CleveRocks -- 2005, Day 6, "The Longest Day"

[CleveRocks]

DAY 6 – Friday, May 13 (The Longest Day)

This is our last full day at WDW. We’re going to go to Magic Kingdom, and this morning is the extra magic hour. However, we decide to let the kids sleep in. Even with the extra sleep and no rush this morning, Ben refused to get out of bed and dressed even though he wanted to go to MK; such is the reasoning skill of a five year old. We hoped to leave around 9:00 a.m., but we didn’t get out until about 9:30 a.m. A Magic Kingdom bus didn’t come by until some time after 10:15 a.m. If it wasn’t for my MIL and her new-found fear of walking, I would have taken one of the many buses to Epcot and then taken the monorail from there.

We finally got to MK, and MIL again rented a scooter today. We got Buzz FastPasses, and then we waited in line for Ben’s ultimate fantasy, a meet-and-greet and picture with none other than Buzz Lightyear, Space Ranger. Pure heaven for all of us. He’d shied away from a lot of pictures this week, but he was happy and proud to have his pic taken with Buzz.


We then walked right onto the Tomorrowland Transit Authority; Ben’s favorite part was, what else, when we rode above a gift shop. My in-laws decided they needed lunch or else (they didn’t eat breakfast), and while they were looking around we began giving our kids the sandwiches we packed, and they began eating them on a shady bench. My in-laws found Cosmic Ray’s on their own and insisted we come in with them. Lisa and I had bagels earlier and weren’t very hungry, but we recognized we might not stop for food for a while, so I just got in the shortest set of lines and got a kids’ meal that she and I split. My FIL waited in the longest set of lines. And of course, when he returned my MIL complained to him about what took him so long. She got up to get plastic wear, napkins, and condiments (SHE GOT UP???!!!), but came back with only the plastic wear. I asked why she didn’t get the napkins and condiments and she said she looked but couldn’t find them. Anyone who is familiar with Cosmic Ray’s can picture (as I did moments earlier) that all that stuff is in the same place. Pardon the theme park pun, this should not have been like rocket science for her, but apparently it was.

And then my FIL began complaining about how big the wrap sandwiches were and how if he knew they were SOOO big he would have bought only one for the two of them to split. Of course, this being a counter service restaurant with a limited menu and a long line, he’d only been watching people being served their wraps and walking right by him for about 15 minutes, so I wouldn’t have expected him to realize how big the wraps were. Ugh.

As they dragged through lunch, I gently reminded them several times that we were nearing the tail end of our Buzz Lightyear FastPass window (expired at 12:15 p.m.). Nothing. No response from them, not a care in the world that we were close to missing out on riding one of the rides BOTH of my kids had been looking forward to. I didn’t outwardly react at all, but I needed to cool down so I took both kids out in the heat and got Space Mountain FastPasses just for Lisa and me. However, after I had them in hand I realized I majorly screwed up – I thought the return time sign said 11:45 a.m. to 12:45 p.m., but the FastPasses themselves said 1:45 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. Oops. The signs were right, I just saw them wrong. Oops. At around Noon I locked us out of FastPass Heaven until 1:50 p.m. Oops.

The in-laws were just finishing when I returned, and we finally moved on to Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin. Everyone rode except my MIL because she didn’t want to walk through the FastPass line. Yeh.

It was scary that as soon as we got on the ride even 2.5 year old Mollie knew to right away grab for the laser gun and begin squeezing the trigger. This was surprising to us, as we don’t watch violent TV shows at home and have no violent computer games. The kids loved the ride, and Lisa and I thought it was cute.

Our next objective was Jungle Cruise. At least MIL got to ride the whole way, so the walk across the park was uneventful for a change. Because I messed up with the Space Mountain FastPasses, we were looking at a 30 minute stand-by line for Jungle Cruise. Not terrible, I know, but during our entire week we’d never waited in such a long line at a FastPass attraction, and I was annoyed at myself for making us feel like we were on the outside looking in. My MIL, who can’t find napkins and ketchup next to plastic forks, noticed a handicapped-accessible entrance between the FastPass and stand-by entrances, so I went and asked a CM, who told our whole party to get into that line; I didn’t love doing it, but in truth it would have been difficult, or at least against her character, for my MIL to stand for 30 minutes to do anything. We boarded a boat eight minutes later.

