Mini golf, sore losers, and silly dances. (day 8)

Our plan was to sleep in today, and we didn’t wake until after 9 AM, which is pretty decent for us. Even after we woke, we took our sweet time to get up and get going. We deserved a lazy day, the first week has been rather intense.

Breakfast was a few granola bars and some vegetable crisps… because we’re responsible parents that only feed our child healthy things #sarcasm

Today’s journey took us off property, and we went to the Barnes and Nobles to look for books for Daan. Unfortunately they didn’t have the ones he wanted, so we ended up buying a lot of books for Elora. No… none for me. My TBR pile is so daunting at the moment, I actually feel guilty about getting more books.

Elora is still being a Scrooge McDuck with her money, so she didn’t buy anything herself. Not even when we took her to the enormous Toys R Us. I kinda caved (not because she asked, btw) and bought her some Lalaloopsies as airplane presents for the way back. It’s a tradition that I like. I got her some for the way here too. And I’m a sucker.

Lunch was at a rather shabby Wendy’s and we weren’t impressed with the quality of the food there. Such a shame. I think that was our last visit at Wendy’s for the next few years (until we come back). Again, not too healthy.

Oh well.

The best part was going to Fantasia Gardens to play miniature golf. We Noodles are TERRIBLE at miniature golf, which caused for much hilarity. Daan was very impressed with both my ‘GAH I CAN’T HIT THE FREAKING BALL’ poses and my ‘HOLE IN ONE’ victory dance. We laughed so hard, I almost cried. Well… Daan and I did. Apparently our offspring doesn’t have a self-mocking cell in her body, and not much of a sense of humor either. I honestly don’t understand why, Daan and I always have great fun when we suck. So Elora got grumpy around the last holes. To make up for this, we decided to laugh at her instead. Because we’re great parents *coughs*.

The best hole was Mickey’s par from hell. We landed our ball in the water at least three times, and Daan got so proficient in fishing them out, it was almost a whole new sport. Daan and Elora went swimming for 45 minutes. I can’t join them for another couple of days, so I decided to go inside and update my blog for today. In a bit I’m going to go out for a walk around the property. Animal Kingdom is still my favorite, but this one has stolen my heart too.

Dinner was a hoot. We ate at the 1900 Park Fare at the Grand Floridian hotel. It’s one of my favorite character dinner experiences. The food is pretty good (not as nice as the Garden Grill, neither is the atmosphere) but the wicked step sisters steal the show. They’re always fantastic.

We were joking around with Drizella, and our child forbade us to speak to the other characters, because we were embarrassing her. Of course we just laughed at her. The poor thing really has a hard life with two immature parents.

Stuffed from all the food and desserts we ate, we decided that we needed to do a bit of shopping to have some supplies in the room. I need to stay hydrated and the carbonated crap we get here, gets to me after a while. Plus I need salty snacks. My low blood pressure is really playing tricks on me in this warm weather.

Daan decided he didn’t need no stinking navigation… so we ended up driving past Tokyo to get to the Publix. It’s a good thing that we know how to laugh at our fuck ups, this means we laugh a lot.

Right now it’s 8:30 pm, and I promised to read Elora from the Black Beauty book she picked, so I better get cracking. Tomorrow it’s going to be a theme park day again, and we’re heading for Hollywood Studios.

Little girl lost (day 7)

We woke up to rain this morning, which seems to be a Noodles tradition when we go to Animal Kingdom. Daan packed the ponchos and I was looking forward to walking around like a human garbage bag all day… *here endeth the sarcasm*

Due to some unfortunate timing, I was feeling a bit out of sorts today, but that didn’t take away from the fun that we had.

The rain let up quite quick, and we were at Animal Kingdom a little earlier than planned. We sort of skipped breakfast, and had crackers instead.

The lines were growing behind us, and I was disappointed to see they stopped the opening ceremony for the Animal Kingdom too. Am wondering if there still an opening ceremony for Magic Kingdom. I’m dreading the worst. It’s such a shame, because it was an awesome way to start your day. But… oh well.

We were the first in line to ‘It’s tough to be a bug’. Elora was actually more scared of the spiders and the grasshoppers than she was when she was younger. It’s funny how her fear changes. She’s okay with roller coasters now, but it’s the actual scary things that get to her now. It sounds logical, but for us it’s new. Elora used to like the scary things, and that suddenly changed. That means we have to react differently as parents.

Our fastpass for the Mount Everest wasn’t active yet, so we decided to have some healthy *ahem* breakfast of a muffin, a Danish and part of a brownie. It was yummy, but tbh… all the sweets didn’t sit too well with me. So when we rode the Mount Everest, I came out a little on the green side. Elora absolutely loved it. She was a little apprehensive going in, but the whole time she had a huge smile on her face. It was kind of cool riding such a big roller coaster with her.

