Sheep Guarding Llama

Celebrating Thanksgiving in Walt Disney World is not exactly the traditional way to do it but it is most definitely an interesting twist.  We had to be up quite early this morning because we have to get out to the Magic Kingdom for the early, extra magic hours that start at eight!  The plan is to get in one or two rides, and to get fast passes, before we go to our breakfast reservation at the castle at nine.  It is a banking holiday so I have the day completely off.  I have to carry my mobile phone but I don’t have to keep a constant watch on my email which is nice.

We were up at six thirty and out the door by seven thirty.  We made it to the Magic Kingdom a good twenty minutes or more before rope drop and had plenty of time to watch the opening ceremony.  Then it was in to the park and quick rush up through Adventureland to get to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad as quickly as possible.  What we discovered, though, was that not only was Adventureland closed but so was Frontierland and Liberty Square!  So all of the rides that we had rushed in to go ride were not included in the extra magic hours.  A serious disappointment.  We would all have preferred to have slept in rather than have rushed into the park like we did.

We did take advantage of the time and got right in to Mickey’s Philharmagic for the first showing of the day.  Everyone really enjoyed that.  It is definitely the best 3D movie in Walt Disney World since they took at Captain EO.  The Muppets 3D is pretty good but not nearly as good as this.  The Honey I Shrunk the Audience show, though, that directly replaced Captain EO in the same theatre is so boring that it is literally not worth even sitting through, IMHO, once you have gone through the arduous task of getting into the theatre.

Then it was off to get all three girls, Madeline, Emily and Liesl, into their princess costumes so that they can go to breakfast at the castle.  That took quite some time.  Once they were ready we headed to the castle for our special breakfast.  This is pretty exciting as none of us have ever actually gone into the castle before other than for shopping at the shop that used to be right there on the main floor.

The first task was getting the family portrait taken.  That took a while.  Then we climbed the twisting staircase up to the second floor where the dining room is.  Eating up above Fantasyland is pretty neat.  We had a nice vantage and a coveted window table from which to look out on Walt’s domain, although I would have preferred a view onto Main Street – now that would be extra neat.

Breakfast was very good.  Most of us went with the traditional egg-based meals.  Dominica’s mother, who does not eat eggs, got the “healthy” choice of a bowl of strawberry yoghurt, granola and fresh fruit.  We were shocked when we saw how massive her meal was.  It was enormous, and very good.  About double the amount that she could eat for breakfast!

The meal at Cinderella’s Royal Table was very good.  We had a very nice time and the girls got to meet all of the princesses again.

After breakfast it was a mad dash into the Magic Kingdom to ride the rides that we had not gotten the chance to ride before.  First it was Peter Pan’s Flight and then Mickey’s Philharmagic and then It’s A Small World.  After those three rides the gang all rode Snow White’s Scary Adventures while I made a mad dash through Fantasyland, Liberty Square and Frontierland to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad where I got fast passes for everyone so that they would not have to wait in line for that ride later.  That was a long run but I was able to get tickets much faster than anyone else would be able to maneuver through the packed park.  I know my way around and am able to move quickly.  So that saved us quite a bit.

We heard from Craig and Emily Lizar that they were in EPCOT today.  They had changed their plans so that they would be able to see us.  I have not seen Craig in several years and Emily I have only seen in Perry about two years ago.  They lived far away from us for a while and then were close to us living in Spencer when we lived in Ithaca but then moved down south about six years ago making it really hard for us to see them.  They have been in Florida for a while now and came up to see us from Tampa.  They are moving again in a few months but will still be in Florida.

So Dominica and I decided to call it a day in the Magic Kingdom and to head on over to EPCOT early so that would actually get to see them while the rest of the family decided to stay in the Magic Kingdom and push on through so that they would be able to see everything that they wanted to see there and not need to come back again another day.  Everyone is ready to be done with the Magic Kingdom, that is for sure.  Because we were abandoning our Fast Passes for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad that meant that the people remaining behind who were able to ride it would get to ride it twice in a row even though there were tons of people in the park trying to get on to that ride so that ended up being really nice for them.  A much better use of our Fast Passes than us riding it even though I do enjoy that ride – it really is the only roller coaster that I feel confident riding anymore (because I get such awful vertigo if I am not careful.)

So we hopped on to the monorail and rode on over to EPCOT.  The MK to EPCOT trip is the only one in the entire park that doesn’t take very much time.  It is actually pretty quick.

