Disney Part 7: Let Me Off This Disney Train

At what point do you say to yourself, "I've had enough!" At what point do you surrender to what is in hopes of anything other that the situation you are in now? 


I could be talking about love. Actually that would make an excellent topic. What do you do when you have had enough.  You cannot take it anymore!   I am not talking about relationships but I am talking about my feet. We have been walking around for days in search of people, places and things. 


Can we not find the off button? We cannot help ourselves. It is kind of like watching AFV, (America's Funniest Videos), the Travel channel and some other reality show all rolled into one. You are mesmerized by all of the stimuli.   Unbelievable :0) I want to get off this Disney train but I cannot.  I keep thinking just another hour and then we will go.  I feel trapped because everyone is so nice, the parks are so clean and we might miss something!

Disney Part 6: The Magic of Disney

I need to back up a bit to Magic Kingdom.  It seemed like at this point the kids were either taking it all in or they could really care less where they were as long as there was stuff to do.  Correction, fun stuff to do.  We tried to hit all of the major rides/attractions.  I'm checking my phone periodically to make certain we are headed in the right direction and to the shortest line.  Yes, there are apps for that.  Those Disney World apps make life a lot easier.  I know which days are good/bad days for which parks, wait times on rides and a map of each park.  Awesome!!

So, we are walking around to our next destination which is Pirates of the Caribbean.  I check my phone and what do you know, the ride is down.  Down!  Seriously?  I didn't think any ride would be down at Disney.  As we are walking I decide to find a park employee and ask what was going on.   Finally, someone to ask but he's helping someone else.  I wait ever so patiently only to find out he doesn't know the answer to my question.  I thank him and start to catch up with my family who was on a search for something else to do.

All of us in our mouse ears!

I turn to look behind me. I felt someone on my heels.  You always know when someone is closing in on you,  and there he was.  There was the park employee I was just talking with.  He was an older man.  He seemed nice enough.  He was asking questions as he tried to keep up.

      Park Employee:  "Where are you from?"  "Since you live so close I bet you've been here before?"          Me:  "No, we haven't been as a family.  This is the first time for our kids."
      Park Employee:   "Oh!"

  He was a very nice man but I started to think this guy was taking his job a little too seriously.  He followed us all the way to the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction and then said, "I have something special for you to do this afternoon if you are interested."

My husband's and son's expressions must have led him to believe they thought he was a timeshare salesman.  He came back with," No, I'm not selling timeshares or anything else.  I'm extending an invitation for your family to be in the Magic Kingdom parade.  Would you be interested?"  WHAT!  Jon and I look at one another and then the kids.  The most surprising answer came from my 14 year-old son.  He smiled and said, "Sure!"  My 10 year-old daughter's face lit up too. That alone was worth it.  The Disney employee said, "Okay, meet me at the front of the park at 2:40."   The magic of Disney!

Every hour my son inquired about the time, how long it would take to get to the front of the park from where we were and reminded me that we should probably get there a little early.  It was only 10:30.  This was coming from a kid that is so laid back it is painful.  He's late everywhere he goes, which incidentally drives me insane but I've had to learn to live with it.  Live with it until now :0)  I almost wanted to hug him.  Some of me was rubbing off on him. I'm so proud!

We get to our meeting spot, where the parade starts, and look around for the man that we spoke to earlier.  2:30 turns to 2:35.  No park employee.  My husband and I are starting to sweat it.  Later my husband told me he was thinking, "What if this guy was just fooling around or he forgot?"  I was just thinking we might be in the wrong spot.  A little prayer was said that there would be follow-thru and that we WERE in the right spot.

2:40 on the nose and up walks our man.  In his hands are mouse ears that have been embroidered on the back with our first names.  We were told we need to wear these in the parade.  Along with that was a certificate showing that we were the Grand Marshals of the parade for that day!  Everyone put their ears on with pride.

Before the parade started

It seemed as if the parade went on for miles.  That evening our arms were tired from waving and our jaws were sore from smiling so much.  It was an experience of a lifetime!

Hey Woody!  Watcha doing?

Disney Part 5: Disney in a Week

As far as the rest of the week went, it was good!  We made it to Epcot only because we had a couple of extra tickets.  Of course we hit Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios.  We planned those two.

As the song goes, "She's got the whole world..."

