Good morning chicks and rooster!
So GD, you drive by but don't mention a thing about your trip? Give us info? Was your son surprised? Sorry about the hamster. I had one hamster kill another one once and I just haven't been fond of the things ever since. I am sure you will have more success with your new little furry friend.
Today was nutso-bonko at work and I knew if I started talking about our trip I'd never pry myself away.
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He was surprised. Last Monday was registration for school. We were at the schools at 8:00 - I took Adam to the middle school (8th grade), Cherie took Katie to the elemetary school (3rd grade) - and we were done by 8:30. After that we took them to breakfast near Cherie's parents house (which also got us about a 1/2 hour down the road toward WDW). We had birthday cards for him and had family and friends put Disney Dollars in the card instead of cash gifts. The first card he opened was The Wiggles (kiddie musical group - he despises them) which played one of their songs. All this time we've been telling him we'd take him to WiggleLand. Anyway, on the inside of the card we had written "You're really going to Disney World". That, the cards, and the Disney Dollars made it a happy morning for both kids. We drove and drove (stuck in traffic for 2 hours north of Atlanta due to a bad wreck) and made it to The World around 8:30. Bummed around Downtown Disney and got back to our resort (Old Key West) around 10:30.
All the planning for this trip was left up to Adam, except for the Table Services Cherie had phoned in. She has an Excel spreadsheet that she does for each trip that tells what EMHs are for each park, what times the parades are each day, etc. Anyway, he got to pick out what he wanted to do each day.
Tuesday we started at Magic Kingdom (early EMH that morning). We did lots of rides, no "boring" stuff (except It's A Small World & PhilHarmagic - which are both "must-dos" for Cherie & I) and ended up eating at Cosmic Ray's (we wanted to do the Noodle Station but it wasn't open for lunch hours). We pretty much stayed in TomorrowLand except for our foray into FantasyLand for IaSW & PhilHarmagic. We went back to OKW early in the afternoon for naptime (Cherie) and swim time (me and the kids). While we were swimming a bad storm came up so we were there a bit longer than intended waiting for it to die down. It finally did, and once we walked back to the suite we got changed and headed to Epcot (late EMH that evening). Dinner was at Garden Grill (in The Land pavilion) and we ate catfish-Catfish-CATFISH!!! & turkey-Turkey-TURKEY!!! After eating we did The Land pavilion (except Soarin' which was no FPs left and a 90 minute stand-by time) and then did The Living Seas pavilion. After that we split - I took the kids to ride Test Track stand-by and Cherie went to Mouse Gear for a little retail therapy. We stayed in Epcot until 11:00 or so that night.
Wednesday was Animal Kingdom early (but no EMH). We rode Everest and Kilimanjaro Safari (2x). By the time we got done safari-ing the second time it was lunch time - which was Pizzafari. We went back to the resort for napping (Cherie) / swimming (me & kids). This day the swimming weather gods were with us and we got our dip in totally without precipitation. We walked back to the suite and got changed. By the time we were ready to head out again the sky had gotten really overcast. We drove to Magic Kingdom and as soon as we got on Main Street the skies opened up. We stuck on the right-side shops because we'd be eating at Tony's that evening. We waited for a break but ended up just having to run across from Goofy's Candy Company. Tony's was awesome - we had never eaten there before, it was my "official" birthday meal (three weeks early, but still...), and the waitstaff really made it fun. I had calamari (squid) for appetizer, seafood diavolo (very spicy pasta with shrimp, clams, calamari & salmon in marinara sauce) for my entree and amaretto cheesecake for dessert. Adam also had calamari and between us we convinced Katie to try some - she loves it now. After dinner we put on our ponchos (it rained all that evening) and did rides. We did Swiss Family Treehouse (Cherie had never done it before which I found shocking), Jungle Cruise, PotC, Tiki Room in AdventureLand and then we did Frontierland. We got BTMRR Fast Passes and did Splash Mountain stand-by and then rode BTMRR. We left after that and got back to OKW around 10:30. That evening was the most fun of this trip - the rain kept the crowds down and we were all in a great mood.
