The Best Laid Plans and all that Bunk - COMPLETE!

[Sunshein]

We have now gotten into the habit of taking our time getting going in the morning and it really seems to work for us. I would have liked to make it to rope drop at least once but in the end with the kids we let them sleep until they were ready to wake up. Today we were heading to Downtown Disney anyway so there was no rush.

We took the bus and decided to start with Disney Quest. I had basically read everywhere that it was more for older kids but I know DD5 loves car driving games and any other video game she can get her hands on ( Thank Goodness that so far I have pretty much kept her to rare time with a V-Smile!) so we though we would give it a try. We got off the bus at the West Side and made our way to Disney Quest only to find it still closed. Rather than wait an hour for it to open we walked all the way to the Marketplace and ended up in the Lego Centre. Now yes I have girls, but they love Disney and Pixar’s Cars figurines more than anything currently and they love train sets and lego. They do have some girly tastes like Pet Shop toys and DD3 is all about dresses, but for the most part they are their father’s daughters . We spent a whole lot of time looking at all of the lego products. DD5 wanted to find pink lego. As it turns out there is a great little display of pink lego but none to be found in the store unless you bought some princess castle kits. So I ordered a box of pink lego which was delivered to my home about a week ago and made a great birthday gift for DD3 (now 4)!

Then we hit the giant Disney Store and picked up some souvenirs. At this point DH slips off to find himself a 2008 baseball for his collection and God knows what else. I on the other hand and left with two girls and no means to pay for the things I picked up. Having found all I wanted to find and now tired of chasing said little girls around the store and convincing them to put things back on the shelves I start the search for DH. Now for those of you who haven’t been here before, this store is akin to a maze filled with different categories of Disney paraphernalia. There are rooms going off of other rooms merging into yet more rooms. I searched for 45 minutes before finding DH and I have to tell you by then I was so NOT amused. I grabbed my card and paid for what I had and we left to go for lunch with very few words between us.

On the way we stopped at Goofy’s Candy Factory and loaded up on some chocolate and treats. Nothing brightens my moods like chocolate and DH knows this as he often used a box of chocolaty delights to get himself out of the dog house. By the time we walked into the Rainforest Café I was in a much better mood.

We had thought this would be a lot of fun for the girls which is about the only reason we would consider paying OOP for this! Well we were so far off it wasn’t even funny. We were seated right next to a bunch of animatronic gorillas and right away they started hoo hoo hooing away. Well both of my girls slapped their hand over their ears and looked like they were going to cry. They hardly ate anything the whole meal because they kept their hand over their ears in anticipation of the stormy mayhem to come.

Finishing off our meal in record time we left the restaurant and headed back to POR via the boat ride which DD3 really enjoys. DH then took the girls swimming while I rested up and then got ready for date night. We had called in a babysitter from Fairy Godmothers on our previous trip and it really didn’t work out. The woman they sent must have been about 75 which wouldn’t have mattered except that she brought absolutely nothing with her in terms of activities or crafts for the kids to do which I had kind of promised she would. This woman also Made DD3 cry because she wouldn’t let her climb at the play park for fear that she would fall. So that ended up being a disaster. So this time I called in Kids Nite Out thinking that they actually advertised bringing things to do with the children. They asked me if I had any preferences and I actually requested a college aged female. In order to deal with my DD5’s anxiety I asked to know her name and what type of activity she would be bringing. So when we checked in, I was told her name was Joyce and they didn’t know what she would be bringing. We booked her for two nights thinking we would be able to spend some time together. Well when it was time for Joyce to arrive my DD5 was sitting on the window sill watching for her. All of a sudden DD5 says “Oh oh” and starts to shrink away from the window. I answer the door and this woman had to be at least 65. She asks a bunch of questions about the girls and their preferences and then makes me sign something stating that they weren’t responsible if my children destroy the furniture in the room. I tried to explain to her that DD5 was a little nervous about us leaving her and at this point DD5 was desperately trying not to cry. Joyce informed me that she hoped this she wasn’t going to be one of those kids who made a big crying scene when we left. I asked her what she planned to do with the girls that night and I found out all she brought with her were a few sheets and some crayons, the same type of stuff they have been doing at every restaurant since we got here not to mention on the plane.

