A Hop, NO Skip and Many Mishaps to a Disney Dream

[jenseib]

[jenseib]

[jenseib]

I then headed back to the room to make sure the family was starting to stir. Also we had to be packed AGAIN! We were moving over to Residence Inn near Sea World today. In the future, I don’t know if the money we saved going there (it was free with my Moms rewards points) is worth the moving. It became tiresome. And I have just found that I really like being immersed in all things Disney while staying on property.

My Dad got up and tried tip toeing around so Claire could sleep longer. My Mom let him know that a bomb could go off and Claire wasn’t going to budge. LOL!

As I packed I plugged in my camera battery into the outlet under the table. I had 2 batteries for my SLR and one was pretty low, so I thought I would give it a quick charge so it would be ready when needed. I also gave my phone a little extra charging as well. My phone seems to love to eat the power! I charge the heck out of it and it seems to die fairly quickly when you use it a lot.

It finally came time to start getting Claire up. My plan was to wash her hair this morning. She had all that gel in it from the day before. Claire had other ideas about waking up, and I have to say, I don’t blame her. She was up very late the night before.

I would’ve let her sleep longer, but we had a very important breakfast to attend. I knew when I made this ADR, that it was going to be really pushing it to get there, but I also knew it was going to be well worth it.

We were going to 1900 Park Fare. A breakfast with characters….and not just any characters, one we REALLY wanted to see…..Mary Poppins!

Claire finally got moving and it was now getting late. Dad was loading the van with everything not needed at the moment as I got Claire moving. It was now too late for a bath or hair wash. That would just have to wait till tonight.

Claire was cranky and actually complained when I put her dress on. She didn’t understand how special her dress is and thought she would rather go in just regular clothes today. I am pretty easy going when she wants to change out of costumes, but this time I didn’t give in to her way. She ONLY had to wear this dress to breakfast and then she could take it off…forever if she wanted to.

I kept watching the clock and started to get a little panicky. I struggled with putting on Claire’s boots and I think the sweat was pouring off me at this point. Sometimes getting a 6 year old dressed is a major workout.

I did a VERY quick look around the room as I stood to leave and rushed out the door. That is NOT how I usually leave anywhere. I am one of those people who usually looks under the beds, under tables in drawers, in the shower, etc. before I leave. I just didn’t have the time and I soon regretted not taking that extra look around.

My Dad has a sarcastic since of humor and soon was joking with Claire on the way over to Grand Floridian. Claire, not being in a chipper mood at the moment, was NOT happy with is comments. I don’t think he understood the deal with dressing up for a breakfast at all either, nor just how special her dress was.

As we approached Magic Kingdom, I got confused about which lane I was supposed to be in for the resorts. I asked at the booth and they told me to cut ALL the way across and follow that road on the other side. That was a treat, but I did it!

Soon the Grand Floridian was in sight and Mom Oohed and Ahhed at the sight of it. She declared this was a place she most definitely wanted to stay at someday.

We still had time to spare for our 10:45 ADR. Yes, we made it!!!

I pulled to the gate and the CM working was kind of snooty. I gave him our name and told him where we were going. He acted like we just weren’t good enough or something. He asked if we wanted to Valet park. I said no, just the regular lot would be fine. He told me to follow the signs then. I did. DUMB mistake. I strongly suggest paying the extra money and using the Valet parking. We kept driving and driving and soon came back around to the road. We saw that regular parking was across the street. We almost went back around to Valet, but we didn’t want to deal with Mr. Snooty again.

Now on this day, my body ached the worst! It hurt to even think, that’s how sore I was.

So this walk to 1900PF seemed like 100 miles away. Plus with the walk, I started to worry once again that we would be late.

As we walked up to the entrance one of the CM’s standing there told Claire that she was the most beautiful girl he had seen all day. My Dad started to eat this up. I told Dad then that the dress Claire was wearing was a creation of mine. This dress was not sold at any stores and a very rare thing to see at Disney.

Claire on the other hand scowled. I think she was a bit embarrassed by the attention, but she soon got over that.

We made it! And checked in right on time. We asked if we could add a 4th to our table. (Remember I had only made ADR’s for 3 people, because it was supposed to be Skip, Claire and I) They said yes, gave us a pager and we went out to the lobby. Mom looked the place over and again ooh and ahhed. I wanted some pictures of Claire.

She kept giving me silly faces and poses.

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Soon our buzzer went off and we went back to the check in area.

We had some pictures taken before going in. They really liked Claire’s dress and made such a big deal over it. They did say there was another girl as Mary Poppins inside already too. What are the chances that we show up wearing a Mary dress and someone else is too. LOL!

