Mom, my hands smell-A first timer's TR-Completed 4/12

[LaurenMic]

I'll admit it, I have been lurking!

Love your report, can't wait for more laughs

 

[NotSoEvilStepmother]

I'll admit it, I have been lurking!

Love your report, can't wait for more laughs

Thanks for joining in!

Sorry I haven't been updating, everyone. School's busy, busy, busy right now and I'm drowning there. And I just had Pirates auditions so that's going to be taking up my time now on too. And the holidays. Ack! I shouldn't even be on here but I have the excuse of needing to use my computer for homework.

 

[NotSoEvilStepmother]

Sorry for going so long without an update guys. With auditions for Pirates of Penzance, my absolutely disastrous dance concert (literally), and having to write five papers, read two books, a play, rehearse for three other plays I’m in, get in Christmas shopping (which I finished, thank goodness) be a good daughter and student (which quite often fall into the same category), create some Christmas gifts, and getting ready for finals and state testing, I’ve hardly had time to write, let alone breathe or use the computer all together. Whew. Ok. So when I left you, we had just gotten done waiting for them to open the Magic Kingdom.

Magic Kingdom, Day One, Part deux


We basically led the majority of the crowd to the monorail and hopped on the one that was just coming into the station. I could hardly contain myself. I was practically jumping off my seat. The three year old sitting across from me was looking at me like I was some sort of freak. Sleepy was jumping with me and even Grumpy looked a little happy.

We passed by the Contemporary Resort and I turned away from the window that would be going right against the Magic Kingdom. We hopped off of the monorail and nearly ran down the ramp. We were patient while they checked our bags then zipped on through the turnstiles. We passed the front of the train station and while we were underneath, Sleepy took a picture of this.

I should have been warned here.

We passed through and it was magical. Characters like Pinocchio, Jiminy Cricket, Gepetto, and Chip and Dale were greeting with kids. Cast Members stood at the edge of the sidewalk wearing Mickey Mouse gloves and waving to everyone.

I got a blurry picture of this.

“I have to go to the restroom,” Sleepy announced. “Let’s find one.”

We went towards City Hall, trying to fight the opening crowds. I could only sideways glance at Main Street. I wanted to see that castle.

“Wait,” I said. “I missed it!”

“You’ve already seen the one in California, you’ll be fine for now,” Grumpy announced. And we pushed on through the crowds.

Dejected, I snapped a hurried picture of this.

While we waited for Sleepy, I asked Grumpy how he was liking Disney World so far. His response:

Sleepy finally came out of the restroom and we could go. We walked right down the middle of Main Street U.S.A. (Name that song!) towards the castle.

Then we snapped a picture of this just for some friends and family. Why… I have no idea…

With one last picture(which didn’t turn out so good)…

We headed off towards Tomorrowland!

Continued in next post

 

[NotSoEvilStepmother]

The Unofficial Guide’s plan told us to go straight towards Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin.

We have something similar to this (I’m not sure if it’s the same thing or not) at Disneyland. I always did pitiful with that. I’m proud to say that I did quite a bit better this time. But Sleepy still slaughtered us all.

We skipped (quite literally for me and Sleepy…Grumpy, not so much) towards Winnie the Pooh. Sleepy and Grumpy had to drag me away from the Tea Cups. I never would get my chance to ride them. We joined Pooh and his Woodland friends on a very blustery day then spent some time in the gift shop, giving everything a good look over.

We decided to skip Snow White as it scared us all the last time we were in Disneyland. We joined Peter and Wendy and the Boys in a marvelous flight over London and through Never Land. I absolutely love this ride and how it’s done. Very cool.

To Grumpy’s dismay, we next ventured onto It’s a Small World.

We laughed a little bit at the notion of the line being inside, but soon discovered it was quite a good idea when the sun is beating down on your head. All that morning, we hadn’t ventured upon a line that was more than 5 minutes long (yet another reason why I love the UG). And Small World was no exception. Within 2 minutes, we were waving good-bye at the loading platform…

And we were on our way.

