What Was I Thinking Inviting all the Inlaws? An SSR GV Trip Report

[DisneyRegulars]

Hi! Welcome to my trip report. Starting January 11th we'll be spending a week at SSR in a 3-bedroom grandvilla with my husband's family. Can I get a yikes? Not sure why I thought this was a better use of points than going to Aulani, but somehow, in a moment a weakness I thought it was a good idea.

If you've followed any of my other trip reports you'll know I didn't quite finish my last one. It's not like me to not finish something, but life was extremely hectic and it just didn't get done. For the cliff notes version, we moved 60 miles away to another city, I started a new job, we sold our old house, moved into the world's worst apartment (except for the one we had that flooded and the one we had that had mice, so really the third worst apartment if we're counting), built and moved into a brand new house, and I drove across the country for a 3 week odyssey to Yellowstone Park and the Grand Tetons with my mother and family. So in there somewhere my last trip report got left behind. I'm sorry. Please forgive me.

So on to our next adventure, a 3 family Disney extravaganza that I may not survive. On this trip the cast will be my son Tigger who will be a few days under 5, my husband Grizzly, my MIL, and my husband's brother's family including BIL Roger, SIL Maggie and niece Amy age 7. It will be Roger, Maggie and Amy's first trip.

I was feeling okay about this trip until Thanksgiving. We had Roger and Amy over for Thanksgiving and well, lets just say that Roger and Maggie have completely different parenting styles than Grizzly and I. I felt really really uncomfortable hearing Roger scream at his daughter. We don't yell in our house for the most part. So I just felt super awkward and was thinking "this is certainly going to be an interesting week at Disney." I'll have to wait and see how the opposite parenting styles clash during the week. To complicate matters Amy and Tigger can't figure out how to play with each other peacefully. Amy has Aspergers and Tigger is 5 and the two mixed together seems to lead to a lot of crying. Sigh. It doesn't help that both are only children and are used to getting their way, so together they just butt heads.

I guess I'm rambling, so without further ado, here's the bios of the cast:

Me (Your Narrator): 30ish, mother of 1 beast, just started a job as a college professor this year. Slowly losing my mind. Love Disney, but with everything going on in my regular life right now my obsession has been put on the back burner in favor of other more important things like lesson planning and making my son the most awesome bedroom ever. Here's a sneak peak of the paint job, I'm currently working on refinishing that dresser...

Grizzly (Husband): 30ish (I'm being nice), father of 1 beast, likes zombies, ghosts, and anything Disney. It's his family that's coming on this trip.

Tigger (aka beastie, age almost 5): Our only child. He's obsessed with hot wheel cars and bmx bike racing, and has asked me about 5 times today to go practice riding his new skateboard in the rain. He's a kind hearted beast that doesn't like to be alone, is very stubborn, but for the most part he's a decent beast.

Here we are just hanging out on Christmas Eve watching Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas, sorry it's not a glamor shot, but I'm not a glamor shot kind of girl:

MIL (old): I've survived one trip with her and decided it was okay to ask her back. In everyday life she can be challenging, but at Disney she really gets the magic and is quite fun. She'll be in a scooter, and hopefully will run over fewer people this trip. She loves Safari amber and salted caramel squares.

Roger (BIL, name has been changed): 40ish. He likes to talk over people. Thinks he knows more about everything than you. Loves serving as a volunteer fire fighter. I will probably hear a lot about all his Disney expertise because he went once in high school over 20 years ago.

Maggie (SIL, name has been changed): 40ish. She is quiet. Sometimes seems depressed. Is a stay at home mom. I don't really know too much about her because when we visit she is often sullen, quiet, and sticks to her computer. I don't think she has ever been to Disney.

Amy (Niece, age 7): She loves loves loves dinosaurs and animals of any kind. Is an amazing reader. She's also super tall so she often gets mistaken for a lot older than her age. I've got 2 days planned at Animal Kingdom for her. She was told today on Christmas about the trip and she is super excited. I'm super excited for her and I hope she has a wonderful trip.

