Serina Disney Trip Report

Meeting up with 100's of internet friends at WDW
Elysia age 4 goes to Disney with Papa and Nana Soccer
Alexis age 4 goes to Disney with Papa & Grandma
Serina age 6 goes to Disney with Papa and Nana
Haley age 5 goes to Disney with Papa and Nana
Caitlyn age 5 goes to Disney with Grandpa and Grandma
Gavin age 5 goes to Disney with Papa and Grandma

Don and Laurie, with almost-6-year-old granddaughter Serina
(and briefly her daddy Ty)

Serina is very excited this morning, all ready to roll. She was even very excited last night, spending some time with Grandma just before bed on the day's clothes selection (must be a girl thing) and settling on the Capri pants. Our first opportunity to deal with fear is when we get out of the car at the airport and she wants earplugs before she goes in. We convince her it's not loud inside the airport, and have breakfast inside to take her mind off it a bit. She likes watching the planes out the window, and despite her previous fear of escalators is anxious to try out the "moving floor". As we wait for boarding, even though her dad was with her too, she makes Grandma promise that she'll sit right next to her. No problem.

She's quite tense on takeoff, but mostly during the really fast part on the ground before we're airborne. She makes her dad shut his window a few times, for a few minutes each time; I think it's bothering her to see clouds out the window. She doesn't seem to be bothered by anything else though, except one 12-foot drop while descending into Orlando. She very calmly says to Laurie "this is a little scary." I can tell from Laurie's expression that she isn't very fond of it either ;-)

The landing is uneventful, and she is ready to go. While we're waiting for Mears at the airport, Serena says "you said I could sit in the stroller any time I want, how about now?" I thought she might think she was too old for the stroller, clearly not ;-) Laurie checks us in at the All Star Sports and discovers that we're VIP's, a designation that comes with a Princess Atta beanie for Serina and a room all ready at noon. And a room right where we'd requested in our fax, the ground floor second room from the near end of the Touchdown 7 building, right next to the pool and food court. A Very nice start to the trip. Just to take the edge off that though, we try to get a picture of Serina by the big X's and O's in the courtyard and discovers that she's as camera-shy as her mommy. (Make that camera-defiant.) Good thing we hadn't planned on taking many pictures ;-)

I love non-stop flights, it's barely noon and we have our gear stowed and are on our way to Epcot. It's the day after Easter and Blizzard Beach is closed, with the parking lot full and cars parked on the grass all the way around. By the time we get to Innoventions Plaza, we've had three major "cool"s already, one when we see the fountain for the first time, another when we see ostriches made out of bushes, and then another for the Sorcerer Mickey topiary. And then I issued my first "cool" of the trip. The Mission:Space pavilion certainly is an awesome sight through the Innoventions breezeway.

While the crew stops at the Electric Umbrella for lunch, I head back to Test Track to get FastPasses. We knew it would be pretty crowded the first couple days, but at 12:42 all the FPs for the day are gone, the standby line is two hours long, and even the single rider line says 75 minutes. So we'll just enjoy lunch and go with the flow. Serina seems to be as fascinated with simple blackbirds as Alexis was last year, but at least she hasn't wanted to use up her camera on them. She's noticing any number of "awesome" things that we don't often notice any more, like the purple metal banners that spin at the entrance to the breezeway.

After lunch, we're convinced it really is Easter as we see something I haven't seen since my first trip to Epcot, a line outside The Living Seas. After 20 minutes in the line and 40 minutes inside looking at "awesome" fish and sharks and turtles and dolphins, we manage to get up to the World Showcase Plaza just as the character caravan arrives. Serina is thrilled to be first in line to see Minnie and about sixth to see Mickey, and has time for four or five other autographs before they have to go. (RADP note -- There was some discussion in the group a while back about leaving valuables unattended. We were distracted enough while jumping from character to character to leave the stoller unattended with the camera bag open in it, containing 2 radios, a cell phone, audio recorder, batteries, film and tapes. While I certainly don't recommend that, we think you'll find that on those occasions when your head is buried, your odds are better here than in your average coaster park ;-)

After autographs, we go back down to Innoventions Plaza to get the promised ice cream, and make our way down to Spaceship Earth. Serina states that she would like to have ice cream every day. We can make that happen. I discover (thanks to her) that if you sit under Spaceship Earth eating a popsicle and there are clouds in the sky, it looks like the ball is starting to roll.

Spaceship Earth is a little scary at the beginning because it's dark (much darker than we remembered), and it stays scary all the way through, so she isn't going to ride it again. There will be a number of times on this trip that we find we didn't accurately remember the setting of a given attraction, particularly the volume.Â We're keenly aware that Disney colors are vivid, but will be reminded often that Disney sound is LOUD ;-)

It's mid-afternoon now and definitely time for the pool and a nap. We know from past experience that with all the excitement of the impending trip, the kids get to sleep late the night before and wake up early on departure day, and you shouldn't underestimate how tiring the adrenaline of their first plane trip itself is. When we settle in for our nap, Laurie asks Serina if she wakes up grumpy and she says she doesn't. That's not entirely true ;-) We think if she were allowed to wake up by herself it might be okay, but Daddy and Grandma are anxious to get going again and wake her up early, and she is quite miserable until after supper.

We had planned on meeting up with our cm-friend Joe back in Epcot, but even with too short a nap we're too late to make connections. Bummer, but I'm sure we'll hook up later in the week. We arrive back at Innoventions Plaza just after dusk, and Laurie says to Serina "Doesn't the fountain look pretty at night?" Her reply is priceless, she just scans the plaza for about 15 seconds and breathlessly says "Everything looks pretty." On our way back to Illuminations we introduce her to the talking drinking fountain. That's a major hit, one that we'll revisit at every opportunity.

Illuminations turns out to be a certifiable disaster. We're able to find sitting space quite close to the fence near the bathrooms on the way over to Canada. Serina hasn't shown any problem with fireworks in the past, but has always watched them from a good distance away. We describe for her everything she'll see and hear, and tell her she can cover her ears if any of them are too loud. That's not nearly enough. Five minutes in, she is absolutely bawling, burying her head in Daddy's shoulder and sobbing, "I miss my family. I'm never coming to this Florida ever in my life again". We soon realize that she doesn't realize that this is a show and that it's temporary and that it's only here. In her mind, this is what Florida at night does, and she wonders if it's going to be like this at the hotel too. I ask her if she wants to stay or go back, and she somewhat reluctantly says stay. It isn't until several minutes later that I hear her tell her dad that she wants to stay for 6 more nights. She thought when I said "go back" that I meant home :( Doesn't take long at this point for us to pack and go. She asks us to stop momentarily several times on the way out though to turn back and check it out. She's interested, but just can't handle the noise.

She's fine as we leave the park and the noise becomes more distant, though she's clearly very tired. As we're getting ready for bed, I mention to her that she got a lot of autographs today. "No I didn't, that was yesterday." Not to worry honey, we have the same problem keeping track of time at WDW ;-)

Tomorrow, since it's Ty's last day with us, we're going to go against everything we've been taught and go to Magic Kingdom before the other two parks (I think that's secretly okay with Laurie;-)

Wed 4/23, MK

It's a very bright morning today, just three days after Easter. There were only two things on Serina's absolutely-must-do list for today, Splash Mountain and lunch with Pooh and his buddies. Actually, she had insisted on doing those things on Day 1, but we successfully put her off. (Can't be too young to learn delayed gratification, heck, I'm still having trouble waiting until December for our next trip ;-)

Serina answers Mickey's wakeup call, and she isn't overly impressed with it but it's okay. She hops out of bed though with a big smile on her face, gets her Wednesday underwear out of the drawer, and is easily the first of us ready to go. She asks if she can go outside while we get ready, and with no objection she bounces out the door with her camera. It's only a couple minutes though when she comes back in the room, looking a little down, and tosses her camera on the bed. Her dad says "I thought you were going to take pictures," and she replies "Well I was, but I thought you were coming out too." So even though she's only 5, she's already passed Women's Silent Communication 101 (Don ducks;-).

We run into three minor problems this morning, the smallest of which is that Serina doesn't like grownup toothpaste, it's too hot. Laurie exhibits once again her problem solving speed with the little ones, immediately telling her that "Papa doesn't like grownup toothpaste either, use his." Problem solved. At the Magic Kingdom turnstiles we discover that Ty's ticket has been demagnetized and has to be taken inside for replacement. They're very nice and take care of it with no problem, but it takes a while. Kind of shoots down our rope drop plan, but we're guessing the Easter crowd should be way down so we'll be all right. Then while walking up Main Street I realize we forgot to bring the charger for our camcorder. That's fixed with a call to Laurie's sister, who overnights it to us.

Serina doesn't want to ride Dumbo and we can do the Carousel anytime, so we decide to get FastPasses for Pooh and head down to the Speedway. We couldn't get a FP with Laurie's annual pass because it wasn't run through the turnstile out front (she actually ended up going through on Serina's, it was one of those fumbling stroller sort of deals). The CM gives us a 4th FP, but Laurie decides she better go back out front to activate her pass for the day so we'll be able to get FPs with it later.

