Day Two

On our second day in Orlando (and our first full day), we got kind of a late start. Instead of heading to the Magic Kingdom first thing in the morning, we decided to eat breakfast in the cafeteria-style Gingerbread House and then meet the Nickelodeon characters in the Enchanted Castle at Give Kids the World. We knew we would order food in for most of the time since Tucker doesn't like to eat, but we wanted to enjoy at least a few meals with other families. This is Tucker at the Gingerbread House, the tables are full of real peppermints, and the place really looks like a gingerbread house, it's adorable. Tucker was not too thrilled about going to a restaurant on his vacation! This was such a nice place because it was full of volunteers. They served the food, carried our trays, and set us all up, as well as refilling our drinks. The people were so nice, and this is where we met Roger (a man who moved from Minnesota to volunteer at GKTW, and the man who told us that we needed to be good receivers). After a quick breakfast, we headed over to meet the Nickelodeon character.

They weren't sure who would be there (it depends on who Universal sends out that day), but it turned out to be Dora, and Tucker was not impresssed! We passed up the carousel on the way to see Dora, and he was not thrilled. At orientation, we learned that the wish button would get us to the front of almost every line, but not the character lines....so we were going to take advantage of meeting all of the characters at Give Kids the World. (we later found out that we did get to the front of the character lines....very nice surprise!!)

The drive from GKTW to Disney is about 20 minutes long, and it was very easy to find. This is a picture of us pulling into Walt Disney World. The WDW complex is HUGE! So we parked in the handicapped parking lot, and still had a good walk to get to the Transportation and Ticket Center, where we could take a bus or the monorail or the ferry to the Magic Kingdom or other WDW parks. The monorail was super packed, so the 3 of us hopped on a bus to the Magic Kingdom. Tucker was thrilled! He said "ride da beeg bus, ride da beeg bus" it was adorable. Then from the big bus, there was quite a walk to the Magic Kingdom. This is when we started to regret not bringing a stroller, so Chris put Tucker onto his shoulders. Well that was it! Tucker decided that was the best way to travel, I can't believe Chris didn't complain once, as Tucker spent most of the next 7 days on Chris's shoulders.

We walked into the Magic Kingdom, then went through the gates to Main Street. I had the guidebook, but I had no idea what to do first! Tucker chose for us, right when you walk onto Main Street, there is a train station that is up a flight of stairs. Tucker screamed and pointed "up da stairs!" and there we went. The train brought us on a tour of the Magic Kingdom, so we learned where Fantasyland, Toontown, Tomorrowland, Frontierland, and Adventureland were.

The train was pretty slow-moving, and it was cold! So I was ready to get off of the train and take Tucker to have some real fun.

When we got off of the train, there was a small parade going down Main Street; I think it was just a high school marching band, but we still had to get out of the way. Tucker was pretty scared of the noise! This was definitely an odd experience for us, as Tucker is not too scared of anything. We got our rented stroller and headed out to find some fun. Tucker was not very enthusiastic about any decorations or stores, so we went to the rides. I read in the Birnbaum guidebook that the Winnie the Pooh ride was a sure-win with kids. So we went into the fastpass line and waited about 5 minutes before hopping on. Well that was one boring ride! It was neat because we basically rode through the Hundred Acre Wood, but as far as thrills, I'd give it a 1 out of 10. This was the first hint that Chris was going to hate my guidebook!

After that dud, I took them to a ride I knew would be a hit-Cinderella's carousel. We walked right on (there was no fast-pass), and Tucker of course loved it!

We waited a few more minutes, then rode it again. Tucker was pretty mad when we took him off of it, but we told him there were even more rides to ride. We went to wait for the Dumbo line, but there was no fast pass, and the line was over an hour long. We walked around for awhile to find an attendant, but couldn't find one. I went and asked someone at a different ride, and they told us to go into the handicapped entrance. I felt kind of weird about that, since people stared at us as none of us had an obvious disability. Even at the handicapped entrance, we waited about 20 minutes for the ride (it ended up being the longest we waited for any ride the whole trip-Dumbo is very popular). Tucker was not too happy about the wait, but we met another family in line who go to Disney all the time. They said that the GAP pass (the pass we had for special needs kids) got us to the beginning of every line, and never hesitate to go in the handicapped entrance. They also said the pass got us to the beginning of every character line, and that Pinnochio's was a nice place for lunch (it was almost noon by this point).

Tucker and I rode Dumbo. I like it, which means it was pretty tame! Tucker was not too excited by it, but he did like when we made Dumbo fly high.

I have to say that I was not at all impressed by the rides at this point! I felt kind of sorry for the kids who had to wait over an hour just to ride Dumbo for 30 seconds. So we were hungry and it was time for Tucker's medicine, so we sat down at Pinnochio's for lunch. Chris went in line for our food, and Tucker and I waited. I fed him and he put his meds into his feeding tube (we had the same 4 meds for each feeding-one pink, one purple, one orange, and one clear-by the end of the week he had the whole routine down, he'd ask for each color!). Then Chris and I ate, and we decided what to do next.

Well it turns out Tucker had his own plans.....have a giant fit! Tucker really is a good kid, but he thrives on routine. When his routine is different, he needs a lot of explanation, such as "we are doing this first, then you will get to....." Well, we didn't know what to tell him because we had no idea what we were doing! It was also naptime, so we attempted to take Tucker on a walk around Cinderella's castle; he just cried and cried. So we packed up and headed to the car. As soon as he was buckled up, he was so happy and said "hotel!"

We went back to the hotel feeling kind of defeated, as the morning at the Magic Kingdom wasn't particularly magic. Chris and Tucker took a nap, and I walked around outside and took some pictures. This is a picture of our villa.

