So, when we last left our heroine and the boys, they were heading to my hotel room before heading to DHS, when we were interrupted by my cell phone ringing. I answered it. “Hey, Heather, it’s Sally. We realized that Jack has the boys’ park passes, so he’s going in with them.” We were halfway back to the lobby when my cell rang again “Minnie realized she had the boys’ ponchos, she’s coming in with them.” Having the boys ponchos and park passes, we headed up to my room. For some weird reason, the boys were enamored with the tile pattern carpet in the hall. I let us in, and the boys used the facilities once I removed my laundry. I changed in the bathroom while the boys entertained themselves (which somehow involved Ferdie removing his fanny pack). We called MamaKat, but she did not answer. I distributed the light up candy necklaces, The boys, sight unseen, picked necklaces that matched their ponchos. Slight vent re the Dolphin-with my tip for housekeeping, I left a note saying extra toiletries would be great, thank you! But I got no extra toiletries. MamaKat called back (she was in New Haven for a tennis tournament and was driving in CT when I called). When she asked Mordie about breakfast, he replied “I had a lot of bacon.”
Ferdie chatted about the giant bats, then asked if he could talk to Oscar (our cat-I need to video this before he stops doing it, he has to talk to Oscar every time he calls. Oscar must know it’s him, because he rubs his head against the phone and purrs.) MamaKat told him she wasn’t home. And we were off! The boys’ got Auntie Heather’s rules for the night “I want you to have fun-you can order whatever you want, and you can pick out a present within reason.” The boys nodded. We headed to the boat dock, tragically the boat was not running due to thunder. We debated walking, but then elected to take a cab. How much could it be, I figured, given we were right nearby. I asked bell services for a cab, and one pulled up. We rode to the taxi stand at DHS. The cabbie informed me it would be $12-what? I noticed as I left the cab it was a town car, but as I just wanted a magical night, I paid, and made a mental note to talk to the concierge about it tomorrow.
We entered DHS. Our plan was to check out TSM to see if we wanted to wait for it after dinner. It had an 80 minute wait. We opted to skip it, and headed over to the GMR. I told the boys that if there was less than a ten minute wait, we could ride it before dinner. Now, I may occasionally grumble about Mordie being a tween, but the fact that he let what I was about to say slip by says something. Ferdie told me he left his fanny pack at my hotel room. I replied “Do you have your park pass?” Yeah. I wish I was making that up. When we got to the GMR, we were told there was a 10 minute line, so we headed in. You know that big queue with the bars? We pretty much walked through that-as we boarded, Mordie commented it was more like a “no minute” wait. Our tour guide was really trying, but she wasn’t very good. I asked Ferdie if he needed me to cover his eyes during the Alien scene, but he said he’d be fine. We were hijacked by a gangster-how very un-Disney. I’d never had the popping Alien before, only the ceiling one. Our guide returned. We finished at the movie scene, and got out, all unscathed. I looked at my watch. It was 5:25. Our ADR was at 5:30 (BTW, looking at the rest of Minnie’s spreadsheet, I’m not quite sure how she got me the 5:30 ADR-every other ADR is for a Disney Dining time like 5:10
. Sidenote-wasn’t it cool back when Minnie would post on the PTR? Wouldn’t it be cool if she did that on TR since she was there?). I told the boys we had to GAT over to PTC. Rather than asking how one GATs, the boys followed my lead and hauled their carcasses to PTC.
I walked over to the podium and checked in. “Heather Lastname-that’s two big kids and one little kid, right?” “Right.” I confirmed. We were told to wait in the living room. I told the boys that it was decorated like my grandmother’s house would have been when my mom and uncle were growing up.
