From Shalisa

Ryan is currently getting our lunch at the resort food court, so I (Shalisa) decided to start a new blog post for everyone. I brought Maddie straight to the room for her nap this afternoon cause she really needs as much sleep as possible. She has a bit of a runny nose, and Ryan has been feeling a little off since yesterday. He keeps saying he's not sick...but I think both of them have tiny colds. I'm just thankful it's not me (yet).

So, last night we ate dinner at the Coral Reef restaurant which is in Epcot's Living Seas pavilion. There are giant viewing windows into their main tank...which is where Ryan took his dive on Tuesday. I was pretty excited about this restaurant. A lot of people really enjoy the food, and the atmosphere of being "under the sea" was very appealing as well as what I assumed would be fun for Maddie. I have to say though, I've been a tad disapointed in some of our dining experiences this trip. Perhaps it's just that I'm battling a 1 year old who primarily want to be seated on my lap or crawling under the table, but I think that Ryan will agree that service from restaurant CM's has been a bit lacking. Last night the server was not terrible, but nothing to write home about. She really only paused long enough at our table to comment on how much pizza Maddie ate. She was certain we had eaten it for her. (THIS is why she is on the dining plan!) Anyway. Ryan's food was pretty good. My entree was Mahi Mahi and I had been looking forward to this dish, however it was very bland. And their version of couscous is what I call fish eye pasta.

On an up note...Maddie had a blast for the second time in the pop jet pool. I was able to snap some pretty great pictures.

This morning was a nice slow start as we didn't need to be anywhere till 9, and we're moving a little slower with not feeling well. We've seen a good portion of the attractions, and I think that is helping us relax a bit more and enjoy taking things in. We headed off for Animal Kingdom. And for the very first time we didn't have to wave goodbye to the bus as it drove off without us. We decided to try for 2 shows back to back, and since Maddie likes birds we took her to "Flights of Wonder" which is a bird show. Ryan and I have never seen it either.

The show was very good, the birds very active (hawks and bultures and other birds swoop right over your head) and it was actually a pretty funny show as well. Unfortunately I think Maddie just wasn't feeling well so I don't think she enjoyed it as much as she could have. She REALLY loves birds and when they were flying about she did glance at them, but she spent the majority of the show trying to crawl into my lap when I set her down and trying to crawl out of my lap when I picked her up... she wanted to be wherever she wasn't.

After Flights of Wonder we headed over to the Finding Nemo Musical. This is a new show to Animal Kingdom since we last went, so it was another new show for Ryan and I. This time it was in an air conditioned building and we got out Maddie's sticker book, so she did quite a bit better. Once the show started Maddie was a lot more interested in paying attention than the last show. The Finding Nemo Musical is 40 minutes long so having her pay attention the whole time is a pipe dream, but she did exceptionally well and really seemed to enjoy the show.

Afterwards we decided to just head out of the park and get everyone some rest. As I said before both Ryan and Maddie are feeling a bit under the weather (it is nothing serious, I think those two just get too excited at places and don't sleep well, they need a day off). We will see if we even go back into the parks today or if we just bum around the hotel for the rest of the day.

A Magical Morning

So everyone woke up bright and early at 7:15 this morning and started to get ready for the day. We ended up arriving at the park at around 8:15, about 15 minutes after it had opened. We headed straight for Fantasy land to ride some of the rides.

The first ride we did was Winnie the Pooh. Both Shalisa and I were a little concerned that Maddie would get scared during the dream sequence when the hephalumps and woozles were all around. It turns out, that was Maddie's favorite part of the ride! She was waving at herself in the mirror, pointing at the hephalumps and generally having a grand time. We ended up riding Winnie the Pooh twice, both times we were able to just walk on to the ride with no wait.

We then headed over to Peter Pan and hopped in our pirate ship for take off. Maddie never got upset during the ride, but she didn't really seem that interested on anything on that ride either. The ride is sort of dark so it is harder to see things, and it is more "realistic" than cartoony like Winnie the Pooh, so we only rode it once since Maddie didn't seem that interested.

After that we walked over to the carousel and Maddie mounted up on a horse. This was no doubt about it her favorite ride. I think she knew what was going to happen because of her previous carousel rides and she was very excited to get on the horse. We rode around once (with Goofy riding along behind us) and Maddie did not want to get off. I don't think we even had to get off (there was only like 4 people in line when the ride ended) but we decided to follow the rules and exit the ride. We then promptly got back on and let Maddie ride around once more. I am sure before the week is out we will have more trips on the carousel.

