Alright, lets get this day wrapped up!
If I recall correctly, everyone napped today. I laid down with Gigs to get him to sleep, and managed to get a few minutes rest myself. Ben isnt a napper, so he went to get a drink with his mug. But Im pretty sure he came back and laid down at the foot of the girls bed as well. I know that the alarm I had set woke us up, and that it was a struggle getting Becca up and out the door. She is difficult. She needs naps, but if she gets woken from them, she has a very hard time adjusting. So pretty much every afternoon, we had a screaming child all the way to the bus stop. She would eventually wake up enough and all would be fine.
So we wrestled with the three strollers (SUCH A PAIN!) and made our way back to the bus stop. Gigs and Bethany were happy to be returning. Actually
these pictures might have been from the morning. I dont know.
We made it back to the Magic Kingdom with about 40 minutes until dinner. Ben called his parents, and they were about to ride Pirates. We headed into Adventureland thinking that we might do the Jungle Cruise, but the wait was long. So was the Magic Carpets.
So, I led the family over to something that I knew would be empty. The Enchanted Tiki Room! Of course, we just missed a show, so we had to wait for a while anyway. No problem, I took the opportunity to boost my kids blood sugar with some fruit snacks.
The Tiki Room was
interesting. Everyone was mildly entertained. I thought it was cute, but became pretty distracted by the awful smell that was coming from my lap. When the show ended, I informed Ben that a diaper change was next on the itinerary.
MIL called and I said to meet up at our dinner destination: The Crystal Palace! I got us checked in and then asked where the nearest restroom was. They said I could just take him inside the restaurant, which was nice.
I finished taking care of that business and walked out right as the rest of the family was being led inside. Great timing! So we got seated and began the typical business of dealing with the shuffle of getting kids and adults fed while trying not to miss any characters. Character buffets are a lot of work!
Im not going to spend a lot of time on this dinner. Ill just say that it was my least favorite of the week. The service was not great, the character interaction was dull (and very slow
we almost left before seeing everyone because it was taking so very long), and the food was not good. I am one of the least picky people ever, and I actually felt hungry when we left. All that said, the kids had a great time.
I didn't mean to cover Gigs' face, I think I was trying to get him to let go of Piglet.
After dinner, Bethany was ready and raring to go on a ride. And not just any ride would do. She had a very specific ride in mind, which she had been asking about all day. You see, leading up to the trip, I had showed the girls youtube videos of the rides. My girls (especially Bethany) are like me, and like to know the details of things before they can feel comfortable. So I showed them ride videos to help them get excited. Well, Bethany watched Big Thunder Mountain over and over again and had been talking for months about how badly she wanted to ride it. As we were exiting Crystal Palace, I checked the wait times app and saw it was just 15 minutes.
The original plan was to hang out in Tomorrowland and do a few things before the fireworks, but this was one of those times where it was necessary to be flexible. But first, I took a picture of the beautiful castle.
Then I led our crew back to Frontierland. Ben and I took Bethany up to the front, asked for a rider swap (first time), handed it to the Grands, and off we went. Bethany was BURSTING with excitement. She was just so, so happy.
We were on a train in no time, and I was praying that she would actually enjoy it after hyping herself up so much. Well, no worries. She LOVED it. When we got off, she was jumping up and down yelling THAT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!! So imagine her delight when we said she could go again with grandma and grandpa.
After that excitement, we were still planning on heading back to the hub for the fireworks, but now Becca was upset that she didnt get to ride. So, plan B again, we headed off to Pirates of the Caribbean! This was a walk on because it was so close to fireworks time. We all loved this ride. I think its amazing how it really feels like you are outside.
We finished our pirate-y adventure and I noticed that the Magic Carpets were also a walk on. This was something that Becca had wanted to ride, so we jumped on. Ben and I took Becca and Gigs. The awesome thing about this ride is that I got to see some of the castle projection show from it. Such a cool view! The bad thing was that the combination of the spinning, rise and fall, and tilting was a bit much for me. It threw off my inner ear or something and made me feel a little sick and jelly-legged. The kids loved having control of the levers, which made for an extra jerky ride!
After that spin, I had one more thing on my radar in Adventureland: a Dole whip! I adore pineapple, so this was #1 on my must try snack list. No one else wanted anything, so I got into line by myself. It was a super short line but a very long wait. I got a float with a pineapple/vanilla swirl.
The verdict? I thought it was really tasty, but it was a little chilly that night, and it was just a little too cold. It was huge, and even with Ben having a few bites, I just couldnt finish it. Im anticipating that it will be much warmer during our trip in October, so I plan to try it again.
