Marie Vautrin - October 2002

After that we rode BTMR a few times and the teens decided that they wanted to hit Space Mountain and then head over to Disney Quest for the rest of the day. I was a little disappointed as I wanted us to spend the day together but I just smiled, said have fun, and gave DS some birthday cash. After that we went to Pecos Bills had a light lunch. The food was ample and good as usual. Jane and I split the wrap sandwich and mom and Lexi shared a cheeseburger. Rayna ate some of the mountain of french fries. We discussed what to do and decided to head to Fantasyland as Rayna was demanding to ride PPF. Of course we stopped by the haunted mansion on the way. There was a bit of line but nothing horrible. I liked the new tombstone but many of the people in line didn't even seem to notice it's neat trick! The cm here wished Jane a "miserable birthday" as is fitting for the HM. We then proceeded on to FL and PPL where we encountered the first long line of the day! Go figure. We got a FP and mom took girls on SW (no wait of course). This is another ride that kills the knees so Jane and I waited in the Pinocchio restaurant and shared a diet coke. The girls spotted us in the window and waved as if they were seeing us for the first time in years. After that we still had time to ride the carrousel before doing our FP for PPF. When it was time to use our FP Mom got a bit uncomfortable saying she felt like she was "cutting in front of everyone else". I pointed out that anyone standing in line could have gotten a FP too but I will have to admit that we got some nasty looks. Do people just not get the FP concept? When we got off we went ahead and got another FP because I knew DD would want to come back. We then went on Dumbo, Snow White, and the carrousel again. We went to Ariel's Grotto but there was a long line and the girls didn't want to wait. It was about time for the parade so Mom went to watch and we took the girls on the Pooh ride without having to wait. Did I mention that there were lots of characters about? The Dwarves by the Snow White ride, the Queen of Hearts, Alice, Snow White, etc.. I have never seen as many characters out as we did on this trip! After Pooh we went on the Teacups. When we got off Mom reappeared and wanted to ride the teacups so we went again as there was no wait. We went back to do PPF again thenwe then to Buzz Lightyear which we all enjoyed although we were not very good at it. I toyed with the idea of doing the alien ride but didn't want to go it alone and the teens had deserted us. I had to settle for TTS which I still think of as the Wedway People Mover! Not nearly as thrilling as I imagine Alien Encounter would be! There really wasn't much to do in this area. There was a girl group -No Promises??performing on the stage area but we didn't go over there. Later when I mentioned this to the boys they were sorry they missed this as they proclaimed the girls in the group to be "very hot" - who knew? We then went to MTTF to view Minnie's house. The new daredevil Lexi begged me to go on Goofy's Barnstormer with her. It was a fun, if brief, ride and we ended up riding four times in a row as no one else was in line to ride and the cm just kept sending us around. Lexi loved it and was even holding her arms up by the last ride. We went to Minnie's house and Pluto was in the Gazebo. I remembered someone on the list said to scratch his ear so I told Lexi to try it. His reaction was cute and Lexi thought it was funny. She asked me "How do you know so much about Disney stuff?" and I had to give MFL a plug! We caught the train back around to Main Street as Jane had some packages to pick up. We went in the back and posed in the cut outs and toured the exhibits. When we went back outside there was no one on the porch so we sat. I asked a cm from Tony's if it was almost time for the character cavalcade and she said yes and that we had