7:30 a.m. - Well Mr. Alarm Clock, here we are again. I refuse to open my eyes or move and you refuse to stop making the most hideous sound known to man. It would seem we are at an impass.
8:24 a.m. - Good morning Igor. Mighty fine blend of DP you brewed this morning. I know many people will find this disgusting (first and foremost my wife), but my new favorite gas station had a special on hot dogs. Buy one, get one free. I didn't actually get two hot dogs for breakfast...but I thought long and hard about it. We don't get many hot dogs around our house due to the fact that Shannon would probably think just as long and hard about eating the dog food in our pantry before eating a hot dog.
8:48 a.m. - Logan makes it three for three on puking in the morning before we leave. However, the good news is that he is not running a fever and seems to be just fine once he is done. This is a positive turn of events. In fact, he would go the whole day completely fine and not needing medication. Me, on the other hand, took at least 4 ibuprofen before the day was over.
9:32 a.m. - We arrive at the Magic Kingdom. But before you can get to the park, you have to do one of two things to get to the park. Get a ride on a monorail or ride a ferry boat as the Magic Kingdom entrance is across a very large lake. We chose the monorail. It was beautiful. The lake was shining and the day was perfect. It is quite enchanting to enter a theme park this way. My opinion of this entrance would change later in the day. Stay tuned.
10:02 a.m. - We are now in the park and we decide our day will start in Tomorrowland at Space Mountain. The further we get in the mountain, the more nervous our children are starting to get. I think by the time we got to the ride itself, many people probably were contemplating calling CPS on us. "You will ride and you WILL enjoy it." "Stop your whining!" "Don't be a weenie." I may have crossed the line with the weenie comments, but such is life. We didn't travel over 2,000 miles not to ride on Space Mountain. Once it was over, shockingly they enjoyed it. Just like we had told them they would. But then again, what were we thinking. Parents never know anything.
10:27 a.m. - Next we went on the People Mover which is a ride they used to have at Disneyland, but don't have anymore. This is my pitch for them to bring it back. It isn't much of a pitch, but then it isn't that much of a ride. However, it was a nice relaxing needed break after...one ride??? Did I mention that I took four ibuprofen today? Did I mention that I took all four by 10:27?
10:46 a.m. - While standing in line for the rockets, we see a guy who is seven feet tall. Nothing really exciting about him except...HE WAS SEVEN FEET TALL! Then, when we were up next to actually get on the rockets, we look over and see an old lady struggling to get aboard her rocket. Then we look at the next rocket and see the exact same old lady buckling herself into her rocket...WHAT??? Twin old ladies??? Really? What are the odds of seeing a seven foot guy and twins that are Social Security eligible in the same attraction line? I don't actually know the odds, but they can't be that good.
11:03 a.m. - Last attraction for Tomorrowland is Buzz Lightyear. Way better in Disneyland. Not that we have a west coast/east coast thing going on or anything...I'm just sayin'.
11:24 a.m. - Leaving Tomorrowland, we come upon a great picture location for Cinderella's Castle. Ok, Disneyland may have a better Buzz Lightyear, but Cinderella's Castle kicks butt.
11:36 a.m. - Walk into Liberty Square area. This is a section patterned after a colonial Massachusetts town and takes the place of New Orleans from Disneyland. Chalk another one up for California. Although, they did have a great picture spot where you could pose in "the stocks". One of my great regrets from this trip is that we didn't get a picture of any of us in the stocks.
11:50 a.m. - While waiting in line for lunch in the Liberty Square area, I get in a conversation with the guy who was gonna hand us our food. He was a newbie and very talkative. Very nice. Out of this conversation, we found out you can get a nice button if it is your first trip to the Magic Kingdom. The kids proudly wore their new buttons. Also, Shannon and I were able to get some Clam Chowder. It was wonderful.
12:12 p.m. - Not sure what it is about meal time that prompts kids to think this is the best time to talk about disgusting stuff, but Logan feels now is a good time to describe what it was like to throw up water through his nose this morning. This leads to another discussion about all the things we have had come back up through our noses. Why on the meal where I finally got Clam Chowder does this have to come up? It just doesn't seem fair.
