Disneyworld, part 3: Animal Kingdom - Dinosaurs broken.

Our third day was Disney's Animal Kingdom, which is the newest of the four parks. (It didn't exist yet when I visited the World for my senior trip in 1997.) It's also the one with the shortest operating hours: AK is only open until 5:00 p.m. whereas the others run until 7:00 or later, especially if it's Extra Magic Hours. But again, we had plenty of time to see and do everything we wanted, so it was all good.


I was worried about being outdoors the whole time, since you know, heat, but actually Disney does a pretty good job of keeping the place climate controlled. All the walking trails are shaded, and they have a lot of those giant outdoor fans like at the State Fair. (Except for in Chester & Hester's Dino-Rama, which was pretty hot but also extremely fun.) So it really wasn't too painful, as long as we kept hydrated. Ice cream helped too.

This is the iconic Tree of Life - it's a totally fake tree carved all over with animals. Also, Porter's belly.

From one of the two exploration walking trails - this is the one in the Africa section. Betsy isn't pouting, she's making a fish face. You can't see it but there was a freaky thing called a lungfish behind her. The cast member working this section told us it's basically an evolutionary holdover - much like the coelacanth. Unlike Betsy, who is the pinnacle of evolutionary development and does a pretty good gorilla impression as well.

Speaking of gorillas, we saw plenty of those in the Animal Kingdom too. Did you know that some male gorillas never get to mate? You can tell because those are the ones with empty pizza boxes and dirty laundry scattered all around.

Here's my favorite monkey:
I took that picture on the safari ride, which is the ride Animal Kingdom is most known for. (It's kind of like Jungle Cruise but the animals are real.) We let Betsy use one of the disposable cameras when she was riding, and I can't wait to see her pictures... mostly the inside of the safari vehicle, I'm guessing, with maybe a bit of foliage. She didn't seem to enjoy the ride that much but maybe she was just really focused on the task of taking pictures. Betsy gets like that sometimes.
We also saw real tigers, but I obviously didn't let my kids get that close! That was in the same section of the park as the walking talking recycle bin.
Chester and Hester's Dino-Rama is probably the cheesiest part of the park, and it was also my kids' favorite. It was a lot like the midway at the state fair, only you know, Disneyer. The kids really liked the flying dinosaur ride which was similar to (better than, it turns out) Dumbo at the Magic Kingdom. There are two levers: one to make the dino go up and down, one to tip it left and right. Betsy and Porter both got to do the controls, which was a huge thrill. And there was no line whatsoever - I think everyone was at the Nemo show -so we went twice. Not three times, because the kids had just had fries for lunch, and I had no desire to clean that up.
Porter really likes dinosaurs (I think it's because of the Y chromosome). How freaking cute is he in his little Hawaiian shirt? We discovered that Porter really has no fear where the characters are concerned, but Betsy tends to hold back a little, unless they are princesses.

Oh no! The kids are driving!

We had a pretty good time at Animal Kingdom, even though we didn't go on all of the rides. The kids are too small for some of them, like the River Rapids ride (getting soaked would have been nice on a hot day), the Dinosaur ride (I think Betsy would have been terrified but Porter would have liked it, shame he's nowhere near tall enough) and the new Expedition Everest (which seems kind of like the Matterhorn. I remember liking the Matterhorn when I was a kid.) That made the day go faster. We did see both of the shows. The Nemo show was truly impressive: all of the fish characters are represented by giant oversized puppets performed by people right onstage. I can't imagine how insanely complicated that one must be to stage. We had pretty good seats, too. The kids got kind of bored and antsy before it was done, though; I think it was because they were hungry.

Animal Kingdom doesn't have the same fantastic dining options as EPCOT does. Actually, I felt kind of stupid because we ended up having lunch at a place called 'Restaurantosaurus,' which was basically McDonalds with a dinosaur theme. I mean, we came all this way, had all these options to eat (for free), and we were having burgers and fries? But actually, my kids were really happy eating familiar food, and they loved checking out all the dinosaur stuff on the wall. I had to decide that it was okay to do something totally unoriginal for once.

