We had the full breakfast at the hotel. It was included in our room rate so why not? Saves us from having to get the kids breakfast at Disney. I went simple with my breakfast... just a cup of yogurt. The kids had yogurt, bananas, cereal, cinnamon rolls... whatever they could get their hands on basically. If one kid had it, the rest wanted it. Thank goodness for buffets. As we were finishing up a family from another table began talking to us. They asked where we were headed and told us when we got there, to go right. Apparently everyone follows the map and starts to the left. We would start our Magic Kingdom adventure to the right and hope to avoid some of the crowd.
We were waiting for the shuttle a little early and the kids were wound up. I played a little game of "Simon Says" without the whole "simon says" part until the shuttle arrived. John informed me at some point that we had some people watching us from the balcony outside their room. I didn't care. The kids were entertained and I wasn't stressed out... yet. Before too long our shuttle pulled in and it was already packed. We climbed aboard with the kids and some very nice people moved over so we could share seats. Kadie even sat next to a lady she didn't know. John stood toward the middle of the bus and I sat with Adam & Sara on one side, while Kadie, Lexi and Jacob sat on the other. Our hotel wasn't the last stop either. The next hotel we went to had a lot more people waiting. About 10 of them piled on and were getting frustrated that no one would move to make more room. There really wasn't anywhere else to go and the bus was way too small. John later told me that we were the third stop of a total of eight, thank goodness they went straight to Epcot from the hotel after ours.
We arrived at Epcot and had no idea how we were to get to Magic Kingdom. We looked all over the transportation area for a sign telling us how to get there, but none of the signs said anything about Magic Kingdom. Then I remembered when my sister and I took Lexi and Jacob back in '04 we had to take the monorail, so we kept on walking. We finally saw a sign telling us to take the monorail to Magic Kingdom. We then had to take another monorail or the ferry across the water to actually get to the entrance. We opted for the ferry, just cause it was something different. I kind of felt like I was on one of those disaster movies where the citizens are all trying to get away and they have to board a ferry. The kids really enjoyed the ride and we got a great view of Cinderella's Castle.
Since we already had our tickets we got to skip the line for that and head straight for the entrance. On our way though, I spotted a couple guys selling stroller rental passes. I stopped to get one for the next two days so I could avoid the line at the actual counter (and save a couple bucks). John didn't realize the kids and I had stopped and luckily he found us rather quickly. I was afraid I'd have to search for him in the massive crowd braving Magic Kingdom that day. It is such a big park and so kid friendly that it is always the busiest. It was a bit crazy at times. After that was taken care of we had our bags checked and got in the long lines of people waiting to get into the park. The lines moved rather quickly and that was a blessing since I wanted to get the stroller as quickly as possible.
As soon as we walked into the park we saw a line of people waiting to meet Snow White so we hopped on the bandwagon. We saw other characters like Chip & Dale and Donald too but we never made it to see them. Lexi remembered her journal this time so her first signature was Snow White. Adam gave her a hug and a kiss and Lexi posed with her. None of the other kids wanted to go up and see her. I love how much they make the people look like the characters. It really makes it that much more fun for the kids.
We made a quick stop to take a picture in front of Cinderella's Castle then we made our way to Tomorrowland where we would start our day. In Tomorrowland we met Stitch, saw Buzz Lightyear, took a journey through time and spent way more time than we should have. The Buzz Lightyear ride was first. Kadie and Jacob weren't sure about it but of course they loved it. I went on with Kadie and Sara, John took Adam and Lexi rode with Jacob. My score was 88,500 or something like that... John's was higher, of course. The kids locked themselves in jail with Zurg for some pictures as we were exiting the ride. All the kids were cute climbing in and out.
Our next stop was to meet Stitch. He signed Lexi's journal and I think it was her favorite autograph of the day. She made me take a picture of it LoL We then were going to meet Buzz but instead opted to ride the Carousel of Progress... which isn't a carousel. My kids were highly disappointed and I was having a hard time keeping Adam & Sara from talking to the robotic dog they saw as we took a journey from the 40's to today. We opted not to meet Buzz even after the Carousel of Progress because John thought he looked too creepy. He was probably right... the kids probably would have freaked out.
