Mush's Blog: Mushfam Disney Family Vacation, June 2010; Day 3, Part 1: Every Silver Lining’s Got a Touch of Grey

Need to go back to Day 2? It's HERE.

Sleeeeeeeeeeeeppppp…the thumb finally calmed down a few hours after everyone fell asleep, allowing me to join the slumber party and get a little bit of shut-eye. Everyone got some good sleep. We dress, hop out onto the balcony to say hello to the giraffes, and dive head-first into the donuts. Sheri makes coffee, and we’re good to go for our long adventure…wait for it…all together now…to the lobby. On the way, I start counting the number of steps from the door to the lobby and find that it’s 600 steps. We make it to the bus stop, get a pic, and, within 1 minute, hop on an arriving Epcot bus. The boys choose to sit together…away from us. I’m not sure which I’m more worried about…when they always fight or when they get along and are plotting evil things together.

Within no time, we make it to Epcot. As we get in line at the turnstiles, I hand out the tickets (“Mickey! Pluto! Goofy!”). A minute or two later, I get a text from the neighbor saying that the cat was still lethargic but was at least at a different area and was eating a little bit of food. Since he was eating less food, I made the executive decision to cut back on the insulin a bit to avoid him going into diabetic coma. A couple more texts are exchanged between us before ending textfest, and I am grateful to put the phone away. A bit later, we switch lines as we realize another side of the turnstile is going to be open. They start letting us through, and we head through the gravestones and under the golf ball en masse to the rope near the fountain of nations. We still have about ten minutes to go before the rope is dropped, and, with the boys calm, I take the time to listen to some of the conversations and watch the actions of some of the folks around us. Now, if this describes any of you who read this, sorry! I got to see people constantly trying to push forward, with others commenting that they couldn’t understand why they had to hold us up (“why can’t we just go now?”). Some were complaining that there was no need to be there so early because there’s still a crowd, while others griped about the heat. I had one woman next to me make it her personal goal to explain to me and wifey all sorts of information about WDW that we know is rubbish but didn’t have the heart to tell her, until she mentions something way out there like buying special Fastpass tickets or taking the monorail to Studios. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but it got to the point where I couldn’t take it anymore and corrected her. I could tell she didn’t believe me as she pushed forward past us to get nearer to the rope.

We do the countdown to the rope drop and start walking west towards the land as folks go running past us, some dragging their kids behind them. We team up with a couple other families also walking to Soarin and laugh at those sprinting. More than once we utter under our breaths something like “the attraction will still be there in ten minutes!” As we enter The Land pavilion, Sheri and I get into the classic argument of riding it versus getting a Fastpass. My view: grab a Fastpass for Soarin and head over to TT so we can get it knocked out before the FP return starts up, which slows the standby queue. Sheri’s view: ride Soarin now because it’s her favorite ride and her stats-geek husband doesn’t know what he’s talking about. We go back and forth for a couple of minutes while we head down to the lower level . Wifey ends up winning (like there was any doubt), and I hope that we get out quickly enough to make it to TT and in the loading area before 10. We fly through the Soarin queue and walk up until just before the right curve where the CM has us go left or right. We only wait a few minutes before we are directed right. We are queued in the bottom row of the center section and are listening to Kronk tell us about those little beauties. We’re in, we’re off, and we’re up over the clouds! Eric remembers the fireworks at the end and is already apprehensive about it. I see him putting his hands over his ears at the finale. We’re dark, we’re down, and we’re out of the erector set in fairly decent time. As we head out of Soarin, the boys and I peel off to the side and grab Fastpasses.

I look at the watch and see that it’s around 9:40. I want to get us over to Test Track as quickly as possible in the hopes that we can get on before 10. We head up the stairs and out of the Land, and I’m sprinting…dragging the kids behind me. Okay, we walked, but I knew that, if the TouringPlans folks saw what we were doing, they’d revoke my membership to their site. We make it to Test Track around 9:45, and the wait time is posted at 30 minutes.

Uh Oh.

Sure enough, around 10:00, in comes the FP returnees, and the standby line slows down dramatically. We finally get to our cars around 10:25.

Forgive me, oh Len, for I have sinned.

It’s a good ride, and the four of us love the outside speed test! The on-ride pic is great, so I put them on my Photopass card. We then head outside and let the boys mess around in the water area of TT for a minute

Up next is out of this world yet right next door. Yep, despite Sheri’s protests, there are three of us that want to do Mission: Space. I want to go with the Orange version, but I’m out-voted 3:1 on that. At least I was in the majority to get in the attraction in the first place. We go green and walk into the video room. Lt. Dan gives us the encouragement we need, and, before we know it, we’re not spinning (Did I mention I wanted to do the orange version?). The boys both love it, and Sheri tolerates it. I almost ask to see if they want to go again in orange but decide against it – mainly because we have the next surprise lined up for the boys. We first try to get a picture.