Dates: January 1st to January 5th, 2001
Location: Wilderness Lodge
Cast: Trisha (Me - 42 - Mom and avid planner)
Clyde (Dad - 47)
Christina (Daughter - 5 1/2)
Day 2, January 2, 2001 â Epcot and E-night
I woke up early (surprise) and was out of the shower and in my clothes by the time Mickey called. By the clock in the room the call came 10 minutes late (which was to happen every day, by the way, so I learned to put in the times 10 minutes before I wanted them). I put the phone up to ChristinaâÂÂs ear, and she sat straight up in her top bunk with the most interested look on her face! I asked her who it was and she said âÂÂMickeyâÂÂ, then told us what he said. We all got ready in nearly record time. I made a trip down to get coffee and we ate our snack breakfast. IâÂÂd stocked one of our suitcases with snack type breakfast foods, some nutrigrain snack bars, express oatmeal that came in its own bowl, etc. My daughter can eat her weight in oatmeal, so that worked great for her. I made the oatmeal with hot water from the sink, but I did notice two microwaves down in Roaring Forks. We left our Mousekeeping tip by the sink, then headed to the bus stop shortly after 7:00, stopping on the way to fill up our refillable mug with hot cocoa to have at the bus stop. Just as we got out the door of the Lodge we realized that we needed our camcorder for the character meal. Clyde raced back up to the room for it, and Christina took time to check out the Villas. The lobby area is very nice, and the workout room looked great for those who like such things. It costs $12 a day or something like $25 for the whole stay. We finally all got out to the bus stop by 7:20. It was frigid out this morning, so we huddled in our coats and gloves to wait for our bus!
We had a longer wait for the bus than I would have liked, but it was really only about 15 minutes. It seemed longer because of all the other buses that came while we were waiting. I counted 3 AK buses, 4 Boone buses, 3 Crockett buses and 1 Studios bus. Finally, the Epcot bus arrived! We got a seat and headed off, arriving at Epcot just before 8:00.
We worked our way over to Test Track. The standby line only had a 15 minute wait and we were going to use it, then we were told that the ride was down! We broke out of line and got fast passes for later in the morning (8:40 â 9:40, I think). We moved over to the Wonders of Life pavilion. Clyde and I took turns on Body Wars since Christina refused to go on. While I rode, she and Clyde watched some of the Goofy movies they show. When Clyde took his turn we did some of the activities in the Sensory section, then watched The Making of Me. We enjoyed Body Wars but thought it was awfully short! The Making of Me was cute, but not something I plan to repeat. We were unable to convince Christina to go on Cranium Command, so we left to do our fast passes on Test Track.
Test Track was great! We ended up doing the baby swap on this, because Christina again refused to go on. It was too bad, because judging from the rides that she enjoyed later I think she would have loved Test Track. Clyde and I both enjoyed it and would have gone again if the wait had been reasonable, but it never was the rest of the day!
After Test Track we headed over to the other side of Future World to go to the Living Seas. On the way, we went into Innoventions (West?) on that side of the park. It had some interesting things in it. Of note to video games fans would be the Sega exhibit with games that they had there. Since none of us are into this we skipped it, but I saw lots of people seeming to have a really great time!
We found the Living Seas quite interesting. My husband and child love aquariums of all sorts, so this was right up their alley. Toward the end of our visit, they were doing a dolphin trial, where they are teaching the dolphins âÂÂtricksâÂÂ. It was late starting and I wanted to check in for our 11:00 breakfast at Garden Grill, so I left them to watch and headed over to the Land.
Everyone met up at 11:00 and we got the last breakfast seating at the Garden Grill. The breakfast here was quite good. Even Christina found something to eat, chowing down on cheese grits, sausage, smoked pork chop and fruit. Clyde and I loved the eggs and breakfast potatoes, and I really enjoyed the sausage gravy on my biscuit and eggs (itâÂÂs a southern thing!). Also good were the cinnamon rolls, oj, and coffee. We saw Pluto first, followed by Dale, Mickey, and Chip. We got good autographs and pictures. Mickey was especially animated, in fact we had the best time with him we have ever had! Christina kissed him and he pretended to faint! As a note to parents, be sure to seat your child on the outside of the table! Our attack plan for character meals is to have me armed with the still camera and Clyde working the video camera. This worked out great for us!
