Winding Down

One thing I can say about our stay in Florida before we left Disney is that it never felt like we saw any of the state itself. The conference was almost entirely indoors and Disney, well, that's almost another planet. Does it even qualify as part of Florida? And if you read the last three posts, you'll have noticed the frenetic pace. The posts are paced about the same way each day was.

For the most part, there wasn't anything harried about our visit, but it wasn't exactly slow and restful either. And then we left Orlando and drove a couple of hours through some nasty thunderstorms and traffic to Longboat Key, near Sarasota. Ahhhh! Now that's better!Some family friends of Daddy's live there and since he hadn't seen them in many, many years we went for a visit. What a great idea it was! I might not have thought to come here, but I wouldn't hesitate to go back.

Portions of the key are barely wider than the road that runs down its middle, so there is beach everywhere. And we were delighted to arrive just in time for a delicious dinner and a beautiful sunset on the bayou that serves as their backyard.It was so nice to have great company in someone's home. It's a fantastic house, full of amazing artwork and unbelievably kid-friendly...unbelievable until you know the hostess is a retired kindergarten teacher with four grandkids of her own anyway.

We spent the evening catching up and telling stories, then got up in the morning and our hostess guided us out to the beach where she taught the kids a little about different kinds of shells.There are so many things to recommend the beaches on the west coast of Florida over the beaches on the west coast of the United States. For starters, they're on the Gulf of Mexico, so the water is actually warm and fun to swim in. This particular beach also serves as a sea turtle hatchery. So you can spot little roped-off areas where nests are buried in the sand.How cool is that?

Then there are the shells.If you've walked the beaches in California or points northward, you've probably never found the volume or variety of shells the kids picked up on this beach. And I mean VOLUME. I was a little worried about exceeding the weight limit on our suitcases trying to transport all the shells Mam found completely indispensable. The shell collecting was far less annoying than the confetti collecting at the theme parks, but confetti is a whole lot less cumbersome to carry.When we arrived back at the house, we hosed off and jumped in the pool before lunch. This guy came to visit the pool a short time later. Cool little heron.While daddy and I packed for the very last leg of the trip, the kids had a grand time playing games with our host and hostess in their downstairs room. It's so very refreshing to visit people who take an interest in the kids and don't have kids themselves! Both Smunch and Mam had many kind words for them after we left.Really. Why does it have to be after we leave, kids?

One last photo of daddy with our gracious hosts. Having never met these people I didn't want to take too much advantage of their hospitality, but now I wish we'd been able to stay longer. The visit was much too short, but I guess that leaves everyone hoping to see each other again before too long. And that's a good thing.

Soarin' at Epcot

Everyone recognizes Epcot, don't they? Something about that big white geodesic ball made it our choice for the last day of theme parks for us. Yet again, we got lost in the parking lot. I'm not going to blame Disney for this one. They tried really hard to make it easy for us. We're just not easy sort of people, it appears. We made it on our second go around.

And then another go around because after we sent the kids through the turnstyles and I had joined them, Daddy's pass suddenly didn't work. And he had to go visit Guest Services. We'd already arrived at the park ridiculously late because we'd wanted to use up some last meal credits and had a sit-down breakfast and then had to pack everything and search our cavernous room for bits we'd left. And Epcot really isn't so close to the Magic Kingdom. So, it was 11 o'clock. What a hassle.

At Disney, everything about your trip is stored on your room key and the Contemporary had done such a fine job of botching our keys that things often ended up in the air, including whether or not we could get into our room or use the elevators to get there. Fortunately, they also screwed up the part where they'd offered to comp half our first night's stay. They comp-ed the whole room for that night. I'll shut up now.

Daddy finally joined us on the park side of the turnstyles and had been granted not only access to the park, but at free FastPass good for any ride at any time. Nice. We had an agenda to go on two rides in particular, which had good reviews - Test Track and Soarin'. Since we already had one FastPass, which was not on our card, but just in our hand, we were able to go get a second one. Daddy got one for Test Track. It wasn't good until 2:30, which meant we'd be at the park longer than planned, but also that we had plenty of time.We started at Space Ship Earth, which is the ride inside the geodesic sphere. It had been described as a trip through the history of invention on the planet. It sounded O.K. Not thrilling, but who goes to Epcot and doesn't take a trip inside the sphere?? So we stood in line for about 20 minutes to get on the ride and it was a lot more fun than I'd thought. Really interesting and educational...and there was a robotic replica of Woz inventing the first personal computer! I almost felt like we'd participated in that bit of history, just by knowing who the guy is. I wouldn't be exaggerating to say I really loved this ride, even if it was hardly a thrill ride. At the end, they had us take a little quiz about what we'd like our future to look like. Mam and I were riding together and did the quiz together. From your answers, they put together a hysterical little video that you can later e-mail to yourself. (Here's Daddy's with Smunch) Awesome! Here are Mam and me in our eco-friendly treehouse where we grow flowers and eat organic foods or something.And here are the kids at the end of the ride playing some sort of shuffleboard-related game where they have to move different types of power around to "feed" a city.Obviously, they didn't stop with the invention theme when they got to present day. There was lots of cool stuff to play with at the end of the ride too.

