Skamarakas – April 04

The Skamarakas Family
Jim (who does not admit to being a day over 29)
Anna 39
Brighid 12 and Eilis 3

April 8 - April 17 (Pop Century April 11 - 17)

Days 1-3

There is a lot of the boring stuff these days, as we are not yet in Disney World, but some of them shape the rest of the trip, so I thought I'd share them.

We end up leaving about 8 hours later than I had hoped, getting on the road at 5 PM. We are driving from Southern NJ to Orlando, then leaving the kids with grandparents for a 2 night stay in South Florida to visit friends.

The traffic is beyond horrendous. It takes us nearly 4 hours to get through Baltimore, which for us is generally a 2 hour trip at most. By midnight, I am really ready to stop for the night, but we decide to keep going to try to make up for lost time. I drive until 2:30, then we stop at a rest area for a two hour nap. Jim takes over driving at 4:30 and we are on our way again.

I cannot emphasize enough how bad traffic is. This is truly the longest trip we've ever made, but the worst is yet to come. Our car breaks down near St. Augustine and we have to call for a tow. Jim wants the car towed to Orlando, as we know the dealer there, and he wants to be close enough so he can stay on top of the repairs. An hour after we are sitting on the side of the road, the AAA driver comes and tows us to the nearest gas station so the kids and I can wait for my in-laws to come from Orlando to get us. Jim goes with the driver for the trip to Orlando while I wait with the kids. I figure it will be about an hour wait, since we phoned them as soon as the car broke down. It turns out that traffic is just as bad coming the other way, and the kids and I are stuck at a gas station for 3 hours.

When all is said and done, we get to Orlando at 8 PM on Friday night. Jim rents an SUV as we have a car load of baby items to deliver to our friends, who are expecting the arrival of their little one any minute. We stay at my in-laws Friday night and Jim is going to head to South Florida on Saturday with the baby items. He does, and while he is gone, Eilis and Brighid go with Pop-pop to the neighborhood Easter egg hunt. Eilis comes back and plays ball in the yard, and she appears to be really warm. Her cheeks get bright red dots on them when she is overheated, and she has them. She falls asleep, and when she wakes up, the dots are still there. She is now running a fever of 101.

Jim calls and says he is going to stay in S. FL Saturday night, as he has spent the afternoon visiting and helping assemble baby items, and I'm a little upset that I didn't go to catch up with my friends. No matter, Eilis is still feeling pretty sick, so I'm glad to be with her.

Jim calls at 10 AM Sunday morning and he is on his way. He should be there by 1 PM, but again with the traffic, he doesn't get back to Orlando until nearly 3. We pack up everything, including sick Eilis, and head to Pop Century.

Day 4 & 5

It is now about 4 PM on Sunday, April 11th. Happy Easter!

We arrive at Pop Century and find a spot in the very crowded Classic Hall parking lot. We are worried that check in will be a complete nightmare, and I decide to run in alone so I don't have to bring Eilis, who today has a fever of 103 and is vomitting. Eilis starts crying, because as soon as the kids saw the resort, they are anxious to explore. Jim says we'll all go in, he'll carry Eilis, and she will at least get to see some of the stuff inside.

There is absolutely no line, so we head right up to the first CM at the front desk. She's pleasant, but not overly friendly, and she tells me to let the baby sit on the desk. I tell her that Eilis doesn't feel well, and we'd like to keep her from spreading germs to everyone else and she says go ahead and put her there. She says she never sits there, so she's not worried (yeah, well, what about the next little one, or the next, or the next?). She hands Brighid a Rubik's cube to play with while we check in, and Jim goes about explaining to Brighid how to solve it (I hate to admit it, but my husband was one of those geeky kids that used to enter the Rubik's Cube challenges when the cube was popular). It seems to take quite a while to check in anyway, and then she starts explaining every piece of paper she is inserting into our folder. She asks if we have a room preference, and we don't, which I guess is good, because she has already written down a room number on the map she is adding to the pile of papers in our folder. She finally hands me the folder and says everything we need is in there, have a pleasant stay, and we leave.

