August 5, 2013
Weeks ago, Allen made a reservation for dinner at 1900 Park Fare for my birthday and only after the confirmation came to me without him realizing it was the surprised foiled
. Truthfully, he's terrible with secrets anyway so I'm confident that he would have let it slip at some point, but since I was aware of the plan, I decided to go ahead and take the day off so that we could go to MK that day.
On Friday, August 2nd, Allen got a call about an interview for a position he was really hoping to hear back on. I told him to go ahead for the 5th and we would just meet over at MK when he was done. The owner of the company he was interviewing at got a good laugh when Allen paused on the phone to make sure I wasn't going to be mad about him scheduling the interview on Monday
.
So Monday morning rolled around and Stella slept until about 8am so I got to sleep in a bit, which was a great way to start a birthday! Allen got up to get ready as his interview was at 10 just north of Orlando. After he left a bit after 9am, the kids and I started getting ready ourselves. We weren't in any hurry because I wanted to try and see Wishes! that night and with the heat right now, being at the parks from open to close makes for a grouchy toddler
and if there is one thing we try to avoid, it's grouchy toddler Stella!
We made it out of the house around 10am or so and made a quick stop at Dunkin Doughnuts for an iced coffee (and Tyler had a hot chocolate- despite the temperature flirting with 90 degrees at that early hour
.) With an iced coffee for me, hot chocolate for Tyler and juice for Stella, we headed over to the ever welcoming gates of WDW.
We live about 5 minutes from the onramp for the FL Turnpike right before the 429 exit so typically we jump on there and take 429 south about 13 miles to the WDW back entrance. I love this route because it's never busy and as you head south on 429, you can see WDW in the distance. The tolls cost us about $6 round trip to take this route with our Sun Pass but it's a price I'm willing to pay to avoid traffic and stoplights.
As we were driving, my mom called to serenade my for my birthday- which my children got to hear since we were in the car
Tyler looked moderately embarrassed by his grandmother's inability to stay on key and I think he was significantly relieved that we weren't in a public place!
When we arrived at the bubble, I got a call from Allen that his interview was done and went well and he actually had received another call while in that interview for another position he applied for. The location was close to where he was so he was going to try and see if he could just stop by while he was dressed and in the area. I told him to take his time and we were just arriving to the parking lot at MK.
After a quick flash our our AP, we were waived through the gates to go in and park. As we rounded the corner of the Richard Petty driving experience, we slowed to a stop with all of the other cars trying to park. Touring Plans only had this day at MK projected at a 6.4 but by the looks of the parking lot, I felt pretty confident it was going to be quite a bit busier.
We were parked at the very end of the row in Peter Pan 51. Rather than ride the tram (especially being alone with the kids and a stroller), we found a nice little short cut to walk to the TTC by following the exit path right to the Aladdin parking lot.
When we reached the TTC, we could see the line snaking for the monorail so I looked at Tyler and said "looks like we are riding the ferry." He is impatient and so he would always opt for the monorail express so he wasn't excited about this news. But I quickly could see that the line for the ferry was no better than the monorail so we decided instead to just go with the monorail. The line moved pretty steadily but standing in the sun made me very aware of how hot the day was going to be.
When we made it to the monorail platform, we were in the very back so I knew we would be standing. I had brought my iced coffee from the car to finish but I knew I'd have to fold up the stroller given how many people were trying to get into each monorail car so holding on to the stroller, my iced coffee and Stella while standing on the moving monorail was no easy task
Cursed iced coffee- never will I do that again!!
After arriving at MK and departing the monorail, I popped the stroller down quickly and Stella jumped in, making it far easy to maneuver the thick crowds. Somehow though we managed to get to bag check during a lull so we were quickly passing through and making our way to the gates.
Tyler and I are pros with the RFID cards now so once it was our turn, we quickly touched our passes, provided our finger prints and were given the green light to move through.
We entered on the right side so we walked by to see how long the waits for Mickey and the Princesses were- 60 and 90 minutes respectively
Yeah, it was busy!
Tyler, being very well conditioned for FP's took our APs and in no short order acquired both Mickey and Princess FP's for us, Mickey being good at 11:45am and Princesses at 12:05pm. We had about 25 minutes to wait so we decided to head over to the fire station and get some Sorcerer cards, and then head to the Emporium to browse and cool down in the wonderfully refreshing a/c.
I was dripping in sweat by this point so I got out some wipes from the back pack and attempted to blot my face and arms. Tyler's head is like a little heater so as hot as I was, he had to have been a good 15 degrees hotter- poor kid!
Once inside the Emporium, we took our time looking around and enjoying the very low crowds inside (because they were all in line for the Princesses an Mickey I think!) Tyler wanted to purchase a Monster's Vinylmation so we stopped to see if they had any, and sadly they didn't. But while we were stopped, Stella spotted the autograph books and she jumped out of the stroller to look at them.
Earlier that morning, she had one of Tyler's old autograph books that has seen better days and she wanted to bring it along (she hasn't really been all that interested in autographs in the past, but she had gained interest in it over the last few weeks.) I told her that she could pick out an autograph book when we got to MK that day since Tyler's old book was literally falling apart. Well, sister didn't forget (I had!) and after touching every last option, she had a TinkerBell autograph book in her little hands to purchase. Not only did she have the book, but she also picked out a pen to go along with it
- she's definitely my daughter!
We continued browsing, not finding any other purchases to make and so we got in line in the room where they have the year merchandise to pay. A lovely gentleman from Mt. Dora checked us out and with my AP, I saved about a dollar!
I hadn't heard from Allen and we were about 10 minutes from our Mickey FP window so we headed back to park the stroller and hang out inside for our FP to ripen.
As we waited Allen phoned to say that he was on the monorail between GF and MK but it was stopped so he would miss our Mickey FPs. Stella was getting really anxious and 11:45am couldn't come fast enough....
I don't think I've seen the stand by line that long for Mickey ever so I was pretty thankfully we had FP's. It took no time at all before we were heading in to see Mr. Mouse.
Mind you Stella sees Mickey pretty regularly but this child gets crazy excited each and every time she sees him- it's so awesome!!
And appropriately, Mickey was her first signature in her first autograph book.
cont. below
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