Disney Vacation Part 6: Day 4 (The Last Day)

On day three, we promised Blockette that we were going to see the super late fireworks at Magic Kingdom, since every other night we we were too tired for fireworks. Mrblocko and I had a long discussion after Blockette went to bed as to how we could possibly accomplish this. The conclusion was that we HAD to take a nap at some point.

Blockette was not receptive to this idea because, c'mon, we were at Disney World and she was not going to sleep away any possible moments of fun time. We explained that if she wanted to not take a nap, that was OK, but we were NOT staying up late for fireworks. She very reluctantly agreed and we began our last day at Disney World.

We had reservations at The Grand Floridian for The Supercalifragalistic Brunch with Mary Poppins. The Grand Floridian is a swanky Victorian-Southern Hybrid themed hotel located in Magic Kingdom. One part of it looks like the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego. When we were planning our vacation, for exactly 30 seconds I debated staying at the Grand Floridian, then I saw the prices and came to my senses. It was a cool hotel, but I'm glad we chose the Coronado Springs in the end. It was perfect for what we wanted and needed on our vacation.

Anyhow, back to the Breakfast... we saw Tigger, Pooh, Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter and of course Mary Poppins herself. Blockette was terrified of the Mad Hatter. She did not want her picture taken with him. I was able to convince her to take a picture of me with him.

I'm not sure why she was so scared of him. She had not even seen Alice in Wonderland! Maybe she thought he was Mad, as in Angry. I explained that he was not Mad, meaning Angry, but Mad meaning crazy. This did not help one eentsy weensy bit. I did, however, get scolded by Mary Poppins. If you look carefully at the picture above, of just Blockette, you can see several gummy bears on her plate. It was then that Mary Poppins came to the table and commented on the fact that we were feeding our offspring candy for breakfast.

Oh Mary Poppins, if you only knew. We had been having the hardest time getting her to eat through the entire trip. Due to our nap and late brunch reservations, we weren't planning on having lunch until 2:00. If we couldn't get Blockette to eat something for breakfast she was going to wake up at nap time VERY hungry. And then no one would get a nap.

So yes. I bribed my child with gummy bears to eat her breakfast. Why else would they have gummy bears at a breakfast buffet. I can't think of any other reason! Can you?

After brunch and wandering around the Grand Floridian for a while, we headed back to the hotel to go SWIMMING! Blockette was pleased as punch. She had only been begging to do this since we arrived in Florida.

Doesn't the pool area have a neat play ground next to it? I wondered why there were no kids playing on it. Then I remembered, duh, we are at Disney World. Why would a kid want to play there when they could go to the park and do fun stuff there! As you can see, there was hardly anyone at the pool. It was a warm day, but windy so it didn't feel as hot as it had the previous days. Whether this was the reason for the lack of people at the pool, or duh, they were all at Disney World, I'm not sure. Either way it was nice to not have to deal with lots of splashy kids.

The pool was so empty that there was a mamma and her ducklings swimming in it. (See above photo, bottom left.) One little baby could not get out so one of the grown ups in the pool quickly scooped him out. He got severe scolding from the mamma duck AND from a human mamma at the pool who went on this rampage about how you are not supposed to touch wild animals. Yeah, but I think with all that chlorine from the pool there was little chance that the man's human scent would have lingered on that little duckling.

After our swim we were ready for lunch and grabbed the most enormous plate of nachos and quesadillas at the food court in the hotel. With full bellies we went back to the room for a nap. Blockette claimed she was NOT tired, but she was so not tired that she was the first one to fall asleep.

After a nice long nap we headed back to Magic Kingdom where we went on lots of fun rides. Blockette wanted to ride "it's a small world" over and over, but Mrblocko and I could only stomach going on it once without going into convulsions. After lots of rides and snacks we went to the area in front of the Castle to get a good view for the light parade, and fireworks. I couldn't get any good pictures of the light parade but it was very cool. My camera takes good night pictures, but the picture has to be still and so do I. Since the parade was moving, that meant no good pictures for me.

