Sheep Guarding Llama

We tried to sleep in as much as possible today. That still meant that we were awake pretty early since we went to bed at nine last night.  Luciana slept all morning, she really felt awful having the same horrible cough that Liesl did two days ago.

(I wrote yesterday’s post without looking at what I had already written for today, which I actually started, just what is above, on that actually day.  So that explains the time frame from yesterday.  We were actually in bed by nine which means we were probably out of the parks by five or six.)

Dad and I went down and got breakfast for everyone and we all ate in the hotel room.  After breakfast I walked dad down to get his bus to the airport.

We took it easy in the hotel room for a while.  Then at a quarter till three Liesl and I went to EPCOT alone leaving Dominica and Luciana to relax at the hotel.  Luciana has had quite a cough and she isn’t feeling that well.

Liesl and I did Spaceship Earth first as there was no line whatsoever.  It was as fast as we could run up the ramp and get onto the ride.  That was awesome.

Then we did The Seas again, this time so that Liesl could get to see the real aquarium part.  Once she saw what it was we were stuck there for a long time 🙂  She thought that it was great.  We had to go around and look at every single exhibit.  She explored everything there. We had a lot of fun.

I took her to Journey into Imagination again which is one of her favourite rides. Not one of mine but it’s fine.  We were able to zip right in, no waiting at all.  It really is a ride designed for Liesl’s age range so it is good for her.  Once the ride was over we spent some time playing at the Imagination Station.

One of the highlights of the trip for me was getting to see Captain EO again.  I’ve not seen it since 1987 or maybe 1992.  I can’t remember when they replaced it.  It was the original 3D movie at WDW and by far the best that they ever made.  A massive budget and some of the biggest names ever put it together.  So good.  And they upgraded the theatre for it now with cool new effects.  Very neat.  Liesl wasn’t that into it, she had already seen it with Dominica the other day and acted a little bored.

That was all of the time that Liesl and I had together.  We were off to meet Dominica and Luciana at Disney’s Beach Club Resort where we have dinner reservations at the Cape May Cafe.  Liesl and I had to practically run through EPCOT to get there on time and I had to carry her much of the way.  It was pretty tiring.

Dinner was okay but we were not impressed with the Cape May Cafe.  Very pedestrian food, not worth the food credit. None of it was bad but it was far from what we used to expect from Disney.  Bland and boring.  Nothing that we couldn’t get at any random seafood restaurant anywhere.

After dinner it was back into EPCOT for the evening.  We tried to go see the Universe of Energy which Dominica and Liesl did the other day but it closed so early that we didn’t make it.  I am very disappointed because that is one of my favourite rides, one of the few remaining from my first visit in 1987 and one that I really wanted to do with my girls at this age.

So instead I got stuck taking Liesl on Test Track, one of the worst rides in all of Disney World.  The waiting line is insanely boring and weird.  Then you get in a fake car that looks like a Chevy Spark and they drive you slowly along a track.  People act like it is a thrill ride but even me, someone who get sick on the tea cups and is in near panic on the Barnstormer could actually fall asleep on this one.  It is so far from exciting that even if there was no line, no wait and you could just ride it anytime you want, it’s not even worth getting on.  It does nothing.  So boring.  Liesl kind of liked it, but was really disappointed that none of the “create your own car” stuff was real and thought that the experience was pretty cheesy.

Our last stop of the night was Mexico.  We rode the Gran Fiesta Tour, which Liesl had already done but Luciana had not, twice.  The girls loved it and we always enjoy it.  We spent some time then hanging out in the market too.  The girls played at the fountain and did the traditional tourist thing and had me take their pictures wearing the sombreros that are on display there.

In the lobby of the “museum” area as you enter the pavilion there was an activity center with colouring that the girls wanted to do.  So we did that just before the park closed.

We got back to the hotel at nine forty.  Off to bed shortly thereafter for us.

We are all getting pretty run down at this point.  Just one more day to go.  Tomorrow is our last day in the parks and it will be a late one as we have the Christmas party to do in the evening.

