He's Not Heavy, He's Your Brother - Nov '16 TR (COMPLETED 8/28)

[Stasieki]

Last days seem never to go how I plan them... such a mix of sadness, exhaustion and being ready for your own bed.

 

[cinderaimee]

(okay, it's been 9 months since the trip. Let's get this done. Thanks everyone who has read and commented. Hopefully my pictures are all showing up!)

Day 6 - Saturday, November 19 - Magic Kingdom and Departure Day - Part 2


After we finished up at BOG, we stopped for some PP pictures that the kids wanted no part of

Bellies full and significantly less hangry, we headed over to our next FP at Tomorrowland Speedway. When we got over there, the Standby line was 60 minutes. The boys really liked this ride and DS1 had so much fun driving the car himself. I was in the car behind him and I guess I didn't give him enough of a start (or maybe he just couldn't figure out the gas pedal?) because I was on his bumper the whole ride, and the car behind me went right away too so they were right on my tail. It was like our own little traffic jam.

(my private traffic jam)

Totally worth it for this smile

Our next stop was to meet Ariel. She was the character DS1 wanted to meet the most so it was must-do on our last day. We arrived and she had a 40 minute wait, which is longer than I wanted to wait, and told DS1 we would be in line for awhile. But he was okay with waiting, so in we went. On our way in, I was handed a red card! (which I do not have a picture of)

This wait was pretty painful. There's nothing to look at in the queue, DS2 wanted to be held, the wifi didn't really work so I couldn't get a video to play on the ipad for them. It was just a long wait. At least it wasn't in the sun?

So we finally go to meet Ariel and he was SMITTEN. He was a little shy at first, but went and sat next to her and told her "Ariel, I don't want to see Ursula!" and she said "well, you don't have to worry about that, she won't come in here!" I've seen a lot of pictures of Ariel in TRs here and I think the one we met this day is definitely one of the prettiest, and she definitely charmed all my boys.

Up next we went over to the PhillharMagic because it had a shorter line than anything else and we still ended up waiting through like 3 shows. After we got out, I realized we were at the end of our Splash Mountain FP window, so we booked it over there. The crowds were really so crazy, they had CM's directing traffic on the walkways to stay to one side, and there wasn't an inch to move to go around slow people.

Eventually we made it over to Splash and found that DS2 had fallen asleep for his daily stroller nap.

I think we were 5 minutes past our FP time but we didn't have issue getting in, and I grabbed a Rider Switch for DH. The stand by line was so long. I can't remember the posted wait time, but it seemed to go on forever as we zoomed past it in the FP line.

DS1 was a little nervous going in, but he loved this ride! After we got out, he got back in line with DH to ride it again, and after the trip he said it was his favorite ride.

I found a nice place to sit while DH and DS1 were riding and pulled up MDE to book another FP since Splash was our last one. It was about 3:00 by this point and we were planning to leave the park around 5:00 to head back to BW to catch the Magical Express. When I first pulled up the app, the best thing I could find was the teacups, so I grabbed it figuring it would be fun to do it as our first and last ride of the trip.

BTMRR had just reopened (literally, that day) after its refurbishment and I had really hoped to snag a FP for it, but I never managed to find one. When DH and DS1 came back from their ride, I pulled up MDE one more to refresh and a ton of new FPs had been released so I was able to swap the teacups for Jungle Cruise, and the window was only 10 minutes away!

This is a good place to stop, but I'll be back to finish up this TR in the next couple days!

 

[cinderaimee]

Day 6 - Saturday, November 19 - Magic Kingdom and Departure Day - Part 3


Where I left off, we had just finished up Splash and had snagged a 4th FP for Jungle Cruise. I'm sure I've said it a lot already about this day, but it was CROWDED. We fought our way down to JC - changed to Jingle Cruise for the season, and the Stand By wait was 60 minutes. DS2 was still sleeping in his stroller, so I asked the CM if there was a ride swap since we couldn't bring the stroller in - she said they didn't have a rider swap, but handed us a paper anytime FP. I rode it first with DS1 and took a lot of pictures of the animals because I realized I had hardly taken any pictures all day and tried to make up for it? I'm not sure.

While we were on the ride, DH had wandered around and saw Jasmine and Aladdin meeting, but their line was either cut off or super long. While he rode Jungle Cruise with DS1, I stayed with the stroller and still-sleeping DS2. I'm kind of sad he missed it because that baby loves animals, but he needed the sleep.

After DH and DS1 came out of the ride, he told me that the CM at the entrance looked at the paper FP and handed it back to him. At this point, we had a bit over an hour until we had to head back to the BW to catch our ME bus. We decided to head to Main Street because I wanted to grab a You are Here mug from the Starbucks and look for a few other souvenirs and we'd see if DS2 woke up so we could ride something together.

When we got to the Hub, the castle show was happening, so we stopped to watch that for a few minutes.

Then I got my mug, but Main Street was insane and all the shops were jammed, so DH stayed outside with the stroller while I shopped. And what does DH do when left alone with the stroller and a sleeping kid? Find a PP photographer!

Look at DH, that is pure joy He said this PP photographer was so super nice and into and it she took a ton of photos - she took castle photos and then had them turn around and take Christmas tree photos.

I was trying to figure out why DS1 is not in any of these pictures, I must have taken him in the store with me, but I don't remember at this point.

After this, we just decided to say goodbye to the MK and head back to the resort.

