Saturday (2/7)
The plan had been to get up early when the kids got up and get going so we could be at the park when it opened. But the best laid plans….and we decided to let Grayson sleep. He came walking out of our room around 8 and while he didn’t look 100% - he looked okay. He hadn’t been sick in several hours and while we could have postponed till Sunday, we were afraid of who might fall victim next. So, we headed out and got to the Magic Kingdom around 10:45 – only 90 minutes later than we thought. But first we had to stop at the bakery on Main St. for fortification. Grayson did eat a couple of bites of Leanne’s chocolate muffin (we were hoping this wouldn’t come back to bite us – and thankfully it didn’t.) It was nearly noon by the time we hit Fantasyland. The weather was GORGEOUS! Score one for us.

First up – Dumbo. We’d (ok, I’d) really played this up to the kids. When the plan was to get to the park when they opened, I knew that this was going to be our first stop since it is slow loading ride and the wait can be long – plus, I figured it was a good place to start since it wasn’t dark (we are having a “it’s too dark! I can’t see!” phase in our house. Whether it is truly dark – or just slightly dim (ie. the lights aren’t on.) The wait was “only” 30 minutes and the weather was beautiful. We were lucky to get Dumbo in our “needed” colors – blue for Carter and orange for Grayson (good thing we were able to – they still talk about their blue/orange Dumbo!) They enjoyed the ride and were ready to move onto the next thing. Score one for us.

Next stop - It’s a Small World. The rest of our party (Robin, Marc, and Hutch) opted to sit this one out so we walked the boys over to It’s a Small World. Almost as soon as we got in line, both kids wanted to be picked up and almost immediately, both fell asleep. Rather than get out of line, we carried our sleeping children through the 30 minute line and onto the ride. Nothing like carrying about 30lbs of dead weight for 30 minutes to make your arms burn. Really, who needs a gym. We enjoyed the ride, but neither of them stirred once – that is until we placed them back into their strollers. Naturally. Score one for the Mouse.

By this time, the muffins had worn off and food was in order. We decided on Cosmic Ray’s since they have a varied menu and ample seating. At this point, I wasn’t feeling too well – not sick, per se – just blah. I hadn’t touched the muffin I’d gotten for breakfast and I wasn’t interested lunch. Neither was Grayson. The rest of the bunch ate and seemed the enjoy their meal (as much as you can enjoy a counter service meal in the midst of 200 people.) The kids were entertained by Sonny Eclipse (the alien lounge singer!) Score one for us.

It was time to use our fastpasses and so we headed for Peter Pan. Dark Ride. Uh oh. Leanne and I had to ride in separate ships (ride vehicles) but we had the same running dialogue in our peppiest, cheeriest, happiest voices (“Look! There is Peter Pain! Oh! It is Tinkerbell! Look at that silly alligator….”) Thankfully, both kids were okay and we didn’t have any freak outs. Score one for us.

Next up was the Riverboat. I don’t think I’d ever been on – but we thought that the kids might enjoy it. Yea – it was fine. It was relaxing. It was boring. It was long. I don’t think anyone one this round.

Well, we got off the Riverboat and when I looked to my left, I saw it. An empty (ok, virtually empty) queue for the Haunted Mansion (the 3:00 parade was in full swing.) I’d been saying for weeks that I wanted to ride two rides while I was at the Magic Kingdom, the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean – both of which I had NO plans on taking the kids. I’ve mentioned they are scared of the dark, right? So when I yelled out to Leanne, “LOOK!!! There is no line!!!” I wasn’t prepared for her to say, “Ok, let’s go. They’ll be fine.” I admit it, I knew it wasn’t going to be “fine” but I wanted to go. I really really wanted to go. And so we got in line (we waited for 5 minutes or so.) Leanne had forgotten that when you walk in, you are standing in a pitch black room and it thunders (have I mentioned they are scared of thunder and even on cloudless nights, they’ll ask, “No thunder? No rain?” And we answer back, “No thunder. No rain.”) I will say that we were fortunate at this point and neither kid lost his marbles. They just pressed their faces into our necks and said, “Don’t like it. Don’t like it. Don’t like it.” So, we rode the ride – and while I was glad to see it (they’d changed it since we were there last) – it lost some…uh, magic and I had to sing “You are My Sunshine” into Carter’s ear the entire ride. I don’t know what Leanne did to keep Grayson from melting, but I didn’t hear any screaming from his Doombuggy – so I assume she was doing something similar. I don’t think two kids were ever so happy to see the light of day. Score one for Mickey. Heck, I think we might get a point or two deducted for that one.

