disney world trip

we went to kennedy space center on tuesday, stayed all night in orlando that night, then hit disney wednesday. magic kingdom opened at 9 and we made it! david had advised us to park at epcot because parking would be better. so we parked there and rode the monorail to the transportation and ticket center. on the way, howard commented that he loved the monorail and could ride it all day. he'd ride it instead of paying admission to the park. when we got to the transportation center, he and i discussed buying tickets there, but decided to wait until we got to the magic kingdom. we got there...and discovered there was a reason they sell tickets at the transportation center...it's because they don't sell them at the magic kingdom gates.

howard rode the monorail back to the ticket center while the kids and i went through security at the magic kingdom and waited for him by the gate. and waited. and waited. the bricks paving the walk ways had names and dates and hometowns on them. we found several from kentucky, including a couple from paintsville. or was it prestonsburg? we got bored. we watched every passenger walking down the ramp from the monorail stop. we really didn't think it would take that long. after about 1/2 an hour, alyssa (the 5 yr old), who was holding my hand, looked up at me and seriously said, "Do you remember when my dad said that he could ride the monorails all day? I think that's what he's doing." we all had a good laugh at that. a little later she added that if he didn't come back soon, she was going to eat his lunch...AND his dinner!

finally, ginny (13 yr old who got a tracfone for Christmas) decided to call him. the computers had gone down and he was still in line to buy the tickets!! he finally got back to the magic kingdom around 10 a.m.

we went into the park and walked through the swiss family robinson tree house. next we did the magic carpet ride. the person directing the guests asked, "How many?" well, we had already decided who was going to sit with whom, so sarah and ginny were first in line and replied, "Two." so the lady sends the two of them to one car. it ws a car that had room for at least 4 ppl. next was howard, alyssa, and thomas; they were sent to a different car. finally the party of two known as ann e and suzie were sent to a third car. we learned to tell the person running the ride that we were a party of 7 so there wouldn't be so much wasted space!

while on the magic carpet ride, alyssa and thomas spotted the tiki room and wanted to go to it. so we got a speed pass for the jungle cruise then went to the tiki room. that was a cute singing bird show. it got a little dark which freaked out alyssa a little bit, but it was kind of neat. the birds were really funny and the faces on the totum poles sang along.

that show ended and we went to the jungle cruise. i gotta tell ya, that not standing in line thing was great!! we felt kind of guilty walking right up to the front. i think we learned though that at that time of day we should have gotten a speed pass for one of the more popular rides (one of the mountains maybe). but who knew? the jungle cruise was pretty cool. the guide..."rhonda"...made it more enjoyable. she was a hoot. i put rhonda in quotation marks because, even though she told us more than once that rhonda was her name, her name tag said "jenny." as we came to the end of the cruise, she said, "If you enjoyed your trip today, I'm Rhonda and this is the Jungle Cruise. If you didn't enjoy it, my name is Stacy and this is Space Mountain." she called herself rhonda again. i had to ask. i raised my hand and she said, "I know what you are going to ask. Do I do parties??" we all laughed and i said, "No, I wanted to know why you keep telling us your name is Rhonda but your name tag says, 'Jenny'?" her response was, "Well, a couple of weeks ago I lost my name tag. About that same time, Jenny lost hers too." there seemed to be some sort of delay in us being able to disembark--there were two boats in front of us still waiting to unload. so at this point i think she started improvising. she said that before she started working the jungle cruise, she worked "it's a small world." she asked if we wanted to hear her presentation on that ride. we all agreed that we did. so she started: "How many? How many? How many? How many?" it's a good thing we had already ridden the magic carpet ride and had heard that presentation--it probably wouldn't have made sense if we hadn't known the presentation. ha

after this, we went to lunch. we ate at pecos bill's. it was pretty crowded and as i turned around to leave the food counter, my pop slid off of my tray. it fell straight down and landed sitting up. unfortunately, it hit so hard that it exploded like old faithful. pop went everywhere!! i mean everywhere!! even before it hit the floor i was saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" well, the pop sprayed all up the back of this cheerleading looking chick in shorts and a tank top. OMG, she went nuts. she had that little cheerleader "tsk" thing down perfectly. i tried not to laugh, but i failed. i at least kept my hand over my mouth and face while giggling, "I'm so sorry." i had to turn away to keep from totally losing control and the girl behind me was smirking too. i swear she almost winked at me. we enjoyed a good laugh at the prissy girl's expense. i did feel bad. but wow it was funny. to my credit, i was looking in my bag for some handi-wipes while they were giving me a new pop. but i couldn't find any. :(