This morning was another early morning with a mad rush to get out the door and get to the buses so that we could take the ride to the Grand Floridian so that we could go to 1900 Park Fare for breakfast.  This time our bus driver did not drop us off there so we had to go to the Magic Kingdom first then take the monorail over to the Grand Floridian.  It was way too much travel to get somewhere for breakfast.

The food at breakfast was really good and the characters, Mary Poppins and the Alice in Wonderland characters, did an excellent job but I find the character meals to be ridiculously stressful and completely no fun.  It was clear that the joy of meeting characters had waned for the girls as well and they were really not into it.  They have been declining since the first one.

On our way into Fantasyland there was a place to meet the princess from Brave and get her autograph.  Liesl really wanted this one so the three girls went and waiting in the line for that and dad and I just hung out on the bridge across the way.  Both girls are still very into meeting the princesses.  The line was long but they were very excited when they got to meet her and they had activities for the girls to do after meeting her as well.  They had a lot of fun.

Once we were done eating, it was off to Fantasyland for another trip on Dumbo: The Flying Elephant.  Before getting on the ride we did quite a long time in the playground area.  Dad and I took the girls on Dumbo this time, Dominica gets woozy on these rides but it doesn’t bother us at all.

Then they all took a rest and I took Liesl, just the two of us, to ride on Goofy’s Barnstormer.  This was Liesl’s very first rollercoaster!  She has never been on anything like this before.  This was a pretty short but pretty intense coaster for someone so little.  She did it like a champ.  If the line had not been so long I am sure that we would have done it again too.

She did so well there that we went over to Frontierland and rode Splash Mountain.  Dad and Luciana waited for us at the bottom.  Liesl decided that this one was too much for her when it was over, but a few hours later started to say that she would like to do it again.  Apparently she just needed to work herself up to it.  But no time today.

We left dad to rest for a little big and took Liesl to the Haunted Mansion which she has been talking about for days.  She is really interested in this one.  We had a Fast Pass, which is new for this ride, so no waiting at all.  Liesl loved it.  She said that it was “fun scary.”  She liked the whole thing and looks forward to doing it again.

Then we walked over to Fantasyland again and took Liesl on It’s a Small World while we were there.  She liked it.

Dad met us at the castle then it was over to the Columbia Harbor House for a late, light lunch as they have one of our favourite menus in Walt Disney World.

Once we were done eating we returned to Fantasyland yet again and Dominica and dad took Liesl to do the Enchanted Tales with Belle.  Luciana was really tired and needed time to rest so I stayed with her and the stroller.  That was probably forty five minutes or possibly an hour of rest time that she and I got.  It turned out that Liesl got picked to be the Beast again!  That’s twice in one week.  That can’t be normal.  There is no doubt that she has the most awesome roar, though.  I am very sad that I missed it.  I sort of got to see her the first time but only sort of.  It would have been really nice to get to see her do it at least this time.

While we were at the Enchanted Tales my iPhone died so I lost the ability to track the rest of the day which is unfortunate because being in Disney World for so long makes all of the days and events run together a lot.

We went to Adventureland and the family all got ice cream.  Everyone else got regular Mickey Mouse ice cream.  I went for my classic Dole whip which I have gotten on basically every trip since my parents got it for me in 1987!  We ate our ice cream in the stroller parking area for the Jungle Cruise.  While we were there we got to see one of the secret spots for one of the extended Disney adventure games.  I don’t know its name but it is something about pirates.  If you waited long enough someone would come by and activate a hidden emblem on a barrel and a pirate skeleton would pop up out of the river and tell a story and give a clue to the next adventure.  Pretty neat.

The girls were pretty indifferent to the Jungle Cruise.  The boat ride they enjoyed but the punish dialogue wasn’t funny to them.

I am pretty sure that we called it an early day.  Feet really killing us and dad needed time to relax as tomorrow he is heading out for his flight.  It is already Wednesday.  He leaves tomorrow and we leave on Saturday morning to drive to New York.

