Disney ’06

It’s so overwhelming to go through all the vacation pictures. Not only the 450 I took, but everyone else’s too. I’m beginning to wonder if digital is such a good idea. Just (mostly) kidding! At this point I have it sort of narrowed down to about 300 I want to print. Right. Like I’m going to put 300 pictures in a scrapbook. I think I need to work on that some more.

So, since I’m a full two weeks behind publishing my blog posts because I’m waiting until I get the pictures in order, I’m just going to publish them all without pictures. Besides, this way they don’t have to be typekey protected. Maybe sometime next week I’ll manage to get a few pictures posted.

Since they probably won’t even be on the front page, the vacation posts start here.

If I never fly through Atlanta again it will be much too soon. Oh, and that 8 AM flight from Orlando to Atlanta? We were the people with the screaming baby on that flight. If you were on it and she bothered you, sorry. Though if your ears were as painful as hers and mine, I can’t imagine that you could hear her anyway.

The dogs are happy to see us, we’re happy to be home, and I’m ready for a vacation. What’s that? Tomorrow is Monday and Denis needs to go to work while I try to get Carrie back into a somewhat normal routine? Ugh.

The plan for today was to ride Small World until we couldn’t stand it anymore (and since all three of us like that ride, that might have taken a while). Instead, Carrie woke up at 5:30 AM. We decided to put her down for a super-early nap and go to the park in the afternoon. At 3:00 the park was so incredibly hot and crowded we were thinking we’d made a mistake, and when we got to Small World and the line was a whopping 30 minutes long we were sure we had. We suffered through the line and rode it one more time, since the next time we go Carrie will probably be too “cool” to go on it. Then we wrapped up our visit with Winnie the Pooh (thanks to fastpass) and tasty, cold ice cream. I have to say, I love the whole Disney experience, and I’m going to miss this place. I hope we get to come back soon! (Just maybe not in the middle of the summer.)

A bit of concentrated packing later, and after exchanging everyone’s photos (between the four digital cameras there were nearly 1300), we’re going to hit the hot-tub for a little bit. Then to bed, since we have to leave the house by 6:00 to return the rental car and get to the airport in time for our 8:00 flight!

I seem to be the only person who actually likes MGM Studios. Carrie certainly didn’t. We started with The Little Mermaid, which scared her because it was dark. Then we went to Playhouse Disney Live. She enjoyed the parts where she could get up and dance, but couldn’t sit still (and was interfering with others’ enjoyment, or we wouldn’t have cared) for the rest. She liked the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground, but didn’t like that we forced her to keep her shoes on. We had a very early lunch and were planning on calling it a day, but ran into the rest of our group and got talked into going into the Muppet Vision 3-D show. Carrie didn’t keep her 3-D glasses on, but seemed to enjoy it anyhow. We had some ice cream after that and headed home for a much-needed nap. I’m pretty sure someone said it was 97 degrees when we left. Ugh.

After a nice long nap, we headed back to Epcot. We did a little souvenier shopping (I remembered the Mouse Gear store from the last trip – it’s the store where you can buy *anything* you want that’s Disney-themed). After that, we sprinted to Morocco just in time for our dinner reservations at the Marrakesh. Then we finished walking around the World and watched the best fireworks display ever next to a margarita stand in Mexico. Seriously, Epcot has the best fireworks I’ve ever seen. Carrie absolutely adored them, and clapped and cheered along with everyone else.

We figured that there wasn’t much in Future World to occupy Carrie, and since the World Showcase didn’t open until 11 we decided to spend a couple house in the Magic Kingdom before heading to Epcot. We actually parked at Epcot (row 5!) and took the monorail to the Magic Kingdom. The first ride we went on was Pirates of the Carribean. Carrie did not like that ride at all – not because of the skeletons or anything, but because there’s a very small drop while the ride is in the dark. Poor baby. But Aladin’s flying carpet ride completely made up for it. After that it was back to Small World, then onto Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin game. That’s my favorite ride in all of Disney! :)

Then we had an amazing string of happy coincidences that completely made our day. Since it was already lunchtime we stopped at the Crystal Palace to see if we could get lunch there. I had heard they had reasonably healthy food alternatives, but I had no idea that a) it was a buffet (which meant Carrie ate free) and b) it was a character place. Carrie got to see Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Piglet and Eeyore. They made such an impression on her that she learned their names over lunch, and was babbling excitedly about “poooh”, “tick-er”, “piggy-et” and “eeee-oh” for a bit. When Pooh came to our table, Carrie gave him such a long hug that we weren’t sure she would let go!

