Don & Laurie's Grandchild Trip

Wed 4/23, MK

Don and Laurie, with almost-6-year-old granddaughter Serina (and briefly her daddy Ty)

It's a very bright morning today, just three days after Easter. There were only two things on Serina's absolutely-must-do list for today, Splash Mountain and lunch with Pooh and his buddies. Actually, she had insisted on doing those things on Day 1, but we successfully put her off. (Can't be too young to learn delayed gratification, heck, I'm still having trouble waiting until December for our next trip ;-)

Serina answers Mickey's wakeup call, and she isn't overly impressed with it but it's okay. She hops out of bed though with a big smile on her face, gets her Wednesday underwear out of the drawer, and is easily the first of us ready to go. She asks if she can go outside while we get ready, and with no objection she bounces out the door with her camera. It's only a couple minutes though when she comes back in the room, looking a little down, and tosses her camera on the bed. Her dad says "I thought you were going to take pictures," and she replies "Well I was, but I thought you were coming out too." So even though she's only 5, she's already passed Women's Silent Communication 101 (Don ducks;-).

We run into three minor problems this morning, the smallest of which is that Serina doesn't like grownup toothpaste, it's too hot. Laurie exhibits once again her problem solving speed with the little ones, immediately telling her that "Papa doesn't like grownup toothpaste either, use his." Problem solved. At the Magic Kingdom turnstiles we discover that Ty's ticket has been demagnetized and has to be taken inside for replacement. They're very nice and take care of it with no problem, but it takes a while. Kind of shoots down our rope drop plan, but we're guessing the Easter crowd should be way down so we'll be all right. Then while walking up Main Street I realize we forgot to bring the charger for our camcorder. That's fixed with a call to Laurie's sister, who overnights it to us.

Serina doesn't want to ride Dumbo and we can do the Carousel anytime, so we decide to get FastPasses for Pooh and head down to the Speedway. We couldn't get a FP with Laurie's annual pass because it wasn't run through the turnstile out front (she actually ended up going through on Serina's, it was one of those fumbling stroller sort of deals). The CM gives us a 4th FP, but Laurie decides she better go back out front to activate her pass for the day so we'll be able to get FPs with it later.

In the meantime, Serina and her daddy ride the Indy Speedway. When she gets off, I ask her how it went and she simply says "I'm driving you next." There's only a 5-minute line, so now's the time. While up on the platform we see them bringing more cars onto the track, and Serina laughs and says "There's another boss on the track, and he's driving crazy!" (For the entire trip, CMs are referred to as "bosses". Reminds me of when my son was in kindergarten and talked about the "cafeteria teachers".) She barely gripped the wheel at all and the rail kept ripping it out of her hands, so though it was possibly the roughest ride I've ever been on, anywhere, she was quite proud of it.

Back by the TeaCups, we almost got autographs from Alice and the Mad Hatter, but they had to go somewhere else just as we got there. She doesn't want to ride the TeaCups, they look way too fast. While we're waiting for Laurie to get back, there's only a 15-minute wait for Pooh, and Serina's only question is "Is it dark?" (That tells me Snow White is out of the question today, and probably Peter Pan as well ;-) About halfway through the ride though, she's not liking it at all, it IS too dark! This is REALLY going to be a tough trip if POOH is too dark. But halfway through the ride her dad realizes she's still wearing her sunglasses. Doh!!!

Laurie rejoins us just as we get out of Pooh. On her way back from the front of the park, she decided to stop by the Crystal Palace on the off-chance that we could replace the ugly 4:20 PS we got from home for something at lunch like we had wanted, and managed to come back with 11:40. Score!!!

