Operation Big Thunder: the Dole Whip Conspiracy COMPLETE

[GoofyIsAsGoofyDoes]

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.

Airplane

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

im with you on sci fi, neat theming but we have only eaten there once, doesnt seem worth it for a sit down...food is just okay.

Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I'm glad we tried it out. And there are many more we still have to try.

how could you not go to disney and visit MK, even with a short, stay glad she set you straight on that one.

I married up. Not sure what her excuse is.

well since glenn didnt have the whole thing in his answer i did...hoping to squeeze out a point...billy madison.

+1 mercy point.

and for the lie ill say that your kids did sit in the front seat of the car and that is why you didnt show any pictures of hte meal as it would give that one away.

Because I would never, ever suppress a photo in order to leave you astray.

I totally agree. The only other redeeming factor was the vanilla cokes. And our waitress lady was nice enough to give us refills in paper cups on our way out.

Big Gulps, huh?





Well, see ya later.

Truth.

Sigh, I have to go back and scour for anything Glenn missed!

Glenn was a machine in this round.

The set up is a little odd for dining at sci fi, not really that "family" meal feeling huh. But I have to agree with Dan on the lie. They sat up front.

Yeah, it was a weird vibe for us.

Sorcerers looks very cool, I think the E's will be totally into it next year.

I'm guessing that will be the case. They'll love it.

Fart spell

Still makes me laugh, too.

I've still not had a Dole Whip.

If you don't like things that taste like heaven, don't bother.

You have to love kids that can't finish things. I know Jeff does!

It's getting rarer, though.

Nice drowned rat kid picture.

They're cuter than drowned adults.

And I do like the pirate periodic table.

I guess I need to find a bigger version of that so you can actually, you know, read it.

wretched hive of scum and villainy - Star Wars 1977

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? My favorite movie ever - Ferris Bueller's day off.

At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. - Billy Madison

+3 mercy points.

Awesome update! So glad that you went to MK for the afternoon. Score on the extra dole whip.

Just to be clear, skipping MK wasn't really a serious option.

I love the picture taken from the Swiss Family Tree. I wanted to take that picture last trip, but there was actually a line to go up in the tree.

Really? Why didn't you get a FastPass?

The pirates periodic table is hysterical.

I might have to grab that shirt next time as well. The budget had already been reserved for my Dole Whip shirt at that point.

Looking forward to seeing you both win the Parents of the Year Award.

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

I tried to make a bigger version of the Pirate Periodic Table shirt. Let's see if this works.

 

[FreezinRafiki]

Big Gulps, huh?





Well, see ya later.

Dumb & Dumber

(An unauthorized FreezinRafiki biography)

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

Dang it...missed all the quotes since I AM AT DISNEYWORLD!

Oh sure, rub it in, why don't you?

Hope you're having/had a great time!

But the lie was you got soaked on Pirates.

Soaked is a relative term. I was describing what it felt like.

Jill in CO

Shouldn't this be "Jill in FL"?

Ah yes the summer storms. Been there. Gotten soaked.

Or damp, maybe. Not everybody likes the word "soaked".

Yes Julie Great response to no MK.

I figured you guys would agree.

Great job playing Sorcerers, I have cards... collected over several trip but have yet to play. Maybe next trip..

You could always just send the cards to our kids.

Lie - I have to agree - kids sat up front at Sci-Fi. I have not been in years, time for another try, just for atmosphere.

Whoops, sorry. I mean

Damp

Maybe

Not soaked

Tomato, To-mah-to.

Fantastic time! The weather is absolutely perfect.

Jill in CO

Still rubbing it in. At least send us some Dole Whips.

Good to see you around....it's been awhile

Thanks! I've been doing a lot of lurking trying to get ready for the cruise, catching up after the cruise, and now on this trip. Thankfully my friends tend to get a late start in the morning so I have some time to catch up!

And you spent your vacation time reading my TR? I'm honored!

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

You’ve got time yet.


Not much… but still…

I'm not sure what scares me more--my daughter driving a car or the cost it will take to add her to my insurance.

Just more comfy in the back (where they have a fighting chance to duck out of the way of the arm that comes flying back over the front seat).

Don't make me come back there! I love it when the parents say that while driving.

I think it’s the “cars” that cause that more then the film. The lack of face time hushes everything up. It’s cool, but odd at the same time.

I agree. Hard to talk to the back of somebody's head. Or a windshield.

Probably not, but let's test the theory…

Nope… you were right, you didn’t need to tell us.
Let’s see what Iago thought about it…

That about sums it up, I do believe.

