Thanks so much for sharing - I hope you graduated into some type of health care services field - you are one compassionate person and a perfect example for all children who have elderly parents. I look forward to more updates and hope your trip got even better.
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ehhh fraid not, no…just an art degree.
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Wow, what a great start! So happy you could pull this together for you and your mom!
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Fixed that for you 
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Great report so far. Looking forward to more.
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Teaching certification too?
oh - my son’s GF has an art degree
ummm . . . and now she has a surgical nursing degree too 
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Please keep on writing your report. You are awesome!
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Hahah dunno about THAT… but it’s definitely better than nothing.
No? Should I have been seeking that?
Ohhh don’t you worry, this will be completed. Like @Jedilogray noted, I like having these records for myself as well. I’ve often had Siri read back my 2016 report (where I get to discover ALLLL my grammatical errors over and over lol) Though I’ll likely get shorter and shorter in the posting length (to y’know, where a post fits in ONE post instead of several) 
As always, thanks to YOU who read this. While I certainly enjoy writing them, the fact that others enjoy reading makes it all the better. 
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Love this report! 
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I love your first day! I can’t wait to hear about the rest! You are a wonderful son. I can only hope my DS grows up to be half of what you are…we’ll maybe a bit more. You rock and your mom raised you well!
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I love your mother, too. She seems so brave and adverturous under the circumstances. And I love it that you look so much like her.
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Really? That’s actually the first I’ve ever heard that. Now, my brother looks like her clone, but I am always more associated with my dad.
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I think there is a resemblance. My boys look like their dad, but people who only know me think they look like me. I guess you see what you are looking for.
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Day 2 - Boma, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios
The next morning starts around 6:30AM and mom is already up when I wake, but doesn’t want to get out of bed. It takes a bit of effort and time, but we are dressed and headed over to the MK Bus Lot for our 9AM Boma breakfast. The weather is warm and cloudy, but no rain so it’s quite comfortable. I’ll definitely take it.
We reach the Bus Lot and I was hoping it’d be a repeat of last time where a traffic controller radios for a bus for us, but it looks like that isn’t going to happen exactly as it did last time. Instead, we wander over to the Animal Kingdom Lodge bus area without interaction with anyone and await a AKL bus.
After only a few minute wait, one comes around, but upon getting ready to enter it, we’re told it’s not the right one as it’s a Kindi house one and we need to board a Jambo house bus. In my mind, I’m thinking “no big, I can just walk us over.” But there ended up being no need to voice that thought as there was a Jambo House bus coming in right behind this one. Upon noticing this, the driver made a point to flag it down to make sure we could board.
Giving him our thanks, he drives off and the Jambo House bus replaces it. Once the bus comes to a stop, we board and it’s a few more minutes before we leave because this particular cast member is being trained and his trainer just went to use the restroom. While we wait, we situate ourselves on the the bus and go over today’s plan of events.
By the time we’re done, the trainer has returned and we’re off. The ride is fairly uneventful, and I’m just enjoying being back. As we drive, the weather improves and is now looking marvelous as the sun has fully come out and I can’t wait to get back to AKL and show my mom around.
As we near AKL, I point out the tops of Pandora to mom, which was an exercise in complete futility as it had all the impact of saying “look, a Ford Taurus!” Mom has never seen the movie and definitely isn’t a sci-fi geek. I personally hated the movie, but I’m holding reservations on the land until I see it in person.
Finally, we arrive and pull up to the bus stop. A fairly large crowd was at the stop waiting to board. As what would become the norm, they try to board as soon as the bus came to a stop, but the driver informs them they need to let my mom off first, and then they can board. Nodding, they all take a step back and we begin to unload. Just before we are offloaded, outside a cast member is admonishing some kids who were running around the stop. “Walk please! Walk! Don’t Kylo RUN… Luke SkyWALK.” It got a few laughs from the crowd and a grin out of me.
Ahhh It’s good to be back in the land of hoke.
Once mom is unloaded, I thank the drivers and it’s off to the lobby of AKL. As we near, I notice the doors a bit different than I remember. Before it was tinted glass, now it was a decoration to make it look like stone(or wood, I couldn’t quite tell). As we enter, I am, once again, taken aback by the lobby. So incredibly impressive.