Up next, when I get back to this computer, I will provide a few of our plans. In the meantime, let me know if you'll be following along, and also share any family survival tips. Please, I'll need them. You can also share your disaster stories too, so I won't feel so bad if this trip turns into a disaster. Thank goodness classes don't start back up until the last week of January, I should have plenty of time to get this report done.

 

[ToddyLu]

Sounds like the trip that will never happen...my DH and my DB...who are so opposite on the spectrum of personalities....it is scary. I do not think there is enough xanax to make that a trip that will work for us.

But getting back to you. As a planner myself the first thing I would have to do is get over planning....I would just stick to a straight forward knowing my park hours, getting ADRs made for evenings (are the folks you are going with early risers?), FP+ made for mornings to get them out of the way so everyone can separate if needed.

Let the BIL take the lead and then when he gets frustrated tell him, "but I thought you knew about this and that?"..then say, "well it is a good thing I planned blah, blah, blah."

Remember this trip is really about your niece...not her parents if truth be known. Even your little boy will get many more trips.. I would do a few princess things strictly for her that maybe you haven't be able to do with your little boy. It will always be magical for her and you may have to let that be your joy in this trip.

Well you will know after this trip if there will ever be a second invite...

 

[ToddyLu]

I should have ended with...and I truly do hope.. you will have a wonderful trip. Amy doesn't realize the champion she has in you. It might be nice for you to get to know your DSIL since she won't have a computer while in the parks. Oh....I am subbing.

 

[Thisdman]

Seems like you're planning to spend a week with people you don't like very much. I take it you are comfortable that they will not be reading this. I wonder what they think about you. Well none of my business, I hope you have a great time but I will not be following along and happy not to be going along.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Remember this trip is really about your niece...not her parents if truth be known. Even your little boy will get many more trips.. I would do a few princess things strictly for her that maybe you haven't be able to do with your little boy. It will always be magical for her and you may have to let that be your joy in this trip.

Yes exactly! I'm super excited for her. I've got Anna and Elsa fast passes, but beyond that nothing princessy because she's more into animals and dinosaurs. So we've got reservations for the Dinosaur Cafe or whatever it's called in downtown disney, and breakfast reservations at animal kingdom because she will get a kick out of Mickey and Minnnie dressed up in safari gear. I also have 2 reservations for Crystal Palace, one for the first day, but if she is not yet feeling the characters, we can cancel and I have another set for Wednesday.

You've also reminded me to go with the flow more for my niece's sake. Thank you! If we don't make rope drop, but stay together (which is what they have said they want to do) that may make it better for everyone. Plus I think Grandma would like to see both grandchildren together, hopefully having fun.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Seems like you're planning to spend a week with people you don't like very much. I take it you are comfortable that they will not be reading this. I wonder what they think about you. Well none of my business, I hope you have a great time but I will not be following along and happy not to be going along.

Even though you probably won't read this since you won't be following along, you bring up some very good points. Might they read this? Of course they might. But I don't think I have said anything that I wouldn't be willing to openly discuss with them. You won't be seeing pictures of niece because I know they don't like her picture on the internet, for the same reason you won't be seeing pictures of them either or MIL. Also, as to what they think about me? I think they might think I'm a little bit smug and maybe a know it all myself. I don't agree with a lot of their viewpoints, but instead of debating them, I just remain silent, absolutely silent. For that matter, I might come across exactly as Maggie comes across to me. Really not sure though, I've never asked them. I do hope though that they think I'm a good Aunt. And you should know that the trip was my idea! I may not see eye to eye with someone, or even particularly like them, but I truly believe anybody can put aside their differences and have a good time. That's what I'm hoping for.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Hey guys! Guess what? I just had a great visit with BIL, SIL and Niece. Tigger and I stopped by to visit them on our 7 hour drive to see my parents. It was the first time ever that I had visited them on my own. They live 3 hours away, and my husband usually travels with me on long drives. Amy showed me her entire "Animal Kingdom" which took up an entire small room in their house. When I saw the dinosaur section I told her "wow! It even has dinosaurs just like Animal Kingdom at Disney!" She was so excited to hear that AK has a dinosaur section. She had no idea, she just had them in there because she loves them.