after lunch we planned to get speed passes for splash mtn, but return time wasn't until 6:30! and we couldnt' get any other speed passes while holding this one. so we decided to get speed passes for thunder mtn which had an earlier return time. then we could stand in line for splash mtn. but the wait time posted for splash mtn was was longer than for thunder mtn. so ann e and ginny went to get speed tickets for splash mtn after all and we stood in line for thunder mtn.

this was going to be alyssa's first ride that wasn't a kiddie ride! and it was a roller coaster! she was so excited. while waiting in line she kept showing us how she was going to hold up her arms as we sped down the drops! but once we got on, she got a little spooked and started to fuss a little bit. she kept trying to look for her dad who was in the car behind us. so to get her mind on other things, i said, "Aren't you going to hold up your hands?" that made her kind of grin and she just shook her head no. her knuckles were white holding on to the bar. when we got off the roller coaster, howard said he heard her looking for him and asking for him. he asked if she was ok. she said, "Yes Dad. That was just fake scared." they were all looking forward to space mountain!

we didn't find out until later that it was ginny's first roller coaster too! more about it later, but her second roller coaster was space mtn!! that's a wild second coaster ride. :)

after thunder mountain, we went to the haunted mansion. we stood in line for over an hour when we finally got to the graveyard. the kids thought the tombstones were funny. but then they started hearing the moans, slamming doors and chains from inside the mansion. alyssa got a bit scared. she started crying and didn't want to go in. then it was announced that they were experiencing technical difficulties on the ride. but we decided to wait it out a bit. the noises kept going and alyssa couldn't help but hear them. i think if it wasn't for the noises she might have been ok. but she cried more. we waited longer. she cried harder. a few people around us decided not to wait longer. a group of people were finally let into the mansion--we JUST missed it! we would be the next people let in. we finally got into the stretching room of the mansion. it went dark and the noises got louder. howard had to hold alyssa. we were lead out of the room to stand in line again and wait to get onto the cars that take us through the mansion. another announcement came that they were experiencing technical difficulties again. more people left. alyssa really started crying hard now. we decided to ditch the ride. as we headed for the exit, we were offered speed passes to come back later in the day. while someone was getting them for howard another employee knelt down to talk to alyssa. he was so sorry that she was so scared. to make her feel better he told her where one of the hidden mickeys was on the ride. that cheered her up some, but she didn't want to come back to find it. so we didn't use the speed passes. it kind of put a damper on alyssa's enthusiasm for riding the rest of the day.

then we ate again. but i don't remember where. :( we headed towards splash mountain. ann e, ginny, sarah, and thomas all rode it!! they had speed passes, so we didn't have to stand in line with them. we stood on the bridge waiting for them to come down. alyssa got a little bored and asked if she could call a friend. she knew the number, so we called nicole. she talked for a little while. she was so excited, but nicole wasn't all that interested. it kind of hurt alyssa's feelings, but she was glad she got to talk to her. when the others got off of splash mountain, we rode the train over to mickey's toontown. as we boarded the train, i had it in my mind that the kids would all sit together in one row and howard and i would sit behind them. that's just what i expected. well it didn't work out that way. the kids split up and howard sat in one row with them and that filled up that seat. i actually stomped my foot and said, "But I wanted to sit next to you!" and i kinda whined when i said it. well i heard what a brat i sounded like so i forced myself to laugh it off and act like i was kidding. but i was a little bothered. the kids were being so good! they weren't at all tired and cranky like me.

