After the Carrousel, we head over to ride Peter Pan. The family behind us was fun…I can't remember exactly what it was, but we had a running joke that had us cracking each other up the entire wait. Maybe when Sheri reads this, she'll remember. We hop off the pirate ship, and I suggest we head over to Ariel's Brothel to see if Mel's over there.
I'm not one to toot my own horn (quit snickering!), but MAN, I'm good! There they are dancing the night away. Well, Amelia is, anyways. Aaron's not in a dancing mood (too cool complex, I think), but Eric is.
Really!
Ernie got in the action too:
Sheri took Aaron to the bathroom and to grab some cookies & hot chocolate. I talk with EB and Mel for a bit about their trip so far (including the laptop fiasco..ugh!). Sheri comes back, and Mel and I pose for a pic. Sheri gets ready to take it, and, unbeknownst to us, EB is holding Ernie up in the background for the pic. Here's what follows:
Sheri's laughing at EB and Ernie, but she doesn't realize the camera is on video instead of picture. If you pause the video right at the beginning, you'll see Ernie crashing the picture. Now, this is not the first time this has happened….I take you to yesterday:
Anyways, after all that, we finally get the camera figured out:
We all talk for a bit more and agree on a place to watch the parade (Mel and I were both on the same page…stay as far away from Main Street as possible and watch it over by Liberty Square/Frontierland). Mel's crew wanted to wait for the Fugly Stepsisters to show up at the dance so the kids could see it. We decide to head over to grab a spot for all of us. As we walk out of Fantasyland and over to Liberty Square, we notice that it's really not that crowded at all. Either the entire park is jammed on Main Street or we picked the most awesomest night to go to the party! We go a little past Liberty Tree (where Mel said was a good place and where we often watch too) and find an open spot…not 10 minutes before the parade is to start.
A few minutes later, we see Mel & EB strolling around looking for us. They see us and grab some ground. A few minutes later, the best parade we've seen at WDW starts:
It was around this time that a couple of elves or something come running up to us and pointing at Amelia. They're squealing that they've found Tinkerbelle, which elicited a huge grin and giggle from her.
Yeah…the reports about this parade are true…almost worth the price of admission alone! The gingerbread house shot out a gingerbread smell. Eric's arm nearly fell off from waving so much!
Mel and EB are going to call it a night so as not to overdo it with the kids. Ours are still going strong and not showing signs of wear and tear yet, so we are going to stick around for a bit longer. We say our goodbyes and go our separate ways. We know that the parade is still going on and that several thousand folks are trapped on Main Street. Following the "go where they ain't" philosophy, we head over to BTMRR and walk on. They aren't even queuing us…just go where you want. We make a beeline for the very back, where, surprisingly, nobody is, and we're on the next train. This attraction is probably the one that changes most from a daytime ride to a nighttime ride. Sheri and I both love this one at night, and so do the boys! We contemplate Splash again, especially as we see empty logs coming down the drop, but we decide against it as this would likely be the time we get soaked. We work our way back past HM and through Fantasyland over towards Tomorrowland so Sheri and Aaron can ride Space Mountain. Eric and I head back to the teacups for one last spin. I know it's going to be close, because Christmas Wishes is close to starting, and we all know how much Eric loves fireworks. We get the "In just Ten Minutes…." as we walk up to the teacups. We just miss getting in the next run, so we have to wait…we get in our cup about a minute after the "In just FIVE Minutes…"
Maybe if I spin him enough, he'll be so disoriented that he'll actually like the fireworks, especially since we're about as close as we can be to them. We get off the ride (Eric is all giggles and walking like a drunk), and we head to the stroller to grab the earplugs that we found. The only problem is that these aren't the earplugs I've used before…they're the ones people use for swimming. How in the Hell do you put these in? Let's see, the directions that that you first need to take the thing out of theBOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMM
Oh well…I had good intentions.
Eric just covers his ears…so long as he can't see them, he doesn't seem to think that they are going to get him. We make our way over towards the Lunching Pad to meet up with Sheri and Aaron, who mention that the line was so short that they rode Space Mountain TWICE (the brats)! On the way, the peripheral fireworks start going off, which, under any other circumstance, would be wicked cool.
It's easy maneuvering around everyone because they're all stopped and looking up. I catch a couple glimpses of the fireworks before we head for cover in Buzz. We walk on (there are probably 2 or 3 empty buggies in between each group). We shoot the aliens and, when we get to the end, I ask Sheri if she's okay going again. She says "Sure!" and I ask the CM if we can just stay on. Fully expecting a "no", he happily chimes "ONE time around!"
Kewl!
We stay on (and notice nobody getting on the attraction at all) for another round. Unfortunately, I notice that my score is getting progressively worse with each time. I need to ride this with Debbie to find those 100,000 point targets!
We hop out and decide what to do next…it's really nice and quiet…hmmm…TTA! We hop on for one final round and notice that Stitch is out in full Christmas garb over by the Carousel of Progress. We just sit back and enjoy the ride. As we head off, we see the line for Stitch starting to grow, and people heading for the Night Before Christmas show that was starting soon. We decide to start making our way back. We short-cut through the Noodle Station and grab another cookie and drink for the road. We make our way down Main Street for the first time during the party and enjoy the snow and the overall environment.
Finally, I'm in vacation mode. The crowds are really small. We could stick around and enjoy it for a while more, but we don't want to push our luck. We grab a final pic of the MK…our first pic of the Mickey floral:
Oops….heheheheheheeheheh
See ya.
It's unanimous that we're glad we did the Party. We didn't get to do everything (the castle show, Twas the Night Before Christmas, etc), but I think that's part of the reason people give the party a bad rap. It may have been a fluke, but the crowds were definitely manageable. We experienced the atmosphere, saw an amazing parade (and we're not huge parade people), got to spend some time with friends, and just enjoyed being a family.
We take a fairly quiet bus ride back to the resort, and we're in bed and dreaming of sugar plums before we know it.
Head on over to HERE for Day 6.
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