Our 1st trip! (3 kids, offsite) 12/24-1/02 Pt6

The Sybah Shelstah

Mouseketeer
Joined
Dec 22, 2002
Messages
456
6th day in Florida
12/29/02

I stayed up too late (it's just my nature! As you can see by my posts here almost 2am CST. LOL) and ofcourse overslept a little- but just a little! The problem was I reset the alarm clock because hubby hadn't set it early enough and AGAIN I didn't set it right. arggghh So we were woken up by the children- but maybe I needed a little extra sleep!

We arrived at Animal Kingdom at 8:30am.. and boy was it crowded! Remember- I had no idea that this was the busiest week of the year- in fact I thought it wouldn't be too busy because I thought everyone else would have family to spend the holidays with and not be thinking of WDW! How wrong was I! LOL

We got our pictures taken (ofcourse) and bought a pin with a $1 donation for the animals and then we went straight to (as best we could- got kinda lost in AK for some reason) the safari and got right on with very little wait (maybe 10min?) and it was a lot of fun. I thought it was neat how they made the "roads" look like dirt/mud tracks complete with tire tracks in it and stuff like that. It wasn't real was it? It didn't look completely real. LOL They had areas that looked like huge impressions in mud with water filling it up- yet they wouldn't actually take us through mud with ruts like that for fear of getting us stuck, right? I saw my favorites: Lions, Giraffes and Elephants. Lots of other animals too- but those are my favorites. There wasn't one animal that he mentioned that we didn't actually see walking around/etc- so I guess the animals were pretty cooperative that day!

Dinoland was fun for all- Dinosaur kinda scared my son though and so I had to hold him against me so he could hide his face in my side and I even bought the pic afterwards because my daughter was also hiding her face and I didn't even realize it till afterwards! She tried to act like she hadn't been scared- but the pic proved differently! Ofcourse we had to childswap (this time my son also not riding it agan with hubby but my oldest did) and she hid her eyes again! Later we rode it AGAIN- but that time neither of the older two wanted to ride it again. We were using FP so we just childswapped all the kids and rode alone each of us seperately! LOL The kids liked the rides in Dinoland but my son was highly upset that he wasn't able to ride Primieval Whirl- and frankly I don't blame him. Honestly- it's a baby ride in my opinion. It's no worse than rides his sized-child could ride other places like Univeral Studios, IOA, SixFlags and many carnivals around here. It didn't really bother me that he wasn't tall enough though- until as I did the child swap and my husband took his turn to ride with my oldest... another family got off the ride and their son was SHORTER than my son! At first I wasn't sure- so I made note of where his head "met" the railing across as he walked off the ride and compared it to where my son's came up to the railing across as we left the ride- and my son had to be atleast 4 inches taller than him. So why was it okay for him? I dunno. But I didn't even try to get my son on it- when we first walked through the last area to get on the ride- she directed me and my daughter to the ride and directed my husband, youngest daughter AND my son by taking him by the shoulder- to the childswap area. :( OHwell. The ride wasn't spectacular to any of us anyway- it's like a carnival ride or something. But I just hate it when my son can't ride.. feel so bad for the short little thing. LOL

We missed breakfast at Breakfastosaurus (didn't even realize until that night that Donald would be there- and we never saw Donald Duck our entire trip!!! Not at all except in the MGM Studios parade!) but we didn't have PS for that anyway. LOL We did eat at Restaurantosaurus though (what a long name that is. LOL). Just a note- when we came out of the FP section for Dinosaur I came down a different exit way somehow and it came right down to the bathrooms on that side of Restaurantosaurus. Well, there are picnic tables there for some reason. When we went to the bathroom and then decided to eat then/there- we just went back a few steps up that exit (going the wrong way ofcourse -illegally! We broke WDW law! LOL) and had our lunch there in almost total privacy! (another couple had taken the other picnic table) The only people we saw were every once in awhile a few people would come down that exit trail. Very nice! Kind of out of the way and not so crowded- so we liked that!)

We went to the MIckey/Minnie campground but the lines were way way way too long for Lion King/etc. So we went to see characters. Lilo & Stitch line was long but as soon as we got in line they were saying they only had 5 min left there- so we knew we wouldn't get pics/autographs. So we head down aways and got pics of the kids with a NICER Mickey (hehe) in Christmas garb and Daisy Duck also.