I got to see the first half of the video of them telling her about the trip. They gave her a calendar which had "Disney Vacation" written across our travel week. She flipped out, in a good way. It was the cutest video. The exact kind of reaction you would want from a kid. She was super excited for about 3 minutes, then she started to get really upset and stressed about things. Like "where are we going to sleep? who's going to take care of the dogs? The dogs are going to die!!!!!" etc. I was told it was quite the meltdown. But by the time I got there 2 days after Christmas she was super excited about the trip though, and all her worries had been adequately addressed.

Amy insists that she does not want to see characters. When I suggested she just have them sign an autograph book instead of hug them she informed me that that was "EVEN SCARIER!". I suggested she could be the photographer, and she wanted nothing to do with that either. Looks like I'll be cancelling my Crystal Palace lunch reservation for the first day. I wisely scheduled a second back-up reservation for Wednesday, along with Anna and Elsa for Wednesday to give her time to warm up to the characters, but chances are I'm guessing those will be cancelled too.

Had lots of pleasant conversation with Roger and Maggie, while Tigger and Amy managed to get along for a full 90 minutes without either one of them tattling or crying. A much much much better experience for everyone involved than Thanksgiving.

Mags says that "we will just go with the flow when we are down there". I'm not really sure what that means, but I suggested we start off our days together and then split off as necessary when our interests don't match. For example, we take Tigger on Space Mountain while they go see Story Time with Belle, then we meet up afterwards. She liked this plan, so that's what we'll do. Only 11 more days to go!!!!

I think I will send Mags a suggested packing list.

 

[disneynutz]

I say quit trying to be all things to everybody and focus on yourself and your immediate family. Often the nice guy or girl does finish last.

Some of our most remembered overheard WDW conversations are family members bad mouthing other family members who are using free points but making them buy a couple of meals for the group or how they hate the room or plans that the DVC member is forcing on them.

Bill

 

[a742246]

I would plan on scheduling a couple of days to do things with your own family without the others. If you plan it ahead of time you may be able to accomplished this without causing an uproar.

 

[quandrea]

I'll be reading along. We will be there at the same time as you. Arrive january 13 for two weeks at Kidani Village. We aren't inviting the inland though.

In fact my parents cut off contact with me at christmas because I had a disagreement with my brother. My SIL sounds like your sil. At least yours will talk to you! I admire your response to the negative poster unthread.

Hope all goes well. I am bringing my best friend and her girls down in April. I can appreciate how exciting it is to show disney to a niece. You are a great aunt.

Anyway have fun. I'll look forward to reading along from my savannah view balcony next week. Your reports are always such fun.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Everyone made it. Day one and so far no tears! Actually way more laughing than tears. We'll see what tomorrow holds, but for now, after waking up at 3:00am, I'm absolutely beat, and am heading off to bed. As a teaser though, here is a pic that basically sums up our first day: Lots of fun, most of it spontaneous, and a new chipped tooth. So actually in hindsight, there were tears, but only because my brilliant son decided to stand 3 inches from the luggage cart and start wildly swinging his head for absolutely no clear reason. (I think he was trying to make himself dizzy) I'd say the luggage cart won that fight. Only noticed the chipped tooth hours later.

 

[bakerworld]

Yo, Teach, I'm sucked into your TR so lets go for a passing grade, eh?

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Yo, Teach, I'm sucked into your TR so lets go for a passing grade, eh?

Wait are you grading me? I only go for A's!!! Funnily enough my students do not all do the same.

I say quit trying to be all things to everybody and focus on yourself and your immediate family. Often the nice guy or girl does finish last.

Some of our most remembered overheard WDW conversations are family members bad mouthing other family members who are using free points but making them buy a couple of meals for the group or how they hate the room or plans that the DVC member is forcing on them.

Bill

I know, I know. I read those threads all the time too. I don't want to be that person they complain about.