After stuffing ourselves at breakfast we headed for World Showcase. Our priorities here were to let Christina show Mexico to her Daddy, visit each passport/kidcot station, and let me feel like I had a bit of time in each country! Christina did have a good time showing the sights to her Dad that sheâÂÂd seen the day before. She made a big production out of showing him Mexico and telling him the volcano wasnâÂÂt going to scare him! The boat ride had only a 5 minute or so wait, and we all enjoyed the ride. We spent some time in the shops, trying on straw hats and sombreros and such. Since weâÂÂd gotten the Mexico passport stamp yesterday we didnâÂÂt have to stop for that!
We moved on to Norway, where Christina had a great time climbing on the Viking ship. Since ClydeâÂÂs motherâÂÂs family is from Norway he seemed to enjoy this pavilion a lot, and we took a number of pictures. We all really enjoyed the Stave Church, which IâÂÂd never even seen before. We also enjoyed the Maelstrom, although the wait was quite lengthy (IâÂÂd say 20 minutes) as well as the movie of Norway. After leaving the movie we found the Kidcot station. Christina started her mask, and got a necklace for it with her initials in Viking letters! We spent some time looking around the gift shop (be sure to rub the nose of the troll for good luck) and almost bought a viking helmet with braids for Christina â she just looked so cute in it!
Next on our trip was China. We found the kidcot stop here inside the temple building. The CM there was great, she not only stamped the mask but wrote on the stick and told us what ChristinaâÂÂs birth year was â turns out to be the year of the boar! In the same building the acrobats were performing. I held Christina on my shoulders at the back of the crowd and she saw about half the show. Clyde had gone over to watch while we worked on the passport/mask so he saw more of it. They both were really impressed by this show! On our last trip they had been performing outside, so I presume they were driven indoors by the extreme cold! It certainly made viewing more enjoyable for us.
We wandered past the African outpost after spending some time playing with some puppets on sale outside of China. Christina did a half-hearted try with the drums in Africa, but said it was too hard! In Germany we had a very hard time finding the Kidcot section. We wandered around a lot, and ended up in the toy shop. Christina spent a long time looking at the dolls. I was planning to buy her one of the custom made dolls here, but she really didnâÂÂt seem all that interested in them. She had her heart set on a Japanese Minnie sheâÂÂd seen when we entered Epcot, and nothing else really grabbed her like that. I wasnâÂÂt keen on spending $120 on a doll she wasnâÂÂt excited about, so we passed! We finally found the Kidcot section behind the area where the Oompah band had been playing when we arrived. We did some more mask work and passport stamping here. Clyde spent that time looking around a bit. After the mask was done, I wandered into the wine shop. They had a Gluhwein tasting for $4, and the warm wine looked wonderful! I tried it and it was fantastic! Just the thing to warm one up on a cold day.
After Germany we had a small child meltdown. She really wanted that Japanese Minnie and we had a hard time convincing her to go on with us and finish the circuit. We ended up promising that weâÂÂd pick it up on the way out if she cooperated with us the rest of the day! Small bribery finally worked, and we moved on.
Next up was Italy. There were some costumed performers here, but they were leaving just as we arrived. At the Kidcot section here they had the hit of the day â feathers for the mask! Christina spent a long time gluing red, white, and green feathers around the edges of her mask! We spent some time getting some pictures here before moving on!
Next was the American Adventure. We had VIP passes to the American Express Lounge, but there was a Voices of Liberty show just about to start and we wanted to catch that, so we went into the Rotunda. We all enjoyed this show. Later we started to do the Lounge, but I was afraid weâÂÂd miss the next AmAd show and I didnâÂÂt want to waste any unnecessary time, so we just went on into the theatre. I enjoyed this show, but Christina was kind of grumpy and I think she thought it was too long. But she did leave singing the music, so maybe she liked it better than I thought!
Outside the American Pavilion we got some bead decorations for the mask, then headed on to the next country. We had to do some more âÂÂtalkingâ with Christina to get her to come with us, but Clyde managed to get her moving again. We checked our time and had only about 50 minutes before we needed to check in at Canada for our Le Cellier PS. We needed to really hoof it through the next 5 countries.
In Japan the KidCot section was covered over with kids! We finally got up to the CM and got a paper butterfly for our mask and our passport stamped. Christina had another spell here because she wanted to cut out the butterfly (it was triangular in shape) and we didnâÂÂt have any scissors. But the promise of the Minnie got her going again.
