Disney World Trip
Dec. 2010-Jan. 2011
Alan 41
Lisa 40
Olivia 20
Owen 11
This trip fell during a whole new time frame for us. Olivia is going to Lake Land and she couldn’t miss college classes so we are fitting a trip in before she goes back to school at the end of Xmas break. We are driving down and New Years Day is on a Sunday and we have heard that all the holiday crowd’s checkout and leave so we are spending that 1st full week of January at Disney.
Since we are driving down and in order to avoid driving on New Year’s Eve and since the kids are both out of school we are leaving a few days early to stay off site for a few nights and do some other stuff over the holiday. Olivia is none too happy about missing out on New Years at home with everyone but really it’s just another night of partying so what’s the big deal? Plus how many times can you say that you spent New Year’s Eve at Disney.
( ** I will write this exactly as my notes say BUT after I got back home and during the months and year after this trip I found out a couple of different things about what caused all of the panic attacks, claustrophobia and inability to sleep that took place on this trip. A HUGE part of it was a side effect from a new medicine I started just before we left. That was what caused most of the panic attack problems. About a month after we got home I was still suffering and I figured it out and stopped the medicine and the panic attacks and inability to fall asleep stopped. (that medicine has now been recalled!) Later several months after that I also found out I had sleep apnea which was what was causing me to wake up abruptly and scared while sleeping. Both of those things can cause the claustrophobia issues. Once I stopped taking the now recalled medicine it got better and then later when I figured out the sleep apnea it got even better. But I am going to write this report just as my notes say. )
Alan was supposed to work a half day today and we would leave after that but last night around 8pm he got an email from his boss saying he could have the whole day off! So we are now suddenly leaving much earlier than we thought!
Olivia was out for the evening when I called her with this news (she knew it was a possibility) and so I called to say we’re getting up early to leave in the morning! However she still didn’t come home until 1:00am!! And this totally ticked me off because I laid there awake waiting and not being able to sleep! I was so ticked off at her for doing that and I ended up awake until about 2am!
We got up this morning at 6:30 and left the house around 7:30 to go to moms and say our goodbyes. This is going to be hard on Owen and grandpa because they are so attached! We then stopped at McDonalds for breakfast and left town at 7:48am! We got to the interstate at 8:15 but the kids had started watching movies once they ate there food at around the Strasburg area!
At around 10am we were driving along and I look up at the sign overhead that says I-57 Memphis straight and I-24 Nashville exit toward the left. I know Alan has driven this drive many times and doesn’t need my directions so I very calmly said “so we’re going to MEMPHIS??” and Alan then snapped to, saw the GIANT sign and luckily there was no traffic and we merged left quickly! Once it was over we laughed pretty hard (mostly me) at him almost taking us to Memphis! This caused me to spontaneously burst out in laughter several times over the next few hours when I’d think about it. Luckily traveling in the winter months means less traffic.
We stopped at 11:45 at the Tennessee welcome center for a potty break and back on the road at 12.
Once we got to Murfreesboro at about 1pm Owen had taken 61 pictures on his camera that grandma had given him to take on the trip. Some were self portraits; some were Olivia sleeping, cars driving by and his attempts at scenic shots! We stopped here to eat lunch and shop, Owen has some Xmas gift cards he wants to spend pretty badly. We went to a Toyrus and a Target where he spent $7 on a Star Wars guy. They also had a traveling Disney outlet store set up in some big store so we looked all around there.
Then we went and ate at this fast food place called Zaxby’s. I’d heard people online talk about planning there stops on the road just to eat here because it’s so good and they only have them in the south. We spent $23 and got 2 chicken finger meals for me, Alan, and Owen to share and Olivia got a club sandwich on texas toast. The meals all came with fries, texas toast and sodas. It was good, not the best thing ever but good. Olivia’s looked really good. Then we pulled into Staples and waited in the car so Alan could run in and try to exchange a camera bag for the video recorder we got at Xmas because the bag we had didn’t fit it. Well this took forever and he came back with none.
Once we got back on the road it was 3pm. Jeez a two hour stop! And as usual for us once we got back on the road we realized we needed gas! So we exited again and got gas. ($2.89 a gal. and used our $50 gift card we got with best western points)
While we were driving right through downtown Chattanooga the GPS which had been on but totally SILENT since we’d left home suddenly started talking. And that lady was LOUD!! It totally scared the crap out of me I jumped clear out of my seat my butt actually came off the seat and my feet went up and hit under the dash area and both my arms went up in the air too. Alan had seen this of course and he laughed so hard he had tears rolling down his cheeks. Apparently it was quite the sight but my heart literally skipped a few beats.
Owen who had been watching a movie asked what the heck was going on up there in front!
Speaking of movies, these kids have had their headphones on them almost nonstop. Alan or I will try to point out something to them and they don’t even hear us because they have those stupid headphones on. And of course Olivia slept a lot too. Owen never sleeps.
We got to Calhoun Ga. At about 5:30 and it had been 2 and a half hours since we’d stopped so we all had to pee. Georgia is known for their outlet strip malls along the interstates so that’s where we stopped. Olivia browsed the Coach store and Owen bought two army guys at the Toyrus express store. He’s still working on his 1st $25 visa gift card.
We weren’t stopped long this time maybe about 30 minutes then back on the road and we have about an hour to Atlanta but man does it take a long time to get through Atlanta from one side to the other.
Our hotel for the night was a Fairfield inn in Mcdonough Georgia on the south side of Atlanta. We finally arrived at 7:30pm (Illinois time 8:30 ga. Time) The good part about wasting all that time this afternoon with our 2 hour shopping stop is that we didn’t have to go through Atlanta at 5pm so we didn’t have any trouble with traffic or anything but it is just a BIG long city to get through and we got to do it in the dark.
So we arrived at our nice Fairfield Inn the boys immediately left to go to Target and maybe even elsewhere. Olivia and I stayed in the room and relaxed. Except she wanted to order a pizza because we hadn’t eaten dinner but no one else wanted pizza or wanted to wait an hour for delivery since Alan didn’t’ see any pizza places when he was out. Well I spent my “relaxing” time listening to her whine and complain and read off the pizza options that were listed in the room and she begged and carried on about it. It was really ridiculous.
She started watching yesterday’s GH on her phone and continued bitching about the pizza situation and then the boys arrived and had brought back Chickfila since its right next door to our hotel.
Then at 10:10 (Georgia time from now on) the boys went to the pool for a whole hour. Olivia and I stayed in the room and squeezed in close to watch today’s episode of GH on her tiny little phone. (There was nothing on TV and I mostly just listened to the show) Then we went to bed with lights out at 11:30.
Overnight…………..I passed out cold from 11:30 until 2am and then I woke up not knowing where I was and feeling claustrophobic and HOT. I had to get a cold cloth to try to cool down and try not to freak out from the claustrophobic feeling. I finally fell back asleep but then it happened again at 5am but I was able to fall back asleep again after awhile.
Alan woke up with the alarm at 7am and showered and then we woke me up at 7:20. I showered and Owen was up when I was done. Finally at 7:50 we had to wake Olivia. We went down for free breakfast which was crowded and not very good and took forever.
We left the hotel and were on the road at 8:45.
We stopped in Valdosta to fill up with gas (used our $50 gift card from Gary and Shirley for xmas) because I’ve always heard you should always get gas before leaving Georgia since it has lower gas than Florida. (that turned out not to be true) I didn’t write down the price of the gas for this stop but I know that once we were in Florida we kept seeing it for a few cents cheaper.
Once again the kids have their headphones on. It’s starting to get annoying. So much for fun family road trips, they take them off to announce they have to pee, eat or are we there yet?
We made a stop in Lake City Florida to look for Jacksonville Jaguars merchandise because this is as close as we are going to get to Jacksonville. At the walmart Owen got a jaguars hat and another freakin star wars guy $18 total, using his visa gift card. Then to Steak N Shake for lunch we had coupons and got 4 steak n shake meals and with tip it was close to $30 (ridiculous with a coupon). This exit is a mad house. There’s construction and TONS of traffic it’s like every person in northern Florida is on their lunch hour at this exit. (oh on a side note Alan said he’s positive our waitress was on Meth!!! I’m not sure how he knows but he seemed pretty sure of himself!! LOL and luckily he didn’t announce that till we were back in the car leaving.)
We left Lake City at 2pm and drove on to Gainesville where once again we stopped!! This is getting annoying but they wanted to check again for Jaguars stuff at the Target and try to exchange the camera bag which he’s been messing with ever since we left home. They had no luck with either.
Back on the road and only 2 more hours. We arrived at about 5pm. We are staying offsite for the 1st three nights at a Holiday Inn Express. We had thought about using points but I got us a friends and family rate of only $50 a night so we didn’t bother wasting the points when we could get the room that cheap.
There are many Holiday Inns in Orlando and the official name of this one is “Holiday Inn Express West of the Theme Parks”. It’s actually located in a condo resort complex called Summer Bay and we can use the pools at the resort too. The condo area sits back off the main road 192 but the hotel sits up closer to the main road and I also learned that “west of the theme parks” is code for way the heck west of the theme parks!!
And yes I knew that when I booked it but we haven’t stayed on 192 in YEARS and I had forgotten how crazy it is. There is so much traffic and you just feel like your life is going to be taken by someone ZOOMING through an intersection (which does happen in Orlando) because since we are literally on the west edge of town the speed limits go up and cars are flying and then all of a sudden there’s a stop light. And parts of 192 and very run down, the location where we were wasn’t run down but you have to drive by some areas that are. It just doesn’t give you a relaxing vacation feel at all.
So we went to our hotel to check in. It looks nice, just like the pictures so that’s good. It’s actually 2 separate buildings each the size of its own holiday inn express but only one of the buildings has a lobby and breakfast area. Our room was in the building without the lobby etc. so we went to unload some stuff. Once we entered the building the hallways smelled and was warm! We got to our room and it didn’t stink so that was good but they had the air turned off so it was warm and musty in there. We made Alan do the bed bug check that I had trained him to do and there may have been a little part of me that almost wished it wouldn’t have passed the bed check because then I would have a good reason to LEAVE this hotel. I don’t know what it was but I just didn’t like it. Our friends and family rate was prepaid and without a good REASON other than something just doesn’t feel right we were staying here.
I must say that it’s not because it was not on Disney property because we’ve stayed off site before not long ago for 3 nights at a Springhill suites over near Sea World and I was just fine there.
But moving on …. The kids looked out the window and saw the pool which I must admit looked nice and did look just like the online pictures so the kids went down to check it out and said it was warm. We all got changed and went down to swim before it gets dark soon. (winter in florida) Alan didn’t swim but I did and he took some pictures of us. It was a little chilly so we only stayed about a half an hour. We got changed and went to go get some dinner at about 6:30. (We are sitting and waiting on a table while I wrote the part of this report that happened after arriving in Orlando )
After much arguing we went to the Olive Garden and waited for a table and it turned out that even though there were a TON of people waiting, they were all very large parties and we got seated in about 15 minutes.
Our waiter was really nice and he let Olivia order a lunch portion of spaghetti. Owen wanted STEAK and he was very sure of himself so I ordered the steak and chicken kabobs and gave him the steak. There were only 3 pieces of each so not much but it was good and he also got a side of mac and cheese but it was gross and looked like dry boxed crap and the waiter took it off our bill before we could even mention it. Alan had the unlimited soup, salad and bread sticks. Of course we all had salad and breadsticks too that came with our meal. The bill was about $30 but Alan paid with his ebay money.
After dinner we went to the Target that was in the same parking lot and looked at all the Disney and Florida merchandise they had and we used some buy one get one free coupons I had for candy bars. Oh and Alan looked at camera bags AGAIN! He’s starting to obsess about it.
We got back to the room at 9pm to chill out and Alan fell asleep between 10-10:30 and Owen and I were up until 11:30! And we all know lib was the 1st one out.
HOTEL INFO:
I am writing this while the others are sleeping and I can’t. I hate this hotel! I hate the location it’s so far in the middle of nowhere and I don’t even feel like we’re at Disney at all. Plus the hallways smell so bad that I want to hold my breath on my way in or out. It’s also hotter than I would like in this room but no one else thinks so. And as far as the hotel is concerned Alan and Olivia just seem to think I’m crazy they look at me like they have no idea what I’m talking about. I will say that Owen doesn’t like it either and he agrees with me he’s not happy with it either. Which is a little funny but I can’t believe I have to sleep here for 3 nights!!
