Month: October 2013

the Disney World vacation chronicles: day 7

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

Get caught up!

Days 5 & 6
Day 4
Days 2 & 3
Day 1

Day 7 – Thursday, October 10, 2013

Just another day in paradise.  This was a highly anticipated day – the day of our character breakfast!  We had reservations at Chef Mickey’s, located inside the Contemporary Resort.  We took the bus from our resort to the Magic Kingdom and then hopped on the monorail and rode that to the Contemporary.

The breakfast was a lot of fun.  The food, I thought, was actually really good too.  I was surprised at how much time we spent in the gift shops at the hotel before returning to our resort.  I guess we knew time was running out to get those hot, hot, one of a kind (ha) items that say “Walt Disney World” on the tag.  Dexter got a Baby Sully with a little blanket and Theo got a set of villains to play with.  They both talked us into getting a book about their favorite ride, The Haunted Mansion.  (We’ve looked at it A LOT)!  
Spence on the bus back to the resort.

Me and mom looking all matchy-matchy!

Not quite what I had in mind when we asked a cast member to get a picture of all of us….we are practically microscopic, but hey. It’s the thought that counts.  And do you like how Theo decided not to participate?

Baby Sully.

Toy zone in our room.

Ryan put the boys down for a nap while mom and I walked around to get some photos of the resort.  

Bar by the Big Blue Pool

Lobby – Concierge – Check In/Out

Ink & Paint gift shop

Ink & Paint gift shop

Mom’s favorite spot at the resort — drink fill-up station. 

Lion King section

Little Mermaid section

Flippin’ Fins Pool

Backside of the Nemo section along the Hourglass Lake

And back around to Radiator Springs

Cozy Cone Pool

I suited up and went to the pool and did some laundry while relaxing kid-free for a bit.  After my laundry was dry, I went back to the room and started waking up some sleepy boys for a little pool time. 

Poolside Sunbathing Grandmothers Unite.

Cheetos fingers!
Ryan, Michelle, Bob, and I snuck out around 6 or 7pm and drove over to Pleasure Island at Downtown Disney for dinner.  

Paradiso 37

Michelle and Bob wanted to stay at Pleasure Island a bit longer and Ryan and I wanted to use a voucher for a free game of putt putt (priorities – ha!) so we left P.I. and headed to Winter Summerland, located right next to Blizzard Beach water park. 
Being here sure brought back a lot of memories.  Ryan and I visited this same place together 14 years ago when we were dating.

We chose the winter course – Santa in the snow as opposed to Santa in the sand.

Back to the resort and I wanted to capture a photo of the front of the resort entrance at night so I hopped out for this: 

Shew, this one wore me out.  I’ll have to save days 8 & 9 for next time.  Almost done, I promise!  
For more candid photos of the trip, search Instagram user mommyinthemidwest or hashtag: #1stmcdanielfamilyvacation (then follow me there and say hello!).

Stay tuned for the end,
~C~

the Disney World vacation chronicles: days 5 & 6

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

Catch up!

Day 4
Days 2&3
Day 1

Day 5:  Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Dexter woke up twice during the night, whining and running a slight temp but quickly went back to sleep.  I don’t remember what time the boys woke up for the day Tuesday, but it was nothing out of the ordinary.  Since we had family suites at Disney’s Art of Animation resort, we were equipped with all that we needed to make breakfast.  We had a small fridge and freezer and a microwave.  We ate breakfast in the room every day except for Thursday, when we had our character meal at the Contemporary Resort.  We had protein/fiber bars, frozen breakfast sandwiches, oatmeal, and cereal with milk.  It was nice to not eat “out” every meal and also to save a few bucks.  On our pool days, like this day, we also had ham or turkey sandwiches and chips, along with carrots or grapes, for lunch.

We woke up well aware that our vacation was halfway over.  When you plan and look forward to something for SO LONG, it’s hard not to constantly take notice of how quickly time is passing by.

“I’m a ghost!”

Luckily, everyone woke up feeling fine and fever-free.

our Cars-themed room

Uncle Bob is gonna getcha.

Or are we gonna get Uncle Bob?

Theo cozy on the couch for naptime.

And Dexter resting peacefully in Grammy’s bed.

