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.
Have you tried the Kool-Aid at Disney? It goes down sooooo easily...
Okay, I went into a park. Now stop hassling
me. I'd never been into Animal Kingdom, and the promise of actual
animals that are the normal height and not wearing clothes did lure me
in. I do love me a critter. The started out at a hair
raising 6:00 am. People, the only time I see 6 am is if Lily has
awakened at 3 am with a sudden need for cheese, a good poop, and 3
hours of Playhouse Disney programming. I usually get to stagger
back to bed at 6. This is not a time for waking, motivating, and
going places.
ESPECIALLY not if the place is "Donald's Breakfast-osaurus" (yeah, no
kidding). We got there before the park was open , slogged
to some restaurant or other (I have no idea where it was. We just
followed the directions of the workers. Camp Minnie Mickey is my
guess, based on the "old time camp lodge" theming). The
food was on a buffet and was reVOLTing. Quite a change from the
world class yummy buffet in the Animal Kingdom Lodge. A
little less time finding picture perfect castiron servingware and a
little more time learing how to cook actual eggs would have been a good
first start. Powdered scrambled eggs sitting in a puddle of
mystery liquid....ick. The hard boiled eggs might well have come
from a child's play set. The bagel. Oy, the bagel. It
was the least bagely bagel I've ever had. Lender's are New York
deli quality compared to these. No wonder all the Jews just keep right
on going through Orlando on the trek to South Florida.. And then
the characters came in. I am 38 years old and those things still
send shivers down my spine. I fled the room, leaving them to do
with my children what they would.
We went to dinoland after breakfast, to find that Ben was too short to
ride the cool rollercoaster. He was heartbroken and
sobbing. A "cast member" (that irks me for some reason, but hey,
what doesn't?) swooped in, and escorted us right onto Dinosaur!,
hoping to cheer Ben up. Turns out, no. No,that was not a
cheering ride. It was Scary.
...more to come...
Okay, I'm back. Scary and traumatic 'though the ride might be,
Sean the cast member did impress me. He came from nowhere, like
an alarm went off at Central Command--WHOOP WHOOP UNHAPPY CHILD IN
SECTOR 5, RESPOND! He was this huge Scottish guy with a wry sense
of humor and not at all like the scary humanoids you see in the
parades. THOSE scared me. The parade in Animal Kingdom is,
for the most part, wicked cool. Big body puppet things like they
have in the Lion King musical, but really bright colors. And the
characters are creepy, that goes without saying. But the dancing,
make-up wearing cast members...*shudder* Think Up With People,
only like 35 years old. Old enough to know better,
certainly. All the men looked like that dude from Will and Grace
that everyone says is so funny (never seen it, meself). All the women
looked like your mom did in 1964, but in white sneakers and bobby
socks. And, of course, Santa hats with mouse ears. Sweet
Lion of Zion, I am SICK of santa hats. And the song "Grandma Got
Run Over By a Reindeer" please, please make it stop. I
heard it 3 times before 9:30 am. Surely that violates the Geneva
Convention. Not that this administration cares, but still.
Remember that that song was kind of subversive? Your mom would
act annoyed if you sang it and you felt so BAD. I assure you that
if Disney's piping it through the loudspeakers thrice an hour, it's
lost its edge. Oh right, what was I saying? Sean.
Right. Nice fellow.
Heartbreaker moment of the day: Recall I mentioned that Ben loved
the lizards? Here in Florida, there are just lizards
everywhere. He was entranced. Then as we're walking through
Animal Kingdom, we see this pretty egret. It's just striding
along with us, like a really fancy pigeon. Suddenly, it darts its
head into the bushes. And comes out w/a lizard in its beak.
Which it eats with relish. And goes back for another. Ben.
flipped. out. "I HATE THAT BIRD! I HATE ALL BIRDS! I HATE
IT I HATE IT I HATE IT!!!!!!" oh he went on. And he
cried. And it was really sad. Poor li'l monkey. We
told the komodo dragon about it and assured Ben that it would eat the
next egret that landed in his enclosure.
The kids got their faces painted. the women doing the painting
were really talented (I'm sure they get a LOT of practice) and the
results were great. Steve and I decided that that's what make-up
should be. If you're going to a party, you should be putting on
swirls and sparkles, not just purple eyelids.
Lily the Cheetah:
Ben got a snake:
Note to gift buyers--Steve and I would like a giant flying fox
enclosure built onto our house. These are bats a little bigger
than chihuahuas and looking like foxes. They were SO cool.
We'd have happily stayed in the bat house the rest of the day. I
tried to get a pic of the one that spent about 15 min licking his own
penis. Probably explains why bat culture never really advanced
much.
Barring a gift of giant Malaysian bats, I'd like goats. We went
to a petting zoo, which, of course, means goats (isn't there at least
one animal besides sheep and goats that is safe to put in a petting
zoo? Anything? ). As we went in, the keeper said we had to
put away our maps b/c the goats like paper. I don't think he was
as clear as he might have been. A goat, who we later learned was
named Frank, stuck his head into the tiny opening in my mother-in-law's
purse, snatched out her map, dove under the ropes that guests cannot
cross, handed off the map to an accomplice goat and melted into the
goat crowd. It was brilliant. The goats fell on the map
like it was the very finest of treats. The fellow whose job it is
to clean up goat poo (stay in school, kids!) got the map away and told
us stories about Frank stealing traveler's checks, free drink coupons,
and more. I kinda love Frank.
Other cool things: De-vine, the woman with stilts on her feet AND
hands, covered entirely in vines, who hangs out in trees and moves
every now and then just to freak you out. Getting to stay on the
Kali River Rapids ride for a second pass. The incredible
attention to detail in the "theming" of the park. The frosting on
the cupcake we ate at the Tusker walk-up window.
Uncool: the absolute shit quality of the skirt I bought Julianna after
she got drenched on the river rapid ride and could no longer
walk. The presence of monkeys. The flippin' idiocy of my
fellow tourists who drop their straws and drink lids on the ground,
making it so that these items are banned from AK.
I met 3 old imaginary friends from my "baby
board." I started posting with these women when Ben was a
baby. Claire is on both my baby board and my PD board and she
came to get me at the hotel. Her son Alexander hit it off with
Lily, since Ben still had the morning surlies (gotta get that boy on
coffee) and wouldn't even say hi. We drove to Tampa to Karen's
house, since she just had a baby (number 6! hello?). Amy
and her boys came to Karen's too. I was glad to finally meet
them. They were supposed to come to MY house last spring, but
there was some still-not-totally-clear board blow up and the group
split and there was much drama. And no visits to Six Gables.
poo. Anyway, lots of kids, all adorable, all well behaved
(mine weren't there, obviously).
The rest of my family went to Epcot. I got a text message from
Steve that said, "Epcot is lame. Shopping and food." But
eventually they found the fun stuff. Julianna and Lily both got
to be in a show. Ben found lizards in a bush and fell in love
with the minature railroad. I will now dedicate my life to
finding a place to build a railroad village. I looove them.
Last night, we had dinner at Boma, the restaurant in the Animal Kingdom
Lodge. YUM!! much, much yum. The soups were insanely
good. A heavy hand with the sugar and the cinnamon, which is
always nice. The lodge is really gorgeous, too. Quite
impressive. Those Disney people know how to build big things that
catch the eye.
Today, the troops go to MGM. The mama stays in and makes jewelry. Maybe reads a book. Who can tell?
Vacation, all I ever wanted. We're in Florida
right now. My kids, husband, in-laws, best friend and her kids
are all somewhere on the Disney property. I'm somewhere on the
Marriott property. Alllll alone! Just me, endless VH1
countdown programing, a big box of jewelry making supplies and a case
of Coke Zero. Life is good. And quiet.
I did the Washington Post crossword puzzle. I played solitare
with actual cards. I made a bracelet for a friend, earrings for
myself, and started another necklace for a different friend. I
went for a walk in the sunshine around the creepily sterile
property. It always unsettles me when the plant life is
alien. Everything is green here, of course, b/c Walt Disney
outlawed the icky seasons and their unpredictable changes. All
the palm trees have OTHER plants growing on their trunks.
Epiphytes, or air plants,are just stacked up on them. We sold
those damn things by the truckload at the Sea Shell Shop so long
ago. I could pluck off all I could cart. Not that I would,
because they're kinda ugly. Also all these ferns growing out of
the trees. It's odd. It's unnatural. It is not the
way of the Mid-Atlantic plants and, therefore, to be feared.
Tomorrow, I go to visit heretofore imaginary friends! Hi Claire, Karen, and Amy!
Okay, if you have a self-esteem problem, this probably isn't the link for you. I got this link from a friend who thought it was really cool. It's face recognition software--you upload a picture of yourself and it tells you what celebrity you resemble. My friend got Nicole Kidman and Annette Benning. She thought, Ooh, cool program! I got Helmut Kohl. Really. So, use it at your own risk.
http://www.myheritage.com/FP/Company/tryFaceRecognition.php