Somewhere in the day (my journal noted highlights of the day- not in order & not mentioning every little thing either HAHA) the kids also really enjoyed the It's Tough to be a Bug 3-D show.

We staked out our place for the parade and I tried to pick up our pics while waiting for the parade to start but they weren't all ready yet ofcourse. I wanted to try though because we had a babysitter coming over at 6pm and 6:30 reservations at Romano's!

Nevertheless- I taped the parade and we got lots of pics of the characters interacting with the children! It seemed like to me the characters there did a lot more interaction with the children on the sidelines. They did high-fives, handshakes, etc almost completely down the sides. :) I liked this parade because of the dancing and all that also. Maybe it's just because I like animals- I even liked the floats. :)

We rushed to get our pics but ofcourse THEN the lines were super long so it took awhile. We left at 5pm but were running late. I needed to get ready to go out (my hair and face were seriously not in dining out condition LOL and hubby needed to shower again also because that was a crowded hot day- maybe the only day we might have been able to wear shorts!) and we still had a drive back to the room and get everything ready for while the babysitter was there (I like to have everything prepared- PJs and undies set out, what they will eat, what they will "do" for entertainment, stuff put away that I wouldn't want them to get into if she didn't watch them as carefully as I would- etc).

I cleaned up a bit while DH showered and then TRIED to get ready myself- but my youngest wasn't cooperating that night. She can really get in whiney moods sometimes- thankfully it's not all the time. But it was really bad timing that night! LOL The babysitter was late (because they had neglected to tell me that she couldn't come to my room and had to go through the office and ofcourse no one was there- no one answered the office door NOR the office number that supposedly was supposed to go to him upstairs even if he wasn't in the office. I never could get ahold of him after that first day! I forgot to mention we also had no vcr- no vcr with CHILDREN! LOL Sometimes I need Disney tapes just to have a few minutes to do something! He said he would bring one and never did- and I didn't even know our room phone number! It wasn't listed anywhere.. but I couldn't ever reach him EVER.. maybe I could have in the middle of the day but I never thought to try him at noon while in the parks- yanno? I would remember either early morning or late afternoon or early evening- he was never answering. :(

Anyway, I finally got ahold of her on her cellphone through 3-way with the babysitting service and she arrived at 6:30pm. We were, ofcourse, late to our reservations at Romano's but it's all good because even though we had to wait 30min there were other people waiting too and someone ended up going next door to Krispy Kreme to bring a box of donuts back for his large party of people to munch on while waiting and THUS STARTS MY LOVE OF KRISPY KREMES. LOL I was so hungry I asked him where he got them and he said next door and I headed over there to get some. I figured I'd eat one and save the rest of the box for breakfast for the next morning or two with the kids/etc. They were getting tired of cereal anyway. I didn't eat one though-I wanted to save my appetite for the meal because I really didn't want have to take home leftover food like I usually do because I can't finish a meal! LOL So I just stuck them in the van and by the time I was back inside- we were being seated! The meal was great! I chose the "make your own pasta" -because then I could have it made exactly how I wanted it. It was our first time eating there- we decided to go because I had a $20 gift certificate to use there. So it was a little less expensive for us. :)

(and since then I'm addicted to Krispy Kreme. Seriously. I have hated donuts for a long time because glazed just doesn't do it for me usually and I like chocolate iced donuts but for years now I haven't been able to find GLAZED donuts with chocolate icing on top. They are always just plain dry donuts with choco icing on top and I don't like that! So I have nixed the donuts thing in my mouth for a long time. Well, Krispy Kreme makes their chocolate ice donuts GLAZED first- then adds choco icing. I'm in love with them. I bought another box while there for our breakfasts and then another box for on our way home because there are no Krispy kremes around here- and have looked since being home and the closest is over a 30min drive. HOWEVER, we have an Albertson's that sells them in this town- and although they aren't quite the same nice and fresh/hot- it will suffice when I want a donut made the right way! HAHA)

