Kanga1
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 16, 2004
- Messages
- 1,470
Cast of Characters:
Jana (moi, 40, obsessive planner of this and all trips..think Chevy Chase in the Vacation movies.)
Eric (DH, 41, a big kid at heart, pretty much goes with the flow and can have a good time anywhere as long as theres good food.)
Anna Marie (4 year-old DD and true princess any princess...pick one.)
Donned in Minnie attire, Pal Mickey attached to the backpack, and cameras and autograph book in hand, we walk on over to Chef Mickeys for our 5:00 PS. Going through the upstairs lobby, DD encounters a CM who makes a big deal that Minnie is in his presence. He fawns all over her and gives her a pin from his lanyard. She gets to choose and she picks a cute Winnie-the-Pooh pin. How nice a magic moment! And so soon! Wed only been here 5 hours! (Im really liking this Disney place the beach getting pushed further and further from my mind.) Were early for our PS and a short line has already formed. It moves quickly and we stand for the obligatory picture. They take an extra one of DD which Im sure they do of all children but Im excited about this as I wanted a really good picture of her dressed as Minnie. Were a sucker for pictures we buy them all. On our last cruise, the pictures took up almost half of our souvenir money! We get seated in the middle of the back room where we have a good view of the monorail entering the building. Our nice waitress comes and takes our drink orders, and its at this point I freeze. What do we do now? There are characters all around us if I get up Ill miss something. So we sit for a while. Wait those people are eating and they came in after us and theres another family chowing down. How can they just get up from the table like that?!? EVERYBODYS EATING AND WERE JUST SITTING HERE! Wait here comes Minnie Mouse get the cameras and autograph book out. My DH and I already had a planned system in place for the character meals. Im in charge of the autograph book and digital pictures; hes in charge of video. This will work- I know it. Minnie arrives and makes a big deal out of little Minnie. We pose for pictures, she signs the book, and that is that. It was a nice interaction and our first character. I take a peek at her signature which I purposely saved for the 2nd page of the book. First page is undoubtedly saved for the big cheese himself! But waitaminute..waitaminute!! This signature says, MICKEY Mouse! WHAT?? Minnie had signed the WRONG NAME! I guess she was having a personality crisis or a case of schizophrenia that day. Oh well, we laugh about it and decide we dont need Mickey to sign now! Well get Minnie to try again another day. Ok, now one character down, four to go. So we sit we wait do we go get food now? Families around us seem to be enjoying their meals and all we have are beverages. Geesh! I see now why everybody says these character meals are so stressful and I have 8 more booked this week! Mickey is a few tables away and according to their table pattern wont get to us for a while yet. Ok heres my opportunity go hurry look at buffet find plates scoot around Donald Hi Donald! find food for DD run back ok Im here whatd I miss? DH looks at me with sympathetic eyes you missed Mickey. What! Mickey? No! He was the one character I wanted to meet! I got a couple of pictures but no video. Sorry...couldnt do both at the same time. He was really cute with Anna Marie. Great. My DD meets Mickey for the very first time in her life and Im elbow deep in chicken nuggets and funny-shaped mac-n-cheese. I relax a bit and enjoy both the character interaction and the meal. I figure Im going to be seeing these guys a lot in the next 10 days plenty of time for pictures. Speaking of which, the photo guy comes around to show us the results of our photo session. No need to bother looking yes, well take them.
