March 10, 2009 End of Disney

I was vigilant about blogging every day but as the end of our trip neared and the stomach bug that effected my lower body took hold, I lost my resolve. Dan and I did indeed spend most of Thursday at the pool after making a stop at the comfort station to wash all the laundry we took with us to the ghetto hotel, and ourselves as to not infect our hosts or tent with any unknown and/or unpleasant stowaways. Emmy contracted the stomach bug as well, and brought our disney park hopping to a stand still. Emmy spent most of Friday night and Saturday morning throwing up. We did manage to squeeze in a evening boat ride into Magic Kingdom to see the Spectromagic parade, the fireworks and tinkerbells flight from the ice cream shop right on Main Street, one of the most coveted spots. Dan loved them and Em and I took some pretty good pictures. We attempted to go into Downtown Disney on Monday morning but just as we were getting ready to board the bus, the stomach bug hit Dan as well and instead he and I went back to camp, while Mom and Em went to picked him up some legos for the plane ride home with the Disney dollars Susie gave him for Christmas.

Tuesday morning came too soon and at 7am we were riding in the back of Mo's truck down to the Outpost to check out bags, get our boarding passes and ride the magic express back to MCO. It was an uneventful ride and a quiet wait at the airport until our flight was called. Mike met us at Logan shortly after 2pm and before we knew it we were home. We had a great trip, spent too much of it under the weather, but hey, it's Florida and it was warm....I can't complain. In the end we spent two days in each park. More then enough really, it's not like Disney is going anywhere and if we'd done everything, there wouldn't be any reason to return.

March 4, 2009 Disney Day 9

Quite a luxury tonight, our ghetto hotel has come a long way since we got here (3 days ago) and they now provide WiFi to the rooms, so hurray, I'm blogging from my bed, my absolutely favorite place to blog from.


The kids and I were excited to first see our favorite shuttle bus driver Giovanni this morning and second to see our favorite Spanish family climb aboard. Dan and Alejandro commenced their lingual lessons, this time colors and us Mom's kept them busy for most of the ride. We parted ways, they were going to Hollywood Studios, we were going back to Epcot. We arrived shortly before 10am, and called Mom on our way to Soarin and found out she was already there. We each got a fast pass then hurried into the 30 minute line for the first of two rides of the day. Dan was thrilled to do it again and even more excited to share it with Emily now that she was nervous and he was a pro. Em thought it was great and we departed for the Seas to see Nemo and Crush. On our way out we spied Mom and Fran doing what they do best....eating. Caught in our sights they joined us for undersea adventure, Fran positioned Dan right in front at Turtle talk and Danny was thrilled when Crush picked him to talk to...video down below. We then went back to Soarin to use our fast passes before we said goodbye. We ate at the land and road the agriculture ride per Emily's request. Then started the long trek around the worlds. Our hotel "concierge" Sherry recommended we see Off Kilter so that was our only agenda. We browsed Canada, sat for a very funny show in the UK, and watched a movie in France that had a wrap around screen very much like Soarin but with technology 20 years in the past. It was still great and the scenery amazing. We walked into Morocco where Dan saw Genie and actually wanted to stand in line to have his picture taken. Since it was approaching 3:30 we chose the boat as our transportation back to Off Kilter in Canada. Sherry was right, we weren't disappointed. With the day mostly done we decided Space ship Earth would be the last ride. It's come a long way since I was there in 95 and we all had a good time, especially afterwards powering a city and building a body. Back on the monorail and the big blue bus home. Dominos pizza for dinner, and most of the packing done for our move back to the campground tomorrow. Glad we've designated tomorrow as an off day, we've been very busy and since the temperature is steadily climbing we're hoping for some pool time!

March 3, 2009 Disney Day 8

Another slow morning and other then the fact that Emily has been bitten by what we think might be bed bugs and after a hasty change of bed linens at 8 o'clock last night the kids settled in for the night. I awoke at 6:30, took another hot bath and although the bathroom has several cracks, crevices and other various holes to allow critters to come wandering in, I've yet to see any. Emily now refers to our abode as the ghetto hotel. On the upside, it was only a meer week ago that she didn't want to sleep in a tent, now she can't wait to get back to it, my how things change given a little perspective. We decided we'd spend day 8 back at MGM, Danny thought he wanted to learn how to be a Jedi until he saw the show and realized Darth Vader was involved, at which time he decided maybe he didn't. We went right to the toy story ride, got three fast passes for later on and then stood in the 30 minute line for the ride. It moved quickly and Em and Dan had a good time riding it together. Emily had a run in with a silent but persistant green Army man as we made our way over to the Power Rangers and the Honey, I shrunk the kids playground, which Dan really liked, except for the enormous sniffing dog nose. We decided to grab a bite of lunch since the little debbie breakfast snacks at the hotel only held their charm the first day. I had the Asian salad, Dan the chicken nuggets and Emmy a cheeseburger at the commissary. Mom met us there, where she and Em decided they wanted to see American Idol. Dan and I unsure but optimistic about Rockin Rollercoaster took all the passes over there to get a fast pass then, went in search of the Incredibles, and Danny's new tattoo, he picked at squid daggar. We found Freeze guy and took a picture. Dan was also happy to see Handy Manny and gave him a mighty karate chop, don't think Handy Manny saw it coming! We met Mom and Em back under the hat for the High School Musical parade. Dan wanted to see Lights, Motors, Action a stunt show, and Indiana Jones again and since Mom had seen them both headed for Rockin Rollercoaster then back to the campground. Dan was too short for it anyway and without Mom as motivation Em and I quickly decided to hand our fastpasses off to some friends we met at the block party parade at 3pm.

