Grandbabies 8.4 - Nya at Magic Kingdom
Don Jennings
We're enjoying a British tradition this morning, known as 'a bit of a lie-in'.
It's about 8:30 when we all start to wake up, and Nya's pretty chipper this
morning for having been up pretty late last night. When Laurie asks her
what day this is, she's very quick to confirm "It's Day 4!" It's fun
listening to them talk about our trip so far, and interesting to learn that
her favorite thing we've done is Test Track. Our latest original plan for
today was a water park and Magic Kingdom, but it's still 51 degrees this
morning and the forecast is still for 10-20 mph winds. No thanks.
The current plan then is to take our time getting around and do our regular
midday-evening Magic Kingdom tour today, and we'll do our rope-drop tour
there tomorrow and maybe go to the water park in the afternoon. Nya's still
talking about Soarin', and her disappointment that our second time through
Spaceship Earth they didn't get pictures of anybody in our section of the
train up on the wall.
I was thinking that when we bring girls to Disney World we spend much more
time getting hair ready in the morning, but then I remembered our trip with
Gavin where he'd spend a certain amount of time by himself in front of the
mirror every morning with his gel getting his spike to look just right. Nya's
very concerned about Laurie putting any hairspray on her bun, because "It
damages your hair." We think it will be okay for just one day. Grandma
peeks out the front door and declares it a sweatshirt day, but Nya's
thinking with her hair up so beautifully on top of her head, she must wear a
dress. We'll try it that way.
Nya and I are wandering out by the bus stop while Laurie is buying a
sweatshirt. When Laurie comes out of the store, Nya goes completely against
character and hops out of the stroller to run over to Grandma and get in
line for the bus. You'd think she was anxious to go to Magic Kingdom! When
we get to the train station in Town Square, I tell her she has to jump out
of the stroller to hop up the steps, and without hesitation she jumps and
hops. We get up onto the platform just as the train pulls in, and she's
jumping and giggling and saying "I've never been on a train before!!" Walt
knew that.
I'm going to get off the train at Frontierland so I can get fast passes for
Splash, because Nya likes the short lines just as much as we do. The girls
are going to stay on the train around to Toontown Fair to get in a very long
line to see Cinderella, one of our primary targets this trip. It looked
pretty crowded in the front of the park, but at 10:30 our fast passes are
for 11:05. I thought maybe that was just 'splash' avoidance on a cool
morning, but the Big Thunder times are similar.
Over at the big tent, Nya encounters a choice between getting in line to see
the Princesses and a line to see the Fairies. She chooses princesses, which
is awesome because the wait is 20 minutes versus 60. We enter the room and
see Cinderella and Belle (Nya's two favorites) and Aurora. She's so shy
that even while Cinderella is talking to her, she's walking back to be by
Grandma. Which explains why Grandma is in most of the pictures. Belle asks
her if she's shy, and Nya nods. Belle tells her "Well I was shy too, before
I met Beast." Aurora asks her "What happened to your voice, did it run
away", and she shakes her head no. "Ursula didn't take your voice, did
she?" That brings some giggles finally, but still no words.
She's full of words and giggles in Minnie's house though, and particularly
likes the cake and the popcorn popper. The gardening material on the back
porch is of limited interest, but the flowers outside are "beautiful".
Soon, she's bouncing and asking if we can see Mickey's house. Wouldn't miss
it. It must be a good day, we're walking along with a bounce in our step
and arms swinging, marching soldier style, with a smile as big as Pluto's
house.
"Mickey's house is RIGHT NEXT DOOR!!" "Is Mickey at home?" No, we're
guessing he's in the Judge's Tent. "Does he come back to his house when it's
dark out?" That would be my guess, because when it's dark out they don't
let people go through his house, probably so he can get some peace and quiet
after a long day of meeting people.
There's a fence running through most of the Barnstormer queue, about four
feet high with thin purple and gray and orange 'posts', set in a concrete
curb that's four or five inches wide. Nya navigates the entire length of
the fence by walking on the curb while holding the top of the posts,
touching the actual path only about four times. Plane after plane of
barnstormers go zipping about 10 feet over our heads and she never even
looks up at them, so it doesn't seem she'll be scared of her first coaster.