In the meantime, Serina and her daddy ride the Indy Speedway. When she gets off, I ask her how it went and she simply says "I'm driving you next." There's only a 5-minute line, so now's the time. While up on the platform we see them bringing more cars onto the track, and Serina laughs and says "There's another boss on the track, and he's driving crazy!" (For the entire trip, CMs are referred to as "bosses". Reminds me of when my son was in kindergarten and talked about the "cafeteria teachers".) She barely gripped the wheel at all and the rail kept ripping it out of her hands, so though it was possibly the roughest ride I've ever been on, anywhere, she was quite proud of it.

Back by the TeaCups, we almost got autographs from Alice and the Mad Hatter, but they had to go somewhere else just as we got there. She doesn't want to ride the TeaCups, they look way too fast. While we're waiting for Laurie to get back, there's only a 15-minute wait for Pooh, and Serina's only question is "Is it dark?" (That tells me Snow White is out of the question today, and probably Peter Pan as well ;-) About halfway through the ride though, she's not liking it at all, it IS too dark! This is REALLY going to be a tough trip if POOH is too dark. But halfway through the ride her dad realizes she's still wearing her sunglasses. Doh!!!

Laurie rejoins us just as we get out of Pooh. On her way back from the front of the park, she decided to stop by the Crystal Palace on the off-chance that we could replace the ugly 4:20 PS we got from home for something at lunch like we had wanted, and managed to come back with 11:40. Score!!!

Laurie got her chance to "kiss the goose" this morning. Serina is displaying very good problem-solving skills. She had heard Laurie mention that she doesn't ride the TeaCups because spinning things upset her stomach, so she tells us she'll go on the ride if Grandma goes with her. (She knows that even if Grandma goes, there's certainly not going to be a lot of high-speed spinning ;-) It's a little easier to understand Serina's fear of various things when you put them in the context of our own fears. Laurie's "fear" on this ride is that she'll ruin a hundred peoples' day by barfing all over the ride. But this little girl is working so hard to get past her hurdles that Grandma figures she can tough it out through one of hers too. (Plus she knows that with Serina, there's certainly not going to be a lot of high-speed spinning ;-)

Serina loves it and when they get off she thinks we should all go on it. She even spun it some. Laurie promised she wouldn't hurl on me, and kept her word. We were now inside our FP window for Pooh, so Serina got her second trip and wants to sit in the front with Grandma. It's always exciting for a child to be the one who knows something the adult "doesn't" and be able to explain things as they go along, such as "You're going to love this next room!". Ty's observation -- "She's a pro now!" It also helps that she's not wearing her sunglasses this time ;-)

On our way back to ToonTown, we discover that to Serina, a "little" roller coaster is just as bad as a "big" roller coaster, and she has no interest in either. However, a "kiddy" roller coaster sounds like fun. (Go figure, choose your words carefully.) She rides the Barnstormer with Laurie, and doesn't like it. Laurie asks her why, since "it's not scary, it's not dark, and it's not too fast." Serina replies, "Well, it's a LITTLE fast." Laurie agrees, "but if you go on it again, you already know what it's going to do, it'll be so much fun, wouldn't you like to do it again with your daddy?" "Yeah!!!" So as soon as they get off, she grabs her dad and says "I'm doing it with you now," and off they go.

I like this girl's style, on the train around to Splash Mountain we were preparing her for the possibility that we may have to get a FP and ride it later (another delayed gratification lesson;-). She says "but if there isn't much line, we can do it right away, right?" I ask Laurie what her line threshhold is, and since standby is 5 minutes under her limit of 30, she gets FPs while we get in line and she catches up with us. We must have been right about the Easter crowd being down some, because at 10:30 the FP's are only for 11:20.

Serina doesn't like the "little bumps," they make her "stomach feel a little dizzy." Then after the big drop, she informs us she's "never going on that ride again in my life." I have a feeling we're going to hear that a lot this week ;-) She must be working on it in her head though, because we have to stop on the bridge by the bottom of the ride and watch a dozen logs come down. Laurie sees a lot of similarities between Serina's reaction to Splash and her reaction to Tower of Terror -- it's undeniably fun and she wants very much to be able to enjoy it, she just doesn't like what it does to her body.

We settle in for lunch at the Crystal Palace, and are barely seated when Tigger gets to our table. Just as he takes Serina's autograph book though, the music starts playing for the Hooray parade. Tigger drops the book on the table, grabs his sign and Serina's hand, and leads her (and 20 other little ones) around our half of the restaurant. She looks a little tentative, and we can't really tell if she's enjoying this or not.

When my best buddy Eeyore gets to our table, I ask Serina if we can get a picture with the three of us, but she says no. (She has no problem getting HER picture taken with him, you think it could be ME?!?) Laurie then takes a picture of Eeyore and me and bless her heart, Serina uses her own camera to take a picture of us as well. After lunch the girls are returning from the rest room just as the music comes up for another parade. Without hesitation, Serina asks "Can I go in the parade again?", so we're guessing she liked it.

Ty and I kick back while the girls take a trip back to Splash Mountain to see if they can find Serina's lost fanny pack. (They didn't, and we haven't seen kids' versions sold on site anywhere.) On the way back, she informs Laurie that she's going to try Splash Mountain again. But for now, it's time for a break, and Ty and Serina head back to the hotel pool while Laurie and I head to Space Mountain for FPs we can use when we come back this evening.

Neat things are always happening to us at WDW when we least expect them. While walking back to the hub, we must be looking at something or other that draws us around the castle side of the hub instead of our normal route through the middle of it, and because of that we run into (and have a nice chat with) a woman I work with who is chaperoning a music group. 25 hours on a bus with 7th-12th grade students. Twice. From that perspective, I've got no complaint about working with one overly tentative 5-year-old <g>.

On our way out of the park, we find a match for the first picture on Deb's All Ears contest. I want to make sure there isn't a trick answer, so I ask the CM if this is the only place that uniform is worn. She looks like she's going to smack me up side the head, and informs me that this "COSTUME" is only used here, and since she looks a little like my mom I have no thoughts of sassing her ;-)

In the meantime, Serina has a great time in both pools with Daddy, especially trying to catch Goofy's "pitches" in the baseball pool.Â After she has a 2-hour nap (and Papa 3 hours;-), we head back to the Magic Kingdom at 7.Â Our plan is to do Buzz first, but as we walk up we see the standby time go from 90 to 120.Â The line doubles down and back the side of the building twice, and back across the plaza toward Space Mountain.Â So much for the light post-Easter crowd.

So we see the Carousel of Progress instead.Â That's the plus side of going when it's "busy", we get to see our old (now "seasonal") favorites.Â Serina enjoys it a lot, once she's convinced in the first scene that the man and dog are "nailed to the floor."

I was going to people-watch with Serina while Ty and Laurie went on Space Mountain with the FastPasses, but Ty wants to do something with Serina since he's leaving tomorrow morning, so we ride the TTA instead. With three dark tunnels, add that to the list of things we aren't ever doing again ;-) As soon as we're off, she wants to ride the Speedway again, because she hasn't driven Grandma yet. She thoughtfully warns Laurie that it's a very bumpy ride. My back can attest to that. Now Laurie's can too.

We have supper at the Pinocchio Haus, at our favorite table overlooking Small World. The only question Serina has initially concerns water depth. She ultimately decides she doesn't think she'll like it, but we figure out later that from above, the entrance to the first room looks like a dark tunnel.

It's time for SpectroMagic now, and Laurie has gone down to the Emporium since that's the only place in the park you can still buy a sweatshirt in April. Ty and I figure the side of the castle will be just the right place to watch SpectroMagic. Okay, so it's a smoking area, but it turns out the volume is just right from back here. Serina is fascinated by it. When Laurie gets back, Serina asks her if the parade is going to come up by us. "No, because we're on the sidewalk and the parade is on the street." "Well why can't we be down by the street." "We can, but the music is much louder down there." That satisfies her and she doesn't indicate any desire to go down, but she does later tell us that she wants to get close for the second parade.

By the time the parade is over it's 9:30, we know we only have time for one walk-on ride if we're going to get down to the Plaza Pavilion in time to watch Tinkerbell. We ride Small World, and every time we come around a corner and she can see the "tunnel" into the next room, she wants to know if it's going to be dark. She really likes the ride though, especially some of the animals. She is giggling in several places, and excitedly points out to her dad the girl that looks just like Lilo.

She's been constantly measuring, wondering if Elysia or Alexis rode this ride, how many times they rode that one, who got this or that autograph. We weren't quite sure whether to play that up or down, but she was certainly excited to discover that she's the only one to have been in Tigger's parade. Somewhere on Small World, she asked us "Has anybody I know ridden this?" We informed her that both of the other girls had, and she said "No, I mean adults."We told her all three of us had, plus her mom, and that was all she wanted to know. We have no idea what prompted the question or what the answer meant to her.

We're headed down to the Plaza Pavilion now, and it occurs to me that we had thought (pre-trip) she might have balked at using the stroller very much, being almost 6 and all. No worries, she's barely been out of it. That's a great deal for all of us, because it's much less tiring for her this way. But you know you're starting to really become a princess when you start announcing to all three adults around you when it can be their turn to push.

