Day 2 (Dec. 22): I had meant for us to wake early to go to Magic Kingdom before the crowds overran it. I even had a wake-up call for 7:00 AM. However, it didn't work out. First, my husband didn't want to get up that early (6:00 AM our time) after so little sleep. He said we should sleep another half hour. Usually he can be relied on for that sort of thing, but that's only when he believes in the cause. He did not believe in the cause of waking early to go to the parks. Instead, he let us sleep until 8:30. 
Then the kids didn't want to get up. Then my mother had something or other that delayed her and after that my husband discovered that his shoelace was broken and he needed to go buy new ones. 
With one thing and another we didn't get out to the Magic Kingdom until almost noon. However, before we left, I was able to meet DIS friend "SwanDolphin." 
This was the only DISer I got to see during our stay.
Arriving at the MAGIC KINGDOM around noon with the worst of the crowd, we didn't get to do much. We had Fantasmic Dinner Package reservations for the evening, so we decided not to try to go back from MK to the resort but to go straight from MK to the Studios around 3 PM. For this reason we got a locker and put all our coats and so forth inside. It was nice and warm (high 60's) at this time but we knew (from the previous night's experience) that it would get chilly at night. From the lockers we went on the train to Adventureland where we went into the Country Bears Jamboree for their Christmas special. Everyone enjoyed it (for different reasons) except our son who, when reminded that he used to fall asleep during the show when he was little remarked, "No wonder." Teenage daughter thought it was wonderfully corny and wrote a postcard to her friends about it. (I should explain that our daughter suffered severely from teen-friend withdrawal and kept herself going only by writing lots of postcards--most of which won't arrive for a few days--and telling us what she was writing, what she thought her friends would say, etc. We did allow her to phone two friends on the cellular phone for about five minutes each time, just so that she could feel less disconnected.)
After Country Bears, we had a light lunch of turkey legs or hotdogs from a cart. Then our son almost tricked us into letting him go on Splash Mountain because the line was so amazingly short. Just in time we remembered that Splash Mountain means getting wet and that this was too cold a day for anyone without a slicker and a change of dry warm clothes to get wet, so we grabbed the kid before he succeeded in sneaking off to get soaked.
After arguing with him for a while about the advantages of remaining dry, we convinced him that we could not be persuaded and moved on to the Pirates of the Caribbean. My mom had been on the Pirates ride several times before but had forgotten that she had to get in and out of a little boat. This was the thing that struck her the most about this ride and from this point on she refused to get in or out of little boats. However, she did agree that this is one of those really well-done, timeless Disney rides.
We went next to the Haunted House. We didn't want to miss it because this is the kids' favorite ride at MK, one that sometimes they will ride three or four times in a row. (Don't ask me why. I think once is nice, but two times in one trip is kind of pointless.)
Unfortunately, the Haunted House had a huge line and the fast pass was for around 4:30. Since we had to go to the Studios for the Fantasmic Dinner reservations at 5:00, we couldn't use fastpass, and we didn't think the long standby line was worth it. Instead, we went to Tomorrowland and got on the Buzz Lightyear line, which only had 20 minutes wait for standby. In fact, we got on sooner than that. My mother didn't ride, even though we told her it would not be hard on her. The rest of us had a great time shooting at those ZZZ's.
We retrieved the stuff from our locker and got on the bus to the MGM/DISNEY STUDIOS. By then my mother was complaining of her tired feet, but she refused to have a wheelchair. It took another day to persuade her to accept a wheelchair. At the Studios we went to the Muppets 3-D show around 3:30, but we couldn't do anything else because my mom was moving so slowly that the kids would get distracted and go into shops or go off to look at this or that. Then we'd have to find them. This took up all the spare time until we got to Hollywood and Vine at 4:45 for our FANTASMIC DINNER PACKAGE reservations. For those who have wondered about making the Fantasmic Dinner Package over the phone, I got our reservations through the Swan/Dolphin guest services desk without any trouble whatsoever about six days before the day we wanted. When we arrived we had the Fantasmic ticket stapled to our PS record. Nothing could have been easier. The food at H & V was plain but well-cooked and filling. My mother, who never likes anyone's cooking except her own, said that it was good to have a sitdown meal even if it wasn't very exciting. They supplied her with sugar-free ice cream (she is diabetic) which she did not like very much but at least it was a dessert. I would not pay those prices for that kind of food ordinarily but as part of the price of having seats for Fantasmic, I thought it was worth it. Because my mom was so slow and because first we got distracted by the treelighting parade, and then we got confused about where to go for the Fantasmic package entrance, we didn't get the best seats in the reserved section, but we had a good view anyway. My son and my husband didn't want to see Fantasmic again (they'd seen it in the summer) so they went on some rides while the rest of us did the show.