As we were waiting for the parade to start, the castle kept changing colors. I told Blockette it was her job to let me know when the castle changed. It gave her something to do, and kept her less bored waiting for the excitement to begin. After the parade, there was a 15 minute or so interval before the castle show began. We made a mad dash for the potty, and luckily, we were able to find a good spot in front of the castle again. The castle show was like a movie projected onto the castle itself. I don't know how else to explain it, but it was awesome. Unfortunately, since it was moving, I couldn't get any good pictures of that either.

Then came the fireworks. The fireworks start out with Tinkerbell flying from the top of the castle. Talk about neato. This was not a light show or other special effect, but someone on a zip line zooming through the air. I don't think I could be brave enough to do that, but I guess it's less scary if you are wearing a lit up Tinkerbell costume.

The fireworks were some of the best ones I have ever seen. I tried to take a picture or two but gave up and decided I would have more fun if I just sat back and enjoyed the display. I'm not ashamed to admit that I cried more than a little during the show. I looked over at Blockette at one point, sitting on her daddy's shoulders, totally exhausted but happy as she could be, and I knew this was the best possible end to our first family vacation!

Disney Vacation Part 5: Day 3 Epcot

After we went to Universal Studios we hopped on a bus and then two Monorails to get to Epcot. The trip took us almost an hour. That was my fault as I had the charter bus drop us off at the wrong spot. We did get to see a nice tour of the surrounding hotels though.

Luckily we made it to our dinner reservations at the Akershus Castle, in the Norway section of Epcot, right on time. This dinner wasn't as fancy as the one in Cinderella's castle, but we got to meet plenty of princesses and Mary Poppins too. I'm not sure why she was there, but hey, Blockette was happy to see her.

This time we were seated in a section that the princesses came to first so Blockette actually ate her dinner! Ariel was my favorite again. She was so funny and kept twirling her hair like she does in the movies. She also asked Blockette if she had electric eels since they lit up when she walked. After dinner was over we asked Blockette what she would like to do. Her reply was "Take the walk around the world!" Um OK. So we walked through the different "countries" represented there and I took pictures of all the neat topiaries. I think The Lady and the Tramp was my favorite, although the Peter Pan and Hook one was pretty neat too. Japan was by far Blockette's favorite country. She wanted to buy something from her allowance there and went totally ga-ga over a miniature Japanese flag. Even more exciting was that it came with it's own stand. WOW! (Really. You'd think the lady gave her a free pony.) Blockette also freaked out when she saw this belly dancer (above left) in Morocco. She thought she was another princess from some movie she had not yet seen. She even got her to sign her character autograph book.

Finally, she about blew a gasket when she saw the fence (above right)as we passed through Canada. "Mommmmm! LOOK! That fence has the Canada leaf thingie on it!" she gasped as she inhaled all the air left on the planet. I still have no idea why that was so exciting to her. (What's that all a-boot? eh?) She was enjoying herself so that's all that matters.

Yet again we had intended on seeing the firework show, this time at Epcot. We were all so tired and it had been a long hot day at Universal Studios that we decided to call it a night. Before we left I spied the Fairy Garden. We could not pass that one up. All the Neverland fairies done up in topiaries!! I took pictures of all of the fairies, but the light was fading so not all of them turned out as well as I would have liked. If you've seen "Tinkerbell and the Great Fairy Rescue" you'll recognize the photo (above, bottom right) of Lizzie's fairy house. Blockette was pleased as punch for me to snap a quick pick of her inside it before we left for the night. It wasn't quite as cool as fireworks, but pretty high up there in Blockette's book.

Disney Vacation Part 4: Day 3 Universal Studios

Why on earth did we go to Universal Studios when we were in Orlando for such a short time and there is soooo much to see and do at Disney World itself? I think the answer to that is pretty obvious: The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I'm about as big of a Harry Potter Geek as they come. Who knows when and if we will ever get back to Florida, so there was no way I was NOT going to check it out.

If we thought Magic Kingdom was busy on the first day we were out there, that was nuthing. I had wanted to get to Universal right as the park opened, but our shuttle didn't get there until the park has been open for about 45 minutes. The lines for almost everything in "Harry Potterland" were at least an hour long. In talking with one of the park workers we found out it was a "slow" day. Most days the wait to get into that part of Universal is THREE HOURS and the line to the attractions are about TWO HOURS! Yikes!

