DAY 3 Continued: Wednesday May 16th
After a nice nap, the three of us were up and moving by 3:15 and headed out to the car by 3:40 to get back to the park! We got to the garage and took the elevator down to the area where the trams pick up and DH took these pictures.
The escalators to the parking garage, for a little perspective.
We took the tram back to the parks, and went through bag check quickly. We decided to hit up DL first since we would be making another attempt at World of Color later and would go over to DCA closer to showtime.
First, we stopped for some pictures in front of the trains station/Mickey grass at my insistence.
With that out of the way, DH wanted to use his Space Mountain FP from earlier in the day, so we split up. I was going to try to take DS on Jungle Cruise since DH wasn't too interested in riding that, and we'd meet up in Adventureland when he was finished with Space.
Space Mountain loading area
When I got over to the Jungle Cruise, the wait was something like 30 minutes, so that just wasn't going to work! Instead, I walked over to Critter Country to check out the wait time for Winnie the Pooh. It was basically a walk on, so soon DS and I were cruising through the adventures in the Hundred Acre Wood. I tried calling DH when we got out but he wasn't answering so I figured he wasn't done on the ride yet. We found a bench and DS had a lot of fun playing and climbing on it.
DH eventually found us and we went back to Adventureland so I could ride Indiana Jones while he found something else to do with DS. I rode using the Single Rider line, which I got a little confused about several times! It was weird because you go up the exit! Then I had to take what is I assume also the handicapped entrance since I had to go up an elevator, over the platform that went over the standby line, and back down an elevator that brought me to the loading area. Although it was kind of a long way to walk, I was on the attraction in no time!
Oh my goodness, this attraction is fantastic! I had my backpack between my feet and I was in the outside seat. We hit one of those fast turns and I realized I'd better hang on to the strap of my bag so it didn't go flying out of the vehicle.

The rooms were so HUGE and you really felt like you were in a scene from the movie. I really enjoyed this attraction! I'm glad even though my first attempt to ride the night of the AP Event didn't work out, I had a chance to experience it.
While I was riding Indiana Jones, DH decided to take DS to see the Enchanted Tiki Room.
I was not disappointed to miss out on this attraction until DH came out with DS and told me DS had a great time dancing and applauding through the entire show. Then I was sad I hadn't experienced it with him to see that.
By then, it was around 5 pm so we started looking for a place to eat dinner. We ended up at the Plaza Inn Restaurant on Main Street to get a little something different than the burgers and pizza we had mostly been eating. This was another place served cafeteria style, and ALL of the food looked amazing! I had a hard time turning down the fried chicken or pot roast with mashed potatoes, but the three of us decided on the pasta station instead. We all got the penne pasta with alfredo sauce and chicken. DH's and my portions were huge, but we still got DS a child's portion. He definitely didn't need it and could have easily shared from our plates since we didn't even come close to finishing ours. We felt like we were eating forever and there was still so much leftover! A much smarter plan would have been for the three of us to share one plate of pasta and get one of the delicious looking desserts!
Once we were stuffed, we decided it was time to start heading over to DCA since there were still some things we wanted to try to do there before attempting WoC again. The biggest thing we wanted to ride was California Screamin'! Since I had gotten first dibs on Space Mountain earlier, one we made it to Paradise Pier, DH went to ride CS first while I took DS on Little Mermaid again. We walked right onto the ride, and my phone immediately started ringing. It was DH telling me the Single Rider for CS was not operating then (??) so he was going to meet us at the Little Mermaid exit. Once we met up, we decided to walk over and ride Triton's Carrousel. Since about 20 minutes had passed, DH ran over to the Cast Member at the CS line to ask about Single Rider and they were letting people in again, so I said I'd take DS on the Carrousel while DH rode CS.
DS
loved riding the Carrousel! He giggled almost the entire time, and when he wasn't giggling, he was saying, "Wheeee! Wheee!" It was adorable!
