Wednesday October 17, 2007:
We went to the Magic Kingdom. Before that though the kids chowed down on the breakfast at the hotel. We stayed at Embassy Suites, and they have the biggest free breakfast I’ve seen at any hotel we’ve stayed at. It’s not just the pastry’s and cold cereal and bagels and toast… they have a cook there that makes individual custom omlets, or scrambled eggs, or fried eggs… however you want it… they also have pancakes, french toast, sausage, bacon, fruit. They have chocolate milk (our kids favorite of course), milk, orange juice, cranberry juice, apple juice, all of the soda’s, coffee (not that we had it… just saying they had it). Alex was just thirlled and filled up on donuts and bagels and toast and muffins. I enjoyed the eggs and hashbrowns for breakfast- it really filled me up and was a great start for the day.
Then we drove over to the Magic Kingdom. Of course the very first ride we went on had to be Dumbo. All of the kids love the Dumbo ride and they couldn’t wait to ride it again (they rode it out at Disneyland last summer {2006}). After that we hit most of the little kid rides: Peter Pan, Pooh Bear, Tea Cups, It’s a small world. Then we headed over to Splash Mountain. This is what I love about Disney- Splash Mountain is a ride that you have to be a certain height to ride on. Instead of leaving young kids and parents that are with the young kids out just looking at the flowers while they wait for those riding on the ride- they have stuff for little kids to do. They have this great little play area for little kids right near Splash Mountain that totally is themed with the ride and everything. So, Angela and Alyssa and I stayed there and played while Rich and Alex and Ashley went on the ride. They also have the child swap program, so when they got off of the ride, I could go on the ride with up to two other people and not have to stand in the long line… just the much shorter fast pass return line.
So after we all went on Splash Mountain (Alex and Ashley got to go twice- once with Rich and once with me) we went and saw the Enchanted Tiki Room. Now this was no longer the “In the tiki tiki tiki tiki tiki room” show that we’ve all seen in the past. It was new and “improved”… it was cute, but I think I actually like the older version better. The kids seemed to like it though and that’s all that really counts right? After that it was lunch time. This was vacation so the kids had icecream cones for their lunch. Rich and I had a raspberry lemonade slush thing that was very sweet, but nice and cold and definitly a treat in the hot weather we had that day.
After our “lunch” we went over and rode Aladin’s Magic Carpets. Alex was not happy about having to “share” the controls on the ride, so in the pictures there’s a great one of his grumpy face. Fortunately he kept it to a grumpy face and didn’t really have too big of a meltdown complaining about it. Then we went on the Haunted Mansion ride. We weren’t sure how Alyssa would react to it, we had just barely talked Alex into riding it last time we were at Disneyland, and Alyssa is similar to Alex and doesn’t like the dark rides- but she agreed to go on it. She sat through most of the ride very ridgid and quiet, but at the end she said she liked it and laughed at the “ghost” riding in the buggy with her and Daddy and Ashley. After that we hiked up and through and down the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse, and then we went over to see Tom Sawyers Island.
When we came back over from the island the parade was going on so we watched some of it and then went to check out the new “Stich’s Great Escape” ride (Alex was just dieing to go on this ride- it didn’t show up in the “touring plans” that Rich had downloaded, and he was so concerned that we wouldn’t be able to fit it into the schedule). I stayed out with Alyssa and Angela while they went on it, and Rich wasn’t really impressed with it- so I didn’t bother with using the child swap to go on it.
Oh perhaps the biggest thing that we did that day- we didn’t have any strollers. It was okay for the first half of the day, but by the second half of the day Alyssa (not Angela, but Alyssa) was not happy and was wanting to be carried everywhere. We left the Magic Kingdom to take the monorail over to the “Grand Floridian” where we had dinner reservations, and Rich and Alex and Ashley had walked ahead of me and I was back with Alyssa and Angela. I almost got stuck behind with them because they BOTH wanted me to hold them and carry them- along with the backpack that I had at the time on my back. I did finally pick them both up and carry them for a while until Rich looked back and saw what was holding us up and he came back and got Alyssa… but we decided then that we would do the stroller rentals for the other days!
For dinner we went to 1900 Park Fare at the Grand Floridian. It is also titled “Cinderella’s Gala Feast”. It’s a buffet, and they even have a “kids buffet” section with kid favorites like mac and cheese, plain noodles, chicken nuggets, corn, french fries, etc… that are on a lower buffet so kids can walk up to it, see it and older kids (Alex and Ashley’s age) can easily reach and dish up their own plates. The rest of the buffet menu was really good and I was pleased with the selection. It all tasted wonderful, but really who are we kidding… we went there for the character interactions- not the food. Lol! Cinderella, Prince Charming, Anastasia, Drizella, and the Step Mother come out and go around to every single table. They sign autographs, take pictures, and talk and dance with all the kids that want to interact with them.
Our kids are on the shy side, so they didn’t really interact much- Ashley was the only one that would get up and pose for pictures with them, but they all loved watching the characters from a distance and the experience was worth it for our girls. (Of course Alex was not thrilled about it, but he got to have as much chocolate milk as he wanted and mac and cheese, so he was satisfied as long as we left him alone away from the characters).
After dinner we took the monorail back to the parking lot and went to our car and drove back to the hotel. It was an early dinner, so we still had some time before bedtime and we decided to go and try out the hotels pool. Alex and Ashley wore Rich out climbing all over him in the pool, and Alyssa and Angela had fun in the kiddy pool… they’ve never experienced a kiddie pool before that they can stand in and just play without mommy holding them. Then when we were sufficiently tired out we went upstairs and let the kids fall asleep watching tv… they only lasted about 10-30 minutes.
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