What do you do after youve packed roughly ten suitcases (give or take a bakers dozen), three laundry baskets, eight fifty-five gallon drums, and twenty three plastic Wal-Mart bags?
You sit down and rest.
Blame your husband for bringing entirely too many bathing suits.
And declare the rest of it can wait till in the morning.
Dangit.
And then you pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You get showered and changed because youve worked up quite a sweat (NORichardSimmons) and get your crew ready and moving out the door.
For one last night in the World.
Earlier in the week our daughter had found and fallen in love with a baby Simba at the Zawadi Marketplace. And no, it wasnt the real Simba. The last time I checked, he was still two dimensional and stuck inside my TV. No, the one she found was the stuffed version. She took one look at fuzzy little Simba with his attached green leafy blanket and declared that she had to have him. He took one look at her in her Mickey Mouse shirt and pigtails and declared Ive been waiting for a girl like you
to come into my life. Only he said it with his eyes. The same eyes that mere minutes before, had seemed cold as ice. From that point on, they were like peas and carrots. Frick and a math tutor. ZZUB and a toilet. In other words: they were frequently spotted hangin out together. So it was no surprise that Baby Simba decided to come along for the ride on our last night in the parks.
And with that, four became five. And we headed out to shuck and jive.
Sorry.
Properly primped and primed, the five of us make our way down the stairs and out the very cool front doors of the Animal Kingdom Lodge for the very last time. Or was it the last time? Funny. It feels like the first time.
We hop into our ride and take off toward Epicot. I tell DH to step on it. I tell him to make it fast. Make it urgent. He steps on it, which is better than stepping in it, and we sing along to the music (NOBritneySpears) to pass the time. And no, we didnt sing any Tom Petty tunes. This time. Or Hanson. We werent Mmm Bopping as we barreled down the road. Please. We were raised better than that.
Hakuna Matata. Thats what we were singing.
But before Pumba has a chance to change his name on account of that pesky flatulence problem of his (NOZZUB), were there. We arrive at Epicot for the very last time.
Sigh.
Okay, Ill stop doing that now. Its too darn depressing.
You know the drill by now. And if you dont, youve been skimming. Cant say that I blame you though, since Ive only been writing this sucker since last October. Heck, even
Ive lost interest and resorted to skimming. It's very hard to read otherwise.
Anywho.
We memorize the things that need to be memorized, grab some tram, mouth the stuff we always mouth, and head up to the front gate where my husband accepts his fate as the one who shall take the backpack through the bag check line. But this time I walk through with him. For moral support. The security guy recognizes him and shoots out Oh. Its you again. He may as well have said Hell
ooooo Newman. The guy honestly looks inside our backpack with trepidation. As he moves stuff around inside the bag, he glances at me and remarks Wow. You really are prepared for anything here, arent you?
DED.
I had to laugh. But I wasnt laughing so much at the comment he made as I was laughing at myself. Because its like they say. If you cant laugh at yourself, then let me do it for you.
Or something like that.
We made our way through the gates (for the last time), waved hello to our mugs in the Granite Garden (for the last time), looked up in awe at Spaceship Earth (for the last time), and retrieved our purple plastic pint-sized people pusher (for the last time).
In case you didnt catch any of that subtleness, this wasnt our first day. Not by a long shot. There was no eager anticipation of the fun filled week yet to come as we walked into the parks that evening. We had already worked our way through the week and most of the happy moments of our vacation now existed in the past. Not the future. But standing there, we still had the present. Well, at least it was then. Now its all in the past. But I digress. My point is that even though the fat lady was gearing up to sing, we were still pretty darn happy as we walked underneath Spaceship Earth, smelled the smells, and listened to that unmistakable Epicot music being pumped in along the walkways. Although our mood that night was much different from our mood on our very first night as we sat on the patio at Tonys and watched the twinkling lights of Spectromagic roll by, there was still a whole lot of eager anticipation left to go around. Because the night held promise.
In other words: we were downright giddy.
Or delirious.
Possibly a little gassy.
But that was only one of us. And Im not saying who.
DH must have been delirious because when he showed up on the scene with the stroller, it wasnt the typical Redneck variety that we had used and abused all week long. No sir. Daddy got the Deuce. Thats right. The man spared no expense for our last night. When he wheeled it up to the kids, the girl actually said Yay! Double! as she climbed in.
Wrap your mind around that for a second and tell me were not Rednecks.
We still had some Fastpasses from Test Track that we had grabbed earlier in the day so we decided to take one last lap around the track before dinner. We checked the watch and were pleased to find that we had plenty of time before our ADR. In fact, even after figuring in the time that it would take to make it through the line and ride the thing, it looked like we would still have a good bit of time to waste before we needed to check in for our ADR. We would actually be able to stroll through the park casually (like classy people do) instead of running around like a bunch of chickens with our heads cut off.
Like we typically do.
We park The Big Deuce, the kids hop out and we get the wave through at the Fastpass line. Thats right baby. We got a ticket to ride.
We throw the L sign to all the losers in the standby line and make our way through the queue, run/walking the whole way. When we get into the holding room or whatever the heck they call it, we move all the way over to the right by the door and the video starts. 26.8 grade. German and Belgian blocks, yada yada yada. Just get us on that bad boy.
Im glad to report that theres no threatened public puking at this point. No one needs to shout at their shoes or download dinner. The gang is ready and raring to go. Well, everyone but Baby Simba, that is. He was feeling a little anxious about his first ride on Test Track. He thought it might be a
wittle too fast. So the girl had to talk him down. I recall there was some clawing, pawing, and gnashing of teeth. And a good bit of crying. In a lion(ish) sounding little girl voice.
