Tuesday morning we got to the Magic Kingdom in plenty of time for rope drop, which means we were able to catch the welcome show. If that doesn't put you in the mood then you don't belong here.
Before we walked out, we checked The Makin' up the Weather as we Go, channel,, and theh said it's going to be sunny, sunny, sunny,,, only a 10% chance of the usual afternoon Disney thunderstorms so Smidgy suggested maybe we should bring umbrellas, but I told her they will probably move in during afternoon swim time.
Yes, we have lots of faith now in The Weather Channel, we simply plan for the opposite of what they say.
But right now after I was personally told "Good morning" to,( I was the third one in the "And you, and you, and you and you" sequence).
But I guess a purist I am not, to make SURE I'm not getting hit with the last day DREADS,,,,,
just to make sure, once inside the gates I went straight to a drinking fountain to swallow my pills, the back and foot aren't bothering too much right now and we're going to keep them that way!
I'm pretty sure I'm almost rid of the "last day feeling" thing though, hey, there's always more trips, and I have a feeling next year we'll be able to maybe, maybe go with my one son and his wife and Jackson.
We started with Buzz,,,, this time I insisted we switch sides, maybe it's cuz she's always on the left is the reason why she beats me,,,, un uh,,,,not this time,,,, I WANT the left!
And I got it!
She still whupped me.
I am going to guess,,, and I think this is pretty close:
we have probably now ridden this ride 25 times, and I
will estimate my record on this against Smidgy is 4 wins for me, 21 for the evil Smidgy.
But she has 3 times the payroll I have and can sign all the top free agents.
We headed on over towards Fantasyland to run the gauntlet of the 4 minute rides over there.
Our ride philosophy is very simple,,, the shorter the ride,, the shorter the wait time has to be.
Between 9 and 9:30, we can do 5 rides that later in the day would take you over two hours to do.
That is why Fantasyland is a must first thing in the morning,,,, you can knock off Snow White, Pooh,, Peter Pan, Dumbo, Tea cups,,, Small WOrld,,, Carousel,,,in the time it might take you to do Splash Mountain with little wait. You certainly don't invest the time to do Carousel of Progresso or Philharmagic when all these others you can almost walk on.
After Buzz, it was about ten minutes past rope drop and we were just leaving Tomorrowland heading into Fanatalyland when Smidgy saw a statue that seemed new with a sign haning on it, "Wet Paint".
It was of Stitch.
She went over and put her arm around the stutue,,,,
and found out it was a "squishy" statue.
It took a little bit before she could get him to move,,, but we pretty much left him alone as kids were coming, didnn't want to blow his cover.
I guess he was substituting for "Push" this morning.
Come to think of it, we haven't seen ol' Push in the last couple of trips.
For those that may not know what I'm talking about,
"Push", is a remote controlled toy operated by a nearby cast member that can also speak into a microphone to make it talk to guests,,,,, for us the fun part is finding who is the "hidden" cast member.
I did get a picture of Smidgy with the guy who's been waking us up the last two weeks.
After doing all the shorter rides in Fantasyland, we headed over to Splash and Thunder and rode both of those again.
Tuesday is normally a real slow day at MK,,, but at 10:15 on a hot September morning, they were sending out boats on Splash Mountain with nobody in them.
If you are into avoiding crowds, I HIGHLY recomment going to MK on Tuesdays.
It wasn't even 11 o'clock yet, but we headed for the exit,
but not before one more picture from our rocking chair site by Big Thunder,,,,so what if it's a smoking area,, we've outgrown that now but it's still OUR SPOT!
We also grabbed a fastpass for Jungle Cruise, I know we aren't going to have much time left when we come back later, so we have Jungle Cruise and Space Mountain for our fastpasses, I forgot she ran and got us the Space Mountain passes right before we ran into Stitch, the squishy stature.