They were underwhelmed. I was worried we wouldn’t hear our name, so we hung out near the podium. The boys pin traded with Uncle Gary, who was from Maine. I prompted the boys to tell Uncle Gary about their camping trip to Maine. We were called, I asked Uncle Gary for a kids’ menu for Mordie, as he can go either way in terms of food. We were seated, and Uncle Gary gave us Mom’s rules-No hats, no elbows on the table, and eat your veggies. We greeted out two very large groups of cousins. Once Uncle Gary told us that Mordie immediately removed his hat. (hops on soapbox) I know there’s been some hubbub on the boards about dress codes at restaurants. I ask, if a twelve year old has the wherewithal to take his hat off inside, why can’t adults? (hops off soapbox). I told the boys that they could get any drinks they wanted-Mordie asked if he could have a Pirate Punch, and Ferdie wanted chocolate milk. I ordered a PBJ shake. Our waiter, Uncle Patrick, took our drink orders. Uncle Patrick was very nice, but always seemed a little harried. I asked Uncle Patrick if Mom had any veggie burgers in the back (I had seen one in V_GAN’s reviews), he said he’d check. The boys perused the menus. Mordie asked if he could have a “grilled hot dog” (that’s classic Mordie-straight off the menu). He wanted a salad to start. Ferdie decided on macncheese, I offered him the shrimp appetizer, and I could literally see the thought cross his mind, but he said “No, macncheese*.” He said he wanted chicken soup as his starter. Uncle Patrick returned with the boys’ drinks, Mom was still making mine. He hadn’t checked on the veggie burger. He returned, and I was good to go with my burger. Ferdie ordered macncheese and a salad with honey mustard dressing, Mordie ordered a grilled hot dog and a salad with ranch dressing.
We watched TV, the boys colored on their menus, and chatted. (Pointless story-the last time I was at PTC, the New Mickey Mouse Club-the one with every celebrity from the late ‘90’s-was filming at MGM studios, and my kids menu had Mickey Mouse Club trivia on it). My milkshake finally arrived-it was more peanut buttery than jelly-y, but it was good (and there was a lot of it). The boys’ salads arrived-Mordie and Ferdie debated the merits of honey mustard dressing vs. ranch.
Mordie’s torso with salad. Mordie ate all of his salad, Ferdie ate about 50%-I thought they were a good size for a kids’ meal.
Uncle Patrick arrived with our food. Mordie began putting black pepper on his hot dog. He ate his hot dog and fries. My veggie burger was also very good. Ferdie ate maybe 50% of his macncheese and then sprinkled black pepper on his.
At this point, our cousins had left. I wasn’t sure if the boys were getting into it, but they didn’t appear to be having a bad time. Ferdie turned to me “I wonder if we’re getting any more cousins?” Uncle Gary walked by, I told him I hated to me a tattletale, but Ferdie hadn’t taken his hat off. Uncle Gary told him he’d better do so, so Mom didn’t have to come out of the kitchen. Ferdie removed his hat. Uncle Patrick came by to offer us dessert-he immediately offered the boys the make your own sundaes that come with kids meals, which I was impressed by. I said we wanted to peruse the menu. At some point Uncle Patrick referred to me to the boys as “Mom.” Neither party commented at the time (which is unusual for Mordie). The boys enjoyed the dessert viewmaster. They both opted for the smores, I got the brownie sundae. The boys liked the smores, I liked my sundae but it was a lot of food.
We finished up and headed out. I had a good time, as did the boys. Uncle Patrick was a little harried, and it looked like some of our cousins were having more fun with their aunts and uncles, but we had a good time.
We decided our next ride would be Star Tours. We pretty much walked on. Our ride was good-it’s a pity they can’t find a more experienced pilot, though.
