The Berg-Berts do WDW, Part 30 – Closing Thoughts

What a wonderful installment....

:wave: Lisa, I am one that appreciates the postings... maybe I'll get enough courage to do a trip report, but I doubt if I'll post a pic of me... well, maybe I will!! ;) OK I will!!


We got back on terra firma. And Ash and Horsey want Lisa to go. I volunteer to stay with the boys this time. But Mr. Ash says he will watch the boys. Right, we just met this guy. We don’t know his full name or much about him. We most likely may never see him again. And he thinks it’s okay to leave our boys with him?

This so happened to us last year!! My parents were supposed to watch dd while dh and I went to Party of the Senses. Mom wanted to call off, she was tired (she's young btw!) and we somehow met 2 Dis'ers... at a beer tasting. DH did meet a Dis dh anyway, then the next beer (free) tasting, us wives chimed in, got to talking "DIS" and she had a brother who was watcher her dd, and could our dd join them?? WELLL SURE!!!

You can only imagine how my father yelled at me!! :rotfl2: I'm so glad I"m not the only one... well we left our dd for 3 hours, not for a ride... :rotfl2: (and for the record we spent the day with them at their resort, and met the brother first, and the brother, and the 2 girls spent the 3 hours touring Epcot. if that matters to anyone!! :wizard: )

never mind!! :goodvibes
 
latoberg said:
We got back on terra firma. And Ash and Horsey want Lisa to go. I volunteer to stay with the boys this time. But Mr. Ash says he will watch the boys. Right, we just met this guy. We don’t know his full name or much about him. We most likely may never see him again. And he thinks it’s okay to leave our boys with him?

Okay.

So off we go. .

Only in Disney would you leave your kids with someone you just met & rode a ride with...one time!!!! :tink:

Keep it coming!!


EDITED: I just noticed this is my 100th post! COOL!!! :cool1:
 
DisneyObsession said:
Only in Disney would you leave your kids with someone you just met & rode a ride with...one time!!!! :tink:

Keep it coming!!


EDITED: I just noticed this is my 100th post! COOL!!! :cool1:
Whooo 100 Hooty DO!!
 
Great installment !!!!!

Never get tired of seeing those pics.

Your boys look like they had great time too. Great boys because they have great parents.


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Well, OF COURSE you left the boys with Jay. He can't get into too much trouble, y'know. It's not easy to hide when you're as big as him! Besides, he really enjoyed his time with the boys, so it was a win/win!

And, the pic of you and the Friar was fab!!!!!!

Loved seeing the pictures again. What a fun day that was. Great chapter, Todd!!
 
Lacto, great reports! LOVE the costumes from the last post, didnt get to it till tonight.

Dre, just hit him over the head for posting those old pics of you!
 
Part 28 – It’s Not Goodbye If You Don’t Say It

As soon as we got into the MK, we were fairly close to the time for the new Let’s Have a Ball show.

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This is a crowd interaction moment with a meet and greet with Aurora and Prince Philip.

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Now, for the longest time I have wondered why Disney didn’t do more with Aurora. And as I analyzed it, I realized that Disney has missed some prime capitalization property. Here’s why.

Sleeping Beauty is the perfect Disney princess movie. First you have the beautiful princess to catch the girl market. Second, you have a classic fairy tale that gets the literary crowd. Third, the movie is very beautifully drawn and filmed which should win the artistic vote. Fourth is the villain. Maleficent is the quintessential villain. She is the embodiment of evil. So you have your villain lover’s covered. You have some great fight scenes between Philip and the minions of Maleficent as well as with the dragon. Boys love this part of the movie (we know this first hand). You have Flora, Fauna, and Meriwether providing comedy that is very well done. Lastly, it has just the right amount of romance so that the girls have their “ahhhh how sweet” moment and boys aren’t all “yuck” at it. This is the perfect Disney princess movie. It has something for everyone.

