Don & Laurie's Grandchild Trip

Day 1 Tue 4/22, flight & Epcot

Don and Laurie, with almost-6-year-old granddaughter Serina (and briefly her daddy Ty)

Serina is very excited this morning, all ready to roll. She was even very excited last night, spending some time with Grandma just before bed on the day's clothes selection (must be a girl thing) and settling on the Capri pants. Our first opportunity to deal with fear is when we get out of the car at the airport and she wants earplugs before she goes in. We convince her it's not loud inside the airport, and have breakfast inside to take her mind off it a bit. She likes watching the planes out the window, and despite her previous fear of escalators is anxious to try out the "moving floor". As we wait for boarding, even though her dad was with her too, she makes Grandma promise that she'll sit right next to her. No problem.

She's quite tense on takeoff, but mostly during the really fast part on the ground before we're airborne. She makes her dad shut his window a few times, for a few minutes each time; I think it's bothering her to see clouds out the window. She doesn't seem to be bothered by anything else though, except one 12-foot drop while descending into Orlando. She very calmly says to Laurie "this is a little scary." I can tell from Laurie's expression that she isn't very fond of it either ;-)

The landing is uneventful, and she is ready to go. While we're waiting for Mears at the airport, Serena says "you said I could sit in the stroller any time I want, how about now?" I thought she might think she was too old for the stroller, clearly not ;-) Laurie checks us in at the All Star Sports and discovers that we're VIP's, a designation that comes with a Princess Atta beanie for Serina and a room all ready at noon. And a room right where we'd requested in our fax, the ground floor second room from the near end of the Touchdown 7 building, right next to the pool and food court. A Very nice start to the trip. Just to take the edge off that though, we try to get a picture of Serina by the big X's and O's in the courtyard and discovers that she's as camera-shy as her mommy. (Make that camera-defiant.) Good thing we hadn't planned on taking many pictures ;-)

I love non-stop flights, it's barely noon and we have our gear stowed and are on our way to Epcot. It's the day after Easter and Blizzard Beach is closed, with the parking lot full and cars parked on the grass all the way around. By the time we get to Innoventions Plaza, we've had three major "cool"s already, one when we see the fountain for the first time, another when we see ostriches made out of bushes, and then another for the Sorcerer Mickey topiary. And then I issued my first "cool" of the trip. The Mission:Space pavilion certainly is an awesome sight through the Innoventions breezeway.

While the crew stops at the Electric Umbrella for lunch, I head back to Test Track to get FastPasses. We knew it would be pretty crowded the first couple days, but at 12:42 all the FPs for the day are gone, the standby line is two hours long, and even the single rider line says 75 minutes. So we'll just enjoy lunch and go with the flow. Serina seems to be as fascinated with simple blackbirds as Alexis was last year, but at least she hasn't wanted to use up her camera on them. She's noticing any number of "awesome" things that we don't often notice any more, like the purple metal banners that spin at the entrance to the breezeway.

After lunch, we're convinced it really is Easter as we see something I haven't seen since my first trip to Epcot, a line outside The Living Seas. After 20 minutes in the line and 40 minutes inside looking at "awesome" fish and sharks and turtles and dolphins, we manage to get up to the World Showcase Plaza just as the character caravan arrives. Serina is thrilled to be first in line to see Minnie and about sixth to see Mickey, and has time for four or five other autographs before they have to go. (RADP note -- There was some discussion in the group a while back about leaving valuables unattended. We were distracted enough while jumping from character to character to leave the stoller unattended with the camera bag open in it, containing 2 radios, a cell phone, audio recorder, batteries, film and tapes. While I certainly don't recommend that, we think you'll find that on those occasions when your head is buried, your odds are better here than in your average coaster park ;-)

After autographs, we go back down to Innoventions Plaza to get the promised ice cream, and make our way down to Spaceship Earth. Serina states that she would like to have ice cream every day. We can make that happen. I discover (thanks to her) that if you sit under Spaceship Earth eating a popsicle and there are clouds in the sky, it looks like the ball is starting to roll.

Spaceship Earth is a little scary at the beginning because it's dark (much darker than we remembered), and it stays scary all the way through, so she isn't going to ride it again. There will be a number of times on this trip that we find we didn't accurately remember the setting of a given attraction, particularly the volume. We're keenly aware that Disney colors are vivid, but will be reminded often that Disney sound is LOUD ;-)

It's mid-afternoon now and definitely time for the pool and a nap. We know from past experience that with all the excitement of the impending trip, the kids get to sleep late the night before and wake up early on departure day, and you shouldn't underestimate how tiring the adrenaline of their first plane trip itself is. When we settle in for our nap, Laurie asks Serina if she wakes up grumpy and she says she doesn't. That's not entirely true ;-) We think if she were allowed to wake up by herself it might be okay, but Daddy and Grandma are anxious to get going again and wake her up early, and she is quite miserable until after supper.

We had planned on meeting up with our cm-friend Joe back in Epcot, but even with too short a nap we're too late to make connections. Bummer, but I'm sure we'll hook up later in the week. We arrive back at Innoventions Plaza just after dusk, and Laurie says to Serina "Doesn't the fountain look pretty at night?" Her reply is priceless, she just scans the plaza for about 15 seconds and breathlessly says "Everything looks pretty." On our way back to Illuminations we introduce her to the talking drinking fountain. That's a major hit, one that we'll revisit at every opportunity.

Illuminations turns out to be a certifiable disaster. We're able to find sitting space quite close to the fence near the bathrooms on the way over to Canada. Serina hasn't shown any problem with fireworks in the past, but has always watched them from a good distance away. We describe for her everything she'll see and hear, and tell her she can cover her ears if any of them are too loud. That's not nearly enough. Five minutes in, she is absolutely bawling, burying her head in Daddy's shoulder and sobbing, "I miss my family. I'm never coming to this Florida ever in my life again". We soon realize that she doesn't realize that this is a show and that it's temporary and that it's only here. In her mind, this is what Florida at night does, and she wonders if it's going to be like this at the hotel too. I ask her if she wants to stay or go back, and she somewhat reluctantly says stay. It isn't until several minutes later that I hear her tell her dad that she wants to stay for 6 more nights. She thought when I said "go back" that I meant home :( Doesn't take long at this point for us to pack and go. She asks us to stop momentarily several times on the way out though to turn back and check it out. She's interested, but just can't handle the noise.

She's fine as we leave the park and the noise becomes more distant, though she's clearly very tired. As we're getting ready for bed, I mention to her that she got a lot of autographs today. "No I didn't, that was yesterday." Not to worry honey, we have the same problem keeping track of time at WDW ;-)

Tomorrow, since it's Ty's last day with us, we're going to go against everything we've been taught and go to Magic Kingdom before the other two parks. (I think that's secretly okay with Laurie;-)

Day: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7