Thursday morning we got up and did Studios in the morning. It was rainy again, but like the night before it helped keep the crowds down and kept the temps down pretty well. Adam and I got RockNRollerCoaster FPs and met up with the girls at Star Tours. When we got in Star Tours, a couple of the Year of a Million Dreams CMs were waiting for us - they gave special mouse ears to everybody in spaceship!!! I put them safely in a dry bag and we moved on. We then walked down New York St. (first time I had ever seen it completely empty of people) and got drinks and waited for the first Backlot Tour to begin. We did that and hung out in the little museum at the end (movie villains was the theme) for about an hour. We then walked over to RockNRollerCoaster and rode in the back. After RNRC we were getting hungry so we walked back across the park to the Backstage CS over by Indiana Jones. We went back into Star Tours for a second dip in the gift shop, and then we walked BACK across the park to get Voyage of the Little Mermaid FPs for Katie (Adam graciously allowed her that, plus I think he thinks Ariel is HOT). While waiting for our FP time to come up we went into the Animation building and did the sketching lesson (we learned to draw Mickey). After that we watched Ariel (I took a nap, honestly) and by that time the parade was coming through. We were on our way out so we puttered through the shops on that side of the street until the parade was done. We went back to OKW and started to do the prelim packing. We got ready for dinner and drove to Wilderness Lodge. Adam said THE thing he wanted to do for his birthday was dinner at Whispering Canyon - which was the impetus for the whole trip. He & I had prime rib (he's developing expensive tastes), Cherie had BBQ baby-back ribs and Katie had Mac & Cheese. Adam led the wooden pony trot (since it was his birthday dinner) and our waiter was really good (his name was Billy the Kid). It was fun, but not nearly as insane as any of our previous Whispering Canyon experiences (that night was Jenna's night off - read our previous Trip Reports for some of our past exploits). We drove back to OKW and I loaded most of our stuff into our vehicle.
Friday morning we had early breakfast at Chef Mickey in the Contemporary Resort. We were lucky enough to meet up with a couple of fellow DISers - PrincessJasmine08 (Lauren) who works there, and babynurse1 (Elisabeth) and her non-DISer husband Ron. Side story: We had met E & Ron earlier in the summer when one of their kids had a camp in Knoxville and we met them & their 4 kids for lunch one day - then we all went together to see PotC3. End of side story... We had lots of fun at Chef Mickey, and it also happened to be Ron's birthday that day (he said he'd rather have been at a rodeo, but he seemed to have fun). With three birthday celebrants at the table we got lots of attention. After breakfast we split - we were headed for Epcot and E, Ron & PJ were headed for Studios. As we were walking back to our vehicle I saw a Lamborgini Gallardo in the CR valet parking lot - ultra suh-weet car. Once we got to Epcot, Adam & I got Soarin' FPs and met up with our ladies at Test Track. After Test Track we all did Mission: Space - Adam & I did orange team (full G-force version) and the ladies did green team (Katie calls it the no-spinny version). We stopped into Club Cool on our way over to Soarin'. We did Soarin' and then did Figment. We then back-tracked to The Land to eat lunch at Sunshine Seasons (the big CS there). After lunch we split - me & kids went to Ellen's Energy Adventure and Cherie went to Mouse Gear for some last-minute shopping. We got done, stopped by the Photopass center on our way out to buy some pictures, and then hit the road for back-home by 2:30. We took our time - uneventful trip - and were rolling into our driveway by 1:30 in the morning.
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All in all, the parks were a lot less crowded than I feared they'd be for this time of year. Don't know if it was the rain or whatever? We had a blast. The only thing I personally wish we could have done this trip was World Showcase in Epcot. This was a kids' trip so I was cool with skipping it. Besides, we'll all be there in October during Food & Wine Festival so we'll spend a lot of time in World Showcase for that.