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

[DisneyRegulars]

Alright we have made it to Wednesday morning. It's character breakfast morning, but since Amy is deathly afraid of the characters Maggie, Roger and Amy are headed to Kona Cafe while MIL, Grizzly, Tigger and I are headed to Crystal Palace. MIL has never been to a character meal, and judging by all the smiles in the pictures, she had a very good time. Tigger too enjoyed himself, but I don't have a picture of him alone with a character, but here he is looking quite happy in his Goofy Hat:

We were done eating long before all the characters got to us. I think it must have been a good 30 minutes after we were finished eating before Piglet finally made his way to our table. Tigger (our Tigger) was relatively patient and he ate a good breakfast. Just as we were finishing up our meal Amy and family were finishing up some pictures in front of the castle, and we all met up at the Jungle Cruise.

I seriously wanted to talk some sense into the family next to us on the Jungle Cruise that thought it would be a good idea to bring a screaming baby onto the boat. Now, I totally get it if your baby starts crying while on the ride, because no-one can really predict when their baby might start crying. But if the baby is crying BEFORE you even get on the ride, I really think you should have courtesy for your fellow cruise passengers and calm your baby before getting on the boat. Especially since it was early morning and there was no line for the ride. Unfortunately, the family next to me did not feel the same way, so instead of listening to lovely puns for two weeks we instead got to listen to screaming baby. Aaaargh. It was definitely ruined for me.

We next needed to use our FPs for Thunder Mountain which we did, then we proceeded to go on the ride 2 more times before heading back to Pirates. Thunder was very popular with both kids. Tigger surprised me and actually enjoyed Pirates and asked to go again. We made a quick trip to Haunted Mansion which Tigger "never wants to go on again ever ever too scary" before finally making our way over to Tom Sawyer's Island.

Well, this didn't really go over so well. There was no fun cave hunting or dinosaur discovering. On the way over Amy had a bit of an accident requiring a change of clothes. Her mother was livid as she had just asked if she needed a bathroom. Maggie was even more livid because MIL was butting into the situation when she should have stayed quiet. I loaned Amy a pair of Tigger's shorts because she didn't have any extra clothes for the day and we all waited outside the restroom in awkward silence for them to reappear. Not knowing what was going to happen (we were hearing shouts of "we're leaving right now") and needing to get Tigger back to the hotel to nap, Tigger and I took off exploring the island. My goodness my beast has gotten timid. He wouldn't go into any of the caves with me. He did, however, insist on shooting off every single gun. I sent Grizzly and MIL to the cafe to relax. After some family deliberation and lots of awkwardness Amy was allowed to explore the island for a bit too, but they never found the cool caves.

Tigger and I headed home, but on the way out I wanted to grab some popcorn. Tigger looks at the cotton candy and says "I wish we could get cotton candy, but we can't." I told him you never asked, how do you know you can't get any? So we picked up a bag of cotton candy and the beast was in heaven. Here he is at the bus stop munching his way through his bag of sugar:

That evening after napping we headed out to T-Rex Cafe. We enjoyed our dinner and then spent some time at the Lego store allowing Tigger to pick out whatever he wanted for this 5th birthday. He chose a police station. I was thrilled to find out there is a 10% discount for annual pass holders. We also let Tigger fill a cup of Legos and build some Lego minifigures. Grizzly and I instantly became obsessed with finding the best possible way to fill the cup, and returned later that evening to see if we could fill the Lego cup better than Tigger. Later that evening we also got this darling shot from the photopass person:

Up next, how to fill a lego cup, followed by a day at Epcot.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

So Grizzly and I went back to the Lego store to see just how many Legos we could fit in the $15.99 Lego cup. My son used the same strategy that everyone else was using, he simply put Legos into the cup until he could shove no more in there. Here is a better way if you want to increase your Lego yield. Note this took about 45 minutes for 2 adults to do.