Dominica was up long before me today and went to the cafeteria of the Pop Century and brought back coffee for me and pancakes for the girls.  That was probably around eight.  At nine thirty we were at the Pop Century bus stop waiting for our ride to EPCOT.

The girls were anxious to return to The Sea because they liked the shark area so much.  So we did the Finding Nemo ride again (another ride that dad has never seen) and went to the aquarium.  The girls had a great time playing in the shark area and did not want to leave at all.  They were determined to stay there all day, I think.  Luciana ended up throwing a temper tantrum and I had to sit with her for a long time while dad and Dominica took Liesl to Turtle Talk with Crush.  That sucked because that is one of the rides that I have never seen either and when they finally came out they all raved about how awesome it was – one of the best things that they had done in WDW.  At least after a while I managed to get Luciana to up upstairs with me and explore the real aquarium.  Once she started seeing the fish she had a good time.

Then we went next door to Living with the Land.  Again I took Luciana and we did the Living with the Land boat ride, which is my favourite thing in EPCOT and she really enjoyed too, while the rest of the family did Soarin’ which isn’t my thing and is not something that Luciana is big enough to do.

From there we headed south to the World Showcase.  Our big scheduled event of the day is lunch with the princesses at Akershus.  Like our breakfast at the Polynesian the other day, this is a repeat from our last big trip in 2009.  The food was really good, like I remembered.  This is one of the better restaurants for me, even though I do not like the character meet and greet affairs.

We rode the Maelstrom, Liesl was not impressed.  She is “too cool” for rides like that to be thrilling.

We decided that we had enough of the park for the morning and that we would return to the hotel and take a break.  So we headed back through EPCOT but we got sidetracked at Innoventions.  Liesl wasn’t to check it out and we ended up being there for at least half an hour if not longer.  Liesl and Dominica went off and did a fire safety exhibit which was great fun for Liesl.  She did really well on the learning adventure that they had and ended up spending extra time with the fire safety instructor afterward learning more stuff.  We couldn’t believe how long she was involved in that.

Back to the hotel for some time to relax.  It was only just after two when we went back.

We returned to EPCOT at seven.  We went to the Sunshine Seasons and got food for the girls.  Then it was off to the World Showcase to make use of the Food and Wine Festival.  Dominica and I kicked that off with a stop at Scotland to get vegetarian haggis.  We had been planning on that one for months.  It was pretty good.  No idea what exactly makes it haggis if it is vegetarian but we were not about to try the real thing.  We were glad to have a chance to try haggis in our own way.  Next we tried Ireland where we got lobster fisherman’s pie which was quite good.  Dominica and I were just splitting snacks so it was not that much food.

Dad stopped by his traditional spot, the Yorkshire Fish and Chips in the UK.  In France I got escargot that was really amazing.

Ciana had been wanting ice cream but finding that this late in the evening proved to be pretty hard.  We finally found green tea ice cream in Japan and she really liked that.  Liesl, not so much.

We decided that it was cold and rainy and that we were tired and called it a night.  We have an early morning tomorrow.

We were not up that early this morning.  Already the exhaustion is hitting us.  To be fair, Dominica and I had a lot going on leading up to coming to Walt Disney World so it is kind of only fair that we still be exhausted.  So it was around ten when the five of us, dad is now in tow, arrived at Disney’s Animal Kingdom to begin the day.  This is dad’s and Luciana’s first time here and Liesl’s first time since she was just turning one.

First stop was The Tree of Life and the 3D movie “It’s Tough to Be a Bug.”  Liesl and dad really liked this one.  Luciana couldn’t figure out what was going on so it wasn’t really fun for her.

We were all a little hungry, dinner had been so early last night for all of us (dad had gotten a salmon burger at the hotel on his own) that we decided to just hit Pizzafari and grab a quick breakfast.  There were not many people there and we were all in a “go slow” mood today.  On top of being tired, Dominica and my feet were already starting to hurt.

Dominica decided to run back to the hotel for a bit so dad and I took the girls on the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail, which is part of the real “zoo” part of the Animal Kingdom, as Liesl was anxious to get to see the giant bats that Dominica had been telling her about but we did not know where they were.  They were not on the Pangani trail but we got some exercise walking around it.

