Lollipop Mom's Disney Trip Part 3 - 12/31 Monorail, Monorail! Our perfect Disney Day

[Lollipop Mom]

December 31, 2003 … Monorail Monorail!!! Our perfect Disney Day!

Before bed last night Mom and Dad told us they weren’t up for an early morning. I think they were shocked that I was encouraging early mornings. I’ve never been a big morning person. I explained several times that it is important that we get there as close to, if not before, park opening as we can. That we can do a nap later but being there early is key! We decided that David and I would do the early morning thing with the kids and they would meet us later.

6:30 am. DH cracks jokes about not believing I am voluntarily awake and moving about on my own. Ha ha…funny guy. We get the kids up. Initial reaction from Brandon is “why do we have to do this!” We remind him what is waiting for him and he perks right up.

David thinks we should go to the Magic Kingdom this morning and get some “big stuff” like Buzz out of the way and then go on to the Animal Kingdom as we had planned. I explain that New Years Eve is single busiest day of the year and that there will be more people out early b/c they’ve all been told “get to the Magic Kingdom early or you won’t be able to get in.” He still thinks this is the best idea so we head to the MK again. It’s not a good sign when we arrive at 7:54 are parked in Goofy 46; only 7 rows closer than we were the day prior and that was at 9:30. We hoof it to the TTC since David doesn’t want to fool with the stroller on a tram and it’s only a 5-minute walk. We get there and see the HUGE line for the monorail again today. We stand in that line for a couple of minutes when I start thinking about what the MK will be like. I gently remind him if the anticipated crowds and how full it is at park opening (I have no idea if the MK had extra magic hour today or not but that shouldn’t matter b/c resort guests wouldn’t be standing in this line to get on the monorail at the TTC, they’d be dropped off right at the MK). I suggest that we hop out of line and take the monorail on over to Epcot. David agrees so we break free and jump over to the empty queue for an Epcot monorail.

The slight disappointment Brandon feels when we tell him we aren’t going to the MK is quickly replaced when he realizes he’s about to board a monorail!!! To put a cherry on that sundae, we are able to ride up front with the driver! This is like a dream come true for Brandon. He grins ear to ear the entire way to Epcot and tells us when he grows up he’s going to be a monorail driver! This began Brandon’s love affair with the Monorails. He was on constant “Monorail watch” the rest of the trip. He would see one and exclaim “MONORAIL! MONORAIL!” We determined that this must be said as loud as possible and must be said twice no matter what. Connor also became an expert monorail spotter only he pointed them out and said “choo choo!”

Epcot looks much more manageable! The character caravan is just arriving at the park entrance as the monorail pulls in. We noticed that it looks pretty empty over near Journey Into the Imagination so that’s where we head. We pass by Spaceship Earth and it’s a walk on so we go ahead and stop there. Connor LOVES the ride, Brandon says it’s OK but the whole in the dark and going up a hill made him a bit nervous (guess it was a Thunder Mountain flash back!).

After Spaceship Earth it was on to Journey Into the Imagination. Estimated wait time…2 minutes. This is more like it! Both kids seem to enjoy the ride. Connor was quite taken with Figment. We spent a few minutes at Imagination Works afterward. Brandon and I took a picture to email to family, friends and the girls on a parenting board I frequent. I did not get to morph the picture as much as I’d wanted to because Brandon was anxious to move on to something else.

Now it’s on to Living Seas. On our way in we pass see Nemo and some big tall coral on rollerskates out for photos. Brandon is for some reason afraid to go up to Nemo. Nemo is a hard plastic character that is motorized and rolling around (is there someone IN there or is it being remotely driven? Maybe by coral on rollerskates?). After Nemo has to go inside (he’d been out of water for quite a while…had to get back) I take pics of the boys sitting in front of a garden that is decorated with Nemo characters. Wait time for Living Seas, 10 minutes. This is another popular one. It’s one of my favorite exhibits so I could have spent much more time there but the natives were getting restless, and hungry!

The fruit snacks and cereal bars packed in my “magical fix everything bag” weren’t appealing to anyone so we decided to head to The Land and see if anyone was serving lunch yet. It was only 10:20 so we weren’t sure what to expect. As we get downstairs to the food court we grab fast passes for Living With the Land and sit down by the fountain. By the looks of it the Soup and Sandwich place is serving and that is it. David kept the kids happy with bubbles and pennies for the fountain while I got us lunch. The line to get lunch was the longest line I stood in all day. I bet I waited about 40 minutes.

After lunch we went to go see Food Rocks. We got to the waiting room area just after another group had gone in so it’s pretty empty. Connor was in desperate need of some unrestricted floor time so he was happy to get to run around. Brandon and I danced to the music and entertained the handful of other people who were waiting with us. After I while I sat and played with Connor while Brandon continued to dance. The doors open for us to go in and we find seats. Brandon loves the show, giggling up a storm at the dancing food. Connor on the other hand is fading fast. He can barely keep his eyes open. By the end, he was completely and totally zonked. We couldn’t have woken him if we wanted to!