Animal Kingdom doesn’t have a lot of rides, so after getting turned into a human martini (shaken not stirred) in Dinosaur, and being amazed by the Nemo Muscial, we ended our day at the Kilimanjaro safari. It’s an awesome ride, and I really hope that in a few years we’ll get to do the ‘real thing’.

Despite not having been on a lot of rides, we actually left the park around 1:30 pm. I was really not feeling well, so I went to lay down for a bit, and I may have actually fallen asleep. Daan and Elora went to the pool during this time, and had a blast.

When I woke up we watched a little bit of TV and then we went off to dinner at Boma’s. We love going to the Animal Kingdom Lodge, it’s our favorite hotel. I was a little freaked that somehow they didn’t have my reservation. Lucky for us they still had a spot. Dinner was lovely, one of our favorite buffet style dinners. They even had my absolute favorites ‘butternut squash soup’ and ‘watermelon rind salad’. I need to find the recipes for those.

Anyway, I’m being boring. We left dinner to go to Downtown Disney. I have to admit I struggle to get used to the crowds everywhere. Elora decided to take on the role of ‘little girl lost’ and nearly gave me a heart attack. Luckily, with the help of some very kind cast members, we found her again. I think I have aged 5 years tonight, though.

My mission was to get more Christmas decorations, Nightmare Before Christmas stuff (like a hoodie or stuff for my office) and a purse. I don’t actually own a purse and I want one. The problem is, none of the purses here are what I want. I kind of want a NBC one, or something with Maleficent or Tink. Because I’m five. They don’t even have that here. And all the purses here so far either sucked, were kinda cool, but clashed with anything I wear or were ridiculously expensive. Call me nuts, but I think $150,- for a purse that barely fits my phone is ridiculous. Think of the board games I could buy for that *grin*

The lego store was a true torment, and though I drooled, I didn’t buy. It’s not that much cheaper here than it is at home. I did succeed in finding some awesome Christmas decorations again, so I was pretty stoked about that.

Around 9:30 we were back at the room. Elora was so exhausted, she started to trip over her own feet. Tomorrow we’re not going to a theme park, but having a ‘rest day’. Which means we sleep in, and then get active anyway ;)  

EPCOT = every person comes out tired (day 6)

This morning we were Tired (with a capital T) These are long and active days we’re pulling, and though fun… we need to watch out that we don’t over exert ourselves (especially the kid)

We not so much got up, as oozed out of bed. We took enough time, so there wasn’t a rush like yesterday. After a nice breakfast of ‘create your own breakfast bowl’ (which is basically a big bowl of scrambled eggs with chosen ingredients, such as diced bacon, chopped tomatoes and onions, etc, on top.) we headed out to Epcot.

Arriving a little earlier than planned, we ended up in the middle of the long line of people who were in time for the opening ceremony. We had forgotten our suntan lotion, so I got some from the little cart that sells… everything.

Elora was fascinated by the people in front of us who had a lot of very cool Disney tattoos. She was especially impressed with the Figment on the lady’s leg. We got to talking to them, and they were lovely. I got a compliment about my Nightmare Before Christmas / Beatles crossover t-shirt. I’ve been getting a lot of compliments for my ‘nerd shirts’ here. I’m definitely amongst ‘my people’. *grin*

I have to admit, I was a little disappointed that they changed it. No more characters, just a voice over the intercom and some confetti. Big whoop.

Normally we would join the masses and run to Soaring, but we had fastpasses, so we gave the ‘running with the bulls’ a miss. Definitely more relaxed. Our first ride was our favorite, Spaceship Earth. It’s the huge silver ball that is the symbol of Epcot. It’s old and cheesy and absolutely wonderful.

Figment was next, and I actually scored a shirt with Figment on it. Yay me! Elora and I went on the mission space and got some dried astronaut ice cream and strawberries. Up next was Daan’s favorite ride, Soaring. It really is very cool. A quick lunch was needed, because we truly are turning into hobbits here. We shared chicken and Mongolian beef, which were both pretty nice. Last, but not least, we found Nemo *snort*

Then it was time to go, because the Noodles were a bit cooked. Elora was so tired, she was actually getting annoying. She was really upset that we told her that she needed to rest. The way she was complaining, you would think we told her to do Hercules’ chores, instead of rest.

After moaning that she couldn’t sleep, she fell asleep for 4 hours… so I guess she was more tired than she thought.

