Sunshine State

First of all, this is my 300th post.  What in the world have I been blogging about?  Pretty much nothing. And you’ve been reading my nothings. Lucky you!

Secondly, my posting this week has been a bit erratic because I’ve been at the Land of a Million Dreams Nightmares. Otherwise known as Disneyworld. Normally I’m quite fond of the Magic Kingdom and Epcot (not so much the Animal Kingdom or that Hollywood place, but we won’t go there in this post.)  This week, however, is the busiest of the year here in Orlando.  Man, oh, man, you can’t even believe how crazy crowded this place has been.  I need to pause here and state that I’m a total crowd-hater.  I mean, everybody hates crowds.  But I really, really have major anxiety around crowds. So you can imagine how fun this has been for me (I complete lost it and went into hysterics–sobbing and snotty nose–in the lobby of the fancy restaurant in the Canada pavillion in Epcot. One of my finest moments, to be sure.) I’ve been taking advantage of the early entrance hour for Disney resort guests–7:00 am.  Which means that I have been getting my kids up at 5:45 every day. Yes, you read that correctly. We are on vacation and I’ve been waking my kids up at that hideous hour. Today we slept in til 6:00 and we paid the price. We got there 10 minutes after the park opened and there was already a 40 minute wait at Space Mountain.

By the time we left the park at 2:00 (I poop out with the babies after lunch every day and we all go back to the hotel for a little rest), we couldn’t even walk through Frontierland.  Baby steps were the best we could do.  I’m not exaggerating. So the moral of the story is this:

When you go to Disney, avoid holidays and summertime.  At all costs.  Pull your kids out of school, whatever.  It’s not like they’ll never learn how to multiply by 6’s if they miss that one week.

And get there early every day!  Just put the idea out of your head that Disney is a vacation. It’s not. It’s hard work. If you want to relax, go to the beach. Disney is all about getting up early, beating the crowds and doing your homework.  You have got to be ahead of the game.  Yeah.  Fun. (An example? We had to make dinner reservations for the entire trip last July. Six whole months ago. Does that sound like a fun, breezy, vacation-y thing to do? Notsomuch.)

I can’t get my laptop to connect to the wireless network here, so I won’t be able to upload my pictures it seems.  We’ll see if Mister will deem me worthy of his technical genius and work it out for me.

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8 thoughts on “Sunshine State

  1. I agree. I hate crowds too. We usually try to make our Disneyland trip at the end of Sept. first of Oct. It’s starting to cool down, it’s decorated cute for Halloween, and the crowds aren’t too bad (we walked right on Space Mountain once!). I would like to go one year at Christmastime though to see the Christmas decor.

  2. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If you want a REAL vacation, where everyone comes home happier than they left, and actually relaxed, planning when they get to go back next, go to Aspen Grove. That’s right. Hokey, Mormon-y, and in the heart of Utah. The kiddos happily skip off with their counselors every AM (they even take infants as young as they come), while you do whatever the heck you want until your next prepared, tip-free meal. You are actually anxious to see the little ones when they are returned, joyfully exahuasted at the end of day. You then have another pre-planned, family friendly activity, before the tikes drop off to sleep in a nano-second to wake up and do it again. Can’t wait to go back to that, while I dread the thought of the inevitable Disney “vacation”.

  3. I’ve heard going during our TX winter break is a good time. Not that that helps you in any way right this second; in fact that’s probably a pretty annoying comment for you at this time, but believe me… the next time you’re planning your awesome Disney vacation you’ll remember this little nugget of information and thank me.
    I also need to mention that your word verification choice for this comment is pretty funny. The word (if you can call it that) is “proop”. Try using that in a sentence.

  4. I really had no idea it was so bad at this time. Amazing that just 2 weeks earlier, the park is dead. Remember when we went the first week of December and walked onto most rides? That was awesome. You guys will have to remember that next time. Not like Doug and Joan need to go at any particular time, right?

  5. I agree with everything you said. I’ve been to the Mouse between Christmas and New Year’s too many times for one lifetime. The only way I get through it is by turning into Theme Park Nazi and making everyone follow the touring plans in The Unofficial Guide to Disneyworld. Disneyworld is not a vacation. It’s a marathon. We are trying to convince the extended family to go to a “real” National Park lodge for vacation next year instead of the fake Wilderness Lodge.

  6. Yikes! I don’t really envy you so much after reading this little post. Here I was thinking that you were really in this wonderland with your kids and husband there to help you, and what could be better than Disney…but I also really hate over crowed and I totally dread waiting in lines.

    Well I guess you will be bright and chipper to the idea of returning to the middle of Texas where absolutely nothing has changed while you were away, except the year.

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