Step 1: Fill the bottom section of the cup with small pieces.
Step 2: Create a solid tower that sits in the center of the cup. The first shape you need to make is a sort of like an * shape, and about halfway up the cup you can change it to a full square. To keep your sanity, DO NOT put several large flat pieces together or you will have a heck of a time taking them apart.
Step 3: Fill in all around the edges of your center stack.
Step 4: Before putting the lid on, fill the nub in the lid with Legos too, this is a great place to put the flowers.
Step 5: Purchase Legos and feel superior to all other Lego purchasers in the store.


Here is what it looks like:

The full cup with flowers from the lid nub on top:

Removing the top layer you can see the solid center core:

Here is everything taken out of the cup with the solid center core sitting upside down so you can see the bottom star shape:

All the pieces laid out on a cookie sheet and above the cookie sheet. Looks like we have way more rims than tires!

Another view of all the Legos:

Next we filled the cup back up as best we could without stacking any Legos together. Look how many Legos didn't fit in the cup!!!! About 1/3 of the Legos didn't fit back in.

So by stacking Legos we got a full cup AND a full baggie full of Legos.

Happy Lego cup filling!

 

[quandrea]

This is great. Enjoying the updates. My kids loved your Lego pointers. I think we will be trying that very soon. We head home on Tuesday I'm sure they'd go for the Lego cups if they hadn't already bought three Lrgo mini figures. Didn't know the cups existed.

That's a lot of eggs. Did you use them all? We usually do cold breakfasts in the villa and cook one meal a day.

We've really enjoyed the quiet January crowds. Hope the rest of the trip was a success. I'm enjoying reading the updates here at Kidani.

 

[a742246]

You are an amazing writer! Interested in your next report.

 

[wishicouldgomoreofte]

I am loving Tigger's grins for pictures in this report. He is so cute.
Also love that pic of you & Grizzley at DTD, with his foot kicked up behind.
I am glad the trip went so smoothly and well. Hope you are able to post the rest of it soon.
You haven't mentioned the grand villa. Was it grand? Plenty of room to spread out and have privacy?

 

[disney ny]

Your lego filling story cracked me up. That would be right up my sister's alley- I don't have the patience! She was obsessed at Once Upon a Toy with the finding the best way to stuff as much as possible into the build your own Mr. Potato Head. She must have done a good job because we have a LOT of Mr. Potato Head between us. I will have to tell her about your lego strategy- I honestly don't even remember seeing that when we were there.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Your lego filling story cracked me up. That would be right up my sister's alley- I don't have the patience! She was obsessed at Once Upon a Toy with the finding the best way to stuff as much as possible into the build your own Mr. Potato Head. She must have done a good job because we have a LOT of Mr. Potato Head between us. I will have to tell her about your lego strategy- I honestly don't even remember seeing that when we were there.

Um....I'm pretty sure that perhaps I AM your sister. Love the potato head parts too. The trick to those is NOT purchasing the actual potato head, and just getting him at a toy store back home. All the potato head parts you see in the milk crate were actually purchased on several trips before we even had our son. Before we were even thinking of having our son. If there are things that need to go into a container to purchase I'm instantly hooked!

To everyone else, thanks for your kind comments. I'm off to a post holiday work party, but I will be sure to comment on the villa in future posts. It was fabulous. Classes start up next week, and in true style I have not made my lessons plans yet. Yikes! I teach an optimization class, and the first day I always show my students the Touring Plan app that optimizing your WDW touring plan strategy. They LOVE it.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

You haven't mentioned the grand villa. Was it grand? Plenty of room to spread out and have privacy?