Next was Morocco. We found the Kidcot section and did some more coloring on our mask. Christina was interested in the Arabic writing, especially the fact that it was written backwards! On to France! We had spent some time here waiting for our PS yesterday, so all we did was find the Kidcot stop (back in the very back inside the far back shop) and decorate mask. IâÂÂd seen the France film (in fact IâÂÂd seen all the films last trip), so didnâÂÂt care very much that we missed it, even though it is my favorite of all the films. It turns out that Clyde didnâÂÂt even know about this film, since IâÂÂd watched it one afternoon while he and Christina went to the room to rest! Oh well, there is always the next trip!
We checked time again and figured we needed to rush straight on to Canada to check in. We did so, then had a fairly good wait (IâÂÂd guess a half hour) before being seated. Christina used the time to run around in the garden area and burned off a lot of her energy! She was definitely in a better mood by the time we were seated. We all enjoyed this meal and restaurant. We got a table near the fireplace, so were nice and warm for the first time today! I thought the atmosphere here was the best weâÂÂd seen in Epcot, but it was largely because the tables werenâÂÂt so jammed together! I hate to be crowded and feel that the closeness of the tables takes away from many of the WS restaurants. For our meals we had: Cheddar Cheese Soup and mushroom stuffed filet with mashed potatoes (Me), Shrimp Cocktail Martini and NY Strip with Au Gratin Potatoes (Clyde) and ChildâÂÂs Steak with french fries and grapes (Christina). I also had a glass of the Syrah with my meal, while Christina had Sprite in her Epcot souvenir cup. The meals were very good (my filet wasnâÂÂt as tender as the one in France last night, but was still very good). The breadsticks and soup were particularly great!
After thoroughly enjoying our meals we split up. Clyde wanted to see the Canada movie and Christina and I needed to bag the last 2 passport stamps and mask fixings! We hit the Canada kidcot stop first. We got the passport stamped and attached a maple leaf to our mask. Then we headed for UK. We found the Kidcot stop back in the back of the shop area. The CM there was from Liverpool, and very nice. She told Christina that she was the first child sheâÂÂd seen today with all the countries stamped in the passport. This really made my competitive child happy! And, wonder of wonders, we found cut out butterflies to attach to our mask. Our day was now complete!
Upon leaving the UK shop area we discovered that the TON was just about to arrive in the UK. We rushed up and secured the best spot we could to see this fantastic parade again. Christina enjoyed it, but since we were further back this time she didnâÂÂt get as much puppet attention. I however really enjoyed seeing this again. An unexpected bonus for me!
After the parade we headed back to Canada to meet up with Clyde. Fortunately he was just coming out when we arrived. We all walked back out of WS, then stopped just past the lighted archway to buy the famous Japanese Minnie! We also picked up a Millenium CD for me! Then we took pictures as we left, gave the 2 VIP passes to a family we passed coming in and caught the monorail for the MK. E night was tonight!
We got the monorail, made the change at the TTC, and got into MK about 7:40. This was about 1 ý hours after we really wanted to be there, but whatever. Christina was begging for a stroller by now, and we thought it would help us all out to get one. Meanwhile I got in line to change out our tickets for wristbands. The line was enormous, which turned out to be a good thing since you all have to be present to get the wristbands. Fortunately, Clyde and Christina returned by the time we got close to the end of the line. When we reached the front of the line, we discovered that the CM at WL hadnâÂÂt done our tickets right. It was aggravating, because of just handing over the separate ticket like we were supposed to we had to have all our room/ticket information written down by hand. So, if you go to an e night be sure your resort CM gives you a separate ticket!
By now the fireworks were over and great masses of people are heading down Main Street to the exits! And we had to maneuver our stroller against this flow of thousands! I turned the stroller over to Clyde and tried to clear a path through the mass of bodies. Let me tell you, as a person who isnâÂÂt happy in crowds this was no fun! We finally got to the front of the Crystal Palace, and cut across there over the new bridge into Liberty Square. We took a short cut that came out between Liberty Tree Tavern and the Diamond Horseshoe. It was livable on this route! We then had a pow-wow and decided to do the Country Bears Christmas Show first. It was only 10 minutes away from starting, so we went into the nice warm heating area to wait. We all enjoyed this show a lot!
