So we have been to Disney world and returned none the worse for the wear. A little lighter in the pocketbook but all in all feeling good about the trip. In summary we all had a good time and rode as many rides as we could. The kids seemed mostly uninterested in the characters. The hotel was cool, but the pool was closed, which made my people very sad.

If you’re interested in the agonizing play-by-play details, please feel free to read it below.
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So we went to Walt Disney World for almost five days. Well, we flew down there on Wednesday morning and arrived at our hotel around 3pm to discover that the fabulous swimming pool that had waterfalls and waterslides and lifeguards was closed for refurbishments. The kids and Liz were heartbroken. It turns out that the swimming pool was a major part of their plans and here it was completely inoperable. There was an ugly chain-link fence around it and not a drop of water was in it.

The front desk tried to cheer me up by saying we could use the pool at the Polynesian hotel, the Contemporary pool or the one at the villas. For the first two we would have to ask the people at the marina to summon a boat for us to get over there. We eventually tried that and it took 15 minutes for a boat to arrive, 15 minutes to travel to the Polynesian hotel where we got to swim for 15 minutes before they shut THAT pool down for “emergency cleaning”. I guess some baby left a dookey or something. What a giant let-down! The kids were FUMING mad that we had to go – after all it was going to take hours to clean that stuff out. It took another 30 minutes for a boat to arrive, followed by another 15 minute ride back to the Wilderness Lodge. Between all the waiting and closings and changing clothes we managed to waste virtually the whole afternoon.

That first day we tried swimming at the Villas’ pool and it was a fine little thing and I guess it turned out to be a blessing that it was only 4 feet deep because I didn’t have to worry about anyone drowning you know. But there were no lifeguards and it was packed and dull. The only good thing about it was that it was very close – as close as the hotel restaurants.

I tried to remind everyone that we weren’t really there for the pool so lets not focus on that. After we dried off and changed we took a bus over to the Animal Kingdom because it was staying open late for people staying in the resorts. We got two extra hours there to ourselves. The good news was that the park wasn’t very full. In fact we were able to get on a ride and keep going virtually as long as we wanted. We went on a river raft ride a couple of times and all the kids LOVED it. It was a nice exciting thing to do after a day of being stuck on airplanes, buses and the disappointment of the swimming pool.

After that me and the three older kids got on a really good roller coaster called Expedition: Everest. It was excellent! This made Grace sad because she was one inch too short and she wanted to go. She’s very bold and intrepid but I’m glad she didn’t go on it. It was a FAST coaster and I was surprised that the older three liked it as much as they did. In fact, they were breathless and dying to get back on. But out of respect for Grace’s feelings we didn’t go on that one again. I think we had a snack and visited with Mickey and Minnie who were posing for pictures.

The kids got to stay up extra late and just when we thought things were quieting down there was the strangest midi-style electronic music coming from outside. It was 9:30pm and three of the kids came to the balcony to see what the hubbub was about. It was an “electric water parade”! Whoever heard of such a thing?! It was a series of barges with a ton of lights that I think told some kind of story. It went on until about 10pm! It was very surreal and the whole time I couldn’t quite believe my eyes.

The following day we spent at the Magic Kingdom partially because it opened an hour early for us. Liz and the older kids did Space Mountain while me and Grace shot up aliens on a wholesome Buzz Lightyear ride. When a “cast member” saw how disappointed Grace was that she couldn’t go on the ride the cast member gave her a cute little stuffed bear, which she clung to for the rest of the visit. We took several pictures in front of Cinderella’s Castle and Grace just HAD to ride the flying Dumbo ride.

She’s a big Dumbo-fan.

The kids bought some souvenirs and I got them each a pair of light-up Mickey mouse ears. We ventured back to Mickey’s ToonTown and visited Winnie The Pooh’s Playground. Then we took the train ‘round the park to FrontierLand where we went on a great log floom ride, Splash Mountain. At Twelve and a half minutes it was also a good way to take a load off. Grace was big enough to ride it and it really was an exciting ride.

We had some lunch at a “tavern” in Liberty Square, which was good. We were on the Disney Meal Plan and that turned out to be a good decision. They gave us a ton of food and it seemed like we always got our money’s worth. I was happy with that.

After lunch I think we packed it in and headed back to the hotel for a rest. The kids were upset and mad because they had big plans for the rest of the park. Nonetheless Liz and I were tired too and we KNEW they needed a break and some quiet time. So we laid down for a short while, and I think we did some swimming afterwards.

