DAY 8 – Ian’s birthday, Magic Kingdom, Flight home – 16,547 steps

This morning, Sean and I woke early to pack the suitcases. Neither of us believed we’d actually fit all of the things that had been purchased in our suitcases, so we had asked about shipping options. Apparently there weren’t any immediately available. There might be a few places that would ship starting at 9 in the morning, which was too late to accommodate our plans. We were sweating it a bit.

Cinderella’s Castle decorated for Walt Disney World’s 50th anniversary.

We started pulling out a pile of stuff that could go in the trash instead of in our suitcase. I hate the waste, but it’s the best we could do at the time. I neatly folded all our dirty clothes and collected up our belonging and made a suitcase and stuff fortress around Sean so he could work through packing logistics. It took the better part of an hour, I think, but he managed to fit very nearly everything in our suitcases … even the things that were in the expendable pile. [Sean: Normally I just lay folded clothes flat in a suitcase but if you really need to maximize room I suggest unfolding them and rolling them tightly.  You will fit more stuff this way.]

While he was doing all that, I was ensuring kids were dressed and their backpacks were packed for the airport later. And we were both checking and rechecking the room for items we might have left. Everything accounted for, we left our bags at the hotel and walked over to Magic Kingdom for our final day at Disney.

Cinderella

For Ian’s birthday, given his love of Disney princesses, Sean booked a special breakfast at Cinderella’s Royal Table, the restaurant inside Cinderella’s Castle. Through a series of delays, we were cutting it very, very close when we finally walked up to the castle, but we made it. The six of us were seated. Trays of pastries and drinks were delivered. Food starting making its way out. And Cinderella herself walked about for a socially distanced visit with the restaurant patrons.

Big sister helping out her little brother

I know Ian was excited about seeing her, but I think because there was a crowd and she kept her distance, he didn’t realize he could interact with her beyond a cheerful little wave. When she came through a second time, Maya decided to help Ian out. She stood up and got Cinderella’s attention and explained that it was her brother’s birthday. I think he was still a little overwhelmed by the experience and I don’t think he could hear her very well, but he at least got to chat with her a little bit.

While eating, we were all given cards from Cinderella and special sparkly wishing stars. On the way out of the castle, the kids were each given the option of a sword or a wand. Naturally, our bloodthirsty children both chose swords.

The castle was well-decorated.

Since it was Ian’s birthday, we let him choose which ride he’d like to go on first. He selected his favorite from our first day there – Splash Mountain. After waiting in line and discussing seating arrangements, we loaded onto the boats and got going. We were right in the thick of loud singing and animatronic mayhem, maybe a third of the way through the ride, when it stopped – the ride, not the music.

We had been on a number of rides at this point where we heard the “sorry for the delay” type announcement only to have the ride restart a moment later, so we weren’t overly fussed. This time though, the wait went on and on. Maya had told us earlier in the line that she had to use the bathroom, but we didn’t have an option to take her without giving up our line position. With this delay in the WATER RIDE, she was starting to get pretty squirmy. I didn’t mind the breaking down so much – these things happen. But the attendants that walked through asking if anyone was having any medical issues were really good at not making any kind of eye contact or acknowledging a polite “excuse me.” I think it was on their third time through that I had had enough. I was all but standing in my seat waving my arms around, hell-bent on getting someone’s attention so we could get our kid to a bathroom.

After initially telling us we’d have no choice but to sit and wait, they eventually evacuated us. Maybe they were going to anyway, I don’t know. Or maybe my pushiness got our kid to the bathroom a little more quickly. They had given us passes to ride the ride once it was back to functioning, but it remained out of service for the remainder of our time that day. [Sean: They were definitely not going to evacuate us when they did.  That was all April and her momma bearedness.  Disney has an order to evacuating and it doesn’t typically start from the middle.]

The most magical place on earth

At this point, we were kind of stuck. Do we let Ian make another choice since his birthday choice was a bust? Or do we let Maya make a choice since she hadn’t gotten to pick yet? We probably only had enough time for one more big ride, given that we had a schedule to keep. Eventually, we landed on splitting up. Sean and Lolli took Maya to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad again, and Pop and I took Ian over to Space Mountain for another ride.

[Sean: In the video below, if you can ignore the boy in front of us who was terrified, you can hear Maya giggle at points in time.  She was having a blast. Still, she instinctively drops here arms every time we go through a tunnel.]

Big Thunder Mountain went according to plan, but Space Mountain’s 60 minute line took more like an hour and a half. Little Dude was having absolutely zero luck today! We did at least eventually get to ride it. He was happy, and then we high-tailed it across the park to make our lunch reservation at The Plaza Restaurant. Sean was able to get a Monte Cristo sandwich, which I think was another item on his hit list. They also have a giant sundae, which Maya had spotted and requested. But after yesterday’s cookies and the day before that’s ice cream sandwich feast, we were a little over the massive sugar intake portion of our trip. [Sean: Yes, the Monte Cristo was on my list but I booked The Plaza because I planned to get the giant sundae for Ian’s birthday but no one, other than Maya, looked up to tackling it.]

RIP, Mr Toad’s Wild Ride

Since Lolli and Pop had a long drive ahead of them, they took their leave after lunch. The kids really, really enjoyed the fact that they were there for part of the trip. It provided them a little lift just when they were starting to wear out on the less fun aspects of a Disney vacation. Lolli and Pop had been to Disney with their other grandkids and were wanting to go one more time so they could go with our kids as well before calling it a day on their Disney adventures. And it took nearly two years for it to finally happen.

Grim grinning ghosts. And me with my eyes closed!

After Lolli and Pop left, since Splash Mountain was still broken down, we used the lightning lane passes we’d been given to ride Haunted Mansion one more time instead. Maya and Ian decided that they would like to ride together! This worked out well because for whatever reason, the ride photo of me and Sean hadn’t shown up in our photos from the park. We were happy to have another chance. I do not have the knack for being photo-ready most of the time, and that caught us this time as well. Oh well.

Bye bye, Disney. Bye bye Disney Magic.

We had a few more photos taken on our way out, and then we had to collect our bags and head to the airport. The Magical Express got us to the airport in plenty of time. The line to check bags was absolutely insane, the security line marginally less so. But none of that really mattered because our flight was delayed about an hour and a half. We were already traveling pretty late so we could get a nice direct flight, and this pushed us even later. In the end though, that delayed flight was our only real hiccup, and we made it home just fine.

I have conflicting thoughts about our trip. Sean is an absolute Disney fanatic. Taking his kids to Walt Disney World is something he has wanted to do for quite a long time. And then this stupid pandemic happened, and we kept having to cancel our trip. Because we had wanted to go for so long and because we were going at Christmas time, which is pretty special, we were a little splurgy on this trip, when the trip itself is already kind of a splurge to begin with. Discounts that could be counted on in a pre-COVID environment never materialized. Disney’s renowned wonderful customer service has been hindered by cost-cutting measures and COVID-era policies. The value for money is a tough one for me.

Still, we loved our trip. We did and saw so many amazing things, and it was still all pretty magical for the kids. Park and hotel staff were always friendly (or in-character unfriendly), and tried to be accommodating within corporate limits. Because we had been stuck delaying the trip, Ian was now tall enough to ride everything he might want to ride, and he loved it! We rode banshees. We piloted the Millennium Falcon. We conquered mountains. We went to China and Mars and Pandora. We watched fireworks from our hotel balcony.

Like all parents, we had a hard time balancing all the things we wanted to do and see against the wishes and needs of our kids. Things I generally didn’t write much about were all the times I offered a bathroom stop only to have a kid ask for one ten minutes later when we had lined up for a ride. Missing are the dozens upon dozens of times someone asked to go to a shop, wanted to stop and trade pins, or wanted to buy a squished penny. They were bored in line, bored standing at shows, oh and also, their feet hurt. These are all normal things, but they wore at the adults after a while. And even though we did so many spectacular things, I think Sean wound up feeling a bit disappointed at the stuff we missed. As the trip planner, he had a wonderful view of all the things we could have seen; I was fortunate to mostly be unaware.

[Sean: By and large the trip was spectacular.  I lament that some things have not aged as well in real life as they have in my memory. I am looking at you Country Bears.  Some things have been stripped of the magic they once had. Disney at least had sense to bring Figment back but what’s become of the Imagination Pavilion is shameful.  There were times where the kids just didn’t seem to get what they were experiencing was phenomenal (Joe Rohde is a genius). But then they turn around and ask if you in all earnestness if they really just went to space and you say yes because that is just how powerful the magic is.]

But Maya and Ian did a great job waking up and going in the morning. They stuck it out all day long, and those step counts at the top of my posts are adult steps (albeit a short adult), not kid steps. When Sean told them to try and approach things differently (look around, see the scenery, hear the songs, there are stories to go with these rides), they legitimately tried to do so. Lolli and Pop probably see the kids through rose-colored glasses, but they even let us know they thought Maya and Ian did great. It was just a long week for all of us.

There are probably solutions to all these things. If we went more frequently, we could go for less time and focus on only a park or two and maybe not stay at the swankest place since it wouldn’t be a giant, long-awaited special occasion. The kids will constantly be growing and becoming better able to manage their own bodies and their own expectations. Sean will eventually complete the brainwashing and pull me fully into the Disney-verse. In the meantime, in writing up our adventures and focusing on all the fun we had, I’m feeling comfortable that we provided a good vacation for our family.

Day 7 – EPCOT – 20,948 steps

After such an epic day yesterday, we were intentionally moving a little more slowly today. We eventually roused ourselves for our 8:30 breakfast reservation at Kona Cafe. We took the monorail over to the Polynesian Village Resort again and without much wait at all, we walked in and were seated.

Macadamia nut pancakes at Kona Cafe

Sean *needed* to come here for Macadamia Nut Pancakes. Maya had to try out their Tonga Toast. (I have made a version of Tonga Toast at home, so she wanted to see how the real thing compared, I think.) I wound up choosing a biscuits and gravy special, and Lolli and Pop found plant-based options that suited them. I won’t lie – it was a really good breakfast.

The kids had been begging to play in one of the big inviting resort pools ever since we had arrived over at Pop Century back on day one. We finally let them. Maya, Ian, and Lolli got suited up to go play in the big pool at the Contemporary. There were fountains (that they got yelled at for touching). There was a waterslide (that they only rode a time or two before it was closed for unknown reasons). But still and all, I think they enjoyed their time not standing in line and not following some grown-up’s agenda.

The whole family at Test Track

After a good long swim, we got dressed and boarded the monorail to EPCOT. This would be our day for spending some time in the world showcase part of the park, but first, at the kids’ request, we did Test Track again. Maya and Ian loved the idea of designing their own cars. Ian wants his car to be as fast and powerful as possible, and so his design choices reflect that. Maya worked out that she had no interest in competing with him on speed. She instead decided to make her car as efficient as possible. It fits in nicely with her desire to clean the oceans and not destroy birds’ habitats and her general good conservation wishes.

And so, with their vehicle designs set, they again test drove their vehicle. As before, we’re all in the same car, so speed and handling don’t change – the ride is the ride – but the kids can check the readout afterward to see how well they did.  Maya may have been the top runner for efficiency. And I think Ian was first or second for speed. They were thrilled, so thrilled in fact that they begged us to buy them these little cards that showed their vehicle designs and stats. Understand that we were at the tail end of a trip chock full of things they wanted, and so we said no. Lucky for them, Lolli and Pop got the cards for them, and they were very happy.

Then we started working our way through the world showcase. To keep the kids semi-engaged, we started them in collecting Kidcot cards and stickers. There’s a card and sticker for each of the 11 countries in the showcase, and there’s a little Kidcot stop hidden away somewhere in each pavilion. The cards have a little picture to color on one side and a little fact about the country on the other and a space for them to stick their sticker. At the beginning, the kids were issued little plastic bags equipped with paper suitcase handles so they could keep their cards together. If they collected all 11, they could get a special surprise, which turned out to be a postcard proclaiming that they had traveled the world. If nothing else, it gave them something to look forward to as we entered each new land.

We started our journey in Mexico, where the kids created their own digital dia de los muertos skulls reminiscent of what they saw in the movie Coco. Sean and I tried a couple of snacks: a tostada de chorizo and a tamal de barbacoa. I helped mine along with a horchata margarita. To feed the kids and Lolli and Pop, we walked over to La Cantina de San Angel where Maya and Ian had – you’ll never guess – chicken fingers again!

