When Scuba Steve and I arrived at MK and went through the turnstiles, I told him he needed to rent a stroller for Em. I saw how Em was bowlegged walking behind Commando Nikki when they got on their bus. There was a small souvenir shop next to the stroller rental and I was headed in there.
Scuba Steve was following me. I stopped and told him again that he needed a stroller for Em. He continued to follow me. “What are you doing? Go get a stroller.” I told him. He didn’t think we should be pushing an empty stroller around, because what would people think?
What would people think? Ah, that you have a child that requires a stroller maybe?
I told him I would put the camera bag in the stroller and he could push that around.
He got funny about that. It was somehow worse to be pushing around a camera bag in a stroller than to be pushing an empty stroller. Now people would either think we lost our child, OR that we were SO lazy that we had to rent a stroller to push around a camera bag.
I told him if it made him fell better, I would be happy to squeeze my butt in the stroller with the camera bag and he could push me. He thought that was a pretty good plan; however HE wanted to be the one in the stroller.
The scary thing is I actually thought that sounded pretty funny and was thinking about DOING it.
I think I had too much water driven up my nostrils at Typhoon Lagoon.
He did finally go rent his poor ‘rashy’ daughter a stroller while I went and made friends with the souvenir shop CM. He asked me if we were there to see the premier of ‘Wishes.’
Oh, forgot about that! I knew Epcot closed early for a media event that they didn’t invite US to, and that because of that people would be driven to MK. I had completely forgotten about ‘Wishes’ and that had to quadruple the amount of people I thought were going to be in MK.
I was so right. There were people everywhere. I personally have been to Disney 17 times over my lifetime, but I had never seen so many people in MK in my life. There were people in huge bunches around the map stands, crowding into city hall, jammed around pin carts, squashed into gift shops, mobs of people in the streets, just everywhere.
The really great thing, nobody seemed to have a sad face on. On our walk to the exit of Buzz I saw kids smiling at their dads for buying them a balloon, couples with their arms around each other to have their photos in front of the castle, grandparents holding hands walking down Main Street, people licking ice cream as it melted down the cone, parents resting on a bench while their kids visited the characters, laughing, smiling, happy people every place I looked.
Tinkerbell must have been working overtime.
Scuba Steve & I found the girls right away at the exit of Buzz and we weren’t expecting that. They hadn’t gone on any rides because of the lines for every ride were unbelievable and
my kids have barely ever stood in a line. They weren’t sure of the line standing procedure.
We don’t stand in lines, we just don’t. I could never keep the crew under control for that long. I can barely keep them calm on a bus, never mind standing in a line.
I called Brother and told him to avoid MK, head for MGM. That’s when I found out they were already headed to MGM so he could stand outside gift shops and hold bags there.
I let it go. I kept my mouth shut.
The crew and I gave up any hope for MK. I told them in a few hours as soon as ‘wishes’ ended all these people would be heading to the same buses we were.
That’s a lot of skin-to-skin contact. The horror!
The girls were whining about being hungry again, even though I fed them a meal earlier that day. We really wanted to go to Peco Bills but the crowd fighting with a stroller is just too far out of our league so we went to the closest place to Buzz, Cosmic Rays.
Cosmic Rays was packed with happy people.
Commando Nikki Beatlebum and I stood in line to order food while Em and Scuba Steve parked the stroller in the stroller parking lot. I really didn’t think we had a chance of getting a table with all the people in there and was preparing the crew for the possibility of eating standing up. We figured if we only bought one drink, we could pass it around the circle while we took turns eating. Kind of a chew & hold, take a drink, pass & bite.
It could have worked.
But, it happened to be a very ‘happy people’ day in Disney. As we started walking into the dining room near the piano-playing alien ah,....thing there was an older gentleman and his family who stopped us and offered us their table. He was even using his napkin to wipe it up for us.
This was very Disney-like behavior.
Commando Nikki was pleased. Disney-like behavior is very important to her. She was constantly pointing out different people and if they were conducting themselves in the proper Disney-like behavior. Commando doesn’t mean just sucking every second that the parks are open, it means behaving with a live-out-loud, play nice and have fun attitude.
We finished eating, sitting down with own personal beverages, returned the table offer to another family and thought we’d try to go on the Haunted Mansion. Commando Nikki, Beatlebum and I waited outside the door while Scuba Steve & Em went to gather the stroller from the stroller parking lot.
He was gone so long; I thought he went back to Maine without us.
When they finally did appear I asked Scuba Steve what happened, because I KNEW something happened. Apparently there was a pile up in the stroller parking lot and it was quite a struggle first finding it because they all look alike then getting it out around the pile up. There were a lot of staring people, but no helping people.
I was glad I missed it.
On the very long and slow walk to the HM we stopped and took some silly photos. The kind of photos you take of your kids standing in front of signs, rides and other stuff. There were a lot of people doing the same thing and everyone was being great about taking turns. My girls decided to make a game out of it by assuming the leaning forward, crooked arms, ready position to wait for other people to get their pictures.
As soon as other people got their pictures and it was our turn Commando Nikki would hop up, swing her arm foward yelling ‘GO, GO, GO!’ to Beatlebum and Em who would run in front of what ever it was, assume an odd position, yelling ‘POSE, POSE, POSE!’ while I took the picture and OUT! OUT! OUT! then run back to me.
The entire process takes about 5 seconds.
We had a lot of people doing the same thing after that. It was fun. Youre going to do it now, aren’t you?
It was taking us forever to get across the park through Fantasyland. Fantasyland seems to have a gigantic stroller magnet under it because that’s where they all were. We saw even more strollers being drawn to it.
At one point Scuba Steve and Em got ahead of the rest of us and when Commando Nikki spotted him she would run up to him arms and legs swinging, screaming ‘Daddy, daddy I found you!’ That turned out to be a good way to keep Scuba Steve from wandering off.
We got lucky when we finally got to HM. The line went from 30 minutes to nothing just as we were walking over to it. Em isn’t a big fan of HM because at the end of the ride there was a ghost in our car and he was always sitting on her. It really made her mad.
We were pleased that we got on HM and figured it was time to get to MGM.
It was tricky staying together heading down Main Street and one lady said something nasty to us about having such a big kid in a stroller. Beatlebum heard it and was a little upset about it. I told her the lady didn’t know about the ‘rash’ and if she did she probably would have been more understanding.
One person said something nasty in a park packed with 10,000 people. Pretty good Disney day, I think.
There was some trouble with the monorail on the way to TTC. Not a people problem, an Em problem. There were still zillions of people packing into the park for ‘wishes’ and very few leaving. Commando Nikki was holding Em’s hand on the way down the ramp towards the buses and suddenly Em ripped away, nearly knocking Commando Nikki over backwards and ran back up to the monorail. She was trying to hide behind people to get back on.
I honestly was stunned. This is not something Em would do, ever.
I didn’t realize how much that kid loved the monorail. Scuba Steve yelled for her to come back and she did for a second then changed her mind and ran back up the ramp. He had to chase after her to get her to come back.
It was not like her at all.
I think she had too much water driven up her nostrils at Typhoon Lagoon.
I didn’t call Brother until we got to the turnstiles at MGM.