Look at that! Perfect timing! Time for our fast passes to Living With the Land. We zip right past everyone in the standby line to literally walk right onto a boat. This is David’s kind of thing. His bachelor’s degree is in landscape architecture so the whole “plant thing” was fascinating to him. Brandon loved the ride too. David makes me promise that he can do the “Behind the Seeds” tour when we come back in May. The Flower and Garden Festival will be going on then so there will be plenty of garden-y things to do for him. Connor continued to sleep through the whole thing.

Connor woke as we were leaving The Land pavilion. We headed to Ice Station Cool thinking the kids would like that. Not such a great idea. They are tired and starting to get fussy so we decide to head out. On our way out we watch the drummers do their show…, which Brandon loved and danced away to. The crowds are really starting to pick up now that it’s lunch time. The Space Ship Earth line is 30 minutes. The wait for Test Track is 3 hours. THREE HOURS! Do these people not see that the sign says that the fast pass return time is in just less than 4 hours? Maybe they all already have fast passes to Mission Space and are waiting here to kill time?

We decided the kids needed a little break so after taking the monorail back to the TTC, we decided to the resort loop of the monorail. It is pretty much empty and we have a monorail car to ourselves so the kids can move around a bit. Brandon loves having “train time” and David and I liked seeing some of the resorts. One good thing about this trip is that he is no longer saying that “maybe we should stay off site and save some money.” Now he says, “what ever it costs, it’s worth twice that for the convenience of staying on site.” He even asks about how much the monorail line resorts are. Brandon fell in love with the Contemporary during this little ride. He tells us this is where the Monorail lives and he should come here and visit it in May. For the rest of the trip he loved pointing out the “Monorail House” to us anytime he saw it. Once our loop is done we decide to just take a bus to the Animal Kingdom rather than driving. We walk over to the bus line and sit down. I break out a brownie we didn’t eat at lunch and we snack on that while we wait for a bus. Between the break and the sugar rush, the kids are ready to go again! On the way I chat with Mom on the cell phone and we decide they will skip today in the parks and just meet us for dinner. They are having a nice relaxing day and are touring Celebration when we talk.

As we are walking in to the park we see Mickey and Goofy on a truck dancing and waving at everyone. Once we get into the park, we pick up a map and times guide and decide to head back to the Safari ride to get fast passes. We get there and there are no more fast passes. It’s about 2:00 or so and the last truck leaves at 4:30 b/c of early sunset. We decide to go ahead and do the line. The sign says 40 minutes. I’d say we waited 20 tops. Both the kids loved this ride and seeing all the animals. We got stopped for some reason among the simataurs (Sp?). We waited probably about 5-10 minutes before we could get moving again. Before we started moving they came pretty close to the truck to check us out. The kids loved this! We got great pictures of the female lion (the male was sleeping with his back to us), the zebras, giraffes, a hippo, wildebeest and some monkeys (and of course our friends the simataurs). As soon as we got off Brandon was asking to go again. We did a little bit of the trail but most of the animals seemed to be sleeping. After that it was time to cop a spot for the parade. We got ice cream and looked for a spot. Brandon got a Mickey Bar and Connor, who is a banana lover, got a frozen chocolate covered banana. We quickly found a front row seat for the parade and sat down to wait. The little boy in the stroller next to ours was playing with some plastic dinosaurs. After I while I think he and Connor were working on a nonverbal deal to arrange a friendly banana for dinosaur trade.

The kids thoroughly enjoyed the parade, our first of the trip. Brandon was a little disappointed that Timon didn’t come by our side of the street but that was quickly made “all better” when Chip and Dale did! Chip (I think!) stopped and played with Connor for a few minutes. We got a couple of great pictures of this.

After the parade we took some time looking at the Tree of Life before heading to DinoLand. On the walk over Brandon announces that he would like to make a purchase with his Disney Dollars. He wants a Mickey bottle topper and strap. We find a cart and let him count out his money and make his purchase. Of course we must also get one for Connor because with 2 small kids, my life is a constant struggle to keep all things exactly equal. These things are actually a good purchase for us. It keeps them from wanting to hold the bottle and turn it up to drink (which of course always ends with a big spill and a wet sticky kid).

I know a lot of people don’t like Dino Land b/c of its carnival look and feel. I actually thought it was fun. It’s Disney themeing gone mad! It’s supposed to be tacky and kitschy; that’s what they intended. The lines here are next to nothing with the kiddie rides being walk ons. We rode Triceratops Spin twice with the boys then did a baby swap to ride Primeval Whirl. After that Brandon wanted to go to the Boneyard to play and Connor wanted to ride Triceratops Spin some more so we split up. Connor and I told Brandon and David we’d meet them at the Boneyard in 20 minutes. In that time we rode Triceratops Spin 3 or 4 more times. Each time we only had to wait for one ride before we were back on. Connor got a big hit out of making us go up and down. He’d announce UP and up we’d go. A big thrill when you are not quite 2. He couldn’t quite understand why we sat in the back with no one in the front and yet I still wouldn’t let him ride alone in the front (we sat in the back b/c the back has the controls for making the dinosaur go up and down, the front controls tilting forward and backwards which wasn’t as much fun for him).

