We moseyed down to breakfast in the lounge and Tate got to watch more Disney Jr. and I piddled around on FB :). We made our way back upstairs to change and get ready to catch the launch! We were on the boat by 8:30 with time to spare! It was an absolutely gorgeous morning!!
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| Ready to go! |
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| Gorgeous view of our resort, The Polynesian |
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| There's that castle! |
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| The Grand Floridian...a beautiful resort as well!! |
Tate and Korey had seen the race cars on Thursday and begged and begged to ride them. We had not gotten fast passes for them, and the line was always at least an hour long. So I decided to head straight there on Friday morning to be as close to first in line as possible! It worked and we only waited about 15 minutes!!! Tate was overjoyed!! Which made me overjoyed :).
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| Go Speedracer Go!!! |
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| This is the only ride where a photographer took an 'action shot.' I actually wasn't even aware it was taken. I was really glad to see this one, as I thought the whole purpose of our magic bands was to get more of these impromptu pics on rides etc. This is the only one that was taken of us. |
Next up was Peter Pan's Flight; a really cool ride.
Then we were off to Enchanted Tales with Belle. Belle has always been Tate's favorite princess, and he's definitely at that stage of being a boy where he's not as enamored of princesses as he once was. He's sooooo into Dusty from 'Planes,' and I love that he is, but I'm so very glad that he's still young enough to enjoy the princess part of Disneyworld because it is HUGE, and I'm a big fan of the princesses. He's friends with enough girls to know who they are, and has a mother who has no problem with him watching 'Planes' or 'Frozen.' The Enchanted Tales with Belle was so great. You go into Belle's house for a tour and end up in the dining hall of the Beast's castle on a much smaller scale. As you make your way through the rooms to the dining hall you meet some of the characters from the movie (which Tate has not seen, though he has a book). Children are selected to play different roles in the story and they 'act' out the parts! Once in the dining hall we were told we were surprising Belle with a lovely dinner with 'our' Beast. Tate didn't get a starring role, but he did a fantastic job portraying silverware. And he got to meet Belle again!!
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| The little procession around the dining hall! |
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| Waiting to meet Belle! |
We were not disappointed. We used a quick service meal ticket here and I was bowled over by the restaurant, food options, service, attention to detail and the amazing THREE dining halls. This place was fantastic!! Just fantastic! My pictures just cannot do the experience justice. And this was a quick service lunch!! Quick service!! Amazing!
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| In line to place our order! |
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| Isn't this gorgeous? One of the dining halls! |
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| This dining hall was dark, so my picture is awful! |
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| This was the center in the dining hall Tate chose for us to dine in! |
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| The exterior! |
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| Just lovely! |
To walk off our lunch we ventured over to Adventureland to ride The Magic Carpets of Aladdin!
It was really starting to warm up, and I wanted to get back to the hotel with time for Tate to go to the pool and take a nap, so we decided to start making our way to the front of the park! As we left Adventureland we ran into the Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It! Street Party Parade! I must admit, I was surprised by how much Tate loved these parades!
We found Tate's toy and made our way back to Main Street to do a little last minute shopping, and he got to do some massive pin trading! Oh and we picked up Aunt Lindsey's Minnie Mouse ears she was begging for!
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| On the launch on the way back to the resort, ears in hand! |
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| Back at the resort! Last trip on the launch! |
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| Our housekeeper was amazingly creative!! I just loved this set-up of Sven!! :) |
After about an hour we made our way inside...he was not happy, but he needed to nap! We were going to be up until 10 that night. At least!
He fought me on this nap like nobody's business. I tried laying down with him. I tried rocking him. I tried ignoring him. I started getting angrier and angrier. I threatened that he would have to miss the parade. I threatened that I would have to call the nice babysitting service to hire someone to come watch him while I went to the parade and dinner. Nothing worked. He certainly didn't want me to go without him, but he absolutely refused to go to sleep. Now he did try...he would keep his eyes closed when I rudely insisted, but he would toss and turn and move about. Finally, in absolute frustration I gave up. I was furious (again why can I not just let go of this need to control his sleep...I know I can't make someone sleep) and not very pleasant to him. I refused to engage him, but told him he had to at least rest. I also made sure he understood he was not to cry, whine or fuss for the remainder of the day because it would be his own fault because he was tired.