Stitch's Great Escape sounded like a good ride. We all love Stitch. You had to be 40" to ride it so I went with the girls (Lexi and Kadie) while John waited with the rest of the kids. He was going to take Jacob on after we rode. It took quite a bit longer in line than I had expected and it was not worth it at all. It was completely dark in there for most of the "ride" and Kadie screamed her little head off. I felt so bad... there was nothing I could do. A lot of the rides they have are like that, and it is really disappointing when you spend all that money and your kid is freaked out. We should have skipped straight to Fantasyland and done all the outdoor, non-dark rides. I let John know that it was not a good idea to take Jacob on it... he really doesn't like the dark at all and it was not worth the wait.
Kadie kept begging to ride a roller coaster so we went in search of one she could ride. She was too short for Space Mountain and the other ones were in different "lands" but there was another option. The Tomorrowland Transit Authority was like a roller coaster and in fact, it was a roller coaster to her. It was a car on a track and that made it the perfect choice since we all could ride. You have to take these moving sidewalks up to the entrance which kind of freaked me out. My feet were slipping out of my flip flops but then again they were pretty neat. (Yes, I just said neat). It gets dark at some points when you go through certain rides, but that doesn't last long. You get a sneak peek of the Buzz Lightyear ride and you get amazing views of Tomorrowland from up above.
I wanted to see the Monster's Inc show but no one else really wanted to. Jacob wanted to ride the race cars but the line was way too long. We never even looked at the line for the spaceships you ride in way above the ground. I'm not sure I could have handled that one and I was a little worried about the kids riding it. If something happened, that would be a long fall. Anyways, we headed out of Tomorrowland after all that and were making our way to Toontown when the tea cups were spotted. The line was rather short so we parked the stroller and waited. I rode with Jacob, Adam & Sara and Lexi and Kadie rode with John. I took a couple videos of us on the ride but I didn't get any pics of it. The only other ride we rode in Fantasyland was Cinderella's Carousel right before eating lunch at Pinocchio's Village Haus. The lines for most of that area were way too long and we would never make it back around before having to leave.
Toontown was next on our agenda and that proved to be a big time waster. By a recommendation our first stop was at Minnie's House. There was a crap-ton of people in there and the line was really long and slow. We made it just inside the door where we took a picture of the kids sitting on the fireplace and then we left. The kids were hungry so John bought a bag of Mickey shaped pretzels for super cheap and they ate the crap out of them while we waited in line to meet the Fairies and Princesses. Those lines were horrendous but we cut our waiting time. I had been seeing tons of people having one person stand in the one line while the group waited in the other. It was a common thing and even the Cast Members didn't care. I am sure some people were irritated seeing a bunch of people cut in line but I didn't care. So I sent John into the Princess line while we waited to meet the Fairies. We chit chatted with a bunch of people in line and the girls made a friend. She shared her chips and her princess book. I have never seen Kadie interact with someone she has just met like that before. It was incredibly cute. The princess line proved to be moving way faster than the fairy line and John made it to the front just shortly after we went back to meet Tinkerbell, Rosetta and Iridessa. Adam gave them all hugs and kisses on the nose and Lexi got all their autographs. We headed out to get back in line and I felt kind of bad cutting in front of all those people but then again, I was not waiting that long again so I just pushed the 5 kids up to the front of the line where John was waiting for us. The Cast Member at the front of the line said, "Oh, you made it. This guy deserves a lot of credit for waiting here." I said, "For what? I'm the one that had the 5 kids with me." Everyone laughed and John agreed... I deserved the credit for taking 5 kids into see the fairies while all he had to do was stand in line. I would have GLADLY traded places. The kids got to meet Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. Kadie's face was lit up like a Christmas tree because she got to meet her favorite princess. I didn't care for Cinderella though, she was kind of ugly. Definitely didn't look like Cinderella like the other people looked like their characters. I thought she more resembled an Ugly Stepsister. Oh well, the kids didn't care. I think the time we spent meeting those 5 characters was the longest we spent doing any one thing the entire weekend. I would have skipped it, but it's all about the kids and seeing them light up getting to meet their favorite people was well worth it.