I check my watch and we have a few minutes before breakfast, not as early as I would like but not so close that we don’t have time to do a little exploring. I want to show mom around the lobby, so I walk her through the exhibits scattered throughout. She finds them mildly interesting, but hardly entertaining. We make our way to the rear to where there’s stairs that lead outside and I immediately realize getting outside is going to be more challenging than if I were here alone. A quick shadow of anger flashes through me as I realize why we’re here now and needing a chair and I quickly mutter “F***ing cancer.” Just as quickly as it arrived, it passes and I am back to my jovial self and I inform mom we’ll be going out there after breakfast (but I left out the part that I’m unsure how to get out there yet).
I wheel mom back a little ways back and show her the indoor fire pit, trying to look for a ramp down to the area or to Boma itself, but we ended up not finding one. What we DID find was a guy sitting in front of the fire pit and what looked a tiny blue lemure on his shoulder, wagging its tail. The way it moved didn’t seem right and I concluded it was a puppet, but I couldn’t figure out why they were there. Not knowing if it was a cast member or just some… “out there” guest, we walked past silently.
Unable to find a ramp to get down to the back area or to boma, we gave up and located the elevators and used those. At Boma’s front desk, there was quite the crowd and I was a little surprised. I parked mom off to the side while I slipped through and let them know that we were here.
As the weather outside was still beautiful, I requested a window seat, but the hostess said because of the crowd they can’t guarantee anything. They said the wait will be about 10 minutes and I inform them that we’re going to go explore. They warn not to go too far off, but that they’ll text us when our table is ready.
Nodding in thanks, I departed and grabbed mom and we headed outside to see what we could see. We made it roughly 50 feet before my phone chimed with the text, so we didn’t get far but we did get to see their pool.
I wheeled her back in and we met up with the hostess and she lead us back. As we walked farther away from the windows, my heart sunk a bit and we ended up being seated at one of those ‘one half bench, one half chair’ tables with the chair removed for her. I suddenly realized we weren’t getting a window seat not because of crowd, but because of the chair. It made sense, but I was kinda looking forward to a window seat. Again, f*** cancer.
Still, it was BOMA TIME! After yesterday’s chef mickey’s acrobatics for getting food, I figured today I would have her make her choices and then I would wheel her back and then get them for her independently. Again, it meant I’d be making several trips to the food but at least there’d be far less chance of spillage.
After I fill both plates we sit to eat. The food is just as delicious as I remember and this time I really packed on the French Toast bread pudding, the mickey waffles, and the goat cheese and eggs. But it’s a very quiet breakfast. My mom doesn’t like to have conversations when she’s eating and my attempts to start one are met with quiet nods or one word answers. So I eat in silence mostly, admiring the restaurant. I was going to update my notes, but I didn’t want to be rude.
After 3 large plates of food for myself, and only 1 moderate plate of food for mom, it was time to go. I was a little concerned she didn’t eat that much, but given that we’d be hitting up Epcot today and the Flower and Garden festival, I didn’t think it was a big deal.
As the check comes, I realize I forgot to inform the Cast Member that I’m an annual pass holder. I ask if it’s too late to add the discount on and she cheerfully tells me it’s no problem and vanishes to redo the check. While she’s away, the diners next to us inform me that they also are pass holders, but didn’t realize there was a discount and were curious how much the discount was. I confessed I didn’t know, but I would let them know as soon as the check came back.
It soon did and it was 10% and I happily paid the bill. With the info communicated, I bid my fellow pass holders a good day and we departed. Once we leave, we use the elevators to reach the floor where one can get the outer area I was hoping to get to before and headed out the doors. As we get out onto the patio area, I’m hoping to see animals, but the only thing that’s there are pelicans. Still, the weather is currently beautiful so I take the opportunity to take a selfie with mom.
It would be at this moment I begin the lamenting that I didn’t bring our sunglasses because it was cloudy back when we left and all my weather apps declared that would not be changing. Another fail for the weather forecasting. Still, with weather like this, I can’t really complain, especially after yesterday.