Perusing the menu, the burger seemed the best option anyway.

+1 That last little bit there is just about word for word what I’d have written on this particular TS. You just saved me the trouble, as now I’ll just quote you next time the subject comes up.

Opinions seem to be split across the board on this one. Thanks for backing me up.

Unfortunate (but at least you didn’t have to hack up a lung)

Some show beats no show.
Right?

That tire smell is pretty overpowering. And yes, some show is better than nothing, but it's a lot of walking and crowds and heat just for that little bit.

Some times you win, some times you loose, some times…

It rains.

That sucker teed off on that like he knew I was gonna throw a fastball!

On no you di-en’t…


Oh yah you did…
You deserved whatever abuse was about to follow.

Nobody seems to care that we sacrificed the Animal Kingdom.

Maybe…

You think we couldn't resist the siren call of the General Joe Potter?

Had to look that one up…

Yep… it’s possible.

Tomorrowland Speedway???

We had our fill of gas fumes from LMA.

Oh… well duuuuh.
You built that up to where one might have thought that you had chosen poorly.

Come on, give me some credit here.

Lu - ckyyyy!

Much maligned, but my Grand-Poppa helped build that one, so it’s a tradition in our house.

You know, I believe you had related that story before, and I'd forgotten that tidbit. Very cool. As for the tree itself, it's low-tech, but I think it qualifies as a Disney classic.

We noticed that about the front couple of rows the last time we were there as well.
Maybe they changed the angle of attack at the bottom of the hill.

I'm guessing they added a spray nozzle or something. It's not a Disney ride unless you get squirted with water somewhere along the line.

I would have (so that should be a cautionary tale).

We shall see!

I’m going off the reservation again and saying that the lie was that you did take the ferry from the TTC that afternoon.

Certainly possible, although our boys had made it clear that they wanted the Avengers monorail the day before. And it was doing the express loop.

I will say that the lie in this chapter may be somewhat surprising.

 

[FreezinRafiki]

That sucker teed off on that like he knew I was gonna throw a fastball!

He did know.

How?

I told him.

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

Ok, I'm going to kind of defend the atmosphere there...
The last time I ate there, we had a larger group, so we sat at a real table as opposed to a car. We were aligned where it was a more normal seating arrangement, but still didn't talk much. We just relaxed, ate and sat and watched the cheesey movies.

I personally like it for a lunch on a hot day. It is a great spot to get off your feet and relax. It really feels good to be in that dark, air conditioned room on a hot summer day. That, and if you're paying out of pocket, it isn't terribly expensive, even if the food is nothing spectacular.

Those are all good points. I think it would have been better if we'd had a regular table. The cars are a nice novelty, but it just felt weird to us. If the food had been better, we might have been convinced to try it again.

Did one of those movie aliens take over your body or something?

Resistance is futile.

And this is why the peole who don't like Disney, don't like Disney.

True, but it still amazes me that many people come and don't expect the crowds or heat. In summer. In Florida.

Potential for a lie... but I think missing out on pyrotechnics is too serious for you to make light of it. If you had seen it, you'd have flooded this update with pictures of things going boom. I don't think you have the will power to do otherwise.

Methinks you know me too well.

Well, it either really rained or you dumped a water cooler on Scotty and Dave in order to set up your best lie yet.

Now that would have taken some impressive planning.

Blasphemy!

Ok, ok, I got it already. Sheesh.

That's why she's Knowitall and you're Oblivious.

They must not just randomly assign them then...

I was wondering about that.

And I think I've found the lie. Either that or you got a leaky boat

You might have got a few drops, but you didn't get soaked. You probably just hadn't dried out from the rain yet.

I think you guys are confusing a lie with artistic license.

Awesome!!! I think they're ready for Tower of Terror next time!

If they want to go on without me, I have no problem with that.

My only disappointment is that I can't read what each of them is.

I tried to correct that below.

The voice of reason.

And sanity.

You always take her side.

I did the same.

This lie game is getting competitive.

As for the lie, I'm going to guess that the mighty Scar was not taken down with a fart spell, even though you may have received one in your pack of spell-cards.

But it's a fart spell! And we have 3 kids 10 and under! How could you not use it?

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

A Christmas Story

The Simpsons

Airplane

+3

Dumb & Dumber

(An unauthorized FreezinRafiki biography)

He did know.

How?

I told him.

+2

I thought that was my biography. Are you Dumb or Dumber?

 

[glennbo123]

That sucker teed off on that... = Bull Durham

 

[glennbo123]

Resistance is futile = Star Trek: First Contact

 

[FreezinRafiki]

Resistance is futile.