Clockwise from the top left (Photo below): Gate into Hogsmead, Hogwarts Train, Olivander's wand shop with it's hour wait to get into the store, The Owlry that you could only get into by going through Olivanders.(We passed on this as by the time we got to this part Blockette was very angry with us. More on that later.) Clockwise from the top left(photo below): Hogwarts.(The castle had a ride inside it but Blockette was too short to go on it.), More of the Owlry/Owl post, Gladrags and Potages. (both these places were false storefronts, but the windows had moving displays which were neat.) Now, here comes the part where we got Blockette VERY VERY angry with us. Harry Potterland has a grand total of three rides. Blockette was only tall enough to ride one of them, and by gosh we were going to ride that ride. The Flight of the Hippogriff. Look at that nice happy picture of her (below) as we are standing in line. Do NOT let that fool you.

As you wait in line you see Hagrid's Hut and the Hippogriff nest. You also see the roller coaster zooming above your head. This was not a crazy loop-de-loop upside down and inside out kind of ride. Just a basic roller coaster, but it was fast. We were in line for less than 20 minutes, but in that time Blockette saw that coaster go by one too many times and she started freaking out.

She did NOT want anything to do with this ride. Oh but the mean parents we were, we were bound and determined to go on this one ride with her. Once she was on it surely she would think it was fun? Yeah. right. So we took our screaming child and forced her on the ride. Right before the ride started she stood up and almost made it out of the car. Good thing Mrblocko was quick and grabbed her back in just in time.

The ride was fast. I am a wimp so I was a bit scared myself. I had to sit by myself though since it was a 2 person side by side ride. Rides alone are always much more scary. At least to me they are.

Once it was all over we asked Blockette if she enjoyed the ride, and she stated that she did not and never ever wanted to go on it again. EVER. She was soooo angry with us.

I thought maybe eating lunch might lift her spirits so we headed over to the Three Broomsticks and the Hogs Head. Some food, Pumpkin Juice (like drinking liquid pumpkin pie) and Frozen Butterbeer (which tastes like a very rich and creamy version of cream soda and butterscotch) did improve her spirits slightly. It wasn't until we went to Zonko's that we saw a real change in attitude. I picked up a Chocolate Frog (My Wizard card was Salazar Slytherin, drat...I wanted Dumbledore!) and some Tongueburners Toothsplintering Strong Mints. Then she saw them... the Pygmy Puffs. She was in love. I was about to tell her no when I heard the nice British fellow behind the counter shouting out that someone had bought their very first Pygmy Puff. Well for some reason I thought that was super cool so I caved.

Blockette named her Rose, which oddly enough happened to be the name of the British fellow's Mum. The man was just tickled. Apparently he had not heard anyone name their Puff Rose. I find that odd. I mean it's pink. Doesn't Rose seem like a logical name?

As a side note, the night before we left on our vacation I watched "The Half-Blood Prince." At one point in the movie Luna Lovegood tells Ginny Weasley, who happens to have a pygmy puff on her shoulder, that pygmy puffs "were known to sing on Boxing Day." I casually mentioned this to Blockette, who after asking me what in the world Boxing Day was, repeated this factoid to everyone she met in the park. With a smile on the kiddo's face, we decided that we had experienced all we could of Harry Potter's World. We had some time to kill before our shuttle would pick us up. So we went on some Dr Seuss rides.

And splashed around in Toon Lagoon. For some reason Blockette was scared of Bullwinkle and Broomhilda.

Then it was almost time to go. On the way out we passed this really cool dress store where I debated buying a dress. Then we saw this pair.

The woman called herself Jewel of the Nile and the man said his name was something that translated to "Perfection." They spoke with a Gypsy accent, which amused me to no end. Blockette talked their ears off for a good 15-20 minutes. We had to drag her away so we wouldn't miss our bus.

More of day 3 to come tomorrow...it was a busy day!

Disney Vacation Part 3: Day 2

Because I had gotten several really rotten nights of sleep, Mrblocko agreed that he would take Blockette to Animal Kingdom and let me get a few more hours of sleep. That way I could be functional for the rest of the vacation. I slept until 10:30 which is like some sort of world record for me.

