Overdue and Overpacked II: The LaLas Take on the World: EPILOGUE ON PAGE 58

[LaLa]

Of course I brought the Lysol. Duh.

But I think the story about my disinfecting routine got lost in the shuffle somehow. In other words, I forgot to write about it. But that's actually a good thing though because if not, I'd be over my 100,000 word limit by now. If there is one. Obviously there's not because Mel's still around. Or is she? Hmmm. Interesting. I might be onto something. Anyway. Long story short. I brought the disinfectant and the room was properly sanitized before anybody was allowed to touch anything. And I've got a feeling you could never look rough, Woman. Even after the Manny incident. Love ya Mean it!

Lexmelinda: Pass that popcorn around. I've finally got my appetite back. Hope yall are all doing okay too. And the fact that you thought the little girl on the bus was going to vomit cracked me up. Yes, I think I need therapy at this point.

PrincessV: You should really get a Delorme. Whatever that is. And thanks for popping by to check out the trippie.

PongobreakinthalawPerdigirl: I be lovin your post. But what's soda? Is that anything like Coke? And I'll have to try harder next time. My job's not complete until you give your monitor a carbonated beverage/spit shower. Quit breakin tha law.

SoccerDogwithEarsand MouseDogMom: That exchange was so cute. SoccerDog, you might wanna keep that whole I'm not paying attention in class thing on the down low with your mom around. Just for future reference. Go Mom on the Minnie 5K. That's very cool. Thanks for your sweet words, both of you. I really appreciate it.

KangaFan, FirstTimer and TeamWeasel: Thanks so much for hanging with me. And for posting.

Wheat Thins: Do I know you? And who is Loo Loo? Obviously you're posting on the wrong trip report. But thanks for sharing.

Spotty: Glad you found us. And thanks for your kind words. What's a patookis?

INdisneyfamily: You mean when they get to be 20, 16, and 12, they don't climb up in your lap and lay their head on your shoulder anymore? Now I'm really sad. But thanks for posting. I appreciate it. Right back atcha.

Serendipity: Thanks for your sweet comments. I really means a lot. As far as remembering details, the thing that helps me is the fact that I take an absolutely insane amount of pictures. It helps to jog the memory when I go back through them on the computer. Vacation videos help. And so does DH. He's very detail oriented himself and has a great memory so it's a group effort sometimes between the two of us. This time around, I actually took notes, wrote down a few key phrases and things to remember for the first half of the week. I got bored with it and gave it up the last few days of the trip so we'll see how it goes then. It may not be pretty. I'm giving you fair warning.

Disfan3: LY/MI Woman.

ZZUB: Another day, another attack on a DISboard member. What is it with you and the gold medal thing? If I didn't know better, I'd say you were a delusional maniac with a gold fetish. And yes, it is just your family.

I'm working on the next installment now and hope to have it up shortly.

Thanks for all the comments, yall. I love every one of em.

Truly.

 

[LaLa]

Our wake up call came way too early Sunday morning.

But too early would have been bearable if only Mickey had been the one on the other end of the phone. That’s right. He wasn’t. And neither was his freaky little eight armed homie, Stitch. They were both MIA. DH answered the phone excitedly that first morning only to find there was just dead silence on the other end.

Or so he claims.

What’s up with that?

Where’s the love?

It’s almost enough to make me wanna Mmm Bop somebody in the head.

Almost, but not quite.

He (we) was (were) more than a little disappointed in the fact that we were awakened by dead air instead of an overgrown rodent and ugly alien tag team, but we hauled our butts out of bed with a smile anyway. Because no matter how surprisingly comfortable the AKL beds were, they didn’t hold a candle to what lay before us.

It was Epicot Day, baby.

If you read the last trip report, you’re already familiar with our spelling of the second best park on Disney property. I don’t spell it that way because I have a freaky thing about misplaced vowels and consonants.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I spell it that way because that’s how our daughter pronounces it. I thought she might actually pronounce it correctly this year but we were pleased to find that she still pronounced it wrong. Despite our son’s best efforts to correct her. We shushed him on more than one occasion. And no, it wasn’t pretty.

Yeah, we’ll be taking that Parent of the Year Award now for sabotaging our children’s vocabulary skills all for the sake of cuteness.

But the way we see it is this. As the years roll by, she’ll have plenty of time to call the much maligned but still second best park on Disney property by its correct name.

For now, it’s still Epicot.

And that’s just fine by us.

We have our breakfast in the room, get showered, changed, load ourselves down like a couple of pack mules, and then take off down the hall for our first full day of Disney fun. We smell the Disney Mogic as we maneuver down the stairs and head out towards the bus stop.

