We reserved our last day for a little bit of time at Magic Kingdom, Epcot and then Hollywood Studios. The girls rode Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain one more time and then we had a character breakfast with Winnie the Pooh. Toddler LOVED all the characters and they very patiently allowed her to grab their faces and give them kisses. Repeatedly. We got the girls silhouettes done (one of my favorite things) and they were amazed to watch the artist cut their likenesses. It is a little bit like magic, if you ask me.
(Oh, and you may know that this is Disney’s “Year of a Million Dream” where they have Dream Team members roaming the parks to make your stay more magical (you could get a night in the Cinderella castle, all-day FastPass tickets, front row seats at shows, etc. Well, we had been watching for and attempting to make eye-contact with Dream Team members all week. As we were gathering our where-with-all after the silhouettes, a Dream Team member approaches us. This is it! (I think.) Let it be the FastPass for the day thing! He chats with the girls for a minute, asking if they had had a chance to meet the princesses. Pixie and Sunshine are just not that into princesses right now, but I was willing them to lie to this nice man to see what we would get. Sadly, their lack of enthusiasm won out over my attempt to mind-meld with them, so he just chatted with us for a minute and left. Darn!)
About now, it was getting hot. Did I mention that it was hot? The parents-in-law called to let us know they were going to take a day to relax and did we want to send the (cranky) Toddler back to the hotel with them? YAY!! Toddler was clearly “all done” with Disney at this point and the prospect of dragging her through our final, ambitious day was daunting.
I drove Toddler back to the condo and then met DH and the girls at Epcot. Sunshine wanted to see Japan and we wanted to ride the new Soarin’ ride. Sadly, they were out of FastPasses already and the wait was 2 hours. Ugh. We declined that and wandered Around the World. At one point, we passed an area where kids were painting. Well, that is totally up Pixie’s alley, so even though we were paying a skazillion dollars a minute to color, we stopped. Much crying ensued when they wouldn’t set up another easel for her as the painting time was done. While I typically would tell her to suck it up, I felt they were in the wrong here. There were about 6 other kids still working, so it wasn’t saving them any time not to let her paint. They had a little area on a giant picture she could color, but it was already partially colored and this offended her to no end. They almost caved and set her up to paint (I could see it in their eyes–she is really cute and was totally pathetic looking as she sobbed her little heart out). Since she disdained the idea of coloring where others already had, we moved on. Oh.the.drama.
We had ice cream in France as we trudged on. I think I might have mentioned that it was hot…
We finally got to Japan (the furthest point from the entrance) a
nd Sunshine got to watch a drum ceremony thingy and Pixie found the Sharpie craft spot. She actually did a lovely job on her mask, so it made the blog. It took her for.ev.uh. to finish it, but I felt that she had earned a bit of artistic down time due to the sad painting episode.
We were heading to Hollywood Studios next and I was excited as I figured this was where Sunshine and Pixie would have the most fun. As with every other girl aged 5-11 in America, they are into Hannah Montana and High School Musical. We were walking briskly through Epcot toward the monorail and I realized that the children were dragging major tail behind us. They said they were tired and wanted to go back to the hotel. ! Huh?? Uh…..okay. Well, I wasn’t done with Disney yet, so we called the ‘rents-in-law to see if they wanted two more tired, slightly cranky children so that DH and I could go play by ourselves. :)
Yes, folks, that is why I have no more pictures from our last day at Disney. We didn’t carry nothin’ with us, except a credit card. Whoo hooo! Oh, the freedom to dart amongst the crowd, unencumbered of small children and all their stuff! We had a great time, though we were a little sad the kids were missing it.
We rode Tower of Terror (which I totally love, even though I am sure I am going to die), did Star Tours (which is exactly the same as when I rode it almost 10 years ago–it could do with some updating, and a scenty-thingy–pu!), a very weird Drew Carey show (a complete waste of time, even though it did get us out of a torrential downpour), the Walt Disney story, dinner at the Sci Fi Drive-in theater (which was totally fun), and then the Movies through the Years tour (also fun, though we were standing in line with about a zillion teenagers on Spring Break).
We ended our wonderful day/date by grabbing some last minute souvenirs for the children. This day and Kennedy Space Center were definitely the highlights of our stay in Florida.
(oh, and the kids and grandparents fared well together, too! :)
Thank you, grandparent fairies, wherever you are!)
Next up: travelling home
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
It sounds like a great day — woot to time with DH. I am amazed that the Disney folks did not melt into a little puddle with the sadness of the Pixie. This makes me doubt that they are real Disneyans. I bet they are animatronic.