We dragged her out of bed in time for Chip and Dale at the Garden Grill. Still one of our favorite restaurants. It was lovely, though the dessert wasn’t as good as it used to be. The characters were amazing. They really played around with Elora, and she loved it. She felt so special. I had underestimated how much she still enjoys the character experiences. The way she acted before we went, I thought she was getting too big for them, but while we’re here, the little girl in her comes out again. I love seeing that, she’s so adorable.

There was a heart-breaking moment after the meal. We got a birthday card (it was probably for me, since my birthday is coming up, and we sort of mentioned that we were half celebrating that) and Elora said: “Can I have it? I only had 2 birthday cards this year.” I didn’t realize that was so important to her, so next year I’m going to ask a big bunch of people to send her cards. Of course I let her have this one.

After dinner we wanted to go see some of the less popular rides, but they were all closed, so we decided to go home instead. We were still tired, and it was already after 7 pm.

I promised Elora she could get some ‘swag’ for her wristband (I can’t gush enough about those things) and we ended up in the hotel shop. I got some more Christmas decorations (geek squee) and some funky pens for my office. I’m really struggling with this ‘no buying stuff for Elora’. She has her own money to spend, which means I can’t spoil her rotten, and she needs to really decide what she wants and doesn’t want. Her plan is to safe up as much money as she can, and buy a horse ranch when she comes home, for her toy horses. I hope she makes it.

The night ended quiet. Elora got to watch a bit of TV. I think we’ll have some calmer evenings in the next two nights, because we need to recharge. Tomorrow we have Animal Kingdom on our schedule, which should be wonderful.

So far this holiday is a lot of laughs.

Magic Kingdom (day 5)

I woke up several times dreaming of being in the North Pole. The airconditioning was a bit frosty. Normally I would get out of bed and turn it down, but apparently I wasn’t altogether lucid last night, so I tried to cover myself with the tiny little decorative bedspread, and after that I grabbed a cardigan.

Don’t ask… I really have no answer for this.

Anyway, the alarm clock hit me hard this morning, and my ‘not quite lucid’ state might have lingered just a tad… yikes.

The Noodles were all excited about going to the Magic Kingdom. It’s our favorite park, and usually the start of our Disney experience. Elora, like me, was being a bit sluggish this morning, so when we finally went to Sassagoula Floatworks for breakfast, we were running late.

We’re on the dining plan, so that means we spend points for meals, it’s quite brilliant! We got one big breakfast platter between the three of us and a portion of three beignets. The portions here are so big, we couldn’t even finish one platter with the three of us. The beignets were okay, not as spectacular as we hoped. I expected them to be like oliebollen (Dutch seasonal pastry), but they weren’t as good.

The drive to the Magic Kingdom brought back some good memories. We always think back of our first holiday here, when Elora was only 2 ½.

The Disney cast member who welcomed us to the parking lot tram is my new hero, he was hilarious. The whole tram was in stitches when he started to sing ‘let it go, let it go,’ when he was describing what you should do if you accidentally dropped something out of the tram. The man had showbiz talent.

I have to admit, I was a little gutted that we missed the opening ceremony to the park. It’s a first day tradition, and it felt sad that we didn’t do it. We’ll get it next time, so I won’t dwell on it. I’m already happy I can take pictures again.

Normally I have a geeky and precise plan for the parks, but I’ve been so busy and distracted lately, I never made one. I honestly felt a little lost for a second. The fastpass plus things kinda threw me off too, though I have to say it’s great.

Who ever invented the magic wristbands is a genius, btw. They are SPECTACULAR. I love ease and comfort. I love not having to dig through my bag for cards to get in the parks. And these do everything! I can even pay in the shops with them. No hassle, it’s bloody brilliant.

We had fastpass tickets to the new Dwarf mine train attraction, from Snowwhite, but not until 10:30, so we had some time for other attractions. Winnie the Pooh had a reasonable wait-time, so we decided to go for that. I love the interactive play area in the line, it really makes the wait a lot less long. Peter Pan had a longer line, 45 minutes, and for a moment we hesitated, but Elora talked us into it. Turns out they changed the line for Peter Pan too… it was AMAZING! You go through the Darling house, where there is so much to see and do. My favorite part was the interactive shadow area, where we could hold up our hands to watch butterflies land on them, or ring shadow bells. Peter Pan’s shadow also flew around. And of course there was an appearance of Tinkerbell, who got stuck in a key hole. It was so great, the 45 minutes flew by.

We still had some time to kill, so we took a trip through Small World. I am ashamed how much we struggled naming certain cultures. I think Daan credited the Turkish nationality to about three different doll areas. *snort*

The line to the mine attraction was ridiculous, so I was very grateful we had a fastpass. It was a cute ride, but not one I’ll repeat this holiday. It wasn’t spectacular.

