Showing posts with label Disney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Disney. Show all posts

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Leaving Disney

The original plan was to go to Hollywood Studios Wednesday and then head back to my parents' house. Unfortunately, because of Kris's legs, we had to skip it because of the rash and resulting swelling on her calves and ankles. She was willing to put up with it, but I decided I would rather just go back to my parents' house and have a doctor take a look at her legs and see if there was anything she could get to make it go away.

This is what her legs looked like at about 10:00 Tuesday night, only 6 hours after the pictures at EPCOT:


It was even worse in the morning, so I think we made the right call by not going to Hollywood Studios.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

EPCOT Part II

Once we finished with The Land, it was time to head over for our Test Track fast passes. We had five minutes to spare. When we go there however, Kris commented about her legs burning. A quick inspection showed a couple of red spots on the backs of her calves. At first, Kris thought it was just a razor burn, so we got in line for the Test Track ride.

Alison was hesitant to go on since she saw how fast the cars were running. She is a little frightened of rides with high speeds, but I am working on fixing that. But here she is looking a little apprehensive as we wait in line:


Kris and Sarah thought it was fun, Ali was still a little scared and was screaming at the turns and high speeds... Personally, I wasn't too thrilled with it. I thought it was a little too hyped. Afterward, as with all the Disney rides, you get channeled through the gift shops. The test track moved us through a small automobile show room. We got to look at some new cars, and as much as I disagree with GM being owned by the government, there were some good prices on a couple of their cars ( I am beginning to shop for a replacement for my car). And, Kris got to actually sit in a new Camaro. Of course as soon as she did, a salesman was there to ask if we wanted any info on the new Camaro.



Once the Test Track was over, we went back over to the Nemo ride in the Seas. It took longer going through all the turnstiles than it did to actually stand in line to wait. Ali wasn't very impressed with it, but I told her at least we were inside in the A/C. Not that it was all that bad. The heat was actually pretty good, it was the humidity that was a drag. But I have to say even that wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. It was much worse at the Magic Kingdom the day before.

When we had finished the Nemo "ride" itself, we walked around to look at the aquariums they have full of tropical fish and the manatees. Ali wanted to go do the shark area, so we let her run around there for a little bit and take an interactive shark quiz.

After the Seas, we walked over to "Ellen's Energy Adventure". I remembered being on it back in 1984, but that was well before Ellen DeGeneres redid the movie. We got there about five minutes before the movie started. I didn't realize how long it was until we got there and saw the signs that said it was a 45-minute moving theater experience. I thought that would be another nice, long A/C ride during a hot part of the day.

When we finished, we walked over to Mexico to see if we could eat in the Mayan pyramid for some good, authentic Mexican food. When Sarah saw the menu, she decided she didn't want to have Mexican food for dinner. So I guess Mexican food in Wisconsin is a lot different than actual food prepared by Mexicans. We ended up getting a big plate of nachos, and Sarah settled for a churro. Ali wanted none of it. She actually said she had had enough of Epcot, was tired, and wanted to go back to the resort.

As we got our food and were walking to a table to eat. We came across Three Caballeros Donald Duck. It was my goal to have my picture taken with a character, and since there were only about five people in line, I set our food down and I took the girls to go have their picture taken.

I just had the Disney photographer take my picture, since I was trying to be quick and keep the pictures moving so the other little kids could continue having their pictures taken.

When we got back to the table with Kris, she remarked that her legs were still really burning. A check of her legs showed that there were now several more red spots all over her legs.


Her other leg looked pretty much the same. So since Alison wanted to go, and Kris's legs were to the point of not being able to walk since the heat of the sun and the heat coming off the pavement just making the burning sensation worse. Sarah wanted to have her picture taken over in the World Showcase in France so we decided to walk over there and then call it a day. We walked through Canada, and England on our way to France. I was hoping to get a little better picture of the girls in front of the "Eiffel Tower", but this was about as good as we could get:



Once Sarah got her picture, we started walking out. We were originally going to go around the World Showcase so we could go through all the countries, but because Alison was so tired and Kris's legs, we took the short way out.

The longest line we waiting in was about 20 minutes, and the crowds were very manageable. Just like the Magic Kingdom, not at all what I was expecting.

EPCOT

Tuesday the plan was to go to EPCOT. We had planned on going a little later (around lunchtime) so we wouldn't burn out like we did the day before at the Magic Kingdom. Well it wasn't so much burn out as it was finished everything was wanted to do. But when we checked the weather, it was supposed to be rainy in the afternoon, so we decided to hurry up and get ready and get to the park as soon as we could before we lost too much time to the rain.

