“Flordida” 2010, Part II

And…here’s the rest of our trip!

So, Monday the 17th we had scheduled breakfast with the princesses at Epcot. When we woke that morning, I told Mallory “Happy PRINCESS DAY!”. With three-year-old attitude and sass, she looked at me and said “princesses don’t say that.”.

Oh.

Anyway…I’d brought Mallory’s Little Mermaid costume, thinking she would want to wear that to the breakfast, but my spinny-dress-loving girl kept with tradition and wore…a spinny dress.

I need to insert here that my dad was wearing a walking boot on his leg because of some pretty bad plantar fasciitis, so we’d rented him a little scooter to get him around the parks. I didn’t want him to bail on us a couple of hours in everyday because his leg hurt. I wonder if Rick got any video of my dad zipping around the parks on his scooter? But in the grand scheme of things, the scooter was the best investment since we got on all the rides really fast (the scooters can’t go through the maze thingys)! I felt bad sometimes because the workers were always like “sir, can you walk from there to here unassisted?” and it would be only like 10’ but then I remembered that there was no way in hell my dad could have done an hour of walking so the scooter was necessary. It was just an extra bonus that we hardly had to wait in any lines! We had to wait in line sort of long for one ride, Splash Mountain – for like 10 minutes before they had the peel off for the scooters and my nephew was complaining about hooooow looooooooong we had to wait. Rick & I tried to tell him that we was unbelievably spoiled that this was our longest wait!

So….my dad zipped through Epcot, and I pushed the double stroller with the kids, and Rick, his mom & sister trailed behind. As we were led to our table, we got to have our picture taken with Sleeping Beauty.

Mallory

was

TERRIFIED.

So…off we went to our table for breakfast, and then the rest of the princesses started to come out. One by one they made their way to each table, slowly getting closer to ours. Mallory was anxious to see them, but not brave enough to stand with them by herself. The princesses are all sooo awesome – they each acted just like you expected them too. Cinderella was very proper and royal sounding, and Ariel was SUPER hyper and chipper and adorable. I swear the Ariel from that first day was the spitting image of Ariel in the movie – it was sooooo cool. They all called Mallory “Princess” and Ariel even noticed Mallory’s bracelet – which came with her new Ariel pajamas she’d just gotten from Rick’s dad & Terry. Ariel said that pearls were her favorite jewel too and something about how they are found in the sea. I think Mallory fell in love with the princesses that much more that day. It was awesome.

After breakfast, the park was open and we went in search of rides. The first one everyone wanted to go on was Test Track:

Test Track Attraction at Epcot theme park is a high-speed vehicle-simulation ride in which big kids, teens and adults test their mettle in one of Disney’s longest and fastest rides.

Step into the world of automotive testing as your 6-seat vehicle undergoes the safety and quality tests that General Motors performs on every prototype it manufactures.

As you begin this 5-minute, nearly one-mile auto escapade, strap yourself in, ascend steep terrain that’s 3 stories high, then let loose downhill, blasting across a bumpy road and roaring through 50-degree banked curves and hair-pin turns that test suspension and brakes at speeds up to 60 miles per hour!

Zoom into the environmental chamber to endure the extreme heat and cold tests—at temperatures that are 100 degrees apart! Then, see if your vehicle will withstand corrosion when robots mist water upon it. Finally, face the challenge of avoiding a crash barrier… in the nick of time!

There was a 40” minimum to ride Test Track and seeing that Mallory was 40” at her appointment in November, I figured there would be no problem with her on this ride. But when I took her to be measured, she wasn’t tall enough so she had to stay back while Rick’s sister Nancy & I went on the ride. Mallory was SO MAD and was screaming that she couldn’t go on it. As we were about to get on the ride, Nancy’s phone rang and it was Rick telling her that they’d somehow let Mallory through so they were going to ride it after us. The timing was fabulous – we were exiting the ride as they were getting on the ride and Mallory, GRINNING from ear to ear, told me “My DADDY letted me go on this ride!”. Apparently it was my fault she wasn’t tall enough when I took her to get measured, so dad earned some major cool points that morning.

* * *

After Test Track we found a character signing – we had to wait in line for a bit. When it was finally our turn, Mallory was still afraid of the characters so she hid behind her cousin and me when we approached Mickey (notice her cowering into me…).

She got a little braver with Donald…

And with Goofy, you can see she has her arm around him too (Shane looks THRILLED here, eh?)…

Pluto, Goofy & Donald all signed Mallory’s autograph book by putting the book up on their noses. Mallory thought it was BEYOND hysterical.

And here she is – getting WAY braver with her favorite, Minnie.

The rest of our day at Epcot was spent riding Nemo a hundred times; there were no lines so I asked if I could just stay on the clamshell thing and ride it a bunch of times in a row…they said no. I had time to kill because everyone else went on a ride called “Soarin’” and Carson was too small. But then we switched and I got to take Mallory on the ride and it was SOO cool. It’s like riding on a hot air balloon thing up over all these awesome landscapes, and they blow wind in your face so it’s like you are really flying, and when you were “flying” over an orange grove, they piped in orange smelly stuff to make it more authentic. It is honestly magic how they think of everything.

We headed over to the Magic Kingdom later in the evening to try to catch the fireworks. I can’t remember if we rode any rides though, but the kids thought the monorail rides were pretty cool.

Day Two at Disney – coming soon…