I would plan on scheduling a couple of days to do things with your own family without the others. If you plan it ahead of time you may be able to accomplished this without causing an uproar.

I tried to suggest that, but they seem to not want that. But since it's been suggested maybe we can part ways if needed to later in the week.

I'll be reading along. We will be there at the same time as you. Arrive january 13 for two weeks at Kidani Village. We aren't inviting the inland though.

In fact my parents cut off contact with me at christmas because I had a disagreement with my brother. My SIL sounds like your sil. At least yours will talk to you! I admire your response to the negative poster unthread.

Hope all goes well. I am bringing my best friend and her girls down in April. I can appreciate how exciting it is to show disney to a niece. You are a great aunt.

Anyway have fun. I'll look forward to reading along from my savannah view balcony next week. Your reports are always such fun.

Must be all packed by now? If you see me say hi! I'll be wearing some sort of ear hat and Tigger is in a bright yellow stroller.

Thanks for chiming in everyone!

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Let's see, it's Monday afternoon after a busy morning in the Magic Kingdom, we've got Maggy upstairs napping, Amy on the over stuffed chair "refusing to nap" while actually napping. Grizzly and Tigger upstairs napping. MIL and Roger sitting near me chatting about things that mothers and sons talk about. Mostly ambulances, fire stations, fire station politics, retirement plans, and taxes. So, I will sit here and type this out in notepad and see how far I get.

Let's go back for a second to the night before departure. To save a few dollars, probably not nearly enough dollars to justify the lack of sleep, we booked 6:10am flights out of Buffalo. Living an hour away we decided to spend the night at MILs. So off we trot to grandma's and about half way there I asked if Grizzly had packed the stroller. NOPE! So we spent a good 45 minutes researching strollers, discussing pros and cons of not having one. I've read all the stroller debates on DIS, and all I could think was OMG I am living the stroller debate, and my husband and I were not on the same side. Aargh. Several searches indicated that is was not possible to buy a $50 stoller within 60 miles of Disney, nor did any Walmart in Buffalo have the stroller we wanted in stock. Amazon couldn't get one to us until Tuesday which would mean 2 days in the parks without one if we needed one. We even went so far as to stop by the Walmart in Lockport only to remember that they are closing that Walmart next week, and there was not a single stroller in the whole store. Entire baby section was just empty desolate shelves. Pretty much looked like there had been a run on strollers after some sort of zombie apocalypse. We ended up just calling Randy's Mobility, the company we rent MIL's scooter from, and asked to add on a stroller. Blah! I hate spending money on something that I already own. I think this will be Tigger's last trip with a stroller though, he was doing pretty well today and would have probably been fine without it.

Fast forward to departure time. To get to the airport we left at 3:30am, which meant a 3am wake up call, which meant I got about 2 hrs of sleep. Somehow every Disney trip starts with me getting very little sleep. This would become very obvious Monday morning while I was making breakfast. MIL gets very very nervous about airport security. She even went so far as to call Southwest and ask what time we needed to be there, and of course they said 2 hours early, so you can bet your boots we were at the airport at 3:45am!! The Southwest ticket counter doesn't even open until 4. So we check our bags and head off to security. I have to take MIL's wallet through security because apparently my backpack is more secure than her purse, but I don't ask questions, I just take her wallet and hand it back after security and that seems to make her happy. But, and this is a huge BUT, security was AWESOME!!!!! We haven't flown since July, so many of you probably already experienced this security bliss, but we didn't have to take our shoes off, NOR remove our coats, NOR remove our laptops. It seriously took about 30 seconds to get through security. It could be that most of that was due to the fact that we were the only souls in the airport at that hour, but still it was AMAZING. Except wait, now it's 4:05am and we have 2 hours to kill in the Buffalo airport. The coffee shop wasn't even open yet.

