nativetxn
<font color=teal>Moderator<br><font color=red>Hono
- Joined
- Feb 15, 2000
March 28th, Tuesday
Cast
Katholyn: (newly qualified for AARP) Fell in love with Disneyland when it was brand new-decided I loved WDW even more on a short tip in 1982; felt cheated with a 3 day trip in 1991. Will use any excuse to go back again .
Wilgus: My husband who is severely Disney impaired; thought WDW was nice but not interested in ever going back and who I love anyway.
Kim: My sister's 24 year old daughter who is going through a divorce-never been to WDW and can't wait.
Dustin: Kim's 6 year old son and my surrogate grandson-never been to WDW
Up at 6:30 so we can catch the first bus to MK at 8:00. We have priority seating at Crystal Palace for 10:05 breakfast. We weren't the first in line but close enough. When they dropped the rope we headed for Alien Encounter. I had discussed this with Dustin before hand and explained how it was all pretend and that if he did feel scared all he had to do was lean forward and close his eyes. I thought it was great how he was OK with this. He didn't seem to have a problem. He was just fine through the first part where the funny little alien gets scorched, etc. He was just fine when we got into our seats. He was just fine....UNTIL that harness thing came down on our shoulders. That's when he went NUTS. Now, I've seen scared kids before, and I have to tell you that I don't think he was scared. No, I think he was mad. He kicked, he screamed, he shook his head back and forth, he beat on the harness with his hands. In my "professional" opinion, LOL, what he did was have a socially acceptable temper tantrum. I think all of his frustrations with his parents divorce, etc., just came roaring out of him. And let me stress that word ROAR. I thought the CM would never come let him out. I think the people around us wanted to lynch us. I couldn't get up to take him out and neither could his mother. After what seemed like forever a CM finally released him.
Now for my review of Alien Encounter. I was disappointed. Perhaps if I hadn't already read about the ride it would have been scary but I knew what was going to happen and got no surprises. So, it was cute, but if I had stood in line more than 10 minutes for this I would have been very aggravated.
Now it was time for our ps at Crystal Palace. We waited no more than 5 minutes before we were seated. The buffet was excellent and the character interaction was wonderful. Got lots of photographs and Dustin added more autographs to his book. After breakfast, we realize something terrible happened while we were eating. The crowd that had been so manageable at 10 had tripled in size in just an hour! No way are we going to wait 2 hours for Splash Mountain and fastpass return was already for 5PM. We decided to skip those long lines and got on the train in frontierland. Dustin loved the train. We made a round trip and rode around to toontown and got off there. This is when Dustin spotted the Speedway. Oh my. He wanted to ride that very badly, but it was a 2 hour wait! I promised him we would come back tomorrow and we moved on to the people mover. Walked over to the Haunted Mansion which had about a 20 minute wait. OK. Now Dustin said he was Ok with riding this one too. UNTIL...he heard that wolf wail. Houston, we have a problem. We get in there and there is no child swap. Dustin is trying to cling to the walls and rails of the queue as we walk along. We're swearing he doesn't have to ride and then he hears there's no child swap. GREAT! Meltdown #2. Fortunately the CM's helped us out and figured out a way for us to swap Dustin back and forth, so Kim did get to ride this. She never did go into Alien Encounter again, though.
By now it's about 2 PM and the crowds are insane. We have the illuminations cruise tonight (Dustin doesn't know yet) and so we head back to the hotel. We let Dustin swim an hour or so and then got ready to head over to the Boardwalk for our cruise. While we were down at the pool, Captain Derrell called to check Dustin's age. Wilgus was in the room working (what else?) at the time, and got directions to the Boardwalk from our hotel.
NEXT: Our illuminations cruise.
Cast
Katholyn: (newly qualified for AARP) Fell in love with Disneyland when it was brand new-decided I loved WDW even more on a short tip in 1982; felt cheated with a 3 day trip in 1991. Will use any excuse to go back again .
Wilgus: My husband who is severely Disney impaired; thought WDW was nice but not interested in ever going back and who I love anyway.
Kim: My sister's 24 year old daughter who is going through a divorce-never been to WDW and can't wait.
Dustin: Kim's 6 year old son and my surrogate grandson-never been to WDW
Up at 6:30 so we can catch the first bus to MK at 8:00. We have priority seating at Crystal Palace for 10:05 breakfast. We weren't the first in line but close enough. When they dropped the rope we headed for Alien Encounter. I had discussed this with Dustin before hand and explained how it was all pretend and that if he did feel scared all he had to do was lean forward and close his eyes. I thought it was great how he was OK with this. He didn't seem to have a problem. He was just fine through the first part where the funny little alien gets scorched, etc. He was just fine when we got into our seats. He was just fine....UNTIL that harness thing came down on our shoulders. That's when he went NUTS. Now, I've seen scared kids before, and I have to tell you that I don't think he was scared. No, I think he was mad. He kicked, he screamed, he shook his head back and forth, he beat on the harness with his hands. In my "professional" opinion, LOL, what he did was have a socially acceptable temper tantrum. I think all of his frustrations with his parents divorce, etc., just came roaring out of him. And let me stress that word ROAR. I thought the CM would never come let him out. I think the people around us wanted to lynch us. I couldn't get up to take him out and neither could his mother. After what seemed like forever a CM finally released him.
Now for my review of Alien Encounter. I was disappointed. Perhaps if I hadn't already read about the ride it would have been scary but I knew what was going to happen and got no surprises. So, it was cute, but if I had stood in line more than 10 minutes for this I would have been very aggravated.
Now it was time for our ps at Crystal Palace. We waited no more than 5 minutes before we were seated. The buffet was excellent and the character interaction was wonderful. Got lots of photographs and Dustin added more autographs to his book. After breakfast, we realize something terrible happened while we were eating. The crowd that had been so manageable at 10 had tripled in size in just an hour! No way are we going to wait 2 hours for Splash Mountain and fastpass return was already for 5PM. We decided to skip those long lines and got on the train in frontierland. Dustin loved the train. We made a round trip and rode around to toontown and got off there. This is when Dustin spotted the Speedway. Oh my. He wanted to ride that very badly, but it was a 2 hour wait! I promised him we would come back tomorrow and we moved on to the people mover. Walked over to the Haunted Mansion which had about a 20 minute wait. OK. Now Dustin said he was Ok with riding this one too. UNTIL...he heard that wolf wail. Houston, we have a problem. We get in there and there is no child swap. Dustin is trying to cling to the walls and rails of the queue as we walk along. We're swearing he doesn't have to ride and then he hears there's no child swap. GREAT! Meltdown #2. Fortunately the CM's helped us out and figured out a way for us to swap Dustin back and forth, so Kim did get to ride this. She never did go into Alien Encounter again, though.
By now it's about 2 PM and the crowds are insane. We have the illuminations cruise tonight (Dustin doesn't know yet) and so we head back to the hotel. We let Dustin swim an hour or so and then got ready to head over to the Boardwalk for our cruise. While we were down at the pool, Captain Derrell called to check Dustin's age. Wilgus was in the room working (what else?) at the time, and got directions to the Boardwalk from our hotel.
NEXT: Our illuminations cruise.