So for them to bring Aurora out for her own, albeit tiny, meet and greet, it is a step in the right direction. Put Philip in place with sword and shield from the movie and you have a great theme for a boys character interaction.
Our boys were chomping at the bit to meet Aurora and Philip. Yes, they wanted to meet a princess. So when Marky and GADisneygirl told us about this, we had to get back over here. The boys loved it. Although there was a slight mishap with a red drink of some kind and the stage, his clothes, and Pal Mickey. But we stuck it out and got to meet the royalty.

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We started back over toward Tomorrowland, but I realized I was not feeling well. We promised #2S a return round on Buzz. But the line was 20 minutes. We grabbed some FastPasses. And I told Lisa I needed to sit down for a while. The closest things were the Tomorrowland Transit Authority and the Carousel of Progress. We did both of them. We had to.

Between the lack of sleep the night before, the heat of the day, the 3 rides on Everest, as well as walking around, I was completely wiped out. Thankfully the ride around the TTA (no panic induced scenes this time) and the CoP (where I almost fell asleep) with a round on Buzz, and I was ready to go again. So we left the MK.

On our way out of the park, we stopped by the Exposition Hall to pick up our PhotoPass CD. We had decided to buy the CD before we even left home. Because I take so many pictures and video everything, I don’t get to be in many of the pictures. The PhotoPass pics gives us the chance to have all of us in the picture. Plus we had two cards: one for the party and another for the rest of the week. I wanted to combine them into one CD. All totaled up we had 127 pictures on the two accounts. Which wasn’t too bad. We got our CD and headed for the Lodge again.

We chose the monorail over to the Contemporary for the ride back. Two reasons for this. One, it is just cooler to say, “We rode the monorail to catch the launch.” The other is that I had lost my lens cap for my camera. Based on pure deduction, I was able to ascertain that I had lost the cap in the shop at the Contemporary. So it would be just a hop, skip, and 3 escalators to swing through the Contemporary to the Wilderness Lodge.

Unfortunately our ride to the Contemporary was not a peaceful one. I made some very grand statements about our boys earlier. Keep that image in mind as a contrast to the two demon spawn that were on the monorail with us. No, they were not our children. If they had been, I can assure you there would be no mention of this. It would just be summed up with: I’m sorry.

No, these were two kids I had never seen before and never want to meet again in a hermetically sealed moving environment again. They yelled. They screamed. They fought. They cried. They called each other and (I assume) their mother names. And the parent did nothing. Oh there were some verbal threats, but they were threats that had no substance. Really people, are you going to do something extremely horrible to your child. I joke about FedExing my kids back home if they don’t enjoy themselves, but come on. Really. I would use UPS.
Fortunately the MK to Contemporary is a short ride. And we got off of the scene quicker than the losing candidate after election day. Which is coming up soon. Get out and vote!

I headed over to the shop where I believed that I lost the lens cap. Sure enough, I had dropped it and they had it there. While I was reclaiming lost property, Lisa and the boys went to another shop. When I got done, I walked over to meet them. I couldn’t see Lisa at first. Then I found her. And she had THAT look in her eyes.

One of the boys had done something chronically stupid. I could tell that’s what it was from across the store. Seems #2S really wanted to show momma something. But when he went to show her, he pulled the what not off the shelf and broke it. So Lisa was at the counter trying to pay for #2S’s chronically stupid mistake. Thankfully, we didn’t have to pay. But Lisa was still steamed and decided it was time to leave.

We returned to the Lodge to get some early preparation for our return to reality the next day. Lisa did the laundry. Because she despises have dirty clothes when she gets home. The boys played with their treasures. I caught up on notes and the TR. We had supper at Roaring Forks one more time. Plus I was able to schedule us some breakfast at the Whispering Canyon. We had one more activity to participate in: Maelstrommer Poly Poolside Meet.

We all got ready to go over to the Poly and meet our friends.

