Barreling in to Day #7 we woke again at the crack of dawn to hit the Magic Kingdom, Sidda’s choice for last park, one more time. We were pretty wiped out before we began and I was worried it might be a wash.

Things quickly took a turn up though when we headed to Sidda’s favorite ride this trip, Big Thunder Mountain and rode it seven times in a row.

Seven. Times.

So there you go. Trip worth it.

We did Dumbo

and Peter Pan early, repeated Haunted Mansion (several times through the day. It was Sidda’s 2nd favorite ride), Small World and other things and called it about 10:30AM because the park was filling, we’d done more than most people do in three days and we had reservations. We grabbed some fast passes for Big Thunder, for that night, on the way out. 

Then we took the Monorail over to Chef Mickeys!

Sidda *finally* got to meet Minnie (snafus were had last trip.)

It was loud and there were characters.

There were also Mickey Waffles, but they cannot be photographed, because they are eaten too quickly.

Then we went back to the resort for some chill time, swim break and “wait for all the crazy people to get out of the park” break.

Sidda is herein demonstrating unsafe ways to jump in a pool.

Eventually we headed back to the park, rode the Magic Carpets, which had been vexing us with broken-downness all week, Haunted Mansion (again!?), Big Thunder at sunset and night (fun!), watched part of the Main Street Electrical Parade again, and one thing happened I did not expect…

Sidda decided she wanted to ride Space Mountain one last time.

Oops. no fastpasses. I thought she hated it! But she was set.

The line ap was saying 50 minutes, and cynical Disney sign of course claimed 80 or some nonsense, but it didn’t look that bad to me so we sneaked in smoothies (you just have to know me) and braved the line. It was cute, little games and all, though *packed* with crazy teenagers in a competition to ride it the most times in a day. Most of them must have been pushing 20 times, or somehow were drunk. Not sure. It was loud and wild, but we got through in 30 minutes. It was officially the longest line we waited in all week on one of the most crowded weeks of the year! No complaints.

Sidda wanted Lee to ride behind her and keep his hands on her shoulders again, but shortly into the ride she peeled her hands off and rode solo like the little maniac she is! We came out to see the last few fireworks go off.

We were tired, but she wanted to hop on The Tomorrowland Speedway one last time since it had no line and she and Lee or someone did and I think I stared at a bench. We were all stumbling at that point. 

One last attempt to smile for a camera was made

On the way out, we passed another round of the Parade getting started and right as we hit the gates, Mickey went by and waved right to us.

Disney ending.

Dance party with Stitch!

Back to hardcore planning and agendas! Thursday was a jam packed carefully planned extravaganza. As with most of the extravaganza, it involved getting up at omg o’clock.

Here was the idea:

Plan Details

• Park: Magic Kingdom
• Uses EMH Morning? No
• Uses EMH Evening? No
• Group: None
• Length: One Full Day
• Start: Regular Park Opening
• Last Updated: March 17, 2011

Plan Steps

1. Space Mountain    Ride Space Mountain
2.   Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin  Ride Buzz Lightyear
3. Stitch’s Great Escape    Experience Stitch’s Great Escape
4. Astro Orbiter Ride the Astro Orbiters
5.  Tomorrowland Speedway Ride the Tomorrowland Speedway
6. Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover Ride the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover
7. Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor See the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor
8. Bibbity Bobbity Boutique 11:00 AM 402645442181 Bring Brush
9.   Tangled Meet and Greet Meet the Tangled Cast
10.   Cinderella’s Royal Table 1:00PM 402931050653 
11. Snow White’s Scary Adventures See Snow White’s Adventure
12.   Dumbo the Flying Elephant Ride Dumbo the Flying Elephant
13. Mickey’s PhilharMagic  See Mickey’s PhilharMagic

We did in fact begin with Space Mountain.We arrived (took the bus this time like sensible people) and headed straight for Tomorrowland. There was no wait for Space Mountain, but we did have to stop for Stitch who was hanging out outside. Sidda was a little “off” this morning, so some extended cuddling with Stitch was in order and it was had. Somehow, I did not have the camera! I think Sandy had it and she was grabbing some extra Space Mountain fast passes for later.

We hoped on Space Mountain and had a minor freak-out in line when Sidda realized that she would be alone in her seat with no one next to her. We cajoled her a bit to get on, which I was reluctant to do, but it’s her half-sister’s *favorite* ride and I was really afraid she’d regret it if she didn’t try it. She got on with the promise that Daddy would sit behind her and hold onto her shoulders the whole time.

I’ve ridden Space Mountain many times in my 34 years, in almost all of its incarnations. Maybe it was just the added concern of having an iffy 6 year old with me, but I thought it was much more intense than I remembered!

Still, Sidda had an ok time on it, and though she did not want to hop on again , she wasn’t traumatized.

The group scooted over and did Buzz Lightyear, which was cute but seemed to be something like a failed experiment in the development of the awesome Toy Story Mania. If we had ridden Buzz first we might have enjoyed it, but… meh.

We bounced over the Stitch’s Great Escape, which thanks to a number of seriously concerning reviews, I had tried to warn Sidda off of. Her love of Stitch overruled my concerns about the terror the ride sometimes inflicts and we went on. All in all, she enjoyed it and it didn’t scare her at all. I really don’t see what all the fuss was about. Compared to the under-cautioned “Tough To Be a Bug” it was really very harmless.