Laurie got her chance to "kiss the goose" this morning. Serina is displaying very good problem-solving skills. She had heard Laurie mention that she doesn't ride the TeaCups because spinning things upset her stomach, so she tells us she'll go on the ride if Grandma goes with her. (She knows that even if Grandma goes, there's certainly not going to be a lot of high-speed spinning ;-) It's a little easier to understand Serina's fear of various things when you put them in the context of our own fears. Laurie's "fear" on this ride is that she'll ruin a hundred peoples' day by barfing all over the ride. But this little girl is working so hard to get past her hurdles that Grandma figures she can tough it out through one of hers too. (Plus she knows that with Serina, there's certainly not going to be a lot of high-speed spinning ;-)

Serina loves it and when they get off she thinks we should all go on it. She even spun it some. Laurie promised she wouldn't hurl on me, and kept her word. We were now inside our FP window for Pooh, so Serina got her second trip and wants to sit in the front with Grandma. It's always exciting for a child to be the one who knows something the adult "doesn't" and be able to explain things as they go along, such as "You're going to love this next room!". Ty's observation -- "She's a pro now!" It also helps that she's not wearing her sunglasses this time ;-)

On our way back to ToonTown, we discover that to Serina, a "little" roller coaster is just as bad as a "big" roller coaster, and she has no interest in either. However, a "kiddy" roller coaster sounds like fun. (Go figure, choose your words carefully.) She rides the Barnstormer with Laurie, and doesn't like it. Laurie asks her why, since "it's not scary, it's not dark, and it's not too fast." Serina replies, "Well, it's a LITTLE fast." Laurie agrees, "but if you go on it again, you already know what it's going to do, it'll be so much fun, wouldn't you like to do it again with your daddy?" "Yeah!!!" So as soon as they get off, she grabs her dad and says "I'm doing it with you now," and off they go.

I like this girl's style, on the train around to Splash Mountain we were preparing her for the possibility that we may have to get a FP and ride it later (another delayed gratification lesson;-). She says "but if there isn't much line, we can do it right away, right?" I ask Laurie what her line threshhold is, and since standby is 5 minutes under her limit of 30, she gets FPs while we get in line and she catches up with us. We must have been right about the Easter crowd being down some, because at 10:30 the FP's are only for 11:20.

Serina doesn't like the "little bumps," they make her "stomach feel a little dizzy." Then after the big drop, she informs us she's "never going on that ride again in my life." I have a feeling we're going to hear that a lot this week ;-) She must be working on it in her head though, because we have to stop on the bridge by the bottom of the ride and watch a dozen logs come down. Laurie sees a lot of similarities between Serina's reaction to Splash and her reaction to Tower of Terror -- it's undeniably fun and she wants very much to be able to enjoy it, she just doesn't like what it does to her body.

We settle in for lunch at the Crystal Palace, and are barely seated when Tigger gets to our table. Just as he takes Serina's autograph book though, the music starts playing for the Hooray parade. Tigger drops the book on the table, grabs his sign and Serina's hand, and leads her (and 20 other little ones) around our half of the restaurant. She looks a little tentative, and we can't really tell if she's enjoying this or not.

When my best buddy Eeyore gets to our table, I ask Serina if we can get a picture with the three of us, but she says no. (She has no problem getting HER picture taken with him, you think it could be ME?!?) Laurie then takes a picture of Eeyore and me and bless her heart, Serina uses her own camera to take a picture of us as well. After lunch the girls are returning from the rest room just as the music comes up for another parade. Without hesitation, Serina asks "Can I go in the parade again?", so we're guessing she liked it.

Ty and I kick back while the girls take a trip back to Splash Mountain to see if they can find Serina's lost fanny pack. (They didn't, and we haven't seen kids' versions sold on site anywhere.) On the way back, she informs Laurie that she's going to try Splash Mountain again. But for now, it's time for a break, and Ty and Serina head back to the hotel pool while Laurie and I head to Space Mountain for FPs we can use when we come back this evening.

Neat things are always happening to us at WDW when we least expect them. While walking back to the hub, we must be looking at something or other that draws us around the castle side of the hub instead of our normal route through the middle of it, and because of that we run into (and have a nice chat with) a woman I work with who is chaperoning a music group. 25 hours on a bus with 7th-12th grade students. Twice. From that perspective, I've got no complaint about working with one overly tentative 5-year-old (g).