Epcot was fun but I'm glad we didn't spend an entire day there. I think the first attraction we went to was Mission Space.  Mission Space is still with my husband and I.  This is not a good thing.  If I could compare it to anything it would be a flight simulator.  I haven't been in one but my son knows enough to know so  I'm taking his word for it.  It was almost disastrous.  The kids were fine.  "It was okay but I'm not going on that again."  In light of what just happened, we decided to skip Mission Earth. We headed on over to Test Track.

Test Track was a lot of fun.  One thing that I did like about all of these rides was the wait.  I know, that sounds a bit nuts but really I did.  They had plenty of things to look at or to do in all of the lines.  Attention to detail made everything so real.  You felt like you were there.  That's all that we had time for.  On to Magic Kingdom.

 Magic Kingdom was everything I remembered and then some.  There were at least two rides we wanted the kids to experience,  Space Mountain and It's a Small World.  Surprisingly enough they liked both.  Space Mountain still gave me the rush it did so many years ago.  It's A Small World not so much.  At least we were off of our feet and in air-conditioning.  It was blistering hot outside.  Yeah for "off of our feet."  We rode Astro Orbiter, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Splash Mountain, Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean. I will let you know what happened on our way over to Pirates in another blog.  So Cool though!!

THE Castle

I kind of liked the Rock 'n' Coaster in Hollywood Studios but it did give me a bit of a headache.  The music was awesome though.  Who doesn't like Aerosmith?  Twlight Zone Tower of Terror was my favorite in Hollywood.  Finally there was something my husband and son were dying to see, Studio Backlot.  Studio Backlot attraction let us see how a lot of stunts were developed.  YAWN!  That's what my daughter and I had to say about that.

Splash Mountain.  One of our favorites!

Shelby with possibly the NEXT AMERICAN IDOL!!

Next was something the boys knew we wanted to do.  Can you ever get enough Idol?  My answer is I think not.  So we headed off to what had my daughter's attention, The American Idol Experience.  The place was packed! I must say I even got into it.  It was just like Idol.  No really, just like Idol as if you were actually there.  You could even electronically vote!  They had 3 contestants who performed for us.   The girl who won was amazing.  Who knows, maybe someday we will see her on American Idol.  Just in case, we snapped a picture.

Disney Part 4: Lions and Tigers and Bears

We woke Tuesday morning ready to go!  Our first park on the agenda was Animal Kingdom.  We laced up our tennis shoes and off we went. Several people tried to discourage me from going to this park in particular.  They told me that this park is just for little kids.   I'm so glad I decided to include it because we all loved this park.  It was breathtakingly beautiful.

We went on a "safari" and saw so many lovely creatures just roaming around.  I was in awe at the Tree of Life.  It was an extraordinary example of how we are all interconnected.  It was also a good reminder that if we don't start taking care of everything someday it will all be gone.

It's Hard to Be a Bug attraction was well worth the wait.  The kids loved the 3D bug breeze, bug juice and the ever popular Stink bug. We also saw Festival of the Lion King.  If you are Lion King fan, I highly recommend it. The costumes were gorgeous, the singing incredible and the dancing magical.

Tree of Life carvings

Tree of Life

It's almost 13 hours later and we are headed back to our smoke filled, soon to be air freshener filled, condo, but not before one last bite and one last picture.  Just a beautiful place with friendly people.  I wish everyone could put on a Disney face.  I think the world would be so much better for it!

Disney Part 3: We Are Officially Smoking

They weren't very excited about where we were until they really thought about why we in Florida.  We were going to Orlando-  Disney World!!  We thought we were awesome parents.  After hearing them moan and grown about not being able to go we were here.  No longer did my husband and I have to listen to " Well (so and so) is getting to go to Disney World and SeaWorld.  They have been there a bunch of times."  I think they were in shock that we were here.  We were here!

We find the management office where we check in.  No problem.   They were very nice and polite.  Pleased that everything was working out splendidly,  we hopped back into the van to make the trip to the condo. That's when the fun stopped. We are, at this point, so tired from the trip and helplessly dependent on HER.  You know HER.  Most of us have one that we use.  Yours might be a man but ours is female.  I'm talking about the GPS.   We begin our journey, our seemingly endless journey.  Our destination is right around the corner.

Along the way I keep thinking, "I've seen that building before.  Where have I seen that building?" The reason I thought I had seen that building before is because I HAD.  We were going in circles.  At first they were large circles and then they became smaller and smaller. It got to the point, after seeing "The Big Orange" for the 4th, yes 4th, time it became a joke.  We dubbed this convenience store "The Big Orange" because there was a big orange on top of the building.  I sure wish I would have snapped a picture of that place. It was quite the landmark, in more ways than one.

