When we went to bed the night before we struggled with the question as to whether or not to tell the other crew that we had managed to score a table for 5 at Crystal Palace for breakfast. After that day's drama, I didn't even feel like trying to work it out for them...Eeyore wouldn't appreciate meeting Eeyore enough to make me feel it was worth any extra effort. So we arranged our wake up call and decided that we would go it alone.
When Stitch called at 6:00 am (I know I'm not alone here...I can't stand that wake up call...I want Mickey back, PLEASE!!), we rolled out of bed. Lou said her head hurt and she felt a bit warm to me so I took her temp: 99.2...low grade...gave her some Motrin and told her to let me know if she got to feeling worse. I decided that Tumor might like to go with us to the CP and we had that extra seat, so I called the other room. Chief asked what I was going to do if the others wanted to go and I told him that if they wanted to go, they could, but they were going to have to go up and ask about getting an unreserved table...I wasn't going to have anything to do with it. Turned out that everyone there but Tumor was sound asleep and she said she did, indeed, want to head over to the MK with us. She left a note for the others and said she’d meet up with us in the lobby.
Funny aside: as we were getting ready that morning, Chief was combing his hair when he called me in to have a look…he’s salt and pepper now and he had noticed that there was a patch of hair right in the front that was noticeably darker than all the rest. He wanted to know if I saw that, too…and I did…I told him it wasn’t that bad and we couldn’t figure out what the heck had happened…he was convinced that he was going to lose either the dark hair or the light hair and that Mother Nature was sectioning it off to give him a head’s up (like that pun? I’m soooo punny!). It wasn’t until we were sitting down at breakfast that Tumor figures it out…it’s from his visor…the sun had faded all of his hair but the part in front. He refused to wear the visor after that. I told him he should have gotten the baseball hat!
We got to the MK right at opening time(our ADR was for 8:10 and it opened at 8:00 that morning) and everything went very smoothly. We made our way down Main Street and there was already quite a line to check in...usual for the first seating of the day and I was completely undaunted. I had everyone wait in line to check in and did what had become my morning walk over to Frontierland to get FPs for Splash Mountain. It was a delightful walk on a beautiful day as Frontierland was completely deserted. It's so magical to be so alone in an area of the park...peaceful and makes you feel as if you have ownership in the place...
FPs in hand, I swiftly made my way back to the CP with perfect timing as they had just finished checking in. The crowd outside the entrance had a little chuckle when a hostess CM pronounced a family's name as "Fugly" (rhyming with "ugly") and a family that was as far from "Fugly" as you can get corrected her by saying that it was pronounced "Fugle" like "bugle". After the "Fugle" family, they called us! Yea! We had the nicest waitress, Karen, who informed us that both sides of the buffet were open and that right then the far side was much, much less busy. I didn't waste any time finding the french-toast-like dough-cinnamon-really-bad-for-you-I'm-sure-things I made the ADR for and loaded up also with the red potatoes cooked with onion and bacon and sat down to begin my carbo-loading process. Boo had come with me to the far side and we both made record time back to the table. We were amazed that Chief, Lou, and Tumor didn't listen to Karen's advice and became lemmings...too bad for them...yummy quicker for us!
Eeyore (the REAL one that brings smiles to our faces...not the OTHER one that has been bringing us down) came to the table first and Boo tried really hard to look disinterested as he was almost there:
Here's Tumor waiting with anticipation:
And Lou:
and Chief (doesn't he look like he's having fun?!)
Eeyore made it and here's some pics (please note that now Boo has a smile on her face...she's such a faker...I know she loves the Pooh characters!)
I laugh when I see Tumor holding on to Eeyore's ear:
Then Piglet and Pooh stopped by:
Tumor and I chuckled at Boo, who kept saying that she didn't care at all about the Pooh characters. Then, to truly make her "miserable" (which I knew she wasn't!), the parade kicked in and she got in line right behind Pooh and did her best to look totally bored.
Tigger was almost at our table when we finished eating and had paid for the meal...everyone said that we should go ahead and go and I was like, "But he's right
there and is coming to our table next..." Just as I said that, the parade started for a second go-round and I just as quickly said, "Okay...let's go ride some rides!"
