We had planned to hopefully rest for about an hour or so and then head to the MK. I think realistically we rested for about 30 minutes and wound up rushing to the bus stop and stressing as we waited for the bus....what is it with us and the buses today!? Of course, we were late and it is sooo hot and humid. We did not get to the MK until about 4:10 and then we rushed like crazy to LTT. And then we had to wait.
As some of you may remember there was a lot of talk her on the DIS because they had changed a few things with the
MNSSHP closing and opening procedures. That is why we had decided make our ADRs at 4 pm for dinner. For future reference
4 pm is just way too early for dinner (IMHO) unless you have a big breakfast and skip lunch. Otherwise, there is just no way you can be hungry enough to eat a full dinner at 4. Thank goodness we did not eat that ice cream. we had to force ourselves to eat as it was. However, LTT is wonderful. The food, CMs and the characters were all great! Since it was MNSSHP the CMs had on makeup and the characters all wore mask.
Today was the day we had decided to celebrate DDs birthday. Our waitress was fantastic and she acknowledged DD b-day button right away. The wait staff was wearing really pale HM type of makeup. My DD said to our waitress, in a whispery type voice, I see dead people. Our waitress cracked up at her. This was highly amusing to us a well since DD has not seen the Sixth Sense. I have no idea where she would have heard this before.
The food is brought out family style. There is salad with a strawberry type vinaigrette and yeast rolls. Then she brought us pork roast, turkey, mac & cheese, stuffing & green beans. I do not remember what we had for dessert
I think it was apple pie
.perhaps we did not have any. I just dont remember. My DH really enjoyed it. I was not very hungry and didnt eat much. This would prove to be a mistake as the night went on.
I have to share a bit about the character interaction. As you all know by now my DS is a huge Goofy fan and Goofy was in rare form. It seems that the Goofy character and my DS have this connection whenever they meet up and LTT was no exception. Goofy came over and acted as though he would perform a magic trick with DDs napkin. He twirled it around and flipped it every which way, then he laid it over his hand. Just when you think he is going to pull something from underneath he brought it to his face and blew his nose. He then rubbed it in my DDs hair and he ran off making a huge noise with his shoes. He was jumping up and down and stomping his feet. He then ran by her pointing and laughing. We all were laughing and DD was too - only she was beet RED!!! It was great. Then Goofy came back to pose for a picture and made bunny ears over DS. It was a lot of fun. I would say the best character interaction the entire trip.
We got pictures with Chip, Dale, Minnie and Pluto also. Mickey was not here and for that DD was a bit disappointed. We all really had a great time here and the food was good also. Our waitress brought DD a chocolate cupcake with red, white & blue stars with a candle and she also gave her a card signed by all of the characters. As you can see by the picture DD was totally surprised and somewhat embarrassed
I loved it! You know anytime you can turn the tables on your kids is great!
For future reference: (you can enter the MK at 4 pm with a MNSSHP ticket) I wish we had entered at 4 and rode rides and then had dinner around 7. This would have given us 3 hours for walk on rides and then we could have eaten & hopefully been finished for the first parade.
After leaving LTT we wandered a bit and met a gentleman in managerial looking clothing. We were asking about the Liberty Bell because it was closed. (I knew it had just come out of a long refurbishment so I thought it was odd that it was closed). Anyway, he noticed DDs b-day button and told her he was going to announce to the entire MK that today was her b-day. She lit up like a Christmas tree. She was so excited but acted embarrassed. Of course, he was kidding and they went back and forth for a bit. She told him how much she loved Mickey and loved WDW, I was hoping he would have asked her to be in the parade or something but there was nothing but some fun conversation.
I cant remember what the problem was with the Liberty Bell but it did not run during the party.

We ran into a few characters and got some autographs. All of the rides at this point were walk on but it was beginning to get very crowded. We attended this event in 2005 and this time was MUCH more crowded. Maybe it was because it was the first of the 2006 season and it was a Friday evening.
After a few rides and some character greets the unspeakable began to happen
it started raining and it rained and rained - rather hard.

We went and got on Splash Mtn and it seems there was no one else on
it was weird.
It was almost time for the first parade and the area around Frontierland was very crowded. Then the parade was just starting while we were on Splash and we felt stuck in the area since you could not cross the road. Because of the rain we thought we would wait to see the later parade. We decided to ride Splash again. The rain was coming down harder and harder and then we began to see electrical lightening. I was thinking being on splash mtn with rain and lightening was probably not a great idea. We just kept staying on. Made me question my sanity. After the 2nd go round we asked if we could just stay on. The first CM said, no! We asked him why? There is no one else in line. The next guy said we could just stay on. I think we wound up riding for 3 times. After the last go round on splash we got off and noticed the parade was almost over.
After this we headed back towards the castle to get a spot for the fireworks. The fireworks were great but because of the rain and high humidity the smoke really hung low and thick in the sky. Did not make for good photos!
We then headed over to Tomorrowland . We were going to ride Space Mtn and Buzz but the lines were just too long. This was very different than our last years experience at MNSSHP. We wondered into Cosmic Rays to rest a few minutes (it was packed also) and noticed the dance party was about to start. DD really wanted to dance but DH and DS wanted no part of that. Everyone was getting tired, hungry and grumpy. DD did dance for a few minutes and Stitch looked awesome as Elvis.
We did some more trick or treat collecting lots of candy. We went back towards Frontier Land to wait for the parade. We found a spot near Pecos Bills. The parade was so much fun. I was extremely frustrated with the Jack Sparrow look alike though.

I really wanted to see this guy; I wanted to see anyone that looks anything close to JDepp. As fate would have it; about the time his float got close enough for us to see him, he turned his back to us and faced the other side of the street and never looked back to us until he was past. I wanted to throw something at him
maybe a bottle of Rum.

Humm!
.Just kidding. Maybe God is trying to tell me something
..again. Thankfully DH is tolerant of my JDepp obsession. Otherwise I would just have to secretly obsess. The rest of the parade was awesome
love the grave diggers and seeing all of the villains. So much fun!!!
We then wondered into adventure land and rode POTC. We met several more characters and got more candy. We ran upon the free face painting station and my kids decided they wanted to do it so we waited for just a brief time. The CMs do a fantastic job with face painting and they are so quick too! Amazing
wish I could do this. I would be the hit of my DDs fall festival.
We had planned on watching the villain show on the main stage of the castle but as we approached we noticed it was already started. We did hang around towards the front because afterwards there is a Villain Mingle
(meet and greet). We missed this bit of fun last year. My kids had a blast meeting the villains. We did not get to everyone but they did meet Maleficent. I think all of the villains somewhat intimidated them. If you notice in the photos they do look rather apprehensive.
I had on a shirt with Maleficents face on the front. My DS said to her, "Look at the back of my moms shirt." She motioned for me to turn around and I did. My shirt says Evil Diva. She read it and said her most confidant, evil voice, Absolutely Darling and she acknowledged me with a tilt of her head. My kids thought that was great. They then met the other villains.

We took lots pictures but I do not remember the villains giving autographs. They loved meeting all the villains.
By this time it almost midnight and we decided to head out; hoping to beat the main crowd. Our wait for the bus was not to bad maybe 20 minutes or so. When we go back to POP we were definitely tired and ready for some sleep.
Tomorrow is our last full day at Disney : ( and we all felt the last day depression coming upon us. I just hate that! Dont yall? Well, tomorrow would prove to be a crazy day. A day we have laughed at many times since returning home but at the time it was a disaster
Upcoming installment: DH goes all NY on us, Rent- a- Car Snafu and a Fiasco in the Parking Lot