Garden Railway – Germany Pavilion

In some areas we lingered, in others, we more or less collected our Kidcot card and sticker, looked around a bit, and moved on. Norway, we had mostly seen on our visit to EPCOT earlier in the week. In China, we had our photo taken. We might have liked to walk around more but the kids were soooo booooored. In Germany, we had fun watching an extremely elaborate miniature railroad and village called the Garden Railway.

In Germany also, we partook of our next cookie on the Holiday Cookie Stroll. At EPCOT, you could purchase five different holiday cookies in various “countries” and if you wound up getting all five, you were given a special “completer” treat. We had started this stroll earlier in the week by getting a whopping one cookie to share – a Black and White Cookie around France and Morocco. Today in Germany, we picked up a Linzer Cookie to share.

La Befana

In Italy, we stopped to listen to the storyteller there. Where France had had Pere Noel. Italy had the witch La Befana. She was great – a captivating teller of tales. Unfortunately, our antsy pants kids were not in the mood to stand there an listen to a lady tell stories, so we didn’t get to stay as long as we might have liked.

A gingerbread “house” of The American Adventure building!

Our next stop around the world was our own country! We went into The American Adventure building, and browsed a bit. The most arresting thing inside though, were the three gingerbread houses, if you can even call them that. One represented the Lincoln Memorial. Another was The American Adventure itself. And a third showed the Martin Luther King, Jr memorial. I’m told that everything you see in those glass cases is edible. All the trees, the rocks, the foundations – everything.

Outside the building, we stopped in and picked up our next Holiday Cookie Stroll treat – this time a chocolate crinkle cookie. I know it seems like we’re eating a lot of cookies, but we would buy a single cookie and then split it four ways. It’s not nearly at gluttonous that way.

Japan Pavilion

At Japan, we stopped and watched Matsuriza, a demonstration of traditional Japanese Taiko drumming. Again the kids were fidgety just standing and watching, but I think this performance was interesting enough that they were at least semi-engaged. We also made a stop back at Mitsukoshi to examine all the neat Japanese foods and toys and things. Apparently Mitsukoshi established its first store in Tokyo in 1673, so this probably shouldn’t be taken as Disney’s *version* of a Japanese department store. This is the real deal. I might have liked to browse more, but keeping the kids out of trouble in a store full of unique goodies feels like a full time job.

In Morocco and France, we mostly wandered around and gawked and picked up the Kidcot stuff. Around the UK and Canada pavilions, we partook of another Holiday Cookie Stroll treat – a snickerdoodle that featured chunks of Snickers bars. Sean and the kids mostly had that one.

The holiday displays were often very interesting.

By this point, the kids were looking for something more action-packed than a cookie or a show, so we went back to Mission: SPACE to try out the Orange version of the ride. For this version of the ride, you’re going to Mars rather than orbiting the earth. It was definitely more intense, to the point that I’m not 100% sure I enjoyed it. I found the experience fascinating, to be certain. The kids seemed to really like it though, so maybe I’ve just aged out of having those sorts of forces applied to my body as a means for having fun.

We also wanted to try out the Soarin’ Around the World ride one more time, and attempt to score seats in the center carriage and maybe at the top where we wouldn’t see dangling feet. Once we made it toward the front, Sean kindly asked the ride operator to hook us up, and she informed us that we would want to be in the B1 group. File that away for future reference. The pyramids had no weird curvature, and there were no limbs dangling down to muddy the illusion that we were soaring through the air. If nothing else, it was a wonderful break for tired feet and bodies after another long day. [Sean: It’s said that everyone’s mother loves Soarin’.  I don’t know if everyone’s mom does, but Lolli does and that is why I included it even though we had already ridden it previously.]

Woodses in front of the Christmas tree at EPCOT

At this point, Lolli and Pop decided to call it a night. We had a few more things to do though. We had one more item to get to complete the Holiday Cookie Stroll – the Gingerbread Cookie, which the kids mostly took down without any help from their parents. Our completer cookie was of course a celebration of Walt Disney World’s 50th anniversary, and while it was lovely, we decided we’d had quite enough cookies today and would save that one for later.

We saved this one till we were in the airport waiting to go home

We also wanted to grab a few more photos around the park, since it was our last day there. Try as we might, we couldn’t beg, plead, or threaten our kids into compliance, so there are a wide range of emotions expressed in those evening photos, I’m afraid. [Sean: Fear not, these photos won’t be wasted.  The kids will eventually begin bringing friends and significant others over to the house and these photos will have their moment to shine.]

We ended our evening by watching the Beacon of Magic at EPCOT – a lovely light and sound display at Spaceship Earth. The “big EPCOT ball” shimmered and strobed, changed into a giant globe, a giant snowflake, a giant rainbow. It was pretty neat to watch.

Beacon of Light at EPCOT

As we were heading back to take the monorail back to our hotel, it occurred to us that we hadn’t had any real food yet, so again, we ordered pizza at the hotel. It was just too handy to be able to laying out things for packing. As the kids were getting nestled into bed, Maya pointed out that she was about to get to see fireworks from the hotel room again. Alas, that tired child fell asleep just before they started.

Sean and I were insanely tired also. Given that, we did as much prep as we could, but ultimately left the majority of the packing for our flight home till the next morning. This was not a bad choice. Our brains were mush and there were a lot of things to account for.

[Sean: An astute and thorough reader will have noted we didn’t see Harmonious nor did we see Disney Enchantment.  While I would have liked to have seen these shows you have to pick your battles.]

DAY 6 – Magic Kingdom – 24,972 steps

The really wonderful thing about staying at the Contemporary, is that we could just walk over to the Magic Kingdom. Bright and early, the six of us gathered up in the hotel lobby and made our way over for rope drop.

Woodses at the Magic Kingdom

We rushed right to the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and got ourselves in line. The wait wasn’t too awful by Disney standards, and there was a lot of neat theming along the way. Maya and Ian were especially enamored with the Dwarfs’ giant cache of jewels.

Look at those jewels!

The ride itself was nice enough. It is part roller coaster, part dark ride, and I think for my part, I wished for more excitement out of the roller-coaster parts. Sean commented that the ride car kind of swings as you round corners, it makes for such a smooth ride, that you don’t feel the same forces you would feel while riding a more standard coaster. At any rate, it was sufficiently fun, and the kids seemed to enjoy themselves.

From there, we went to Space Mountain, and oldie but a goodie. Much energy was spent, mostly by the kids, deciding how we would group ourselves up to ride each ride. Maya and Ian bickered over who got to ride with Lolli and who got to ride with Pop, just like they had bickered over who their parent ride partner would be for the previous portion of the trip. With ride arrangements made, we road single-file through the darkness of Outer Space. That’s the neat thing about this coaster. Because you cannot see what’s coming, it feels kind of exciting, even though its top speed is only something like 27 miles per hour, which is straight up pokey by thrill ride standards.

That cinnamon roll should have fed two people

Meals while in Disney, but especially on this particular day, were sort of uncoupled from normal meal times and often were referred to as “time to eat” rather than something so specific as “breakfast.” After getting a couple rides under our collective belt, it was time to eat. We took the kids to Gaston’s Tavern for an absolutely enormous cinnamon roll (with extra icing) and a LeFou’s Brew, which is (according to the menu) a slightly toasted marshmallow flavored frozen apple juice topped with passion fruit-mango foam. I remember the kids both liking it. Maya, being Maya, ate her entire cinnamon roll. It was insane. Ian made a valiant effort, but I think Sean wound up helping him with it. [Sean: I did help him with it. Gaston’s cinnamon roll’s have a butterscotch sauce on them and while I like butterscotch I didn’t care for it on my cinnamon roll.]

Sean meanwhile went by Friar’s Nook and fetched a cold brew coffee for me and an order of sausage and gravy tots for the two of us to share. It was bliss. I could consume the iced coffee (which was unmarred by cream or sugar) quickly enough for it to not be a hindrance to our future ride plans. The food was delicious and just filling enough that I didn’t walk out feeling uncomfortable. It was a good start.

Next, we went to ride Peter Pan’s Flight. This is an older dark ride. After climbing aboard a pirate ship, you ride gently through scenes from the Peter Pan Disney movie. You start out flying over London before eventually making it to Neverland. [Sean: April caught herself singing the music to this ride a few days after our return.]

We followed this up with a ride through the It’s a Small World attraction. This is the colorful, multicultural fever dream of a ride that people seem to either love or hate … or maybe tolerate. Little dolls sing and dance in costumes and scenes representative of their various homelands. All the lands are united by the song, “It’s a Small World After All,” and I won’t lie, while I appreciate the craftsmanship that went into the ride, I was pretty all done with that song by the end of it.

Maya and Lolli and their hitchhiking ghosts

After an uplifting song of unity, it was time to go visit the Haunted Mansion. This is one of Sean’s favorites, registering high on the nostalgia-meter for him. It was fun watching the kids as we made our way through the line and the introductory parts of the attraction. You could see their mounting sense of apprehension. Neither would admit to being more than a little nervous, but I think they were.

Pop and Ian and their hitchhiking ghosts

The ride itself is quite tame. After starting your journey in a room that stretches and a spooky narrator (your “ghost host”) tells you about the place, you board your doom buggy and it careens you through various haunts. We saw Madam Leota’s head in a crystal ball, the ghostly dining room, and the black widow bride. I watched a special recently about this ride, and they talked about the push-pull between wanting to make the ride scary or funny. In the end, they did both. The first part of the ride is all gloomy scenes and a sense of foreboding. Then you burst into a graveyard party fully of grim grinning ghosts. It’s a riotous and lively turn. This ride is so weird, and I just love the fact that it exists at all in a world so fully populated by princesses and friendly cartoon characters. As your ghost host tells you, beware of hitchhiking ghosts. [Sean: I lament that Disney can’t/won’t see past their own intellectual property these days and create engaging rides that aren’t set in one of their movies.]

Ian’s more standard approach to trying to remove Excalibur from the stone.

The kids wanted to ride the carousel, and other than one of the horses evidently belonging to Cinderella herself, it was pretty much just like any other carousel. [Sean: It is however over 100 years old, having been originally built in 1917 and bought for Walt Disney World in 1967.]

Maya decided she needed more leverage. Alas, she too was unsuccessful.

The Mickey’s PhilharMagic show was more fun than I had been expecting. It was a 3D show, so we were all given “opera glasses” at the start. Poor Donald Duck, who has a knack for getting himself into trouble, decides to put on Mickey’s sorcerer’s hat and of course, things go sideways. He finds himself inserted into various animated sequences he has no business in (swimming with the Little Mermaid, for example). Maya and Ian were delighted with the show. The 3D effects had them grabbing for things that weren’t there, but then immersive little details like aromas and squirts of water had the kids yelping with glee. [Sean: Magic Journeys, RIP.]

Ian and Maya were ready to ride another ride, and even though we had dosed both Sean and Maya with Dramamine, Sean and Helen decided to sit out the Mad Tea Party which is an Alice in Wonderland inspired teacup ride. The remaining four of us squished into a teacup and let her rip though. The kids seemed to have fun, and no one barfed, so I guess we did ok.

Cheshire Cat

We disembarked to find that Sean had purchased another item from his must-have snack list: a Cheshire Cat Tail from the Cheshire Cafe. Ian wasn’t a fan of the tail (it’s kind of a doughnut texture, and he doesn’t really eat doughnuts) and I was still full from breakfast, so Sean and Maya largely took care of them.

We stopped in to let the kids race cars around the Tomorrowland Speedway. Ian drove Pop around, Maya drove with Lolli, and Sean was my chauffeur as always. The kids got to experience a slight sense of control since their gas pedal did function, within limits, and I think they enjoy that sort of thing.

Obviously better than regular ice cream

Because Ian didn’t really have a treat earlier when everyone else was enjoying their Cheshire Cat tails, he had a Mickey Mouse shaped ice cream. And then we cleaned up to ride Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress. In this one, the theater revolves around four scenes displaying different generations of a particular family enjoying the technological advancements of their particular eras. All of it is underscored by the song, “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow.” On one hand, I think the kids thought the show was boring. On the other hand, I have routinely caught Ian singing that catchy little tune ever since. [Sean: The song is written by the Sherman brother’s who are responsible for many of the songs in Walt Disney World, including It’s a Small World and the Tiki Tiki Tiki Room.  They had a real knack for writing catchy songs that stick with you long after you have left the park.  It turns out that most of my childhood favorites revolve around attractions with catchy tunes.]

We took a spin on the Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover. This slow-moving elevated tram gave us a good tour of Tomorrowland. Again, I think the kids were sort of disenchanted with the lack of “thrill” in their ride.

