Yes, you read that right... day -1. Our Disney World "adventure" started the night before we left. Nina came home from ice skating camp complaining about her foot hurting. They had gone on a field trip to a bounce house place, and she said she hurt it there. Complaints and drama about injuries are par for the course around here, so I told her to shake it off and didn't think much more about it. After sitting down for a couple hours watching a Christmas movie; however, she was completely unable to walk. We looked at her foot, and it looked BAD... like broken foot bad. It was purple and swollen and certainly didn't look like anything that could walk around Disney World for a week. I rushed her over to urgent care. The doctor said it looked like she may have broken or "bent" a bone, so she had an x-ray. Fortunately, nothing was broken, it was just a bad sprain... not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but potentially huge the night before a Disney World trip. The doctor told us to keep her loaded up on Motrin and have her wear supportive sneakers. We spent the evening frantically trying to figure out whether to buy a new stroller that night, rent one there, or just cross our fingers that she could walk. We ended up just hoping for the best and figured she could use Addie's stroller as needed. Fortunately, by the next morning, it didn't look quite so bad. She was SLOW, but she could walk. Whew!
Day one was just a travel day... car, plane, tram, and bus. We checked into the Polynesian Resort, got our leis, and took the monorail over to the Contemporary for a quick dinner at the Contempo Cafe. The food was decent, and the kids enjoyed watching the monorail cruise through the building.
You generally think of Disney World being a G-rated, kid-friendly place, right? I certainly do, so words escaped me when I saw a woman boarding the monorail at the Contemporary wearing a super-skimpy Santa dress and red fishnet hose. You know those Playboy-esque Halloween costumes you always see advertised for women? Imagine one of those, Santa-style. That's what she was wearing with boobs popping out and thigh high red fishnets and red stilettos. There were just so many things wrong about it. She was on her way to "Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party" in that get-up. Who wears that to see MICKEY MOUSE??? Bizarre. After I picked my jaw up off the floor, we headed back to the Poly.
It had been a long day, so Addie hit the sack while I took the big girls to swim. We knew cold weather was on the way and figured it might be our only chance to swim. The girls absolutely loved the water slide at the pool at our resort, but I have no clue how they kept getting out of the water to go up the stairs to it. It was ridiculously cold when you got out of the water. I think kids' temperature sensors don't really work quite right. You couldn't have paid me enough to get out of that water more than the one required time to get back to the room. They had a blast though, and I'm glad we had the opportunity to swim. Then it was off to bed for an early start at the Magic Kingdom the next day.
We got there early to beat the crowds. This is an awful picture with the girls in the dark shade, but I loved how there is nobody around! According to Addie, "Doofy helped Cinderella build her house." So if you ever wondered who built the castle, now you know.
We headed straight for Fantasyland where we had our first character spotting, White Rabbit.
Addie was hesitant, and Nina was downright petrified, so Elise was the only one brave enough for a picture.
Then we tackled Fantasyland.... Dumbo,
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh,
Peter Pan's Flight which completely terrified Addie (she'll be in therapy for that some day, I'm sure), but fortunately, she got over it fairly quickly with a ride on the carrousel.
We got to meet Mary Poppins. Doesn't she look practically perfect in every way?
Then the girls convinced J.C. to go on the Mad Tea Party with them. This was one time I was grateful when Addie proclaimed, "I need to go potty!!!", so I could race off with her and avoid the tea cups!
Next it was off to Goofy's Barnstormer. This picture is horribly blurry (who knew it was so hard to take pictures on a moving roller coaster?), but do you think Nina was having fun?
The Barnstormer was part two of "Project Traumatize Addison." She was not a fan.
After the Barnstormer, we decided to take the train around to Frontierland. The train was already in the station as we were walking toward it, so we took off in a run. J.C. was a bit behind us pushing the empty stroller that he had picked up from stroller parking, so he really had to run to catch up with us. I was given explicit permission to quote what he said when he got on the train: "I have to tell you, you were totally right about this stroller. It is amazing. I was able to fold it while running without ever even breaking my stride. I could hear people behind me saying, 'Did you see that? What was it? A city micro? We'll have to look that up!' You can even write on your blog that I said that." Ahhh, it feels good to be right. We purchased the Baby Jogger City Micro just before our trip, and it was worth every penny!
In Frontierland, we got fastpasses for Splash Mountain, and the girls and J.C. rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. It began to rain, so we dashed into Columbia Harbour House for lunch and to escape the rain. I had heard good reviews of Columbia Harbour House, but it didn't seem like anything special to me. The food was fine, but I wouldn't go out of my way to go there again.
The rain and the arrival of cooler temperatures put a damper on our plans for Splash Mountain, so we headed back to the hotel for naps.
For dinner, we monorailed and boated to the Wilderness Lodge Resort for dinner at the Whispering Canyon Cafe. The Wilderness Lodge was beautifully decorated for Christmas. I loved the tree and all the decorations. I think if I were to go to Disney again at Christmas time, I would like to stay at either the Wilderness Lodge or the Grand Floridian. They definitely win top honors for decorations.
We loved Whispering Canyon. The servers are hilarious, and the food was delicious. J.C. was completely enamoured with the bottomless milkshakes and the all you can eat meat, meat, meat, and more meat. I recommend Whispering Canyon, and we would certainly go there again. It was a lot of fun. It was a great end to our first full day.
Day 2 Favorites
J.C. - a tie between dinner at Whispering Canyon and sitting between Elise and Nina on Big Thunder Railroad, listening to them squeal
Ann - the Christmas decorations at the Wilderness Lodge and dinner at Whispering Canyon
Elise - Big Thunder Railroad
Nina - Big Thunder Railroad
Addie - carrousel
Love your narratives and photos!!
...and yes...Mary was practically perfect! I love her.
Posted by: SMcCoy | Monday, December 20, 2010 at 11:45 PM