The pool wears them out – we should really get one of those.  Oh, except the part about how we come home from Florida in October and have to start wearing coats…no thank you!
We decided to go to Downtown Disney for dinner and to shop around a little more since we were so tired the first time we went. I wanted to pop in the Art of Disney store since the boys were content in their strollers and it was relatively uncrowded. 

We loved that Peter Pan print in the middle and it got me daydreaming of a fun basement remodel (or basement finish, as our case would be) with pale gray walls, white baseboards, neutral furnishings and pops of color from tasteful Disney artwork.  

Theo’s favorite villain – Maleficent.

Waiting in line for dinner at Earl of Sandwich.  One of the best meals we had there!

Decisions, decisions. 
Dexter photo-bombed my sandwich pic. 

It was a perfect night!

Nearly impossible to get a decent pic of these two together. 

We didn’t want to stay too late because we had another big park day coming up and we hoped the boys would get some good rest.  I was leery about Dexter because we didn’t know why he got so sick the night before.  Lack of sleep, overheated, dehydrated, some combination of all those?  Don’t know.  But we wanted to do anything we could to prevent that from happening again. 
Day 6: Wednesday, October 9, 2013.
Getting Spiffy in a Jiffy before our big day at Hollywood Studios!

We are huge dorks, so we designated this day as Monsters, Inc shirt day.

Oozma Kappa!

Try to pay attention, kids.

Cute little hand-holding cousins waiting for Toy Story Mania.
One of my favorites – The Voyage of the Little Mermaid show.

Watching Spencer defeat Darth Vader.

Hallelujah!  About a 45 minute nap!

Intense concentration at the Beauty and the Beast show.

Might as well ride that Toy Story ride again!

Fruit bar!  He chose this over a Mickey Mouse shaped ice cream bar.  Clearly not my child.  So I got the ice cream bar. 

This ride – The Great Movie Ride – broke while we were on it. Phooey.

Studio Backlot Tour

Ready to eat at Pizza Planet.

In line to meet Buzz and Woody.  For 45 minutes.  A very long 45 minutes.  I think this might have actually been the longest we waited for anything.  But it was worth it.  You know why?

Because after we left and started walking towards Fantasmic, Theo said “you know what mommy? It was fun meeting Woody and Buzz.”  Yes. It. Was.

Fantasmic. My single most favorite thing at all of Walt Disney World. I was geeking out and more excited than anyone else.

Another successful, super fun day.  For more candid photos of the trip, search Instagram user mommyinthemidwest or hashtag: #1stmcdanielfamilyvacation (then follow me there and say hello!).
Stay tuned for more,
~C~

the Disney World vacation chronicles: day 4

Posted on by mommyinthemidwest

Get caught up by clicking below:

Days 2&3
Day 1

Monday, October 7, 2013.

Animal Kingdom is only open until 5pm so we planned to exhaust every possible option in the park and then hop on over to Magic Kingdom to meet up with the rest of our gang and catch the 8pm electric light parade together.

A very cloudy start to the day with predictions of scattered thunderstorms all day. Boo.

First things first, a photo op with Rafiki.

The boys shared a snack while my mom and Ryan rode Dinosaur.

The boys played at the Boneyard Dig playground while mom and I rode the nearby Triceratop Spin rollercoaster.
This was the first day that we used our Magic Bands to reserve FastPass+ times for rides before arriving at the park. We had some trouble managing the members of our party on the smartphone app, but concierge was able to figure it out for us eventually.  My mom was never able to log in to accept my invitation to manage her activities but it didn’t matter once the front desk at the resort pushed whatever buttons they needed to push.  So a brief description of the Magic Bands – rubber/plastic wristbands that act as your room key, credit card, and FastPass+ tickets.  You use them in collaboration with the phone app.  They are still in the test process with this, so there were minor glitches here and there but cast members were understanding and accommodating.  The biggest problem with the whole thing (that I experienced) was that the app was VERY slow.  The wi-fi on property does not have the capacity needed for quick, efficient use.  That being said, I was able to make our selections and manage any changes that needed to be made throughout the day. 
For park entry, you hold your MagicBand up to a post and this links up to your fingerprint.  For charging to the room (which is backed up with your credit card of choice), you hold your MagicBand up to a device that is similar to any credit card swipe machine, then use a pre-identified pin number to verify.  The same technology is in place on the hotel room doors and ride turnstiles.  I liked using it for Fast passes because in the past, you went to the ride and if it was very popular, you might not be able to return with your fast pass for 4 hours.  When you select your attractions and times on the app (you can choose up to 3 per day), you can go back into the app and change either the attraction or the time to better suit your needs if you see that you are moving faster or slower through the park than you anticipated.  
This is how we received our MagicBands in the mail.
Overall, I really liked the MagicBands and think that they have the capacity to be SUPER awesome once the minor kinks are worked out. It was really nice not having to keep up with paper fast passes. The size is adjustable and one band really does fit all.  I was a little concerned that the boys would not tolerate wearing them or would lose them, but they were fun, comfortable, and fairly secure.  They didn’t take their MagicBands off without asking first and really enjoyed them.