we headed straight towards space mountain. ginny and sarah asked alyssa if she was going to ride. she really didn't want to, but didn't want to say no. so she said, "Maybe I won't be tall enough." we got to the ride and there was a measuring stand--she was JUST tall enough. man, she really got a look of disappointment when they told her she was tall enough. so i told her she had at least an hour to think about it and if she didn't want to ride she wouldn't have to. we got pretty close to the front of the line when there was an announcement that they were experiencing technical difficulties. we were getting tired by this point and this was NOT good news. LOL the kids really were great. they were patient and understanding. they didn't get cranky. alyssa got quite tired though and really wanted us to hold her a while. so howard and i took turns for a while. she was really getting nervous about the ride and finally told me she didn't want to ride it but she didn't want us to leave her alone. i promised her we wouldn't leave her alone. i told her we would take turns riding so someone could stay with her. the way it works is that everyone except me and her would get on the ride. i would stand with her. then when the others got off the ride, they would wait with her while i took my turn. she said that she didn't want to wait in line again though. i told her she wouldn't have to; the people running the ride would let me get on it right then. she still didn't understand and begged me not to leave her alone. i promised i would not leave her alone. while we were waiting in line, howard found the hidden mickey in the asteroids flying across the sky. so we got to the front of the line and daniel asked us "How many?" LOL, i thought about rhonda. howard told him there were 7 of us in the party, then explained that one was not going to ride at all and that i would ride when the other 5 got back. so daniel sent the 5 who were going to ride towards a lady who would help them board the ride. meanwhile, he took alyssa and me to the side and explained that this ride would not stop here to let them out. we would have to start down the exit ramp and hang an early left. there would be seats there for us to wait. he said the ride would last for about 4 minutes. as soon as our family got off the ride, we should come back up the exit ramp to him. he warned us that nobody else would or could let us on the ride but him. so we walked down to where they would get off the ride. she watched my watch and counted how many times the second hand passed 12. they were back before it passed 4 times. we hiked back up to the loading area. daniel let the other kids ride again. well, sarah didn't go, but ann e, ginny, and thomas all rode with me. i screamed through the whole ride. i'm sure i embarrassed them! first i yelled, "I want my mommy!" to which ann e replied, "Who's the crybaby now??" (funny inside story...maybe i'll post it sometime.) i think i went over the top when i yelled, "I have to peeeeeeeeee!!"

sarah really wanted to see the stitch show so we found it after space mountain. but it was close to time for the fireworks. so we watched the fireworks first. the fireworks were awesome. i took lots of pictures, but they really don't do it justice. after that we went back to stitch. at last we got to sit down!! i closed my eyes and tried to relax for a few minutes. it was kind of scary for alyssa. we finally figured out it was the dark that freaked her out. everytime she was brought to tears, it was dark. stitch ran around the audience, he farted on us, spit on us, then he asked each of us if we would be his friend. the fart was really hot, stinky, and just gross! we smelled it the rest of the night. ugh. we decided as a whole that we didn't like it very much overall. and so much for my nap during the show! yuck.

after this we looked for ice cream. we finally found it after asking 3 employees and walking for what seemed like 1/2 an hour. but it was really really good!! it was right beside the winnie the pooh ride. we thought alyssa would want to ride that, but she didn't notice it. i was kind of glad because there is a part of the ride that gets dark as you go through a thunder storm. i don't think she would have liked that.

as we were eating our ice cream she commented that she had not seen mickey or winnie the pooh. ann e and ginny tried to explain to her that they were getting ready for the parade. they had to get dressed, etc. she thought about this for a minute then she said, "What about Winnie the Pooh? He only had to put his shirt on!" This cracked us up!

after the ice cream break we made our way to the carousel. that was a nice end to the evening. we all kind of relaxed and enjoyed the ride. i still didn't get to sit next to howard though. at least this time i didn't throw a fit. LOL after this they wanted to walk through the castle. i thought we could. we headed that way and found that some kind of show was going on and we could not walk through it. :( but we took a few pictures around it. then we headed towards the monorail. we rode to the transportation center through the hotel. we stopped at the hotel to let people off there. as we were slowing down, i was watching out the window and saw...ED!! (the husband of a woman i used to work with!!) i waved and he waved back and smiled, but i didn't think he recognized me. so as the doors opened, and i jumped up and yelled, "ED! It's me, Suzie." he grinned and came and hugged me. i told him i'd call sandi...which i haven't yet. i really need to do that. so that was kind of exciting. then the monorail took us to the transportation center. we changed monorails and went to epcot. the monorail seemed to go right through the middle of the park. it was cool to see all those rides. the park was completely closed up and dark. we got off at the platform in epcot and ran towards the tram. it was a good thing too...as we were getting on, they announced this was the last ride out to the parking lot!! this guy was pretty funny, but now i can't remember everything he said.

we got to the van and drove back to dad's. we were so very tired and exhausted, but happy. it was a really good day!