Disney has this thing called a FastPass, where you insert your park ticket in a machine and it prints out a ticket allowing you to come back at a later time. Then, when you return you zip ahead of the ungodly long line and go straight to the front of the line! It works great!

When we came back to the Magic Kingdom we used the FastPass to secure a spot in line for the Thunder Mountain ride and I think we did a little walking-around. The FastPass-thing worked out great – we shot straight to the front of the line. We couldn’t have been happier with it. We also visited the Haunted Mansion.

Hmm… suffice it to say we went on virtually every ride in the Magic Kingdom. We tried to stay for the fireworks but Grace was starting to run out of goodness so we went back to the hotel and this time I think only a couple of kids managed to stay awake for that oddball “electric water parade”.

We spent the next day at MGM Studios. We had a really good time at that and the whole family loved the Tower of Terror ride! That was great! Liz and the older kids went on the “Rock and Roller Coaster” and said it was the best coaster they had ever been on. The whole place has a Golden Age of Hollywood theme. It was a lot of fun! I took Grace to a live-showing of one of her favorite TV shows, Disney’s Playhouse and she loved it. She got to see all her favorite characters and was all atwitter about it.

We had lunch at The Brown Derby, which was great. The food was excellent and a little odd. That is, it was all very high class – it took two of our sit-down service meals from the dining plan but it was a lot of fun having such a high-class meal.

We did the Star Wars ride, which was silly and fun and everyone enjoyed it. We never did get to see any of the stunt-shows like Indiana Jones or anything. This was the afternoon where we went back to the hotel and tried to go swimming at an exciting swimming pool and got nothing but pontoon boats and dookey.

In the evening I think we went back to the Magic Kingdom and while everyone else was distracted by the parade we had seen the night before we went on Splash Mountain about 7 times in a row.

On the last day, Saturday we went to Epcot which I have to admit kind of stunk. Ben had wanted to try the monorail the whole time we were there. So we took a small boat to the Contemporary Hotel, then got a monorail for one stop to the ticket and transit center where we caught ANTOHER monorail to Epcot. We got on the very dull ride that is inside the giant golfball. It was about human communication through the ages. After we woke up we got a fastpass for a ride called Soarin’ – its supposed to be a must-see attraction. The FastPass said that we should come back at 2:45pm! So we tried to go to Nemo’s adventure, but it was closed for maintenance or was broken or something. We decided instead to go to the attraction next door – something about a turtle named “Crush”. It was packed and we were disgusted. We spent some time at the Imaginarium before trying to get a bite to eat. Three places were closed.

We got fed up and left. First we decided to go back to MGM and hunted around for the right bus. But we changed our minds and decided to go to the magic kingdom. So we went back into Epcot and caught the monorail back to the ticket and transit center. Unfortunately we got confused and didn’t get off the train and headed BACK to Epcot! We were getting quite angry by this time. And hungry! When we got back to the transit center there was a LONG line to catch the next monorail to the Magic Kingdom. When we finally got on the train it skipped the contemporary hotel where we had planned to eat! Every time we turned around something was going wrong! I decided that we should just go back to OUR hotel and have lunch where we knew how everything worked. But even the boat back to the Wilderness Lodge took the long way around and visited the Camp Wilderness campsite before getting us home! What a morning. I was glad it was over.

We did a little more swimming at our own shallow swimming pool while Liz did some packing. Because we were celebrating Grace’s birthday that day we took her to a special dinner at the lovely Grand Floridian hotel where we had a great meal and got to meet Cinderella, Prince Charming and two mice named Pearl and Suzie. Grace loved it. And she wore a button saying it was her birthday so wherever she went people wished her a happy birthday. It was really great because it put her on the top of the world for the whole day. A couple of hours later she also saw a Snow White dress that she absolutely HAD to have. I wouldn’t have bought it for her because I thought it was silly to spend $60 on something like that. Fortunately for her, she hadn’t bought many souvenirs and she actually HAD the money for it.

So she bought it and she’s been wearing it ever since! She loves it and I’m happy she has something she likes so much.

We went on all manner of rides including “It’s a Small World”. It was a very trippy and insipid ride. I hated it but the kids seemed to be amused by it.

We watched the fireworks from inside the Magic Kingdom that night and they were actually much better than I expected. It was a good show!

We came home on Sunday morning. Although the ride to the airport was early (7:30am) it and the flight home was uneventful. Me and Gabe and Chloe got the dogs from puppy-jail … er … the “dog-spa”. And they were both happy to see us and naturally pee’ed all over the kennel floor.

it was a good trip and I’m glad we went, but I’m also very happy to be home.

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