Skyler's Last Weekend as a 2 Year Old in Dinosaur Land 6/25-6/27, 2010 PTR - Page 4 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.
We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.
Skyler had us up bright and early at 8:00 am, as we had planned to sleep in until possibly 10:00 am as we didn’t go to sleep until 2:30am. Since we were already up, and Laurie needed her coffee, we all decided to go downstairs and get some breakfast. Although it was too early in the morning for me, I forgot I actually packed Cheerios for Skyler to snack on, but got him a cup of Fruit Loops to nibble on for breakfast and some yogurt. I toasted an English Muffin for myself, and got a few pieces of what was left of the Sausage, and got a cup of Orange Juice. We headed back up to the room and let Skyler watch a little bit of Playhouse Disney as we ate our breakfast and got ready to go to Dinosaur Land. We were out the door by 9:30 since we were a little slow moving. A 4 mile drive down the road and we were at Dinosaur Land.
It took us a bit to figure out where parking was, as there were no parking spaces, just a grassy area designated as Customer Parking which was free. Admission was $5 for Adults and $4 for Children, so Laurie paid the $14 for us to go in, although Skyler was actually quite amused with the Gift Shop also Admission Area. We then made our way through the door leading us through a tunnel to take us back outside to the Dinosaur Area. We could go one of 2 ways, either to see the Giant Shark and Octopus first or make our way around the Dinosaurs first and then see the shark and Octopus. Skyler led us in the direction of the Dinosaurs first holding Laurie’s hand. I’m sorry my pictures will have to direct you as to which Dinosaurs we saw in which order, as I tried to get pictures of each sign near the Dinosaurs and I think stopped taking them after a while. There were 40 total that we saw. I do remember Skyler being quite fascinated by the Giganotosaurus. I did have Laurie take a picture of Skyler and I in front of Giganotosaurus.
Skyler was so busy leading his Grammy around to play with the rocks, dirt, and sticks, while I was trying to snap pictures of everything. I do remember us taking a picture of the Pterodactyl, Stegosaurus, T-rex, which I have to admit T-rex didn’t look all that big, nor did he look very realistic. We also saw a Brachiosaurus, Triceratops, and a bunch of others I can barely recall. There was also a Wholly Mammoth, Preying Mantas, and what looked like a Gorilla. We did finally make it back to see the Shark, which I wanted to get a picture of Skyler and I sticking our heads out through his mouth, but Skyler wouldn’t have any of that, and the Octopus. Skyler was also very mesmerized by the Waterfall they had near the Shark and Octopus.
Skyler soon had enough of the Octopus and Shark, so we headed back around for another round of the dinosaurs, when I suddenly got stung in the eye by something as I was trying to clip my sunglasses onto my glasses. My eye was hard to see out of for about 10 minutes, but no swelling. I needed to find a place to sit down for a few minutes and to also change the batteries in my camera. That was the last round of the Dinosaurs we took as Skyler was more interested in the dirt again, so I made sure to snap as many pictures as I could, since DMil forgot her camera at home. We then headed to the exit which brought us back into the Gift Shop. We browsed the merchandise in a few of the sections, and I decided to get Skyler a T-shirt that had a bunch of the Dinosaurs we had seen on there as well as a plush Stegosaurus he had seen and liked (actually he sleeps with that every night now too). My 2 items came to $23.00 even.
Since it was still early and it only took us about an hour to get through everything at Dinosaur, we loaded back into the car and looked at my GPS for something else to do as it was hot outside. We saw that there was an animal park nearby that we thought Skyler would have some interest in, so we chose the address for there and had a short 8 minute drive from Dinosaur Land to Wilson Family Wild Animal Park. As we went in, Skyler was interested in looking at the Gift Shop items with DMil, so I stood in line to purchase our tickets. There were some rude children who did jump in line in front of me as I was waiting, but I was in no mood to lose it, so I just let them go ahead. Admission for Laurie and I was $6.50 a piece, as Skyler was free since he was still 2, so I paid the $13 and we were allowed to go through the door.