After Stitch, following the itinerary, we went to the Astro Orbiter. This is a spinning rocket-ship doohickey over tomorrow land. It was really the only line we had to wait in this day. It’s an annoyingly slow loader.

It’s interesting to see what the vision of the future in the 1950s was as you move through Tomorrowland. The experience with AstroOrbiter taught me one thing quite clearly; the people of yesteryear failed to predict the increase in size of the average American. Under no circumstances should two adults attempt to jam themselves into these things, but that’s how they set you up! Even had Sandy and I been waifs (which sadly, we are not) there is utterly no way give our basic skeletal structures and heights we could have been in anything other than pain and misery in this thing. And have I mentioned that I, clearly, am not a skinny thing? Seriously. It is a miracle nothing was broken. 

Look at Sidda and Lee in it! Do you notice anything missing? That’s right! Any remaining space. I honestly have no idea how Sandy turned around to take this picture. It had to involve a double jointed neck.

There should definitely be a warning:

“Do you ever eat pound cake and/or fried rice? Do you lack triathlon experience? Are you over 5’6”? Then under no circumstances should you attempt to get on this ride with a buddy. Move on fatty.”

It was time to move onto the Tomorrowland Speedway (one of those kids get to drive a race-car with the metal bar in the middle of the road things.) Since Sandy and Lee had no real urge to ride it and Sidda was not going to use her Space Mountain fastpass that was ready to go, she and I went to go drive the cars and sent Sandy and Lee to go ride Space Mountain two more times (since we had four passes.) Sidda actually really enjoyed the speedway, particularly when they gave her her own “Drivers License” since she didn’t have one to present.

When we came out, there was a fabulous distracting surprise. Stitch was hosting a dance party in Tomorrowland! I have some cute video I’ll post after this. Of course Sidda was rocking out much more until she saw the camera.

Heck, even I couldn’t resist jumping around like a crazy Mom. It was so much fun. It takes a while to ride Space Mountain twice even with no line, so Sandy and Lee were gone a bit longer and Sidda and I rocked out for 15-20 minutes while we waited. We really burned off some energy we didn’t have! Oops…

We headed over to the Monster’s Inc Laugh Floor. We basically walked right in, but did have time to text a joke to Mike who used it in the show and credited Sidda. It was her favorite, “Why is 6 afraid of 7? Because 7 ate 9!” (7, 8, 9… get it?) Lee was volunteered to buy everyone churros. It was all quite amusing and always worth a little stop.

I should mention that from here on out the park crown was ludicrous. It was just 10 out of 10 and difficult to move. We still didn’t wait in any lines though thanks to the itinerary of wonder. We were either not doing high-demand rides, or using fastpass the rest of the day.

By this time it was time to head to our Bibbity Bobbity Boutique appointment. We grabbed Fast Passes for Winne the Pooh as we went by.

Sidda had a great time, though she was disappointed that “Rapunzel” was not an option for dress up. She chose Tinkerbell.

Obviously she was pleased with the results. We went and had her photo-shoot that comes with it, which they have cleverly moved close to where the boutique actually is. A *huge* improvement!

I like how she looks normally better, but, whatever. It was fun for her.

We were going to try to catch Rapunzel (Sandy volunteered to go stand in like) but she wasn’t around during this time. We had a break before lunch so Sidda and Lee rode Prince Charming’s Carousel repeatedly, since it’s right there and has little to no line. This is one of those rides, by the way, that I think is vastly over cautioned. This was midday on a peak day and the wait was one cycle. Seriously if this thing is jammed up, you’ve made some horrible errors in planning. 

Afterwards it was time for Cinderella’s Royal Table (for which I had gotten reservations 6 months before. This thing isn’t kidding around.) I was grateful I had decided to go with lunchtime instead of trying to aim for fireworks as the castle was under construction and so you couldn’t see out the windows. (There was a huge facade over the castle, painted like the castle, there to hide the scaffolding. It was well done. I didn’t notice till I got home and saw it in pictures.)

I felt dumb when I saw the pictures though.

Anyway, CRT was about what I expected. Well choreographed, decent food (I had the Salad Nicsoise, which I think was the best thing they had. The cheesecake was good, and I don’t like cheesecake as a general rule. No “magic” moments with princesses happened. I think this whole BBB/CRT experience served to prove what I had suspected, Sidda was trying really hard to play along, but she really doesn’t care that much about the princess gig anymore.

Two princesses… in a competition for the fakest smile.

Ah well. I’m glad we came when she was 4. It was magic then, and different things were magic this time… but not this.

We jammed a few rides in after this; Snow White I think, and maybe Mickey’s Philharmagic. Snow White was so unremarkable that I had to think hard to even remember if we rode it. We did. It wasn’t scary as far as we were concerned, but not really memorable either. Philharmagic is always worth a visit.

As the 3:00 parade was fast coming upon us we headed for Frontierland to catch a good shady street spot and waited for the parade. Someone went and grabbed some Big Thunder Mountain Fast Passes at Sidda’s request. We already had FPs for Winnie the Pooh but it had been 2 hours so we could stack more at this point.

While we waited and avoided the “Vacation Club” staff who were nearby, Sidda wandered too close and was given a button and a brochure which she brought back to me, politely telling me that the lady had asked her to give it to me because it would “save Mommy money.” Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Marketing to kids is one crappy thing; marketing time-shares to them? Bite me.