I did buy the pictures. I just had to have them. And then we had photopass access to all they took.

[jenseib]

We were then led back to our table and guess what? We were seated right next to the other little Mary Poppins. And I have to say her dress was very cute as well. I think I like Claire’s better, but I might be bias. Claire’s was full, while the other girls was more straight lined, but still very cute.

[jenseib]

I don’t know what it is about 1900 PF, but we always seem to have the worse service here. Nothing super terrible, but just SLOW. If you need something, it seems to take forever to find your waitress. We had slow service again this time around, but we still had a great meal.

Claire got her autograph book out and waited for someone to come see her.

I went and got her some food so she could get started and warned her to be careful and not spill on herself.

Soon our first friend came around.. One of my all time favorites…Winnie the Pooh!

[jenseib]

Alice was next!

[100viper]

I've been following this since the first day you started it. This is the best review I have ever seen. All your pictures and captions are great. I can't wait to read the rest of this. In fact, I think I'm going to go to the first page, and read it all over again..

[Roe95695]

Wow that was a long day at the park. I would of been sleep walking by the time you both left. However, it would have been difficult to miss the characters riding dumbo..

[jenseib]

I've been following this since the first day you started it. This is the best review I have ever seen. All your pictures and captions are great. I can't wait to read the rest of this. In fact, I think I'm going to go to the first page, and read it all over again..

 

Thanks so much for reading along. I really love our Disney trips and try to recapture everything that I can. It helps wit hthe post Disney depression!

 

Wow that was a long day at the park. I would of been sleep walking by the time you both left. However, it would have been difficult to miss the characters riding dumbo..

 

It was a long day. I wish we would've stayed, but at that point we could barely keep our eyes open and we had such a busy day coming up the next day that we just had to give in and leave.

[jenseib]

Tigger was next and he was great fun!

[jenseib]

I almost felt we were slightly rushed with the characters. It wasn’t bad, but not the best we have had.

We had a little wait so I took a picture of Claires waffle. I guess it was too cute to eat.

Then came the lady we had been waiting for and interaction was great!

I was bummed this one came out so blurry.

Claire was very shy throughout the whole meet. She would nod her head. We couldn’t really hear what they were talking about, but it seemed they were enjoying themselves.

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Claire had a lot of pictures with her mouth wide open.

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Mary was so nice. She said they had a wonderful conversation and Claire just kept nodding, but she didn’t think Claire actually spoke at all. LOL!

Claire was over the moon with the meet. And my Dad thought Claire was so beautiful standing there with Mary.

The Mad Hatter made it to our table. I have heard how fun he can be, but he wasn’t. I don’t know if it was because we had such a late ADR and he was tired or if he just wasn’t into tricks today, but he was rather boring.

[jenseib]

Claire was a little intimidated by the Mad Hatter. At first she had said she wouldn’t want a picture with him or perhaps only one with someone else in the picture with her. I was surprised because she had gone to the Wonderland Tea Party last trip and just LOVED the Mad Hatter then. She did eventually warm up to him and we got the best smiles out of for these pictures.

After the characters rolled through I finally made an effort to eat. I had only gotten a little bit at this point and time, though Mom and Dad were pretty much finished. I got more watermelon for Claire and I dove into what I wanted.

While up at the buffet I ran into the Mom of the other Mary Poppins. I told her how cute the dress was and asked if she made it. She had a friend make it for her. She then went on to tell me about how “some lady” sells them on ebay for over $300. LOL! I told her I knew “that” lady and she does an excellent job.

I finished up eating and the characters all came around one more time. The place was emptying out now. We said hi to them and Claire talked a bit, but I didn’t pull the camera back out for more pictures.

It took awhile to settle our bill. Mostly because out waitress kept disappearing. At one point I had actually asked another waitress for ketchup, because we couldn’t find ours.

I have to say I left her a very minimal tip, but more than she deserved.

We then set off. I wanted to take some pictures of Claire outside. I wasn’t sure how the mood would be, (she can be iffy about getting posed pictures) but she did let me!

We told her to pretend she was flying like Mary.

I tried to get her to pose with the nice CM who had commented on her beauty on the way in, but she refused to.

We took her over to the cars and carriages to have pictures too. We got a lot of not so nice faces. Also it seemed to be the same idea for others and we had a hard time getting shots without someone else in the background. I would try to be courteous of there shots, but they didn’t always repay the favor.

[jenseib]

I wish she had a better smile in this one and then it would’ve turned out pretty good.

Dad had been walking around a bit and quickly came over excited. He said he had found a Mary Topiary (which I knew about) and Claire MUST have her picture taken in front of it!