Then we had to go back out into the frigid air to brave the rest of e night. We had planned to do Splash Mountain (at least Clyde and Christina had â I hate that drop), but we hadnâÂÂt brought the ponchos with us and they decided it was too cold! So I went on Big Thunder Mountain RR by myself (Christina refused again). It was a walk-on, and riding for the first time at night was a real trip! I loved it. I went back to let Clyde go on, only to find out that Christina was really miserably cold and wanted to go home. She really did look miserable, so I reluctantly agreed to go back.
It was a real bummer to have to leave. I expected us to get all the long wait rides out of the way this night so that we had more time for other attractions the next time we were in MK. Plus, it was a waste of money on a trip that needed to be very frugal! But it didnâÂÂt seem right to make my child suffer, so out we went! We got the last express monorail to the TTC (boats werenâÂÂt running to WL) and then got a bus over to WL. We got back to the Lodge around 9:45. Our maid had left a âÂÂwater slideâ arrangement with ChristinaâÂÂs beanie babies, which was really cute! Also, IâÂÂd ordered a fruit basket with 2 beanies (Piglet and Tigger) and an activity set to be delivered, and it was in our room when we got back!
I went down to Roaring Forks and got hot tea for me in my refillable mug. Clyde said he wanted some too, so I sprang for a new refillable mug! Went back up and played in the room a bit. I also logged my laptop in and checked emails and the boards before turning in around 10:45. As a note to any others planning to take their computers, be sure to dial the area code even for a âÂÂLocal access numberâÂÂ. If Clyde hadnâÂÂt recommended that I never would have gotten logged in, since the area code is not required at home. We left a wake up call for 6:30 so that we could make it to our 7:30 PS at Artist Point in the morning.
TodayâÂÂs Damage
Fruit Basket from WDW Florist $ 80.70
Late Breakfast Garden Grill $ 50.00
Gluhwein $ 4.00
Gummy Bears $ 3.00
Le Cellier Dinner $ 90.00
Japanese Minnie & CD $ 28.60
Maid Tip $ 3.00
Refillable Mug, cookie at WL $ 12.00
Total for today $ 271.30
Running total $2251.61
Location: Wilderness Lodge
Cast: Trisha (Me - 42 - Mom and avid planner)
Clyde (Dad - 47)
Christina (Daughter - 5 1/2)
Day 2, January 2, 2001 â Epcot and E-night
I woke up early (surprise) and was out of the shower and in my clothes by the time Mickey called. By the clock in the room the call came 10 minutes late (which was to happen every day, by the way, so I learned to put in the times 10 minutes before I wanted them). I put the phone up to ChristinaâÂÂs ear, and she sat straight up in her top bunk with the most interested look on her face! I asked her who it was and she said âÂÂMickeyâÂÂ, then told us what he said. We all got ready in nearly record time. I made a trip down to get coffee and we ate our snack breakfast. IâÂÂd stocked one of our suitcases with snack type breakfast foods, some nutrigrain snack bars, express oatmeal that came in its own bowl, etc. My daughter can eat her weight in oatmeal, so that worked great for her. I made the oatmeal with hot water from the sink, but I did notice two microwaves down in Roaring Forks. We left our Mousekeeping tip by the sink, then headed to the bus stop shortly after 7:00, stopping on the way to fill up our refillable mug with hot cocoa to have at the bus stop. Just as we got out the door of the Lodge we realized that we needed our camcorder for the character meal. Clyde raced back up to the room for it, and Christina took time to check out the Villas. The lobby area is very nice, and the workout room looked great for those who like such things. It costs $12 a day or something like $25 for the whole stay. We finally all got out to the bus stop by 7:20. It was frigid out this morning, so we huddled in our coats and gloves to wait for our bus!
We had a longer wait for the bus than I would have liked, but it was really only about 15 minutes. It seemed longer because of all the other buses that came while we were waiting. I counted 3 AK buses, 4 Boone buses, 3 Crockett buses and 1 Studios bus. Finally, the Epcot bus arrived! We got a seat and headed off, arriving at Epcot just before 8:00.