The stunt show was amazing and Dan had a blast, we made it over to Indiana Jones just in time to see the beginning and I think Dan was glad that Em was there to see it to. We enjoyed a leisurely bucket of popcorn before the toy story block party which was fun, then wrapped the day up with the our fast pass toy story ride and the Little Mermaid show which was cute. Back to ticket and transportation, and the big blue bus ride back to Knights inn, which I driver forgot and drove right past. Thankfully we've made some friends from Spain, who have a little boy Alejandro who only speaks spanish. Dan and he have started trying to talk to one another, with his mother and I translating and teaching the boys the other language. It was really pretty remarkable to see Danny speaking Spanish and Alejandro speaking English. Another night wrapped up and since I'd drank my one a night quota of mini wine bottles spied a liquor store within walking distance. Took the kids orders for dinner, placed it then picked up my new supply. Dinner was good, we were all exausted and I'm sure asleep before 9pm. Dan and I are still battling Em's cold and hope it lets up soon!

March 2, 2009 Disney Day 7

We started off the morning quietly. I enjoyed a nice hot bath, the kids slept in. We eventually made our way to the lobby for some breakfast and then caught the shuttle to the Ticket and Transportation center for our connection to Animal Kingdom. We'd decided during the morning that we would buy a ticket for Emily and with a 5 day costing only $7 more then a 3 day bit the bullet and ordered one up. We immediately headed for Dino land where Dan had fun playing at the playground, then found a dinosaur version of the Aladdin's carpets and Em agreed to accompany Danny on it. Mom met us there shortly after and with a ride on Dinosaur and the Nemo show in our sights decided to get a fast pass for Dinosaur then get seats for the Nemo show. Nemo was great, Dan was nervous during the shark part but had fun during the rest of it. It was nearing lunch time so we decided to head to the camper for lunch. Em made some chicken salad, I had a tomato, avocado, onion and boiled egg salad, and Dan had Mac and cheese and applesauce. Mom had a huge chocolate covered rice crispy treat...oh, the example she sets!!! LOL. With bellies full we went back to animal kingdom. First on the list was the Dinosaur ride we didn't make it to earlier, Dan was nervous but had a great time, then a speed run over to the Mickey/Minnie camp got us to the Lion King show just in time. We had top row in the Lion section. Dan loved it. Next we headed North to the safari which was amazing in the late afternoon sun. We made the slow trek back to the gates past the anteater which Dan had been wanting me to see all day. He was taking a nap but a handler was gently trying to coax him into thinking he was hungry. We said goodbye to Mom and went back to Ticket and transportation for the ride back to the hotel. On the way we saw a car that had apparently missed a turn and gone right over an embankment and into a pond. Very exciting stuff. I took the kids to the room and went back over to the Perkins restaurant that's in front of our hotel for a salmon Caesar salad for me and burgers with fries for the kids. We watched Monday night shows while Dan watched Brer Rabbit on my laptop...I'm getting soft, laptop for kid entertainment...sometimes it's gotta be done....

March 1, 2009 Disney Day 6

We woke up this morning to clear skys and warm humid weather. Our low temp overnight was only 60 and even though the weather reports predicted rain and cold, I somehow found it hard to believe. Dan and I optistically took our ration of ibuprophen/acetominiphen and headed for the bus stop going to Epcot. We made it there with only the occasional bus wait and excitedly took the necessary pictures in front of the "big ball" With Soarin as our primary goal we quickly made our way to the land, and stood in the relatively short 20 minutes line. Soarin was AMAZING, neither Dan nor I was sure if we'd like it but both agreed it was unbelieveable. We walked out after that and the weather had changed dramatically, it'd gone from being a little drizzly to down pouring and the temperature had dropped at least 10 degrees. We went the the Living sea next and rode the Nemo ride, which Dan really liked then went to visit Crush at Turtle talk which was lots of fun.

We tried to go into the charecture spot so Dan could see Mickey but the line was just too long so with a few things done, cold and wet we headed back to the camper. The sky's cleared just as we were arriving back at Fort Wildreness and with the new realization that Florida can indeed get cold I checked availablility and prices with the conceirge at some of the value hotels for the next few nights since temps were forcasted to get down into the 30's and the cold that Dan and I have is showing no signs of letting up. With the lowest price of $150 a night we went back to the camper, grabbed the laptop and went over to Meadow Trading post. Logged onto the Knights Inn, which I had scoped out prior to the trip, made a phone call and within minutes were booked Sunday through Wednesday nights. A Lynx bus from Ticket and Transportation would take us to and from. Perfect. Broke the news to Mom and Mo who I think were probably relieved in a sense considering I'm quite sure the idea of 5 of us crammed into their little camper passing germs around didn't sound like much fun to them. Dan and I took a walk to hunt alligators while Em and Mom went to see the movie Push at Downtown Disney. We were pretty excited when we found three of them, tiny as they were...I was a little lesss nervous about Dan playing by the creek. Em and Mom returned and the kids and I made our way over to Magic Kingdom, climbed aboard the monorail to ticket and transportation and found our bus which magically took us right where we needed to be. Love it when that happens. The first room we were in blew only cold air from it's heater but we contacted the front desk and we were quickly moved to another room. We settled in, the kids watched TV while we waited for Chinese food to arrive. I guess we let the room temp get up to a comfortable 80 or so degrees before we turned it down. Emmy's cheeks were a lovely shade of pink.

Home sweet Home!