Me, Mom – 37, last at WDW in Sept. 1986 on honeymoon; trip coordinator

Dad – 40, last at WDW on honeymoon with Mom, past WDW trip when 12; took great pleasure in changing my itinerary whenever possible!

Jennifer – 9

Megan – 3

Nicole – 10 months

Grammy & Grampa – both 60+, my parents; both felt there was no point in going to Disney if you couldn’t go with kids

Kids and grandparents were first-timers and VERY excited!

Duration of Stay: 13 days, 12 nights

Resort: Caribbean Beach Resort, Trinidad South Complex

Passes: Resort Magic Pkg with the equivalent of the old "length of stay" passes and flex feature

Discounts: Magic Kingdom Club

Disney's Caribbean Beach Resort, one of the "moderate" (middle price range) Disney resorts is a large hotel complex surrounding Barefoot Bay Lake. It consists of Customs House (the building that serves as the front desk with check-in/check-out facilities, Guest Services and Bell Services), Old Port Royale Center Towne where the food court, Capt.'s Tavern Restaurant, Calypso Trading Post and Straw Market shops, Goombay Games Arcade, the main swimming pool and the outdoor bar (the Banana Cabana) are located, and 6 smaller "villages." Each village is a grouping of 2-story hotel room buildings, a smaller "quiet" pool with laundry room, restrooms and changing area, a stretch of beach along the lake with lounge chairs, hammocks and playground, and a centrally located bus stop. Jamaica, Aruba, Barbados and Trinidad South villages have 6 buildings each; Martinique and Trinidad North villages are 3 buildings each. There is a promenade along the shore of Barefoot Bay Lake that connects all of the villages except Customs House, which is separated from the main resort area by a small pond. The distance around the promenade is approximately 3 miles; the resort contains over 3,000 rooms - just to give you an idea of the size of this place! In the center of Barefoot Bay Lake is an island – Parrot Cay – connected to the promenade by foot bridges at either end and home to several large play areas, a picnic area and a couple of spots where I think they may have had staff members stationed with tropical birds during the day. We only visited the island once one evening when walking back from dinner. The beach at Port Royale has a marina where pontoon boats, water sprites, pedal boats and surrey bikes can be rented. Swimming in the lake is not allowed – I wouldn’t recommend it, in any event – the lake is home to lots of fish, turtles, ducks and Florida’s tropical water birds.

We saw many egrets, herons, ibises and cormorants along the shores and in the water. Little lizards were everywhere! We saw rabbits early in the morning eating the green grass; Grammy even had an armadillo cross her path one morning just after sunrise. And once, while waiting for a very early bus, we saw two deer grazing across the road in the morning mist. I should also mention one drawback to being there in September – the area was inundated with what the locals call "love bugs." These small black insects migrate to Florida to mate each year, some years in absolute droves. They were pretty thick this year. We didn’t notice them in the parks too much, but they were a real nuisance at the bus stops.

Reservations can be made years in advance, but rooms are not actually assigned by the Room Controller until 3 or 4 days before you arrive. I had requested non-smoking connecting rooms (with my parents, who had made a separate reservation requesting the same). I had faxed a note to the Room Controller 4 days before check-in asking again for the connecting rooms in either Martinique or Trinidad North (the two villages closest to the Old Port Royale complex). We got the non-smoking rooms, but they were not connected. They were in the same building with my parents on the first floor front corner, us on the second floor back corner, as they had no more connecting rooms. Another lesson learned - if connecting rooms is a "must," then the two rooms should be made as a single reservation. We were placed in the Trinidad South village, one of the furthest possible locations from Old Port Royale. This was disappointing at first, but ended up working to our advantage, as it was much quieter than the buildings closer to the main pool area, where a live Reggae (sp?) band played every other evening. We discovered that walking the Promenade down to the food court (15 mins at a leisurely pace, with a stop under the bridge to feed the fish, or 10 mins at a brisk pace if we were really hungry or in a hurry!) was usually faster than waiting for an Internal Shuttle bus (which ran about about every 10 mins).

Overall, our experience at Caribbean Beach (CBR) was very good – the room was clean but slightly smaller than we expected (we were probably expecting more because of it being a "moderate" resort, which any where else would mean a larger room. With Disney, you’re paying more for atmosphere and services…). If you’re looking for brand-spanking new amenities, don’t stay here – the carpet was showing signs of wear, as was the television, but everything worked and housekeeping was efficient and friendly. The room contained two double beds, a night stand, a table and two chairs, and an armoire that held 3 large drawers, two small drawers, a shelf and a TV on a pull-out tray. At the back of the room was a dressing area with a rod for hanging clothes on coat hangers and a shelf for storing towels, the coffee maker, etc., a large mirror and two sinks. The bathroom had a tub/shower and toilet and a full-length mirror on the door. There was also a bench in the room, which we moved into the dressing area to make room for the crib we had requested. At CBR the cribs are portable playpens; we had no trouble with this since Nicole sleeps in one quite often, but I have read other trip reports where people have been disappointed with this arrangement. We also rented a fridge at $10 plus tax/day. We probably could have done without this, but it was really convenient having juice and beer to come home to.

The rooms also contain certain items that you are charged for if you take them – the coffee packets for the coffee maker, the rain ponchos and the refillable mugs on the table. I knew that the mugs in the room are $0.50 to $1.00 more than the same mugs that are sold at the food court, but the kids found their favorite colors as soon as they saw them, so I let them go ahead and we took the four that were on the table.

If you aren’t familiar with Disney’s Refillable Resort Mug Program, here’s how it works – each resort has their own mug design with its logo printed on it. You purchase the mug for between $7-$9/ea, depending on resort. Ours were $8.49 in the room, $7.95 at the food court and held 8 oz. of liquid, with an outer compartment that could be filled with crushed ice for additional chilling. They are printed with a colorful undersea motif and feature Ariel, Flounder and Sebastian from The Little Mermaid. The lids and handles come in different colors – blue, red, green, purple or pink. After you purchase a mug, you can bring it to the food court where they have a centrally-located beverage bar with cold water, hot water (and tea bags and hot chocolate packets), hot coffee (regular and decafe), and soda – Orange, Sprite, Coke, Mr. Pib (like Dr. Pepper), Mello Yellow and Pink Lemonade. You can fill your mug as many times as you want during your stay. And if you visit CBR again, you can bring the mug back and it’s still good for free refills. It is NOT refillable at any other resort or in any of the parks. We found them very worthwhile; we didn’t bring them with us if we were going straight from the food court to a park because they were rather cumbersome, but if we were sticking around the resort they were definitely with us and filled several times while at Port Royale and once before heading back to the room.

We followed the general rule of thumb and tipped $1 per person in the room per day ($5/day). I had to stay "home" one day with a sick baby, so I got to meet our housekeeper Lucie, who was very friendly and made a point of leaving the kids’ stuffed animals lined up in the window every day as if waiting for them to come home. Lucie works 6 days a week, with a "sub" who fills in for her on her one day off. I would leave her tip in an envelope on the sink counter, with a note if necessary (ie, "please leave extra towels for the pool, thank you!"). I was also stowing away the little Disney soaps and shampoos she left each day to use as stocking stuffers or little gifts for children. Lucie must be used to guests doing this; after the first couple of days she started leaving two of each instead of the usual one, and by the end of our stay she was leaving me entire bags of soaps with 4 bath bars, 4 facial bars and 4 shampoos in each! I ended up bringing home enough to put together 22 little bags with a facial soap, a bath soap and a shampoo in each for Jennifer’s classmates, and a few odds and ends left over!

Our airport van picked all 7 of us up at 9am Saturday morning (about 65 degrees here in MA and beautiful, clear weather). We boarded our Southwest Airlines plane in Providence and flew straight into the leading edge of hurricane Gordon... really impressive cloud formations, some mild turbulence, some rain, but all in all a very good flight. We now know why Southwest has such low fares (thanks to their no-frills service -- just snacks served onboard and mostly e-ticket sales where seats are first-come, first serve, not assigned). What we didn't know, but quickly learned, is that they also have a reputation for sometimes-crazy flight attendants! As we took off from Providence and the plane made it's steep ascent, the flight crew announced that they were feeling kind of lazy and that we could help ourselves to our own snacks. They dumped boxes of bagged raisins onto the main aisle and let them slide toward the back of the plane! Those with aisle seats could reach down and grab them. Throughout the flight they continued to play jokes on each other, play games with us passengers and generally kept us all in stitches.

