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Another Big Bite

Another Big Bite

Tag Archives: air travel

The Disney Diaries, Part 4

26 Wednesday Jun 2013

Posted by anotherbigbite in Nerd Alert, On the Road Again, The "Joy" of Parenting

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Tags

air travel, disney, disney world, florida, parenting, Travel, traveling with kids

Sick of hearing about Disney by now?  Truth be told, I’m sick of writing about it, but this is the last one – now it is all recorded for posterity.  So hold on to your shorts; we’re almost at the end.

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By Saturday, we were running on fumes.

Our crowd was really starting to thin out; Julie and her daughter had gone home Thursday morning.  Mike left in the middle of the night on Friday.  Everyone else (but us) was slated to leave at the end of the day on Saturday.  We were set to move to a regular room since we would be the only ones left; we had our bags packed and held by the hotel until our new room was ready.  We hadn’t visited MGM (“Disney’s Hollywood Studios,” if you are being fancy and calling it by its new name) yet, and we were lucky that the first bus to arrive was ready to whisk us off to “the park with the Toy Story ride in it, Mom!”

Spoiler alert; we didn’t get on to a single ride, Toy Story or otherwise.  Ninety minutes in line with two teeny kids?  I don’t think so.

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Over the many visits we’ve made to Disney World over the years, we’ve managed to eat at a large chunk of the restaurants.  I had never been to The Sci Fi Drive-In Theater – it is themed like a 1950’s drive-in where you eat at a table that looks like a ’57 Chevy – heck, I didn’t even know where it was in the park.  Finn was game; he still talks about the “TRIPLE! Drive-In” from Ohio.  We didn’t have a reservation, but luckily arrived three minutes before they were open and successfully snagged one of the tables in the back.

Verdict?  Meh.

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After we realized that the wait was way too long for Toy Story and pulled one of those “Oh, FINNY!!! LOOK OVER THERE!  IT IS AWESOME!” parenting moves to draw his attention in the opposite direction as we raced past, we went to the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids Playground, which we knew would entertain them.  It did. To the tune of double tantrums as we pulled out of that station.

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There was another tantrum over something concerning The Little Mermaid and another over an ice cream bar…  And another as we lost a leaf that Finn was playing with.  Really?  A LEAF??

How many times did we have to make the same mistake?  The kids are not firing on all cylinders in the hot, early afternoon sun.

We checked into our new hotel room.  In the elevator, Finn lamented over the departure of everyone else.

“Grandma Sue is gone…  Elise is gone…  We are all alone.  Uncle Mike and Uncle Rick – they look the same, and talk the same, but they aren’t the same Uncle – they are gone.  Ooo-oooohhh!”  (Insert faux drama here, complete with overdramatic pouty face and wail AND a sniffle.)

Finn stripped to his undies, scrambled under the covers and watched television for two hours while Alice napped, and when she woke up, Nathan was just getting back to the room with donuts.  Aye-eeee!  She was happ-ay.

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We visited our favorite parts of Epcot – pastries in France (where Finny had his final meltdown – involving peeing on my feet – DO NOT ASK), Nemo, the toy store in Germany and hoped to hit the “big ball” (Spaceship Earth) on the way out.  It was broken, and after hanging around for three or four minutes, we decided to head out before the everyone exited the parks en masse after the fireworks.  Just as we turned away, a cheer rippled through the small crowd that had been waiting in line despite the technical difficulties.  Finny let out a cheer of his own.  We walked right  on, but a certain small boy decided to punch the buttons on our ride vehicle to have the narration in Spanish…  Nathan translated for him.

Photorealistic, no?

Photorealistic, no?

No matter how many days we visit the parks, the last one always seems to be just one too many.  We shuffled out of the park, vowed that we would wait at least two years before coming back (like we always do), and dreaded waking up at three thirty to catch the un-Magical Express back to the airport in the morning.  Good god, we were f’ing exhausted.

The next morning, we got to the lobby at four a.m. with just seconds to spare to catch the bus.  It took us over two hours to get to the airport and we nearly missed our plane.  The kids were still in their jammies when we rolled into the terminal (I broke one of my own parenting rules), we got them pottied yet still had not managed to get breakfast for the two of us.  The bonus side to flying at the ass-crack of dawn is that you have a choice of “fresh” items – for purchase, yes! – on the plane.  I ate my puny, ten-dollar cheese plate while I wrestled a very unhappy Alice.