We get to our chosen spot just as the castle goes dark. The changing colors on the castle are "cool." Serina is sitting on a divider wall with me behind her, holding her. When I ask her if she wants her dad to come hold her, she says "No, you can." That's good news, because I've been a little worried about how she'll do when Daddy leaves tomorrow. She loves Tink, and only has her ears covered for about half the fireworks. I can feel her getting tense, but I get her guessing at whose favorite color will be next and she calms quite a bit. Overall, she enjoyed it a lot.

She had wanted to ride Pooh again, and we had told her that she could, after the fireworks. But now Laurie asks her if she wants to go back to the hotel and she's more than ready. She's asked a few times this evening if we could see different things from the hotel, so we think she was telling us she was tired.

We're anxious to see how Daddy's departure will go early tomorrow morning, and we're going to sleep in a bit (if possible) and go to a water park.

Thur 4/24, Typhoon Lagoon & MGM

Ty had to leave around 6am this morning to catch his flight home. It had to be quite an expense for him to miss two days work and fly down for just a brief stay. But he had thought it might be the only way Serina would dare come, and he didn't want her to miss her turn. He woke her up to give her a kiss and hug goodbye, and she said her goodbyes and went right back to sleep. We had wondered if she would have a hard time after, but she wakes up with us smiling and bubbly, playing on the X's and O's in the courtyard for the first time. We're not sure she could have even made the trip either if it hadn't been for him coming, but she knew he could only be here two days and she knows her way around a bit now, and knows we're not going to "make" her do anything. We think that at this point she feels like it's "her" trip and she's comfortable with it.

It's a fairly casual morning, and when we get to Typhoon Lagoon we manage to find three chairs at the edge of the sun and shade, back around by the kid section. (Laurie needs sun, I need shade;-) If you're going to go to the water park at 10:00, there's no use spending much time looking for chairs in the front of the park or near the walkways, might as well head right to the back to begin with. The kid section here isn't nearly as good as at Blizzard Beach, it's mostly 10-year-olds shooting water cannons at everyone, not much fun for the little ones.

Serina does the water slide at the edge of the wave pool twice, and then is ready for the wave pool itself (she's done the one at Darien Lake and loved it). She's just started working on learning to swim with her dad, who describes her as a "rock," but she loves the water. She insists on going out to where the water is just below her chin, and then I carry her when the wave hits us. We turn our back to the wave at the last minute, then it goes over both our heads and carries us toward the shore and we giggle and laugh and then go do it again. She has less fear of the water than I do ;-) After more than an hour and countless waves, we go across the bridge to the kid's section and she does one water slide (in slow motion, sitting up) and one tube rides and then is ready to do the lazy river. So are we.

We decide to have a snack first though, and get to see her sense of humor for the first time. I notice the girls both have earrings (aren't you supposed to remove jewelry when swimming?<g>), and I comment "Hey, am I the only one here without earrings?" She instantly says "Yep", and then after a slight pause adds with a smile "that I know." It's a little crowded, so it takes a while for us to commandeer inner tubes, regular adult for Laurie and me and the child-size with the bottom for Serina. She walks for the first part and soon discovers that some places she can stand up in the water and some places it's a couple inches too deep. We've been floating on the tubes for a while when she absolutely amazes me by suddenly saying "I want to see if I can stand up here." Without waiting for a response, she just jumps off the tube, water goes over her head, she jumps back up and grabs my tube, giggles, and says "Nope!"

We have fun steering around the cold water falling and the house sneezing. Laurie doesn't want to take another trip around, but Serina and I do, so we leave Grandma with some quiet time in the sun. On our second circuit, when we get to the waterfalls, I put her in my tube with me and we use her tube with the bottom for an umbrella. She thinks that is just the coolest thing. (It was cool for me too, that little tube covers all of her but substantially less than all of me ;-)

Now we're back at our seats trying to decide what to do next, I'm thinking Animal Kingdom, Serina is thinking wave pool. Laurie tells her she'll take her to the wave pool if she can stand in the sun while Serina plays, but only if Serina agrees not to go in any deeper than her belly. In time-honored tradition, Serina immediately begins negotiating the depth higher and they end up with the limit being a flower up by her breastbone.

When I return from a wander, the girls are back and Serina is filling a large bucket with sand. A 4-year-old from Britain had owned it but couldn't take it home with him, so he had passed it on to Serina when his family was leaving. And now the three of us are enjoying very pleasant pasttimes, Laurie sitting back in the chair with her face up into the sun, Serina filling the bucket with cool sand, and me sitting in the shade people-watching. If you ever get to the point where you're feeling that your body doesn't look that great, I suggest going to a family water park and just checking out the scenery. Trust me, you don't look so bad ;-) And what is it with middle-aged British men and Speedos???

On the bus back to the All Stars we meet a couple of the 16- or 17-year-olds from the band my co-worker is chaperoning. Their duties are over, and though their return bus trip isn't until tomorrow night, they're more than ready to head home now. (Made me think of the Old Troll.) They echoed the sentiments our town's kids had shared when they went down last year -- it's unbelievably hot and uncomfortable backstage, but the performance was okay.

Serina is trying very hard not to fall asleep on the bus, closing her eyes a few times but staying awake. She must be tired because when we get to the Food Court and ask her to pick a table, instead of finding a window seat halfway down the room like she has been, she simply turns to the one closest to the cashier and says "there's one right here". It's a little too chilly sitting inside the food court though, what with wet hair and minor shoulder burns, so we find a table outside in the shade. We haven't used the stroller this morning and her feet are very tired. She wonders if one of us can go back to the room and get it so she can ride back to the room. No, princess, you're on your own for this last 40 yards ;-)

Speaking of trusting people at Disney (weren't we?), when we get back in our room we find a group of towel swans on one bed and an arrangement of Serina's characters watching tv on the other. There's a note on the bed next to Mickey that says "Mickey says you dropped this on the floor, so he picked it up to give to you." In his hand, folded many times lengthwise, is the $100 bill that Serina's daddy had given her last night. Don't know about you, but that was a jaw-dropper for us.

I'm laying on my stomach across the end of the bed waiting for my turn in the shower, when Serina comes out of the bathroom and utters those words every 40-something guy longs to hear -- "Grandma, look how red the top of Papa's head is!!" I thought I had done a good job applying the Water Babies spf45 to my face and head. Our working theory now is that my inept application turned it into spf 4.5.

After our naps, we get to MGM at about 4:40, in plenty of time for the parade. We had told Serina that if the parade got too loud we could leave, being clear that we meant leave the parade, not the park, or Florida ;-) We stake out a spot for the stroller at the end of a bench near the far end of Hollywood Blvd. and Serina takes Laurie across the street to get some sunglasses (oddly there are none in any of the shops on the right side of the street where we are). She comes back with her "cool" sunglasses and parks herself in the stroller, with Laurie a bit off to her side with the videocam and me six feet behind, sharing the storefront wall with a 90-year-old Asian couple. She seems to enjoy the parade, laying back and casually tapping her toe and hand as it passes. Until she sees Lilo and Stitch. Then she's up like a shot, climbing over a guy in front of her to get in position to take her picture. ("No, really sir, we're not part of THAT stroller brigade, this is very much unlike us sir.")

After the parade, we manage to just catch the last showing of the day at Playhouse Disney. We end up sitting near the back, and she makes it clear that she's not going up front. No problem. She enjoys the show, and afterwards we ask her if she watches all those shows at home. She informs us that she only always watches Bear in the Big Blue House, because her sisters "make" her.

At the end of Mickey Avenue, she spends some time trying to talk herself into walking into the spray from the giant Coke bottle, but then decides she wants to go on a ride. So we're going to try Star Tours. She understands the ride completely from previous vidoes, and can describe the whole thing, but isn't quite sure she wants to do it. After we've made our way past the playground and up around Ellen's bookstore, she wonders if we're getting close. As we walk around the next corner I say "Yes, I can see it." She says "Well I can't, cause I don't know what it looks like."

She tries so hard to talk herself into riding, including getting into the seat on the shuttle, but at the last minute before they shut the doors she decides she can't do it. Grandma suggests that I ride while they wait in the hall, so she can get an idea of how short the rides actually are. I'm barely off the ride when she asks "are there any more RIDES in this park?" (Okay guys, that's the downside of telling her Disney World is just like Six Flags ;-)

Since it's 6:25 and Magic Kingdom is open until midnight, I say "Hey Laurie, would it be all right if after we see the Muppet movie we go to another park?" Serina looks at me in disbelief and says "That's what I was trying to tell her while you were on the ride!"

I talk the girls into stopping with me while I have a smoke on the way down to Muppet 3D and have just barely finished it when Serina looks up at me and says "How LONG is that cigarette going to take???" Laurie bails me out by saying through a big grin "I was just thinking the SAME thing!!" Thanks, hon.

We watch the Muppet movie and hear, for the first time this trip, absolute belly laughs, about half a dozen times. She has a very deep voice for a 5-year-old, and it really takes us by surprise. We had told her what the movie looks like with and without the glasses, so she has them down on her nose or up on her forehead about half the time. She loves it.

