Sheep Guarding Llama

Today is only the second full day in Disney World and already everyone is completely exhausted.  The plan had been for everyone, except for me who has to work, to be up at the crack of dawn so that they could make it to rope drop at park opening.  That did not happen at all.  Instead by noon no one had even left the hotel yet!

Dominica were able to eat lunch together at the hotel restaurant, grilled salmon salads.  The girls went swimming which they had really wanted to do yesterday. Even yesterday the parks were wearing them out and they were looking for time to relax.  Being eight and nine the walking in the parks is pretty exhausting for them.

Everyone, except for me, was off to EPCOT around two this afternoon.  No one was too excited, except for Dominica, about going to EPCOT.  EPCOT is really more of Dominica and my kind of place.

I worked until the end of the business day and then traveled in to EPCOT to meet up with everyone and go to the Odyssey Restaurant, which I have not eaten at since my family’s trip to WDW in 1987 when it was just a normal restaurant that you could eat at at any time, for the Grand Gathering dinner affair which is only open to parties of eight or more and only with advanced reservations.  The old Odyssey Restaurant was very similar to Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe but its position near Mexico kind of off to the side of EPCOT did nothing for it and its styling was very strange and it fell into disuse as the Electric Umbrella took over its business very nearby in the hub of Future World.  The Odyssey was really poorly positioned with the Electric Umbrella servicing the counter service needs of western Future World and The Land Grill Room handling the east side and all of the World Showcase being centered around its amazing food offerings leaving the Odyssey with no real purpose in life.  So Disney shut it down and now uses the building as a place to host special events right in the heart of EPCOT.

When I arrived in EPCOT everyone was just leaving The Land and walking over to Journey Into Imagination for one final ride before going to the restaurant for dinner.  So I raced through the park and met up with them just as they were getting ready to go in.  So I got to take Liesl through the ride which, for the most part, she really liked except for the really loud bits.  That is one of my biggest complains about WDW, Disney just has no concept of appropriate volume levels and there is just an uncomfortable level of noise that never ends.  The buses are all set to blare painfully loud and mostly useless announcements constantly and half of the rides have sudden sounds so loud that you feel compelled to spend you entire vacation wearing earplugs because no one who works for Disney will point out that the volumes are insanely loud.  I avoid some rides entirely because they are so loud.  And heaven only knows why they do it.  It just makes people really irritable, but it goes on so much that people begin to forget why they are getting pissed off.  It also completely removes the ability for babies to sleep or adults to have conversations.

After the ride we played in the jumping water fountains for a few minutes and then it was off to dinner.  The Grand Gathering event at the Odyssey turned out to be really awesome.  The food, a sampler from all over the world showcase, was really excellent and there was entertainment too which I did not really realize.  There were also characters, notably Goofy, who arrived to lead a kid’s dance party.  The announced Liesl’s pending birthday as well as Bennie and Francesca’s tenth wedding anniversary.  Bennie and Francesca had to go down to the stage with three other couple celebrating anniversaries this week in WDW and had to talk in front of the packed restaurant.  It was great fun.

At the end of dinner we were all given exclusive Illuminations collector pins that served not only as very hard to get Disney pin trades and souvenirs of our Grand Gathering dinner but also served as special passes to get us into the after gathering VIP seating and dessert area from which we would watch Illuminations later tonight.

After dinner, which took quite some time, we went over to the VIP seating area and got dessert and coffee.  Strawberry and peach shortcake, delicious.  We were fearful that Liesl would be unhappy with Illuminations because it is fireworks and they scared her so much last night at Wishes but we were hopefully that because she was awake tonight and would not be getting woken up by the fireworks that they might not be so scary.  We had made plans for me to grab her and run to the far side of EPCOT, by the big fountain where the white noise would help to drown out the fireworks, should they prove to be too much for her.

Unfortunately, Liesl fell asleep minutes before the fireworks started so we will never know if she would have been okay.  As it was, she was quite scared.  I grabbed her after the very first burst and we went as quickly as we could down to the fountain.  She was quite unhappy.  We got to the fountain but Disney’s reliance on the cheap, loud fireworks meant that the fountain wasn’t enough to drown out the booming.  So we went into Mouse Gears and stood in the middle of the store where all of the apparel was enough to keep her from being scared, but we could not venture too near to the doors!

