stitch went on Buzz with us. I rode with Cindy. I ended up having to shoot with my left hand and my score was horrible. Cindy did much better than normal and beat the pants off me so she was happy. I didn’t record our scores. Just my sentiments about them.
I found us a photopass photographer on the way out.Then I begged him to do the following pictures.
**Cut this photo out as it was too big. It's in the next post below**
I had missed many of the other “special” insert pictures as the weather was so bad at the beginning of my trip.
Finally it was time to leave the happiest place on earth. With a heavy heart, and tears in my eyes I made everyone turn on Main Street and blow kisses to the castle. Even Poppa.
It had been a busy 10 days. We had spent three of them here at the MK. Two in the rain. We had tried new things like the family magic tour and toontown, and done all the things I had planned for us to do. More in fact due to the light crowds in the rain. But our time was up.
We caught a bus back to POR. We still had an hour and a half before the magic express was picking us up. That’s enough time to grab lunch and hang at the pool one last time.
We were sick of eating at our food court by now so we swam first. I took some last pictures.
Here is Jedi going down the slide. Notice Eeoyre at the bottom there sort of scoping it out.
Here is Cindy going down the slide.
And here is a picture I never thought I would get. Today Eeoyre decided he would go down that slide after all. He only did it once so it’s lucky I captured the shot the first time round.
We showered and changed in the poolside washrooms. They were big enough but in the ladies there was a woman with two girls doing the same thing I was. Only she spread out into every conceivable space. I ended up going to get more towels so I could put Cindy and my stuff on the wet floor. She used both the showers for a very long time and I finally had to send Cindy into the men’s change room to shower. I was very annoyed.
Magic Express picked us up at 3 pm. We were all changed and feed and ready to head home. We stopped at two other resorts for pick up.
We had to change planes in Atlanta. That flight was delayed an hour. It meant we landed in Buffalo at 11pm. Jedi fell sleep on that flight. At touchdown he started tossing and turning which wasn’t too bad but it was the moaning that accompanied it that got embarrassing. Jedi transferred from the plane, to his stroller to the hotel shuttle, back to his stroller and finally into his car seat. He ever opened an eyelid.
We dropped Poppa off in Toronto where he lives, said a quick hello to Nanny and finally got home around 3:20am. I should have been tired and I should have drifted off to sleep easily but I couldn’t.
I keep replaying moments from the trip in my mind.
Dragging Dh out of the hotel restaurant the morning we left.
Seeing the rain starting to come down while we were in the magic express bus heading to POR.
My disappointment in our room location.
The hours spent watching the weather station getting an update on tropical storm Faye.
Jedi finding Captain Hook’s Hook on the family magic tour.
Cindy talking to Crush.
Finding the lost child in the storm at MK.
Cindy sulking.
Anxiously waiting to see if the Luau will happen on Jedi’s birthday
Cindy throwing up on Dh.
The kids in their matching t-shirts walking into the Tea party.
Nanny getting fed up with me and my plans outside of Toy story mania.
Eeoyre freaking out when faced with Darth Vader.
Cindy picking out a pearl in Japan.
Eeoyre trying a new food at Coral Reef.
My meltdown when the kids wouldn’t go on the pirate cruise.
Our wonderful afternoon spent at the French quarters pool when the sun finally came out.
Our mistake of a ride to SeaWorld.
Losing Jedi at Seaworld.
Watching Cirque.
Eeoyre conquering the slide at the pool today.
It had been a very full vacation. I thought about how to write about it as a trip report. Could I make it interesting enough. It was a special trip to us but would it seem too ordinary to everyone else?
The other thought that kept crossing my mind was.
WHEN CAN WE GO BACK AGAIN!
The pictures are great...love the picture of Cindy waiting "in the wings". Crazy about the "talent scout". The people who put on the comp. we were at were big on security, you had to have a special bracelet on to get into the changing area. Can't wait to hear about the rest of your trip. My guess is you go home with two strollers!
Speaking of the next trip....are you going to do a TR? I hope so, I really love reading your TR's, they are fantastic!