While we were eating we had made a game plan. PotC (because it's not a FP ride and the lines would be getting longer and longer as the morning wore on) followed by Splash Mountain followed by Haunted Mansion and then a reassessment of crowd level might be needed. We all agreed that we wanted to spend the afternoon at the pool, so that would dictate whether or not we rode anything else.
When we got to PotC, I noticed that no one was using the right hand pathway...they were following the lemmings in front of them to the left...so I steered our crew to the right and kept walking, walking, walking, expecting a line to be around each and every corner. Nope...no line! We walked right on to the ride and glanced across at the other line where the lemmings were in for at least a 15 minute wait. As we sat down, I announced, "Don't be a lemming and follow the Path Less Traveled." Tumor and Chief rolled their eyes and laughed at me...but I know that they were very, very glad to not have to wait to ride. We enjoyed the ride and Tumor hadn't ridden it since my boyfriend Jack Sparrow had been added to the ride.
As we walked out of the ride, we ran smack into the special education teacher who I co-taught a 3rd grade inclusion classroom with and her family. We chatted and it was just too funny to run into them...she had said when we talked at school that they weren't going to go to WDW this trip...they rented a condo off-site and were going to go do "other things." The pull was too strong...she said that they had gone to the beach but that they ended up feeling that they should come visit the Mouse, too.
We headed next to Splash Mountain and were very, very glad to have our FPs in hand...the standby line was already 40 minutes. When we got up to the point where they direct you to which number to stand on, we witnessed a convergence of WDW stupidity. There was a family of four who were right in front of us and they were sooooo concerned about getting their ponchos on 2 seconds before they were supposed to get on the ride that 2 of them forgot which gate/number they were in. This was Stupidity #1 (Why did they wait until right then to put on the ponchos if they were soooo concerned with getting wet? Isn't that the fun of the ride...to get wet? To each their own, I guess). Stupidity #1 shortly converged with Stupidity #2: A European couple (only guessing by accent, here folks) slipped right by Boo when they saw that she wasn't getting on the boat that the 2 forgetful poncho family members were supposed to get on and got themselves in the seat of the poncho family's boat with the other 2 members of the poncho family. This left the other 2 poncho family members standing next to the boat saying "Oh, I guess we can't ride together...?" DM Poncho (who is in the boat with DS Poncho) started to get upset and told her landlubber family members (who are outside the boat hovering over the European couple) to get on the boat. The landlubber family members started yelling at the DM saying, "We
can't!" The CM running the ride finally intervenes as boats backed up behind them and asks "Who's with who here?" and it got straightened out. The European couple get out of the boat and let the other 2 poncho family members in. Needless to say, they stood right in front of Boo and I kindly (because I had witnessed their earlier stupidity of cutting a 9 year old and breaking up the poncho family) told them that they belong
behind my DD. YIKES!
As we are riding the ride, we all decide to try to make some funny gesture on the photo. Chief, Lou, and Boo decide to act as terrified as they can and Tumor and I decide to pay homage to Toby from REC213's WDW Vacation videos that we absolutely, positively love, love, love to watch...Holla, Toby!
I ended up looking like I had a mouthful of marbles because I was trying so hard not to laugh...Tumor got it down pretty good...and Boo, Lou, and Chief are doing their best terrified looks.
After Splash we were off to HM and Boo talked herself into riding. There was only a 10 minute posted wait, but it ended up being more like 20. We kept Boo cool and calm during the ride by having her look for the Hidden Mickey on the dining room table.
We made our way out of the increasingly crowded park and back at the WL, staked out our lounge chairs by the pool. It was my turn to wait with them first, so Chief takes the girls up to change and I enjoyed the sunshine. I called over to see if Eeyore's crew wanted to join us and Tumor said she would see, but she thought they would. So I sit and snag enough chairs for the adults. Yes, Officer and Princess walked over and made some small talk while I assumed that Eeyore, Tumor, and Prince were getting ready to come down...he then says they'll be back. Chief returned and I went up to change and come back to find only Tumor there.