12:29 p.m. - Logan, "I gotta go poop." "No problem son, there is a bathroom right over here." Oh wait, for the first time we experience a bathroom for men that has a line and if we haven't documented this before, Logan gives you about a three minute warning before major problems arise if he doesn't get to a toilet. We rush quickly to Fantasyland to find the nearest bathroom.
12:33 p.m. - As I am sitting there outside of a bathroom stall with my son who loves to stall in a bathroom, I suddenly took notice of the urinals. There were 11. I counted. It led to a strange tangent that even to this day I think I still find fascinating. I would be totally curious to see a report of which urinal gets used most during a normal day at Disney World. As I had nothing but time on my hands, this led me to my next thought. If you took 100 men and had them walk into this empty Disney World bathroom with 11 urinals, what would be the breakdown of which one would get used most and which one least. I would then want them to interview the 100 men and find out why they use the one they use. Women would probably never understand the patterns of the human male when it comes to urinal usage, but it is fascinating to watch. Men don't like to be right next to another man unless they have to. There really is quite a dance that occurs in a public bathroom hundreds of times a day. I know, because I got to stand there for a very long period of time waiting for Logan. Otherwise, why on earth would the following paragraph go through my head. Gosh we have to work with this kid on his bathroom time.
12:47 p.m. - I know I said I wasn't doing any kind of west coast/east coast comparison...but yeah, all day I totally was. Next up, we did Haunted Mansion and...I hate to admit it, but overall, it goes to Disney World. The outside is totally a California win, but the overall ride goes to Florida. If nothing else, for the glowing footsteps on the stairs. Pretty Cool!
1:32 p.m. - We parked our stroller and went into Pirates (point Disneyland) and then had a good time shopping. We come out and our stroller is gone. What is with this place? We can't keep anything that has four wheels. We look all over and finally find it about 100 yards away. One thing they have at Florida that they don't have in California is actual parking lots for strollers. Employees will move your stroller to the stroller parking areas if you don't park it in the right spot. Ours got moved to the nearest one when we failed to see it upon our arrival at Pirates. That could be because the parking area was no where near pirates. Still, nothing like 10 minutes of stress in a crowded Adventureland. Also, Shannon buys a mediallion necklace like the one in the first Pirates movie. We agree she will wear it to church our first week back and see if anyone notices.
1:47 p.m. - The kids meet Goofy.
2:02 p.m. - Get in line for the Jungle Cruise. Not sure why, but Braden chooses this ride to suddenly duck walk through the entire queue. He isn't doing anything wrong so...we just kind of ignore him and let him do his thing. Still not sure where this came from.
2:08 p.m. - When I was struggling so hard not to tell my kids about this trip, I would bring Logan to the computer and we would watch videos of the rides at Disney World. The video of the Jungle Cruise was a fun little video that would have a fake reel missing sequence just as the film got to "the most dangerous part of the voyage." All day, Logan was excited to go see this most dangerous part of the voyage. But as we were waiting in line, the word dangerous started to sink in and he really started getting nervous. We had a talk and he was ok until we actually got to that part in the ride. It was really hard to hide my smile as he just fidgeted out of extreme nervousness as we went into the tunnel. (Jungle Cruise? Point Disney World)
3:10 p.m. - Make our way to Fantasyland. (Total point Disneyland) Nothing extraordinary except for Mickey's Philharmagic. Great 3-D movie starring Donald Duck. Best memory? Logan trying to reach out and grab the jewels from the screen. Here is the typical response to riding on Small World. (Just kidding, I actually like this ride. I know, that makes me a Disney Dweeb. Not like that is news.)
4:51 p.m. - Splash Mountain. (Point Disney World) I don't understand my children as we had to force them on this ride too.
5:23 p.m. - Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. (Wash) Everybody loves it. Too bad Abby didn't pay attention to the recording that says, "Stash your hats and glasses because...blah, blah, blah...the wildest ride in the wilderness." She lost her sunglasses. Not a happy pre-teen.
5:42 p.m. - Last ride of the night, we trek it to the teacups...except they are closed. Oops! Should have checked on that before we walked what had to be half a mile on very tired feet.