Have you ever been on a flight with a baby that screams like it is NEVER going to stop?  Yeah, that was us on the way home.

We landed in Denver seven hours after we had woken up, but realized that it was only NINE THIRTY and McDonald’s was still serving breakfast.  We ordered waaay more food than we should have, but ate every, last, greasy crumb.  Bloated and greasy ourselves, we braced ourselves for the hour and a half car ride home.  I felt like shit.  Nathan felt like shit.  The kids felt like shit.  And we spent most of Sunday sleeping and bathing.

Now that it is over, and Alice is finally back on her regular schedule, I’m feeling two completely opposite emotions.  Part of me never wants to leave the house again, and the other cannot wait to get out on the road and have another adventure.  While we were getting ready a few mornings ago, I asked Nathan if he wanted to take a road trip to California this fall.

“Maybe we could stop for a couple of nights in Anaheim…  You know, to go to the Not So Scary Halloween Party at Disneyland?”

“DisneyLAND?!?”  Finny nearly lost his mind.  “They have a Jack the Pumpkin King Haunted Mansion at DisneyLAND!  Let’s go there!  Yes!  Oh, I’m so excited!!”

Two years, my ass.

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The Disney Diaries; Part 1

18 Tuesday Jun 2013

Posted by anotherbigbite in Nerd Alert, On the Road Again, The "Joy" of Parenting

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

air travel, big thunder mountain railroad, disney, disney world, dole whip, family, florida, jungle cruise, orlando, theme parks, Travel, traveling with kids

Sidebar:  Happy Birthday, Rick!!  You are the best little brother a girl could ask for – but don’t tell Mike or Jer.

While the rest of the world was puttering on last week, we took a no-kidding break from reality and headed out to The Happiest Place on Earth; Disney World.  I am a massive Disney nerd – along with the rest of my family, and we all came together in a massive explosion of nerd-ness for a week.  My mom, stepdad, three brothers, sister-in-law and an old family friend (with her two-year-old in tow) thought it necessary to spend an entire week in the hot, Orlando sun to commemorate our geekdom.  Nathan was just along for the ride; he still loves me despite my affliction.

Ten years ago, most of the same players (sans the kiddos, obviously) took this same trip.  Nathan and I got engaged at Epcot during that trip (a truly hilarious, quintessential Nathan-and-Lisa story if there ever was one), and over the past decade, the entire family has been scattered to the four winds.  Ohmygod.  Life was so easy ten years ago.

photo 1

If ever there was an experience I would gladly trade for sticking myself in the eye with a ballpoint pen for, it would be flying with two little kids.  Surprisingly enough, the flight was pretty painless.  Finn spent the majority of the flight glued to my iPad, and Alice pinged back and forth between Nathan, me and an iPhone.  She tensed up quite a bit during takeoff, but by the time we started our decent into Orlando, she was an old pro.

photo 2

After an agonizing ride on the Magical Express (it was free, and you get what you pay for), there was an awesome welcome wagon waiting for us at the bottom of the motorcoach’s steps.  Since we were the last to arrive, we didn’t have to mess with checking into the hotel, and we had half a dozen able-bodied family members to help us carry our luggage and children.

It was so hard to get to sleep that first night; I hadn’t seen one of my brothers in forever (even longer for my sister-in-law); we were excited to catch up and poke fun at each other.  I laid in bed for over an hour because I was so excited.  It didn’t help that Nathan was snoring like a sixteen hundred pound gorilla beside me…  Before my alarm even went off, I was up, showered, packing the backpack for our first day at the park and getting the kids’ breakfast ready for when they woke up.  My mom and stepdad were just getting out of bed.  I was ready to go at six thirty.  For the first time since I had Finn.

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We stayed at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge – holychrist – it was amazing.  We had a villa that slept twelve and almost everyone had their own bathroom.  We had a full kitchen that my brother had stocked with enough carbs to choke a goat, but the best part was the balcony…  As soon as Alice woke up, she grabbed her bowl of strawberries and headed out to watch the giraffes eat their breakfast.  There were wildebeest, ostriches, antelope, zebras, a very impressive herd of the most enormous cattle I had ever seen, cranes, vultures….  All sorts of animals, roaming “free,” from the African savannah.  It was like living at a zoo.