Now MIL has been very entertaining this trip to far. She's had trouble figuring out very complex things like where the covers on the bed were, and how to turn on the shower. But my first treat was once we took off on the plane. It was still dark out, and she kept looking out my window, and eventually said, "Look, look, we can see the shadow of our plane in the window." I take a peak out the window and have no idea what she's talking about. She then rearranges in her mind what she is seeing and has now determined that she is staring at another plane and starts to freak "Look, look, I have NEVER seen another plane flying so close before." She starts to clutch the armrests, like she does when she sees other cars on the road. I look out again, there is nothing that is even visible except the wing of the plane. So I ask "the wing? I'm pretty sure that's the wing." It was lovely! Even MIL laughed at her ridiculous thoughts. Must have been the lack of sleep.

Up next, a lovely first afternoon and evening. Followed shortly by a pretty darn good morning in the Magic Kingdom today full of shocking ride approval and disapproval. Let's just say I have to totally rearrange the rest of our fast passes.

 

[a742246]

Looking forward to your TR!

 

[quandrea]

Must be all packed by now? If you see me say hi! I'll be wearing some sort of ear hat and Tigger is in a bright yellow stroller.

Thanks for chiming in everyone![/QUOTE]

Not packed yet. I spent the weekend baking 300 muffins for dd's swim meet (they pay me). Then I spent yesterday at the hospital because my younger dd broke her arm. So not packed.

I will look for you. We have twins, ds and dd, the same age as Tigger. October was their first stroller free trip. We dont do full park days or evenings though.

We are at kidani. Hope the trip continues well. I'll enjoy reading during my evenings after the kids are in bed.

 

[dvc at last !]

Enjoying your TR - and humor.
I agree the day/night before a trip there is not much rest or sleep.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

(This was mostly written last Thursday, day 5 of our trip)

I can't believe it's Thursday already and I haven't even finished arrival day. This does not bode well at all for finishing up this report. It's also a good sign though because it means I haven't been hiding in my room writing lengthy tirades about how awful the company is. (The company is not awful!!!!!!!!...But we still have 2 days to go, so lets not get ahead of ourselves).

Before I set in on arrival day, can I just say how much I love the Memory Maker package? It's amazing. This is the first time we have ever purchased a photo package and we are completely hooked. My favorite is that they even have photographers just roaming around the parks getting candid photos of people too. The pictures are awesome, and we've gotten some really really great group shots.

Okay, so arrival day. After our ridiculously early flight we arrived at SSR about 10am. While I was checking us in Randy called about our scooter rental, and within 15 minutes had dropped off MIL's scooter. Unfortunately, he had forgotten Tigger's emergency stroller (THANK GOODNESS we ordered the stroller!), so he was going to meet up with us again later. I requested a room near Paddock Pool, and we ended up in the furthest Paddock section from Downtown Disney, 1 long SSR building away from the pool. We started off being relatively happy with our location. The check in lady said that SSR was 99% full due to the marathon, which for such a large resort is rather remarkable.

With scooter in hand we headed to Downtown Disney for some Earl of Sandwich. Yum! Tigger got $7 Wolfgang Puck Spaghetti Noodles with butter. $7 for about 15 noodles. That kills me every time, but it's just about one of the only food items he is willing to eat down here that's not made of mystery chicken material. We munch our Earls and then head to Guest Services to get our tickets sorted out. MIL's park hopper was super easy, but our Annual Passes took a little bit of effort. Note to other's, if you are picking up the tickets without everyone in your party, all you need it a picture of the driver's license of the missing party members. After a few texts I got Grizzly's license picture and got his Annual Pass sorted away too.

---Aaargh beast woke up-----
While we were perusing Once Upon a Toy Randy called back with the stroller, and dropped it off only a few minutes later right to us at the store. What service! We were set. But wait, we couldn't possibly leave Downtown dry, so Tigger jumped around in one of the fountains for a good 30 minutes before we headed off to the Paddock Pool. I brilliantly packed all our swim suits in my carry-on so I could find them easily. I not so brilliantly packed the sunblock somewhere in the depths of our giant check throughs and had to gracefully dig through the entire bag in the parking lot. We easily changed in the Paddock bathrooms and were soon swimming with abandon.

