This Is Not A Test...

I think this has been the most uneventful day 2 of travel ever...  At present, I am sitting outside... on a balcony... where we just watched Wishes and Illuminations... at the same time.  I feel incredibly relaxed.  I wonder if this is what most people are talking about when they utter the word, "vacation".

We only had a little over 200 miles to drive, today, which put us in Orlando at around 2:30, after having lunch at Stevi B's, where Phil also managed to participate in a chat for his doctoral cohort.  When we arrived, our hotel suite was ready (even though it wasn't nearly time for check-in, technically), and we found ourselves on floor 14 (er... 13?) overlooking all of Walt Disney world on one side and a gorgeous lake on the other.  It's a good way to spend the first week here before we venture onto Disney property.

Some favorite pictures of this day include:

That moment at lunch when it occurred to me that

I really need to listen more intently to Ian:

Miah helping with the luggage cart

(she's as good at this as I am):

And, the kids hanging out on the balcony:

The refrigerator is stocked, after Miah was appalled to find it empty and, upon learning that we needed to fill it ourselves, exclaimed, "Well then, I see how it is!"  Just FYI...  Wal-Mart in Orlando is overwhelming.  There are more people in the aisles than in the theme parks!

And now we sleep... because Sea World awaits...

L.

Pictures Taken Today: 59 (Ouch!  I'll have to remedy that tomorrow!)

Hop ‘Til You Drop…

In the very brief planning stages of this trip, Phil and I had a bit of a difference in opinion as to whether the park hopping option was necessary. He was right. It was.

We didn’t manage to get to a park until noon, and when we did, it was Hollywood Studios again. Our plan was to snag fastpasses for Toy Story Mania, but they were all long gone by the time we arrived. Since we really had no desire to wait in a 2 ½ hour line, we forewent this option until tomorrow… we hope…

We did stop at the Toy Story character greeting, where we met Buzz Lightyear, and we also traveled a little further into the park to meet Mike and Sulley for the first time. Again, I am amazed at how much Miah loves these guys! Under 2 years old, and she yells the word, “monsters,” with a smile on her face!

We also finally saw the Beauty and the Beast stage show after 3 unsuccessful attempts in ’06, ’08, and ’09. I thought the casting here was excellent, and Miah enjoyed growling at the Beast. We did stand in the back for the second half of the show, because she was tired of sitting…

Undoubtedly, the most exciting thing that happened to us on this trip was that we made a wrong turn at Hollywood Studios and found ourselves being directed by a real film crew to join a group of people who will be featured on the Walt Disney Resort’s television channel. Three takes later, we are looking forward to having our friends who are visiting Orlando in March keep an eye out for us in our television debut!

Just a couple of hours into our day, we hopped over to Epcot in an attempt to bang out the rest of Future World or the World Showcase. As it turned out, we were reasonably successful at completing part of both of them… again. I’m never planning to do Epcot this way again, but by the end of our time there, I had pressed pennies for 8/11 nations, we had Daisy Duck’s autograph, we had walked on to Journey into Imagination with Figment, The Seas with Nemo, and Spaceship Earth, and we had even played at the Kodak Image Works and explored the Living Seas.

Time’s up… We hopped a monorail to the Magic Kingdom for Wishes…

The monorail took a really long time to arrive (about 25 minutes), but we still managed to squeeze our way through the crowd during the parade and position ourselves for some prime fireworks viewing right in front of Walt and Mickey this time. We made Ian stay up, because we wanted him to actually see the show, and when it started, even Miah woke up. Wishes is traditionally my favorite show at Disney. I am so glad we made it in time… Looking around at my beautiful family, I know that all of my wishes really have come true…

After a few pictures, we booked it back to the monorail station, because the Epcot monorail was threatening to close at 10:00pm… Small problem… The monorail line was packed! Thanks to Phil’s quick thinking, we jumped on the resort monorail… Miah cried all the way to the Contemporary Resort, where some guests disembarked and we were able to sit down and pull her out of her stroller… just in time to travel to the ticket and transportation center… where Phil pushed both strollers down the ramp and I carried Miah… then we ran back up the other ramp and made it on the last monorail back to Epcot for the night with 5 minutes to spare…

We arrived back at the Epcot parking lot, found the van, and were on our way back to the hotel for a few hours of sleep before we attempt to fight the crowd in the morning for those Toy Story Mania fastpasses…

‘Night.