We look around the area a bit more but there’s no animals out here and mom’s getting bored, so I figure it’s time to get the day started and we start to make our way to Epcot.
We get there without an issue, though it took the bus a long time to find a disembarking point, but it worked out as we got there at the right time that an overflow security area opened up and we were through and to the tapstyles pretty quickly. It was even faster when I saw the Annual Passholder only line, which had exactly 1 person in it. Pulling out my ID and card, we make our way over, but the Cast Member doesn’t ask for either and we simply scan our bands. I was a tad disappointed in this, cause I wanted to show off my card. Imma pass holder dang it!!
We’re through and into Epcot. We start off in Future World and stop into the Nikon Store just to check it out, mom’s looking for something, but I have no idea what. After we spend a few minutes in there, we head out to look at the topiaries.
We take a few photos at various spots, but the sun is bright and our lack of sunglasses is now becoming a problem. I also forgot our sunscreen. 0 for 2 this morning. I am kicking myself for being unprepared and I can see mom is less than thrilled for having to stare into the sun so I can get a photo.
As we tour, I ask mom if she wants to see this or that and she keeps declining. I ask her what’s wrong and it seems her pain pills are wearing off (they’re about 8 hours early, that’s not good) and she’s getting tired. I immediately consider heading back to the hotel, but I realize that’ll mean we’ll miss her #2 ride for this trip: living with the land. Instead, I tell her we’ll hang out until our fast pass for Living With the Land comes around and then we’ll head back to the hotel.
She agrees, however we still have some time so on the way to the ride we check out the Pixar Short Film Fest just to get her out of the heat (though mom seems very comfortable). Once again, the wheelchairs got special seating and they placed us in the back. I had meant to check this out on my last trip, but never got around to it and had pretty much forgot all about it until we came across it, so I didn’t know anything about it.
The show starts and I’m thinking this is just going to be a standard quick viewing of a few of the shorts when suddenly I hear hydraulics activate behind us. As the show continues suddenly the theater itself starts moving with the impacts of the show.
That’s so cool.
After the three movies, we came out and burned out the last of our time checking out the jumping water pods. We then get to the Land building and, upon immediately entering, a cast members directs us to the elevators after I must’ve clearly looked confused.
We activate our fast passes and we’re onto the ride without an issue (though did have to wait for a boat that accommodate wheelchairs). Mom grew up on a farm, so all the farming advancements that they use here she was really looking forward to and finds the whole thing fascinating. I found it interesting the produce grew here is found in some of the restaurants in Disney World, but, if I’m being honest, I still find the ride as boring as I did as a kid.
Once the ride was over, mom is now urging us to get back to the hotel ASAP, we immediately head for the monorail and head back. We make it back by 12:50 and I get mom into bed so she can rest. She’s out almost immediately.
I figure she’ll need at a few hours, and as the weather has turned out way nicer than predicted, so I decide to head back out to Epcot to take advantage of the other fast passes I had scheduled.
I feel kinda bad leaving her there for some reason, but sitting in the room while she sleeps would do nothing but breed resentment with me, and I did have the forethought to make sure she was fine with me leaving before I headed out. I also stressed that as soon as she wakes up and is ready to go, I’ll head back and pick her up for the night’s festivities. As I ride the monorail back, I am concerned she got tired faster than I had anticipated and I am now a bit concerned about the reservations for tonight. I fear I might be pushing things too far. (As I’m writing this though, and realize she was up at least at 6:30AM, that means she was up for at least 6 hours… that’s pretty normal for her. I have clearly misjudged her energy levels.)
As I climb the ramp to the Epcot Monorail at the TTC, I am a bit disappointed to realize the “everything is new” feeling has worn off that I had in 2016. I’m not quietly holding my breath hoping this monorail is going the right way, I’m not wondering what will happen as soon as I step off the monorail, I’m not unsure that I have allotted enough time to get from the monorail to world showcase to Frozen Ever After. The upshot is that I am enjoying Epcot a LOT more this time around though. Not really sure why, maybe it was the flowers and topiaries, maybe the extra food booths, but Epcot definitely feel like it’s offering more this time.