We got to EPCOT and went straight up to Norway, which is a pretty decent walk, so that we could wait for the Lizars to be able to meet up with us there.  We did a counter service lunch, on the late side after our large breakfast, there at Norway where they have an excellent vegetarian tort meal that is a really excellent value on the Disney Dining plan – one of the best values anywhere from Disney Dining.  So we sat out at the cafe where Dominica and I also sit in Disney – the same one that Eric, Mark and I ate at many times during our ten day stay in WDW back in the late 1990s, to sit and relax.

Emily, Craig and their two children met up with us just as we were finishing eating.  It is really neat that it is them, of all people, to meet up with in Walt Disney World on Thanksgiving because Emily and I have traditionally spent most of Thanksgiving together over the years.  My old holiday tradition, once I was older and my family did not travel to Ohio anymore on Thanksgiving, was to go to Nate’s family’s home early on Thanksgiving morning where we would watch the parades on television to see if we were on TV because we used to march in the Toronto Santa Clause Parade.  Then I would do Thanksgiving dinner with my family.  Then off to Emily’s grandmother’s house in the late afternoon where we all hung out until it was time to drive up to Rochester to meet with the gang at Nick Tahou’s on Lyle Avenue at ten on Thanksgiving night.  That was our tradition for years before Emily moved away and then we all did.  Last year people still made it to Tahou’s.  Obviously we were busy starting our own holiday tradition (having a baby girl!!)  This year I have not heard if anyone was able to go.  The restaurant is not even called Tahou’s anymore.  Very sad.

So it was very cool that it was the Lizars that we were able to meet up with today although being in Walt Disney World does not feel anything like Thanksgiving in New York feels.  But we had better get used to this because we do not have any more holidays left to celebrate in New York.  Thanksgiving in Florida, Christmas in Texas and then that is it.  No more living up north.  For the time being at least.

We didn’t have anything planned so we just all hung out.  Dominica had not yet the Lizars’ youngest and I had only met him when he was a few months old and no one had met Liesl yet.  Liesl got a birthday present from them as well!  She was very excited.

Dominica and I wanted to try out Disney’s new Kim Possible adventures that they have set up all over EPCOT. So we got a pass so that we could do that and then, while waiting the almost two hours that it takes to get your Kimmunicator so that you can begin your secret agent mission the seven of us just walked around the World Showcase a couple of times and got some awesome drinks including a Mango Ginergita from Love of Tea in China which was amazing and a Grey Goose Orange and Grand Marnier Slushy from France, also very good, although I didn’t quite get to finish that drink because Dominica tried a sip and accidentally threw the drink onto the ground.

Once we got our Kimmunicator the Lizars helped us go through a secret mission in Norway which was actually pretty well done.  The whole Kim Possible mission idea is excellent and other than the fact that they have you do it in Disney World where there isn’t enough room to move around as it is and now you have to listen to a video talking to you on a cell phone while every inch of WDW is covered by speakers blaring things at ear piercing levels it is a really novel thing for kids to do to keep them engaged and discovering new areas of the parts of EPCOT where they are least likely to venture otherwise.

One of the neatest bits is the way that the missions allow you to use the mobile phone to interact with the environment.  We created real smoke from a smoke stack, had a topiary talking to us, got an exhibit to make noise, had our picture taken secretly and then had our picture show up on the phone and got to watch a video screen hidden inside a picture frame in a back hallway.  The whole system really opens up whole new ways of looking at Disney World.

We couldn’t hang out for too long, though, as we have Thanksgiving dinner tonight at 1900 Park Fare at the Grand Floridian.  So after doing our mission we packed up and got back on the monorail and headed on over there to meet up with the family for dinner.

We got over to the Grand Floridian a bit ahead of everyone else.  We had further to go so had to allow some extra time compared to them.  The orchestra playing at the Grand Floridian was really excellent.  One of the main reasons why I want to stay there is because of the amazing and never ending live music.  It is really something special.

Once we were in to 1900 Park Fare we had a really nice buffet dinner.  This is the Cinderella family dinner character dinner with Prince Charming, Cinderella, her step mother and step sisters all in attendance.  They appear one right after another with approximately five minute in between them so, for a group like ours, where there are four kids with at least two attempting to get autographs and pictures to be taken and whatnot it becomes a hectic mess as there is not enough time in between characters to go up and get food from the buffet let alone eat it.

Once the characters were finally done everyone had a chance to eat and the food really was very good.  We had a good time and Dominica surprised the Grices by having a tiny wedding cake delivered out to them.  It was very small but everyone was full so everybody chipped in on trying to eat a little bit.  I think, without a doubt, that it is the best cake that I have ever tasted.  Really something special.

After dinner, the Grices and Toccos went back to the Magic Kingdom to watch Wishes again and to do some late night things before being completely done with the park.  Dominica, Liesl and I were plenty tired after our large dinner and Liesl cannot be around fireworks so we just went back to the All Star Music resort and called it a night.