As we were leaving there Lexi said she wanted to ride the Barnstormer, a kiddie coaster in Toontown. The height requirement was 35" and I was sure that all my kids were over that. At Adam & Sara's dr. appointment they were 38 and 36 inches, respectively. According to Disney's height check at the right, Sara was too short though. Adam was upset that he had to wait with daddy and I really don't see why Sara couldn't have ridden it with an adult but the rules are the rules. The Cast Member at the entrance gave us a Ride Swap pass for when we finished so Adam could ride without waiting in line. That was very nice of him. John took them and went to play in the water at Donald's Boat while the rest of the kids and I got in line for the ride. It was a 30 minute wait but they all wanted to do it and in the grand scheme of things, that wasn't that long to wait. The lines at Disney move by pretty quickly and most of the time you don't even notice how long you have really been in line. We got to the front of the line and I saw John and the babies waiting at the exit for us, they didn't see us though. Lexi and Jacob rode together and Kadie rode with... like she would have it any other way. The ride was so quick that I don't even remember it. The kids really liked it but I could have done without waiting for 30 minutes for a 30 second ride. It was finally Adam's turn to ride and he did not hesitate. Sara was mad that she couldn't ride but I distracted her with pretzels. Lexi wanted to ride again, as did Kadie so I sent them both with John. They only allow three people per "ride swap" but I figured they would let them both on since they never fill the cars anyways. That was one of my biggest pet peeves about the rides like that... if the upcoming party has say, 7 riders and there are only 4 seats left they will just send the ride on instead of looking to the next people in line to see if they have 2-4 people. I found it very strange, but I am sure they have their reasons. Just as I suspected, they let all 4 of them on the next ride. We didn't wait very long at all.
The kids were getting really hungry by this point so we headed back to Fantasyland where we planned on eating lunch. We had already rode the tea cups but there was tons more to do over there that the kids wanted to do. I said previously that we only got to ride the tea cups and Cinderella's Carousel but I remembered that we also did the Winnie the Pooh ride. The kids and I got in line for the carousel before heading to lunch while John went to move the stroller closer to where we were. By the time he made it back Sara had fallen asleep in the stroller so he waited for us instead of bringing her on. This was one of the longest rides. Carousels are so simple, yet so fun for the kids. I rode with Adam... one of the things I love about Disney, they always allow more riders than usual (double riders on the carousel horses, three riders on a ride only calling for two, like the Buzz Lightyear ride, allowing all of us in one car on the Tomorrowland Transit Authority. Gotta love having little kids. LoL). Kadie, Lexi and Jacob all picked their horses. Lexi and Kadie both wanted pink so they were one in front of another. Jacob was next to Lexi and I was next to Kadie with Adam. Their faces were lit up. I love that part of this job!
When the ride was over we met John and walked over to Pinocchio's Village Haus for lunch. He woke Sara up and they all got chicken nuggets, fries and applesauce/grapes for lunch. I had a Caesar salad and John had a salad too (Mediterranean or something, I can't remember... we were going the healthier route while the kids got to indulge). I really love how cheap they are compared to some parks. At Sea World, the kids' meals were close to $7. They did include a Shamu lunchbox too but still... I'd rather save a couple dollars per child (that's a $10 savings for us, if you can't do the math). The adult meals weren't ridiculously overpriced either. I mean, for what it is, yah it's a bit much... but for where you are eating, it's pretty good.
After lunch we made our last stop in Fantasyland with a ride on The Winnie the Pooh ride. It was quick and pretty boring. You get to see some Winnie the Pooh scenes and the kids liked it but I wouldn't wait too terribly long to ride it. I would rather ride It's a Small World but that line was about an hour long wait. The Dumbo ride was another the kids wanted to ride but the line was way too long. We were quickly running out of time before having to head back to our shuttle so we had to move on.
We walked through Liberty Square where they have The Haunted Mansion and a Riverboat ride but no one wanted to do those. We kept on moving and headed to Frontierland. Jacob wanted to ride Splash Mountain but I really didn't want him getting wet even though he didn't seem to care. We compromised and John took him on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Lexi and Kadie could have also rode this but neither of them wanted to. While we waited for John and Jacob we indulged in some ice cream. Adam & Sara got Mickey ice cream sandwiches, Lexi and Kadie got rainbow pops and I got a Nestle Crunch ice cream. They were all very good. I just let the kids run around while I sat eating my ice cream and watching a couple make out on the bridge. He was kissing all over her neck and they really needed to get a room... they weren't even teenagers, they were older and should have a little more class. They must have heard the disgust in my head because a couple minutes later they moved on.
