Archive for September 13th, 2009
Our day started out super early. We were up and out of the hotel in Savannah before the sun was up in the hopes that Ava would sleep part of the way to Orlando. Not so much luck with this part although there were some mini catnaps scattered amongst the whining and near constant “Mama, Maaama, Mamaaa” from the backseat. Once I decided to ignore her it would be this instead: “Mama, Maaama, Mamaaa, Dada, Dada, Dada” until he would answer her and she would ask where mama was (Answer: directly in her line of sight). Cute once. Not cute after 2 solid hours so we finally pulled over and broke out the big guns – the portable DVD player. She’d never seen one before so she was quickly entranced and watched bad karaoke Mickey Mouse relatively quietly for the rest of the trip.
After having to detour through Orlando to find a Target pharmacy to refill a prescription that I’d stupidly left at home we managed to nearly drown in a colossal thunderstorm before making it safely to our hotel. The check in experience at the Wilderness Lodge (Villas) was fast and easy and since the resorts were nowhere near at full capacity we were able to check in early. The only downside was that there were no bellmen available so J had to heft all our luggage in himself (and it was quite a hike from the parking lot to our room). 16 or so trips later we were finally ready to head over to the Magic Kingdom for the first time (ever – for all of us).
We decided on the Wilderness Lodge Villas after much indecision and waffling on my part. Our original reservation was for the new Bay Lake Towers but I was never in love with the idea of staying there. We were booked in a studio suite and I was worried about the size of the room so I called back and ended up with a super nice lady who hooked us up in a 1 BR full suite at the WLV for the same (OMG! Expensive!) cost. You know why J wanted to stay at the Wilderness Lodge? Boats. We went nearly everywhere on boats.
You know – boats. Simple things, really. Like cars or even houses on water. Fun transportation, right? We live near the water so all of our neighbors have boats and we see them on almost a daily basis. I grew up with boats. J didn’t but he’s obsessed with them now anyway. But we made a major error in forgetting that Ava had never actually been on a boat.
It was a colossal FAIL! She went absolutely bonkers. She was crying, screaming “No, No, No, Mama” and begging to go to the potty because she knows that usually gets her out of any situation that she’s currently in. She was fighting me tooth and nail, yet at the same time hanging on for dear life.
We felt horrible, of course, and there was nothing we could do about it since we were, by that time, in the middle of the lake. Needless to say it wasn’t exactly what we anticipated as made our initial approach to the supposed happiest place on earth. It certainly wasn’t for her at that point.
She finally settled down as we neared the end of the trip (10 minutes or so) and we made it into the park (amidst 9 billion birthday greetings from every Disney employee we saw – this included Disney throwing a free $79 shopping card my way for celebrating my birthday with them) and walked smack into a parade. She was pretty interested in all of this so life was starting to look up again.
I mean, come on, there was Mickey stuff everywhere you looked (can’t swing an Aristocat in there without hitting another gift shop, can you?) to include balloons. She got to dance in the street and her little eyes and ears were just full of the delights of Disney. Watching her at the parade and seeing her reactions literally brought tears to my eyes – those moments are the ones you wish you could bottle and keep forever. It was magic to her and it made every mile we drove and every penny we spent worth it.
She was fascinated. Until Jafar touched her.
No pictures of that. She was super freaked out and it was all I could do to hold her and stop her from climbing the lamp post behind us to get away. I personally wanted to track down Jafar and kick his rear for doing that. All the older kids around were clamoring for his attention and he has to touch my little kid who was in no way interacting with him prior to his intrusion into her personal space.
She settled down a bit once she saw Mickey and friends (“Mama, PLUTO!” except it was really Goofy), even tossing out a wave or two along the way. She was also okay with the Beast – good thing since their float stopped in front of us for a good 5 minutes.
And then we had Screamy again when she had to get back into the stroller. Except this time she didn’t calm down. We tried soothing, we tried ignoring, we tried feeding, we tried EVERYthing and nothing was working. Mind you, she was past naptime and in sensory overload so I totally understood where this was coming from. I whipped out the MeiHip carrier (still goes everywhere with me) and strapped her to me in the 9 million degree heat + 4000% humidity and toted her around. This did it and she was happy to get back in the stroller a short time later.
And was like this 1.5 seconds later.
Our mission for our first day at the MK was mainly recon – find our way around and formulate our plan of attack – and to have our one and only character meal with Pooh at the Crystal Palace. Since all plans with 2 year olds are jello we ended up canceling our tete-a-500 with Pooh and Friends. I felt like it was too much too soon so we opted for a quieter meal at the Liberty Tree Tavern. Just like us, eh? We drive a thousand miles only to eat at a replica of a Williamsburg tavern just like the real ones virtually next door to us at home. Really good food, BTW. Probably the best meal we had at Disney.
We did spend some time in Fantasyland, of course. Our first ride was ‘It’s a Small World’ and other than the fact that I thought that all the singing animatronic kids were incredibly creepy which gave me a ‘Chucky’ flashback which then made me briefly consider throwing myself out of the boat mid-ride and swimming, er, running wading for my life, she had a wonderful time and that was all that mattered.
Gotta tell y’all that September is definitely the time to go to Disney. The lines were nonexistent and we waited no more than 5 minutes (max) for anything. Even Dumbo.
Her favorite part of the park was Winnie the Pooh’s spot. She could have played here for hours. I was okay with it because it was shaded and about 5 degrees cooler than everywhere else.
Her second favorite was Minnie’s house. She loved it. I didn’t – mainly because all of the non-kidded adults who were hogging up space taking pictures of each other and not moving to let the actual kids in there to look around. We finally (probably rudely) moved one group on in order to let Ava (and other kids) in to play.
She was fascinated with the sewing machine. Her paternal great-grandmother would have been so proud.
She was also quite enamored with the refrigerator and tried to climb in. Oh wait – that was because it was actually cold inside and my kid is not stupid. It was HOT outside.
We wound down with a train ride before the fireworks. Since the day started so very early we all enjoyed a few minutes of being off our feet and watching the scenery go by.
Ohhhh, the fireworks. They were everything I thought they would be and better. No one in my generation who grew up watching Disney on Sunday nights with the family could ever forget the moment when Tinkerbell flies in front of the castle. You could hear the audible gasp from the crowd when she did it during the fireworks show. We stood at the end of Main Street and watched the fireworks over the castle – and it was another tear filled moment. Both for me (because I’m old and sentimental like that) and because hearing Ava ooh and aah was so cool. I was at Disney World with my family and it was a dream come true moment. Who wouldn’t happy cry?
And for me? It was the best birthday I’ve ever had in my whole life.