LIVE- Kanga and Roo's Absolutely Memorable Holiday- A Mother/ Son Trip Report- NOW FEATURING a special guest- TIGGER!

Walt Disney World Trip Reports
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~ “You can’t stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”

And so I did.

Life keeps me busy. I turned around and my mini-me flesh and blood turned 25.
He is the quiet child, content to solitude just doing his own thing. He doesn’t ask for much and likes to be with his thoughts. He kinda a lot like me.
We live 15 minutes from each other and I only see him maybe 10 times a year. And that’s when I invite him to dinner AND he doesn’t cancel on me to go training. Fitness is his life. But I miss him.

So on Mother’s Day, one of those days when it’s hard to say no to mom, I invited him to Disney for Memorial Day. I already had things booked. I mentioned all the things that have changed since he had been there last. It’s been at least 8 years. He really sounded, dare I say, interested!

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(I know this is Universal- he wouldn’t smile at WDW. All I got was this…)
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So now I’m rearranging all the plans! Normally this last minute change would have my anxiety through the roof. But I’m a liner. And I will not disappoint my boy! I’m super excited. I miss him so much. I can’t wait to have some quality one-on-one time with him. I have to learn to reach out more. I can lose track of time easily. Updated!- DH is now joining in on the fun

So here is the plan:
Updated!- Saturday will now be HS day with Sunday EP morning, midday break and MK evening and Monday still an AK morning with a midday break and an EP evening
Saturday AM we touch down at MCO 10:15am. I need to see if we can ride share from Terminal C. I’ve heard you can but I always seem to have to go to Terminal B.
We are staying at POP. I waffled about saving $145 and staying at Music. But I have reasoned that I would use lyft 2 nights and twice on our last day if I don’t have skyliner access. So I’m saving money by staying at POP.
That afternoon we will go to MK. I will try to VQ and ILL Tron and maybe ILL 7DMT. We will skip much of fantasyland, except for Philharmagic. I wish Tiana’s would be open by then but that’s for me. I don’t think DS would care about this one way or the other. We both like Hall of Presidents and Adventureland.
Sunday we will start at Epcot- GotG of course. Will VQ and ILL. There might be a GotG liner train takeover discussed in the Liners of the World May 2024 thread. Have to check on that. But I will use G+ to stack for HS evening. Most of the things there will be new for Tyler (that’s DS25). I think we need to spend a lot of time in GE. I would like to do Fantasmic but will leave that up to him. He may want to do other things. ILL for RotR of course.
Monday we will start in Animal Kingdom. If we are up early enough to RD we will go to FoP first. If not, I will ILL. But the queue is very cool. Dino is also something that Tyler will like to see, one last time :frowning_face: DS at the very young age of 5 wanted to be a paleontologist. He knew what it meant. He could name many dinosaurs and tell you about them. Tyler has always been a very good reader and retains info well. At 4 and 5 he was reading books about dinosaurs meant for much older kids. Dinoland holds a near and dear place in our hearts.
After it gets too hot in AK we will head to Epcot for some food booths and some of the rides. I’m sure we will skip FEA, MS, The Seas and maybe 3 cabs- maybe. We both love this pavillion though.
Also, DS can consume some calories so… Food Booth Buddy! I just have to make sure he leaves a bite left for me, lol.
Tuesday we leave to come back home. I’m running low on PTO, lol. If we get up early enough we may play some mini golf or eat brunch at Trattorias. Our flight departs at 2:30pm.

I hope the heat doesn’t bother DS. I need to jump on Amazon and order some last minute things. DH gets to stay home and animal sit. Updated! Now DH gets to manage arrangements for the animals

DS and I have very similar interests so this trip should be fun! We are so much a like and just understand one another. So much so that we are not allowed to be on the same team in family games like Taboo or Family Game Night, lol. And even though DS is now an adult, he will still be my little man. Maybe I can get him to smile for at least one new picture.

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~ “We’ll be friends forever, won’t we, Pooh?” asked Piglet. “Even longer,” Pooh answered.

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So fun! Bro is ripped!!!

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He’s a strentgh training coach. He works out way too much lol. But it makes him happy.

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Yay! Se happy for you!

Well done. I like your strategy :clap:

Exactly! You got this! :muscle:

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Yes, ride share pickup is on Level 6.

It’s good you are staying at Pop, since the Skyliners are a new thing your son has not done.