I get back to Epcot and before I have a chance to get into Future World, a family stops me to help them take a photo(I forgot I was wearing my Superman shirt. I noticed people are more willing to approach you when you’re wearing the symbol than any other shirt, especially in Epcot). I happily help out and (hopefully) take a decent photo of them. Immediately afterward, I figure I should take myself, so I position myself for a selfie when the dad sees me and offers to return the favor. I don’t object and he takes a photo.
After the photo shoot, I head into Future World and contemplate riding Spaceship Earth. However, I realize since I’m alone, I should ride something that mom would definitely not want to ride and immediately thought of Mission Space. Walking up to the ride is an experience in itself. The theming outside is fantastic.
The ride itself went a little differently than I was expecting. I was hoping to check out the Orange version, but the stand by time for that was 45 minutes where as the Green version was simply 5. Well that’s a no brainer and into the Green I went. This is one of those “group/team” rides that and so I ended up being grouped with 3 kids where one was VERY nervous about what he was about to experience.
I tried to calm his fears by making a few jokes. Like if we fail, we’ll blame it on someone else, if you need to barf we’ll give you points for distance, bonus points if you can cover all of us, etc. This didn’t really seem to really work though so in the end I just said “You’ll be completely fine. I promise.” which seemed to work a bit better but clearly he wasn’t comfortable having this complete stranger try to comfort him in front of his friends.
The ride opens and we take our seats that correlated to our assigned jobs and the ride begins. I’m fairly sure our jobs though are completely arbitrary as nothing we actually did seemed to have any sort of impact on the ride. Still, as we landed safely and the kids were very pleased with themselves(with the nervous kid seemingly extra relieved), I saw no reason to spoil it for them and congratulated them on a job well done.
We exit out of the ride and I head over to World Showcase.
I check out a few shops but don’t buy anything and take more time to view the England and Italy pavilions. This all eats up a lot of time in a blink of an eye and the Fast Pass window for FEA has opened so I make my way over there. I literally reach the line when my phone begins to ring.
It’s mom and I look at my watch and she’s awake at least 30 minutes earlier than I had anticipated. She says I can head back soon as I am ready and I tell her I’m on the way. Her being already rested is a real good sign, so I have no problem heading back immediately, but that means I’ll have to miss out on FEA. Ah well, I can possibly get it later in the week or, worst case, on my next trip. Mom doesn’t like the movie and won’t care about the technological achievements of the ride that I do, so it’s no loss.
I start heading for the monorail and it feels like a significantly longer walk from Norway to Epcot monorail than I remember, though I was back to the Monorail within 10 minutes. As I travel back to the monorail, I notice the sky has took an ominous turn, so I’m kinda glad I’m about to board covered transportation.
Once on the monorail, I check my phone for a quick look at the weather and it doesn’t look good. Rain’s definitely moving in and now is expecting to last till about 8PM. Ok, not so bad, that leaves Fantasmic! still able to go off, which is what our reservations were for tonight.
At the TTC, I decided to take the MK express monorail, thinking I can walk faster from MK to Contemporary than it takes to stop at the Poly and GF, but as the monorail pulls into the MK Station, I regret my decision completely and the extra few minutes would have been a welcome reprieve. The rain has arrived and it is coming with a vengeance.
As everyone disembarks, they stop under the covering an put their ponchos or raincoats on, but still don’t head out as it’s raining so hard. The ones with umbrellas don’t even attempt to venture out. I, however, have someone waiting to continue their vacation so I do not have the luxury of waiting. So with cinching of my poncho as best I can, I march toward the front of the crowd and then out into the open toward the contemporary.
The rain was warm, but actually stung a bit through the poncho because it was coming down with such intensity. Storming down the ramp, I nearly wiped out due to a lack of traction, I righted myself quickly and kinda smirked that it happened, I’m not used to being in a downpour like this. Normally, I have the intelligence to be covered when it’s raining this hard. Once down the ramp, I continued into the open area, and added a bit of speed to my gait and instantly thought better of it as I nearly slipped and fell again. This time I was not amused as I realized the shoes I had chosen for this trip are proving to be a problem. It was like walking on ice, but I continued on. I had one last near slip before I got to the cobblestone of the walkway to the hotel.
