A Road Trip, A Tree House, and Family. What could go wrong?

[DisneyRegulars]

I owe you a cute introduction to my family, but that will have to come later. For now, let me take you along on our vacation as it unfolds before us.

I am currently sitting on a pitch black balcony, staring at a beautiful orange moon, and shadows of wilderbeasts, giraffes and antelopes. There are other things scurrying about down there, and my imagination is telling me they are large rats. But let's not talk about the view, let's start by going back about six months ago when this vacation really started.

I was up at the crack of dawn ready to book my Southwest flights. Foolishly though, we (well me) had set a price limit on what we were willing to pay to fly down to Disney the week between Christmas and New Years. Arguably one of the most expensive weeks of the year to fly anywhere. Well my budget was $1200 for the three of us. The flights out of Buffalo were $1365. Nooooooooo!!!!! Grizzly made me stick to my budget, so just like that, at 6:01am on a July morning we decided we were driving to Disney.

And the thing is, we all lived to tell about it. At least one direction of it. One hour into our second day of driving Tigger says casually from the back seat "Can we fly home?" Ha!

We had two main route choices, 95 down the coast, dealing with DC traffic, or adding 30 minutes to the drive and going through Pittsburgh and down through West Virginia. We went with the West Virginia route. We headed out Christmas evening after dropping my parents off at the airport. We arrived in Pittsburgh for the night about an hour before they got home to NH.

Saturday we drove for 10 hours from Pittsburgh to Savannah. We stopped at an absolutely awful indoor minigolf place somewhere in one of the Carolinas, and then again for dinner a few hours later off route 26 because it was rush hour and the traffic was lousy. Somewhere in West Virginia we stopped at a Macdonalds that had a play place. I got a kick out of the sign that said "Free refills are for one visit only. Do not bring an empty cup from a previous visit to fill up." Only in West Virginia I thought to myself.

We spent all of 25 minutes on 95 before we were so so happy that we did not go that route. The traffic was so terrible. We finally abandoned the route and had Google guide us down 17 the last 45 miles to Savannah. It was about twice the distance, but at least it was moving.

Tigger spent about 90% of his time in the car watching shows on the iPad. The other 10% was opening snacks to eat and playing eye spy. Grizzly and I passed the time by playing a Family Feud game I found for a stocking stuffer. We were trying to see who could win the most cards. I was annoying the heck out of Grizzly because I wouldn't accept any of his answers until after I said "100 people were surveyed, top 7 answers are on the board". I thought this was hilarious until I started driving and got my turn at the cards. Turns out after someone reads you the topic it's right about impossible to not blurt out the very first thing that comes to mind. In fact it's agonizingly impossible.

Our drive down to Orlando from Savannah was much better than the previous day on 95. A smidge of traffic in Orlando, but overall a smooth 4.5 hour drive.

We arrived at AKV Kidani about 11:25am and did what any good Kidani fan would do. Headed straight to Sanaa for the bread service. Yum! Tigger had a tiny nibble of the buttered naan, but otherwise waited relatively patiently for us to finish so we could finish up our Uno game.

Going back in time a bit, I had received a strange text this morning at 7:48am that our room wasn't ready. This struck me as odd, seeing as I wouldn't expect my room to be ready at 7:48am, but maybe it was just something new they were doing. Since online checkin seemed to have worked, and the earlier text said they would text me again when my room was ready, I never bothered to check in with the front desk. Our previous five day resort hopping extravaganza saw the texting work perfectly. Whoops! Probably should have checked with the front desk.

Anyways, we headed to the pool. I changed into my suit, but had no intentions of swimming. It was warm, but cloudy. I would have instantly froze. Tigger and Grizzly managed to stay in the pool for at least two hours though! I watched them, dozed off a bit, and started reading the first Game of Thrones book.

After our swim our room still wasn't ready. Hmmmm... It was almost 4:00. Anyways, having complete faith in the check in service we headed over to AK to make use of some evening fast passes. First up was finding Tigger a hot dog, then we headed to Expedition Everest which Tigger hated. I would probably hate it too if I spent the entire ride covering my eyes. He's so scared of the yeti! We didn't dare try my Dinosaur fast passes, so instead went to the boneyard to play. We were there soooooo long that I actually heard the fake radio station soundtrack start to repeat itself. I really like the regea tune with all the dinosaurs listed in it.

Last event for the evening was Kali River Rapids. Note to riders! They took all the baskets out of the boats. There is nowhere to keep anything dry. I guess they really want you to use the lockers, but oddly the lockers are not really located anywhere near the entrance, so we couldn't find them. I wrapped my iPhone up in my shirt and hoped for the best.