So we’re on Jungle Cruise, and I’m pointing out cool or funny sights to the kids. My precocious 5-year-old, the one who wouldn’t ride Magic Carpets of Aladdin or Triceratop Spin because they’re the same as Dumbo and he already rode Dumbo, was equally blase about the elephants and hippos because, as he explained, he saw the real things yesterday at Kilimanjaro Safaris. I enjoyed the sights and our guide’s scripted cornball humor, but I secretly agreed with Ben that it was sort of a comedown riding Jungle Cruise the day after touring AK.

Ben really wanted to go into the Tiki Room – Under New Management next. I loved the idea of air conditioning, and I’m also a BIG Gilbert Gottfried fan , so off we went. My FIL ent up BIG complaints about this. After their family returned from their 1986 trip, all I heard was how much they hated the Tiki Room and it was the biggest waste of time of their trip. I STILL remember it. In advance, I had been prepping FIL about TR-UNM, highlighting to him that it was a NEW SHOW and that the NEW NAME of the attraction highlighted that fact. I told him this several times during the trip, and again as we waited in line. Again, he just ignored everything I said and said he hated it then and he’s going to hate it now. Well, he sat through the show, and I swear I didn’t hear some of the lines in the show because FIL was laughing so loud.

After this, Mollie wanted to again ride Aladdin, so Lisa got in line with her. A few minutes later, Ben decided he wanted to ride, as well (so much for his sophistication), so I handed him over the wall and looked for a place I could join them in line. No ropes, no chains, just 3-foot high wall. I went over the wall, and I was surprised that I wasn’t summarily tackled by hidden security agents.

We all then took the long walk to The Mountains in Frontierland. FIL has always stayed away from roller coasters but told Ben he’d ride Splash Mountain with him. Until he walked by it. He then walked right up to me and whispered that he decided not to do Splash after all. Even though it annoyed me that he disappointed Ben, his bowing out actually worked out well. With 60 minute stand-by lines for each, it seemed like a long proposition to not have FastPasses for both. Since among us all we had only 5 tickets (Mollie is too young to have/need one), we wouldn’t be able to get 3 FastPasses for Splash AND 3 for BTMR simultaneously (for Lisa, Ben, and me). We decided only one of us would ride on BTMR with Ben and the three of us would ride Splash together (because Lisa and I both preferred Splash to BTMR). We let Ben decide who was riding BTMR with him, and it was me. So we got FastPasses for both rides, with first available ride times of 2:25 p.m. for BTMR and 3:45 p.m. for Splash.

MIL had staked out some shady bench space -- what can I say, we all have our skills!. Ben and I rode BTMR and it was another one of those male bonding moments. During the LONG but fast walk through the FastPass lane, I kept reminding him it’s okay if he decides not to ride. And he kept reminding me that “on roller coasters I don’t scream, I laugh.” From the ride’s very first drop and turn he was giggling and he almost didn’t stop the entire ride, and I enjoyed that. The ride was tamer and slower than I remembered. There was even a PhotoPass photographer at the exit to capture the shared moment.

By the time we were done BTMRR, the stand-by wait time and FastPass return time for Splash were about equal, and I know it must have been hot and I must not have had enough to drink because I was actually deciding between waiting for an hour on a shady bench or getting in the stand-by line. Sanity won out this time.

Realizing that my in-laws were wilting out in the heat at this point only to wait another hour so they could watch Mollie while the three of us rode Splash, I told them we could take advantage of the Child Swap on Splash, and asked if they wanted to go off on their own somewhere. They said yes, they could use the time to shop and then leave the park before dinner. Even though they can be annoying and clueless, I love them and want to help them out. I asked them to wait so I could find out about how Child Swap works on Splash – I’d never before used it during our trip, and I’d read that it works differently at each ride/attraction.