We are in the 90's building, room 8124. We find a parking spot not too far from where we think we might be, and we start to unload. Eilis feels like she weighs 200 pounds, as she is pretty limp, and she is so warm that she is causing us to sweat when we carry her. We find our room with the sick child and half of our luggage in tow, and I open our folder to get the key. I find the map, the Pop Century newsletter, the Disney World Newsletter, the schedule for the theme parks for the week, a shopping guide, and my credit card receipt. We stand for a minute at the door and wonder which of these magical pieces of paper will miraculously open the door, then we resign ourselves to the fact that we will have to go back to the front desk.

We debate a minute about who is going to go, and we end the debate with no one wanting to stand at the door with Eilis and all the luggage, so we all go back to the front desk. I run in myself, and the woman who was pleasant, but not friendly looks at me and says, "I knew you'd be back. You don't have your keys." No kidding? And if she knows that, why didn't she call after us or send them along behind us? She tells me she was so fascinated by my husband explaining how to solve the Rubik's Cube that it distracted her and she forgot to hand us our keys. I am failing to see the on-site magic here.

When we finally get back to the room, we find it cool, comfortable and very clean. I have to admit, I had concerns. When we pulled up, in between the oohing and aahing of the children, my husband and I were fearing we had pulled into an overly decorated Motel 6. The room was definitely smaller than we had hoped, but we managed to find space for everything. There are two double beds, a night table, a table and two chairs, an armoire with three large and three small drawers, the sink area and the bathroom. I unpack the bags, and in order to neatly store our suitcases, the decision is made to put all the clothes in drawers rather than hanging them. We also make the decision not to pull out all of the toiletries, so we keep the toiletry bag under the sink so we don't clutter the space on the counter.

Jim and Brighid head out to find chicken noodle soup - which they do, for $5 a bowl at the food court. But since Eilis is sick, the $5 is worth it - it's the first she's eaten in a day and a half. Then Jim and Brighid head out to get Sonny's BBQ family meal deal for the rest of us. Since I am going to be spending the evening in the room, I am a bit disappointed with the selection of channels. But, I am glad to have finally arrived.

On Monday morning, Eilis wakes up fever free, but we are worried about a relapse, so we plan a short day. We head to Downtown Disney and find my new favorite shop - Basin. You can buy scented soaps, bath bombs, etc. here, and everything smells great. The other shops are outrageously crowded, so we are in and out pretty quickly. We decide to grab lunch while we are here, and head to the new Earl of Sandwich. I think some of these people must have been in line since the original Earl invented the Sandwich - the line is really long, some of the people seem pretty crabby, and now Eilis says she is not hungry. We head out and skip the Earl. Brighid and Eilis ride the little train, and then we head over to the Lego playground. Eilis loves it here, and she really wants to go. There are a bazillion kids there already, but she heads into the play house to ride down the slide. We wait for her to come out, and then she heads in again. She doesn't come out the second time, so we send Brighid in to find her. She is slumped against the wall with the red cheeks, so we decide to head back to the hotel.

Jim and Brighid hit the pool, and Eilis falls asleep. When they get back, they make a run for the border as we decide to have Taco Bell for dinner. Right after dinner, Eilis is asleep again, Jim is complaining about no high speed internet access, and Brighid is bored. She decides she is hungry, so she and Jim head to the food court, where they find watermelon chunks and Tie Dyed cheesecake (which is actually a red velvet type cake with multicolor swirled NY style cheesecake over it). We turn in early and pray for a good day at the park tomorrow.

Day 6

Eilis wakes up with the wake up call and has a conversation with Mickey and Minnie. We feel like she will do better today, but we'll try not to push things and continue to take it easy.

We arrive at Magic Kingdom about 9:30, and the place is packed. We decided to take the Ferry over, since I like that way best, and the breeze is heavenly. It doesn't actually take us too long to get in the gates, but Main Street is literally a sea of people - someone is standing in just about every space on the block. We head to Buzz Lightyear, which has a wait of 80 minutes, and we get fast passes. We decide to ride on the Tomorrow Land Transit Authority (people mover), and since the wait there is non-existent, we get right on. From there, we head to the Carousel of Progress, and we have to wait a bit before getting into the theater. When that is done, we finally do Buzz Lightyear.