It was 6:30 when we left AK and I still hadn't gotten a text about my room. Stopped by the front desk and the cast member said "Savannah View Studio for two nights?" Um...That doesn't sound right. I think I would remember booking a Savannah view. Well it turns out they upgraded my room, but to do so they needed to cancel my original reservation. This meant I was no longer checked in. I could have waited for six more days and never would have gotten a text. I guess I learned my lesson. I will always just double check with the front desk now about my room. And so here I am. Watching animals in the dark. Tigger is snoring on the sofa bed, and I'm frantically typing on my phone and drinking a very interesting Salted Caramel Porter that came in my stocking. Grizzly and I found it very entertaining when a truck came by and put food in a tree for a giraffe, and not five minutes later a tour van went through. I'm sure people inside were oohing and awing at the giraffe.

All in all it was a good first day. We almost had to kill Tigger, but seeing as he shaped up after we fed him, I'm thinking we just need to remember to feed him more often.

I wouldn't hesitate to drive down again. It really wasn't too bad, and Tigger is an excellent little traveller.

Thanks for joining me. This should be an interesting trip as we are here for two nights, then head to a Tree House for five nights where we will be joined by my brother and his friend who is a girl but not a girl friend. At least as far as we can tell.

We are off super early tomorrow to visit Magic Kingdom and then escape before the crowds get bad.

 

[ljcrochet]

We drove from long island last christmas. Drive down was a breeze. Drive home without the anticipation was a pain in the butt.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

We drove from long island last christmas. Drive down was a breeze. Drive home without the anticipation was a pain in the butt.

We have a secret plan for the ride home. We are stopping for two nights at the Great Wolf Lodge in North Carolina. It's almost half way in between. Tigger doesn't know. Should make things a bit more bearable.

 

[Nora03]

I love your trip reports. I don't comment much. I keep meaning to though. Love your writing style and sense of humour. Looking forward to reading more when you have time to post.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

So yesterday we did a no stroller test run at Animal Kingdom, and we learned a few things. Firstly, we have not spent nearly enough time walking with Tigger. He walks next to someone just about as good as a wild hyena would on a leash. Actually I think I would rather walk the hyena. We are an active family but mostly on bikes, our longest walks are from the car to the grocery store. This does not prepare you at all for walking in a crowded Disney park. Not at all. His lack of preparation was astonishing. I thought this was something kids just knew how to do. He's nearly six, walking patiently beside someone doesn't seem too difficult, but clearly it is one of the more difficult things we have ever asked Tigger to do. Secondly, we learned that Tigger has two speeds, much like a sled dog. He was either pulling us through the park, leaning in, using our arms like reins on a sled, or sitting on the ground refusing to move at all. You can imagine the frustration when you have to tell your kid for the fourth time that he can't sit and take his shoe off in the middle of the crowded walkway. Finally, if we are to keep our sanity this week, we learned that Tigger will most definitely be riding in his stroller. The weight limit is 50lbs. Tigger weighs 48, he's going in it. Disney is not the place to learn how to walk nicely. I don't feel like yelling "stop swinging your arms!!!!" 85 times a day. We have definitely put this stroller to good use, and will probably leave it down here when we leave. Anybody want to inherit a First Years Ignite? Note to self, practice walking in crowded places before our next trip!!

 

[DisneyRegulars]

I'm actively trying to avoid writing about today because it was a very trying day to say the least. So I have a few more stories from yesterday that need to be told. Remember from last post that Tigger has two speeds? Well that and mouse service's amazing cleaning abilities combined to really bite Tigger in the nose. When we finally got to our room last night I excitedly ran out onto the balcony to check out the animals. It is our first and possibly only time staying in a Savannah view room. It was amazing. All the animals were right in front of our patio just waiting to greet me. Tigger, not being too into animals came to check them out, but after about thirty seconds turned and bolted back inside to go play with his marble track. Except Grizzly had closed the glass patio door to save energy (he works for a sustainability company, he couldn't help himself) and Tigger ran smack into the glass door. Let me tell you this is a lot funnier when it's someone else's kid on AFV. In reality it involves a lot of screaming and a bloody nose, so really it's not at all funny. Poor beast. He survived and his poor nose was feeling much better in the morning.

Final cute moment from yesterday. When on the parking tram at AK Tigger heard the word "supervise", and asked what it meant. I responded that it meant tickle in Spanish. So every time we heard the word supervise (they say this ALL the time) we would tickle the dickens out of him. It was great fun. Now he's running around using supervise in place of the word tickle and I can't help but be amused. I feel like it is a fair trade for him being unable to walk next to me like a sane human being.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

I love your trip reports. I don't comment much. I keep meaning to though. Love your writing style and sense of humour. Looking forward to reading more when you have time to post.

Thank you for taking the time to write and your kind words. Hope you enjoy this report too.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Today, oh today, first full day at Disney. I'm feeling kind of disappointed, and I think, now that I've had time to reflect is that while it's our first full day of Disney, it's actually our fourth day of vacation. And my 11th day straight with Tigger. It's usually around this point in every vacation when we wonder how stay at home parents stay sane, and secretly start counting down the days until we can drop Tigger back off at school. There's a reason we only have one child, our kid patience levels are exceptionally low. So today, on day one but really day four Grizzly and I were both feeling grinchy and tired by the end of the day.