We worked our way over to Test Track. The standby line only had a 15 minute wait and we were going to use it, then we were told that the ride was down! We broke out of line and got fast passes for later in the morning (8:40 â 9:40, I think). We moved over to the Wonders of Life pavilion. Clyde and I took turns on Body Wars since Christina refused to go on. While I rode, she and Clyde watched some of the Goofy movies they show. When Clyde took his turn we did some of the activities in the Sensory section, then watched The Making of Me. We enjoyed Body Wars but thought it was awfully short! The Making of Me was cute, but not something I plan to repeat. We were unable to convince Christina to go on Cranium Command, so we left to do our fast passes on Test Track.
Test Track was great! We ended up doing the baby swap on this, because Christina again refused to go on. It was too bad, because judging from the rides that she enjoyed later I think she would have loved Test Track. Clyde and I both enjoyed it and would have gone again if the wait had been reasonable, but it never was the rest of the day!
After Test Track we headed over to the other side of Future World to go to the Living Seas. On the way, we went into Innoventions (West?) on that side of the park. It had some interesting things in it. Of note to video games fans would be the Sega exhibit with games that they had there. Since none of us are into this we skipped it, but I saw lots of people seeming to have a really great time!
We found the Living Seas quite interesting. My husband and child love aquariums of all sorts, so this was right up their alley. Toward the end of our visit, they were doing a dolphin trial, where they are teaching the dolphins âÂÂtricksâÂÂ. It was late starting and I wanted to check in for our 11:00 breakfast at Garden Grill, so I left them to watch and headed over to the Land.
Everyone met up at 11:00 and we got the last breakfast seating at the Garden Grill. The breakfast here was quite good. Even Christina found something to eat, chowing down on cheese grits, sausage, smoked pork chop and fruit. Clyde and I loved the eggs and breakfast potatoes, and I really enjoyed the sausage gravy on my biscuit and eggs (itâÂÂs a southern thing!). Also good were the cinnamon rolls, oj, and coffee. We saw Pluto first, followed by Dale, Mickey, and Chip. We got good autographs and pictures. Mickey was especially animated, in fact we had the best time with him we have ever had! Christina kissed him and he pretended to faint! As a note to parents, be sure to seat your child on the outside of the table! Our attack plan for character meals is to have me armed with the still camera and Clyde working the video camera. This worked out great for us!
After stuffing ourselves at breakfast we headed for World Showcase. Our priorities here were to let Christina show Mexico to her Daddy, visit each passport/kidcot station, and let me feel like I had a bit of time in each country! Christina did have a good time showing the sights to her Dad that sheâÂÂd seen the day before. She made a big production out of showing him Mexico and telling him the volcano wasnâÂÂt going to scare him! The boat ride had only a 5 minute or so wait, and we all enjoyed the ride. We spent some time in the shops, trying on straw hats and sombreros and such. Since weâÂÂd gotten the Mexico passport stamp yesterday we didnâÂÂt have to stop for that!
We moved on to Norway, where Christina had a great time climbing on the Viking ship. Since ClydeâÂÂs motherâÂÂs family is from Norway he seemed to enjoy this pavilion a lot, and we took a number of pictures. We all really enjoyed the Stave Church, which IâÂÂd never even seen before. We also enjoyed the Maelstrom, although the wait was quite lengthy (IâÂÂd say 20 minutes) as well as the movie of Norway. After leaving the movie we found the Kidcot station. Christina started her mask, and got a necklace for it with her initials in Viking letters! We spent some time looking around the gift shop (be sure to rub the nose of the troll for good luck) and almost bought a viking helmet with braids for Christina â she just looked so cute in it!
Next on our trip was China. We found the kidcot stop here inside the temple building. The CM there was great, she not only stamped the mask but wrote on the stick and told us what ChristinaâÂÂs birth year was â turns out to be the year of the boar! In the same building the acrobats were performing. I held Christina on my shoulders at the back of the crowd and she saw about half the show. Clyde had gone over to watch while we worked on the passport/mask so he saw more of it. They both were really impressed by this show! On our last trip they had been performing outside, so I presume they were driven indoors by the extreme cold! It certainly made viewing more enjoyable for us.