The popular answer here would be "Star Trek"



but the nerdy answer would be "If <1 OHM"


I prefer the nerdy answer

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

He did know.

How?

I told him.

That sucker teed off on that... = Bull Durham

I'm going to give Barry the credit for this one, for having the correct response.

+1

Resistance is futile = Star Trek: First Contact

But Glenn gets this one.

+1

The popular answer here would be "Star Trek"

but the nerdy answer would be "If <1 OHM"


I prefer the nerdy answer

That's very nerdy. Extremely nerdy. I'm almost ashamed to admit I laughed.

 

[glennbo123]

I'm going to give Barry the credit for this one, for having the correct response.

Makes sense....I didn't notice that he'd responded to that one.

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

Once again, Admiral Ackbar tried to save you, but it was to no avail. I purposely suppressed photo evidence of our seating arrangement. Because, as I keep telling you, I'm a jerk.

Other guesses: Dave and I got wet--more wet than we were expecting--on the POTC drop. Maybe not soaked like in the rainstorm, but this was meant to be descriptive and not a lie.

And at that point, we were still trying to catch the Avengers monorail and did not take the ferry, as much as I would have liked to.

Nope, the lie, as shocking as it seems, is that I could not convince my kids to use the fart spell in the Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom game. I'm guessing it was probably because it was part of the set that I got rather than theirs, and that they wanted to use their own cards to defeat Scar. So, shocking as it is that a member of my family wouldn't see the appeal in a fart spell, that's the answer. Nice work Glenn! You really cleaned up in this round.

Up-to-date standings...

GoofyIsAsGoofyDoes 151
glennbo123 137
afwdwfan 75
FreezinRafiki 48
eandesmom 23
FauntleroyFAN07 16
MEK 14
vamassey1 12
MissLiz 11
shan23877 7
Cinderella's Fella 6
marvali 5
JediJill 4
Mrs. Knowitall 3
Wherem I Now 2
Poolrat 2
vdub322 1
JESSketeer 1
TarzansKat 1
PrincePluto 1
chloe770 1
Bridora 1
Flossbolna 1
scott2997 1
glaserjm 1
Connie96 1

 

[glennbo123]

The whole story that the fart spell was the one that defeated Scar just seemed like it was too perfect....all wrapped-up in a nice, neat bow. I did think about changing it when you said that the lie was going to be surprising. But then I thought, "what's more surprising than the Oblivious-Knowitall kids not using a fart spell?"

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

The whole story that the fart spell was the one that defeated Scar just seemed like it was too perfect....all wrapped-up in a nice, neat bow. I did think about changing it when you said that the lie was going to be surprising. But then I thought, "what's more surprising than the Oblivious-Knowitall kids not using a fart spell?"

Exactly!

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

Sarah loves Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. David loves Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Mommy and Daddy love Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Scotty had ridden it once in 2010, when he was 4 years old. Scotty did not love Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. But in a democracy, the majority rules, and we had 4 votes against 1, so the matter was settled. Unless its a modern democracy, in which Scotty can hire lobbyists to argue that his constitutional right of happiness (no longer just the pursuit thereof) is more important than the will of the majority, and that he actually deserves monetary reparations for being forced to endure the trauma of us even considering the idea of riding Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Fortunately, our family is a dictatorship (sometimes benevolent, sometimes tyrannical). And we had Fast Passes. Were going.

We got in line and moved through fairly quickly. Everyone was excited to ride, and even Scotty was doing ok. We figured that in the past 2 years, hed grown quite a bit. Plus, he had enjoyed Soarin, Mission: Space, and Star Tours, so we were banking on the fact that his tolerance for the rides had improved a great deal. We finished the queue, got seated, and set off on the wildest ride in the wilderness.

We had a blast, as usual. We yelled, we laughed, we thrilled to the dips and turns. How was it this time, Scotty?

Oh.

I guess that yelling and screaming I heard throughout the ride wasnt all positive. Im not really sure how he can enjoy all of those other rides and not this one, but something about it sets him off. Naturally, well just try again in a couple of years. Make sure you spell our names correctly when you fill out your Parents of the Year nomination form.

We set off for the east side of the park. On the way, we saw Brer Rabbit and crew having a hoe-down. Which begs the question, have you ever seen a hoe-up? Besides when you step on the end of one?

Our next stop was another new experience for the kids. Now put yourself in our shoes for a moment. (Mine are a size 10, for reference.) You have 3 kids, 2 of which are known to be skittish about dark rides and loud noises. One of them is freshly traumatized from the ride you just experienced. And you're working hard to be named Parents of the Year. Where would you go to find the antidote to your child's angst?