She still wants to go on a "ride" though, so we figure this might be a good time to introduce her to the monorail. We take the bus from MGM to the Comtemporary, and on our way into the hotel she says, "There's a monorail, we're not riding on THAT are we?" I say "That's how we get to the rides" and she says "But it goes too fast." I say "It's not any faster than a bus" and she says "But it runs way up in the air." We have to take the elevator up to the monorail platform and discover that she doesn't like elevators either. Now we're thinking that maybe the only elevator she's ever been on has been the bumpy ride on the Hydrolators at the Living Seas, so it's not too hard to talk her through that portion of the journey.

When Monorail Orange pulls into the station, she still isn't ready to get on it, until I remind her again "it's just like a bus." Somewhat disgusted, she replies "Well then why don't we just call it a bus." So its "Bus Orange" for our short journey around the lagoon, and her only brief problem is when we're cruising through the treetops around the Polynesian. After we get off and head down the ramp at MK, I ask her if she likes Bus Orange and she tells me "we can call it Monorail Orange now." I'll take that as a yes.

We let her pick the "rides", which put us on Small World and then the Teacups. Serina did some spinning but got it going a little too fast for her liking and wanted me to slow it down. But put two adults on one side of those cars and NOT spinning is a quite a trick;-)

At 9:00 we make our way down through Tomorrowland with the intention of walking through the Main St. shops and catching SpectroMagic from Tony's front porch. Timekeeper is open though, which surprises us since we thought that and Carousel of Progress were only going to be open through Tuesday, so I figure I better see it again while I still can. Laurie doesn't care for it though, so she and Serina head for Tony's. I enjoy the show as much as I did the first time, kind of sad that only 55 other people enjoyed it with me :( I think what they need to do here is create an artificial demand by installing FastPass, like they did with Peter Pan ;-)

After the show, I get a call on the radio from Laurie, who is now outside the park by the exit. Turns out the parade was far too loud for Serina up close. By the time I get out there, she's sound asleep. That probably has a lot to do with it being too loud. She does wake up long enough to climb on the bus and find us a seat, but immediately falls asleep again. We have to carry her off the bus and wheel her to the room, where she immediately starts crying uncontrollably. She's too tired and she wants her mommy and she wants her daddy. We call her mom for her, but she's so tired and sobbing that she can't even talk, so we finally just get her settled down and she goes to sleep.

Once again, we've taken our "day off" and packed it a little too full ;-) Must remember to sleep in tomorrow, that shouldn't hurt us too much at Animal Kingdom.

Â Fri 4/25, Animal Kingdom

When we get up this morning Serina is all happy and bouncy, wonderful to confirm that last night's trauma was just a case of being overly tired. She even reads a whole Sesame Street book by herself while we have our showers. I find myself thinking of the Old Troll again at breakfast this morning, as we sit next to a table full of bored teenagers playing table hockey with a box of Frosted Flakes.

Laurie describes us as "regular tourists" again today, we're just finishing breakfast and are heading off to Animal Kingdom at almost 10:00. Looks to me like this will be the "day off" we intended to take yesterday. After last night's episode, a 6:00 park closing is probably just about what we need.

We just miss getting Rafiki's autograph on the way in the park, but he had to go somewhere. We stop to look at a few animals on the way in, spending the most time with the flamingos, which she's been talking about since before we came. Just past the Oasis, the girls get in line for pictures with Lilo & Stitch. Serina's all for it until she sees Stitch picking on everyone (sometimes literally), and then she wants to bail. We finally get the picture when Laurie agrees that she'll stand on Stitch's side and Serina can stand by Lilo.

It's different for us touring with a girl that's in school already, kind of neat when she can point to the sign on the bridge and tell us "that says Africa." Our plan is to get FastPasses for the safari and walk through the Mahatmagandi Jungle Trek, or whatever it's called now. The park seems crowded today, but then Animal Kingdom always seems more crowded than it really is because all the walks are narrow and there isn't a lot of open space on your sides. It can't be too crowded, because at 10:55 the standby line for the safari is 20 minutes. Heck, the line for the Mickey bars is 25.

We decide to get the FPs anyway and get in the ice cream line. By the time we're finished, the girl is so desperate for a "ride" that we decide to postpone the Trek and take the train to conservation station. There isn't too much on the path up there that interests her, but we have to sit outside for a bit when we get there because there's a garbage can walking around talking to people, saying things like "Thanks, I haven't had anything to eat all day!"

She's objecting to all the walking we have to do inside, because her toe hurts. But we let her pick the path, which takes us fairly quickly to the animal hospital. Some kind of sheep had a bloody nose this morning, and he made it here because it wouldn't stop bleeding. A guide is telling us everything about the doctors and the process, and it seems that Serina is as interested as we are. But after a few minutes she looks up at us and says "would we be able to walk more now and see something else?" Sure, you're driving. All kinds of interesting lizards, and snakes, and eggs. As a bonus, we get autographs from Stanley and Rafiki.

We get outside to the Affection Section and there's just no way she's going in there to pet those stinky animals, so we'll head back to the safari. Amazing how a few minutes ago her toe hurt too much to walk, but she can now run to beat us to the train.

On the way to the Safari, it's twenty questions again -- "Is it a ride? Are we going to get wet? Does it go fast? Is it bumpy? Is it dark?" She ends up enjoying it, but it's just a big zoo to her. In fact the elephants here aren't any big deal at all, "at the zoo they throw sand at each other." Well this is Florida, honey, these are (re)tired elephants.

The thing that impresses her most about the safari becomes clear after our driver tells us what some animal or other does in the wild. "The bus driver knows about animals?!!?" That's another big difference between Serina and the preschoolers; she has a bus driver every day. (Later in the trip she would explain to us the differences between the park bus and a "real" bus -- a real bus is like an airplane, it has three seats on each side, and it has seat belts that are gray, red, and black. And it should be clear by now that real bus drivers don't know anything about animals either.)

On our way down from the safari to the PizzaFari, the question is "Am I getting more stuff than the other girls?", which draws us into a discussion of how everybody gets more of something but it all adds up to about the same. Laurie notes how nice and cool it is when we get inside the restaurant, and Serina thinks that what we need is one of those fan spray bottles. It's a very hot day, why not. Neither of the other two girls had ever asked for one, but we don't think it's a good idea to tell her that, there's all kinds of expensive stuff here that the others didn't get ;-)

Serina and I pick a table while Laurie goes to get our lunch. While we're waiting, I mention that I was impressed that she could spell Africa. She gives me kind of a puzzled look and says "I can't spell it, I can only read it." Okay, I hadn't thought about it, but those ARE two different things. She's looking a bit bored and says "too bad we don't have a pencil and paper." So after I supply her with her autograph pen and a napkin, I discover her plan is some high-spiritied tic-tac-toe action. Another first for me at Disney.

As we're finishing our lunch, she looks wistfully out into the courtyard and says "Grandma, don't you wish the Pooh ride was right outside this window?" We've wished that many times about something or other, especially at Animal Kingdom. As we leave the building, we're drawn across the street to look at some very big blue fish and take some pictures. Around the corner, Laurie doesn't recognize the animals on the island, but Serina does -- "they're otters, just like Hip and Hop!"

At Camp Minnie-Mickey, the only character we need to see is Goofy, since we "have" all the others. Surprisingly, Serina walks right up to him with pen and book in hand without any assistance, and Goofy scares ME ;-) It's a hot line for the Lion King show, but fortunately not too long. (Plus we've got the spray bottle fan going for us.) We get good seats right by the exit, in case we have to leave early. And we do, right after the tumble monkeys. It's WAY too loud. And we can't deny it, Disney doesn't do low volume, and this show may be the loudest we've seen.

We have kind of a neat thing happen at Flights of Wonder, we end up sitting right next to where the girl stands who has the big bird fly up to her. Serina's eyes are very wide when the bird comes at us, but it rates a "cool" afterward. She wants a ride now though, and she's trying to think of the rides we were telling her about this morning. She finally decides on the rabbit ride. Laurie and I look at each other and have absolutely no clue what the rabbit ride might be. "You know, the one that gets you all wet, the rabbit ride." Ohhhh, Cally River Rabbits!!

We really don't want to wait 45 minutes now for the rabbit ride, even with a spray bottle, so we're heading over to Dino Land. Serina says she wants to ride Primeval Whirl, but she's about 4" short. She's really bummed that Lexi got to ride it and she can't, but brightens noticeably when we tell her that Lexi was too short also. She does like the Triceratops Spin though. She and Laurie sit in the back so she can control elevation (if 4 feet qualifies as "elevation"). Toward the end of the ride, I push the "tip" button up front a couple times just to see what it will do. It doesn't seem to me that it does much at all, but she lets me know with certainty afterwards that I was NOT supposed to be playing with that.

She loves the Boneyard, but is a bit nervous about the tunnel slides because you can't see the bottom from the top. That shoots our hope of sitting at the bottom and resting our feet, and I end up doing some climbing in the Boneyard as well. "Papa, let's check out this path!!" Sure, why not. Fortunately, before I have to travel too many miles, it starts to rain and we take shelter under the platform. The rain doesn't last long, but it looks very dark in the distance and is probably a good time to leave.