It doesn’t take long for a bus to pull up. We grab some really cold purple seats and settle in for the ride. Because we didn’t have to stop at DTD first, we make it to Epicot in record time. Okay, maybe not record time, but decent time. Acceptable time. Respectable time. Morris Day and the Time.

Sorry.

We hop off the bus, make our way up front, and as soon as we catch a glimpse of the overgrown golf ball and hear that music, we’re instantly transported to our happy place.

I don’t think it can be said enough so I’ll take this opportunity to say it again. Our entire family loves Epicot. We really do. We love the sounds, we love the smells (not all of them of course), the rides, the countries, the food. It's all good to us. Well, all except for El Rio del Tiempo. We don't love that. But that's beside the point.

When I watched our vacation video the other night, I was reminded that my husband referred to this particular park as the happiest place this side of Heaven. And the tone of his voice and the look on his face told me he really meant it.

That’s how much we love our Epicot.

We have some good friends who won’t even “waste” a days’ ticket on Epicot when they go to the World. We’re seriously reconsidering remaining friends with them. Ditto one particular person on these boards (again, not naming names but it’s ZZUB) who has, in the past, taken great pains to equate the second best park on Disney property with lameness.

Lameness.

But that’s okay though. It’s all good. We still love it and still hold out hope that maybe, just maybe someday, our friends both real and imaginary might just come around and see Epicot for all the wonderful things it has to offer and finally give the second best park on Disney property the mad props it deserves.

Whatever that means.

But enough about the Epicot haters. Both real and imaginary.

Back to our happy place.

We stop in front of the ball to have the obligatory picture made and are handed our first Photopass card of the trip. DH goes to get a stroller while the kids and I hang out and peruse the granite garden. We wave to our mugs permanently etched into the stone and and then take off excitedly when we see DH round the corner with the plastic purple stroller.

The kids were ready to see some characters so we made our way over to Living with the Land.

Just kidding. The Character Connection. That’s where we went.

And it was a first for us.

We’d never been to the Character Connection before. Sure, we’d heard of it and knew there was a place in Epicot for character meet and greets besides the Double Dutch Bus, but we never really knew where it was or what the deal was with it. But after reading some tips, we made it a priority to check it out on this trip. And we weren’t disappointed. The whole gang was there. We made our way through the characters’ lines and tried our best to fill up those Photopass cards. We also got some heavy hitters’ autographs and some pretty decent face time with the characters.

It was a nice start to the day.

As we were visiting with Goofy, the girl looks over to her left and spots Minnie. It was at this point that one of the most memorable moments of our trip happened. On our vacation video, you can clearly see a slightly impatient Goofy waiting on the boy to find a blank page in his autograph book, me struggling with two handfuls of junk trying to help, and the girl.

The girl makes her way across the bottom of the screen, taking three great big semi hesitant steps toward Minnie. She then sticks her little index finger up, points it straight at Minnie and tells her “I got a toy of you.”

It may not sound like that big of a deal to you, but the expression in our daughter’s voice and the way she pointed that finger was priceless. She had Minnie’s number and she was tellin’ her about it. You can hear both me and my husband cracking up on the video. It was one of those moments that will no doubt be replayed over and over within our family circle for years to come.

It was that cute. Trust me.

Minnie absolutely ate it up. She giggled really big and motioned her over. Because the boy was getting set to take the Photopass picture with Goofy at that time, I told her to just take the picture really quickly first, and then she could run over to Minnie.

Big mistake.

Because not two seconds later, Minnie was ushered off to see Will Smith for her regulary scheduled mindsweep.

We had to wait a few minutes for Minnie to come back and when she did, she didn’t seem to have any memory of our daughter giving her the cutest props ever in the history of Disneyworld. She also seemed to have no memory that she had just excitedy ushered the girl over as if to say “Get your cute little tail over here and get you some Minnie love!”

Strange how that worked.

But it was all good. They both still got a hug and a kiss on the forehead from Minnie. The girl was a bit more excited about that than the boy. I think he rolled his eyes if I remember right. He’s eight going on fifteen and he’s starting to believe he’s too cool to be kissed on the forehead by characters at Disneyworld.

DH not so much still but the boy, yes. He's too cool.

We make our way through the room and wrap up our time at the Character Connection with a visit with Chip and Dale.

There are some characters that some of us like better than others. For instance, the boy is goofy over Goofy. The girl’s all about Minnie. DH likes that tramp Jasmine, and I love the Main Mouse. But the two characters we can all say we love equally are Chip and Dale. Those goofy chipmunks totally crack us up.

