Our next stop was Innoventions West, where we had two undisclosed characters waiting for us at the Chase Disney Visa cardmember’s private character meet. My son had mentioned wanting to ride one of the boats, so I suggested getting on a boat in Morocco (nearby) to cut back across to the front of World Showcase. A child on the boat was having an atomic meltdown that made my kids seem quite mild by comparison. I felt bad for his parents, though. Once off the boat, we headed for Innoventions West. I kept looking at the ball and reminding myself which way was west. During our search, we encountered a Photopass photographer who took a few shots. Someone clearly had a little fun with some of them.
I found a sign that said Innoventions but wasn’t sure if it was east or west. As soon as I entered, I saw a firetruck. Because of advice I had read on the wonderful disboards, I knew I had found the right place. Not far from there was a roped line and an unobtrusive sign designating this as the Visa character meet area. I got my card out, and we stood in line. The people in front of us kept trying to get the CM to spill the beans about who we were about to meet. The answers varied from, “We don’t know who it is” to “I’m not allowed to tell you.” Soon it was our turn. Minnie and Pluto! Jacqueline is a big fan of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Minnie’s Bow-toons, so she was thrilled to meet Minnie and get hugs. Jordan stepped up as well and got his hugs and hi-fives. We got another of those blasted Photopass cards, but at least I knew what to do this time.
Complaining about the sunlight, Jordan had commandeered his mother’s pink Disney hat (which she had bought at MK,) so we stopped at a hat shop. Jacqueline bought a princess hat that exactly matched her autograph book, and Jordan picked out a black cap with a sparkly silver Mickey head on it. And mom got her hat back.
Looking back, I think that black hat may possibly have been a woman’s style hat. But it doesn’t matter now; Jordan lost that hat on the Aquaman ride at Six Flags this summer.
Now, I was ready to ride Test Track. Both kids were with me until we saw how long the wait was – 90 minutes, I think. Jordan outgrew Nemo a couple of years ago, but he decided he would rather join mom on The Seas with Nemo ride than wait in standby line for Test Track. I had some fastpasses, but everything had changed so much I just stopped trying to keep up with them. So Jacqueline and I rode Test Track – fun, but a little too true-to-life as far as recreating hazardous driving conditions for my tastes. Then Jacqueline had to find the little princesses’ room. While waiting, I got a couple of texts from Julie about the Living Seas area located at the Nemo ride exit. Jordan was completely enthralled with all the sea life! He enjoyed the aquariums we had taken him to in the past, but he was over the moon about this exhibit. She said they were going to feed dolphins in a minute and offered to meet with us. So we headed straight there. At first, it seemed that we couldn’t go in the aquarium without riding the ride first, so I texted this to Julie. For a little while she didn’t answer. So I walked a little closer to the exit and noticed the gift shop. Why wouldn’t they want me in the gift shop? So we went in, and no one stopped us. Beyond the gift shop were all the aquarium exhibits. I looked all around but could not find any dolphin feedings or my son or wife. Finally, she texted me back, saying the ride is very short and that she’d wait for me. I didn’t want to complicate matters by explaining that I was already in there, so I just asked Jacqueline if she wanted to ride Nemo. She said yes. Of course, we had to go back outside. Luckily, standby was quite short. We enjoyed the brief ride, and when we got off, we found the other half of our family. It seems I really missed something with the dolphin presentation. It wasn’t a feeding at all; it was a demonstration of their training and intelligence. I will definitely have to try to catch that if we ever go back. Julie later told me about how wonderfully she bonded with her son over this experience. He even told her he might want to be a marine biologist when he grows up. He’s already a fan of science.
He has since chilled on sealife. He now wants to be a professional YouTuber. We’re trying our best to talk sense into him.
Having skipped lunch, we needed to find someplace to eat. I had been wanting to try the fish at Yorkshire County Fish Shop in UK, but nobody else wanted that, and I didn’t want us to split up again, especially since Julie said her phone’s battery was down to 5 or 6%. Coral Reef was just around the corner (actually in the same building,) but I worried about getting in there without a reservation. The host on duty was nice and had a sense of humor. After a quick check, he said they had room for a party of four walk-ins. After a short wait, we were taken to a table with a nice view of one of the glass walls with a big aquarium on the other side, most likely one of the same tanks that was part of the Living Seas exhibit. We saw several divers doing what appeared to be some sort of training exercise. The menu seemed limited and upscale-ish, which usually presents problems with our finicky kids. The good news is that they have macaroni and cheese on their kid’s menu. The bad news is that Jordan, 11, was not a kid by Disney’s standards. The only thing on the adult menu that he might even possibly have eaten was the oven roasted chicken breast, but it comes in some kind of exotic sauce mixture, and the listed side dish is some kind of vegetable that I know he hates. We decided to ask the waitress for her advice when she returned to take our order. “Oh, you can just substitute fries for the side,” she told us, “and they can just leave the sauce off if you don’t think he’ll like it.” That’s how we requested it. He must have liked the chicken, because he ate every bite of it, only leaving a few fries behind. Jacqueline’s mac and cheese came with broccoli, which she of course ignored. Both us parents enjoyed our trout dishes, although it paled in comparison to Eddie V’s Seafood in Fort Worth, where we celebrated our 15th anniversary last June. We even ordered dessert while there. We paired off against two Molten Chocolate Waves, which were good, but nothing to write home about.
On our way to the exit, we stopped at the camera shop to have our Minnie and Pluto pictures added to Memory Maker. There were a lot of people only just getting there when we were leaving. I realized this was because Illuminations was happening that night. Once back at POR, we rested up a little and then decided to go to the food court and just have dessert for supper (after having decided that that was a very late lunch we had had at Coral Reef.) We all had ice cream. Back at the room, I reminded everyone that it was breakfast at Hollywood Studios the next morning and that we needed to be ready to get Jordan signed up for Jedi Training Academy. That was when he dropped a bomb on us: “About that, Dad…I don’t really wanna do it.” This was the whole reason I had reserved the breakfast at Hollywood & Vine. But I knew they would have asked him if he was 100% sure he really wanted to do it. Of course, I couldn’t make him do it if he didn’t want to. Shocked as I was, this actually freed up a lot of our plans for that day.
We could hear Illuminations from our room but couldn’t see any of it. After getting the kids ready for bed, I took a load of laundry to the nearest laundry room. The door was locked, and it didn’t occur to me that I might need my magic band to get in, but even so, I didn’t see any little box with a Mickey head on it. It was after 10 pm, so maybe they closed the facilities? I really needed those clothes clean or we would run out, so I called the front desk. They told me there was a magic band reader there; it just didn’t have a Mickey head on it. I went back to check again, and sure enough, there was the unmarked black box. I popped in my clothes, single-load laundry pacs, and quarters and got to work. It was midnight before I finished.
