The Twelve Days of Swinter: From Castaway 'Key' to a Partridge in a Palm Tree!

[RinkyTinkyTinky]

The sad part is that the mean attitude usually comes straight from the parents. The one kid that was the worst in grade school was also in cub scouts, so we got a lot of exposure to his parents. I would have been more shocked if the kid turned out NICE.

Tell her to hang in there. Or all her DIS buds are going to show up one day and give those kids what for!

A DIS posse! That's what we need!

I agree about the parents. There's a little girl on DD's soccer team who is really snotty, and if you spend five minutes around her mother, you quickly understand why she is snotty. And when I taught school, I saw that same thing over and over. I'd have a kid with troubles and as soon as I'd meet the parents (if they would ever come in for a conference that is) I would immediatley know why the kid had issues.

 

[monica23535]

Hi,

I have just caught up and have loved every moment so far!

Your trip sounded like so much fun. I have one DS who will be 6 when we sail on the Dream this October, so it was great to hear about it all from a parents perspective.

The Blue Lagoon excursion looks awesome! I think we may be doing that one thanks to your detailed report , although we might give that lunch place a miss...

I literally did at your DH for paying for soda on Castaway Cay, why do men never listen huh?

Looking forward to your next update.

 

[MeMom]

I have missed too much of what's been going on in DIStown these last two weeks, but I think things are going to get back to a normal level of chaos at school now. I very much enjoyed seeing all of the pictures. It made me hungry for Liberty Tree Tavern and Columbia Harbour House again.

I am sorry to hear that your daughter is being taunted. Just keep giving her the positive feedback she needs at home. As hard as it is to watch it happen, she'll be a better person on the other side of this. The kids that do this kind of thing are missing some important factors in their lives. It is sad all the way around. It's pretty easy for me to see that your daughter is an awesome little girl!

 

[RinkyTinkyTinky]

Hi,

I have just caught up and have loved every moment so far!

Your trip sounded like so much fun. I have one DS who will be 6 when we sail on the Dream this October, so it was great to hear about it all from a parents perspective.

The Blue Lagoon excursion looks awesome! I think we may be doing that one thanks to your detailed report , although we might give that lunch place a miss...

I literally did at your DH for paying for soda on Castaway Cay, why do men never listen huh?

Looking forward to your next update.

It was a great trip and I think your son is the perfect age to go. I think you all will love it!

I highly recommend going to BL. It was a fantastic experience and again your son is a great age for that.

Yes, my DH says he does listen, but I just talk too much so he tunes out half of what I say.

I have missed too much of what's been going on in DIStown these last two weeks, but I think things are going to get back to a normal level of chaos at school now. I very much enjoyed seeing all of the pictures. It made me hungry for Liberty Tree Tavern and Columbia Harbour House again.

I am sorry to hear that your daughter is being taunted. Just keep giving her the positive feedback she needs at home. As hard as it is to watch it happen, she'll be a better person on the other side of this. The kids that do this kind of thing are missing some important factors in their lives. It is sad all the way around. It's pretty easy for me to see that your daughter is an awesome little girl!

We have never eaten at LTT but I have heard good things about it. I want to try it maybe on our next trip. I just can't decide between lunch or dinner. The two menus are different and both sound good.

Thank you for the comments about DD. She is a sweet girl and doesn't deserve the mean things that have been said about her. And I know the kids that are doing it just haven't been taught any better. The people I am most upset with are their parents.

I'm glad things are slowing down for you.

 

[brookelizabeth]

I was still back on Castaway Cay...guess the boat left with out me!

Wonderful, wonderful report from the boat...minus the last night! YIKES!

I loved your poem about the Celebrate parade - that is adorable! And those are the very BEST PhotoPass pictures I have ever seen...simply hilarious!!!!!! What a riot! Glad you could crop them though!

 

[Mndisneygirl]

I was still back on Castaway Cay...guess the boat left with out me!

That would be wonderful!!! Wish I was there today. It actually feels wintry today! We've been so spoiled with a mild winter...

 

[RinkyTinkyTinky]

I was still back on Castaway Cay...guess the boat left with out me!

Wonderful, wonderful report from the boat...minus the last night! YIKES!

I loved your poem about the Celebrate parade - that is adorable! And those are the very BEST PhotoPass pictures I have ever seen...simply hilarious!!!!!! What a riot! Glad you could crop them though!