We decided to go to the Little Mermaid ride after that, and there was almost no line. I wasn’t sure why, because the park was pretty crowded already. Hey, we weren’t complaining. We had more time to kill before our next fastpass, so we ended up going to Elora’s former favorite ride: the Haunted Mansion.

It’s not her favorite anymore… in fact, I don’t think she enjoyed it a lot. Too scary, she decided. Remember, this is the same girl who wanted to ride Harry Potter twice, and wasn’t frightened of giant spiders or dementors… so… yeah… the Disney Haunted Mansion was ‘too scary’. Sure.

Our fastpass for Belle’s enchanted story time was a bust. Something broke, and after waiting for 40 minutes, we were told it would take another hour at least. Yeah… no thanks. We got a ticket for it, and we might go tonight. Plus we got a new fastpass for a random other attraction. Yay Disney, you rock.

We decided to have lunch in the park, and shared a pork shank, some mixed vegetables and crackers and hummus between the three of us. It was lovely. We found a nice place in the shade and enjoyed our meal. We had just missed Gaston, but I hope Elora will have her picture taken with him this holiday. He’s so funny.

After lunch, we went home. The park was getting ridiculously crowded, and the weather was too hot for us. We’re not used to being in the sun for hours at the time.

Daan went to the mall, while Elora and I took a 20 minute break from the sun and watched the Derby. Then the girls were off to the pool, where we cooled off for an hour and a half. Daan joined us when he came back, and then we went back to the room to get dressed for our dinner in the Beast’s castle.

We had to wait quite a while, and Disney doesn’t seem to like it when tired people sit, so we hung out on the bridge for a little while.

The inside of the Be Our Guest restaurant was truly breath taking. It really was as if we walked into a fairytale. From the enchanted rose, to the torn up painting… we were in the beauty and the beast story. My favorite part was the snow outside the windows of our part of the restaurant. It really looked like it was snowing outside.

The food was decent. We tried the grey stuff, and it truly was delicious. Our waiter was wonderful and a little clumsy… I adored him right away. These are my people… the klutzes and the misfits.

After dinner we wanted to explore the park again. We still had a free fastpass because of the Belle’s storytime thing, and we actually still had a ticket for Belle too, plus one more to meet Anna and Elsa.

The first stop was Belle’s storytime. It’s an interactive show, where the kids get to play the different parts. Personally, I’m not to fussed about this one, but I booked it because I know Elora loves this kind of stuff. She was very skeptical about it when I told her what we were going to do, and she basically told me she wouldn’t mind missing it. This always makes me doubt if I’m doing the right thing or not, but we decided to try this one anyway. Thank God that I stuck to my guns, because I wouldn’t be surprised if this turned out to be the highlight of Elora’s holiday.
 

Elora loves to get picked for things, and so far she’s been really unlucky. Other kids get picked, and in Ollivanders –in Harry Potter land—the stupid shopkeeper even choose an adult over all the stary-eyed children’s faces.

Anyway, I was a little worried she would get a crappy part again (last time she was a painting) or not get any part. Luckily it turned out that everyone got a part (though some people were plates who did nothing in the performance)

When the lady was handing out the roles, she started with the beast. Elora roared her little heart out, but another girl got the part. But the next part was Philippe… A HORSE…

Ohhhh I was holding my breath and crossing my fingers. Please, please, please let her be the horse. My child neighed her little heart out for the audition… and…. GOT THE PART!! Oh, you should have seen her face. She was beaming so much, she lit up the room. She did such a great job that the whole room laughed when she played her part and she even skipped in a horsey trod when they got to do a circle around the audience. The whole night she was elated about having played the horse. It was freaking magical.

After Belle, Elora wanted to go and check out Dumbo in the new circus area. The new area looked nice, but I’m just not a fan of the ride. We went in, which was nostalgic, because it was our first ride with her, but Dumbo just doesn’t float my boat…

Daan made me laugh, because he was messing around in the elephant behind us, being a big goofball. He’s been cracking me up all vacation with his jokes and mad photobombing skills. I wonder how many people will notice they have a tall Dutch dude pulling faces on their picture.

After Dumbo I wanted to go to the Electrical light parade on mainstreet. So many freaking people were gathered there, and not all of them were that considerate. We sent Elora to the front (she’s a kid, people can look over her) with the instruction not to block anyone’s view, and we stayed in the back. Some people are real shitheads. I’ve seen grown men block the view of little kids. Gah!

We only caught a part of the parade, because our fastpass window was coming up and we wanted to be out of the park before the mass exodus to the monorail. It was lovely though, and Elora was completely enchanted.