We wandered past the African outpost after spending some time playing with some puppets on sale outside of China. Christina did a half-hearted try with the drums in Africa, but said it was too hard! In Germany we had a very hard time finding the Kidcot section. We wandered around a lot, and ended up in the toy shop. Christina spent a long time looking at the dolls. I was planning to buy her one of the custom made dolls here, but she really didnâÂÂt seem all that interested in them. She had her heart set on a Japanese Minnie sheâÂÂd seen when we entered Epcot, and nothing else really grabbed her like that. I wasnâÂÂt keen on spending $120 on a doll she wasnâÂÂt excited about, so we passed! We finally found the Kidcot section behind the area where the Oompah band had been playing when we arrived. We did some more mask work and passport stamping here. Clyde spent that time looking around a bit. After the mask was done, I wandered into the wine shop. They had a Gluhwein tasting for $4, and the warm wine looked wonderful! I tried it and it was fantastic! Just the thing to warm one up on a cold day.
After Germany we had a small child meltdown. She really wanted that Japanese Minnie and we had a hard time convincing her to go on with us and finish the circuit. We ended up promising that weâÂÂd pick it up on the way out if she cooperated with us the rest of the day! Small bribery finally worked, and we moved on.
Next up was Italy. There were some costumed performers here, but they were leaving just as we arrived. At the Kidcot section here they had the hit of the day â feathers for the mask! Christina spent a long time gluing red, white, and green feathers around the edges of her mask! We spent some time getting some pictures here before moving on!
Next was the American Adventure. We had VIP passes to the American Express Lounge, but there was a Voices of Liberty show just about to start and we wanted to catch that, so we went into the Rotunda. We all enjoyed this show. Later we started to do the Lounge, but I was afraid weâÂÂd miss the next AmAd show and I didnâÂÂt want to waste any unnecessary time, so we just went on into the theatre. I enjoyed this show, but Christina was kind of grumpy and I think she thought it was too long. But she did leave singing the music, so maybe she liked it better than I thought!
Outside the American Pavilion we got some bead decorations for the mask, then headed on to the next country. We had to do some more âÂÂtalkingâ with Christina to get her to come with us, but Clyde managed to get her moving again. We checked our time and had only about 50 minutes before we needed to check in at Canada for our Le Cellier PS. We needed to really hoof it through the next 5 countries.
In Japan the KidCot section was covered over with kids! We finally got up to the CM and got a paper butterfly for our mask and our passport stamped. Christina had another spell here because she wanted to cut out the butterfly (it was triangular in shape) and we didnâÂÂt have any scissors. But the promise of the Minnie got her going again.
Next was Morocco. We found the Kidcot section and did some more coloring on our mask. Christina was interested in the Arabic writing, especially the fact that it was written backwards! On to France! We had spent some time here waiting for our PS yesterday, so all we did was find the Kidcot stop (back in the very back inside the far back shop) and decorate mask. IâÂÂd seen the France film (in fact IâÂÂd seen all the films last trip), so didnâÂÂt care very much that we missed it, even though it is my favorite of all the films. It turns out that Clyde didnâÂÂt even know about this film, since IâÂÂd watched it one afternoon while he and Christina went to the room to rest! Oh well, there is always the next trip!
We checked time again and figured we needed to rush straight on to Canada to check in. We did so, then had a fairly good wait (IâÂÂd guess a half hour) before being seated. Christina used the time to run around in the garden area and burned off a lot of her energy! She was definitely in a better mood by the time we were seated. We all enjoyed this meal and restaurant. We got a table near the fireplace, so were nice and warm for the first time today! I thought the atmosphere here was the best weâÂÂd seen in Epcot, but it was largely because the tables werenâÂÂt so jammed together! I hate to be crowded and feel that the closeness of the tables takes away from many of the WS restaurants. For our meals we had: Cheddar Cheese Soup and mushroom stuffed filet with mashed potatoes (Me), Shrimp Cocktail Martini and NY Strip with Au Gratin Potatoes (Clyde) and ChildâÂÂs Steak with french fries and grapes (Christina). I also had a glass of the Syrah with my meal, while Christina had Sprite in her Epcot souvenir cup. The meals were very good (my filet wasnâÂÂt as tender as the one in France last night, but was still very good). The breadsticks and soup were particularly great!
After thoroughly enjoying our meals we split up. Clyde wanted to see the Canada movie and Christina and I needed to bag the last 2 passport stamps and mask fixings! We hit the Canada kidcot stop first. We got the passport stamped and attached a maple leaf to our mask. Then we headed for UK. We found the Kidcot stop back in the back of the shop area. The CM there was from Liverpool, and very nice. She told Christina that she was the first child sheâÂÂd seen today with all the countries stamped in the passport. This really made my competitive child happy! And, wonder of wonders, we found cut out butterflies to attach to our mask. Our day was now complete!