The grand villa! Good point. The grand villa met all of our needs perfectly. We put MIL in the master on the condition that the kids could use the giant tub. MIL can't do stairs well with her knee replacements, and it just made sense for the two families to have the rooms with 2 queen beds. So MIL was very content with her accommodations, and made a point to thank us many times for 'giving up the master'. I honestly didn't feel as though I was giving anything up, but was grateful she appreciated her space. Each family had a room upstairs with two queen size beds and a full bath attached to each room, so each family had a separate place to get ready in the morning. There was also a fourth bathroom with shower (no tub) off of the kitchen. Grizzly and I actually used this bathroom most so that we could shower and get ready for bed without disturbing Tigger. It was nice to have the living space free of sleeping people because Amy wakes up at 5am-ish every morning, and she had a place to go and hang out while her parents slept a few more hours. The dining room was perfect and we ate most breakfasts and many dinners around the table. The kitchen was laid out so that two people could be in there and not want to kill each other. For example, MIL could be cooking at the stove, and I still had plenty of room to cut veggies on the counter or do dishes. The knives in the unit left a lot to be desired, but we made do. We never used the second entrance upstairs. Overall it was a great space. The two story living room definitely made it feel grand, but I think I would have preferred to have an extra living space upstairs than a 2 story room. There was only one feature that equally annoyed everyone in the villa. The tapestry they have hung on the wall over the tv, did not hang flat. It drove us all bananas that this grand tapestry looked like it had been shoved onto a pole too small for it and smacked up onto the wall. It had giant bulges in it and generally just looked horrible, when if hung right, could have added nicely to the grandness. Our guests were impressed with the villa and the resort, and were very surprised with how big the place was.

After staying in a 3 bedroom villa with 3 families I wouldn't hesitate to do it again. There was plenty of space for everyone to get away too, and lots of space if you wanted to be together. It worked out perfectly. I loved having the living room free of sleepers, and would never plan a vacation knowing that people would be forced to sleep there.

 

[wishicouldgomoreofte]

Thank you for that review of the grand villa. Sounds like 3 families is just right, so as you said, the living room is open and everything is shared space. I know many seem to get the max +1 in there (I understand, needing to stretch points), and like you said, having people sleep in the living room would really affect everyone and together time/shared space.

Hoping you can get to the rest of the trip report soon.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

This is great. Enjoying the updates. My kids loved your Lego pointers. I think we will be trying that very soon. We head home on Tuesday I'm sure they'd go for the Lego cups if they hadn't already bought three Lrgo mini figures. Didn't know the cups existed.

That's a lot of eggs. Did you use them all? We usually do cold breakfasts in the villa and cook one meal a day.

We've really enjoyed the quiet January crowds. Hope the rest of the trip was a success. I'm enjoying reading the updates here at Kidani.

Oh no! Only one full day left. The time always goes by so fast. Despite our best efforts at eating all the bacon and eggs we failed. I think we left a full 18 eggs for the cleaning ladies and a lb of bacon.

You are an amazing writer! Interested in your next report.

Thanks!

 

[DisneyRegulars]

So Thursday was upon us and we were off to Epcot. Due to the much maligned FP+ tiering (my spell check is really angry at this word) system and only one scheduled day in Epcot we felt to make the most of the park we needed to get there at park opening to ride both Soarin' and Test Track. That meant another early start. And also, who made this meal plan so concentrated on eggs and sausage and bacon? (Hint, it was me.) Already sick of two straight days of scrambled eggs we decided to mix it up a bit and make some breakfast burritos with our approximately 800 tortillas we had also purchased. (This was not me.) Swimming in bacon and sausage we had both meats for breakfast, it was marvellous.

We made it to Epcot with about 5 minutes to spare before opening which was just about as much patience as Amy has for waiting, so even though we were far back in line it was perfect for us. Roger was concerned Soarin' would make him sick to his stomach, and I nearly gave MIL a heart attack last trip when I took her on Soarin', so I sent them both off to get character pictures while we flew over California. Look, curmudgeonly Roger even hugged Minnie!!!!:

He was not very fond of his Mickey ears, that's why I called him curmudgeonly. He was actually having a pretty good time. I even overheard him talking to Maggie at one point saying "I wouldn't want to come here every year, but I could definitely see coming a few more times." Oh yeah, they were falling in love.