At the show my mom refused to wear her windbreaker (don't ask me why) but allowed me to wrap her in the blanket I had brought for all of us to sit on. (I had to remind myself that I must have been a handful when I was a child.) Meanwhile my husband had borrowed my cape (he had discovered he didn't have enough clothes after all) and my daughter had borrowed my gloves (she forgot hers) so I--who had remembered to bring more warm clothes than anyone else--was less warm at Fantasmic than I wanted to be. However, the show was terrific. The last time I'd seen it there had been a big light pole between me and the show, so I had a much better view this time. My mother loved it and I think it was worth the hassles of rushing to get to Hollywood and Vine, rushing to find the right entrance to the amphitheater, etc. My brother admitted that it was one of Disney's best efforts. I'm pretty sure my daughter wrote a postcard to a friend about it, though part of her message may have been that she wished she had been seeing it with her friends instead of with boring mom, uncle and grandma.
We had originally planned to see the Osborne lights after Fantasmic but we were all too tired--just meeting up with my husband and son took up time after the show--so we headed back to the resort. We had to wait for two boatloads ahead of us, but finally we got in and we got a seat for my mother. The rest of us sat on the floor or stood. It was less uncomfortable than standing in a bus would have been, so I was very glad to be staying at an Epcot resort.
At the resort, after we parted from my mom and my brother, I soaked my aching feet in cold water before I made hot chocolate for everyone. (I had a little hotpot for boiling water and heating a little milk.) It was now that we discovered that we could see Illuminations. (The bellhop had told us we could, but we had not believed him because we were on such a low floor--I had thought you didn't get an Illuminations view below the sixth floor.) It was a wonderful surprise.
On to Day 3
Return toOverview
[This message was edited by Emmalyn on 12-30-00 at 01:26 PM.]
Then the kids didn't want to get up. Then my mother had something or other that delayed her and after that my husband discovered that his shoelace was broken and he needed to go buy new ones. With one thing and another we didn't get out to the Magic Kingdom until almost noon. However, before we left, I was able to meet DIS friend "SwanDolphin." This was the only DISer I got to see during our stay. Arriving at the MAGIC KINGDOM around noon with the worst of the crowd, we didn't get to do much. We had Fantasmic Dinner Package reservations for the evening, so we decided not to try to go back from MK to the resort but to go straight from MK to the Studios around 3 PM. For this reason we got a locker and put all our coats and so forth inside. It was nice and warm (high 60's) at this time but we knew (from the previous night's experience) that it would get chilly at night. From the lockers we went on the train to Adventureland where we went into the Country Bears Jamboree for their Christmas special. Everyone enjoyed it (for different reasons) except our son who, when reminded that he used to fall asleep during the show when he was little remarked, "No wonder." Teenage daughter thought it was wonderfully corny and wrote a postcard to her friends about it. (I should explain that our daughter suffered severely from teen-friend withdrawal and kept herself going only by writing lots of postcards--most of which won't arrive for a few days--and telling us what she was writing, what she thought her friends would say, etc. We did allow her to phone two friends on the cellular phone for about five minutes each time, just so that she could feel less disconnected.)
After Country Bears, we had a light lunch of turkey legs or hotdogs from a cart. Then our son almost tricked us into letting him go on Splash Mountain because the line was so amazingly short. Just in time we remembered that Splash Mountain means getting wet and that this was too cold a day for anyone without a slicker and a change of dry warm clothes to get wet, so we grabbed the kid before he succeeded in sneaking off to get soaked.