It is now approaching lunchtime, so we head into Cosmic Ray's. The kids grab a table, and Jim and I get lunch. Eilis has the corndog kids meal, and the rest of us share the family rotisserie chicken meal. We eat slowly, as we figure everywhere else we want to go will have long waits no matter when we get to it, and when we have finished, we head towards Toon Town. Remember when I said that someone was standing in just about every space on Main Street? Well, in Toon Town, not only was someone standing in every space, but they were standing with kids on their shoulders! There was no way we were going to wait for anything there, so we head back towards the Haunted Mansion. We got Fast Passes for the ride, then walked into the Hall of Presidents. I have to say, I have not seen this since Jimmy Carter was president, and even though my oldest daughter is a 12 year veteran of the Kingdom, she has never been in it. The wait seems very long, but we get to see the side show when a woman tries to come in with a cooler full of food, a dog bowl full of food, and a huge Coleman thermos of water. She is wearing latex gloves, and has a husband in tow. The CM goes over to tell her she cannot have food or drink in the theater, and she goes ballistic. She starts going on and on about how she is ill and needs medication and she doesn't always know when she needs it and she has to have water and what if she is in the show when she needs it and he has kept her from bringing water in and she could have a spell and she could land in the hospital or die - yes, this is how she was talking. The CM is adamant about her not bringing the food and water in, and she insists he get a supervisor there immediately. So that helped pass the time :-)

I know remember why we don't always do the Hall of Presidents. Once you get over the initial awe of the recreation of every president in our country's history, it's a little bit boring. We leave there and go to Haunted Mansion to redeem our FP, and Eilis, as always, loves this ride. After that, we headed to Mickey's Philharmagic to get FP again (they were a lifesaver this trip), and then went to It's a Small World. The wait there was 30 minutes, but we figured with it closing for rehab, we should ride it. When we get off of the ride, we are still about 30 minutes from our FP time for Philharmagic, so we decide to head out for the day. We are supposed to meet my in-laws for dinner, and it will take a while to get out of the park, so we leave.

We do Lone Star for dinner, since my in-laws get to pick the restaurant, and we have a nice evening (if you knew my in-laws, you would see how having a nice evening is a major accomplishment). There is no wait for a table, and the waitress pays a ton of attention to us, so it's a nice change of pace from Disney :-)

Jim and Brighid decide for a late night walk to the food court. They come back with watermelon chunks, carrot cake, and shrimp lo mein. We put in for our wake up call, and plan to head to EPCOT in the morning.

Day 7

We make the decision again that with the crowds and Eilis just getting over her virus, we are not going to attempt to do everything. We get to EPCOT about 9:30 and we head towards the Land Pavilion. Jim and Brighid head in to get FPs for Living with the Land boat ride, and Eilis and I head to the Living Seas. She loves the new Finding Nemo sculpture they have outside, and we spend quite a bit of time while she investigates and gets her picture taken. We are just getting into line when Jim and Brighid catch up with us.

We decide to go see the movie instead of heading right to the hydrolators, and it seems like a good idea. Not too many people ventured in for the movie, and the lines waiting for the lifts are long. By the time we are out of the movie, however, we walk right on to the hydrolator for our trip to Sea Base Alpha. Eilis loves EVERYTHING! We spend long periods of time standing in front of various fish tanks, and as the place is jam packed with people, this becomes quite uncomfortable. Other little kids are trying to scooch in for a spot, grownups are sticking elbows in her little ears, and we decide to drag her out to the Land. We have to pose yet again with Nemo outside, but we are nearing the end of our FP time for the boat ride in the Land, so we take one more quick picture and head over.