I don't know what we did to wear Porter out, but by 4:00 or so he was pooped. (No, I didn't say he had pooped, although I'm sure he did that too.) He actually fell asleep in his stroller which was pretty convenient for us. Even more impressive, he stayed asleep while Matt picked him up and carried him

and he stayed asleep all through the excellent Lion King show, which was pretty loud.
That was our finish for the day, and I have to say it was a pretty good ending. We had dinner reservations for the Animal Kingdom Lodge, but we decided not to go back to our hotel (due to the vicissitudes of the bus transportation system, it would have taken something like an hour to get there. And it did take an hour to get home after our dinner. That was the one time I wished we had our car with us.) So we killed an hour or so riding on the monorails and eating our leftover brownies from lunch. I actually really enjoyed that: it was air-conditioned and relaxing.
The food was great, of course. But that ended up being a really long day; we didn't get home until something like 11 at night. I thought the kids would be too tired to get up super early the next day for Extra Magic Hours but they were fine, we were the only ones who got worn out.

Disneyworld, part 2: EPCOT - Princesses are cool.

Yeahhh, I meant to update the blog yesterday, but I sewed a dress instead. Slacker. Anyway, Day 2 of our Disney vacation was the one I was probably looking forward to the most, because EPCOT is really cool. We started out the day by having our picture taken in front of the big silver ball. We only spent about 2 hours in Future World - the front half of the park - but had plenty of time to do everything we wanted. (World Showcase doesn't open until 11 a.m., and that's where we planned on spending most of our day, but like every other park we arrived at EPCOT within minutes of its opening. Porter waking me up at 6:30 or so every day was beginning to pay off.) The ride we were most excited about was The Seas With Nemo & Friends, wherein the animated characters from Nemo are actually projected into a real aquarium, and you ride in a "clam-mobile" and get the songs from the movie stuck in your head. There was no line whatsoever, so we rode the ride 3 times in about 20 minutes.
By that point we were actually getting a little sick of it, but fortunately the building housing the ride has lots of other cool stuff. You can pose inside of a giant shark
and see manatees and look through a periscope and walk inside of a giant aquarium (cool for Matt and the kids; not cool for me) and kill time until Turtle Talk with Crush opens at 10 a.m. (It was very surreal, actually having to wait around for an attraction to open - which also happened at Magic Kingdom. I was worried that we wouldn't have enough time to do everything we wanted.)

The other big attraction we did in the Future World side was Soarin, which simulates the experience of hang-gliding over the state of California. (You would have loved it, Mom - orange groves and everything.) Because you are actually suspended about 40 feet in the air, there's a height requirement, so Porter couldn't go. That was the only time in the whole 4 days that we did a 'baby swap' which basically consisted of Porter and me eating a Rice Krispy treat while Matt and Betsy rode, and Matt and Porter eating Cheetos while Betsy and I rode. (We had a lot of snack credits with the dining plan.) The ride was really cool - lucky Betsy got to do it twice - and I was able to overcome the fear of heights by reminding myself that it was all totally fake. Which I think was not what the Imagineers had in mind, but it worked for me.