I'd love for the boat to have left without me... especially considering how that last night went!

Well one thing is for sure, no one else has any PP pics like mine!

That would be wonderful!!! Wish I was there today. It actually feels wintry today! We've been so spoiled with a mild winter...

We haven't really had a winter at all this year. It was 80 degrees here today! I think we might be in for another scorching hot summer and the bugs are going to be horrible this year without any really cold weather to get rid of them. We worked in the yard today and got eaten alive by mosquitoes! Don't they know it's February!

It will be interesting to see what the weather is like in Europe. Have you been checking the extended forecast?

 

[Mndisneygirl]

Why yes, in fact, I have been checking the extended forecast for Europe!

It's looking like the 50s for most of our trip so far! Even some sun! I think I can live with that!

 

[katt789]

Yay for WDW!! I know what you mean about booking the cruises, I started looking into one recently, and am thinking about doing it. Thing is I'd be going with ppl who don't drive, so it'd be difficult to leave from Port Carneval (sp?) we'll figure something out!

Yay for CBR! It looks awesome! I'm staying there in April, and excited to see what it's all about! The nap was a well deserved nap, I'll bet! You guys got so much done at MK in such short time, thats fantastic! I'm excited to hear more!

 

[sharonW]

chant....cannot wait for another update, cannot wait for another update LOVE your TR!!!!!

 

[partyof2]

I've been thinking a lot about your daughter's troubles at school Rinky, I used to get picked on when I was in school and the way I dealt with it would be to think of the things that I had up on them, i.e. I was better at maths, I had a nice house (this was one of the things I got picked on about).

I never verbalised these things to the mean kids because I knew that would just get me in more trouble but it helped me feel better about myself.

It's perhaps not the right mentality for us to teach little ones, i.e. I am better than you, but it sure used to make me feel happier about it all.

 

[RinkyTinkyTinky]

Why yes, in fact, I have been checking the extended forecast for Europe!

It's looking like the 50s for most of our trip so far! Even some sun! I think I can live with that!

Well that was about what you were expecting so that should work out good. I know I'm wierd, but I don't think 50's are that cold. Most of our coldest winter days around here are in the 50's and it's not bad to me at all. You are going to have a wonderful trip!

Yay for WDW!! I know what you mean about booking the cruises, I started looking into one recently, and am thinking about doing it. Thing is I'd be going with ppl who don't drive, so it'd be difficult to leave from Port Carneval (sp?) we'll figure something out!

Yay for CBR! It looks awesome! I'm staying there in April, and excited to see what it's all about! The nap was a well deserved nap, I'll bet! You guys got so much done at MK in such short time, thats fantastic! I'm excited to hear more!

Well I hope you can work something out for the cruise. It is a wonderful and unique way to spend some of your vacation time!

I hope you love CBR as much as we did. It is so beautiful and peaceful there. A real gem in my book! I bet it will be gorgeous in April with everything in full bloom!

chant....cannot wait for another update, cannot wait for another update LOVE your TR!!!!!

Sorry Sharon! My DH has taken some vacation time this week so we have been getting some household projects done that we have been procrastinating on (painting, yard work, etc. ) Believe me, I'd rather be Dissing!

I've been thinking a lot about your daughter's troubles at school Rinky, I used to get picked on when I was in school and the way I dealt with it would be to think of the things that I had up on them, i.e. I was better at maths, I had a nice house (this was one of the things I got picked on about).

I never verbalised these things to the mean kids because I knew that would just get me in more trouble but it helped me feel better about myself.

It's perhaps not the right mentality for us to teach little ones, i.e. I am better than you, but it sure used to make me feel happier about it all.

Well sometimes you just have to find a way to cope and deal with things to get through. She's doing ok though. We don't see the boys that pick on her all that often so at least she doesn't have to put up with it every day. And she knows that those boys have lots of 'issues' so that helps. But I can tell it still makes her feel self conscious sometimes. After hearing from everyone though it sounds like this is a VERY common problem. Almost everyone here seems to have dealt with it to some degree. Such a shame.

 

[sharonW]

I know Rinky...there is life beyond the diz!!! Don't work to hard now!!