After arguing with him for a while about the advantages of remaining dry, we convinced him that we could not be persuaded and moved on to the Pirates of the Caribbean. My mom had been on the Pirates ride several times before but had forgotten that she had to get in and out of a little boat. This was the thing that struck her the most about this ride and from this point on she refused to get in or out of little boats. However, she did agree that this is one of those really well-done, timeless Disney rides.We went next to the Haunted House. We didn't want to miss it because this is the kids' favorite ride at MK, one that sometimes they will ride three or four times in a row. (Don't ask me why. I think once is nice, but two times in one trip is kind of pointless.)
Unfortunately, the Haunted House had a huge line and the fast pass was for around 4:30.
Since we had to go to the Studios for the Fantasmic Dinner reservations at 5:00, we couldn't use fastpass, and we didn't think the long standby line was worth it. Instead, we went to Tomorrowland and got on the Buzz Lightyear line, which only had 20 minutes wait for standby. In fact, we got on sooner than that. My mother didn't ride, even though we told her it would not be hard on her. The rest of us had a great time shooting at those ZZZ's.We retrieved the stuff from our locker and got on the bus to the MGM/DISNEY STUDIOS. By then my mother was complaining of her tired feet, but she refused to have a wheelchair.
It took another day to persuade her to accept a wheelchair. At the Studios we went to the Muppets 3-D show around 3:30, but we couldn't do anything else because my mom was moving so slowly that the kids would get distracted and go into shops or go off to look at this or that. Then we'd have to find them. This took up all the spare time until we got to Hollywood and Vine at 4:45 for our FANTASMIC DINNER PACKAGE reservations. For those who have wondered about making the Fantasmic Dinner Package over the phone, I got our reservations through the Swan/Dolphin guest services desk without any trouble whatsoever about six days before the day we wanted. When we arrived we had the Fantasmic ticket stapled to our PS record. Nothing could have been easier. The food at H & V was plain but well-cooked and filling. My mother, who never likes anyone's cooking except her own, said that it was good to have a sitdown meal even if it wasn't very exciting. They supplied her with sugar-free ice cream (she is diabetic) which she did not like very much but at least it was a dessert. I would not pay those prices for that kind of food ordinarily but as part of the price of having seats for Fantasmic, I thought it was worth it. Because my mom was so slow and because first we got distracted by the treelighting parade, and then we got confused about where to go for the Fantasmic package entrance, we didn't get the best seats in the reserved section, but we had a good view anyway. My son and my husband didn't want to see Fantasmic again (they'd seen it in the summer) so they went on some rides while the rest of us did the show.At the show my mom refused to wear her windbreaker (don't ask me why) but allowed me to wrap her in the blanket I had brought for all of us to sit on. (I had to remind myself that I must have been a handful when I was a child.) Meanwhile my husband had borrowed my cape (he had discovered he didn't have enough clothes after all) and my daughter had borrowed my gloves (she forgot hers) so I--who had remembered to bring more warm clothes than anyone else--was less warm at Fantasmic than I wanted to be. However, the show was terrific. The last time I'd seen it there had been a big light pole between me and the show, so I had a much better view this time. My mother loved it and I think it was worth the hassles of rushing to get to Hollywood and Vine, rushing to find the right entrance to the amphitheater, etc. My brother admitted that it was one of Disney's best efforts. I'm pretty sure my daughter wrote a postcard to a friend about it, though part of her message may have been that she wished she had been seeing it with her friends instead of with boring mom, uncle and grandma.
We had originally planned to see the Osborne lights after Fantasmic but we were all too tired--just meeting up with my husband and son took up time after the show--so we headed back to the resort. We had to wait for two boatloads ahead of us, but finally we got in and we got a seat for my mother. The rest of us sat on the floor or stood. It was less uncomfortable than standing in a bus would have been, so I was very glad to be staying at an Epcot resort.
At the resort, after we parted from my mom and my brother, I soaked my aching feet in cold water before I made hot chocolate for everyone. (I had a little hotpot for boiling water and heating a little milk.) It was now that we discovered that we could see Illuminations. (The bellhop had told us we could, but we had not believed him because we were on such a low floor--I had thought you didn't get an Illuminations view below the sixth floor.) It was a wonderful surprise.
On to Day 3
Return toOverview
[This message was edited by Emmalyn on 12-30-00 at 01:26 PM.]
I can't imagine trying to take her to WDW. I don't think we would even make it to the parks before closing time. 
