Next, we all rode Prince Charming’s Royal Carousel. Not much different from the Silver Star Carousel at Six Flags back home, except we got to listen to well-known Disney songs such as “Be Our Guest” played calliope-style! After that, we headed to Storybook Circus to get in line for Dumbo. Except it’s more than just a line. It has an indoor playground for the kids and pagers for the parents to let them know when it’s their turn to ride. Brilliant idea! Except 11-year-old Jordan had trouble finding anything he wasn’t too big for. After maybe 10 minutes, our pager went off. It took us a minute or two to round up both our kids, but we went and got us a couple of flying elephants. Pretty much the same as Triceratop Spin, except of course I know which one came first.
At lunch time, we find Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Café. I had researched it ahead of time and found that it had stuff my finicky kids would eat. I ordered a BBQ sandwich, and Jacqueline wanted chicken nuggets. Jordan and his mom each got a turkey sandwich. That was the easy part. The hard part was finding a table. The right and middle sections were completely full, and this was even WITH their enforced restriction that no one sits down unless and until they have their food. Sis and I met up with mom and bubba, and we managed to get a table. I accidentally spilled mom’s drink, but a nearby CM cleaned it up while another fetched a fresh drink. To avoid further spillage, I poured everyone’s drink into their resort mugs, since their lids stay on better. Jordan complained that his sandwich had vegetables and some kind of yellow sauce that he couldn’t identify. Mom tried to clean it off to meet his specifications, but he still ended up wasting most of it.
Jacqueline and her mom finished eating first, so they went outside (at some point after this, Jacqueline lost her resort mug.) When Jordan and I were finally done, I got a text from Julie saying that they were going to watch the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor show. Jordan and I headed that direction but never did find them. We went ahead and got in line for the show, and when I saw the thing about the audience texting jokes to be used in the show, I quickly thought of one: If the Statue of Liberty were holding up a stop sign instead of a torch, what would you call it? The Statue of Limitations! Unfortunately, I watched the pre-show video in the waiting area all the way through at least once, but I never saw the number to which I was supposed to send the text. My guess is that they removed the number after they had already gotten enough jokes. We watched the show anyway, and it was pretty funny. Of course, it helps if you’re already a big fan of Mike Wazowski and friends, which we are. After another text exchange, Julie said she had to take the little princess to the necessary room. She tried to tell me where it was so that I could meet them there, but I had trouble finding it. I wandered all over Tomorrowland like a chicken with its head cut off. Amazingly, my son stayed right behind me the whole time and never got lost. At long last, we found the restrooms near Auntie Gravity’s Galactic Goodies. Jordan then had to go relieve himself. We decided, since we were right there, to take an ice cream break. The cashier complimented Jacqueline on her BBB get-up. Next, I declared that it is time for me to ride Space Mountain. Both kids chose to join me. Julie just did more walking around. Standby was over an hour, but we decided to tough it out. I just love the retro-futuristic look of the queue interior. While playing one of the interactive games on the screens, I docked a couple of modules to the station, and one of them turned into a very familiar shape! I wondered if this was one of the “hidden Mickeys” I had heard so much about. When we were mere feet from the ride, I just then looked at my phone and found four text messages from my better half. She wanted to know if I wanted a Space Mountain t-shirt. She even sent me pictures of my choices. I picked one and apologized for not hearing all the text notifications. It was just so noisy in there. To my utter shock, Jacqueline told me that as soon as we got off this ride, she would be ready to leave. I fully expected both kids to want to stay till closing, when we would be dragging them kicking and screaming to the bus stop. But apparently they were just as tired as I was. Anyway, it was our time to get on.
And Space Mountain was…AWESOME!!!!! I was totally geeking out, hurling through space. I knew Disney would bring out the kid in me, and it happened with full force on this ride. The kids liked it too. Jordan called it “intense.”
Before we could leave, I had a little matter of linking our BBB photos to our Memory Maker account. I had tried to do it using the website and the Photopass card they had given me, but I couldn’t get it to work. So we went to look for the photopass station which I was told was near the Town Square Theater. There was a hat shop near there. A friend had told Julie that if you tell them it’s your first visit, your kids get their hats free. Or at a discount. Or something. But that didn’t happen. I guess they were fresh out of pixie dust. Anyway, I got an R2-D2 ears hat, Jacqueline got one with a Frozen theme (Anna on one side, Elsa on the other,) and Jordan just got some classic plain black ears. The cashier then told us the Photopass station was inside (not just near) the Theater building. As soon as I got Memory Maker straightened out, we headed for the POR bus.
Tonight was when we rescheduled our trip to Downtown Disney. After a brief rest-up, we got on the boat at POR. It was a pleasant ride, though too dark to see much of anything. The driver had lots of interesting facts to share about the area. When we disembarked, we headed toward the Rainforest Café to find out how long the wait was. While I took Jordan to the restroom, Julie found out it would be two hours. Believe it or not, that is not the longest we’ve had to wait for a table at RFC. She put us on the list, then it was on to the Lego Store. We had spent $200+ on his sister at BBB, so now he got to pick out $200 worth of Legos. He didn’t get to do any building or any of the hands-on stuff there in the store because it was just too crowded. He picked out the Star Wars AT-AT kit and two Ninjago kits, one of which was on clearance. I let him have one right then to take back to the room, to give him something to do on date night. The other two I promised to order for him and have shipped home (and I did – from Target, where both sets were cheaper.) Then we did some shopping next door at World of Disney. Julie and I each bought a Mickey shirt, and Jacqueline got a Princess Minnie plush. One of the cashiers was Joao from Brazil. I’m glad this isn’t an oral report, because I have no idea how to pronounce that. His accent was very thick, but he still managed to ask if I am enjoying my first visit to WDW. He was very nice.
After letting the kids ride the merry-go-round, we headed back toward RFC. We still had almost an hour to go, and at least two of us were getting very hungry. So Julie went to a nearby shop and bought a bucket of popcorn. It was empty in short order. We went inside RFC to shop a little and look at the fish. Finally our name was called. We sat right next to a mechanical elephant that kept making noise. No, I don’t know his name; we don’t go to RFC that often. The kids got mac & cheese, and I got some kind of huge burger which was delicious. As we finished our meal, we talked about finding a place to get dessert. Julie wanted to try the Ghirardelli shop. We went there to find that it’s a) too expensive and b) too crowded. It was very late, and we decided it was just time to find the boat. Just one problem: we couldn’t find the boat. I retraced our steps from the beginning, but all I could find was the buses. Too tired to search the place all night, we just took a bus back to POR. Then I grabbed some candy and another krispy treat from the food court. We had dessert in the room and then went to bed.