As I made it back to the Contemporary lobby an attendant was there handing out towels as two others were mopping the floor, I declined even as I was being blasted by the lobby’s dry cool air conditioned air. The poncho had done a remarkable job and aside from my lower legs and shoes, I was completely dry.
I made my way back up to the room and there was over an hour before our ADR over at Mama Melrose’s. Nice. I entered the room and half expected to find another gift from the contemporary, but there was nothing like that and instead I found mom asleep again. I woke her up and I apologized for the delay, and changed my socks to avoid swamp foot.
Getting to Hollywood Studios proved to take a bit of an effort. It took a bit for mom to get moving, but soon we’re back down to the bus stop for the bus for hollywood studios. Unfortunately though, we had just missed a bus heading there when we arrived and had to wait for the next one. When the next bus finally arrives, the wheelchair ramp was busted and they had to leave us there with the promise that another bus was on its way.
Finally, the next bus arrives but now our hour lead time is down to 20 minutes. We get going as quickly as possible and I try to call the restaurant to let them know we’re behind but getting through is an exercise in frustration. It only will connect me to the main WDW Dining line and for some reason it’s not connecting me with anyone. We had arrived at Hollywood Studios before the line connected so I hung up and resigned to just apologize and hopefully they’d have room.
The driver seemed to take forever to drop us off and where he did was much farther from the gate than I was expecting (it was not the usual pickup areas with the canopy, which is where I thought they drop us off at normally), but the good news was the rain had stopped. So once we were off the bus and moving, I warned my mom to hold on and moved at best possible speed toward the gate, avoiding large puddles and happily not slipping anywhere.
The lines for security we were though fairly quick, but the lines for the actual entrance were long and looked quite daunting…until I saw the Annual Passholder only area! I made a bee-line for it and we were through as soon as mom’s magic band decided to work.
For some reason, throughout the whole trip, her magic band kept throwing errors except for maybe 2 occasions. No clue as to why, as her tickets were certainly valid, and the cast members weren’t able to shed any light on it either. It was no problem, and it simply took her redoing it up to 3 times before it went green, but it was annoying each time.
Once we were through, and with a reminder to hold on, I once again launched us toward Mamma Melrose’s and was quite thankful I knew the way thanks to my previous trip. Thanks to my efforts, we were only 15 minutes late to the reservation. I immediately apologized to the cast member for being late and explained quickly about the bus. She nodded and said it wasn’t a problem but it’ll be about a 10 minute wait for a table.
Once we were seated, the server came out and we learned that even though I had specifically signed up for the Fantasmic! Package, it wasn’t on our reservation, but luckily it wasn’t a problem and we able to choose it right then. With that, mom chose to go with the Penne Pasta with Chicken and I went with the char grilled steak after a recommendation from Disney Food Blog.
Sadly, I wasn’t impressed with the steak. It wasn’t bad, but not anything to write home about, which is exactly the same impression I got the last time I ate here. Mom, however enjoyed her Penne pasta but didn’t finish (there was a lot of it). We were then served a small plate of desserts and I found the most enjoyable thing about them was little “juice pearls.”
After dinner, we headed out to tour Hollywood Studios. The rain wanted to start again but it’s super light so it’s not a big deal. As we continue on, I noticed Star Tours is walk on, so I ask if mom wants to ride, but she says she doesn’t and offers that I park her somehwere and I can go ride.
Reluctantly, I do so. I find an umbrella overhang where, should it start to rain, she’ll stay dry and I go ride. This ride is still so much fun, I’m just grinning ear to ear as it goes through.
Once that was done, I come out to get mom and see that a Jedi Academy is currently underway. I meet up with mom and we watch for a bit until I notice she’s completely bored and not even watching the show, so I opt to leave so we can go shopping. We stop by various stores and eventually she gets a mickey cinch sack (though I don’t know why as she won’t use it as she’s in the chair), still the annual pass knocked off $5, so I’m not complaining.
As we meandered for a bit, I remembered I wanted to check out the Walt Disney Presents area and we found it and entered. I found it to be completely fascinating though I could tell mom would have found watching paint dry to be more entertaining. So, taking only a few photos, we departed.
