Volunteer
to Join the Deceased ala Beast
Hey,
we haven’t been there in over twenty-four hours. It must be time to return to the Magic
Kingdom: for a day called- “The Classics”!!
We
could call every day in the Kingdom "The Classics," but this day we had them FastPassed.
Waiting for the morning bus at the hotel, a Cast Member gave us all a “how the World will work when StarWarsland opens”
speech. Dave was able to use the information to help others later on. He’s
coming along nicely isn’t he?
We
had a typical entry; Anabelle traded the Mike pin for Lucifer at the entry as she was
working her way towards the cat set. And Kim’s butt somehow set off the metal
detector.
Instead
of curving around the Castle, we went back on Main Street since it was early
enough to pass through it, which is always exciting and fun. Hey, the columns are decorated with
Cinderella's Mice and Birds, who knew?
Shows
you how impressively distracting those Mosaics are, no?
We
took another spin on the small world, because it’s us.
YAY!
The kids did all the moves along with the
dancing dollies.
We’re so fun in public.
We’re so fun in public.
At
least the dollies that worked. The flying carpet was stuck in full wheelie mode.
Our
first classic FastPass of the day was the Haunted Mansion, and it is truly
amazing how every single time we ride the old favorite, we see new stuff. Morgan rode with Aurora and Anabelle. Anabelle kept him from being spooked by spouting a
constant stream of ride and other Disney trivia facts. That’s my girl!
She also yelled out her standard, "Me Me!" when the Ghost Host asks for any volunteers, hence today's title.
Another
of many extended trips into Memento Mori followed. Anabelle got “Tightrope Girl” ears,
commemorating her favorite part of the stretching room. We also kept Grandma
distracted long enough to buy her Christmas presents and get them shipped to
the hotel.
Then
it was time for a “first in years” for our family. With the Railroad shut down, Grandma really
wanted to take a spin on the Riverboat. We got the Liberty Belle, and I had
forgotten about all the singing and narration that came along with the ride.
This is probably because I was a kid on my last trip and spent the time
exploring the ship instead of looking at stuff we saw from the Disney World Railroad all the
time.
Anabelle
and Aurora were in no way boat fans, including ones that run on tracks. Me pointing to the guests on shore and
stating that Disney was really good at making animatronics probably didn’t
help.
We
exited back into Liberty Square, and went towards Adventureland. As we walked by it, and I explained it, Anabelle
said she always thought the Hall of Presidents was a ride, kind of like the
Carousel of Progress, but you passed presidents. That would probably be a much more popular
attraction, especially if they sang.
Over
by the Pirates ride Rosa found the right location this time and we waited to
meet Captain Jack, who did arrive. He
made Anabelle feel unsafe, which I suppose meant he did an accurate job. His
beard was sweating off a little too, forcing her to look at his feet. It was a generally fun and piratical visit.
YAY!
FastPass
two of the day was the Pirate ride next door. YAY!
We
got a rare direct hit by the water, which helped on this muggy day. The kids
made another version of the Bean song, confusing our co-riders no doubt with
our so fun in publicness.
Now that we’d
figured out the flashing eyes of the Jolly Roger was the photograph point, the
kids also pulled off a Circle of Life pose with Aurora holding up Ziggywig on the ride. YAY!
Since
Adventureland parallels Frontierland for a long stretch, and more importantly,
since it was still us, we went to the Country Bears again. YEEEE HAW!!!!!
Max’s
eye was still wonky, but the little girl in front of us enthusiastically
clapping along with every song overshadowed a slightly stoned deer.
Across
from the Bears was one of the other most important locations in Disney
World…the Mickey Pretzel and Churro stand!!!
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY!!!
There
was a highly confusing guest on line before us, but the Awesome Happy Disney Cast
Member not only dealt with her, but then apologized to us, and came out and
gave Kim a hug when we were nice to her. YAY Disney! In the meantime, Anabelle expanded her
comfort zone by pin trading with another guest (and very nice lady) swapping an
old Flora pin I had for the Siamese Cats.