After Soarin' we headed over to Test Track. Everyone went on except MIL. I have yet to be on this ride and have the car we designed actually show up in the ride. Yes we scanned our magic bands! Sigh. I really miss the old Test Track. I wonder what people who have never seen the old test track would think of it?

Next I nicely gave Maggie a 45 minute nap by sending them all on Ellen's Energy Adventure. I promised Amy dinosaurs and the ride didn't disappoint her. Everyone else was kind of glaring at me once we reunited. Knowing that I fell asleep the last time I rode the ride I opted out of it for Tigger, myself and Grizzly. Instead we hit up all the photopass photographers we could find while we were just a family of three. Throughout the whole trip I never did figure out a way to say "can we just get a photo with the 3 of us". I'm sure saying that would have been fine, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it because to me it implies "get out! you're ruining my photo!". So we took our window of opportunity and went to all the photographers surrounding the epcot ball and even snuck in to see the characters as well. Here are my favorites:

It unfortunately was a super cloudy day, but I swear the ball is there if you look closely:

Looking cool and collected with Chip and Dale:

Minnie!

When Magic Shots go wrong:

Most of the other pictures my eyes were either shut or I looked deliriously tired. Like here:

We finished up our morning with Nemo, Turtle Talk, Figment and lunch at the food court in the Land Pavilion. Everyone got something from the asian station. The green curry was delicious. I took Tigger back to the room early so that he could get a good nap in because tonight was going to be Wishes night, so napping was essential for him to live through the evening. The rest of the gang stayed behind and toured the countries. Amy got her face painted like some sort of pink tiger/leopard with sparkles. They arrived back at the room in lively spirits.

Up next...Wishes and a lovely evening end with my Tigger.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Thursday night rolled around and we headed off to Magic Kingdom for Wishes. We all rode the bus together, but once arriving at the park we split up. Grizzly took MIL up to the Top of the World Lounge to watch Wishes so that she wouldn't have to negotiate the crowds with her scooter. Meanwhile myself, Tigger, Roger, Maggie and Amy found ourselves 1 hour and 15 minutes early for Wishes. It was 6:45pm so we decided instead of waiting around for the show we would do something. This stressed Amy out a bit, but she managed to deal with it. We hopped on the last WDW railroad and took it around to fantasy land, it's last stop for the evening. Amy fretted the whole time that we were going to miss the fireworks. My goodness can the girl latch on to things and not let them go. We took a second to ride the barnstormer and then headed towards the front of the park to get a spot in front of the castle. We had about a 15 minute wait before Celebrate the Magic, so I let Tigger watch a scooby doo on my phone. I had to stand directly over him so that he wouldn't get stepped on or run over by a stroller.

I held Tigger during the show on my hip. I like him being close so we can watch it together. I heard endless complaints from the people behind me about the kids on shoulders in front of us. I think the people behind me were more annoying than the kids on shoulders. Although, if you are going to put your kid on your shoulders, you should be sure to remove their mickey ears or other tall head gear, so to at least offer those 3 inches of viewing to the irate people behind you.

Tigger did not really enjoy Celebrate the Magic at all nor did he really love the fireworks. Sigh...Perhaps he has seen it too many times. Amy and company loved both shows. Not wanting to fight the crowds at the buses, I let Maggie, Roger and Amy know that I was going to take Tigger on Thunder Mountain (his request) after the show and they were welcome to come if they wanted. They assured me that they needed to get home to bed. So after Wishes Tigger and I swam upstream to Thunder and it was fantastic. I loved that time alone in the park with my boy. We rode Thunder and still had time for one more ride, so Tigger chose the carousel.

We headed out of the park and in order to convince Tigger to take pictures with me I had to suggest we take silly pictures. The photo pass people saw his silly faces and kept trying to barter with him: "let's do 2 nice ones and 1 silly one" one photographer suggested. She laughed when I said that it was okay, we wanted them all silly. The next photopass person down the road was none too amused with our antics, she was visibly aggravated with us and only took a single photo. I actually love the silly photos because we were having fun, and you can tell by Tigger's face that he was enjoying himself.