I do not do overtired children well. In fact I just don't deal with them at all. I can count on one finger the number of times I've let Tate get overtired. We simply don't stay out late because I can't deal with a whiny, tired child. I never understand these kids who are falling apart at the end of a long day on vacation; take them back to the hotel..make them nap or rest. Why torture them, yourselves and those around you? I just never do that to Tate. People always roll their eyes when I say no to evening activities, but I simply don't care. Tate needs his sleep. He doesn't sleep in no matter what time he goes to bed, and I'm not going to make him miserable if he doesn't have to be. I have to say I think this is what keeps my child even-keeled. I know many kids will sleep in and can do the late night stuff; my child can't. I get that, and I respect him and his needs.
So I was really worried he would have a hard time that evening, and I so didn't want his last night or my last night to be miserable. But he wouldn't sleep. Like I said I gave up and just had him rest then we cuddled and I apologized, yet again, for being a harlot and said he could come with me, but he had to behave and not whine or cry in exhaustion. He promised not to, so we happily got changed and made our way back to the Magic Kingdom to meet our cousins for dinner and the parade. They had slept in and gone to the Typhoon Lagoon. Marcus said he just couldn't do the heat one more time, so they did the water park instead, arriving at the Magic Kingdom just before we did that evening. We strolled up Main Street to our last character dinner at the Crystal Palace. Winnie the Pooh and all his friends were waiting for us. I don't think I ever knew how much Tate likes Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, Eyeore (my personal favorite) and Tigger. But these pictures clearly show how much he does. He seems the most happy with these characters! Especially Piglet :)
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| Another parade the kids could participate in! |
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| Making silly faces! |
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| Piglet made silly faces back! |
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| Silly face from Piglet...Tate was hysterically laughing! |
We finished up our meal...again yummy. This place was probably the least well run place we'd eaten at and certainly the loudest. If not for Winnie and his friends I wouldn't go there again, but still the food was divine and they paid attention to Tate's food allergies!
We walked around the park a bit then got in line with our fast passes for the Main Street Electrical Parade. These fast passes were well worth it!!! We got the kids light toys for the parade and they waited pretty patiently for the parade to start...we had about a 30 minute wait!
The beauty began!! Well worth the wait!!
My son's excitement at this parade is why I took him on this trip now. His absolute joy and excitement let me know in my heart that all the money, time and energy I spent on planning this trip were worth it in ways I can never express. I know kids don't need material things, and this trip was not about that in any way, shape or form. This was about just being a kid for a week with his mother. And being happy. Just being happy to be alive, together and with family. Yes, watching him scream about Mickey Mouse on a train brought those feelings up inside me. I can't express why and I don't have to I know. There's something about the magic of Disneyworld and Mickey Mouse that cannot be encapsulated. I feel like if you just let it in it truly is the happiest place on earth. I know we felt that way that week, and I'm learning to live each day like it's the happiest day on earth for me.
"A Mickey Mouse Train! It's so exciting!" Tate, July 18, 2014
As soon as the parade was over Tate and I made our way to the front of the park to be on our way long before the fireworks started :). As we were leaving, we stopped to watch the light show on Cinderella's castle from the front of the park...it was beautiful. We then made our way to our last ride on the monorail. I lowered his stroller seat and told him to just close his eyes and go to sleep and let Mommy take care of the rest.
He was sound asleep before I even got to the monorail station. He slept all the way back to the resort and I got him to bed without really waking him.
My sweet sweet boy.
My cup runneth over.
1 comment:
What a magical end to your visit! Oh, PS, I don't do tired kids well either. Liam is chronically overtired and crabyy bc he won't nap. It really is taxing to our relationship....ugh!
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