Im sure youre thinking that our cheese has done slid off our cracker at this point. But wed told the kids ahead of time that we wanted them to try it, it wasnt that scary, etc. Id done the YouTube thing (not that you can see much) to try and help them understand what would happen, and all that jazz. So they reluctantly tagged along, still convinced that Julie and I were somehow trying to kill them off.*

*Of course, we would never, ever do that. We might occasionally think of selling them out as child labor or bartering them for some nice steaks and a pie, but we're not monsters.

My attorney is instructing me to change the subject now.

We did the interactive portion of the queue, mostly because Julie and I hadnt seen it yet, and we wanted them to do something a little fun so theyd stop worrying about how scary the ride would be. It worked out ok until we ran into a couple of parents who were monopolizing the little games, letting their kids run wild in the queue while they stood for several minutes playing and blocking our kids access. We finally gave up and moved around them. I thought about asking them if theyd like to hear me tell a joke.

In the meantime, we saw a dire prediction for poor Daves future.

And we were greeted by Madame Leota herself.

Yup, this ride is nothing but good ol-fashioned family fun, Scotty!

We got into the building and went to the stretching room, holding the kids close. They did ok through that part (which might be the scariest part of the whole ride) and made it to the doom buggies. Dave rode with me while the other two went with Julie. Not far along, the ride stopped, presumably to load a disabled person on or off. I was worried about the kids having to sit there in the dark with the creepy music playing, but they seemed to do ok. And I did manage to get a halfway-decent no-flash picture while we were stopped.

We saw most of the 999 happy haunts (the new special effects in the mirrors at the end are pretty cool) and reached daylight once again. The verdict?

The kids loved it! Even Scotty. Apparently fast trains were bad, but creepy haunted houses are perfectly fine. Falls down a well, eyes go crossed. Gets kicked by a mule, eyes go straight again. I dunno.

Scotty wanted to ride his absolute favorite ride in the whole wide world, the TTA Peoplemover. So we headed towards Tomorrowland. On the way, we took a look at the construction for the new portion of Fantasyland. So, here it is, hot off the press, a completely up-to-date look at where construction stands. No thanks necessary.

I really wish they would hurry up and finish this so we can see what it looks like. Heres the part Im most looking forward to:

We checked the line at Space Mountain, since Dave was interested in trying it out. The wait was nearly 2 hours, and FastPass return time was 10:00 p.m. So that wasnt gonna happen on this trip, unfortunately. We grabbed FastPasses for Buzz Lightyear and then hopped on the Peoplemover. Lets do a check on the Scotty-meter.

Whew. Urge to kill falling&falling&rising!...falling&gone.

Seems like whenever we get on the TTA, it suddenly hits the turbo boost and goes into ludicrous speed. Has this ever happened to any of you?

Scotty still wasnt quite 100%. When we rode into Space Mountain it was pitch-black, of course, and when we emerged we noticed he had reached out for a little comfort.

A couple of shots along the way:

We still had time before going to infinity and beyond, so we went to another first, the Carousel of Progress. We sat back and rotated our way through a great big beautiful tomorrow. I think. I may or may not have dozed off.

Next up was the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor. I wondered if anyone had ever been both a Rebel Spy and That Guy in the same day before, and was really hoping theyd pick me. I figured that would have to be some kind of record.

Unfortunately, I was not That Guy. But the show was still great. We especially enjoyed the Mind Reader act. The monster asked a woman in the audience to think of a number between 1 and 50. The lady immediately blurted out her number, which got a big laugh. "Wow, this will be easier than I thought!" the monster replied.

Finally, it was time battle Zurg, so we piled into our spaceships and attempted to hit tiny targets with laser dots you can barely see while steering like a drunk in an earthquake. I had my revenge on Julie as I kicked her hindquarters. My score:

She did not provide photo evidence of her score, but if I remember correctly, it was five digits. It appears we also captured a few of Zurgs spies on this mission.

And perhaps I gloated a bit too much over my score in the game. Yes, I did save the galaxy. But it came at the price of perhaps the Worst Ride Photo Of All Time. You be the judge.

Coming Up Next: Do we dare attempt Big Thunder Mountain Railroad again? Or&check out a boat ride with dolls and annoyingly repetitive music?

 

[glennbo123]

Cheese has done slid off our cracker = a Green Mile reference

 

[foodrocksluver]

Scotty still wasn’t quite 100%. When we rode into Space Mountain it was pitch-black, of course, and when we emerged we noticed he had reached out for a little comfort.

AWWWW!!