After that we looked at riding Dumbo but the line was pretty long (at least a 5 or 10 minute wait) and being the line snobs that we are (anyone that has been to Disney just chuckled at/hates me for complaining about 5-10 minute wait on Dumbo) we decided we would do it another morning when we know that it will just be a walk on ride.

So at 9:00 the rest of the park opened up so we headed down to Tomorrowland. We all jumped on Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin and took a shot at taking down the Evil Emperor Zerg. Again both Shalisa and I were surprised at how much Maddie enjoyed this ride and it is definitely something we will do again.

Once we got off Buzz I headed over to Space Mountain while Shalisa and Maddie stopped to pick up a snack and ride the Tomorrowland Transit Authority People Mover. Space Mountain was... Space Mountain. Nothing exciting (it's not my favorite ride) but I always feel obligated to ride it at least once a trip, especially since it was another walk on ride (no line). When I got off I found Shalisa as her and Maddie were just exiting the People Mover and Shalisa told me Maddie loved it and that I will have to ride it with her at a later time.

We then headed over to the Monsters Inc Laugh Factory and watched that show. It was a definitely over Maddie's head (although she did join in with clapping and raising her hands when everyone else was doing it) but as both Shalisa and I had never been to the attraction before it was a treat to do for a first time. I have heard mixed reviews of this show but Shalisa and I were in agreement that it was definitely a good show and we would recommend it.

After we exited the comedy show we headed up to Mickey's Toontown Fair and wandered around Mickey and Minnie's houses. Maddie had a fun time crawling on chairs, pushing buttons and playing around on all the houses. We spent about 20 minutes in the Toontown Fair and then headed on our way to get lunch.

We decided to eat at the Columbia Harbor house, but on our way we decided to stop at Small World figuring Maddie would like it. She didn't seem all that interested or excited about Small World, so thankfully Shalisa and I have no plans to re-ride it. We then ordered our lunch, and then headed out of the park right at 12:00. It seemed like we were the only people headed out and many people were actually still headed in. We got on the bus and while driving to our resort it just started to sprinkle on the bus window (first rain we have seen this trip) so we figured today was an excellent day to make an early exit of the park and avoid getting soaked.

Maddie is napping now and when she wakes up I think we might hit either the pool or the pop jets before heading over to Epcot. Hope everyone has a Magical Day!

Dive Quest

So I don't have a lot of pictures for this post, mainly because for a majority of the last 5 hours I was either backstage at Disney (no photo's allowed) or underwater (no underwater camera here).

Dive Quest, was in a word: AWESOME. Seriously to any divers out there that are physically able and headed to Disney World, I think I would rate this as a "must do." I was a little nervous about going, mainly because it has been a while since my last serious dive and I was handicapped (cast and all that).

The Dive instructors were great, if you have dove in the last... 10 years you should have very little problem at all. Heck, not to toot my own horn or anything but I was one of the best divers in the group, holding neutrally bouyant, using a reasonable amount of air (I had 800 lbs of air left when we were done, most everyone else was at 200 or below and one guy had to refill mid dive!) and moving through all zones of the water (most everyone ether just hugged the floor or swam an inch below the surface, I was moving all over the place in there).

I got to see a TON of fish, I was literally nose to nose (maybe a foot seperated us) from an 8 foot shark. I would have played chicken but the dive instructors told us that we weren't allowed to touch the animals so alas, I had to move out of his way... but it was pretty cool/creepy being that close to an animal of that size. I could see his teeth and everything... FUN TIMES! There were also tons of rays (one nice sting ray with about a 3 foot tail), turtles, and other numerous fish that I had no clue what they were.

Despite all that, my favorite part of the dive was actually interacting with the guests on the other side of the glass. I had an absolute blast entertaining the people. There was one little girl, probably 2 or 3 who was on the other side of the glass who seemed a bit scared of all this people floating around. I waved at her and she cautiously waved back, while hiding behind her mom. I then took out my regulator and stuck my tongue out at her, everyone on the other side of the glass started laughing real loud and she even laughed and came up to the glass to stick her tongue out at me. Then I swam over to the Coral Reef (the restaurant under the aquarium) and got to interact with several of the diners. They all seemed to love seeing the divers swim by, and I even performed a few tricks for them. I floated by while standing on my head, so I was upside down the whole time. I played peekaboo with a little boy, I turned myself upside down and then would stick my head down from the top of the glass. All in all a completely wonderful experience that I would do again in a heart beat.