We ended up getting there at 10:15 (the park opened at 9:00). After a long line waiting for bags to be checked, we got into the park and Alison wanted to go right on Spaceship Earth. She also wanted to take a picture of it so I let her have the camera.

The girls actually liked Spaceship Earth, which was a surprise to me. The whole history of communication through time was something I thought the girls would have no interest in whatsoever. But Ali said she actually like the ride. I think she liked the animatronics more than anything else. We went on it six years ago and it was good to see that it was actually changed from the last time we saw it.

After Spaceship Earth, Alison wanted to do the Kim Possible challenge. We ran our tickets and got our assignment, which was in Norway after 12:00. We had about a half an hour or so to kill so we decided to try the GM Test Track. But the wait was actually over an hour so we got fast passes instead and went over to the world showcase in Mexico.

Ali had heard the story for years about how the last time we were at EPCOT we got stuck on this ride. I actually like the Mexico pavilion anyway. I love looking at all the crafts and jewelry. So we went on the ride and showed the girls the characters from The Three Caballeros. I think when we get home I may break out the DVD to show the girls. But I think they liked it.

After Mexico, we went to Norway and got our Kimmunicator and assignment. Then we went on the Maelstrom . Sarah had told Alison all about it and had her all freaked out before going on. Then when we did it, it was pretty tame. In fact, it changed just slightly from six years ago as well. As soon as we got out, we started the Kim Possible mission and right when we did, the sky opened up and it POURED on us. We had to hang out in a little Norwegian cafe for about 20 minutes while we waited for the rain to stop. In the mean time I got the girls a cookie and I had a cinnamon roll.

Once the rain stopped Ali finished her Kim Possible mission. The only problem was she wouldn't let Sarah help her. So this caused some fighting and pouting. After Ali was done I told her that was it, because we wanted to walk around the park and not spend all of our time doing Kim Possible things. Besides, the things they had us doing were really kind of lame. Sarah didn't miss much.

When we turned in the Kimmunicator we started over to the Land of Imagination and the Figment ride. Once again, the wait was only about five minutes. Alison thought the ride was rather neat. The only thing that sucked was all the Kodak things at the end (making pictures editing them) were not working right. After trying for five to ten minutes we gave up. We stayed a little longer just because the rain had started again.

Once it had let up we went over the The Land. Soarin' had a long line and we couldn't get fast passes because we still had the ones from the Test Track so we went on the boat ride there. I forget what it was called exactly.

End of part one of EPCOT. More to come tomorrow.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Magic Kingdom Part Two

After the Haunted Mansion we decided to take a ride on the Liberty Square Riverboat since there was no one on it and it was leaving in about five minutes. Ali was mad because she wanted to go to Big Thunder Mountain. But I managed to convince her we would go there next.

When the boat ride was over, Ali had to go to the bathroom, so while she went I wandered into a gift shop. I ended up finding the limited edition Silly Bandz that are sold "exclusively" at the Disney parks. When Alison and Sarah made their way into the shop, I pointed them out and they nearly hit the ceiling. Sarah bought the Fairy set and Alison got the Fairy Set and a Disney character set.

Once that was done we made our way back over to Big Thunder Mountain. We happened to walk by the Pirates of the Caribbean and right across from it, Jack Sparrow was doing a sword fighting demonstration, so we decided to watch for a couple of minutes.


When we were done we noticed the wait time said five minutes for Pirates, so we went there next. When we were done with Pirates we stopped to get something to for lunch.

At this point Alison started her whimpering, saying she was scared to go on Big Thunder Mountain. I did what I could to try and convince her during lunch and when we left, she was still whining about being scared. We made it over there, and I made her ride it. She screamed during the ride, but she enjoyed it. If you ask her, she'll say she is still scared, but the truth is it was fun for her.

On the way to Big Thunder Mountain we saw Woody and Jessie from Toy Story. I wanted to have my picture taken with Woody, but the line had to be at least 50 people long. I was not about to wait in line to have a picture taken with a guy in a costume! I figured I would just wait and if the opportunity presented itself where we didn't have to wait, we'd jump at it.

After Big Thunder Mountain the Girls wanted to go to the Tomorrowland Speedway. Both Sarah and Alison wanted to try their hand at driving. Let's hope they get better because they are not going to to women drivers any favors. Ali was with me and Sarah drove Kris.