Mrblocko and Blockette got up early enough to get to the park right as it was opening. We had been told that the Safari ride is always packed and even runs out of fast passes by noon! With how busy Animal Kingdom was on Monday, we weren't going to take any chances. By some miracle, Animal Kingdom was not crowded at all! They were able to go on all the rides they wanted to without having to wait in line. What luck.

Look at some of the cool animals they saw on the Safari ride! My favorite picture is of the animals on the top right with the long necks. They don't even look real! They also went on this rapids ride. Blockette said she hated it because she got soaked. It was really hot that day so I bet it felt good. After she went on this ride, she no longer wanted to go on any wet rides. I thought it was particularly odd for a kid who kept begging us to go to the pool. I guess in a pool you are the one in control of how wet you are gonna get. Mrblocko said Blockette made these faces and poses without any prompting. What a ham. I guess the gorilla character in the top right picture is Terk from Tarzan. I had to look that up because I don't remember anything about the animated Tarzan movie. They also saw a really cool bird show. Clockwise from the top left: Snowy owl, baby condor, bald eagle, macaws and can you tell how much Blockette enjoyed the show? I think Blockette liked the bird show almost as much, if not more than the Safari! While my two Mouseketeers were at Animal Kingdom, I decided I should get up and have some lunch. I knew that we wouldn't have time to do it together, so I went to check out Downtown Disney. It was pretty much a really big outdoor mall. It was nice to get out and have some time to myself and do some souvenir shopping.

1. Lego loch ness: I thought this was a pretty cool statue and then I realized it was made of Legos. I'm not sure why. There were no other Lego sculptures Downtown and the Lego store they had was a sort of temporary tent like thing. Weird but cool.

2.hot air balloon ride: I thought about going on this for about two seconds and then decided against it. A balloon ride is no fun by yourself.

3. birdie: I ate lunch outside at a "Fast food" version of Wolfgang Pucks. They had the most enormous BBQ chicken flat bread sandwich and I kept thinking this is supposed to be Fast Food? The lunch was one of the best meals I ate all weekend. Maybe because sandwiches always taste better when someone else makes them, and I'm the maker of sandwiches in our house. I think Mrblocko was jealous cause they had fast food-ish food for lunch. Yay me!

4: cool Mickey and Minnie Caramel apples: I totally wanted to get one of these bad boys, but they were HUGE. I debated buying it and bringing it back to the hotel, but it was so hot I was afraid the chocolate would melt everywhere and make a huge mess. So I took a pic instead.

Once I was all shopped out we met back up at the hotel. We had no idea what we were going to do with the rest of the evening. Disney Hollywood Studios had not been on the itinerary originally, but we thought we should at least check it out and maybe catch their firework/water show.

We walked around for a while and I started to get hungry but all we could find were nasty fast food type places. I had the worst food that I had all trip. I ordered some ribs which you would think would be yummy but they were super gross, greasy and fatty. Bleck. Mrblocko was happy because he got that giant turkey leg. He had been drooling over the idea of eating one since he found out Disney served turkey legs. At least one of us was happy! Oh and what did Blockette eat? About 2 bites of my ribs and then she got super cranky and we decided to call it a night. 1: Fantasia Mickey's hat, a landmark of Hollywood studios, much like the Castle is to Magic Kingdom, and Spaceship earth is to Epcot

2:Mickey standing on a globe at the entrance

3: Tower of terror ride. WAaaaay to scary for me, although I'm sure Mrblocko would have gone on it in a heartbeat if he'd had some company.

4: Classic Fantasia topiary. Instead of water they are pouring out flowers from their buckets.

What about that show? You had to stand in line for nearlyTWO hours to get a seat. Lil miss crabbykins wasn't having any of that. I'm not upset because we hadn't even intended to go to this part of the park, so anything we saw was just a little bonus.

Our Disney Vacation Part 2: Day 1

Once we got settled in at the hotel, unpacked and had some lunch, we headed out to The Magic Kingdom. It was super crowded. The crazy thing was that we ran into some people from church! What were the odds of that happening? They were Disney regulars as they have family that live in Orlando. They said in all the years they had been coming to Disney, they had never seen it THAT crowded. Lucky us eh?