Outside the park gate we run into Wendell, and I grab Serina's book and pen for her. As she and I are posing for our picture, Laurie's just standing there looking at me, saying "the camera's in the bag on your back." There's a line now, so we "pretend" we're posing for a picture and then get out of the way. But I'm forgetting that we can't leave it at that, because we're going to put each character's picture in her book on the page facing their autograph. So after we walk away, I pose Serina in the stroller about 20 feet from the bear and sit down on the ground and get their picture "together", sort of like Wendell was the castle or the golf ball ;-)

We get back to the hotel and send Serina immediately to the showers, she's wearing her ice cream again as she has every day. Laurie decides that since she has a headache anyway, she'll do a load of laundry while Serina and I go to the pool. Serina swims, I don't, because the storm has dropped the temperature about 20 degrees and it's very windy and I'm freezing. She's in the water saying "come on in, it's warm,", but there's a considerable difference between kid-warm and adult-warm. She goes through several cycles of swimming for 5 or 10 minutes, climbing out and running over to my chair for a swallow of her hot chocolate, then jumping back into the pool. She's definitely a princess now, when I tell her we're ready to go after about 45 minutes she says "Bring me a towel." And I do.

She's very bubbly and chatty during supper; life is good when you're not tired ;-) At one point, as Laurie is cutting her spaghetti, Serina begins gently rubbing Laurie's back as she's talking to me. Laurie melts. A little bonding is a wonderful thing.

She asks us if we liked that ride where the seat moves around and there's a wheel in the center. The Tea Cups? She says not, but we can't think of any other ride where the seat moves around. She says that in the center of the wheel it says "of". I don't remember looking closely at the TeaCups wheel, but there could be something on there. We ask her if she can remember the ride's name, but she can only tell us that the last word starts with a P. We ask her what park we were in. She doesn't know, but thinks it was on Day 2. That was Magic Kingdom day, and I'm still racking my brain to come up with something fitting that description when Laurie says "Carousel of Progress?" Yeah, that's it. Not how I would have described it, but then I didn't see it when I was 5. The seat DOES move around, and (in the first and last scenes) there's a wheel in the center of the stage, that has "of" in the middle. Yes, honey, we did like that ride very much, and you have a pretty good picture of it in your head.

It starts raining really hard during dinner, and we ask a security guard on our way out if it has let up any. He tells us they said it would be raining hard for 8 or 9 hours. Can't think of a better time at Disney for an all day rain than at night;-)

After the exciting 40-yard rain dash from the end of the food court to our room, Serina calls her daddy on the cell phone and he can't believe that she didn't have a nap today. She's all energy walking from one end of the room to the other as she talks. We get her dressed for bed and have our nightly snack. She's about halfway through her grapes when she rolls over, cuddles up with Pooh and Atta, and she's out like a light. Much better end than last night.

We should be well-rested in the morning for an early trip to MGM.

Sat. 4/26, MGM & Epcot

It doesn't seem like it's our 5th day here already, but then it seems like we've been here two weeks. We skip breakfast in the room so we can enjoy our tradition of hitting the Starring Rolls Bakery as soon as we get to MGM. There are only three things we planned to see here that we haven't yet, and then we'll head over to Epcot for a Kids Stop tour.

I'm very disappointed when we get to the bakery that they don't have my favorite, the bear claws. Whose idea was this? (Next I suppose you're going to tell me there's no more character meal at Hollywood & Vine!) All I see are 3 kinds of cool whip dessert, 2 kinds of cookie, 3 different muffins, and 41 varieties of bagel. Oy. Laurie doesn't realize they have her Neapolitan until after our tray is already loaded, so she decides she'll stop back and get one on the way out. Beauty and the Beast was on our list, but the first show isn't until 12:15 and Serina isn't too interested anyway, so we'll probably end up skipping that.

So our first stop, as usual, is the Little Mermaid. We get seats right next to the exit, with the understanding that we can leave anytime she needs to. We also let her know though that we both really LOVE this show;-) We work out a three-step system with her, if it's too loud you cover your ears.Â If it's still too loud, we'll cover your ears too. If it's still too loud, we'll leave. We've narrowed her sound problems down to very deep sounds (thunder-like) and high-pitched sounds. (The whistle on the Magic Kingdom train doesn't bother her at all, but the much quieter bell bothers her a great deal. She can't stand the swings on the playground at home because they squeak, and wind chimes bother her as well.) I think the deep sounds bother most kids some, because you can actually feel them in your chest.

The only problem she has is during Ursula's appearance, she covers her ears and asks Grandma to cover her eyes and "tell me when it's over". There have been a number of minor changes in the show, particularly in the lighting. I think I like the original a little better, but it's not different enough to think of it as a different version. She tells us she liked everything except Ursula.

There are no characters out by the silver trailers on our way down to the Muppet movie. We point out Goofy to her further on, and she informs us that she already has him, and tells us where and on what day (which she could do with most of the characters she met). We make a minor detour and experience another first for us, spending some time in the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground. She likes this a lot, and even makes a couple attempts at climbing the spider webs. I think if the ropes hadn't been slippery from the rain last night she would have stuck with it and had a ball.

We get just inside the Muppet entrance and through the turnstiles when Serina realizes she has to go to the bathroom. Fortunately, it's just across the plaza. I wait inside, but just after they leave the CM puts the rope up and closes off the turnstiles. We make a bit of eye contact and she tells me to let her know when my family returns and she'll let them in. When they get back, Laurie is huffing and puffing and saying "Man, that girl can run FAST!!"

We experience yet another first here, being the last ones into the theater and ending up sitting on the far left. Serina picks our row, down in the front half. (We've always been in the back right, so we can get in a row first and out ahead of the crowd afterwards.) The other day she had the glasses off a little more than on, today that's reversed.

As we're exiting after the show, we're about halfway across the theater when I hear the hostess saying "Please pick any row and move about 3/4 of the way...", and it dawns on me that the next audience is entering behind us. Since we were the last ones in our row, I ask Serina "you want to watch it again right now?" "Sure!" So we stop on the right side of the theater and watch it again. (Now where did I put that Ride Hog t-shirt?) This time, she only tips the glasses up about three times, very briefly, for the explosions. There are about four other times where I see her reach for them, but not move them. We're still hearing the belly laughs too, this is clearly #1.

We really do leave the theater this time, and spot Woody and Buzz at Al's Toy Barn. On the way over to see them, we see Jesse over on the side with no line, so we end up meeting all three.

Now Serina's ready for a RIDE, so we're going to take a boat ride to Epcot. The MGM exit is quite busy as we're leaving, and the CM there reaches down to stamp Serina's left hand. She immediately jerks it back and puts her right hand out, giving him a look that says "I've got four days worth of hand stamps on my RIGHT hand, what are you, new here?"

We have to wait a bit for the boat to Epcot and tell Serina she can run around a little if she wants. It's like she was shot out of a gun. Laurie and I spend the time trying to decide if the music we're hearing in the background was the theme song to The Big Valley, and eventually get three other couples there to play the game as well. One of the couples is here with a Student Council from Louisiana. Her daughter hasn't been involved for three years but she had always done such a great job organizing all their logistics that they keep inviting her along to "help" every year. Nice work if you can get it.

We get a phone call from our CM-friend Joe while we're on the boat, looking to hook up some time this afternoon, so we'll meet him after our lunch in Canada. (Can't have a trip without that cheese soup and bread sticks;-) While we're waiting in the restaurant, Laurie and Serina pass the time playing a game on the kids' menu where you take turns connecting dots two at a time to close in and claim squares. While Serina can read most of the directions, she doesn't really get the concept of the game. Finally, in a bit of frustration, she tells Laurie "I'm just a little kid, sometimes I don't understand things." Hey honey, I figure if you understand that you don't understand, you're way ahead of several adults I know;-)

On our way out of Le Cellier, a 10-year-old boy is sitting on a bench outside eating some McDonalds takeout. A CM comes out of the restaurant and asks him if his parents are inside. They are, and she tells him "Well it's not like the money isn't all going the same place, come on in!"

We meet up with Joe right outside Canada. We were planning on walking over to China to see the acrobats, but the character bus arrives at Showcase Plaza just as we do. Serina gets every autograph she missed here the other day, very efficiently too, since she did a quick survey and gave us the list of what ones she still needed. Laurie and I have a very enjoyable (but far too short) chat with Joe while Serina is making her rounds. I think he's been scared of getting trapped in our Grandbabies adventures ever since last year when he spent a half hour in the Living Seas with Lexi, far surpassing his previous record there ;-)

Since Serina is setting our schedule, she wants to go over to Test Track and at least see if she's tall enough to ride. Unfortunately, TT has been down all day, don't know if the 9 hours of rain last night is a factor or not. We do get to see a great big grin though when she learns that she is indeed tall enough to ride. (We're not sure she actually WANTS to ride, but she very definitely wants to be big enough).