After that, we stop over at the Starbucks and I pick up my first frappacino of the trip, which is far far too long and I should have got one yesterday at the latest. We sit and people watch for a little bit, enjoying our drinks and then it’s off to shop a bit more before Fantasmic.
Once it was time to get over to Fantasmic we make our way to the theater and are, once again, given great seating. All the way in the back and thanks to the dinner passes, center of the bleachers. The only downside is we’re so far away from the show that there’s not a chance we’ll get wet from the show (something I was sorta hoping for just to see my mom’s reaction to it).
But I need not worry, as mother nature was all “I gotchu fam!” and decided to open up the skies. We sat huddled under our ponchos waiting for the rain to pass, but as I checked my phone for updates, I saw that this rain wasn’t to end for another hour or two. We sat there for just shy of 40 minutes before we both had had enough and it was time to leave. As we got up, I asked a roaming cast member how likely it was that the show was going to be canceled for tonight and he acknowledged it was probably a sure thing. He said don’t throw the tickets away though, as we can use them for up to 5 days later and get the same seating. Happy to hear that (and glad I scheduled two attempts at this show for the week), we made our way out of Hollywood Studios, with me taking a few parting pictures in the rain.
Once we get to the bus lot, the Contemporary bus is taking forever and the wheelchair access area is exposed to the rain, so I park mom under the Fort Wilderness canopy. Annoyed that I have to even do this, I’m wondering why these areas aren’t completely covered like they are at EVERY other park?
Eventually, the bus arrives and, thankfully, we board first (thanks to the chair). However, the bus is paaaaacked and the ride back to the Contemporary is long, especially as we had to stop by Wilderness Lodge first. Unfortunately, mom gets a bit confused as we pull away from Wilderness Lodge and becomes very concerned why we weren’t let off thinking that the stop was actually the Contemporary and that we were forgotten. I reassured her that it wasn’t our stop and that we were next and that everything was ok. It takes a few tries, but eventually this placates her and she calms down. As we continue on, I ponder on how to salvage the night as we were supposed to do Epcot and boardwalk tonight still (which obviously wasn’t going to happen).
I think I saw that MK is closing at 11 earlier today, so as mom is pretty tired now, I figure I’ll put her to bed and head over. We get in at 5 minutes before 10 and as I finish putting mom to bed, I flip on the resort info channel and the sound of Disney classical music fills the room.
Damn. I note the times of parks closing and I had misread the MK hours…it closes at 10. In fact, everything is closed but Epcot, though by the time I make it back, I would have only have 10-15 minutes before THAT shuts down. As an added kick in the gut, the rain has stopped completely.
With mom blissfully off to sleep, I’m restless, so I pop down to the contempo cafe and get a flat bread “pizza” that looked wholly unappetizing and a pint of ice cream. I took the food out to the observation area of the Contemporary and took a seat on the metal bench that faced the castle.
A bite of the pizza revealed that it didn’t just look unappetizing, it tasted pretty blah as well and I only had a few more bites before I decided this was a lost cause. I set it to the side and opened my pint of ice cream and dug in. Well, at least the ice cream was good.
As I looked out over the kingdom, I just feel disappointed. The rain cancelling Fantasmic was bad enough, but then for the rest of Disney World to be shut down other than Disney Springs and the Boardwalk just left me in a bit of a funk. I also felt a little trapped as transportation anywhere would either take forever or cost money to use.
Feeling defeated, I finished my ice cream and headed back up to the room to sleep. A great start with a really crappy ending.
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I’m sorry the day didn’t turn out how you planned! I’m hoping your next instalment has better weather!
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You are an exceptional human being. Genuinely very humbled to read this latest report.
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I’m glad the day started out so well for you and your mom. Sorry that the rain ruined things. It’s great that the Fantasmic! tickets are good for another night! That’s awesome. I didn’t know that.
I’m really looking forward to the next installment.
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Thank you for this next installment! As a mom I am struck by how your mom was sheltered from many of your frustrations .
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Sorry the rain impacted your second day. I still think you are doing an amazing job of making this trip special for your mom.
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