As we had experienced last time, the characters went *nuts* for Sidda all dressed up. I think every single person who passed yelled to her, blew kisses, asked if she could fly etc… 

Poor Lee didn’t get to see a thing. He had a fairy on his head. A big one.

This was Sidda’s favorite moment. Br’er fox stole her wand and beat some cat thing he had with him with said wand. Slapstick at close range=6 year old’s delight.

We finally got to meet Genie!

After the parade we went and hopped on Big Thunder Mountain (are you counting how many times we’ve ridden it? We’re not sure. A lot.) It will, by the way, trash some Princess hair, let me tell you.

We took our Fastpasses over to the ridiculously slow loading and thus long-lined Winnie the Pooh and hopped on it. I enjoy the ride rather a lot personally. Thank goodness for Fast Pass though. The line is always ridiculous! I think we may have ridden The Haunted Mansion and/or Pirates again as well somewhere in here.

You know that “wall” they talk about in the guidebooks? The one where some member of your party suddenly and epically melts down and cannot or refuses to do it or deal with any of it anymore? It was me. I hit the wall hard. We handed off some fast passes we’d collected for Peter Pan to some strangers, and left the park.

We went back to the hotel, took turns watching Sidda swim and play on the playground, while the others napped. I was surprised that she was happy to take off/get rid of all the BBB dress up, but she was. She hooked up with a buddy that she had met on the bus and swam all afternoon. That night we went to the hotel  restaurant for dinner.

I wore my pajamas.

Value resorts rock.

This may be my favorite day in the parks. Likely because I was tired but whatever. There was an itinerary, but because of the general structure of the day it didn’t really matter so I chucked it. The goal of the day, “Chill. Out.” It was perfectly timed.

We woke up late, had breakfast at the quite good restaurant thing in our resort, I think Sidda may have gone for a swim and took turns resting and otherwise kicking back. Sandy began her quest to entirely empty the gift shop.

Eventually we got our act together and wandered over to Epcot. The plan had originally been to catch a couple of rides and then tour the remaining countries, but after our previous day’s World Showcase experience, we decided to split up the group. (Gasp!) I would rent a stroller (since I can’t easily carry Sidda and EPCOT is BIG) and Sidda and I would do our thing in Futureworld and Sandy and Lee would return to World Showcase. We would meet back up at 5:00 for dinner reservations at San Angel Inn in Mexico and see a few things then watch Illuminations at 9:00.

When we arrived it was about 1:00, so we rode Spaceship Earth, as the book had said it was not crowded this time of day. (It was right.) Sidda enjoyed it, as she had last trip and afterward she wanted to piddle around and do all the diversionary games in the depot it exits into.

I know this will come as a shock to you all, but I took off my Disney crusader hat, send Lee and Sandy on their way and Sidda and I stayed and played every one of those game.

They were actually pretty fun, kind of educational, and relaxing. We than began our mission of wandering around and doing whatever occurred to us.

She wanted to go back to Innoventions West and play “The Great Piggy Bank Adventure” again, so we headed that way. We played it, and “Where’s the Fire?” and some game where you make your own video game. We sat in the a/c for a bit, ate some cliff bars and headed to a nearby character spot in the hope of seeing Chip and Dale who she really wanted to catch.

Success!

Sidda started flashing peace signs backwards and I insisted she turn it around forwards, because I think the backwards ones look trashy (I don’t know… but you know I’m right. They totally do.) Dale looked adorably embarrassed as he also turned his around to face forward. I have no idea how these characters manage to express so much! Embarrassment?! Adorable.

(This shot is badly framed. I am embarrassed as well. We move on.)

We went and rode Figment (whatever it’s actually called? “Journey into Imagination” or something?) and that was nice. It shows its age a bit, but again we stayed and played all the games in the building.

We realized we needed to move towards Mexico for our early dinner and wandered that way, stopping to enjoy the garden festival as needed. We rode Los Caballeros again when we got there because my daughter is fabulously tolerant of me.

Then we had dinner under the beautiful Mexican sky. (This is all indoors by the way, it was day-time really, but inside there is a beautiful reproduced full size Mexican market and night sky with pyramid and volcano in the background. Los Cabeleros runs through the lamp-lit restaurant.)

It was so beautiful.

Food sucked though.

They couldn’t get Sidda a crunchy shell on her taco instead of a soft one. Seriously??? Whatever. The experience was still nice, but next time we won’t be staying for dinner. (The book had not rated it well, but Sidda had asked last trip if we could eat there this time so we did. I’m glad she got to do it.) :)

After dinner, we went to the, “Pixie Hollow Fairy Gardens” that are a part of the garden festival. They were just amazing. I’m so tempted to picture spam you here.

Lee asked why fairies need airships. I say, everyone has cargo.

This was my favorite:

This was a real tree that slowly started glowing as the sun went down. I could see how it was done, but why ruin the magic? It was beautiful. I want one.

There was a playground in the fairy area as well as a weird sand-table thing and game wherein you collected rubbings of various objects around the fairies. Sidda enjoyed all of them while Lee and I hung out and took pictures and wallowed in the beauty.

Sandy continued her quest to, “BUY ALL THE SOUVENIRS” at the nearest gift shop. She was extremely dangerous, as by now, she had figured out that you could have any souvenir you purchased sent back to your resort so that you did not have to carry it around all day. A really nice service. Dangerous though.

Anyway, eventually we left and went to ride, “Ellen’s Energy Adventure.”

