<Each paragraph begins with the name or letter of whoever says it. If there is no introductory letter, then it's me, Derrill>
My dad speaks at a regular pension conference in Orlando, Florida each February. That has become a convenient opportunity for him to take some or all of his family with for some Disney World fun. We hoped to go up in 2021, but couldn't for obvious reasons, but made it this year.
To prepare, we went back to the very beginning, Snow White, and watched all the animated Disney movies up to around the 1980s before the trip happened. This was a project we spent many months on because we watch movies so infrequently.
Joy: We also watched Youtube videos about some of the rides. The kids enjoyed that. They made a list of rides they wanted to go on at each park. We also prepared our Disney points
By spending money on our Disney credit card to get Disney dollars back
Joy: So we could spend them at the parks.
Since we had also managed a trip to DisneyLand in the summer of 21 when Aunt Virginia died, that also helped the kids, and JT especially, get ready for the larger park and get some of our favorites done in the same year at least. My brother's family joined us for the trip to Disneyland, but couldn't come for Disney World.
Superstar had been to Disneyworld and Disneyland as a toddler, but had no memory. Princess had also been to one but didn't remember. So these trips were the "first" times going to Disney for all the kids!
 |
| Pop, Emie with baby Lucy, Steve, Princess and A JT, Grandma, Joy, Superstar, and Derrill |
Superstar: I was especially remembering today the meal we had at the Liberty Tree Tavern. The mashed potatoes were awesome. I also liked the mac and cheese.
J: That was a fun one, wasn't it.
S: At quiet time I was like, "I want to go to DisneyWorld" and remembering the yummy food.
J: I wish we could go all the time. If we lived in Florida we could buy a year pass and go all the time.
John-Thomas: Yeah, let's go all the time. I wish we could move to Florida!
J: So now you want to live in California and in Florida at the same time?
<JT nods>
Princess: I remember the night we went on Big Thunder, that Wildest Ride in the Wilderness Thing, and I got to go on it twice with Daddy.
Little JT had learned at Six Flags that roller coasters are super scary, and there were many rides he was too afraid to ride. By the end of our Disney World trip, though, he was starting to consider that Disney-coasters might not be tooooo bad. But that evening, he was not having any of it. So my parents, Joy, Superstar, and Princess went on the first time while I waited with JT. When they came back, I got to get a turn to go on and I would take someone with me for a second trip. For Big Thunder, it was Princess. Slinky Dog was Superstar's.
J: That reminded me of the Disney Skyliner when we got to soar over all the parks. Not sure why.
P: I got to be with Grandma the whole time!
J: And then that reminds me of the People Mover. There was a really interesting line for the People Mover. It just seemed to cross over itself or something. I'm feeling random, but it makes me feel how great the line was for Avatar Flight of Passage! They made such an interesting place to walk through.
JT: People in that line were really nice! I had to go to the bathroom and everyone just let us through so I could go to the bathroom and then again to get back to my family. And they were just foom, foom, foomp. I really liked the Millennium Falcon roller coaster! Though I do wish we got to go on Smuggler's Run again.
JT: I liked the roller coaster I went on, the Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. I liked the Storm Troopers and the fly down.
Going through Rise of the Resistance with Derrin was one of my favorite memories. He was trying to separate fact and fiction throughout. The cast member who orders everyone out of the transport ...
P: Tell them about how the guy told everyone to get out and you said you'd have to back up over his toes to get out, and so he said, "Everyone but you! You stay there! Don't you think about it!"
Thank you, Princess. JT wanted to stay with me and he begged the Commander to stay with me. He allowed it. We moved into the room with all the stormtroopers and JT asked if they were real. I asked what he meant. He asked if they were really going to shoot us with their laser guns. I reassured him that no one would get shot. They wanted to get information from us, so we were too valuable to shoot right now.
JT held on my arm tightly on the ride, and I explained what was going on while it happened. I warned him before we dropped into a short free-fall. He enjoyed it very much.