Despite the weather we landed on time at Orlando airport where we were met by our second transfer van. I had made reservations through Tiffany Town Car for a 10-passenger van; we were picked up by a friendly and informative driver in an "Edwards" van, so I assume they sub-contract. He told us when we entered the Disney property – I know my parents and the kids were amazed at the size of Walt Disney World! He drove us directly to the Caribbean Beach Resort at Walt Disney World, arriving around 3pm. This was probably the worst experience of our entire two weeks - it took over an hour to check in, as the lobby was packed with other guests also trying to check in. I learned that Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays are their busiest days thanks to the increased popularity of the Disney Cruise Line's vacation packages, which include several nights at a Walt Disney World resort before boarding the cruise ship. After checking in it took almost another hour to get our luggage back from Bell Services. We had an extremely harried Bellboy who rudely stowed our luggage and the luggage of another party (3 more people who were headed for the same building) into a 7-passenger van - and then expected all 10 of us to fit in, too! We shoved and squished and got everyone in, but the other party was furious. They really should have taken the time to separate our two parties, but we got there and that's what counted.

Because of the delay getting checked in, my "first magical day at Disney" plans were shot. We missed our first scheduled event – dinner at Chef Mickey’s at the top of the Contemporary Resort, followed by the Fantasy in the Sky fireworks over Cinderella’s Castle, which I had hoped to catch from the viewing deck atop the Contemporary after dinner. I had made a "priority seating*" for 5pm, but we didn’t get to our rooms until 5:15. I called to see if they had any other openings that evening, but there were none available for that evening (I did make one for Sunday night), so we took an internal shuttle bus down to the food court, ate and checked out the shops and pool, and walked the promenade back to our rooms. It was extremely humid and hot, and had rained occassionally, and we were all tired from traveling, so it was an early evening for all of us.

Priority Seatings (PS) are like reservations, but not. PSs can be made in advance by calling (407) WDW-DINE or by touching the Dining button on your room phone. PSs for Epcot restaurants and resorts can be made no earlier than 60 days prior to the day you wish to dine; all other restaurants will accept them no earlier than 30 days prior, with the exception of Fulton’s Crab House at Downtown Disney, which is a whole different type of reservation – you have to call (407) 934-BOAT one week prior for dining reservations. Priority Seatings are just that – you are to show up 5 minutes before the time you have requested and once checked in, you will be given the next available table for your party size. If you are late, you lose your PS. If you have a large group like we did, you may have a bit longer wait if you want two tables moved together or side-by-side. I had made nearly all of our PSs ahead of time from home; I was concerned about waiting for meals with young children. We found that having them was terrific – if they still fit our daily plans we literally walked into our chosen restaurants at our PS times, and if they didn’t fit our plans, we ignored them with no fees. I did try to call and cancel whenever I knew we would not need one; this makes the space available for someone else.

We all woke early to pouring rain and light wind – hurricane Gordon had made landfall north of us. We walked the promenade in the rain ponchos Grammy and Grampa had thoughtfully picked up for us (thanks, Grammy and Grampa!). We did take one of the Disney ponchos from our room to put over the stroller we had brought from home, but even with this protection we were all very drenched by the time we got to Old Port Royale for breakfast. We also learned that the only food court shop that is open before 7am is the Bakery – the Pizza shop, Hamburger shop, Deli shop and Rotisserie shop (which all do various forms of hot breakfast foods) don’t open until 7. So early mornings meant cereal, bagels, fruit and other bakery items for breakfast – no eggs, pancakes, french toast or Mickey Waffles!

Sunday’s planned itinerary started with an 8am mass at Luau Cove at the Polynesian Resort (this is the only resort with church services), morning at Magic Kingdom with a PS for lunch at Tony’s Town Square Ristorante on Main Street, USA. We left the food court at CBR and caught a bus to the Contemporary Resort, where we boarded the Resort Monorail. After passing the Grand Floridian Resort, we got off at the Polynesian Resort and made our way among throngs of people and driving rain to Luau Cove. Mass was celebrated on the covered stage by a congenial priest; the congregation was seated along the long rows of tables that would later seat guests attending Disney’s Polynesian Luau. These tables were all under a roof and three of the four sides of the area where open to the weather, which continued to be wet and breezy. At 9am we got back on the monorail, intending to go on to the Magic Kingdom, but by now my poor husband had dragged our stroller for nearly 3 hours through the rain and he was sick of it. So we got off at the Magic Kingdom stop but took the bus back to CBR to drop off the stroller and change into dry clothes. We decided to leave the stroller back at the hotel and rent a stroller at the park, so that we wouldn’t have to drag ours on and off the buses.

I was getting nervous about being able to make our PS at Tony’s at 11am; it was now nearly 10 and we’d just made it back from the Polynesian! I called Disney Dining and asked to cancel my PS for 11 and get one for 12 if possible. They made the new PS for 12 and we were off. We caught a bus to the Magic Kingdom and rode the steam train around the entire park, getting off where we had boarded at the train station on Main Street. We decided to rent a double stroller, in case Megan got tired of walking. Singles are $7/day and doubles are $13/day; we soon decided that the $13 was definitely worth it. It saved lugging our stroller all over the place and gave Megan a place to sit (which ours couldn’t). And if we did any park-hopping (ie, MK in the morning and Epcot in the afternoon), we simply took our receipt with us and picked up another stroller in the next park for no additional cost.

We did a little window shopping and the girls had their first character encounter with Pluto outside Exposition Hall. The older girls loved it – Grammy and Grampa, the designated photographers for the trip, took their pictures while they both pulled out their brand new autograph books and fat pens (purchased the night before at the Calypso Trading Post). The baby did NOT like Pluto – she was terrified! We then went into Exposition Hall where the girls met all 7 of the dwarfs, Cinderella and Ghepetto and Gideon (the bad-guy cat from Pinocchio). Grumpy tried to tickle Nicole and that was it – she let out a scream and cried until we got her well away from the characters who wore masks. She was very afraid of the characters for the first 4 or 5 days. Then something seemed to click and she started to calm down a bit, and by the end of the trip she was excited to see them, waving and smiling and bouncing around when she caught site of one.

We made our 12 noon PS at Tony’s Town Square. This is an Italian restaurant with a Lady and the Tramp theme – presumably the one outside of which Lady and the Tramp have their romantic spaghetti dinner. We were seated in the glassed in section of the dining area and the girls had fun watching several small birds flying around inside and landing on the hanging baskets of flowers. The food was excellent – Grammy and Grampa each ordered a different calzone, my husband and I both ordered appetizers and shared, the girls had pizzas which arrived in the signature triple-circle Mickey shape, and Nicole had cheese ravioli. Grammy and Grampa had found us Table Toppers for Christmas – these are plastic sheets that serve as placemats for little ones not yet ready to eat off of dishes. They have adhesive strips on the top and bottom and stick nicely to the restaurant tables. We put one down for Nicole and she happily fed herself her little raviolis; when she was done squishing the last few between her fingers, we peeled the sheet off the table and rolled it up with the squished stuff inside. Our server complimented us on it (as did all of our other servers throughout our stay – thanks again, Grammy and Grampa!).

We left Tony’s very full and found that the weather had brightened and gotten breezier. So off to Fantasyland where I had planned to do "It’s A Small World" first, remembering it being my first ride on our honeymoon and thinking it would be a nice slow start for the kids. The first ride we came to was Snow White’s Adventure and of course, the kids wanted to go on it! "Well, this is it," I thought, "Megan (3 yrs old) will get scared out of her wits and we won’t get her on anything else for the next two weeks!" Megan’s never been to an amusement park before. She’s never ridden anything but a merry-go-round and has not appeared exceptionally brave in the past. We all board the ride and plunge into darkness and loud sound and fly past black-light lit scenes of the wicked witch. I was sitting with Nicole in my lap (who DID hate it and cried the whole time) and Jennifer next to me; Megan rode with Grammy. When we got out I was prepared for tears, but she loved it! Woohoo!! We would have a great vacation after all! Nicole really did not like the dark rides, especially if they were loud (which most were). But as time went on she developed her own little way of dealing with the inevitable (most rides ARE dark) by snuggling into my chest and glancing up and around only if the noise level wasn’t too frightening. She absolutely loved Small World, which we did next.

We bumped into some of the other family members that were down there with us for the first week as we got off the Carousel, and again getting off Small World. We finally parted company from them at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Cups. We saw all of Fantasyland and just about all of Mickey’s Toon Town Fair, leaving the Barnstormer ride for another day since the lines were pretty long. We left the park around 4pm. We held a quick family meeting and decided that my planned itinerary for the next day (Early Entry* at the Magic Kingdom) wasn’t too popular since it meant getting up early, so we decided to go to Epcot instead since I had a PS for lunch in Japan.

