Minmate's Tribe Of 9: Trip Report: Wdw Gone Awry...

[minmate]

CAST OF CHARACTERS
ME – MINMATE – instigator of this whole adventure
JOE – dear dh, who goes with the flow but wants so badly for his kids to just listen and be good – sometimes forgets that they are still 5 and under!
MOM – AKA GRANNY – attentive grandmother who often knows just how to keep the tempers of small children at bay.
LATELLE – AKA ‘DAUNTIE’ – my sister, trooper with hurting feet but always there to help out and goes with the flow.
DAD – AKA Grandpa – keeper of the magic card
CALISTA – dd5 – aka: CHIEF POTTY INSPECTOR -- loves all things Disney and all rides she can get on. Has moments of very little patience…
MEGHAN – dd4 – aka: FLIP-FLOP QUEEN – super-sensitive sweetie, loves Disney but has lots of anxiety about anything wet, dark, fast, loud or scary…. Can’t make up her mind and flip-flops on her opinions faster than Pumbaa can clear the savanna. Founder of Megalogic…. That which is incomprehensible to anyone over the age of 18.
BRAYDEN – ds3 aka: PIRATE-IN-TRAINING aka TAZMANIAN DEVIL… talks a million miles a minute and has an attention span of a flea but is cute as the dickens and makes everyone laugh.
JAYLEIGH – dd22 months aka: WHO’S THE PRINCESS? “ME!”

TOTAL: 5 ADULTS, 4 KIDS AGES: 5, 4, 3, 22 MONTHS
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PRE-TRIP:
The days leading up to our trip were quite busy. We spent Tuesday and Wednesday mornings at the beach with friends. So nothing much got done at home those days. I wanted to get started on my sunburn – er, I mean suntan! Then, with Calista losing her first tooth just two nights before we left, we got our first dose of magic when the Tooth Fairy visited our house – leaving a Disney Dollar, money, tasty pink pixie dust and a note reminding us to say “hi” to her cousin Tinkerbell at WDW.

For LaTelle, it had been an emotional week. Two days before our trip, she finally got papers delivered to Dan regarding their divorce. I know it’s been a tough but good decision for her to do this. And she’s got a lot on her mind so I refrained from making that phone call to her… you know the one… “You just delivered divorce papers to that jerk… now what are you going to do?”

”Why, I’m going to Disney World of course!” Well, maybe someday I’ll point this out to her… when she’s able to laugh about it.

Despite being very anxious and excited for our vacation, Meghan spent the morning at preschool. We then headed to the Y as I still had to work the better part of the afternoon and evening. It was pretty hard to concentrate but I was confident I got most of the work done that I needed to. This is a busy time of year at work for me with deadlines so it was somewhat of an ill-timed trip. I got home in time to kiss the kids goodnight and to visit with my mom a bit. I gave her the confirmation numbers for her parts of the trip and we tried to shake our nagging feelings of nervousness about what could go wrong on this trip. After all, it’s a trip to Disney with the family? What could be bad about that?

I then headed over to Joe’s cousin’s house to get some alterations done to the matching $5 tye-dye sundresses I bought for the kids… well she actually had to make one into a tank top for the boy and shorten one for the baby. She did a good job, but we spent too much time catching up visiting. She wasn’t feeling well, so I ran an errand for her and didn’t get back home until 9.


DAY ONE – 6/11 -- THEN SOMETHING WENT AWRY…
Friday morning, we woke up and finished last minute packing. We took our turns in the shower and tried to let the kids sleep in. Wouldn’t you know it, all four kids were awake by 6:30 a.m. – geesh! Our flight didn’t leave until noon! Everyone was dressed and eating chocolate covered doughnuts and juice by 7:30 ish. Joe ran the computer over to the neighbor who was borrowing it for a slide show for the 4th graders end-of-the year event. I had time to take Jayleigh out for a short walk to remind the neighbor to water our plants -- and the other kids were playing on the swing set. By 8;30 a.m. we decided we might as well head to the airport… there wasn’t anything left to do at home. So, there we went… no traffic and were in the airport within 25 minutes. Joe went to park the car in long-term parking while I tended to the bags, checking-in and the four kids. The ticket agent was so impressed that I had brought a copy of Jayleigh’s birth certificate as she was flying as a lap baby. I told her I read about it on their website. She said a lot of people don’t read carefully and wind up being upset about having to pay fees and such, especially since she’s so close to the age limit of 2 – she’s 22 months. She told us that the flight wasn’t full so we should be able to put her in a seat and be fine. Then it was off to get the bags sent through security. Joe met up with us right about the time they started looking through the duffel bag with all the medicines and liquids. After they decided I really indeed seem to want to bring an entire bag full of Dimetapp, Nyquil,Tylenol, Benadryl, sunscreen, lotions, band-aids and other first aid items, we were off to our gate. We thought we could grab lunch at the airport since Southwest doesn’t serve food. Unfortunately, the only thing open was a Dunkin’ Donuts. This made Joe happy as he loves to indulge on a cup of DD coffee. We settled on doughnuts for the kids – who wound up preferring my bagel with cream cheese… which Calista decided was simply heavenly. So there we were at 9:30 a.m. with more than two hours to go before just boarding the plane – thankfully, reinforcements arrived shortly – my mom and sister… they were greeted by four excited little kids, “Dauntie!” exclaims the baby! Calista was so good while she busied herself with the items from her backpack – an Ariel “polly pocket” type of playset and numerous workbooks. Brayden was occupied a short while with his cd player. One of the cutest things I’ve seen is this little 3 year old guy with headphones on listening intently to the music – even if it’s “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” playing!
Finally, after numerous trips to the bathroom, and many walks around the terminal, we were lined up and ready to board… we got to preboard and we apologized in advanced to all those around us whose unlucky day it must have been to join our tribe in the sky! As it turned out, they were all very well behaved – surprisingly… “Dauntie” sat with Jayleigh. I sat with Calista. Granny sat with Meghan and Joe was with Brayden. Jayleigh was a bit rambunctious toward the end of the flight and again there were a few bathroom trips. I couldn’t believe it, we sailed right on into Orlando… we were beginning our descent – almost 20 minutes early (woo-hoo 20 extra minutes of Magic!) – then SOMETHING WENT AWRY… during our very long descent… it seemed that Calista and I just couldn’t get our ears to adjust. She was nearly screaming from the pain – not so much as to be shocking to nearby passengers, but she was definitely uncomfortable and she was letting me know! I felt bad for her because I too was having problems… something that normally doesn’t bother me… my ears popped and started to really hurt… and I just figured I need to hold on, it will go away and we’ll all be better once we land, right? WRONG! My ears ended up staying plugged the rest of that first night! You know, like when you have a bad cold or sinus problem and you can’t hear anything outside of your own head – which only got me jokes such as… “that’s the only person you listen to anyway… or guess you can’t hear much since there’s not much going on in there right?” It was bizarre, annoying and just put me a bit on edge… well, what could I do about it? We’re almost at WDW… how bad could things be ?