I have no idea how I managed to leave the room and in retrospect I wish I hadn’t. DD5 had pulled it together and was putting on a brave face so DH and I left for our date. I feel like crying thinking about it. Nothing bad actually happened and the girls were safe and enjoyed their evening to some extent but suffice it to say the second date night was promptly canceled. DD5 was not willing to give it a second chance.

DH and I took the bus to Downtown Disney’s West Side and did a little shopping at Virgin Record Store. Then we decided to try out Disney Quest if for nothing else than to scope it out for the kids. Well we had a great time! There are 5 floors of things to do including an entire section just for the 2-9 set. We were both terrible at the virtual reality games, me more than DH but we had some much fun playing air hockey and there is this game called Astroblaster which is like bumper cars but with canons. The point is to hit the other cars on specific targets before they hit you and when a car is hit you spin for 10 seconds unable to do anything. It was so much fun! We could hardly tear ourselves away for our 8:00 adr at Raglan Road, nut we did.

We had been to raglan Road on our first trip and loved it so much we wanted to return without children on our second trip and maybe catch more of the music. The atmosphere was wonderful here and the music fantastic, but the dance comes out for a 2 minute jig and then heads back to wherever she came from. I don’t get that. How tired could she be? We only saw her once the whole time we were there. The food this time was still good but not up to the standards we remembered. We will probably try something else on our next trip for date night if we actually have a date night, but this is a great place to do for a pint and some good pub food if you want to hang out and visit.

Sorry for the dark picture.

With dinner finished we debated going back to Disney Quest or maybe checking out Pleasure Island but we both decided that we wanted to get back to the hotel and check on the kids. We just didn’t have enough confidence in Joyce to not worry. When we got back the girls were both asleep and Joyce was watching TV. All was right with the world, but as I said, we canceled the next night and told the girls how proud we were of them having fun while we were gone. I don’t think we will hire out a sitter again.

When we got home:

Up Next: Kidcot around the World and The Rookie Chef

 

[SunnieRN]

Awww what sweet pictures of the girls asleep! They are so adorable!
It's too bad that more of your requests could not have been met with the sitter situation. I taught pre-school and kindergarten for several years and when my daughter was small did day care at home. It only takes a few min. to get together activities for children and it makes the time easier for the children and the sitter!
I'm glad you got to have some fun though! Sounds like a nice evening!

 

[Diamondintheruff]

My DS did the same thing at our local Rainforest Cafe. I thought he would love it and he hated hated hated it. His heart was pounding the whole time. We took our food to go and ate it in the car while the rest of the extended family enjoyed his birthday dinner. The waiters were surprised when they came out with the volcano cake to sing to him and he was no where to be found. I think he was four then. At age eight his dance team had a meal there and although he managed to stay in the restaurant he couldn't eat. His pulse was racing, his pupils dilated, and he was in full blown "fight or flight" alert.

On second thought maybe I will stay away from the waterparks....

Your little ones look like angels sleeping.

 

[Sunshein]

Today was a day for Epcot. We had planned on only spending part of the day at Epcot and then relaxing at the resort but we got caught up in the fun that is the World Showcase and didn’t make it back to the resort until after 4:00!

We shared another breakfast and then grabbed a bus to Epcot. This is DH carrying DD3 to the stop.

This is the path to the bus stop. We find POR to be so very lush and relaxing and even romantic!

We started at Innoventions West since we heard that Kidcot was also in Future World. Only here they provide you with a card on a rope to put around your neck and you attach charms from each Kidcot station. The kids were really enjoying these stations.

Once we got those establish we looked around Innoventions and other than some video games, there wasn’t a whole lot of interest to the girls. They had a card on a rope to go around your neck and at each Kidcot station you colored and attached one of five charms. We collected the Innoventions East charm and then went to the land for a fast pass for me for later and the charm from there. Only two more to collect!