After Soarin' we made our way into he World Showcase, which is probably my favorite part of all the parks. Featuring a whole bunch of countries - Canada, Mexico, Norway, China, Germany, Morocco, Japan, Italy, France, American and the U.K. (did I miss any?) - it's great for someone like me who flat out can't afford to travel to interesting and exotic places for real. World Showcase has a reputation for being boring to small children, to the extent that a lot of guidebooks actually suggest that you skip it altogether. I was pleasantly surprised, because there's actually a lot for little kids. Model trains, character greetings, a whole exhibit of tin toys, street performers (the drummers in Japan were sweet), plus each country's pavilion had a little craft for the kids. Give Betsy a die cut Viking ship and some markers, and she's pretty much happy.
One of the other reasons we were looking forward to EPCOT is the food. And not just the food, but the character dining. See, at Norway's restaurant you can eat lunch with princesses. I booked lunch for Betsy and me pretty much the day we decided we were going to Disney (and unlike Cinderella's Castle, you do not need a complicated game plan to get reservations). She was really looking forward to it. I let Betsy wear her dress with princesses and her indulgent parent (hint: not me) had gotten her a sparkly princess crown for the occasion. On our way into the restaurant we met Belle, who told Betsy that their names start with the same letter. Hooray for B!
I think the princess Betsy liked the most was Sleeping Beauty (since she'd picked a Sleeping Beauty toy the day before, and spent most of the evening forcing Matt and me to pry the rubber dresses on and off with glitter-covered hands). That was the one she interacted with the most, or maybe she went into Princess Overload after the first two and couldn't handle Jasmine, Ariel, and Cinderella too. Anyway, in lieu of an autograph book, Matt had picked up a book of princess stories at Half Price Books, so that each princess had a story or at least a picture on the frontispiece where she could sign. Sleeping Beauty's signature was the best: "To Princess Betsy, Love Princess Aurora. [little heart] Sweet dreams!"
In all, Betsy got to meet five princesses at lunch. (If you are lucky enough to get into Cinderella's Castle, you only get to meet one.) She didn't really eat much of her lunch beyond a few squares of Jarslberg cheese. (I asked if they had any Venezuelan beaver cheese, but no such luck.) But all of the princesses were really sweet. They all asked her name - Cinderella asked her if the mice made her dress - and one of the princesses (I forget which one) said "Bye, Princess Betsy" when she was walking back through - we were seated by the doorway - after she had finished making her rounds of the room. Now, the princess must have met 15 little girls in 10 minutes, so I was really impressed that she remembered my daughter's name. We will definitely do this meal again if we go to Disney before Betsy becomes too old (and therefore too cool).
I loved the food. Holy cow, it was good. You wouldn't think that chicken salad with orange marmalade in it would be good, but it was the best chicken salad I have ever eaten. And the desserts... ohh the desserts. (The princesses were gone by then so Betsy had no trouble concentrating.) I'm not generally a cheesecake fan, but the lingonberry cheesecake was awesome.
While Betsy and I were swooning over princesses and smoked salmon, Matt and Porter were eating at a different venue. They went to the Garden Grill, a rotating restaurant with some of the more standard Disney characters like Chip and Dale. But I don't have the pictures yet because I had to give Matt a disposable camera for that, and it's not developed yet. Matt spoke very highly of the whole experience; he said their waiter was good, the food was Delicious, Porter was good company for once, and Mickey Mouse was broken. Actually, that last bit may have been Porter's opinion.

So, after gorging ourselves silly, we had about 5 hours to see the rest of World Showcase before gorging ourselves silly again at dinner. (I'm telling you, the free Dining Plan thing was insane. I have never eaten so much in my life. And I liked it.) I did take some time out to meet up with my Internet buddy Cid, whom I met via an NCIS website.

Cid's worked at Disneyworld for almost 20 years, so she had lots of interesting insight and trivia into the World. (Plus, she sent autographed pictures of Cinderella & Buzz Lightyear to the kids before we left, AND had personalized ears left at the front desk when we checked in. Porter likes to wear his and announce, "I Mickey Moushe!") I was really glad I got to meet her and wished we could have chatted longer. And I didn't bore Matt by just talking about NCIS the whole time.

EPCOT has lots of character meeting stations scattered throughout the parks - Mulan in China, Pooh in England, Aladdin in Morocco, etc. In the Germany pavilion we got to meet Snow White and Dopey without even having to wait in line, so Betsy got the coveted sixth princess signature for her book, and Porter finally met someone who has less hair than he does.

We had time to see and do pretty much everything in the World Showcase, like watch the 360-degree Canada film and the Audio-Animatronic tribute to America. (Nothing could be more Disney. Porter hated it, though.) One of the best experiences was when we were in the Japan pavilion, which has a great big department store instead of just a gift shop. There was a whole room of beautiful kimonos, and the adorable saleslady helped Betsy dress up in a little pink one - complete with hair comb, parasol, everything. Betsy loved it. (I would have bought her a kimono if I could come even close to justifying it, but there are only so many times a 4-year-old girl needs to wear one. Such as, none.)
We did managed to get rained on - in the evening, not in the afternoon - when we were waiting for our dinner reservation at the Rose & Crown Pub. But it had been a pretty hot day, so the rain wasn't too bad. I had gotten us a 7:30 dinner reservation in the hopes that we could watch the Illuminations fireworks show at 9 (the restaurant's patio is supposed to be a great viewing area). We were seated about half an hour late so it was no problem watching the show, which was really great - and I swear, we were so close I could feel the heat from some of the giant fireballs. And the food was, as expected, excellent. We had a cheese platter to start - I had some cheese for my English friend who is sadly lactose intolerant - and some chicken skewers, and Matt had fish & chips and I had bangers & mash and Betsy had shepherd's pie. By the time the fireworks were done and it was time for dessert, both of the kids were asleep and we were fully stuffed, so we got our fresh berry scones boxed up and had them for breakfast the next day. (They were delicious.)