When I rode it the first time this summer, JT didn't go on it. I was geeking out SO bad after that ride. I loved it to pieces. So getting to introduce it to my son was really fun.
S: I destroyed my school iPad. We went to Rainforest Cafe and I had chocolate milk. They kept refilling my cup and I was not thirsty enough to drink it all. So I put it in my backpack and somehow it spilled and got my iPad and my homework all wet. We had to take a picture of my homework to show to the teacher to prove I really did it. I was sad that I lost all my photos because my iPad was dead.
One of the interesting things we learned from that experience was that the school didn't want us to clean the iPad. Didn't want us to even open it. The chocolate milk just got to stay there and ... soak and marinate the electronics. Poor thing never stood a chance....
While we were all planning the things we wanted to do, top on Princess' list was ... SHOPPING. She wanted to go shopping at each of the parks and buy souveniers. It was important to her that we set aside for that.
P: I love Lucky. She is my lucky Japanese cat from Epcot. I also got a Dino who I named Dinah.
S: If it were a boy, it would have been named Dino
Or maybe Diner.
P: No, he would have been Pterry the Pterridactyl. I also saw a t-shirt of a pteradactyl taking a spelling test, where he misspelled every word by adding silent p: the number ptwo, ptree ...
P: I also got another kitty, Baby Marie from Aristocats. I also bow and arrows and a quiver to put the arrows in, though the bowstring doesn't work as well as I thought it would. I was also happy to meet Tracy Tree at Rainforest Cafe. She was just fun. There was this sign just above her head with her name and she actually talked! And there were pixie fairies in the bins below her. Oh, and I got a yeti at Disneyland with A [my neice, above].
JT: I liked the Hall of Presidents and swordfighting with Superstar in line and the Space cafe where you get in an elevator and it looks like you are rising above Florida. I liked driving on the Autopia. Dad was my co-pilot. He pushed the gas pedal. Superstar was in the car ahead of us and he sometimes stopped so it was hard not to ram him, but Dad kept us safe. I liked seeing Princess pull her bow and arrow. And I liked the ladybug ride [Alice in Wonderland you ride a caterpillar].
S: At the end of our Magic Kingdom day, or one of them, we stopped by Small World. Everyone else wanted to go on that but Dad and I went on Haunted Mansion and it was fun.
When we did Haunted Mansion in Disneyland, JT got scared and so he and I left the ride just before boarding the doombuggies. Haunted Mansion is not in my Top Favorites, but it is one of my favorites, so I was very sad to have missed that this summer. That's why as we neared the end of the day, I was more-than-usually eager to take anyone willing and hit the Mansion at DisneyWorld.
S: Then we barely managed to get on Small World as the next to last boat they launched for the night. But our boat stopped in the middle for like 15 minutes.
So the rest of the family was standing outside for a long time waiting for us. Everyone else in the park had left and the Cast Members were very eager to escort our large troop out at churro-point. <Shoo! Shoo!>
S: Another memory of a ride I had is when we got to go on the Rockin Roller Coaster with Dad and Grandma. It was a very fast ride and it was very fun. Later at school when people were asking me what my favorite ride was, my first response was normally the Rockin Roller Coaster.
Pop, Grandma, and I were using motorized scooters to help us get along. Mine was more preventative wisdom than mandatory, but I'm very we did it. But for the Rockin Roller Coaster, we couldn't use our scooters. So Grandma climbed in a wheelchair and I raced her up this very long ramp. She was bragging to Pop later about the wisdom of my using speed to get up the ramp instead of schlepping her.
J: I really enjoyed going with everybody to the hibachi dinner at Epcot. It was so fun to see all of our family sitting there, watching him make the food.
S: I also really enjoyed going into Cinderella's palace for breakfast. The food was really good and so was being IN the Disney World castle/palace. JT and I got our swordfighting swords there.
