Part I of this day can be seen HERE.
That done, we decide to scream over to Epcot to see if we might have a chance at Soarin. If not, we can let the boys enjoy Nemo again. We walk out to the bus stop and, within 5 minutes, in rolls the bus. A few minutes later, we're heeeerrreeeee! Soarin is a 45 minute wait, and the FastPass return time is 12:15. Nope…guess we'll have to come down again in a couple of months to get our fix.
We make our way over to the Seas with Nemo and do the MINE birds thing a couple of times. The wait for the clam-mobiles is about 5 minutes, and we're on! I love the starfish at the end!
We head out and go straight for the windows into the aquarium. We spend probably a good 15 minutes in here before we drag the boys over to the manatee room. Eric really likes these…he calls them "hippo manatees."
The boys plead to ride Nemo again, so we ride it AGAIN. Afterwards, we tell them we need to head out to rest. We're walking around underneath Spaceship doing the salmon swimming upstream thing (everyone's still coming in). I look up for a second to make sure we won't run into anyone, and there's a family about 15 feet in front of us heading our way.
I look down
A brief instant later, alarms start going off in my mind.
That girl looks really familiar
I look back up right about the time I hear "CHRIS???"
"LEIGH???!!!"
Aside from the fact that I weigh about 150 pounds more than her, didn't have make-up on, wasn't wearing pink, didn't have guys turning heads to look at me, and am male, we had to look exactly the same at that instant (okay, we both had our mouths open at the sight of each other).
We introduced our families to each other. Sheri took one look at Audrey and wanted 5 more children.
We talk for a couple of minutes and then say our goodbyes and head our separate ways. Let's see...DD's crew, Mare's crew, Mel's crew, Todd and Mo's crew, and now Leigh's crew.
December 2007, Moose Meet II
(I should have made t-shirts)
As we make our way to the exit, we gauge the boys' power level and decide that they've got some gas in the tank yet. Now might be our best chance to look at some of the resort decorations. We exit Epcot and make our way up the ramp to the monorail without telling the kids where the ramp leads to. Of course, Aaron demands that we stop to go potty as we reach the top of the ramp.
Argh.
They've been begging to ride the monorail since we saw our first one this trip…needless to say, they were excited to hop on. Aaron completely forgot that his back teeth were floating as we started our way to the TTC. Down one ramp and up another (the crowd was small, so Sheri and I raced strollers up the ramp), and we're on the monorail to the Poly. One more stop, and we're at the Grand Floridian.
Haughty or not, that Christmas tree is impressive!
Haughty or not, that gingerbread house is impressive!
Sheri takes the boys potty, while I get in line to buy a couple gingerbread men. Miss Florida (or Miss September…it worked either way) was manning the gingerbread house and was working the charm on trying to move the pre-made houses to guys entranced by her beauty. Hell, I almost bought one!
We retreat to the infamous couch in the atrium where, two years on this very day, we feared getting banished from the resort if we spilled a crumb from the cookie.
Haughty or not, that couch is impressive!
Oh, I think we spilled a crumb...AND WE'RE STILL ALIVE!!!
The cookies taste remarkably good there…much better than we remembered. Eric has fun with his gingerbread man... "please, don't eat me!..CRUNCH"
Soon we depart the GF and monorail it over to MK where we stroll down to the bus stop for the Pop.
We're the only ones on the bus, so we sit up front to keep the driver company. I notice that the same @#%^#$%@ music is playing yet again. I used to like All in the Family as well as Dave Seville's Witch Doctor and Frank Sinatra's New York, New York. After hearing this loop for something like the 4th time, I was nearly suicidal.
So, of course, I ask the bus driver how he tolerates hearing the same loop over and over without contemplating driving the bus into Bay Lake.
Apparently, the music in the loop gets quite a bit better later on if you can get far enough into it. He mentions that, when gassing it up and preparing for the day, he'll throw the MK-OKW loop on…lots of Buffett music on there.
My goal the next trip is to go from MK to Old Key West and coordinate a traffic jam in front of the bus.
The boys fall asleep on the bus, and we do the "throw-the-kids-up-while-we-open-the-strollers" maneuver. We're a little hungry, so, after looking around in the gift shop for a little bit, we decide to do a ten-minute trip by ourselves and have a meal without kids. We use up the last of our counter service meals with calzones and chicken strips.
As I take my first bite, guess who wakes up?
We split our meal with the boys and then go back to the room in an attempt to rest before heading back to MK for the AAA Character Story Time.
Yeah, right…they just slept for 45 minutes. The only one to sleep, according to wifey, is me.
We get ready to head to MK, and the boys are in ultra-hyper mode. I pull out the little-used "if you don't calm down we won't be able to see Renee again this trip!" threat.
That actually worked…they chill on the bus ride as I give Mare a call to see what her plans were. I leave a message as we get to MK.
(Continued HERE)
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