Ellen Degeneres is funny and adorable. The ride holds more people than I have ever seen. It’s worth riding just so that you can oogle over an entire theater wandering around (albeit slowly.) However, it had scary dinosaurs (ok not very scary ones) but Sidda and I were well over scary dinosaurs at this point. Also, they might want to edit the suddenly-dated section in which they oooh and ahh over the wonders of deep-sea drilling. Yeah.

At least they don’t have a scene extolling the virtues of the Japanese nuclear power industry.

After that Sidda and I really wanted to see the “Tangled” tower built as a part of the garden show. We figured we’d snag lagoon seats over there for Illuminations. OMG long walk. Well we went around the wrong way due to bad planning so, longest walk to Germany ever. Thank goodness we got that stroller.

Anyway, the tower was very pretty and you could hear Rapunzel singing from inside.

We did snag some good Lagoon-side seats and bought caramel apples from the nearby German candy shop and ate them and enjoyed Illuminations.

Unfortunately for you, I am a crappy fireworks photographer. But it was, in fact, beautiful.

What a perfect mid-week recharge. The Epcot Sunrise/starlight 2 day plan was a huge hit.

We began our very-long-day at a more relaxed pace on Hollywood day, in anticipation of a late night catching Fantasmic. By a “relaxed pace” of course I mean we didn’t have anywhere to be till 8:30, but hey! I really did try to take it easy.

We began the day at the Polynesian Resort for breakfast at O’hana with Lilo and Stitch. We did this two years ago and it was magic! I had lower expectations this time, but it really was still a lot of fun. More importantly it was my first chance to get a Mickey shaped waffle. You should never miss a chance to eat a Mickey shaped waffle. It is so much better than any other waffle anywhere.

This is where Sidda originally fell in love with Stitch. Here she is renewing her vows:

She enjoyed seeing him again, but was almost if not more excited to meet Pluto. Frankly I think it’s from her recent segment on the Solar System at school. Who can help but love a “planet that isn’t anymore”, incarnate as a dog? No one.

Sidda was really enjoying collecting and trading the Disney pins so and so she had a great time showing characters pins of them when she had them. She has many of Pluto, so he was there a while.

We saw Lilo and Mickey too and enjoyed the quite filling breakfast. We shopped in the nice Polynesian gift shops and piddled around and then scurried over to Hollywood Studios. My only concern was, would we get there in time to get a ToyStory Mania Fastpass? The cellphone ap was showing them gone by 11:00 and we were pushing it.

Here’s the itinerary as planned:

Plan Details

• Park: Disney’s Hollywood Studios
• Uses EMH Morning? No
• Uses EMH Evening? No
• Group: Parents with Small Children
• Length: None
• Start: Late morning (10am - 12pm)
• Last Updated: March 17, 2011

Plan Steps

1.    Toy Story Mania! Obtain a FASTPASS for Toy Story Mania
2.    The Great Movie Ride The Great Movie Ride
3.    Muppet*Vision 3-D See Muppet*Vision 3-D
4.    Honey, I Shrunk the Kids Movie Set Adventure Explore the Honey I Shrunk the Kids Movie Set
5.    Beauty and the Beast Live on Stage See Beauty and the Beast
6.    Toy Story Mania!  Ride Toy Story Mania!
7.    The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror Obtain FASTPASSes for the Tower of Terror
8.    Backlot Express Dine at Backlot Express
9.    Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular  See the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular
10.    Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster  Ride the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster
11.    Voyage of the Little Mermaid  See Voyage of the Little Mermaid
12.    The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror  Ride the Tower of Terror
13.    Fantasmic! Enjoy Fantasmic!

I knew the plan was a bit over ambitious, but I was willing to loose some things.

We got in and sent poor Lee on a FP mission, which was successful! Yay! The fast passes were very late- like, we’d already have to be getting seats for Fantasmic late. Boo.

We headed over to “The Great Movie Ride” and rode it. Blech. I am admittedly not a movie fan, so most of the park is really lost on me but I didn’t understand this ride at all. The movies were old if iconic and the whole set up was scary. Gangsters, shootings, aliens from the ceiling (I covered Sidda’s eyes and ears for that) and over all somehow boring and scary at the same time.

We did head for Muppets after that, which is a hysterical little show. It’s great fun don’t miss it. We checked out the Muppet gift shop (Yay I finally found a gift for Brian!) and headed over to the “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” playground. No one under 30 has seen this movie so, perhaps a re-marketing would be good, but it’s an adorable play-world and Sidda had a great time, especially climbing in the giant spider web.

Here we varied a bit. Sidda decided she did not want to ride Tower of Terror after all (which was honestly fine with me as I’d been dreading it myself) and none of us really cared to see the Beauty and Beast mini-musical. (We have tickets to the real Broadway version in June so… meh.) So we skipped ahead to do the Indiana Jones show, because I had this awesome sequence of events worked out (that no one ever appreciates) but wow. It was an awesome piece of logistics. That’s all I’m saying. (Subtext: LOVE ME FOR MY GRAPH PAPER!)

Lee really enjoyed the Indiana Jones thing and I, ummm, thought it was shady there and ummmm. It was loud?

I know, my general lack of Movie give-a-darn is epic. Is caught Sidda’s interest though. She came home with an Indiana Jones library book last week.