It took twenty or thirty minutes after the fireworks had ended before everyone made their way down to the fountain to meet up with Liesl and I.  By this time she had fallen asleep and was ready for bed.  It was coming up on ten o’clock.  We got out of the park and stood in the very long line waiting for the buses.  It took six or seven buses going to our resort before we made our way to the front of the line and were able to get onto the bus.

We were all really exhausted by the time that we got back to the resort.  We were ready to collapse.  Liesl, of course, woke up by then and wanted to crawl around as she normally does before going to bed.

This morning is our big character breakfast at O’Hana.  This is one of the exciting meals for Dominica and I as we have never been to the Polynesian Resort before and, therefore, have never eaten at O’Hana so we are really looking forward to this.  It is always a challenge for us to find new things in Disney and this is definitely one that we have wanted to do for a long time and just never got around to doing.

We were up very, very early this morning.  I believe around six thirty.  We were on the bus just after seven and at O’Hana by a quarter after eight!  This morning is the only time on this trip when every one of us is all wearing matching t-shirts.  The rest of the family has t-shirts that match for much of the week but I only have one for today.  Dominica did a ton of work getting t-shirts made for everyone.  They really look awesome.  They have our names on them and she made a large variety of designs which are pretty cool.  People would end up coming up to us all week asking where they could buy these shirts.

We got the first of many Disney-taken family portraits before our breakfast.  Then it was into the big breakfast room for one hardy breakfast.  The meal is family-style so it is one big dish of all you can eat breakfast fare.  Because Dominica, Liesl and I are vegetarians the chef prepared us a special, vegan stir fry that was absolutely amazing.  We totally luck out being vegetarians – the chef prepared special meals for us are always something really special.  Our meal at O’Hana was SO much better than the food that everyone else got.  Really something special.

This breakfast included Stitch, Lilo and a handful of other characters who each stopped by the table.  It was overall a really great experience and probably the lowest stress of all of the character dining that we ended up doing all week and we definitely did a lot.

After breakfast I went back to the resort so that I could log in and get to work.  Yesterday was my only day off.  So I worked until it was time for my late lunch.  We have reservations at 3:40 this afternoon at the Garden Tea Room at the Grand Floridian Beach Resort.  Dominica and I have only managed to have tea in Disney one time previous and we really enjoyed it so we were quite looking forward to bringing the girls and letting them have a real tea – not something that you get in Texas very often.

The Garden Tea Room has recently switched tea suppliers to a new one from British Columbia which, I did not know before, is famous for its tearooms.  I had silver leaf which was a truly outstanding white tea, which is my favourite.  Dominica and I as well as her dad really enjoyed ourselves at tea.  We really liked the food and tea selection.  No one else appeared to like it very much, though, so the excursion proved to be a far cry from a hit.  This will be a treat reserved for Dominica and I in the future, I guess.  Hopefully Liesl will enjoy fine British-style tea when she is older.

After tea we returned to the resort for a little while to rest and relax.  Then, when things were possibly slowing down a little at the Magic Kingdom, we packed back up and headed back in so that we could get in more rides tonight.  It is tough getting through the MK when there are tons of crowds.

We got the Magic Kingdom at just the right time to see the Spectral Magic Parade from the bottom of Main Street.  The family staked out a perfect vantage point just two hundred feet into the start of the parade and camped out there to be sure to get a great view.  I am not into parades really and I was feeling hungry so I hoofed it up to the Main Street Bakery and got myself a giant chocolate chip ice cream cookie sandwich as a snack.  There was some awesome looking banana bread pudding there that I knew that Dominica would love so I got that for her and raced it back down to her through the massive throng of parade spectators.

With the good vantage point and the delicious snacks the parade was pretty enjoyable.  Liesl and Garrett liked it.  As soon as the parade was over the family raced as fast as they could up to Adventureland getting there ahead of most of the parade.  While the parade is on much of the park stops to watch it so the rides become mostly empty.  Pirates of the Caribbean is notably one of those rides that in the evening, and especially during the parade, becomes absolutely empty.  Almost every time that we go there at night there isn’t the slightest line at all.  Often you are alone in the boats!