Problem is,,, this is a bad time to leave a park when you are going back to Animal Kingdom,,,, since by now they are not bringing the guests in droves like in the early morning,,,,,it's pretty much,,,,, "Hey, your on your own."
20 minutes went by I think until a bus pulled up.
Tuesday Afternoon,, "I'm just beginnning to see, now I'm on my way," sorry, that's hard to ignore,,,,
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Tuesday afternoon and we are eating a make shift lunch while we are changing for the pool.
Yeppers,, a lunch for champions,,, champion whats? I have no idea.
Doritos,,(the Cheetohs were long gone), a hunk of Summer Sausage cut off the roll, Ritz crackers with Garlic and Herb, cheese spread, (and if you really want to make Smidgy go crazy, pronounce the H, in "Herb",) some potato chip crumbs, and the last of the potato salad that was not that good in the first place,,, but now, two weeks later is finally starting to get some flavor.
We then head down to the pool,,,, picked up a Sentinel, and for the tenth time I'm bringing with that crappy book, "Come out Tonight" with me so I can ignore it one more time.
It is just after Noon,,, and I can not believe it, we got our table back once again with the lungers right in front of it.
This truly blows my mind,,,, I know it may be a bit higher in love bugs in this bushy area,,, but they are really everywhere, so I don't get it!
We talked for a while,,, she gave me the birthday quiz from the paper where it lists today's celebrity birthdays and I have to try and guess the ages, like we usually do.
Yes, yellow jacket came on duty and we did our best to tune her out, but the really strange, almost scary part of lying here by the pool was that it could very well, really, really really easily feel,,,,, like we were just checking in!
Her keeping her cell phone where she can hear it when they call to tell us our room is ready,,,me,,, hoping the vikes will kick in BEFORE the call saying our room is ready.
I would glance at her out of the side of my eye and see her just kind of looking around, normally she would be 100 percent concentrated on the paper, but not now, she's looking around,,, and occasionaly looking at her watch.
Now, I hate it when I get sad at the end of a trip,,, but this is the first time I've seen her look this way, and it really bothered me to see her this way.
But to go and put my arms around her would only make it worse right now, so I tole her I needed the bathroom and I'll be back shortly..
(tole her? what, is this Branson?)
What I wasn't really realizing concerning her mood though,, was,,, well,,, for the first time, our worst fears came true on the way down this trip, and it was like a shattered innocense.
She has always worried about he weather, driving in it, and boy oh boy,,, did we catch it this time.
So now she knows her fears CAN be realized.
Whereas, I have always worried about car problems,,, and 14 previous trips down with no car trouble definately lured me into a false sense of security,,,, especially this trip,,, when I took more precautions than previous times.
So, it's not just last day itus for both of us,,, it's also an uncomfortable worrisome feeling awaiting us for our drive home,,,,, our plastic bubble of safety has been popped, if you will, and I don't think either of us like the new feeling.
I zipped up to the room and poured some of the Creamsicle type pre-made drink from a plastic bottle into a couple of plastic cups with ice,,,, No, I DON"T know what size plastic cups I used this time,,, and zipped right back down to the table and gave it to her.
She couldn't believe I did it that fast, but our room was really close.
We will return for more uplifting, cheery poolside banter in the next chapter,, but now,, a note from our sponsors...
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Ok, are you ready?
No, I'm not talking to Smidgy, I'm talking to you now,
yes, everybody else thinks I'm talking to all of them, but you
know I'm just talking to YOU!
This is where we finally get to the title of this chapter,, all this other crap was just fluff, but enough of the fluff,,, hmm, enough, fluff,,,,nuff, fluff,,,,,,
anyway,,,, we will call this part Disney by the numbers,,,
mainly,,,,, OUR numbers,,, because I'm a LIST type maniac person.
So, be prepared to be bored to tears,
you will look forward to spending the evening with an AMWAY salesman,,,"Don't you wish you could do better than what you have now?",
a night with a life insurance agent will also seem fun compared to what your are about to read,,,,
shoot,,, you just may end up accepting collect calls from
Telemarketers, so,
YOU , have been warned.
