Sunday-MK
My kids are up at 5am. It feels like Christmas morning. It is so funny to overhear the upstairs chatter as the kids talk about their plans. My eldest daughter is determined to find Jack Sparrow. My youngest son wants to ride Buzz. The baby keeps chanting, "Donuts, donuts, donuts."
At 6am I finally roll out into the family room and tell them it's okay to come downstairs and grab some breakfast. The house has a nice kitchen nook and bar area and the kids all grab a seat. Sugary delights of Poptarts, grapes, milk, and of course, donuts are gobbled up too quickly.
I spread out three different shirts and ask for a vote. Today will be our Florida sea critters shirts. It isn't even 7 and we are ready for the park!
Now arrives a continuing theme in our vacation (and lives). Now I've planned the vacation for months, packed, prepared, and worked myself into a lather about this trip. My husband, on the other hand, only had to show up. He is an engineer (need I say more?) The most stereotypical one out there. He is like Jerry Lewis in the Nutty Professor. His mind is always going off in a thousand directions, so I've learned to make most of my requests in writing.
My fellow DISers will understand. We must follow Momma's plan. We will now observe how Daddy will throw daily roadblocks in said plan.
We are in the van and off by 7:20. Now that I have everyone captured in a confinded space, I ask for everyone's attention. I go over all of my park powerpoints...stay together...proper etiquette when you find yourself lost...stay together...be kind to your siblings...stay together...take turns...stay together. Yes, I'm freaking out about losing someone. I'm imagining huge crowds of blue mega strollers plowing through my family and dividing us up into a sea of strangers. Then comes the discussion about "the laters". Everyone knows these...gift shops later...food later...characters later...your choice later.
I chant the order of the rides we would conquer. I tell my husband (for the hundredth time) his fastpass duties. I go over queue rules and secret paths and.....
I not watching where I'm driving and I follow the CMs to their parking lot!
The guard tells me I have to drive all the way around and start all over. I turn around in the Poly parking lot and head back to the parking lot booths. It takes us 15-20 minutes behind a wall of buses to get where we are supposed to be.
We park, pay for our tickets, and head to the monorail. I can't believe how crowded it is already and it is not even 8am! It is standing room only in the monorail and I'm busy trying to keep multiple kids on their feet. Of course we are not on the Express, so we have to stop and wait at the hotels.
We make it through security and the ticket turnstiles very easily. They are holding us at the tunnels, but there isn't a huge crowd yet. We have 30 minutes until opening. A CM is out passing out stickers and before we know it, Mickey and the gang are getting off the train to greet us! I grab my handy camcorder to capture all the magic and immediately find out my husband did not insert the battery back at the house.
Now I'm going to be carrying around a useless camcorder all day. I try to take some digital photos, but the humidity and the crowd make it impossible. Thankfully the rope is dropped and we are off!
We make it to Main Street and get our first glimpse of the castle! The kids are jumping up and down and I'm getting misty. But even the castle can't have me forget my plan! Head for Tomorrowland! I tell my husband to head to Space Mountain pronto for fastpasses. He tells me he doesn't know where it is. I tell him to follow the crowd, but he won't budge. We reach
Buzz. We ditch the stroller and jump on! Buzz is great example of what made Disney perfect for us. We could all get on and enjoy it. From 46 years old to 3 years old, we had a blast! Anna got the high score by a mile. She would later confess days later than she saw a tip on a Disney show on the travel channel and knew where to hit for the best points. Smart girl.
I was able to now physically point my husband in the direction of Space Mountain. He went off to get the fastpasses (finally) and we headed to
Astro Orbiter. Absolutely no one was there. We rode up to elevator and climbed aboard. Boy, does that thing go fast! The CM told us we could keep riding until others arrived. The baby and I said no thanks, but I told the older 4 they could ride again
one time. I told them when the ride ended they would meet us at the bottom of the elevator. My husband quickly rejoined Holly and I with the fastpasses and we waited. And waited. And waited. Those darn kids were never getting off. I finally told my husband to go and retrieve them. They were burning daylight on that ride and messing up Momma's plan. We waited another 10 minutes. Finally they appeared. Dad explained they were still on the ride and about to go up when he arrived. He decided just to ride it himself and they would all come down after.
We headed to
Monster's Inc Laugh Factory. Monster's Inc is one of my favorite movies, next to The Incredibles, so I was eager to see it. The theater wasn't even halfway filled. I was amazed how low the crowds were still. Where did all these people go from rope drop? Our fastpasses were usable now, so we divided the kids up. I took the first group. We walked right up to our space capsule and was zooming through the stars in minutes! Absolutely fantastic! I've been waiting to ride SM since I was a teenager! We switched and the second group with Dad were back quickly. We headed to Fantasyland next. We rode the
Tea Cups,
Pooh,
Snow White, and the
Carousel a couple of times.
My eldest son, Will, could not get the
Speedway out of his head. I had already explained that it would be impossible for us to ride it. The height restrictions allowed him to ride it alone, but an adult would have to be with the other kids. Two adults and four kids doesn't work, but no explaining would satisfy him. Will has some autistic characteristics (like Dad) and I wasn't comfortable letting him ride alone anyway. We tried to explain that we would ride it in October when the aunts and grandparents would be with us, but I could see we were headed for a nuclear meltdown. We had grabbed fastpasses for
Philharmagic early into Fantasyland and our return time was near. We dragged Will away from the Speedway and were at the doors of the theater in minutes. He started to have a minor tantrum that we were quickly able to stop by promises of ice cream. I know, bribing is bad, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
Philharmagic was the most awesome experience! We all LOVED it! We sat down in front of Snow White and had fantastic ice cream cones. We jumped on
Pooh again and headed to see Pooh and Tigger. They had to go on break right when we got in line. It was now the baby's turn to have a tantrum. We decided that it was time for a break and headed to the exit. We tried to stop at the barber shop for some much needed haircuts for my sons, but they were way too busy. With promises of swimming and haircuts outside the park we hopped on the monorail.
We walked back to our van and realized how close we were to the TTC. Our little detour with the CMs didn't cost us as much as we had thought. The sky was black by then with a fast moving thunderstorm. We literally shut the doors of the van before it started to rain like crazy. A huge storm was on upon us. Swimming would have to wait. I told the kids how quickly storms pass in Florida, I used to live there years ago. Ha. It was still pouring at 5pm. Not just raining, but lots of thunder and even hail. We decided just to stay home that evening (our plan was a nice dinner out). I drove down a couple of flooded blocks to the Taco Bell and grabbed dinner. It was another early night because we planned for a big day at Epcot in the morning. Everyone was asleep by 9pm dreaming of Nemo and Crush!
Next Chapter--
Getting Trampled in the Soarin Stampede! 
Boy, was it hot and steamy! It felt like a tropical sauna in the 
