Part II HERE.
The boys run up ahead in the Barnstormer queue line…there was NOBODY in there, so we let them get a little ahead of us. The plane goes overhead, empty. We get near the loading platform and notice that there are only a few folks up there waiting. Another empty plane, and we're queued in the front cars.
Kewl…first riders on this attraction too.
Still no Eric (Wolvrine Eric…not our Eric)…oh well. The doors open, and Aaron bolts for the front seats (where Sheri and Eric were getting in). I yank Aaron over to the second seat with me, and, boy was he ticked! He vowed never to ride with me again on another ride. I held Space Mountain over his head, and he calmed down…a little. We ride, and I can hear Eric "wheeeeee'ing" all throughout the ride. Aaron forgets that he's mad at me for a couple of minutes as he enjoys the ride too. After more choruses for a drink, we head into Mickey's House and take in the sights there. After about 10-15 minutes, we make it in and find Minnie in there with Mickey.
Aaron, who not two minutes prior said he didn't want to see Mickey, was the most excited he has been thus far in the trip…I think Aaron was more excited than Eric. Sheri and I are both thinking at this time, though, that this may be the last year for Aaron to truly believe. I had the speech ready just in case we needed it (so what if you think they're people inside a costume? If you use your imagination, you can make them become real. Isn't it more fun to think of them as real instead of people in a costume?). I think Aaron's already doing this a little, as he has a really active imagination. I don't want him to spoil it for Eric, and I don't think he will.
We leave, and the chorus starts up again for a drink. Seriously, they're chanting "DRINK! DRINK! DRINK!" We head into the Hall of Fame to grab a Sprite for them. While paying for it, I notice the line is really long for the characters in there. Wait…only 1 line is long…the other line is nonexistent. We pay and start to head towards the exit when we notice that it's only the Tinkerbelle line that's long. The princesses have a less-than-10-minute wait. I ask the boys, and, of course, Aaron says "no." I tell him that will change in about 8 years. Eric does want to see them, and we drag them into the line. We were in the princess room in less than 5 minutes.
Sorry, folks…not pics here…Photopass had some good ones, though.
We head out of Toontown and back to Fantasyland, where we finally claim the stroller that's been sitting there for over an hour and a half. Eric's getting a little tired of walking, so he agrees to get in for a bit. As we head over towards Liberty Square, Eric's almost asleep. Sheri and I discuss a plan of attack. She and Aaron would ride HM while I took Eric to get fastpasses for Big Thunder. As soon as I said "See ya in a few", Eric bolts up, sensing that the nicer parent was getting an uncomfortable distance away.
Change of plans. All 4 of us would do HM. Sheri would take Eric just in case. We prepare him as best we can (nobody gets hurt in here…it's all pretend…there's just one really dark part at the beginning where the lights go out as someone screams and then, when you look up, you'll see a hanging body there…nothing that scary (ugh)). We get in, and Eric does better in the stretch room than we expected (we tried pointing out the paintings to him). Aaron is excited and gives me a play-by-play of what's going on. He really liked the portrait effect with the husbands. The buggies stopped only once…right before the hitchhiking ghosts room. Unfortunately, there was a red-eyed raven immediately overhead of Eric, and he didn't like that one too much.
We hop out, and Eric exclaims that he likes being scared and that he liked the Haunted Mansion. As we make our way towards Frontierland, Aaron runs to a souvenir kiosk and grabs a hat to pose with:
We head over towards Big Thunder and park the stroller. It's then that we notice the absence of coasters running on it. It's 101. Hmmm…Splash has a 20 minute wait. But we could get really wet. Aaron pleads with us to ride Splash. I look at Sheri. She looks at me. We both give each other a "what the heck" look and hop in the queue line. The wait only took around 10 minutes. I remember reading that the farther up front and right you are, the greater the chance of getting wet, so I threw Eric in first (we were row 3…yaaay) , and I took the right. Sheri and Aaron took the back row.
The boys absolutely LOVE it!!! They aren't scared at all with the drop.
We get off and look over at BTMRR. It looks like it has just started back up and it already has a 40 minute wait, and the FP return line is HUGE. Nope, we'll try again later. Now, it's off to Tom Sawyer Island!
Yeah, they had a good time over there:
Daddy? Is this anything like Mob Wars?
We figured they'd freak out a little over the caves, but the loved the spookiness of them. They also loved being snipers in Ft. Langhorn with the air rifles.