I called Happy Limo as we were lining up for our luggage and they told me to call back once we had it all together. Something was backed up with the luggage system so it took us probably ½ hour to get our stuff. Just as we pulled the last piece off the rack, a very nice man named Fernando was there from Happy Limo. He helped us with our luggage and quickly retrieved the van to seat the 8 of us. The carseats and the double stroller were there just as requested. And we were off. The kids were so excited and were chanting, “Disney, Disney, Disney!” and singing Disney songs the whole ride… Brayden thought the car was just “Wonderful” and even let Fernando know… “Hey, hey, hey guy… Your car is just wonderful!” He was having a ball… He has the cutest, sweetest, little heart-tugging voice every! Every billboard elicited another round of squeals from the group – be it Hulk, Spongebob or Disney… although it appeared there were more non-Disney billboards around that area all jockeying for some of the almighty vacation dollars being siphoned into Florida via the Big Cheese. We were all in awe as we pulled up to the security gate of the Grand Floridian about 25 minutes later. I just kept hoping the vacation would hold all the fun and memories I had wished and prayed and planned for. The red peaks of the Grand Floridian contrasting with the white walls and intricate trimmings of the balconies and décor was simply beautiful. The men were wearing salmon colored knickers and hats and pastel striped button-down shirts, some with vests. They really take the theming to the extreme… and it all pulls together for a lovely atmosphere – although the girls giggled about the boys wearing a “girl” color. I was so excited that I practically bolted out of the car, leaving the bags and children for the other three adults to tend to.

It was about 3:30 but there was no line for check-in. I was warmly received by a very nice but Sloooooow gentleman (who was either a bit clueless or new – or both). He also gladly sold me my e-ride night tickets for both that very night (Friday) and the coming Monday… even though I didn’t have my park hoppers on me. I still had to pick those up at Will Call since they hadn’t arrived from Disney.com before our departure. I was so excited… even though my ears were plugged and I could barely hear and I had to spend 45 minutes checking-in…. he had a problem with his printer printing the e-ride tix. We were at Disney now… This is the start of a very magical vacation! A bellman arrived on an extended golf cart and waited politely as the kids scuffled about where to sit – because even though it’s Disney – this is what four siblings all 1 ½ years or less apart in age must do, all the time… fight about something and nothing! Well, he gave us info on where to catch the bus, boat or monorail… showed us the pools and took us right to our room in Sago Cay (building 5) – WoW! We had requested adjoining rooms, which we got… we did NOT request a castle view room, which we did NOT get either… but who cares! We had a pretty neat view of the monorail with a lake below it. To the kids daily delight, the lake was inhabited by a family of ducks and some egrets. This was all day entertainment for them. It was so much roomier than the Pop Century (duh! It was so much more expensive too!) – and the furnishings were quite nice. The beds were queens with a yellow spread with fancy oval ribbon framed pictures of swans on them… These were rather adult looking fashionings… but in each “frame” there was a cartoon-y looking creature – a frog and such – one night, Meghan and I spent some time pointing them out and giggling. Across the room from the beds and next to the entertainment bureau was a daybed… all the beds were comfortable. The t.v. was on the small side (then again we have a 60 inch at home so just about everything is on the small side compared to that). The room felt cool and fresh and clean – well except for the residual stringless , green mylar balloon in the corner with Mr. Smee’s autograph on it that mousekeeping must have missed from the residual guest. We had sent a package with food and other items in it ahead of time. It had not yet arrived so the bellman called inquiring about it. We were debating the need of the crib we’d requested when it arrived. We decided to keep it. My sister and mom went “potty” and reapplied lipstick while we basically threw our bags in the room, restrained the kids from jumping across the beds, figured out how to use the double stroller and corralled everyone in the direction of the door. Our plane had landed at 2:15 p.m. and it was now 4:40 p.m. and we were headed to our 4:50 PS for 1900 Park Fare back in the main lobby. They had just started serving dinner at 4:30 so we were seated pretty much right away. Since it was a buffet, my sister and I headed up to get plates for two kids a piece then went to fill our own plates. It was during this time Cinderella decided to visit our table… of course I got there at the tail end. This was the moment I had waited for… for Jayleigh’s first meeting with “Lella!” whom she adores and blows kisses to all the time on t.v. and in coloring books and wherever she sees her! Apparently, it was anti-climactic anyway. My mom said she was totally uninterested and was too busy devouring her food. Dinner was punctuated with numerous repeat visits to the buffet for “more chicken… now I want more noodles… hey how about some pizza for me?” as well as bathroom breaks, and oh yeah, visits from such characters as Suzy, Perla and Prince Charming himself. I took a picture of my sister with Prince Charming and tried to get one of my mom with him too. But no, she was too busy heading to the dessert table, I guess. It was just a bit past 6 p.m. and I was anxious to get to the park and pick up our park hoppers and burn a day off of them, mainly to use the e-ride ticket. So after a quick stop back at the rooms – my mom wanted to get her cousin’s phone number and I chugged some Dimetapp (see it came in handy!) in hopes of unplugging my ears -- then, we headed up to the second floor and hopped the monorail. This was Brayden and Jayleigh’s first (of many) rides on the monorail. It wasn’t very crowded so we all sat. We blinked and we were at the Magic Kingdom. Wow! What was that, like 2 minutes?! Confidently and excitedly we headed down the walkway, discovering the Mickey’s in the bricks… sailed through security and then… SOMETHING WENT AWRY…

Remember those park hoppers that never showed up at the house? The ones that the Disney customer service PROMISED me would only take 30 seconds to retrieve from Will Call? The ones that had already shown up as being charged on my card? Remember the world’s slowest check-in guy at the GF? Well, I met his twin! Here, an older more curmudgeony SLOWER version of that GF guy was at Will-Call…. AND HE COULDN’T PULL UP MY TICKET ORDER! Zooommmm, swish! Did you hear that? There went the magic right down the drain…. Too painful to describe in detail. Let me just summarize that one hour and several badly connected cell phone calls and red cheeks and some tears later… we FINALLY got our tickets. Well, now it was 7:15 and we had less than 3 hours left on the regular park day. To make up for the lost time and his inability to expediently process our order even though he had the confirmation number right there… he offered us all free admission for the rest of the day and two front of the line passes. Okay… well, I begrudgingly tried to get my vacation back on track. We’re at the Magic Kingdom after all… and NOW, we’re getting in free (well sort of… we still bought those e-ride tix). We finally passed through the turnstiles, picked up a double stroller for the big girls and headed to Main St. where we oohed and awed over the castle again trying to elicit some sort of reaction from Brayden and Jayleigh, who were by now, just plain tired of waiting in the humid evening air. We headed over to get our wristbands at City Hall where a VERY nice lady helped us – even though I accidently bumped her with the stroller while trying to get the wristbands for everyone.

Okay, we turned around and saw people lining up for the parade. I said, “well, gee, it must be at 8 then.” My sister asked a CM who told her it was at 9… people lining up more than two hours before Spectro? “Oh no! We’re gonna miss the parade!” exclaimed Joe… inside joke from when we were at DL several years ago and convinced my sis to ride Space Mtn. One last time before catching the Electrical Light Parade. When we’d gotten off SM, there was only 10 minutes til the parade and she was anxiously saying this,”We’re gonna miss the parade” as we hustled to find what turned out to be a great spot along the route… ahh, those were the days.