Ok, the hotel is looking a little better this morning since I FINALLY cooled down while sleeping. And because I didn’t wake up at all last night freaking out from claustrophobia!! I got my 1st decent night sleep in several nights!
The plan for today was to sleep in but Alan was awake at 7am. He woke up, showered and sat at the tiny table with his laptop. The kids slept through this longer than me because he had left the bathroom light on and it was shining directly in my face through the mirror. So I woke up which meant so did Owen at about 8:15.
We just laid in bed for awhile then Alan went down to check out breakfast. He brought us all back a cinnamon roll, and then I showered while he and Owen went back down for more food. I told them I’d meet them down there but they came back right as I was leaving so I just walked down by myself to get another roll and some milk and juice.
Olivia finally woke up, showered and ate and we all got ready to go. We left the hotel at 10:00am at go to Gatorland! I went as I kid but don’t really remember it and the others have never been. I had read online about how nice and clean it is and about how people were surprised that they enjoyed it. Plus I have coupons and we have no Disney tickets until we check in there.
So the drive to Gatorland turned into a total nightmare. Alan and I don’t REALLY fight much we may bicker now and then but not FIGHT! However today we had a FIGHT! And since I’m the one writing this I will say that HE did most of the fighting I was totally innocent. Which is true.
Since we’ve never been before we don’t know how to get there and I have a printed off map from Google which I showed to him. He just asks for the address of the place so he can put it in his GPS and off we go. 1st however we are going to try to find the shortcut from our hotel onto Disney property which I had read about online. We found that with no trouble and it does again help me to hate our hotel a little less.
So with that done we are off to Gatorland and unbeknownst to me his has set his GPS to avoid all toll roads and while I may not know exactly how to get there I do know the general vicinity it is in. However takes us onto 192 which is not the direction we should be going and is stoplight, stoplight, stoplight plus lots of traffic and I am telling him that this is not right but he keeps telling me that the GPS knows what it’s doing. But we keep going farther south and on this stupid 192 road which eventually once you get past the Disney area REALLY became a seedy area! I am complaining and complaining about the fact that we should not be going this way. He keeps getting mad at me saying that he doesn’t know and he’s just following the GPS. I am saying screw the GPS and look at MY MAP.
He couldn’t because he was driving in traffic going from stoplight to stoplight and we are now in the hood and I know that this is the farthest and longest possible way we could be going. It got so tense in the car that the kids who ALWAYS have a smart mouthed comment about something actually shut up and didn’t say a WORD! At some point Alan yelled at me and made me cry I think that may have been what kept the kids quiet. So here we are driving along my wiping tears, Alan pissed, the kids thinking who knows what! (owen wrote about this fight in his journal!!)
We finally turn off of 192 which had gradually kept going just a little more south the whole time we were on it and now we are going NORTH! But at least we are on a better road. Eventually we wind up at Gatorland but it took us almost an hour to get there!
I dried my tears and no one apologized but I did my best to suck it up and not let this drama ruin our day but that was very hard because I SO wanted to chew Alan’s ass out!!
We went to the gates and I had coupons for $2.50 off for each of us. I had figured ahead of time that the total for all of us to get in with the coupon would be about $70.00. However the lady who waited on us asked if we were military and Alan said no, then jokingly said “well ex-military” and the lady said well then you get in for FREE! The kids tickets were only up to age 12 and the lady looked at Olivia and said “oh, you look close enough” haha! So we paid for one adult and two kid’s tickets and THEN she took an additional 20% off of that for some reason and it came to $45.00 and when she got the final total she looked at us and said “how does that sound”? We were happy with our deal and we entered the park at 11am.
We stayed at the park for four hours and we saw 3 shows. The jumparroo show where they but chicken on a stick and have the gators jump out of the water and eat it was a dud since Orlando was just recovering from a VERY cold spell and the gators weren’t very active.
We did watch the gator wrestling show and it was more gator comedy then wrestling but Owen loved it! He really seemed to enjoy all of it. It’s really a boy’s park! Alan and Owen got their picture taken with this giant fake gator for $10 and it looks like Alan’s trying to save Owen. We tried to get Owen and Olivia to do it but she wanted NO PART in that! I don’t have a lot of details of what we did, it’s not like they have rides, haha! But we saw shows and walked around looking at all the exhibits and the kids went in some giant cage with birds that landed on them. They also have an area to the back of the park that looks like it’s more in the wild and you can climb up on top a big tower to look down and see the gators in the water, the boys did that.
I was actually surprised by how nice and clean and organized the place was. In my mind I had always expected it to be dirty and run down but it wasn’t.
At 3pm after four hours we left the park and they were giving golf cart rides back to your car which was nice and so I guess we did get to ride a “ride”! We were all starving because we hadn’t eaten since the free breakfast and just skipped lunch. So we left and got onto Osceola parkway which is the road we should have taken to get here that would have been about a 15 minute drive. But we went down the road to a very nice new looking shopping and dining area and ate at a Mimi’s Café. I love Mimi’s café but we’ve only eaten at there I think twice. One time in Tennessee with Alan on a work trip and I don’t remember where we were the other time. Actually I think the other time was in California. They are a chain but they are hard to find.
Owen had a kid’s burger, Olivia had the club sandwich, Alan had the quesadilla and corn chowder soup, which doesn’t even sound good but he said it was. And I had the same thing I had a few years ago the turkey dinner. Total with tip was $39 Alan paid with his ebay money.
After that we went to the TJmaxx so Alan could look for his Jaguars stuff and he hit the mother load! They had tons of Jaguars stuff and it was all on clearance! Owen got 3 shirts for $3 each, 2 nice sweatshirts for $10 and $12 and a football jersey for $10. I had been in the kids section looking at stuff and found all of those items for Owen so then I went over to the men’s area hoping Alan had found something for himself or else he was going to be very jealous of Owen. Well there was Alan with his hands full of things and he asked me to get him a cart! HAHA! So I went and got a cart and showed him Owens stuff and I helped him narrow down his pile and pick his sizes. His stuff was all on clearance too and he ended up with 2 or 3 polo’s, a few t-shirts, a hoodie and a long sleeve shirt. This all took forever and Olivia was sitting in the furniture area dying to leave. Eventually she and I went out to the car because Alan had to make triple sure he had not missed anything in the store! He paid with his ebay money and spent $115.00 for all of his and Owens stuff. I have never seen him so happy!!
We finally left here at 5:30 and went to the outlet over by Little Lake Bryan to go to the Disney store. It took forever to get there we sat through red light after red light because everyone was just getting off work and there was a lot of traffic. Once we arrived at the mall it was packed and people were parked in the grass and everywhere. We spent about an hour here but it was just too busy and they were all foreigners too, those people really like to shop!!
We left there about 7 or so and after a couple U-turns we made it back to Disney property where I swear you just can feel the mood shift and you just feel happier and more at ease.
Our plan for the evening is to go to Disney’s Port Orleans Riverside resort for the 8:30 Bob Jackson show. It’s a piano bar player that’s an older man and I read all the time how cute and funny his show is and it’s family friendly of course.
We got a table at about 7:30 and around 8 we ordered drinks. Olivia and I had virgin daiquiris and Alan had two beers. After the day we had I could have used a real drink but oh well. Owen had a soda of course and we got an order of nachos later after the show started. After we had wolfed down the nachos we were going to get a 2nd order but instead Alan ordered the crawfish bites! They were not that good and we should have just got another order of nachos! Owen was ticked because he didn’t like any of our food so Alan took him the food court and he came back with a piece of carrot cake.
When the show started it was loud, he plays piano and sings and the crowd will sing along at parts with him but Olivia wasn’t into the music he was playing at all but she seemed to be doing a good job at faking her enthusiasm. Owen liked it at 1st but started to get bored after awhile. The guy called all the kids up front for a special song and we ticked Owen off and made him go! They did a group song of “head and shoulders, knees and toes” so he got up there and did it but he had never heard this song in this life!
Earlier in the evening while we were sitting there waiting for the show to start I had told Alan that my cousin Tom Furr and his wife Diana and daughter Maggie were staying at that hotel this week and to keep his eyes out for them. I wasn’t really serious about seeing them because what are the chances! But she had called me a few weeks ago with a couple Disney questions and said they were driving down for the week between Xmas and New years and I think they were only staying 5 days but I wished her good luck with the crowds!
So not 15 minutes after I had told that to Alan he said “there they are”! His chair was facing toward the sit down restaurant and they had been waiting for their table but there beeper had just gone off. I jumped up and went over and said Hi really fast before they were taken to their table. So later on when they were done Diana and Maggie came in to talk to us and that was the exact moment Owen was up on the stage doing his song and dance number!! It was really funny because we had told him to go do it and have fun because it’s not like you know any of these people! But then his cousin Maggie who’s in his grade is now standing there watching! He came back and sat back down and Diana told him he did a good job! Haha! He was so embarrassed!! .
She wanted to know what we were doing there because she didn’t think we were going down until the 1st week of January. She said they went to Animal Kingdom today and only got to ride two things it was PACKED!! She said all the fast passes were gone when they got there! She said that’s how it’s been all week, spending an entire day in a park and only riding a couple things. She said they were going to bed early so they could get to MK at opening in the morning to try and do some stuff! I didn’t even think of it when she was talking to me but tomorrow is New Years Eve!! And the magic kingdom ALWAYS closes by mid afternoon because it’s full to capacity for NYE!! Oh well it’s probably best I wasn’t the one to break it to her!
At about 9:30 Owen had a headache so we got the bill, paid and left ($45 with tip!) We got lost again on our way back to the room with more u-turns and illegal car moves before getting back to the hotel. When we got to the hotel it was 10pm exactly 12 hours from when we left it this morning! I am liking the hotel a little more now that we have found the Disney short cut and plus it’s not like we’re here much!
I had a lot of notes to write in my journal tonight it was a very long day! It’s 11:30pm now and Alan and Olivia are asleep of course but Owen is awake waiting on me! HA!! He’s such a night owl!
We woke up at 8:30 and laid around the room for a bit then Alan and Owen went down for breakfast and brought me back a plate of biscuits and gravy, eggs, bacon and a cinnamon roll. Olivia ate half the bacon and the cinnamon roll. I don’t think Olivia ever went to the breakfast area of this hotel the entire time we stayed here. She just ate whatever was brought back to the room. Then Alan took the paper down to the pool and read while Owen swam for about 45 minutes while I showered and Olivia lounged. I told her to get her butt up and dressed and ready while the boys were out of the room but no she wouldn’t do that. She waited until they came back.
We left the hotel at 11am which I must say I thought was stupid because I told Alan last night that we shouldn’t go do anything until mid afternoon time since there is no way we could spend all day and all evening gone like yesterday. For one thing we didn’t have that much planned for during the day today. We’re all shopped out from yesterday! But for some reason we are all showered, dressed and leaving at 11am. Our main destination today is the Bass Pro shop to get dad a couple shirts. Well no offense to dad and he didn’t ask us to go but this took FOREVER!! It took us an hour to get there and then I wasn’t sure what size to buy so I called him and he was paying at Walmart so I had to wait for him to get home and call me back with his size. So we got 2 shirts and a fishing lure that Owen picked out.
Now that Alan found all of his Jaguars stuff at that TJmaxx yesterday he wants to stop at every single one we see! So we stopped at the one across the street from the Bass Pro but they had nothing and then it took us forever to go just 1-2 blocks to the Belz outlet mall which was a complete nightmare!! OMG there are no words! This is unbelievable! We went to the Coach, Victoria’s Secret, and Juicy stores and were ready to go in 30 minutes! The boys were having a cold drink in the Starbucks because it was really hot out there. We left there and said NEVER AGAIN!! EVER!!
So after 4 hours of driving around accomplishing very little the kids were hungry and we were all cranky so I said get on the interstate and out of this stop and go traffic and let’s just go back to the hotel and grab something nearby there. (we passed a big light up sign on Disney property at around 2:45pm that said the magic kingdom was CLOSED and I thought of Tom and Diana!!)
Well Alan missed the I-4 entrance and we went right under it but not ON it! I’m not sure what’s going on with his driving skills this week! So we ended up taking the stop light way back and ended up all the day back to the hotel with NO FOOD! We had passed a million places and we all said they were fine but for some reason or another he didn’t stop at any of them. We just wanted some sandwiches to take to the pool or something. But he just wouldn’t actually PULL IN to any place! So he dropped us off at the hotel so we could change into swimsuits and then we were going to go to the swimming pool at the condo complex by our hotel. While we changed he went and got gas in the van next door because we have driven so much we are out!