We were up at 6:00am and headed to the MK, and expected to be an hour early for an 8:00am opening, but instead found ourselves 20 minutes late for the start of extra magic hours. How could I have missed that?!! As on all busy days the crowds seem to build suddenly between the hours of 11 and 12. We went into Philharmagic and the crowds were manageable, when we came out they were unbearable. I have no idea how this happens, but I have the pictures to prove it. For those wondering, we were in the Magic Kingdom from 7:18am until 11:43am, a little over four hours, and we did the following attractions in this order: Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin, Tomorrowland Speedway x2, Splash Mountain, ate Nutella and fruit waffles, Dumbo, The People Mover, The Carousel of Progress (as revenge for poor behavior), The Barnstormer, Mickeys Philharmagic and the Seven Dwarfs Mine Ride. Not bad for a park that reached capacity by 11am-ish.

Everything about our morning was going swimmingly until we tried to go to the Dumbo playground at 9:00am. Turns out the playground is not open early in the morning when there is no line for Dumbo. I don't think Disney realizes how much this can mess with a five year old's psyche. I don't think we realized how much this can mess with a five year old's psyche. Tigger specifically requested to "go ride dumbo so we can play on the playground" and to get there only to have the playground closed was more than he could handle. He lost it. Had the audacity to storm out of the line like it was okay to just leave his parents behind and go walk the park on his own. At least he's a confident little bigger, but we were both ready to kill him. Then he pulled some other crap that little kids pull ( at least I'm hoping it's not just mine) and said he "wasn't going anywhere" and pouted in a corner. Aargh! We convinced him through various threats that he better get his act together, but due to his behavior he was not picking anymore rides for the rest of the day. Hence we went and watched the carousel of progress as a passive aggressive attempt to get back at our five year old. Unfortunately he liked it! That little rat! We still rode the barnstormer after with our FP, but I told him we were only riding it because I liked it. He still believes everything I tell him which is super handy. At 11:43 we had the choice of watching the Christmas parade and then using our Thunder Mountain FP, but we were all beat and it was hot, so we headed back to the pool to swim. We should have napped. We should have napped. We should have napped. But we didn't. We swam. Then we foolishly took the bus to Disney Springs for an Earl of Sandwich. This was the straw that broke the camel's back. I was so grouchy and tired by the time we got back that I stormed into the room, took a shower and crawled into bed, after growling and being relatively unpleasant to my fellow roommates. Woke up a few hours later and am feeling much better. I will remember to nap tomorrow if needed.

On a side note, it looks like they included room cleaning with our upgrade because we returned back to find our room had been cleaned. It was kind of cool!

Another thing! The day wasn't all that bad really, I just should have napped because the afternoon was long. Anyways, while we were on the boat to the MK Tigger asked me when we were going to go to the upside down roller coaster. (Rockin roller coaster). I told him not until tomorrow and he responded "Good! That means I still have one more day to grow!" We aren't sure if he is tall enough. Guess we will find out tomorrow so we can add one more coaster to his list of rides he hates.

I need to get some sleep to avoid the grumpies tomorrow. Let's hope the snow doesn't stop my brother's flight. Tomorrow we leave this lovely Savannah view for our Tree House. I cannot wait to have our own room!!

As we were leaving the magic kingdom the line of cars being turned around stretched on almost from the gates of the magic kingdom back to the signs that go over the road saying welcome to Walt Disney World. I felt bad for anyone waiting in that line.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Here is a link to the video I took of the line of people trying to get into the Magic Kingdom at 11:45 am on 12/28/2015. The parking lot was completely full with the exception of three small rows, and the park was closed. I will add other crowd shots and family picks later in the week.

 

[ljcrochet]

As we were leaving the magic kingdom the line of cars being turned around stretched on almost from the gates of the magic kingdom back to the signs that go over the road saying welcome to Walt Disney World. I felt bad for anyone waiting in that line.

We checked into poly On Christmas Day. Magic kingdom was full at 11 am. I had never thought about how the park being full impacts the magic kingdom resorts.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

We checked into poly On Christmas Day. Magic kingdom was full at 11 am. I had never thought about how the park being full impacts the magic kingdom resorts.

Oh my gosh! I was only feeling bad for those that wanted to go to the Magic Kingdom. I completely forgot about everyone who just wanted to get to their hotel room. Holy moly what a disaster!

What have you been doing to avoid that awfulness? Do you just make sure not to try and return between the hours of 10 and 2pm or something? Or just always go through Epcot and take the monorail?

 

[ljcrochet]

What have you been doing to avoid that awfulness? Do you just make sure not to try and return between the hours of 10 and 2pm or something? Or just always go through Epcot and take the monorail?