Early Entry, or Surprise Mornings as I think they are now called, are the certain days of the week when each park opens one hour before normal for resort guests only. Not all of the park’s attractions, stores or restaurants are open, but usually the really popular rides are. We tried to take advantage of EE mornings, since the open attractions were all "walk ons" – no lines at all.

We boarded the monorail and rode it to the Contemporary Resort to Chef Mickey’s – an all-you-can-eat buffet dinner with characters. Mickey, Minney, Goofy, Donald Duck, Chip and Dale were all dressed as chefs and circulated around the tables. Before being seated we were photographed by a large plate; while eating, Cast Members came around with the photos which you could purchase for about $20. We bit and bought the package, since it came with two 8x10s and two fridge magnet-sized pictures. We split it with Grammy and Grampa, which made it a very good buy.

After dinner we got back on the Resort monorail, getting off at the Ticket and Transportation Center and boarding the Epcot Monorail which we rode around Epcot for a quick overview of what was to come for tomorrow – my parents were astounded! The shear size and scope of the Walt Disney World Resort was just starting to really come into focus for them. We got off at the Epcot stop but headed back to CBR. It was still pretty damp and blustery, so we didn’t go swimming. We went to bed hoping that the next day would be drier than today had been!

We all got to sleep in about an hour later than usual and had breakfast at the food court, enjoying some of the heartier fare that the shops that opened later served, but fighting much larger crowds and longer lines than earlier mornings.

We caught a bus to Epcot – Megan was ecstatic! To her, "Epcot" was the big silver sphere known to everyone else as Spaceship Earth. That was the first pavilion we did and she loved it. From there we went to the Universe of Energy, stopping just outside the Innoventions East passageway to watch the lively antics of the "Jammitors," three musicians who beat on trash cans. We rode Ellen’s Energy Adventure, which Nicole really didn’t like. There was some kind of technical problem at the very end of the ride and we were all carefully ushered out of an emergency exit, but we only missed the final Jeopardy answer (which a Cast Member kindly gave us), so it wasn’t too bad.

By then it was time to head over to the World Showcase for lunch in Japan. We entered by Canada and made our way around to Japan while catching glimpses of the UK, France, and Morocco. In Japan, we wandered through the serene rock garden before going upstairs to the Mitsukoshi Restaurant for our Teppanyaki dining experience. This was one of my "must-do’s" and it was really spectacular. All seven of us plus two others were seated around 3 sides of a long rectangular table. The center of the table was all grill, and being heated. Our plates were placed empty in front of us, resting on the edge of the grill. Our server brought us our drinks and an appetizer of fresh fruit while the grill continued to heat. Then our chef arrived; we had each ordered different meals off of the menu, and he prepared all of them at once, cooking the vegetables together and the meats separately, placing the items on our plates as they were finished. Everything was delicious! And we were all given personal instruction in the use of chopsticks, which some of us mastered much better than others.

We continued around the World Showcase, stopping at the African Outpost for some shopping, at Norway to ride the Maelstrom and in Mexico to ride El Rio del Tiempo. At the Outpost I picked up Epcot Passports* for Megan and Jennifer, thinking that this might help us maintain their interest in seeing ALL of the countries, especially now that we had just done all of the rides.

These passports have a page for each country, with stickers of different things that you see in each, along with plastic sleeves to store them in and a Millennium button. The idea is to find each item and place all of the stickers into the page for that country and then take the book to a Cast Member to have it "stamped" or validated. What I later learned is that the stamps are done at the Kidcot FunSpots – tables set up just for kids. They have paper masks on sticks available, and your child can decorate his mask with a different item in each country. This works great for the older kids, or kids with more time-oriented discipline than mine have. Mine wanted to hang around the Kidcot spots all day and color and glue and stamp and paint! We had to really enforce strict time limits on them, and what had originally been intended to help us move through the countries actually slowed us down, but we DID get through all of them!

Totally exhausted by all of the walking – Epcot is physically the largest of the parks, covering more than 300 acres, and we had walked nearly all of it! – and by the stifling heat and humidity, we headed back to CBR for dinner at the food court and a very late swim. We caught the sound of fireworks for the first time around 9pm; I remembered my sister-in-law telling me that you could see the IllumiNations fireworks from CBR, so I made a mental note to do that the next night.

We had originally planned an Early Entry today for Epcot, but plans had changed. One of my Check-In To Do’s was to pick up the tickets for the two Dinner Shows I had made reservations for – the Polynesian Luau and the Hoop-Dee-Doo Revue. When I went over to Guest Services after checking in they told me it was too early to pick them up and that I’d have to come back on the 19^th. This meant a special trip to Customs House after 8am. We had another little holdup because I fell getting off the bus and pulled Megan down with me, giving her a nasty bruise on her upper lip and a good scrape across her cheek and shoulder. I got away with skinned knees, but we were both shaken.

When we finally got to Epcot we went straight to the Land pavilion where I had an 11:30 PS for lunch at the Garden Grill. This was really good – it’s served family style from skillets and is "all you can eat" – if you want more of anything they happily bring it. We had roasted chicken and barbecued steak with corn on the cob and cornbread stuffing, grilled vegetables and roasted potatoes with baskets of freshly baked sunflower bread and butter whipped with honey. Farmer Mickey and Farmer Minney, Farmer Chip and Farmer Dale visit each table and spend time signing autographs, posing for photos with the kids, and having fun. Chip visited with Megan and grabbed a napkin to wipe the BBQ sauce off her face – that will make a really memorable photo!

We left the Garden Grill and saw "Food Rocks" – this is really cute. It’s a spoof on popular rock stars with a nutritional theme. Then we rode the Living with the Land tour of the pavilion, going through the experimental greenhouses and other educational areas. We skipped the Circle of Life show, opting to see more of the World Showcase before our early dinner in Germany.

We started in Canada and saw most of the UK; that’s as far as we got in 2 and a half hours, thanks to the kids wanting to spend so much time at the FunSpots. This was the first day we had experienced them, so we chalked it up as a learning experience but decided that in the future we’d have to set time limits. We dashed past France, Morocco, Japan, the American Adventure and Italy where we paused to listen to the unique sounds of Nova Era, a quartet of Renaissance-clothed musicians playing classically-inspired European music with a modern twist. In Germany we had just enough time to see the miniature village, do a little window shopping and get the kids through the FunSpot before going inside the Biergarten restaurant for our 4pm Oktoberfest dinner show PS. This is really good – the show is excellent, though short. The food is exceptional, and much more familiar tasting than it sounds. I was afraid that the kids would not find much to eat here (this was one of the few places that did not offer kid-friendly alternatives), but their frankfurters passed my kids’ hot dog test, and they really liked the potato dumplings and the strudels.

I had planned on staying for the Tapestry of Nations Parade and the IllumiNations fireworks, but by the time we finished at the Biergarten we were all pretty tired. And the weather was still against us – over 95 degrees in 97% humidity is really hard on people from New England who’ve had a summer that was more like spring. So we headed back to CBR for a swim. We had a long swim, and this time were outside when the fireworks started. We had to walk down the promenade a ways to see them (I think we were at Trinidad North, just before the bridge), but they were beautiful! After about 10 mins. of pyrotechnics we headed back to the rooms as it seemed they were over. By the time we got there, they had started up again! They went on for another 15 mins. or so. Another lesson learned – having never seen IllumiNations at Epcot, we didn’t realize that there are several periods of laser displays and other things going on that interrupt the fireworks. We made mental notes to watch longer then next time, and to try to stay in Epcot long enough to see it in person!

This was to be another Early Entry day, this time at MGM Studios. We were all very excited – this would be new to all of us, as this park hadn’t been around when my husband and I honeymooned here 14 years ago. And Jennifer was dying to do an "exciting" ride – we had not gotten to the Magic Kingdom early enough to do any of the roller coasters there, and Test Track had been way too busy when we had been at Epcot. So the first places we hit upon arriving at MGM was the Tower of Terror and Rock-n-Rollercoaster. Megan and Nicole stayed with Grammy and Grampa while Dad and I did Tower of Terror with Jennifer. We had seen the movie Tower of Terror on the Disney Channel several months ago, which is really worth seeing if you’re going to do the ride. It makes the whole thing make a lot more sense. Anyway, it was a ride that Jennifer really wanted to do, so we did it. I screamed every time we were dropped; I didn’t hear a peep out of Jennifer, but saw her clinging to her Dad’s arm! She was paralyzed with terror to the point that she couldn’t even scream. When we got off she begged us never to take her on it again! I just had to buy the picture (they snap your photo just after you start to drop, then sell you a copy for $9 if you want it in the simple printed paper frame, more if you get one of the nicer, 3-D frames) – Jennifer’s face was priceless!