the perfect spot for it. Pretty soon the cavalcade started and the square was filled with cavorting characters. I thought it was just going to be a parade but once the characters got to the square they began dancing with the people there. I took Rayna and Lexi down to the street the next thing I knew Mickey Mouse had grabbed my 4yo's hand and danced with her. Did mom have the camera? No, of course not and I knew he would have to move on before I could get it so I just enjoyed the moment. Rayna was loving it but you know I don't think she thought it was any thing special. I guess in her mind it's what happens when you go to WDW! It was a real mob scene in the square and as I couldn't imagine anything else as special happening we gave up our prime porch seats and left before the mass exodus. There was a ferry waiting so we hopped it back to FW. This was when I was loving that golf cart. After a day at the park it is nice not to have to trudge to the buses and to our site. We zoomed back and freshen up and rested and then decided to go up to Pioneer Hall and check out the Haunted Hayrides. When we finally got there the next two rides were sold out but we got tickets for the 9:30 ride. That gave us an hour or so to kill. We decided to go to Crockett's Tavern for a pizza and an adult beverage. The cm noticed Jane's button and wished her a happy birthday. We got our drinks and a huge pizza which we couldn't finish and then the cm brought Jane a big dish of Strawberry Shortcake with a candle on it. She said it was their signature dessert and it was yummy! We all shared but couldn't finish it either. Then it was time to go on our hayride. We went back to the boarding area, gave our tickets to one of the young ladies taking tickets. The cms all had on period costumes that helped set the mood. We got aboard the enormous wagon which was being pulled by two huge horse. We had a women driver who told us all about the horses although I can't for the life of me remember what type they were. Cassie (our driver) said pulling the wagon even loaded with 20 plus people was a piece of cake for them. As we backed up she asked us to make beeping noises in order to comply with federal regulations regarding the backing up of vehicles - very cute. We then went in a big circle around the area. Along the way an elderly gentle man in period dress hailed the wagon and asked for a ride. He got on and then proceeded to tell the story of Sleepy Hollow and soon we were entered the woods on a dirt road. The sign posted on a tree said "Sleepy Hollow". We passed a pumpkin patch with hardly a pumpkin to be had and a spooky graveyard. We then meet a terrified Ichabod Crane who was having a bit of trouble controlling his horse. He related how he had been at a party and been upset by Brahms Bones telling stories about the Headless Horseman. He told us that he was heading to the schoolhouse. Our story teller told him to be careful and we parted ways. I don't want to give away any more of what happened but we all got a good scare and it was a really fun thing to do. Even though Lexi spent most of the ride on the floor of the wagon the girls wanted to go again as soon as we were done. I would have loved to take the teens but we never got back. I am not sure if this is something WDW does every year but would highly recommend it to anyone who was interested (especially those who love the headless horseman)! After that we went back to the site and got ready for bed. Jane had a time getting the red out of her hair. The teens were not there yet but showed up soon after and reported having lots of fun although DQ was kind of a yawn for Krys as she's not much of a video game player. She liked the shopping area and all of them bought CDs at the record store. I was about to fuss about coming all the way to WDW and blowing money on CDs but then decided there was no point to it! It was lights off and time to sleep.