Up Next: Grim, Grinning, Ghosts give great giant giggles

 

[grandpaof3]

OK, let's see, from auditions for Pirates to State testing I count only about 17 item not counting eating, sleeping, bathing, doing boring homework and probably a sundry of other necessary activities that have been keeping you busy and your asking us, your loyal followers, to belive you haven't had time to update your TR!!!!! I mean really!!!!!

Actually your activities make me so happy that my schooling days came to an end many years ago.

That little girl on the Monorail obviously had never been exposed to a true Disney freak before. Give her a few years and she will fully understand the excitement.
If you have to be a freak a Disney one wins every time!

You can't blame Sleepy for staking out the Rest Rooms but opting to use one when you were that close to seeing Cindy's castle for the first time is almost unforgivable.

I'm sorry if this sound critical but I didn't see even one OOOOH or AAAAH when you saw the Castle for the first time. You must feel that written words just can't do it justice.

I skipped the Teacups and Small World this year. That song is going through my head as I'm typing this.

Another sideways picture! There goes my neck again.

Enough for now. See you latter.

P.S.
It's good to see Grumpy smiling again.

 

[Somnia]

Good update

You are right about small world. I am not a huge fan of it, but its nice and cool and you get to sit down for awhile.

 

[NotSoEvilStepmother]

OK, let's see, from auditions for Pirates to State testing I count only about 17 item not counting eating, sleeping, bathing, doing boring homework and probably a sundry of other necessary activities that have been keeping you busy and your asking us, your loyal followers, to belive you haven't had time to update your TR!!!!! I mean really!!!!!

Actually your activities make me so happy that my schooling days came to an end many years ago.

That little girl on the Monorail obviously had never been exposed to a true Disney freak before. Give her a few years and she will fully understand the excitement.
If you have to be a freak a Disney one wins every time!

You can't blame Sleepy for staking out the Rest Rooms but opting to use one when you were that close to seeing Cindy's castle for the first time is almost unforgivable.

I'm sorry if this sound critical but I didn't see even one OOOOH or AAAAH when you saw the Castle for the first time. You must feel that written words just can't do it justice.

I skipped the Teacups and Small World this year. That song is going through my head as I'm typing this.

Another sideways picture! There goes my neck again.

Enough for now. See you latter.

P.S.
It's good to see Grumpy smiling again.

My not explaining the fascination with the castle is simply because A. I forgot about it cuz I was exhausted in writing this and 2. there truthfully wasn't one. Sleepy and Grumpy saw it 6 years ago and I'm sure they had lots of OHHS and AAAHHHS then and I've seen Sleeping Beauty Castle and Cindy's Castle (on TV, thanks to the lovely Travel Channel) so many times and this morning of our vacation was so stressful and tiring, I just couldn't find any reason to goggle at it. Of course that didn't stop me from coming home and watching a thousand YOUTUBE videos of first timer Disney-ers and their joyous reactions to the castle(s).

I'm trying to go through and fix all of the sideways pictures. My computer is a butthead when it comes to editing photos. Thank goodness my new camera does it automatically.

Good update

You are right about small world. I am not a huge fan of it, but its nice and cool and you get to sit down for awhile.

Small World holds a special, although slightly annoying, place in my heart. It's the same place that allows me to adore Figment, think the old TV show "Dinosaur" is still cute, and have an odd obsession with PostSecret. It's a part of me that I just can't get away from and I love it and hate it to death at the same time.

 

[Somnia]

Small World holds a special, although slightly annoying, place in my heart. It's the same place that allows me to adore Figment, think the old TV show "Dinosaur" is still cute, and have an odd obsession with PostSecret. It's a part of me that I just can't get away from and I love it and hate it to death at the same time.