Well while we changed Olivia and I got in a big nasty fight in the room where I KNOW people in the hall HAD to hear us fighting! And it was actually about 90% my fault because I was just pissed at Alan and took it out on her!
We went down and met Alan and drove over to the resort pool area. They have a restaurant over there so we just ended up eating there. Alan had a burger, Owen and I split a club sandwich and Olivia had chicken strips they all came with fries and I didn’t write down the total but I think they were all around $7-8 each.
Owen swam while we waited for our food and after we ate I went and swam with him for almost an hour. The others didn’t want to get in they said it was too cold to swim. We watched as the resort employees set up and decorated for their New Years Eve party that is later tonight. They hung decorations and then drug out a huge container that we didn’t know what it was but it ended up being a giant blow up movie screen! There was a family sitting out at a table near ours smoking and it was bothering Alan and Olivia and eventually it even started to gag me and Owen in the pool.
We got out and left around 4:30-5:00 and Alan dropped us off back at the hotel and he went off to find the Walmart that is down the road. I’m sure for hot wheels but I don’t know if it was for something else too or he just wanted to get away from us! Haha!!
We got changed in the room and then I wrote up my notes while we just relaxed and waited for Alan to get back.
The plan for tonight is to go to Disney’s Boardwalk to hang out and enjoy the New Year’s stuff they will have going on. I have read online about people having issues parking there though if they weren’t staying at the Boardwalk resort or if they didn’t have a reservation at one of the restaurants there. I had tried to make a reservation for one of their restaurants that I didn’t intend to actually GO to just to get me proof so I could park. But they were all booked up already. So in order to get around that we are going to go park at Disney’s Coronado Springs resort where I had no trouble making a reservation in case they gave us a hard time about parking there and then we will take their bus over to MGM and then hop on the boat to the Boardwalk! Sounds difficult but it shouldn’t be too bad.
We left our hotel about 6pm, drove to Coronado Springs as we planned and parked with no trouble and hopped on a bus to MGM, it worked like a charm! But once we got off the bus at MGM we walked over to take the boat to the Boardwalk and there was a HUGE line waiting for the boat. For some reason it took forever for a boat to come and when it did of course we were the cut off for making it onto that boat and had to wait for the next one! Except for that part my plan worked very well and technically we weren’t in a big hurry because we had till midnight!
When the boat came we decided to get off at its 1st stop the Swan hotel and just walk the rest of the way to the Boardwalk. I don’t know why we did this because as I said we weren’t in a big hurry and the boat was going to drop off people at the Swan and then go on over to the Boardwalk it would have been much more relaxing to have just stayed on but oh well!
When we arrived we went over the Boardwalk Pizza walk up window and ordered a large sausage and pepperoni pizza and three drinks ($25) Owen didn’t want pizza so he got a foot long hot dog and we waited a good while for the food to be ready but luckily we got a table right by the water. Once we had our food the Illuminations fireworks started but we couldn’t see them from where we were which made me mad because I stupidly thought that we would be able to! I had actually planned our meal at the waterside table with a view of fireworks! DARN!
Once we were done eating it must have been after 8pm because that was when they said they would start handing out New Years hats and noise makers. We got ours and spent some time taking pictures of ourselves trying not to cut one of us out which wasn’t easy.
Then we wondered around in the gift shops where Alan finally found a camera bag that fits the movie camera! It’s 12.99 which is pretty cheap for Disney and he wants to know if he should get it!?!?! I had to MAKE him buy it!! He thought we should wait but jeez what is he waiting for?? The trip to be over? I was so happy we could now stop looking for one.
There was a DJ set up outside in a large grassy area and we went out and sat on a bench to watch people dancing which at this point was mostly just kids. Olivia was on the phone with Tim and Trevor because I guess they had an argument at a party or something? And it just sounded like a lot of drama which was getting on our nerves.
After awhile of sitting we went and walked around some more and when we came back to the dance area later they were kicking things into full gear and doing some line dancing! So we all four joined in a danced in this huge crowd of people for about an hour. It was fun we looked like fools but so did most of the people! Alan got to show off some of his moves. We had sweatshirts on but we had peeled those off because we started working up a sweat dancing. Eventually the boys took a break and walked around while Olivia and I kept on dancing. We finally saw them they had gone up to the big balcony area and were watching the large crowd from above; they motioned for us to come up so we did.
The doors to go into the hotel lobby were up here so we took a bathroom break and then enjoyed watching the crowd from up here because you could really see everyone so much better. There was one particular boy that was a very good and funny dancer he really had some moves we couldn’t stop watching him. It was getting late now and we also saw a lot of young kids lying down on the ground sleeping while their parents partied on. There were a couple chairs up there so we took turns resting and THIS is where Alan REALLY started showing off his dance moves! Olivia was very embarrassed. I was having a great time this evening it was so much fun and we never do anything like this on New Year’s Eve! However, every party has a pooper and that would be Owen because at around 11pm he was tired and wanted to leave. This irritated me a little because Owen is never tired! He’s a night owl and it’s New Years Eve!
This was why we should have rested today instead of getting up and driving all around Orlando etc. and as much as I REALLY wanted to stay until midnight Alan was worried about the traffic on the roads after midnight so we decided to leave at about 11:15! We went and took the boat out which stopped at the Beach Club and then the Swan hotels before going back over to MGM! We got to the MGM bus stop at 11:50 and the bus pulled up just a second before midnight so the bus driver got off and we all stood and watched the HUGE fireworks display that went off at MGM!! WOW it just kept going and going! Some people got tired of watching and climbed onto the bus to sit down so we had to eventually get on too before the finale or we were afraid we wouldn’t get seats! After the show was over we rode over to Coronado Springs where the bus goes all around this huge resort to drop people off at the different sections of the resort and then finally stops at the front which is where we’re parked. So we got in the car and drove back to the hotel with very little traffic which we had been worried about for no reason.
We got back to the room at 12:55, just under an hour from when those fireworks had started!! Not too bad!
Alan and Owen were asleep quickly (and Owen is never asleep quickly!) Olivia is texting and I’m writing about our evening.
This was defiantly the most fun I can ever remember having on New Year’s Eve! I never get to dance in public!! Plus Owen has a lot of impressive moves and Alan enjoyed embarrassing Olivia! I was glad our plan of spending the evening at Disney worked out even without park tickets!
We are checking out in the morning and moving onsite to Pop Century and our park tickets will finally start.
We slept in until 9am and then Alan showered and went down to get breakfast while I showered and packed up the room. Things were moving along quickly and we were about ready to leave and then at 10:15 Olivia decides that she’s going to shower now too so this delayed us because it takes her forever. We left the hotel at 11am and went to the Publix grocery store next door got get some breakfast supplies for the rest of our stay. We picked up some white milk, chocolate milk, OJ, bagels, cream cheese and bananas etc. spent $17.00.
We drove over to Pop Century and the check in/out line was HUGE!! We waited in line between 45 minutes to an hour! And then when we were about 5 people from the front of the line their entire computer system crashed!!!!!
The manager came through the line to the ones who had been in the line for a long time and gave us each one day park hoppers and said they could also be used at a water park. They did this because if you can’t check in then you can’t get your park tickets that are with your package to go to a park!
Well our original plan was to go to MGM this afternoon but we hated to use those tickets for that because they also said the system could be back up in 30-60 minutes. If we used those tickets they just gave us just to go to a park today it would have been a total waste. By just waiting an hour or so for the computer to come back up we can save the free tickets for a water park on another day and still use our regular tickets that we will get at check in to go to MGM in about an hour or so.
So instead Olivia and I took Owen to the pool so he could swim and we stopped by and filled up our mugs on the way there. Alan left and went somewhere I think maybe over to the sports store by Downtown Disney if I can remember correctly but I didn’t write down where he went.
So we sat at the pool while Owen swam and took some pictures of him and also called home and talked to grandma.
Once Alan got back he said there was a small line inside again so he thinks the computers are back up so I went in with him to get us checked in. We got that all finished and this time with no line at all. And then we left and went to MGM for awhile before our dinner tonight at O’hanas.
We left the hotel at 4pm and there was no wait for a bus so we got to MGM quickly and went straight to upgrade our passes to hoppers. For some reason that we couldn’t understand this meant that our passes were no longer on our hotel room key and instead were like old fashion paper park passes. So now we had to carry around 4 park passes and 4 room key/ID cards. So this was very annoying.
We went straight to the Indiana Jones stunt show just as it was starting. We got the last of the seats and then it was standing room only!! It is New Years Day after all. Olivia hadn’t seen this show in a long time because Owen and I go to it alone while they ride rides. Then we went to the American Idol Experience which is new to all of us because it wasn’t here on our last trip. We were surprised we all enjoyed it and it kind of makes fun of the judges and we all thought that would be a cool theme park job.
After that we went and waited 15 minutes to ride the Great Movie Ride and then it was time to leave the park for our dinner at Ohanas. We had accomplished quite a bit in the very short time we were in the park and they didn’t even try to ride any of the big rides because this late in the afternoon on a holiday we knew it would be a long wait.
So we took the bus to the TTC and then got off and walked over to the Polynesian hotel. I have NO IDEA why we just didn’t take the Poly bus except that it does share with the Contemporary and Wilderness Lodge so maybe we thought this would be faster? Who knows! But let me say that this was NOT faster because it looks close but that was a LONG WALK! I also think since we don’t know our way around the Poly that well we probably didn’t take the shortest path.
We checked in for dinner and didn’t have to wait long and we noticed that there weren’t very many people waiting like there usually are. We thought that was odd for a holiday. The food was really good as usual I tried and liked the wontons this time. And Owen ate the regular Ohanas food this time for the very 1st time!! No more hot dogs for that boy bring on the STEAK! That boy ate so much food at dinner that he couldn’t eat dessert! He NEVER skips dessert so that was shocking! The rest of us were also so full that we only had one dessert helping instead of the usual two.
After dinner we took the monorail to the Magic Kingdom and got there at 10pm just as the Spectro magic parade was starting. Alan and Olivia went to the bathroom while Owen and I watched the parade and then we fought through the CROWDS during the rest of the parade and Alan was in such a hurry leading the pack of us that I was getting left behind in the crowds and darkness because the lights are all out for the light parade. There was just no way I could keep up so by the time we got up to the other side of the castle I had a mental breakdown and started crying and yelling at him for leaving me and pushing and shoving his way through. I mean WHAT was the HURRY!! Owen and I had been enjoying watching the parade.
So that was fun me yelling and crying in the Magic Kingdom which is my favorite place on earth and so I sucked it up and we went in to see the Philharmagic show and hoped some of the parade crowds would be gone soon. Once the show was over we were able to easily walk over to Splash Mountain and it was a walk on so we rode 3 times! Then over to ride Big Thunder and then it was 11pm and the park was closed. I thought that 11pm was a little early for it to close on a Saturday night and New Years Day!!
As we were walking out of the park we stopped in at Casey’s on Main Street for water and a soda and this place was busy, then we walked out to the bus stop. When the bus came it was obvious we weren’t going to get seats so we chose to wait for the next one so we could SIT! Olivia and I dozed off while on the bus and then we got to the room at almost midnight.
And while we were on the bus the time said 11:40pm and the date said 1-1-11!! That is the same date that was on the bus when we rode it last night after the New Years Eve fireworks!
Got to bed at 12-something!
We slept in this morning until 9am or a little after and then we laid around deciding what to do today. It was still the weekend and we were still under the impression that once the weekend was over the crowds from the holiday would leave! (Ha!) So we decided to use our freebie passes and go to the water park today.
I went ahead and showered anyway because of my HAIR and because I thought the hot water would be good for my sore muscles and it was, I felt so much better after that. When I got out of the shower the boys had gone down for knives and napkins for the bagels and Olivia was outside on the phone. The boys got back and while I was getting ready they toasted up all our bagels and then I sent Owen out to find Olivia (she was by the stairwell just down from our room) to tell her to come and eat. Well when he came back he said she was fighting on the phone and then when she got in the room you could tell she had been crying! Well this pissed me off and I chewed her ass out! I mean seriously WHAT is the problem that she and Tim can’t just get along while we are out of town on vacation for 10 flipping days! No they have to fight and cause drama and tears and we didn’t spend all this money and plan this trip around her school schedule for this!