I should say read my trip report link in my sig, but we switched up what were were doing on Christmas so we didn't have to move the car. We had planned on using disney transportation the the 26th so it wasn't a big deal. Traffic wasn't bad on the 27th. We did use waze which had tried to send us the back way on Christmas but DH and I were like why is it sending us towards epcot instead of magic kingdom resorts so we ignored it, till we saw the back up.

 

[quandrea]

Yea. You're back. Enjoying the report so far. I laughed at your lack of patience comment. Even SHAMs like me lack in the patience dept sometimes. I have three--6, 6 and 11, whom I homeschool. Trust me, there are days I'm pretty grumpy too. Looking forward to reading the rest. Love Kidani. We are there in twenty days!!!

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Post Removed, pictures figured out a few posts down.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Alright! The moment you probably haven't been waiting, my review and thoughts on the Tree Houses. I've been lying in the tub (fully clothed of course to keep this post PG) trying to think up some clever phrase to describe the tree houses, but the best I can come up with is: they suck. It's not the house themselves that are less than awesome. The condo is perfectly fine, but that's just it. I'm stuck way the heck out in the middle of nowhere, and all I get for it is complementary stairs and perfectly fine. There's absolutely nothing that makes these units special. They are not particularly treehousy at all! In fact my brother walked in and said it looked just like his ski condo he rented last winter. We quickly brainstormed a million cool things they could have done with these units to make them special, but with their current blandness they are totally not worth their aggravation to get to. The view is great out the bedroom window, we overlook a river from unit 7009, but what do they expect me to be doing? Lying in bed gazing at the view all day? I don't know about you, but when I'm in bed at Disney, I'm typically asleep. Seems like it wouldn't have taken a genius to consider rotating the floor plan a bit and putting either the deck or the living room windows towards the beautiful view of the river. From the deck I can see other condos, some trees, but no river. Not even a glimpse of the river.

Now I know people say you need a car when you stay here, and we have a car, but even with a car these units are still not worth it. You never realize how many times you would like to walk somewhere until you can't. And sure, if you are an adult, you can make the walk, it's not so bad, but the walk to the grandstand pool just about killed my five year old yesterday. On second thought maybe that was me, I just about killed my five year old yesterday walking to the grandstand pool. We can forget ever walking to the main pool or artists palette from here.

So in summary: Tree Houses equal perfectly bland but nice accommodations in the middle of freaking nowhere. Make sure everyone in your party is fully capable of walking long distances before choosing to stay here. I would prefer to stay in any other DVC than this one, even BLT and I despised BLT.

I guess I'm also a little sad about this because my brother and I have wanted to stay in a tree house ever since we happened upon them a long time ago when my dad got lost driving around. They looked soooooo cool. Our lifelong fantasy accommodations have turned out to just be ho hum.

Up next, a small review of Mickey's Backyard BBQ. Guess what? We loved it!!

 

[DisneyRegulars]

So last night we attended the 5:30 showing of Mickey's Backyard BBQ. People seem to rave about this, but I honestly don't trust most reviews because I'm wicked cynical when it comes to live entertainment dinner shows. A trip to Arabian Nights a few years back still gives me nightmares. Anyways, The show started off really slow and totally dull. After the first fifteen minutes, mostly when people were eating I was absolutely sure I had wasted my money. Then minutes 16 through 90 happened and we all left ridiculously happy. For starters my beasty LOVED it. I thought he would be too shy to get up and dance with all those other kids around, but he was super psyched to dance. He loved trying to get the characters to give him high fives. He took turns asking each of the adults in our party to go dance with him. Everyone really loved the trick roper. I didn't even know there was such a thing as a trick roper before going. My brother, who likes to do things like juggle flaming torches, was particularly impressed and now wants to get some rope. I think everyone in our group had a fantastic time, including Tigger and my brother who are the most difficult of our party to impress. I give the backyard BBQ two of my highest thumbs up, and if Tigger ever requests to go back I wouldn't hesitate for a second to go again.

Some tips: if you ever find yourself with a reservation and someone extra wants to join you, don't call Disney Dining. They will say they are full and are completely useless. Instead, just have the extra person show up with you. My brother's friend went to the BBQ early to see if she could get herself added to the reservation. The hostesses made her wait for over an hour until finally the manager showed up and told the hostesses to add her to the reservation, and he was ticked they hadn't done so ages ago. He said there are 15-20 extra seats for every performance just because this type of thing happens all the time.

Second tip. If you want a seat up front, arrive at least an hour early and line up. The people in the front of the line get the best seats. A hostess came around and offered the poor waiting parents adult beverages while they waited.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

We are on our way back now. Six hours until we arrive at Great Wolf Lodge which should be quite a long ride for Tigger as he's lost all rights to the iPad, but that's a story for another day. Right now his dad is forcing him to listen to Harry Potter on tape while following along with the Illustrated Harry Potter book he got for Christmas. I'm ignoring both of them and trying to fill in the gaps in my trip report.