Ya I know exactly what you are talking about. It's one of those rides I cannot skip ever. I've been riding it for 26 years...won't stop anytime soon

 

[NotSoEvilStepmother]

Being serenaded by Disney World shows on the Travel Channel, I’m going to work on this new installment of the trip report. Sorry it’s been so long since the last update. Now that school is officially out for winter break (and I successfully passed all of my classes with relatively good grades) I can afford the time to work on a few updates so that I can have a nice stock for you. So, here we go…

Magic Kingdom—Day One—Part 3

So when I last left you, we had polished off most of Fantasyland and were on our way to the Haunted Mansion. In basically every other trip report from the last year or so I’ve read, people are gushing about how great the new Haunted Mansion is and how the new things are amazing. Seeing as no one in my family has ever been to this Haunted Mansion, we have nothing to compare it to. So none of those kinds of compliments are here. But I must say, I do love the theme of this ride. And the graveyard in the queue has a certain je ne sais quoi (I hope I spelled that right, my French teacher will be very disappointed if I didn’t) that the one at Disneyland lacks.

Especially Madame Liotta.

(For reference, the posted wait time at this time—about 10:15—said that the wait was about 15 minutes. I’m telling you, we didn’t wait longer than 10 minutes before we were on our way to being the 1,000th happy haunt.)

I wish I had a picture of this, but you know how the hitchhiking ghosts appear in your doom-buggy at the end of the ride? Well, Sleepy, who was sitting with me, went and scratched our guys beard. Our sleep deprived minds thought this was the funniest thing in thing in the world. When we got off the ride, we still hadn’t stopped laughing. Grumpy, who had been oblivious to Sleepy’s action, looked at us like we were insane.

We got off, just barely avoiding a HUGE tour group of Brazilians, and looked at the next step in the plan. Ride Splash Mountain or get FASTPASS. We ventured over to Frontierland, avoiding Woody’s Round Up by seconds. We walked quickly, taking some shortcuts to Splash Mountain and stopped dead in our tracks.

We’d been glad that there had been almost no tour groups so far today. But when we arrived by BTMR and Splash Mountain, we discovered where they’d all been. Dozens of tour groups, literally, were taking up every available space here. We caught sight of the Stand-By time for Splash (almost an hour and growing) and quickly decided to grab a FASTPASS. I took the tickets and ran to get them. We got two different times, but I just beat a tour group runner (the leader of the tour groups, holding 50 tickets for FASTPASSes).
Pocketing those, we headed over to Big Thunder. The posted wait time said 20 minutes, but we waited quite a bit over an hour. This was the longest wait of the entire week we were at Disney World. As we waited, standing in the winding line, almost at a standstill, three tour groups passed us with FASTPASSES. Just as we were about to board (finally), one of the groups came back. Half our train was full of singing teenagers in bright orange shirts. Oh well, they were in the back and we got almost front row.

I have to say, I love this version of BTMR better than the one at Disneyland. They’re almost identical, I know, but it has something else to it and it makes the horrible, hot wait, totally worth it.

We disembarked and then headed out to Adventureland. We dodged Woody’s Round Up once more and entered Adventureland headed towards Pirates of the Carribbean. Almost as if make-up for the horrible line for BTMR, PotC only had a 5 minute line. They handed me a few of those red time-wait cards. We, never having experienced these before, wondered what they were. When Sleepy questioned a CM about them, she was disappointed in finding out they were only used to gage the time of the wait. She’d thought that they were a prize.

I just have to say, I was disappointed in this ride. The theme was lacking any theme at all, there was no real story, and it was just kind of lame. Disneyland is much, much better. This was the one ride I was homesick for the entire vacation. Oh well. Live and learn.

We headed back to Fronteirland (no Woody’s Round Up) and took a ride with an adventurous rabbit.

Our cheap-o redneck picture.

We were now officially soaked so we decided to warm up a bit and go eat our Pb&j sandwiches watching the boats go past on the Rivers of America.

Back to Adventureland to grab some FASTPASSes for the Jungle Cruise as the line was about 30 minutes long. Then we went back to Fronteirland, and, after taking a bathroom break, we caught a showing of the Country Bear Jamboree.

Continued in next post

 

[NotSoEvilStepmother]

The last time I saw this was long before it closed at Disneyland when I was about 5 so I have nothing to compare it to. Here’s some lovely non-flash photography pictures.

See this guy?

And this guy?

Meet these guys.