Meanwhile DH got a picture of the California Screamin' track.
We met up after we were both done, and swapped. DH took DS on the Carrousel twice while I rode California Screamin' through the Single Rider line. Man, was it ever chaotic up on the loading platform!! There is just SO much going on, I almost missed the CM waving me over to get on the coaster.
This was probably my favorite attraction in all of DCA, because I'm a roller coaster junkie! The launch was fantastic, as was the inversion in the Mickey head. SO. MUCH. FUN! I wish we could have ridden it a dozen more times, but with DS with us, we didn't want to keep riding the thrill rides and missing out on the time with him.
When I caught up with them, they were still on their second ride on the Carrousel. DS was still lit up like a Christmas tree & loving it. In fact, when the ride ended, he started sobbing when DH took him off! So what did we do? Yep, got right back on the Carrousel, this time all three of us! I rode sitting behind DS.
After DS's Carrousel marathon, we decided it was time to move on to something else.
We went over to Mickey's Fun Wheel with DH begging me the entire time to go for one of the swinging gondolas instead of the stationary ones. Even though I was hesitant, somehow I let him convince me it would be fun, so we joined that line. I was starting to have second thoughts the closer we got to the loading platform, but suddenly, DS did something that saved me having to ride. Yay, right?! Wrong! He peed all over me!!! Never has this ever happened ANYWHERE since DS was born (aside from him wetting through the diaper at night a few times), and it happened right there in line. I was holding him and talking to DH when suddenly I felt something wet on my arm. I thought maybe it was from the little girl with the bubble gun in front of us, until I realized it was warm. :/ DH grabbed him and carried him out of the line holding him as far out as possible, and I heard several people in the line asking, "Did he throw up?" as we went past them.
Luckily for me, it didn't get on my clothes so I just needed a good arm washing in the restroom. And luckily, we had decided to bring pants in the bag to change DS into in case it got chilly that night during WoC, so I was able to clean him up and change him into his jeans. It was a good thing he didn't do this earlier in the trip at all, because that was the first time we had thought to bring extra clothes for him into the parks. Rookie mistake, I know! We should ALWAYS have extra clothes for DS on us at all times!!
By the time we were both cleaned up, the wait time for the Fun Wheel had grown, so we didn't get back in line, thank goodness. I was really glad not to have to ride on those swinging gondolas!! Instead, we walked around the Paradise Pier area in and out of the shops to buy some souvenirs and on the lookout for ice cream, but the only place in that area had soft serve and we weren't in the mood for that.
After walking around a bit, we decided to head over to the WoC FP viewing area to give it another shot. Apparently at some point, DH walked through the Bakery Tour and got a picture of the Mickey bread.
When we got to the area, we crossed our fingers and went inside to try to find a good spot. Of course, if you are a group of adults or the kids in your party are older, definitely get to the viewing area as early as possible to get the best spot. Since we had DS and didn't think he'd do well waiting, we usually waited until about 8 pm to find a spot which meant we were higher up (but then again, we didn't want to get wet either!) and crowds had formed already. We managed to keep making our way down further (DH thinks we actually might have strayed from the blue area to the yellow) and found a really great spot with only one group between us and the nearest railing.
We got settled into our spot, and were smart enough to remember the pacifier this time, so DS got that as soon as he started getting cranky from being in the same place too long! Learned our lesson from the night before, that's for sure. DH ran off once we were settled to track down an ice cream cart and came back with an ice cream cookie sandwich for himself and one of these bad boys for me to enjoy while we waited.
45 minutes is a LOOONG time to wait for a show with a toddler who needs entertaining, but we managed to do it this time, much easier than last time since we had the pacifier too, although he didn't seem to need it as bad as he did the night before. Go figure, right?
DH got this movie while we waited of Paradise Pier as the colors changed.

Finally it was SHOWTIME!
UP NEXT: World of Color FINALLY!