We decided to try Turtle talk with Crush again. This had been a disaster earlier in the week when we arrived, the girls worn out and me falling asleep on my feet. They really enjoyed the waiting room for Crush. There were jellyfish to look at and stingrays. Finally we were led into another room with a whole bunch of long benches and a big area up front for the kids to sit and chat with Crush. My kids were not interested in being anywhere near the front without us nor would they speak to Crush but they really did enjoy this activity. Crush came out and actually asked questions of the children and answered some of their own. I was really impressed with the technology!

When we exited Turtle Talk, we were seriously running out of time since we had an adr at Japan for 12:00 so we grabbed the charm from the Sea and took off as fast as we could for the complete other side of the World Showcase. We were a couple of minutes late, a fair bit sweaty but no harm done.

We were seated at Teppan Edo with another family with two young daughters. You would think this would be a great match but it didn’t turn out that way. This family was a local family with a season pass and really had no patience for tourists. They were by no means mean or rude, but they had absolutely no interest in chatting so we kept to our side of the table and they kept to theirs. I have found that tourists are always happy to meet new people, whereas locals not so much. Not a complaint or criticism, just an experience.

Dinner was a lot of fun although we seemed to get the chef in training as some of her tricks left a lot to be desired and she even accidentally flung the spatula at the couple sitting next to me. She was very sweet and apologetic and the food was wonderful so I have no complaints. We were later able to watch the show from a much more entertaining chef at a grill nearby and it was hilarious. He let the kids wear the chef’s hat and pose with him doing ninja moves with his utensils. This would have made for some great memories had we had that but I have no regrets on eating here. Kids meals that weren’t cooked on the grill came in plastic replicas of the monorail. Kind of cool! My kids wanted the monorail regardless of what food was in it. The waitress even used rubber bands to make trainer chop stick for the kids!

The food was delicious but they could seriously stand to do something interesting for the desserts.

Dinner over we decided to continue with the world showcase Kidcot stations which we had started at Le Cellier on day 4. So we left the restaurant and visited the Japan station first. The lady there wrote the girls’ names in Japanese on the back of their masks. I thought this was really unique! She was also able to read other children’s names in Chinese from the Chinese Pavilion! Very talented lady!

We went through a few more countries before hitting China. There, the man not only wrote their names in Chinese, but also stamped their masks with the animal of the year they were born! Paige is a horse which absolutely suits her personality. She is strong, independent and loving although a fair bit skittish. Naomi is a monkey. This made total sense to me too when I thought about it. She is a social creature who is very agile, sweet and wears her emotions on her sleeve. The personalities kind of matched! Maybe there is something to be said for Chinese Astrology.

We made our way around the world adding more and more charms to the mask. I stopped at Italy and while the girls were coloring away I bought a bottle of Rosa Regale which I had read was an amazing sweet wine. I still haven’t opened it as I am waiting for the perfect occasion! I don’t want to waste a drop.

The Lizards had made a home in the miniature train set outside of Germany!

Finally we made our way back to Future World and I left DH at the Kidcot station at Test Track to go and ride Soarin’ by myself with my Fastpass. While in line, I overheard a family discussing the high cost of everything at Disneyworld and she mentioned that she thought renting a double stroller was $15. I couldn’t stop myself from interrupting their conversation to let them know that renting a double stroller is now $31 per day. The lady nearly choked! They were very nice people and made the short wait in line quite pleasant though. Soarin was fantastic and being in the front row this time I actually smelled the scents that go along with the different scenes. I don’t remember smelling that before and I was always in the back. I can’t wait until DD3 is tall enough to go with me and then maybe we can convince DD5 to join us and we can go as a family. I love this ride!

I met up with Gary and the girls at Test Track. Gary was trying to convince Paige to go with me on Test Track since I still had the stroller pass from a few days before. She was resistant but finally agreed to go when we promised her a treat when she got off and promised that she could sit in the cars at the end of the ride. We had such a good time! I will never forget the joy on her face. At the end she insisted in sitting in the driver’s seat of all the different show cars. She is going to be dangerous someday! We got the kids each an itsakadoozie popsicle afterwards and let them play in one of the water play areas where they got soaked. Well worth it for the fun they had.