The fireworks were starting at this point, so we just kind of wound our way around trying to find a spot to wait them out. Obviously we werent going to have a good view, but we wanted to not be caught in the mob when they ended. We ended up finding a spot in Liberty Square, I believe. It wasnt a good view, but we could see some of it, and it was enough to capture the kids interest.
I was a little sad that we hadnt gotten to really see them, but it had been a fantastic evening, so it really was for the best.
After the fireworks we had a FP+ scheduled for Space Mountain. The grandparents, however, were done. They said that they had ridden Space while we were napping, and wanted to walk Crystal to the exit. Then they said something super awesome: that they would take the kids back with them and put them to bed. Yay!!! We had gone into the trip hoping that we would get a few hours of kid-free time, but didnt want to assume or ask for it, so we were quite happy. The park was open til 11 that night, so we had about an hour and 45 minutes to play! (Warning, we took no pictures. I don't know why.)
We kissed the kids goodnight and wove our way back around the castle over to Tomorrowland to use our fastpasses. Ben was very excited to ride Space Mountain. Me? I was shaking in my boots.
I dont do roller coasters. Ever. I dont like heights. I dont like drops.
The whole idea of it terrifies me. But, I had promised Ben years ago that if we ever went to Disney together, I would ride everything with him. So far I had survived and even enjoyed BTMRR and Barnstormer (dont laugh, it goes kind of high on a very exposed track!) Now it was time to really test my limits. We scanned our way through the FP line and started the very long walk to the ride.
When it was time to load, I briefly entertained the idea of chickening out, but Ben was so excited and I didnt want to ruin our special opportunity for a date night in the Magic Kingdom. So, I sucked it up and climbed in behind Ben. I think that was the worst part for me: not getting to sit next to him and hold onto his arm.
So, we took off. And I screamed. A lot. And I tried to remember to breathe slowly, and that helped a bit. But mostly screaming. The ride ended, and Ben is all smiles, and he asks me Well, what did you think? My answer? Id do it again.
What do you know. Its true what they say about Disney coasters. It really wasnt bad. There were only a few little dips and no big drops, and being in the dark actually helped.
After that, we had no idea what to do, since I hadnt been planning on any kid-free time that night. But we remembered that we had wanted to ride Haunted Mansion again, and thought it would be fun to do at night. So we scurried over there and had a great little ride. We also explored the queue a bit more than we had before.
I let Ben choose the next ride, and he decided that he really did want to ride Space again, and the wait was only listed at 15 or 20 minutes, so we went BACK over to Tomorrowland. I found it funny that I had designed our entire trip to avoid crisscrossing any parks, but as soon as it was just the two of us, that went straight out the window!
It was at this point that I started panicking because I just remembered that there are two sides to Space Mountain and I didnt know if we had been on the worse one before. So I was worried that we would be on the other side this time and that I would think it was scarier. Silly, but I worked myself up quite a bit, and then we ended up on the same side as before. I enjoyed the ride more this time because I wasnt constantly waiting for something bad to happen!
We decided to do just one more thing at this point. Gigs can be difficult to put to bed in a hotel, and Bens phone had died so we were unreachable. We didnt want to wear out our sitter at the beginning of the week, so we chose one final attraction before heading out of the park: Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor!
This was a great choice to end the night. We both love Monsters Inc and it was a great chance to sit and relax and laugh. We ended up sitting next to That Guy and he was a really great sport.
We meandered our way out of Tomorrowland, and Ben got sidetracked by the smell of the cinnamon roasted nuts. He decided to use his first snack credit.
A funny story from this purchase. Ben and I have a little inside joke where anytime someone says Cinnamon, we say Thinnamon? Im allergic to Thinnamon! Its a line from The Game Plan, which is a silly movie where the Rock finds out he has a daughter. She makes him cookies, and his tongue swells up when he eats one.
Anyway, as we were walking up to the kiosk, Ben said he wanted some cinnamon nuts. And I said, You mean Thinnamon? So we get up to the stand and there is one lady in line in front of us.
She says to the CM,
Yeth, I would like thome Thinnamon nuths, pleath.
Now, I am NOT making fun of someone with a speech impediment. Thats not it all. But the fact that she said Thinnamon just like we always joke about it, combined with our exhaustion was too much. Ben just turned around slowly, with wide eyes, and whispered Did that really just happen? I just nodded and tried not to explode with laughter.
So yeah, that happened. And then we made our way to the bus stop and realized just how tired we were. We returned to our room to find my MIL reading and all of the kids asleep. Yay! Then we fell into bed and passed out. It had been a great day!