After the Pangani Trail we walked around the Discovery Island area for a while which has some minor trails of its own.  We waiting there for Dominica to return.  She got back and we hopped on the Kilimanjaro Safaris.  The girls did not like this.  It was too rough.   We noticed that the “poachers” portion of the ride had been removed.  It is less of a ride and more of a real zoo trip now.  I like the improvement.

We left Africa and headed over to Asia so that Liesl could do the Maharajah Jungle Trek as this is the one that has the bats (and tons of other animals.)  The two zoo “trails” in the Animal Kingdom are both really excellent zoological exhibits.  We had hoped to have gotten lunch in Asia but the restaurant that we were interested in did not have a single vegetarian option so we had to bypass that and hope for something elsewhere.

Next stop was the Dinosaur Land and we just gave up on finding something really neat and original and just ate at Restaurantasaurus.  I sat outside with the girls while Dominica and dad got the food.  Liesl was very restless and wanted to ride the Triceratops Spin ride there because it is just like Dumbo.  So she and I went and rode it alone and then returned to the restaurant where everyone else was resting.

The our Fast Pass took us to Finding Nemo: The Musical.  We saw this one four years ago and we really liked it.  So well done.  It’s a Broadway level performance.  Highly recommended.  A very big change of pace over most of the rides although these shows are becoming more and more popular these days in the parks.

Dad watched Luciana in a little playground area with a big plastic dinosaur for climbing and Dominica and I took Liesl to ride Dinosaur! which is a cross between a traditional Disney animatronics ride and a thrill ride.  Eric, Mark and I went on this one when we first hit the Animal Kingdom while it was still being built in the late ’90s.  Liesl and I went over first and got Liesl measured to make sure that she was tall enough for these rides.  The limit is forty inches and she measured in at a whopping forty two inches!  She truly is a big girl now.  So I texted Dominica and she came and met us.

Liesl really like the ride but took it very seriously.  The magic really worked for her on this one.  They convinced her that we really did go back in time and see dinosaurs.  She got really scared that we were not going to escape before the asteroid hit and she refused to ride the ride again because she was not confident that the ride wouldn’t cut it too close next time and not make it back.  She had fun, though, and had tons of questions about the dinosaurs afterwards.

That was our last ride for the day.  We were all tired and any other ride would have been a ton of effort and walking.  Not for us.  Our dinner reservations tonight are at the Animal Kingdom Lodge and getting from any park to any resort is always a huge ordeal so we wanted to allow plenty of time for that.

It took us an our to get out to the Animal Kingdom Lodge, Dominica and my favourite place to stay and eat in WDW.  We got there quite a bit before our reservation at Boma (of course we are eating at Boma!) so we took dad and the girls to the Arusha Savannah to see the animals and so that dad could get  a feel for what the hotel was like as the rooms (like the one that Dominica and I stayed in many years ago) have views out onto the Savannah.  Liesl thought that it was fun, Luciana had fallen asleep in the stroller.

Dinner at Boma was very good as always.  It has changed very little, probably due to its continued popularity, since we first discovered it almost a decade ago.  I think that dad liked it too.  It is a large buffet so it is hard not to find things that you will like.  I got a elderflower sidecar while there, one of the best cocktails that I have had in a very long time.

We were in the hotel around nine.  Another early, but much needed, night.  Our feet are really killing us after today.  Tomorrow morning is, thankfully, not a really early one.  We are heading to EPCOT.  Nothing scheduled in the morning.

Today is our big Magic Kingdom day.  Yes we were there the night before last but we did none of the real rides, just the Tea Cups and the Carousel.  Nothing that really screams “Magic Kingdom” and the girls did not get to see it in daylight.  So today is really their true introduction to the Magic Kingdom day.

We had to be up super early today because we have very early reservations at the Polynesian for breakfast.  This is the same character breakfast that we did four years ago when we were here with the Toccos.  We were really lucky that we got to the bus stop and because the park was not open yet everyone on the bus was there for an early breakfast at a resort so the bus driver kindly took us directly to the resort saving us twenty minutes or more.  We would have been terribly late had he not done that.  As it was we were scrambling.