The came my epic maneuver- we fell out the side/back of the show arena and into the “Backlot Express” restaurant (which was perfectly tasty. I had some kind of avocado burger) and I snagged seat on the patio, right next to the street where the 3:00 Block Party parade would pass! I am so awesome!!! 

*ahem*

I mean… “As if by magic… the parade happened to pass right by there while we were eating.” I’m not a Pixar fan though, except for The Incredibles” and “Monsters Inc.” so most was rather meh, to me. Don’t get me started on the pile of inherent evil that is Toy Story 3. Just don’t.

Anyway, parade.

It was, objectively, a very fun enthusiastic parade. I just don’t care for most of the movies.

Then we went and rode the “Studio Backlot Tour” which was remarkably unremarkable.

Oh! But after that we ran into Sulley and Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc! Sidda was not pleased with the pure HUGEness of Sulley. But this was a magic Disney moment… that giant monster thing, with no words, no sounds, no ability to get down to her level or seem smaller, somehow expressed such an open heart and kindness that she went from “Mom… come with me…” while backing away, to this:

I can’t even explain it. Just, magic. Instant magic.

Sulley should be a diplomat.

Oh but speaking of bigger issues; the Monsters did have a good workplace reminder:

After that we wandered around bored (Sidda’s not tall enough for Rock and Roller Coaster, so we didn’t drag her over for that line), shopped some, watched that relatively bad “Voyage of the Little Mermaid” thing and headed towards Fantasmic since signs had warned to be there a hour or more ahead of time. Lee went off to get some food (which was unnecessary, because they sold food inside the stadium but we didn’t know that.)

So ok, OMG Fantasmic has created an obsession. I could not *believe* the number of people in the street in a massive “line” 1.5 hours before the show! We didn’t have to wait a horribly long time to get in and get seats and Lee miraculously found us, but wow. It was like a small Bon Jovi concert for all the crowd and enthusiasm.

The wait was long though once we had seat, so I’d brought a comic book which Sidda read and was cute.

We did the wave. We ate junk food. We played with bubbles. It was actually kind of fun.

The show was really cool. I will say reluctantly, not quite *as cool* as I had hoped or the hype had lead me to believe, but a show done mostly on projections on an inverted waterfall, Disney villains and fireworks really can’t be less than pretty awesome.

It is however, very hard to photograph. Here are a few attempts. It’s giant pictures on a wall of water and floats and… ok you’ll either see or you won’t.

This is Chernabog. Chernabog is the best thing Disney has ever created so… I had to try for a picture anyway. 3 story water Chernabog. *swoon*

They also had Maleficent as dragon. Swoon #2.

Oh there were also good guys. Whatever.

Oh I almost forgot! (Which is crummy cause the last line was a good ender…) we did go back and ride Toy Story Mania and they did let us in with old Fast Passes and it was *completely great!* It was one of my favorite rides of all times which is hard to explain cause it’s a weird little midway game ride, but it is big for a reason. How fun!! Next time we’ll go at opening, ride it two or three times, do Rockin Rollercoaster and come back that night for Fantasmic. ;)

So we headed over to Boma at Animal Kingdom Lodge where we had reservations for dinner at Boma.

Boma, is probably my favorite restaurant at Disney World. Wait let me check…. checking…. yes. Yes it is my favorite.

Anyway; it’s sort of a buffet, but that undersells it. It’s a large family but formal open restaurant with tons and tons of serve yourself tables of African cuisine. I was afraid I was going to fill up before anything hot hit my plate. The salads (Oh there was this watermelon rind salad that tasted like candied ginger but cold and crunchy that makes me dizzy to remember), and the hummus bar alone could’ve held me. Sidda and I shared a plate of 5 different types of hummus and three different breads and curried pasta salad and just were in heaven.

But you know… you are only there once, so you keep going. We shared some amazing peanut soup; I loved the Bobotie (lamb and beef quiche with onions, raisins and bread) the pap (Like grits but way better) and the fufu (I have no idea, but it was good and hey even if it were awful it’s called FUFU! You have to eat it and be happy anyway.) Then Lee got us into eating the coconut rice that he had found and it all becomes a sort of over-full blur at that point.

Check out this awesome site I found with all the recipes Disney has given people. I’m thinking we can have Boma night this summer!

Click Here for Recipes

So we stumbled our way home, to find a fun surprise. As you may know, the housekeeping staff at Disney occasionally has great fun with the things you leave in the room. We came came back to friends in the window:

Looks like Sidda’s teddy-bear was having quite the vacation herself. Sidda was satisfying boggled about the whole thing. (Another day we came back and the same bear had the remote, had turned on some cartoons and was chilling on the bed. I guess she had finished all the books.)

Then everyone else went to sleep, and because in a general sort of way I do not sleep, I scurried around getting ready for the next day, but I was actually quite tired, so I finished up and was looking forward to laying my head upon a fluffy cool Disney pillow. I moved towards my bed and instead of sleeping I was instantly blessed with the narrative for a new children’s book;

Why can’t Mommy come to bed?

Why can’t Mommy come to bed?

Because big dumb Daddy has all the pillows and is heavy and impossible to wake up.

Poor Mommy.

Mommy will pull out a pillow!

Mommy pulls and pulls and finally she gets one!

Mommy is happy.

Mommy puts her pillow down where her head belongs and smiles.

Then Mommy looks down and does not smile…

because…

Mommy can’t come to bed!

Why can’t Mommy come to bed?