We left the hotel and took the bus over at 11:15 when we got there we rented a locker for $13 and then all got in the wave pool and it was FREEZING!! Alan got right back out but the 3 of us swam for a little while. The wave pool here is nothing like the one at Typhoon Lagoon this one is much smaller and much tamer. But COLD! Once the waves stopped we got out and walked around to do some slides and Alan used the video camera to tape the kids. While he was doing that some woman walked by with the same camera and asked him for help because she couldn’t figure hers out.
After that they got ME on the family raft ride!! There are two ways to get to it, either climb a ton of stairs or take the ski lift! Well my fear of heights forced me to take the stairs which about killed me! The ride was fun though but don’t tell them I said so!
After that we got in the lazy river which was also cold. As we were “floating” and swimming along I was having issues with getting onto my inner tube and so I stopped it and tried to do a bit of a belly flop onto it to kind of “jump” up on it. Well the tube flipped me off and I was quite the sight but luckily only Olivia saw me (possibly some cute life guards too) and I went down to the bottom of the 3 feet of water we were in and hit my knee hard, scrapped it up and also scrapped the skin off the top of my big toes!!
When we got out my toes looked fine but my knee was bleeding a little and was stinging really bad. I always get hurt at water parks. They all went off to go down another set of slides and I sat on the bench and nursed my wounds while watching them.
After that we went and got some lunch and Alan and I shared a sandwich and the kids got their own.
Once we were done with lunch we packed up to leave and got some of the mini donuts on the way out. We waited for a bus and got back to the room at 3:15. I laid down to take a nap but people kept coming in and out of the room. Olivia took off on her phone and Alan and Owen wondered down to the gift shop and got some drinks so at 4:15 I just gave up and wrote today’s notes.
We left the hotel at 5 and took the bus to the Magic Kingdom but we are on our way to dinner at Chef Mickey’s so once we got to the MK we took the monorail to the Contemporary. We were running late of course but when we arrived and checked in we were seated quickly. However we were seated beside the family from Hell! It was one of those tables where it’s a booth on one side and then regular chairs on the other side. They want the kids to sit on the outside of the table in the chairs so the characters can get to them easier. So I was sitting in the booth part and there was this family right beside us REALLY close and their kids kept kicking me over and over getting out of there seat! Their kids were seated on the inside in the booth or at least one of them was so every time a character would come or if the kid wanted to go up to the buffet the kid would kick me getting in and out. Then the dad wanted to take pictures of the little terror meeting the characters but he couldn’t get them all in the shot so he kept backing up and backing up until he was almost sitting in my lap to get the shot!
Now it is crowded in there but no one else was behaving like this except of course the family beside US! At one point Mickey was at their table for pictures and the kid tried to pull Mickey’s glove off his hand!!! That is a big NO-NO! Mickey got mad and abruptly walked away from their table without finishing with them. They also tried pulling and tugging at Goofy but he handled it better but they were unruly brats and their parents didn’t control them at all.
On top of all that dinner sucked! They have really cut back on the food choices here and the roast beef was just plain bad. They have always been known for their parmesan mashed potatoes but they weren’t the same anymore. I had read online that it had gone downhill here but you can’t always believe everything you read. Well in this case you can. (I have also heard plenty of time later that because of so many complaints it has gotten better but who knows!) Luckily with the free dining plan this didn’t actually cost us anything but the bill would have been $179 and there are plenty of people that eat there who aren’t on the dining plan!
We also waited a long time for the ticket to arrive to sign off on it but Alan was getting VERY grumpy with the whole situation so I sent him and Owen out to the gift shop to wait.
Now because we tend to be a fun bunch most of the time as bad as the food was and as bad as the family beside us was we did shockingly still have fun somehow at this dinner. I have a bunch of pictures of the kids here just cracking up laughing because hey, sometimes you just have to laugh about things. So they were joking around and cracking up which had also led to Alan’s grumpiness because tonight he was the party pooper! Haha!!
So Olivia and I went and met the guys at the gift shops and then she had to use the restroom and she was gone so long I had to go find her. Then I still had to sit outside on a bench and wait for her. She was in there LONG LONG time!! And when it was all over she said she thought she was going to throw up! Alan had the same problem. They think it was some kind of salad that they both ate because Owen and I were fine and we didn’t eat that salad.
We were going to walk over to the Magic Kingdom but we decided to take the long monorail ride over to give Olivia’s stomach time to settle (or for her to puke on the monorail!) Well just as we got to the MK she realized she had left her sunglasses in the restroom during her trauma! So instead of just saying oh well and moving on ……..nope! Alan tells her that he will go back with her to the Contemporary to find them. This seemed pretty dumb to me because that was going to take some serious time out of our evening and well time at Disney is precious so just buy some other cheap sunglasses and move on!
But since it didn’t really involve me I didn’t say anything. The good news is Owen and I got some alone park time at the Magic Kingdom. We got off the monorail and they kept on going and this was at 7:55pm I know the time because it meant we had only 5 minutes until WISHES started and we were going to try to make it through all the crowds and ride some stuff instead of watching the show. I thought it was Holiday WISHES so I didn’t care to see it (not sure why??) but then later I found out that it was the last regular WISHES before the holiday ones will start from now on. I was so bummed about that.
So we went back to ride Buzz but it had a 30 minute wait so we rode the TTA and when we got off it was the finale of the Wishes show which we sort of watched through the trees from Tomorrowland and then Buzz only had a 15 minute wait so we got in line and rode. When we got off the wait was now up to 50 minutes because of all the crowds heading back to the rides.
We now met up with Alan and Olivia who did NOT find her shades but did find some others in lost and found that they decided to claim! They are terrible!
We walked back to Barnstormer and the kids rode it and then I rode the tea cups with them which Alan videotaped!! After that we made the long walk back to Splash Mountain while everyone else watched the Spectro Magic parade and rode that with Alan and Owen in the front row and no ponchos on so they got SOAKED!! Owens jean shorts were totally soaked and both of their shirts were as well. The wait time when we went on was only 10 minutes because of the parade but by the time we got off it was up to 30 minutes. This was very sad for us because tonight was the last time of the trip that Splash would be open. As soon as the New Year’s weekend was over they were shutting it down for refurbishment. They do that every January so that’s why we braved the crowds here tonight so that we could get on it.
We went and got a snack I wanted a soft pretzel with cheese because I felt like I hardly ate any dinner! We couldn’t find one anywhere so we just got a couple drinks and Owen got a rice crispy treat using our snack credits and we sat in the rocking chairs on the porch in Frontierland were I proceeded to lean back and BASH my head hard! Oh they all thought it was quite funny, it’s always funny when mom gets hurt but God help me if I don’t take their injury’s serious.
After that fun the extra magic hours had begun and so we went and rode Aladdin’s Magic Carpets and then to Pirates but it was broke down, then to the Jungle Cruise but it wasn’t open for EMH and so we went over to the Haunted Mansion but it was PACKED with people. I’ve never seen it so busy.
Owen was in a bad mood and crabby because his jean shorts were heavy and soaked and rubbing on his thighs which hurt. I was pissy because I had said to put a poncho on him so he wouldn’t get soaked for the rest of the night but he and Alan didn’t do it. So we did what we have done best on this trip……………we had a fight! Pretty much all of us had a breakdown right then and there. It was a combination of the things I just mentioned plus the God awful holiday crowds. I have always heard that Christmas- New Years crowds are the worst all year and that they make summer and other holidays look like nothing and I now believe them. We knew it was an EMH tonight and stupidly thought that meant some of the crowds would clear out. Deep down I knew better because I know from online that EMH usually just tends to draw crowds in and you should try to avoid a park that’s having EMH but we wanted to ride Splash before they closed it.
I guess it was a breaking point when we had been to 4 rides and only gotten on one of them. Looking back we had no one to blame but ourselves it was New Year’s weekend for goodness sake what were we expecting. We should have put on ponchos and rode splash and then we should have waited in the line and rode it again and my bet is after that 1st post parade crowd got off from riding it that one last time it would have went back to a shorter line and we could have just spent our evening riding one of our (mine and Owens) favorite ride and not messed with the rest of the park tonight!
So after the breakdown where I must say Alan handled being chewed out over the poncho incident pretty well we sucked it up and walked on! Alan apparently trying his best to make things better took us around the corner and bought us 2 funnel cakes with our snack credits. One of course turned out pretty close to burnt but nobody had a breakdown over it so that’s a good thing. We sat and ate them and cheered up because after all these stupid holiday crowds are leaving on Monday which is tomorrow! Once we were done with our snack we slowly (because of Owens sore wet thighs!) made our way out of the park and once we got just past the exit Alan found an abandoned wheel chair that Owen got to ride in all the way down to the bus stop. That made him VERY happy.
There were two busses loading but we didn’t get on either one of them. Then two more finally came and we got seats!! See things are looking up!! We got back to the room at 12:30am and we had left the park at 11:00!! WOW! (at 11:30 we were still waiting on a bus though).
The day the crowds were SUPPOSED to leave!
There was no alarm today and I got up at 8:45 and showered then about 9:10 I woke them all up while drying my hair. Haha!!
We got ready but didn’t eat in the room. Olivia wasn’t ready and we all were so we went down and ordered breakfast instead. We got 2 counter service breakfasts and she was going to meet us there. However, on her way from our room she got confused and took the wrong path so she ended up out front by the busses but eventually found us. Jeez. Then after we ate Alan remembered that he needed his cell phone today for something? So he went to the room to get it and said he’d meet us out at the busses. We went out and sat on a bench waiting and then the kids decided it was chilly and they wanted their sweatshirts so they went back for those and we FINALLY left the hotel at about 10:30.
Today we are headed to Epcot. When we got there we got some pictures and then went to Soarin and got fast passes for later (return time 2:40!!) we went over and rode the Nemo ride which was a walk on and then we walked right in to the Crush show which was extra funny today. I really wish they would call on Owen! They let the kids sit down front and ask questions and he never gets called on.
After that they looked at the boring fish and then we went over to Test Track but the wait was an hour so the kids rode Mission Space on the calm side. The sign had said it was a 30 minute wait so Alan and I got a soda and sat on a bench for a bit then walked through the Mouse Gear gift shop and took a bathroom break. Well it turns out there wasn’t a long wait after all and the kids were done and waiting on us. They said it was fun and not scary at all so they wanted Alan to go on it. Well I thought if it‘s not bad then I guess I’ll go too since it’s the only thing around without a long wait. BIG MISTAKE! HUGE!
Now I will say there were warnings for if you are claustrophobic but did I listen? NO after all it’s not that bad and it doesn’t move or go up or down or anything really you just sit in what looks like a space ship and pretend to go to space. No……………..big………………….deal………………………..
So they open the door of this death trap……….. I mean space shuttle and we all climb in I am sitting between the kids. Well as soon as they shut the doors it started! There is a screen in front of you and you just push some buttons when you’re told to. I could NOT look at the screen I just couldn’t physically do it I thought it was going to pass out. It is VERY tight quarters AND did I mention there’s a HARNESS!!!!!!!!!!!! Well no one mentioned it to me either! It comes down over your shoulders and locks you in. I’ll say it again, it locks you in! I just sat there in a state of shock unable to even look at the screen I just kept focusing on the button in front of me and I just kept pushing the button over and over saying to myself (or maybe out loud who knows!) “It’s almost over, it’s almost over, it’s almost over”!! Well sweet little Owen sitting next to me was worried about me (at least someone was) he was asking if I was ok and I finally was able to speak and I said “is it almost done”? And he said yes and I said THANK GOD! I really really thought I was going to pass out. And when the doors opened to come out of it Owen was the one closest to the door so he had to exit before me but I all but pushed him out that door to get out of there.
Once we got out of the building I had to go sit down and get back to normal. After a relatively short while I was ok or at least I thought I was. And so we moved on.
We went over to the Test Track area and got a snack of 3 pretzels with cheese dip where the strangest man ever to work at Disney world was working!
Then the kids went and rode Test Track in the single rider line which had a 20 minute wait. After a bit Alan and I went in the exit area so we could see their pictures on the ride and instead we saw Owen come wondering off the ride all alone and heading to the gift shop! Now I knew with the single rider they weren’t guaranteed to be riding together and that was fine but I would have thought that they would have been waiting for each other at the exit! But no he was just wondering toward the gift shop alone.
After that we went over to Innoventions to play around and then to go ride Soarin. Then we went to see if we could get in to dinner an hour early at 3 instead of 4pm. We hadn’t eaten lunch and just shared a couple of breakfasts and had those pretzel snacks so we were hungry.