We walk back to our room to drop off the pictures and get DD into regular clothes before heading over to MK. She loves being Minnie (and when I say she is Minnie, she IS Minnie. You have to call her by that name and shes in full character if they ever need a backup CM for one of the costumes, DD would fill in just fine.) So its no surprise that she wants to wear the dress to MK. Ok. She has on tennis shoes and I have extra clothes in case she gets too scratchy or too hot. After all, I dont see her wearing this to our local grocery store at home or maybe I do. We contemplate taking the monorail, but since it stops at TTC, Poly, and GF first, we decide to try out the walkway. Our plan is to rent strollers in the parks, so well see if DD can handle the walk. Let me just stop and say that DH and I were SO impressed in the walking ability of that little girl. We dont do a tremendous amount of walking at home she still uses a stroller at the mall so I figured there would be a lot of carrying her on this walkway. Not so. She trooped through numerous trips to MK and never once needed (or even wanted, cause we offered) to be carried even at 11:30 at night. Go girl! We pass through the turnstiles and DH goes to rent a stroller. He inquires about multi-day passes and buys 10 days with 10% off with his AP. The stroller place is not at all busy and a CM proceeds to give DD about 30 stickers. No kidding. I dont know what he thinks shes going to do with all of those but hes real fun and DD gets a kick out of it. Walking down Main Street, I dont know what to take in first the music, the shops, the happy faces then there it is The Castle all adorned in her 50th golden attire. She was beautiful, and for the second time that day my breath was sucked out of me. (Anyone have any oxygen? Im gettin a little low here.) By now its 7:30 and a few people are lining up for the 9:00 SpectroMagic parade and then Wishes. Since thats the reason for our visit tonight, I told DH we should go ahead and stake out our spot. We find a nice curb off to the side of the Walt/Mickey statue with a direct view of the castle. Were also pretty close to the wire and if Tink is going to fly tonight, I want DD to see her. DH is happy with our parade/fireworks viewing locale because its right in front of a popcorn stand go for it honey. Within a few minutes, a CM comes down the street with one of those ball/balloons. He saw DD in her Minnie dress and came over to play with her. This was quite fun they played catch for quite sometime and many other guests enjoyed the show. Let me interject here that wearing costumes is a big deal. Along with the Minnie dress, DD had several princess dresses that she wore all week. Let me just say that she got an incredible amount of attention by CMs, other guests, and other children. Someone would say, Look, theres Minnie! or Hello, Cinderella! and my DD would wave or curtsey and basically ham it up. It was a tremendous amount of fun and added immensely to the whole Disney experience. After the game of catch, DD was beginning to get a little antsy. It was going on 8:00 and since the parade didnt start for another hour, DH said he would save our curbside seats and suggested I take a walk with DD up to see the castle. See the castle. This is very important, because what happens next, still to this day, both enchants and terrifies me.
"Planning or Obsession...What's the Difference?"
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=857133
"Our Vacation Begins"
http://www.disboards.com/showthread...370#post9138370
Day 1 "Pixie Dust and Panic Attacks" (Part 1)
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=9143210#post9143210
Jana (moi, 40, obsessive planner of this and all trips..think Chevy Chase in the Vacation movies.)
Eric (DH, 41, a big kid at heart, pretty much goes with the flow and can have a good time anywhere as long as theres good food.)
Anna Marie (4 year-old DD and true princess any princess...pick one.)
Donned in Minnie attire, Pal Mickey attached to the backpack, and cameras and autograph book in hand, we walk on over to Chef Mickeys for our 5:00 PS. Going through the upstairs lobby, DD encounters a CM who makes a big deal that Minnie is in his presence. He fawns all over her and gives her a pin from his lanyard. She gets to choose and she picks a cute Winnie-the-Pooh pin. How nice a magic moment! And so soon! Wed only been here 5 hours! (Im really liking this Disney place the beach getting pushed further and further from my mind.) Were early for our PS and a short line has already formed. It moves quickly and we stand for the obligatory picture. They take an extra one of DD which Im sure they do of all children but Im excited about this as I wanted a really good picture of her dressed as Minnie. Were a sucker for pictures we buy them all. On our last cruise, the pictures took up almost half of our souvenir money! We get seated in the middle of the back room where we have a good view of the monorail entering the building. Our nice waitress comes and takes our drink orders, and its at this point I freeze. What do we do now? There are characters all around us if I get up Ill miss something. So we sit for a while. Wait those people are eating and they came in after us and theres another family chowing down. How can they just get up from the table like that?!? EVERYBODYS EATING AND WERE JUST SITTING HERE! Wait here comes Minnie Mouse get the cameras and autograph book out. My DH and I already had a planned system in place for the character meals. Im in charge of the autograph book and digital pictures; hes in charge of video. This will work- I know it. Minnie arrives and makes a big deal out of little Minnie. We pose for pictures, she signs the book, and that is that. It was a nice interaction and our first character. I take a peek at her signature which I purposely saved for the 2nd page of the book. First page is undoubtedly saved for the big cheese himself! But waitaminute..waitaminute!! This signature says, MICKEY Mouse! WHAT?? Minnie had signed the WRONG NAME! I guess she was having a personality crisis or a case of schizophrenia that day. Oh well, we laugh about it and decide we dont need Mickey to sign now! Well get Minnie to try again another day. Ok, now one character down, four to go. So we sit we wait do we go get food now? Families around us seem to be enjoying their meals and all we have are beverages. Geesh! I see now why everybody says these character meals are so stressful and I have 8 more booked this week! Mickey is a few tables away and according to their table pattern wont get to us for a while yet. Ok heres my opportunity go hurry look at buffet find plates scoot around Donald Hi Donald! find food for DD run back ok Im here whatd I miss? DH looks at me with sympathetic eyes you missed Mickey. What! Mickey? No! He was the one character I wanted to meet! I got a couple of pictures but no video. Sorry...couldnt do both at the same time. He was really cute with Anna Marie. Great. My DD meets Mickey for the very first time in her life and Im elbow deep in chicken nuggets and funny-shaped mac-n-cheese. I relax a bit and enjoy both the character interaction and the meal. I figure Im going to be seeing these guys a lot in the next 10 days plenty of time for pictures. Speaking of which, the photo guy comes around to show us the results of our photo session. No need to bother looking yes, well take them.