Upon leaving the UK shop area we discovered that the TON was just about to arrive in the UK. We rushed up and secured the best spot we could to see this fantastic parade again. Christina enjoyed it, but since we were further back this time she didnâÂÂt get as much puppet attention. I however really enjoyed seeing this again. An unexpected bonus for me!
After the parade we headed back to Canada to meet up with Clyde. Fortunately he was just coming out when we arrived. We all walked back out of WS, then stopped just past the lighted archway to buy the famous Japanese Minnie! We also picked up a Millenium CD for me! Then we took pictures as we left, gave the 2 VIP passes to a family we passed coming in and caught the monorail for the MK. E night was tonight!
We got the monorail, made the change at the TTC, and got into MK about 7:40. This was about 1 ý hours after we really wanted to be there, but whatever. Christina was begging for a stroller by now, and we thought it would help us all out to get one. Meanwhile I got in line to change out our tickets for wristbands. The line was enormous, which turned out to be a good thing since you all have to be present to get the wristbands. Fortunately, Clyde and Christina returned by the time we got close to the end of the line. When we reached the front of the line, we discovered that the CM at WL hadnâÂÂt done our tickets right. It was aggravating, because of just handing over the separate ticket like we were supposed to we had to have all our room/ticket information written down by hand. So, if you go to an e night be sure your resort CM gives you a separate ticket!
By now the fireworks were over and great masses of people are heading down Main Street to the exits! And we had to maneuver our stroller against this flow of thousands! I turned the stroller over to Clyde and tried to clear a path through the mass of bodies. Let me tell you, as a person who isnâÂÂt happy in crowds this was no fun! We finally got to the front of the Crystal Palace, and cut across there over the new bridge into Liberty Square. We took a short cut that came out between Liberty Tree Tavern and the Diamond Horseshoe. It was livable on this route! We then had a pow-wow and decided to do the Country Bears Christmas Show first. It was only 10 minutes away from starting, so we went into the nice warm heating area to wait. We all enjoyed this show a lot!
Then we had to go back out into the frigid air to brave the rest of e night. We had planned to do Splash Mountain (at least Clyde and Christina had â I hate that drop), but we hadnâÂÂt brought the ponchos with us and they decided it was too cold! So I went on Big Thunder Mountain RR by myself (Christina refused again). It was a walk-on, and riding for the first time at night was a real trip! I loved it. I went back to let Clyde go on, only to find out that Christina was really miserably cold and wanted to go home. She really did look miserable, so I reluctantly agreed to go back.
It was a real bummer to have to leave. I expected us to get all the long wait rides out of the way this night so that we had more time for other attractions the next time we were in MK. Plus, it was a waste of money on a trip that needed to be very frugal! But it didnâÂÂt seem right to make my child suffer, so out we went! We got the last express monorail to the TTC (boats werenâÂÂt running to WL) and then got a bus over to WL. We got back to the Lodge around 9:45. Our maid had left a âÂÂwater slideâ arrangement with ChristinaâÂÂs beanie babies, which was really cute! Also, IâÂÂd ordered a fruit basket with 2 beanies (Piglet and Tigger) and an activity set to be delivered, and it was in our room when we got back!
I went down to Roaring Forks and got hot tea for me in my refillable mug. Clyde said he wanted some too, so I sprang for a new refillable mug! Went back up and played in the room a bit. I also logged my laptop in and checked emails and the boards before turning in around 10:45. As a note to any others planning to take their computers, be sure to dial the area code even for a âÂÂLocal access numberâÂÂ. If Clyde hadnâÂÂt recommended that I never would have gotten logged in, since the area code is not required at home. We left a wake up call for 6:30 so that we could make it to our 7:30 PS at Artist Point in the morning.
TodayâÂÂs Damage
Fruit Basket from WDW Florist $ 80.70
Late Breakfast Garden Grill $ 50.00
Gluhwein $ 4.00
Gummy Bears $ 3.00
Le Cellier Dinner $ 90.00
Japanese Minnie & CD $ 28.60
Maid Tip $ 3.00
Refillable Mug, cookie at WL $ 12.00
Total for today $ 271.30
Running total $2251.61
Sounds like fun so far!! 