After Dive Quest we had just enough time to run over the the Garden Grill in the land where we had a reservation. Something went wrong and we ended up having to wait about 40 minutes to get seated. It wasn't the worst thing in the world, but since we plan on waking up early tomorrow morning we had to eat real fast once we were seated to make sure we could leave right away so Maddie could get some sleep.

This meal was also Maddie's first "up close" encounter with a Character. Maddie seemed to LOVE the characters, as long as they were about 3 feet away. Once they got any closer and she started getting worried they were going to eat her or something and just got sorta clingy to mom. Then the character would walk away and Maddie would spend the next 5 minutes trying to crawl up the side of the booth so she could get a glimpse of them. Then she would see another character coming, get real excited, wave and smile at them, and then when they got close she shied away. She did this about 5 times, but we have heard it is actually quite common for children of her age to have that exact reaction.

Well we got back at 9 pm (a really late night for us) but the good news is that by 9:15 Maddie was conked out. We will see when she wakes up tomorrow morning, we are planning on doing the Little Ones Early Magic hour, but figure we may end up leaving the park as early as 11:00 tomorrow morning so she can get a nice long nap in.

Hope everyone has a wonderful evening, I am done with this post cause I have some episodes of Lost to get watching :p

Day 3 (and the end of Day 2)

First of all I apologize for not getting a post up last night. I would like to claim that we were kidnapped by aliens or Maddie had a terrible time sleeping or we were spending a night in the Castle, but sadly the truth is much less exciting. Shalisa and I brought along all of the episodes for the last season of Lost to watch while Maddie was sleeping, and well... Lets just say we hit a really interesting part and I didn't want to stop watching and so you my readers suffered. For that I apologize.

So to quickly recap the 2nd half of Day 2: after Maddie woke up we headed back over to Epcot. When we arrived we decided to head over to the living seas. First we rode Nemo into the living seas, which Maddie really liked. During part of the ride we hopped on the EAC (East Australia Current for you non-Nemo loving fans) which was just a big tunnel with lots of bubbles spinning on the wall. This was the only part Maddie was a little afraid of, and I think it mainly had to do with it being dark and a bit loud, but she made it just fine and then enjoyed all the fish in the Living Seas pavilion. As we were getting ready to leave we saw that Turtle Talk with Crush was just about to start so we ducked in. Maddie seemed interested at times, but as the attraction is geared around kids interacting with Crush on screen it was just a bit out of her range. Both Shalisa and I thought it was a great attraction, and if you have a 4-5 year old it could possibly be the highlight of their trip.

We then headed out to the monorail, rode it to the TTC (Ticket and Transportation Center) and then from there walked over to the Polynesian resort. There we had dinner at Ohana's. It was probably the meal I was most looking forward to besides Le Celier just because our last visit it was such a great meal. This time... meh. It wasn't "bad" but it definitely didn't live up to my expectation. I think mostly it had to do with our server, who I think was busy trying to do anything other than you know... serve us :( Oh well, one so-so meal does not a trip make and the food was still good. At least Maddie really enjoyed her hot dog (2nd one and counting) and dipping her fries into her ketchup.

After dinner we headed back to the Pop, swam in the pool for a bit, put Maddie to bed, and then episodes of Lost commenced, not the most exciting end of the day (unless you really like Lost, then in fact, it was really exciting!)

This morning Maddie woke up at her usual 7:15, I am amazed at how quickly she figured out this new time zone and is up at her usual time. It works out well though as we were able to eat breakfast, shower, get ready for the day and make Magic Kingdom for park opening.

The first thing we decided to do was get some of mom and dad's rides out of the way. Since we intend to go to "Little Ones Magic Hour" (basically the park opens an hour early only for WDW hotel guests with children under the age of 9) tomorrow morning where we will get to ride all of the Fantasy Land rides with no wait. So we headed over to do Splash Mountain first to avoid the lines later in the day. First of all I would like to state that I have broken my personal record for "lowest ride attendance on a major theme park ride while I rode it" today. I walked up the line for Splash Mountain and literally did not see another soul. I then walked into the queing area, which was completely empty except for cast members. I then jumped on a boat... I was the only person on the boat. I could only see 1 boat ahead of me, but it was completely empty, and I could see the 2 boats behind me... also completely empty. It literally felt like I was riding Splash Mountain all by myself... For comparisons sake this ride during the height of the summer season typically has a 90-120 minute wait due to lines.