We stopped for a bit in the baby care center to deal with diapers and milk, and then Carrie took a bit of a nap in the stroller while we headed to Epcot and walked around Future World for a while. Then it started pouring, so we ducked into a building that also had characters: Mickey Mouse, Pluto, Donald Duck, Minnie Mouse, Chip & Dale, and Goofy. Oh, my. “Mick-eee, mick-eee”. It was so, so, so cute. Minnie Mouse actually sat down on the floor to let Carrie come over and hug her, and then after a bit when I said it was time to let someone else take a turn Minnie shook her head, pointed to Carrie and pointed to herself. I said, “oh, you want to take Carrie home with you?” and Minnie nodded. So I asked Carrie if she’d rather go home with Minnie or Mama, and she patted Minnie’s cheek and said “mick-eee!” It was just the cutest, most wonderful experience to watch her interact with all the characters, and although I know she won’t remember it at all, I always will!

We tried to walk around the world, stopping in Canada to listen to Off Kilter, and even though we waited through another rain “shower”, we got completely drenched in the one after that and decided it was time to call it a night. I don’t think the rain really let up until much later, so it was probably good that we headed home.

We took a break from “The Happiest Celebration on Earth” and headed out on our own to Sea World for the morning. Carrie’s favorite parts of Sea World were the shelters that had misting water to cool off in and the sand box that had *two* slides in it. She also got to pet a stingray, watch turtles and penguins, and see dolphins swim by. We didn’t get to the Shamu show, but we saw a show called “Pets Ahoy” which features cats, dogs, various types of birds and even a pot-bellied pig that are all trained to do really specific things, like dogs jumping rope and birds flying from one window to another in a flock. It was a fabulous show, and Carrie was absolutely thrilled with it.

Then we got caught in a downpour so absolute that even though we waited out the worst of it we were completely drenched and dripping by the time we got back to the park exit. Plus Carrie was asleep, so by the time we got back the house she was not interested in a nap. She spent the afternoon playing with her cousins and getting more and more hyper, and then we realized that none of the kids had had an actual bath – with soap – in days, so all six girls ended up in the very large master bathroom tub together. We got Carrie cleaned up first so we could get her to bed sooner, and as Denis carried her up the stairs she was begging, “Nooooo, more bath! More bath!” She loves her cousins!

Princesses, Castles and Flying Dumbo, here we come! :)

Today we started out at Magic Kingdom with the whole group. It was already insanely hot when we parked our car, and we had to take a tram and a ferry before we got to the park entrance. At this point, Carrie’s experienced so many different modes of transportation on this trip she’s going to be bored just riding around in the car when we get home!

We spent the morning in Fantasyland, riding Dumbo, Winne the Pooh, It’s a Small World (twice!) and Peter Pan. Carrie adored Dumbo and Small World, and I think had fun with the other two, but might have liked them more if she knew the characters. I think we’ll actually go back on the Small World ride at least once or twice more before we go home, because she loved it so much.

We wrapped up the day with a dip in the pool. And after Carrie fell asleep we took advantage of the hot tub!

We left for Animal Kingdom at 8:30 this morning – surprisingly, we managed to get 8 adults and 7 children (under 7) out of the house by 8:30, and were walking into the park just after 9.

We all headed straight for the Safari ride. Carrie and her cousins all loved it! After walking around a bit with everyone else we split off so the older kids could go do older kid things and we could do toddler-friendly things. After a quick snack of fruit and the biggest soft pretzel I’ve ever seen, we took a train ride to Rafiki’s wildlife preserve. Carrie met Rafiki (he blew kisses to her, which charmed her thoroughly) and we went to a petting zoo. She had a great time chasing the goats!

Back to the house for lunch and a nice long nap, and then we headed to Downtown Disney for dinner at the Rainforest Cafe and some serious lego shopping. We heart the Lego store, where we got Carrie duplo-sized people and animals. Up to now we’d only had regular old blocks, now we have a full-blown farm to play with!