Archive for September 17th, 2009
Our last full day at Disney. Finally. (Yes, there was a tiny bit of relief knowing we would soon be heading home. Yes, there was also a whole lot of OMG we have to get back in the van and drive for hours and hours and hours, too.)
We tried artfully posing her by a Mickey topiary with her ears on one last time. It didn’t work – but we did get some action shots as she screamed and ran away.
We got to the park super early for the extra magic hour and it worked out much better for us this time. We headed straight into Fantasyland where Ava got to ride, well – pretty much everything. She loved the Peter Pan ride, was kind of ‘eh’ about the Winnie the Pooh ride, adored the teacups, and was in toddler heaven riding the carousel with both Mama and Daddy. We rode Dumbo again, she blew off Ariel in the grotto, and she headed straight for her fave WTP play area as soon as she could make a break for it.
She was the only kid in here for about 30 minutes so she was in hog heaven running hither and yon with no one to impede her way. She played in the water, crawled through the hollow logs, went down the slides, and would stop every so often to sing the WTP song (old version ’cause it’s the only one I know) and break into an impromptu dance just for the sheer joy of being here. This was the second time on the trip that I wished for the video camera (still at the hotel, of course) because the exuberance of her dance was such that my still camera couldn’t capture it well enough and, honestly, I didn’t really even try too hard because I was so caught up in watching my beautiful girl and wishing that I could stay in that moment forever.
After a spot of pretend tea with Daddy we headed off to the Tomorrowland speedway. J was reliving his childhood a bit with this one. He initially wasn’t sure about taking Ava on this ride but with only a little bit of encouragement he scooped her up and headed off for his very first experience with teaching his daughter to drive.
Being that she can’t yet see over the steering wheel it appears we have a while to mentally prepare ourselves for the real thing. In the meantime, she’s continuing to practice that homecoming queen wave.
She got a bit impatient about this time. They ended up in a traffic jam and had to sit for about 5 minutes while some of the other cars unloaded. I was hoping J wouldn’t start the ‘How to be a Successful New York Driver’ portion of driver’s ed – but I’m thinking he did. It wasn’t too much later that I heard her say, “Move it, cah” as we were driving. Hmm….
We walked around a bit more and ended up in the Swiss Family treehouse which I found to be no fun at all. Let’s see, a million stairs + Ava who didn’t want anyone but Mama to carry her up those million stairs + a Mama who could barely walk up them herself (much less carrying a squirmy toddler). Yep, J carried her. She was not happy about this and weepingly pleaded (pitifully and especially loudly) with me to “Pick up, Mama” the whole entire time we were in the darn tree.
Oh. But then we encountered a random block party – which is like a mini parade where characters pop out of gift boxes and people on stilts try to drag you into the street while other disney cast members in full costume and makeup are singing and dancing their hearts out in 540 degree heat. Ava LOVED it. I mean, went absolutely bonkers over this. She waved, she made up her own lyrics and sang along, and she grabbed hold of J and bopped right on out into the street to dance.
She almost got within arm’s reach of a character. Goofy (except she still calls him Pluto) was dancing only a few feet away from her. She came to a dead stop when she saw him and then took a few tentative steps his way when a super rude person stepped in between them and shoved her kid into Goofy’s arms for a photo op. Guess we’ll never know if Ava would actually have went to him – I vote probably not. She didn’t seem to mind anyway because the next thing I knew J and Ava were headed down the road in a conga line.
We did lunch at the Liberty Tree Tavern again. Remember – I don’t need variety. If I find something that I like then I’m okay with doing that until J puts his foot down and refuses. The food was good – not quite as good as the dinner service – but our waitress more than made up for it and we had a fantastic meal.
And then we did the smartest thing we’d done all week. We went back to the hotel and all of us took a long, long nap. Because I am slow and stupid sometimes, I didn’t realize how much better this would have made all of our days. I knew Ava needed naps…but it never dawned on me that we were go, go, going sooooo much that we were as exhausted (probably more so) as she was.
We headed back again in the afternoon and watched shows and rode rides (Pirates of the Caribbean was a huge letdown and the Jungle Cruise is a hidden treasure) and ate and walked and still didn’t see everything we wanted to. In part because Little Miss Ava wanted to ride the The Magic Carpets of Aladdin.
Over and over and over (and over) again. 5 times in all. Good thing the line was short and the ride attendants were happy to let us just stay on.
Roller coaster hands on the last ride. Livin’ on the edge for sure.
Another surprising hit? Tom Sawyer’s Island. We got kicked off because it was closing. Ava could have stayed there all day.
Ava was winding down fast by this time..out of the stroller and nearly asleep in the MeiHip carrier on me so we decided that we would skip the parade and head back to the hotel. I mean, heck, we’d already seen a couple of parades so we didn’t think it would be that different.
Apparently I needed to do a bit more research on Disney than I actually did. This one was beyond spectacular. Lights, music, characters, WOW!
We ended up watching the parade, of course. We got all the way to the end of Main Street and got trapped by the floats coming out. Since we couldn’t leave and we’d now found ourselves (inadvertently) in a prime viewing location we decided to just roll with it.
J plonked Ava on his shoulders. She was soooo tired.
And then…
You can see all the magic of Disney right there in the look on her face.
That’s what made the whole trip worthwhile.