First thing Skyler wanted to see were the Llamas. He even wanted to pet them, and DMil pulled him away as soon as she realized they spit. We next went on to visit the Emu that also had some turtles in there. The Pygmy Goats were looking for some visitors and Skyler loved laughing at them every time they made a noise or ran toward the fence near him. We then went on to visit the Ferret who was sound asleep in the shade. We next moved on to see the cages which contained Umbrella Cockatoos, Parakeets, Love Birds, and Finches. Skyler wasn’t as interested in them. We then decided to go the back way and saw a couple of Donkey, although we got their backsides. We missed seeing the Lion and Lioness, as they were sound asleep taking a long Big Kitty nap in a nice shady spot. We then spotted an area with Deer and encountered the cutest baby deer. The baby was a fast little one and was prancing all over the place, but kept wanting to visit Skyler. We then saw some more goat and Skyler was all in hysterics laughing over them. We did see a couple black bears, monkeys, ring tailed Lemurs, and some just hatched baby chicks, which were for sale for $2.50 a piece (but we decided to pass on a baby chick). Skyler told us he had had enough by having a melt down and threw himself on the dirt ground (the first I’ve encountered of him in public).
We then headed back into the Gift Shop, and I found Skyler yet another T-shirt with wild animals on it, and he wanted some Mickey Mouse stickers they had which were at his reach, so that was a $16 purchase. The owner rang me in for our purchases and actually informed me that the Animal Park has been there since the 1970’s and is Family Run. She was quite a sweet woman. We thanked her for a wonderful experience at the Animal Park, and headed back to our hotel. We then stopped and went through the Drive Thru at McDonalds. Laurie got the Filet-O-Fish Meal with a Sweet Tea, I got the 10 Piece Chicken Nugget Meal with a Coke no ice, and Skyler got a 4 Piece Chicken Nugget Happy Meal with Apple Dippers and bottled water. I don’t remember the total as Laurie paid for Lunch.
We then headed back to the hotel, so we could catch the USA vs. Ghana World Cup Soccer Match and eat while watching, which Skyler just wanted to play in the room. He finally fell asleep before the end of regulation time and slept through all of Extra Time. Laurie and I were quite disappointed watching that game as the USA had been knocked out of the World Cup, and Ghana wasted a lot of time that we could have tried to catch up and win the game. Laurie and I were tired at that point too, so we both took naps too, and thought we would only sleep for an hour, not two as we did. We woke up at about 7:00pm and decided we were getting hungry. Since the closest Cracker Barrels to us are 45 minutes to an hour drive, and there was 7 minutes up route 81, we decided to go there for our favorite dish, Chicken and Dumplin’s.
There was no wait for us to be seated. We were seated closer to the back of the restaurant near a few large groups of people. Our server was Darla, who was very friendly. She took our drink order, which was Coffee for Laurie who wasn’t quite a wake yet, Whole Milk for Skyler and Iced Tea with extra lemon for myself. Since we already knew what we were going to order, we ordered with our drinks. Laurie had the Chicken and Dumplin’s with corn and apple sauce, I had the Chicken and Dumplin’s with Mashed Potatoes and Fried Apples, and Skyler had the Children’s Mac ‘n Cheese, which he almost devoured it all, with Green beans, which he didn’t particularly care for (as we later learned they were cooked with bacon). He actually shared some of our sides and our Chicken and Dumplin’s as well. He was a pretty full kid by the time we left, and my plate was all about clean, except for the apples which I had no room for. We brought back all of our leftovers since we had a refrigerator in our hotel room with a microwave (sorry I couldn’t get any pictures of our room as we were quite cramped in there). We were quite disappointed that the Corn Bread didn’t taste like we were used to, and actually tasted sour. We did bring back our 2 biscuits with us. Since Skyler was still eating his dinner, I was treating us to dinner. I left our tip in Cash and went up front to pay the bill, which was $26 and change. I also wanted to bring back some Corn Bread Mix to make at home, and actually found an adorable shirt for Skyler to wear for The 4th of July, which lights up and has a fire truck and says “American Hero” on it. I did want to get a picture of him in it to send to Erick’s best friend Alan who is a Fire Fighter over in the Middle East right now, but we never got that picture. Since it was also hot, I bought Skyler his first baseball hat which he loves to wear and since he is attached to Laurie, it was perfectly fitting. It says “President of Grandma Fan Club” on it. It will be coming with us to Florida too since he will be with my mom too, and is the oldest Grandchild for them both. Purchases made and dinner paid for came to $60. We ran into the owners of the Wilson Family Animal Park as I was paying and said hello to them again, recognizing them from hours before.