Because big dumb Daddy has taken up the entire thing as though he was put in bed from the 30th floor.

Poor Mommy!

What will Mommy do?

Mommy will take pictures and post them on the internet when she gets home.

Divine at Animal Kingdom

Bright and way too freakishly early the next morning it was time to hit the road for Animal Kingdom to see some fruit bats. I love fruit bats. (Why yes, that is a boy fruit bat. Thanks for noticing. But really, I love fruit bats)

Anyway, none of us were pleased with our 7:20 arrival plan, so we slid on in about 7:30. That’s really all the variation the Type-A Sophia of doom can handle. I thought it was pretty good. Anyway, the park didn’t open till 8:00 and had stupid Extra Magic Hours, which if you ever care to ask me I will explain in detail why they are stupid and should be avoided, but thanks to some inflexible fireworks and dining reservations, I couldn’t switch days. So there we were, at Animal Kingdom, at seven flippin thirty in the morning.

I actually don’t remember arriving. I was that tired. Also, as a note that really doesn’t need a lot of explanation, one should, even at seven flippin thirty in the morning, remember where one parks when at a major theme park.

Here was the plan:

Plan Details

• Park: Animal Kingdom
• Uses EMH Morning? Yes
• Uses EMH Evening? No
• Group: Parents with Small Children
• Length: Less than one full day
• Start: Morning Extra Magic Hour
• Last Updated: March 16, 2011

Plan Steps

Click on the [drag] and drag to reorder the steps on your plan!

1.    Expedition Everest Obtain FASTPASSes for Expedition Everest
2.    TriceraTop Spin Ride TriceraTop Spin
3.    Dinosaur    Ride DINOSAUR
4. [drag] The Boneyard Check out The Boneyard
5.    Kali River Rapids    Ride Kali River Rapids
6.  Maharajah Jungle Trek Walk the Maharaja Jungle Trek
7.    Expedition Everest   Expedition Everest
8.    Flights of Wonder See Flights of Wonder
9.    Pizzafari Dine at Pizzafari
10.    Kilimanjaro Safaris Obtain a FASTPASS for the Kilimanjaro Safaris
11.  Wildlife Express Train Ride the Wildlife Express
12.    Pangani Forest Exploration Trail Walk the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail
13.    Kilimanjaro Safaris  Experience the Kilimanjaro Safaris
14.   Character Trails Camp Minnie-Mickey Character Trails
15.  It’s Tough to Be a Bug!  See It’s Tough To Be a Bug
16.    Finding Nemo: The Musical See Finding Nemo: The Musical at the Theater in the Wild

I’m not sure I could’ve banged up this itinerary more if I’d put effort into it. I was too tired, too many variable and my brain melted. That said, it gave us a good start and we got everything in. I just spent a lot of time holding a map, a schedule and a phone with the line times on it while walking. A lot of time.

So here’s how it went down.

We arrived and Lee went for Fastpasses for Everest. Sidda, Sandy and I went over to Triceratops Spin, which is basically Dumbo with Triceratops that you can tilt as well as raise and lower. Thanks to the *omg why are they so stupid???* Extra Magic Hours, the ride was cold and thus covered in dew and wet. Unfortunately for me Sidda didn’t care, there was no line and I was forced to ride it upwards of six times becaaause, the next step on the itinerary was “Dinosaur.”

“Dinosaur” is a ride in which they put you in a jeep, shake and throw you around while blasting loud noise at you and setting giant animatronic dinosaurs up to eat you. The discerning reader may have already ascertained that I, do not ride Dinosaur. Sandy and Lee however, lacking sufficient anxiety and survival instincts to know better did ride it. Because there was no line in fact, they rode it twice.

Lee said that the first time Sandy screamed as though she was actively being mauled by a bear, clawed at him as though attempting to climb him like a tree and reached a level of panic and hysteria by the end usually reserved for extras in movies staring Tom Cruise. Fortunately, when they rode it a second time, she did the exact same thing again.

In the meantime, we wore ourselves out on Triceratops, fell into a trading pin shop and then to get away from that, I offered to have Sidda’s face painted while we waited, which she enjoyed all day.

Eventually out intrepid adventurers made their way back and we immediately hit itinerary problems. The Boneyard Playground was not yet open, because Extra Magic Hours had us there way too early and it was covered in dew and wet. Also it was still on 8:45 in the morning and no one wanted to ride Kali River Rapids. Right here I made a mistake:

I decided that I would replace Kali River Rapids with Kilimanjaro Safari since it was no real line yet, switch the walking trails and move back across the map the other way. This was a path fraught with errors and I should’ve just stuck to the itinerary, skipping steps as needed.

Oh well, we did make it over to the safari. It was fabulous.

I once again was awed by how close the animals were, how the environments showed no signs of how they were enclosed and how we were protected from the huge and wild creatures.

Then a Rhino walked out in front of the jeep and giggled to himself while we had to wait, because… you can’t really influence a rhino in any way.

Then I realized the animals could in fact get to us and we were all going to die.

Sidda loved it though and raved about it that afternoon and upon arriving home.

About now our Fastpasses for Everest came up and we headed that way because I was too uptight about the times. It was a long walk because I’d mussed up the itinerary. Argh.

But we met up with Baloo, who was fabulous:

We also met “Davine” who I will post a video of after this. She’s amazing.