The wait time here is 90 minutes without FP - so again, FP is saving the day for us. It still takes us a few minutes to get loaded into a boat, but we really enjoy this behind the scenes tour of the gardens. Jim decides when we are finished to try his luck at getting a table at the Garden Grill, but when they tell him an hour and 30 minutes for standby, I re-convince him that my counter service idea is a much better one. We see the Circle of Life movie, which the girls enjoy, and then we head to the World Showcase. The weather today is absolutely gorgeous, and walking around the lake is just beautiful. When we reach Japan, we head for lunch at the counter service restaurant there for a delicious meal. We are just in time after lunch to catch the musical performers in Japan, and then we begin our walk around the lake again. I have to tell you, for the first time ever, I pass by the Kakigori stand. It is so cool and comfortable, it never even occurs to me to indulge in this cool and delicious shaved ice treat!

We figure we will head towards Test Track and Mission:Space and get FP for Brighid and Jim to ride, but when we get there, the FPs have all been distributed for the day, the standby lines are running 120 minutes, and even the single rider line for Test Track is 60 minutes. Brighid is disappointed, but as she has done the rides before and we will be back in a few weeks, she agrees to skip the long lines. We head for Space Ship Earth, which was running a 45 minute line when we arrived this morning, and we find it has a 5 minute wait now. Yippeee :-) We all head in. As we are leaving, the phone rings, and it is the car dealer to say not only is our car done, but the warranty covered the work :-) We no sooner hang up from that call when the phone rings again. A lawsuit that my husband had been involved in through no fault of his own had been dismissed! Two good news calls in less than ten minutes! That gives us enough happy energy to brave dinner again with the in-laws!!

We let the girls ride Space Ship Earth again, then we head out. We have to return our rental car before 6 or be charged another day, and we have to be at the car dealer by 6 to get the car out. We manage both, and then we let the in-laws choose the restaurant again for dinner. Olive Garden, here we come. I know Olive Garden is a very popular restaurant, but it is definitely not on our list of favorites, and going with my in-laws makes it less so. Eilis is tired and acting up, my FIL spills raspberry iced tea all over my MIL which makes her unbearably miserable for the meal, and by the time we leave, none of us are very full and we cannot wait to get back to the hotel.

Jim and Brighid take another late evening walk to the food court, and they come back with a deliciuos Chef's Salad and some fruit. It's a dangerous thing to be so close to the food court!!

Day 8

The plan for the day is to get up a little earlier, and spend the whole day in the Magic Kingdom so we can see Wishes and SpectroMagic tonight. If that plan goes awry, the alternate plan is to leave mid-afternoon for some pool time, and then go back for the fireworks and parade. But again with the crowds, neither plan is appealing not long after we arrive at the Magic Kingdom.

We had planned to do the EMH for Magic Kingdom, but not realizing the park opened at 8 AM, we didn't leave the hotel until 8, so we got there after the park had already opened. It wasn't too bad this early, though. We headed straight for Buzz Lightyear - Eilis's favorite - and grabbed Fast Passes. We rode twice before the FP time kicked in, and when we came off the ride the second time, the line was 30 minutes, so we used the passes. After that, we do the People Mover again and much to our amazement, while going through Space Mountain, the lights are on! What a sight to see the roller coaster that so terrifies the majority of us in the family in the dark looking rather calm with lights on.

When we are done on the People Mover, we head for Aladdin's Magic Carpet ride, and we are thrilled to find that the kids can get on in 5 minutes. Woohoo! Jim heads off to get FP for the Jungle cruise, and the girls ride the carpets. After the carpet ride, we head over to Pirates of the Caribbean. We have a few minutes left before we can FP the Jungle Cruise, so we pop in to the Tiki Room to enjoy the show. It's now time to use the Jungle Cruise FPs, so we do. The boat we are on is filled with teens from a high school band, and the CM spends most of the time joking with them rather than doing the schtick about the jungle animals. That's okay - we've heard it before - but I did wonder about the first timers on board. We do lunch today at El Pirata y el Perico, and we go a little early so we have no trouble finding a table or waiting in line. We had agreed to meet my in-laws to see their new house in Solavita in Poinciana, but by the time we make our way down Main Street, it is almost time for the 2 PM parade, and it's nearly impossible to get through. We call my in-laws, promise to go to Solavita on Friday, and we find a spot for the parade. It's comfortable temperature wise, but the sun is really warm, and I go in to look for a hat for Eilis. I end up making Goofy sour straws for both her and Brighid in the candy store.