Anyway, I checked out the buildings and wasn’t quite sure I could see the “perspective” of the buildings growing taller in one direction or the other… then again, I still couldn’t hear well… the whole world was muffled… I’d just spent an hour fighting about the hundreds of dollars I’d spent and had no tickets for and was still trying to shake the negativity of that whole awful experience. It really creeped its way back into my magical thoughts throughout the trip.
Almost immediately, Brayden was clamoring for a light-up sword… one of those ones that is rainbow colored and folds into itself. Joe said, “Not right now” and started feeding him some stuff about waiting and I piped in with a “Why not? We’re on vacation!” So he acquiesced and Brayden triumphantly carried his sword as he rode on in his stroller.

With two front of the line passes in our hands we weighed what we might want to try first. We chose Buzz Lightyear. The fast passes were for about 1 hour out so we just pulled those and headed over to Peter Pan to use our other pass. Within minutes we were on Peter Pan. In fact, we were still debating who would sit with whom when our turn arrived. The eight of us ended up in three boats. This was a cute first ride for the trip. This was Brayden and Jayleigh’s first Disney ride ever… not too bad of a choice. Meghan and Calista’s first ride ever was Spaceship Earth… their first MK ride was Dumbo, of course! This was their first time on Peter Pan.

When that was over, we checked on Philharmagic which had no wait so we headed on it. We have affectionately dubbed this “The Donald Duck Show.” Meghan loved this show the first time she saw it but about an hour after she first saw it back in March, she decided she hated it. Her opinion vascillates but usually comes back to hating it. Unfortunately for her, it is one of Joe and my favorites in all of WDW. She doesn’t like getting wet apparently. We convinced her to put on her raincoat which seemed to be a good solution. Then Brayden and Jayleigh and Calista decided to put on their raincoats too. We laughed about how other people might wonder why they were in raincoats with no rain… does it really get you THAT wet!? Uh-no… just traveling with a child who should be on xanax is all. Brayden LOVED this show. This kid is who this kind of show was made for… laughing hysterically and surprised in all the right spots… reaching out to grab things at all the right times… jumping up from his seat in excitement…. I think I watched him more than the show itself.

Meghan survived the “torrential sprinkling” and we headed over to Buzz Lightyear. Meghan and Granny had buddied up on this ride again. Seems that Granny was the only one who was able or willing to deal with Meg’s many last minute anxieties about rides. She’s not keen on anything that is dark, fast, wet, scary or loud… kinda leaves you to wonder why she loves Disney so much, doesn’t it? Well, she does though!

Buzz was fun… I rode with Calista. Joe with Brayden and LaTelle with Jayleigh. We bought the pictures of Meghan and Granny and Joe and Brayden as they were so cute. You couldn’t really see the kids in the other two. Buying the pics took just long enough for Brayden to indulge himself in the fantasy of buying another toy. After I shattered his dreams with a “no, you already got a sword” he started a chain reaction of crying and foot stomping amongst his siblings. Antics which caused daddy’s eyes to roll and smoke to come out of his ears. Somehow, we got everyone piled into the strollers and thought we’d head over to Pirates when we realized the parade was going to start in five minutes…”Oh no, we’re gonna miss the parade!”

It was here when Joe quipped, ‘Okay Min, with all your studying and research where’s the best place to get a spot to see the parade?” Uh gee, you should have asked me that an hour ago! We met up with the clogged walkways and were shooshed back and forth by CM’s trying to keep a clear walking path out of the MK… finally, we ditched the strollers and plopped the kids on our shoulders and started walking down Main St. back to the entrance. It was a bit stressful and made for a less than magical viewing of the parade… but we finally managed to find a place to squeeze inside the ropes to see.

Ummm…. Sorry folks, but this paled in comparison to the Electrical Light Parade memories of my earlier years. Oh well. At least we didn’t spend two hours waiting for it… maybe that’s why it wasn’t so magical… because we weren’t delusional from boredom of waiting? I don’t know… maybe I was still reeling with the missing ticket fiasco… well, it was fun watching the kids’ expressions and we decided that this to them was the equivalent of our memories of the ELP. Nothing’s cuter than watching a 1 ½ year old ooh and awe and blow kisses at those characters as the float by.

We headed back to a spot in front of that ice cream shop on the Tomorrowland side of Main St. when CLUNK – SOMETHING WENT AWRY… I looked down and the double stroller we’d rented from Happy Limo wasn’t moving… oh and look at that, there’s something round right over there… hey, it looks like a stroller wheel… hey it’s OUR stroller wheel! Go figure! Well, nothing to do now but wait for Wishes. Joe went to get drinks for everyone while we waited. A few minutes into our waiting Meghan was asleep and Brayden was whining about wanting to go back to the room. My mom decided she’d had enough and that the kids weren’t going to have fun if they were tired and that they were probably going to be scared of the fireworks anyway. After some terse conversation about the logistics of moving people and who would go where and who was going to drag that darned broken stroller back to the hotel, we decided LaTelle, who’s feet were hurting her anyway (due to a medical issue prior to WDW) – and Granny would take the three youngest kids back to the room using the WDW stroller. So we said our goodbyes and I tried calling Joe 7 times to let him know to nix a few of those drinks. Guess he couldn’t hear his phone because he never answered it and came back with five huge drinks and a hot dog. There were only three of us. As I told him how I tried to call him and what was going on, the couple next to us joked about, “well you can share with the rest of us then!” And Joe asked him, “What do you like?” “Do you got a Diet Coke in there?” As a matter of fact we do, and neither of us like it! So although he declined at first, he accepted it. We tried to pawn off one of the iced teas to his wife but she said she’d share the diet coke. There’s some pixie dust for ya… for them anyway! Meanwhile, my shoulders were killing me from the parade kid-hoisting affair but Calista was beside herself that she might not be able to see the fireworks from her little vantage point. Joe was going to film Wishes so, back up onto mommy’s shoulders she went. We had a good spot… saw Tink fly… pretty close to the action… and I actually enjoyed this more than the parade or anything else that night. The kids always know how to make things more special too… as Calista was being all cuddly and sweet now that she had mom and dad all to herself.

We ditched the stroller somewhere safe to retrieve it later and headed over to Space Mtn. As e-ride night had just started. We felt like we were going totally against the flow of traffic as everyone streamed out of the park and we were headed to Tomorrowland. The line looked rather forboding and we almost passed it up. But I waited as Joe took Calista to the bathroom. The iced tea wasn’t sitting well with her… not to mention a long day was probably making her tired. The line moved fairly quickly…about a 20 minute wait though. After my left-handed husband began heading to the right at the split, I grabbed him and said, “NO! Go Left… always go left!” He was dumbfounded but when I explained to him the psychology of human nature to go right he pondered this as he watched every single person coming in going right at that split in the line. I think he was actually impressed that I knew something useful! Lol… I informed Joe of the “Chips Ahoy” that flew overhead and he got a kick out of it but at the same time gave me this look like, “that’s cool, but sometimes, just let the magic be!” yeah, okay… I got a great kick out of this. Once aboard Space Mtn. Calista rode in front and I was actually nervous for her and hoped she’d stay in the ride! She makes the height requirement but still she’s my peanut you know! Funny how becoming a parent makes even the most fearless become scared about irrational things! I screamed and acted silly and in the end decided I liked Disneyland’s Space mtn. Better. I don’t actually KNOW if there different but I remember DL’s to be more thrilling.