We take the raft back, grab the stroller, and start to make our way over towards the exit via Adventureland. First, however, we do another tradition…DOLE WHIPS! We skipped POTC, even though the wait was posted at only 10 minutes. We place our order at Aloha Isle, si,t and enjoy the ambrosia. After we convince Aaron to skip the Treehouse for now, we make our way to Main Street. Before leaving, however, we decide to stop in the shops on the Emporium side of the street to look for Judy, who's the mother of our old neighbor. Sheri picks up a couple of items in there, and, after making it all the way to the Square, I ask a CM if they know where she's working. They go back and find out that she's at the baby care center…past Casey's…as far away as we can be from her and still be in the same building. We head back to the care center and have a nice chat with her. It has been a couple of years since we've seen her, and she's floored at how much the boys have grown.
After we say our goodbyes and head out the turnstiles, we both let out a big sigh of contentment as we notice that the All-Star Movies bus stop is a good 100-200 yards closer than the Pop Century stop is. We get in line and hop on the bus that's there in minutes. On our ride back to the resort, the driver asks if any of us are Hidden Mickey fans. I holler out that I occasionally look for them. He advises us to look at the bus that's just starting to pass us and tells us there are a couple of hidden Mickeys on there. We immediately notice the tail-lights have the trademark symbol on them. He then tells us that that particular bus, #4815, is the ONLY bus to have them on. He then gives us a history lesson on the RTSs. There are 3 types of buses, and 4815 was the very first one to be received of its kind (it's the second type of bus, chronologically). The next time you're on the property, look for bus #4815, and you'll see a one-of-a-kind bus.
Both boys fall asleep on the bus. We wake them up at the stop, and we take the shortcut back to the room. Mare texts me around this time, telling us that they may try to make EMH that night. I pat myself on the back for getting a new phone package with 250 free texts a month as this is SOOOO much easier than phone tag and calling voice mail and reply that we're hoping to stay until around 9-9:30.
Mush's note: It's also a heck of a lot easier writing this Trip Report because I kept all the texts with what was said and the time they were sent. I can guarantee you that, as Sheri reads this, she's gonna utter "DORK" to me.
The room was just starting to get cleaned, so we just ask for towels/washrags/etc and skip the making up of the beds. The boys got their 10 minutes of sleep on the bus and are back to their old selves. (sigh). They watch some cartoons, and Steamboat Willie pops on. Sheri and I try to explain to Aaron the significance of this particular cartoon, and I get enthralled watching it as I haven't seen the whole thing before. I realize just how warped of a sense of humor Ub Iwerks had. I still think he needs a statue somewhere on WDW property. If you don't know who Iwerks is, do yourself a favor and look him up.
Aaron successfully lobbies to switch to the Disney Channel for some more age-appropriate cartoons. Sheri's in and out of sleep the whole afternoon. Eric falls asleep around 3:00. I nearly fall asleep a couple of times, but I'm starting to get a mild headache. Sheri starts chomping at the bit around 3:30…she's ready to go so she can see some of the hotel decorations! My headache is getting worse, but it's still manageable. We try to decide the plan of attack. I want a little more down time en route so Aaron will hopefully rest a bit. We ask the boys. Eric requests a ride on the monorail. Aaron demands we ride Buzz ASAP. I demand a kid that behaves. I text another friend who's currently residing in central Florida, Robin around 3:30 and ask her if her husband, Del (a monorail pilot), is still working today. She immediately texts back that he's done for the day but will be back on at 6 am tomorrow. We hoped to meet up with them so Sheri can give Del a non-hug welcome (this goes back to the '07 Moose Meet).
We figure we'd let fate decide where we go. We head out to the busses and see an Epcot bus loading up. We hop on and head on out! An older couple from Denver was talking to an older couple from New York. We, along with a family from Rhode Island (another family…different from this morning) all strike up a conversation. The New York guy talks about the weather up there and pulls up a picture on his Iphone of what had to be 25-foot high drifts of snow from a previous snowstorm and shows it to all of us. As we are en-route, the guy from Denver starts to nod off. The New York guy points it out to the guy's wife, and she starts snickering. He pulls out his Iphone and snaps a pic of the guy sleeping! After getting the wife's e-mail address, he mails it off to her before getting busted by Sleeping Beauty, who was starting to waking up.
Aaron's starting to get really tired…grrrr. Okay…let's head over to the monorail and take our time to get a seat. As we get on the ramp to the monorail station, we see one approaching. I start to say "let's just take our time and…" but Sheri and Eric are picking up the pace.
Did I mention I have a headache and Aaron's tired?
I lost the argument, and we run on the monorail and find ourselves kind of cramped. I persuade Aaron to let me hold him so he can rest a little.
head's really pounding now
We get to the TTC and hop off. I start to tell them to hop on the resort monorail if we want to get to the Poly or GF to see the holiday decorations. Nope, we're going on the ferry.
I about implode. We're here to see the decorations and now we're not? Now we're going to have to wait for the ferry now and take a LOT longer to get there. Oh…ferry's here? Whatever…I give up.
As you can tell…I'm not doing too well at the moment.
Part IV HERE.
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