We finally left Epcot and decided to pick up the floaties and bathing suits from POR and then take the boat over to the French Quarter to swim and eat dinner. We took the boat over to the French quarter and it drops you off right at the pool! And a beautiful pool for kids it is! It has an amazing dragon slide which is just perfect for kids. We were having a great time in the pool, when we saw one little kid went under. The lifeguard jumped in and hauled him out and he was handed over to his dad who promptly gave him a sound whack on the backside. Whether you believe in it or not, I completely understand where that came from. As a parent, when your child persists in doing stuff that is truly dangerous and then has to be rescued by strangers, you first feel relief, and then you want to smack him! Whether or not you do is up to your personal beliefs. I do have to say though that it was nice to see that the lifeguards were truly paying attention!

We finally pulled ourselves out of the pool when the skies kind of darkened up. We dried off a bit and then headed into the Sassagoula Flatworks and Food Factory. I had heard about the beignets and being from Montreal I figured I would try them and see if they compared to anything here. Well to my surprise, they made them for me right there in front of me so they were hot and fresh. They were very very good and I don’t think I have had anything quite like it.

When we finished eating the rain had slowed to a fine drizzle. We walked through the streets of the French Quarter and realized that we absolutely loved it! We would love to stay there on our next trip. The street lamps are beautiful and instead of a resort with pathways it really does look like a beautiful quaint French street! We decided to keep walking along the path back to Riverside and it wasn’t that long a walk at all. We really enjoyed the stroll and so did the kids. We had to get out of the way for the horse drawn carriage and the kids loved that. It was a nice relaxing way to end the day! Off to bed to get ready for another day.

Up Tomorrow: Typhoon Lagoon and a Change of Plans

 

[Diamondintheruff]

A change of plans? Is that even allowed at Disney?

You had a pretty busy day. Glad to hear the beignets lived up to their legend. I'm looking forward to trying them out myself.

 

[Sunshein]

Today was business as usual and we headed around 9:30 to grab some breakfast at the Riverside Mill. By the 9th day of our vacation we were officially sick of eggs and bacon and pancakes from breakfast every day so I thought I would get them a more healthy breakfast for once. I had no idea what else contributed a breakfast quick service so I surmised that a bowl of cereal, a small carton of milk for the cereal and a banana would be one quick service credit. I was mistaken! The bowl of cereal and the milk were but the banana was a snack credit extra! Please explain the logic of this to me. I gigantic platter full of grease and sugar along with two drinks no less makes for a quick service meal, but a mangy box of cheerios with milk and a banana which actually meets some basic health requirements is too much to expect on a meal credit? That blew me away. I think we will actually forgo the dining plan next time just because of this.

While waiting in line for an omelet for me, I heard a couple of women behind me speaking French and at first I thought nothing of it. And then I realized I was in Orlando and this was not the norm. They were trying to translate the ingredient list for the omelets so I helped them out. My mother is English and my father French so I am fluently bilingual. We had a nice chat and I found out they were from Sherbrooke, a city South of Montreal and that they were on the same flight home as we were. It turns out we were to meet again. After wishing them a Salut and a Bonne Journee, I headed back to my table, omelet in hand to finish breakfast.

After breakfast we hopped the bus for Typhoon lagoon. We had such a good time at Blizzard Beach we decided to take another day and try out Typhoon Lagoon. We locked up our valuables and then set out our towels at Ketchakiddie Creek for the day. I back tracked to the gift shop and bought some flip flops since the pavement gets really hot during the day and my poor feet had been through enough this trip. I strongly suggest you bring some water shoes or flip flops to protect your feet.

We decided to start the day much like we did at BB and try the family raft ride. We were very disappointed. It is very short and not nearly as much fun. We also tried Castaway Creek, the lazy river of TL. This time DD5 panicked a bit when we came towards a water fall and flipped her tube. She went under and although DH was close enough to grab her and haul her out, we went and got lifejackets for free for both girls. They felt a whole lot more secure afterwards. We didn’t even need to leave ID or a deposit!

