Back to reality

Friday was our last day at Disney so we packed up our things and checked out.   We parted ways with Mom and Dad, who went over to the Animal Kingdom Lodge to check it out and eat lunch.  We went back to the Magic Kingdom one last time to see if there was any magic we might have missed on the previous day.  When we got there, they were having a show in front of the castle so we stopped and watched for a bit.

People had just stopped where they were to watch and I noticed that there was plenty of space over on the side, so we walked over there and were able to get up really close.  During the week, I came to the realization that I am one of "those" people at Disney who gets into the whole spirit of the place.  During the show, Maleficent showed up and was about to ruin everything so Mickey told us to chant, "Dreams come true!" and we could defeat her.  Guess who chanted along with Mickey?  Really loudly, I might add.  I thought maybe it would make Maggie get into it too, but no.  Also, she is sitting on my shoulders in the above picture.  She is heavy.

I was trying to get a nice shot of Maggie and David in front of the castle

but Mags was not cooperating.

This was the best I could do.

As an aside, I am not sure if my expectations of Maggie were too high for the trip or if she was sicker than we thought.  Sometimes I lost my patience with her and she really made me mad sometimes.  Of course, it did not help that she had 2 doting grandparents there who were much more accepting of her attitude at times.  This is not to say that we didn't have a good time because we had a GREAT time.  I learned a little more about Maggie's personality this week though and I will admit, there are some aspects of it that I'm not crazy about.  She is really good at the sullen, quiet sulk and she really knows what pushes my buttons.  She would get mad or bent out of shape about something and would quit making eye contact and not say anything and UGH!  She KNEW how mad I was getting, too.  My mom really loves it when Maggie makes me mad, too.  Anyway.  I predict fun times when she's a teenager.

We headed over to the Tomorrowland Speedway and the longer we waited in line, the more excited Maggie got.  She couldn't wait to drive her own racecar!  I rode with her so I could push the accelerator and she wanted to steer.  Well, as you can see from the above picture, she could hardly see over the top of the car, much less the steering wheel.  I don't remember the last time I laughed that hard.  As you know, the car is on a metal track and we were whipping back and forth because she couldn't see and it looked like she was about to fly out the side of the car.  I helped her with the steering after that.  David was driving in front of us and kept stopping so he could take pictures and Maggie kept yelling, "Dude!  You are a bad driver!  Go, Daddy!"  HEE.

After our excitement at the race track, we rode on the People Mover again, which now has a newfangled name, the Tomorrowland Transit Authority.  Whatever.  It will always be the Wedway People Mover to me.  Then David dragged us over to Carousel of Progress.  Something happened at one point and we got stuck between two eras so we could hear both sets of dialogue.  Nice.  It really is a great big beautiful tomorrow, though.  Heh.  We rode something else, but I cannot remember what it was at this time.

After we ate lunch, we went into Mickey's Toontown Fair, which is this area for little kids where they can walk through  Mickey and Minnie's houses and they have a baby rollercoaster (the wait was 50 minutes or we totally would have gone on it) and stuff like that.  There was a humongous line to meet the Disney Fairies (Tinkerbell, etc) but a relatively short one for the Princesses, so we thought we'd visit them again.

After we waited in line behind this man who was so engrossed in the video of Cinderella that he didn't move forward after the line moved WAY up, we were ushered into a room with 4 other little girls and their parents.  We received an audience with the princesses!  Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Belle were there for us to visit.

Maggie was quite happy to chat with Sleeping Beauty.

I think it's the pink dress.

She did NOT want to meet with Cinderella again.

I'm sorry David didn't catch a picture of me

dragging Maggie over to see her.

Here's who Maggie REALLY wanted to see.

Cinderella, you're done!

Maggie loves her some Belle.

I was kind of done at that point and I knew we had a long drive ahead of us, so we walked back up towards the front of the park, did a little shopping on the way out and headed for home. 

Our trip really was SUPER fun and I don't know that I would change a thing about it.  All the researching and work that Mom and I did paid off.  I will be the first to admit that I am not a fan of planning ahead nor researching stuff.  (Another reason I will never EVER go back to school).  This is mainly because I am LAZY.  But knowing that this vacation would be much smoother if we were prepared, I did my work.

Here's what we did and I will elaborate on anything if you're interested.  First of all, my mom bought this online book that I can't remember the title of, but it was very helpful.   We bought points from a Disney Vacation Club owner so we were able to stay at a really nice resort (Old Key West) in a 2 bedroom condo that had a full kitchen and washer and dryer, and it wasn't ridiculously expensive.  Because not only am I lazy, I'm also cheap.  I can explain how to buy points from a DVC owner too.  It wasn't hard to figure out, I promise.  

We used this book, The Unofficial Guide to Disney World

which was enormously helpful.  It gave all kinds of reviews of the different resorts, maps, menus, and reviews of every single ride at all of the parks.  It also listed which rides might potentially be scary for little kids, which as you know from previous posts, we did not heed.  It also had these pull out guides in the back that listed touring plans of the parks.  My mom was all ready to use those but that was just a LITTLE too much planning for me.  Glenna, if you want my copy, email me your address and I'll send it to you!

We also used the Disney Dining Plan, which allotted each person in our group 1 table service meal (sit down meal), 1 counter service meal (like fast food) and 1 snack per day that we were there.  However, you can use those credits in any order you want to, so technically, you could eat 3 table service meals in a day if you wanted to.  The receipts show how many credits you have every time you purchase something.  At the end of the week, we had 6 snack credits and 1 counter service meal left over.  We got a sandwich to take in the car with us and we went to Goofy's Candy Co. and used up the rest of our snacks on treats for the ride home.  I cannot say enough about the DDP.  Most of our table service meals were at least $30 a person and the DDP is $39.99/day. ($10.99/day for Maggie)  Well, worth it, in my opinion.  At the end of the week, the only things we had to pay out of pocket for were tips and any shopping that we did.

We ordered our tickets through Maple Leaf Tickets which was cheaper than getting them through Disney or even AAA.  Plus, when we bought 4 day park hopper tickets, we got an extra day free!  Maggie is really good about sleeping in her stroller but with the park hopper tickets, you could easily go back to the resort/hotel in the afternoon for naps and then go to a different park at night.  I could have used a nap a couple of days while we were there.

Finally, I was one of those moms who totally didn't want her daughter to be into the Disney princesses.  Not because I thought that things don't really end happily ever after but I guess it was more buying into the marketing of it.  I don't know.  It sounds REALLY stupid when I type it but let me tell you, when I saw the look on Maggie's face when she saw Cinderella and Snow White in REAL LIFE, I didn't care.  It was magical.  Really.   I'll never forget it.

So, with that, our trip came to an end and now we are preparing for the daily grind tomorrow. Blech.  Incidentally, I came face to face with one of my students in the line on Test Track at Epcot, which was kind of awesome.  I'll share some more about our trip later, if any of you are interested.  Maybe I should be a travel agent instead of a teacher.