Monday, August 11, 2003, Day 1 – or should I say “Night One” since we didn’t arrive in Orlando until 6:30 or so. By the time we gathered our luggage, waited for the shuttle and got to our resort it was close to 8 PM.
I forgot to reinstall AOL for Mac OS X when I restored my hard drive, so I am posting this by booting in Mac OS 9, connecting to the internet with AOL via a dialup connection with my built in modem. At 75 cents per local call I’ll be limiting my internet time!
Late last week Rayma took Alison shopping for some back to school items and called me from the mall to ask if it would be OK if she bought her a Minnie Mouse outfit she had found in the Disney Store. I said sure, what the heck, she’s not always going to want to dress as Minnie Mouse, and she’s excited about going to Disney World. I got home from work and Alison ran to meet me dressed in her Minnie Mouse outfit, with a smile as big as the state of Texas. It has gloves, it has shoes, it has a ring, it’s the whole Minnie outfit.
Saturday we had to spend a good amount of time explaining why wearing the Minnie outfit to church isn’t really appropriate since it kind of detracts from what we are supposed to be paying attention to. We gave in on the shoes, which she wore with her church dress. Sunday evening she advised us that she plans to wear the Minnie outfit on the plane. There’s no compromising here, no matter how much we try to tell her that riding 5 hours in a plane will not be comfortable in the Minnie dress.
Monday arrives and she’s dressed as Minnie and everyone who sees her smiles. She gets compliments from the ticket agents, security guards, flight attendants and pilots, as well as many passengers. There’s no doubt where this little girl is headed!
We had a brief spout of tears at the security checkpoint when the guards demanded she take off her Minnie ears and give up her Koala bear to X-ray them. We didn’t think ahead enough to prepare her for this. The fact that we arrived at the airport without her suitcase didn’t help matters, but her Uncle John had plenty of time to drive home and bring it while we ate in the concourse.
The flights were rather uneventful except for some turbulence between Austin and Houston which gave us a bumpy ride for a few minutes. We were concerned that Alison might get scared but she had a big grin while proclaiming “This is FUN!”
After arriving and taking the airport shuttle Alison was already yawning but wanted to go swimming. Fortunately our resort has an incredible kids swimming area called “Stormalong Bay” with sand bottomed pools which meander around glistening sandy beaches, complete with a “shipwreck” that has an amazing water slide. Alison found a junior version of the slide and so far it’s her favorite part of the trip. The swim lessons from earlier this summer are really showing as she comes down the slide and bobs up and swims to the edge of the pool before scampering out to do it all over again.
The temperature this evening was perfect – mid 70’s – forecast for tomorrow and the rest of the week is low 90’s during the day and scattered thunderstorms. The guide books say not to worry if you didn’t bring raingear, there are ponchos for 5.00 in all of the parks. They also caution you that when everyone has one on it’s very easy to lose your child amongst all the yellow poncho’d kids.
Tomorrow we have a character breakfast in the Cape May cafe. It’s a quick walk from our room since it’s in the adjoining Beach Club resort. The only times which were available when we made our “priority seating” reservations were at 8 AM so morning is going to come way too soon.
Tonight we had to get Alison to sleep so we gave her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner in our room. Since the only restaurant still serving after 10 was the “Beaches and Cream” ice cream shop that’s where I went to get some hamburgers for Rayma and me to eat after Alison went to sleep. We briefly entertained taking her there for dinner but passed on that option when we saw the number of people who were waiting in line streaming out the door. As it was I waited a good 45 minutes to buy two cheeseburgers and french fries for just over 17 bucks. We drank tap water while eating them, but sitting on our patio gazing at the lake, looking at the lights of Epcot and the Beach Club in the distance, and the gorgeously landscaped Yacht Club grounds and Stormalong Bay makes these truly “cheeseburgers in paradise.”
When we originally told Alison about the trip we cautioned her that there are so many things to do there would be no way to do everything, but we would come back. We also tried to prepare her for the length of the trip so she would relax a little and not want to do everything at once. I held up the fingers of my hand as I counted “not one night, not two, not even three or four nights, but FIVE nights at Disney World! She was at once surprised and alarmed. She turned away from me and squeezed our cat Velvet so hard I thought he was going to yowl. We thought she was overcome with excitement, but then we realized she was actually crying and holding Velvet because she was afraid he would be too lonely if we were gone that long. “TWO DAYS!” she demanded. “TWO DAYS is all I want to go!” Needless to say we quickly acquiesced to dissipate that storm.
We felt sure that as soon as she started seeing how much fun there was to be had and how there is no way it would ever fit into two days she would change her mind. But after we landed in Orlando and headed for baggage claim she skipped through the airport drawing second glances from her Minnie Mouse outfit, all the while telling us “TWO DAYS!”
Tonight after swimming in Stormalong Bay she advised Rayma that she wants to stay the full 5 days and doesn’t ever want to stay anywhere else. We tried to get her to pay attention to the fireworks show we could see in the distance over Epcot which began a 9 PM but after watching a couple of volleys of color in the sky she pranced off around the lagoon to the water slide.
More later. Time to get some sleep!