The line to Elsa and Anna was long, but we only had to wait five minutes. I’m still so impressed with how nice and professional all the characters are. This is probably the last year that Elora wants to get everyone’s autograph, so we’re still going along in the madness of getting her on the picture with them. She was wearing a blue dress, and both Elsa and Anna commented on how lovely they thought her dress was. Elora –who is so vain, she makes Narcissus look laconic—was over the moon, and made sure I heard that she got compliments.

We wanted to go home, but the free fastpass was burning a hole in our pocket, so we decided to do a quick stop at Pirates of the Caribbean. Turns out our free fastpass wasn’t exactly working *whoopsie* but the guy was nice enough to let us through anyway.

After the ride we speed walked all the way across the park, hoping that we wouldn’t get stuck in the mass of people. It was tight, and we were pretty nervous. In past years we’ve had times where we would have to wait almost two hours to get the monorail to the parking lot, and we were too tired for that crap.

We made it to the first monorail, though some people decided that ‘if I run, I don’t have to stand in line’…. Ehm okay. We all got there in the end.

 

Elora was so tired, she almost fell asleep in the monorail. She was struggling to keep her eyes open. By 11pm we were all back in the hotel and in our beds, but it had been a long… looooong day.

Checking in to Port Orleans (Day 4)

When I woke up this morning and found that my phone had been totally drained of juice, rather than charged… I was not amused. My phone is not only my camera, but our personal genie in this country, and we really don’t have anything else. Considering I’m a photo junkie, I took the deadness of my phone quite hard… especially since the sucker seemed to refuse to charge again. Several attempts were made… but it just wouldn’t charge. Our converter plug is a bit old, so we thought it was that, but it wouldn’t even charge on the external battery.

I just had one of those mornings where everything went wrong, and I didn’t start my day in the most pleasant of moods.

But, there was not a lot of time to mourn over phones, because we wanted to go to Universal again today. Repeating our actions from yesterday, we started with the Island of Adventures. This time the spiderman ride was first on our list. Even Daan joined in, but he came out a little greener than we had hoped.

Dr Seuss land was next, where we decided to ride the Cat in the Hat ride. To my disappointment (and Elora’s too) they’ve changed the speed of the ride. It used to be really wild and bumpy, and now it was very mild. It took away some of its charm, if you ask me.

We decided not to linger, because we already noticed it was a lot more crowded than the day before. Weekends generally are. Off to the Hogwards express, and to Universal studios. We didn’t have the luxury of our private cart this time, but it was still an amazing ride.

On the other side, we quickly did a few rides, before the lines got really big. Men in Black, the Simpsons and ET were on our wish list. After that I wanted to see the new Minions ride. Elora was less keen, and when we ended up in an hour long line, she gave me the ‘I told you so look’, several times. We were a bit unfortunate in our part of the line, because someone in front of us had some rather severe gas problems. There were fans that blew the cloud of poisonous smelling gas in our direction, which made the teenage girls in front of me laugh so hard they almost cried. I think they were funnier than the bad smell.

The line was long, and the ride was cute, but I wouldn’t wait for it that long again. Elora loved it, and she kept telling me it was totally worth the wait (my turn to give HER an ‘I told you so’ look *grin*)

Every photo opportunity I lamented I didn’t have a camera. I wasn’t even sure if I could get my phone to work again, so I have to admit I was a bit gutted. Daan suggested we go buy a proper camera.

We left Universal (we were pretty tired anyway) around one o’clock, and drove to a Walmart. Now… we Dutch don’t have Walmarts, so to me it’s a very interesting experience. We found a bunch of cameras, and tried to buy the one we liked… but apparently it wasn’t that simple.

The sales assistant, a droopy eyed gentleman with the charisma of the ‘computer says no’ lady in Little Britain, told us that the camera we wanted, wasn’t available. Nor were the other five we pointed out. The ones he did have, after rummaging around in a little cupboard underneath the display, weren’t IN the actual display. I kept a forced smile on my face, but inside my brain kept screaming each time he opened that damn cupboard to look for cameras that weren’t there: “Bitch, I will cut you!!”

I kept my cool, and we decided to look elsewhere. We ended up in the Florida mall, where decided to have lunch at Five Guys first. We split a hot dog and a hamburger between the three of us, and it was very nice.

We found an electronics store where we bought a nice camera. In the car I put it on the cable, to make sure it would charge in time for us to make it to the hotel. Everything worked… except for the actual camera part. We tried everything, but it just simply didn’t work. After ALL that, the freaking thing didn’t freaking WORK. ARGL!!! So my hopes of taking pictures were gone again.