Sonny Eclipse and his astro-organ

Lolli and Pop keep to a fairly special diet, and so they hadn’t been partaking in all the sugar-, salt-, and fat-laden foods that we’d been consuming all morning. Instead we stopped at Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe to find something more befitting their normal eating habits. While there, we got an order of chicken fingers for the kids to split as well to carry them through to our too-early-for-dinner, too-late-for-lunch restaurant reservation later on. As everyone ate, Sonny Eclipse played his astro-organ and sang us some tunes.

Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin was our next destination. This was another target shooting ride. Sean and I wound up riding this one together, and I have to say, I think this one is more fun with a kid in the car with you. [Sean: I had a blast. I have no idea what April is talking about.]

Maya having fun with Disney photo filters

At this point, we needed to get over to the Polynesian Village Resort to line up in time to maybe get a seat inside Trader Sam’s Grog Grotto for some fun tiki drinks. We hoofed it over to the monorail stop and waited. And waited and waited. Eventually we were told the monorail was down and we’d need to go line up to take the ferry boat over to the resort instead. We dutifully hauled ourselves into that line and waited and waited. While we were waiting, it seemed that the monorail had resumed service. Sigh. Once we finally boarded the ferry boat, gotten to the right resort, and gotten ourselves into the building, Trader Sam’s was already at capacity.

‘Ohana

Instead, we puttered in the lobby till our 4p dinner(?) reservation at ‘Ohana. This was one of the best meals of our trip. Sean and I started our meal with fallback cocktails (since we hadn’t gotten to try any at Trader Sam’s). They were divine! And they were huge! Our waiter called all of us “cousin” and was as patient with our children as a person can be. Our salad had a lilikoi dressing and the breads were very flavorful. Pot stickers and noodles and chicken wings came next and believe it or not, the noodles were the star of the show. Next, we were served chicken with chimichurri sauce, peel and eat shrimp, and teriyaki beef. All of it was good, but the shrimp were the best. I think that’s mostly what Maya wound up eating for her dinner (since she so thoroughly hates grilled food). I was dying by then, but wasn’t quite dead enough to not at least nibble at the most divine bread pudding I may have ever tasted. [Sean: It’s all you can eat and after 2 refreshes of the noodles I was uncomfortably full. They really were that good. I still ate most of the bread pudding because it was incredible.]

We had a little time before we needed to head back to Magic Kingdom for the Disney Very Merriest After Hours holiday celebration, so we took the monorail back to our hotel to change clothes and unwind a little. It felt like it wasn’t very long at all till we were all back on our feet and walking back to Magic Kingdom for the evening’s festivities.

“Jingle” Cruise – the holiday overlay for Jungle Cruise

We started our evening by grabbing a few photos and then riding the Jungle Cruise, which, with its holiday overlay applied, became the “Jingle” Cruise. Our guide was hilarious – full of the puns and holiday humor. It was maybe a little hard to see all the animatronic jungle life in the dark, but the sparkles and Christmas lights made up for it.

Because the kids are bananas for the thrill rides, we next went and rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad again. This one was actually pretty fun to ride at night, with the park all illuminated, especially for the holidays.

Maya and Ian with Tinker Bell

From there, it was officially party time. After being asked to show our wrist bands about a jillion times, we made our way to Pinocchio Village Haus for some hot cocoa and cookies. After this, the kids – Maya especially – begged to ride the carousel again. I think Ian was into it because it would give him another chance to ride Cinderella’s horse. Alas a couple of twenty-something women apparently barreled ahead the moment they opened the gate and got to the horse before Ian could.

Even before the carousel, the kids were single-mindedly focused on getting more Mickey Mouse ice cream bars, especially Maya who hadn’t had a chance to have one yet that day. But we kept having to put it off to make different scheduled events. The first of these was the Mickey & Minnie’s Very Merry Memories show. It was a signing, dancing, caroling stage show right in front of Cinderella’s castle. Despite having to stand there and watch, the kids did seem to enjoy it. Maya sang a little, Ian danced a lot. Clarabelle Cow was the sequin-bedecked diva unveiled toward the end of the show.

They don’t do anything halfway

Almost as soon as the show was over, we turned around and got ourselves into position for the big draw: Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmastime Parade. By now, the kids were apoplectic about their lack of Mickey Mouse Ice Cream bars, and so once Sean had us parked, he went to find them some. Unbeknownst to us, Lolli and Pop had gone out to find some as well. It was the most wonderful time of the year for Maya and Ian because between Mickey Mouse ice creams and ice cream sandwiches and pop corn besides, they had all the junk food they could handle, and more.

Christmas parade!

The parade was actually really, really neat. Sean took video of it, and managed to save me a few screen captures from it. It’s a good thing too, I didn’t realize he was taking video only and that no one was taking still photos. Characters galore waved at the crowd as they passed by. Santa came through. Giant nutcrackers in heavy wooden shoes clop clopped down the street. It was pretty amazing to see.

Tired Woodses in front of Cinderella’s Castle

We attempted to take the kids to see Santa again, but the line was so long and moving so slowly that it just didn’t seem worth it, especially since they had had such a good visit with him the day before.

Holiday projection on Cinderella’s Castle

And so we lined ourselves up for the evening’s big show: Minnie’s Wonderful Christmastime Fireworks Show. Fireworks accompanied holiday projections on Cinderella’s Castle. Tinker Bell flew in. Music blared. We had watched the fireworks from the balcony, but that was nothing compared to sitting down by the castle with all the sequenced sound and light and exploding fireworks all around you.

It’s “snoaping” on Main Street

By the time the fireworks show was over, we were all beyond exhausted, and with the lovely “snoap” falling around us, we made our way down a very festive Main Street toward the exit.

DAY 5 – Animal Kingdom, Disney Springs – 15,343 steps

When Sean was doing his at-home Disney planning, he had figured we wouldn’t make it through all the things we wanted to at Hollywood Studios, and so his intention had been to spend our Wednesday morning there in hopes of catching whatever must-do attractions we hadn’t caught the day before. Due to our break-neck pace, paying extra for lightning lanes, and his careful planning, we did well enough the day before, that we decided to use that morning to see a few more things at Animal Kingdom instead.

It could go either way, honestly.

We started our day though with a breakfast down in the Contempo Cafe. Sean had already placed our order while we were still up in our room, so we just had to pick it up and take it to our table. The monorail runs right through the Contemporary Resort, and so a portion of the building is open to the outside. Maya was delighted to find that little birds had flown inside to nibble at the crumbs left by restaurant patrons. Both kids got a kick out of sitting and eating breakfast, watching the monorail zing into the hotel.

No monorail for us that morning though – we took a bus over to Animal Kingdom. Both kids were jonesing to ride Expedition Everest again – Maya because she loved it, Ian because he wanted to conquer that one too. And honestly, Sean had been so worried about Ian’s glasses, he didn’t really enjoy it the first time through. After a wait in line, we stowed the kids’ glasses, made sure nothing was between their backs and the seats, and had a thoroughly enjoyable ride. Ian loved it! Maya loved it again! It’s a fun coaster. [Sean: Ian and I got to ride in the very front this time and it is a very different ride from being near the back.  The back is definitely “rougher”, lost glasses aside.]

Simba can fly

After stops for souvenir buying and pin trading, we made our way over to Discovery River Theater to watch the Kite Tails show. We found seats and relaxed a while, watching Santa, musicians, and various characters motor through the water. Kite Tails, whose kites for this show were Lion King-centric, was pretty neat to watch. Think enormous, character-shaped kites pulled quickly enough by people on jet skis that they stay aloft.

We had only maybe 3-4 hours at the park before we had to go make our late-ish lunch reservation, so we really didn’t have time for much else except a bit of walking around and last-minute photo taking. We managed to find an octopus hiding in the Tree of Life for Maya. And then for parity, we found a snake for Ian as well.

Octopus in the Tree of Life

We took a short Uber ride and a long walk to get ourselves over to Disney Springs to hit Wine Bar George for lunch. Mom and Dad enjoyed well-earned cocktails and the kids had  Shirley Temples. We started our nibbling with a Saganaki on Fire – which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Cheese is flambeed till melty on the inside and crusty brown on the outside. It was heaven. Thankfully when hungry kids relieved us of most of our toasts, the servers unquestioningly replenished them. We splurged and got a giant meat and cheese board to split amongst the four of us. The kids are ambivalent about cheese, but they’ll tear up some cured meat and crackers. It was a weirdly civilized break in what had been a vacation chock full of craziness.

Sugar cures all woes

We dropped by The Ganachery, where the kids selected Minnie Mouse chocolate pops, while Sean and I chose more carefully from a lovely display of artful and flavorful truffles. Before we wandered on, Sean added us to the virtual queue for a place called Gideon’s Bakehouse.

Lion King themed tree

We had an appointment to keep with Santa Claus. On our way over to him, we passed by giant lego sculptures, including one of Fantasia Mickey. We got to check out a few of the areas plethora of themed Christmas trees. And we got to both window shop and actually shop, which the kids were avidly looking forward to.

Socially distanced Santa Claus visit (sure beats Flat Santa!)

Our visit with Santa was actually really good. It was a socially distanced meeting, but Santa took lots of time to chat with the kids. Toward the end of their conversation, after the kids both requested Pokemon cards, Santa pointed out that his favorite Pokemon was Charizard. Ian’s eyes bugged – that’s his favorite too! After he excitedly told him so, Santa responded with, “Are we best friends now?” So yeah, Ian bonded with Santa over Pokemon.

We wandered back after seeing Santa, doing more shopping and more gazing at Christmas trees. And then finally, it was time for our virtual queue time at Gideon’s Bakehouse. As we waited in our now actual queue, the grownups were each given a menu to peruse. Sean’s was labeled “Nice.” Maya seemed to take it as a personal affront that mine was labeled “Naughty.”

Naughty or nice?

I loved the whole look and feel of Gideon’s. I think Sean knew I would. It’s dark and broody, but not gory or scary. The decor is kind of Addams Family meets Alice in Wonderland. The curving bookcases loom over you and the distinctively drawn portraits stare at you, all while you’re admiring at the loveliest dessert case you’d ever care to come across. The cakes looked incredible, but we really were only able to safely transport cookies, so we purchased a chocolate chip cookie and a triple chocolate cookie. They were huge – I checked their website just now, and the cookies weigh nearly a half pound each. We bought two to split between the four of us, and we couldn’t even manage that before our next destination.

When Sean and I went to Disney World for our honeymoon, over 21 years ago, one of our favorite experiences was the Cirque du Soleil show we had seen (La Nouba, if anyone’s curious). We waxed and waned over whether that sort of show would keep the kids attention, but in the end we went for it. The Cirque du Soleil show that’s running now is called Drawn to Life, and was much more Disney-centric than La Nouba had been (which was not at all, in my memory).

So silly!

As I understand it, this is the first time Cirque and Disney have collaborated on a project, and it’s a stunner. The costumes are brilliant and captivating. The blue fairies on unicycles and the paintbrush-headed people were particularly eye-catching to me. The characters are engaging. Maya had fun basketball-tossing crumpled paper into one of the performers’ trash cans during the pre-show shenanigans.

The story was sweet and sad. The main character is a girl named Julie who has just lost her dad, who had been an animation artist. He’s left her an animation to finish and she spends the show battling a creative block, no doubt exacerbated by the loss of her parent. A particularly exuberant pencil urges her along. A crumpled up wad of paper plays the villain and appears to represent the girl’s self-doubt. All of this is carried along by Cirque’s brilliantly costumed and choreographed acrobatic sequences. The tension was lightened by clown-like characters. Maya laughed herself silly at these five performers who found themselves caught in sort of a giant rubber band. There was a whole projected sequence surrounding Julie’s emergence from her writer’s block. Traditional Disney animations as well as those particular to Julie’s character arc were projected along what appear to be giant paper surrounding the stage.

There were a couple of slight sour spots. One, there were no programs to purchase so we could remember the show. There was no music to purchase either. The one that got me is that partway through one of the acrobatic sequences, they had to stop the show for technical difficulties, and when then restarted it, they had moved past the act we were in the midst of watching. It promised to be thrilling, and I was sad that we didn’t get to see it. All in all though, the show was great. And I just checked with the kids, and they both nodded their heads vigorously when I asked whether they enjoyed it.

Star Wars themed tree

The best part was that as we were leaving the show, we spotted Lolli in her bright orange sweater, and Pop right there with her. It was all we could do to keep the kids from diving over the balcony to get to them. They were so excited to see Lolli and Pop that I think for at least a little while, they forgot how tired they were.