I love the Polynesian.  The water features outside and the big fountain in the middle of the lobby, the lake front, the monorail, the forest all around.  It really is beautiful and it is the oldest of the Disney World resorts, just a little older than the Contemporary.  Breakfast this morning was at ‘Ohana.  They do huge breakfasts there.  The food was the same as it was when Liesl was one, but it was good then and now so that was fine.  It’s very carb and meat heavy so not ideal for dieters or vegetarians but still quite good.  Lots of bread.

This was only our second character meal so the girls were still pretty excited but seeing the characters.  I’m over it already.  I find the character meals to be unnecessarily stressful and they ruin otherwise good dining experiences.  You don’t get to enjoy your food, the entire meal is centered around getting teenages in costumes to sign fake autographs.  It is very silly.  The girls are kind of into it, but not super into it.  This will decline as we do it over and over again.

Breakfast was at eight and as soon as we were done we were off to the park.  We bucked tradition and headed straight to Tomorrowland rather than Adventureland.  One of Liesl’s top requests was to drive the car on the Tomorrowland Speedway so that was our first ride of the day.  We got lucky and had basically no line.  Luciana and Dominica sped away in one car and Liesl and I followed behind as quick as our gas mower engine could muster.  Liesl enjoyed it.  This was actually the first time that I had ever been on this ride. Coming to WDW with little children makes you go and do things in the park that you would never have done on your own.

After the speedway we went to the new ride in “New” Fantasyland called “Under the Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid.”  As this ride is new none of us have ever been on it before.  It ended up being a very quick dark ride that had potential but ended up being very weak.  Even the girls did not like it.  It was way too much targeted at very little children and had no substance.  The outside of the ride, the big waterfall mountain area was very nicely done, that part was quite good.  But the ride itself left a lot to be desired.  But it is in Fantasyland where things have never really been very impressive from a ride perspective.

From there it was time to go ride Dumbo – The Flying Elephant.  This is one that Liesl has been talking about for a long time and Luciana is big enough to go on.  So I took Liesl and Dominica took Luciana and we prepared to fly with Dumbo.  The new update to this ride includes a small child play area in the waiting line, though, so the girls wanted to take a break and go play in there.  Dominica and I got to sit for a few minutes but there was not enough air movement and I was quite warm, even in the air conditioning.  We did not stay too long and then it was time to fly.  Both girls really liked that but Liesl especially thought that it was a grand time.

We explored the circus area where they have a large “cooling” station in the middle with lots of water things to cool you off.  Liesl played there for a long time and we were happy to sit.  It was right in front of the Barnstormer which was not running today or we probably would have gone on that.  It seemed to have been down for maintenance.

Our next FastPass+ was “Enchanted Tales with Belle.”  This is a new “ride” that they have put in recently and one of the most popular.  We were lucky to have the FastPass because the line was ridiculous.  This “ride” is a combination of some modern animatronics with live action story telling.  It is amazingly well done and it involved audience participation which is really cool.  I got selected right from the beginning to be one of the knights guarding the castle in the story so Dominica was left with the girls.  They took a bunch of people from the audience for a number of different roles.  The big role, though, of course requires a big time roar, as you can imagine, and obviously no one roars better than our Liesl who has been a roaring expert since she was two.  She was naturally selected to don the red cape and play the role of “Beast.”  Holy crap she was so adorable.  We had so much fun and she was so cute.  This is probably the best thing that we did the entire vacation.

It was only now eleven thirty and we heading to Tomorrowland and Auntie Gravities for some ice cream.  While we were eating the ice cream Liesl got to see the robotic trash can that walks around talking to people.  She thought that that was awesome and she followed it around for a while.

Luciana was really tired and needed a cat nap.  So she and I sat out the next ride and she napped in my arm.  Dominica and Liesl went on and did the Buzz Lightyear Space Rangers ride.  Dominica said that Liesl had a lot of fun but that it was not nearly as good as the Toy Story Mania one from yesterday for her because it was more abstract and she was unsure if she was hitting anything.