The boys asked if we could go in the gift shop. We looked around. I spent more time in gifts shops this trip than I usually do, most likely since I wasn’t doing the massive WoD shopping trip. Mordie had been asking Sally to go to BCV’s market place to get a certain candy-the blue candy with a paintbrush. The Star Tours gift shop and them, so Mordie asked for this and some other candy. Ferdie browsed a lot, but didn’t want anything. He was looking for the pin of the Stormtrooper with a Mickey Premium bar, but they were out. I paid for Mordie’s candy. The CM helping us was so perfectly geeky Star Wars geek I wasn’t sure if he was part of the theming. We headed onto Muppet Vision 3-D-we were enjoying the pre-show when my cell rang. It was Sally saying she and the other adults would be later than they thought. We headed into the show. It was excellent, as always. We checked out their dump shop-Ferdie wanted a Buzz Lightyear dart thing, but I wasn’t ok with getting it without a parental ok. I passed out the glow sticks I had in my bag, which surprisingly worked. We stopped to take photos of the fountain. Our next stop was Pizza Planet for the facilities. It was dead empty, but we did our thing and headed onto the gift shop by TSM. At this point, most of the masses were at Fantasmic, but TSM still had a 80 minute wait. The boys spent a lot of time in this dump shop-they had some cool Pixar stuff. Ferdie ended up getting the Buzz and Zurg Disney racers. At this point, it was reaching boys in bed time, so we headed to the boat. We did stop to take a quick Photopass picture on the way out then headed to the boat.
There was a boat waiting, and we settled in behind the captain. Now, Mordie and Ferdie were chatting away to each other-I’m fairly proficient in either Mordish or Ferdish (Auntie Heather, do you remember when we went to that place and did the thing?), but the pidgeon language of Morferdish is a mystery to me (Do you Yes
). The captain watched them talking to each other, and asked bemusedly “You two are brothers, aren’t you?” Mordie immediate responded “Yes, and she’s my aunt! I’ve had trouble with this before, when I was here in 2001 it was my dad’s birthday, and I was with my Uncle Mickey and Aunt Minnie, and I kept on telling people it was ‘my daddy’s birthday!’ then they’d wish my Uncle Mickey a happy birthday, and I’d say ‘he’s not my daddy!’”
We headed along on the boat, we could see pieces of Illuminations. Both boys aren’t the type who get cranky as they get tired, they’re more prone to keep going and going, but Ferdie was beginning to slur his words-it took about three tries for me to comprehend “AuntiehedderIwanttoseeil-loom-men-ations.” Due to the time, I told Ferdie I would bring his fanny pack to him tomorrow. We disembarked at the Yacht Club.
The Yacht Club is very nicely themed-it’s themed as those hotels on Martha’s Vineyard that like to remind you you’re too poor to stay there, right?
We wound our way from there to the Beach Club. Mordie began to swing his glowstick like a lightsaber. “Mordie, stop it!” He stopped. We cut through the Beach Club’s market place-sake’s alive that’s a paltry CS option. I think even the GF and Poly have nicer CS options. Ferdie began to wield his glow stick. “Ferdie, did you not hear what I told your brother?” We reached the Villas, and in turn, reached the boys’ villa. Getting the boys into jammies and bed was easier than snapping my fingers. I watched TV, I think there was a lot of Stacey, and I also watched part of the new Cheetah Girls movie. At this point, I was beginning to feel a tell tale tickle in my throat, which was accompanied by an achoo! Achoo! I was grateful I had packed Advil Cold and Sinus, as I doubt Mickey sells the good cold med stuff in his gift shops. I talked with my mom, and then the adults came home. Apparently Jack had taken a long time in the Virgin Megastore-this is only note worthy because a) He had been looking at a CD earlier in the trip at AKL, but thought he could get it cheaper online, and b) he lives within spitting distance of a mall. Mickey and Minnie generously offered to drive me to the Dolphin. They were planning on hitting DHS at rope drop to ride TSM one last time, if I wanted to join them-I said I’d see, due to my Disneyitis. It momentarily crossed my mind that I could probably hit either ToT or RnR while they were doing TSM, but I nixed that idea. This would prove to be a sage decision. I returned to the Dolphin, made my way past some sloshed conventioneers. I set my cell phone to go off at 7 (if I went to DHS) and the room phone to go off at 8 (if I didn’t).
*Should anybody out there wonder-Ferdie says the best macncheese at WDW is at Kona-although that may be because Kona is his tradition with Mickey and Minnie when they go there with them.