Lisa

Day 14 Photo Count: 141

Photo Highlights:

Caleb & The Aliens...

Have I mentioned lately how much I love this kid...

Wishes...

Have I Mentioned We’re Getting Old…

It’s just not our way to stop in the middle of a vacation and actually take a moment to breathe. This time around, though, we’re finding we don’t really have a choice. We are exhausted. We had to take a break today...

Granted, our style break probably still doesn’t fit the traditional mold, but we really did stay at the hotel until it was almost evening…

We actually used the hotel pool and “waterpark” (if you can call it that). There was also a very small putt putt golf course. Since Ian is not a huge fan of the water and Miah is pretty little for it, Phil and I headed that way with the two of them while Seth, Grace, and Caleb braved the slides in the water fort. In all of my 32 years, I have never, ever seen a child fall into a hole on a putt putt course. Miah managed to accomplish this feat… three times…

We all enjoyed the pool together for awhile, even though I couldn’t convince any of my children that getting “slimed” would be fun. I think this must come from growing up in the 80s, but I was a little disappointed. I mean, who doesn’t want a bucket of slime dumped on their head? The answer to this is every member of my family…

After awhile, we left the pool area, sat in Blue’s “thinking chair” briefly (actually, Miah probably could have stayed there all day), and came to the conclusion that we needed to make it to The Magic Kingdom for the “party before the party” and “Fantasy in the Sky”.

Miah in the Thinking Chair

The crowd was incredible when we arrived, but we managed to push through it in the midst of the Electrical Lights Parade and landed in Adventureland, where Phil took Seth, Grace, and Caleb for another ride on Pirates of the Caribbean, and we all enjoyed the Jungle Cruise. We also took a little cruise on the Liberty Square River Boat and another trip through Splash Mountain. Then, it was over to Fantasyland, where Grace took her turn leaving her camera bag behind… in a restroom. While the boys got on Snow White’s Scary Adventure, Grace and I backtracked and finally found a cast member who thought that something similar to Grace’s bag had been turned in and sent to City Hall. And now it gets tricky…

In order to retrieve the bag, Grace and I decided to fight the crowd… moving in the opposite direction… with a sleeping Miah in her stroller. In addition, I knew this would really cut into our ability to secure great fireworks seating, which I found frustrating, since I haven’t seen “Fantasy in the Sky” since I was a kid, myself, and the show only runs two nights out of the year. Still, the camera (if, indeed, it was her camera) needed to be claimed, so off we went. This went amazingly well, as some very helpful cast members were directing traffic. We made it to City Hall, took a look at the bag, which did turn out to belong to Grace (labeled with her name and address and all), and started back in the opposite direction… on the opposite side of the road.

This new route was a bad idea. We should have simply made our way back the way we came, especially because the parade was running again at this point. We ended up being re-routed through Adventureland… again… and found ourselves running though the streets toward the back of the park, trying pretty desperately at this point to catch a break and make it back to Fantasyland, when Phil called to inform me that he and the boys were sitting right behind Walt and Mickey and that we had better hurry up and get there, because the crowd was growing quickly. This seemed near impossible, but I looked at Grace and said, “If any two people in the world can do this, it’s us…” And we did.

