Hey guys, remember me? I hope so. I'd hate for you to miss out on all of the excitement here.
Now it's Tuesday, the 2nd full day at the world. Faith had scheduled another surprise for this morning that requires everyone to get up very early while on vacation. Faith hates to get up early, never has a plan, so it is shocking to me that she did this. What did she do?
Well, she knew ahead of time that Mike was not going to be into all of the Mickey Love happening around the World. He's a history buff so she did the best she could come up with to plan something for Mike. She booked the Keys to the Kingdom Tour. The only problem with this tour is that all of the start times are before lunch.
The plan is that everyone is to be checked in at the Magic Kingdom at 8:15 for this tour. That means everyone has to get out of bed by 6:30. Sure, sounds like a great vacation doesn't it? Yowzers, that's early. Vik and Mo have no problem with this but Faith and Mike struggled. And when they do finally struggle out of bed, they check the weather and it's cold. These people are wimpy Californians but it is in the 40's. They are so glad they had packed gloves. Wait a minute. Newsflash here. Captain FastPacker will now be known as Ms Michael Jackson as Faith only packed one glove. I'm sure when she was tossing stuff from drawers into the suitcase like she was hiking a football, one of those gloves didn't quite hit the target. Oh well, Faith figures she'll wear one and keep the other hand in her pocket. LAME-O.
They leave the condo and Faith already realizes that they are running a bit behind. Notice the pattern with this problem? So Faith decides that another cab is necessary. They jump in the cab and Faith says "Magic Kingdom". How many of you are groaning right now? If you take a cab to MK where does it drop you off? At a place called the Ticket and Transportation Center. At 8:00 in the morning, it's a pretty empty place. It was like WallyWorld. Faith mutters to herself "I should have said Contemporary" and then tells the group to hurry to the monorail because they are now going to be LATE.
If any of you were at the MK on the morning of Jan 21, I apologize. You were probably run down by one of these 4 as they gallop off the monorail heading to the special line for early entrance at the MK. Faith is yelling at Mo whose in the lead but going the wrong way (he's so used to just following Faith that the man appears to be a first time visitor).
I'm not as winded as the 3-D group I'm with so I stop for a photo:
And get my first view of the castle:
And an empty Main Street:
My group are the last to check in for the tour but at least they didn't miss it. Matthew was our guide and I tell you, I am smitten with him. He is very good and oh so funny. I'm not going to tell you much about this tour because everyone should have the chance to go on it and discover the secrets on their own. But I am going to tell you 2 things.
Since our tour starts before the park opens, we are at the far end of Main Street by that castle. Matthew pulls everyone over to the side and invites us to watch Disney's version of the Running of the Bulls. So he has everyone turn around and face back towards the entrance. As the rope drops, Matthew says "We call this the Running of the Strollers". And if I actually went to the bathroom, I would have wet myself at this moment. I could hear the Chariots of Fire theme music running through my little laminated brain as I watched the surge of strollers running towards the castle.
Everyone learns a lot on this tour. It's almost 6 hours long. Faith and Vik are so mesmerized that they do not take photos. One thing the group learns is that on the Jungle Cruise ride, one of the natives says "I Love Disco". I thought that was pretty spiffy as I'm a disco era laminate.
Lunch is included with the tour. It is at Columbia Harbor House. Everyone has chicken salads and they are good. Too soon the break is over and they are back on their feet. It's a pretty long tour with few opportunities to get off the feet. Vik says that her feet hurt just as much in the Easy Strides as they did in the tennis shoes. Faith justs nods, smiles, and points down to the beautiful
crocs which are covering the happy little tooties.
After the tour, the group does a few rides (they walk onto everything as nobody is here today), including one of Faith's favs. Buzz Lightyear. When they got off that, Vik declares that she got 1700 points. Faith said "you mean 17000?". Vik says no, 1700. Wow. That's pretty bad. I think they give you 1500 pity points when you start the ride. How can anyone be that bad? Faith doesn't say anything to Vik's face but she does mention it to Mo later that even Anderson could get more than 1700 points. It makes Faith's 32000 points seem pretty good.
It's time for the parade and because there are no people at WDW, they get up front spots. Afterwards, Faith finds a photopass opportunity:
It has warmed up enough to remove gloves but coats are still needed. Even though it's quite cold, Faith and Vik slip off their jackets to look their best.
The day went by so fast and the group has to leave here because they have dinner at a 50 place somewhere else. And EMH, whatever that is.
And the question up next is how many drops does it take for Faith to be happy with a picture?
And I thought it looked yummy! Until I read what it was! Congrats on the great window seat! Was Faith at least nice enough to hold you up to see? Sharon! I have a great idea! You and Jiminy Cricket would make a very cute couple! We'll have to hook you two up!
)
Me? I would have booked Cindy's for breakfast just to watch them squirm!