Then we head out to make the most of our evening out without the kids. We decided to do some things we COULDN'T do any other night because we'd have them! So we went to a haunted house (Skull Kingdom) because they surely couldn't go through that. They don't allow refunds and still some children even older than ours wanted to leave after the first room- and did! That would be a lot of wasted money! So we went... and it was a bust. I'm glad it didn't cost us much. LOL So didn't scare me at all and I usually love to be scared so much it's easy to scare me. And they have you hold the shoulders of the person in front of you- well the guy in front of me was like atleast 6'5 and I'm 5'2- you do the math. LOL I couldn't hold on to his shoulders comfortably at all- so I grabbed his shirt. I could have put hubby in front of me but that would make me LAST in this line of people- and no way no how. If I'd known it wouldn't be scary- I would have done it though. LOL

So then I had tried finding out about helicopter rides earlier in the week for the whole family and they say on the ads- minimum of 4 people but when you call- they say NO MORE than 4 people either! How stupid- what a stupid way to advertise. LOL So that was out for us with 5 people but I got to looking at other things I thought my husband would enjoy since he always seems to want to do things that scare me for him to do it- like he wants to bungee cord (no way man! I've seen too many accidents on shows on tv!) and he wants to sky dive (just scares me for him to do that and glad the opportunity hasn't arose!) -but this skycoaster and slingshot looked like a happy medium ground for me. LOL

So first we were going to go to skycoaster because I thought it would be more fun for him- more like sky diving and slingshot was supposed to be closing soon anyway- BUT I didn't realize they were so close together and it was still open -so I got in line while hubby checked out if skycoaster had a long line (didn't want to miss riding that because it closed soon also) and it didn't- so he came back. We had a coupon to get a free t-shirt on slingshot. We rode it and it was a BLAST! Then before we even got off- they said we could ride again for $10 so we said ofcourse! And rode it again! Then we got our free t-shirts and found out they tape you during the ride! So we had to buy the video tape of us riding both rides (same price for both combined) Then we head to skycoaster- again using coupons from the coupon books and waited in line there a lot longer. I was actually getting kinda scared watching how they do that. It's just a body thing held by straps with cables. A few cables. Pulled way way way way WAY up there (higher than you think LOL) and then YOU pull the release and fly baby. Well.... I thought it might be a little scary but I was okay with doing it- until we were going up. And up. And up. There is a very shallow pond type thing under you and (here I go getting morbid again!) all I could think of is if our cables break there is nothing for us to hold on to- they are on our BACKS. We will definitely die if we fall that far into shallow water (it's so high- you can't understand unless you've seen it upclose or been on this thing!) and here we have our children in Floriday with a babysitter that only knows my cellphone number- I'd forgotten to give her any other emergency numbers like family/etc! egads.
I chose to be the one to pull the cord because I was scared my husband would pull it when I wasn't ready. It took so long to go up that then they said to pull the cord I was ready to pull that sucker and get this over with! I pulled it and then I was fine.
Hard to explain. But actually flying through the air =swinging on those cables- did not scare me as much as being pulled up slowly that high. Go figure that one out. LOL It was a blast and I didn't want it to stop. LOL We bought the video, head to Walmart for us to run in for a few minutes to grab a few things- like pez dispensers for the kids and mickey suckers- cheaper than at the parks (hehe) and then headed home late. Kids were already in bed asleep.

That's pretty much it for that day- except ofcourse I stayed up really late that night also. This time it wasn't JUST to charge batteries for cameras and camcorder, set out clothes, write in journal, prepare for our next day's plans, etc- I also spent a few hours hunting down where I put the darn Universal Studios/IOA 5 day passes! (pay for barely over 1 day's admission and get 5 days at both parks- got those on the US website :) ) But I finally found them. Apparently I had hid them so well that no one could find them if they robbed us anytime while there- that I couldn't remember where I'd hid them! LOL

I was so tired- and knew I needed more sleep. But since I'd wasted one day by sleeping all day we only had 2.5 days left and still had US and IOA to visit!
see pt7
 
you did so much so much in that day.......no wonder you are up still.....you have to unwind......your report is fantastic.....all of AK is great to me and we love the breakfastasauros at ak.......what a good menu and I was eating and all of a sudden a big smoooooooch...it was donald giving me a big wet one.....laughed for a few hours on that.......we are going back and can hardly wait.....thanks so much for your great report.......
 
:D You and your DH are a LOT braver than me! We could see that slingshot thing from our hotel when we went down to Fla. in 2001 and I didn't even like watching other people do it. I'm glad you and DH had a great time on your date night.
 















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