No one had had a chance to ride Pirates of the Caribbean yet so this was a real treat getting there when it was completely empty.  We raced right in and, for the very first time since we arrived, it was me who got to take the girls on the ride.  Emily sat with me in the front row of the boat as she got to experience a truly classic Disney dark ride for the first time which was a lot of fun.  I missed out on a lot of the girls “first time” experiences in Disney so I was really thankful to get to be there for this one.  Pirates is possibly the most famous and classic dark ride in the world.

There was no line at all so we raced around and rode Pirates again immediately – something that no one really got to do other than this for the entire vacation.  So our race to get there worked out really well.

After Pirates we headed into Frontierland where we were able to get everyone in to ride Splash Mountain.  Francesca, being pregnant, could not ride it and so she and I sat out with Liesl and Garrett while everyone else rode the ride.  The line was fairly long, but manageable, so the Wishes fireworks show started while they were on the ride.  Garrett loves fireworks so this was great for him.  Liesl had never seen fireworks before so we discovered, much to our dismay, that she is terrified by them.  And, of course, when you are in the Magic Kingdom and Disney decides to start setting off tons of those loud, cheap “explosion” fireworks, there is no escape from the noise.  So Liesl was made very, very upset by the whole ordeal.  Disney really created a feeling of being “trapped” because I had no way to get Liesl away from the fireworks that just kept going and going.  It did not help that Liesl had fallen asleep during the parade and was quite suddenly awoken by the fireworks.  That made things much worse.

After Splash Mountain I sat out with Liesl, who was upset for quite some time, while everyone else went in to watch the Country Bear Jamboree.  This was really unfortunate because we were quite sure that after how much fun she had had at the Tiki Room that Liesl would really have loved the Country Bear Jamboree too but she was upset and tired and we did not think that it was wise at all to take her in there.  So I sat out another ride – not that I mind at all missing the Country Bear Jamboree.  It was a good ride when it was new, fresh and not so dusty but time has not been kind to this ride and it desperately needs a total overhaul or just replaced.  It has a lot of potential but the existing show has to go.  It is dated beyond repair in both style and physical appearance.

From there it was on to Liberty Square.  Dominica and I had decided to wait on dinner so that we could eat at the Columbia Harbor House.  Everyone else had eaten at the resort before we headed back to the Magic Kingdom but we did not want to give up good and interesting food for the same resort food that we were getting almost daily.  But, much to our chagrin, we discovered that the Columbia Harbor House had already closed by the time that we got there and, in fact, all of the food in the Magic Kingdom had closed except for the bakery on Main Street!  We tried several places that had looked interesting and they were all closed.  Extremely disappointing.  We were starving by this point too having waited until around ten in the evening to try to get food after having done a really like “lunch” at the tea room.

While in Liberty Square everyone, except for Liesl and I, rode the Haunted Mansion.  I’m not into “creepy rides” at all so even though the Haunted Mansion is an excellent ride and certainly a classic I did not mind missing it at all.  Some parts of it are really awesome but overall I just don’t enjoy being constantly reminded of death.  I find it morbid and depressing, not a form of entertainment.  It is too bad because the Haunted Mansion is so well done and is quite a bit better since its refurb about a year and a half ago.  It is one of Domincia’s favourite rides.  There are a lot of great effects in it and some really funny stuff.  But it worked out as Liesl was sleeping and needed me to watch her.

Everyone was pretty tired after doing Liberty Square and I could not talk people into doing the Hall of Presidents, the other big attraction that is open at night in Liberty Square so we decided that it was time to call it a night.  During the day there is also the Liberty Belle Riverboat ride which I think is really awesome.  That is one of my favourite things in the Magic Kingdom.  The rides that were not completed in the Magic Kingdom tonight, like Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Philharmagic, Peter Pan’s Flight, etc. are being saved and planned for Thanksgiving morning when we know that we are back in the MK for breakfast at Cinderella’s Royal Table.

On the way out, Dominica and I stopped at the Main Street Bakery to get in our dinner meal.  They did not have any real vegetarian selection so we pieced together a meal from yoghurt and other healthy side items.  Everyone was in a hurry to get back so just Dominica, Liesl, Frank and I stayed to eat and everyone else went on ahead to the resort.

After we were done eating we headed back ourselves and actually caught up with the rest of the family at the bus stop just in time to get on to the bus.  So definitely a good thing that we had sent them on ahead!