6:02 p.m. - Get our spot for the fireworks that night. Everyone is hungry. I go to get food while Shannon and the kids hold the spots. Oops! Also should have checked on the fact that they close every single restaurant on the west side of the park during the parade which is happening while I am trying to get food before I walked another quarter mile on the same tired feet. (Definitely point Disneyland)
6:15 p.m. - We had asked all of the kids if they wanted to see the parade. The answer was no. Now, Abby wants to go see it. We walk the same quarter mile to a place where we can get to the head of the parade. It has been 11+ years and I would still do anything for that little girl. Too bad she isn't so little anymore.
6:50 p.m. - An hour has gone by, the parade is over but our family still hasn't eaten. My guess is they are probably still hungry. The ONLY place open is a Dole orange juice and frozen yogurt stand. We get a frozen yogurt float for everyone which equals five to carry for two people. We can manage this. Unfortunately, they get one wrong. So they make a new one. Then they decide to give us the extra. Now we have six and we have to carry them between me and Abby. Did I mention it was frozen yogurt? They were freezing. We ended up giving the extra to the family next to us. Five minutes later, the dad for the other family shows up and he had also only been able to find ice cream for dinner and also had somehow ended up with an extra. He gave it to us. As Logan is sitting there shaking uncontrollably, we now have even more ice cream for dinner. Only in Disney World.
7:00 p.m. - Fireworks are awesome and the lighting on the castle is unreal. (Point Disney World)
7:48 p.m. - Shannon wants to get some extra maps of the park for memory's sake. That is all well and good until we realize she has selected the Japanese version of the maps.
8:02 p.m. - Up until now, it has been pretty close as to which park is better. Then we try and leave. Remember how this park's entry is over a lake? Now we have to get back over that lake along with the other 40,000 people who visited the Magic Kingdom that day. What was once quaint and magical is now hell on earth. I have been through a lot of situations where one feels like cattle. But never like this. We get in the "line" for the ferry boats. I am naturally people clausterphobic. This was awful. And it took about an hour to get through the process of making it to a ferry boat and then getting back to the parking lot. Disneyland wins, hands down.
9:11 p.m. - We are driving out of Disney World when all of a sudden, we realize we don't have a clue where we are. Once again, no where to turn around and no lights whatsoever. Finally we come up over a hill and our Marriott hotel landmark is miles (and I mean MILES) away. We finally find a place to turn around, get back into Disney World and find the exit we missed. I loved this vacation, but at this point, I was seriously ready to have the idiot responsible for the roadways in Florida charged with high crimes and misdemeanors. Good gosh driving around this place was horrible. Shannon took this opportunity to let me know that she thought we weren't on the right road. Thanks dear.
9:35 p.m. - I hate the Nickelodian network with a passion, but I have never been so happy to see their resort as I was that night as it was on the corner where we turn to get to our hotel. It is now super late and we still haven't had any dinner. I take off for the Subway.
9:42 p.m. - The Subway has one...yes one person working there. Not one working the front line...ONE PERSON WORKING. Not too big a deal as there are only two people in front of me. Oh wait, it is an old couple...who can't decide what they want...and have to pause every two words because one of them is on oxygen but is unfortunately the designated communicator for the group...AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!! Psych is coming on at 10 and I am going to be late. I may one day find it possible to forgive these people, but I will never forget.
9:54 p.m. - Almost all of the sandwiches I am going to order require turkey. They are out of Turkey. The one, yes one, employee (you can tell I am having a hard time letting this one go) goes into the back to get more turkey. He failed to tell me that this was also his designated break time where he leaves the store, drives to Miami and goes on a bender before returning with my sandwich meat. How do you have a store with one (1, UNO, Solitary) employee. Had I not missed the first 17 minutes of Psych, I wouldn't be so upset. But I did, so I am.
11:00 p.m. - At the end of Psych, they have the different outtakes. Cary Elwes was guest starring and he had a line where he said, "Great Scott, I've been setup." They showed him trying several different options of this line that included, "Walrus teets, I've been setup." "Princess Anne on a pogo stick, I've been setup." "Rupert Grint's Knickers, I've been setup." And our personal favorite, "Skydiving Judy Dench, I've been setup." Between that and, "I told you his password wasn't Senor Whopperpants" and we couldn't stop laughing. It might be a thing where you had to be there, but for us, a pretty good end to the day. It almost made me forget about the ONE EMPLOYEE. But not quite.
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