Calista had gotten such a rush from this ride the last time she rode it. This time she was so subdued. I guess I knew then that she wasn’t feeling well – but I wanted to deny it. She wanted to go to the bathroom again. We decided we’d try one more ride… Splash Mtn. Because Meg wouldn’t want to go on it… and I figured we could maybe convince her to do Big Thunder once we were over there. She agreed saying she was tired (it was about 11 now) but would go. For some silly reason, we walked into Buzz since it was just there with no wait. She really didn’t want to go on anything else so we figured we’d do all the other stuff later, on the next e-ride night… this was only our first day there after all!

While Joe recovered our broken stroller, we met up with Minnie Mouse and Pluto. I took pictures of Calista whispering into Minnie’s ear. We slowly headed out of the park and thought it would be nice if it would run at that capacity all the time! We discovered a few new little things we hadn’t noticed before and took some pictures before heading to the monorail. We got on and made the trip around to the Contemporary, TTC and Polynesian before arriving at the GF. Somehow, while sitting on the monorail, I discovered if I leaned all the way over… so my head was hanging upside down between my legs, my ears started to feel better… so I sat like this talking to Calista – real cute huh? We stopped by the front and visited with the CM’s there who checked on our package saying it was at the convention center and would be delivered the next morning right away. They also sympathized with our park hopper fiasco and gladly checked our broken stroller in the baggage claim area since we wouldn’t be needing it anymore.

We headed up to the room by midnight to find the other three kids asleep. My mom and sister recounted their attempts to get to the third floor – over and over again – forgetting they had to go to another building first. They said someone punched in an access code for them and they found themselves on the 3rd floor concierge level in the Main Bldg. They stuck out pretty quickly though, I guess because someone asked them if they were supposed to be there… somehow, they figured it all out and arrived back to the right room in the right building. They had seen some of the fireworks on their way out. Brayden was NOT happy when he realized he’d left on the monorail without his mommy. But when he got to the room he decided he “Loved it there and it was just wonderful and he’d like to live there.”

Joe and I decided we’d hit the hot tub for a bit. Calista got a second wind and wanted to join us. So, we were “bad” parents and let our 5 year old sit in the hot tub with us at almost 1 o’clock in the morining… so what, “we’re on vacation!” There were some nice people hanging around down there… probably a dozen or more people --- even at that late hour. We splashed in the quiet pool for a few minutes then headed back to the room… stopping at Gasparilla to get our mugs. It was so close to our room we figured we’d definitely be using it a lot. We got back to the room and decided we’d wake up “whenever” and try to get a hold of John, my mom’s cousin who works at Sea World in the morning.

DAY ONE HIGHS: Arriving at the GF, seeing Wishes and Tink’s flight, sharing drinks with strangers.

DAY ONE LOWS: Plugged up ears, missing tickets snafu – errggh, and the broken stroller

DAY TWO: 6/12 -- TOO HOT TO TROT
Saturday’s Plan was to head to Sea World for the a.m. and rendezvous with dad at Chef Mickey’s for dinner.

Hey, I can hear again! I would have liked to get an early start but that got drawn out by everyone dawdling, feeding ducks, sitting on the balconies…. Hey what do these guys think… that they’re on vacation or something? Lol… of course! Well with our plans for this day we didn’t end up heading out until later on. We were scheduled to meet John at SW’s main entrance at noon. I whipped out my trusty Lynx bus schedule and directed our tribe onto the monorail over to the TTC. I know I’d been here as a youngster, but did not remember it. So this was a new experience for all of us. It was neat and a lot less overwhelming and more appealing than I thought it would be… except for the strategically located gift shop that drew the attention of my mom, sister and children. After a few purchases and some more foot stamping later (I bet you can guess who did which!) – we headed out into the blazing humid to await the Lynx Bus… oh wait, a bathroom break is needed…. And another one… now a drink run… now a fight over sharing drinks…. Now chasing the birds and running off by little ones that need to be chased down…. Phew, that bus arrived just in time (actually a bit late) – and the a/c was a welcome relief… I had the girls in their bathing suits under their clothes for any “wet encounters” we might have. We were dropped off at the end of the SW parking lot and made the trek to the front gates… bearable but sure wishing we had that stroller right about now! Oh yeah, I called Happy limo earlier this morning and they offered to bring a replacement within an hour or so. We asked for a credit instead which the agreed to. We met up with my mom’s cousin, John and thanked him for being our guide for the day. He is the V.P. at SW. It was funny to see which employees did and did not know who he was… based on their reactions. We appreciated the complimentary passes and discounted strollers and narrowly averted another gift shop meltdown for a must have Shamu bath toy or something and were on our way. We headed to the cool Nautilus Theater to see Odyssea. We stopped to visit the sea turtles and some other stuff along the way. You know, it was so hot, I can’t really remember specifics. We got to the Theater and discovered Brayden was fast asleep in the stroller (or Stroll-der or Roll-der as Jayleigh calls them!) – Joe managed to carry him into the theater still asleep… ahhh, relief! Funny how that initial blast of cool air is so wonderful… then you get used to it and it still feels sticky, even in the a/c. How do people work in suits and long pants and such down here? The weather said it would feel like 110 today. Bathroom breaks and a snack/drink run was in order before the show started. We really enjoyed this show. It was fun and definitely first-class. There was a part where a lady was doing tricks in a headstand/handstand position. The girls were so enthralled, especially Meghan, because at 4 years old, she can hold a headstand position better than her older sister… something she can do longer and better – makes her feel special – and better than the 6 year olds in her gymnastics class. I enjoyed musing the thoughts running through their heads, dreaming of someday being a performer like those on stage… even if just for now. They were starstruck.

Lunch was the next project as it was past 1 p.m. and the kids hadn’t had any real meals yet… yeah, well, cookies don’t count – even on vacation! We went to Fireside (I think) a fast food court… very noisy and quite expensive… $62 for 9 (5 adults and 4 children) – even WITH a $25 savings from John’s discount! Jeesh! The kids meals came with these fold open Shamu’s that served double-duty as a souvenir for them. It turned out to be the perfect souvenir as the only other show we made it to that day was Shamu. We stopped to play in the squirt fountain and walked through the village part of SW over to Shamu Adventure where John made a big deal about where we should sit to get splashed and assured us that where we sat (about 12 rows back) would be plenty close – but to be sure we could/should sit up front… we should have listened. Calista was so hyped to get splashed that when we actually didn’t… she broke down into tears. It was so hot and she just didn’t understand and was tired. We recovered by heading to Shamu’s Happy Harbor where she got drenched and loved it… Meghan and Brayden also played there just a bit more timidly. The Shamu show was nice… worth seeing if you haven’t ever seen it… but not as impressive as I remember it to be… maybe Shamu Rocks would be better – more fancy schmancy???