I got off Splash Mountain at which point Shalisa jumped on. Sadly for her she did not get quite as empty of a boat as me. She was the only person on her boat and then at the last minute 2 other people jumped on her boat. The boat behind her was empty, but she had riders on her boat, so she isn't as cool as me :p During this whole time while Mom and Dad were riding one of us was sitting with Maddie down in "The Laughin' Place" which is a playground for little kids whose parents are riding Splash Mountain. Again Disney is so good at this stuff, they know little kids won't ride, but their parents will want to, so they provide a minor attraction within the confines of the major attraction to keep the little kids busy while the big kids are having their fun. +1 awesome points for Disney.

We headed from Splash down on over to the Jungle Cruise. Maddie really enjoyed the Jungle Cruise, pointing out all the "animals" that she saw and waving at the head hunters who were shooting blow darts at us from the shore. I don't think she quite understood they were supposed to be trying to kill her, she just thought they looked really pretty.

After Jungle Cruise we hit up Pirates of the Caribbean. Two things I want to comment on here. First of all this refurb they have done on this ride since the movies came out are REALLY cool. To start off the ride you literally drive through Davey's Jones head (which is an CG animated face projected on a cloud of mist being sprayed down through the ceiling). It's hard to explain, but trust me it's very cool and just a bit creepy (Maddie screamed at it, but I can't blame her for that one, it's a pretty trippy effect, even the 9 year olds in front of us got a bit spooked by it). Having Captain Jack "hidden" through out the ride and popping up at different places is also fun, and really takes the ride into the next century. Not that Pirates really needed an update but Disney made an already great ride even better. The other point is this ride is a LOT darker than I remember. Maddie screamed at the afore mentioned effect and then also screamed when the boat went plunging down in complete darkness. Again I can't really blame her but I do feel bad that I had forgotten that part (although I am sure I still would have taken her anyway). Overall she did great, she got a little shaken up but quickly recovered as mom and dad pointed out the kitty or the birdy or some other animatronic that arose in the next "scene" of the ride.

After pirates we jumped back to Frontierland and watched the Country Bear Jamboree. I am not a huge fan of this attraction, to me it's nothing more than a 15 minute break in an air conditioned room (although there are times when this is the single thing I want more than anything else). That being said, hands down no questions asked this so far has been Maddie's favorite attractions. She clapped and danced along with the bears, she was never startled or frightened a single time and had the wonderful look of amazement on her face during the whole show. So while dad up until now thought that the entire attraction was just a waste of valuable real estate inside the Disney park, I have rethought my position and realize just how perfect this show is for the younger kids. (Also as a side note, look at how many people are wandering around in that picture of the park, I love coming to Disney this time of year).

After the show we walked into Pecos Bill's for an early lunch. Dad had a double bacon cheeseburger with fries and a peanut butter brownie, mom had a turkey wrap with fries and a cup of yogurt, and Maddie had chicken strips with grapes and applesauce. Wasn't our best meal, but wasn't the worst either, typical park food which can hit the spot when you are hungry.

After lunch we were SUPPOSED to leave the park but mom convinced me to take Maddie on one more ride. So we walked over to Fantasyland and Maddie and I stood in line for 10 minutes for this ride. Now I have a bit of a backstory to tell here. When I was 8-9 years old my parents took my brother and I to Disneyland. We enjoyed ourselves as much as any 2 kids would enjoy themselves at Disneyland, but there was one ride I was particularly fond of. In fact, when it came time for our family to ride the Matterhorn I didn't want to ride the Matterhorn, I wanted to ride my favorite ride. My parents, like all good parents, didn't want to force us to do anything we didn't want to do and so my mom took me over to my favorite ride while my dad and brother rode the Matterhorn. This sole decision haunted me for the next 15 years as I didn't get a chance to ride the Matterhorn until Shalisa and I returned to Disneyland a few years back. You can bet your last dollar my brother taunted me ENDLESSLY that he got to see the "Abominal Snowman" while I was busy off driving my car.

Yes, Autopia, the dream of every young boy. I could think of nothing in the world I would rather do than drive around in a go-cart on a fixed track while constantly ramming into the car front of me and being rammed by the car behind me. Well Shalisa convinced me that I needed to take Maddie on Autopia here in Disneyworld. So I let her drive the car while I operated the peddles. It was pretty hot, but she really liked grabbing on to the steering wheel and moving it back and forth.