I asked the CM manning the Splash FastPass return entrance. She gave me Priority Return pass and explained how to use it, that it was good for the returning parent and up to three other people. It was about 3:10 p.m. I went back to the shady rest area, and as I explained it to Lisa and my in-laws I had a very un-Disney thought: since there was no time printed on that Priority Return pass, and we still had 35 minutes to wait to use our FastPasses, what’s to stop us from just using the Priority Return passes rather than our original FastPasses? NOTHING, save the flames of wrath of Disney board readers, and those folks won’t find out for a week or more. EUREKA! We used the Priority Return pass and loved it. I atoned for my sin later ... just wait. At that point my in-laws decided to wait for us.

I was last at WDW with Lisa in 1990, but when I was in town for business in 1993 I went to MK once or twice and rode the almost brand new Splash, so it was one of the few rides I’d done that she hadn’t, so it was nice to finally share it with her, as well as with Ben. He loved it all, including the big drop and refreshing splashes at the end. On our way out it was just about 3:45 p.m., the opening of our original FastPass window. As we exited past the very end of the now 70 minute stand-by line, I tried looking out for a family of three, and when I saw one I asked if there was a party of three. The two women in their 20's and a young boy that I saw spoke up that they were a party of three, and I asked them if they wanted Splash FastPasses that were good immediately. They didn’t know how to react at first because they said they didn’t know what a FastPass was or why it would be helpful to them. By rights, I should have just said “Nevermind” and given them to someone who knew what they were getting, but after a quick explanation and some squeals of happiness they jumped out of line and thanked me profusely.

As we walked in the same direction they told us what nice people we were, and I retorted that they wouldn’t think so if they knew us in real life. One of the women replied to me, “Oh yeh, well you wouldn’t think we were very nice, either, if you knew what we were doing 10 minutes ago.” If Ben weren’t with me I would have asked, but I didn’t dare do it with him in tow; I had visions of Penthouse Forum letters dancing in my head for the next few minutes (conveniently ignoring that they were with a boy about Ben’s age). Anyway, another Disney good deed accomplished.

As we continued to wilt in the heat and be amazed and bothered by the thick crowds, our plan was to buy a few things on Main Street on our way out, and return to CBR for a relaxing dinner and night at the pool, our last night at WDW. Was it John Steinbeck or Walt Disney or Carrot Top who said “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry”? Whoever, it happened to us. We shopped in the Emporium Shops and before we knew it it was 5:00 p.m. We thought we were going to find a Buzz Lightyear shirt in there for Ben, but didn’t, so we were going to head back to a shop at Tomorrowland just in case we didn’t make it back to MK tomorrow.

Meanwhile, my in-laws decided to stay at the park after shopping because they’d heard about a restaurant in MK that had “different” food than they’ve had all week, such as clam chowder and fish n’ chips. I identified it as Columbia Harbor House and MIL look surprised and said something like, “That’s it! How did you know that?!” I reminded her of those months I spent doing my homework that she'd chided me for doing so. I told them, just as an FYI, that regardless of the menu it too was a counter-service restaurant, and thus had the service and the same quality-level of food that they’d complained about all week. As has been their pattern, they said they were sure it wasn’t how I was describing it. They told me they were told (by total strangers, not even CMs) that it was a table-service restaurant.

Part of the problem is that my FIL, Lord of the Malapropism, kept referring to Columbia Harbor House as The Chart House, even when he looked it up on a park guide map. For those who are unfamiliar, The Chart House is a chain of upscale seafood restaurants in many major cities (usually no more than one per city), the kind of place that stays in business on expense account customers during the week and romantic dinner customers on the weekends. Again, I explained it was not The Chart House and was nothing like The Chart House, but I might as well have been talking to the nearby statue of Mickey Mouse and Walt Disney.

We decided we would meet them for dinner at 6:00 p.m., since by the time we were through in Tomorrowland the kids would surely be hungry and at that point traveling back to CBR would take too much time and we didn't want to make the kids hold out for dinner. We separated, but only after I made sure MIL turned on her cellphone.

We did our business in Tomorrowland, and for once enjoyed the sights and smelled the roses as we sauntered back across the park in the general direction of Columbia Harbor House. It was 5:40 p.m., and just to make sure my in-laws weren’t waiting for us somewhere, I called my MIL just as we entered Liberty Square. They were just leaving The Emporium. They asked me where Columbia Harbor House was, and I told them in Liberty Square, right near Haunted Mansion. She asked me to hold on so she could look at her map.