After several circles I couldn't stop the tears.  It became quite comical.   My belly and mouth were hurting from laughing so much.  Amazingly, after 323 circles, we pulled into the complex.  No need to ask for directions!  Who needs directions when you have such a fine piece of ____ electronic that would feed directions to you, any way you wanted.   I'm thinking that if we would have asked for directions from a human being, we wouldn't have had to make so many circles.  Well at least we now have the lay of the land.

We park the van and start to unload.  We are tired but eager to see where we would be staying for the next week.  From the outside it looked nice.  It was very beachy looking.  I do like the word so don't fault me for my adjectives.  As we opened the van doors the fun started.  My husband grabbed a couple of bags as well as  the key to our home for a week.  He unlocked the door as we are hit in the face with a stench that could only be one thing, smoke.  then it hit us.  It wasn't just a little smoke it was a wall of smoke.  Had we stood back from the door far enough we probably would have seen rolling out of the unit.

It wasn't just in the foyer, it was all through the unit.  All 5 rooms and 2 bathrooms!  No amount of fresh air and ceiling fan was going to take care of this.  If we were smokers we wouldn't have needed to light up.  We aren't smokers.  We are nonsmokers who requested a nonsmoking room.  UGH!!!!

We had to get out of that place!  We were tired and hungry.  Since we had to take ventilation of the condo into our own hands,  before we rested our weary bodies, we decided we needed to refuel.  Off to get some dinner.

It's nice that we got a lay of the land EARLIER but that didn't help in our quest for food.  The reason it didn't help is because we wanted Mexican.  Did we pass a Mexican restaurant in our hunt for smoke, no we didn't.  We had to ask HER for help again.  I said a little prayer.  Eventually we did find an awesome Mexican restaurant that we went back to later that week.

After dinner it was time to find a Target.  Nothing else will do especially when needing to purchase household items.  We had to invest in something to take care of the smokers paradise. Back in the day, finding any kind of store other than a convenience store, would be a challenge.  Lucky for me, Targets are everywhere.  Praise God!  We found one.

Now that we are all worked up,  my husband was on a mission.  Look out!  I love my husband to death but sometimes he goes into overkill mode when shopping for something.  Notice I said thing as in one item.  Don't get me wrong, my husband is very helpful.  He has been known to go to the store for me which is awesome.  If I were to say," Could you stop at the store and pickup a package of hotdogs?"  he is all over it.  In fact, he would come home with 10 packages of hotdogs.  Of those 10 packages 5 are different brands and 5 are different types.  "Why?" you say. I don't know.  Either there are too many choices or he wants to find the perfect hotdog.

Anyway,  on to find the perfect stinky air corrector.  2 hours later and we are done.  We come out of Target with solid freshener, spray freshener and deodorizer.  I thought to myself, here we go.  $20 on fresheners.  Apparently I didn't realize that the smell would reappear each day and the $20 was well spent.  Way to go honey!!    Any time we left the condo, we would have to spray again.  It became as automatic as filling up the washing machine with detergent or brushing your teeth before you go to bed or putting clothes on before you go outside.  You wouldn't think of going to your mailbox nude would you?   There was a solid freshener in every room, 6 fresheners in all.  We used the sprays as backups and the deodorizers to spray our clothes. All completely necessary.  Sorry for the doubt in my voice earlier.

When we returned home to Atlanta, and I opened my suitcase, the smoke had followed me home. There wasn't an article of clothing that didn't reek.   I was officially smoking :0) 

Dinsey Part 2: Best Laid Plans

Okay, I have to say the funniest thing about this trip to Disney was the car ride to Disney.  My husband and I agreed that we would do our best so that this would be a total surprise for the kids.  It's not often you can pull one over on a 10 and 14 year-old.  I did my best to keep my research, notes, ... hidden and the computer's history wiped clean.

The kids already started asking about going to visit their Grandparents in Kentucky over the break.  They really look forward to seeing everyone but especially paying a visit to indiscretion,  the convenience store.  During a fuel stop they are allowed to select some junk food.  They may pick something sweet and something salty along with a soft drink of choice.  This only happens on trips like this.    They were pretty excited.  They were also excited their Dad was coming along too.  Usually Daddy doesn't get to make the spring break trip to Louisville.

It was countdown to Kentucky for the kids and countdown to Disney for me. 2 weeks away!  It's hard being sneaky. I'm not good at it.  This would be highly commendable in most situations but not while you are trying to pull one over on your kids. Every time I stopped using electronic,  I had to make certain I cleared the history on the mac, the iPad and my iPhone, as well as phone calls and texts.   That was hard enough to remember. I took extra caution to burn all of my notes.