Next came the Rock-n-Rollercoaster – again, Megan waited with Grammy, Grampa and Nicole. WOW! We loved it! That’s the fastest ride I’ve ever been on!

Then we did the Backlot Tour and the Honey I Shrunk the Kids Playground. Megan climbed the spider’s web and got her foot caught in the netting and Dad had to climb up and rescue her, and then we lost her in the maze of slides. It was very hot and humid again, and we were anxious about losing her in a place where she had gotten into trouble, so as soon as we found her again we pulled her out. Both girls were mad at us, so we hustled them into Muppets 3-D, which we all got a big kick out of.

It was then time to head over to the Sci-Fi Drive In for our lunch PS. This was just what the doctor ordered! It was cool and the lighting was low; the tables are cars facing a big screen with really bad sci-fi film clips and cartoons playing. This is the only restaurant we ate in that did not have background music playing, so the atmosphere was very quiet and relaxing. Everyone really enjoyed their meal except Megan and I. She had been having trouble going to the bathroom for the last couple of days. It really came to a head here – she was to the point where she was afraid to pee because it might hurt. She really had to go, but when I got her into the ladies’ room she screamed and screamed. I was just waiting for the Cast Members to haul me away for child abuse! She hadn’t gone, and hadn’t eaten a thing either. She was also having a big case of homesick blues, and cried until we left the restaurant. We went straight to the first aid station to find out if we could get her some medical attention (I was beginning to think she might have a urinary tract infection or something).

Disney’s service again shone through. They couldn’t help us there; most of their clientele comes from Tower of Terror or the Rock-n-Rollercoaster and are people who need blood pressure control or heat-related situations. They arranged complimentary transportation for myself, Megan, Nicole and my parents, who would watch Nicole for me while Megan was examined, to and from the Lake Buena Vista Centra Care medical center. Not the walk-in facility which is physically closer to WDW because, as the driver told us, the waits are longer. We arrived and after a short wait (no longer than about 10 mins.) Megan was seen and we had to give them a urine sample (arrgh!). She immediately started to scream again, and the doctor offered her a sticker. I saw that it was one of her favorite things – a pumpkin – and it had eyes and noses cut like jack-o-lanterns so you could give it a face. I jumped in and told Megan that she couldn’t have the sticker until AFTER she peed in the cup, and it worked! We had the blessed sample, which after all of this, tested clean of infection. She was examined and everything looked fine. After some questions about diet, etc. the doctor decided that it was probably a case of Megan’s fluid levels being low due to not drinking enough and the heat we were not used to, so she told Megan she needed to drink more and pee more. She also suggested we purchase some Children’s Motrin to help with any pain she might be having. She’d have given her some herself, but she said it would cost us an extra $50 if they administered the medicine, and since they sold it right there, we could buy it when checking out and give it to her before we left. I thanked her very much (our insurance was not accepted here, so this was out-of-pocket!) and we got the Motrin and she drank it, telling the woman who checked us out that she had to drink more and pee more. In fact, for the rest of the day she told everyone we met that the doctor said she had to drink more and pee more. The rest of the trip was spent trying to convince poor little Megan that she didn’t need to go to the bathroom after each sip of liquid or each bite of food! But we were very glad that she was OK and it had been worth every penny to be sure of it.

Another driver was waiting for us as soon as we were finished at Centra Care. There was another woman and her baby with us this time; they were dropped off at Disney’s Boardwalk Resort first, then we were taken back to MGM Studios where we’d left Dad and Jennifer. The whole trip had taken about 2 and a half hours (exactly what the doctor at the first aid station had estimated when we were arranging the meet up time with Dad), so we were quickly reunited. It was now 3pm and we had to be at the Polynesian by 4:30 to check in for the Polynesian Luau, so we decided to leave the rest of MGM for another day and headed out. This was disappointing, because I had really wanted to see Bear in the Big Blue House (a stage show based on one of Megan’s favorite TV shows from the Disney Channel) and the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular. Dad and Jennifer had seen the Indiana Jones show, along with the Great Movie Ride and Star Tours while we were at Centra Care. As it ended up, we never did make it back to MGM, so that park will be one of the first we go to when we get back to Disney – yes, I’m already thinking ahead to our next trip!

The Polynesian Luau is a separately-ticketed event that should be booked well in advance – I made our reservations almost two years in advance! I made them with a Magic Kingdom Club discount; when I picked up the tickets, however, they told me that they had decided to stop offering the discount. I was obviously disappointed, and the Cast Member who was helping me said she thought it was pretty unfair that they had done that without notifying any one, so she pushed some buttons on her computer and put the tickets through with a 20% Disney Dining discount! I have to find my original records to check, but I think I was only getting a 10% MKC discount to begin with!! Anyway, it was more than $30 per adult, so it was not like a PS and I did NOT want to be late, so off we headed to the Polynesian. We took a rather round-about route to get there, though. The bus to the Polynesian also stopped at the Wilderness Lodge; we hopped off and took a quick stroll through the lobby and around the pool area. This place is really beautiful – it’s fashioned after the big log lodges of the Pacific Northwest and has a rustic, native American flavor. The outdoor grounds are rocky, with a hot spring that starts in the lobby and flows out and down into the themed swimming pool that looks like a rocky pool. There are geysers that flank the pool and spout occasionally. We left the pool and walked to the boat launch where we caught a boat to the Magic Kingdom. There we transferred to a smaller boat that went to the Polynesian by way of the Grand Floridian Resort.

The walk through the Polynesian’s grounds to Luau Cove was much drier than on Sunday, but the humidity was horrible. We got checked in without a problem. "Awesome seats! You really did your homework," said the Cast Member who checked us in, and he was right – we were seated dead center and front row. We had arranged to meet another family there; they had not booked their seats as early. The Cast Member (CM) checked to see if there was any way to seat us together. But there was nothing he could do, so they sat in the upper level to our left. Dad and I had seen the Luau on our honeymoon, and it was pretty much as we remembered it. It’s a very colorful tour of the Pacific Island cultures through dance and costume. At one point the hula dancers invited the kids up to dance with them. Megan loved this! We had bought several of the Disney "Sing Along in the Parks" videotapes, and one had the dance and song that the hula dancers had invited them to join in on, so Megan actually knew what she was doing! It was terrific. And the food was delicious – served family style on silver leaf-shaped dishes mounted to the tables. Even Nicole ate well – she loved the coconut bread and fruit appetizers, the noodle salad and the Polynesian chicken. The Island ribs were a little too spicy for her, but the rest of us polished them off without any trouble. Again, this was all-you-can-eat, and if a plate became empty they would gladly bring you another. The drinks were also refreshed frequently – I had chosen the Tropical Lava (rum and fruit juices) and couldn’t finish my second! When we had attended this show in the past it had only one seating at 7 or 8pm, so when we left we saw the Electrical Water Pageant from the beach off Luau Cove. They have now added additional shows. Ours was the early seating at 5pm, so we finished up much too early to wait for the Pageant. We headed back to CBR, saying good bye to our friends and making arrangements to meet them the next day at Typhoon Lagoon.

Today is Typhoon Lagoon – the first of the two water parks we plan on visiting during our stay here. The forecast looks pretty good – showers should hold off until late afternoon, but the heat and humidity is still with us. We got to sleep in a bit, since the water parks don’t open until 10am. We caught the bus to Typhoon Lagoon (which also goes to Animal Kingdom); this was the longest wait we had for a bus. We must have just missed one because I think we waited almost the full 20 mins. Nevertheless, we finally got there. It was pretty crowded, but somehow we found our friends almost immediately! There were 3 other families that we were supposed to meet; we never did find them. We found out later that they decided not to go. Jennifer loved the water park. They have a huge wave pool that has little waves for a while, then they blow a horn and shift to big waves for a while, then back again. Dad and Jennifer did some water slides, too. Grammy and Grampa were taking turns watching Megan in the wading pool. She was having a ball with some new sand toys carrying water from the wading pool over to the sand and making mud pies. Nicole was not doing so well. She had come down with a cold after our drenching on Sunday which had been slowly worsening; by Thursday she was very miserable. We only spent two hours at Typhoon Lagoon, and even though we all had put on SPF 30 sunblock, we all had too much sun. When we return in a couple of years this will also be at the top of the "Must Do" list; they have a couple of raft rides that I had really wanted to do, and I only got into the wave pool once.