Lolli and Pop in Disney World!

We wandered around for a bit chatting and checking out Christmas trees (there were so many of them!), and eventually made it around to remembering that we had to feed our children dinner. Maya got chicken (AGAIN) and the rest of us wound up going to a pizza place. I don’t remember hanging around too long after dinner. I think we all took the bus back to our hotel, and Lolli and Pop hung out with us in our room for a bit, opening the Christmas ornaments the kids had brought for them and unwinding, before everyone tried to rest of up for the massive day the next day.

DAY 4 – Hollywood Studios – 20,240 steps

On our fourth day, we rose early to finish packing as quietly as we could while the kids slept a bit longer. We managed to get everyone ready to go and drop our luggage by bell services (who would ensure that it made it over to the Contemporary for the second half of our split-stay) in the allotted timeframe. This was the day we were really leaning into the notion of paying to avoid waiting. We booked our Genie+ service so we could schedule lighting lanes for the most popular rides. And we separately purchased a lightning lane for Rise of the Resistance.

Blah blah blah, use the Force

We grabbed the Skyliner to Hollywood Studios and managed to get ourselves in line for Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway early enough that our wait time was probably in the 30 minute range. Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway is kind of like Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. The cars are on a trackless system so they can whirl you around as needed to fit the presented storyline. This time, we were on a train with Goofy as the engineer and things didn’t go to plan. I felt like this one was better executed and somewhat more immersive than Remy’s had been the day before, though both of them were pleasant enough.

Santa!

Sean had a good plan for breakfast all ready to go after we were done with our first ride. The grownups stopped at Ronto Roasters and had Ronto Morning Wraps (pitas with eggs, pork sausage, cheese and peppercorn sauce). Some of us also had coffee. They were delicious and very filling. We took the kids to Woody’s Lunch Box to have house made lunch box tarts (think pop tarts but without the branding or trademark). We thought it was going to be a slam dunk because they had a chocolate hazelnut tart on the menu that we were certain Ian would devour. Alas, they were out. Sean came back to the table that the kids and I had staked out with an apple pie tart and a beautiful pink raspberry marmalade tart. No matter how beautiful and pink it was, Ian was having none of it. He tried both tarts and soundly refused to eat them. In the end, we went all the way back to Ronto Roasters and bought him a wrap as well, of which he ate the sausage and the egg.

Chewbacca and Rey

Sean’s beautifully laid plan was slightly blown to bits by then, but I think during the Frozen Sing along, he rallied and hit the rest of the day head on. Both kids actually sang along a bit during the “For the First Time in Forever: A Frozen Sing-Along Celebration,” so that was fun, and the show was pretty cute.

Because lightning lane rules (that I never took the time to learn) enforce wait times between bookings, by the time we could have gotten a lightning lane for Smugglers Run, they were entirely booked through the end of the day. So, the next thing we did after belting out “Let it Go” was to stand in the mother of all lines to experience Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run. That’s right – we were gonna fly the Millennium Falcon.

Thanks to Disney magic, a porg appears to have adopted Ian

When we got in the line, the wait time was posted at (I think) 75 minutes. Here’s the rub though: Rise of the Resistance was broken down and we think that those people were given lightning lane passes to use elsewhere, and that elsewhere was primarily Smugglers Run. We were in that line for nearly two hours before we get to fly the Falcon.

Cockpit of the Millennium Falcon

After safely smuggling our cargo during Smugglers Run, it was time for a lightning lane at Slinky Dog Dash. Toy Story Land is already pretty neat. You’re in the midst of eye-popping color and geometry as you wander through a land of giant toys. For the roller coaster, we were riding in an outsized Slinky Dog and I felt like the track design took advantage of just how maneuverable a giant slinky might be. The ride was smooth and just exciting enough to bring Ian back around to loving roller coasters again after his tough ride on Expedition Everest.

I’m sorry, Kylo Ren will simply never be as scary as Darth Vader was. Also, I bet that outfit straight up sucks round about July.

Back in the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge part of the park, we picked up blue milk and green milk from Milk Stand. Blue milk in the Star Wars universe comes from milking an Bantha. I guess WDW couldn’t find any of those because both blue and green milk are plant-based concoctions. I found them both to be absolutely delicious. They were frozen drinks and the fruit flavor was lovely with no syrupy unpleasantness. We sipped our milks while we watched Kylo Ren prance around with an air of menace, flanked by storm troopers.

Oga’s Cantina

We had a reservation to keep at Oga’s Cantina. This one was mostly for the grown-ups, as it is by and large, a Star Wars themed cocktail bar. The kids were disheartened to see that the table we’d be occupying was meant for standing at, not sitting at, but they were delighted to see a bunch of creative mock-tails on the menu for their enjoyment. Maya had a Blurrgfire, which was lovely and pomegranate red and had a habanero-lime spicy kick. I had a Jedi Mind Trick, which was a nice enough mix of grapefruit and rose flavored vodka and various tiki ingredients. Sean and Ian’s drinks were the most fun. Sean had a Fuzzy Tauntaun – think fuzzy navel but the foam on top sort left your lips with sort of a tingling sensation. (I had originally thought Szechuan peppercorns, but in looking at copycat recipes on the internet, it seems like the secret may be something referred to as a “buzz button.” It’s the dried blossom of a toothache plant, and apparently an infusion of these may be used to give the foam its numbing quality.) Ian had the Carbon Freeze, which featured green apple popping pearls. His drink fizzed and frothed next to him for a bit after it was set down. He was worried enough about it that he wanted me to try it first before he was willing to do so.

The Wookie Cookie – it’s chewy

While we nibbled on an unremarkable meat and cheese tray at Oga’s, that was really intended to be a drinks-only visit, so we needed to find some food before our next ride reservations came around. Sean had some treats in mind to acquire from Backlot Express, so we went ahead and at lunch there as well. The food was fine (Cuban sandwich for the grownups, chicken fingers for the kids), but the desserts were great. First up was the driver for our visit to this restaurant: The Wookie Cookie – watch out, it’s chewy (har, har, har). Maya thought that gag was hilarious, and we all thought the cookie was divine. Sean had also purchased a Glimmer and Shimmer Blondie, but we were all so full that we actually stored that one for future consumption.

The kids were kinda wigged

Now that we all had our cannons loaded for projectile vomiting, we made our way over to the The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. The theming and lead-up story for this one worked wonders on the kids. They had been excited about the ride all day long, but after some spooky backstory and associated theatrics, they were both looking a little bit nervous. The neat thing about this ride is that it’s a drop ride, but you aren’t *just* dropped, you’re pulled, so the drop feels especially shocking. The kids ultimately loved it and were sad when it was over. Also, nobody lost their lunch.

Maya’s not putting up with any Imperial scum questioning her.

As you may remember from earlier, Rise of the Resistance had been broken down for part of the day. We were all hoping beyond hope that it would open again before our afternoon reservation time. And it did! Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance was an interesting experience. We were all part of a rebel mission. We were captured by the First Order and hassled by the guards (which felt real enough that Maya showed off her stubborn, combative side). And of course, we ultimately escaped because the Force must always prevail over the Dark Side. I won’t lie – it was super cool being immersed in scenes of good and evil that hearkened back to our dorky childhood. It was obviously themed toward the Rey / Kylo Ren timeframe, but the world and the machinery felt largely the same. I’m sure I had a grin plastered on my face when our little ride vehicle (driven by a friendly R5 droid that Maya fell in love with) darted through the legs of AT-AT walkers. I would do it again.

The Force is strong with these two.

Next we lined up for light saber photo pass photos. Yep, we even had to line up to have our pictures taken – the kids were so, so sick of it. Lucky for us, the family behind us had a couple kids around our kids’ ages (plus an itty bitty baby in a stroller). While we waited, the four kids climbed around on rocks and traded pins and generally let loose for a few minutes. The family was super nice, even gifting our kids with light up glasses that they pulled from an envelop full of goodies that seemed to designed to perk their kids up every now and then (or temper the inevitable souvenir requests).

Next time I have a chance to be photoed with a light saber, remind me not to grin.

We went back over to Toy Story Land and at the kids’ repeated request, took a spin on the Alien Swirling Saucers. It was more fun than I expected it to be, and in a rare turn, I got to ride with Ian. He had mostly been sticking with his dad, who I think makes him feel safer, but for this “easy” ride, I guess he thought it was ok to ride with me.

Next, we made our way over to Toy Story Mania. Here we all donned our 3D glasses and hopped into the ride vehicles and used our little shooters to hit targets as we meandered through the ride. Maya was my partner for this ride, and together we learned some things about shooting targets. I would carefully aim at each intended target, pull my little spring back and fire, more often than not hitting what I was after. My score and accuracy were both (to my mind) pretty good. Maya struggled a little initially, but then sort of started rapid fire pulling and releasing her spring trigger, and sort of mowing down the targets in front of her. She and I were nearly tied by the end. Ian and Sean had massive scores, comparatively, and it seems it was because they too employed this rapid fire, mow-em-down action. Lesson learned.

Slinky Dog Dash at night

We wandered around Toy Story Land for a bit longer taking photos and enjoying the area. You will notice that the kids, especially Maya, were less and less interested in performing for the camera as the trip wore on. This was a trend that would continue throughout the rest of the trip until we eventually broke and got angry and tried to explain that not all the fun was about them, that the thing Mom and Dad really loved was smiling photos so we could remember the trip. It *sort* of worked. An effort was made, if nothing else.

Christmas at Hollywood Studios

Afterward, we wandered back through the lake area to take photos of the big Christmas tree and the dinosaur guarding the lake before heading to our final ride of the night, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith. To get there we had to head down Sunset Blvd toward the Tower of Terror. It was good and dark now, we saw some of the fun holiday projections on the Tower of Terror, and it began to snow! Ok, not really. Sean chuckled and said it was “snoap.” The kids looked confused, so we explained the snow was made of soap bubbles. Maya, lover of fine puns, thought this was hilarious. She and I decided that it could also be thought of as “snope,” because is it snow? Nope.

“Snoap” falling amongst the palm trees in front of a festively lit Tower of Terror

Ian and Maya had been excited about Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster all day long. Ian was back on the roller coaster bandwagon by this time and needed us to assure him that this one was “wild enough” to be fun. This one was going to be particularly thrilling because it was the first coaster the kids would ride that went upside down. The idea is that Aerosmith is late for a concert and we get to go along with them in their limo as they barrel through town. And sure enough, the ride rockets you forward almost from the very beginning. Since the ride is largely through the dark, the kids weren’t immediately aware of when they were going upside down, so we started calling it out. The loved it, but like all good rides, it was over way too soon.

Walk this way

After the ride, we wandered back by the Chinese Theater to see the nighttime show there – Wonderful World of Animation. This was a projection against the theater of various Disney animation clips, complete with audio and fireworks. The kiddos (and grownups) were quite tired by this point. Sean scored some Christmas popcorn that Maya and Ian shared while they watched the show. After the animation show was over, we parked ourselves on a ledge, so we could sit for a moment and make sure there were no last things we needed to do.

Tired Woodses

That was when I discovered my magic band was gone. These little wrist watch looking things are your whole life while at Disney. They let you into your hotel room, they let you purchase food and souvenirs, and they let you into the parks and into the lightning lanes, if you have them reserved. Sigh. I had been reaching into my backpack about a hundred times a day since we’d been at Disney World to fetch snacks, retrieve jackets, stow jackets, provide and put away pin laniards and mouse ears as the whim struck. And with the roller coasters and 3D rides, I had put away glasses and provided them again over and over. Luckily, we had already ridden all our rides that day. Also luckily, very little time would have passed since I last used the band and lost it. On our way out, we took a trip by guest services to disable my band and provide me with a card that I could use instead.

So fancy!

We took a bus to our new hotel, Disney’s Contemporary Resort. We got ourselves checked in and up to our new room, picked up some pizza we had ordered from one of the hotel restaurants, and generally settled in and eating a late dinner. Compared to our Pop Century room, this one was sprawling. Plus, Sean chose a room that was as high up as we could find that was facing the Magic Kingdom. Our view was amazing.

Pretty cool view

In fact, we were up late enough that we managed to watch the Magic Kingdom fireworks from our room! It was a little cool out on the balcony, so Maya and I watched them through the sliding glass door (Ian mostly didn’t care). Sean stayed out on the porch so that he could try to take fireworks photos, and there’s no denying – it was amazing.