The boys LOVED the Finding Nemo show. 

Tree of Life
We had a fast pass for the Kilimanjaro Safari and I was pretty happy about that as it started to sprinkle.  It’s a long ride and we were under cover (sort of) on our safari bus. 

But then it started pouring and all I could think about was how our helpless little strollers were sitting there soaking up the rain.  Along with the boys’ backpacks – which contained the boys’ changes of clothes. And Dexter’s diapers.  UGH.

It continued to rain after we got off of the ride and we quickly found cover and some lunch.  It was delicious. We found a quick service place in Asia that served amazing egg rolls and tasty sweet & sour chicken, honey chicken, and beef lo mein.  The best part of it all was that the boys LOVED it. They chowed down and although the portions were very generous, we wished we had more once it was gone.  The rain stopped as we finished eating.  We were all wet from walking in the rain. The strollers literally had puddles in them.  The diaper bags were dripping.  I threw away a couple of Dexter’s diapers but the ones on the inside of the stack were mostly dry.  His spare outfit was drenched.  

Waiting for ice cream after the Lion King show.

Rushing to see the Bug’s Life show before the park closed. 

Ya know, upon further review Dexter doesn’t look so good here.  
Then there’s this photo…taken about 30 minutes later on the bus to Magic Kingdom. 
It rained again the whole time we were on the bus and stopped as soon as we arrived at Magic Kingdom.  Lucky timing for that at least.  And friends, that’s where the photos end for Monday, October 7th.  Unless you saw this on Instagram:
You read that right.  When we got to Magic Kingdom, we went straight to Monsters Inc Scare Floor and while we were waiting to go in, I was holding Dexter. I kissed his forehead and thought “does he feel hot?” Seconds later, he puked all over me – and then did it again while I was standing there in the shock of this horror.  Two words:  EGG ROLL. Of course this occurs as the doors are opening to the attraction and we’re all scrambling and standing there like “what now!?”  I told them to go on and I would get myself and Dexter cleaned up.  Everyone went into the scare floor and I looked around.  Lots of closed doors and no cast members.  So I found an emergency exit and wandered around in my puke-covered clothes, carrying my puke-covered toddler at arm’s length while my mind raced and I tried to figure out my first step. 
We went over to stroller parking and I got out the wipes.  I tried wiping us both off the best I could.  Not super effective.  I stripped Dexter down to his diaper (classy) and wiped him off with wipes.  He was crying the whole time.  I dumped the puke out of his shoes and tried to wipe them out.  I put wet clothes from the diaper bag on him and sat him in the stroller, then ran into the nearest gift shop to buy the first shirt I could find in my size.  Went to the bathroom to change and rinse out our disgusting clothes.  
So. Gross. 
If you know me well, you know that dealing with puke has been one of my greatest mommy-duty fears from day one. Not spit up, but real, smelly, grown-up food puke.  I can’t take it.  I’m not sure how I powered through this situation, I guess because I had no choice  Poor Dexter literally slept the rest of the night in the stroller while Theo rode Jungle Cruise and Pirates of the Caribbean.  After that, we decided to go home.  I waited awhile to leave because I wanted to make sure Dexter wasn’t going to throw up again. Can you imagine that?  On a crowded bus with nowhere to go and no way to get out? We missed the parade.  I felt so bad as we were leaving.  Like we were these parents that were just trying to rush to get a good spot in line for the bus.  Dexter slept all the way back to the room and went to bed immediately when we got back.  No more puke!
Stay tuned for Day 5 and more,
~C~