It was so hot that I gave up my hopes of seeing the dolphin show – the lure of petting real live dolphins was not enough to keep up the spirits of our little troops so we called it quits on Sea World – we said our good-byes and thank you’s and made the trek sans stroller to the bus stop at the end of the parking lot… THEN SOMETHING WENT AWRY…. After a struggling 25 minute wait, a bus driver informed us we were supposed to wait ACROSS the street for the but back to Disney… Ugh! I had just seen a bus stop over there too! So we headed across the street and waited another 25-30 minutes for the bus… We played Alphabet Disney… name a Disney Character that starts with A… B… C… -- it did actually help to pass the time! Joe was getting to the end of his rope I could tell and I just wanted to get back to the hotel. Thank goodness he was so vigilant about the sunscreening of the kids everyday… nobody got burned on this hot day. Just as we got on the bus it started to sprinkle – then really rain. We had our rain gear and my mom even mentioned to get it out, but I was holding the baby and Joe had the gear and it never happened. We ended up running through the TTC getting totally drenched… with our rain gear in our back pack! DUH! Our brains HAD to be fried! We made it back to the room and changed clothes. I checked on our package a couple times that day and it still wasn’t there. I had gotten put on hold and even hung up on by some rather incompetent people. We decided to go down and wait in the lobby for my dad who would be arriving shortly. It was past 7 p.m. by now. I dealt with a very nice Guest Services lady who’s manager was very over-apologetic about the missing package fiasco and promised to have it up to us within the hour. I watched as my kids ran up to Grandpa so excited to see him thinking, “Hey, it’s a Magical Gathering!” There’s nine of us now! He’s a big, tall guy and it’s so cute to see him hoist up the little ones.

He went to check-in and got the same nice but super slow check – in guy I did the day before…. I tried to warn him but I was too late.

I diverted the kids with the t.v. in the lobby and the grand staircase where Calista walked up and down waving, bowing and nodding her head like a princess greeting her public… too funny! Once all the check-in stuff was done, we headed up to the monorail and blinked twice and found ourselves at the Contemporary. We had an 8:10 PS for Chef Mickey’s. You know there were some bathroom breaks in here that I missed.

Anyway, we got our picture taken and the kids got one w/o grown-ups and we waited for about 30 minutes for a table. We had a super time here. The kids all LOVED the characters. Jayleigh was not a bit afraid! Calista told Minnie the joke about, “Why did Mickey go to outerspace?” “To visit Pluto” – and Jayleigh pinched Dale’s nose so hard that I didn’t think it would form back to shape… we worked very hard to keep her from doing that again! She just LOVED the characters though! Brayden would stand right up on his chair so he could be face to face with them and talk to them. I decided not to do the autograph book thing this time. The kids got more meaningful interactions w/o them, I think… and I didn’t snap my pictures right away so that the characters stayed at the table a bit longer. I figure, we’ve got four kids here and five adults (nine people) – they should technically spend four times as much time at our table as at a table with one kid… I know that’s pushing it, but still, this is the stuff my kids loved… I wanted them to savor it. The food was good…. Nothing overly outstanding but definitely tasty enough. The ribs were easy to eat – came right off the bone! The characters were pulling hi-jinx on each other and that made the kids laugh. We had a nice waiter here too.

We finished and headed for home – we went to the elevator thinking it would take us up b/c we had an escalator debacle on the way down (kids) – There was a pretty castle gifure on display in a big glass case. Jayleigh bee-lined straight for it and bounced right off the glass…. She wasn’t hurt – and it was funny! We realized elevator wouldn’t get us to the monorail so after riding up and down with this group of people who I’m sure thought we were clueless we headed to the escalator Brayden doesn’t walk off of these things… (these and the moving platforms like on Buzz Lightyear and such) – he Jumps off them to the other side. Too funny. Back to the monorail – “porfavor…. Blah-dy blah – I forget tiendre…. “ right?”

And back to the GF to see Wishes from the Marina and then sweet dreams.

DAY TWO HIGHS: Meeting John, free admission to SW, seeing Dad again, Chef Mickey’s, watching Wishes from marina.

DAY TWO LOWS: The unbearable hot weather and not doing much at SW… not knowing to cross the street for Lynx bus, getting drenched in the rain storm, missing package


DAY THREE: 6/13 TWO PARKS, TOO MANY POTTIES!

Sunday’s Plan: Early Entry Magic Kingdom

Today I was determined to make it to EMH early to jockey for a position amongst the other early morning guests. Well, we all donned our fluorescent tye-dyed t-shirts (all except my dad) and the girls in their sundresses, and played the role of tourist as best as possible. A very nice security guard at the bag check tried his hardest to get Meghan to crack a smile – ha ! Good luck – dead pan stare is all he got…. “So are you going to see Mickey today?” Deadpan stare…. “Are you going to ride some fun rides today?” Deadpan stare… “Would you like to punch me in the stomach?” No, just kidding! But that’s what her look seemed to be saying! We first headed to the left only to discover that while that side of the lines were shorter, the only stroller pick-up was near the right… so mom and I headed over to the stroller line and sang the song to spell my obnoxious last name (not sharing only to reserve my family’s privacy, but it is polish with lots of consonants and stuff and we taught the kids to spell it by singing it to the tune of M-I-C… K-E-Y… M-O-U-S-E…) -- everyone at WDW gets a kick out of this as they realize the tune we are singing! My timid husband hung back for awhile not wanting to butt in line – how respectful… until my dad found his way up near us in the stroller area… I watched as a lady pleaded with a CM to let them in for their Cindy’s breakfast as her daughter was all dressed up in her Cindy dress. I think they finally let her in about 30 seconds before the crush of the rest of people.

We got our two double strollers and saddled up the kids in record time and headed into the park… saying… stroll, stroll, walk, walk, stop… look, enjoy… okay,time’s up -- let’s go… hey, look kids, there’ s Pinnochio, there’s Brer Bear… oh my goodness, look who all’s here!

We made it down Main St. fairly quickly, stopping to snap a few pictures with the castle as the backdrop… turn right into Fantasyland… oh look, there’s Tweedle Dee & Dum and the White Rabbit… we saw them in March but breezed past them, so this time I indulged the kids in meeting these guys – whom I thought they barely knew… but I was wrong… they knew exactly who they were. Hugs and kisses and photos and off to the Mad Tea Cups… this was fun for everyone! Onto Dumbo and the question of who would ride with who ensued… I bowed out deciding to take pictures of everyone else on Dumbo… I took the quick walk over to Philharmagic to grab some Fast Passes… finally my dad would get to see this and I was sure he’d like it…. He’s like Meghan… it’s so hard to get him to genuinely smile. I was also the drink fetcher… hey, cool, the room keys are linked to my dad’s credit card – instead of one drink for four kids to fight over… it was 5 waters and 4 lemonades… one for everyone! I know that is expensive, but my dad didn’t mind at all – and let me tell you how nice it was to not have to deal with whining kids who don’t want to share their drinks! My kids have to share so much of everything being so close together and living on top of each other – little things like this really make a big difference to me… and to their attitudes. After Dumbo, we made a potty stop near Pinnochio’s Village Haus – we visited this particular bathroom so many times, I think the kids must have thought it was an attraction! Also, a stop at a hat shop to finally get the coveted Sorcerer’s hat and a goofy baseball cap and a couple of those misters… all thanks to grandpa’s magic card of course! That mister entertained Jayleigh for hours. Later on when one broke, we easily got it replaced. Then a trip to Buzz Lightyear again… we like this ride a lot too!