It's Saturday the first official morning of Spring Break.  It's  6AM. We told the kids we wanted to get an early start.  Well, getting out the door so early didn't happen. In fact,  I thought it was going to be one of those stressful, "It's 10:25 and Chick-Fil-A stops serving breakfast at 10:30.  We have 5 minutes to get there!"  My husband loves a challenge.  We did arrive just in the nick of time.

Eventhough we are headed south on 75 instead of north the kids are completely oblivious.  Why? The kids are "plugged in."  You probably know what I'm talking about.  When they were little, as soon as the car was packed, the headphones went on and the DVD began playing.  The DVDs didn't stop until we pulled up in the driveway.  Now the earbuds are in everyone's ears.  They have their choice of games, movies, TVshows or music.  Not a peep from the back, although I wouldn't have been able to hear them anyway because my headphones were on.  Those earbuds are so uncomfortable.  None of the usual, "He's touching me."  "Well she's looking at me!"   8 hours of that.

Longing for a little human interaction, I took off my headphones and my husband followed suit.  We looked at each other in disbelief as we traveled farther south with billboard after billboard announcing how beautiful Florida is.  The peanut gallery is still quiet.  The farther we head south,  the more engrossed they are in their choice of electronic drug.  We pass advertising for the sunny Florida beaches, fruit stands, shell stands and still nothing from the back seat.  As we got closer to the Florida line, my husband and I would stifle our laughter but we really didn't have to.

Finally I could take it no longer.  We crossed the state line and exited to fill up the tanks, the car's and ours.  I even had to say,"Do you know where we are?"  My daughter came back with," Hopefully almost to Mama's and Papa's!"  I said no and were there any other guesses.  "Look around!"  I tell them hoping they will spot a sign or a palm tree.  Finally my son says, "Florida." I asked when he knew and as I had thought it was when we entered Valdosta, Ga, not too far from where we were.

They were both excited but not as excited as I would have thought until, ...

Disney: Spring Breaking With the Mouse

   We finally did it! Our first trip to Disney and boy am I exhausted.  If you've never been to Disney, or if it has been a few years,  it is overwhelming trying to decide what to do. Where do you start? So many parks and so little time.  I think I was more exhausted planning it than walking it. Well, it was almost as exhausting.  


I had no idea where to even begin so I decided to start with some novice friends, then I took a look at Disney's website and finally, after doing a little digging, Undercover Tourist. Friends gave me a heads-up regarding some of the ways to save a little money, Disney gave me ideas on which parks would be of interest to a 10 year old girl and 14 year old boy and Undercover Tourist was a great website for determining which parks to go to on what days. They even have an app for that.  They have a number of apps for that. I downloaded several.  The ones I used the most  let me know wait times for the various rides. That was invaluable!  Now if only my phone could hold a charge for about 15 hours that would be awesome.


Using Undercover Tourist's site I was able to see what parks we should go to on what days.  Depending on the month you are going, this site was able to tell me, via traffic light colors, the best and worst days to visit the various parks, including  non-Disney parks like SeaWorld and Aquatica.   From there I was able to  fill in a calendar and we were almost set. Yes, my husband thought this was hysterical when I whipped out the calendar showing that our every move was planned out.  


 We made arrangements for a condo online as well as purchasing all of our tickets.  It's amazing how much you can accomplish with a few clicks. For the most part that worked out well.  After checking into a few things  I figured out that staying off site was cheaper, even when you take into account the charges for parking.  Parking is usually included when you stay on site.  My husband found a  rental deal that included 2 extra tickets. This was 2 extra tickets for each family member.   I thought, this is awesome!! Two extra tickets means we would be able to visit all of the parks except Universal and the DIsney's water park.  That was okay though because I had planned a trip to SeaWorld, Aquatica and the Kennedy Space Center. On the second day of vacation I was thinking something different. 


"What the heck was I thinking!" was playing in my head when I woke the next morning.  For those of you who have tried to do all of the parks in 8 days you know what I'm talking about. It was crazy!  13 hours of walking around the first day.  We got up the second day and even the kids looked like they were a couple of 80 year olds hobbling around. Fortunately for everyone God decided we needed a break.  The the rains came.


 It poured the next day.  Not only did it pour but the lightning show was incredible.  I think my husband and I both said a little prayer that morning.  Definitely divine intervention! 


MORE A LITTLE LATER...