I think I took like 10 pictures here, but the light was awful…too bright, and Claire had awful faces. And then for some reason just about every picture either cut something off or was tilted one way or the other. LOL!

[jenseib]

Back over to take pictures by the car.

Claire was done with photos at this point and time so we made the LONG hike back to the car. I did take time to stop and smell the roses though!

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One last look back as we make our way to the car.

I could tell this was going to be a long day already. My body was NOT holding up well. I was so sore from all the walking. The worst was the bottom of my feet. I walk hard and ruin shoes all the time, I also get blisters easily and have wide feet. Luckily I didn’t get blisters this trip, but it felt like the bottoms of my feet were bruised. I did a stupid thing too. I rotated shoes that day and wore more of a sandal shoe type thing. They have no cushion in then and later in the day I was regretting this.

We got loaded into the car and made our way over to Residence Inn to check in. Our plan was to check in fast and head straight over to Sea World. Didn’t quite work out that way though.

[jenseib]

We found our way easily enough and got off at the correct exit. As we approached the Residence Inn, I actually passed the road. As we went along with the flow of traffic through the light I realized it and pulled into a parking lot and made my way over to the correct road. As we turned around I made the comment that I really couldn’t see the traffic light well. When I had to make my left turn onto the correct road, again I noticed the light was so dim that I basically couldn’t see it. Traffic wasn’t bad and when I saw that no one was coming, I made the turn.

We pulled into Residence Inn and I was going to go and check us in. Dad was talking about his bathroom schedule again and said he would go in to use it after I got the all clear. I was going to take Claire into the bathroom and change her and we were going to go straight to Sea World then. Not even bothering to take our bags to our room.

Of course when I jumped out of the van again I forgot to put in park. I quickly caught it and said a few choice words. I don’t know why I had such a heck of a time getting this thing in park. LOL!

I went in and noticed that the door was propped open and the sliding doors were not working. It hit me then. Power was out in this area. No wonder I couldn’t see the traffic lights.

I walked in and asked if the power was out and they said yes. They also said they couldn’t check us in without power but took my phone number and name and said they would call us as soon as they could. I let them know that we were going to Sea World and would be back later then. I noticed that they still had a few emergency lights on, so I asked if we could use the bathrooms. They said yes, there was a little light in each one. I ran back out to the van and let the family know what was going on. Claire jumped out and we found her clothes to change her into. Dad made a beeline for the bathroom.

The bathroom was still pretty dark, but still enough light to actually get changed if you weren’t in a stall. Claire worried that someone would come in and “see” her. I assured it if someone did come in, it would be a girl. We got all dressed and then made a potty stop ourselves. The lights Popped back on as we were finishing up. Claire and I went to the desk and they were able to check us in at that point.

We headed back the van and waited for Dad…and waited…..and waited…..and waited.

I guess I took this picture while waiting because it’s the next one on my card.

Finally Dad emerged. We did the old joke (and disgusting joke at that) of “Did everything come out ok?” ….Well, no it did not!

This is going to be a little graphic, and I will write it as delicately as I can, but it is hilarious as well.

Dad came out and said the Men’s bathroom didn’t have any light. The emergency light had died. So he came out and asked a maintenance guy where another bathroom was. I questioned this right away. “You can’t go to the bathroom in the dark?” Dad said no, it was pitch black and couldn’t see his hand in front of his face….again I thought what do you really need to see….just go! LOL!

So he was directed to another bathroom. Again, the lights were out. So he came out and told the guy it was too dark in there as well. So the guy asks Dad if he would like him to shine a flashlight over the top of the stall while he went. And Dad said yes…..

OK, here I stopped him again….. “”What kind of guy offers to hold a flashlight while another guy is going to the bathroom?.. .and THEN what kind of guy says YES!” Well I guess I just found out!

So Dad proceeds to tell us how once he got in there the launch sequence became interrupted. He couldn’t go with the guy standing on the outside of the stall….well DUH…I could’ve told you that. So Dad told the guy it wasn’t going to work and came back out.

I have to say my Mom and I are dying with laughter at this point and time. I think we had tears streaming down our face. Claire even found it funny.

Dad thought we were crazy for laughing. He was mad now because he missed “his” time and things would be messed up now. And it was. He couldn’t go for a couple of days after. We began joking around each time he came out of a bathroom, asking if he was able to put in the launch code again, etc. We kept using space terms for everything and cracking ourselves up. Yes, we are happy with cheap and disgusting insults at my own Dads expense. When we got home I relayed the story to both of my sisters and both stopped me in the story at the same time “What? Wait, HUNH? Tell me you’re joking, He said yes to having a guy shine a flashlight while he went? AND what kind of guy offers to do that?”