There was a long silence except that I could actually hear the map crinkling in the background. I then heard some chatter between the two of them, then MIL comes back on the phone and tells me, “No, Eric, Columbia Harbor House is somewhere in Liberty Square, near the Haunted House.” Cue the Twilight Zone theme music. I could not make this up if I tried.

We waited for them near the Hall of Presidents, and then went to Columbia Harbor House together. MIL entered first, followed by me, then we hear FIL bellow that we were walking into the wrong place, that The Chart House was on a boat. He looked around, saw the Liberty Square Riverboat, and told us that was our restaurant. Even MIL knew he was wrong with this one, but it took about one full minute to get him to realize his error. He was mad at all of us but agreed to go into Columbia Harbor House, anyway. He saw clam chowder on the menu and finally agreed he was in the right place. I know everyone has different tastes, and no one’s taste is right or wrong or is anyone else’s business, but I can’t imagine anyone being mollified and pleased by the idea of a hot bowl of soup after walking around for hours in 88 degrees and 98 percent humidity. BUT THEN he balked when he saw it was a counter-service restaurant. I reminded him that I told him that numerous times earlier, and he responded, “I know, but ....” He agreed to stay because it was empty and they had clam chowder.

Of course, the next snag was that Ben refused to eat in there because it smelled funny (probably the malt vinegar), and boy was he adamant. The four of us ate outside while the in-laws enjoyed their hot soup in air conditioning. During our meal, the kids were as rambunctious and ornery as they’d been the entire trip, which made our meal less than relaxing and refreshing. Thank goodness we were at an outside table rather than in a nice sit-down restaurant.

We were all ready to leave at 6:55 p.m., and as we headed towards the central hub and eventual exit, Ben loudly complains that he said earlier he wanted to see the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse. I took him there, just the two of us, and we all agreed to meet near the park exit. I had never been in there before, either, and neither of us was impressed, except with the view.

Okay, so it’s 7:20 p.m., we’re all sweaty and exhausted, and we’ve been out MUCH longer than we anticipated – we would never have planned to be in a park all day like this without a break. As we prepare to exit MK, it occurs to me that the only other thing we didn’t do that Ben had talked about prior to our trip was ride the monorail (he’s a huge train fan). Not 100% sure what we’ll be up for tomorrow, I figured as long as he’s up for it now we should do it. Everyone else headed for the CBR bus, and Ben and I headed for the resort monorail. I figured once around Seven Seas Lagoon ought to do it.

The last time I was on a monorail I was 5 years old myself, so I wasn’t sure how things worked. For instance, I wasn’t sure if I needed to be a guest at one of the monorail resorts to board a resort monorail (silly question, I know, but it was a long day!). There was a CM standing at the entrance who asked me where I was going. I told her I just wanted to take my son on a monorail ride, and I figured I’d just circle the lagoon and come right back here, to the front of MK.

This had to be the most ill-informed CM EVER. She told me I couldn’t ride the monorail back here to the front of MK because it does not return here. She told me we would HAVE TO get off at Contemporary, TTC, Polynesian, or Grand Floridian. I responded with a question as to how it was possible that the monorail did not circle back to where it started (for us), and she said it did not, that we would have to get off at or before Grand Floridian then change trains to come back to MK. I figured she misunderstood what I wanted to do, so I explained myself again, and again she gave that daffy response. Wow.

I was a rebel. I tried it anyway. Egads, it worked! Although along the way I found someone more confused than her. At GF, a group wearing leis got on. I would have expected this at Poly, not GF. At the MK station, the apparent leader of the group, who appeared tipsy, tentatively got off the monorail before I did, asked a CM on the platform if we were at MK, then called to her whole group to get off, that they were at the right place. Oh well, at least they got a nice tour of the GF monorail station after their luau.

Ben and I returned to our CBR room at 8:30 p.m., 11 hours after we started. He fell right to sleep, just about. Reality was setting in – our DME instructions for tomorrow had been delivered. Lisa and I packed as the kids slept.

At least we were going home with most of our clothes clean....

 

[BratTink]

I have to comment on your FiL looking for The Chart House! Too funny!

 

[Minniespal]

Enjoyed reading your report ~ Thanx for sharing.