Dinner was at Coral Reef and the hostess who was checking us in for our reservation liked Owen and was asking him if he’d like a table beside the big fish tank. So our little charmer got us a good table. Or so we thought! Straight across from us was a big round corner type booth that also faces the tank and is very close to our table. Well of course it was ANOTHER horrible family! They looked like they had been there forever and driving the waiter crazy and their kids were just playing on the floor TOTALLY blocking all the wait staff from coming and going into the kitchen area from that entire section of the restaurant! They were SO LOUD and the kids were throwing things all over and AT PEOPLE!
For dinner Olivia and I had the steak which wasn’t that great, Alan had the lobster ravioli which wasn’t that great and Owen had his favorite the Mahi Mahi which was FABULOUS just like it is every time he orders it! We mostly just come here because it’s the only place that his it on a kids menu and he just LOVES it. He could probably eat two of them. Actually I know he could eat two of them! We all had our desserts and then after dinner we went back over to Test Track to use our fast passes.
After that Owen insisted we go to the Club Cool place with all the Coke flavors from all over the world because he just loves free samples of nasty flavored soda! He was in there so long that I left and went to sit outside and wait for them.
Once they were done we got some pictures taken by the Fountains with the Epcot ball in the background. And then went to ride Spaceship Earth which I did not enjoy too much because it seemed like they had the heat turned on and it was HOT inside of it. Well the combination of hot and dark places makes me claustrophobic and that horrible mission space memory came flooding back to me.
We noticed in all the rides since we’ve been here that it feels like they have the heat on. We think maybe since they had a major cold snap just before we got here they just haven’t adjusted things back to normal.
After the ride on Spaceship Earth Alan said he had a headache so I told him to go sit outside and rest where it is quieter because the kids were playing games in the big room where it exits. Well a few minutes later Olivia said I could go out with him while her and Owen were playing so I did.
But once I got outside I didn’t see him but I thought he may have went to the bathroom or the gift shop that wasn’t too far away so I just sat down and waited. However after about 20 minutes it had gone from sunset to dark outside and so I went back inside the building to look for the kids. I didn’t see them in there so I walked out the door that is on the other side of the building thinking that since you can exit from either side maybe they are over on the other side. Nope, not there either and now I can’t find Alan OR the kids and I’m worried that the kids are lost! So again I went inside to look again and they still aren’t in there so back out the other door again and nope not there again. At this point I decided to walk around the entire outside of the building because it’s a big circle and maybe I’m just missing them and secretly I’m about to start crying because it’s dark and I think they are all lost and if they aren’t then, well …………….I am! So at this point when I’m walking all over outside and about to bawl Alan yells at me and he and the kids are way down toward the exit to the freaking park!!!! This is where Alan was when the kids came out and also couldn’t find him earlier so again this is ALANS FAULT!! Haha!! But they are all amused that mom was lost! I wasn’t lost I was sitting outside the place on a bench which is where I said I would be!
We then made the long walk to the bus but at least there was one waiting when we got there and we all got seats.
We got back to the room at 7pm and the kids went to the gift shop and game room for awhile but Alan and I stayed in the room to relax for almost an hour. I wrote my notes and we watched the Brady Bunch and I tried to pop my blister but I didn’t have a needle! Hey we’re a fun couple!
At 8pm we went down to find the kids and they were playing ping pong. We all went to get some food and Olivia had the individual cheese pizza, Owen had a cheeseburger and fries and Alan and I split the beef and broccoli. We all had ice cream for dessert.
By the time we got done it was almost 9pm and we told Olivia that she had to shower tonight and we wanted lights out at 10pm because we want to get to the parks early in the morning for a change.
Alan went back to the room and I went to the arcade with the kids for another 10-15 minutes and then we got back to the room at 9:30 and Olivia showered very quickly so she could have time to call Tim before bed. It’s 10pm now though as I’m finishing writing and about to call her in. It will probably be 10:30 before we have lights out though.
Well I was awake until sometime between 12-1 listening to Alan snore and Olivia cough. She sounds fine during the day but at night she coughs and sounds terrible. And Alan’s snoring was so loud I just wanted to throw something at him!
Then to make things worse Alan (who can’t seem to do anything right on this trip! Haha) set the alarm clock for 6am instead of 7am! So I basically only slept from 1-6 and that’s it. So much for the big night of rest we were all going to get.
So we arrived at the Magic Kingdom at 8:40am and watched the opening show and then made our way into the park. Right as we entered the kids hopped right up onto the trolley to ride it down Main Street and Alan and I both tried to hop on too but some very nasty evil man jumped on and slid all the way down and wouldn’t let us on. He looked at me and said that you can only get in on the other side!! Well that was news to me and where is that info posted at? Because people were just jumping on from any direction and while I was standing there with my mouth hanging open completely in shock that this man and his wife had taken our spots it’s now all full and our kids are on it but we aren’t!! Other people were looking at me some had seen or heard what just happened and others hadn’t and I was embarrassed and pissed both. I stepped back and took a quick picture and you can kind of tell from that picture who the people were that saw what had happened and who the ones were that didn’t know what was going on. And I also got the jerk and his wife in the shot too. I can NOT look at that picture without getting mad about it.
So off goes the trolley with the kids and there we were standing in front of the train station at the entrance to the Magic Kingdom and I am now starting to cry again. We had to walk quickly down Main Street to catch up to them and all the way I am fuming mad at that jerk and still totally shocked by him and of course am crying.
Once the kids got off we took our pictures in front of the castle and I literally had to dry my tears for that. The photographer only took one normal posed picture then she started having us do some stupid poses and I was already in a foul mood having my magic spoiled and she wasn’t helping things.
She wanted Alan and I to kiss and the kids to cover their eyes and other poses that we weren’t interested in we just wanted the same normal pose we always do. She didn’t take the hint so we did what she wanted and then walked away and Alan took us over to a different photographer who just did the same old usual pose that we wanted without us even asking. He didn’t try any silly poses so that was all very weird.
And I might add that here we have entered the Magic Kingdom again which is my favorite park to enter and walk down the main street of and yet again I am crying and an emotional mess. The 1st time we entered the other evening was during that parade where Alan had speed walked through the crowd and basically lost me it ended up with me in tears as well.
So I don’t know what my problem is but I try and suck it up and carry on because I’ve been looking forward to today. The 3 of them headed off to ride the race cars and I went to get us Buzz fast passes and was going to meet them over there to take pictures.
From there we all went and rode Buzz and then Alan and I sat and waited while the kids rode Astro Orbiter. Once they were done Alan and Olivia went to go ride Space Mountain which had a 20 minute wait so I took Owen and went over to ride Pooh but once we got in line the ride broke down. We were there about 10 minutes and then just got out of line.
We walked down to ride Snow White and by some strange happenings we ended up in the same vehicle but in separate rows. The person who was in charge of putting people in their cars was trying to put us and another group of people all in one ride vehicle but it’s only supposed to be one group per vehicle so there was major confusion and Owen ended up in front with me in back and boy did we look stupid riding like that but the ride was starting and there was nothing we could do about it.
After that ride we got fast passes for Peter Pan (already a 30 minute wait) to use later and it was now time for our 10:30 breakfast reservation at Crystal Palace.
We were meeting Alan and Olivia there and when we arrived they were already waiting for us. We signed in and were seated and I’m VERY pleased to announce that there were NO stupid people sitting by us for this meal! WooHoo! I think this might be the 1st meal where that was the case. Breakfast was good and Owen cracked us up when he didn’t know Eyores name and thought it was Eyemore or Elmore or something like that. Olivia and I thought this was very funny after all the meals he’s had here with that character.
After that we went and grabbed fast passes for the Jungle Cruise and went to ride Pirates with a 10-15 minute wait. Then we walked on down past the now closed Splash Mountain (so bummed!!) and we got fast passes for Big Thunder Mountain. We then took the raft over to Tom Sawyers Island which the kids have now discovered that they like. We had many trips where we never did this but Owen really likes it.
Alan and I just chilled out and relaxed in rocking chairs while the kids ran around and played. Of course we had to get across to the other side of the island to get to the rocking chairs which meant crossing the bridge that has those springs in it on barrels and you think you are going to go in the water! Well I did manage to get a little wet on my socks and crocs. We stayed over there for about an hour.
Then we took the raft back to the mainland and got some more fast passes for Big Thunder to use later it’s about 1:15 now. And then we took the train to the front of the park to leave and go back to the room for a swim.
We got back to the room at about 2:30 and went to swim for an hour except for Olivia who took a nap. And of course just like usual we were hot and sweaty at the park but now the sun is behind a cloud and we are cold in the pool. Owen played with a little Chinese boy who came over to us and asked if Owen could play because he had no friends! It was funny but he was pretty young and you could tell that Owen didn’t really want to play with him.
I went back up to the room first to get changed and then the boys came up. At 4pm we woke up Olivia and got ready to go back to the park.
Once we were there we went to ride Buzz which had a 30 minute wait so we used our fast passes from earlier and then rode the TTA after that.
Then we went to the ice cream shop on Main Street and all got a treat and sat outside at a table to eat while we waited for the 5:40 “Celebrate” parade that the kids wanted to see. Once it started we got up to go watch it and the kids danced and partied out in the parade and we taped them. It started sprinkling on us at the end of the parade and we went and rode the jungle cruise next with our passes from earlier it continued sprinkling during that too. Then we walked all the way back to ride Big Thunder and it was broke down!! So we turned around and went all the way back to the haunted mansion which only had a 5-10 minute wait.
After that we used our other passes that we had for Peter Pan from early this morning and then took a spin on the carousel. Then Alan somehow found out that Big Thunder was now working so we walked all the way back there again only to find the fast pass line clear out and over toward Splash Mountain!! Apparently it had been down for a long time so everyone had come back all at one time. So forget that! And it was now 7:30 so we just headed toward the front of the park stopping to ride Aladdin one more time. Alan left and sat on a bench at the exit because he had a head ache but the kids and I stayed and watched WISHES. Once it was over we exited and met up with him where he had found another abandoned wheel chair just like the other night when we were here with Owens wet shorts! Only this time Alan said I got to sit in it because I had a nasty ugly blister that had been bothering me. So I got a ride from the exit of the park to the bus stop which wasn’t much but was still nice.
We waited for a bus and got back to the room at 8:55. I know the exact time because we had a bet! I said it would take an hour and Alan said it would take 2 hours! That occurred back when he didn’t want to wait for WISHES because he kept saying it would be 2 hours before we got back to the room. Well the show was at 8:00 and we made it to the room at 8:55!! So I won!
We hadn’t eaten today except the breakfast buffet and then the ice cream snacks we had early this evening. So we used 4 counter service credits for 2 pizzas, 4 desserts and 4 drinks and we took it to the room to eat. We didn’t even come close to eating it all but we were all stuffed
We went to bed at 10:30 tonight.
Well I slept pretty good last night which I needed because the night before I was kept awake by the snoring and coughing. However, I did wake up once freaking out like I had done at the Holiday Inn Express! I haven’t done that since we’ve been here at Pop Century. I woke up feeling scared and claustrophobic and like I was having a nightmare which I couldn’t even remember. I was also hot and yet it wasn’t really hot in the room. But luckily I was able to go back at sleep fairly quickly.
The alarm went off at 7 and I let Alan shower 1st then we left the hotel at about 8:20-8:30 and got a bus to MGM. The park wasn’t officially opened yet but they allow you to enter the park and cram into the front of the park on Hollywood blvd at about 8:45 and wait for the 9 o’clock opening. There were a ton of people there and as soon as it opened we were headed to the Toy Story Mania ride. Which is pretty much where 99% of all these people are headed. We decided that Alan would walk ahead of us because that’s faster than waiting on me and my limping blistery foot. So off he went on a mission and the kids weren’t far behind him and then there was me bringing up the rear! Literally!
Once I got there Alan was in line at the FP machines and the kids were in line to ride so I joined them. But the cast members kept saying that you had to have all of your party together before you entered the building so we had to let a few groups of people go ahead of us in line until he caught up with us.
After we rode we split up and they gave us the fast passes which are good between 10:05-11:05 and said they’d meet up with us at noon for lunch.
They took off to go ride Rock N Roller coaster and Tower of Terror and Owen and I went over to get in line for the Jedi Academy where you get to fight Darth Vader with a light saber. Well we got in the line where you sign up to do it and they tell you which show time to come back for and Owen changed his mind and didn’t want to do it! I was so bummed I begged and pleaded with him I mean WHERE ELSE can you go up against a real Darth Vader!! Well I think his nerves got the best of him because he refused to sign up. So instead we just went and got his picture taken with Darth and the Storm Trooper that were out.