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He may not like the Skyliner. It’s a wildcard. I like it surprisingly to me. But if it’s an issue, we’ll Lyft- no worries. The only time we stayed at Pop we were way in left field and generally drove everywhere, barely going to the main hall.

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Well, this is the child that would tell me no, even on Mother’s Day, if he felt strongly about it, lol. So I don’t feel too bad.
The only thing that’s a must do for me is Dino, GotG and food booths. Everything else is laignappe. So I will have a plan but also let DS decide if we need to pivot.
DS has also had mild sensory issues at Disney. I do think it was side effects of medication he no longer takes but he can get over stimulated. So I’ll have to keep an eye out. I know the signs.

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Good intel! Thank you. This should save time. Not that we are in a rush. Now I wonder if DS would like to take the “first ride of the trip” at MCO. :thinking:
He hasn’t flown in many years.

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This looks like fun!! Maybe I should do this with mine🤔

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This is the MCO site. You can find maps on it under “Getting Around MCO.”

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Definitely can, just did it last month. I had to put terminal C in the location search, I think, in order for that option to come up. They asked which door but from what I could tell they are literally feet apart from each other.

Then just follow the signs to ride share, I know it was up an escalator

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I hope you have a wonderful trip! Your plans sound really good and looks like you’re going to try and hit all the things you guys like. Sometimes you don’t realize how much time passes with work and day to day life stuff so enjoy your quality time together!!

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I’m so happy for you!!!

That’s not enough !!!

So !!!

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In a surprising- but not really surprising- turn of events… DH wants to come. :joy:
So now I need to add a character to my trip report.
Is he a Tigger? Hopefully not an Eeyore. Definitely not a Pooh!

So now I have too see how this works out with the plans. I think DS and I will still get our one on one time as I don’t expect DH to be able to “go” as much as we do. And DS will do some rides with me (multiple times) that DH just can’t.

DH is having a rough time. He’s been working a lot and I saw that he was sad about me going away. It was causing him a little anxiety. Maybe Disney is becoming his happy place too! :smiling_face:

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Maybe DH doing his thing sometimes while you do yours, without you both feeling pressured to do everything together can be the happiest place.

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He gets separation anxiety. So far I have only been successful with a 2 night trip to visit my sister and nephews. We are working on it. And I really hope he can relax and not feel pressured to do everything DS and I do. I might leave him in some of the bars, lol.
I wish he had more of a his thing. But that is going out on the boat. And that’s kinda my thing too, lol. He doesn’t even like to hang out with his friends for long without me. He either gets me to come over or comes back home kinda early.
This is something that we really hadn’t noticed until the kids were all out of the house a few years ago.

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My dad was kinda the same way. One of his favorite things was slot machines, and he and my mom would go to the Detroit casinos 2-3 times a week until covid… then my mom stayed up at the cabin up north and just never came back, and he’d still be down here Mon-Thu for work but he only went to the casino twice, when I went with him. Instead he’d wait until the weekend and they’d go to one of the ones up north. It’s not like they even stayed together once they got there, even… my mom would just come back to where he was for more money! :rofl:

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Oh, definitely the same as us :joy::joy: I have my favorite slot. If it’s not available I don’t play. Somehow DH always wins enough to make up for my loss. But I’m also losing his spending money- not mine :grin:

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That was my dad for sure, and it never changed, to the point that I knew where to find him in pretty much any casino on the eastern side of MI! My mom plays the video horse racing, and when she was still down here and they were going all the time she had horse racing cronies, like it was the neighborhood bar! :rofl:

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So here’s my delima. Originally I was thinking our arrival day be an MK day. DH and DS are using 2 after 1pm confrence tix I had. Not that we have to get there that early. I was thinking we would hang out at Pop pool till about 2pm and hope our room would be ready to change and then leave go to a park around 3:30.
Our next 2 days the boys are on 2 day PH tix (I’m AP). Originally, our second evening I was planning to park hop to HS around 4:30 from Epcot.

I’m thinking of switching that around- HS the evening of our arrival day and an MK PH our second day.

  1. That gives us just a little more time at HS. MK is really for a couple show attractions, Tron, Pirates and BTMR.
  2. We will Skyline to HS either way but if I switch the evenings around we could nix a bus trip in favor of a monorail trip from Epcot.
  3. Also, I would like to see Fantasmic. We can skip the fireworks at MK if need be. DS and I aren’t keen on the loud pops anyway. If we have a long day at Epcot, that evening we may not stay around to watch Fantasmic. That’s what happened to DH and I on the last trip.
    Thoughts?
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