Magic, my ass

Okay, even though my feet and calves and nerves hurt from a day in AK, I opted to join my crew in the Magic Kingdom on  Friday (was it Friday?  I have no idea what day it is at any given moment).  Everyone was just really wiped, so we didn't even get rolling until noonish.  Didn't actually make it to the park until 2 and had to be at the Contemporary for dinner at 5, so it wasn't really that long.  Took the monorail in.  Of course.  I mean, why would you take any other form of transport?  We can take a ferry pretty much anywhere there's water.  But a Monorail! (and, btw, Steve and I have driven the kids nuts by chanting "Monorail!" everytime it's mentioned,  in reference to the Simpsons episode.  Monorail!) 


That pic's just for you, people.  In Germany, STeve and I knew a woman who had been a Minnie at Disney World.  She could do the voice, one of the few allowed to speak.  Ever seen that video of a Disney stage show where Minnie falls off the stage?  That was Marti.

It was much more crowded, Steve said.  We headed right for the Jungle Cruise, stopping to take the pic of me in Mouse Ears and get Ben a sweatshirt, since I'd forgotten his at the hotel, and it was chilly ("But Mommy, you dont buy character clothing!"  "yes, but I'm not going to let my boy freeze and you can't buy ANYTHING in Disney w/o a character on it.  I mean, the ice cream is shaped like a damn mouse").  They hadn't taken the kids on the Jungle Cruise on Monday and children must be exposed to bad puns early, lest they develop no sense of humor at all.  I do love the Jungle Cruise, it's just so campy.  And after having been on the "safari" the day before, the mechanical animals were kind of hilarious.  Lily was terrified on the cruise.  Go figure.  I was surprised that they still had "headhunters" and scary "natives" on the cruise.  My offense-o-meter is faulty, but I did wonder what black patrons thought of the whole thing.

We tried to go to Big Thundermountain Raliroad but there was a LINE!  As if!  So we got a Fast Pass and headed off to Tom Sawyer Island, which the kids had missed on Monday as well.  Along with the Swiss Family Robinson Tree house, I remembered the Island as oneof my favorite things at Disney from my teenage trips.  I realized that they were my favorites mostly b/c there was no line, it was quiet there, and you could just meander. As an adult, it seemed more calculated, but really, it's still a welcome break.  You know, I'd spent like an hour out there.  I needed rest, people!  The kids loved Tom Sawyer island.  Ben found the fort and its wonderful, wonderful guns.  Lily discovered the Barrel Bridge--or squishy bridge, as she called it.  Lily, Julianna, and I went over that bridge about 20 times.  We did it once and Lily said "Let's do that a million times!" She giggled the whole way over every time.  And, to her credit, it is really fun.  It's just a bridge draped over floats, so that when you step, it goes down, so it's very bouncy.  Too soon, we needed to go get in the Fast Pass lane for the roller coaster.  Lily and Grandma went to Minnie's House (for the bazillionth time, apparently).

I am really amazed by the line structure at Disney.  It's designed so that it always looks like you're ALMOST there.  But you aren't.  You aren't even close.  Even with a Fast Pass, we had to wait about 15 min.  That's our limit, dude.  It IS a good coaster, not fancy, but fun.  But if I'd waited more than 15 min, I'd have been bitter.  Okay, more bitter.

As soon as we got off we had to hoof it to the monorail (Monorail!) to get to the Contemporary to meet Stacey and her lot for dinner at Chef Mickey's.  My love for the Contemporary is nearly unbounded.  It's the Hotel of the Future, people!  Those mosaics in the middle! The A-frame design!  The monorail goes right through it (Monorail!)!  I could sit in that lobby for ever.  In fact, I want to live there, with the mosaics and the monorail (Monorail!) zooming over head.  It's just perfectly futuristic.  Love it.  Walt knew about futurism, even if he totally blew it on the hey-lets-have-giant-8 ft-tall-mice!-in pants! front.  Sadly, I had stop gawking and go to "dinner."  Stacey had booked us a character dinner at Chef Mickey's.  Now, had it not been in the Contemporary, I'd have not gone anywhere near it.  But, you know.  Remember how I looooved that breakfast with Donald?  Well, it was like that, only all the kids were totally wound up.  Next to us was a room full of 8 year old boys with only about 3 grown ups to wrangle them.  They were...loud.  And then there was the horrible horrible loundspeaker blasting horrible horrible music.  Have I mentioned how much I hate Grandma Got RanOver By a Reindeer?  I did?  Well, let me must say again, I hate it a LOT.  So.  The room was crowded, there were giant, clothed animals coming in every few minutes (Lily: "Yook mommy!  A chickmunk!"  "Sure it's not a chincilla, honey?"), kids were pinging around like...I dunno...heated molecules, the music was loud, our waitress was kinda mean, the food sucked, one of the soft serve ice cream machines broke meaning that all 800 kids were in line at the same time, trying to get a spoonful of ice cream over which they could dump sauces and candies at the sundae bar...it sucked.  Let's leave it at that.

After dinner, there was a pin-trading activity.  Now, I knew little about pins.  Stacey had told us about pin trading and given each of the kids a lanyard and a couple of pins to get started.  There are these metal pins with characters on them.  Gobs of them.  Series.  Limited Editions.  All the "cast members" wear them and you can trade pins with them.  Generally, they'll give you what you want, if you're a little kid.  Grown-ups do this too, of course, and they swarm all over the web, tryig to complete a set or get that one elusive pin they need to complete their collection of animal villains from 1980s animated features. Whatever.  It is hard to resist, I must admit.  Luckily, I was able to channel my energies to my children.  We went to a Disney outlet store to get some cheap pins to trade.  Went a bit overbord, I'm afraid.  Then it turned out that Julianna was only allowed to trade 5 and Lily was only allowed to trade 2.  But they enjoyed it.  Even though it involved ANOTHER DAMN LINE.  Before they entered, Stacey warned Julianna to only trade with cast members b/c there are local "sharks" that come to these things and coach their kids to snag the "good" pins and take advantage of little kids who just want a pin with Belle on it.  I mean really.  People.  Get a grip.

Ben was dying to go back to the Disney Quest arcade, but Julianna, Lily and I just went back to the hotel.  And that was it for me.  No. more. parks.

Yesterday, Julianna stayed in with me while the others returned to Epcot.  They came back fairly early and we went to Boma again for dinner.  Yum.  Then I took Julianna to see the Harry Potter movie while the others went back to Disney Quest again.

Today, MGM was on the schedule, but it's 10:30 and Steve and Ben are still sleeping.  It's kind of yucky outside, so my FIL went to find indoor alternatives and he's hoping to push the Science Center on them.  But Ben is keen to buy this Star Wars thing at the Star Tours gift shop and Julianna wants to ride the Rockin' Roller Coaster, so we'll see.