By now it was about 15 minutes to official opening time and we headed over toward Adventureland. Calista and Meghan splashed in the tiki gods spray for awhile with mom, granny, Dauntie and grandpa supervising… Joe and I took Brayden, and Jayleigh and walked right onto Magic Carpets. Calista – who will ride ToT, is afraid of this ride because when we went on it in March, she went to step out of the carpet and her foot slipped between the carpet and the landing and she fell all the way down through toward the water underneath… up to her hip… had she been standing at just a slightly different angle it could have been quite a catastrophe… she had a war wound of a huge bruise on her leg that lasted for several days. I feel bad about this because I think this ride is cute and more fun than Dumbo…. After Magic Carpets, I suggested Splash Mountain… Meghan came running out of the tiki gods spray shouting, “No, I don’t want to get wet!” Uh… you are already soaked kiddo! So goes what I have begun referring to as Megalogic. Okay, we’ll try that later… let’s hit Pirates… Again, very little wait… but some flustering with the kids… geesh, I can’t keep track of what or why… I know Brayden decided he MUST put his own sandals back on by himself…. A million light years later, Joe and Brayden caught up with us in the long dark tunnel just in time to board with us. He was enthralled with this ride. I don’t think he blinked the whole time…After convincing Meg she wouldn’t get wet on this ride (even though she was still damp from the tiki gods) we protected her from the splash on the drop and then Grandpa entertained her by pointing out all sorts of things to Meghan, including the pirate who was giving the dog a drink of whisky. Uh, what’s whisky grandpa?

After the ride, we were all happily, yo-ho-ho-ing… and then we discovered we were in a gift shop AGAIN! Again – Brayden bounced around like a maniac suddenly NEEDING every toy in sight. Oh wait, grandpa to the rescue with the magic card! In a moment of parenting stupidity, I convinced Brayden to put back the heavy $15 gun and get the cheaper plastic long sword instead…. Thus ensued an ongoing dialogue from Joe that fell upon deaf ears, “Brayden, watch out… put that sword down… don’t swing the sword.. hey you almost hit that lady … okay, do we need to take the sword away?” “NOOOOOOOOO!” I tried to make a game out of it and get him to act like he was protecting all the princesses and he couldn’t swing the sword at any of them…. Meg was furious when she came back from a… yup, you guessed it… a potty break… to discover Brayden scored this booty and she didn’t… Oh, it’s okay, Grandpa will take you back to the store and buy you something with his magic card… not to be outdone by her brother’s toy, moments later she returned with a green light up sword…hers made sounds so it must be better… while they were doing a sword comparison I promised Calista who was now feeling left out that she could get a toy at the next gift shop, because rest assured, there would be another one of those in our future! While Joe took Brayden on his tour de potty, dad decided it was too hot (and probably too expensive) for him to stay with us so he headed back to the hotel. Bummer, I didn’t realize until he was gone that he would miss Philharmagic again! He was with us in March and missed it then too because he wasn’t feeling well and headed back to the hotel. I guess he’s been here, done this so much… but I felt kind of bad that he didn’t want to stay… but everyone has their limits I guess. So we headed off to Philharmagic… oh no… Megalogic alert… another “wet” attraction! For anyone who’s seen this… it’s truly no big deal… especially in the heat we were experiencing. We got through that by putting Dauntie’s hat over the sprayer thingie and we enjoyed it very much… although we were in the second row and it was too close really. We really like this show… one of our favorites thing in the World. Okay… off to get a Fast Pass for Splash Mountain. Poor Brayden the Pirate wanted to ride so bad and couldn’t understand why he couldn’t… with his pirate hat on he was tall enough… but they made him take it off of course. Over to Goofy’s Country Jamboree… we were in line hoping Joe would catch up after taking the two older girls to the potty. Luckily, they did. I’d heard what a great character interaction this show was… and well, it was cute but the kids were acting all timid and didn’t really get into the dancing until the end. I have a brain lapse about what exactly we did after this but I’m sure a potty break was involved. At any rate, it was getting to be time for the Splash FP’s and we were in a full-out Megalogic debate about whether or not she would ride it… yes, no, yes, no… if I do what will happen… what do I get? Well isn’t the ride itself reward enough? Ok, ok… she would love the show part of the ride and I didn’t want her to miss out again b/c she didn’t go on it last time we were here. So I agreed to buy her a Mickey Bar if she went on it with her grandma and of course her raincoat in tow. Umm… I would’ve bought her one anyway, but it worked… So again, I chose to be the one to sit out since I figured I’d get to go on it during e-ride night on Monday. So I bought Brayden and Jayleigh and myself Mickey Bars and let them go to town getting it all over the place… we entertained the people around us with this little activity… Brayden was in rare form, playing pirate making everyone passing by laugh and smile. Jayleigh got out of the stroller and I had to chase her around as she’d do that toddler thing of taking a few quick steps forward and look back and smile to see if you’re going to go after them.