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It was a grand gathering. Pictures and pineapple drinks were popular.

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Headrubbing was required.

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Again, our boys were the only kids at the meet. But they behaved themselves wonderfully. They played in the sand.

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They found some friends to play with (beside Mr. Ash). We watched Wishes from the beach. And then the evening was over. The Ash’s joined us on our return to the Wilderness Lodge, which of course tickled the boys.

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They got to play with Mr. Ash one more time.

We returned to the room, somewhat exhausted from the day. But also very happy. In a sad kind of way. Because we were leaving tomorrow.
 
Great report Todd! Enjoying it muchly!

Blessings!
MarkyMark
 
That is alot of pics. you got on a CD. Hope you got alot of family photos for your memory books. That too is a reason we bought ours too. I don't like my picture much so I usually am the taker. But now that I look at them I am glad I have them for myself and the kids in the future.

Hubby has a screen saver thing on our computer now that shows all our pics in our computer. The kids love looking at them and remembering. Some pics I haven't seen in a long time. And I think how fast time has gone by.

Thanks for sharing you pics with us......
 
There is an interesting followup story to the PhotoPass CD.

This is a warning to Lisa not to say anything.
 
I remembered those pics on the boat, and was hoping you'd post 'em. Thanks! Geesh, I didn't realize you didn't feel well earlier that day. You made a nice recovery, and seemed just dandy that night. In fact, all 4 of you did. I am even more impressed with what angels the boys were in light of the background info.

I assume we have at least one more installment coming? I'll be interested, too, to see how the next morning went. We got a little peek........ :rolleyes:
 
Lacto,
Great installment as usual. I enjoyed re-living the night at the Poly beach with your family. I have to be honest, though; watching your boys playing in the sand made me reallllllly miss my boys!

I also loved the close ups and good report on Let's Have a Ball! I think I will rent Sleeping Beauty this weekend.

Sorry the boys were out-of-body on the boat. I never would have known when I saw them at the Poly!!!
 
TODD, could you have possibly found any MORE unflattering pictures?! My goodness! We are all pretty scary looking there. I think a few of those are even worse than the HM pic I posted!! :rotfl2:

I think you LIKE doing this to women. First Dre, now us! You do enjoy it, don't you?! :sad2:
 
How did I get so far behind :confused3 Loved the costumes, the pictures from the party, the pics from the Poly.

Great job you did. Sorry Dre was sick and you weren't feeling well. :grouphug: but the boys were angels when I met them. You should be proud :thumbsup2 And the picture of them holding hands was adorable
 
Great Installment!!!

Sorry to hear you were under the weather for a bit, but sitting for awhile was the best thing you could have done!

Your meet with the other DISers looked like alot of fun! Glad the kids behaved so you could visit.

Can't wait for more!!!
 
I was not presenting any unflattering photos. Those are just what I have.

And sher, I can only get pictures from behind because that was where I was. You will notice the flying arms and lethal pineapples being flung around. I had to stay behind everyone to save myself from getting whacked.

And if I remember correctly, all us menly folk were on the fringe of the circles anyway.

Poor Grampy had to find his own secluded portion of the pool even.
 
While Lisa and the boys slept in the next morning, I wanted to get a few pictures of the Lodge. So I walked around with my coffeeish and got some nice shots.

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Then I headed back to see if everyone was up. We packed up the last items. We got our travel bags supplied. Checked the room. Threw away extra stuff. And then left our beautiful poolside Lodge room.

We got down to the Canyon restaurant and had to wait a bit. The boys were really out of sorts this morning. We were all exhausted. They didn’t eat much of anything. We didn’t even have seconds on the skillets that Lisa and I ordered. We were just ready to leave.