Our wait and ride back were uneventful, then we dropped off the double stroller at Bell Services for the rental company to pick up, and retrieved our carry on bags, then just waited around the lobby and on the porch for our bus. Honestly, it seemed like most of our last day I was grouchy and stressed out, but waiting for the bus I was just so sad the trip was over, and I definitely shed a few tears when the bus pulled away.

There wasn't any traffic heading back to the airport, but the TSA lane was huge. We got to use the family lane again, but we still had a pretty decent wait. I realized I had a few things in my park bag/carry on that I had to throw away - a brita filter bottle full of water and a big tube of sunscreen. A very nice TSA employee helped us through with the boys and then we made our way to the gate.

By this point, DS2 was wide awake and hangry, so we headed to the food court at the gate for dinner and I encountered some just really lovely employees of MCO that proved to me we were no longer at WDW.

First I approached the Chili's ToGo window and ordered chicken fingers and fries, and the employee says "Well, the fryer is backed up so it's going to be about 20 minutes." So I reply "Okay, we're just waiting right there." and he stares for a few seconds and says "You're still going to order it?" like he's annoyed I'm ordering food at a restaurant. I tell him, "No, I guess not". Because honestly it's just chicken tenders and I don't want food that's spit on. Next I go over to the pizza place that's not a Sbarro's but it looks like one. It had a pretty long line, but it was moving pretty fast. In front of me was a guy with his daughter, another lady, me, and then a young lady who worked at the airport. The employee taking orders helped the man and his daughter, then skipped over the next lady and me to ask the girl behind me what she's having.

I was trying to decide if pizza guy thought we were all together, or if he knew the girl or just thought she was cute, but the lady in front of me was NOT. HAVING. IT. "EXCUSE ME! DID YOU THINK WE WERE ALL TOGETHER? I STILL NEED TO ORDER!" And then guy told her, "calm down, I'll be right with you!" and she argued back "Why did you skip us? Do you know her? There's a line! Is that okay!?" It was a scene. And I'm just stuck in the middle like, "can I just order some pizza?"

Anyway, eventually I got some food together and we ate. Then I took the boys to the bathroom before we headed to the gate to put on some warmer clothes (it was about 45 degrees back in DC!) and told him I wanted him to put on a Pull-Up in case he fell asleep on the plane, to which he replied "Oh, I am going to fall asleep on the plane!" Since he was so tired and DS2 was nice and well-rested from his long nap at the MK, DS1 took the stroller and was out before we got to our gate.

So like I said before, this late flight back was a bit of a gamble. We still had about half an hour before we boarded and I gave DS2 the tablet to keep him occupied, and in hindsight, I should have chased his butt around the concourse while we waited to burn off some energy, but we were all so tired at this point. By time we got on the plane, he was tired of sitting, tired of being buckled, tired of the iPad. On the flight down, I used a CARES harness on his seat, which turns the lap belt into a 5 point harness, but on the flight home, I didn't put it on - there was a combination of not wanting to dig it out of the bag and not wanting to bother the person behind him (you have to lower the tray behind you for a second to get it around the seat), and I just didn't do it. DS2 was awful on the flight home. He didn't want the ipad, he kept slipping down and kicking the seat in front of him, screamed at anything I tried to give him that he didn't want, screamed at the snacks, spilled juice all over himself. It was honestly just a disaster.

We made it back to DC in less than 2 hours and then got to figure out how to get 2 boys with only one stroller, 2 large rolling suitcases, 1 small roller suitcase, and 3 backpacks though the airport and to the car. DH didn't want to borrow a luggage cart for some reason I couldn't understand (I think he didn't want to walk it back to return it? idk). But somehow we did it, made it back to the garage and headed home.

Looking back, the last day and flight back were rough, but I'm still glad we decided to do it. We got to do a lot of things we didn't have time for the first day we were in MK, including Splash Mountain, which DS1 tells everyone was his favorite ride at WDW.

Well, what's next for us? We definitely can't wait to go back! During a few days of frustration with trying to book our summer beach trip with DH's family, we almost threw in the towel on that and booked a trip back for this fall during free dining - I found 5 nights at one of the Pops and 4 or 5 day park tickets and free dining for under $2000. But DS2's behavior has just been BAD lately, we decided we would just rather save our money and wait until he's a little older.

Our tentative plan is to return January or February of 2019. The ideal trip I have in my head would be to fly out Thursday night after work/school and leave the following Saturday morning - 9 nights/7 park days with at least one rest day, and DS1 has been asking to go to Legoland, so maybe we would do one day offsite there. Hopefully Fairy Godmother will offer to hook us up with a room again. If she does, we would probably do a split stay at the room she can get for us (our 2016 trip, she had enough points to book us 5 nights) and spend the balance at AoA or one of the Pop resorts. I would like to try a dining plan, but I'd have to crunch the numbers.

That's all I have! Thank you all so much for reading and commenting. I loved writing it and I hope you enjoyed reading. It took me so much longer than I thought to do this TR and I appreciate everyone for sticking with me.

 

[mamamelody2]

You finished! Good for you!
I really enjoyed your report.

 

[cinderaimee]

You finished! Good for you!
I really enjoyed your report.

Thank you!!

 

[cinderaimee]

Just popping back in with a quick RL update. I realized as I was reading back through how much the boys have grown up since our trip last year.

DS1 started Kindergarten last week, and DS2 started preschool.