Today is everyone’s one day scheduled to do Disney’s Animal Kingdom.  They were all up and out the door early.  Last night, after our EPCOT dinner at Akershus with the princesses, we were able to get back and get to bed a little earlier than we have been many of the days so getting up this morning was not too bad.

I got up and got right to work.  Today is my big treat, lunch at the new Tusker House restaurant in the Animal Kingdom.  This is the event that I have been looking forward to the most my entire trip.  All of the adults got to pick one restaurant that they really had to eat at and this was my one pick.  So I worked all morning without really taking any break and never even looked outside to note that it was really, really raining today.

Our lunch was scheduled pretty late so that I would have time to get there during the lunch period at work.  The All Star Music resort is really close to the Animal Kingdom so that made that easy as well.  At least in theory.  Buses are supposed to run roughly every twenty minutes.  Today, however, they were not.  There was a family who had been waiting for a bus for almost fifty minutes while I was waiting there and lots of people who had been waiting over half an hour.  The family who was there, in the rain, for close to an hour had had the resort call to find out what had happened to all of the buses some time before and were still stuck waiting.

When a bus finally came to get us it was not a dedicated resort bus but was shared by all three All Star Resorts so it was only able to pick up seven people.  Let me repeat that, after waiting for fifty minutes they only picked up seven people.  There were roughly forty people in line for that bus!  That means that at that rate it could take you three and a half hours of waiting at that bus stop before you get onto a bus!  And the family who had been there the longest and who had called to complain that no buses had shown up did not get to get onto this bus either.  The bus driver claimed that it was because they had “stepped out of line to get out of the rain” but we were pretty sure that it was because they had called to complain since the driver was told that it was them who had done so.  At the next resort we dropped off just five people and picked up just five leaving twenty or more people out in the rain there.  This is why you don’t stay at the All Star Resorts, Disney really does treat you differently no matter what people say.  The resorts themselves might be fine but the transportation definitely does not consistently treat you like first class Disney guests.

I rushed over there around one and ended up getting to Tusker House long before the rest of the family did.  So I waiting there for a while and had a chance to do a little Animal Kingdom shopping.  I found Liesl a cool, limited edition (whatever that means in WDW) Thanksgiving 2009 trader pin with Stitch on it.  Liesl loved Stitch when she met him at O’Hana and this is her first Thanksgiving (other than the day that she was born that she did not get much time during to enjoy) and definitely her first Thanksgiving in Walt Disney World, so the pin was perfect.  I had previously purchased for her a pink Minnie Mouse princess pin and a Disney Holidays 2009 pin from the All Star Resort store so that she would have something but this was just too perfect for her so she had to have it.

The family arrived just in time to make it to our reservation but somehow in the last few feet to get to us Bennie wandered off from the group with the girls and had gotten lost.  No one was watching him and he stopped to see some fish and then didn’t know where we were meeting so ended up going to a different “land” in the Animal Kingdom.  So it took a while before the three of them made it to join us for lunch.

Dominica and I ate at Tusker House a few years ago back when it was counter service and, at the time, I had commented that this was a really great venue and a real disappointment that they were doing bland counter service there rather than offering a real restaurant.  Well, Disney heard my complaint and they turned Tusker House into an African-flavoured buffet inspired by Boma, Dominica and my favourite restaurant.  (I mentioned on SGL back in March how much I wanted to eat here too – which shows how much planning has gone into this trip!)  I looked up when it was that we last ate at Tusker House and found that it was not mentioned previously on SGL.  I was shocked, because I document everything, so I looked through my Flickr feed and found the picture taken there on November 3, 2005.

The new Tusker House was definitely not as good as Boma, but then again what is.  The food was excellent while toned down from the level of exoticism that you get out at the Animal Kingdom Lodge making it more palatable for the average Animal Kingdom park goer.  The food quality was very good and there were some really good, unique dishes there.  Tusker House basically seems to function as a sampler of the styles from Boma, Jiko and Sanaa which are all at the Animal Kingdom Lodge.  So this is like a teaser – if you like Tusker House, head on over to the lodge and try the real thing!  Tusker House is most definitely one of the best restaurants inside of the parks and without a doubt the best in the Animal Kingdom (and likely the best outside of EPCOT.)  A new bar has been added as well that is located directly in front of Tusker House which works well if you need to eat there but do not have reservations, have a few drinks and wait for a spot to open so that you can sneak in.

