Disney Day 2, Sunday 11/7

So, you heard they got up at 5:07am. They weren't the only ones who got up that early.

We had a breakfast reservation at the Cape May Cafe in The Yacht & Beach Club resort for 9:05am. We arrived 15 minutes early and checked in. The kids got to sit and watch some Disney videos on TV with a few other kids waiting, too. Lew chatted with a lady at the resort's front desk and she gave him a map of Orlando that showed us a really easy "back" way to get into the Disney park from our condo. Cool!

Once we got seated for breakfast, the characters started to come to our table. They are mingling throughout the restaurant, making the rounds in an orderly fashion. Breakfast was a buffet, so you did have to look around and be aware of how fast they might be coming to see you. You surely didn't want to be up getting eggs and Mickey waffles when Goofy hit your table! Actually, for our whole trip, we did 4 character meals (we ended up cancelling one) and we never missed seeing anyone. At some breakfasts, we were there long enough for the characters to visit us a second time. Again, I think that was an off-season luxury. We were never rushed to eat and get out to make room for more people.

This morning, we met Goofy, Minnie & Donald - all wearing beach clothes since we were in the beach resort. Goofy was first and he hugged the kids, signed their autograph books and then posed for this picture:

It came out so good, I was so happy and figured, if nothing else went right all week, I was happy with getting one adorable picture. (Turns out, I had lots more adorable photos in my future!!)

The kids each had an autograph book. We chose to bring a pack of large crayons to hand the characters to sign with. Most people recommended Sharpie markers - you needed to have something fairly large for a stuffed character to be able to hold onto well. But, I read one note about a little girl who got Sharpie on her princess dress and I knew handing two 4 year olds (still 4 for one week when we went!) permanent markers wasn't going to be easy. Turns out, crayons were a lot of fun. The kids chose the colors carefully for each character and many of them throughout the week showed us that they knew that was a special color. For example, Handy Manny wears a green tee shirt. He took the crayon and touched it to his shirt indicating that he knew why we chose it. Cool. Here's Minnie signing books before posing with the kids. Both kids were a lot more into the autographs than I expected. Their books were set up with a photo sleeve on one side and the blank signing page opposite that. So, now, I have added the photos into the books and they love looking through them!

Carl just kept rubbing Donald's tummy. It was cute!

After breakfast, we decided to leave our car parked at the resort and go to Disney Hollywood Studios (DHS) on the ferry. That worked well. It would not have if it were not off-season. Actually, if it were not off-season, this week would have been insane!

When I say "we decided..." I mean the spontaneous thing was leaving the car, not planning to go to that specific park. We had very careful plans set up for each day. Spreadsheets and all! We had read up on all the attractions carefully and knew which ones were going to be scary for pre-schoolers, which ones the kids were not tall enough for and which ones were going to have long lines. We also knew that DHS had several live shows and we needed to be sure we could make all the ones we were interested in seeing.

The first one we saw was Playhouse Disney. It was a puppet show with stories from 4 of their favorite Playhouse Disney shows: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Handy Manny, Little Einsteins and My Friends Tigger and Pooh. Every sits on the floor and the kids can get up and dance and join in on some of the fun. They loved it!

When that ended, we headed over to look for Buzz and Woody to meet. We checked into getting Fast Pass tickets to ride Toy Story Mania, but they were all given out for the day already. One the way, we ran into a green Army man. He spent a good five minutes with us mirroring Carl. At first, Carl wasn't into it, so the Army man got his attention and just played and copied all the things Carl did. That was enough to get Carl into it. It was really pretty neat. Turns out, that was really the only time we saw the green Army men roaming around, so I think it was more of a treat than we even realized at first.

Then we found the line to meet Buzz and Woody. It snaked through a building with different photo-op spots as you waited in line. We got in line and someone announced, "Buzz is only going to be here for 30 more minutes." They were very good about letting you know when characters were going to be taking breaks. Well, the sign outside said the wait time was ~40 minutes to get through this series of backdrops and waiting. But, we gambled and waited. Turns out, we got to the front of the line at about 12:28. Buzz was to leave at 12:30. So, we skipped the autograph books so that the family behind us would get a chance to pose with both he and Woody, too. Shhh, the kids don't seem to have noticed Buzz is missing from their books! And we felt good for doing something a little unselfish that morning. (not that we were selfish all vacation)

Next was going to be the best time to view Beauty and The Beast on stage. It was quite a production. The kids liked it, Gretchen loved all the dancing and costumes. Carl just loved hearing the beast roar! He imitated it all week.

Since Lew & I had such a large filling breakfast (we did not skip over eating our protein like the little ones did!) we weren't really hungry come lunch time. So, we were able to split a cheeseburger and chicken nuggets between the four of us. This would turn out to be a trend for the week as well. Lunch was from Rosie's All American Cafe.

After lunch, Lew rode this alone. The idea is that you are in an elevator car in this old hotel and as you are riding up in the elevator, at the 13th floor, you plummet down many floors. We had talked about it so much ahead of time, he had to ride it. Even Gretchen wanted to make sure Daddy got to ride on the elevator ride alone!

Next, we tried to watch the afternoon parade, but the kids were really, really not into it. So, we headed over to Sunnyside Day Care and met Lotso. Gretchen asked him if he was mean and he shook his head "no". I dunno, he was a villain in that movie in my opinion. But, the kids loved meeting and hugging him. You could smell strawberries there. If you didn't see the movie, he is supposedly a bear who had a strawberry scent when he was new. He has now been donated to the Sunnyside Day Care for the kids to play with. Andy's toys have the same fate. Lotso sort of runs the toys at the Sunnyside Day Care center and makes it sound like a great place to be if you are a toy. Turns out that he is not the sweet, grandfatherly bear you first meet there.

Here's Carl making a pressed penny in one of the many machines throughout the parks. Lew is holding the map! We found lots of machines there that day. Some were broken, though.

Meeting Handy Manny was an added treat. We stumbled upon his line and there were only about 4 people ahead of us.

At the end of the afternoon, we went to see the show for "The Little Mermaid". They weren't as into that as the other 2 shows. Could have been the topic, or the fact that they were getting tired. Up at 5:07 and taking no nap will do that do you. So, after that, we headed back to the condo for the night. We took the kids swimming before dinner. The resort's pool was heated. They did not say to what temperature. I changed my mind after arriving there! But, the kids didn't care and Lew stayed in as long as he could. They all then jumped into the hot tub to warm up enough to be able to get out and dry off. I think the high that day was 68*. I should look all of that up online and add it to my reports. (note to self... do that.)

Once we got back to the hotel, we made spaghetti and meat sauce for dinner. Lew shopped at Super Target late Saturday night after the kids went to sleep. Several times during the week he made trips there, but I never got to go. He kept telling me how amazing the store was, but I never got to see it myself. We were that busy!

We actually ate most dinners in the condo. It was nice to have that option. You can eat just so many nuggets and fries, you know? Even Carl would burn out on nuggets every day for 2 meals! I think. Maybe not.