Then, out of a clear blue sky three-quarters of the way through the line,
the tears are pouring down and "I want my mommy" and "I don't want to go to
Disney any more". We tell her she'll be going home on Day 8, and she cries
"I thought it was Day 7". Well that's the day we fly home, and then Grandma's
going to drive you to your house the next day. "But I want to stay at
Disney til Day 7". Well, all righty then. After the brief meltdown she
finally notices the ride, and decides she's really wanting to ride it. As
we round the last corner of the queue, the curb holding the fence has grown
into a little wall a foot or so high and she's still walking it. I tell her
to be careful, this part's a little trickier. "Good thing I'm trickier than
the fence, I'm a good balancer!" Words every broken-headed kid has used at
some point, I'm sure.
The ride is awesome, with a full-voiced "Yee Ha" on the way up the hill and
giggles at every direction change. Looks like one of the things Grandma has
passed on to Nya is her coaster giggle gene. As we're walking back out of
Toon Town she's skipping and saying "I feel diddle-y-doo!!" We're going to
assume that's a good thing.
The garden at Belle's Story Hour is a little crowded when we get there, but
I find a very nice spot to stand with Nya sitting on the wall right beside
me, until they tell us the wall is off limits. They clearly don't know what
a good balancer Nya is, but we'll go along. Grandma has found a seat on the
other side though, so Nya joins her and now they're in deep discussion about
something. I can't hear what they're saying but can read Nya's lips enough
to pick out "Day 6" and "Day 7". She absolutely loves Belle's show,
answering all the questions and responding excitedly to all the applause
cues. After the show we ask her if she'd like to get another picture with
Belle, and she tells us she doesn't. "I just wanted to see her in her
married dress."
We stop on the bridge over to the front of the castle because there are
people taking a picture of a guy on one knee, proposing to his princess.
Nya wants to know why we're stopping and Grandma tells her he's asking her
to marry him. "Good." Little Republican.
We get our table at the Crystal Palace and Laurie takes Nya through the line
to pick what she wants to eat. When I bring her back to the table, she
wants to make her own sandwich, so I cut her hard roll for her and she
proceeds to carefully load it with ham and green beans and devour it. After
not budging from her chair for Piglet and barely acknowledging Eeyore
(nobody cares about the donkey), she's out of her chair and almost bouncing
when Tigger is three tables away from us. Most of the kids have been much
more leery of the big characters, but she gives Tigger a huge hug and
snuggles right up into him for the picture. You just never know.
The girls have just returned from the bathroom when the Hooray Parade
starts, and Nya thinks it's just hilarious that Tigger is carrying pretend
balloons. Though she has no desire to be in the parade, she's a very active
spectator, dancing and clapping and having a good old time. Afterwards, to
prevent Nya from continuing to crawl around on the floor collecting Mickey
confetti, Laurie asks our server Barbara if there's any chance we might get
some of those, and she brings us out a little zip-lock bag of them. Cool.
Nya's quite chipper now, drawing letters on the table with her finger so
Grandma can guess what they are. We reach the conclusion that she has no
interest in waiting around for Pooh's autograph and there's a Castle
Forecourt show in fifteen minutes, so it's time to go.
Grandma finds us an awesome spot to watch the show, a nice place to sit on
the ground about twenty feet from the chains. We still have ten minutes and
there are a couple other little girls just up ahead of us dancing and
playing, so Nya joins them. Now she's only about fifteen feet away from us
and we're watching her, but it's suddenly apparent that she can't pick us
out among the people sitting there and is ready to panic. We both wave and
she spots us and runs over to Grandma with a big smile on her face, saying
"I was about to go get one of those people with the name tags."
The instant the music starts, she's at full attention and is glued to the
show throughout. I have to say this is the first time I've ever experienced
an entire castle show, especially from up close and on purpose, and it's
quite enjoyable.