We actually left the restaurant after the park had closed, which meant that everyone who had been in EPCOT that day was waiting in line for the buses. And, apparently All Star Sports was a very popular resort that week. Fortunately, Matt had done some exploring the day we arrived and figured out that we were right across the parking lot from All Star Music, which had virtually no line at the bus stop. Good call, Matt!

This was my quest when we were at EPCOT: (Because it's important to have goals in life.) I bought candy and/or cookies at every country in EPCOT. Except for Morocco - disappointingly, I couldn't find anything suitable to buy there - and in the America pavilion, because hello, I do know what American candy tastes like. And it was a very interesting quest. I learned that, for example, Mexican candy has goat milk in it. Mmm, goat milk. And I learned that Japan apparently has a sweet tooth: they had a huge display of candy, all in brightly colored packaging. I ended up settling on something called Sweet Candy (Fruit Drop"S") which came in a cute little tin. My favorite so far are the Italian fruit gems, whereas the Chinese White Rabbit candy is kind of gross (perhaps because it contains real rabbits?!) We've been gradually sampling the goods over the past week. It was a very cool souvenir, if a slightly expensive one. (I did try to keep each individual piece under four dollars. I was tempted to buy a box of Rowntrees Fruit Pastilles in the UK for six dollars, and I was glad I didn't because I saw them at Meijer this week for $2.89.)

So that was EPCOT. It was a great day, but exhausting. But there's no rest for the wicked, as that was only Day 2.

Disneyworld, part 1: MGM Studios - Porter loves the Swedish Chef

Our first day at Disneyworld was actually our second day in Florida. We didn't try to hit the parks as soon as we hit the ground although I know that's what some families do. But the first Day One wasn't terribly interesting. My kids are surprisingly good travelers - no one threw up, hooray - and Porter fell asleep while eating ice cream at dinner. It was pretty funny but I didn't have the camera with me, so I'll have to carry the mental image of him rousing only long enough to take another bite.

So, we started out with the theme park soon to be formerly known as Disney MGM Studios, on the grounds that it's the smallest park geographically and our feet would get plenty tired as the week wore on. Also, MGM Studios is the one that has Muppets.

We made a beeline for the 3-D Muppets show as soon as we got into the park, pausing only to take some pictures outside. (I always have to have a picture by the Muppet fountain. It's just a thing I do in the, you know, THREE times I have been there in my whole life.) To my surprise, the kids didn't really enjoy the show all that much, I think because they had a hard time keeping the 3-D glasses on. (Big heads though they may have, they are not adult sized.) But that's okay, because the kids did like the gift shop.
The gift shop had stuffed muppet characters: Fuzzy Bear (no, not Fozzie, Fuzzy), Miss Piggy, Mort Mort (that would be the Swedish Chef), Meemee (Beaker to the uninitiated), although curiously no Kermit. I let Porter pick one and he had a hard time choosing between Mort Mort and Meemee (he even had them doing Eskimo kisses at one point, he said they were 'stuck') but ultimately he went with the Chef. Good choice, I think, because Beaker is skinnier and thus a lot less cuddly. So he was pretty happy with his new toy, until I dared to take it away from him so that I could pay.

Betsy had her choice between a stuffed Muppet and a princess set - little princess figurine and rubbery dresses that are really hard to get on and off, plus accessories, in a heart-shaped case - and for her it was no contest. Actually she wanted the Little Mermaid first, but I said no. (Have I ever mentioned how I feel about that movie? No?) So, she picked Sleeping Beauty, because Sleeping Beauty's case is pink, and she toted it around all the rest of the day. She even wanted to go back to the "otel" early so she could play with her new toys, but obviously we didn't go for that.