As much as I wanted to see the Main Street Electrical Parade on this trip, I never imagined that I would actually follow it around the park. We finally made it to the castle (taking alleys and roads and cutting through stores that I didn’t even know existed, which is saying something since I consider myself something of an expert on all things Disney). And then I saw Phil waving, just a few yards off, and I thought to myself… This is the point at which I become the person who comes too late for the fireworks and pushes her way through the crowd to a prime spot with her waiting family… Yep… this is the part where I become the lady that everybody hates. And I can’t say that the crowd parted and smiled, but I can say that I was as polite as possible, even when I had to inform someone that I really didn’t want to run her child over with the stroller and if she could just move for a moment I could get to my family and out of her way… Quick sigh of relief, and we took our seats on the pavement… briefly…

At this point, Phil informs me that Seth needs to go to the bathroom, and I just thought, “Good luck, Buddy!” Off they went, all of the other kids fell asleep on the pavement, and I sat there blocking them with my body and hoping no one would trample them! This is as close as I’m ever getting to the kind of crowd you find at Times Square on New Year’s Eve…

Phil and Seth actually made it back a little easier than we did minus the fact that the whole area around the castle was now blocked off, and they had to convince a cast member that their family was really in there! And the fireworks began. All I can really say is, “Wow!” Although the show cannot possibly be exactly as I remember it (there were later music additions from The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast), it was dazzling. The countdown to New Year’s Eve was amazing with fireworks exploding in a circle around us, and the excitement running through the crowd was incredible! One thing we did notice was that there was an unusually high percentage of adults at this gathering. Even the Disney shows that are very late at night tend to draw a pretty sizeable kid population, but that wasn’t the case this time around. I cannot imagine how crazy it will be tomorrow, and although I absolutely love having the memory of being here for this event, I am looking forward to a nice, quiet, New Year’s celebration back at the hotel!

We hung around for a little while after the show in order to let the crowd thin a bit, and then we took a ferry back to the ticket and transportation center, because the monorail line was huge! Another great night to remember…

L.

Day 9 Photo Count: 139

Photo Highlights:

Fantasy in the Sky...

Waiting for the Riverboat...

Making Memories...

Around the World in 80 Days…

... or less.

It’s funny, but I never really liked Epcot all that much as a kid. Now, I could probably spend the better part of two weeks in the World Showcase, alone. Given that we don’t have that option, this is how our day at Epcot went…

We arrived a little later than we wanted to, which has been an ongoing theme on this trip. Still, when we reached Mission: Space there was almost no line, so Seth, Grace, and I decided to try the less intense mission. They wanted to ride the more intense mission after that, but the less intense one was good for me… We picked up fastpasses for Test Track and wandered over to Universe of Energy, which is not as good since Ellen and Bill Nye have joined the story, but we like seeing the dinosaurs, nevertheless. Miah especially loved the dinosaurs. I had no idea she even knew that word until she got really excited and started bouncingup and down, pointing, and yelling, “dinosaur”!

After a little bit of convincing, I got Ian in line for Test Track (with Caleb, too). Of course, Caleb loved it and Ian didn’t. Ian does love shopping, though, so after the ride he picked up a Disney bus and airplane while we waited for Phil, Seth, and Grace to take their turn. As it turned out, the Test Track shop was popular among all the kids. Seth and Grace purchased antennae toppers (for when they get cars of their own…ha!) and Caleb bought a Pluto car.

And this is where things get a little bit tricky…

I sometimes have these great ideas that don’t work out all that well in practice. Today the plan was to hit every country in the World Showcase… to taste something from each culture… to press a penny at each location… and to take a picture. If we were visiting during a value week, I don’t think this would have been an issue, but remember the parks are swarming with people during the holidays! It become obvious pretty quickly that we didn’t have enough time to stand in line for food at every country, so we switched the plan up a little bit and purchased snacks in some places at the gift shops. The fish & chips in New England were awesome, though (I want more), and the cashew baklava in Morocco was a pleasant delight (I want more of that, too)… The whole pressed penny thing has become somewhat of a joke with my close friends and family, but I continue to remind everyone that you can’t often find a souvenir at Disney for 51 cents! Other than the fact that I had a slight nervous breakdown at the France pressed penny machine, which was out of order, this quest is going quite well…Taking pictures in each country, of course, has been easy to accomplish. The Photopass photographer in France did push a few too many buttons on my camera, but we (uh… Phil) eventually fixed the settings…

We only made it about halfway around the world before we needed to leave the park, because we had a dinner date with friends from home! We met at Tony Roma’s, which turned out to be a very excellent place to eat! I think this will be another favorite memory for years to come. It was so fun to connect with June and Jimi, and the kids were super excited to see Josh, Sammy, and Mojade (who unfortunately got stuck at the “kid table”, but there were benefits, because she got free ice cream!)