We're well within our Spash Mountain fast pass window now, and Nya doesn't
seem to have any apprehension about it at all. We're unlucky enough to get
drenched just before we go up that first hill, which launches a giggle-fest
that lasts right up until the big drop, which she goes down crying. We show
her the water drops covering our glasses, and then it's all fun again. She
explains to us that when we started down the big hill "I was about to giggle
and then I started crying." (Which pretty much explains the edge she's been
on the whole trip.) What's really cool is that she hasn't just been
enjoying the sights on this ride, she's been following Brer Rabbit's story
too. When we get to the scene with the bluebird whistling, she gets a big
smile and tells us "He's finally home now." And at the end, she climbs out
of the log, picks her pants out of her butt, and asks "Can we do that one
again?" I bet before the trip is over we can.
She has a million questions during the Pirates ride, but really enjoys it.
Especially that cool escalator at the end. "This is the first escalator I've
ever been on that didn't have steps!" (And only about the fourth one of any
kind, ya little pro ;-)
Aladdin is a big hit, with Nya at the controls and the carpet going from top
to bottom to top to .
We're about a minute into the Tiki Room preshow when she gets a puzzled look
and asks Grandma "Is this the bird show?" No, fortunately, because this is
pretty boring (even bad puns are lost on a four-year-old), while the show
itself turns out to be a wide-eyed hit.
We love the little family scenes we encounter bits of on all of our Disney
trips, and you can pretty much fill in the backstory yourself when you see a
random exhausted mom and dad pushing a stroller out of Adventureland and the
child inside pointing at the Swiss Family Treehouse and saying "See, that
one's not closed!"
It occurs to me that all of our sudden changes in direction this trip have
been for a costume in the front of a store.
We've reached the point of the trip where Nya has become aware of her
whining and can joke about it. As we pull up to the rest rooms in
Fantasyland and tell her to jump out of the stroller, she jumps up, smiles,
and says "Wah, wah, wah ;-)"
She loves Mickey's Philharmagic even more than we do, calling out to every
character that comes up. She asks Grandma if we can ride the Carousel
tonight, and as I wander off I hear them talking about Cinderella's horse.
It seems that Cinderella had told Nya and Grandma this morning that her
favorite horse is the white one with the gold ribbon in his tail, and that's
the very horse Nya is riding now. Before the ride is over, she tells Laurie
"I want to live here at Disney."
She giggles throughout the Pooh ride, and then won't be discouraged from
shopping at the exit store. She asks for perhaps the first thing she sees,
and Laurie tells her no. "Why can't I get it?" Well, you tell me why you
can't get it. "Because it's not Day 7." Right.
The Jungle Cruise is lots of fun, but about the time Laurie mentions how
most things don't seem to scare Nya, we get to Shirley's Temple. She's a
trooper through the dark part of the ride, but it looks like she's doing a
little lip-biting and as we get back to the sunshine she asks "Everything
here is pretend, right?" After we dock, we're treated to a scene that's
always one of our favorites, with our child running and jumping randomly
back and forth across the plaza, arms flying, huge smile, life is good.
It's twenty minutes to seven now and we're headed out of the park. It's
still quite crowded here, with the park open until midnight and extra magic
hours after that. We've had various people tell us over the years how they
hit the park running and don't slow down and we're somehow losing out if we're
not full-tilt, but we observe something on our way out that we'll share with
those folks - the people entering the park at 7pm with big smiles on there
faces took a nap. I'm just saying.
Laurie takes the last empty seat on the bus with the intention of having Nya
sit on her lap, but at the last minute Nya spots one more empty about three
seats back on the other side and heads for it. I'm standing in the back
door and we all have eye contact, and it has the feeling of a little
victory. We're going to have dinner at the food court, and I carry the
stroller to avoid the drama a hundred feet away when she has to get out of
it. She's quite upset, and probably a little nervous that this might be a
permanent change in our arrangement. She finds us a seat by the window,
which is really quite helpful as she can see her reflection and locate and
clear the stray pizza sauce from her face on her own. And when we leave,
she's hopping and skipping and Hey-I'm-the-leader-ing all the way back to
the room.