We headed back to the hotel, and since it had been another hot and humid, not to mention sweaty day, it was bath time again for Skyler & I. We had thought early on that we wanted to tire Skyler out, even though we thought he would already be tired since he didn’t want to be in his stroller at either Dinosaur Land or the Animal Park, and walked the whole way. We let him walk around this night to tire him out, and he led us in the direction of the Buffet Restaurant, then through the back area to Waffle House, and then back to our hotel as well as around the Holiday Inn Express next door. We were finally in bed around 1-1:30am. I had been trying to make packing up the room easy for us during our stay, so we had little to pack the night before we were to leave on Sunday, or Sunday itself, and enjoy checking out at noon.
Up next: The England Soccer game, and oh no, not a fever and an almost lost car key.
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
Laurie woke herself up early enough to watch the England vs. Germany Soccer Game while Skyler and I were still a sleep. We woke up at around 10:00 am when we realized Skyler was running a fever. I finished packing up the room and brought everything back to the car. I didn’t even realize Laurie’s car key in the parking lot. Laurie checked us out of the hotel at noon, and as we were getting into the car, she had noticed her car key itself was missing. We were able to unlock the car with the sensor, but panicked we wouldn’t be able to leave. Lo and behold the key fell right outside of the trunk on the ground and we found the key quickly to head off to the closest drug store to buy some Advil for Skyler. A few short minutes we had arrived at a Rite Aid Pharmacy and I could find the Advil, but no Children’s Tylenol, completely forgetting that it had been recalled. I was panicked that the Advil alone wasn’t going to break his fever, which it didn’t. I also bought some of the fever strips to put on his head as we got home.
One dose of Advil and we were back on the road. We then stopped for Laurie to gas up the car. Skyler was starting to throw up in the car, so we had to pull off the road and into the parking lot of a park to clean him up. We were all good to go and back on the road again and not even 10-15 minutes later he had thrown up again. Laurie decided to pull off the road, on the route we were on and the two of us got out of the car to clean him up and make sure he was drinking some water. I was giving him Cheerios in the car figuring they would be easy on his stomach. As we got closer to the house, we stopped at Subway for some lunch to bring home. I got Skyler a kids 4” Turkey with Lettuce only with apples, figuring he may be hungry for his sandwich. I got my usual 6” Oven Roasted Chicken Breast Sub. I forget what Laurie had me get her and DFil, and I had no idea Erick was still at home and a sleep, or else I would have gotten him something to eat then too.
When we got home Skyler was only interested in laying in either DMil’s or my Lap while we were watching the Argentina vs. Mexico Game. After I was done eating my sandwich, we headed to our room and just let Skyler curl up in our bed with us while Erick and I watched the soccer game. Erick had me run out to Chipotle to get him a Burrito, and later on had me run out to get dinner for us. Since he didn’t get off of work until 6:00 am, he didn’t go in that Sunday and took the day off and helped me take care of Skyler. I tried to give Skyler another bath, but all he wanted to do was sleep. He did touch some of his apples a little at a time, and something to drink from time to time. That was the rest of our day.
I’m so sorry this took me so long to write up, but with a sick little guy, I needed to take care of him first. I appreciate you all reading along. Those pictures will be inserted in once I can get them onto our new computer and uploaded to Photobucket and resized. It was a fun weekend for us, except for Skyler falling ill at the end. Thank you for letting me share our weekend at Dinosaur Land with you all.