She's determined to go on a ride though, so we're going to go down to Energy and attempt to convince her later that it was a "ride". Once again, we've lied horribly to the poor girl. We had told her there weren't any really loud parts on Ellen's Energy Adventure, because we really didn't remember any. Of course neither of us remembered that part of the movie involves the "Big Bang". It shouldn't take a rocket scientist (or even Bill Nye) to figure that one might have involved some volume. At one point she tells Laurie "you guys can come on this some time when I'm not with you."

We think it's probably too late to do the Kid Stop tour, but when we ask her in Mexico if she wants to check out the mask-making station, she's off like a shot down the ramp. She checks it all out and has no interest though, so we're mission-free on our way around to America. (Actually, we should probably go at least as far as Japan, her clothes are completely clean for the first afternoon this week, so I think she really needs some rainbow Kaki-Gori.)

We all enjoy American Vibe, and she gives a great deal of thought to whether or not she wants to see the American Adventure as well. We can't think of any way we might convince her it's a ride, so she decides she wants to go on that yellow-climbing-net-thingie down by Germany or wherever. Laurie takes her down there while I stay for the show. This turns out to be another first for me too. I get into the theater a bit late and decide to walk down around the front to get a seat over by the exit. On my way around, I see two women sitting in the very middle of the front row and make a comment to them about good seats. They suggest that if I've seen the show before but haven't from down here, I should join them, so I do. You can see unbelievable detail in the sets from here that you just don't pick up watching the show from farther back. I'll definitely have to get Laurie down here next time.

After the show, the girls meet me outside just as the Fyfe and drum corps comes out. This turns out to be one of Serina's favorite things, we think at least partly because she knows the songs, and she ends up taking three or four pictures. Our next stop is the living statues at their new home in Italy. Serina enjoys the show, but has no desire to have her picture taken or to take one either.

We spend some time checking out the railroad in Germany. Since our last trip, they've added a number of control buttons around the village, which operate the Ferris wheel, maypole, sawmill, and other machinery, as well as some sounds. But she gets to one that doesn't do what it's supposed to, and we're gone. When we go past the yellow-climbing-net-thingie, there's quite a discrepancy between Serina's version and Laurie's version of how high up in the thing she had climbed;-)

We decide we're all too tired to wait a half hour for the Chinese acrobats, so we're going to go to Imagination and the Land and be done. But we have to spend several minutes on the way back to Future World with the talking drinking fountain.

Serina likes the Imagination ride, and immediately wants to go again. She's quite proud of herself that she saw the "smell" coming and had her nose plugged when we didn't. We had ridden in the 3rd car and she very much wants to ride Car #1 on our second trip. We tell her we can't because there are already people lined up there when we come in, but she says "well we can just wait for the next train, can't we?" Absolutely, done it before, usually on coasters ;-)

When we get back outside, she wants to look at the upside down waterfalls and see if they will get her wet. She's a bit disappointed when we just gets a very little bit of spray. I want to show her my favorite thing in Epcot, so we go up the hill to the Leaping Fountains. She likes those quite a bit. She watches for a minute and decides it would be really cool to position herself so that she could see one of them jump over her head. So she carefully stands near one of the pits and waits. But for some reason, the east wind trades places with the west wind and the one behind her comes up a good foot short and gets her right square in the back of the head. She's drenched. You have your choice of how to react to a thing like that, and she did us proud, looking up with a big laugh and saying "I did NOT see THAT one!!!"

We catch the last ride at Living with the Land and she is absolutely fascinated by the plants, studying each one carefully and making comments on most. We wander over to Innoventions to get a calendar picture at the Xerox booth (that isn't there any more). We try to e-mail a picture home, but camera-defiant Serina has no intention of cooperating with that, so we end up sending out greetings from Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Grumpy. She lights up though when we run across some kids' computer kiosks where you put scenes in order to make a movie, or play big-little-middle.

After supper back at the All Star food court, Serina wants to play on the X's and O's again, looks like this will be our first non-swimming day (unless you count the leaping fountains). While playing there, she notices something we never have in several stays in the Touchdown buildings -- our building doesn't have steps and the other one has two steps going up to it. Imagine that.

And then I get treated to my biggest laugh of the trip. The beds in the room are nearly high enough to be semi-bunks, and we've joked about this in the past with Laurie being sort of a short woman. While I'm out having a smoke and Laurie's in the bathroom getting ready for bed, Serina hides in the room. (We made a big deal on Day 1 about how we allow absolutely NO hiding anywhere at Disney World, except inside the room, so we make sure we play along as often as she wants.) Laurie had guessed fairly quickly and correctly that Serina was under her bed, and she thought she'd trick her by getting up on the bed and then leaning over the end of it and seeing her that way. So when I come back in the room, I find poor Laurie, bottom half up on the high bed, hands on the floor pushup style, arms not long enough to lift herself back onto the bed, afraid she'd hurt her shoulder rolling down off, halfway between a laugh and a cry, saying "GET ME UP!!!!" I'll tell you right now, a lesser man would have stopped to get the camera.

We covered a lot of ground today, so we're thinking we'll kick back at Blizzard Beach tomorrow and then see the things we haven't seen yet at the Magic Kingdom. Man, this is fun.

Sun. 4/27, MK & Blizzard Beach

Our original plan for today was to go to Blizzard Beach this morning and Magic Kingdom afterward, but when we realized MK is only open until 7 and we'll only spend a couple hours at the Beach, we decided to switch it up. (That makes little sense to me now, but it made perfect sense to us at the time.)

When I get out of the shower, Serina is on the cell phone with her sisters. Buying minutes by the hundred sure has changed life, hasn't it. The downside is that she's become a teenager at 5, laying on the bed with her feet up on the headboard while she talks. On our 6th day here, she "owns" Disney World now, knows where everything is, every bus stop. You can see that she feels at home now, pigtails bobbing, giggling, and leading us to the Magic Kingdom bus stop.

Our first stop is the Indy Speedway, since Grandma hasn't had a ride with Serina yet. If you're a smoker waiting for someone to get off the Speedway, you're bound to hear the traffic report, several times. Several times. Several times. "Hi there, Tomorrowland travelers, this is Mr. Johnson in SkyView Hovercraft 1, bringing you the latest Tomorrowland traffic report. As usual, everything is perfect on Tomorrowland's superhighways. Back to you at TTA Central." Sort of like weather on the 8's, only this is traffic on the 30 seconds.

Serina isn't sure she wants to ride the Teacups today, but she does spot Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum there for autographs. Laurie asks them (as usual) to sign the same page, so we can put their picture on the opposite page. TDum says he needs some money for that, we always knew he was the smart one.

We go up to see how long the line is for Pooh and it's got a wall around it, closed for refurbishment. Bummer. Serina didn't want to ride Dumbo on Day 2, but Laurie thinks that since she rode the Triceratops Spin the other day she might like it. She says she isn't sure at all, but when we get close she announces she wants a blue elephant. And the ride is fun.

While the girls were in line for Dumbo, and I was walking past the queue on a search for a spot that offered both shade and photographic access, a 4-year-old girl with her older sister and mom and grandma looked up at me and said "I rode on two scary rides!" Snow White and the Haunted Mansion must have been substantial victories to warrant sharing with a complete stranger ;-) Overheard another mom saying "Well, Early Entry did us a lot of good, we got stuck with the characters out front and here we are again, stuck in line for Dumbo." As my dad used to say, can't win for losing. (I never knew what that meant, but I know this is just the situation where you use it.)

On our way to Toon Town we see some very short lines for the Queen of Hearts, Prince John, and Cruella. Serina's not sure at all, because they look very mean, but she knows she wants to get more autographs than her sister and cousin. That Queen IS really mean too, she snaps the book shut after signing it, and Serina makes sure she's on the far side of Grandma for the picture. She skips Prince John (Day 1, Epcot;-), but forces herself through a session with Cruella. We think she's even scarier than the Queen, mostly because the "face" characters are so much more real.

After deciding that she does want to ride the Teacups today, we make our way down to the Barnstormer. She wants me to ride with her this time, explaining that it goes up the hill very slow but then goes down very fast. I say "You mean we're going to go through that barn?!?" She shrugs her shoulders and says, "Hey, you get on the ride, you go through the barn." (Note to self -- talk to the imagineers about those hard plastic, 6-inch deep corduroy seats. They're probably designed to keep little butts from sliding sideways, but holy cow!) After the ride I tell Serina that it wasn't too fast, and she says "It's pretty fast if you're a little kid!" True enough, everything's relative.

We finally get a chance to check out Minnie and Mickey's houses. As if we needed proof that she's a tomboy (dirt bikes and all), she isn't terribly impressed with Minnie's place but spends quite a bit of time in Mickey's.

On the way to the train, she's talking about going on Splash again, wondering how many times the other girls rode. She decides she's going to ride it again. On our way out of the Main St. station, Laurie sees someone that reminds her of LauraB, so she gets on the cell phone and calls her up and lets her listen to the train sounds all the way around to Frontierland, describing all the sights as we go by. Must have come as quite a surprise to Laura, and made her day.