Daan told me we would go exchange it tomorrow, which I’m gutted about, because I have other things to do than driving up and down to the mall to exchange crap. I rather go do something fun. But… Murphy’s law… and Murphy is a jerk who hates me.

The hotel is absolutely lovely. It seems very quiet, which is something we like. The pool looks stunning, and being the big kid I am, I love the big Marti-Gras statues. They’re very colorful, and everything is just wonderful. The room is very nice too. It’s not big (but so far none of the rooms we’ve had in Disney have been exceptionally big) but it’s just elegant and cozy. The only complaint I have so far, is that we lack storage space. Three drawers is not enough for three Noodles. We made do, but I would have liked some more.

Daan managed to get my phone on a charger, which helped. It took about half an hour for it to actually start charging again, but at least it was finally charging. I really want to use it tomorrow, since the Disney app will remind me of our fast pass plus reservations, and I can check the waiting times online, rather than run back and forth through the park. Modern technology really does make the theme parks very science fictiony!

When all the stuff was unpacked, we got dressed to go to the Cape May Café, for our first Disney Dining. We’re on the dining plan, which is lovely. It means most of our meals are paid for, from now on. I don’t know what it is about the US, but we’re constantly hungry here. That’s why we tend to share meals, so that we don’t just stuff our faces. Elora seriously eats more than we do at the moment. In fact, there are times where we split things 50-50. Elora will have half, and Daan and I will share half. We’re keeping an eye on the hobbit, but I think she’s just spending a lot of energy here, so that’s probably why she’s so hungry.

Anyway, I digress. Cape May was nice. The food was decent (I always enjoy fiddling with the crab legs) and the friendly dinosaur who served us was absolutely lovely… though she had lost the plot just a little. Where I come from people retire with age 67 at the latest, so I’m not quite used to seeing the elderly carry heavy trays with one arm, while running around. I joke around, but I actually have a lot of respect for this. We Dutch are a bunch of pampered princesses.

Other than the food being nice, dinner was quite unremarkable, and I won’t bore you with the details. After dinner we went back home to the hotel, where we took a little stroll around the grounds. I have to admit, we’re horrible parents, because we keep laughing at Elora behind her back. She’s not very elegant with her flip flops, and she likes to gallop like a horse. She has the grace of Donald Duck with Parkinson’s disease, according to Daan –who does the most amazing impression of her. She didn’t hear us, we’re not ‘that’ evil… but we were pretty bad. Elora is lovely, and she’s mostly very well behaved (when she gets tired she can get a bit annoying) but she’s constantly talking. And I mean CONSTANTLY. And she talks mostly complete and utter crap, which just gets under your skins after a while. If I have to hear about her dream pony one more time… I might cry. She can go on for hours about that. I have no place to run from her now, so Daan and I solve our blooming insanity with a good sense of humor.

At 8 pm it was time to put Elora to bed. She sleeps with her eye mask on, which is so funny I can’t even tell you. I read her a story and she went to sleep without fuss.

I’m quickly updating my blog, but the rest of the Noodles are already sleeping. Tomorrow is going to be a LOOOOONG day. We’re heading to the Magic Kingdom (our favourite park)

Universal Studios are awesome, and we love going there… but Disney always kind of feels like ‘home’ for some reason.

 

Theme park explorers (day 3)

Ahhh the joy of crappy hotels… well, not so much joy, as forced tolerance. I was up at around 4, trying not to move too much, because the mattress actually makes noise when you move. It’s a little like cats being tortured by singing saws… wonderful stuff.

Last night people were chatting outside the window, and it felt like they were standing next to my bed. At least the backing up truck woke Elora and Daan at the reasonable hour of 6 AM. (Meh, they had to get up half an hour later anyway)

Elora wasn’t impressed with the waking time.  We haven’t really suffered from jetlag yet.  She said “Mom, I don’t want to,” but I swear, her eyes said “Bitch, are you crazy??” Then I reminded her we were going to Universal studios, and she suddenly turned into the Road Runner, dressing and getting ready in the blink of an eye.

We headed off to the parks after having a light breakfast of crackers and juice. No greasy bite for us… we left that till later. I don’t know why we’re so hungry here all the freaking time, it must be the constant reminder of food. And the fact that there is so much food we want to try.

Our first park was Universal Island of Adventures.  Elora and I were on a mission, we were going to go on the Harry Potter, Forbidden Journey ride. We speed walked all the way through the park (of course we took the wrong turn, so walked the long way around)

To my delight, Elora loved it. I was so happy. We actually rode it twice in a row. I had to hold her hand throughout though. It wasn’t an easy feat, and I actually have a bruise on my arm from the awkward position I had to hold it in. But it was worth it!!