Today is the big day.  Our trip to WDW 2009.  This is our longest, biggest WDW trip since the “second honeymoon” trip of 2005 that Dominica and I took alone.  This time ten people!

We were up around four in the morning.  Ready and out the door by around five.  Still dark out.  Still very tired.  I rode in the back with Oreo and Liesl while dad drove us out to the Buffalo International Airport.

We arrived at the airport by a quarter after six.  More than enough time to get situated and through security at such a small airport so early in the morning.  We got in in no time and grabbed breakfast before flying out.

This will be Liesl second trip by airplane and her fifth take off and landing combination (we had layovers on our way to and from Texas a few weeks ago so she got to do the whole sequence four times on that one trip.)  This is also our very first time flying on JetBlue.  Everyone has been raving about JetBlue for years but we have just managed to never have them be the best airline for us on any of our journeys up until now.  I flew Aer Lingus, (or JetGreen), JetBlue’s European partner when I went to Amsterdam so I knew about what to expect but this was the first time officially doing it.

The flight went really well.  Liesl was awake quite a bit of the trip and, when handed a bag of animal crackers by the flight attendant, she actually said “Thank You” for the very first time!  She is growing up so fast.  One week before her first birthday.

Liesl did very well on the trip.  She is a very good flying baby.  There was another baby, a little younger, flying in the front row across the aisle from us so they talked to each other a little bit on the flight but both napped on and off as well.

The direct flight took hardly any time and we were in Orlando by twenty after eleven.  I like leaving NY early to go to Florida.  We did a trip like this in 1987 the first time that I ever went down to Florida and I have always connected early morning flights headed south with happy memories.  It is just a good feeling to force yourself to get up early, head to the airport and leave the world behind.

Disney’s Magical Express picked us up and carted us off to the All Star Music resort.  Our room was not yet ready and Francesca met us at check in as soon as we arrived.  They arrived very late last night and stayed in a temporary hotel room that they checked out of this morning and they too were waiting for their new room to be made ready.

The girls, Madeline and Emily, were swimming in the “Guitar Pool” when we arrived and they swam for an hour or two after we got there.  We hung out by the pool and then went to the All Star Music restaurant to get a grilled salmon salad for lunch.  Even once we get our rooms we have to wait for Dominica’s parents to arrive as they are coming in from Albany on a flight two or three hours after ours.

We got into our rooms around two.  I am very pleased with our room, 10-542 in Calypso.  It is a handicapped King room and much nicer than I was expecting at the All Stars.  The Grices and Toccos shared a suite, 10-556, just around the corner from us.   Their room was really nice and had a pool view too.  Lots of room.

Dominica’s parents got in around three thirty, I believe, and at a quarter after four we were headed out to the Magic Kingdom on the first of many, many bus trips to that destination from our hotel.  This is Bennie’s, Liesl’s, Garrett’s, Madeline’s and Emily’s first time to Walt Disney World.  So we are half Disney virgins and half experiences Disney travelers.  At the end of this week this will be two entire months of my life spent at WDW!

We got into the Magic Kingdom (after some hassles as they lost Dominica and my tickets once again – the resort gave them to different people but gave us empty tickets so we thought that we were all set) and headed straight over to Tomorrowland.  Our first job was to get some food for everyone as most everyone was pretty hungry.  We hit Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe as they are supposed to have a pretty decent selection of food and are able to handle crowds well being the largest counter service restaurant in the parks.

After food it was time for the Carousel of Progress which was a major hit with the girls and got things off to a good start.  Then we did Buzz Lightyear and I hit a new personal score record: 311,600 points which is about fifteen times higher than I have ever seen anyone else get.  I have become rather a pro at this game.

From there it was the WEDWay People Mover or the Tomorrowland Transit System as they now call it but I refuse to drop Walt Disney’s initials from his own creation just because he is not here to defend the naming of his own ride.  The girls really like the WEDWay too.

Then it was off to Fantasyland.  While here the girls rode the spinning teacups, Dumbo and other rides while most of us sat out.  For a while, Francesca and the girls rode Dumbo and the rest of us sat in Aerial’s Grotto just relaxing.  While we were there, Liesl took her first ever step!  She was standing on a table and took one step all on her own while going from her grandmother to me.  Dominica was not there so she missed it.  Very exciting.  This is a big week for Liesl.