First we rode the train that goes all around the park. Unfortunately, Toontown was being expanded so we didn't get to see any of that. Next we caught the tail end of some parade, and we headed for Splash Mountain. It was an hour wait but luckily there were some kids her age in line behind us to cause mischief with. Guess where they were from? Illinois. Blockette loved the ride. Me, not so much. I got drenched all the way to my skivvies. Somehow we got seated in the front of the ride. I still don't know how Mrblocko and Blockette did NOT get wet at all. I think they must have crouched down or something.

We saw that you could get a fast pass for later in the evening to go on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. A fast past lets you advance to the head of the line. We thought, hey, let's grab one of those and go on the ride after dinner. By the time we had done all that we had just enough time to ride Cinderella's carousel and look through a few shops around the castle.. (clockwise from the top left: Crowds, Cinderella carousel, 2 super cool mosaics inside Cinderella's castle.)

The best part of the day by far was the princess dinner at Cinderella's Castle. We got to meet Cinderella, Jasmine, Ariel, Aurora and Belle. The food was really good, but we could not get Blockette to eat. Not even a cupcake. We were in the last section of the dining area that the princesses came to visit. Blockette was far to worried that she wasn't going to get to meet them to bother with trifles like food. My favorite part of the dinner was when Ariel came to our table. She asked if we traveled by coach and talked about how her and Prince Eric had traveled all day. Blockette told her we flew on an airplane. Then Ariel asked if we flapped our arms like her friend Skuttle the seagull did. Blockette then went on to describe how an airplane took off and landed. Ariel was just fascinated!

Throughout the whole dinner I found myself getting all misty eyed because Blockette was SOOOO excited. It was indescribable how much joy I got watching Blockette interact with the princesses. At one point Blockette did wonder where Snow White was. I told her she was probably busy visiting the seven dwarfs. At the end of the dinner all the kids got wishing stars and magic wands or swords. They all closed their eyes and said "Bibbity Bobbity Boo" in unison and the whole room twinkled and glowed as the Fairy Godmother made their wish come true.

By the time dinner was over, Blockette (and me) were about ready to fall over. We decided against going on the roller coaster and voted to head back to the hotel to get some sleep. I think she was out about a minute after her head hit the pillow, only because she was fighting so hard to stay awake.

Our Disney Vacation Part 1

Ok boring stuff first: The Hotel. We stayed at the Coronado Springs Resort. Man, I've never been to Mexico, but this was what I imagine a nice resort in Mexico would be like, well sans Montezuma's revenge. There were so many cool plants Mrblocko had to tell me to save some memory on the camera for actual pictures in Disney World! 1. Blockette took this picture right after we checked in. They gave us balloons because we told them it was a 10 year anniversary. Well...it is, just not til October. They also gave us buttons that said "Happy Anniversary" which we wore around the park. Any employee, or "Cast Member" as they call them, that saw the button would wish us a Happy Anniversary. Of course, at first, I forgot I had the button on and couldn't figure out why people were wishing me a Happy Anniversary. Duh.

2. This is a picture of the main part of the resort. It is a picture of the building that contains the Registration desk, gift shop and food court. There is also a convention center but it was too big to fit into the frame.

3. Hammocks and white sand. If these had been shaded I would have been tempted to lounge around in them. They were in full sun all day and no one had any desire to get burnt, esp not me.

4. Blockette in the 3 Amigos topiary. The Flower show was going on so throughout the hotels and parks they had all these amazing character topiaries and flower displays. The biggest display was at Epcot, but I'll post more pictures of that later. When we first got our room, I was a bit upset that we were so far away from the main building. At least I was upset until I learned that we were right across the street from the bus stop that took us into the parks. The short trip from the bus stop to the room was wonderful after a loong day of walking.

Speaking of the bus stop, on the last day we learned that a gater lived in the pond across from the bus stop. Luckily he never came knocking on our door with a candygram. Also there were all these little wee lizards sunning themselves all over our hotel grounds. They were pretty shy and did not want their picture taken. I was able to capture one before it scurried off under a cactus. Luckily the wee little lizards were to scared to come in our room, cause while they were cute outside, they would not have been cute inside.