My brother was set to arrive last Tuesday, our day we switched to the Tree House. Due to his late morning arrival we planned evening fast passes so we could go see the Osborne Lights at Hollywood Studios. We started our day at the Jambo House pool per Tigger's request. Tigger threw some sort of fit again, there seems to be a pattern here, so he had to play by himself in the pool. I was cool with this because it was freezing out and only an insane five year old would want to swim at 9:30 in the morning. While Tigger tried not to drown, I got to see some donkey like creatures chasing giraffes around the prairie. It was quite fantastic because the giraffe was actually amazingly graceful when it was running. I'm not sure the keepers liked the donkey's antics though because after about 10 minutes of the chasing they chased the donkeys off. Nearing 11:00am we shooed beasty out of the pool, weaseled back to our room, and gathered our things to check out. To pass the rest of our morning we decided to hang out at SSR. We found so much to do! We've spent time at the hotels before, but rarely exploring beyond the pools. This time we took advantage of the community hall and all the games they had to play. I must say, this, and another morning we spent frolicking around the hotel were by far my favorite days on this vacation.

We started off this morning with Shuffle Board. Tigger got a kick out of this game. In particular the giant sticks. I think he may have liked trying to carry the really tall sticks from the community hall over to the shuffle board courts just about as much as playing the game. After we shuffle boarded for several games we returned to the community hall and switched to corn hole, the bean bag toss game. My brother arrived at this point via Magical Express. Since we still hadn't been assigned our tree house number we put his bag in our car and walked over to Earl of Sandwich for some lunch.

This trip Tigger had expanded his eating choices by 50%, so now he was willing to eat chicken nuggets, hot dogs, and the newly added menu item: pepperoni pizza. He thinks the kids pepperoni pizza at Wolfgang Puck Express is the most amazing food item ever. I think he ate it three times this trip. Unfortunately, not all pizza items are created equal and we got no less than two pepperoni pizzas that he refused to eat. The personal pepperoni pizza available at the Grandstands pool is outstanding for anyone not nearly as picky as our beast. In fact Grizzly and I enjoyed it so much was ordered another one after we ate Tigger's. But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

So we munched some delicious sandwiches, then walked back to Congress Park and hopped a bus to Hollywood Studios. At the Disney Springs bus stop they had a cast member trying to deter bus free loaders by screaming "have your magic bands out, they may be checking them on the busses." I have no idea if they actually checked the bands, but thought it was interesting that they were actively trying to deter bus ride stealing.

We had several fast passes for the evening starting at 4:00pm. We rode Tower of Terror, Star Tours, and Toy Story Midway Mania, and cringed at the length of all the stand by lines. Worse yet, people would see a standby time of 180 minutes, AND STILL GET IN LINE!!! I can't even imagine the thought process that goes into thinking standing in a three hour line for anything is a good idea, especially when you could ride them in the mornings with no line. We busied ourselves between rides with the pop up Comedy Warehouse Christmas Special and the Muppet Show both of which we happened upon at just the right moment so that there was zero wait. During the Comedy Warehouse show, much like a Whose Line is It Anyway show, they had this audience member come up on stage. Her name was Danceler and she was a "Dance Mom". Oh my goodness they roasted this poor mom. They were so mean, even though it was funny, it was enough to make me actually start to feel bad for poor Danceler. It was only after we walked out that my brother suggested she must have been a plant. Of course she was a plant!!!! I can't believe I didn't think of this. It was so obvious with a name like Danceler. I felt much better, but I can't help wonder how many other people were feeling bad for that poor fake park guest. Also during the show Tigger somehow managed to get his foot stuck in the folding theater chair. I feel this is a feat only Tigger could manage to accomplish. All you have to do to survive sitting in a chair is sit in it. Not too difficult, but apparently if you are five and wiggly and slightly bored it can be a challenge.

Right after exiting the Muppet Show later in the evening we were able to walk right into the Osborne Lights. It was about 2 minutes before they would turn them on, so it was pretty busy, but I imagine not half as busy as it would have been later in the evening, especially since it wasn't quite dark yet. Still, it was busy enough to wish we hadn't brought the stroller in with us. The people in the crowd didn't make our lies any easier either. I so wanted to "accidentally" step on the guy sitting on the ground with his legs outstretched in front of him that refused to move them. Who the heck thinks it's a good idea to sit down in the middle of a crowd of thousands of people who are all trying to move around? And it's not like everyone else was sitting too, he was the only one. So we found ourselves a decent spot, oohed and awed as the lights turned on, and watched them dance. After that we hightailed it out of there. That crowd, and our stroller, did not mix well, and we were more than happy to leave. Since it was well past 8pm now we headed back to SSR. We still hadn't gotten a room number text which was super frustrating as we had purposely stopped by the front desk earlier in the day to make sure everything was set up to do that. DO NOT TRUST THE TEXT ROOM NUMBER SYSTEM!!! It seems to be very unreliable. Last trip it worked fine, this trip it failed two out of two times. Grrrrr.