Next we headed to Frontierland. The kids had some frozen lemonade (I thought it tasted like Pledge (you know – for dusting) but Carter liked it Grayson managed a sip or two (keep in mind we’d also brought some Pedialyte, so he’d been sipping on that too.) We headed back to Fantasyland to use our Fastpasses.

First up, Winnie-the-Pooh. The kids were a bit apprehensive as it is kind of a dark ride – not dark like the Haunted Mansion – but still dark. Our saving grace was that they like Tigger and Pooh. And so the dialogue, went again – “LOOK! It’s Tigger! LOOK! What is Pooh doing? Silly Pooh. Theres’s Eeyore…” you get the idea. Thankfully, they liked it (and still talk about it!) Score one for us.

Next up – Mickey’s Philharmagic – a 3-D movie that incorporates all of the major Disney movie characters. As soon as they turned out the lights, it started. “Too dark. I can’t see. Too dark.” We thought that once the movie started, Grayson would get into the movie (sans 3-D glasses) and be fine. Nope. He wanted out – and so Leanne took him out. Carter sat on my lap and while he didn’t want to put the glasses on, he was okay watching the movie. I’d say that this one was a tie with Mickey.

When we exited, Grayson declared he wanted to ride the carousel. Nevermind he can ride one at the mall whenever we go – or that he’d ridden one two nights ago at Downtown Disney – he knew he liked it, it wasn’t dark, and he wouldn’t be scared. So, on we went. Those are some big horses!!! This one was definitely a win for us. But really. It was a carousel – how could we lose?

Next up was heading to Tomorrowland. We opted to ride the Tomorrowland Transit Authority (or for old school Disney peeps, the People Mover.) We figured it would be a leisurely ride and not be dark. HA. It takes you through Space Mountain (dark), Buzz Lightyear (dark) and Carousel of Progress (dark.) But thankfully, they were just brief stints in the darkness and the rest of the ride was fun. Score one for us.

We’d promised the kids that we’d take them on the train, so we bolted to the front of the park to catch the train and then to watch the Electrical Light Parade. By this time, it was dark and the train just takes you around the perimeter of the park – so it was pretty uneventful. Thankfully, the train is lit so we didn’t have any big fear issues – but it was boring. I guess we’d win, since it wasn’t a disaster – but really – it wasn’t great either. We waited too long in the day and had hyped it up too much.

When we got off of the train the parade was starting. We thought we’d be at the tail end – but amazingly we were at the very front and was able to find a place to stand so the kids could see. They still are talking about seeing Mickey Mouse in the parade! While many people streamed out of the park, we went like salmon upstream towards the castle. We sat on the curb and ate hot dogs and fries and watched the fireworks. We bailed on the fireworks before they were over since Grayson said he was done and we still needed to stop in the Emporium (seller of all things Disney) to get some things (t-shirts for the kids, new lanyards for our work IDs, Mickey antennae balls, and some fun Mickey cups.) We had to wait quite a while for the Monorail (because of course by the time we finished shopping, the fireworks were over and everyone was leaving the parks.) The kids fell asleep while waiting and slept all the way back to the condo. Both kids went to bed easily – they were exhausted – but had been such troopers all day. We all complained about how much our feet hurt and how tired we were and went to sleep.

Really, we had a great day. Our kids were super – we were there a long time and they barely napped – and yet aside from Grayson wanting Leanne to carry him and them revolting against stroller riding (typical toddler independence things) they were awesome. We were very lucky – and knew it when we passed kids (and parents) having meltdowns all around us.