After that we pretty much stuck to Ketchakiddie Creek for the rest of the day. There were lots of fun things for our kids but I found there is very little for the kids only a little older than ours. There is a big gap since most of Ketchakiddie Creek is pretty babyish and after that you need to be a lot taller to go on the rest of the slides. We felt that BB was much better equipped to handle all age groups and they were a lot more innovated in the attractions they offered. DH and I took turns trying the Slusher Gusher which is like a water roller coaster. That was a lot of fun, but a long wait for a very short ride. The tubes are set of for groups of two or three and I know I felt very lonely going by myself. That being said it was really a different experience for a water park. We also tried to enjoy the wave pool. Now this is one very powerful wave pool! We sat in the little kiddie section around the corner and I thought we would enjoy a nice gentle wave since we were so far off an out of direct line. I was mistaken! I got dragged on my butt, back and finally arm back about 10 feet on the sandpaper bottom of the wave pool trying to keep my DD3 from being knocked over. Before leaving we decided to take Castaway Creek around to the Shark Reef. There were no sharks to be seen unless you snorkel and we weren’t up for that so we headed for the locker rooms and prepared to continue our day at Downtown Disney.

Originally the plan had been to have a second date night tonight and enjoy a beautiful night at the Flying Fish Café which I had been wanting to try since we came here on our honeymoon in 2001, but with the disappointing night of babysitting we had, this wasn’t going to happen and I wasn’t paying for the girls to eat at the Flying Fish Café so we changed our adr to Cap’n Jack’s instead. The meal was pretty good especially if you like lobster. And the kid’s meals were pretty good too. I can’t say it was my favorite place of the trip, but it certainly wasn’t the worst. We walked from Cap’n Jacks towards Disney Quest, stopping for our requisite free chocolate sample at Ghirardelli’s.

Cartoons in the waiting room. Genious I say!

A great table with a wonderful view.

Now whoever said that Disney quest was not for children under 10 does not have my children. My kids are far from gamers. Up until last week, our only video game was a V-Tech V-Smile which was all little kiddie games. DD5 loves it and DD3 has only recently started enjoying playing it herself. And even at that they are rarely allowed to play it! So we came into Disney Quest after checking it out the night before and brought them straight for the third floor kiddie section. They had a great time playing with the little kid bowling, zapping bugs with a frog tongue, air hockey, car racing, jump roping and their personal favorite, a rollercoaster simulator for little ones. We explored the other floors and with the girls on our laps they got to drive in Nascar and also tried Mario Kart and loved it. We could have spent the whole day there and after three hours it was time to leave and the girls protested, but understood there was no point in arguing.

We walked back to the marketplace stopping at the Cooke’s of Dublin on the way to try a Doh bar. This took a long time to prepare so be warned! And the place wasn’t even busy! Finally we got the treat and it was a messy but very yummy confection. We took the girls to Goofy’s candy Factory to spend a bunch more snack credits and then took a bus back to POR. It was 10:30 before we got them to sleep and no they didn’t have any of the candy we bought. That was for later. We had an early morning appointment with Mary Poppins at the Grand Floridian and it was our last full day!

Up Tomorrow: Unfortunate Children With No Names and The Shipwreck Pirate Rescue

 

[thewesterberg]

Another great update!!

Thanks for your reviews on the water parks and DisneyQuest. We've got a 5 yo boy and have been wrestling with what to do! We were leaning towards BB (although I really want to do the shark swim) and I wasn't sure about DQ, but I think you convinced me!!

 

[dreamer17555]

Actually cereal with milk is a snack credit only. At pop wwe had two snacks that they charged as a quick service breakfast so I am guessing it is easily done... you probably just ran into a CM who didn't know that.

-Becca-

 

[Sunshein]

I am so sorry this took so long to finish! I went away on vacation to visit grandma and grandpa for a couple of weeks and I am just now getting my bearings back. That is tough to do when you get out of the groove! Ok so where was I? Yes this was our last full day at Disney World and DD5 was just starting to get into the groove of things. She is an anxious child and has a hard time with change and it honestly took her a full week to start to relax and actually enjoy everything!