Then we went to the Star Wars gift shop and he pin traded and then we sat on a bench for about 10 minutes waiting for the 1st Jedi show to start. After we watched the show we went back over to Toy Story and got to ride twice since we had 4 FP’s.
When we were done it was only 11 so we went over to the Animation building and discovered a very cool thing at Disney which we have never done before! We 1st went in and watched this animation short film and went on a mini tour of the animation area and then we got to go into this room where they teach you how to draw a character!! It was so much fun! The class was almost full so we didn’t get a drawing table but had to sit in the 1st row with a big clip board to hold. (this is becoming really popular they need a bigger room) We got to draw Goofy which was just hilarious!
I am a little bummed that we didn’t know about this drawing thing in the past because there a plenty of times in the past several years when they are off riding the scary stuff and we are looking for something fun to do. It also would have been fun to bring mom, dad and Blake here years ago when they came.
By the time we got done we had to go meet because it was 11:55 already. We were meeting them at Starring Rolls for lunch but they weren’t there yet so we called them and they said they were at Walt’s One Man’s Dream! Well are you kidding me? Owen and I didn’t go to that this morning because Olivia always gets mad at us when we go without her!
So we went ahead and got in line to order our food. I had been reading about his place on the internet. They serve really large turkey or ham sandwiches on a fancy kind of bread and you get either chips or fruit with it and then for your dessert item you get to pick anything from the bakery case and they have some awesome stuff!! Plus it’s something different for lunch then pizza or hamburgers. So while we were going through the cafeteria style line they showed up and did the same. It is a small place that only has outdoor seating so we got a table and had our lunch. Most of us were unable to finish our whole sandwich and we ended up sharing a couple bags of chips and saving some for later. But for dessert we got a variety I know someone had the Butterfinger cupcake, I think it was me and there was also peanut butter cupcake. I don’t know what else we got but we all took bites of everything and the cupcakes were so big and rich that I don’t think we finished all of those either! It was all very good though.
After lunch we took them over to the animation building to show them the fun we had drawing Goofy and this time we drew Tigger which was actually harder. They had a good time doing this as well. Olivia and were laughing so hard at our drawings of Tigger mine was pretty sad! One of us drew him huge and the other drew him very tiny.
Once that was finished they had fast passes to go on RnR coaster so Owen and I went to watch the American Idol show. It wasn’t going to start for a little bit so we sat on a bench out in front of the giant screen and waited for them to show the part with David Cook so I could take a picture of it. Once they started letting people in we went inside too and at the last minute before it started Alan and Olivia showed up and sat with us we weren’t expecting that!
After the show we went back to do the back lot tour but we had just missed the cut off for it and had to wait for the next one to start so we were stuck in a line for about 20-25 minutes with a large group of people. But once we got on the tour I don’t think we’d ridden it for a few years because we put Owen on the outside and when the big Catastrophe Canyon scene came with the dumping of the water that looks like it headed right for you Owens eyes were HUGE!! I got a picture of him and we all laughed at him.
Then we had to make a decision we were either going to stay in the park for the last Stunt show of the day at 4:15 or we were going to try to park hop over to Animal Kingdom to ride the last safari of the day which is at 4:30 or 4:45 something like that since the park closes at 5pm. But actually the animal kingdom was open late tonight for extra magic hours but the safari wouldn’t be open late. It was also in our plans to go to AK tonight because that’s where our dinner reservation is at. We just needed to decide whether to watch the stunt show 1st or try to make it to the last safari.
Owen loves the stunt show though so we said we didn’t care and we’d just let him vote! He chose the safari so now we had to hurry out of MGM and over to AK. As were exiting the park an employee stopped me for a survey but when we told her we were trying to get to AK for the last safari of the day she basically said you’d better hurry and she said we’d never make it!
The kids had also stopped before that for a box of popcorn to eat on the ride and a bottle of water with snack credits.
Well we got lucky and an AK bus was sitting outside of MGM waiting on us! So we made it over there pretty fast and when we got there it was very close to the regular closing time so as we were walking from the bus stop to the park entrance we found an abandoned wheel chair like we have several evenings when we’re leaving the parks. But this time we were heading in and we were cutting it very close to the time of the last safari which is at the very back of the park. So Alan grabbed it and told me to sit down because even though I haven’t complained about it too much in my notes my blister on my foot was bad and was really slowing me down! So I got in and he pushed me and we very quickly made it to the back of the park and we made it onto the very LAST safari jeep of the day! We were so pleased with ourselves. And as the safari ended it was a little weird seeing the whole place empty because we were the last ones.
Once we were done we headed over to our dinner reservation at Yak & Yeti which is a place we’ve never eaten at before and on the way over Olivia decided that SHE should get to ride in the wheel chair so Owen pushed her!
Alan went ahead of us to see if they were still giving out fast passes for Everest but they don’t do that during extra magic hours and he also said the line was really long. If I recall this walk with the kids and the wheelchair resulted in them getting in a little trouble and I remember trying to cross the path to the restaurant with a very steady stream of people coming and Owen trying to make the mad dash across with Olivia in the chair. I believe that is when Alan got back from Everest and yelled at them!
Dinner tonight was surprisingly good especially since we’ve had some really not very great meals this week. We also didn’t get seated by anyone annoying so that always helps too!
Olivia and I had the steak and shrimp which I really liked but I don’t think she really cared for any of it. This restaurant is mostly Chinese food with a few exceptions and our meals were served with white rice and sautéed veggies. Alan had the ribs and said they were good and Owen had grilled chicken and fries.
For dessert Olivia had the sorbet for some crazy reason and Owen just got ice cream but Alan and I got the dessert they are known for which is warm fried “wontons” (cream cheese filled pastry) served like kabobs with pineapple and they come with ice cream and some kind of icing or glaze drizzled over it. They were delicious!
After dinner we went over by Everest but the line was still too long and they were bummed about that. So I got to ride in the wheel chair over to Dinosaur and before they rode Owen had to use the bathroom and he had diarrhea (which he will be happy about me putting in here!!) and so he didn’t want to ride. He was SO afraid he was going to throw up and throwing up is one of Owens greatest fears in life!
So Olivia wanted me to go but I HATE that ride so I said no. Alan offered to go but then she saw the line was 30 minutes long so she said never mind! At this point we were all so sick and tired of the long waits for all the rides. I really think it would be one thing to come to Disney at a busy time and know it’s going to be busy so you are expecting it and you accept it and deal with it. But everything I have heard and read is that once New Years is over everyone leaves and it’s slow. Even the cast members working the parks were surprised that the holiday crowds were still there!
So I told Alan and Olivia that I would take Owen and we’d go back to the room and that they should just go get in line and ride Everest because the closer it gets to closing the shorter the line will get and to just make the best of it. Plus this way they don’t need to feel bad that we are just sitting outside the ride waiting in the dark. So that is what we did and I, who was hobbling pretty badly with the blister situation put Owens butt in the wheel chair and said “if you feel like you are going to puke let me know” and I pushed him to the front of the park slowly! To make things more fun just as we left them it started sprinkling!
Once we got to the exit of the park they wanted to take the wheel chair from me but since we had found it out by the busses when we arrived I knew it was possible to take it all the way out there so I argued with them and they let me take it. They probably looked at Owen and thought the poor kid has something horrible wrong with him that you just can’t see. Not just diarrhea! Haha!
So out to the bus and we’re going to have to stand since it’s almost full so we said we’d just wait for the next one so we could sit down. And when the next bus pulls up it’s not a regular Disney bus, in fact it didn’t’ look like a Disney bus at all. It was one of those charter buses with cloth seats and TV’s etc. I hesitated before getting one for just a second because in all my times riding buses at Disney I’ve never ridden one of these so I thought maybe we were being kidnapped!! However I really wanted to sit down now because I’ve pushed that wheelchair for miles in the dark and in the rain and it was getting late. So we took our chances and got on plus when he opened the bus door he said Pop Century? So what the heck and there were two other families that got on too.
Then it got really weird because we were no sooner seated and the bus pulled away even though there were TONS of people exiting the park and even people heading right toward that exact bus stop! That just seemed very odd to me. I was very relieved when we went straight to our hotel!
I got Owen to the room and while I was going to the bathroom and changing into my pajamas he just laid there on the bed in the dark without moving! I think if I’d have stayed in there another couple minutes he would have been asleep. So I got him changed into his pajamas and tucked into bed hoping he would just fall asleep and then boom here come Alan and Olivia into the room! Well he’s awake now and he’s not going to fall asleep with them around. They said they rode Everest twice and the wait wasn’t terrible but it was raining and getting chilly. So we just all watched TV until about 10:30. We even watched a new episode of Modern Family since it doesn’t start down here until 9pm.
After another night of me being woke up by what feels like a nightmare but yet once I’m awake I don’t remember even having a scary dream! The alarm went off at 7am! And all three of us showered (does Owen ever shower?) and we made it to Epcot for rope drop at 8:45.
We were let into the park and then held at the rope drop until 9:00 but we were right up at the rope and they had the characters come out and go along the rope area greeting everyone which was cute. We all stood there waiting for the rope to drop and to kill time we sized up the people around us wondering who could out walk us! Haha! So the rope goes down and off the mass of people go and it turns out that everyone can out walk us! It is just funny to see that large of a group of people all headed for Soarin! Of course the family left me in their dust and went on ahead so they could get fast passes before I got there. Just as they were going down the escalator I was coming into the building. I thought I was moving pretty good with the blisters and all.
So we rode Soarin and then had to leave that building to go across the park to ride Test Track. On the walk across the park Alan who apparently thinks I’m slowing him down went up to the front of the park and rented me a push wheelchair! I really didn’t want to sit in it but I will say that after spending a lot of the day in the wheelchair and off my blister it felt much better the next day.
So with me now in the chair we went over and waited about 10 minutes to ride Test Track and by the time we got off we were able to get another set of FP’s so we got them for Test Track. After that the kids went and rode Mission Space (I call it mission nightmare!) and by the time they were done with that we could now get our 3rd set of fast passes but Alan didn’t want Test Track he wanted Soarin which is again all the way across the park. So we went over that direction and then he had the kids and me head toward World Showcase and said he’d catch up with us.
It was just now about 11:15 and we were going to eat an early lunch at the fish and chips place in World Showcase but when we got there it was closed so we asked a cast member working in that area what time they opened and they said 11:30. So we just went to the outdoor seating area and the kids played around in the wheelchair and we took some pictures. Well at 11:30 they didn’t open and that’s when we found out it doesn’t really open until noon! So we said forget it and went on to the international gateway exit to take a boat over to MGM.
Even though there was a boat there waiting it still takes 30 minutes to get to MGM this way.
Once we entered MGM we used our receipt to get another wheelchair and then went back toward Tower of Terror to eat lunch at the outdoor area. We just had burgers and fries and when we were done we went back to the very back of the park for the stunt show which is the main reason we came back to MGM today.
So since I am in this stupid wheel chair which is very handy for getting me from one side of the park to the other quickly it is also a pain I think when it comes to rides and shows! They don’t know who can actually physically walk or stand at all so everyone is treated like they can’t move from their chair!
So we are taken up an elevator to a special seating area and the kids have to sit in the row in front of us. Then we watched the show or at least they watched the show because I proceeded to actually FALL ASLEEP sitting up in my wheelchair!! Seriously I was all slouched over and probably drooling although not one member of my family saw me since the kids were sitting in front and I guess Alan wasn’t paying attention. All I remember is dozing off and on during the show.
Well as the show was ending is where it all starts to get ugly and go downhill! Alan has decided on his own that he doesn’t want to have to fight the crowds getting out of there with the wheelchair! You have to load onto a big elevator and it only holds so many at a time obviously so he whistles at the kids to come on and he takes off out of there pushing me like a bat out of hell! Well I had no control over the situation because he was pushing me plus I was only half awake! Haha!
And the kids didn’t have time to catch up to us when he whistled and took off so we went down in the elevator and all the way to the exit of the place without them and I’m worried about them but Alan says they’ll just meet us at the exit. Well there are thousands of people leaving this show and they are all going to go to the exit!! So we wait and wait and keep looking for them and can’t find them so Alan calls them and tells them to meet us by the big HISTA playground. Well I was in the restroom so I missed exactly what went down when they showed up but I guess that Alan yelled at them for not keeping up with us and they argued that they were left behind!! And then Olivia started to cry and said that Owen was really scared being lost in that crowd and then Owen started to cry which is very unlike him. And yet Alan kept on yelling that Olivia was bitching at him!! And the whole thing just got ugly! At some point during this scene I showed up and the kids were crying and Alan was pissed so I tried to calm everyone down a little but the kids just walked away.