We headed back to CBR for lunch and a nap. We were scheduled to meet back up with the 6 other families tonight for dinner at the Cape May Clambake at the Beach Club Resort. I was very tempted to cancel because Nicole was really feeling horrible; she had thrown up breakfast and lunch. But after our naps she seemed to be doing a little better, and this was the only time we had planned to spend with my husband’s parents, so we set off. Here again we lamented the only flaw in Disney’s terrific transportation system – there are no direct resort-to-resort buses. We took a bus to Downtown Disney where we caught a transfer to the Yacht and Beach Club Resort, which stops first at the Swan and Dolphin Resorts. This was a LONG bus ride! We found my in-laws at their room in the Yacht Club and visited for a while before walking over to the Beach Club to the Cape May Café. This is another beautiful resort, although its theming (Nantucket Island seaside New England) was rather wasted on us Massachusetts folk. The pool that connects the two resorts is really special – it has sand on the bottom and some really cool water slides.

The Cape May Café featured a Clambake Buffet with both New England and New York style chowders, steamed mussels, barbecued ribs, corn on the cob, several different fish entrees, a wealth of desserts, and a whole table of kids’ choices including macaroni and cheese, chicken tenders, hot dogs and french fries. Again, I really missed this meal as Nicole took a turn for the worse and threw up again, now feeling feverish. We excused ourselves early, and not wanting to fight the evening crowds on the Downtown Disney bus I opted to take a boat to Epcot’s International Gateway where we entered the park "through the back door" at the World Showcase. We walked quickly through the park, exited and caught a bus back to CBR. It had taken a couple of days, but I had learned that the bus from Epcot was the closest to our resort with only about a five minute ride. On the other hand, the bus from Magic Kingdom could take as long as 15 minutes to reach CBR, as it was the furthest park from us.

We got back to our rooms and decided to cancel all plans for the next day and give little Nicole a chance for some rest.

DAY 7 – Friday Sept. 22^nd

My itinerary showed Early Entry at Epcot for today with lunch in England and dinner in Canada. I cancelled our PS for lunch and did some laundry in the morning, then stayed with Nicole while Dad took the girls swimming. We all took naps in the afternoon, then decided to keep our dinner plans, so we headed off for Canada (in Epcot) around 4pm. We were all very "underwhelmed" with Canada’s Le Cellier Steakhouse. The food was average. I think we were all expecting "something more"… I can’t quite put my finger on what exactly, but we all felt a little disappointed after we left.

We then went to Millennium Village, located between Canada and the UK. This pavilion houses a number of countries and organizations not otherwise represented within the World Showcase. It was all very interesting; I was able to get some of the CMs from nations with different alphabets to write the girls’ names for me. I’ll add these pages to their passports. Megan had a "ball" (literally!) in an area set up to show the importance and interdependence of renewable resources. The concept was really lost on most visitors (and some of the CMs, I think!); colored balls are sorted into colored tubes at one end and are moved through several "systems" by the childrens’ actions. Eventually, if moved correctly the balls are, brought back to the sorting area as a renewed energy source. That night they had a bunch of kids, all about Megan’s age, interested in nothing but sorting the balls into their colored tubes. Nobody was moving the "energy" along the system, so CMs were going behind the scenes to collect buckets of balls to dump back into the sorting area. After about half an hour of Megan running back and forth, madly grabbing balls and shoving them into tubes as fast as her little legs and arms would go, we dragged her, kicking and screaming from Millennium Village. Nicole was still not entirely herself, so we headed back "home" to CBR.

Nicole still needed some additional recuperation time, so I volunteered to stay with her at the resort while the rest of our party went out. My itinerary listed Animal Kingdom for today with no PSs for lunch or dinner. Since this is a new park, we decided everyone else would go back to the Magic Kingdom. There was plenty there that they hadn’t seen that I had, so I wouldn’t be missing anything by staying behind with the baby. Off they went – Jennifer got to ride Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain, Megan got to ride the Carousel and Dumbo again, and Grammy got to ride the paddlewheel showboat around Tom Saywer’s Island. They came back to CBR around 1pm; Dad and I walked down to the food court and brought back lunch. It was REALLY hot!

We all rested and Dad took the girls for a swim; then we decided to try to do a little more and we all headed back to the Magic Kingdom that evening for snacks and some rides. We did the Pirates of the Caribbean, got Dole Whips, and saw the Main Street Electrical Light Parade in Frontierland. We tried making our way to the front of the castle for the Fantasy in the Sky fireworks, but it was a sea of people and no one was moving. So we parked ourselves on chairs borrowed from Ariel’s Grotto and sat facing the back of the castle, waiting for the fireworks to start. They soon did, and we discovered we were facing the wrong direction! We did an about face and saw the fireworks display which were really great. Jennifer caught a round black chunk of burnt firework on her lap, so she ended up with a really special souvenir!

Then the moment I was dreading – the fireworks had ended and it was time to try to make our way to the front of the park and get back to our hotel. Along with the thousands of others who were trying to do the same! It was just after 9pm; I figured if we were lucky, we’d get back before 11. Shuffle shuffle through the center of the castle; shuffle shuffle some more until we passed the circle that opens onto Main Street. Here the crowds opened up enough to allow you to breathe a little more freely, and actually take steps. By the time we reached the end of Main Street we were a fairly orderly mass moving at a normal pace forward. We had a double stroller to return – we pushed it in the general direction of the stroller corral, never mind standing in the mile-long line for the dollar deposit return – it wasn’t worth it! Out of the park and into the line for the CBR bus – we’d never seen it so long! Disney has people-herding down to a science… as the lines get longer, they add more turns to queue lines. Our line was at least 5 or 6 turns deep.

But Disney KNOWS how to move people, and they had doubled up the CBR buses! Two would pull up instead of one, and there was a CM at the head of the line to make sure that people formed two lines and boarded both buses, filling each to standing room only capacity. We made it onto a bus and into seats (amazing! I thought for sure we’d have to stand) and back to CBR by – what’s this?!? 10pm!!! I couldn’t believe it! Grampa, our resident pessimist, was even more amazed than I was. He was so impressed by the people-moving skills witnessed that night that he had a long discussion about it the next day with one of our bus drivers (those drivers are sources of the most interesting information!). Our driver told him that Saturday night’s crowd was big, but not that big by Disney standards for an MK fireworks night – only about 47,000. The record was over 66,000 on New Year’s Eve. Looking back, it was terrific to experience the Electrical Light Parade and the Fireworks, but the crowds were really pressing. Having done it once, I’d be rather reluctant to do it again. But we’ll see how I feel in a few years when we return with Nicole, who won’t remember the first time she saw the spectacle.

Mom’s itinerary showed a shopping day at Downtown Disney with a dinner PS for two at Fulton’s Crab House – Grammy and Grampa’s night out. Fulton’s is located on board a riverboat formerly known as the Empress Lilly and now permanently docked at Downtown Disney. After last night’s crowds you’d think we’d know better than to venture into the Magic Kingdom on the weekend, but NO! After a bit of a sleep-in and a quick family meeting, we decided to cancel the shopping day and go back to MK. I made a quick call to Disney Dining and got a PS for lunch in Liberty Square at the Liberty Tree Tavern and off we went. Nicole was feeling much better. We got to the park, rented our double stroller and set out. We saw the Haunted Mansion then went to lunch (absolutely delicious food, and even better frozen Star Spangled Spectaculars, formerly known as Tavern Punch – Lemonade, Sprite and Orange Sherbert whipped up and served in a souvenir glass tankard!). We exited the tavern just in time to catch the afternoon’s "Magical Moments Parade" where the kids were invited to dance with the fish in front of Ariel’s float and drum on drums with Timon and Pumba. We took Megan to Big Thunder Mountain; Dad had tried getting her on the day I stayed home with the baby, but she was an inch short of the height requirement and the CM refused her. Today, the CM was busy talking with someone and we walked her right by – she loved it!! We decided to try our luck with Splash Mountain, too, and though she was measured, he pushed the stick around a bit and let her on. She loved that, too! This was another ride that snapped your photo just as you dropped, and I bought this one, since it was the only one so far with Megan.