No matter how many times we see them balance a pen on their noses, it still makes us laugh every time. I don’t know why. It wouldn’t be as funny if we saw the Oven Mitt Man do it. We wouldn’t laugh at that. We’d probably grab the kids and do the sidestep all the way out to the car.

But there’s just something about those chipmunks.

We spend a good bit of time goofing off with them, take a family photo, wave goodbye and then head out the door onto our next adventure.

Next up is Soarin.

Ahhhh yeah. Mama like.

Over the course of our one week trip, we went to Epicot three different times and ended up riding Soarin four times. We honestly wanted to ride it more but due to crowds, four times was the charm.

We love this ride. It’s immersive and amazing and it never fails to put a huge goofy grin on our faces for the entire length of the ride. I get the biggest kick out of looking over at the kids’ faces as we’re flying over the orange trees or climbing up beside the snowy mountain peak.

I could go into great detail trying to describe this ride for you. But I don’t think I will. I’ll think I’ll just take you with us instead. If you’re wearing flip flops, you might wanna leave ‘em on the floor or lose em forever.

And don’t forget to store these little beauties.

Nice work pal.


Buckle up and click the pic.





Once we touch down, we head out to the front and hit the Fastpass machine. Well, we don’t actually hit it, we stick our tickets in and get four fastpasses for roughly an hour later.

Then we make a beeline for Test Track.

As we wind our way around the empty queue, we get more excited with each step.

We love this ride as well. Not quite as much as Soarin, but still. It’s pretty darn close.

Frankly, I’m surprised they haven’t added a Lightning McQueen character meal and Meet and Greet out front yet. I figure it’s only a matter of time.

We crowd into the room and maneuver our way through clueless newbies until we’re standing right beside the door over to the right that leads you out of there.

You know which one I’m talking about.

Sometimes being a Disney Dork has its advantages.

As DH and I high five each other over the the prime piece of real estate we managed to score, I notice our son is looking rather fidgety. He then looks up at me and tells me his stomach doesn’t feel so good.

And that he thinks he has to throw up.

Right then and there.

Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.

I immediately look around for a fanny pack, a keyboard, or a barf bag.

Or at least a garbage can to shove his head in. But there’s no such luck. Until those doors open, there’s nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

Hello. We’re the LaLas and we puke in public.

As I scour the place, the boy looks up at me and says…

Him: Mom?
Me: Yes, son?
Him: Does this thing really go 65?
Me: What?
Him: They said this ride goes 65. Does it really? I never knew it went 65.

All of a sudden the clouds part and the source of our son’s stomach issues become crystal clear.

Now, I can’t tell you how many times the boy has ridden Test Track. He loves it just as much, if not more, than we do. But this time around, he picked up on a little bit of information he didn’t possess before. Somewhere in the presentation, he heard them say the top speed for Test Track was 65 mph and it spooked him.

Prime example of why we don’t believe in educating our children.

Or do we?

Anywho, when you’re eight years old, 65 mph sounds unbelievably fast. When you’re thirty five, not so much. Nevertheless, he began to worry that somehow the ride had changed since the last time he rode it.

And that 65 would maybe somehow mean we were all about to go Mach 3 with our hair on fire. On a highway to the danger zone.

And he wasn’t feeling the need.

The need for speed.

My husband and I explain to him that the ride is no different now than the other times he’s ridden it. And that Mommy drives faster than that to work every morning. He finally decides he doesn’t actually have to throw up after all and we convince him to get on the ride with us.

Because it’s either that or hang out with some stranger while the rest of us get our Laugh Scream on without him.

Kidding.

We pile into our car, buckle up, pull on our yellow straps and take off.

One of the best pictures I have from that trip was taken of our son on that ride. He was sitting to my right and at the very minute that our car went up on its side in the curve, I snapped a picture of him.

He had the biggest grin on his face and his eyes told the whole story.

He had a blast.

Speed? He was speed.

After the ride was over, we made our way past the photo place. Redneck Ride Photo Number One coming up.

One thing that was new this time around was that you could swipe your Photopass card and have the ride picture added to your collection on the card. Even though I’d already taken the Redneck photo, I stopped and swiped the card anyway.

Not because I had any intention of actually purchasing it later, but I did it just because I could.

I was on vacation.

Gimme a break.

Like you don’t do the same thing.