Honestly though,,, after working on this and doing all the adding, I found some of it to be quite interesting. Of course though,,, it concerns us.
One more thing:
(please, don't take any of this as any attempt at bragging, you know I"m not that way, I'm just telling you what you already know, I'm just doing the math, I know there are people that this is NOTHING to them, I just like making lists.)
Gentlemen,, you may start your numbers!
This is our 19th trip to Disney
15th time we drove, 4 times we have flown down.
Twice, we walked.
Just kidding.
We have gone through the dreaded "check-in" process at Disney 38 times!
If we throw in Universal, that number rises to 43.
The total nights we have stayed on Disney property is 184. This floored me when I added it all up.
200 if we include Universal.
The leading resort in a runaway is Pop Century, totalling
41 nights spent there, runner up is Dixie Landings/Riverside with 25
The resort we have stayed at the least amount, but at least stayed there is Wilderness Lodge, coming in with a measly 4 nights.
Resorts we have still NOT stayed at:
The Poly
The Grand Floridian
Old Key West
Saratoga Springs
Swan
Fort Wilderness
Any of the Downtown Disney Hotels
I take liberties I guess with a couple of them,,,
like Beach Club Villas is, to me, part of Yacht Club,,
and same with Boardwalk Villas and Boardwalk, or
Bay Lake Towers and Contemporary
You can also throw in Shades of Green, I guess, never stayed there and probably never will.
But 41 nights at Pop blows my mind,,,that's six weeks,,, could you imagine if it was all in one trip,,,, a six week stay at Pop Century? How cool would that be,,,?
Or the 184 total nights on Disney Property,,,, that's almost exactly 6 months!
I wonder what that would be like,,, six months of being on site,,, going to parks,,, basically living there and eating there?
You know what?
I'd be willing to give it a try!
I bet I STILL won't have eaten at Akershus.
Now, let's throw something else at you.
Should you pay extra for a room view upgrade? Well,,,,
out of the last 14 times we have checked into a Disney resort,,, 11 of them have been water views.
One of the non water views was because we requested a "street" view at French Quarter, so that's realy only two times out of 14 we didn't look at water.
I have to admit,,, we had to choose Lake view at BLT because we didn't want to pay for Magic Kingdom view,,, and one of our water views was because we had to book a "water view room" at CBR cuz that's all they had left.
But all the other times we were either given a verbal upgrade at check in,,, or found out when we got to our room.
If you are wondering why or how I remember all this crap,, well, writing the trip reports has really helped in keeping the memories alive.
It also helps to be ADD,, OCD,,,TMI and BYOB.
Oh, couple last numbers for you:
This is the number of "different" table service meals we have eaten at, table service being described by if a waitperson comes and takes your order.
Our table service count is now up to 36 and 1/2.
Yes, I'm not allowed to count Alfredo's of Italy before it closed and changed names because I walked out in a hissy fit after I choked down some of the Tuscan Bean Soup and basically wasn't in the mood to eat yet.
And no,,, Teppanedo and Teppenyaki still count as just one.
But doesn't that number just seem ridiculous? 36?
There's still a lot of places whe havent eaten at still/yet.
That's what makes Disney so great!
After all these times going, we still have places like ;
Citricos
Holleywood and Vine
Brown Derby
Kouzinas
Flying Fish
Contemp Cafe
Captain't Grill
1900 Park Fair
Chef Mickey's
and on and on,,,, heck,,, we still have not eaten at a single "sit down" restaurant in Magic Kingdom.
Yeah, a long way to go till this list is checked off,,,, and that's the good thing,, always something to look forward to,,and you never know what each trip will bring.
The last Disney day is always so bittersweet. It always seems as if all the happiness and excitement of the trip is somehow counteracted on the last day by the sadness and dread of going home. An equal but opposite force...
I don't think it's possible to ever "do" all of WDW. 