Silly picture 1 with friendly photographer:

Silly picture 2 with grumpy photographer:

You can also see Tigger head to toe in rain gear because it was sprinkling off and on all evening and I wanted him warm and dry rather than cold and whiny. It turns out Maggie, Roger and Amy tried navigating the crowds for a few minutes and said "the heck with this" and went to ride Space Mountain instead. We happened to meet them at the bus stop and rode the same bus home.

Up next, we all had a day apart. MIL and Grizzly went to Epcot to eat and drink their way around the world, Roger and company went back to Animal Kingdom, and I let Tigger plan his entire day with whatever he wanted to do. His choices surprised me, I think they'll surprise you too.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

I think I have been putting off writing about Friday because it was not the awesome day it was meant to be. As a parent I was so disappointed about how this day turned out, even though I tried to brush off the awful that was the middle of the day, even a few weeks later the disappointment still lingers.

So without further procrastination, here goes Friday. Friday was officially "go off and do your own thing day". I sent Maggie, Roger and Amy back to Animal Kingdom with FP's for the Safari, Everest and Dinosaur. They were excited to be headed back as they wanted to do some shopping in the stores. Grizzly and MIL went to eat and drink their way around the world showcase in Epcot. That left Tigger and I, so I let Tigger plan the whole day. The entire day. It was very amusing seeing what a 4 year old came up with to do. He was in absolutely no rush to get to the parks, and his only park plans included "riding the crazy elevator ride and the boring ride". Otherwise known as Tower of Terror and Spaceship Earth.


First up on the docket was a morning in PJ's. We started off with an obstacle course using his mickey hand grabber thing that he purchased with his own money. Here is Tigger moving random things around the villa:

We spent about an hour on this bizarre activity, but it was what Tigger wanted to do, so by golly I was going to move random things around the villa even if it killed me. (It nearly killed me!) Around 10:30 everyone was headed out of the villa except Tigger, still in PJs content with his object relocation task. I finally suggested a few things we could do outside the villa and while I suggested 3 or 4 things, he only heard Lego store and then stopped listening. I'm sure observers outside my family would find it annoying, but I absolutely love with Tigger gets excited about something. He was jumping up and down screeching "Lego Store! Lego Store! Lego Store!".
So off we went. He pushed the stroller almost the whole way there:

And we finally arrived. He beelined to fill another cup with Legos, and I took the opportunity to master my cup filling skills. All in all we ended up with 4 cups of Legos from this trip, but he's only 4 and has no legos that didn't come in sets, so it seemed like a good investment. As we were leaving to go play in the fountain Tigger caught sight of the race car creation area. You can only imagine the reaction of a kid who is obsessed with Hot Wheels and just getting into Legos to find a place where you can make your own car and race it. Oh glorious day! Tigger was in heaven.

Building his first car:

Watching the races:

Three hours of heaven to be precise. You see Tigger didn't just want to race his car, he wanted to win. He was hell bent on winning. Unfortunately, he's the world's worst car designer and being 4, has a pretty poor grasp of physics as well. So I sat back while he designed and tested his car over and over again. (The mom engineer in me was thrilled at this display of engineering persistence. The other half of me that prefers not to play with Legos in the cold was a little bit bored and cold.) Tigger would often painstakingly add or remove only one piece at a time before racing his car again. (Side note, the key to winning lies heavily on the wheels you get, not the car you design.) Finally after 2 hours he won his first race!!!!!! Oh the excitement! "Yes, surely we can go," I foolishly thought to myself at about the same time that Tigger said "Alright! Now I can make another one!". Another hour later and he had made and destroyed 3 winning cars. Here are some of his winning vehicles complete with ridiculous faces because now every photo has to be silly. What have I done?????:

Out of sheer boredom I even requested wheels and raced a car or two down the track. By feats of luck of wheels (some are just spinnier than others) my very first car demolished the competition. I gave Tigger my wheels and continued to sit back. Here I am fraternizing with the Dragon:

So here I am, bored out of my mind, but at the same time delighted that Tigger is having a blast when disaster happens. I look over to the end of the raceway and catch the tail end of an altercation where Tigger punched another kid in the arm. The other kid was clearly ticked about it and was tattling on Tigger to his mom. Since I didn't catch the whole exchange I let it go because I'm all about kids solving their own issues. (Yes, I wish Tigger would have solved it differently!) Well the very next race Tigger again raises his fist to threaten another kid like he was going to punch him. Oh I was LIVID! I swooped in and he was out of there. I still have no idea what was going through his little head, or where he even learned that behaviour. I'd never seen it before from him, nor have I seen it since. I let him know I was extremely disappointed with him, and that we were immediately leaving and going to take a nap. I stopped by Earl of Sandwich on the way to get myself a sandwich. I foolishly believed Tigger when he said he would eat the mac n cheese which he didn't touch, so by the time I got done eating I was beyond miffed. Tigger was holding it together up until he asked to play in the fountain right outside Earl of Sandwich like we had originally planned to do. I told him that he couldn't make decisions about the day any more because of his poor choices earlier; he began to wail. So I had to push a wailing upset little beast,nearly too big for his stroller, all the way from Downtown Disney to past the Paddock Pool. I'm sure I was a sight. He got ahold of himself just before our building when the wailing subsided to sniffles.
I got him napping and then consulted a group of mom friends on Facebook as to what I should do next. Half of me wanted to keep him in his room for the rest of the day (well week really), and the other half of me was just sad. My mom friends talked me down, and by the time Tigger woke up from his nap I was considerably less angry, though still sad. I decided to let him continue to plan his day after nap, as the consensus of my friends was that leaving the fun activity was punishment enough. Everyone was a bit sullen and tentative. There was definitely a damper in the air. I really felt, and still feel, like our day had been ruined. I'm glad I have pictures of pre-attack Tigger to remind me we did have several hours of good time.
I reminded Tigger that if he wanted to see the elevator and the boring ride that we needed to leave soon. He wanted to go swimming. Of course! It was 60 degrees out! I was volunteered for the job, so off we went to the main pool to swim. There were actually a surprising number of people swimming in the dark in 60 degree weather. At least 10! The lifeguards were all in their big bulky winter coats. So we swam for a bit. I managed to go down the slide twice, then went and warmed up in the hot tub before Tigger joined me five minutes later. (Dad was watching him from the side of the pool). We got changed in the changing rooms and then finished off our evening at the arcade. Grizzly and I convinced ourselves that if we spent $25 we for sure could figure out how to win the iPad mini in one of the machines. Besides, Tigger was nicely occupied winning every single piece of candy out of the candy crane. So we took our best shot. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO WIN THE IPAD MINI!!!!!! I'm convinced that the game is in no way possible to win. This was the game where you line up a key and it has to slide perfectly through a hole not much larger than the key. No matter when we tried to stop the key, it always landed in the same place.

We played arcade games for what seemed like ages, then headed off to the room. I found it very interesting that Tigger did not want to set foot inside any of the parks. I thought for sure the ideal kid day would be to do something like ride the barnstormer 25 times in a row. I'm so glad I let him plan his day just the way he wanted it because if I had planned it for him, it would have been much different and very very ride focused.

 

[a742246]

The last two WDW vacations we took our grand-kids to we had park hopper tickets and both times we only went to one park a day. The grandkids liked the resort pools and the gift stores more then the parks. I am like you if I planned the whole day it would have been more ride focused. Again, love your writing skills!