They walked just over to the exit of the back lot tram tour where they have sets from movies because Owen had wanted to look at that stuff yesterday but Alan was rushing us out.
I got up out of that stupid wheel chair because I blamed it for all this drama (and Alan of course!) but it was because of this stupid chair that the kids were sitting in front of us and not beside us, and it was the reason that Alan peeled out of that show because of the wheelchair in the elevator situation, and it was also to blame for his bad mood of trying to push me around in the chair with such huge crowds of people!
So I just stood there by Alan and I of course also had tears because when don’t I lately and we just stood in total silence for about 20 minutes until the kids came back. I had some things I wanted to say to him but was really afraid to start something right then and there.
When the kids came back they had dried their tears and I’m sure Olivia had given Owen a pep talk because they seemed in better spirits. So we said nothing else of the situation and we just went on!
We went down to Walt’s One Man’s Dream and even though Olivia and Alan have seen it the other day Owen and I hadn’t so we went in and watched the film. It exits over by the Animation building and we were headed there next.
They had just taken a group in to draw so we had to wait 30 minutes for the next group. It’s funny because when you are in there doing it I don’t think it feels like anywhere near 30 minutes long.
Owen wanted us to sit down front this time instead of at the tables because the seats for the tables are attached and you can’t scoot them up so he’s too far away. So we sat on the bench in the front and were given the large clip boards to use. This time the character we got to draw was Jiminy Cricket and Olivia and I were laughing so hard because I said hers looked like Tweety Bird!! And of course mine was just awful but it’s so much fun to try and to see how easily they can draw it.
After that we left MGM and took the boat back over to Epcot which again takes 30 minutes but when the boat stopped at the Boardwalk Alan got off to check the ESPN store to see if they had a white Jaguars hat which they didn’t and then he walked the rest of the way to Epcot and arrived just as we did on the boat.
As we entered the back of Epcot at the international gateway we used our receipt once again to get another wheel chair mostly because we’d already paid for it for the whole day and because it’s a long walk from the back of the park to the front of it!
But we are now headed to our dinner reservation at LeCellier in Canada which was for 4:30 however it was already 4:50 so we were late! We’ve been late for MANY reservations at Disney and it was never a big deal but these people told me that after 15 minutes the reservation is dropped from there system! Well that is not good because this is one of those places that you have to reserve at 6 months out and it’s very hard to get even then!
So in a very snotty tone she said she’d check to see if they would still be able to seat us. I even had a print out of our reservation number so she wouldn’t think I was making it up about having a reservation. But she didn’t seem to care about that. Well she came back and said “yes I think we can still seat you” and told us to have a seat while they get a table ready for us. So while we sat there waiting for them to gather our menus and stuff the lady who was doing that was coughing her head off!! She sounded awful and she led us to our table while hacking up a lung the whole time! Plus she was the grumpiest person I’ve ever come across at Disney. Once we sat down we wiped ourselves and the menus down with those hand wipes I had in the bag!
The waiter came and we thought he was great he told the kids they could have shakes or smoothies for their drinks instead of just soda or tea. Well actually he told us all that but Alan and I didn’t want them we just got regular drinks. The dining plan meals no longer come with an appetizer but this is the one place that we eat where we always add on one anyway because we love their beer cheddar cheese soup! Olivia wanted to try it too so we ordered two bowls and one cup for her she didn’t care much for it. The soup is so good with the breadsticks they bring out for the table. Owens kid’s meal comes with a mini appetizer of carrots and celery with ranch dip and then he ordered the kids steak and mashed potatoes.
Alan, Olivia and I all had the steak too but Alan and I didn’t get the mashed potatoes we thought we’d be different and try there gratin potatoes instead because they sounded good. But that was a mistake because they SUCKED! They were so dry and not very hot either. Olivia’s steak was way too red for her and that’s saying something because she likes a little red on her steaks. We couldn’t send it back because we couldn’t find anyone to help us so since it is a huge steak anyway she just didn’t eat the middle that was too red and I gave her some of mine.
And the other thing was mine and Alan’s drinks were empty from when we were eating the soup and breadsticks and they remained empty for the whole entire meal! And we really could have used a drink to wash down those overly dry potatoes. We had also asked for ketchup for Owen and he didn’t receive it until halfway through his meal and that was with him eating slowly while waiting for the ketchup.
So it turns out we were totally wrong on our 1st impression of the waiter because he was awful! And after all of that the kids were sick of that meal and that waiter and they opted out of dessert since they were full from there shakes and smoothies anyway. So the kids left and went outside the restaurant where they were going to wait. I didn’t have dessert either but I did sit there with Alan while he had his crème brule which this place is known for. Plus we had to wait for the bill too anyway. Before the kids went outside Owen had put on his sweatshirt and to do so he took off his glasses (which are pretty new to him he got them only about a month before the trip) and put them on the table. So while Alan and I were sitting there waiting on them to bring Alan’s dessert we happened to notice Owens glasses lying on the table that we would have just gotten up and left if we had all skipped dessert. And then a few minutes later here comes Owen running into the restaurant for his glasses because he had just realized he didn’t have them on! He said they were outside at a kidcot table making Duffy bears whatever the heck that is!
Once Alan and I got outside we found Olivia sitting in the wheelchair over at the kidcot table coloring with Owen.
Since we still had 2 sets of Soarin fast passes left from this morning we walked over there to use them and to ride twice even with the passes took almost an hour total.
Then we went over to use the Test Track passes from this morning also. We only had one set of those but they were still giving them out so we got another set. And by the time we rode the 1st time we only had 15 minutes to wait until we could use our next set so Alan and Owen took a bathroom break.
On that second ride it was just us and one stranger from the single rider line and as we were riding outside going fast and screaming Olivia’s gum flew out of her mouth! It was hilarious and I felt it hit me and then I announced “no one panic but Olivia has lost her gum” the poor stranger on our ride even cracked up laughing.
By the time we were done with our rides it was 8:30 and we were going to go watch illuminations but it was cold over by the water and we were tired so we just decided to leave. We headed to the exit where we had to part with my wheelchair. Oh and Owen had wanted to stop by Club Cool for more Coke samples but it was closed by now and he was not happy about that!
So the boys did some pin trading all the way out of the park and to the bus stop. He just LOVES that pin trading and he will trade for one and then within a short time he’ll trade that one he just got again. Basically it feeds his obsession to “buy” and collect things and then “sell” and recollect and since it doesn’t cost anything its fine by me.
We waited for the bus and then ended up having to stand on the bus for the 1st time this trip and on my blistered and sore foot. Once we got back to the hotel Olivia took the room key and went on up while the rest of us went to the food court so we could get a dessert since we skipped it at dinner tonight. (except Alan) There was a line at the ice cream/bakery area so Alan just got us Mickey ice cream bars from the cooler while Owen and I went on up to the room too.
Olivia got her evening phone call which she took outside and Owen and I ate our ice cream while we watched TV.
Later when she came back inside this was the night Olivia made us watch the 2nd half of The Notebook movie on TV! Then to bed but don’t know what time.
********* During the night Wednesday night I don’t know what happened to me I fell asleep and dozed right off but something woke me up and I don’t know what it was. Maybe a snoring person or a coughing person or something else I don’t know but I woke up and was hot and scared and VERY claustrophobic! VERY VERY bad I even went to the window to look outside I even thought about opening the door to go get some air but I didn’t want to wake everyone up. I kept trying to lie back down again but when I did start to fall asleep I would be startled awake quickly again and would again feel like I was so claustrophobic and I would have a terrible panic attack. This went on off and on all night long I would try to sleep but I couldn’t do it!! The panic attacks felt so scary and real and so I was literally awake ALL NIGHT LONG!!
So after the actual night from HELL we were supposed to get up at 7 but we ended up not waking the kids until about 8:15.
After we were all showered and dressed we went and had breakfast in the food court which was so packed with people it was a total nightmare! WHY haven’t all these people gone home?
Alan and I had gone down 1st while Olivia was finishing getting ready and Owen was on the phone with grandpa so they were to meet us in 10 minutes.
We got down there and ordered the food and then walked all over the whole place trying to find an empty table but couldn’t find one. Then the kids showed up and we all split up looking for a table and finally got one.
Breakfast was cold by now but the kids had Belgian waffles with bacon and I don’t know what Alan had but I had the breakfast platter. As I went to open my orange juice it exploded and I spilt it down the front of my sweatshirt, shirt and pants! Then while I was eating I dripped pancake syrup down the front of my sweatshirt and then just before I was done eating I had jelly on my hand and I touched my forehead and got it all over my head!! At 1st I was getting pissed but by this point it was funny! I was a mess going on zero sleep!!
After that mess we went out to the bus we had planned to go to MK all day but we decided to go back to AK since we hadn’t done much there this week. We have a lunch reservation at the Wilderness Lodge this afternoon at 2:20 so we can hop over to MK after that.
So over to the AK and no wheel chair today! Once we entered we had Alan go on ahead and get FP’s for Everest and then meet us at the 3-D movie “It’s tough to be a bug”.
So today I’m not in the best of moods because of the no sleep thing and as we enter the theatre they are telling people to move all the way down the aisle before stopping but people aren’t listening and are just stopping wherever they want to! So after these people sat down I just PUSHED my way past them to get seats on down the aisle and I said some things under my breathe while I did it.
Then all of a sudden the theatre goes dark and suddenly I’m aware that I can’t breathe. I really feel claustrophobic and like I can’t get my breath and I’m starting to have a terrible panic attack. Then the place fills with this fog machine stuff and I felt trapped and wanted to run out of there but it was too dark to do it. I just kept on removing my 3-D glasses and looking around the room trying to distract myself.
Then at the end of the show when the bugs are going to “exit” and you can “feel” them on your feet Olivia jumped up on ALAN’S LAP and he was totally cracking up at her! And according to the kids in the part of it when the stingers are going to get you in the back I shot out of my chair with a hip thrust forward movement that was quite a show! They laughed at that as well.
Once that nightmare of a show was over and we exited I felt fine like the panic attack was completely gone. We then walked back to the safari because Owen wanted to ride it one more time and there was a 45 minute wait but we got in line anyway however once Owen saw the amount of people in front of us he said forget it and we got out of line. So instead we hurried very quickly over to the next Lion King show which was about to start.
After the show was over the kids wanted to go ride Dinosaur and they went on twice and Alan got them FP’s for later and then we walked back over to Everest so Alan and Olivia could ride it twice with the 4 FP’s while they did that Owen and I walked around in that area and he pin traded.
From there we went back to Dinosaur and I told the kids that I would go on with them but I changed my mind when I remembered that it was dark in there and I didn’t’ want to freak out like I had earlier in the dark. So Alan and I just sat and waited with a large Brazilian tour group that were loud and annoying. We’ve seen a lot of those this week apparently January is a big month for them.
It was just about time for us to leave for our lunch reservation and I knew that I was limping along slowly so I suggested that I would start walking toward the front of the park and once the kids were off the ride they could meet me there.
They showed up at the bus area just as the Wilderness Lodge bus was pulling away so we waited another 15 or so minutes for another one and then once it came and we got on we sat and waited another 5-10 minutes to see if anyone else was coming.
On the bus ride we all took mini naps! Well everyone but Owen.
I was beyond tired and that long bus ride didn’t help but we arrived to lunch exactly on time at 2:20. Our waitress was good and fun but didn’t do any of the big jokes that they tend to do here. We all got the skillet except for Olivia who had a grilled chicken sandwich. But our skillets came with, chicken, ribs, mashed potatoes, corn, beans and corn bread. Olivia and I were the only ones of who had dessert she got the apple pie with ice cream and I had the smores cheesecake but only had two bites then gave Alan the rest and he only had a couple bites too.
Once we were done we walked out to the dock and there was a boat waiting to take us over to the MK but it was one of the small outdoor only boats and it was really cold and windy out on the water today so we froze to death on that boat ride. When we entered the park Olivia and I took a bathroom break and when I came out Alan had taken Owen over to play some jump rope game in the center of town square just inside the MK. Olivia was still in the bathroom so I went upstairs at the train station to take some pictures of the boys and the park from up above. Olivia was STILL in the restroom I think she was gone about a half an hour and when she joined us she said….. don’t ask!! I think she may be lactose intolerant or something!