After the parade, we begin to debate whether leaving is a good idea or not. Eilis is behaving really well, and none of us wants to fight crowds coming back in, so we decide to stay. We have a 5 PM PS at Liberty Tree Tavern, and we'll decide after dinner if we can make it to see the night time events.

With time on our hands before the PS, we decide to go check out the Main Street barbershop. There are two gentleman in the chairs, but Eilis marches right in and tells the lady she wants her hair cut, so we decide to wait. I am so thrilled that we did! Eilis has very fine hair, and it doesn't grow too quickly, so I always cut it myself at home. Well, Billie, the lady who cut Eilis' hair, was so wonderful! She trimmed her bangs, trimmed the back - even handing me a tissue when I get teary eyed over the loss of the curls I have never had the strength to cut - and then responded to Eilis's request for "twirly hair" by putting in a few ringlet curls. Then she sprayed the hair with hairspray and sprinkled Mickey confetti in Eilis' hair. As if that wasn't great enough, she then presented her with a pair of mouse ears, embroidered with the words "First Haircut", and a certificate saying she got her first haircut there. Then she handed me the fallen curls in a napkin folded up and sealed with a Mickey sticker. What an awesome experience! When we are done with the haircut, we head on over to see if we can get into Mickey's Philharmagic. The line is long, and Jim starts a conversation with the CM standing there, and he remembers the fast passes we got earlier in the week that we didn't get a chance to use. He asks the CM if they are still good, and coincidentally, the time on the FP is the time they are accepting FP returns for! He says we can use them, so we get out of line and into the FP line and we're in! I love this attraction!

By the time the afternoon is over and it is time for dinner, we have ridden Snow White, Peter Pan, Pooh, and the carousel, and we are so pleased with ourselves for getting so much in despite really long lines. We head over to Liberty Tree about 15 minutes early, but we are seated within five minutes. The food was fabulous and the characters were great - although a little brief with the visits. Eilis had a slice of the pork and some macaroni and cheese, then fell asleep at the table. That worked out great for the rest of us, because we didn't feel like we needed to speed things up in case she got antsy. The characters that came by all made fun of the sleeping child, and we had a really nice meal. Brighid was disappointed that the dessert is now included, as she loves the pound cake on the menu, but she enjoyed the included dessert so it wasn't a complete loss.

It was just after 6 when we left LTT, and with Eilis asleep, we decide to save Wishes and Spectromagic for our next trip and head back to the hotel. Brighid and Jim head to the pool, and Eilis slept the whole night - not waking up until I woke her at 7 the next morning!

And, since we didn't allow in-laws to pick a restaurant tonight, no trips to the food court are necessary!!

Day 9

Well, we have come to the end of our week, so in going to bed Thursday night, we plan to get to Animal Kingdom early, do as much as we can in half a day, then go see my in-laws new home in Solavita, and head back to the hotel to pack up and rest up. Our intention is to leave at 2 AM tomorrow morning, and no one wants to be tired for the ride home.

We get up early, but we are moving kind of slowly. Jim decides at the last minute he wants to get the Universal Studios passes for our next trip, especially with the discount coupons which give us a second year for free. Then he wants to debate going to Universal instead of to Animal Kingdom. We ultimately decide that we don't have time to see much at Universal, and since we have to meet his parents back at their house on the other side of town, we're better off at Animal Kingdom. We head to Burger King anyway to get the discount coupons, and the kids are yelling for French Toast sticks. I have a PS at Donald's Breakfastasaurus, but you would think I had locked these children in a closet without food for the week, and the immediate gratification of french toast sticks wins out over my planned breakfast.