After Autopia we walked back to Adventureland, mom and dad each grabbed a dole whip float (our first of this trip, definitely not our last) and then headed out to the bus stop. A quick bus trip later we were back in the room, Maddie is sleeping, dad is blogging, and everyone is getting ready for dad to go on Divequest in a mere 2 hours. I will make sure to make a post tonight, but it will be later than usual as we have really late dinner reservations, as at 5 o'clock I intend to be somewhere underwater in the worlds largest indoor saltwater aquarium.

Day 2 - Are we having fun yet?

Not sure if you can tell from the picture or not... but I am pretty sure Maddie liked Animal Kingdom.

We took off early this morning to take advantage of the early magic hour in Animal Kingdom where visitors who are staying on property are allowed into the park 1 hour early. The first thing we did is walk over to Expedition Everest where we nabbed a fast pass ticket. We then walked from Everest over to Kiliminjaro Safari's and took Maddie on her first Animal Kingdom ride.

The animals were out in full force, we saw Hippos, Aligators, Elephants, Lions, Ostriches, Zebras, and of course Lions. Maddie was pretty enthralled with all of the animals so it was quite the successful ride.

After that we walked back over to Expedition Everest where I got to ride it for the first time. I thought it was a "good" ride, but I am not sure I could rate it as great. The technology of the track switching and what not so that it allows you to ride part of the ride backwards, part forwards (but not the same parts) is pretty cool, but overall the ride just feels like a supped up Thunder Mountain Railroad.

After Everest we walked over to "Dinoland USA." the first ride we did there was called Tricerotop Twirl. To explain it as simply as I can: it's dumbo only instead of an elephant you ride a dinosaur. Maddie seemed to enjoy the ride pretty well, I think she is still to young to grasp the concept of the joystick making the dinosaur fly higher or lower (dad did an EXCELLENT job of flying our dinosaur if I do say so myself :p). Shalisa chose not to ride, deciding instead to take pictures from the sideline. Maddie never once cried (even when the 6 year old in front of her had a complete meltdown before the ride even started and had to be carted off) and she never seemed to be afraid that mom was missing. She wasn't bored, but she never broke into a huge grin either. We will give Dumbo or Aladdin's Carpets a whirl once we get to Magic Kingdom, but perhaps those rides just aren't for her (I could think of worse lots in life than not having to ride Dumbo).

We then walked over to "The Boneyard" which is a playground themed as a large dinosaur dig site. Maddie practically ran right in and started climbing stairs on her own. Both Shalisa and I were content to hover behind her and sort of let her decide what she wanted to do. A lot of the slides were "tube" slides, which are those completely enclosed slides. I thought for sure Maddie would have little interest in going down them, and that she would be scared to be trapped.... oh how wrong I was. Maddie stuck her head in one, decide she wouldn't die, sat down and away she went down the slide. I ran down to the bottom of the slide and nabbed some pictures of her coming out the end. She really seemed to enjoy it, so much so that while mom was standing at the top of the slide, and dad was standing at the base of the slide, Maddie navigated the ramp back up to the top by herself. She was never out of our sight but it was quite the trek for her to make on her own.

After we got done exploring the dig site, crawling through caves, sliding on slides, splashing in the water fall, we headed over for lunch. We ate at Flametree BBQ (one of our favorite counter services in all of WDW). I had a half rack of BBQ ribs, a cup of baked beans, a side of onion rings a diet coke and a frozen lemonade for dessert. Shalisa had a fruit plate, a side of yogurt, a corn muffin, a slice of key lime pie and some iced tea. We didn't even use a 3rd counter service credit for Maddie since there was MORE than enough between our 2 lunches to share with Maddie. Have I mentioned how much I love the Disney Dining plan yet? After lunch we wandered through some shops, tried on a few hats, and headed out for the buses. Grabbed a bus back and Maddie is now napping. After she wakes up we are debating between going back to Epcot or finally taking the plunge into the Magic Kingdom.

On a side note, you may have noticed we have yet to actually visit the Magic Kingdom. This is intentional for 2 reasons. The main reason is this is labor day weekend and we figured it could be a bit crowded. By hitting all the other parks we hope to avoid the huge lines at MK and have the park to ourselves come tomorrow when all the kids are back in school. The other reason is we know that once we visit with Maddie, as there is SO MUCH geared for her that we won't want to go anywhere else but will end up just going to MK over and over. Not a bad thing, but we figured we should at least get SOME time in the other parks :p