[Sean: Genie+ is the way at Hollywood Studios.  And buy the individual Lightning Lane for Rise of the Resistance.  Even then, because you can only schedule one ride every two hours, you are going to end up doing something called “stacking” which is where you schedule most of your rides for the afternoon/evening.  7a, schedule Slinky Dog or Smuggler’s Run for as early as you can get it.  Rope drop Runaway Railway.  As soon as you can schedule your next Lightning Lane see if the other of Slinky Dog or Smuggler’s is available.  It won’t be so instead schedule Rock ‘n’ Rollercoaster or Tower of Terror (which ever has an earlier time slot).  Now go hit a show, ride something with a short standby (10-20 minutes at most) or if Slinky Dog or Smuggler’s has a short standby (45-60 minutes) go do that.  Rinse and repeat.  Now all the cool rides are stacked at the end of the day and you rush between them meeting all your hour long Lightning Lane windows.  Viola, you hit all the major attractions, most of the minor ones, and all it costs your is $30 per person and a bit of the planner’s sanity.]

DAY 3 – EPCOT – 19,078 steps

We couldn’t even get into EPCOT till 10:30 on this fine Monday morning, so thankfully we were in less of a rush. The night before, on our way out of Animal Kingdom, we stopped by and picked up “1st Visit” badges for both kids and a birthday badge for Ian and they had them on today. We made it easy on ourselves and just had breakfast in the Pop Century restaurant. The kids were delighted with their plates full of Mickey waffles and bacon. This wasn’t really the place for adventure, so I’m sure Sean and I just had plain old breakfast. I don’t honestly recall. [Sean: I had a breakfast bagel sandwich and it was meh.]

Woodses get Frozen

We took the Skyliner to EPCOT, which I think the kids got a kick out of. We were there for rope drop and cut a path straight to the Norway portion of the World Showcase to get in line for the Frozen Ever After ride. I recall the line not being too terrible – maybe 30 minutes. The theming while in queue was kinda fun. At one point, we happened upon Oaken of Wandering Oaken’s Trading Post and Sauna fame. He was hiding out in the sauna and drew snowflakes on the steamy window.

They always warn you on these water rides that “you might get wet.” This one was a certainty because there was a puddle of water in the seat that I promptly plopped my ass directly into. Oh well. The rest was just gravy. The ride itself was colorful and musical with portions of it being sufficiently crystalline and lovely to suit the Elsa fans in the room.

School bread

Before leaving Norway, we stopped at Kringla Bakeri for school bread, one of the many snacks on Sean’s must-have list. He and the kids mostly ate it. I gave it a try, but I’m not crazy about shredded coconut, so it wasn’t worth it to me, especially when I wasn’t particularly hungry. [Sean: Maya and I both really loved this.]

We moved on to Mexico next and took part in the Gran Fiesta Tour attraction. This is a meandering boat ride throughout the Mexico pavilion and features the antics of the Three Caballeros, one of whom is Donald Duck. The Three Caballeros film was apparently released in 1944 – I’m kind of impressed with this attraction’s staying power.

Finally, at the kids repeated request, we rode a “real” ride. We went to check out Test Track. Maya and Ian loved it! They enjoyed taking the time to each design their own car and then getting to drive it on the track (not really, but they did tell you how your car would have performed in the various “tests” based on your carefully selected design parameters). The cars whip around and get all the way up to 65 miles per hour. Apparently the running joke is something like: Hey, this attraction is great! It shows you exactly what you had to do to get here to Disney World – drive a car at 65 miles per hour. Whatever, naysayers; we all had fun.

Next up was Mission: SPACE. This attraction offers a choice. You’re in the facility training to be an astronaut, and you can choose one of two missions. The gentler Green Mission takes you on an orbit around Earth. The more intense Orange Mission takes you to Mars. Since it warns of motion sickness and we hadn’t given anyone any Dramamine, we elected to try the Green Mission out first. Our four person crew were each assigned roles: commander, pilot, navigator, or engineer. I can’t honestly recall what anyone was, but for lots of mystifying reasons, the job each of us had was of critical importance to Maya and my recollection is that she very nearly didn’t get to ride the ride for the meltdown she was having over it.

Ultimately the Green Mission was still pretty cool. And it must have been convincing, because Ian asked Sean in all seriousness whether we were really in outer space. This was a theme that was to repeat itself over and over again. Ian is apparently so certain of Disney magic that he’s convinced we made several journeys to “actual space” over the course of our weeklong vacation.

EPCOT – Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow

We moved onto Spaceship Earth next, known to me as “the ride inside the big EPCOT ball.” This is another non-thriller dark ride kind of thing. It walks you through the history (and potential future) of communication. This is all well and good except the selection soft-buttons weren’t working very well. Ian and I were getting frustrated because it wasn’t registering our screen touches, and so our photos in the ride look very frustrated. The ride itself was enjoyable though – we got to listen to Judi Dench tell us all about the history of communication, which was oddly relaxing. Sean and Maya had a rougher time of it – they listened to the entire ride in German. I’m not kidding. Surprisingly, Maya wasn’t super-engaged, so afterward, Ian and I puttered around playing games in the post-ride area while Sean and Maya took another spin, this time in English. At least they let them skip the line of the second time around. Maya reportedly found it much more interesting on a second run, and Ian got to run his sillies out a bit, which he desperately needed.

This was a fun break

Next we stopped in at Club Cool to sample sodas from around the world. There were an interesting variety, and not every flavor was a winner, of course. But there were a few unexpected gems in there. [Sean: Most people dislike Beverly (it is very bitter) but I rather enjoyed it.]

Maya’s Figment Ears

Finally, at long last, we stopped by Creation Station to pick up Maya’s Figment ears. They were exactly what she wanted, and they looked great on her. And hooray for having one’s patience rewarded! Sean even took her photo with the special 50th anniversary Figment statue. For WDW’s 50th anniversary celebration, they have installed new golden statues throughout the four parks featuring 50 different Disney characters. I know we didn’t manage to capture all of them, but whenever we (read: Sean) noticed them, we tried to grab a photo.

Next up: food. Sean went to Refreshment Port and came back with chicken nuggets for the kids and some traditional poutine for us. He also scored a coquito and spiced rum drink for the grownups, which was divine. He also stopped in at Mele Kalikimaka to field test some kailua pork and an order of haupia, both of which were excellent.

While Sean was running around, I hung out by a table with the kids, letting them play around and rest a bit. They started a conversation with a teenage (probably?) girl. After chatting back and forth with her on the finer points of Pokemon and lizard catching, she offered to make a drawing for them! She drew them the heads of their favorite Pokemon characters – Charizard for Ian and Mewtwo for Maya. They were spellbound.

Refueled and ready for action, we headed to the France pavilion to ride Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. The ride was cute. You are meant to be the size of a rat and your little rat car scurries about the floor through Gusteau’s restaurant. You smell the smells as you zing around, which is fun. Maya’s a fan of the Ratatouille movie, so she seemed to really like it. I think it wasn’t “wild” enough for Ian.

Pere Noel

On our way out of Remy’s we happened upon Pere Noel. At Epcot, during the holidays, each of the eleven countries in the World Showcase features a storyteller. They are wonderfully costumed and charactered and tell holiday tales related to their country. So of course, Pere Noel is hanging out in France, looking magnificent and telling stories to a crowd of onlookers. Had Sean had his way, we would have partaken of more of these chances to hear stories told from around the world, but we had to balance that with a tight schedule and antsy children.

Look at his “ugly” holiday sweater!

We next visited the Journey Into Imagination with Figment attraction. Figment is a mischievous dragon who accompanies us as we learn about how the five senses can trigger our imaginations. During the holidays, Figment gets to wear a delightful little “ugly sweater,” and I think it only enhances his charm. As you meander along this dark ride, Eric Idle plays a scientist who’s trying to keep things serious all while Figment bounces around causing all manner of mayhem. Maya loved it because Figment is a dragon and she loves dragons (also, he was a troublemaker). Ian was a bit bored, I think – though I caught him laughing at Figment too. Sean wound up feeling a little disappointed because the attraction had been scaled back so much. [Sean: In the early days of EPCOT the Image Works area was huge and was basically a mid sized science museum. It was great. It got moved down stairs and scaled back to almost nothing and is now sad.  Also, they need to bring back Dreamfinder.]

Next, we did the Soarin’ Around the World attraction. This thing is like the mother of all IMAXes. Once you strap into your seat, you’re lifted up with your feet dangling, and there is some movement and airflow to go along with the visual of you soaring over the wonders of the world. If you’re in the wrong spot, some of the pyramids can develop an unexpected curvature. And wherever we sat on this day, we managed to see lots of shoes dangling down, though if you avoided looking up, the illusion was kept alive. I think we all enjoyed the ride.

Living with the Land was a gentle boat ride through various greenhouses and such, showing us various forward-looking farming techniques. What I found most fun was that everything was coated in Christmas decor. Maya had fun hunting up hidden Mickeys. I had fun not standing up.

Fish are friends, not food. People are food.

We went on The Seas with Nemo & Friends next, another dark ride. Afterward, we spent a little time exploring the aquarium and a lot of time letting the kids run around the little play area. They needed to make their own choices about what they did for a little while. Mom and Dad were happy to sit down on the floor in a corner and watch them.

We ended our visit with the Turtle Talk with Crush show. You sit down in a theater that looks sort of like a window to the ocean and Crush is your host. He talks about life in the ocean, conservation, and his fellow ocean-dwellers. He answers the kids’ questions in real-time, which both Ian and Maya got a kick out of. He referred to the kids has having different colored shells (their t-shirts) and noted that Maya had swim goggles (her glasses). It was honestly more fun than I was expecting, especially after a long day.

Spaceship Earth at Night.

After a Skyliner ride back to our hotel, once the kids were settled in for the night, Sean and I had to pack, because tomorrow, we’d be moving to our second hotel of the trip. While the kids rested, we sorted everything into the right suitcases and backpacks so we could hit the ground running the next day.

[Sean: We not only had Genie+ this day but also bought an individual Lightning Lane for Remi’s.  Genie+ definitely saved us more time today, 60-90 minutes on Test Track alone plus 15-20 on most other rides. All in all it was worth the cost.]

DAY 2 – Animal Kingdom – 21,021 steps

Day two was the day I became familiar with the term “rope drop.” One of the benefits of being a resort guest is that you get 30 minutes early entry to the park. “Rope drop” is the moment they open the park and everyone in line rushes to queue up for whichever rides are most popular, so we were fortunate to be allowed to do so a bit early.

The Woods family in Pandora.

We arrived at Animal Kingdom only about 10 minutes later than we had intended and went straight to Pandora (the world from the movie Avatar), but already, we found the line to the extremely popular Avatar Flight of Passage attraction to be 85 minutes or more. Since we hadn’t yet eaten breakfast, we decided that wasn’t the wisest choice. Instead we walked to Pongu Pongu where we had a Night Blossom – a frozen drink with apple and pear topped with passion fruit boba. We also had lumpia filled with pineapple and cream cheese that were actually pretty tasty, but the kids weren’t really into them. [Sean: The Night Blossom might very well have been my favorite snack of the entire trip.  So much yum.]

Having a few calories in us, we decided to check out the Na’vi River Journey. It was, what I came to learn, a dark ride. A dark ride is an indoor attraction where you ride around on a vehicle and are treated to various lit scenes that are accompanied by sounds and sometimes smells and all manner of special effects. The scenery was incredible on the river journey. You truly did feel as though you were part of the Avatar universe. And the animatronics were amazing!

So many Mickeys

We stopped by Kusafiri then for a quick breakfast. The kids and Sean had a giant cinnamon roll, and I had a giant coffee (and a breakfast biscuit sandwich). I wound up having to stow my coffee for later because we had a specific time window in which to go on our next adventure, the Kilimanjaro Safari. This wound up being one of my favorite things that day. You all board a big open-air truck and the guides drive you around the African savannah for probably around 20 minutes, watching animals roam freely. We were lucky (Sean may have requested it) to have the very back seat, so we could turn around and watch what was happening behind us as well as to either side. [Sean: I did request the back seat specifically because you have an unobstructed view.]

Look at them run!

We watched lions and elephants and zebras of course, but the very best thing was seeing the giraffes chase each other. These giant, lumbering creatures were chasing each other across the grassy plains, in evident delight. Giraffes look ridiculous when they run, by the way, and it was so much fun to watch!