We eventually made it to our Tree House in the middle of nowhere and settled in for the night. My brother was off with his friend who had one more night at the Yatcht Club. I'm glad his friend joined us because it proved to be a good way of balancing time. They would both join us for our fast passes, but then otherwise we would go our separate ways. I'm sure the three hours a day was more than enough time for them to spend with a five year old who can't for the life of him keep his hands and feet to himself.

Up next an early morning at Magic Kingdom where we accidentally "ruined" someone's day, or at least that's what she yelled at me.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Wednesday we were up at the crack of dawn for extra magic hours. They weren't going to surprise us today, we were on top of things! However, the sun did not get the memo this morning, and we found the Magic Kingdom encased in an eerie fog. You could not see the castle from the Transportation and Ticket Center, and once inside the park the fog continued. It was magical yet eerie at the same time.

7:00am December 30th, 2015

Upon arrival this morning we were in the very first row of parking at the Magic Kingdom. The mom from the car next to us, looked at me and said "Glad to see we aren't the only crazy ones!". I smiled back and said something along the lines of "Yeah, except we're going to be out of here by 11:00!" Her smile turned to an icy glare and she said something to the effect of "Well you just ruined my day." I felt like telling her if my one comment was going to ruin her day she might as well turn back now. There was no way 50,000 other slow moving guests crowding around her and 180 minute lines for It's a Small World, were going to make her day any better. Next time I will just smile and nod and carry on. Lesson learned: Don't every insinuate that standing in giant crowds and long lines isn't anything but magical.

We spent our morning gallivanting around the Magic Kingdom. Look here we are in front of a slightly less foggy castle:

During these busy busy days we found a schedule that worked well for us. Arrive super early. Ride whatever it was Tigger wanted to ride for ~2hrs. At 9:00am eat a delicious waffle from Sleepy Hollow. At 10:00am hook up with sleepy head brother and guest and enjoy our three fast passes. Escape the park before noon. Actually, we never usually made it to our third fast pass because we were sufficiently tuckered out from the early start, and realized if we wanted to keep Tigger meltdown free we needed to get out of the parks before noon. The meltdown of the century was still to come, so even with our careful planning we still cannot quite predict Tigger's seemingly erratic behavior on Disney Trips.

Between our waffle eating and my brother's arrival we spent time in the coveted Dumbo playground area. Grizzly and I sat on the benches around the playground and set Tigger free. While sitting here we observed how Disney wisely made the benches very uncomfortable. If it weren't for those uncomfortable benches parents would stay there all day. I'm pretty sure the imagineers were thinking about this when they designed the seating. "We need something that looks like seating, and at first feels like a seat, but that if you sit in it for more than 5 minutes makes you want to do anything but sit." I can just hear the conversations now. We sat for as long as we could bear and then headed off to Space Mountain to meet up with the uncle.

The unhighlight of this day was the 35 minute train trip from Fairytale Circus to Main Street USA. You did indeed read that right, 35 minutes! And that does not include waiting for the train. We had 45 minutes to kill between our Space Mountain fast pass which, take a guess, Tigger HATED, and our Mine Train Fast Pass. My brother and friend went off to the Carousel of Progress, while we headed for the train. We hopped on at the Fairytale Circus station, and then could have hopped off an any point in time after that because the train was barely moving. We wanted to stay in Disney's good graces, so we silently sat still wondering if we would make it back before Tigger's 18th birthday. Did you know there was a hill between the Circus stop and Main Street USA? It's not a huge hill, that's probably why you never noticed it, but when you are a broken steam train, this hill is the mountain in the Little Engine That Could. I tried to get the train into a chorus of "I think I can. I think I can.," but it wasn't flying. Perhaps because Chuggington and Thomas are the more popular trains of this generation. This poor train was CRAWLING. Actually, I think we all could have crawled faster than this train. It barely moved, and barely made it up the hill. We were actually concerned we might be stuck on the train for the remainder of the day. When Bay Lake Tower came into view the conductor, or whoever makes announcements, had the audacity to point it out as a Disney Vacation Club resort. I don't need to know what that building is!!!! I need to know when we will be able to get off this train! When we finally got to the Main Street Station we all got off. We didn't have another hour to make it back around the park. I'm really wondering what was wrong with the train. Shockingly, they let the waiting passengers get on. Boy were they in for a treat! We made it back down Main Street and over to the Mine Ride in time for our next FP+, so in the end it turned out okay.