We chose our location specifically so we could enjoy the Paddock pool. We were endlessly frustrated when we woke up Tuesday morning to find the pool closed and under refurbishment. I felt like someone could have mentioned this on more than one occasion when I expressed how excited we were to use the pool. If I had known the pool would be closed I would have put us in Congress Park so we could quickly hop over to Downtown. (SIDE NOTE, after returning from our trip, I logged into the DVC member website and saw the not stating the paddock pool will be close. I now know to check this ahead of time) So we swam. We spent significant amounts of time in swim lessons this year with Tigger, and although he still cannot swim, he's much much more comfortable in the water. He discovered he loves the big waterslide and went down over and over again giggling the entire way down.

We were there for the pool party portion of the day. At one point they took out a giant beachball about the height of Tigger. I'm not sure what the game was supposed to be, but it was essentially a bunch of kids wildly chasing the beachball around and wacking at it. It looked downright awful, but judging by the shrieks of delight it was very popular with the 5 and under crowd, including Tigger who asked to go back the next day to play with the giant beachball.

After hours of becoming progressively more pruny our room was finally ready. Grizzly and MIL headed over first, and Tigger and I followed just as Amy, Maggie, and Roger were arriving. Perfect timing!

Once everyone had arrived, there was a little bit of waffling over what to do. I made it clear that they needed to do two things, set up their credit card on their magic bands, and head to guest services to get their park tickets sorted out. I cannot stand waffling. DRIVES ME BANANAS!!! While everyone waffled I took Tigger over to Paddock for some chicken nuggets so that I could get him into bed and asleep by 7pm. When we got back they were still waffling over what to do!!!!! Good grief! So I gave Tigger a bath and he kept pretending to be Santa Clause and wanted to know what we wanted for Christmas. Bath ended AND THEY WERE STILL WAFFLING!!!!! I had to remove myself from the situation and conveniently had the perfect excuse of needing to tuck Tigger into bed. Can you believe they were still trying to leave the hotel when I was done. 3 hours it took them to make a plan to figure out what they were going to do and act on it. Now granted they might not have been in a rush, but I unfortunately inherited my Dad's inability to sit still, so if there are things to do, for me they should be done immediately. Aargh. This first night was luckilly my only point of frustration with my guests the entire trip, and it didn't really frustrate me too much because I just removed myself from the situation.

Up next...Day 1 in the Magic Kingdom. Will Amy like the thrill rides? What about Tigger? Will we leave the villa on time?

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Monday morning I'm up bright and early with Tigger and start making breakfast for the crew. Well I guess I was a little sleepy because while cracking eggs for scrambled eggs I opened not 1 but 2 eggs directly into the sink instead of into the bowl. Don't worry though, MIL had made the grocery list and we had six one and a half dozen cartons of eggs. Yup, that's 18 eggs a day for 5 adults and 2 kids. I wasn't too concerned about the loss. So I get the sausages going and give Tigger a glass of "pooping powder" to drink (Miralax). I'm not sure what happened, but Tigger dropped the glass. The tile floors did a fantastic job of breaking that glass into about 7 million pieces. Without moving my feet I lifted Tigger straight up onto the kitchen counter and sat him there while I continued to burn breakfast. Grizzly was called in to clean up the glass because I cannot possibly burn breakfast and clean up glass at the same time. Glass was everywhere. The grout lines in the tile acted like glass velcro. We tried every trick I could think of to clean up the glass including sweeping, vacuuming, and wiping with a wet paper towel. After 5 passes with wet paper towels and them still being covered in shards of glass I gave up and called housekeeping. The vacuum in the rooms seemed to do nothing, so I asked if they could come with a better vacuum to just give the kitchen a once over. The cleaning person was there within minutes. But guess what? They have the same vacuum!!! I thought for sure they would have some nice fancy vacuum that actually worked, but no. Just the same 1970s vacuum that the rooms come with. We remained hesitant on the kitchen floor for the next few days, but since no-one complained of glass splinters I think we managed to clean most of it.