We arrive at Animal Kingdom at about 9:30, and we head right to ITTBAB. We walk right in, but by the time the doors open for the show to start, it is so packed that you literally cannot turn around. After the show, we wander kind of aimlessly for a few minutes, then Brighid asks if her and her dad can ride Kali River Rapids. Well, I had not planned on heading that way because Eilis can't ride - or so I think. We head over and we find out that you only have to be 38 inches to ride. Eilis is 39 inches. Off we go, and we really don't have long to wait at all. Jim had grabbed fast passes in case the line got longer, but I think because it was a cool morning, people were afraid to get wet and have to walk around in the cold. Well, Eilis loved every part except the one part where she got really doused with water. She got off the ride screaming to go again. I got really soaked, and wanted to get pictures of Eilis on the ride - her very first big girl ride - so I headed for the bridge to take pictures while they got in line with their fast passes. Believe it or not, I actually got teary eyed when their raft went past me. Eilis looked so little, and a bit like a drowned rat. She was soaked from head to toe, but she was so happy and smiling. Another milestone reached at Disney.

Now with everyone wet, we head off to the bathrooms to see how dry we can all get, then we decide to just stick to the sunny sides of the paths to let the sun dry us out. It really doesn't take long, as it is warming up nicely. The decision is made to head to Tarzan Rocks, as Eilis has never seen this show. I'll tell you why - I hate this show. I hated it the first time I saw it during CM previews before the park opened, and it hasn't gotten any better. What possessed my husband to choose this show over Festival of the Lion King still puzzles me. We sit for the 30 minutes - Eilis fidgeted more than she sat - and then we start thinking in terms of lunch. Lines for lunch are outrageously long, and as we are debating whether or not to stand for 30 minutes for BBQ, the phone rings. It is the in-laws telling us that they need to go over to see something at the new house, so they want to know if we can leave now instead of later. We decide to do that, as we'll be back in June to see more of Disney. We grab popcorn and sodas (and a frozen banana for Brighid), and head to Poinciana.

We spend a couple of hours at my in-laws new home, checking out the sample of the model they are having built, and then we are all starving. We decide to head to Sonny's BBQ before going to the in-laws house to pack the things that they have given us to bring back to NJ. We end up back at Pop Century around 8. We take a walk around the resort, stop at the gift shop and pick up a few things, then hit the food court for our bedtime snack. We get the car packed up with nearly everything, and then have our snack, put in a wake up call, and turn in for the night - we think.

At 10 PM, the strange occurences begin - I wrote about them in a previous post. We end up awake and anxious until well past midnight, so when our wakeup call comes in at 2, Jim decides we should hit MGM Studios in the morning, so we all go back to sleep. In the morning, we pack the rest of our stuff and head to the studios.

Day 10

We were supposed to leave at 2 AM, but after our housekeeping fiasco last night, when the wake up call came in, my husband said he really wanted to take the kids to MGM Studios - even for just a little while - so we all went back to sleep. We finally got up around 7, showered, packed the rest of the car, and headed to MGM for the EMH.

The place was virtually empty. We headed over to the Great Movie ride, and had a good time there. From there, we went to Voyage of the Little Mermaid, and decide to grab a Fast Pass for the later show. Brighid heads over to Star Tours, which is one of her favorite rides, and we take Eilis to Playhouse Disney. There is a cart of Wiggles stuff there, which immediately attracts her attention, but we manage to drag her into the line to wait for the show. She loves this show, even though it always takes her a while to warm up.

When we leave Playhouse Disney, we meet up with Brighid in front of Little Mermaid and head right in, as they are just filling for the next show. This ends up being one completely packed show!! We leave the show and debate whether or not we should get on the road. We decide to get FP for Indiana Jones, and head over to Starring Rolls for a quick breakfast. We enjoy some pastries and bagels, and then we head back to IJ. Again, a packed show, by the time it starts, we have moved left about four times and every seat is full. When we finish at IJ, we decide to head out so we can get on the road to go home.

When we finally get on the road, it is close to 12 PM, and it usually takes us between 16 and 18 hours to get home. We do not get home until nearly 11 AM the following morning. What an awful ride home!!