I know people like crowd pics, but how about stroller parking lot pics. This is the stroller parking in Fantasy land before 9:00am:

This is the stroller parking in Fantasyland just before 11:00am:

CRAZY RIGHT?! The crowds were just horrendous! But still, we were able to ride everything we could possibly want to ride and high tail it out of there before noon, much to the chagrin of the morning parking lot curmudgeon. By just before noon we had ridden Buzz Lightyear twice, The Tomorrowland Speedway, It's a Small World, Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, Space Mountain, TTA, Dumbo, The Walt Disney World Railroad, and Seven Dwarfs Mine Ride. Not bad for one of the busiest days of the year.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

What would a trip report including Tigger be without breakdowns and horrible parenting decisions? It would be boring and totally unexpected thats what, so lets not let you down. We spent our afternoon at the Grandstands Pool trying to find something Tigger would eat. This was probably a poor decision because it started with a walk to the Grandstands Pool from our Tree House in the middle of nowhere, which with the way Tigger acted was quite similar to a death march. Our first attempt to feed the picky beast was the personal pepperoni pizza, but Tigger who previously ate an entire Wolfgang Puck pepperoni pizza was having none of this one. Apparently, the cheese had a few burned spots and there was, according to picky Tigger, too much sauce. Grrrr. Oh how we were sooo frustrated with this beast. So Grizzly and I grumbled and commiserated in our misery of our horrendously picky beast, and we jointly refused to buy Tigger anything else to eat. Seeing the pizza though, we weren't going to waste it, so we shared it. It was sooooo good. The yumminess of this little pizza cannot be overstated. It was amazing. It was so good, that instead of continuing on to the Artist's Point for the salads as we were going to do, we decided we would order another one for us to share. Since we were ordering more food, we got Tigger a hot dog because in the end we don't really want him to starve to death, and he's far more pleasant when he's been fed. Much like most ferocious creatures. Apparently, though there was a shortage of hot dog buns on property, all of Walt Disney World we were told, so Tigger ate his hot dog with Doritos.

No wait, strike that. Tigger was supposed to eat his Doritos on the walk home, but instead made me want to strangle him so he got no Doritos. What could possibly make me steal the poor boys Doritos? What kind of horrible mother am I? Well, we were leaving the pool area, with the plan for Tigger to eat the Doritos on the way home, to sort of distract him from the long walk. Brilliant plan right? The kid would never notice the death march back to the Tree House in the middle of nowhere since he would be too focused on crunchy cheesy goodness. Nothing could go wrong. Nothing could foil this brilliant plan. Nothing except Tigger of course (combined with my short temper). So we are walking out of the pool area and Tigger drops a chip. The rest of this happens in slow motion. He looks down. Sees the chip. Looks up at me to see if I would be angry. I try to make no expression at all. We don't cry over spilled milk in our house. He sees I'm not going to kill him, and proceeds to STEP ON THE CHIP! Crumbling it up into tiny pieces right near the pool. I was livid! I snatched the bag away, cleaned up the chip as best I could, and stormed off towards our Treehouse with bawling 5 year old following slowly in the background.

Now before you get all judgy judgy, please note this is the same kid, who when we walk around the neighborhood, picks up all the trash he sees without anyone ever asking him to. The kid is obsessed with picking up trash. He's not a bad kid, he's actually usually pretty awesome, but something about Disney and him brings out his worst. It's not helped by my lack of patience when I get tired either. Sigh. We seemed to have spent more times frustrated with Tigger this trip than previous trips. The last day he got us so mad we booked a trip back to Disney without him, just so we could have a day that wasn't tarnished by a 5 year old's angst. But I'm saving that lovely treat for the end. Luckily, we had quite a few good days in the middle. We made it back to our Tree House eventually (note the route by the pool is faster than the route not by the pool), and made Tigger nap before our amazing trip to Mickey's Backyard BBQ, so overall the day ended on a fantastically high note.

Here are a couple pictures from the BBQ. Of special note is that super shy, super clingy Tigger went right up and sat at the edge when they called the kids up. This has never happened before. The trick roper was amazing!

Uncle dancing with Tigger:

The trick roper and his grand encore performance:

 

[DisneyRegulars]

We got up bright eyed and bushy tailed for an early morning at EPCOT center for New Year's eve. The park was scheduled to open at 8:00am. We arrived around 7:06am and could tell they were expecting large crowds because they parked us on the grass. You know you've been to Disney a lot when you get excited by getting to park someplace new. Parking on the grass would have been the highlight of our morning had they not had the special treat we were about to receive. This morning we planned to go straight to Test Track because we had FP+ for Soarin later in the morning. We were prepared to do the running of the bulls, and be part of the great Test Track stampede, except the stampede never happened. When we reached the Tapstiles they were letting everyone into the park, and they announced that both Soarin and Test Track were open. BONUS! Secret extra magic hours just for us. Well, and everyone else that was there too. I have to give Disney credit for having excellent crowd management strategies during this busy time. We high tailed it over to Test Track and rode twice. This was one of the very first times where our cars actually showed up during the ride, and you know what? As much as I prefer the old test track, having our cars show up and being able to compete with my family over who had the best performing car, actually made the ride fun again. During our second trip through Test Track I noticed Tigger going his bathroom dance while working at his screen. You know the one. The constant wiggle and shake. He finally admitted he needed to pee right before the ride. I asked if he could wait or if he needed to go now and he said he could wait. I was definitely nervous that second trip that he wouldn't make it through the ride, but he made it. I will forever be able to relax a little bit when bathrooms are requested in the future instead of becoming the bathroom heat seeking missile that I normally am when I think Tigger needs to pee. After two trips on Test Track we decided that it would be best to ride Spaceship Earth because even though we had an early afternoon FP+, we knew we would never make it that long.