We wandered through the Gorilla Falls Exploration Trail and were treated to a mama gorilla with her little baby clinging to her undercarriage as she loped around the habitat. We never got a photo. She turned her back on us, shielding her baby from the horde of curious onlookers, and staunchly refused to turn around. Upon first entering the trail, we encountered several feeding stations set out for the birds. They were amazing, and so close! We felt we had to duck as the birds flew in to land on one of the platforms and chow down. Another highlight was getting to watch a submerged hippo and see just how infrequently she needed to come up for a breath of air.

The kids were fussing at this point. They wanted to trade pins, they wanted to buy souvenirs, they wanted to ride rides. After the frustration of the day before though, Sean stuck to his guns and tried his best to keep us on a schedule, while still including stops here and there for a bit of pin trading.

About those pins … Sean had gotten each of us a laniard and some “starter pins” so that we could trade at various pin trading stations throughout the park and also with other guests. Maya was selective (though oddly so – birds and dragons factored in heavily) about which kinds of pins she wanted – she was trading with a goal in mind. Ian just wanted to trade trade trade. It was the act itself that was fun for him. He went full bore on his pin obsession when he discovered he could buy pins in the souvenir shops.

This one’s not running

The next attraction we visited was what I’ve been calling “The Lion King show” but what is actually called “A Celebration of Festival of the Lion King” (I looked it up). It was kind of a huge show. Giant animatronic puppets rolled out, music and dance numbers ensued, twirling fire terrified Maya. The show was pretty incredible. Plus we got to sit down, which was glorious!

Next, much to our grumpy children’s delight, we did a quick walk through the Maharaja Jungle Trek (my notes read: Asia walk). The big things on this walk were getting to watch tigers pace around their habitats and getting to see a Komodo dragon. Maya was thrilled about seeing a live dragon! One of my favorite things about this walk was getting to see fruit bats dangling upside down. Those guys were huge!

The kids had been begging for some popcorn, so Sean set them down to share a big box of popcorn, while he procured a couple more snacks from his hit list: a mac n cheese with pulled pork and a pulled pork jelly doughnut, both from a joint called Eight Spoon Cafe. These were both delightful, if a little difficult to eat with any real grace. Maya in particular was a bit messy with her popcorn, and we had a lovely white ibis wander over and pluck up a few of the fallen kernels. We had noticed them all over the place, and it wasn’t long before Maya was laughing about it, referring to the ibises as Florida Pigeons.

360 degree photo at the Tree of Life

After stopping to get a 360 degree photo at the Tree of Life, we made our way over to the Feathered Friends in Flight! bird show. Not surprisingly, the kids griped that we still weren’t going on a ride. Then they griped about having to wait to get in, followed by some more griping about when the actual show would start. And then they both loved the show itself.

And it was neat! We were pretty close to the front, so we got to see all the birdy action up close. During the pre-show, one of the bird specialists brought out an owl, and Ian was brave enough to raise his hand and ask her what kind it was (Eurasian Eagle Owl). We learned that the owls are particularly fond of mice (don’t tell Mickey!), and Maya chortled over the fact that they called the owl treats “meeces pieces.” We watched chickens repeatedly turn on a radio to hear their favorite tunes, which the kids thought was funny, even after they worked out the trick. We watched a clever raven untying shoes, a cockatoo answering yes-or-no questions with his whole body, and so many other colorful and interesting birds. The show flew by (ha), and we were back out into the fray before I was ready to be.

He kept turning on the radio to hear his favorite tunes. Maya eventually figured out that there was food up there for the chickens to peck at.

Next up, we were finally going on a real ride again – Expedition Everest! The story is that there’s a yeti hiding out in there protecting the mountain. The “artifacts” displayed showed various yeti representations and footprint casts and things like that. You could tell that Ian was getting more and more nervous as we got closer to the front, but he was committed to riding the ride. It was a really neat coaster. It zings you through its first stage that culminates in a curled up and demolished track (presumably the yeti’s work), and then you pause while the track switches behind you, and you’re hurtled backward through the dark. There’s a point later on, where another track switch occurs and then you barrel forward for the rest of the ride.

Our wild ride on Expedition Everest

Ian had a rough time. First of all, he lost his glasses sometime during the dark part of the ride. Since we had to wear our masks, his glasses didn’t sit as firmly on his face as they might ordinarily, and we found out the hard way. Luckily, they had landed in the floor of the coaster and managed to stay there till Sean could finally retrieve them. The other thing that happened was that his mask laniard had a piece of plastic on the back that’s used to adjust laniard length. Ian’s apparently wound up between his back and his seat and wound up tearing up his back a little. Maya and I got to enjoy it (though I think she was pretty shocked by the backwards through the dark part of the ride). But Sean and Ian were too worried about glasses to be able to really have fun. [Sean: Ian lost his glasses just as we were going backwards into the dark.  I caught a glimpse of them on the floor, right next to the opening of the train car right around Disco Yeti and spent the last half of the ride doubled over trying to stop them from sliding out of the car and being lost forever.]

The kids’ popcorn had worn off, so we got them some hot dogs to eat. (Mealtimes were a pretty fluid thing for anything that didn’t have a reservation.) And then we rode the DINOSAUR ride. This is another “dark ride” whose premise is that a scientist is sending us back in time (against the rules of course) to bring back an iguanodon just before a meteor shower causes a mass extinction event. The car jerks you around, dinosaurs roar, lights flash. It’s kind of an intense ride. Though they told us that against all odds we had managed to rescue the dinosaur, Maya seemed genuinely puzzled that it wasn’t actually in the car with us at the end of the ride.

Merry Menagerie

We happened through the Discovery Island part of the park as the Merry Menagerie was happening. These lovely holiday animal puppets were truly a delight. The kids would pet them and the animals would close their eyes in delight and nuzzle them. This set off germ transfer warning bells through my whole body, but I did my best to swallow my worry and let the kids be kids.

Merry Menagerie

We made our way over to the It’s Tough to be a Bug show next. I remember this as a highlight of my first trip to Disney, on our honeymoon 21 years prior, and it was still a delight. Everyone donned their 3D bug glasses and were treated to stinky smells and splashes of water and pokes in the back and on and on. They loved it – they kept reaching out to touch the 3D images in front of them.

We stopped in at Satu’li Canteen for some cheeseburger pods to tide us over till our late dinner reservation. Then we bought another Night Blossom for the kids to share. And it turns out if you add rum, it becomes a Rum Blossom, which the grownups were quite happen to share. From there, since the wait was “only” about an hour, we finally queued up for Avatar Flight of Passage. We weren’t in that line maybe 10-15 minutes before Maya explained she needed to use the bathroom. There was supposed to be on somewhere along the ride queue (isn’t that a GREAT idea?) but we weren’t sure where. By the time we got to a ride attendant to ask, she was straight up dancing and we were still a ways from the inline bathroom. They let Sean take her out and give him a way to enter later so he and Maya could wait for Ian and I and we could all ride together.

I am told this is called “Hank in the Tank.” If you’ve made it this far, you’re nearly through with your long-line hell.

Ian was a force to be reckoned with in that ride line. He doesn’t complain as much as Maya, but he moves twice as much. He climbs on things, examines every potential knob or button, messes with gates, line ropes, barricades, anything he thinks he can get by with. With no Maya in line with him, he was especially bored.

While all this was going on, apparently Maya had to use the bathroom a second time, so again, Sean took her out of line and they got a pass to come wait for us to come around. Finally, after what I would have guessed was well more than an hour of waiting, we boarded this ride, and let me tell you, it was totally worth it.

The idea is that you’re flying a mountain banshee over the amazing landscape of Pandora. The ride vehicle is unique. You sit on it kind of like a motorcycle, lean forward to grab its handlebars, and then the ride attendants kind of push the seat-back into your lower back, fixing you in place. Sean tells me some people find it unpleasantly restrictive, but to me it just felt secure. The ride is so, so immersive. You have glasses for the 3D effects. Wind is whooshing in your face as you’re moving. You feel the mists from the water all around you. It honestly takes your breath away, no hyperbole. [Sean: Definitely my favorite ride across all the parks.]

Beacon of Magic at the Tree of Life

On the way out, we managed to see the tail end of the Beacon of Magic music and light projection show at the Tree of Life. Even for the few minutes we managed to see, it was pretty incredible. At each of the parks, for WDW’s 50th anniversary, they had these amazing sound and light projection shows at each park’s iconic location. For Animal Kingdom, this is of course the Tree of Life.

We caught the bus to Animal Kingdom Lodge for our dinner reservation at Boma. This place has the mother of all buffets, chock full of things you actually want to eat. And I’ll be honest, I can’t remember everything I ate. One highlight was the soups (yes, really). There were three of them, and they were all things I wish I had recipes for. The kids were happy to eat their weight in chicken fingers, pasta, and desserts, and by and large, we were willing to let them. Ian ordered an EARidescent Sip-a-bration for his drink. It was a mixture of lemonade and strawberry punch into which he got to drop a bluish-green Donald Duck head that made his drink fizz and change color.

Tree at Animal Kingdom Lodge

For the last third of our meal, every so often, Sean would look at me, eyes alight, and say “Zebra Dome.” This was often around discussions of when the kids could FINALLY have dessert, so I thought maybe the dessert part of the buffet was zebra-looking. I was too tired to puzzle it out, honestly. Finally, Maya and I wandered up to see about getting dessert, and there they were – perfect little Zebra Dome bonbon type desserts. Maya and I each had one, amongst several others.

After some dodgy transportation advice from our waiter, we ultimately just ordered an Uber to get us from the Animal Kingdom Lodge back to Pop Century. The kids again crashed hard and quickly while Mom and Dad figured out how things would go the next day. Luckily, it was our Epcot day, and we wouldn’t be able to hit it quite so early.

[Sean: We had Genie+ for this day mostly because I wanted to be able to walk on to Kilimanjaro Safari after rope dropping Flight of Passage.  While that worked and we avoided a 40+ minute line I don’t think I would buy Genie+ again for Animal Kingdom.  For the rest of the day it maybe saved us 5-10 minutes per ride or show.]

DAY 1 – Travel, Magic Kingdom – 13,932 steps

Third time apparently is a charm. In mid-December, after previously planning and canceling  this vacation twice, we finally, finally made it to Walt Disney World with the kids. Our flight left at 6-something in the morning. Maya and Ian got a kick out of us leaving at “stupid o’clock.” They had been all a-fizz about the trip for the two days prior to leaving because, for a delightful change of pace, we packed early.

This trip was a long time coming

The airport was completely insane. We arrived about 90 minutes early, thinking we’d get to eat breakfast before our flight. Alas, after standing in line for a while to order breakfast and observing the complete lack of urgency from the worker bees at the restaurant, we bailed and bought snack food from a nearby shop. Ian’s breakfast that day was Doritos and Yoohoo. #parentinglikeaboss

Our flight to Orlando was uneventful. After landing, we quickly ducked into a restroom to change into shorts, because we left Austin’s 40s and arrived in Orlando’s 80s. Luggage was collected, and we got into the first of many, many Disney lines – this one to board the Walt Disney World Magical Express (a term here which means: the bus to our resort.) Disney is doing away with this service, so we’re fortunate to have been able to make use of it when we did.

Our room at Disney Pop Century

Our room at Disney’s Pop Century Resort was already available when we arrived, so we rolled our luggage over and checked it out. Since we’d be here for a full week, we decided to book what’s called a “split stay.” We’d stay the first three nights at Pop Century, a value resort, and we’d stay the last four nights at the Contemporary, which is a deluxe resort. This did several things for us. Of course, it let us save a bit of $$ while still getting a taste of the fancy life. It allowed us to compare the two kinds of accommodation for future reference. And, it enabled us to choose hotels that were convenient to different WDW parks. For example, Pop Century was relatively near the Animal Kingdom, and it was a Skyliner ride (or two) away from EPCOT and Hollywood Studios.

I use the word “we” a lot up there, but here’s the truth: Sean planned all of this. Three times. He made spreadsheets and phone calls and reservations galore. Three times. He watched his options for things shrink and morph as COVID changed the rules of the Disney game over and over again. And still, we are lucky. The kids were vaccinated just in time. Sean and I were able to get our vaccine boosters in as well. We sort of slid in before the omicron variant ramped up.

Anyhow, after settling into our hotel room for just a moment (the kids were particularly enamored with the Murphy bed), we boarded a bus to Magic Kingdom. After arrival, we all scanned in with our little magic bands and headed in toward Main Street. If Magic Kingdom is overwhelming in and of itself, it is doubly so at Christmas time. Everything was decorated and festive. The streets were full (thank goodness for those vaccines). Because Maya had been begging to do so, one of the first things we wound up doing was going into a shop so the kids could look for their Disney ears.