We looked for some food at this point, just evening snacks as it was around eight, but we had a very had time finding anything really good.  The babies, Liesl and Garrett, both got tired and everyone wanted to ride the Winnie the Pooh ride so I volunteered to babysit the kids.  So I ended up all alone in Walt Disney World babysitting two toddlers!  Now that is pretty crazy.

We did not do too much after that.  We got to see the castle all lit up in some amazing holiday lights.  That was very cool.  Then we took the long walk back up Main Street USA and out to the bus back to our resort.  It was probably ten or ten thirty by the time that we got back and were able to start getting ready for bed.  Liesl crawled around a little bit wearing herself out and then we were off to sleep.

Tomorrow we have to be up super early as we are going to the Polynesian Resort for the O’Hana Character Breakfast with Lilo and Stitch.  Lilo is one of my favourite Disney characters, of course, since I am a Linux administrator (inside joke and I’m not going to give the punchline, if you are going to get it then you already got it.)

Getting SGL updates done while here is going to be really, really tough.  I have no workspace in the hotel and have to make due with the laptop sitting on the nightstand and can only use it while sitting on the bed.  Very uncomfortable and really bad for excessive typing.

We were all really tired this morning!  Brian and Tara came up early and we got right to work loading down Brian’s truck with the server cabinet and the servers and desktops that he is shipping back to Philadelphia.  It was quite the load.  Getting the cabinet onto the trailer was not particularly fun.  There were a ton of servers going in the truck as well.  All together there were ten or more but we hunted through them and identified two units that really were no good and we just took some main parts from them and left them behind to be scrapped along with anything else being left at dad’s house.

In addition to the cabinet and the servers was a massive 2200VA UPS from TrippLite, a 2U rackmount unit that is brand new and that has been sitting here for several years.  We hope that it works, it has never, ever been plugged in and powered on.  I am guessing that the batteries are dead, which will suck.  There were also several desktops going in this load.  Maybe half a dozen!  The truck was really full.

After getting the truck totally loaded we drove down to Mt. Morris where Brian and Tara checked out of the hotel and joined all of us at Brian’s USA Diner for some breakfast.  It was on their way to Ithaca where they are spending the day so it worked out really well.  Brian’s is closer to dad’s house than is the Omega so it is pretty convenient.

After breakfast it was back up to dad’s to get back to my regularly scheduled work.  I was able to go through a plastic bin that has been in storage at dad’s today and basically eliminated the whole thing with most of it going straight into the garbage and a few small piece ready to be donated to the Leicester church’s rummage sale.  Mostly old optical CD and DVD drives and a few other computer odds and ends.

This afternoon the Richardson clan (Sharon, Leo, Shirley, Jim, Sara, Steve, Jeremy and Rachel) all came over to celebrate Liesl’s birthday one week early.  They will not have a chance to see her again before her actual birthday so today was the chance to get a family party in for her.  I got very little chance to hang out with everyone, though, as it was a busy Friday evening and there was a ton of work for me to do.

The big news today is that my cousin Sara is, as of today, engaged!  Steve popped the question this morning and they announced it at Liesl’s party today.  Jeremy was late arriving so we all knew about it before her own brother knew.

I ended up having to work quite late tonight.  It was not fun as everyone was here and I had to skip spending time with them.

I tried to get to bed as early as I could but it was not all that early.  Like eleven at night.  Tomorrow is going to be a long day.  We have to be up around four thirty to be able to make our flight to Orlando!  We are all going to be very, very exhausted.

We got up this morning and drove over to Geneseo and had breakfast at the Omega Grill.

Brian and I headed to Tim Horton’s on Jefferson Road and met with a couple people there including Eric Millen.  I talk to Eric all the time but haven’t actually seen him in person in years which is crazy.  Two years at a minimum and three or more years is most likely.  Hard to believe that I can go that long without seeing people but it really happens and happens more and more often these days.

After coffee at Timmy Ho’s we had a meeting and then Brian and I did a quick lunch at Panera Bread, also on Jefferson Road.  I had some work that needed my attention right away so I logged in from my laptop and worked from it before we were able to get back in the car and go back to dad’s house.

I ended up having a really busy evening and we were all stuck at dad’s all evening.  Just too much work to be done.  It was quite a busy night.  We ordered in subs from York Landing and just ate at the house.