They entertained a number of people in various lines with their antics. Cinderella's breakfast was actually the most disappointing to me in culinary terms. Tusker House in Africa had some unique things and was all-you-can eat. The character breakfast at Hollywood Studios was colorful and tasty. Cinderella had great pastries, but the eggs and meal itself left something be desired.
J: I wanted to take home a bucketfull of pastries from Cinderella's castle!
It was sad because of COVID that all the characters had to keep their distance, but that actually helped JT who has never been comfortable with poly-mascot-foamalate and Princess, who was feeling shy sometimes.
J: I remember taking a picture with you and Fancy Nancy with you cuddling up to me.
S: When we went to Magic Kingdom, Mickey and all his friends were standing just outside the castle and having a party about it being DisneyWorld's 50th anniversary year. It was a really cool way to start off our day.
J: I didn't have a favorite character, but I really liked our server at Tusker House. He did a great job! He made us feel at home. He talked to us very personably. He made it way fun. That was my favorite character breakfast.
Beauty and the Beast's castle was one dinner. It had some of the best food
P: They gray stuff Was delicious!
But they put us in the West Wing room, which is dark lighting, scary thunder, flickering lights, gloomy atmosphere. They were behind schedule that night and left us in there for more than two hours, with my poor 8-year old JT not at all comfortable. We were seated next to the magic painting
P: And when the thunder boomed loudly enough, the picture changed! It flickered between the prince and the beast! Eek!
JT: And one time it went blank. That was better.
Other diners got to eat in the ballroom, or in a room with beautiful tapestries and the couple dancing in a giant music box. But we were left in the gloom for two whole hours. The best part of that experience, though, was taking my wife into the ballroom as it cleared out and we danced a short waltz in the castle.
S: Normally they went have the Beast and Belle coming down and visiting characters, but only the Beast ever came down that night. Maybe Belle was sleeping.
JT: No, Belle wouldn't come down because she was too scared! We were seated in the beginning of the movie when she didn't want to come down for dinner!
J: The Beast was smiling when he came to see us. Even he had been grumpy to Belle, he was smiling for us.
[We only got to Beauty and Beast as a movie last week. JT was scared to watch it because of his experience at the restraunt.]
P: Oh, and they had the best chocolate milk! And they gave me a glowing ice cube and a fishbowl with punch it! I got to see the magic rose! It was glowing and there were a few petals on the ground. And I got to see the magic mirror!
JT: What was it showing?
P: Nothing.
J: It was nice to tour the castle, wasn't it.
JT: I wonder why the Beast didn't yell at all of us because we were in the West Wing....
Our hotel was The Boardwalk Hotel.
P: There were little baby fish-horsies on the roof. and the little fish babies, like fish-people babies, like little cherubs. Cherubs with fins!
S: The Boardwalk had very easy transportation to all the other parks. It was walking distance from Epcot and you could go to all the other parks by bus or boat, and it had interesting views. It's very surprising how large Disney World is. Disneyland is so much smaller!
JT: It's like 50 billion million times bigger!
S: I looked it up, and DisneyWorld is 55 times bigger than Disney Land.
J: I remember the ice cream on the Boardwalk. Every day I got some ice cream. It was yummy! I can't remember what kind it was, but it was on our way to the hotel. And I found some chocolate-covered peanuts.
JT: I liked the bakery where we got sandwiches on the Boardwalk.
S: The rooms in the Boardwalk were also really cool because there were a lot of good pictures on the walls and the beds were really nice. It just felt really magical.
S: Another thing that added greatly to my experience at Disney World was that we got to be with Pop and Grandma during our trips. Being with our family is really good and we get to do it every year, but being able to be with them AT Disney World is even more amazing!
P: I loved it when we got a picture all together right in front of the Disney Castle at night. I'm there right next to Grandma and I looked so grownup.
JT: I liked playing Zs with Pop - Astro Blasters.
No comments:
Post a Comment