From there, we went on to see the 3D movie, "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience". It's based on that old cheesy movie about shrinking the kids and even stars Rick Moranis (remember him?). It was fine, but I sort of wish we'd stood in line for something else. One thing I noticed is that the rides at Epcot seem to all have this goofy trait of making riders line up to get into some kind of staging area or briefing area or whatever. It makes each ride take that much longer, which is a bummer when you've got limited time.

We had lunch at "The Land", where they had these pretty decorations to look at. They made for a pretty photo, so I'm posting it even though it's not that interesting.As was often the case, Smunch was bored during much of the waiting for lunch to arrive. Smunch was bored a lot during our visit to Disney and there was just one solution. Baseball.Golly gee. How fortunate that Daddy has this great little app on his iPhone that delivers not only real-time game updates, but videos and highlights too! (Can you smell the sarcasm?) Still, I wonder what we would have done without this. Does he get bored only because he knows it exists?

The highlight of our visit for me was a ride on Soarin'.It was right next to our lunch spot, so we did that next. The idea is that it makes you feel like you're taking a hang glider flight over California.California? That's sort of strange, isn't it? Aren't we in Florida? I hear rumor that the idea for this ride was borrowed from California Adventure at Disneyland. And despite the fact that I think it would have been better to hover over the Everglades and other points of interest in Florida, this ride was AWESOME. It really did feel like you were flying over the state. Not a thrill ride either. Just really, really fun.

By the time we were done, it was time to use our FastPass for Test Track...a ride where they put you (and five of your closest friends) in a car and simulate the road tests (only the thrilling ones) they do at GM before a car is ready for production. Daddy and the kids loved this ride the best.They take the car through heat and cold, test the "handling" around corners and finally take it out to see how fast it can go. You can actually see the speed track in the photo above if you look carefully. It's silver from the bottom.

After that last ride, it was about 3:30 and we needed to get going. I looked a bit longingly at Mission:SPACE because how cool is this building?But we didn't have time to wait in line. We had one set of "snacks" left on our dining plan and treated ourselves to ice cream before the kids both got drenched, yet again, in the big fountain by the ice cream stand.And finally, our adventures at Disney World at a close, we trudged through the heat and humidity back to our car for the trip to Longboat Key to see some of Scott's old family friends...not without a mouse or two on the way out, of course!

The Mad World of Disney

Fortunately for anyone brave enough to read through my vacation posts, I don't remember a whole lot about everything that happened at the Magic Kingdom. It was a dizzying array of rides, parades, fireworks and photographs...with temperatures in the 90s and the humidity in the same range. It was HOT, folks.

We moved hotels to Disney's Contemporary Resort, which is much closer to the Magic Kingdom than the Animal Kingdom Lodge is. It's just one stop away on the park's free monorail. In fact, the monorail goes right through the center of the hotel. I think that fact alone made it a childhood dream of Daddy's to stay here. Dream achieved.But let's back up. The morning we were to check out of the Animal Kingdom Lodge, the kids were booked to go on a Pirate Cruise around the lagoon. Sounded like a lot of fun, but we were hardly packed. Armed with a map, a GPS and an iPhone, we decided to take the kids to their cruise, then head back to our hotel and pack while they were away...thus defeating the purpose of booking them on a cruise, really.

Thing is, it's really, really hard to navigate Disney World with a map. The exits aren't where you expect them and there are no street names on the signs, just confusing arrows and destinations. We ended up in a backed up line to get into the Magic Kingdom when we were trying to get to the Grand Floridian Resort (not in the Magic Kingdom, but close to it). We did this twice, with the effect of making me near hysterical before we cut across a parking lot and landed on a street leading to the resort. The Floridian is at least as big as the Animal Kingdom Lodge and just finding the marina was a chore. We were often lost and so concerned that they wouldn't make it before launch that I doubt I was using any positive parenting techniques with the kids either.

We finally made it. The boat was just sailing off around the corner, but if Disney does one thing well it's making kids happy. The kids were given their pirate garb and a free ferry out to the first port of call where their pirate brethren were searching for treasure. And we hightailed it back to the hotel and packed as fast as possible, making it back to the Floridian just in time to pick them up. The day was half gone with the pirate cruise, so we stayed at the Floridian for lunch, then decided to beat the heat by heading to Blizzard Beach, a water park with a snow theme. We all had a fantastic time on all the waterslides. The kids could swim well enough not to need rescuing. Daddy and I got a workout heaving tubes and toboggans up long cement staircases. It was an afternoon well spent...even if we didn't use our park tickets that day.

The real fun began when we arrived to check in at the Contemporary. The woman at the desk took forever and then told us our room wasn't ready yet. She couldn't even tell us our room number. The room was an important one. Daddy had booked it specially so we could see the Magic Kingdom and the nightly fireworks from our balcony. But the desk clerk sent us off to our pre-arranged dinner at Chef Mickey's, telling us to come back for our room assignment when we were done.Yes, there were Mickey-shaped raviolis.