They all came up and joined me and we waited for a train and rode back to Frontierland because we wanted to try and use our FP’s from the other day when the ride broke down. The guy didn’t notice that the date was for a different day so we got on and were able to ride it twice since we had two sets.
From there we went to the Hall of Presidents show because Owen likes that kind of stuff and we haven’t seen it in years! When the lights went out in the show I once again got super claustrophobic and started having another panic attack! This theatre wasn’t nearly as dark as this morning so I just kept looking around the room to try and distract myself and tell myself that I was fine. It didn’t work though.
After that fun we went to cross the park to the other side and there was a show going on in front of the castle that Olivia wanted to stop and watch so I stayed with her while the boys went on to go get Buzz FP’s. The show was almost over so we only saw a few minutes. When it ended Olivia and were about to pee our pants so we went toward Tomorrowland and tried to find and bathroom which took awhile and we saw the boys entering Buzz. After our bathroom break we waited on a bench by the exit of Buzz for them. Some stupid employee came up behind us with this noise maker that makes a loud punching sound and scared the crap out of us. Then he did it right in our faces and well he had picked the wrong woman to mess with today because I was only hanging on to my sanity by a very thin string so I was none too nice to him.
Olivia and I decided to take some self portraits while we were still waiting on the guys and those were lovely! Once they came out I saw that Buzz was out doing autographs and I wanted Owens picture with him because he’s had one on every trip every year that we’ve came here so I made the boys get in line. We continued just sitting there watching them in line and that’s when I started crying (hey it’s my 1st time today so that’s not too bad!) because Owen is getting so big and I remember how he used to just LOVE Buzz and look at him with such excitement and now he doesn’t act like he cares. So sad I might also cry just typing it! Once they finally got to the front of the line I went up and took the pictures.
From here we walked over to the Monsters Inc. show because Olivia wanted to try it we haven’t done it since the 1st year it opened and we weren’t that impressed. As we entered the building the put this large group of people in this holding area which was just a big plain hallway crowded with people and it was warm in there also so I of course started to have another panic attack and this one was SERIOUS I was looking for an exit and thinking that I HAD to get out of there. Luckily Olivia saw the video over our heads on the TV of what the show was about and she said never mind it didn’t look very good so as soon as they opened the doors for us to enter the room for the show we just walked straight on through to the exit.
By now Alan was ready to leave the park but it was only about 6 or so and so we went to Fantasyland and rode the tea cups and went to see Philharmagic again which we love. After that we decided to leave the park Alan had said we could stay and he would go back to the room so that we could see WISHES one last time but my foot hurt and I haven’t had any sleep at all!! I calculated that I had been awake for 36 hours and I really can’t believe I’ve lasted this long!
On our way out of the park we stopped to look at our photo pass pictures but the line was out the door and it was now almost 7pm so we found out we could just order them online so we just went ahead and left.
As we exited the Magic Kingdom tonight I cried pretty hard on my way out because I knew that this was the end of an era. I knew that it was likely the last time that we would ever be here again like this, just me, Alan and our two kids.
We went out to the bus and had to wait for awhile but once we got back to the hotel and to the room the kids took their mugs and arcade tokens and took off. I gave Alan some of the already loaded up suitcases and sent him to the van telling him that I would meet him in the lobby area in just a little bit.
Well it didn’t take me long to finish the packing that I had to do tonight and I went down but I walked over by the van area 1st because he said he was going to clean it out and I thought he might still be there. He wasn’t so I then went in the gift shop where I found him trying to pick out a birthday gift for me to keep until next month. (which by the way when my birthday came around he forgot he had!)
So I walked around and showed him some things I liked and a few things I did NOT like just to be on the safe side! The kids showed up so we went to the food court to wait for Alan to get done shopping and once he showed up we were going to have dinner.
We had only 3 counter service meals left and Olivia was really pissing me off because she wanted a pizza but not an individual she wanted us to use 2 meal credits for a large pizza however no one else wanted pizza and Owen said he wasn’t even hungry. Well boy was she mad that we weren’t using those credits toward a large pizza we kept telling her to just get the individual but that is NOT what she wanted. We finally yelled at her and told her to knock it off and find something else to eat. So now she’s in a very bad mood.
I ordered the chicken parmesan that I had been wanting all week and Alan had the beef and broccoli and Olivia got a chicken cesar salad. We took our food and went to a booth in the room off to the side and Olivia kept getting mad saying that I was kicking her under the table and I was getting mad because she was kicking me under the table and we started bickering and it got very ugly because she was being a total PAIN! Alan got mad and told us both to knock it off which made me mad because I didn’t I needed to be yelled at she was the one who was mad about not getting her way with the pizza!
So once we were done with that awful meal (and the food was good) the kids went to go finish up in the arcade and Alan went to the room and I went up a few minutes later. The kids showed up pretty quickly and I wrote my notes while Owen played with his arcade prizes and Olivia went outside to talk bad about me on the phone. Ha!
At bedtime Alan gave me his bed because it was closest to the door and he thought that might help me and he also took Owen for the night so that I could try and get some sleep then him and the kids went to bed about 11pm.
I ended up having to keep the TV on because for some crazy reason without it on I felt claustrophobic and would start to have another panic attack. So I spent the next 3-4 hours turning the TV off because I would start to fall asleep but then just as I would start to drift off it would start all over again and I’d have to turn it back on! After 3-4 hours of that off and on I ended up just having to sit up awake the rest of the night. My eyes hurt and I was miserable I hadn’t slept in two nights and had no idea what was wrong with me!
The alarm was set for 7am but I made some noise and woke Alan a little before that which is when he found out I hadn’t slept at all. He went to go shower 1st because I couldn’t even begin to think about shutting myself in that tiny bathroom with the door closed. As we were walking around the room this morning we gave each other a look like “we’re never going to make it on this long drive home!” because even though he had slept he was still tired anyway. There really had been little or no relaxing all week long. Olivia made a comment this morning that she was looking forward to sitting on her butt all day!
Once we were all ready about 8am we went down with the last of our stuff to put in the van and then we went to the food court because we still had 8 snack credits left so we each picked out 2 items. We all got something for breakfast and one thing to snack on later except Alan his second item was an energy drink!
It was 8:20am as we were getting in the van and leaving the POP parking lot.
To leave Disney we were going to take our original route that we had came into town on that we’d never entered Orlando on before. Today was the Disney marathon so a lot of roads were closed on site for that and as we drove heading toward offsite some of the roads we were on had just recently been opened back up from the marathon and but hadn’t been cleaned back up yet so there was still a lot of trash and stuff set up alongside the roads. Once we got off Disney property we headed toward our offsite hotel that we had stayed at when we 1st got to Orlando and then we got on the expressway.
JUST as we got onto the expressway David Cook’s song “Time of my Life” came on the radio! What a coincidence so I cried as I sang along to it because Disney World is my favorite place ever but the end of this week was just not what it should have been for me. I was so messed up with no sleep and all the panic attacks I felt a bit robed on this trip.
We continued driving and took a quick bathroom break at 10am. I dozed off and on a little as we drove. Then later around noon we stopped for gas at a gas station that also had a McDonalds attached so I bought Alan and I large sweet teas and I got 2 large orders of fries for us all to share as a snack. The place was busy so I thought the fries would be fresh but they turned out being nasty. Spent $5-$6 on that and used a gas card for gas.
Back on the road and we stopped for lunch at a Chick fila in Macon Georgia and spent between $15-$20 I was too tired to keep track of things like food and gas etc I just know I gave Alan a $20 and he had a little change from it!
I never sleep while Alan drives but today was the exception I dozed off and on all day. I think I slept from lunch until we were almost through Atlanta, which was almost 2 hours! But when I was awake my mind was on not wanting to spend another night in a hotel. I thought that when it happened to me that 1st night that kept me up the entire night that whatever it was had to be a fluke! I couldn’t believe that it could happen again a 2nd night in a row so what was going to keep it from happening again tonight? And I thought for sure that if we could make it home no matter how late that at least I wouldn’t be having this problem at home! Keep in mind that it is Saturday and I was awake all night Friday night and all night Thursday night. I haven’t SLEPT since Wednesday night. I feel like a zombie and my eyes actually really HURT!
Well our reservation for tonight is at the Country inn and Suites in Murfreesboro TN. (not far outside Nashville) And as Tennessee keeps getting closer I am telling Alan that we are making such good time that maybe we should cancel the reservation. He thinks I mean cancel and book somewhere else a little farther down the road. I didn’t tell him that I was thinking cancel and drive HOME.
Oh and we did have to stop at a Walmart in Macon Georgia to get him a 5 hour energy drink because I didn’t want him being drowsy while I was dozed off!
Alan eventually agreed to cancel our hotel 15 minutes before the deadline to cancel. (it was booked with points that we got back by canceling by the deadline) But he kept on talking about where will we stay now and naming off towns and I just said we’ll just deal with that later when we feel like stopping.
At around 6:30 we ended up stopping in Murfreesboro anyway to use the bathroom and so Alan could walk around the TJMaxx and stretch his legs. We also went to a Wendy’s drive up and Alan had a burger and Owen and I just had nuggets no fries for any of us and we got two drinks. Olivia wasn’t hungry.
We just kept on driving and at around 9:30 we stopped again this time at a Taco Bell to use the bathroom and Olivia was now hungry. Owen didn’t want anything but Alan and I got something small and we were back on the road after stretching our legs for awhile at 10pm. Alan has decided that we may be able to go all the way home! He knows how badly I don’t want another hotel room.
After this stop is when I told Owen that he had to shut off the movies and we are going to try and drive all the way home but that he has to now try to get some sleep! He’s been awake all day no naps at all. So he shut it all down and passed out in about 5 minutes.
Olivia slept off and on between texting and we finally got home at 1am. And Olivia wanted to go out for the evening to a party! And we said NO!
Alan and Owen went right to bed but Olivia and I sat up and watched something on her laptop. Our computer and TV were still all shut down and unhooked so I wasn’t about to ask Alan to fix that!
I was still “moving” from being in the riding car all day as I sat there still on the couch it felt like I was still bobbing along on the highway! I was also still claustrophobic and having panic attacks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There is no way to describe how mad this made me! I was sure that whatever it was would go away once I was HOME!
Olivia finally went to bed at 2 and I went to bed and tried but the panic attacks just kept coming I was even having them just sitting in the living room! I finally ended up on the couch but only slept a little! (this went on for about 6 more weeks!!)
The End!
Final Thoughts:
I wanted to add this because I didn’t want to end on such a bad vibe!
I did have a terrible time at the end of this trip, but thankfully I am now cured of all those things! I haven’t had a panic attack or a sleepless night in close to a year!
But we did have some fun on this trip. It’s funny because the kids don’t remember any of the bad stuff at all. Once I reminded them of the fight on the way to Gatorland or the drama getting lost at the end of the stunt show because of the wheelchair or my panic attacks and inability to sleep on this trip then they remembered it but thankfully it’s not what comes to mind when they think of this trip.
We all enjoyed Gatorland, and the guys loved shopping and finding all that Jaguars stuff, we enjoyed riding all the rides we were able to! And we did get to ride everything it’s just that we are so used to low crowds and being able to do rides over and over and that just wasn’t possible on this trip. We also enjoyed our bonus free day at the water park, the kids always enjoy the arcade time in the evenings especially because I think they like being able to go do something just the two of them without us! And we all had a lot of fun on New Year’s Eve! That was something totally different!
We did have some very bad sit down meals on this trip it seemed like if the food wasn’t bad then the people we were sat beside were terrible! And at Disney the tables are so close together that it really does affect the meal. But there weren’t very many good meals on this trip which was a bummer. We also spent a lot of time traveling between parks and working our schedule to fit in our sit down meals. That is something we always do but I think when it’s a slow time of year it’s not a problem but with the crowds and the lines plus a lot of travel time to and from for dinners it just got to be a pain.
And there was never ANY time on this trip to just relax! We took very little time at Disney to lay by the pool and we spent a lot of days from very early to very late without taking a break during the afternoon. In the end I think it caught up with us because they were all exhausted too. I think Alan’s grumpiness was due to him being tired. In the past we have had long and full days but a lot of times we put a shorter or slower day in between that. But we had to go go go just to keep up with the crowds! At least we had GREAT weather! Especially because the week before we arrived Florida was in a deep freeze! But the weather while we were there was very good and it was good for the drive down and back too. But I miss flying!