Registered Message Board Members Get Our Free Newsletter! When you register you'll have the option to sign up for our weekly PassPorter Newsletter. It's chock-full of feature articles; news; tips; contests; photos; and special offers in our online store.
Boy Beckie you were a busy girl this morning. Posting your trip report at 5am. I'm so glad Skyler is feeling better now.
Sounds like you had a great weekend. Sorry your little boy got sick but at least it was on the way home.
I had the same problem last year getting Evan to sleep in a hotel. He was almost 3 at the time - must be the age and the fact that they are so excited (or nervous) to be someplace new.
Dinosaur land sounds really cool. I can't wait to see the photos.
Thank you everyone. I figured I would get the TR written (in MIcrosoft Word) before I forgot all about our weekend and had to make up what sounded worth reading before my old computer wanted to shut of on me. Luckily I was able to get it typed up and saved before that happened. When I can't sleep, it's my computer time, but more importantly when Skyler can't help me type or remove keys off my keyboard. Better yet he was in his own bed hole
I was typing, so it did make it a lot easier.
I'm glad you all enjoyed reading about our weekend away. Thank you for the kind words and it was sad seeing Skyler get sick on our last day, but at least we were headed home and nowhere to be on our departure day. I did try to
import the pictures onto my computer and upload them on photobucket, but they were going at a snail's pace. I did also realize that some of he pictures
came out quite blurry. There were about 225-240 pictures on this memory card (even Skyler's birthday).
Holly, I'm so sorry Evan gave you a hard time going to sleep when you went on your trip. I think we had trouble with Skyler since Erick wasn't there with us so he didn't have Mom and Dad sleeping both sides of him, and also he had a hard time sleeping because he was sick. Also the room was quite hot, even if the AC was on highh, Skyler and I couldn't get cool enough. We even wound up not sleeping under the covers that were on the bed but used our light weight blankets I brought for us incase the room was too hot. The weather was certainly in the 90's, no rain, but so hot and humid while we were there, it was hard to get comfortable.
We did pack our bathigsuits and thought we would get to use the pool, but by the time we got there and were starving, nurishment was needed, and the pool closed at 8:00 pm. We never got to use it the whole time as rest was needed on Dinosaur Land day and Skyler was sick(we were planning to take a morning swim before we left, but then discovered Skyler wasn't freeling well).
Thank you so much Marnie, Holly, and Pam for your sweet comments. I can't wait to get our pictures added, just wish my computer wanted to cooperate with me.
Thank you so much Cheryl and Heather. It was a great time, except for him
just not wanting to go to sleep and him getting sick. Thank you for asking, he is starting to feel much better.
Sounds like a good trip until Skyler fell ill. I hope he's fine now.
Thank you so much Kelly. It was was quite a niceweekend away with DMil and fun for Skyler, until he did get sick. That was where the panic came in and really wanting to get him home so he could sleep in his own bed, but also in better AC. I won't say him getting sick on the last day, or lack of sleep ruined the weekend, but I certainly felt so bad for him that he wasn't feeling well and just wanted him to feel better before his Birthday. Thank you for asking, Skyler is feeling much better and is back to his usual self.
I appologize that it is going to take a bit longer for me to insert pictures into this TR. I didn't realize that our new computer doesn't have a SD Card slot for me to easily get the pictures onto the computer. My camera USB Cable is MIA, so I need to get a new one. Hopefully I can share our pictures that came out well from Dinosaur Land with you all. Thank you all for your patience with me and hopefully they will be added soon.
Thank you Cheryl. I actually bought a SD Card Reader today (didn't even realize we were due to get hit with a Tornado when I went out to purchase it). If Erick's phone doesn't take nearly as long as mine did last night to back up and update I will at least get the SD card software on the computer soon.
About This Page: 
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
Holly: 
PassPorter Guide Author
Disney Magic - Oct 2015
Linear Mode