When we went to meet up with David and Brandon, I let Connor play for a while too. In talking with the cast member working the gate to the boneyard, I found out that the Magic Kingdom had closed to capacity earlier in the day but was no reopened and, as of then (about 5:15) they were still allowing people in.

We decide to head out a little in front of everyone else to avoid the crowd on the way out. We’ve got PSs for the Cape May Café Clam Bake at the Beach Club. Illuminations is to begin at 7:30 and our PS is for 7:45 so I’m hoping we can catch some of the fireworks from the beach or the boardwalk before dinner. I call Mom and Dad and make sure they know where they are going for dinner. We talk for 10 minutes as I explain over and over that no, I don’t know where to tell them we’ll meet them at the Beach Club b/c I’ve never been there before. Just keep your phone on and we’ll call you when we get there and let you know where to meet us. For some reason this is a difficult concept.

We take the kids to the bathroom and clean everyone up. This is no small challenge with Connor considering that the parade snack score was frozen banana 1, Connor nothing. We get them dressed in clean clothes and head off to find a bus to the beach club. This is our day to test out Disney transportation. This bus is more crowded that the last one and Connor falls asleep just before it arrives. This left David holding a 30 lb sleeping toddler while standing up on the bus. Not so fun.

We get to the Beach Club and find Mom and Dad sitting in the rockers on the back “porch” off the lobby. We leave sleeping Connor with them and take Brandon with us to go look at Stormalong Bay. WOW! What a pool! The only problem is that we have now reminded Brandon that he hasn’t been swimming in 24 hours. He whines a bit about wanting to get into the pool and we explain that we don’t have our bathing suits with us. They are at Sherwood Forrest and we’ll go swimming when we get back there. We go across the street and find the little kids waterslide. Brandon thinks this is the greatest idea since pizza. A slide right into the pool! What brilliant person thought of this and why has he never seen one before! We discuss the possibility of staying at the Beach Club for our trip in May. Brandon tells us “that is a great idea Mommy!” Looks like we’re getting close to fireworks time! We ask the lifeguard if we can see Illuminations well from here or if we should go across to the Boardwalk. She says it’s a “good enough” view from the beach but still better from the Boardwalk. We decide we’ve walked enough for the day so we’ll watch from the beach. While they set up the beach chairs, I check in for our PSs. They tell me to expect a 10-minute wait from our PS time…perfect for fireworks viewing! We go ahead and wake Connor so he can have time to fully wake up before dinner. He and Brandon have a ball playing in the sand while we watch the fireworks. The view was “good enough” and we all enjoyed the relaxing time. Once they ended we had just enough time to go to the bathroom and wash hands before our table was ready.
If you have never eaten at the Cape May Clam Bake, it’s well worth it! Everything was wonderful! The clam chowder was delicious and David said the salmon was the best he had ever had. Even the kids ate well. As a matter of fact, Connor ate so much that Disney might decide to revise their “kids under 3 eat free at buffets” policy! The kid was a bottomless pit! The banana may have gotten the best of him in the park but tonight it was absolutely Cape May buffet, nothing; Connor 10! Our waiter commented on how well behaved the kids were. That makes a Mom feel good! They gave us hats and horns for New Years. There’s an idea…give noisemakers to the toddlers! That’ll keep ‘em happy! Fortunately for everyone else in the Cape May restaurant, we were ready to leave when they gave us our noisemakers. David even says it was a perfect day! Minimal lines, no whining, no tears, no tantrums, great dinner and lots of fun with the kids!

We sent the stroller back with Mom and Dad so we didn’t have to fight with it on the bus and took a bus back to the MK, the monorail to the TTC and a tram to our car at Goofy 46. Brandon was all excited about the monorail. When we stopped at the Contemporary he was standing by a door it opened with a cast member facing away from the monorail right outside the doors. Brandon decided she needed some cheer in her night so he blows his horn and yells HAPPY NEW YEAR at her. He gave her quite a startle!

Once back at the RV the kids were about to collapse. We got them into bed about 10:30. I packed the bags for tomorrow in the parks, got everything ready for bed and hopped in the shower. When I got out of the shower I heard fireworks and looked at the clock. 12:02…Happy New Year! I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow!

 

[IloveDMB]

Wow, what a busy day. Sounds like you guys had a great time.

I can't believe that someone wouldn't give up their precious seat on the bus for a sleeping toddler. Kind of rude, don't you think?

Off to read the next installment.

 

[TeresaNJ]

Another great report. What a wonderful day it sounds like you all had. I agree, though, about no one giving up their seat for your husband and Connor. It is extremely rude. My DH would never have let anyone stand holding a child while he was sitting, nor would I.