Luckily, we discovered some ducks that saved the day. I dug out a bag of chips to feed to the ducks. I wondered if we should be doing that then decided it was better than having to run after a pirate going left and a toddler going right. The gang got off Splash happy and Meghan thankfully didn’t get wet. You couldn’t see her in the picture because she was ducking and grandma was sprawled over her trying to protect her… so we didn’t buy it. A round of Mickey Bars for the Splash Mtn gang and guess what, a potty break for Brayden… It was 11:45 and time to go home… all we really wanted to do yet was see the Cinderella show… we caught the very tail end of it as we were walking out. We saw a bunch of characters on the way out but the only one the kids felt like standing in line for was Peter Pan and Wendy… their handler told Joe the line was cut off so we just watched him for awhile and headed out to the boat launch. We took the ride back to the hotel and met up with grandpa. Shortly thereafter, we were headed to the pool with the waterfall and waterslide. I thought this would be the best one to go to because it had the shallow zero entrance area. We were like a group of circus clowns, shuttling stuff and kids to potties and areas of the pool. I sent Joe to get some life jackets from the marina just to be on the safe side. The only child that can really swim solo is Calista… Meghan still needs to get a bit stronger but all can swim with the life jackets. Meghan refused to wear hers so Jayleigh wore it. I took Calista on the water slide – she was so excited… the first one she’s ever been on -- and she liked it but I think she got water up her nose and didn’t want to go on it again right away. Meghan was interested in it but changed her mind when she learned she’d have to go down alone. I still think we should have asked them to let us… Brayden and I headed out to the beach and made some sand castles. I didn’t realize that we couldn’t swim in the lake… and it didn’t really make sense – the signs said, “No Swimming, Steep Drop Off” – after recent posts about gator sightings… I wonder if those signs aren’t actually a diversion because of that… oh well… Jayleigh had had enough and was getting very cranky so we headed over to Gasparilla for lunch. Brayden fell asleep while at the table and we just sat and visited for awhile. The girls wanted to go to the hot tub (in 95 degree weather… they’re crazy!) and back to the pool and my mom insisted we take Brayden back to nap peacefully in the room. Joe and LaTelle were tired so they took Brayden and Jayleigh back to the room where they chuckled about how it was 95 degrees outside but here they sat covered up in blankets because the room was so cold… it never dawned on them to turn up the thermostat… actually it did finally… but you can bet I turned it down again later when I realized it…lol… We spent nearly another 2 hours in the quiet pool near the hot tub and kiddie pool… me, dad, granny, and the two girls… playing shamu and swimming… By then it was about 4:30 and we had to figure out what to do for the evening. After almost an hour of indecisiveness, I made the decision that I’d like my mom and sister to see MGM as they were leaving the next morning to go home. They had never been there before… So we headed out by bus for the first time from the GF to MGM… all of us. When we got there, we went right through and grabbed some strollers. My mom decided she liked these better than Sea World’s strollers but not as much as MK’s. Joe really wanted to ride RnR this time so I volunteered to walk ahead and grab the FP’s – it was about now Joe commented to my sister about how I knew my way around so well that after three days we hadn’t even gotten out a map yet. I grabbed the FP’s and called my dad to let him know the 6:15 Beauty and the Beast show was just about to start. After some confusion about trying to tell him where the show was – we laughed about how it sounded like we were living back in California.. “okay what street are you on… okay, take a right onto Sunset Blvd. , etc.” we used to all live in California. Anyway, I met up with them and we had seats in the upper bleachers… pretty far away… but the kids were enthralled nonetheless… it was sprinkling a bit off and on…. Joe was getting frantic about the foreboding weather… after all we’d just survived that torrential downpour the day before. After B&B we took a potty break (yup… it’s never ending!) and got in line for the Voyage of the Little Mermaid. It was the first time any of us saw this and it was great… Meghan didn’t even get mad at the “wet” part. Some of the effects in this were pretty cool. Jayleigh made friends with the lady next to us, insisting on sitting in her own seat even though she couldn’t really see above the seats above her. Show after show isn’t really her thing. I felt bad that Playhouse Disney was done for the night but they delighted in seeing the characters on the billboard/closed up sign. That was enough for now… We meandered around for a bit, waiting for granny to get a drink. We looked around the pin in the big hat and lo and behold, a bunch of characters came out. Meghan insisted we wait in line for Minnie… when we were about there, she bolted and wanted to go back to the store in the hat to buy something. Megalogic at work again… whatever… we didn’t end up buying anything but Brayden was standing up on the top of the steps in the back of the hat and was putting on quite the pirate show with his hat and sword (we could barely wrench that thing out of his hand most days) -- he was jousting and grousing and ‘arrrrr-ing’ and when he was all done, he took a grandiose bow… that little kid spread his own magic. He was so cute and the people walking by clapped for him and chuckled at his little show.

All of a sudden one of the kids realized there was bathroom we hadn’t visited yet… so while we headed over there… King Louie came up to Jayleigh and snuggled with her which made her so happy – well, this is hearsay as I was busy checking out the bathroom. Then Rafiki’s handler was saying something about how he had to find the prettiest princess there and he picked Meghan and gave her a big hug, which made her glow… being the second daughter sandwiched between four kids is a tough spot to let her little star shine… so things like this really mean so much to her. We headed into the Great Movie Ride which was both scarier than I remembered and a bit more lackluster. It was the gangster theme… We had such a great host the time we went on this in March (Steve) – and this guy, well, I can’t even remember his name… enough said I guess. Our Bugsy was good though… When we got out the skies were getting quite dark and it was 8:30 (park was closing at 9) and time for our RnR FP’s… my dad decided he shouldn’t go on it b/c of his blood pressure, but in the confusion, my mom was left with all four kids and never got to ride it. The plan was half of us would go on first, then the second half, since none of the kids were big enough. The ride was great… we were hyped with our ten minutes of alone time (Joe and I) – singing loud the Aerosmith songs… “Dude, looks like a lady!” Well, then SOMETHING WENT AWRY… Joe went out to send my mom and sister in to ride. I guess they decided not to. I really wanted the picture because I was in it… I’m never in any pictures. The line for the pictures was longer than the line for the ride AND the ride itself combined… this is where Joe started getting snappish at me… I must have been tired or sun-crazy because I got rather emotional about the whole thing… Here was this obviously lovey-dovey couple behind me in line all kissing on each other, so happy to be at WDW and here I was standing in line alone with my husband snapping at me about how selfish I was to want to wait in line for the picture when our 5 year old was outside having a tantrum because she was tired of waiting and it was going to pour any second (just so you know it never poured… a few sprinkles that we were in the bus for anyway)… I was just so annoyed that my trip wasn’t filled with more of that lovey-dovey stuff… instead here I was feeling like I was dragging everyone through the parks – I was trying to go at a slow enough pace to be enjoyable for everyone and yet, I felt like if I walked any slower, I’d be a statue… I even put on my flip flops and pushed the heaviest stroller so I’d be forced to slow down. When I got out with the picture… Joe and I had some words and I was so mad that every time I looked at the RnR picture I’d have to remember his shortness and impatience with me. He was not in a very tolerable mood at this point. Well, I didn’t speak to him for quite awhile… the whole ride home on the bus and in the hotel room. I took Brayden out to see the MK fireworks from the Marina with my mom and then we went to have something to eat at Gasparilla. My sister went over to have room service with my dad in his room and to visit privately for awhile. She was having a lot of pain in her feet from some sort of medical problem… which is why I was trying so hard not to push anyone and yet, I felt like there was so much constant drama in the first three days here. I chatted with my mom to try and sort it out and try to figure out how to decompress the situation. Although she doesn’t mean to, sometimes my mom’s comments fuel the flames… she felt like Joe wasn’t able to relax and enjoy himself and was constantly corralling and scolding the kids. I brought Joe back a hamburger and a drink and being the stubborn ox that he can be, he refused to eat it… I dragged him outside the room to have a discussion about our attitudes that day. We agreed that yes, this was a vacation and while the kids shouldn’t be out of control, we didn’t need to be flipping out on them over every little thing. It didn’t help anyway.

By 11ish, we crashed and just kind of swept the whole thing under the rug. I decided I didn’t want to spend my vacation fighting over stupid stuff so I just woke up with the attitude it’s a whole new day.