We left Frontierland and headed over to Tomorrowland as the sky turned black and the wind picked up. By the time we got there it was starting to rain. We jumped onto the Tomorrowland Transit Authority (formerly known as the Wedway People Mover) and rode all around Tomorrowland. It was still raining pretty hard so we dashed across to the Carousel of Progress – always a favorite. Some refreshment next at the Lunching Pad and then back to CBR for dinner and bed.

This was a very special morning! We got up early for EE at the Magic Kingdom and a very special PS for breakfast. We started the day with a quick trip on Space Mountain for Mom, Dad and Jennifer, then Buzz Lightyear’s Spaceranger Spin. Grampa took first prize on this one – his score was the highest at over 56,000. Then off to breakfast at Cinderella’s Royal Table inside the castle! Our wait was just a little longer than usual because of the number of people in our party – we had to wait for two tables side-by-side to become available – but it was worth it. While waiting in the lower antechamber, Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother sat on a large chair by a stone fireplace and signed autograph books and posed for photos with the children. This was when Grampa noticed that one of the large shields hung on the wall by the fireplace bore his family’s coat of arms! I told him that I thought I had read somewhere that they were the coats of arms of some of the Disney Imagineers that had helped create the castle; I will be doing some research for Grampa into this matter.

When our names were called we climbed the spiral staircase to the circular dining hall above. Dad and I remembered having truly superb prime rib here on our honeymoon when it was called King Stephen’s Banquet Hall; the name has changed, but I’ve heard the prime rib is still just as good. Our breakfast was terrific. This meal is all-you-can-eat, but comes "pre-plated." If you want more, they bring you another full plate. The orange juice tastes like fresh-squeezed and they constantly refill your cup. Grammy chose the "healthy" breakfast – Mueslix cereal and berry yogurt. The rest of us had the "traditional" choice – scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, homefries au gratin and an apple fritter. The kids got pancakes and bacon or sausage. Each table had a basket with muffins and croissants, too. And the coffee was good and strong and bottomless as well!

So while us grownups were enjoying the delectable breakfast fare, the servers were busy keeping plates and cups filled, addressing the children as "princess" or "prince" and the grownups as "my lord" and "my lady." And then the characters would visit with each child, signing autograph books and posing for pictures. Megan and Jennifer each had their picture taken with Cinderella, Prince Charming, Snow White, Aladdin and Jasmine. By now Nicole was even warming up to the characters, especially these who looked like normal people (no oversized heads or gloves). She had her photo taken with a couple of the characters, too! It was a truly magical experience. It was also free – our Resort Magic Packages had come with several "flex features" that you could choose from, such as a family portrait, a round of Miniature Golf, a t-shirt or a character breakfast. I thought the character breakfast would be the best value for our family, and we really enjoyed it. But I would spring for this one again without a second thought – it would be worth every penny!

Very full from our wonderful breakfast, we saw some more of the Magic Kingdom. Grampa stopped at the shop inside the castle to inquire about the coat of arms, and Grammy got some questions regarding music tapes answered at Exposition Hall. We headed back to CBR for lunch and a swim, and a nap for the little ones.

We cancelled our dinner PS for two at O’Hana’s at the Polynesian. This was going to be Mom and Dad’s night out, but with the kids in a strange place and the amount of time it took to get from one place to another, we bargained with Grammy and Grampa and got them to agree to a rain check. They’ll come and sit for us one night when we’re back home and can leave the kids with them in more comfortable surroundings. This left our dinner plans open. We decided to go to Epcot and try to find dinner there.

Mom found a Margarita in Mexico, and Dad found a litre of ale in Germany! It was really too hot to eat much, so we snacked instead. We stopped at the America and saw the American Adventure, then brought the kids over to the FunSpot to add to their masks and get their passports stamped. Our timing was excellent. As the kids were finishing up, Mary Poppins appeared in the garden beside the American Pavilion and signed autographs and posed for photos. She was joined by Belle and Esmeralda, so the girls got pictures with all 3.

Our luck continued, and as we left the characters the Tapestry of Nations Parade (early edition – 6:30pm) was just visible down near Germany and heading our way. Grampa got some buckets of popcorn for the girls and we watched the procession. The puppeteering is really inspiring. Megan was perched on Dad’s shoulders and many of the performers swept her head as they passed. Nicole got some special waves, and Jennifer had her head patted once or twice, too.

After the parade had passed we continued on towards France, catching a glimpse of a Living Statue. We were all very hot and tired, otherwise we’d have stayed longer to watch. It would be one of the things we’d try to do later in the week. Another tired trek through Epcot to the bus stop, with a stop in the Mouse Gear shop to admire all things Mickey (and Goofy, and Tigger, and…).

The itinerary showed a light day today – nothing scheduled but Fort Wilderness Campground in the evening for the Hoop-Dee-Doo Revue, a dinner show along the lines of the Polynesian Luau (separately ticketed, best if booked early). Since we had put off doing Animal Kingdom, we decided that would be the best thing to do today, so we got an early start and were at the gates before the park opened. I’d been reading a lot of trip reports like this one while setting up my itinerary and the consensus of opinions on AK was that it was best to do and see as much as possible before noon, as this is the hottest of the parks. I must agree with that opinion; we only stayed here until 10:30 or 11am, and by then it was swelteringly hot. We were also surprised that, with it already as hot as it was there, many areas have mist fans set up, which actually make it steamier and more unbearable. We headed straight for the African region and the Kilimanjaro Safari. This was very bumpy but good – we saw a lot of animals at fairly close range, and a large rhinoceros at very close range! From here we hustled back to the Tree of Life and saw the 3-D movie "It’s Tough to Be a Bug." This was really good. I didn’t let on about any of the little extras I knew would be coming, so everyone was good and surprised, and there were a few things that no one had mentioned in the trip reports, so I was in for a few shocks, too!

We wandered around the front end of Asia, but the Kali River Rapids Ride had a height requirement that was too tall for Megan and it was way too hot to ask everyone else to wait while Dad and I took Jennifer on. So we put that on our "To Do Next Time" list and headed over to DinoLand USA for the Boneyard, a play area that starts on one side of DinoLand with a huge playscape modeled after an archeological dig with slides and a jeep and lots of fans blowing air around. A bridge that passes through a large dinosaur skeleton leads to the other side of DinoLand and a large dig site with "clean" dirt and buried dinosaur bones for the kids to dig up. We let the kids play for about half an hour here, then pulled them out and shoved popsicles in their mouths and herded them back to the front gates. It was way too hot to spend any more time here. As it ended up, the last day of our vacation would have been the perfect day to do Animal Kingdom with cooler temps and no humidity. As I said, just one more thing to look forward to doing next time!

We ate a light early lunch at CBR and decided to rest for the afternoon, so that we’d be all ready and rarin’ to go tonight for the Hoop-Dee-Doo Revue. We’d all heard a lot of good things about this one, but none of us had been before, so we were all anxious to see what it was about. We left CBR at 3pm and took a bus to the Magic Kingdom and then hopped on a boat to the Fort Wilderness Campground. We didn’t realize until this boat trip that the canal that connects the lake in front of the Magic Kingdom with the water beside the Contemporary has a road underneath it! While riding the bus to the MK we saw a boat pass over us as we went under the bridge; on our boat we realized we were passing over that bridge.

We arrived at the Campground about an hour before our show time. We poked around the trading post, crossed over to Pioneer Hall where nothing was happening yet, so wandered around the petting farm and horse stables of the "Triple Circle D Ranch." By the time we got back to Pioneer Hall a CM was beginning to check people in. We had our photos taken but were wise this time as to what they were up to, and decided ahead of time that we didn’t need this package. Wise choice, as this package was $20 again, but only had the one 8x10. We were given our table number and when it was time to be seated we were led to a table that was right in front of the left stage steps! I was amazed. This dinner show had been an afterthought, booked just a couple months before our arrival, so I figured our seats would be fair to middlin’.

Like the other dinner shows, this was another all-you-can-eat affair, served family style from pewter buckets. When seated we were brought a big bucket of tossed salad and homemade bread with sweetened butter. Drinks were served in Mason jars – bottomless draft beer or sangria, or lemonade and soft drinks. As we munched salad and bread the Pioneer Players arrived with a flurry of piano playing and banjo picking – 3 girls and 3 guys, each representing a different walk of pioneer life. They performed a couple of corny, catchy songs and routines, including the delivery of our table’s bucket of fried chicken! One of the women slapped it down on our table, bouncing a piece of chicken out of the bucket and onto the floor, which we could tell by her laughter was entirely unintentional, but totally hilarious and in keeping with the tone of the show. Our server brought another bucket full of barbecued ribs, a plate of baked beans and a bowl of corn. And again, as a bucket or plate was emptied, the servers were right there asking if another was needed.