The surprise hit of the day was Star Tours, a motion simulator ride loosely based on the Star Wars trilogy (the original trilogy, you know, the one that didn't suck). Betsy made the height requirement so Matt took her on it and honestly, I thought she would be scared. She wasn't. She loved it, and she ended up going on it three times while I hung out in the gift shop (yes, every ride has a gift shop) and watched Porter play with the Yoda puppets.

While we were waiting for lunch, Mom called to say that Emily had her baby. Two nephews in one week! Can't wait to see him.

I picked our lunch venue based solely on the fact that it was a buffet (we had the free Dining Plan so we ate A LOT that week, as you'll soon see) and only later found out that it's a character meal. The characters were all from Playhouse Disney, which is on cable so we never watch it (although Charlie and Lola is another Playhouse Disney show - we discovered that one while we were on vacation once and thus had cable) so the kids didn't really recognize anything. I only vaguely knew who they were supposed to be, although the clown Porter is poking in the eye is apparently Jojo.
Any day that you get to poke a clown in the eye is a good day in my book. Also, the food was really, really good (and free). Waiting for lunch was probably the longest we had to wait for anything that day (it turns out someone stole our reservation, grrr). Even though it seemed like there were a lot of people in the park, we never had to wait very long for anything. We were able to do everything that we had planned, some more than once. (Betsy went on the Star Wars ride three times.) We saw most of the shows: Beauty and the Beast (loved it), the car stunt show (Matt loved it, I found it noisy and hot), and even the Little Mermaid show (see, I am not a totally mean mother). We actually skipped the Indiana Jones show which I think MGM Studios is most known for, because Matt and I got picked as extras when we were there on our honeymoon and we knew we could never top that experience. Plus, I don't think the kids would have liked it.

We left the park right as it started to rain - everyone says that in Florida, it always rains in the mid-afternoon, but most of the days we were there it rained in the evening instead - and gave the kids a bath so they would be ready for the next day. Also, that second night I figured out that the people who snore (Betsy, Matt) should share one bed, and the person who does NOT snore (yours truly) should get one all to herself. You know, just in the interest of fairness.

Arrgh!

Be ye scurvy dog, landlubber or sassy wench, Mr. Potato Head would like to wish ye a happy International Talk Like A Pirate Day!

we're back!

Back from Disneyworld, that is. Once I finish sorting through the 5 loads of laundry and 468 pictures from last week, I'll have a much longer blog post (or three). In the meantime, here's what turned out to be pretty much my favorite photo from the trip:

That was at Animal Kingdom, and I guess it makes more sense if you know the story behind it. See, at AK they really, really want you to recycle (pretty much like all zoos with their obligatory conservation message) and to that end, in one area of the park there is a walking, talking recycle bin. Seriously. And it's actually kind of amusing to watch the thing interact with the park guests (do NOT call it a trash can - it hates that).

Anyway, Porter apparently liked the recycle bin a lot so he started following it around. And the recycle bin (or rather, the person controlling the recycle bin via remote control) thought that was funny, so the recycle bin was singing "We're following the leader..." from Peter Pan in its little tinny robotic voice. I love this photo because you can tell how much fun Porter is having, even if you can't see his whole face. I think the recycle bin was his favorite part of the whole park.

(A few minutes later we went to the petting zoo, where he tried to sit on the goats.)

Anyway, I think this photo kind of emphasizes what's so great about Disneyworld. See, we can sit on goats and be nagged about recycling at the zoo right here in Indianapolis. But seeing our 2-year-old try to run away forever with a recycling bin? That, my friends, can only happen in Florida.

Overheard while at Disneyworld

"Airplane broken!" (Porter)

"Water with no ices is yucky." (Betsy)

"I a pirate. Arrg!" (Porter)

"Jasmine has boobies, but we don't talk about it." (Betsy)

"Hey, let's put tattoos on the kids." (Matt)

"The soap is blue just like Dory is blue!" (Betsy, every single time we washed our hands)

"Dinosaur broken!" (Porter)

"When we went to the Little Mermeraid show, my Sleeping Beauty toy was getting wet." (Betsy)

"Mickey Moush broken!" (Porter)