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Check out this brilliant plan! I scheduled office hours at 8pm the night before homework is due at a bar/restaurant on campus. So now I get probably 60 minutes of uninterrupted trip report writing bliss. As the semester wears on, and I get to know the students better, and the homework gets harder, I'm sure some will show up, but tonight, tonight I plan on writing about Saturday, our last full day in the parks.

Saturday we were all back together again as one big happy family, and we were headed to Hollywood Studios. Since Amy was now our resident roller coaster fiend, we needed to take her on Rockin' Roller Coaster. It was very convenient that Tigger was too small to ride this, so I was able to get us a rider switch pass. This allowed Amy and her Dad to ride twice, once with Grizzly, once with me.

After Rockin, we headed over to Tower of Terror, the scary elevator ride that Tigger had been talking about all week. Well about 2 seconds into the room with the tv Tigger informs me that he is "never going to ride this ride, not ever, not even when he's 8". So I have to ask to use the chicken exit, and this is where the cool part is, and I think it could be used for an emergency pee situation too, so pay attention. The chicken exit guy told me if I wanted to ride it after my family got off, I just needed to stand outside the chicken exit and he would let me back in. So after Grizzly and company got off, I snagged Amy and we rode it again while skipping the line because the guy actually did come back to get us at the chicken exit. No paper pass or anything. It was a little strange, but I appreciated it because ToT is by far my favorite ride, and on this busy President's day weekend day, the lines were building fast.

Since Tigger was being the ultimate wuss this trip I didn't even dare send him to Star Tours, so I sent Grizzly, Amy, Roger and Maggie off to Star Tours and Grandma, Tigger and I stalked characters while we waited:

First we found Chip and Dale:

Then we scouted out Pluto:

Pluto had to relocate Tigger's hand for this shot as he didn't much like being fondled by a four year old. I'm sure poor Pluto spends the bulk of his day relocating little hands.

When the crew got finished with Star Tours I had wanted to do The Great Movie ride, but the line was insane, and it would have meant missing Lights Motor Action, a show that I was sure my hot wheel car obsessed beast would love. (He did!) So we opted for a quick view of the Muppet Vision 3D. They had handily incorporated the evil frog Constantine into the intro movies in the standing area. This was a cruel cruel joke. They got me thinking they had actually redone the whole muppet show and gotten rid of that epically annoying 3D guy. Yeah, no such luck. Same old show. The company enjoyed it though, including wuss Tigger child.

Then we trotted off to Lights Motor Action. Here are Grizzly and Tigger enjoying the show:

Now, why did I bother showing you this mediocre picture of Tigger and Grizzly? There is a method to my madness. You see it was just prior to this show that Grizzly said he started feeling lousy. Well he didn't actually say it, he told us later that he was feeling lousy at this point. So he's feeling increasingly lousy AND he thought it was a good idea to sit Tigger as close to him as possible. Brilliant! Let's give the whole family the plague. Ugh. While in Lights Motor Action the park decided to get 10 level busy. I was expecting it to be crowded, but I think it came as a shock to our guests who had yet to see Disney actually crowded. Especially MIL who needed to navigate the crowds in a scooter, no easy task.

Earlier, while waiting for Light Motor Action to start I noticed that our fast passes for this evening's fantasmic weren't right. Maggie, Roger, and Amy had been assigned Beauty and the Beast or something else awful when I had copied the fast passes 55 days prior. Oh no!!!!! I frantically tried to get the FP for Fantasmic but the ap was being it's usually buggy self and I just couldn't tell if it had worked or not. So instead of walking out slowly with the masses and Grandma's wheel chair, I beelined for a FP+ kiosk and told them to meet me at The Great Movie Ride. While in line at the extraordinarily long FP+ kiosk line I figured things out on my phone, so we were all set for Fantasmic for the evening. I was quite pleased with this given the crowds for the day. FP+ haters take note, I got Fantasmic FP+ passes for 3 people at noon on a 10 busy day. Yippee!