Anyway, Everest is a great coaster. I had been too traumatized last trip by my preceding ride on Dinosaur to enjoy it, but this time it was a blast. Backwards in the pitch black was a little much for Sidda, but she wasn’t upset. She just said she would prefer not to do it again this trip. Anyway, it’s a good coaster. Ride it. The Yeti never jumps out at you, by the way. This is an important detail to me.

By now we were back near the Boneyard and Sidda wanted to go play. We’d decided none of us wanted to get wet and thus were skipping Kali River.Really, is getting on a river names Kali a good idea anyway? Not sure.

Sidda enjoyed some good running around and playing time:

Then we were hungry, so we humped over to Pizzafari because I really wanted to see the painted walls.

They were actually pretty amazing. This is the wall of a pizza place. Every inch was like this! Hand painted!

I don’t care for pizza so I ordered the antipasto salad which was actually fabulous. I wish I’d taken more pictures of the inside.

We then took the wildlife express train out to Rafiki’s Planet watch and messed around. Sidda enjoyed the little adventure learning station along the way (and wanted to do them all. We will have to get all the stamps next time!) Lee and I however most enjoyed this sheep:

Oh wrong end…

Here we go…

Best. Hidden Mickey. Ever.

When we left we walked the Pagani and Maharajah Trails, which I wish we’d enjoyed but Sidda and I had to run to find a potty so we rushed through. She and I were really getting worn out with the whole crowd thing by this point anyway. We weren’t waiting in any lines, but at some point, just volume of people gets annoying. I couldn’t even really kick back and watch bats in comfort. This is why they were scheduled earlier! Duh! Oh well.

Then I pulled off this increadibly complicated seqeunce of events to get in the last three things we needed to do:

1) We headed to the middle and saw, “It’s Tough to Be a Bug.” Actually it scared Sidda to death and I didn’t like it much either, but even if you don’t see it, walk to it, and just walk through and out. Going to it is how you get to really see the tree. It’s all about the tree. (The tree is a giant sculpture of a HUGE tree covered in carvings of animals on every surface. It is amazing as a work of art on every scale.)

2) We popped out of Bug and moved a few blocks down just in time to get a snack and watch the great 3:00 AK parade. It’s one of my favorites with all the natural materials and multi-cultural arts.

3) We were set up so after the parade we could fall backwards down a path to catch *barely* the last showing of the Finding Nemo musical.

I was impressed by this series of maneuvers. Join me. Yay Sophia.

Anyway, Nemo, was *great!* The staging, the puppetry, the singing and choreography. It was all Broadway quality and completely unique. It blew. Us. Away.

…

And then we left.

…

Half an hour later, the six year old found the damn car.

It had been a late night, but I figured we’d have enough energy from the arrival excitement to get moving early and we did. We arrived at Epcot 30 minutes before opening as recommended. (we drove; parking at Epcot is fine. Oh by the way, calculate into your cost comparisons that parking is free if you are a Disney resort guest and ~$14 bucks a day otherwise.) Unfortunately the park did not open as early as the book had suggested it might so we stood cold in a line outside the park for a while. Still the park did open 10 minutes or so early so it wasn’t a terrible wait.

Ok so here was the itinerary I had made for the day:

Plan Details

• Park: Epcot
• Uses EMH Morning? No
• Uses EMH Evening? No
• Group: Parents with Small Children
• Length: One Morning
• Start: Regular Park Opening

Plan Steps

1.   Soarin’ Obtain FASTPASSes for Soarin’
2. Test Track    Ride Test Track
3.   Mission: Space Green    Ride Mission: Space
4. Innoventions Explore Innoventions Plaza West
5. Living with the Land  Ride Living with the Land
6. Journey into Imagination with Figment Ride Journey Into Your Imagination
7. Captain EO See Captain EO
8. Soarin’   See Soarin’
9. Sunshine Seasons Food Fair Dine at Sunshine Seasons Food Fair
10. Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure Try the Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure
11. Mexico Pavilion Tour the Mexico pavilion
12. Norway Pavilion Explore the Norway pavilion
13. Maelstrom   Ride Maelstrom
14. China Pavilion Explore the China pavilion
15. Germany Pavilion See the Germany pavilion
16. Italy Pavilion Visit the Italy pavilion
17. Japan Pavilion Explore the Japan pavilion

We had to make some changes on the fly for various reasons, but it worked out fine. Here’s how it went down:

After park entry, we all gave Lee our Keys/Tickets and he went to go get Fast Passes for Soarin’ while we ambled our way to Test Track. We should have done more ambling, because the FPs took a while to get and I got all antsy waiting for him.

Once Lee made his way over we rode Test Track, which everyone in the world loves, except for me. I’m just too anxious a driver I suppose. By the way, they take your picture on it during the speed trial and OMG it does horrible things to faces and hair and it you are unlucky, arms. Just… don’t look. Anyway, there was no line for it so we were in and out in a 15 minutes. Here’s a picture taken when the car was not going 60 MPH.

We headed straight over and did Mission Space Green. See: Tea Cups in previous post to discern why we did not choose Orange (which spins the ship incredibly fast to produce G-forces associated with take-off. No.) Anyway, it was a pretty cool ride and I was confused that I had missed it before. The building is awesome too with the big planets sticking out and the turning earth!