IMG_6144

When I say that my family is a group of Disney fanatics, realize that I am the ringleader, followed closely behind by my mother.  Right when we got to Magic Kingdom, I took off like a bat out of hell while most everyone else rolled their eyes and meandered to Gaston’s Tavern for breakfast.  I was a woman on a mission – the new Little Mermaid ride was the ONE THING that I had to do, and I was not letting anything get in my way of a measly twenty-minute wait.

IMG_4181

After enjoying two cinnamon rolls the size of Alice’s head at Gaston’s, we did a few other rides at the park, packed the kids back into the Disney bus and put them down for a nap.  We decided to wait to return to Magic Kingdom until  after they woke up, when it is at its absolute best – nighttime.

But before we left, we headed to Pirates of the Caribbean.  Right as we boarded, and promptly got stuck in a line of stopped boats, I thought of how Disney had to add an inch of water to Small World during its latest refurbishment – we Americans are 25 pounds heavier than when the ride was built, and all those little boats kept bottoming out.  I told Mike, Julie and Nathan they should do the same thing for Pirates.  Nathan noted that our whole boat was heavy on one side, since all the dads were sitting on the right.  Then he noted that the front boat, a few up from us, had a few rather robust individuals aboard; maybe that is why we were stuck.  I thought he was kidding.

A minute later, a Disney employee came running up along side our boats with a flashlight.

“Alright everyone!  We’ll get moving in just a second, but right now, I need everyone to raise their arms!” We did.  “Now lean to right!”  We did.  “Now lean to the left!”

I thought she was just trying to keep us occupied, but sure enough, the front boat rocked free and we all continued on our merry way.

Seriously??  Yes.  Seriously.

Finny has been obsessing over this trip for months.  He would talk about it almost every single day.  He somehow managed to find a series of Disney Travel Channel videos on Netflix, and by the time we were on our way to the park that first morning, he was no-shit explaining the ins and outs of the Fast Pass system to the family sitting behind us on the bus.  He was super psyched to go on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.  We did our best to prep him for it…

“You know it is a roller coaster and goes REALLY fast, right Finn?”

“Yes.  And it is a train.  And then I want to go on Splash Mountain and the Tower of Terror.”

Note to all parents of preschoolers; anything with a name like TOWER OF TERROR is probably not something you want to subject your four-year-old to.  No matter how ardently he insists.

But, we knew Big Thunder Mountain was pretty tame as far as roller coasters go, so we let him go.  Look how excited he was when we sat down:

photo 3

Once the ride was over?  Nope.

photo 4

Just after we got off the ride, he stopped one of the ride operators, a college girl in her wild west uniform, for a chat.

“Excuse me?  Ma’am?  That ride was way, way, WAAAY too fast.  I’m going to come back on it with my dad.  Could you make it way, way, WAAAY slower for me?”

At least he was polite about it.

We watched the Main Street Electrical Parade and the fireworks after dinner (much to the delight of both the kids), and met up with my parents, brother and sister-in-law for a Dole Whip.  I had been looking forward to a Dole Whip for months – it is pineapple soft serve, swirled together with vanilla and floating in fresh pineapple juice – in short; a frozen, theme park orgasm in a plastic tumbler.

Alice had crashed and was comfortably snoozing in the Ergo by the time the giant group of us hit The Jungle Cruise.  I love The Jungle Cruise, mostly because it seems like the only place in all of Disney World where anyone who works there acknowledges – rather, embraces – the whole ridiculous spectacle of the overpriced, gift shop-laden schmorgasborg that is Walt Disney World.  The self-deprecation of it all makes Jungle Cruise endearing to me…  And it was the only time I had ever gone on it in the dark, which brings a whole other element to it all.

By the time we left Magic Kingdom, it was just past midnight, and Finny was just beginning to wilt.  He passed out on the bus back to the hotel.

photo 5

We got the sleeping babes in their jammies and tucked in for the night.  This time, I had no problem falling asleep whatsoever.  No matter how excited I was for the rest of the trip, I was beat.

To be continued…

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