CleveRocks -- 2005, Day 5,

[CleveRocks]

DAY 5 – Thursday, May 12 (Merrily We Roll Along)

Finally, the final “finally” on my son’s list – Animal Kingdom.

The bagels in our room, delivered Sunday, are getting a little stiff and crumbly, but they’re still a better breakfast alternative than bringing my in-laws to Old Port Royale, which would guarantee about a 90-minute later start than otherwise.

As we got off the bus at Animal Kingdom, my MIL made a big announcement: she decided to rent an ECV (scooter) to help her get around the park today. She is quite vain and has self-esteem issues, so she told us she felt mortified about how she would look riding a scooter but said it was the only way she could keep up with the kids and try to have a good time herself. I told her I was very proud of her (given her views) and I was glad she decided to try to have a better time.

Privately, Lisa was critical because she thought her mother should have just sucked it up and walked, but I got her to see things my way, or at least that’s what she let me believe. MIL had never before operated a scooter, and to her credit she only actually ran over one person. Who? Who else? Lisa. Oh, well there was that time when she would have plowed right over Mollie if I didn’t literally swoop in and grab her out of the way just before the bumper touched her little leg. As I saw this and acted, I gave one of those instinctive loud shouts, and I don’t think I’ve been that loud since, um, since ... since Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster a few nights ago!

The in-laws also agreed with my plan to go directly back to Kilimanjaro Safaris and get FastPasses. On the way, FIL insisted on stopping to take pictures of every animal we saw (flamingos, etc.), most of which also live at the Philadelphia Zoo about 30 minutes from his home. We got our FastPasses (30 minute stand-by line, 30 minute return time!) and took a leisurely walk through the Pangani Trail. I liked this area, it was like a small, limited zoo in naturalistic settings. When it came time to use our FastPasses for Kilimanjaro Safaris, we found an unintentional advantage of MIL using a scooter was we got into an even shorter line, along with another scooter user, a wheelchair user, and their parties. The safari was a lot of fun, even if many of the animals were pretty far away.

From there, we chose to go across the park to DinoLand U.S.A., my son’s Holy Land. It was around 11:00 a.m., admittedly early for lunch, but as we passed Tusker House.

I suggested to my in-laws that they check out the menu and decide if they want to eat there. They said they weren’t thrilled with the menu (although ribs and rotisserie chicken is exactly the kind of thing they like to eat) and that it was too early and that they would be satisfied with anything we find later. Uh huh.

We turned left into Asia, right onto Discovery Island, then left into DinoLand U.S.A. Ben LOVED The Boneyard, which he knew from the DVD. It was so huge it was a little disorienting. His favorite part was across the bridge at the dig site. It was my least favorite part because the pit is filled with tiny pebbles, the kind that stick to sweaty bodies (especially sweaty heads) and fit nicely into little ears, shoes, and clothes. Because the play area is so large and multi-leveled, it was tough to keep track of where Ben was at all times (and I’m the kind of parent who needs to see him and keep track of him). Even though there was only one exit, I think Disney should institute a security check system like Chuck E. Cheese has, where kids and parents get the same numbered invisible hand stamp and then to exit with a child you have to show your identical hand stamps under a black light. Just a thought.

During that time, Mollie and Lisa rode Triceratop Spin – Ben had again rejected it on the same grounds as he had rejected Magic Carpets of Aladdin, that it was the same ride as Dumbo. Can’t get anything past this kid.

I was really disappointed with Chester and Hester’s Dino-Rama. In a word, it looked “junky” to me. I know it’s supposed to look like a kiddie-carnival area (complete with midway/boardwalk-style games), but it came off looking like a parody of a carnival rather than a re-creation of one. Disney is so successful because it takes itself very seriously and does everything to the nth degree; IMHO, Chester and Hester’s area is kitschy, and Disney doesn’t do kitschy well.

It was very, very hot and everyone was wilting and my in-laws said they were very hungry and needed to stop for lunch. No complaints there. We got FastPasses for Dinosaur and searched for food. MIL saw Restaurantosaurus on the map near Dinosaur and she suggested we go there. FIL strongly disagreed and told us all that Restaurantosaurus was the establishment we passed before we entered the park gates. I told him he was thinking of Rainforest Café, but again he strongly disagreed. MIL and FIL settled it by saying we’d eat at the closest place we could sit down, which of course was Restaurantosaurus. Even though it was their choice to eat at the closest place (and to earlier skip Tusker House), they of course complained that Restaurantosaurus was nothing but a McDonald’s. They were annoyed during the entire meal because the menu wasn’t better (burgers, chicken nuggets, hot dogs, French fries, strawberry shortcake). Read between the lines on this food criticism: I WISH it was McDonald’s, because then at least the hamburgers would have been tasty! The McDonald’s name was everywhere, but only the Chicken McNuggets and the French fries were McDonald’s products.