We walk back to our room to drop off the pictures and get DD into regular clothes before heading over to MK. She loves being Minnie (and when I say she is Minnie, she IS Minnie. You have to call her by that name and shes in full character if they ever need a backup CM for one of the costumes, DD would fill in just fine.) So its no surprise that she wants to wear the dress to MK. Ok. She has on tennis shoes and I have extra clothes in case she gets too scratchy or too hot. After all, I dont see her wearing this to our local grocery store at home or maybe I do. We contemplate taking the monorail, but since it stops at TTC, Poly, and GF first, we decide to try out the walkway. Our plan is to rent strollers in the parks, so well see if DD can handle the walk. Let me just stop and say that DH and I were SO impressed in the walking ability of that little girl. We dont do a tremendous amount of walking at home she still uses a stroller at the mall so I figured there would be a lot of carrying her on this walkway. Not so. She trooped through numerous trips to MK and never once needed (or even wanted, cause we offered) to be carried even at 11:30 at night. Go girl! We pass through the turnstiles and DH goes to rent a stroller. He inquires about multi-day passes and buys 10 days with 10% off with his AP. The stroller place is not at all busy and a CM proceeds to give DD about 30 stickers. No kidding. I dont know what he thinks shes going to do with all of those but hes real fun and DD gets a kick out of it. Walking down Main Street, I dont know what to take in first the music, the shops, the happy faces then there it is The Castle all adorned in her 50th golden attire. She was beautiful, and for the second time that day my breath was sucked out of me. (Anyone have any oxygen? Im gettin a little low here.) By now its 7:30 and a few people are lining up for the 9:00 SpectroMagic parade and then Wishes. Since thats the reason for our visit tonight, I told DH we should go ahead and stake out our spot. We find a nice curb off to the side of the Walt/Mickey statue with a direct view of the castle. Were also pretty close to the wire and if Tink is going to fly tonight, I want DD to see her. DH is happy with our parade/fireworks viewing locale because its right in front of a popcorn stand go for it honey. Within a few minutes, a CM comes down the street with one of those ball/balloons. He saw DD in her Minnie dress and came over to play with her. This was quite fun they played catch for quite sometime and many other guests enjoyed the show. Let me interject here that wearing costumes is a big deal. Along with the Minnie dress, DD had several princess dresses that she wore all week. Let me just say that she got an incredible amount of attention by CMs, other guests, and other children. Someone would say, Look, theres Minnie! or Hello, Cinderella! and my DD would wave or curtsey and basically ham it up. It was a tremendous amount of fun and added immensely to the whole Disney experience. After the game of catch, DD was beginning to get a little antsy. It was going on 8:00 and since the parade didnt start for another hour, DH said he would save our curbside seats and suggested I take a walk with DD up to see the castle. See the castle. This is very important, because what happens next, still to this day, both enchants and terrifies me.
"Planning or Obsession...What's the Difference?"
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=857133
"Our Vacation Begins"
http://www.disboards.com/showthread...370#post9138370
Day 1 "Pixie Dust and Panic Attacks" (Part 1)
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=9143210#post9143210
