DH and DD have been deliberately avoiding getting involved with the planning so they can be surprised. I informed DH this morning that he had to make sure he could login into his MDE Account on his phone in case we need to use both at 7am. So, while he was there he looked at some of the ads/photos. He said one was of the 25th anniversary castle that looked like a birthday cake. He was aghast at how ugly it looked. “Like a herd of Unicorns flew over and pooped all over it.” I had to laugh.
OMG this was very close to what my DH said but it was something along the lines of unicorns farting rainbows or some nonsense.
I think we can all agree that Unicorn poop/rainbow farts would be very colorful in bright pastels.
The Germans have a completely different perspective on unicorns. The German Headquarters wanted to name a new machine “The Unicorn.” They asked me what I thought of that idea and I said, “Only if your target audience is 11-year-old girls.” They were a bit taken aback and said that is precisely what (my boss) had said. They thought of unicorns as manly.
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Does anyone have that spreadsheet with the reported actual opening times? I saw it once and downloaded it and then lost it.
I think it had when the parking lot opened also?
During the trip, I typed a trip report into a blog about my daughter. I missed a couple of days. In case anyone is interested, I’ll strip the names and post what I have here.
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ARRIVAL DAY
We arrived earlier than I’d expected because I’d forgotten about the time change. My plan had been for us to lounge by the pool while waiting for our room to be ready. My thought was even on a too-cold-to-swim day, that the sun would warm us up by the pool. But, it was right around freezing, so that didn’t work. We napped in the car until our Topollino’s reservation. DD wore her Yoda ears mainly to hide the major-league bedhead from sleeping in the car.
We walked in and some people were glaring at us. Then I realized we left the masks in the car. I’d remembered to bring all of them on the trip and even gave them a thorough clean. But, I hadn’t worn one for 10 months since we were at Universal. So, we’d left them in the car. They gave us disposable ones to wear.
The meal was amazing! Our waiter was great, manager stopped by to chat. DD loved having steak for breakfast. DH wished I’d made the reservation for a week later when he was more awake to enjoy it.
We then went to our room. The cleaning lady was just wrapping up. But, we just piled all our stuff by the elevator. DD guarded our stuff while playing on her tablet.
We were exhausted and just slept and ate leftovers from Cracker Barrel and Toppolino’s.
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FIRST DAY IN THE PARKS
First day at parks. We were all incredibly excited. I was practically jumping in the seat. Of course we went to Magic Kingdom first. I’d warned the family that we would be leaving around lunch to rest. DH had seen the graph I’d left up on the computer that showed the wait times at park close, so he was fine with that, which meant DD was too. The graph was for FOP and it showed a wait time of 5 minutes at Park Close and a long wait earlier. He said, “We need to get in the line at open or close.” I smiled to myself and said, “Yes. Yes we will.”
I’d gotten a 9:32am Peter Pan G+ reservation, which I was very proud of. Plan was to do Seven Dwarves at early entry, then Peter Pan getting a reservation at HS for the afternoon, then doing Winnie the Pooh. Best laid plans … We gawked down Main Street like the noobs we are. So the line for Seven Dwarfs was already long, AND it was down. But, we wanted to stay in the area, so we did Teacups as a family. I had my thigh thoroughly pressed against the wheel to slow it down and it was still a tad fast. Then we did the Carousel. I was a little embarrassed that is what we were doing during early entry, but we were happy. Then Peter Pan was down too! So we did the Small World. I loved it. Then we did the TomorrowLand Speedway. I rode by myself and was before them. I did a two-handed Small World dance while driving so I was all over the place, but I had fun. DD kept trying to bump me from behind, but even though I wasn’t paying attention, just as they were about to bump me I’d speed up. Then we did Astro Orbiters manly because we were in the area and wanted to do everything. Then on our way out Peter Pan was back up, so we did that. Reminded us of ET at Universal.
We had a nice rest in the room. I’d had reservations for Millenium Falcon then Toy Story Mania then Star Tours lined up. It took us too long to get to Millenium Falcon, so we were able to do that, but we missed Toy Story Mania. But, it is hard to get Star Wars nuts to hurry through that area. We had an amazing time on that ride! We rode with a couple that piloted and had ridden once before. They said the first time they didn’t get any money, so were pleased we got something. DH and I were gunners. That was nice because you could just constantly push the buttons. DD was Engineer. We ended up as Marauder.
Then we went to Star Tours. We loved that too. I forget what we did after that.
She wore her Jedi Robe and Yoda ears. She got frequent compliments. We learned later that she kept count and it was 41 that afternoon. We were at HS for 4 hours.
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DRIVING DAY
I see I’d done a post for our driving day, so I’ll put that here.
DH and DD have both been a little sick. They are mostly recovered, but lots of rest is a good thing. So I let them both sleep. I worked Friday morning. We’d had the car mostly packed Thursday night. We left a bit after noon. We had a nice drive. We finished off the We Bought A Zoo audiobook. Then we started on the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series. We had been waiting until she was old enough to get the humor. My favorite part of the drive was when I was driving and DD was laughing on the backseat and DH laughed so hard he said he hurt. I don’t think I finished the series and I barely remembered the first one, so it is all new to me. I’ve picked some awesome audiobooks for our driving vacations so their expectations are high. It was this perfect choice for this geek family.
Driving at night is so much better than during the day. Around 10pm all the semis were in rest stops and there was hardly any traffic.
We did the Mississippi chant as we crossed the river.
Normally we just eat gas station food on the way, but DD nicely asked for someplace with mashed potatoes and Mac and cheese. We saw a Cracker Barrel sign so we went there. We normally avoid chains but it is nice sometimes to be in a strange location and know what you are getting. I guess that is why Chains exist.
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Enjoying your report!!
I have a friend who eats only at chains, even around home. He used to be on a travel basketball team in Germany. I think that’s where he gets it from - it was a comforting thing to know the food would be similar. I keep trying to get him to go to some mom and pop places not far from home. So far, no go! And I think he and his family would love them.
Coincidentally, Cracker Barrel isn’t common close to my house, so we usually eat at one at least once, if not a few times, on our trips to Florida since we also drive.
Enjoying your report!
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