Nya's thrilled that all of her dolls and Mickey are in the window of our
room, and there are washcloth animals on the bed. We've turned a corner on
the phone calls home too, as Laurie's come up with a brainstorm to counter
Nya's dislike of the phone. This time when we call Mom, we put her on
speakerphone and the result is a relaxed and full conversation about guess
who's signature I got today and guess where my dolls were when I got back to
the room and I was a little scared on that last hill and I sat by myself
tonight on the bus. At the end, it's simply "Bye, love you Mom" with no
drama, and we're back to playing with the dolls.
Charlotte Johnson
>
Ya out did yourself this time great reading.
Charlotte
Lauriej
has written.
Laurie
On Dec 31, 3:53 pm, Charlotte Johnson <charlottejohn...@msn.com>
wrote:
Rudeney
>
> I was thinking that when we bring girls to Disney World we spend much
> more time getting hair ready in the morning, but then I remembered our
> trip with Gavin where he'd spend a certain amount of time by himself in
> front of the mirror every morning with his gel getting his spike to look
> just right.
It's ironic that the guys who want the "bed head" look have to spend so
much time on their hair. I mean, if I wanted that, all I'd have to do
is, well, get out of bed! :-P
> The ride is awesome, with a full-voiced "Yee Ha" on the way up the hill
> and giggles at every direction change. Looks like one of the things
> Grandma has passed on to Nya is her coaster giggle gene. As we're
> walking back out of Toon Town she's skipping and saying "I feel
> diddle-y-doo!!" We're going to assume that's a good thing.
Yes, I'd assume that, too! It does just amaze me at how children at
this age can go from one extreme to another in just a few moments. It
does seem that you and Laurie are doing a great job of keeping the mood
swings to a minimum, but I guess after 8 grandbaby trips, you guys are pros.
> We get our table at the Crystal Palace and Laurie takes Nya through the
> line to pick what she wants to eat. When I bring her back to the table,
> she wants to make her own sandwich, so I cut her hard roll for her and
> she proceeds to carefully load it with ham and green beans and devour
> it.
Hmm, a ham and green bean sandwich! I've never had one of those, but it
doesn't sound too bad.
> After not budging from her chair for Piglet and barely
> acknowledging Eeyore (nobody cares about the donkey)
No matter.
> Grandma finds us an awesome spot to watch the show, a nice place to sit
> on the ground about twenty feet from the chains. We still have ten
> minutes and there are a couple other little girls just up ahead of us
> dancing and playing, so Nya joins them. Now she's only about fifteen
> feet away from us and we're watching her, but it's suddenly apparent
> that she can't pick us out among the people sitting there and is ready
> to panic. We both wave and she spots us and runs over to Grandma with a
> big smile on her face, saying "I was about to go get one of those people
> with the name tags."
Smart!
> She explains to us that when we started down
> the big hill "I was about to giggle and then I started crying."
That is so funny!
> It's twenty minutes to seven now and we're headed out of the park. It's
> still quite crowded here, with the park open until midnight and extra
> magic hours after that. We've had various people tell us over the years
> how they hit the park running and don't slow down and we're somehow
> losing out if we're not full-tilt, but we observe something on our way
> out that we'll share with those folks - the people entering the park at
> 7pm with big smiles on there faces took a nap. I'm just saying.
You are right about that. Taking a break, even a small one just to eat
lunch or spend an hour at the pool, can make a huge difference.
> Nya's thrilled that all of her dolls and Mickey are in the window of our
> room, and there are washcloth animals on the bed. We've turned a corner
> on the phone calls home too, as Laurie's come up with a brainstorm to
> counter Nya's dislike of the phone. This time when we call Mom, we put
> her on speakerphone and the result is a relaxed and full conversation
> about guess who's signature I got today and guess where my dolls were
> when I got back to the room and I was a little scared on that last hill
> and I sat by myself tonight on the bus. At the end, it's simply "Bye,
> love you Mom" with no drama, and we're back to playing with the dolls.
Interesting. Maybe having everyone involved in the conversation makes a
difference.
--
- RODNEY
Next WDW Vacation?
Who knows!
Need to know more about RADP (rec.arts.disney.parks)?