After the Forbidden Journey we tried the flight of the Hypogriff, which didn’t impress my daughter, because it was too slow and boring. Great… I have created a monster *gulps*

We shared a breakfast plate (just one) in the Three Broomsticks (I think it was) and shared two small butterbeers. Well… Daan and I shared one, Elora drank it all.

We ran around Hogsmeade for a while and it was lovely. We went to Olivanders and saw how a wand chooses its owner, which was grand. Then we decided we were going to get a wand as well. Elora wanted to get one for herself, but she’s got pocket money to spend and aside from clothing, I’m not allowed to buy her anything. *mutters something about teaching a lesson about the value of money* The wand would have eaten up half of her budget. So to make a compromise, I got a wand (because I’m a sad nerd) but instead of getting the one I wanted, I got an interactive one, that she could play with. That way she could cast spells on some of the shops and items would move around. It was pretty awesome.

After looking at many wands (I seemed to like all the evil ones) I ended up with the wand of Bellatrix Lestrange. I almost got Voldemort’s wand, but Bellatrix suited me better. Not that I particularly love the character, it’s just a cool wand.

Not all the spells were easy to cast, much to the frustration of my 8 year old, or most of the other kids we encountered. But it was quite a quest to find all the spell symbols and wave the wand around. We spent quite a long time running around Hogsmeade.

We accidentally found the train to Diagon Alley, which was a real surprise. The ride is absolutely AMAZING. I have no words of how great all the Harry Potter stuff is. It brought us to the other park.

The Escape from Gringotts was every bit as good as the forbidden journey. The animatronics were so lifelike, we thought they were actors from a distance. Everything was so beautiful, it really blew me away.

When we came out it was lunch time, and we were getting peckish again. We decided on more Potter food. Our destination was the Leaky Cauldron, where we shared two meals (toad in the hole, and two little pies, one with fish, and the other mince). Of course we had more butterbeer, though different ones this time. Elora had a frozen one and I had a hot one.

Elora –who had claimed she wasn’t hungry—ate more than half of the meals, and drank most of my butterbeer and most of her own. She truly is a hobbit.

It was gorgeous. The food was okay, nothing spectacular, but the atmosphere made up for a lot. And I freaking love butterbeer.  It’s going to turn me into a butterball, but oh well.

We meandered about the place for a little while, looked in a shop, but in the end we didn’t see even half of it, we wanted to do some rides.

Most of our day had been Harry Potter themed, but now we wanted to see more of the parks. We weren’t in Islands of Adventures anymore, and I wanted to do a few rides that Daan could enjoy.

The first ride we stumbled across was Disaster. I forgot how cool this ride is. The girl who played ‘Lonnie’ and was our host was FANTASTIC. She made me laugh so hard, and she was so witty… it really was awesome. It was cool that Christopher Walken had a part in it too. Elora was tired, and her mood had shifted from ‘everything is awesome’ (try reading that without getting the song stuck in your head… *wicked grin*) to ‘I don’t want this’. I told her to suck it up, Buttercup. We weren’t just going to do what she wanted to do. She agreed, but she did it with a face that spelled thunder. Though once inside she enjoyed it, and was even a little upset that she didn’t get cast for the special roles people play.

We laughed and had fun, but it was about quarter to two, and we have this thing about staying in a park all day. Elora just gets too tired and she gets grumpy, but not just her, we do too. We tend to split it up in morning and evening visits. Then we rest in the afternoon. So it was time to go. But when we walked past the Transformers ride… I couldn’t resist. Elora and I were going in.

She liked it, but wasn’t a fan. I have to admit… I prefer the Spiderman one too, but I really enjoyed myself.

It was time to get to the car. Elora was in a bit of a weird mood, she kept switching from insanely sweet and fun, to a grumpy old man. She had blisters on her feet, and that didn’t help, but because she was being a bit manipulative in using her pain, I was getting fed up with it. We decided to go to the mall, while she wanted to go swimming. In the end we only stayed very briefly at the mall, and we went home to go swimming soon after.

I don’t like the pool here. It’s not quite dirty, but it’s a bit odd. There were some kids Elora’s age and she went to play with them. They seemed so lovely at first, but when Elora accidentally pushed one kid in play, he suddenly completely turned on her, and his sister too… it was kinda scary. Like very chubby children of the corn. Elora was all sad that they were suddenly horrible to her. Luckily it was time for dinner, so we went back to our shitty room and got dressed. I can’t wait to see the last of this room tomorrow, to be honest.

Our dinner was at Chili’s. It was nice but not spectacular. I remembered it being better 2 years ago. At the table we played a game of ‘guess the character’ and we had a lot of laughs. We Noodles laugh a lot, and it seems to be contagious. I’ve had brief conversations with a lot of people randomly through the day, and we often made them laugh too. I really love to laugh.