DAY THREE HIGHS: The pool, riding RnR for the first time, doing so many rides/attractions today
DAY THREE LOWS: The RnR tiff w/ Joe

DAY FOUR 6/14 FAREWELL FAMILY, HELLO RAINSTORM:
While I was sad to see my mom and sister’s trip end so soon, I was looking forward to a smaller group to go around the parks in… although, they were very helpful with the kids the whole time they were here. We got up early, planning to get to AK before EMH started… but the kids were dragging and grandma was indulging them in feeding the ducks below the balcony again. Jayleigh was in a playful mood this morning as she grabbed the sorcerer hat, which when sitting on the ground is just about as tall as her… and she put it on, pulling it over her eyes… she was so cute and we had to stop and take pictures… which turned into a pose fest for all the kids to get their picture taken. On our way out to the elevator which was just outside our door Jayleigh – still wearing the hat, walked straight past the elevator and into the door of another room in front of her… clunk (oh man, I hope that didn’t wake anyone up!) She bounced off the door and just like a little lemming turned and started going down the other hallway totally oblivious to the hysterics the rest of us were in. Our fellow elevator riders must have thought we were nuts by how hard we were still laughing. Oh by the way, somehow, the kids always seemed to know whose turn it was to push the elevator buttons and whose turn it was to sit where and with whom in the strollers. It’s tiring keeping up with all the things they seem to keep on their invisible all-powerful sibling scorecards… We didn’t make it to AK until 8:30. Man it’s a long ride from the GF.

My dad stayed back and had breakfast at the Grand Floridian Café with my mom and sister.

Again, I got to use my disboard research (thank you very much) and usurp the long entrance lines by walking in through the Rainforest Café… no problem… we even stopped and gawked around in the store for awhile and still got in faster than those who were in line in front of us in the bag check area.

Off to grab FP’s for Kilamanjaro Safaris… the stand-by line was probably 45 minutes long already. We went to try to catch Bug’s Life but it was temporarily down, so we thought we’d head to Dinoland… Man this park is huge! It makes you feel like you’ve done more than you actually did! We took a meandering walk behind the tree and arrived at Triceratop Spin… which was also broken down… great morning! Guess SOMETHING WAS GOING AWRY again! Well, we played the carnival games and won three frogs… Meghan was thrilled with winning at the “squirter” game and would proceed to want to go back there at the most inconvenient times during the rest of the trip. Triceratop was up and running… so we rode that and the kids really liked it. We were going to head to our PS for Donald’s Breakfastasaurus but I forget how we got sidetracked… oh yeah, a potty pit-stop and a dinosaur character meet… What is that Dino’s name… Hector, maybe? Well, we went to the Safari and the kids snapped tons of pics on their throw away cameras… saw some neat animals but honestly, both times I have ridden this I haven’t been overly impressed. We totally forgot to go to the Boneyard which we knew the kids would love. Instead we got FP’s for Bug’s Life and headed to Rainforest Café for lunch… lots of potty breaks and although it looked like it would be fun… this was too loud for Jayleigh… when the animals acted up, they made her upset. So we got out of there and made it to our FP for Bug’s Life… we rushed over to Lion King, which is the main thing we wanted to see at AK and egads… another potty pit stop… And yes folks, we did try to institute the rule… if one goes, all go! But alas, you can’t plan your bladder I guess… and by now, Brayden caught onto the standing up at the urinal thing so he refused to go into the girl’s bathroom with me anymore. They cut off the line for Lion King at the people right before us… We decided we didn’t want to wait another hour to see the show and it was starting to sprinkle anyway. And the girls had been clamoring to sit in the hot tub the whole morning (still in the 90’s too--- I don’t get it – Megalogic)

We headed back to the bus and took a VERY LONG, crowded ride back to the GF… we stopped at BB which is why the bus was so crowded… also it stopped at all the monorail resorts. The guy standing in front of us said they were planning on closing BB which is why the bus lines there were so long.

Back at the hotel we met up with my dad and tried to get the kids to have some chill time. My dad had moved over to the room my mom and sister had – the one adjoined to ours…. So we just closed our side of the doors and tried to make them take a nap… it was pouring down rain – in sheets and while I was thinking, man I bet there are no lines at the parks, Joe was thanking God for our good fortune of not being caught in that downpour. Then about 15 minutes into “chill time” once again, SOMETHING WENT AWRY… Jayleigh started crying… hard. Apparently, she had gotten out of her crib and I’m not sure what happened but what we gleaned from the other kids, one of them was trying to help her up onto the bed and pulled her by the hand… she was grabbing onto her wrist crying uncontrollably saying, “hurt, hurt” – so I had her lay down in the other room with me and she started to doze… only every time I touched her she cried out “owwww” in her sleep – remember she’s not even 2 yet… Now, we were getting worried so Joe called and the Nurse told us what to look for – nothing that we could see but still, she was crying, “owwww” so when she woke up and was still doing that, we decided to take her to Celebration Hospital… my dad argued with the valet guys who said it would take quite awhile to get his car – he finally told them it was somewhat of an emergency and Joe and I took Jayleigh and while waiting for the elevator, noticed she was using her hand… he tested it by handing her his cell phone, his keys… let her push the button on the elevator… she was all smiles and giggly… she just wanted to “GO!” She was fine… we turned back and decided she was going to fine… although she was mad now because we took her back into the room and she wanted to be out and about. Meanwhile, Brayden was sleeping now. Meghan and Calista were hungry. Then they decided they weren’t hungry… egads… so grandpa and I took Meghan and Jayleigh (who just wanted to be on the go) up to the M. Mercantile Store to buy a souvenir. After inspecting everything in the store Meghan settled on a pink Mickey head shaped ring and a purse with princesses on it and candy inside it. It’s interesting to me to see what they end up choosing… she is so modest in her choices… Jayleigh on the other hand, tore through the store and had just about everything in her hands at one point. We settled on a purse for her too and four Disney figures – in Jayleigh speak: Dickey Douse, Minnie, Don-ohd and ‘oofy!

Then it was Calista’s turn so I brought Meghan back down to the room and brought Calista back up to the store. She picked a Cinderlla figure playset and a Peter Pan one for Brayden… and some chocolate candy for everyone… ooh, gotta love grandpa’s magic card!

Grandpa and Calista waited for a table at the GF Café, and I went and woke up Brayden and we all reconvened by the ca

 

[sherrie]

thank you for posting this great and amusing report, thanks for the link on the parks forum or i might have missed it. sure sounds like you had your hands full. we will be there in 19 days and i am sure we will hit the same bathrooms for our potty breaks, been there, done that. lol

 

[chop456]

Thanks for the entertaining trip report! And for posting some useful tips!

 

[minmate]

Yes, with kids this age, the potty break times really do add up! Need to take that into account!

 

[DisneyDreamer2]

We have 4 daughters, the same ages as your children, and have really been debating on taking the trip. It is a lot of money for a large family, and while things will always go awry, what wonderful memories you'll have, I understand exactly what you went through with DH at RNRC picture purchase!!! Thanks for finding the time to post your report in your no doubt very busy life! thanks!

 

[MelessaG]

I loved your trip report. Of course, it was more of a "how to" guide for me. We are going in Nov. with DD 6, DS 4, DD 2, and DD who will be 6 mos. by then. My parents will be there too, but not with us all the time. Thanks for going into such detail-I've been thinking a lot already about how many potty and souvenir stops we will be making-especially with MeMe and PaPa's "magic cards" and my 2 year-old'f firm belief that she is a pwetty pwincess.

 

[Minniespal]

Great report ~ Thanx for sharing.

 

[minmate]