These ears have all the bling. And they light up!

Ian tried on several sets of ears and fairly quickly settled on some white ones with a golden bow and lots of sparkles that had a button that would light them up as needed. Maya was unsatisfied with the offerings at the shop. She apparently had seen someone earlier who had some that “looked like dragon ears,” and so she was very specifically looking for that kind. Once she explained all of this to Sean, he pointed out that the only dragon he could think of was Figment and that she would likely have to wait for two days till we were at EPCOT to be able to get these ears. To our astonishment, she chose to wait for the ones she wanted!

Walking out of the shop, we were immediately ushered off the street to make way for the oncoming cavalcade. There would be no parades, thanks to COVID protocols, but the various parks would have little cavalcades running throughout the day. We saw these periodically throughout our trip (we never planned for them, just happened upon them, which was fun). These sometimes featured different costumed characters (Donald, Daisy, Mickey, Minnie, Chip and Dale, etc), there was one that came through loaded to the gills with princesses, and more than once, we saw one that featured Santa himself. I wonder if Mickey felt intimidated with Santa Claus gallivanting around his park system.

In the tiki tiki tiki tiki tiki room

Since there was only a short wait and we had time to kill before our mobile order for lunch would be ready, we popped in and saw the Enchanted Tiki Room show. As with all Disney things, the theming was fun and immersive, and because Sean has been playing Disney music for the kids for months, they were well acquainted with the Tiki Room bird residents. They seemed enchanted themselves as the birds and flowers sang and the statues on the wall moved and danced. Maya confessed to me on the way out that it was a little scary, but she seemed to love it all the same.

By now, our breakfast snacks had long worn off, so we popped into Columbia Harbor House for lunch. Maya had fried shrimp, Ian had chicken fingers (the first of many), and Sean and I had lobster rolls. He and the kids also split a Happy Haunts Milkshake, a blueberry shake topped with a chocolate doughnut.

Happy Haunts Milkshake, garnished with a doughnut

Finally, FINALLY we were going to go on a “real” ride. This is the moment the kids had been waiting for. We had almost zero character interaction on this trip because the kids just couldn’t be bothered. They were there to ride rides. The first thing we lined up for was Big Thunder Mountain Railway. The kids got acquainted quickly with the notion that waiting in theme park lines is no fun at all. By Disney standards our first line was short – I remember it being maybe 30-45 minutes. The theming at Disney is pretty intense. During the line in this ride, a sort of smoky, railway smell was wafting about. Maya was not a fan.

This was also probably Ian’s first real roller coaster. Maya had ridden a few rougher ones at the Texas state fair (last attended in 2019), but Ian had been too little at the time, and had only experienced the kiddie coasters. My memory, admittedly a little hazy from the fully packed park days, is that both kids enjoyed it, though in a startled, overwhelmed, wow-what-was-that kind of way.

Regardless, they were both game to move on to Splash Mountain, one that I think Ian in particular had built up in his mind as the pinnacle of his Disney experience. After the standard long wait, we scored seats up front, which Ian wanted because he wanted to get wet. It would have made a great photo, except I was worried about losing my contacts, so I shut my eyes on the splashy part – whoops!

Bless Maya’s heart, she was uncompelled to pretend Ian was holding something on his hand.

Around 4:00 or so, the cracks in our plan started showing. The kids were clearly exhibiting signs of their truncated night’s sleep. Sean was coping with some frustration over the kids’ desire to go to shops, and eat snacks, and ride allllll the rides and how that ran counter to his desire to do things in an orderly fashion.

We managed to ride Pirates of the Caribbean (which sported some pretty fun animatronics and various aromas to accompany the action), and at the kids’ repeated request, we rode Magic Carpets of Aladdin, which let us control some of the ride action, something that Maya and Ian loved.

Tropical Serenade

Sean and the kids took a break and had a Tropical Serenade from Aloha Isle. This drink / dessert was made of POG (a juice of passion fruit, orange, and guava) and coconut ice cream and was garnished with a cake pop made from pineapple upside down cake. They LOVED it.

At Sean’s insistence and despite the kids’ grumbling, we watched the Country Bear Jamboree (turns out the kids liked it after all, by the way). [Sean: While this was a favorite from my childhood, and I still love the music, the show itself felt a little old and tired.] We took a quick climb through the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse while we waited for our dinner reservation time at Skipper Canteen. If we hadn’t all been so tired, that treehouse climb would have been fun. Even with the tired, it wasn’t too bad and the views were lovely.

In a tone of awe and wonder, “The back side of water”

Dinner was fun. The theming was cute and Jungle Cruise focused – complete with corny jokes. Our guide / server kept telling the kids their food was being prepared by monkeys, which they weren’t certain they were willing to believe. Maya and Ian each had a meal of chicken nuggets and fruit that included a special chocolate volcano dessert. The grownups started with a cachacas appetizer (which was delicious), and then Sean had char siu pork, and I had grilled steak. Everything was flavorful and beautifully presented. I was a little ambivalent about the quality of my steak and gave up about halfway through. The kids ate pretty well, but were particularly impressed with the desserts. They were little chocolate volcano cakes that were “molten” chocolate in the middle.They featured a swirl of red sugar “lava” perched at the cake’s caldera.

The much-lauded volcano dessert. You’d be upset too if they took your lava!

Maya was happily enjoying her cake, but while her head was turned talking to me, one of the servers coming through and whisked away her plate before she had eaten her lava. She was distraught. This was hugely disappointing to her since she had been specially saving the beautiful glass-like lava for the end. She explained what happened to our server, and lo and behold, the lady came back with some of the lava sugar decorations for Maya to have – she even shared them with her brother.

The tired Woodses elected not to stay for that evening’s fireworks. Instead, we took our bus back to the hotel and while the kids rapidly conked out, Sean and I worked to prep for the next day’s adventure.

Our November started out with a small scare – more of a startle, really. We were notified on a Sunday afternoon – by a call from the principle, no less – that someone in Ian’s class had tested positive for COVID. Since it had been several days since that student had been in school, enough time had passed that we were already eligible to take a rapid test and return to school on Monday, assuming it was negative. Sean was able to take him to one of the district’s testing centers, and all told, I think he missed less than two hours of school.

This was after their first shot. We didn’t bother about photos the second time.

Which is a really good thing beyond the obvious lack of COVID. On November 2nd, after what felt like an eternity but really wasn’t, we were finally able to take our kids to get their first COVID vaccinations. By now, they’ve had their second vaccinations as well, and both Sean and I have had our booster shots. Only Sean really suffered – the rest of us got off with little more than sore arms.

Ian, first grade, age 6.

Maya and Ian had gotten their school photos taken in late October, and we finally received them in November. In deference to COVID, they were again taken outdoors. Other than both kids being a bit wind-swept, I think their photos turned out great! Maya has a hard time smiling on command, but she looks relaxed and natural in these photos. And Ian almost can’t help but be photogenic.

Maya, third grade, age 8.

The big deal event in November is of course Maya’s birthday! She requested dragon-themed decorations and a chocolate cake with blue icing, and I like to think we delivered on both accounts. We tried to go medieval with some knight masks and foam swords and shields for the kids to play with, but it was literally not two minutes after we snapped photos of them hamming it up in their gear that one of them “accidentally” poked the other in the eye.

Maya has officially grown out of her first bicycle, and so we bought her a bigger bike for her birthday. To ensure we weren’t victim of any supply chain issues, Sean had taken her shopping for it quite early. After a brief adjustment period, she was used to the much larger and heavier bicycle and was riding away. It’s a three-speed, and I don’t think we’ve tested out changing gears yet. I’m sure it won’t be long though.

And just like that, she’s 9!

Grammy and Grandpa and Lolli and Pop sent gifts, and we got them all wrapped and piled up with our own. Thanks to the pandemic, we are all now comfortable Zoom users and out of town grandparents can attend things they normally wouldn’t have – like informal little birthday parties. With all the grandparents on the screen, we sang Happy Birthday with an LED candle (because The Maya hates the smell of fire), and watched her open her gifts. Certainly it’s not the same as all of us being in the same room, but it’s a far sight better than not seeing each other at all.

We had planned to stay with our bubble family friends for the whole week of Thanksgiving in the same house we rented last year at South Padre Island. Alas, their daughter had a medical issue to contend with that resulted in them needing to fly to Philadelphia for major surgery. Instead, we rented a little condo in SPI for a few days, so we could all relax and unwind a little before all the December craziness.

Ian and his unicorn

We missed our friends and checked multiple times daily for updates on their daughter’s condition. But otherwise, the little beach vacation was just what we needed. We didn’t have to be anywhere at any particular time. Pretty much every time the kids asked if they could swim in the condo’s pool, we said yes. And since all of us were at some stage of vaccination, we felt we didn’t need to be quite as hyper-vigilant about staying holed up at our house.

Maya and her ice dragon

For the trip, I had bought the kids new pool floats. Ian’s is a unicorn, complete with a golden horn. Maya’s is an ice dragon rather than a standard fire dragon, because again, Maya does not care for fire. They are ridiculously large, and we would probably have no business having them in a crowded pool, but we rarely shared the pool with other visitors, and when we did, they generally stuck to the hot tub anyway. That’s part of what makes South Padre so fantastic over the Thanksgiving week: there are relatively few people there.

We did spend a fair amount of time at the beach and in the gulf on our first full day there. The weather was nice, and we waited till afternoon so it was good and warmed up. The kids LOVED it. Of course, Maya loves her boogie board, but this time, Ian got in on the action too! Ian’s goal seemed to be to ride the waves, while Maya’s preference was to let them crash into her.

Captured seconds before a whiny argument ensued.

We had gotten Maya a better net for capturing and observing sea life for her birthday (in the past, she’s used her bug net, or borrowed nets), so of course, we saw nothing. No crabs, no little fish, nothing. She did find a ton of weird little cone-shelled things in the sand, but no hermit crabs this time around, so she got bored of it pretty quickly. Luckily, once they were all beached out, we could simply walk the 5 minutes back, knock the sand and salt water off under the shower outside the condo, and go straight to the pool for more playing and relaxing.

Our second day there promised to be windy, rainy, and not as warm, so we drove to Boca Chica to check out the SpaceX facility. It was only about 9 miles away from us as the crow flies, but it was more like a 45 minute drive once we drove all the way around the bay. I suspect this is a word that gets used a lot with regard to this facility, but it was surreal. We were never stopped by any security (outside of border control on the way back to SPI), and on our initial drive through, we were clued in to the fact that we had passed all the good stuff because we found ourselves driving directly toward the ocean. After a turnaround on the beach, we took our time meandering back, stopping at several locations to snap photos and wander around to get better angles. Had the kids not been along, I’d have been sorely tempted to see just how far into the various facilities I could wander before someone told me not to.

OMG, Mom, we are so boooooooored.

We tried so hard to entice the kids into being interested. Hey, in your lifetime, a craft just like this one might actually transport humans to Mars! Maya placated us with a mopey, “That’s neat.” And Ian looked confused and said, “What, we aren’t already on Mars?” They can be tough to impress.

I believe one of the groups in the morning dubbed the creature: Lady Gaga

On our final full day, we visited the South Padre Island Birding, Nature Center, and Alligator Sanctuary. We figured Maya the bird lover would enjoy it and that the walk would do us all some good. There were a lot more alligators than I was anticipating. All the literature talks about Big Padre, who’s over 12 feet long, and is a rescue from Port Arther. He has a relatively diminutive friend named Lady Laguna, though I wouldn’t wanna meet her out walking around either. But there are separate areas where many other smaller gators live as well. The kids even got to touch a tiny one that was part of a gator lecture the folks at the sanctuary had been giving.

At the nature center

Maya and Ian were able to see many different birds and got to try their hand at photographing some of them. We saw little crabs scuttling in the water and along the bank, and we even saw one clinging to the bottom of the boardwalk structure we were on. There were lots of fish churning up the water and Maya sure did try to take their pictures too.

I will forget some of what we saw, but I believe she’s added to her list: sanderlings (which were fun to watch as they scuttled back and forth on the beach trying to search for fresh food while not getting caught by waves), tricolored herons, roseate spoonbills, white ibises, common gallinules, American coots, American white pelicans, snowy egrets, and black-bellied whistling ducks. We should probably stop being lazy and try to actually identify the kinds of seagulls we see, but we haven’t bothered with that yet.