Lisa wanted to check on a few last minute items at the mercantile and pin cart. I wanted to see if it was possible to work some magic with our left over meal credits. The Disney Dining Plan was free, remember? Well, we took advantage of it. But not enough. Between the four of us and the meals we ate, we ended up with 0 snacks left (uncrustables were a snack, not a meal), 2 table service credits (Lisa and I didn’t use the boys), and 10 counter service. Yes, 10. We just didn’t eat as much as the plan provided. But there was no magic to be had. I wanted to swap for some snacks in the mercantile (cookies, candy, you know healthy stuff). But no dice. So with that we played in the arcade for a bit and went out to wait for our ride: the Magical Depress bus.

I admit that I teared up when we rolled off of the Lodge property. I deeply love this place. For some of you, you know that means that this is a powerful place. Leaving is hard for me. Lisa and the boys are ready to get home but sad in their own ways.

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We get to the airport with the furniture. Unfortunately, we can’t Magically Express our bags back. We have to check them ourselves. And luckily everything came in under the weight limits. Whew!! I was sweating it on one of them. After securing our belongings, Lisa and the boys did some last minute shopping in the airport.

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I went to work to get us a hotel room in KC. Our original plan was for me to nap on the flight home and then drive back that night. That was unrealistic by the time we got to leaving day. So we decided to get a room and have the boys miss Monday at school. Much safer for everyone concerned.

We ate lunch and got through security without a problem. Remarkable considering the amount of crap we were carrying. No alarms. Nothing stolen. Nobody lost. We rode the junior monorail out to our gate and started our way home.

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I had made one tiny logistical error in the trip plans. Hey, I got us all on the same plane, the right day, and in the right direction so give me a little room for errors. I got us a very Looooooong layover in Atlanta. That took forever.

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And we almost missed the plane for eating. But we got onboard for the last leg of our flight.

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I’m not sure #2S even knew he was on the plane for this leg of the journey. He slept most of the way. #1S and I both napped a little.
But we got on the ground and out to get our luggage. I cannot believe that we have this much stuff. The shuttle driver looked at the mostly full shuttle, looked at our stuff, then looked at me. I was told to get on and then all of the furniture would get put on after me. No one was getting off that shuttle until our stuff was removed.

Our little car was brought around and I wondered how I would get all of that stuff in it. But somehow it all fit. Even better than when we drove to the airport. Talk about magic.

We set our car in the general direction of the hotel. I say general direction because I had NO clue where it was. I stopped for directions twice and neither of them had a clue. Helpful suggestion: if you work in a public venue like a gas station, at least be somewhat familiar with your surroundings. I finally found it after many turn arounds.

We got to the hotel and checked in. The boys were both out when we finally were ready to go to the room. They were snoozing hard. I get #1S while Lisa took care of #2S. We dug out the trusty sleeping bags and got into our room. And wonder of wonders, it had one bed. But it had a sleeper sofa. But the bed wouldn’t fold all the way out. Because the desk was in the way. So the boys got to rough it on the floor again. But I think they would have slept on the hood of the car driving down the highway.

Next morning, the sun rose bright and cheery. We did not. We got out of the room and got out of Dodge. Well it was Kansas City, but they are both in Kansas. But we didn’t leave before IHOP. MMmmmmm country griddle cakes.

4 hours later we arrived into our fair city. Now I should let you know that reality had attempted to smack into us already. That morning I got a call on my cell phone. I had someone asking for pastoral advice. I was in Kansas City without a single helpful thing to give. But asked them to call me back the next day when I was actually in the office. Then, when we get into town, we decide to stop and get milk. I happened to park next to a parishioners vehicle. When they came out, we chatted for a couple of minutes. It was then that I found out that the church has been broken into while we were gone. When Lisa comes out, I tell her we need to stop by the church. I check on everything and find out the church is okay. But another parishioner, who is at the church informs me that we have had a family leave the church. So this is how my life in reality smacked into me. The next day, I had two inquiries to do funerals.

So, what kind of discounts is WDW offering now?


But of all the pictures on the last day, this one captures the end of this trip.

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