And now we were on our way to relax on our own trip around the Rivers of America. We’d done the Mark Twain Riverboat at Disneyland for the first time the year before. And now it was time to compare it to the Liberty Belle Riverboat. I must say, there wasn’t much of a difference between the two rides. Both were nice, relaxing, and hot. We sat back and enjoyed the view.

Uh-oh. Look at those clouds.

What can this mean? You’ll just have to wait to find out.

Up Next: Drowned Rats

P.S. I hope everyone has a happy holiday!

 

[justplaingoofy]

congrats on school break

You just sucked me in again...... I need more

 

[grandpaof3]

You had me worried I was beginning to think you had fallen of the Planet or something. Anyway I'm glad you're back .

Having been to the Haunted Mansion bunches of times, the changes were very noticable. I'm not sure they are worth gushing about but they do make it more worth the wait. With breakdowns last Aug. we waited nearly an hour to experience the changes. Never having a French Teacher, I had enough trouble with English, I won't try to correct your mastery of the language. You get an "A" in my book! In defence of my English prowess, My DD was an English major on College and I still find myself correcting her and my DGD's use of the language.

Splash Mountain was a fun ride except in November, Gets a little chilly that time of year and water in your lap isn't looked forward to. Yep, I got more than wet on that one. I seem to be a water magnet and have been soaked on every Disney water ride at on time or other. They did change SM so you don't get splashed at the beginning of the ride anymore. Thunder Mountain is by far my favorite MK ride. We happened to be there the first day it opened and my three kids and I rode it 30 times in a row. Those were the good old days when there were no lines. I have pictures of my family on an empty Main Street in the late morning.
I've never rode on the Liberty Bell. Will have to try that next year.

That moisture you noticed wasn't rain. That's liquid sunshine!!!!!

Congrats. on the good grades. Relatively?

Merry Christmas and all the best in the New Year!

 

[NotSoEvilStepmother]

congrats on school break

You just sucked me in again...... I need more

Hi again! Try Wal-Mart for more . They have everything.

You had me worried I was beginning to think you had fallen of the Planet or something. Anyway I'm glad you're back .

Having been to the Haunted Mansion bunches of times, the changes were very noticable. I'm not sure they are worth gushing about but they do make it more worth the wait. With breakdowns last Aug. we waited nearly an hour to experience the changes. Never having a French Teacher, I had enough trouble with English, I won't try to correct your mastery of the language. You get an "A" in my book! In defence of my English prowess, My DD was an English major on College and I still find myself correcting her and my DGD's use of the language.

Splash Mountain was a fun ride except in November, Gets a little chilly that time of year and water in your lap isn't looked forward to. Yep, I got more than wet on that one. I seem to be a water magnet and have been soaked on every Disney water ride at on time or other. They did change SM so you don't get splashed at the beginning of the ride anymore. Thunder Mountain is by far my favorite MK ride. We happened to be there the first day it opened and my three kids and I rode it 30 times in a row. Those were the good old days when there were no lines. I have pictures of my family on an empty Main Street in the late morning.
I've never rode on the Liberty Bell. Will have to try that next year.

That moisture you noticed wasn't rain. That's liquid sunshine!!!!!

Congrats. on the good grades. Relatively?

Merry Christmas and all the best in the New Year!

As far as I know, I'm still on the face of the Earth. . See, I'm completely Disney World-retarded. I hear (read?) people talking (writing?) on here about all these different places in WDW and I just sit back and pretend to know what goes on there. If we'd had more time on our trip and perhaps stayed on property (because that's always the best way to go ) I might understand it more. But I love changes at my homeland--Disneyland. Except when they come back year after year after year at the exact same time you're there (curse you Haunted Mansion Holiday!--I haven't seen the real thing since before they put "changes" to it).
I love getting soaked on rides, from the sky, not so much. I'm in the middle of the desert though, so I have reasons. Disneyland's SM splashes you at every available opportunity, but I enjoyed WDW's much better. Disney with no lines?????? I've never heard of that before.
Liquid sunshine or not, it was still water coming from the sky.
Relatively good grades as in, I passed all my finals with nothing lower than a 76% (that was my honor's class, though) and all of my final semester grades were 94 (again, my honor's class) or better, except Algebra 2 (my downfall) where I got a 85 which is 7 percent higher than I thought I'd get. The relativity was for my math class because I know I could do better than that.