On our last trip the one thing that DD5 said she wished she had done was to meet Mary Poppins. My daughters have moved on from the basic princess movies and just love the music of Mary Poppins. This pleased me to no end because on a long car ride it is a lot easier on the ears to listen to Julie Andrews singing away than to listen to episodes of Dora the Explorer over and over again. So this time around I planned to start off our last day at Disney World with a breakfast buffet at 1900 Park Fare. Even though it was a late night last night we managed to get up early and were out of the room by 8 am. Within 5 minutes a bus pulls up the read Magic Kingdom. Great! We figured we would take that and grab the monorail to the GF from there and I guess another family had the same idea except they were heading to the Contemporary for Chef Mickey’s. Well it didn’t take long for us to figure out that we were NOT heading to Magic Kingdom. We pulled in at Typhoon Lagoon and a bunch of people got off and then we carried onto Hollywood Studios. Once there we went to the bus driver and explained our situation along with the other family. Apparently she didn’t adjust her sign until after we were on the bus and didn’t realize we had seen Magic Kingdom. She called her dispatcher to tell her what had happened and by this time were getting dangerously close to our adr. The dispatcher told her to take care of their guests! So off we went delivered directly to both the Contemporary and the Grand Floridian. Now that perked up our day!

1900 Park Fare was fabulous! So far we have been to Lilo and Stitch, Crystal Palace for breakfast and 1900 Park Fare was by far the best breakfast we have eaten at Disney World. It was actually a lot more intimate than I had expected! It was a smaller room and the Characters had plenty of time to make it around. There was a lot of great food and my children helped themselves to a sundae bar without the ice cream so they each had a bowl in front of them filled with chocolate chips, gummy bears and m&m’s by the time Mary Poppins came around. She came over and in this beautiful British accent asked them their names. Well of course my girls clammed right up and just stared at her. She giggled and said how unfortunate it was that they were children with no names. I had a good laugh over that one. Then the Mad hatter and Alice came by and warned the girls not to let Mary Poppins see their bowls of candy since she thinks children only need a spoonful of sugar. Now I know they use these lines over and over again but it totally did the trick on my kids. They are young enough to still have that magic in their eyes which is precisely why we brought them at this age against so may people’s advice.

Now the day just got crazier from there. The girls were tire but we wanted to spend some time at magic Kingdom for our last day. We had adr’s for 5:00 at the Wolfgang Puck Café and then a nice relaxing evening at the pool before heading out in the morning. This was not meant to be. Gary took the girls to the Swiss Family Tree House and his plan was to go to the Magic carpets afterwards and I headed off to ride Pirates of the Caribbean by myself since neither of the kids wanted to ride that again. DD5 never did agree to go on it this trip. Maybe next time! About 2 minutes into the ride the boats all come to a stop. I was just past the Davy Jones fogging machine that chanted Dead Men Tell No Tales over and over again and staring ahead and a skeleton driving a wrecked ship in the wind. Well we sat there for at least 25 minutes as they evacuated the boat in front of us unto the “beach” and eventually they turned off the wind machine and the recording of Davy Jones. They could not turn off the fogging machine however much to the dismay of the second to back row on our boat who sat directly underneath it. In the end the fire department evacuated us my helping us climb from boat to boat until we made it to a finger dock and were able to walk back to the entrance well over an hour after we started the ride. Apparently a boat got stuck in the waterfall portion of the ride and they had to evacuate because when they dislodged it, it would crash down. We were each given a single fast pass for any ride in the park. 1 fastpass? Evacuation by firemen and all that merits is a single fast pass??

Now of course DH was wondering what happened to me. He had long since finished what he had to do and got tired of waiting for me at the magic carpets. He walked past Pirates but the sign said a 5 minute wait time so now he is quite peeved with me thinking I had tried to sneak in another solo ride. After walking around for a while looking for me he came back to Pirates and saw the ride closed sign and started to put 2 and 2 together. Needless to say he was very relieved to see me come out from the CM entrance on the side.