After Buzz Lightyear we went to Dominica and my perennial favourite, The Carousel of Progress.  Luciana woke up for this.  Liesl had a great time.  The theatre broke down while we were in it and we were stuck watching the opening sequence twice, Liesl didn’t like that – it definitely took away some of the magic – but she thought that the whole presentation was really interesting.  She loves things like that.  Sadly, the final scene in CoP is that weird early 2000s thing that they shoved in there that doesn’t make sense or fit with the original theme.  Originally it was to be a display that showed the march of progress from turn of the century to the 1920s, to the 1940s and ending in the mid-1960s when the Carousel was made.  But they removed the 1960s display and replaced it at some point with this bizarre jump of forty years that doesn’t fit with the style or progression and looks horrifically antiquated and out of touch.  So it fails at being classic while failing at being modern.  And to rub salt in the would, there was a “sequel” ride made to pick up on the 1980s from where CoP left off in the 1960s – Horizons in EPCOT – but they removed that long ago so that is gone too.

We cut across the Magic Kingdom and took the girls to Pirates of the Caribbean.  They were not into this and pretty tired already.  So we had grumpy girls as they waited to get onto the ride.  Liesl claimed that she didn’t really like it when we were done.  Well anyway, it was more for us than for them.  We did notice that they fixed some of the mistakes that they made in this ride post-movie era.  They had cheesed it up more than they should have and, for once, Disney actually backed off and improved a ride rather than ruining it.  So it is better today than it has been for the past five years or so.

We decided that we needed to get to EPCOT because we had dinner reservations there and we didn’t want to just pop in and do dinner and nothing else.  So we headed out down Main Street but stopped in to set Liesl up with her game “Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom.”  This is a card game, kind of like Magic the Gathering (which I have never played and don’t really understand) that you play around the Magic Kingdom with these secret spots where you stand and use your cards and secret displays come alive and you interact with them.  Very cool for kids who have been to the parks a lot.

Liesl was pretty excited about the game so we went and did the first one of the interactions before leaving, at the Emporium on Main Street, so that she could see it in action before we left for the day.  She is really excited about this.  What a great idea.

We grabbed the monorail and rode that to EPCOT.  This is the second time on the monorail for the girls – we took it from the Polynesian to the Magic Kingdom this morning.

At EPCOT we got right in and, of course, went straight on to Spaceship Earth.  This ride Liesl really liked.  She rode it with Dominica and Luciana rode with me.  Ciana did okay but it was pretty boring for her and I don’t think that she could see very much.

Then it was almost dinner time.  So we headed over to The Seas and rode Finding Nemo.  The girls liked that.  Then we were in the aquarium.  In theory they would enjoy it there but there is a shark room for little kids and Liesl was so excited about that that that was all that we could do.  (Three thats, really?)  We got some cute pictures of them in there.  So we didn’t see the aquarium at all.  I took Luciana alone to go see the manatee display but she was not very interested.

Dinner this afternoon was early, about four o’clock, which was good as we were hungry.  We ate at the Coral Reef at The Seas.  Believe it or not, we are pretty sure that none of us have ever eaten here even though it is totally up our alley.  The restaurant has its own view of the aquarium which is really neat and a menu that is perfect for us.  We all really enjoyed our dinners.  This is a “must do” restaurant for us again.

From the Coral Reef it was time to head back.  We were full and very tired.  We took the long bus ride back to the Pop Century to meet up with dad who had just arrived from his flight down from New York.  So we spent the evening hanging out with him for the little while that we were all awake.  The girls were very excited to see grandpa.  But the adults were all very exhausted.  Very early night for us.  We need some sleep.

Tomorrow is The Animal Kingdom.  It will be a first for the girls and for dad too.  He has, surprisingly, never seen the Animal Kingdom!  Hard to believe.

Dad got the hotel room directly behind ours.  So we share a back wall but you have to walk around the corner of the hotel to get to each other’s rooms.  Pretty handy though.