Happy Christmas, Merry Channakuh, and Good New Years everyone
Oh, and happy Winter Solstice day.!

 

[grandpaof3]

Hi again.

Your desert location sounds great. We're under about 14 inches of snow at the moment with a wind chill factor way below ZERO.

Once again, congrats on those good grades. They go along with being an "Amazing Daughter" I guess.

My DGD13 would have gotten all A's but for a B in Algebra.

B.C.N.U.

 

[orangecats2]

Just found your TP and it's great! I am mostly a lurker but wanted to say hi. I like the perspective you give on the world. I can't wait to hear about your ADR at San Angel Inn.
Happy Holidays

 

[NotSoEvilStepmother]

Just found your TP and it's great! I am mostly a lurker but wanted to say hi. I like the perspective you give on the world. I can't wait to hear about your ADR at San Angel Inn.
Happy Holidays

Thanks for joining in on the fun! Haha. It might take a little while to get to the San Angel. There's still the rest of this day, another day at the MK (probably pretty short because I didn't have notes that day), and then a majority of the day at Epcot.
Feel free to comment as much as you want.

Happy holidays!!!!

 

[NotSoEvilStepmother]

We saw that rain was on it’s way and as soon as we made it back to good old Liberty Square, we booked it over to the Hall of Presidents (the attraction Grumpy wanted to experience the most).

We were among the last 10 people let into the holding pen (it was still fairly sunny outside at this time) and only had to wait for about 5 minutes before the doors opened and they let the masses (well, not MASSES exactly) through. While Grumpy stared excitedly at the curtain, me and Sleepy settled in for a nice nap. The show wasn’t too terribly bad. Sleepy actually did fall asleep. Again. I’ll admit, I did too for a few minutes.

As we exited, Grumpy had only this to say.

“Well, that was a good lesson that we should all remember.”

Sleepy’s response?

“What? Make sure to sleep with your mouth closed?”

We left through the doors and immediately got wet. It was pouring rain out there. We’d been in the show for 15 minutes and already it was pouring. We pulled on the ponchos and headed back over to Adventureland. We found Sleepy a restroom, only to see that it was overflowing (with rain water, that is). The rain let up just a little bit and we took that as our chance to try the Jungle Cruise with the FASTPASSes.

It was only sprinkling as we took a cruise down 4 rivers including de Nile. We had a pretty funny skipper but other than that, I don’t remember much about the ride. I know I prefer it to Disneyland’s though. It had an entirely different feeling.

It was just our luck that the moment we arrived back at the dock, it started pouring again. We covered up and ran out of Adventureland (for hopefully the last time that day) and over to the castle to get to Fantasyland.

Unfortunately, what we failed to realize was that every other person in the Magic Kingdom had decided to cram themselves into the tight space to hide out from the rain.

If you can’t stand the rain, get out of Florida! At least in July.

We squeezed (quite literally) through the masses (after seeing the pretty murals on the wall for Cinderella—the Stepmother was up there  ) and made it out in one piece to the nearly empty Fantasyland. We had gotten lucky that most of the attractions we had left were shows so we headed over to Philarmagic. By this point, both Sleepy and I had basically stopped taking pictures. But here’s one of the two of us taken on her phone.

Drowned rats.

We got lucky again and were headed into the show in no time. Of course, we forgot to take our obligatory 3-D glasses picture. I think this is the only sit-down attraction where Sleepy did not fall asleep. We all enjoyed Philarmagic, actually. Best 3-D show of the week. We dispensed of the 3-D glasses, threw on our ponchos and once again headed through the pouring rain towards Tomorrowland.

Monsters Inc. Comedy Club was next on our list. The wait was about 10 or 15 minutes but it seemed much longer as it’s quite drafty and we were all shivering like mad while in the first queue. The show was funny but we’re not so sure that we’d do it again. We exited and ran across the “street” to Stitch’s Great Escape.