Now at this point the kids are irritable, he and I are irritable and it was just a recipe for disaster. DH really wanted to try and take DD3 on Splash Mountain. So I said I would wait at the bottom and let him use my precious fastpass to go on the ride. She passed the 40 inch height restriction at the bottom and off they went. They gave their fast passes in at the gate and then a little further in they measured her again. This time they said she was just a hair too short and sent them back the way they came. Well after waiting 25 minutes at the bottom, when he came out without the fast passes I have to say I lost it a little. I didn’t yell and I never lose my temper with a CM. I mean, who needs to? It’s Disney! I tried to patiently explain to the CM at the fastpass gate for Splash Mountain what had happened and she said to relax and that it was no problem. She promptly gave me a fast pass for 4 people for whatever ride I wanted. Deep breathes and then a heart felt thank-you.

We realized that we just weren’t enjoying our time today and finally decided to call it quits, and head back to the hotel room and enjoy the air conditioning and some rest for the afternoon and then come back later to magic Kingdom and try it again. I got off the bus at the front desk to try to change our adr for Wolfgang Puck’s that night to hopefully something later back at the Kona Café. We so enjoyed our first meal here that we truly wanted to have it again before we left. Lucky for me there was a space available for 8:45. I grabbed it and hoped we were all in better moods.

We had a good sleep that afternoon and then headed back to Magic Kingdom to try and enjoy the rest of our last day and I think the rest was the best decision I could have made. We had a great time riding all of our favorites and even DD5 perked up wanting to ride the Astro Orbiter over and over. It was cooler, less crowded and we were in much better moods. We saw this man with his two children waiting in line for a ride. His t-shirt made us laugh out loud and it made our top tem list of things we never thought we would see at Disney World. How bizarre is it to stand in line behind a man with two young children for Peter Pan who is wearing a t-shirt with a big yellow happy face on it and below that it reads “Smile If You Swallow”?? Now that is good old family values isn’t it?

We left the park around 8:30 and grabbed the monorail over to Kona Café for the last table service credits of the week. It lived up to our expectations wowing us again with the appetizers and desserts. It will definitely be on our list for our next visit. We took the monorail home and put the girls to bed. Then I packed up all of our stuff for an easy exit tomorrow.

The next morning, we went to the Big River Grill for breakfast and then we rented a Surrey Bike for a half hour. The girls sit up in these basket seats at the front of the bike and DH and I have to steer and pedal. I thought this was going to be easy but it was actually some work! We had a blast though and the girls loved ringing the bell to warn pedestrians of our approach. We will definitely do this again.

Afterwards, we gathered our bags and headed to the front lobby to catch the magical express back to the airport. We had a smooth and easy flight with the kids and arrived home on time and kind of wishing we were still visiting Mickey. Oh well. Now I get to read everyone else’s reviews to start planning our next trip hopefully sometime in 2010!

Thanks for reading and I would be happy to answer any questions you might have!

 

[babytrees]

Loved your report!!! Thanks for finishing it up. Resting did seem to do the trick...the smiles got bigger!! . The review of 1900 Park Fare helped it on the short list for next trip (Kona was already there!!)

 

[mplsmom1]

Thanks for sharing your report - it was really good! I am so glad you had a mostly magical time.

 

[Diamondintheruff]

Vacations happen. If they didn't Disney wouldn't exist. Glad you finished your report. I enjoyed it. Thanks for sharing. I liked your honesty and recognized behaviours in your children I often see in mine. You even inspired me to get cracking on a pre-trip of mine own. I have an Eeoyre or two in my family too.

 

[Sunshein]

Vacations happen. If they didn't Disney wouldn't exist. Glad you finished your report. I enjoyed it. Thanks for sharing. I liked your honesty and recognized behaviours in your children I often see in mine. You even inspired me to get cracking on a pre-trip of mine own. I have an Eeoyre or two in my family too.

DD% is a very anxious child but I am really hoping to give her the tools to cope and then give her the world. She is young and there is so much to experience yet. And now months later, she has wonderful memories of her Disney vacation and she doesn't much remember the fear. I had to learn to roll with things and just enjoy the ride.

Thanks for reading!