When I met back up with the family, Grizzly was looking pale and told me he wasn't feeling well. He looked pretty awful. So he and Grandma went home. Roger and company hung out for a little bit before giving up and leaving, and I took Tigger to ride the boring ride in Epcot.

There happened to be a delicious ice cream shop on the way so we had to stop:

Ridiculous picture number 8424 of Tigger this trip. Please please please remind me next trip NOT to suggest a silliest picture competition. Tigger took his sweet time eating his ice cream. The guy checking magic bands for SAB even commented on how long it took him. It was at least 45 minutes.

You know what else is on the way to the boring ride? Club Cool!!!!:

This might be the beverly face.

Tigger agreed to take one photo with me in exchange for the ice cream. So here were are:

Love my new figment hat!!!!

We rode the boring ride (Spaceship Earth) and Tigger loved it. LOVED IT. Wanted to ride it again loved it. This small little nugget of time with Tigger definitely made up for our lousy midday the day before, and I felt once again connected to my beast.

One more pic before leaving the park:

Okay, maybe I joined in the silliness too:

We returned home to find Grizzly had locked himself in our room and was busy throwing up and tending to his very angry intestines. Poor guy. Not the way you want to spend your last day at Disney. Especially since we had plans to go enjoy the Magic Kingdom which was open very very late that night. Those plans were out the window. Since our bedroom wasn't an option I put a blanket on the floor in the dining room and had Tigger take a nap in there. He slept on the floor for 2 hours!!!!

I have no idea what we did that evening. Oh wait. Even though we had exorbitant amounts of food left, including several pounds of bacon, and left over soup, MIL thought it would be wise to order an army's worth of pizza and wings. Since I had already eaten a giant bowl of soup I was not hungry, so the entire 1/2 a pizza that she had ordered for me went mostly untouched. Silly MIL. I'm certain we did something to pass the time, but my mind is failing me. Tigger and I hunkered down on the couch that night and Amy was kind enough to not come downstairs until we woke up the next morning.

Up next, a trip wrap up as we head home. What did the inlaws think? Would I travel with them again? Were my worst fears realised? And who gets sick once we get back home?

 

[DisneyRegulars]

The last two WDW vacations we took our grand-kids to we had park hopper tickets and both times we only went to one park a day. The grandkids liked the resort pools and the gift stores more then the parks. I am like you if I planned the whole day it would have been more ride focused. Again, love your writing skills!

Thanks for the compliments! I'm constantly reminded by my son that what's important to him is totally different than what I think might be important. I just have to remember to slow down and check in often, or I will miss it. I remember when I was a kid all I ever wanted to do was go back to the hotel to swim. My parents let me swim maybe twice that I can remember... Thanks for following along.

 

[quandrea]

Thanks for the compliments! I'm constantly reminded by my son that what's important to him is totally different than what I think might be important. I just have to remember to slow down and check in often, or I will miss it. I remember when I was a kid all I ever wanted to do was go back to the hotel to swim. My parents let me swim maybe twice that I can remember... Thanks for following along.

Loving your report. Just booked fp for our April trip. Don't worry about tiggers behaviour. They all do things we'd rather forget. I have five yo twins. Trust me, I know bad behaviour. Too bad about the stomach flu. Hope no one else got it.

 

[MommyJKM]

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.

This made me laugh! He totally threw unneccessary shade at you.
By the way, I bet they think you are a thoughtful aunt who spent time and energy finding things your niece would enjoy and were the catalyst for her having such a good time.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

This made me laugh! He totally threw unneccessary shade at you.
By the way, I bet they think you are a thoughtful aunt who spent time and energy finding things your niece would enjoy and were the catalyst for her having such a good time.

I know right! I was a little taken aback by that! Thanks for reading my report!

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Loving your report. Just booked fp for our April trip. Don't worry about tiggers behaviour. They all do things we'd rather forget. I have five yo twins. Trust me, I know bad behaviour.

April! Only a month away now. I bet it must be so much fun watching your twins together down in Disney!