We busied ourselves in Future World and did all the main attractions including Nemo, Journey Into Imagination, and the new Pixar Shorts (which were very good) before stopping by the land to get some breakfast. After a leisurely breakfast we still had about 45 minutes to kill before our first FP+, so we decided Tigger was old enough to try Agent P. He's watched several episodes of Phineus and Ferb so it seemed like a good thing to do. Boy was this a hit! We did the Mexico mission, and we convinced Tigger that it was real, and that we had to be super secretive. We had a blast sneaking around Mexico, trying to find quiet sneaky spots to listen to our next clue. I'm sure most of the videos went right over his head, but as an adult, be sure to listen too, they are hilarious. Doofenschmirtz is so funny. We were just about to head to Germany for our next mission when my brother arrived and we instead headed over to Soarin.

Here we all are ready to take off:

After Soarin we rode Mission Space and then split ways with our company. We didn't spend too much time with each other this trip, but I feel like it was probably just the right amount of time for everyone. The adults with no kids were not annoyed by crazy Tigger for too long, and I didn't have long enough to get annoyed with my brother, so everyone was super happy. Worked out great!

The highlight of our day, besides our Agent P mission, was our dinner at Jiko. To fully enjoy our dinner we made plans to send Tigger to Simba's Clubhouse at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Have you guys discovered these clubhouses yet? This was our first experience. Please don't ask me why we never tried them sooner. I'm kicking myself over that! They are an amazing value! For only $15 per hour they will watch your beastly child for you, and that even includes a meal. For $30 we got two hours of adult time and they fed Tigger dinner. Except Tigger did not eat dinner, but the option was there. We told Tigger we were dropping him off at a place to play. He was okay with the idea until right before we were about to leave the clubhouse, at which point he got almost teary-eyed and said "Mom I don't want to stay here," in the most sad and quiet voice imaginable. We assured him he would be fine and quickly exited before he could start any clinging. To give the place a fair assessment, it was clean, well staffed, and had lots of things to do, but it wasn't super amazing. I thought the selection of activities seemed pretty similar to his kindergarten classroom with the exception that there were video games and a television. Tigger seemed happy when we picked him up, but he never mentioned going back, or wanting to stay. I've read about kids requesting to go back to the kids clubs, but that was not our experience here. This is not to say that we won't be sending Tigger back to a kids club. He will be going back every single trip now until he ages out of the system.

Jiko was lovely. And kid free. So even if the meal wasn't delicious it still would have been lovely. The dinner started oddly though. We checked in at 7:15 for a 7:30 reservation, and were told rather briskly that "We are seating at reservation time, but you can get a drink at the bar." So as instructed we got drinks at the bar. My brother some kind of martini, I had a safari Amber, and Grizzly and friend had Tuskers. No sooner had they handed us our drinks does the greater come over to see us to our table. My foodie brother was a bit aggravated by this because his before dinner drink choice didn't necessarily go with his meal. My brother and his friend decided to share the lamb shank. It was a good thing too because it was humungous when it arrived. Very Flinstone like. My brother and his friend are also super into wine and fine dining. We heard more than once about their Victoria and Alberts Queen something or other table dining experience. Which sounds lovely by the way if you like fine dining and have a spare $700. Grizzly and I are pretty much the exact opposite. We like food, but would rather spend money on just about anything else. It was an interesting pairing to say the least. Grizzly and I enjoyed ourselves and the food was delicious, and I think we both got a kick out of the two foodies discussing the wine and the various cheeses they were tasting. I myself am not much of a wine drinker, but they kept going on about their South African pinotage (Chamberley 2013) that I did end up trying some. I even remembered the name! IT WAS SO GOOD! Maybe there is something to this wine thing after all.

On the way to pick up Tigger we realized my brother had a bit too much to drink. He said the waiter kept refilling his wine, but we really think it was the martini. At any rate, we ended up spending the rest of the evening snuggled up on the couch in the living room giggling about stuff. Grizzly and his friend kept sharing looks and laughing at us. It was a nice way to spend the evening. We watched Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin Eve With Ryan Seacrest on ABC, and the second the ball dropped we all ran to bed.

Up next, the absolutely perfect Disney day.