Btw, a random thought just entered into my head. Florida, we need to have a serious word about your bathroom stalls. I mean… WTF? What’s with the HUGE gaps near the door. You can actually see there’s people in the freaking stall. That’s not cool, Florida. Not cool at all. I’m just damn paranoid when I go to the loo, and I’m not amused.

Anyway, I digress. After dinner we went into another souvenir shops and got some t-shirts for Elora. She was over the moon, because she got to pick her own. I love these stupid little spending sprees. They’re fun.

Now both Elora and Daan are asleep, and I’m blogging. I will have to owe you the pictures for a day that I’m less tired. I don’t know how to put them on Daan’s computer yet.

Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow. We’re going to go back to Universal for the morning and early afternoon, and by 3 pm, we are going to check into our hotel in Disney. I really can’t wait. A bit of cleanliness will be nice. Daan remarked that this has to be the worst hotel we’ve ever been in. Though I find it highly amusing, 2 nights is enough.

All in all today was an absolutely fantastic and adventurous day. The weather was gorgeous and the parks were fantastic.

The car journey (day 2)

As usual, I woke up as insane o’clock in the morning, ready to get this holiday started. I have a screw loose in everyday life, but when I’m on vacation, I go into hyper cray-cray mode. Luckily for my family, I’m a considerate person, and I actually managed to keep quiet for over three hours, before I started to subtly (ahem) wake them.

Daan was the first to wake. We were joking around and laughing before Elora woke up. Daan tried to be romantic and said: “You know, we could book a second room.”

To which I responded: “Yup, and since Elora won’t want to sleep alone, you’ll get to share that bedroom with her.” This made us laugh so loud, that we woke up Elora. I swear, she was so surely, she should have said: “You kids get off my lawn.”

 

3 minutes later, Elora was in a great mood again. She suddenly realized we were in America. I did warn her we still had a looooong journey ahead of her, but she was so thankful that we made our flight last night, rather than having to spend another day at the airport, she just didn’t care.

We packed up our belongings, checked out of the hotel, and got in our nice car to go get some breakfast. This car was so big, it made me feel like a tiny person. I could actually stretch my legs… it was  heaven. 

Our nutritional breakfast started at McDonalds, where we –like any self respecting tourist—stood staring at the menu with wide eyed panic. I could almost hear John Pinette complain about the time we were taking to decide what to have for breakfast.  Somewhere a voice whispered: “get out of ther line”  (If you don’t know who John Pinette is, this joke will make no sense. Look him up, he was a very funny man)

Where we come from the breakfast menu consists of a croissant and an egg mcmuffin… so the US McDonalds is almost exotic to us.

We ate the very yummy, but very greasy food, and were on our way to Orlando.

The trip wasn’t that spectacular. It’s one big long road. Travelling with Elora is like travelling with Donkey from Shrek. It’s funny at first, but after many, many hours… it starts to wear you down. The random shit that kid comes out with is astonishing. I was exhausted by the end of it. It’s not like we don’t know that our child is hyper and completely random, it’s that dealing with it in a confined space for hours, really makes you do a few ‘willpower saves’. (Yes, I went nerdy for a moment, that was a D&D reference… I’m truly that sad *grin*)

But eventually, after a quick stop at Wendy’s (gaaaaah, the fries with cheese and bell peppers are insanely gorgeous) we made it to Orlando.

A quick stop at some souvenir shop, where we scored on t-shirts and other crap. Then the great quest to find the hotel began. Of course the navigation system didn’t recognize the address… because that would be easy. But with a bit of cleverness, we outwitted the damn thing, and found the hotel.

Words sort of fail me on this hotel. This isn’t so much ‘shabby chique’ as ‘shitty chique’. Everything about this place is craptastic. But… it’s only for two days, so who cares.

We went to go swimming for a little bit, to Elora’s delight, before we ran across the street to one of our favourite restaurants: Joe’s crab shack.

Elora claimed she didn’t like it as much as she remembered, but when we looked back on it, she singlehandedly ate half the freaking food. I’m not even kidding, she ate as much as Daan and I ate together. And she still had room for dessert… the freaking hobbit.

After dinner we ran to the Publix for some snacks and drinks for tomorrow. That’s when the real holiday starts. Now the travelling part is over, we start doing the fun things, like theme parks. Tomorrow Universal Studios is first on our list. I can’t wait.

There are two beds in this Walhalla of mysterious stains, and Elora claimed one of them. So Daan and I are sharing one bed, and this tiny human being has one for herself. I think it’s hilarious.