Wow. Its our first full day at Disney. That is why, even though the alarm is going off at 5 a.m., I am HAPPY. I drag myself out of bed and to the shower. I laid my clothes out in the bathroom the night before so I wouldnt wake Bob and Goofy. Showering at 5 a.m. is so weird. I NEVER shower that early. Heck, I cant even tell you the last time I was AWAKE that early. Probably a past Disney trip.....
After I get that done, brush my teeth and apply sunblock I wake up Gus. Hes sleeping so soundly that I have to shake him and shake him. I call his name. I say, you need to wake up, dude! Hes not budging. Now what? I seriously stood there, in the dark wondering what I should do. Could we NOT go? No. Not an option. Its paid for!!!
Oh, wait. You guys dont know where were going, do you?! Omg. How could I forget to tell you this? Gus and I are going to the Magic Kingdom. We are going to the Behind the Steam Trains Tour and we get to enter the park before ANYONE and ride the trains! I am pretty excited for this outing. Gus is excited too, but right now hes asleep. So, I stand there thinking how to wake him up without waking up Goofy who is barely 3 feet away. I shake him again. GUS! Loud Whisper... GUS! Finally, Goofy leans over from the sleep sofa and says, Gus! Get up so Mom will shut up and go away! He jumped right up. Ok.
**btw: I dont usually condone my children talking to me that way but it was an extreme circumstance.**
So, I drag poor, barely conscious Gus to the bathroom and issue orders. Get dressed. Go pee. Brush teeth. Stand still so I can put the sunblock on. Hes thrilled. We make it to the bus stop at 6:00 on the dot. And the bus to M.K. has just pulled away. Of course! This becomes a theme of sorts of our trip! Another bus arrives at 6:42 a.m. Every 20 minutes my donkey!
We enjoy the air conditioned ride to the MK all alone on the bus. Apparently, no one is going to the MK at 6:42 a.m. except us. We arrive around 7 am and check in at the gate. They tell us to wait over there *waving vaguely* and someone will come out. There is a crowd building slowly. I dont know how long we were standing there, but it seemed like maybe 45 minutes or so. I dont know why they say to arrive at 7 if they are going to keep you standing around that long.
I did snap this great photo while we were waiting. I dont think Ive ever seen that view without people in it!
The engineer came out and introduced himself. His name is Ed. He was very nice. He posed for a photo with Gus while we waited for the tour to begin.
The tour begins right there, in front. Ed explained that the train only lines up with the train station twice. Once for this tour and for publicity photos. Thats because every other stop they make at that station is to load passengers and shes not lined up (the engine) with the building then. Shes way forward of the building.
I should interject here to say that I am not going to tell you all the things that Ed said on this tour. First, I think you should go see for yourself and second, I dont remember them all!
I do remember him saying that the train, Lilly Belle, comes out in the morning, does a test lap around the track and then comes out to do the opening show with the characters. She then goes back to the roundhouse. Here is Ed explaining...
He talked alot about the 4 trains that they run at the park. They are the Walt, the Roy, the Lilly Belle and the Roger Broggie (who was the first imagineer). The Walt and Roy are a matched set. They are consecutively numbered. They are the only remaining consecutively numbered steam trains in operation in the world. COOL! The trains were built between 1916 and 1928 in the United States but put into service in Mexico as freight trains for many years.
Another view without people....weird.
We enjoyed hearing the stories about the trains. Unfortunately, while this was going on we were in the direct sun. The whole time. We had made our way around the park on the train that they had lined up for us at the Main St. Station. While we learned about the trains we were standing in the rail yard at the roundhouse. Which is NOT round, btw. I was listening to Ed, but watching Gus. He was looking bad. After about an hour in the sun, he came to me and said he felt bad. He was dizzy and nauseous. I gave him the rest of my water as he had drank his bottle and instructions to sit down in some shade from a pillar of the monorail. Their roundhouse is up above the train one. As the tour progressed, Gus looked worse and worse. Ed kept on with the information. He started as crowd control for parades. They moved him up to be the Conductor. You have to be a conductor for at least 6 months before you can become an Engineer. They have very strict rules on being certified and tested. I remember his comment that if you miss a station more than twice on your test you fail.
They are supposed to go 10 mph. If they go 11, they don't get in trouble. If they go 12 mph, then an alarm goes off and they have to get a supervisor to use a key to shut it off. They get warned. If they do it again, Ed says, "They will take you in a room and say PLEASE don't do that again." And if you do it a third time, you are suspended from the trains for 6 months!
Heres a great photo of the bell on the engine.
And heres two photos of the interior of the engine. It gets up to 150 degrees in there. Plus whatever the humidity is on that particular day.
And a video of Ed explaining the temp!
I snapped a picture of Gus in front of the Lilly Belle before we hopped on to bring the train forward to the Main Street Station.
We were SO happy to be on the train. It was shady there! We did all the things on the train that they do regularly. Those things were blowing off the steam in the whistle, pulling forward to the blowdown bridge, building the pressure back up, pulling forward to the Mickeys Toontown Fair station and then boarding passengers. It was around 9:30 a.m. at this point. Gus was looking pretty rough around the edges. I asked him if he wanted to get off the train and get a cold drink. He said, YES. I knew that he was not doing well and hated to exit the tour before the end. I leaned forward to Ed (we were in the first row of seats) and asked if we could get off the train at the station as I was really worried about Gus. He said of course we could and he would meet us at the Main St. Station at 11 a.m. with a special surprise! Well, Gus and I jumped off that train and ran for the restrooms that are right near Mickeys house. I filled both water bottles from the water fountain, splashed his face with a bunch of water and then wet down a huge piece of paper towel from the ladies room and put it around his neck. My experience last summer was a lesson well learned!!
He wasnt getting better as quick as I hoped, so at the first kiosk I purchased the spray/water fan thingy. I had one already (from last year) but it was worth every penny ($17 actually) because the one we already had was still in the hotel room!
He was looking a bit more normal, so we made our way toward the castle. We have a tradition of getting a funnel cake with strawberries on our first day at MK. SO, naturally, we headed there! Its in the best spot in MK. Its tucked away behind the Hall of Presidents. A tiny place called Sleepy Hollow. I love the location. Its sort of behind and to the left of the castle. It has a great shady area to eat and rest in. And it seems like NO ONE knows because even on the craziest days we can always get a shady seat!
Seated in the shade with us was a British family and the dad was SO angry. He yelled at all 5 people sitting there with him eating funnel cakes. Gus and I dubbed him "The Angriest Man in Disney World." Later in the week, we were at Typhoon Lagoon and Gus said, "LOOK!!! It's the Angriest Man in Disney World.." My Dh was looking where he pointed with a completely baffled expression as the guy wasn't being angry THEN! I laughed!!
Here is Gus with his first funnel cake of vacation.
While all this excitement has been going on, Goofy and Bob have been at Ohana having breakfast with Lilo and Stitch. I hope. If they got up when their alarm went off. We were just finishing the funnel cake when I got a call from them. They had finished breakfast and were monorailing over to us. They met us at Sleepy Hollow.
I took that time to run back and meet Ed the Engineer at the station where he gave us both this:
Super Cool! You can only get these by doing the tour!
After thanking Ed I ran over to grab fastpasses for Space mountain for all four of us. The boys were walking over to get in line for Splash mountain. I met them there in record time!
Tune in next time....this is a LONG day!!
MEL
No drinks out of the park. Unless you break the Disney law....
BTW anyone know why you can't take alcoho out? Didn't Buzz pour his alcohol into another cup as disguise? 
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