While the frantic glass cleaning was going on I managed to thoroughly burn the sausages. Amy was none too pleased and let me know it. She was also refusing to eat breakfast because she became fixated on needing her magic band and socks. Even though we suggested going up to her room to get socks, she couldn't seem to solve this problem on her own, and sat there fretting about her magic band and socks until her mom came down. Growling ensued between the two of them, but eventually magic bands and socks were acquired and breakfast was eaten. Tigger happily ate the burnt sausage but avoided the eggs. At least he was eating. Seems like almost all other trips he immediately starts in on a hunger strike, so far we were three for three with the meals. During all the cooking and burning Roger and Maggie had yet to surface. MIL was there to laugh at my egg dumping shenanigans, only to repeat them herself the next morning with 2 more eggs taking a dive directly down the sink. About 15 minutes prior to departure time Maggie and Roger show up, fully ready, and scarf down some breakfast. We pile the dishes into the sink and head out the door. I think we wanted to leave by 7:40 and were out the door by 7:45, so I was quite pleased. Maggie and Roger continued their miraculous breakfast appearances for the remainder of the trip, showing up just in time to gobble up some food and leave. After a few days of this I was beginning to get secretly agitated that neither had offered to cook breakfast, but on our sleep in day on Thursday, Maggie cooked, so I felt much better after that.

We made it to the entrance to MK with five minutes to spare before the opening show. You could tell it was going to be a low volume day because there was still ample room for MIL to negotiate around the entrance area with her scooter. I love the opening show, it gives me tears. Turns out, it gives MIL tears too, and she spent the whole show wiping her eyes. How sweet. So we strolled down Main Street and headed for Winnie the Pooh. To keep ride requests at bay and everyone on the same page I used the WDW Lines ap and told everyone we were going to follow it to minimize our wait in line. Everyone seemed to like that plan, and it was nice to just go from ride to ride without any waffling about what to do next. On future days in the parks I let Amy help pick out the rides we would do each day. Winnie was generally well received, then it was off to the Barnstormer, our thrill ride testing grounds. Tigger still loved it which was good, and Amy declared that it needed to be about 1000 times longer. Hmmm...this is a good sign. Best part was, we got to stay on 2 times in a row.

Next up we visited Dumbo. Tigger rode with Grandma and was disappointed because he had to stay down low because of her fear of heights, so we snuck in a second ride (with cast member permission) so that Tigger could fly high. Up next was Ariel which Maggie liked and Tigger thought was awesome. With a few minutes to kill before our 7 Dwarfs Mine Ride FP's we hopped on the tea cups. 7 Dwarfs Mine Ride was a huge success. The pictures on the ride are great too. For parents riding with kids, put your arms behind their heads. I was riding with Amy (yeah! she wanted to ride with me!!!), and her head smacked into the back of the seat at the beginning of the ride. I felt awful. We normally do the arm behind the head thing for Tigger on rides, but I hadn't thought about it for the mine ride and a much bigger 8 year old. Also this morning we tackled Tomorrowland Speedway, Space Mountain, Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin, TTA, Carousel, Peter Pan (FP) and It's a Small World.

Amy, who was a big "maybe" for Space Mountain, absolutely loved it. Tigger hated it, and declared he never wanted to go on it again ever until he was as big as Dad. Poor beast. He looked genuinely petrified.
In contrast, he loved the mine ride, and you can see him here smiling in the back row:

On the way out of the parks for the morning we stopped and got pictures of everyone in front of the castle with their ear hats on. The pictures came out fantastic. Even Roger reluctantly wore his ear hat for the picture. It was my one request for the trip and I was happy everyone agreed to do it.

Other notable parts of the morning included Amy getting some cotton candy and Tigger discovering that cotton candy is amazing.

The rest of the day consisted of napping, Amy refusing to nap but falling asleep on the chair in the living room, and getting ready for bed. Dinner was sandwiches in the villa. MIL took her boys on a date that night to the Irish place in Downtown Disney. I think I went to bed exhausted and Maggie stayed up for a bit. Overall a great start to our week. Tomorrow is Animal Kingdom, which Amy is super excited about.