Once we get over there and make a bathroom stop, Serina doesn't much like the idea of another Splash trip. Too bad, it's only a 15-minute line, while Big Thunder is 45. We walk around back of Big Thunder so she can check it out, and after a few minutes she declares that it's not much faster than the Barnstormer. Ultimately though, it's a no go.

We ask her if she wants to go on the Pirates ride, being careful to be sure that she's aware that there's one very short, very dark place and one very small drop. Probably due to her increasing confidence and what must seem to her to be a shortage of real rides, she'll try it. We all have to hold hands throughout the queue because it's quite dark in there. She survives the drop nicely, but is quite tense throughout the ride. When we get outside she informs us "that's the very, very, very, very, very, very last time I'm EVER riding on that ride." She's bubbly and bouncing now, so she's certainly able to put anything behind her, but this puppy's definitely behind her. It's added a new term to our Disney vocabulary too, we now have a list of "E-ticket" rides and a separate (overlapping) list of "6-very-last" rides.

It's Laurie's turn to get her biggest laugh of the trip in the queue for Alladin. Laurie and Serina were going to sit in the front so she could control the elevation, with me in the back. Serina suddenly looks up at me and sternly demands "and you don't TOUCH that button back there." I assure her that I won't touch anything for the entire ride. About 30 seconds later, she looks up at me again and says "You better sit up front with me and Grandma can sit in the back, because she KNOWS about it." (In other words, it's not that I don't trust you Papa, but get your butt up here where you can't do any damage.) Now THAT makes Laurie's day ;-)

She's a little upset with us for taking her to see the Tiki Room, "You mean we have to stand up??!!" No princess, this is the pre-show, we'll find you a seat in a minute. She doesn't really like the show that much either, because "Iago's too mean." It doesn't make the 6-very-last list though, so we're thinking it wasn't too bad.

At 12:20 there's a 40-minute wait for the Jungle Cruise, and the FastPass return time is only 45 minutes away, that's kind of a no-brainer so we grab a set and head to lunch. The FPs say we can get another one after 12:24, only 4 minutes away. If I had more energy, I'd run over to Splash and get some there ;-) During lunch at Pecos Bill's, Serina informs us that Day 6 has been a lot of fun. We think that's a pretty good way of not dwelling on the bad things but looking at the big picture.

She's been spoiled by the FP, there are about 20 people in the Jungle Cruise line ahead of us and she asks us, incredulously, "This is the FastPass line?" When you think about it though, when you're 5 years old, any crowd of adults is just a big collection of knees and butts, so a line of 20 and a line of 200 look just about the same. She gets a big kick out of the Jungle Cruise, we have a good skipper who's fairly entertaining even if you don't get the bad jokes.

Getting Jafar's autograph in Adventureland is quite an Adventure, she toughs it out but concludes afterwards "Man, is HE creepy!" As we walk by the Crystal Palace I ask her if she remembers that building, and she says "Yes, that's where we had lunch with Pooh and Piglet and Tigger and Eeyore on Day 2." We can't even keep track of time that well at DW ;-)

We take the nice cool walk down through the shops on Main Street, when suddenly she's drawn outside by the sound of the Main Street band. Very entertaining. We escape the dreaded half-day at Downtown Disney (don't tell Laurie I said that) by completing all our shopping in the Emporium. (Don't know if those shops have separate names, but I call everything from Casey's to City Hall the "Emporium", if they ain't got no doors, they ain't different stores).

Our bus pulls up just as we get to the bus stop and there are only a few other people there, so Laurie tells Serina to get on while we pack up the stroller and our packages. We find her in our traditional spot across from the back door, laying across the three seats to save them for us.

Back at the hotel, Laurie and Serina do a little more bonding as we take the cool shortcut through the food court. Serina and I take a different path than Laurie through the tables because Serina wants to beat her to the door. Laurie walks just fast enough to let Serina almost catch up, then speeds up just a bit by the door. Serina declares it a tie, and I tell her she should know by now that Grandma doesn't like to lose. Laurie says, "No, I like to win. I think all middle children like to win." "You're a middle kid?!!?! I'm a middle kid too!!! So's my mommy!" Instant common ground.

After resting for a bit, we head over to Blizzard Beach at 3:00, with the bus driver asking to make sure that everyone knows it closes at 6. On the way in the park, Serina sees a poster for the toboggan rides and wants to do that first. We quickly find a nice spot with chairs over in Tike's Peak, and as we're parking our gear she sees the kids' water slides there and wants to check them out. I walk up to the top with her and she goes down one slide, then decides she wants to do something else.

Laurie and I are both feeling a little overheated already, so we talk her into taking the lazy river around to the toboggans. The Blizzard Beach river is just a hair shallower than the one at Typhoon Lagoon, and Serina can stand up all the way around. So she "runs" almost a complete lap. We make one and a half laps and walk over to the bottom of the toboggan ride so she can decide if it looks good when it isn't on a poster. Yes it does.

On the way up to the top though, we must have missed an exit, because soon we're in the line for the Family Raft Ride. She thinks that sounds like fun, and we're excited because we couldn't get the other two girls on it. I'm trying to keep an eye on Serina to make sure she gets in the boat okay, and I make a misstep and fall full on my side in the raft like a big goober. Everybody and his brother is all over me making sure I'm okay. Except Serina, who's busy trying to get a good grip on those handles, and doesn't have time to be bothered with some old relative lying in her boat. And we launch, and we go up and down and around, and it's a blast, and she wants to do it again. But on the way to the stairs she decides she really wants to try that toboggan. I'm not crazy about that one, so I head back to camp while the girls head up the hill. They have a ball. Serina knows from watching people up ahead that the CM would be giving her a little head start, but she tells Laurie "you're still going to beat me, because you're heavier and I'll slow down more at the bottom." I think she's done this before.

I had decided to take the lazy river around to camp and wait for them, but when I get back they're already through with their ride, back at the camp, and leaving me a note that they're heading to the wave pool. When they call that a lazy river, they mean it. (Well, okay, "they" don't actually call it that, but "we" do.) Serina likes the wave pool here too, unlike Typhoon Lagoon this one is just steady bobbing waves of up to two feet, depending where you are. And Laurie likes the fact that I'm there because she's finally getting in some alone time in the sun.

On our way back to the hotel after closing the Beach, Serina wants to know what park we're going to next. Laurie tells her we thought we'd just go back and stay at the hotel, and she says, in disbelief, "But it's still daytime!!" When we get back to the football field at the All Stars, there's a 7-year-old boy looking very lost and panicky. Laurie asks him if he's lost, and he sobs "no, but my 2-year-old brother is." His parents are down checking out the pools and the CM's are very quietly but actively involved in the process as well. Serina says "we have to help find him," so we take her out behind Building 10 and look along the edge of the bushes. At every sidewalk intersection, she'd say, "let's look down here." After about a half hour I start asking her if we should start to head back and she just keeps saying, "well he has to be SOMEWHERE."

She says something interesting as we walk past the baseball building, she's glad we aren't staying there because "all the doors are the same color." Must be something comforting about our color-coded sets of rooms. When we get back to the football field, the CM is casually talking to some guests, so the boy must have been found. Serina is quite relieved, and can finally get back to the less serious business of climbing on the X's and O's.

Since we're back in the room early after supper and tomorrow is our last full day, we decide to do most of our packing tonight. Serina has no problem with that; she's excited that she gets to pick our bus tomorrow. We ask her what park we'll be going to, and her immediate answer is "not Epcot". I think she can still "feel" Illuminations. One other bit of luck we have is that as we're packing and flipping channels, we run across the movie "A Painted House." We had both really wanted to see it, because it's the first book we had ever read together. There's just no end to the "magic" here ;-)

Mon. 4/28, the Whole World

On our last day, when she gets to pick the bus, Serina is surprisingly having a hard time deciding between MGM and Magic Kingdom. Surprising because we can only remember one thing she really liked at MGM, the Muppet Movie. She finally decides on MK. Laurie asks her to get ready while she's in the shower and I'm down for coffee. When she gets out of the shower, Serina's still was laying in bed with the blankets up around her neck. After chatting away for a while, Laurie asks her why she didn't get up and get dressed, and she says she was just tired. But when I get back with our coffee and knock on the door, she hops out of bed, fully dressed, including sneakers. Never pass up an opportunity to pick on Grandma.

It looks like Monday at MK will be very busy again, the bus is out front of our hotel when we get there but it's full already. When we get to the park, we almost get trapped in Town Square because we don't have Timon or Peter Pan yet. They're about ready to take a break though, so we head back for our first adventure with Buzz Lightyear. Buzz is a walkon, but Serina isn't sure she wants to ride because it looks too dark and too loud. We talk her into trying it, but she and Laurie have the bad luck to get a space pod with dead batteries, neither gun even lights up. So they just ride through looking at everything. As soon as we get off Serina says "we're going to do it again and get a car that works." So I park myself outside the exit while they go back on. While I'm sitting there, four unlucky souls come over to see their favorite attraction, Carousel of Progress, only to find it's once again too unbusy for it to be open.

