Shane Willard

Today was the second day of rides. Today we were going to Magic Kingdom. KO really gets excited about all this stuff and talked a bunch of us into taking a LONG walk on the Boardwalk over to the Epcot Center where we were going to take the monorail. A walk that we all thought would take 10 minutes probably took about 30. We were all pretty winded already because the sweltering heat was kicking our trash…no t to mention the 100% humidity. Yeah, that’s right. Just before we boarded the monorail it began pour. So we ran as fast as we could to the monorail to escape the rain. On board we had a very pleasurable ride. Then we got off. There was no rain. We were happy. But then, we found out that we got off one stop too early. So, as we wandered around clueless we ended up dividing into two groups; followers of KO, and the mutinous group. They (the mutinous dissenters) ended up jumping on the monorail that takes you to the Magic Kingdom, and we ended up on the monorail that took us AWAY from Magic Kingdom. Go figure. So we rode the danged monorail until we got to Epcot. We got off, boarded another monorail and headed back….but we weren’t going to be able to stay on that monorail the whole way, so we got off again, and instead of boarding the next monorail we jumped on the ferry. Again, our morning was stolen by transportation.

Monorail Photos

We rode a few rides and then we decided to take the kids home to give them naps because, as Dolphin residents, we were entitled to stay at the theme parks 3 hours longer than everyone else. So everyone headed back to the hotel, and I went to pick up Splash Mountain Fast Passes. I wasn’t fast enough, so we ended up taking different buses back to the hotel, and I got lost. It took me 20-30 minutes LONGER than it should have for me to get back to the hotel. Oh well. Once we were back at the hotel, we slept a couple hours and started back to the park. In the mean time Tonya was having a really bad time with her neck. It was hurting her really bad. Because neck pain is a symptom of heart attacks Kelli made them call the local physician to visit her. He was to show up in another 1.5 hours. So off we went.

We weren’t enchanted with the boardwalk nor the ferry nor the monorail this time…so we boarded the bus and got to the park in about 35 minutes.

Waiting For The Bus

One thing needs to be pointed out, Heidi and Tyson seemed to be annoyed with the whole group concept so they were doing all they could to go by themselves and follow their own plan. In fact, when the whole group went back for naps they stayed at the park by themselves. Once at the Magic Kingdom we went on one ride and then Heidi and Tyson called. They wanted two of our fast passes. To make a long story short, I got mad, said some things I shouldn’t have, and caused Heidi and Tyson to hate me. Whoops. This also caused Kelli to hate me and McCall to cry. I need to learn to control my anger a little better.

The next 2 hours were VERY awkward as Kelli would not really talk to me, and all of us were on edge from the verbal fight. It finally died down though. We went on SO many rides that night because of our special privileges for being Dolphin residents. We went on Splash Mountain 3 times, some railroad ride about 3 or 4 times, 2 haunted houses, a Buzz Lightyear ride, It’s a Small World, and several others. The kids had a GREAT time, and so did the adults.

Today was our first full day at Disney World. WOW, what an adventure.

Before we took off, we all met in the lobby. Grandma Tonya had a surprise for all the kids. She gave them each $10 to spend on whatever they wanted. Boston immediately disappeared, but he didn’t go far. When we found him his head was buried in the couch and he was crying. Grandma Tonya went to get him and when she asked him what was wrong he just sobbed and said, “Grandma, you’re just too nice to me……you’re always just too nice to me.” Sweet kid.

Shortly thereafter, we decided to go to the Animal Kingdom. Because we were up so late the night before we ended up leaving the hotel a little later than we would have liked. Around 10:00 AM or so, we boarded the buses headed for Animal Kingdom when Kelli gasps and says, “Oh, shoot. I forgot Kate’s bottle.” (Now, there is only ONE bottle that Kate will eat from, so this was trama.) Our plans soon changed, and I was going to be swapping buses and heading back to the hotel so Mom and the kids could get started at the park. I was in the line to get on the first bus back to the hotel when Kelli called me on my cell phone and told me that I had all the park hopper passes and that I should hop on the next bus headed towards the Animal Kingdom so that they could get in the park. 15 minutes later when we were all at the Animal Kingdom I boarded another bus headed back to the hotel. Needless to say, our morning did not transpire according to plan. About 12:00 or 12:30 PM we finally reconnected. Funny!!

The Animal Kingdom was a lot more fun than I had expected. The only thing I missed through my travels back to the hotel was a musical play about Nemo. Kelli said it was REALLY good; it was a broadway-style musical. From there we went on various rides and watched several shows. It turns out Luci is quite a fraidy-cat. She didn’t like very many rides at all.

There were three attractions that we really enjoyed: the Bug’s Life 3D show, the Lion King’s theatrical show, and the Jungle Safari. Because we didn’t have our “Fast Pass” faces on, we ended up spending a lot more time in lines than we should have. Oh well it was still great!

So I think we actually went on the Jungle Safari before the other two attractions. The jungle safari was WAY better than I expected. The line was long, but worth standing in. Inside the ride we saw all sorts of real live animals such as: lions, tigers, ducks, flamingos, rhino’s, elephants, hippo’s, antelope, wart-hogs, wildebeests, alligators or crocs, and giraffes.

We went on a ride or two then ended up at the Lion King theatrical. This show was GREAT!!! It featured singing, dancing, trampoline gymnasium stunts, and lots of Lion King characters. Near the end of the show one of the dancers ran up into the crowd and picked Boston to help her out. He was SOOOO proud. See below.

INSERT LION KING PICS

A little later in the day we went to the Bug’s Life 3D show. It was a great show, but Luci was scared to death the whole time. It was really funny. For lunch we all sat down under a shaded picnic area and ate food from one of the nearby shops. The food was only marginal, but what did we expect? While there I found a pair of sunglasses on the other side of a fence. I lowered Boston down the other side, had him pick them up, and hoisted him back over. They were great. I wore them the rest of the day.

The Animal Kingdom closes at 8:00 PM each night, and at about 7:00 it was obvious that the majority of the patrons had left. This was best evidenced by the short lines. At one point we decided to go on a river rafting ride. A group of us went on it and since we got through SO fast we decided we could go on it a second time before our wives noticed we were gone long. Luci loved this one. We ended up going on that ride 3 times in a row. It was fabulous, but it got us all drenched. The last ride we went on was Everest Expedition. This ride was a really wonderful roller-coaster. Unfortunately, when we got off this ride and were on our way to another I realized that I had left my newly-found sunglasses on the ride. After 25 minutes of waiting for them to find the sunglasses I gave up and found the fam heading toward the bus stop. We showered the kids and slept like babies.

Today we packed up the van and hauled the kids to Grandpa KO’s work so that he could tell us all about the surprise. The kids didn’t know what was going on, but they DID know that we were going on a trip somewhere. The following video shows what happened when Grandpa broke the news to the kids.

After the kids settled down, we packed up in to the passenger van and headed to the airport. The kids were pretty good, but they didn’t really know what to expect. The flight was roughly 4 hours long, and the kids did pretty good. Sure, the coulda been better, but I think Kelli and I were both impressed with how good they were. While we were flying Boston turned to me all perplexed and said, “Dad, how far is Heaven from here?” I just told him that Heaven was straight above us.

We arrived in Florida at about midnight Eastern. As we were waiting to check in Boston said, “I love this hotel!!! I wanna stay here forever!!!” We checked in to the hotel and ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz…..