Let me just pause and tell you how stupid we all realized we were on Day 1....well, really even before our first actual day in the park. I am the only one in my family that is even remotely out of shape and even all the in shape people were complaining about their feet hurting or their back aching from all the walking/standing we were doing.
So, again....I do NOT recommend scheduling all your park visits on back to back days. Give yourself a day of rest in between.....if you can. It is no fun when you start the day with sore, swollen feet. Learn from our mistakes.
Anyway, this was the one park day where we were actually able to be at the park at opening time.....actually a bit before.....which turned out to be a very good thing. It takes you a bit to actually get to the front gate of the Magic Kingdom....first there is the parking, then you have to either ride the monorail or the ferry boat to get there. We decided to go with monorail on the way over and ferry boat for our return trip.
Anyway, so far so good. We got there about 8:30 (park opened at 9:00). We waltzed up to the little ticket/card scanner thingie.....and the little Mickey Mouse ears wouldn't turn green. The ticket helper lady asked me what kind of tickets we had purchased. I didn't know. I told her that we had gotten them through my husband's work, but I didn't know what "kind" they were..
See, other than our half priced Epcot tickets through the timeshare place, we had been able to get a discount through Rainman's job. So, we clicked through all the necessary websites/pages, paid for our tickets on-line and were told to come pick them up at the discount ticket place in a strip mall in Orlando. No problem.
Our Universal tickets had worked just fine.
The nice ticket lady called over her supervisor, who scanned our tickets on her little tablet and announced, "You have the wrong tickets. These are for Animal Kingdom, Epcot or MGM Studios. You will have to get these upgraded."
Okay, my heart dropped a little. All I could see was dollar signs. But, because, I am a mom and this is what we do.....I kept a smile plastered on my face, turned and explained to Rainman that there was a teeny, tiny, little problem and that we needed to go over to the ticket window and upgrade our tickets. Like it was no big deal....meanwhile, I was sort of blinking tears out of my eyes.
Thankfully, it turned out not to be that big of a deal....we only had to pay like $8 each to upgrade our tickets. Crisis averted.
Whew!
Again, so glad we got there early because all of this drama took awhile!
But, this was by far our best day at all the parks. By getting there early in the day, we saved ourselves from....some...of the long endless lines. Not all, but some!
We met our friend, Chef D, at the gate. He works at one of the fancy schmancy (interpret that as too expensive for us to go see him at his place of work) Disney restaurants.
We met our friend, Chef D, at the gate. He works at one of the fancy schmancy (interpret that as too expensive for us to go see him at his place of work) Disney restaurants.
Oh and don't let the super cute fall/Halloween decorations fool you. This was our hottest day yet! Bleck!
I may break this post up into 2 days, because if I put in all the pictures I want to include, I think even A-girl would get bored!
I may break this post up into 2 days, because if I put in all the pictures I want to include, I think even A-girl would get bored!
We rode the Buzz Lightyear ride 2 times with no lines. Various groups of us went back late in the day for a total of 4 times on this ride! A-man was the big winner with the highest score!
We had about a 10 minute wait to drive the race cars. (This is the point...at...hmmm....let's see....about 9:20 a.m....... the I realized I was in a lot of trouble with heat/sunburn, It is hot in Florida in October, you know!)
We all discovered that we are really horrible drivers. We kept banging and bumping into the metal railing that ran in the middle of the track. It was awful. S-girl who was my driver, just gave up at one point and asked me to drive. So, I did my best from the passenger seat. I did awful too. We were beaten and bruised by the time we were done. We laughed a lot though.
We had about a 10 minute wait to drive the race cars. (This is the point...at...hmmm....let's see....about 9:20 a.m....... the I realized I was in a lot of trouble with heat/sunburn, It is hot in Florida in October, you know!)
We all discovered that we are really horrible drivers. We kept banging and bumping into the metal railing that ran in the middle of the track. It was awful. S-girl who was my driver, just gave up at one point and asked me to drive. So, I did my best from the passenger seat. I did awful too. We were beaten and bruised by the time we were done. We laughed a lot though.
Next, we did one of the smartest things ever. We went into the circus tent thingie and got pictures taken with characters. The line was only about 5 minutes long and the buildings were air conditioned! Please note the reflective strips that are on our family back pack. I didn't realize they did that until I saw the pictures with the 2 blinding lights on whoever was wearing it!
I had to laugh when both the photographer and the character handler commented on how amazing it was that the kids just shuffled into place....tallest in the back...turned around and smiled. Apparently they were an orderly bunch. They both said that usually with larger groups, even if they are sibling groups there is a lot of guiding them around and placing them in the correct spot and then people not liking who they were standing by and causing a ruckus....and whenever everyone wasfinally in the right place, somebody refusing to smile. I do love my kids.
Ariel is favorite of all my girls. A-girl was on a mission for a particular item from the movie that is apparently only available in one store. (show you later)
Upon further reflection, I am thinking maybe I wasn't supposed to be taking flash photography on the rides...but it was just so cute...I couldn't help myself.
I couldn't help myself inside It's A Small World either....I will end Part 1 of my Magic Kingdom post with the Tea Cups....
When I first saw this I thought...."Really?!? You have your device out while you are riding?"
But, D-man explained that he was actually just trying to get a picture of V-girl because she was so funny. Look at her in the above one....arms thrown up in joy!
Rainman is still pretty happy in this one. They learned soon after not to try to spin their teacup as fast as they could.....
Pretty sure S-girl is trying to slow them down in this one...it didn't work very well.
Rainman was the last off the entire ride, because he got so dizzy. He said he just couldn't see straight for a few minutes. That, my friends, is why I am the photographer!
I had to laugh when both the photographer and the character handler commented on how amazing it was that the kids just shuffled into place....tallest in the back...turned around and smiled. Apparently they were an orderly bunch. They both said that usually with larger groups, even if they are sibling groups there is a lot of guiding them around and placing them in the correct spot and then people not liking who they were standing by and causing a ruckus....and whenever everyone wasfinally in the right place, somebody refusing to smile. I do love my kids.
Ariel is favorite of all my girls. A-girl was on a mission for a particular item from the movie that is apparently only available in one store. (show you later)
Upon further reflection, I am thinking maybe I wasn't supposed to be taking flash photography on the rides...but it was just so cute...I couldn't help myself.
I couldn't help myself inside It's A Small World either....I will end Part 1 of my Magic Kingdom post with the Tea Cups....
When I first saw this I thought...."Really?!? You have your device out while you are riding?"
But, D-man explained that he was actually just trying to get a picture of V-girl because she was so funny. Look at her in the above one....arms thrown up in joy!
Pretty sure S-girl is trying to slow them down in this one...it didn't work very well.
Rainman was the last off the entire ride, because he got so dizzy. He said he just couldn't see straight for a few minutes. That, my friends, is why I am the photographer!
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment