Don & Laurie's Grandchild Trip

Day 3 Tue 4/24

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

Ty had to leave around 6am this morning to catch his flight home. It had to be quite an expense for him to miss two days work and fly down for just a brief stay. But he had thought it might be the only way Serina would dare come, and he didn't want her to miss her turn. He woke her up to give her a kiss and hug goodbye, and she said her goodbyes and went right back to sleep. We had wondered if she would have a hard time after, but she wakes up with us smiling and bubbly, playing on the X's and O's in the courtyard for the first time. We're not sure she could have even made the trip either if it hadn't been for him coming, but she knew he could only be here two days and she knows her way around a bit now, and knows we're not going to "make" her do anything. We think that at this point she feels like it's "her" trip and she's comfortable with it.

It's a fairly casual morning, and when we get to Typhoon Lagoon we manage to find three chairs at the edge of the sun and shade, back around by the kid section. (Laurie needs sun, I need shade;-) If you're going to go to the water park at 10:00, there's no use spending much time looking for chairs in the front of the park or near the walkways, might as well head right to the back to begin with. The kid section here isn't nearly as good as at Blizzard Beach, it's mostly 10-year-olds shooting water cannons at everyone, not much fun for the little ones.

Serina does the water slide at the edge of the wave pool twice, and then is ready for the wave pool itself (she's done the one at Darien Lake and loved it). She's just started working on learning to swim with her dad, who describes her as a "rock," but she loves the water. She insists on going out to where the water is just below her chin, and then I carry her when the wave hits us. We turn our back to the wave at the last minute, then it goes over both our heads and carries us toward the shore and we giggle and laugh and then go do it again. She has less fear of the water than I do ;-) After more than an hour and countless waves, we go across the bridge to the kid's section and she does one water slide (in slow motion, sitting up) and one tube rides and then is ready to do the lazy river. So are we.

We decide to have a snack first though, and get to see her sense of humor for the first time. I notice the girls both have earrings (aren't you supposed to remove jewelry when swimming?), and I comment "Hey, am I the only one here without earrings?" She instantly says "Yep", and then after a slight pause adds with a smile "that I know." It's a little crowded, so it takes a while for us to commandeer inner tubes, regular adult for Laurie and me and the child-size with the bottom for Serina. She walks for the first part and soon discovers that some places she can stand up in the water and some places it's a couple inches too deep. We've been floating on the tubes for a while when she absolutely amazes me by suddenly saying "I want to see if I can stand up here." Without waiting for a response, she just jumps off the tube, water goes over her head, she jumps back up and grabs my tube, giggles, and says "Nope!"

We have fun steering around the cold water falling and the house sneezing. Laurie doesn't want to take another trip around, but Serina and I do, so we leave Grandma with some quiet time in the sun. On our second circuit, when we get to the waterfalls, I put her in my tube with me and we use her tube with the bottom for an umbrella. She thinks that is just the coolest thing. (It was cool for me too, that little tube covers all of her but substantially less than all of me ;-)

Now we're back at our seats trying to decide what to do next, I'm thinking Animal Kingdom, Serina is thinking wave pool. Laurie tells her she'll take her to the wave pool if she can stand in the sun while Serina plays, but only if Serina agrees not to go in any deeper than her belly. In time-honored tradition, Serina immediately begins negotiating the depth higher and they end up with the limit being a flower up by her breastbone.

When I return from a wander, the girls are back and Serina is filling a large bucket with sand. A 4-year-old from Britain had owned it but couldn't take it home with him, so he had passed it on to Serina when his family was leaving. And now the three of us are enjoying very pleasant pasttimes, Laurie sitting back in the chair with her face up into the sun, Serina filling the bucket with cool sand, and me sitting in the shade people-watching. If you ever get to the point where you're feeling that your body doesn't look that great, I suggest going to a family water park and just checking out the scenery. Trust me, you don't look so bad ;-) And what is it with middle-aged British men and Speedos???

On the bus back to the All Stars we meet a couple of the 16- or 17-year-olds from the band my co-worker is chaperoning. Their duties are over, and though their return bus trip isn't until tomorrow night, they're more than ready to head home now. (Made me think of the Old Troll.) They echoed the sentiments our town's kids had shared when they went down last year -- it's unbelievably hot and uncomfortable backstage, but the performance was okay.

Serina is trying very hard not to fall asleep on the bus, closing her eyes a few times but staying awake. She must be tired because when we get to the Food Court and ask her to pick a table, instead of finding a window seat halfway down the room like she has been, she simply turns to the one closest to the cashier and says "there's one right here". It's a little too chilly sitting inside the food court though, what with wet hair and minor shoulder burns, so we find a table outside in the shade. We haven't used the stroller this morning and her feet are very tired. She wonders if one of us can go back to the room and get it so she can ride back to the room. No, princess, you're on your own for this last 40 yards ;)

Speaking of trusting people at Disney (weren't we?), when we get back in our room we find a group of towel swans on one bed and an arrangement of Serina's characters watching tv on the other. There's a note on the bed next to Mickey that says "Mickey says you dropped this on the floor, so he picked it up to give to you." In his hand, folded many times lengthwise, is the $100 bill that Serina's daddy had given her last night. Don't know about you, but that was a jaw-dropper for us.

I'm laying on my stomach across the end of the bed waiting for my turn in the shower, when Serina comes out of the bathroom and utters those words every 40-something guy longs to hear -- "Grandma, look how red the top of Papa's head is!!" I thought I had done a good job applying the Water Babies spf45 to my face and head. Our working theory now is that my inept application turned it into spf 4.5.

After our naps, we get to MGM at about 4:40, in plenty of time for the parade. We had told Serina that if the parade got too loud we could leave, being clear that we meant leave the parade, not the park, or Florida ;-) We stake out a spot for the stroller at the end of a bench near the far end of Hollywood Blvd. and Serina takes Laurie across the street to get some sunglasses (oddly there are none in any of the shops on the right side of the street where we are). She comes back with her "cool" sunglasses and parks herself in the stroller, with Laurie a bit off to her side with the videocam and me six feet behind, sharing the storefront wall with a 90-year-old Asian couple. She seems to enjoy the parade, laying back and casually tapping her toe and hand as it passes. Until she sees Lilo and Stitch. Then she's up like a shot, climbing over a guy in front of her to get in position to take her picture. ("No, really sir, we're not part of THAT stroller brigade, this is very much unlike us sir.")

After the parade, we manage to just catch the last showing of the day at Playhouse Disney. We end up sitting near the back, and she makes it clear that she's not going up front. No problem. She enjoys the show, and afterwards we ask her if she watches all those shows at home. She informs us that she only always watches Bear in the Big Blue House, because her sisters "make" her.

At the end of Mickey Avenue, she spends some time trying to talk herself into walking into the spray from the giant Coke bottle, but then decides she wants to go on a ride. So we're going to try Star Tours. She understands the ride completely from previous vidoes, and can describe the whole thing, but isn't quite sure she wants to do it. After we've made our way past the playground and up around Ellen's bookstore, she wonders if we're getting close. As we walk around the next corner I say "Yes, I can see it." She says "Well I can't, cause I don't know what it looks like."

She tries so hard to talk herself into riding, including getting into the seat on the shuttle, but at the last minute before they shut the doors she decides she can't do it. Grandma suggests that I ride while they wait in the hall, so she can get an idea of how short the rides actually are. I'm barely off the ride when she asks "are there any more RIDES in this park?" (Okay guys, that's the downside of telling her Disney World is just like Six Flags ;-)

Since it's 6:25 and Magic Kingdom is open until midnight, I say "Hey Laurie, would it be all right if after we see the Muppet movie we go to another park?" Serina looks at me in disbelief and says "That's what I was trying to tell her while you were on the ride!"

I talk the girls into stopping with me while I have a smoke on the way down to Muppet 3D and have just barely finished it when Serina looks up at me and says "How LONG is that cigarette going to take???" Laurie bails me out by saying through a big grin "I was just thinking the SAME thing!!" Thanks, hon.

We watch the Muppet movie and hear, for the first time this trip, absolute belly laughs, about half a dozen times. She has a very deep voice for a 5-year-old, and it really takes us by surprise. We had told her what the movie looks like with and without the glasses, so she has them down on her nose or up on her forehead about half the time. She loves it.

She still wants to go on a "ride" though, so we figure this might be a good time to introduce her to the monorail. We take the bus from MGM to the Comtemporary, and on our way into the hotel she says, "There's a monorail, we're not riding on THAT are we?" I say "That's how we get to the rides" and she says "But it goes too fast." I say "It's not any faster than a bus" and she says "But it runs way up in the air." We have to take the elevator up to the monorail platform and discover that she doesn't like elevators either. Now we're thinking that maybe the only elevator she's ever been on has been the bumpy ride on the Hydrolators at the Living Seas, so it's not too hard to talk her through that portion of the journey.

When Monorail Orange pulls into the station, she still isn't ready to get on it, until I remind her again "it's just like a bus." Somewhat disgusted, she replies "Well then why don't we just call it a bus." So its "Bus Orange" for our short journey around the lagoon, and her only brief problem is when we're cruising through the treetops around the Polynesian. After we get off and head down the ramp at MK, I ask her if she likes Bus Orange and she tells me "we can call it Monorail Orange now." I'll take that as a yes.

We let her pick the "rides", which put us on Small World and then the Teacups. Serina did some spinning but got it going a little too fast for her liking and wanted me to slow it down. But put two adults on one side of those cars and NOT spinning is a quite a trick;-)

At 9:00 we make our way down through Tomorrowland with the intention of walking through the Main St. shops and catching SpectroMagic from Tony's front porch. Timekeeper is open though, which surprises us since we thought that and Carousel of Progress were only going to be open through Tuesday, so I figure I better see it again while I still can. Laurie doesn't care for it though, so she and Serina head for Tony's. I enjoy the show as much as I did the first time, kind of sad that only 55 other people enjoyed it with me :( I think what they need to do here is create an artificial demand by installing FastPass, like they did with Peter Pan ;-)

After the show, I get a call on the radio from Laurie, who is now outside the park by the exit. Turns out the parade was far too loud for Serina up close. By the time I get out there, she's sound asleep. That probably has a lot to do with it being too loud. She does wake up long enough to climb on the bus and find us a seat, but immediately falls asleep again. We have to carry her off the bus and wheel her to the room, where she immediately starts crying uncontrollably. She's too tired and she wants her mommy and she wants her daddy. We call her mom for her, but she's so tired and sobbing that she can't even talk, so we finally just get her settled down and she goes to sleep.

Once again, we've taken our "day off" and packed it a little too full ;-) Must remember to sleep in tomorrow, that shouldn't hurt us too much at Animal Kingdom.

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