I wish I had more pictures, but almost all of them involve family members that don't want their pictures out and about on the web. Just imagine a super cute shot in front of the castle, and candid shots of Amy and Tigger strolling through the park holding hands.

So far no-one is sick, but unfortunately that doesn't last the whole trip...

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Park day number 2 led us to Animal Kingdom. Based on Amy's love of Space Mountain and the Mine Train from the day before, I booked fast passes for Expedition Everest and Dinosaur, as well as one for Kilamanjaro Safaris. There were a couple hickups this day, like when I nearly gave poor Tigger a heart attack on Expedition Everest, but overall, it was a good day, that is, if your name wasn't Tigger.

Tigger doesn't really like Animal Kingdom. Much to my chagrin he really doesn't care much for animals. I myself could stare at the giant anteater all day long. But unless something has wheels and can race on a track it's really not on Tigger's radar at all. So Tigger was kind of tagging along on this day, and he did so nicely, but I think he didn't have too much fun.

First off we head to the safari via a quick giant anteater sighting on the way. I love him. Amy and family love the safari. Amy is a little disappointed that the cheetahs were not running. We took a quick walk on that animal walk back by the safari to check out the naked mole rats, meerkats, and gorillas. Tigger was not a fan. I think Amy would have been content to stay there all day except there was Expedition Everest to see. So we trotted over to that. We were a few seconds early so we snagged this photo with the photopass person. Notice how excited Tigger looks.

This was not a kid we needed to drag on this ride:

He was not so excited when we got off the ride, in fact he was crying. I felt terrible. Here is the picture of him during the ride with a look of sheer terror. He was not a fan of the yeti, and announced that he was "never ever never going to ride that ride again even when he was as big as dad ever."

When discussing things to do with Amy she managed to get Tom Sawyer's Island confused with Animal Kingdom's Discovery Island, so she was absolutely insistent on going to check out the caves on Discovery Island. Even though I told her over and over there were no caves and she was confused, there was no convincing her otherwise. She seems to have a tendency to get fixated on things... So off we shimmied to Discovery Island to find a new dinosaur that she was going to name the Amysaurus. Well, when it finally dawned on her that perhaps I was right, and that there were no caves on this island, she was a bit disappointed. Luckily, this was about the time we passed the "It's Tough to Be a Bug" sign, so we got in line for that. Here we are looking cute in our glasses:

That's about all Tigger got to do in his glasses because about 20 seconds prior to the show he announced he needed to go to the bathroom. So he missed the show. I'm fairly certain it would have scared the dickens out of him anyways, so in a way it was perfect timing. Everyone else enjoyed the creepy crawlies, including Amy. She was really surprising me on this trip.

We had a nice lunch at Yak and Yeti, then headed over to dinosaur. Can you guess who didn't like it? Tigger. He won't be going on that again either until he is very big, even bigger than Dad.

We spent a few minutes playing in the playground. I'm not sure what's going on, but just about every picture Tigger let me take of him this trip, if he knew I was taking it he put on this big goofy grin. Here he is again looking ridiculously happy to be riding a triceratops snout:

We finished up our day on Kali River Rapids. What fun! We got a boat to ourselves. They really need to add a photopass photo to this ride. It was AMAZING to watch the giant wave land right on top of MIL. Everybody had a real good laugh about that. The kids and Grizzly and I went on again before heading out of the park. I thought it was cool that Amy was willing to leave her parents and go on again just with us. She went on several rides this week with just Grizzly or myself. It was actually kind of good we were on this trip because Maggie gets motion sickness on fast roller coaster type rides, and Roger can ride them once or twice, but not over and over like a 7 year old wants to. Just before leaving we did quickly change the kids' clothes. Thank goodness I had suggested to bring an extra change of clothes for Amy because she was definitely freaking out a bit about walking in her soaked clothes.

That evening after tucking the kids into bed Roger, Grizzly and I headed out to Epcot to have a beer and watch Illuminations. Well maybe 2 beers. Another great day. We were two for two. There was no growling between families and everyone seemed very content to follow my rough plan. Perhaps we would survive the week.... Up next we return to MK to do Frontier and Adventureland.