Here’s where I got confused. I should have written down go to Innoventions East to do Sum of All Thrills, but I had West on the itinerary and so we went there instead. Oh well. We played “The Great Piggy Bank Adventure” which is an awesome little investment strategy game than Sidda actually adored, wherein you get a piggy bank computer… thing… and walk it from station to station, play games to earn “money,” invest it and diversify it to try to save up for a goal. It was small but a lot of fun.

Then our Soarin FPs came up and again I was too shy about being late for them and rushed us over. We road Soarin’, which Sidda really enjoyed this year and I liked as usual. With FPs we waited perhaps 10 minutes. The stand-by line at that point was over 90 minutes.

Oh I should mention; the garden show was going on, so our progress was a bit slower than you would expect because we kept stopping for awesome topiary.

After Soarin’ we road Living with the Land, which had a 15 minute line that really went in more like 9. (it was packed an hour later… the itinerary… HOW DOES IT KNOW????????) We all *really liked it.* Anyone with the slightest propensity to garden would enjoy it as would people who eat vegetables or fruit. It’s not just the awesome things they are growing; it’s the really bizarre ways in wihch they are growing them:

Needless to say, after this, we were all quite hungry, so we stopped at the Sunshine Seasons Food Fair (SSFF) (Ok it’s a cafeteria…) which is conveniently, in the same building with Soaring and Living with the Land. It’s like it was planned!

*ahem*

Anyway. the SSFF was highly recommended in The Book and for good reason. It was some of the best food we had all week and much of the produce is grown in the greenhouses we had just toured, which makes it taste extra good. I had a grilled vegetable pannini I can still taste in my memory and Sidda and I wallowed in a cucumber salad of wonder. (There were pleanty of meat options available as well.)

After that we swung over to catch Nemo (rather than Figment for some reason I can’t remember.) It could be just cause I like Nemo.

This is me looking inordinatly happy to be in a moving clamshell:

It’s a great ride; just an immersive scene ride like Small World; nothing *happens* but the surroundings are very fun and a bit perplexing. (I just don’t know how the last part is done.) Sandy was OMG impatient to get the heck out of Future Land and into World Showcase, so I didn’t push for Figment.

Oh as a side note; I speak from experience when I say, despite the apparent photo opportunity that is the Bruce the Shark sculpture, due to bad lighting, a room too small to back up and frame the shot, and some sort of chaos magic, it is in fact impossible to get a good shot of a kid in his mouth, so don’t bother.

After that we scooted towards World Showcase to pick up a Kimmunicator for the Kimpossible Adventure (a little mystery thing kids can do with this cell phone thing in the countries) and before we got there we encountered the, “I can’t believe it’s Disney” uncontrolled fountain of freedom. The Book had told me to resist my impulse to say no and let the kid be a free running tiny crazy person here, so… I did:

She got very wet. In the meantime I enjoyed the garden festival view:

We snagged our Kimmunicator and headed for World Showcase. We stopped in Mexico (despite our Kimpossible adventure sending us to Norway) and saw the pavilion and rode the Grad Fiesta Tour which is possibly my favorite ride in Epcot. This may make me very boring, but I loved it even before it got Los Caballeros.

After that we went over to Norway and I began to remember something: World Showcase is very boring if a) you are under ten b) you have seen it a few times before or c) you have been to many of the countries represented. All told, Sidda and I tried to hang in there, but quickly didn’t care. Fortunately we met Donald Duck for a quick distraction. Then we decided to try the Kimpossible Adventure in Norway while Lee and Sandy went on to see other countries. Sadly, with us, it was a flop. The park was crowded by this time, there were so many kids around trying to do the stupid thing we couldn’t tell which communicator was talking to us or someone else. I couldn’t see it very well and the clues were too hard for Sidda. We hacked through it but neither of us had any desire to do another one. I’m sure it will be fun in a few years.

There was some cell-phone drama at this point, but we did eventually regroup and head out of the park at about 2:30 as planned. We went back to the resort, rested, all took showers and got ready for our dinner at Artist Point at the Wilderness Lodge.

I will say to begin, that there were some things I really enjoyed about Artist Point. The bread and appetizers were good and I thought Lee’s entree was spectacular. It was some kind of Buffalo steak thing. Sandy’s was pretty good for venison (which I don’t much care for) but my salmon was bad. It was just bad. I should have sent it back but it didn’t seem very Disney of me. I asked for it rare, and believe me, I *love* rare salmon. Just a little bit of a crisp gold to the outside and as soon as the layers begin to define at all, take mine off the fire! However, what I got was not rare. It was just raw. I mean it can’t have been on the grill for more than 30 seconds and only on one side. I really couldn’t eat it. My risotto was very good.

My dessert was tasty though! Some sort of thing called a cobbler but was actually a sponge cake. Whatever. It was good and fortunate we had “ceiling cat” along to take pictures. He’s the best.

Sidda’s dessert was the best thing there though. She was presented with the pieces of a white chocolate Mickey puzzle to assemble and then paint with edible icing paint.

She was pleased.

She takes art seriously and it was a consuming expereince:

Then she ate the paint and all the food dyes there in, causing her to suddenly develop ADD and loose the ability to complete physics at Harvard and drop out just days before she would have otherwise completed her Masters in biophysics and cured death; but I had no way to know that at the time.

Afterward we checked out the Lodge, took a goofy photo and went “home” to bed.

Mickey is our totem. Totally culturally irreverent and yet adorable. C’est la vie.

Fireworks are good. Watching your child watching the fireworks is even better.