On our way out of the park, we find a match for the first picture on Deb's All Ears contest. I want to make sure there isn't a trick answer, so I ask the CM if this is the only place that uniform is worn. She looks like she's going to smack me up side the head, and informs me that this "COSTUME" is only used here, and since she looks a little like my mom I have no thoughts of sassing her ;-)

In the meantime, Serina has a great time in both pools with Daddy, especially trying to catch Goofy's "pitches" in the baseball pool. After she has a 2-hour nap (and Papa 3 hours;-), we head back to the Magic Kingdom at 7. Our plan is to do Buzz first, but as we walk up we see the standby time go from 90 to 120. The line doubles down and back the side of the building twice, and back across the plaza toward Space Mountain. So much for the light post-Easter crowd.

So we see the Carousel of Progress instead. That's the plus side of going when it's "busy", we get to see our old (now "seasonal") favorites. Serina enjoys it a lot, once she's convinced in the first scene that the man and dog are "nailed to the floor."

I was going to people-watch with Serina while Ty and Laurie went on Space Mountain with the FastPasses, but Ty wants to do something with Serina since he's leaving tomorrow morning, so we ride the TTA instead. With three dark tunnels, add that to the list of things we aren't ever doing again ;-) As soon as we're off, she wants to ride the Speedway again, because she hasn't driven Grandma yet. She thoughtfully warns Laurie that it's a very bumpy ride. My back can attest to that. Now Laurie's can too.

We have supper at the Pinocchio Haus, at our favorite table overlooking Small World. The only question Serina has initially concerns water depth. She ultimately decides she doesn't think she'll like it, but we figure out later that from above, the entrance to the first room looks like a dark tunnel.

It's time for SpectroMagic now, and Laurie has gone down to the Emporium since that's the only place in the park you can still buy a sweatshirt in April. Ty and I figure the side of the castle will be just the right place to watch SpectroMagic. Okay, so it's a smoking area, but it turns out the volume is just right from back here. Serina is fascinated by it. When Laurie gets back, Serina asks her if the parade is going to come up by us. "No, because we're on the sidewalk and the parade is on the street." "Well why can't we be down by the street." "We can, but the music is much louder down there." That satisfies her and she doesn't indicate any desire to go down, but she does later tell us that she wants to get close for the second parade.

By the time the parade is over it's 9:30, we know we only have time for one walk-on ride if we're going to get down to the Plaza Pavilion in time to watch Tinkerbell. We ride Small World, and every time we come around a corner and she can see the "tunnel" into the next room, she wants to know if it's going to be dark. She really likes the ride though, especially some of the animals. She is giggling in several places, and excitedly points out to her dad the girl that looks just like Lilo.

She's been constantly measuring, wondering if Elysia or Alexis rode this ride, how many times they rode that one, who got this or that autograph. We weren't quite sure whether to play that up or down, but she was certainly excited to discover that she's the only one to have been in Tigger's parade. Somewhere on Small World, she asked us "Has anybody I know ridden this?" We informed her that both of the other girls had, and she said "No, I mean adults." We told her all three of us had, plus her mom, and that was all she wanted to know. We have no idea what prompted the question or what the answer meant to her.

We're headed down to the Plaza Pavilion now, and it occurs to me that we had thought (pre-trip) she might have balked at using the stroller very much, being almost 6 and all. No worries, she's barely been out of it. That's a great deal for all of us, because it's much less tiring for her this way. But you know you're starting to really become a princess when you start announcing to all three adults around you when it can be their turn to push.

We get to our chosen spot just as the castle goes dark. The changing colors on the castle are "cool." Serina is sitting on a divider wall with me behind her, holding her. When I ask her if she wants her dad to come hold her, she says "No, you can." That's good news, because I've been a little worried about how she'll do when Daddy leaves tomorrow. She loves Tink, and only has her ears covered for about half the fireworks. I can feel her getting tense, but I get her guessing at whose favorite color will be next and she calms quite a bit. Overall, she enjoyed it a lot.

She had wanted to ride Pooh again, and we had told her that she could, after the fireworks. But now Laurie asks her if she wants to go back to the hotel and she's more than ready. She's asked a few times this evening if we could see different things from the hotel, so we think she was telling us she was tired.

We're anxious to see how Daddy's departure will go early tomorrow morning, and we're going to sleep in a bit (if possible) and go to a water park.

Day: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7