We
side slipped (old Star Fleet Battles fan here) back into Adventureland for our
next FastPass, the Jungle Cruise, YAY!
On the way in Ziggywig got counted as a member of the party. I love
Disney people.
Skipper
Katie was hysterical, theming her jokes by various school subjects. She could have been one of the best Skippers I’ve ever
seen. However, she did not make the “back side of water joke” and although I
could make up for that by referencing it on a nearly daily basis, it took away
from her rating.
Except
for the bit of time where the kids realized one cave led directly into another
and the adults didn't.
(A
little less yay.)
Since
we were in Adventureland anyway…the three of us in my family went over to the
Tiki Room again. YAY!
Hey, Madame Leota does the announcement that opens it, cool!
Following
singing along with the birds once more, we circled around to Circusland. There were some cool flashbacks to lesser
known characters of my youth…well, everywhere, but specifically in the circus
tent store. A picture of Lambert the
Sheepish Lion was on the wall, and there was a Humphrey Bear (of “pick a little
up put it in the bag boom boom” fame) pin.
Anabelle didn't get that one, but did trade for Baby Donald before we went to the Castle
rendezvous.
Veronica
had changed into an Aurora dress guaranteeing some confusion before the meal
ended.
Anabelle
almost fell over when she spotted the Headless Horseman pin on one of the Cast
Member’s collections while we waited to be called up and quickly swapped what
would soon be an extra Figaro for it. (Foreshadowing people…foreshadowing.)
Our
short wait ended and it was time to walk up those curved stairs for the awesome
reveal that is King Stefan’s Banquet Hall.
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!
I
love this place.
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!
And
the blue glasses Grandma loves were back!
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!
And
the whole menu significantly changed again since the last time I checked.
(alas.)
Frankly there are
two type of Auroras we met. The first
type would get super excited when Kim’s family would explain how all her kids
are named after her movie.
AURORA
Veronica
ROSE
Morgan
PHILIP
And
the second type, who would still be politely happy, would also have a look on her face betraying, “Who the heck are Rose and Philip?”
The
waiter, while not quite up to Sir David standards bought Grandma a signed,
round birthday place-mat along with a low key, but highly pleasant birthday
song.
What
wasn’t low key was the kid at the nearby table who grabbed Jasmine’s butt. It was a whole new world all right.
For
anyone playing at home and paying attention to my menu lists, all three courses
were everybody chooses one item.
For
anyone playing at home trying to figure out our children, they were all talking
in exaggerated southern accents all the time for reasons none of them could justify.
We’re
so fun in public.
Morgan
was the only one technically on the kid’s menu, but Aurora and Anabelle found
the lure of “build your own cupcake” too great to resist, and down shifted for
dessert. I was tempted as well, but the multiple
chocolates in the “Clock Strikes Twelve” tempted me more, along with the rest
of our group.
For
anyone about to give me a hard time for dumping portions of my cardiac diet on this trip,
please check the mileage counts again at the end of each day. Believe me, we walked
it off.
There
were some left overs from the extravagant royal dining. Luckily, Grandma had
saran wrap in her purse…like ya do.
Why?
Because
she didn’t bring tin foil, duh.
On
the way out we noticed two cool Disney perks.
1)
Disney World is one of the few locations that still has pay phones
everywhere. It’s nice to know they
haven’t abandoned all the traditional stuff.
2)
Disney plumbers also use the cast utilidors (hidden underground corridors) and pop up through secret entrances in
the bathrooms to fix stuff.
It's Superclogerfragilisticplungialadocious!
We
came out the back side of the Castle for another visit to meet Fillmore’s
Magic. On the way I was informed “Fillmore” is the flute that flies into the
crowd in 3D.
Of
course he is.
Crowds
were unusually high and we had a rare less than Happy and Awesome Cast Member
line us up in a really stupid way that fragmented families including ours. With everyone tired, Kim saw her kids split far down the row and didn't
notice Rosa was on the far side of them. The people between us were happy to move,
but the less than Happy and Awesome Disney person demanded no one switch.