And a picture of the sign in our yard.

While Chris and Tucker slept, I went to the all-you-can-eat Ice Cream shop. It's open from 730am-9pm, and they have sundaes, banana splits, or really any type of ice cream you could want. Tucker didn't appreciate it, but Chris and I did:)

Once Chris and Tucker woke up, Chris was not happy with the idea of trying the Magic Kingdom again. I told him we didn't come to Florida to sit in the hotel! Tucker was going back to Disney World and he was going to like it, haha:) So we headed back, this time we rode the monorail instead of the big bus, and then rode the train from Main Street to Toontown. Here is a picture of the monorail, Tucker said "ride da train!"

Here are Chris and Tucker riding the train again.

We hopped off at Toontown, where Tucker ran around Donald's boat. There was really nothing to do there, it is a water play area during warmer weather. We had to convince Tucker to try Goofy's Barnstormer, which is a kiddie roller coaster. I knew he'd like it, but for some reason he didn't want to leave Donald's boat. We looked for the fast pass area, and there wasn't one, so we headed up the exit ramp. We still felt so wrong!! Chris and I are such rule-followers, we were so uptight with cutting the lines.

Tucker LOVED this ride!! He rode it once with Chris, then got off and rode with me. I did not like it one bit, even for a kiddie coaster it was rough.

After riding it twice, I thought we should try to meet Mickey. I had told Chris we weren't meeting characters in the park, because Mickey and Minnie were coming to GKTW to meet us on Thursday morning. But when we learned that our GAP pass got us to the front of character lines, I thought it would be great to meet Mickey in his tent in Toontown.

We went to Mickey's house, and the line was wrapped around and around...it was crazy! We knew there would be a spot where we could jump in line, but we looked and couldn't find anyone. There was another wish family who was also looking, so all of us went into the exit. The attendant told us we had to go through the front door line, and there would be an attendant there....well there wasn't! So we had to actually go back and push our way through the line, then when we got inside the tent, there was an attendant waiting. We got some pretty mean looks from parents who had waited a very long time. The attendant brought us right in to meet Mickey. The other wish family was there before us, so we let them go first. Mickey and Minnie were in a little room, and Tucker's eyes just lit up when he saw them. Chris and I told him he had to give the other family a chance to see them first, and he waited very patiently. After that family took a bunch of pictures, it was Tucker's turn.

He whispered "mickey" and then "ninnie" like he didn't really believe it was them. He went up to each of them and felt their eyes, noses, and ears. He kept saying their names, it was adorable.

We tried to make him look at the camera for pictures, but he couldn't keep his eyes off of Mickey or Minnie!

This is probably my favorite picture from the whole trip. We said our good-byes and walked out of the tent. At this point, I was bawling crying....one of the main reasons we had come to Disney world was to meet Mickey, and it had gone perfectly! There were a million ways it could have messed up and been a nightmare, yet somehow it was fantastic. Tucker was just in amazement and so happy. I decided at that point that no matter how many lines we got to be in the front of, I wasn't going to feel guilty about it, our little boy deserved every great moment he got:) Chris took Tucker on the barnstormer one more time, then we walked around some more.

We got back on the train and headed to Main Street to rent a stroller for Tucker. We weren't sure how much longer he would last, but we were determined to try at least a little longer.

The decorations for Christmas were amazing.

We decided to head to Tomorrowland. I knew there was a Buzz Lightyear ride and possibly a race car track, so we thought we'd try those out. For the Buzz Lightyear ride, you try to help Buzz defeat Zurg. So you shoot at Zurg the whole time; Tucker liked it, but Chris had to help him! Then at one point it goes dark and Zurg pops out, Tucker covered his eyes and jumped in my lap! It was adorable and kind of a surprise, as Tucker is never scared.

After this ride, Tucker started crying "hotel, hotel" but we decided to stay a little longer. We asked him different things, like "want your music?" "want to ride on daddy's shoulders?" and nothing worked until we told him "want to find a firetruck?" Then he was so happy! I knew there was a firestation on Main Street, and we'd eventually end up back on Main Street, so we hoped that would be good enough! First Tucker and Chris rode the Indy race.

Then we headed over to Fantasyland to ride the Teacups (which I hated again! too much spinning). Tucker loved that ride:)

As we were heading back to Main Street in search of a firetruck, we heard Minnie's voice over the loudspeaker. There was a Christmas show going on in front of Cinderella's castle, so we walked over to get a closer look.

Chris put Tucker on his shoulders, and Tucker's eyes were glued to the characters the whole time. The show was pretty far away, so I didn't think he could even see it. But each time a character came out, he'd whisper their name, "ninnie, mickey, goopy" it was adorable:) The bad part was when Tucker noticed I was watching him, he pushed me to the back! He watched until I was far enough away, then he watched the show again. (As if he wasn't enough of a He-Man Woman-Hater, during this trip he got even more attached to Chris.)

After the show, we went to the Main Street fire station, which did not have a firetruck in it:( It just had firetruck toys and tshirt, but no tshirts were small enough, and Tucker got plenty of firetrucks for Christmas, so we left the store empty-handed.

I took this picture of the entrance to the Magic Kingdom. Mickey Mouse's head was made out of poinsettias. Instead of a firetruck, Tucker got a light-up Mickey balloon, which he spent a long time playing with at the hotel. Chris and I laughed at ourselves, because all we spent on our first day at Disney was $35-$20 on lunch and then $15 on the balloon....we said we were probably the cheapest Disney tourists ever!

So Day Two started out pretty rough, but had several Magical moments. We also learned the trick to keep Tucker interested-tell him that something very fun is coming, i.e. a firetruck or stairs!