Okay so I didn't finish last night. I got Grumpy Season Two of The Office for Christmas and we got caught up watching that. Any other Office fans out there? Funniest show on TV today!
So where were we? Catching the MGM bus. Okay so we rode the bus and got over to MGM. The sole mission of the day, meet the Power Rangers!
Goofy is a big Power Ranger fan. A few months ago a lady at Grumpy's work gave him a red Power Ranger glove. Grumpy came home and left it on Goofy's pillow with a note from the Red Ranger. When Goofy found it, oh my! He was so excited and in true Goofy fashion proceeded to tell anyone who would listen, and even those who wouldn't listen, how the Red Ranger was in HIS room! So to get to meet the Power Rangers in person was just a Must Do for us.
I forget what time we got there but we knew the Rangers would be out at 1:20. We had some time. The girls were clamoring for Tower of Terror so we headed there. I believe we grabbed FP and then got in the standby line which was only 15 minutes at the time. Only Grumpy had ever been on this before, it was new to the rest of us. The line moved quickly and soon we were getting into our elevator. Goofy had been talking about the "Tower On Terror" (we corrected him a gazillion times but he had in his head that this was the name of it) for a while and he was excited to go. What a ride! Oh my! It was a lot of fun and all the kids loved it! We must have bounced 4 times and it is such a weird feeling when you WHOOOOSH down! The Baggalini was just hanging in mid air!
We exited and everyone wanted to go again (well except Goofy, he said he loved it but didn't want to go again, I think he was a wee bit scared after it was done) but we had somewhere to be. It was hot so we stopped at an ice cream cart. This was the 2nd time this would happen and it was a little irritating. I placed our order for Mickey Bars, Itsakadoozie and Toll House Cookie Sandwiches and the CM tells me her system is down so I need to pay cash. This had happened the day before at MK with ice cream too. You buy the
DDP to have the snack credits and then the first two times you try to use them you have to pay cash. I know it is not a big deal in the scheme of things but it was a little irritating to me since it happened the first 2 times we tried to use snack credits. So I pulled out some cash and we were on our way.
We walked towards the back of the park where the Power Rangers come out, at the end of the Streets of America. The park was more crowded than I thought as you walked through the paths, though the wait times on rides were not that long. We passed one of the Streetscape performances, we would pass a few this week and never got a chance to see one up close in its entirety. They look funny though.
"HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL" came the cry. Any Mom of a young girl knows what I am talking about. We had passed a merchandise cart full of HSM, I LOVE TROY, Get Your Head in the Game, etc. We had to stop so that Belle could check it out. She is a BIG HSM fan. She browsed, I checked my watch, we could not be late for the Power Rangers. Finally she decided we would come back and she would see if she saw anything else in the meantime. This is where having a plan can be hard and for me hard to be flexible. I think I did good though. Getting to the PR (let's abbreviate from now on!) was muy importante to me but it was Belle's trip too and seeing HSM was important to her. I didn't want to rush her along but heck these PRs only come out at certain times. So I was glad she decided to come back later.
Walking, walking, keep walking. "Star Wars" comes another shout out, this time the little guy. Keep walking Mister, it'll be here when we come back. Finally we made it. The Streets of America are cool and the kids were impressed by how it really looked like you were looking at a cityscape. The illusion is really neat.
So we found the PR sign and there was already a few other families waiting. We got the camera ready, we got the book ready and we waited. 10 more minutes, 5 more minutes. The crowds are building and there is no real line, just a bunch of anxious parents and lots o' little boys. Finally some CMs come out and instruct us to how this works. Each PR will be in a different corner and you will have time to line up for one, get your siggie and picture and then go to another. It sounds very organized. She tells us Pink will be there, Green there, White there, Red there... that was all we needed to hear. I grabbed Goofy by the hand and we speed walked to Red. Phew! We made it. We were about 10 families back and feeling good. Our boy would meet the red ranger.
So out comes the PR-mobile and there they all are in their colorful glory. They go to their respective spots and start their thing. The line moves fairly quickly and it is finally our turn.
This is where Grumpy utters the best phrase of the week, music to my ears....
"This makes it all worth it" he says as he sees his boy with his hero.
It was the closest to "getting" Disney that Grumpy would get and I will take it, yes I will.
After red we went and saw white and another white but really they were secondary, it is red who is tops in Goofy's book, the others are cool but no match for red. Bashful jumped in too at this point, not because she is a PR lover but just because.
Now we could relax, our main mission of the day was done. The rest would be gravy!
We wandered out and found the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground. We let the kids go in for a bit. I am not a fan of these sort of places when they are crowded and it was crowded. It is just so easy to lose a kid when you have no idea where they will come out when they go up. We all went through the spider web together and then they disappeared up to find slides or someone's nose I am not sure what they were doing. We just told them to please stay together and hoped we left with the same amount of kids we entered with.
I had had enough so it was time to entice with something else. That is one thing you can usually always do at Disney. Come on kids, let's go see XYZ. This time it was Star Tours and again Belle pulled her tweeny attitude. "I don't want to do this. No one likes Star Wars. Is it even a ride, does it move?". Oh first born, you are pushing my buttons today. We got in the standby line which again was only like 10 minutes. Wandered through the queue and Goofy of course loved seeing C3PO and the assorted robots. The kids had never been on a ride like this and I knew they would enjoy it. We got all buckled in and away we went.
When it was over Belle was the first to say how fun it was. Go figure.
Everyone enjoyed the store you go through at the end. We wandered and Goofy wanted to spend some of his money. After much thought he ended up with a small Star Wars
Lego set. We paid and I thought we were done. Belle, Goofy and Grumpy went to sit outside. Bashful saw the Astronaut Ice Creams and wanted those. A boy in her class had some in the past. So I got 3 and now the check out line was longer. So we waited. And waited. Finally we paid and went out to find the crew.
This is where I realized I had failed my plan, big time. As we exited what should be in front of me but a wall of people. Why you ask? They are watching the parade that is passing them by. I completely forgot about the parade. It was on my index card and everything. We were supposed to see it. I was so bummed. This was the one daytime parade I had really wanted to see. *sigh* Maybe tomorrow we could catch it as we were due back in MGM.
I know the day is not done but I must run. My boys are on TV in a few minutes, the Patriots of course, and they need me to cheer them on. I will finish this day soon, I promise! I am loving writing this report and love that there are people out there that actually want to read about it too!
So hang tight faithful readers, I shall return!