He said the lights finally came on and he gave it one more try, but by that time it was too late!

We drove over to where our room was located and took out our bags and went to the elevator. For some reason Dad just looked at us like a deer in headlights and totally missed getting on the elevator. Mom was worried he would get lost and have no clue where to find our room. So Claire and I went back down to see if he was waiting. He wasn’t and I assumed he took the other elevator. When we got to the room, he was there, so I guess he found his way.

We freshened up a bit. I was feeling very tired at this point. I mentioned that for dinner this evening I wanted to do something very quick and get us to bed early. Mom said fine, but no fast food. I could already envision that we would be up later than I wanted to be.

I don’t know why we ended up taking our time, but for some reason I started looking at my pictures and organizing my cards. I realized one of my CF cards was missing. The one from the first few days. ….. With a LOT of cruise pictures.

I searched my camera bag, I searched my laptop bag…..I just couldn’t find it. I was panicking. Dad made some sarcastic remark about what a shame it would be for me to lose my millions of pictures. I said “it might not mean a lot to you, but to me it’s very important”. I was on the verge of tears (lack of sleep), so I grabbed Claire and took her down to the van. I was going to take a look through and see if it fell out. I looked and found nothing. I just sat on the van floor with the side door open, looking out and feeling so awful. I had my camera bag with me and I opened it up again, and low and behold that stupid card was there. In the spot I had already looked 3 times!!!! I was relieved and mad at myself.

We went back up to get Mom and Dad and told them the card was found. Mom said she was so happy because I would not be a very pleasant person to be around if it wasn’t found…and that is probably true….

We loaded back up in the van and FINALLY made our way to Sea World.

It was close to 2 PM before we got to Sea World. I had wanted to get there earlier than that. I knew time was limited there. The park was closing early that night for a private party.

We had absolutely NO wait to get into the parking lot. We paid and found a fairly decent spot not too far away. We headed up and presented our tickets and went in.

The sun was hot and bright and I was tired. I took a lot of pictures, but sometimes I wonder why I took some and why I didn’t take some of other things…like the entrance? LOL!

I did get this, and I believe this is when you walk in.

Dad was on a mission to buy a new hat. The hat he had with him wasn’t very airy and his head was sweating. So we got that right away and worked our way into the park.

These are some of the 1st shots I have from Sea World.

We took a look at the map. This park layout was very confusing to me. We used to have a Sea World in Ohio and it was much easier to navigate. Of course I had been there several times growing up, so I was used to it as well.

We looked at the time guides and found that coming in the afternoon is not a good choice if you want to watch shows. Most of them are on in the morning with very limited showings in the afternoon. I decided we should head to the Sea Lion/otter show. This looked to be very similar to what they used to have in SW Ohio and my older 2 always loved this show, so I figured Claire would too.

I guess I took this in route.

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We headed that way, pretty much getting lost on the way over and then climbed the MASSIVE hill to get to the seats. Yes, my feet were starting to scream at this point. I told the family to keep going and I was behind them and would call if I got lost. It kind of became a joke that day about how sore I was. I really think it was mostly due to shoe choice.

I took a quick shot.

Claire was thirsty and we still had time so I headed out and got some drinks.

I made it back with plenty of time to spare and started to take some pictures.

I took this one on my phone and sent it off to facebook.

I zoomed into another stadium across the way, I think it might be Shamu Stadium.

There is a pirate mime that comes out before the show. He is HILARIOUS. He will ask people how many in their party, but miming of course, and then act like he is going to seat them, only to lead them out to the exit on the other side. He did all sorts of funny things and I thought my Dad was going to fall over from laughing. I took this REALLY short video. I don’t know why I didn’t take more or why I didn’t get anything good.

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Soon it was time for the show to start. It was good. Very similar story line to the one they used to have in Ohio, but a few things were changed or added. Claire was in awe. She had never seen a show like this and really enjoyed it.

[jenseib]

Here is some short video of the show.

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This otter kept running through and he was hard to actually capture on film. I would always see him last minute.

[TriciaEMTB]

Despite disliking disney ive still been following your review even post cruise. Happy to get to the sea world part, i love sea world. Your review makes me ALMOST want to go to disney. Seriously, there is almost desire. Anymore disney pics and i might as well go buy a pass!

 

I adore the pics of your daughter she is absolutely gorgeous.

 

Keep the review up! Hope you took a ride on Manta it is by far the best ride at Disney! And the clyde and seamore show is my second favorite, the odyssea/ cirque du soleil knock off being my favorite.