We weathered that meal and then went to use of Dinosaur FastPasses, Ben, Lisa, FIL, and me. As usual, Ben said he was scared but wanted to try it. I LOVED that ride. It was predictable (even to the point of realizing that we got our picture taken), but it was pure Disney fun. Scary, but fun. It had a pretty big gift shop, which is always Ben’s favorite part of any ride (we promised him one souvenir per theme park).

We then took the long trek to Camp Minnie-Mickey, with a long layover at another gift shop so my in-laws could browse and get annoyed at the other one that they didn’t know where the other one was, that the other one is always the one to wander off, etc. Lisa and the kids and I waited outside (Mollie was asleep in the stroller), and we both came to the conclusion that we were strong enough to take four kids to Disney World because we were already doing it. That truly is what it felt like.

We arrived at The Festival of the Lion King already in progress but we went in anyway. MIL wimped out by not walking the I’d guess about 300 feet to the entrance – it was not scooter accessible and she gave up about 3/4 of the way there, up a hilly bend. She’d literally walked miles the previous days, but today after sitting she’d apparently become spoiled. What’s really a shame about that is she probably would have enjoyed the show more than any of us, and we all loved it.

After the show, around 3:30 p.m., we were still tired, sweaty, and exhausted, and decided to skip the 4:00 p.m. parade (and the crowds immediately afterwards) and headed out.

My in-laws, who in the previous weeks and months actually said I was going to RUIN our vacation by making dinner PSs, now asked me what our dinner plans were. Lisa and I told them that we were taking the kids straight back to CBR because they both needed to rest and there was no way they could be dragged straight to dinner from there. We told MIL and FIL to feel free to use either of our PSs, a 5:20 p.m. at Chef Mickey’s and a 6:15 p.m. at Sci-Fi Dine In at MGM. They turned down both as being too difficult to get to, even though they could have boarded DIRECT buses to either location! Lucky us, they preferred to stay with us and complain about my poor planning in not making the proper PSs.

After the kids and a few of the grown-ups napped, we went to CBR’s food court for dinner. We then returned to the room around 8:30 p.m., where Mollie promptly fell asleep. Lisa was pretty sleepy, too, so Ben and I went to our village pool, first making a stop at the adjacent laundry room to put in two loads of laundry, almost everything we’d worn thus far. We brought detergent and quarters with us from home.

This is living. Almost 10:00 p.m., in the pool, just me and my boy.

Funny side note. My parents planned to stay at my house Thursday and Friday to enjoy a couple days at the beach and boardwalk, and give my neighbor a break from feeding the cat. It took about three years of visits for my parents, or rather just my mother, to learn how to use the remote control for our digital cable; our large TV uses digital cable, but the other two small TVs use 'regular" cable boxes like my parents have in their home. A few days before we left, the digital remote was acting up and I went to the cable office and exchanged it for a new one, which was completely different than my old one. I forgot to tell my parents about this. At about 9:55 p.m. I called them from the pool area asking if they were in my guest room huddled around the 25 year old 13-inch TV rather than sitting comfortably in the family room with a normal TV. Of course, they were uncomfy in the guest room, which, when the futon is open (as I had left it for them), has only one chair. I thought to call just in case that was the case, and I wanted to make sure they could watch their favorite TV show, ER, in comfort. We all had a good laugh about that one.

Conveniently for him, Ben got too tired to wait for the clothes to dry (and thus got out of folding), so I took him back to the room and he went right to bed. That night I also learned it doesn’t pay to be cheap and try to put two loads of laundry into one dryer – I had to run the dryer twice, and so it took me longer than if I’d run each load in its own dryer. Serves me right, but now YOU can learn from my cheapness.

Tomorrow we head back to the Magic Kingdom to finish out with Buzz Lightyear, Jungle Cruise, and the two Mountains in Frontierland. As I fell asleep reading more of The DaVinci Code by otoscope light, I tried not to think about what complaints we’d have to deal with tomorrow. In a recent posting, someone mentioned that Lisa must have to hold me back so I don’t choke her mother, to which I truthfully responded that it’s quite to the contrary, I have to hold her back so she doesn’t choke her mother.