For as long as Buzz has been around, there is still a high percentage of smiles and laughs from people of all ages coming out of Buzz. It seems that grandiose hand motions are also necessary for a full description, even to people who just rode it with you ;-) A grandma and mom and two girls come out all smiles, arms waving, laughing. The lone exception is a three-year-old who comes out screaming. I can't imagine what's so terrifying, until I hear dad tell mom that he didn't want to come out, "he loves to spin that car, I couldn't shoot anything."

Pooh is closed again today (and an additional two months) and Serina informs us "When Pooh is broken I ride Dumbo, that's just my rule." Well all righty, then. She also thinks that maybe Pooh is closed because some paint scratched off and they're fixing it. Wonder if she subconsciously got that idea from Buzz ;-) The line is very long for Dumbo and through either bad luck or poor planning it's my turn to ride the elephant with her. Grandma can't believe we're in a 45-minute line for Dumbo, but she realizes we have no choice, you have to go to MK on your last day, whether you're 5 or not.

She never did ride the carousel (because it makes her dizzy), but we manage a Dumbo ride, the teacups, the Barnstormer with me, an autograph from Max, and then the Barnstormer again with Laurie. Good timing, the train is there at ToonTown when we get there for it, and we pull into the Main Street Station at 11:05, just as the characters are coming back out.

We get autographs from Timon and Wendy and Peter Pan and even the reclusive Daisy Duck. (Note to self -- Peter Pan is terribly annoying, he should go on the "6-very-last" list.;-) Another first for us now, lunch at Casey's Corner. Serina thinks it's neat that our last Magic Kingdom lunch is right next door to our first Magic Kingdom lunch. The show is going on at the Castle Forecourt, but the trees block our view. Serina says "wouldn't it be nice if the show was right over here." Then after a 30-second pause she adds "of course if it was over here I'd probably have to move back, so it wouldn't make sense." Gotta love that.

During lunch, she's looking through her autograph book and doesn't recognize a few (there are a couple I'm not sure of). She tells us that Stanley is the only one who actually knows how to write.

After lunch we check in on the Country Bears. Serina likes it and wants to see it again, but there's a very long line and she doesn't want to wait. We're winding down and picking favorite repeats now, which leads us back to Small world. At 1:12 on Monday though, the SW line goes all the way up the ramp, down the building and back, and a hundred feet out into the street. The sign says 35-minutes, but we get in it anyway and it's 16 minutes from the time we get in line until we're on the boat. (The other 19 minutes comes in the Aloha room, waiting to get back to shore.)

Out in back of the castle, Laurie spots another management-looking type CM carrying a trash picker-upper. We've seen that quite a few times this trip, and don't recall seeing any CM's whose job seems to be primarily cleaning streets and sidewalks like we used to.

We walk down around the side of the castle and once again we're just in time for Belle's Story Hour, working our way into position to be second for autographs afterwards. It's 2:30 now and we have 2:50 FP's for Buzz, so Laurie's going to get us a drink and we'll watch the cars on the Speedway for a few minutes. It's a week after Easter, and it must be pre-schooler day, because everything in Fantasyland is packed but there's only a 30 minute standby on Space Mountain. I get to sit with Serina on Buzz this time, and ask her midway if it's too loud and she says it isn't. (It's twice as loud as some of the things that have scared her, which helps confirm the pitch issue.) This time Laurie beat me, and Serina had 27000, pretty respectable for a 5-year-old.

We sort of tricked Serina, Laurie was stopping in one of the shops on Main Street and Serina and I were going down to the hat shop to get the hat she had picked out on Day 1 (you know, the blue sorcerer's hat that's almost as tall as she is, with the lights that flash). The deal was that we would all meet on Tony's porch, and wouldn't you know it, while we were waiting there for Laurie a parade came by! It isn't too loud and doesn't bother her a bit, we think daytime vs. nighttime is a big factor. She knows everyone in the parade, and she loves every minute of it.

Serina doesn't want to go back to the room because she isn't tired (ever hear that one before?), she wants to go to MGM and see the Muppets again. She falls asleep on the bus on the way over, wakes up ungrumpy, gets in the stroller and promptly falls back asleep. This gives Laurie and me the chance to enjoy a very casual walk to the back of the park, and what may well be our first extended one-on-one conversation of the trip;-) (It's a shame there's nothing in the Doug theater, like for instance, oh I don't know, DOUG?)

We're in front of Star Tours when I mention to Laurie that we have to remember to get her Neapolitan on the way out. She says "Hey, I could go get it right now!" I'm thinking wait a minute, isn't this the same girl that didn't want to go from Country Bears to Small World because it's "way across the park"? Reminds me a little of Serina, can't walk because her toe hurts, but can race us to the train ;-)

We figure it's a good idea to let Serina sleep, so Laurie suggests I take a Star Tour and they'll meet us at Muppet Plaza. I get to sit next to a couple of 40-something Brits making their first trip to Endor, and she's very carefully trying to only take half the armrest. I tell her if she needs the whole thing it's no problem, I've been to Endor many times and it's usually a pretty smooth flight. As we take our first "detour", she seems very appreciative.

Laurie and I both get another first today, since Serina is picking not only the busses and attractions, but the seats. We end up front row center at the Muppets, right down by the penguins. What you miss when Waldo is "bouncin' on peo-ple's hea-eads" you more than make up for with the strength and closeness of the 3-D effects. I didn't notice her taking her glasses off this time, and several times I see her reaching out to grab Waldo or a pie or something. It's an ear-to-ear grin through the whole movie.

She still wants to ride a ride, and we tell her the only thing we haven't seen yet here is the Beauty and the Beast show. So she decides on the Mermaid. (I've stopped trying to predict her.) We're just making the turn down the street when out of the blue she says "I want to go on the Star Wars ride." We tell her it was pretty bumpy, and she says she doesn't care, she wants to ride it. And we do. She seems quite apprehensive at the start, and many parts are clearly uncomfortable for her, especially flying through those icicles. One neat thing though, right after we get caught in the tractor beam and ease off our main thrusters and lurch forward, she looks up at me and giggles. And she's quite bouncy and smiley after the ride, she probably wouldn't do it again right away but darn it, she's crossed one more thing off her list. We're quite proud of her.

We miss the loading of the Little Mermaid Theater by about 30 seconds and don't really feel like waiting around for half an hour, so "Serina, do you want to go to the Beauty and the Beast show or Epcot." Without hesitation, "Epcot." That was the one place she ruled out last night, but we've discovered we can get her to do almost anything by threatening her with a show ;-)

The boat is loading at the MGM dock when we get outside; so we run down to catch it. As we approach the boat skipper, she looks at Laurie with great concern and says "Oh dear, you've got a bit of poo on your shirt!" Laurie thinks she's been birded, but when she looks down, what she finds is Pooh. Nice one Skipper, and Serina gets a chuckle at the thought that one of the "bosses" tricked Grandma.

On the ride to Epcot, we get to wonder why we're going to Epcot. We had planned on eating at the Garden Grill, but none of us are very hungry and there's no point to a character meal when you've already got autographs and pictures from all of them and if we're going to eat there it will just be at the food court and Serina doesn't want to see a "show" there and she has mentioned riding the Barnstormer again and Laurie thinks it's nearly mandatory to end your trip in the Magic Kingdom anyway so why don't we just go back there instead. So we get off at the Yacht and Beach Club to catch a MK bus ;-) As luck would have it, the bus is just about to leave when we get out to the bus stop, so we run and flag it down and we're on our way.

The train is just pulling into Main Street station as we're going through the turnstiles, so we hustle up to the platform for our ride to the Barnstormer. We're barely clear of the station when Serina asks, "where's Splash Mountain?"Â We tell her it's at the next train stop and she says "I want to ride it again, but Grandma, will you cover my eyes when we get to the big drop." No problem ;-) I have to laugh when Laurie points out to me that that over the last hour we've run to catch a boat and run to catch a bus and run to catch a train to get some place we hadn't even planned on going;-) In spite of our feet, it was fun.

In the Splash Mountain line Serina tells Laurie she likes the little drops but not the big one. Her conclusion is "I think you have to ride a LOT of times before you're used to THAT one." You're probably right, and we have and we are;-) And this time, she even likes the big drop. We're not sure how much of that is because she knows she isn't going to ride it again. She says she's going to tell her sister that she also had her arms up on Splash, perhaps that's why she had no interest in getting the picture ;-)

Now it's 7:45, the park closes at 8:30, there's no place here to get anything to eat, and our feet are very tired. So we're going to call it a trip and head back to the hotel. After a mandatory last trip to the pool, we settle in for a good night's sleep and the trip home.

We think we've helped Serina start to get past a number of her fears during the trip. When we start our descent into Buffalo on the flight home she asks if she can sit next to the window and then has her face glued to it, pointing out to me the "highway" (that's any 4-lane), baseball fields, and school busses. Pretty good, considering six days ago her dad had to shut the window a number of times on the trip down.

She sleeps through most of the long car ride to her mom's house, and is so excited to see her sisters that the three of them immediately disappear into another room and only came out for a quick hug goodbye. We aren't sure if she's enjoyed the trip as much as we think she has, but her mom and dad tell us later that she talked about nothing else for the next two weeks.

So it turns out we were right at the start -- we kissed a few geese and gave her (and us) a fun and memorable trip.

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