On
rare occasions, when everyone is tired and cranky, the magic shows a few
cracks…but it seals itself up relatively quickly.
Having
spent the morning in the Adventureland/Frontierland section, we took to the opposite
side of the park in Tomorrowland.
The
Monster’s Inc. Laugh floor is always hysterical. Even the parts that are the
same each time aren’t the same, because of the way people react to being on camera.
YAY
bad jokes in Disney!
Staying
in the same land for a change, we took another spin on the Carousel of
Progress.
YAY!
YAY!
Our
rapid hopping on lineless attractions was delayed a bit with an announcement
about remaining seated during the show, and having to sit through the
introductory overture twice.
Anabelle
summed it up nicely:
“We have things to do, but we’re stuck here because Jimmy-Bob
had to take a stretch!”
(In
a faux southern drawl of course.)
As
always with old favorites new things are always spotted. I never noticed the
animatronic cat before. It also never
sunk in that Uncle Orville pees with the door open.
FUN!
We
were exiting the land, when the Laugh Floor called to most of us. Amazingly,
even though (or perhaps because) she lives with me, Rosa had enough of bad
jokes for one day, and chose to rest her toes elsewhere.
The
rest of us laughed along with the Monsters, especially when Marty used Aurora’s
“Mushroom/ Fun Guy” joke.
YAY!!!!
Rosa
snuck off to tape a special sixteenth birthday message for Anabelle, which we
both totally forgot about and didn’t play for her until four months after her birthday.
Note: She learned about it while I was
proofreading these posts out loud to her. When we got to this point, she suddenly yelled out, “I got
a message from Ariel!?!?!?! When was someone gonna tell me about this?”
Kim’s
family crossed the park to get their run on the Tiki Room, and then hit the
Hall of Presidents. Yes it was actually
interesting and no more people fell asleep than on any other attraction this
late in the day. Then they went ride hopping in Fantasyland. We’d set up a FastPass for Winnie the Pooh
near the end of the day, and similar to our Fillmore’s Magic luck, it was
broken. They split and cashed in their
compensation FastPasses on Splash and Space Mountain before returning home.
We
were having our own adventures as the group got heavily fragmented on this
night. After Anabelle and I briefly met
up with Rosa, she and I rode the Ariel ride together. Rosa went shopping on Main Street while we did that before
taking her toes home to ice them.
I
brought Anabelle back to Circusland where she saw something earlier in the day at the big store there. She gave up trying to trade for all the cat pins when
she found the last full set was still on the rack from earlier. This, of
course, gave her several tradeable cats that she had recently acquired.
Yes, it’s half an engaging way to interact
with Awesome Happy Disney people and half an addiction, but the good kind.
The sun was setting and we
also wanted a night picture of the three of us in front of the Castle. Rosa was still on Main Street and we figured
there would be no problems meeting her to do this before she left to rest, and we’d
go back to the gang.
With the fireworks and projection show combined, Cast Members roped off an
OBSCENE section of park around the castle. From
Circusland, we had to circumnavigate nearly the whole Kingdom, finally popping out
of Adventureland to get to Main Street. This included weaving through the
longest outdoor line in the entire Magic Kingdom, the PhotoPass Magic Shot of
floating lanterns in front of the Rapunzel Potty.
By
the time we’d found Rosa, Anabelle and I were dead on our feet and the three of
us staggered back to the hotel for some brief pool soaking to ease the aches a
little, a small take out dinner from the End Zone Food Court, and some medical supplies for Rosa's toes.
Yes, I take pictures when shopping and send them for approval. I saw my Dad have to head back out after coming home with the wrong thing too many times in my youth, and emulated him equally many times until technology improved enough to help.
At
the front desk pin board, before bringing the food home, Anabelle continued
divesting her extra cats by swapping Lucifer for Robin Hood.
Oo-de-Lally
golly what a (tiring) day!
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