John and Jacob met us by the ice cream cart where they got their own ice cream. Everyone finished and got cleaned up and we headed for the park exit. The kids wanted to do Aladdin's Flying Carpets and the line was fairly short so we went ahead with that. One of the kids chose now to have to pee... I think it was Adam so I sent him off with John. He took Sara too because she needed changed. Such a good daddy! There was a parade going through Main Street when we finally made it up that way so we had to wait before leaving. The kids wanted to watch too. Since I figured we had plenty of time, I let them watch. Looking back, I wish I would have said no and kept on walking. At the time though, I also wasn't sure we would be able to get through to leave without waiting for the parade to finish, so we waited. The parade was very pretty and the kids were delighted. After it finished we pushed our way through the massive crowds, returned our stroller and headed for the monorails.
Our first monorail ride was uneventful. Time was quickly running out but I had faith we could make it to our shuttle on time. We got on the second shuttle and there were technical difficulties. We lost power for a minute and it took a few minutes for us to finally get going. We deboarded at the transportation area and booked it to our bus stop, which of course was on the complete other side. It was all for not because we missed our shuttle. I was livid. I tried calling the shuttle reservation line but kept getting an answering machine. I then called the hotel (luckily I had called them the night before) to see if we had missed the bus, if it was late, if we were at the right stop and if we had to wait til the next shuttle 2 1/2 hours from now. I kept getting the run around and finally I was told I could call the shuttle service (I had been calling the wrong number) to see what they could do for me. The guy was not very nice... I mean, he was just doing his job, and it wasn't his fault I missed my shuttle but I was very frustrated. I had 5 kids, one of which was now soaked because she couldn't hold it til we got to the bathroom and everyone was tired. I explained to him that we had to take two shuttles, had 5 kids and arrived at 803 for our 8pm shuttle and it was not there. He said the shuttle left promptly at 8 and was there at 745, we should have been there early. In my defense, no one had said anything to us about arriving early and the shuttle leaving at 8pm on the dot. We weren't even told where to come back for our shuttle, we just happened to overhear the driver telling the people in front of us. I was also upset that the driver took a list of people that would need a return shuttle and we were on that list for the 8pm ride back to the hotel. I just think if you are going to ask people when they are leaving, that you would think they would be there for that ride and wait at least 5 minutes to see if they were coming. The man was being very rude to me and I finally hung up on him. He wasn't helping me and so I was going to deal with it on my own. He called me back and said he was willing to help if I would just listen. I didn't go off on him about the fact I was listening, he just wasn't telling me anything useful, I just listened. He said he would have a shuttle there for us in 15 minutes. That must be 15 minutes in Disney time because 45 minutes later is when the shuttle showed up. I am not that mad about that considering he didn't have to send anyone back for us, that was very nice of him to do, but if it's going to be that long... tell me it's going to be that long. I was just grateful to be able to get my kids back to the hotel before 11pm. It was a rough night and I would not have rushed my kids out of there (skipping by the bathrooms because I was afraid of missing the shuttle) had I known there was no way we would make it. Had we been informed the bus left promptly at 8 we could have done things a little different. There is a bright side to it all though... we got our own private shuttle back. We could have made it on time and been crammed into a bus with 62 other passengers. The 11 passenger van was much nicer with only the 7 of us in it (plus the driver).
Sara and Adam had both fallen asleep in the van so getting them back to sleep once we were in the room was a little challenging. Everyone was ready for bed and not long after we were all out. The next morning one of the kids pointed out that Sara still had her shoes on. Oops, guess mom was a little more tired than she thought.
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing
1 comment:
Holy Cow you have a good memory!!! I'm gonna have to take notes when we go or make jimmy video tape the whole thing so I don't forget Zilla's first visit! Wow I can't belive that they left at 8 on the dot - at least they sent someone back I guess. Awesome pics!!!
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