Disney - Monday, Feb. 19 (Day 2)

We woke around 7:00 a.m., ate breakfast in the hotel room (I packed cereal bars, fruit and pop tarts), dressed and took the bus to the MGM Studios Theme Park. Above is a photo of the boys near the park entrance. I actually liked it better than I thought I would. There weren’t a lot of traditional rides, but there were some cute movie-type attractions. Check out the picture below. Only a couple of the building facades on the sides are real. The rest is a backdrop painted to look like San Francisco. On the opposite end of the intersection was one painted to look like New York City.

We used the Fast Pass option to get advance tickets for the Star Wars ride. With Fast Pass, you put your Disney resort card in the slot and get a ticket that gives you a time frame in which to return to the special Fast Pass line. It’s a great option to standing in the regular stand-by line for 45 minutes or more. We got our Star Wars Fast Passes, then went saw Muppet Vision 3D and by the time that was over, we went back to Star Wars, bypassed the long line and went right in. We visited a few more attractions before spending some time at the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids play area. Below is a photo of the boys - notice the flower stem behind them?

After leaving, MGM, we took the bus back to the hotel, freshened up, then drove to the Fort Wilderness resort, parked there, took their bus to the restaurant area for our dinner reservation. Son #3 was overly tired, I think, and had a little melt-down. Dear Hubby took him outside for a while, Son #3 pulled himself together, and re-joined the family for dinner (a buffet of country-type cooking – my least favorite meal of the week). After dinner, we took the boat from Fort Wilderness to the Magic Kingdom Theme Park, arriving just in time for the 8:00 p.m. parade – beautiful lighted floats.

After the parade, we meandered through the crowd. Dear Hubby and the boys wanted to do on this Stitch Escapes attraction (from “Lilo & Stitch”) while I opted to watch the fireworks. Right before the fireworks started, a woman dressed as Tinkerbell rode a zip line from near the top of the Magic Kingdom castle to not far from the bridge I was standing. If you’ve never seen the castle in person, trust me, it’s very tall. Props to Tinkerbell – it looks like a fun job, and I say that even though I’m somewhat afraid of heights.

We met up again and Dear Hubby took Sons#1&2 to ride the Indy Speedway. Since Son #3 didn’t meet the minimum height requirement, he and I rode the Space Orbiter. We stood in line for a while, took and elevator to the second level, boarded our spaceship, which Son #3 could raise and lower with a lever. (As I mentioned, I hate heights so I just started at the back of his jacket for the entire ride.) Since they enjoyed the Stitch ride, they insisted on taking me on that – it was kind of cute. It was getting pretty cool (upper 40’s) so we took the boat, then bus back to where the parked the van and drove back to our hotel. That was the only time all week that we used our own transportation.

Today....

Today was Son #3's check up - 5 years old. He was okay with the finger-prick blood test, but the chicken pox booster shot was a disaster. The nurse jabs the needle in my little guy's arm and says she can't get the vaccine in. She at first thought that it was because he was clenching his muscle (he was understandably upset). However, she removed the syringe from his arm, tried squeezing the plunger part - still nothing. Apparently it was clogged (yes, it was hermetically sealed and sterile). She said she had never seen anything like that before and left the room to get a 2nd syringe. This time, she tested it by squeezing out a tiny drop. But still.... two injections when there should've been only one. He's still recovering from the stomach bug, by the way. He's also in the 75th percentile for height, which is interesting since neither Dear Hubby nor I are tall.