We determined that Yes, Officer was just on a spy mission to try to gather intelligence about whether we were mad at them and to see if our spot was up to Eeyore's standards. Apparantly when Tumor was changing, Eeyore began ranting and raving at her about being left out of the morning's plans and accused Tumor of sneaking around behind her back. Eeyore still thinks we just went to the MK to ride some rides and doesn't know we went to the CP breakfast...if she was
that upset about missing PotC, Splash, and HM, I can only imagine how upset she would have been had she known we did a whole character breakfast! I must admit I felt a bit guilty about not seeking them out more to go to the breakfast...but only for a moment. Eeyore said she didn't want to come to our side of the pool so we stayed on the main side and they stayed on the Villas side...YIKES! Drama galore!
The five of us played and relaxed by the pool and I noticed that Lou was not quite as animated as usual. When I asked her if she was okay, she told me her head was hurting again, so I gathered up the crew and suggested a nap up in the room before we had to get ready for our dinner at the HDDR (which I was really looking forward to and hoping that the drama with Eeyore and crew wouldn't ruin the fun).
When Lou woke up, she looked just terrible, her head, throat, and stomach hurt and she was burning up. Her temp was 103, so I declared no HDDR for her. Chief and I argued in the bathroom over who was going to stay with her...we both wanted to. I went and asked Lou who she'd rather stay with and what can I say...she wanted her Mama. I called over to the others to tell them that the two of us won't be joining them and to hurry along so that they can go pick up the tickets at the ticket window. I had gone down in the chaos of everything to ask the CL CM if we could somehow get our TS credits refunded for Lou and I and also to pick up the tickets. Since it was past 4:00 at that point, they said they couldn't print them out there and that since it was past the cancellation period, we were out of luck with the TS credits. Darn! Oh, well...what could ya do?
I sent Chief and Boo off with instructions to ask at the HDDR ticket office thinking that WDW couldn't possibly punish you for getting sick, could they? Lou slept for awhile and then woke up. The Tylenol had kicked in and she started asking about dinner. We decided to go down to Roaring Forks (for the first time this trip) to get dinner. When we got down to RF, I have to say that I felt spoiled with the CL floor having some food selections and all the TS meals we had had...it wasn't nearly as exciting in there as it had been when we were there two years ago. We got our hamburger and chicken nuggets and headed back up to the CL where we sat at the tables and watched the people going about their business below. Lou and I had a nice conversation (she's wonderful to sit and talk to). We decided to go get another movie from the CL desk and decided to watch the Muppet Movie. She had never seen it and I remember loving it as a child, so we watched all snuggled up together in the room. Chief and Lou came back and had had a good time. The lady at the HDDR ticket window told Chief, "No problem!" about giving us back our TS credits. They had had their picture taken with the whole crew and I was a little sad that we didn't get our yearly family photo...I had not bought the one at Chef Mickey's because our tradition is to get the one at HDDR. Oh, well...here's the one with everyone...Lou suggested that we should Photoshop ourselves into it...but I didn't.
We all watched the rest of the movie together and Chief and I decided that we would seek out some medical help for Lou if she woke up in the morning with a fever. I told him that I suspected strep throat with her symptoms but I was praying that it was just something she ate...or too much pool water...or too much sun...or something that would just magically disappear in the middle of the night.
Speaking of Chef Mickey's...here's the photo of everyone that Eeyore decided to buy. She gave me a copy the other day.
From Left to Right:
Front row: Lou, Boo Middle Row: Tumor, me, Princess, Eeyore (with that HUGE smile on her face), Yes, Officer, and Prince Back Row: Chief
. He says Disney is not a vacation and it is alot of work and running around. I was very annoyed at that comment needless to say since the kids and I love Disney and would definately go at least yearly. I would love to go to Hawaii though, lucky you. I might have to try your technique and 
act like I don't care next year. I think that might work. Good luck with your DD's sleep over Birthday party.
Hope it was just too much sun and nothing serious.
They took MC, VISA, traveler's checks, or cash and would provide us with forms to send to our insurance for reimbursement. I repeated what she told me and Chief took a deep breath and said, "Tell her to send the doctor." She told us that Dr. Bockian would be knocking on our door between 10 and 10:40. 
The look on Boo's face was just toooo funny. Lisa fixes her ticket and we napped and relaxed in the room. 