As we make our way through the dump shop, I hear someone mention how cute the girl is. Just like every other mother on the face of the planet, my ears perk up and I get extra nosy when I realize someone is talking about my child. I turn around to check out the situation and find that the voice belongs to a CM. She had spotted the girl in her bright red eye catching Disney logo shirt (yes maam) and was enamoured of her.

She has a big smile on her face and doesn’t take her eyes off our daughter. Once she realizes the red Disney Tshirted child belongs to us, she approaches us and asks if we have a few minutes to spare.

She wants to know if we’d like to participate in a special activity.

What’s that? Was she….picking us out of a crowd?

Why yes I think she was.

DH and I exchange glances and we just know we’ve hit the jackpot. We high five each other with our eyes. Just our eyes. Cause we had to look cool and detached. As if we weren’t expecting anything. But deep down, we were giddy.

Because a Dream was knocking on our door.

Well hello there Free Disney Vacations For Life.

Come on in, kick your shoes off and sit a spell.


Up Next: The LaLas Get a Major Award

 

[Frickles]

The suspense is going to kill me!

 

[Kay7979]

And that 65 would maybe somehow mean we were all about to go Mach 3 with our hair on fire. Up Next: The LaLas Get a Major Award

I love this line. Very visual. Great report, as always. Despite tormenting us with this cliff hanger ending, I hope you get the "Major Award" you anticipate.

 

[nicolemarie]

I spell it that way because that’s how our daughter pronounces it. I thought she might actually pronounce it correctly this year but we were pleased to find that she still pronounced it wrong. Despite our son’s best efforts to correct her. We shushed him on more than one occasion. And no, it wasn’t pretty.

Would that be kinda like the tongue-lashing our daughter received when she told my son it was "peanut butter" not "hetta butta"? He was two. And I was livid.

I love the video of Soarin'!! What a great ride. Thanks for taking us along.

What’s that? Was she….picking us out of a crowd?

Why yes I think she was.

DH and I exchange glances and we just know we’ve hit the jackpot. We high five each other with our eyes. Just our eyes. Cause we had to look cool and detached. As if we weren’t expecting anything. But deep down, we were giddy.

Because a Dream was knocking on our door.

Well hello there Free Disney Vacations For Life.

Come on in, kick your shoes off and sit a spell.

Girl! You can not leave us hanging like that! And to assume you will get in another installment before Christmas is probably a little too much, huh?

You know, you'll have to count us among the Epicot lovers this time. We developed a new appreciation for that park. We've always just kinda liked it. But this time - the decorations, the Candlelight Processional, Soarin', the World Showcase...we really wanted to have spent more time there. I guess we'll have to put those AP's to good use!!

Another great installment, friend. I look forward to hearing the rest. And in the event you don't post a new installment before Christmas, have a wonderful holiday and we'll look forward to hearing from you when you get more time!!

NM

 

[ZZUB]

I don't know what's worse. That you brought the Hanson or that I recognized it was Hanson.

Ditto one particular person on these boards (again, not naming names but it’s ZZUB) who has, in the past, taken great pains to equate the second best park on Disney property with lameness.

I could respond to this but I won't. Except to say that I actually took great pains to equate Epcot to a middle school. And alliteration aside, my simile still stands.

DH answered the phone excitedly that first morning only to find there was just dead silence on the other end.

Perhaps they had you on ignore?

Sometimes being a Disney Dork has its advantages.

As long as no one knows your true identity, the advantages are endless.

Hanson???

Prime example of why we don’t believe in educating our children

I didn't realize anyone in your neck of the woods did believe in educating their children.

Although no one threw up in this installment it still made me sick. But for other reasons. Hanson???

I enjoyed the Soarin' video. That was fun to watch and although you probably violated a half dozen copyrights (I don't know, I'm not a lawyer), I'm glad you took the time to video the ride. That ride is one of our favorites.

And so is your Trip Report.

 

[Chapter 11]

Morris Day and the Time.

Sorry.

You should be. That was really bad.

We make our way through the room and wrap up our time at the Character Connection with a visit with Chip and Dale.

There are some characters that some of us like better than others. For instance, the boy is goofy over Goofy. The girl’s all about Minnie. DH likes that tramp Jasmine, and I love the Main Mouse. But the two characters we can all say we love equally are Chip and Dale. Those goofy chipmunks totally crack us up.

Yeah, but just try calling them Alvin and Theodore, and see what happens. It ain't pretty. Trust me.

Next up is Soarin.

Loved the video -- we rode it 3 times last week and that brought back happy memories. But, just one question: were you not listening when they said absolutely no video or flash photography? Isn't your DH a cop? Tsk, tsk.