Highlights: great service at Crockett's and Trail's End, Will and Jane getting so much birthday attention, and the hayride. What a fun day!

Wednesday October 30 -

This was our fourth day and the mid point of our trip so we had decided to take a day off from the parks and go to Blizzard Beach. We would have preferred TL but it was closed for rehab. My Mom had decided that she would stay in camp and do laundry which was a daunting task by then (5 days of eight people's dirty clothes)! In retrospect we realized it would have been much smarter to do a load or two every night. Jane was meeting her uncle for lunch and then heading to WalMart to buy some more food and drinks. I had decided we needed to drive to BB because we had so much stuff to haul. I took Jane up to the big parking lot to get the truck. By the time we got on the road there were some dark clouds in the sky. Being familair with Florida, I knew that at times they just blow by so we continued on the way. We got to BB and parked close to the entrance as it wasn't too busy (those clouds probably). As we were walking in it began to sprinkle and as we got close to the Lottawatta Lodge the drops got faster and the announcer came on telling everyone that a storm system was in the area and everyone had to get out of the water, off the sidewalks, and to seek shelter! What a promising start to our BB experience. We grabbed some benches from around a table and went to sit against the wall and wait out the storm. Many people were leaving but we decided to stay and see if things got better. It got crowded around there and even the CMs were huddled up in this area. The teens amused themselves by posting speedo alerts ("SA at four o'clock"). No offense to those who favor speedos, we just don't see them a lot around here. I must say that very few guys can pull off the speedp look with great sucess but more power to them. Once again we heard many English people (or perhaps Australian??) and even some people speaking Dutch and German. It always amazes me that so many people come from so far away to see WDW. After awhile the clouds began clearing and a bell rang which sent the CMs scattering. I figured it was only a matter of time before we would get the all clear. It took about 10-15 minutes before they announced that we could get in the water and by then we had begun to walk towards Tike's Peak to get a picnic table. We found an empty one under a shelter. The other table had a cooler on it and some shoes but no one in sight. The teens wanted to get to the rides so they took off leaving me with a 4 yo and a 9 yo. After a quick dash around the 9 yo proclaimed this area "lame" and wanted to go to the Ski Patrol area. We went there only to discover that this area was too hard for the 4 yo who demanded to go back to the "funner place". Lexi said she could stay there alone if I came to check on her. So I spent the next couple of hours dashing back and forth. Since I couldn't leave the 4 yo on her own she had to go with and screech about it every time! Lexi had a great time in the Ski Patrol area and I have some neat pictures of her going across the ice floes. She made fast friends with a gaggle of English girls and they had a "gang" that fought for control of the free floating bergs against a gang of boys. They wer very dissappointed when we had to leave. Now one of these times when we went back to our shelter the owners of the shoes and cooler were there which brings me to one of the peeves I had regarding this whole trip - smoking. The signs clearly state that the parks are no smoking and that smoking is allowed only in designated areas. I am keenly aware of smoke because 1) I hate it and 2) my DN is terribly asthmatic and smoke is so bad for him. While since the first night there I had seen people smoking in all areas of the park. Sometimes a CM talked to them and sometimes not. Many of them knew they were wrong because they were hiding their cigarettes in their hands. I am not anti foriegner but it seemed many of them were not American. I lived in Europe and I know that the rules are different there and so much of the population smokes but this isn't Europe. Not to say all smokers were European but many were. The worst one was this lady in Epcot riding on an EVC with her lit cigarette gripping loudly about how inconsiderate everyone was being because they were in her way (she was an American)! Anyway the people who were sitting under the shelter were of course puffing away! I said hi and they said hi (they had English accents). I wasn't mean or anything but I did ask if they would please not smoke there and explained about my nephew. I told them where the smoking area was (I had gagged going by it as I ran back and forth between the two area many times) . They didn't seem too happy with me but complied after mumbling something about my nephew not even being there. He showed up shortly after and asked if someone had been smoking as he's very sensitive. He said he run into smoke all day all over the park even on the Lazy River. I told him to tell a CM if it was too bad. Well we stayed at BB until about 4:00 when we packed it in. The boys wanted to get to Quest for their nightly dose of games and cheesecake and I had made a PS at Boma for the grown folks. We gathered all our things and tried to leave the park. For the third time in three parks we were stopped by a survey taker. Believe you me they heard about the smoking thing. On every survey they asked if we were hispanic or of hispanic descent. We don't look too Hispanic except for DD (really an adopted niece) who has olive skin and brown hair. I figure smart Disney is highly interested in the growing hispanic market. We got back and were met by an irritated Grammy who had spent "half her life and at least 40 dollars doing laundry!". She was also aggravated to find that 15 yo DD had neglected to add her clothes to the dirty laundry pile. So in addition to babysitting DD was given the task of her own laundry and the day's towels. We soon found out that Grammy is no fan of the dryers at the FW laundry facility. Her advice is that if you plan on doing laundry there to stockpile quarters for at least 9 months. Well Jane, Mom, and I got ready and, after leaving DD with the number to reach us and instructions on how to get to the campfire sing a long, drove to Boma. Mom was very impressed by the lodge. The security guard at the gate waved us through which was a change from last November when they checked our IDs.

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four