“and then the Movies through the Years tour (also fun, though we were standing in line with about a zillion teenagers on Spring Break).”
Did you feel like teenagers again? :)
I’m sure you two are as cute and bouncy as always. Aaaawwwwww….
Aww, I am so sad about the lack of painting for the wee lass. Sigh. I so understand her chagrin about being palmed of with someone else’s sullied colouring area. Good for her, standing her ground, even if it meant no painting at all. I think I might have caved-in, and daubed in a disgruntled manner, a la Wednesday Adams, whispering malignant epithets under my breath.
I have yet to have Hannah Montana and HSM inflicted upon me. Hannah Montana actually scares me. I’ve only seen her in a newspaper ad, but she had bright neon lipstick, and a trout-pout. I hope the poor child was only digitally enhanced. Yikes! Lena has a second cousin a year older, who loves HSM. Her mum used to be a singer in a band, and is kind of deeply into HSM herself. She was upbraiding me as an unfit mother, because I hadn’t bought my daughter all the HSM cds. Lena has assuaged my guilt,however, (which was gathering like a cumulonimbus on the horizon) by explaining that she is a loyal Spongebob aficionado. She loves only the yellow fellow, and no singing teens will ever replace his sparkling repartee. This makes me happy, cos I am still laughing at the episodes, even for the four-hundredth time.
The one concession to HSM, and suchlike,which my soon to be six-year old makes, is the attempt to make every item of clothing low-rise. As she is a mite skinny (did they give me the correct baby?) and school skirts tend to spin around somewhat, I am constantly hauling them up. I am a fashion spoilsport. The last time I hauled her things up to a tidy and sensible location (this afternoon) she announced to a whole crowed bus that she ” now had a wedgie.” Sigh.
I may be moving house soon. Would it be reeeally bad of me to think of abandoning cable, or would my daughter write a “Mommmy Dearest” about me? I could always get her the dog she wants instead, and go for actual walks….:oO
Jason–you’re funny. I don’t think you could pay me to go back to my teen years…well, maybe. Could I lose the creaky knees I got from trying to bounce my way through a double-step aerobics class a few years ago? :)
rowan–don’t get a dog! really! it only sounds like fun for a minute or two. the stark reality is more shed-ie and barky, and needy! (you might note from some of my early posts that I am not a pet person. Ahem.)
Thankfully, no Hannah is not neon. It’s so interesting to me how advertising is different across The Pond. Why would a neon Hannah be more appealing to a European population?
Oh, and Lena and Pixie are two peas in a pod, that is for sure. I have oftentimes been in the same situation with her and her skirts, though she rolls hers around the waist until they are ridiculously short and then denies doing so. Sigh. Yes, I am a wedgie master. Pixie then offendedly picks said wedgie out of her little bottom crack…
Pixie got a karaoke machine for her birthday–with both Hannah and HSM CD’s. She is extremely cute swishing her skinny hips as she sings. In the basement. With the door closed.
Karaoke sounds fun! I am not going to encourage my small one as yet, as we are not big on basements here in the UK, and I do not have one. Or a laundry room. I would be too skeered to go down into my basement, if I had one, though, cos it would be spidery. If I had a laundry room, only the top layer would ever get moved, and a family of foxes might move-in. (This is my means of consolation for being compact and bijou.)
I am being a bit hypocrytical about Hannah and HSM avoidance. I used to like “Fame” when it came out, and tried hard to fall in love with Bruno Martelli (cos he seemed to be being pushed as the sensitive one, and had really nice long crinkly hair.) However, it did not happen. Nevertheless, it did provide enough of a rush of ‘poignant dashed expectation’ to keep me, and prolly thousands of other adolescent girls, tuning in each week.
I think I am going to put Hannah’s ‘neon-ness’ down to poor quality over-printing. The newspaper in question does have a tendency to double-print photos. Whilst I’m on the subject of warbling lassies, why is there a girl in HSM called, “Sharpei?” I am not sure of the exact spelling. Am very puzzled, though. I only have two images of a sharpei/sharpie: one a crinkly Japanese dog, the other a fancy American ballpoint pen which has just made it ove here. I have not seen Sharp/ei/ie on screen, but have seen her glam Barbie lookalike, and she bears no resemblance whatsoever to either a squashy dog or a ballpoint pen. Apart from maybe that she is skinny. And maybe she writes a lot of letters. I need to go bite the bullet and see the show…