Another round of songs and dances continuing a light-hearted storyline proceeded as the main course was cleared away; the entertainment announced the arrival of Ma’s special dessert – the strawberry shortcake – which our servers had to carry on stage, present in a kickline, and then deliver to our tables! This course was served with coffee, again in mason jars, and finished up with the Players roping in several members of the audience to participate in their grand finale, a really silly end to a totally hilarious evening. The food was finger-lickin’ good, and the entertainment was an absolute riot. Poor Nicole found it way too loud for her liking, though… at one point they brought out washboards for each table and we all had to scrape our spoons on them! Having seen both the Luau and the Hoop-Dee-Doo, I’ll definitely make the Hoop a must-do for next time.

We headed back home by way of the Contemporary to do a little shopping. It was too early again to catch the Electrical Water Pageant, and we were all too tired to try to wait for it, so back to CBR for some rest.

The itinerary I had set up listed Blizzard Beach for today, but since we’d had too much sun so quickly at Typhoon Lagoon and we finally had Nicole feeling better, we decided to skip the water park in favor of finishing up Epcot. By this time I had developed a definite cold in my chest, probably a result of the extremes we were enduring – hot and humid and all sticky with sweat or rain one minute, then into the air conditioning (not normal air conditioning, refrigerator air conditioning!) being blown on you the next. So we decided to go to Epcot instead, since there was so much there that we had not yet seen. The plan of attack was to complete the Future World portion of the park today, and leave the remainder of the countries in World Showcase for our last day tomorrow.

We got to Epcot bright and early and went straight to Test Track (Jennifer had been dying to do this one). We noticed upon entering that Megan just might make the height requirement, but we thought it would be wise to ride it ourselves first before trying to take her on. We rode and decided it wasn’t too much for her, so Jennifer and I grabbed Megan and started through. The CM outside was talking to someone and didn’t see Megan. Past the first! The second was more concerned with some glitch in the sequencing that had caused the two pre-show areas to go out of sync. She herded us into the pre-show area just long enough to get the timing right, shut off the pre-show just as it was starting, and shoved us through to the boarding area. Two down! Almost there! At the boarding area the final CM spotted Megan and pulled out his measuring stick. "Stand straight and tall!" I whispered to her, and she did, and he saw that there was a half inch of light between the topmost hair and the bottom of his measuring stick, but he looked at me and said, "well, I guess she can go," and off we went. Megan said she liked it, but I think she really was only luke-warm about it. It’s not as much "fun" as the rides at Magic Kingdom, which I know were her favorites.

We headed back to Wonders of Life and did Body Wars – Grammy, Grampa and Nicole rode stationary seats for this motion-simulator ride. Then we saw Cranium Command – very cute! We were getting hungry so decided to take a chance and headed over to the Living Seas to the Coral Reef Café without a PS at noon – no problem! We were seated just as quickly without one. This seafood restaurant has windows into the adjacent coral reef aquarium and has wonderful ambience. The food is very good, but not your "usual" fare – I would definitely recommend this eatery to anyone who really likes seafood and is not afraid to try new things. The frozen drinks are delicious, too – I had an Octopus Juice that went down very quickly!

After lunch we toured the Living Seas and saw beautiful marine life. Jennifer and Grampa got to try their hands at operating a dive suit with robot-like arms. We caught a glimpse of the resident manatees and a dolphin, but decided not to hang around for the shows.

On to Imagination! where we did the Journey into Your Imagination ride first, then Honey, I Shrunk the Audience 3-D movie. Jennifer really wanted to leave this movie – I don’t know if it really bothered her that much or if she was just being difficult, but there were a lot of effects that were scarier than in the other 3-D movies we’d seen. Nicole did the bury-her-head-snuggle-and-fall-asleep routine again. Outside the Imagination! Pavilion we watched the jumping water fountains for a few minutes, then went to Ice Station Cool for a quick cool down. This is an area hosted by Coca Cola that offers samples of Coke’s international products, such as Smart Watermelon from China and a Gingerale derivation from Germany. I’d read a lot of bad press about Italy’s Beverly, so I skipped that one! Some of them weren’t too bad, but we all agreed that none of them tasted as good as our own Coke, which you had to go outside and buy if you wanted it!

We then entered Innoventions West, the partner building to Innoventions East (which we never made it to). Both buildings house hands-on exhibits by leading companies that demonstrate how science and technology are improving our lives. We had a hard time getting Megan out of the children’s computer software section and an even harder time getting Jennifer out of Sega’s video gaming center. I went to the IBM exhibit and sent an electronic picture postcard of myself and Nicole to a friend. Grammy and Grampa saw a movie about the future of radiology in diagnosis and laser surgery. By the time we got out of there I think we were all completely exhausted and overwhelmed by the technoexperience.

We headed back to CBR, but decided to forego the food court and try the Captain’s Tavern Restaurant instead. Excellent choice! The food here was fantastic. Grammy and Grampa had grilled shrimp, Dad had a BBQ prime rib and I had citrus roasted chicken. The kids were delighted to find linguini on the menu. Hot from the oven rolls, both plain and coconut, accompanied our meals. The frozen drinks were delicious – I had the "Jamaican Me Crazy" – lemonade with Blue Curacao and rum, and the grandparents had something else along the lines of a pina colada. It’s a good thing we were late in discovering this gem – otherwise we’d have spent a few more evenings (and much more money) eating here!

Refreshed from the food (and the frozen drinks!) we did a little shopping in the Calypso Trading Post then walked over the promenade to the bridge at Parrot Cay Island and caught the IllumiNations fireworks – this time watching the entire show. There were several periods when all you could see were flashing lights, but the fireworks were great. The next time we come we’ll definitely try to catch that show, if they’re still doing it.

Our last full day at Disney – officially our Cram-n-Jam Day! We got up and out for Early Entry at the Magic Kingdom and did the last few things we wanted to do there – first stop was the Indy Speedway for Megan. She got to drive Grammy crazy – for real! Then on to Space Mountain for Mom, Dad and Jennifer. Then Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin again and this time I wasn’t holding Nicole so I actually got to shoot and beat Grampa’s last score by over 2,000 points! But Dad blew us all away with a score of over 100,000.

We trotted over to Mickey’s Toon Town to do Barnstormer, but that didn’t open until 9 am. Back to Tomorrowland to check Timekeeper, which was closed until 9 as well, so Grammy and Jennifer, Megan and I rode the Astro Orbitors. These things go a little faster than the Dumbo ride and Grammy and I got a little dizzy!

Back to Toon Town just as they opened – Jennifer and Dad made it onto the last car of the Barnstormer ride; Megan and I were put on the next one. We went around once with Megan screaming her lungs off the whole way around, not because it was scary, but just because it was fun and the people in front of us had laughed at her first scream. We got back to the start… the CM looked at Megan and I and the 3 other people on board and said "Again?" I glanced up at the car ahead of us and saw that Dad and Jennifer had stayed on again, looked at Megan who was nodding furiously, and said OK and off we went again! We rode the Barnstormer 3 times in a row, no stopping, Megan screaming all the way, before I finally saw Dad and Jennifer get off and decided we’d better, too. Megan was bouncing like Tigger she was so excited!

Back to Tomorrowland to do Timekeeper – this is a stand-up-and-lean-on-the-rails movie with a robot controlling a time machine. The robot is voiced by Robin Williams with all of his personality and mannerisms; the little droid that travels through time is voiced by Rhea Perlman and is equally charming. Enough back-and-forthing! On to Epcot…

We took the monorail from MK to Epcot. We were waiting for the next train and we couldn’t help but notice the gentleman standing next to us in the handicap access stall. He was rather portly and wore a bright red t-shirt under denim overall shorts. His socks were red and the umbrella he carried was red. His cap was red, too, and his round face was surrounded by a thick white beard. Two little girls ran up to him and he signed their autograph books "Santa." We had just missed the last monorail, so we had a bit of a wait for the next train and he started up a conversation with us. By the time the next train had arrived he’d spoken with the CM and invited us to join him in his car so that we could take the elevator down to the ground level at Epcot instead of having to walk down and around the exit ramps! He told us about some recent surgery he’d had and that he spends most of his time hanging around in Germany. He entered the park ahead of us, using the finger ID, and the CMs at the gate seemed to know him by name, although we didn’t catch it. We lost site of him as we headed over to the stroller rental area…

Megan really wanted to do "Epcot" (Spaceship Earth) again, so we did. It stopped at the halfway point for several long minutes. It finally started up again and I think that was enough for Megan.