I had some reservations about dinner, but it was really fun. I'm not a big fan of people dressed up in big fuzzy costumes, but the kids had such a blast that it didn't really matter. They don't even know who all the classic Disney characters are...at least they didn't, but that didn't matter either. They posed with each one.And Mam fell in love with Minnie Mouse. She was so sad when Minnie abruptly left the room before getting to our table (turns out she'd skipped a room and had to go back), but was thrilled when she finally came back at the end of dessert. Ahh, dessert. Who knew there could be so many mouse-themed items on a tray?We returned to the lobby for another go around with the staff there. They'd given us a second floor room, which was pretty unacceptable considering the reason we'd booked a room there...on the 12th floor. So, they ended up giving us a nice room on the 9th floor for the night. It still had a view of the fireworks and we had a nice time watching them before bed. This room wasn't going to be available the following night, so we were going to have to switch and no more "kingdom view" rooms were available. I was annoyed, but we were promised a very nice room looking the other direction, so I figured I'd suck it up and go to the lounge for fireworks (tough life, huh?).

Despite all the time we spent at the water park, the kids insisted on going in the pool after dinner. See a theme here? Who really needs rides and funny characters when you have pools and water parks? This hotel also had a water slide and Smunch negotiated it without much trouble, but as soon as Mam tried it out, the rushing water at the bottom swept her into the middle of the pool where she panicked and a heroic, alert lifeguard quickly came to her rescue and very politely let me know that they had lifejackets if we'd like to use them. Ugh. The kid can swim. Really. But it's a whole lot more relaxing, it turns out, to be at the pool with the kids in lifejackets. Once Mam got one, Smunch felt the need to have one too, of course.We spent the entire next day at the Magic Kingdom. Did you know they make Mickey Mouse confetti? I didn't either, but apparently they use it a lot at the park and it was impossible to get Mam to go anywhere without picking up at least a dozen shiny pieces of confetti along the way.

The kids finally got their roller coaster in Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Smunch decided it was too fast and too bumpy for him. Mam seemed to enjoy it.They both enjoyed Pirates of the Carribean and the Dumbo ride. We had lunch with the princesses at Cinderella's Castle. Smunch didn't care for it all that much, but Mam had a blast. Snow White is her favorite.We met up with Brian and Jill again for the afternoon where we went on more rides, including It's a Small World, the Haunted Mansion and Splash Mountain.We headed back to the hotel a little early, with the idea that Daddy and I had a reservation at the upscale restaurant atop the Contemporary and that the kids had a spot booked at the Neverland Club (daycare) for a few hours. We checked into our new room, which turned out to be the Vice Presidential Suite on the 14th floor. It was far more space than we ever could have needed and the view was all wrong...but it sure was nice. By the last day, we realized we could all take a shower at the same time, in different showers and have one left over. The kids each got a queen bed (in the same room) and each one had a bathroom, one bathroom even included a TV.There was a huge living area and another bedroom on the other side of that with a king-size bed in it. Sweet. It was so very comfortable and quiet. Obviously, we need to get rich so we can afford these things rather than getting them just because someone else screwed up.

Daddy took the kids over to the club while I got ready for dinner. He didn't mention that they had no record of our reservation at the Neverland club until much later...when we realized that both those reservations were for the next night. So, we didn't have dinner reservations either. But figuring that we had the kids appropriately stashed already, we decided to give the restaurant a shot without reservations. It worked out perfectly. We were seated before we'd even gotten the cocktails we'd ordered to pass the time. It was a really nice, if seriously overpriced, dinner. The view from our table, mostly of the Floridian across the lake, was lovely.And the kids had a great time at the Neverland Club with the four other kids who showed up that evening. And it meant that we had nothing pressing on our time the next day. We went past the park on the way back to the hotel and stopped to watch the SpectraMagic parade, which was a lot of fun.Feeling that we hadn't quite done it all, we returned to the Magic Kingdom the next day for a few more rides. We started with waiting to meet Ariel at the Little Mermaid's grotto.I knew Mam would love that. We ran into Alice on the teacups...how appropriate...and the kids got to visit with her for a little while.We also spotted Wendy and Peter Pan when going back to the Pirate gift shop for a souvenir for Smunch.Mam was all about getting autographs on day 2. We left the park in the early afternoon, with plans to visit the other water park, Typhoon Lagoon.It wasn't as fun as the first park and both kids insisted on having life vests...which frustrates the heck out of me after paying for all those darned swimming lessons. We still had a good time once the life vests were on and we stayed for a few hours, then started to leave just as they announced they'd be shutting the park due to impending lightning. Our bus was stuck trying to get out of the parking lot for what felt like forever...especially since we were all wet and the air conditioning was on!

We finally made it back to the hotel, took showers and warmed up before going to dinner, followed by some fun in the arcade for Daddy and Gavinand fireworks from the balcony in the lounge, where the soundtrack was piped in over speakers. Faaancy.Unlike the Animal Kingdom, I was ready to leave the Magic Kingdom. We'd planned to drive down towards Sarasota the next day, but since we failed to use our park passes for one day, we opted for one more day of rides and adventure...Epcot.