 

[RinkyTinkyTinky]

So we had two goals for this short day at the Magic Kingdom, BTMRR and Philharmagic. We had already covered so much ground in such a short time that we could’ve left right then and been happy with our day. The good news though was that we still had another hour and a half before MNSSHP started, so onto Fantasyland we went to finish up our wish list for the day…

We saw that IASW was walk-on so we decided to go ahead and ride.

DH thinks this ride is super corny so he made sure he gave me his best dork impersonation to show me his displeasure!

We checked the time on Peter Pan but there was a 45 minute wait. We’ll have to check you out later on Peter!

We didn’t want to spend all our time waiting in line so we moved on to our Fantasyland favorite…

DH looks like a psychopath in this picture!

We were very excited to see this! You just cannot beat this show in my opinion! All three of us love it!

Unfortunately, we didn’t enjoy it very much. Two women sat directly behind us, and both of them had babies with them that looked to be about one year old. They both were already cranky and crying when they came into the theater, but when the show started, they went ballistic. I think the 3D effect and the loud music really scared them. And if you’ve seen the show, you know it begins with clanging instruments and lots of crashing noises. Well those babies screamed, and I do mean blood-curdling screams, during the entire show. I really felt bad for them! I mean, I selfishly wanted them to stop screaming in my ears, but I did feel bad for them. I don’t know why the women didn’t get up and take them out of the theater. Needless to say, we decided that we would have to try to catch Philharmagic again before our trip ended because that showing was a bust!

We looked around in the gift shop for a while…

Words of wisdom…

While we were there, DD spotted a super soft castle throw that she wanted to buy. It was one of those special offers where you could get it for $15 with a $40 purchase or something like that. Well we searched that store over and couldn’t find $40 worth of stuff that we wanted, and I wasn’t going to buy things that I didn’t want just to get that throw. We asked a CM if we could just pay full price for the throw and forget about the deal they had going. She told us that they were not allowed to sell it that way, but she said that the $40 purchase could come from ‘anywhere’ in Fantasyland as long as we kept our receipts. Remember that word ‘anywhere’. It will come in handy later!

Hearing that news, we were off to another shop to see if we could squander $40! I knew I wanted an ornament (I always get at least one of those per trip) and my mom wanted one too. I was hoping that maybe I could find the ornaments and one other thing, and we would have enough to meet the requirement.

We headed across the way…

Hoping to have better luck at…

I finally saw the giant in the ceiling!

I can’t believe I had never noticed that before.

We stayed in there for what seemed like forever, but there just wasn’t anything calling out my name that I had to have. DD was very disappointed, but I broke it to her that she wasn’t getting that throw right then. Of ‘course she pouted a bit because she just didn’t get it. In her mind she reasoned it as, “It’s a store, they have merchandise, I have money, what’s the problem!” So that ‘deal’ ended up making for a pretty stressful shopping experience. I told her we would try again when we came back to MK later in the trip though.

Most of the rides were still walk-on so we figured we had time to squeeze in just a few more. We chose to take a stroll through the forest with Snow White since she may not be there the next time we go.

Disney has given us some great Princes over the years: Naveen, Flynn, Aladdin, Eric, and Philip, so why does this poor guy not have a name? He’s just Snow’s beau. How sad.

Continued in next post

 

[RinkyTinkyTinky]

They ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after as Mr. and Mrs. ???????

See how this whole name thing becomes problematic?

That was never my favorite ride, but I still kind of hate to see it go.

There was still an ounce of sand left in the hourglass so we roamed around for a bit to figure out what to do with our last moments of the evening…

And we chose to spend it taking a spin on Cindy’s carousel.

Time had finally run out for us so we made our way to the exit.

I remember walking out that night and thinking what a great day it had been and how happy I was to be in my favorite place on Earth! It was a beautiful night and the sky was so pretty. It was that time of the evening where just the tiniest bit of sunset was still lingering and the moon and stars were shining bright. We strolled out slowly so we could soak it all in.

Main Street was all lit up in purple, yellow and orange to welcome the party goers.

Those lanterns that I love were glowing just like real carved pumpkins.

(Sorry the pictures are so blurry. I think I had the wrong setting on. I am notoriously bad for that.)

I thought these balloons were so neat because they lit up!

It had turned out to be such a wonderful day considering how it started, but we were so tired at that point. In fact, we were so pooped that we didn’t even have the energy to climb the ramps to get to the monorail, so we opted for the boat… but that turned out not to be a very wise decision. This picture shows what we did for the next thirty minutes or so…

There wasn’t a very long line for the boat when we first arrived, so we thought we would get out pretty quickly. However, a boat must have just left the dock because we waited…. and waited… and waited… until finally we could see boat lights heading across the lagoon towards us. All of us that had been waiting so long got excited at that sight and a few cheers were belted out. But you know what they say… don’t count your chickens before they hatch, or in this case, don’t count your boat until it sails.

As the boat got closer and came into focus, the whole crowd let out a big sigh of disgust. We were all expecting one of the large water taxis to pick us up, but what actually drifted ashore was the S.S. Minnow! That thing looked like it could hold about five people, and needless to say there were way more than five people ahead of us! There was an older man with the group that was in line in front of us and when he saw that boat pull up, he yelled out in a thick Boston accent, “We’ve been waiting here all this time and they send a freakin’ gondola?” The whole crowd had to laugh at that one! You gotta love old people and their brutal honesty! Apparently the ‘captain’ of the ‘S.S. Minnow’ heard him because he told us that he was sorry he couldn’t take more of us and he would call for another boat right away.

Well, normally this sort of thing doesn’t bother me. I know you have to wait on transportation from time-to-time at Disney, but we had a 7:50 ADR and I knew we were going to be late. Eventually another boat did arrive and we were able to squeeze onto that one.

I tried to relax and enjoy the ride across the lagoon but that is hard to do when you are running late.

Continued in next post

 

[RinkyTinkyTinky]

We made it to the Poly dock about five minutes past our ADR time so we booked it up the stairs as fast as our tired legs could go.

We got checked in at our very favorite restaurant in all of WDW…

It has become tradition for us to eat here on the first night of all our trips.

And even though we were late, we still had to wait for a table so I took a few pictures in the meantime.

Interesting tongue thing going on there…

You can tell that we were so exhausted.

We only waited a few minutes before we were seated.

And somehow we scored a window seat overlooking the castle! A first for us!

Poor thing could hardly keep her eyes open.

The atmosphere that night at Ohana was weird. The place was practically empty, which I have NEVER seen before, and there were no activities going on (coconut races, limbo, etc.). The lady who always sings was not there either. They had a man taking her place that night and he just strolled around the restaurant singing some, but didn’t put on the big show like the lady does. Honestly though, none of us minded a bit. We were so tired that it was a welcomed change to have a quiet dinner there.

You can see how many empty tables there were.

We still enjoyed our meal here just as much as ever though. The food is so good and my DH talks about this place all the time. This is the only ADR that is a must for us on every trip!

Sorry I didn’t take more pictures. My get up and go had got up and went.

I had planned for us to go down to the beach afterwards and watch the party fireworks, but there was no way that was happening. We were done! Time to go to bed!

This time we were smart and monorailed it back to MK.

We made it to the bus stop just in time to see the fireworks start.

This one looks like the Milky Way!

Our bus came super quick and we were on our way. We made it in the door of our room and instantly crashed, and that was some of the best sleep I have ever had!

Up next: My favorite park day of the trip!

 

[RinkyTinkyTinky]

I know Rinky...there is life beyond the diz!!! Don't work to hard now!!

Life beyond the Dis, huh? I don't know anything about that?



New update is posted!

 

[mickeystoontown]

I was happy to see that you were able to fit several more things into your MK day before the party started. Too bad Philharmagic wasn't so magical with the crying children behind you. I don't see why the mothers didn't just take the kids out of there. Poor babies!

Awww, your daughter was just about asleep at the table. She was one tired little girl.

 

[mom2rtk]

I know you were tired and all.....but that sounded like a pretty awesome day. You mean the next one was better?

I love how you described your walk out after your magical first day. There really is no better way to end a day is there?

I hope she got her castle throw. We have 2 of those now and love them go pieces.

I'm glad you got a view of the castle. I hope your DD opened her eyes long enough to see it!

We've only done 'Ohana once, and that was YEARS ago for breakfast. We really need to try dinner sometime.

 

[RinkyTinkyTinky]

Sorry! I messed up that last post. I put my pictures with the wrong comments. I had a picture of my DH with the comment "Interesting tongue thing going on there." There was supposed to be a picture of a mask in that spot. It's fixed now!