We started our travels in the UK, with lunch at the Rose and Crown Pub. Again, excellent luck for no PS – we were seated immediately and chose to eat al fresco, as the cold front was making great progress, the humidity had dropped and a beautiful breeze was coming off the lagoon and made it very comfortable. The food here is excellent, too. Grammy had the Ploughman’s Lunch, Grampa and Dad had fish and chips, Jennifer had Cottage Pie, Megan and Nicole had a hot dog and chips, and I had the chef’s special – Pasties with steamed veggies and roasted potatoes. The pasties were very much like our frozen pocket snacks – one pastry crust filled with cheddar cheese and onions and another filled with pork and vegetables. These were covered in a parsley and thyme cream sauce. I was having a very hard time deciding which frozen drink to have, but settled on the English Rose – a blend of fruit juices and something else. It was delicious! When Dad got a refill on his Tenant’s Lager I talked Grammy into splitting a Welsh Dragon with me – this was also very yummy, and the greenest drink I’ve seen yet! I think it had Midori in it.

On to France where the kids donned paint smocks and worked on their masks for a strictly limited amount of time… just enough time for Mom and Dad to take a quick stroll through the shops. We then moved to the front of the French restaurant to await the appearance of the Living Statue. We were watching the wrong side of the restaurant, though. She was already on her little pedestal and interacting with passersby by the time we noticed her behind us! Jennifer and Megan stood beside her for photos, and she put her arms around Megan and froze. Megan had to wiggle her way out of her grasp! We said goodbye to the statue and started away and at the very last minute she gave the girls a coy little wave… a really unique experience!

Next stop was Morocco where the girls added more embellishments to their masks and we sampled rosewater snifters and beautiful brass knickknacks. So many of the shopkeepers in these World Showcase shops were completely taken with our little Nicole! In the Moroccan shop one of the woman came right over and held her arms out to her and – to our surprise – Nicole went to her! The two of them rubbed noses for a few minutes before it dawned on Nicole that she didn’t know this woman and demanded to be given back to Mama.

We had already visited Japan and America so we continued on to Germany to look for Santa, but we didn’t find him. Jennifer and Grammy went to watch the woman from the Goebel company paint figurines, and Jennifer was invited to paint one as well! She painted for a few moments before we pried her away (it was our last day and we still had a lot to see!); the woman gave her a tiny porcelain elephant and a little certificate to commemorate her visit.

We passed the Outpost, China and Norway and entered the Kidspot in Mexico. The girls got their masks and passports stamped while Grammy and Grampa did some shopping in the indoor marketplace. Then on to Norway for more mask additions and passport stamps. Then finally back to China where we had a dinner PS at the Nine Dragons restaurant. We had to walk through the store to get to the Kidspot (several of the countries did this – excellent marketing strategy) and were again met with a saleswoman more interested in tickling Nicole than stamping passports! Dad spied several items he was interested in and noted their locations for after dinner.

We then headed back to the Nine Dragons. The hostess and our server were absolutely terrific. The hostess played peekaboo with Nicole and soon had her laughing and waving at her. Our server, Man Yui, took a liking to Megan and teased her incessantly, but rewarded her by folding a silver chewing gum wrapper into a tiny shirt shape for her to keep. The food here is very good. We ate here on our honeymoon and Dad had the same dinner this time, although I had to remind him of it! He had the roast duckling; I had Moo Shu Pork, Grammy had Moo Goo Gai Pan and Grampa had Honey Sesame Chicken. Man Yui warned us that we had ordered too much already as Jennifer was about to order something, so she ended up sharing. Megan had a kid’s meal of fried rice and egg roll. He had been right – we’d ordered WAY too much! If we’d been at home we’d have taken it all home in doggie bags, but it wouldn’t have kept so we had to leave a lot of it. Such a shame.

After dinner we went back to the shop were Dad made his selections and the kids talked us into another trinket or two. We then entered the Temple of Heaven to watch the Land of Many Faces movie about China, and Grammy noticed that the building had been patterned after the actual Temple of Heaven and the grounds after the Forbidden City (A+ for Grammy!). We all left feeling very tired.

We took our last walk through the World Showcase as the sun set, with the double-decker bus carrying characters just disappearing between Mexico and Norway and Nicole waving her arms frantically and babbling something towards the retreating vehicle… on through the now sparkling Future World with Sorcerer Mickey’s twinkling wand and 2000 glittering overhead and the magical starlit sidewalks under our feet. Megan was beside herself with exhaustion, crying one minute about not wanting to leave Disney World, the next about missing our gray house and our dog and cat… so we turned and waved to the big silver ball, not saying good bye, just saying so long for now…

Friday dawned clear and cool – now why couldn’t we have had weather like this for the last two weeks?!? We were up early to get breakfast before we had to meet Bell Services at Grammy and Grampa’s room at 8:15. After the hassle we’d had with them at check in I decided to leave nothing to chance and had arranged for them to pick us up 45 mins. before our Tiffany transfer was to arrive at Customs House. This ended up being unnecessary; Bell Services was right on time. As was Tiffany (or Edwards – it was the same driver who’d dropped us off!). He got us to the airport over an hour before flight time.

Then there were several minutes of shear panic on my part when I couldn’t find our flight paperwork. We unlocked and rifled through every suitcase before I finally remembered stowing it in the backpack (whew! That took at least 3 years off my life.). The luggage was checked and we made our way to Orlando’s newly opened terminal, which now features a food court.

Check in was fairly quick; the only problem encountered here (besides Jennifer taking off with Dad without notifying Mom and Mom going nuts trying to find her) was that this airport had instituted a new rule regarding preboarding families – only one set of parents per family could pre-board. Any other grownups in the party had to board as regular passengers. On the flight down, we had sat with the 3 kids in window seats, Megan with Grammy, Jennifer with Grampa and Nicole with Mom and Dad. This had worked out really well for us because there was a grown up for each child. So when they announced this new rule in Orlando, I slipped three boarding passes to Grammy along with Megan and told her "she’s yours until you’re seated." That way we boarded first with Jennifer and the baby (who was required to sit in a window sit because of her carseat) and then Grammy and Grampa boarded with Megan, and we sat the same way. I can understand their reasoning behind the rules; they are just trying to keep things fair to all passengers. I was just very glad that I had the additional help with 3 active kids who’ve really never flown before!

The flight crew today was much tamer than the one we’d had earlier. No snacks to catch and no games to play, but the head steward did have some very comical additions to the usual rote of safety instructions. The weather was excellent and the pilot came over the loudspeaker several times to point out landmarks below, but it was very hard to hear him. There was one or two times when the fasten seatbelt light was turned on due to turbulence when crossing the cold front that had gripped New England; otherwise a very smooth flight and a great landing. We had left Orlando in 75 to 80 degrees; we landed in Providence and it was only 52! Good thing I’d packed sweatshirts for the kids.

Since we all needed a pit stop at the restrooms, we were delayed a few minutes getting our luggage. I looked around inside for a driver looking for us, but didn’t see one. I could see a Knight’s van circling outside, and figured it might be ours, but it looked like it had a passenger in it so I figured it was making a drop off before picking us up. We grabbed two baggage carts, stowed our stuff, and moved outside to wait for the van to get us. It didn’t come. I phoned Knights and was told that we needed to cross the road to the green and white colored awning marked Ground Transportation. We started to cross but along came the van and the driver yelled to us to move back down the sidewalk a ways and he’d get us down there, as he couldn’t stop where we were. We moved down and he came around again and very hastily stowed our luggage and got us aboard. He was a bit put out, and told us that he could have gotten a $250 fine for picking us up there and that he was now late to drop off his other passenger. I apologized to him and explained that I had no idea we weren’t being met inside. No one had told me that we had to go to an outdoor pickup area. I plan on calling Knight’s to suggest that they remind their Providence pickups of this practice, in case they are not seasoned travelers. There were signs posted all over the van about a similar practice for Logan, but nothing with regard to Providence. Anyway, he seemed to calm down after a while and talked baseball with his other passenger. And we and our luggage made it back home safely and that’s what really mattered.

So now that I’ve finished this very lengthy epistle, I can now begin planning our next trip to Disney… tentatively for September of 2004 or 2005! Anyone want to join us?