Liesl absolutely loved Tusker House.  She just devoured spicy curried rice and couscous dishes.  She ate all kinds of food and just loved it.  This is her kind of place.  Most of the family was not into the cuisine at all, though, and overall this was not a hit but, I don’t think, as unpopular as the tea that we had on Sunday afternoon.

The family was completely soaked and had been out in the rain all day living completely under their ponchoes making everyone soggy and irritable.  No one really wanted to do anything more given how wet they were.  I was not in rain gear, other than my hat, but was staying reasonably dry.

Since it was raining the safari ride had been mostly a bust that morning as the animals were all hiding.  They skipped the two “zoo” walks which are so excellent there because they were exposed. Everyone felt that Rafiki’s Planet Watch, which is effectively one “land” of the AK, would be too boring so that was skipped.  And no one was up to riding the Expedition Everest rollercoaster.  So most of the attractions were missed.  After lunch we had just enough time to kill to do one thing before we had to get to a scheduled appointment so we were going to venture to do one of the “zoo” walks, the one in Asia, when on our way there we noticed that there was no wait on Kali River Rapids – which due to rain they had been planning to skip.  I said that if there was no wait that I would like to do it.  Dominica agreed that it was fun if there was no wait.  Her dad is normally game for a ride, especially an adventure ride like this, so he was in and the girls definitely wanted to ride something.  So the five of us, those willing to get more wet, went and rode without any wait at all.  The ride was better than I remembered it from many years ago and we barely got wet at all.  Dominica and I remembered how to sit and placed the girls next to us to reduce the weight on our side and the people sitting across from us got the big splash from the waterfall 🙂

After the Kali River Rapids it was time to go get our VIP seating, that we got because of our lunch at Tusker House, at the Finding Nemo show.  We had to be there quite early to get the good seats right up near the front.

The Finding Nemo show was really excellent.  It is like a short, all out Broadway production (except good which rarely happens on Broadway.)  The shows is an amazing blend of puppetry and live acting.  Extremely entertaining.  One of the best things that you can do in the parks.  Well worth the wait.

No one wanted to stay in the parks after Finding Nemo, except for me of course who had just arrived, and so we all went back to the hotel.  I was all set to have stayed in the park for a while and was disappointed that the day was ending just as I had left work so Dominica’s dad and I turned around and went right back out to the Magic Kingdom, which I had mostly missed out on, as soon as everyone else was settled in to the resort for the evening.

It had been quite a while since lunch at Tusker House so I started out hitting the bakery on Main Street USA and picking up an ice cream sandwich.  The girl working at the bakery was from SUNY Geneseo!  What a small world.  After that we went to the Monster’s Inc. Laugh Floor which is always hilarious although far too short and with too much filler.  It is a great concept and the live people behind the scenes are excellent.

We hit the Tomorrowland Noodle Terrace which I have always wanted to try and I got the massive tofu noodle bowl which was just awesome.  That is one great value in noodles!  Definitely make the effort to stop there for some very good and very different Disney fare.  Now that Tusker House is no longer counter service I can safely say that the Noodle Terrace and the Columbia Harbor House are my two favourite counter service restaurants.

We hit Mickey Philharmagic and rode Peter Pan.  Being as late as it was there were pretty much no lines anywhere.  Peter Pan did have a twenty to thirty minute wait but that is really good for that ride.  Philharmagic we literally walked straight in to.

Then it was off to Liberty Square where we did the Hall of Presidents.  The HoP is updated whenever a new president takes office and the new animatronic of President Obama is really amazing.  It is kind of creepy how real it is.  It was like he was standing up there talking to us.  Well worth the trip.  I can’t believe how many people skip this awesome attraction.

We headed over to Adventureland hoping to do the Tiki Room but the ride had been closed for about an hour.  Adventureland just closes really early.  It is crappy.  It has some great stuff but just doesn’t get the people at night.  They need to beef up its food, shopping and add like one more good ride that is still good after dark so that it becomes and additional late night hotspot in the park.  Right now the other areas get too many people congesting there and it makes it hard to enjoy the other areas late at night.

Since the Tiki Room was closed we decided to just call it a night and head on out of the park.  It was probably a little after midnight when we got back to the resort.  It was a long night but it was one of my few chances to really get to spend time in the parks so if I had not done this I would have missed a lot of stuff later.

I was hoping that by going out late tonight that it would help put me in line with everyone else in terms of exhaustion and walking.  They have been in the parks a lot more than me during the daytime so I figured that wearing myself out at night might help keep us on an even keel.

Everyone was tired and slept in late this morning.  They were supposed to be out and away super early to get to rope drop but they didn’t make it according to my Twitter feed, if it is accurate.  Madeline and Emily came to the door to get Dominica and Liesl and Liesl got so excited to see her cousins.  She loves having her cousins around.  She is going to be very happy once we are in Texas.