And that he thinks he has to throw up.

Thanks for that -- I think the count is now 6.

Because a Dream was knocking on our door.

Well hello there Free Disney Vacations For Life.

Nah -- just a lifetime supply of fanny packs.

Good one as usual, La. Don't know why I feel compelled to say that every time. It's like an ingrained habit now.

 

[Disfan3]

W H A T?

What kind of cliffhanger is THAT??? WOMAN???!?? And how did the hair hold up this yr on good 'ol TT?? I am sure you looked amazing even at 65 mph.

We actually stoo in a 40 min line (don't ask...Disney Dork I am not...more like Disney DUHHHHMMM) for TT. It was well worth the wait LA2. Thanks for sharing. I cannot wait to hear what is next!

CANNOT WAIT I SAY!!

 

[flying_babyb]

loved chapter 1

 

[ukwildcat]

You know I sit around pining for these TR's. Nothing really witty to say, so I'll just say I'm glad I'm not the only one who absolutely loves Epcot, sorry, Ep-i-cot.

Thanks for the installment. Please don't make me wait very long for the next one. That goes for NicoleMarie and Zzub as well.

 

[SoccerDogWithEars]

At the risk of treading on you and ZZUB's territory, is the major award the water slide gold medal? Sorry, that's what came to mind when I read that. I have actually FINISHED my Chemistry homework (so THERE Mom) and came on the Dis. Though am having trouble breathing since SOMEBODY *coughMomcough* decided to give me a worse cold then they had, so I'm going to go obliterate another box of tissues now. Lovin the trippie!!!!!

 

[ferretxxxferret]

Dang I have hit the end! Now I can't wait for more!

 

[Backstage_Gal]

Lala, great report as always, and I LOVE the Soarin' video. Can't wait to hear what the surprise was....

Oh, and Thanks for posting!

 

[DJR]

It’s almost enough to make me wanna Mmm Bop somebody in the head.

Thanks, I had just forgotten about them and you had to bring them up again.

We smell the Disney Mogic as we maneuver down the stairs and head out towards the bus stop.

Is this a new version of mojo? Just askin'

Ditto one particular person on these boards (again, not naming names but it’s ZZUB) who has, in the past, taken great pains to equate the second best park on Disney property with lameness.

Well you do have to consider the source.

Sometimes being a Disney Dork has its advantages.

I don't care what ZZUB says, it doesn't matter if they know your indentity or not. Advantages are advantages.

 

[ForKeeps]

La La,

Your posts are SO fabulous...I know I've said it before, but....wow.

I loved the video clip. And I swear that I could smell the oranges...err...wait was I eating the orange?

 

[Master Gracie]

Well it's about time you drag your sorry butt back here and entertain us...what do you think we pay you for anyway?!?

It’s almost enough to make me wanna Mmm Bop somebody in the head.

It was Epicot Day, baby.

Ooh Yeaaa! (Spoken with the inflection of one Mr. Savage...Randy Savage, aka, The Macho Man. Not to be confused with the villiage people version of the same.)

I loves me some Epicot. Both sides. Mission Space, Test Track, Soarin'...I even love Spaceship Earth, Journey into Imagination, and Honey, I Shrunk the Audience. And I could spend an entire day wandering around World Showcase. Sampling food, looking in the shops, soaking up the atmosphere...Epicot is my park too.

Ditto one particular person on these boards (again, not naming names but it’s ZZUB) who has, in the past, taken great pains to equate the second best park on Disney property with lameness.

Yeah...but it's Zzub. When has he ever exhibited anything that remotely resembled taste? Besides...he graduated from Bama...be happy he can even spell lameness, much less use it correctly in a sentence.

DH likes that tramp Jasmine

No doubt, cause she reminds him of you...

Note that if he begins to use said comparison, there is only a slight usage fee. I am very reasonable.

Buckle up and click the pic.

Wheeeee! I love that ride...but then I have already stated that once.

Up Next: The LaLas Get a Major Award

Well, just remember the little people.

And I don't mean the Ewoks at Star Tours either....

 

[samc]

The girl makes her way across the bottom of the screen, taking three great big semi hesitant steps toward Minnie. She then sticks her little index finger up, points it straight at Minnie and tells her “I got a toy of you.”

that's just sweet!!!!!!!!!

 

[WheatThins]

Great report. Thanks for sharing.

 

[First timer]

Now that is just so wrong - leaving us hanging like this!! :

 

[Disfan3]

getchur heiney back here woman and tell us the DREAM!!


COME ON NOW!!!

LYMI!!