See how horribly it was pouring?

We didn’t get so lucky this time as they lengthened the line right in front of us and literally made us walk the extra empty space.  The wait was short but the attraction was horrible. Not to mention boring. In the sit-down part, when they said that the chest-shield would stop when it hit your shoulders, mine didn’t. I literally had to push it up so it didn’t squeeze my shoulders (I’d been carrying around that stupid bag for 3 days now, my shoulder’s REALLY hurt). And then when Stitch is jumping around and the thingy comes down again, it hurt Sleepy’s shoulders really bad. I already had my hands pushing that thing up when I realized what would happen.

I love Stitch but his Great Escape was not cute and fluffy.

When we exited the into the over-crowded gift shop, Sleepy had half the mind to tell a CM about her horrible experience but Grumpy and I talked her out of it. We were just going to continue on with the tour plan when I saw it. The souvenir of my choice. The absolute best thing in the world.

An Alice in Wonderland snow globe with me (the White Rabbit) in the middle!!!

I had to have it. I picked it up and went to stand in the absolutely outrageous line to pay while Sleepy and Grumpy went outside.
In the line next to me, the husband was standing in line while his wife was coming back and forth with more stuff to add to their pile. While he was checking out, she came with more stuff. I think they’re total was about $130 or so. Oh, and then they got ponchos for 5 people so add forty to that.

Then right in front of me, there was a nice little family who had to buy ponchos for all of them. It came to about $60. The man was sighing as he doled out his money. Apparently, from what I overheard, they were supposed to go to dinner that night at a nice restaurant but now they couldn’t afford it. As they left, I couldn’t help but feel happy we’d bought our 86 cent ponchos at Wal-Mart two months beforehand. I told the story to Sleepy and Grumpy and they said the same thing.

Now that Sleepy had cooled her jets, we headed over to the TTA which had a 3 second wait. It was a lot of fun, just riding around Tomorrowland. It’s a member of the Disneyland Extinct Attractions Club so I’d never ridden it before. Very nice and relaxing. When we passed through Space Mountain the lights were on and there was a car just sitting there and the people staring at us. It didn’t look too bad. Hmmm…maybe I’d ride it the next day….

Sleepy’s legs were killing her (she has a swelling condition that really puts her in pain when it gets bad) so we asked the CM if we could stay on.

“No,” was all she said. “You have to get off.”

There wasn’t a soul in line.

So we got off and headed to Carousel of Progress. It was a pretty cool attraction actually. I’d been looking forward to it for a while. We had fun staying out of the rain and laughing at all of the “nifty” inventions. When we got out, Grumpy said it wasn’t as bad as he’d expected.

We went back to the TTA and rode around again. Space Mountain was working again and yikes—it looked scary. No thank you. As we rode around, Grumpy decided to speak of our plans for the next day.

“What park at we at tomorrow?”

“Here again.”

“You REALLY want to come back?”

“…Yes…”

“How about we do a day without a park.”

The Disney Nazi inside of me started screaming in protest. NO!!!!! We couldn’t miss out on a day at Disney. We were only here for a week! My plans were perfect! We had to follow them precisely!

“But we already paid for the ticket,” I gave weakly.

“It’s only two bucks.” He must have seen the fight in my eyes about ready to come out. “I’m not saying we got a WHOLE day without Disney, but how about we sleep in a bit, relax, come for a while, then go to Downtown Disney or something.”

“But we have to see the parade.”

“What time is it at?” I told him. “We can be back for that.”

Unwillingly, I agreed with his plans. Very unwillingly.

When we got off the TTA, we toured Main Street a bit and got a few souvenirs. We teased Grumpy with a few Grumpy (the dwarf) products, but we wasn’t too happy about it. We decided to leave. We took the monorail back to the TTC and were on our way out. We went out to dinner then back to the worst hotel in Orlando, and it was pouring rain all the while.

How will our “relaxing” day work out? Probably not how you think.

Up Next: Gasp! We're late!