But then she informed him that the ride was FUN. And not scary.
That seemed to calm him down. After that, he was good to go.
We hop in our car, buckle up, pull the yellow straps, and then were off. The girl holds on tightly to Baby Simba and I hold on tightly to her.
We roll through the heat chamber, the cold chamber, the corrosion chamber, the blocks, both German and Belgian, and the anti lock brake test. And then we pick up speed and yell Heck yeah we are! in response to the Are you beginning to feel the lateral forces? question. Even though we really werent. We just wanted to yell. And then comes the finish. We get in position for the pump fake collision with the door. My husband is sitting in front with the boy and he turns to make sure Ive got my arms around the girl properly before we reach the point of no return. Even though she meets the height requirement, shes still pretty small and she tends to get thrown around on this ride a good bit if we dont have her wrapped up tight. He normally sits with her on this ride. Im not sure why, it just usually works out that way. But because of that, hes used to making sure his little girl is propery positioned and tucked safely in his arms before we take off on the outer track. So he turns around and reminds me no less than three times to hold onto her tightly. Well, to be fair, the first two times I couldnt hear what he was saying over the sound of our son's voice yelling "HERE WE GO, BABY!" So I said HUH? a couple of times. Yeah, what did you think I would say, "pardon"? Once I heard him, I reassured him that Mom was on the job. I got it. Everythings under control.
We pick up speed and the doors fly open. We hear our laugh screams echo and just like that, were gone like a freight train, gone like yesterday.
Were in the open air and banking a curve.
As if you couldn't tell, I love this ride. And I also love that picture.
As we make our way around, the boy screams. The girl screams. I scream. And DH laughs. But he was screaming on the inside. He finally lets loose as the ride ends and asks us all how we liked it. Duh. I give him a thumbs up. The girl shoots out fine. And the boy? Well, the boys at a loss for words. And when youre at a loss for words,
Whoooooo seems to work in almost any situation.
As long as you raise the roof while youre saying it.
Which he did.
We make our way around to the front of the ride and were still all smiles. I check the time just to make sure were on track. We are. Once we make it off the ride, well have plenty of time to grab our stroller and work our way around to the World Showcase. We might even have time to linger by the dancing fountain or grab a ride on the most Fastpass worthy ride of them all: El Rio del Tiempo. And if you dont get that joke, youve
definitely been skimming. Anyway, it was going to be nice not have to rush to dinner for a change.
That was my line of thinking anyway.
Until.
The thing that happened next.
The car comes to an abrupt stop and we jerk (NOAlecBaldwin) forward in our seats.
Whats up with that?
We were so close to the exit that we could see the people standing in line, waiting to claim the car that we were currently stuck in. They were all staring at us, every single one of them. Like wed made it stop on purpose just to ruin their night. So we returned their gaze. For no particular reason other than there was really nothing else to do.
And then came the announcement, the one about the fact that we were experiencing technical difficulties. Really? We hadnt noticed. But then came the most important part. The part about remaining seated and not exiting the ride vehicle. As much as it was killing us to have to sit there when the exit was mere feet away, we knew we couldnt get out. No way. It would be just our luck that as soon as we stepped out, the darn thing would jerk forward and take out all of our legs. And arms. Weve grown somewhat partial to having appendages over the years and we didnt want to be the next bad Disney headline. So we stayed put. And we waited.
And waited.
And waited.
You get the idea.
I wont lie. It was extremely frustrating. To be that close to getting off and not be able to was frustrating. We were just sitting there, twiddling our thumbs and doing absolutely nothing. Kind of like this guy I work with. As the time ticked by, the kids began to whine. Not to be confused with whinne. Theres nothing wrong with whinning. Whining, however, is a completely different story.
They wanted to know what the problem was. They wanted out and they wanted out then. And to top it all off, Baby Simba began to get angry. You wouldnt like Baby Simba when hes angry.
And the minutes steadily crept by.
Tick tock.
Tick tock.
Tick tock.
Still no movement.
Before we all took permanent leave of our senses, we decided to play a lil sumpm sumpm we like to call I Spy: The Disney Tourist Edition to help pass the time. It's like the old I Spy with a twist. It went something like this:
I spy with my little eyes
someone whos made an extremely poor footwear choice and is currently paying the price.
I spy with my little eyes
a tank top with entirely too much body hair growing out of it.
I spy with my little eyes...a kid who's had one too many Itzakadoozies today.
I spy with my little eyes
.a candidate for the Parent of the Year Award.
I spy with my little eyes
.someone whos apparently mistaken a backpack for a fanny pack.
Which was really odd.
After several rounds of I Spy: The Disney Tourist Edition and roughly ten consecutive glances at the watch, we realized that we were not going to be early for our ADR.
We were not going to be on time for our ADR.
We were, however, going to be late for our ADR.
Again.
Which was only fitting, considering we were dealing with
us.
Up Next: We make it to Le Cellier. Or do we???? 
when I do because they are so darn cute! 
Poor little munchkin. She's a happy little thing though, bounces right back doesn't she?!
That and what a nice break to read some entertaining Disney trip reports throughout my busy mama day.
and with the exit so close...and yet so far...
Backpacks as fanny packs DOES seem a little odd...I mean you can tell by the name of the bag where it goes right? Back packs belong on one's back...Fanny packs belong on ones...well fanny...isn't that how it goes? (Of course I could majorly digress for a moment myself to tell you that in Ireland the word "fanny" does NOT refer to one's rear end...oh no...so imagine my Irish cousin and his surprise, upon entering an American Target store and seeing signs all over the place for "free fanny packs" with purchase...he thought we'd walked into a gigantic porn shop!
)