After dinner we decided to run back to Epcot for Illuminations, and although we didn’t get a great seat, it was still a good show, as always. That makes fireworks five nights in a row… We walked in the “wrong” direction after the show, allowing us to enjoy a quiet stroll through part of the World Showcase and to exit the park after closing… an excellent end to the night…

Lisa

Day 7 Photo Count: 170

Photo Highlights:

Dinner with Friends

Illuminations...

It’s the Little Things…

Last night, we put the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door and determined to sleep in as late as possible. Apparently, for Miah, that is 7:45am.

Over the years, “Vacation ‘til You Drop” has sort of been our motto. Well… maybe it still is, but we dropped a lot faster this time around than usual. We had to have a day of rest.

We enjoyed our day, watching cartoons (the kids actually watched several episodes of Dick Vandyke), snacking, playing, blogging, etc. We didn’t even make it to the pool.

As evening approached, however, we decided that if we wanted to take in the Fort Wilderness campfire, sing along, and movie as well as the Electric Water Pageant, this was the day to do it. So, we loaded up the van a little after 5:00pm and drove to Fort Wilderness. I have looked in to staying at the cabins there, and it has always seemed like a nice place, but I had no idea how big it is and how very awesome!

We took a Disney bus back to the campfire area (finally, a “ride” Ian enjoyed, although he did ask repeatedly if it was going to go up and down), walked a short distance, and waited for the campfires to be lit. I came armed with enough “supplies” (marshmallows, graham crackers, and Hershey’s bars) to make more than what I thought was a reasonable number of s’mores. Let’s just say it’s a good thing I brought as much as I did! We did have to purchase marshmallow roasting sticks for 59 cents apiece… Seems we don’t actually own anything like that (well… I guess we do now…)

There is just something about a campfire that makes us come alive. The fact that even my 11 year old son was willing to engage in the Chicken Dance is saying something! I am going to cherish that one for a long time to come. Phil took charge as the master marshmallow roaster (after I set mine on fire… typical…), and I think Caleb holds the record with six… or seven… or heck, I think he said the count was at ten at some point… s’mores…

We sang and danced with Chip and Dale. Ian got to stand up in front of the crowd since he celebrated his birthday this week, although he did not sing and dance with the other birthday people. The video is hilarious. Toy Story played on the big outdoor screen (one of the reasons we picked this night was because of the movie options). And when it was over, we took a nice, long walk to the beach, where we staked out some beach chairs as far away from the rest of the world as possible.

I remember seeing the Electrical Water Pageant as a kid, so I really wanted to see it again. It is a short parade of electrical water floats, and we really enjoyed it. Then it occurred to us that we would have a very nice view of the Magic Kingdom fireworks if we just sat tight, and as we waited several of our little people fell asleep. I’m not sure you can top laying on the beach, snuggling with your sleeping kids as Disney fireworks light up the sky. Perhaps the best vacation moment ever… and so sometimes, it’s in the little things…

Eventually, we made our way back to the bus station and went on our way. A quick stop at McDs for a late night dinner was in order, and then back to the hotel for what I hope is a good night’s sleep. Another busy day awaits!

Lisa

Day 6 Photo Count: 138

Photo Highlights:

Roasting Marshmallows

Mmmm... (Phil ate his "s'mores" one course at a time)

Some s'mores that are actually put together...

Our somewhat innovative version of the chicken dance...

Electrical Water Pageant

Love My Babies...