 

[luckylady]

Another great read.Sorry ya'll had a lot of rain that day, but I"m happy to see you didn't let you down or stop ridding the rides. I agree the HoP is a great place to take a nap. Can't wait for more. Merry Christmas I hope you get what you want.

 

[grandpaof3]

Wow!!!!! Two updates in one week. You're going to spoil us if you're not careful.

HoP is second only to Tiki Birds when you need a nap. I reluctantly do Tiki Birds every trip and have never seen the whole show. I have to agree with Grumpy about the good lesson at HoP, too many people are forgetting it.

We rode the Jungle Cruise at night this year and I really liked it more than during daylight.

I never buy a poncho in the World. Too expensive, cumbersome and way too warm. I do own two Mickey umbrellas though and would never go without one. We usually go in late Aug. or Sept. when rain is a rarity.

Philharmagic is near the top of my list of MK favorites and you really have to try Space Mountain. It seemed to be a little faster with more twists and turns this year but that could be because I'm not as young as I used to be.

SM was faster,60 mph., in 1974, my first visit, but someone was hurt on it so they slowed it way down.

I do skip Stitch"s Escape after trying it once.

At least Sleepy is smiling in your picture while you seem to be ready to call it quits.

With that I'll call it quits for now.

Merry Christmas

 

[NotSoEvilStepmother]

Merry Christmas (to everyone who celebrates it)!!

Our day was pretty good today. We got up and watched the Walt Disney World Christmas Parade while we unwrapped presents and opened stockings.
"Santa" put some Minnie Mouse slippers in my stockings that are quite comfortable. I also got a handmade (by Sleepy) back pillow, and a giant Stitch doll. Grumpy got some pictures from our trip (can anyone says Viking hats?). But the real prize was Sleepy's present (from me of course ). Over the past month plus I've been making her a scrapbook from our trip. We'd planned on doing one when we got back from our trip but life got in the way and she eventually gave up. Around Thanksgiving, I ordered over 250 pictures and made her a giant scrapbook. I'm quite proud of it. I'll upload pictures of it as soon as I get everything on my computer.
The family came over for a while and then left. We're cooking the ham now (for Sleepy and Grumpy) then going to see "The Curious Case of Bejamin Button" in a while. I baked a 5 dozen or so cookies a few days ago so we've been snacking on them.
I hope everyone else had a great Christmas!

Another great read.Sorry ya'll had a lot of rain that day, but I"m happy to see you didn't let you down or stop ridding the rides. I agree the HoP is a great place to take a nap. Can't wait for more. Merry Christmas I hope you get what you want.

Hey, rain is just water (unfortunately). We didn't let much get in our way on this trip. We knew we only had 6 days there for many, many years and we had to make the most of them. Merry Christmas to you too! I hope you got what you wanted!

Wow!!!!! Two updates in one week. You're going to spoil us if you're not careful.

HoP is second only to Tiki Birds when you need a nap. I reluctantly do Tiki Birds every trip and have never seen the whole show. I have to agree with Grumpy about the good lesson at HoP, too many people are forgetting it.

We rode the Jungle Cruise at night this year and I really liked it more than during daylight.

I never buy a poncho in the World. Too expensive, cumbersome and way too warm. I do own two Mickey umbrellas though and would never go without one. We usually go in late Aug. or Sept. when rain is a rarity.

Philharmagic is near the top of my list of MK favorites and you really have to try Space Mountain. It seemed to be a little faster with more twists and turns this year but that could be because I'm not as young as I used to be.

SM was faster,60 mph., in 1974, my first visit, but someone was hurt on it so they slowed it way down.

I do skip Stitch"s Escape after trying it once.

At least Sleepy is smiling in your picture while you seem to be ready to call it quits.

With that I'll call it quits for now.

Merry Christmas

Well, I felt obligated to get a Christmas gift to my friends here on the DIS. Space Mountain on both coasts has been toned down. I think everyone skips Stitch after the first time. That's one of Disney's current mistakes. I haven't heard of a single person who likes it. Merry Christmas to you too.