The snowy egret that Maya named Winter

We tried one more beach visit that afternoon, but it was a bit cooler and Ian wasn’t interested in toughing it out. I walked back to the condo with him and let him play in the pool, so Maya and Dad could stay at the beach. It must have been boring without Ian there though, because it wasn’t long before Maya was back to play in the pool as well.

We had an uneventful drive back on Wednesday, and got home in plenty of time to pick up the grocery order we had placed nearly a week prior. We planned for only a small Thanksgiving feast for our little family of four. For a change, I didn’t bother spending all day cooking. I prepared food in little fits and starts as I felt like it. I made stuffing biscuits for breakfast and we had them with the bacon that I *had* to make so I’d have bacon grease to use for Sean’s Brussels sprouts that evening. I roasted some turkey legs that I had put in a brine the night before. We made Sean’s mom’s dressing because it’s required. I like hasselback sweet potatoes, made savory and herby instead of sweet. And the kids don’t like any of those sides, so I cut up some raw broccoli and made a cucumber salad to go with. It was just fine. We didn’t stress and outside of the cooking, we more or less just relaxed.

Our feast.

I worked on Friday, but once my workday was done, we went ahead and secured our Christmas tree and spent the weekend decorating it. I figure we’ll save tree photos for December though. December will be a big month for us. After nearly two shitty years of shitty pandemic, we should finally get to take our Disney World trip with the kids and we should finally get to fly to see our families again.

Percentage of US population that has been fully vaccinated (58.0% as of 11/6, 59.9% as of 12/5). Travis County – 11/5 120,366 cases and 1167 deaths – 12/3 123,040 cases and 1194 deaths. Texas – 11/5 4,257,615 cases and 71,802 deaths – 12/5 4,352,098 cases and 74,198 deaths. United States – 11/5 46,446,975 cases and 754,061 deaths – 12/5 49,085,361 cases and 788,363 deaths. The World – 11/5 249,421,209 cases and 5,042,829 deaths – 12/5 265,847,554 cases and 5,255,544 deaths.

October was a good and bad month. If August and September were all angst and apprehension, October was making the most of it, sadness and loss, and then maybe a light at the end of the COVID tunnel.

Darth Nox laying on the Millennium Falcon

I spent the first weekend in October constructing something called armadillo eggs. I know, I know, mammals don’t lay eggs, but when in Texas …

Sean was told about these creatures by his boss. My curiosity was sufficiently piqued to look into it a bit, and lo and behold, I found multiple recipes for said creation. How have I lived in Texas for over 20 years and never heard of these? Start with the standard jalapeño popper and push it way, WAY over the edge. It’s nearly like something you’d eat on a dare. Here’s the recipe we used, and I swear to you, it was absolutely delicious. A couple tips: our Texas jalapeños are large and in charge. Mine measured about 4 inches in length. I gutted and quartered these, and the jalapeño punch was sufficient. I had some Fresno chiles growing in our little backyard garden as well. They’re delicious chiles, but perhaps not quite meaty enough to stand up to the meat quotient of this particular recipe.

Armadillo eggs!

I had been trying to book a cabin at Palo Duro Canyon State Park off and on for months and months and they were ALWAYS booked. Finally, I just said fuck it and reserved a tent campsite for a long weekend we had in October. I did this back in May, when I thought we’d have a four-day weekend. Alas, on a Friday, we let our kids miss school so we could drive the 7 hours up toward Amarillo. Since we avoided I-35, it was honestly not too bad, as 7-hour drives go.

Lighthouse formation at Palo Duro Canyon

We arrived at our campsite with plenty of daylight to get our tent set up and our dinner prepared … but then we laid waste to all of that by driving around trying to find a small trail to hike and a good view of the canyon to enjoy. We pulled up to the visitors’ center and got our first good look at Palo Duro Canyon. I think Maya amused the older couple hanging out nearby with her breathless “Wow!” as she got out of the car.

We found a huge yellow grasshopper who was missing a back leg and who Maya dubbed “Lemon.” We wandered out a bit on the trail we’d be walking the next day, just to get an idea of how things would be. And then we drove back and ate dinner in the dark. It was so BUGGY. That was probably the only real downer of the trip. It was hard to eat, day or night, for all the flies and gnats and who knows what else seemingly coating our food.

We hiked and no one got bitten by a snake!

Our evening was peaceful. We left the rainfly off the tent and looked up at all the pretty stars. We listened to coyotes yipping somewhere seemingly far away from us. And in the morning, we woke to find that Tent, Arthur Tent had a lovely praying mantis on the roof. Maya was thrilled. She had brought her bug house and net along and had been busily catching flies and grasshoppers and the occasional beetle. We elected to move the praying mantis off the tent so we could install the rainfly since some “weather” was supposed to be rolling in, but to let it roam free instead of being confined to the bug house. (When it came time to pack up the next day, there was another one on tent; that one I let her keep and observe for a little while.)

We had breakfast and then went on a hike that took us from the rim of the canyon down into it a fair ways. It wasn’t the longest hike the kids had taken, but it was probably the most difficult. Plus, I had them each carry their own backpacks with full water bottles and an extra liter of water as well and a few snacks. Even with the extra weight, they did a wonderful job. It was sooo hot. Mid-October and well to the north of Austin, it was still around 100 degrees out while we were hiking. There’s a lot of truth though to a dry heat feeling less awful than a humid heat, so we just made sure we were all drinking plenty of water and powered through it.

Ice cream!

That afternoon, we took the kids into the town of Canyon for some ice cream at a local soda fountain type place: Rockin’ Zebra Soda Shoppe. They both had big messy ice cream cones, Sean had a lovely malt, and I had some kind of prickly-pear based Italian soda. I’m sure after a day of 100-degree hiking, we weren’t the freshest smelling folks in the joint, but it really was a nice break.

That evening, we had dinner in the daylight in hopes of avoiding some of the insect life. Alas, it just made it easier to see how many bugs you were potentially consuming. We adopted the habit of walking around and eating at the same time, which helped a little. Sean built a nice fire and we roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and generally had a nice time. Another kid in the camp had come by and introduced herself and she and the kids played before, during, and after dinner.

Once things settled down, we found ourselves staring up at the clear night sky, noticing that you could actually see the hazy cloud of the Milky Way galaxy. Another camp neighbor overheard us and invited us over to let the kids look through their telescope at the moon as well. It was so nice to feel normally social instead of COVID social. The big open space and the small density of people had us feeling safe, though I’ll be happier when my brain stops doing a threat assessment on every single social interaction we have.

Beautiful sunrise colors

The next morning, we hustled through breakfast and “out the door” just as fast as we could to try and get to the Lighthouse trail before sunrise. We were the first ones in the parking lot, and we were rewarded with lovely sunrise-lit cloud cover, red rocks that fairly glowed, and a quiet that we wouldn’t get once the “crowds” descended.

Nearly all of the trail is fairly flat. Thanks to the weather change overnight, it was nice and cool and cloudy for our walk. Things didn’t get treacherous till the very end, when we had a combination of rock scramble and cliffside hiking to spice things up. The kids again did great, and the Lighthouse formation is truly beautiful.

After lunch, we packed up all our camping supplies and drove up into Amarillo to stay at a hotel and have a shower and a good night’s sleep before the long drive home. The kids LOVE hotels and hadn’t staying in once since before the pandemic, so they were pretty excited. Plus, this one had an indoor pool, so they even got to spend a delightful hour swimming.

Cadillac Ranch

The next morning, we embarked on the last adventure of our trip: spray-painting Cadillacs. We drove over to Cadillac Ranch to observe the ever-changing public art installation and contribute to it, however briefly. In 1974, ten Cadillacs were planted nose-down in the ground at a jaunty angle, the highlight how their tail-fin designs had changed through the years. At this point though, they’re so coated in layers of spray paint, I’m not sure you can observe much beyond the topmost layer. It almost looked like the cars were made of a plastic that had started to melt and ooze.

And clearly, if you allow people to go wild with cans of spray paint, they will. The cars of course were well-coated. There was art painted on the ground, the fences, the rocks. Even stalks of corn had been spray-painted. We had gotten an octopus stencil for Maya and a unicorn stencil for Ian and showed up with everyone’s favorite colors of spray paint and some rubber gloves and got to work. Maya was all in (isn’t she always?) and could probably have whiled away a cheerful hour painting and repainting cars. Ian struggled to push button on the spray paint can and thus suffered with erratic nozzle aim.

And then, just like that, our little vacation was over and we drove the 7 hours back home again. On our way up to Amarillo on Friday, we had learned that my grandmother’s health had taken a downward turn. News came intermittently since we had all but nonexistent cell service in the park. It was a roller coaster: “she’s in the hospital not looking good” and then “her values are good, she’s stabilizing”, followed by “she’s going home.” Then the steep decline with “we think she’s had another stroke” and then “she’s not going back to the hospital; she’s chosen hospice.” We got back into Austin on the 11th. On the 14th, she passed away. She was nearly 94 years old.

Great Grandma Schmidt. We love you and miss you.

Even now weeks later, after a funeral, after seeing family I’ve not seen in ages, and after lots of remembering and the accompanying waves of sadness and joy, I still find myself tearing up. My brother and I spent a lot of time with Grandma growing up. She was our weekday babysitter. I can still remember her walking us out to the end of her driveway to catch the school bus, and then walking back up the drive after school to snacks and playing at her house. She was one of the people who taught me to sew, who taught me to crochet. We spent time in her kitchen, watching her cook. She had this big table-top that she could pull out of the kitchen cabinets – that’s where the bread dough or the cookies or the pie crust got rolled out. We would ride tricycles around her basement and get ice pops out of her downstairs freezer. We would play and play and play in the fields and barns around her house. She was my last surviving grandparent, and the sense of loss is hard to put into words.

I struggle with COVID anger sometimes, especially when I tally the time and experiences that the virus has stolen. This is especially pointed when I think about how we haven’t seen Grandma / Great Grandma since December of 2019. We could have had several more visits between her and the kids, and it’s hard to feel anything but raw anger.

Grandma was able to make her wishes known right up to the end, and that certainly suited her best. I personally take some comfort in the fact that she was able to choose what was best for her, though of course, I very much wish I could have spent just a little more time with her.

After the few days back in Missouri for the funeral, I spent a week or so kind of catching up, but then it was full-on Halloween. I had gotten the kids a couple of kiwi crates for making a Halloween haunted house and some little luminaries and we spent a fun weekend building those. We bought pumpkins to carve. As is our tradition, Anna drew the faces on the pumpkins, I gutted them (yay?), and the kids and I carved them out. Their carving stamina keeps increasing. Maybe next year, they’ll do them entirely themselves.

An owl and a Minecraft creeper

Ian made my Halloween costume life easy. He chose to be the Ender Dragon from Minecraft. This was a super-cool costumer that I could purchase from Target. Maya has been really into birdlife the past couple years, and so she asked to be a rufous hummingbird. That one had to be made. After a bit of research, I was pretty sure we could fabric-glue some feathers to a shirt and go from there. We purchased wings and a mask and appended a thin, paper hummingbird beak to the mask. Her burnt orange shirt had iridescent black/green feathers around the bottom, orange feathers in the middle, and white feathers around the neck. She admitted it was a little uncomfortable to wear, but she was thrilled with how it looked.

Ian the Ender Dragon.

On Friday, we went to the trunk or treat / Ice Scream Social at the kids’ school. Then on Sunday, after taking the year off last year, we donned our masks and went trick or treating around the neighborhood. We are really lucky – so many of our neighbors really go all out for Halloween. There were so many great decorations. One of our neighbors dressed up as boxed wine; his costume was even functional.

Maya the rufous hummingbird

COVID-19 cases have continued to decline in our area. But the best thing has happened this past week. The Pfizer vaccine was approved for emergency use for the age 5 to 11 set. Maya and Ian are scheduled for their first COVID vaccine shot early next week. All of our December travel plans hinged on this happening, so I’m extremely relieved that we’re finally here.

Percentage of US population that has been fully vaccinated (56.6% as of 10/12, 58.0% as of 11/6). Travis County – 10/13 117,807 cases and 1128 deaths – 11/5 120,366 cases and 1167 deaths. Texas – 10/12 4,162,922 cases and 68,245 deaths – 11/5 4,257,615 cases and 71,802 deaths. United States – 10/12 44,681,561 cases and 719,515 deaths – 11/5 46,446,975 cases and 754,061 deaths. The World – 10/12 239,115,805 cases and 4,873,400 deaths – 11/5 249,421,209 cases and 5,042,829 deaths.