The gang is off to Disney Hollywood Studios (formerly known as Disney-MGM Studios) today, which is most everyone’s favourite park.  I am hanging back today and just working from the hotel.  I’m not scheduled to try to meet them or anything today.  I’m not really into DHS so I’m not concerned about skipping it altogether.  I love the Great Movie Ride but other than that I am pretty happy to skip just about everything there.  If I am in DHS there is plenty that I am willing to do but if I can avoid an entire trip out there, all the better.  If I skip it enough times then I can entertain myself while there on a future trip.

I ate lunch by myself at the hotel restaurant, the grilled salmon salad again.  I really like that and there is very little else for me to eat on the menu. It works out okay.  I am making use of the Disney Dining Plan.  This is the first trip that we have gotten the Disney Dining Plan.  Overall, we don’t like it, but it was a special promotion and we got it for free and then added some upgrades.  With ten people it does make most things simpler and I do appreciate that.  But it causes you to do weird eating things that involve eating when you don’t want to and getting way too much food most of the time because “you already paid for it.”

This afternoon the girls went to the Bibbity Bobbity Boutique to get Madeline and Emily’s hair done before going to the big princess dinner in Norway at Akershus.  While they were doing that, the boys all came back to the hotel to get a break for a while.  Today was a busy day of logistics with people going from one park to another and others going to the hotel and then everyone needing to go to EPCOT tonight.  Way more traveling than normal and traveling in Disney can be very exhausting.

It was my job, after work, to get Dominica’s dad, Bennie and Garrett from the All Star Music to EPCOT’s World Showcase to meet the girls at Norway.  We did pretty well getting to EPCOT in plenty of time. Just as we arrived it started to rain, for the first time since we got to Florida, and so we started to rush to get there somewhat dry.  The girls called, though, and needed us to meet them with the ponchos and other gear at the International Gateway between the UK and France as the girls’ hair would be ruined in the pouring rain that they were experiencing in Downtown Disney.  It never rained that hard where we were.

We got the International Gateway and waiting there until the rain stopped.  Dominica called and said that they were not going to make it in time for the reservation so sent us on ahead since the rain had abated so that we could check in for our reservation.  Going to the International Gateway instead of directly to Norway roughly doubled the total distance to Norway so we had quite a walk left to do – about fifteen minutes of additional, hard walking to get over there.

The girls ended up arriving just a few minutes late and we were able to get right in to our dinner seating.  Dominica and I are very excited about eating at Akershus, this is a restaurant that we have always wanted to eat at but they never appeared to have much vegetarion, or pescatarian, selection so we have always avoided them.  But now with the character dinner they appear to have a wide food selection.

The food ended up being amazing.  Totally, unbelievably awesome… especially for a fish lover like me (which is amazing because I didn’t even like fish until I was in my early twenties!)  The meal started off with the Tastes of Norway (or Flavors of Norway or some similar sounding name buffet) that included several meats that we didn’t look at, some cheeses including Jarlsburg Swiss cheese (which is the standard food at any meal with my family in Ohio) and an amazing array of fish like two types of herring, two types of salmon and peppered mackerel.  All of the fish was really good.  I loved the herring, including pickled herring, but Dominica could not bring herself to eat that.  Something about pickled fish was just too much for her.

Everyone really enjoyed their meal at Akershus, even those who do not eat fish.  My dinner was the salmon so I had a total of six or more different fish by the time that I was done.  All quite excellent.  I will be coming back here again even if I do not have anyone in tow who is interested in meeting the Disney princesses.

After dinner we took the girls on Norway’s Maelstrom ride which is incredibly short.  The “come visit Norway” movie that normally shows after the ride was out of service this evening which really gave us a chance to see just how short the ride itself was.  The movie really makes you feel like it is much longer.

After that it was time to get back to the resort.  By this point I have done some math and we have discovered that doing our “park hopping” for dinner plans is costing us roughly five hours per meal!  We had never guessed that it would be like this.  From the time that I leave the hotel until I return doing nothing, or nearly nothing, but having dinner it takes an average of around five hours.  That is insane.  This is a major lesson learned for us.  Switching from one park to another just to have dinner is really not an option especially if going back through the hotel.  Because of inconsistencies in the bus ride you have to allow massive margins on the travel to dinner and you are normally stuck in big crowds on the way back since EPCOT, the only place with serious food, closes during the later dinner hours so anyone eating there is leaving at the same time as you, it just takes forever to do anything.  We seem to lose roughly three hours for the travel round trip and two hours for the meal itself.

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!