When we were done driving we went over to Tommowland to do a couple of things we had never done, the Monsters Inc Laugh Floor, and The Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin (Note, I scored 105,500 on Buzz's challenge, though in all honesty, Kris and the girls didn't get what was going on at first). After the Buzz Lightyear ride, the sky opened up again and we took cover. When it finally let up we went to the Tea Cups. This is one of (if not THE) favorite ride of Alison. I swear, I remember the ride lasting longer. But I let the girls start out spinning the cup. They didn't do too bad, but then they asked me to do it. Let's just say they were staggering a little when we finished. I was pulling the wheel so hard, I split my cuticle. I don;t know how that happened, but my finger was bleeding when we were done.

From there, we went to Winnie the Pooh. pretty boring, but it was nice to be inside in the air conditioning. It was really sticky after the rain.

After Pooh, we were about done. The girls wanted to go on the Dumbo ride, but the wait was 75 minutes (why would people like that ride?). So instead we walked over to the Aladdin Magic Carpet ride. It's teh same ride, just a different look for the "car" you sit in. the wait there was only 15 minutes, so Sarah took Alison while Kris and I waited.

While we waited I saw we only had a 20 minute wait for the Jungle Cruise, so we hit that next. After the Jungle ride, we had done everything we wanted to do at the Magic Kingdom, except for the Parade and fireworks. We had almost three hours to kill before the Electric Lights Parade, so we decided, it's just a parade... time to go home.

And as luck would have it, as we were leaving, we ran into a parade on Main Street. So Ali did get to see a parade, just no the electrical parade. She was fine with that, and we planned on seeing the fireworks at EPCOT the next day.

End of Day One at Disney

Magic Kingdom

Monday was spent at The Magic Kingdom. We got there early, right when the park opened. I had to fix a small issue we had with our tickets. Once that got straightened out we went to the back of the park (Fantasyland) and the plan was to work our way back around the park methodically. Sarah wasn't too keen on that as she wanted to go to the Pirates of the Caribbean first. This lead to some big time pouting.

We started at Snow White. As soon as we got in line, the rain started. Luckily, we were under cover waiting in line. By the time we were done, the rain had stopped (about 15 minutes). After Snow White, Sarah wanted to go look in one of the shops and Alison wanted to ride the Merry-Go-Round. So while Kris took Sarah to look at shirts, Ali and I rode the Merry-Go-Round.


After the Merry-Go-Round, we went to Peter Pan. In between Ali saw a stand selling mouse ears so we took a look and she found a pair that she wanted. I told her we'd come back later and get them. We got lucky that when we got in line for Peter Pan a mom handed us her fast passes. They had just gone on and they had mistakenly gotten fast passes. So she asked if we wanted them. Instead of waiting 10-15 minutes to get on, we were on in about five minutes.

After the ride we went back and got Ali her mouse ears:

Sarah got her Happy Birthday ears and Kris got a hat too since the humidity had just destroyed her hair. We took a few minutes to plan our next move and then we went over to the Haunted Mansion. It was all of about a five minute wait to get in. I was very surprised. I couldn't believe how uncrowded the park was about an hour and a half after opening.

More on our day in a little bit.

Monday, August 9, 2010

Happy Birthday

Today was Sarah's 12th birthday and she spent it walking around the Magic Kingdom. She even found a cute pair of mouse ears:


Since she had a button from Disney that announced "It's My Birthday" plus the ears, the Disney people were wishing her a happy birthday all day. Short of a little rain and fighting with Alison, I think she had a pretty good birthday.

Off To The Park

We're off to the Magic Kingdom to celebrate Sarah's birthday. Check for pictures and stories later tonight.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Car Trouble

Yesterday on our way back from the beach, we had to stop and fill up the gas tank of my father's car. First we, and by we I mean I, messed up the pay at the pump with my credit card. When I put the card in I was asked to put in my zip code. Not realizing this was some kind of security check, I punched in my parents' zip code. This resulted in locking up the pump and having to go inside to see the attendant.

I thought screw this and left, and went to a different gas station closer to home. This time I got the zip code thing right and filled up. I wanted a receipt, and pressed "yes". The display then says "your receipt has printed inside please see the attendant". Now if I wanted to go inside, I would have just went in to pay in the first place. So after being forced into going to a different station, and having the receipt not print, I was starting to get frustrated. Then as we pull out of the gas station, the car sputters, jerks, and dies. I start it again thinking I just didn't feather the engine enough. We pull out and get going, and the car again, sputters and lurches. So I decided to pull it into a parking lot, park, and call my father for help since we were only five minutes from home.

Once dad gets there and takes a look (I was hoping that I didn't do something that caused his car to die) and the same thing happens for him. So the car got parked, and we took the neighbor's car home. The big problem is this was to be our transportation to Disney. After dinner we went back to see if letting the car sit and cool off helped. It didn't. So now we are getting a rental to take to Disney. What else can go wrong? It seems like we always have problems when we come here.