Chased By a Bear and a Trip to Urgent Care - A Very Merry Dis-mas 2016 TR! **Complete 2/23**

Great report so far!

I love Christmas time at Disney.

Honestly, I'm jealous of your room. You do go to Epcot, right?! That room is like...one of the best you could get for an Epcot day. I think there are just a few closer at Beach Club.

I'm looking forward to seeing what you think about the Jingle Bell Jingle BAM dessert party. I've done the SW one before.

Hopefully your son's ear problems cleared up :( I had horrible ear problems in California after driving down into the valley from the Yosemite, my ear didn't pop until sometime that night and it was super painful and annoying.

Thanks for following along!! We were so excited to experience WDW at this time of year, it was a dream come true! Everything just looks so beautiful.

We did go to Epcot a few times on this trip...but the room location didn't help much. We were right by the stairs that went down to the courtyard area with the quiet pool, but they are doing construction back there and there was no way to get out to the Boardwalk that way, and I didn't notice an open walkway to get over toward Epcot while we were walking around exploring...there were white construction walls up back there. So it was down the hall and elevator to the lobby and out and around to the boardwalk for us! I suppose we could have missed something, since it was our first stay at the Boardwalk, but we did look for an easier way. It definitely felt like there *should* have been an easier way out there, but we couldn't find one, unfortunately! But we sure met our step goals each day, LOL!!

I just posted the first part of that review...the party part. The show part is coming later today or tomorrow. I was very sad to miss out on the Star Wars party, that's what we were really planning for this trip, until JBJB was announced and the Star Wars party was put on hold.

Thanks for your concern about my guy's ear! Poor baby...he was hanging in there, and it would end up improving! I think ear issues are just the worst, so uncomfortable, and the pain can make you feel like you're going crazy. I'm sorry that happened to you on your Yosemite trip, ugh!!
 
I love that they had tables and chairs for this party. We did the Star Wars desert party last June and it was outside, but they only had tall tables and it was sooooo hot standing on the concrete for so long. My DH wasn't feeling well the night of our party so I paid a lot of money for him to drink a coke and get that Chewbacca stein! I'm interested to see where you watched the show from.
 
I love that they had tables and chairs for this party. We did the Star Wars desert party last June and it was outside, but they only had tall tables and it was sooooo hot standing on the concrete for so long. My DH wasn't feeling well the night of our party so I paid a lot of money for him to drink a coke and get that Chewbacca stein! I'm interested to see where you watched the show from.

I agree about the tables and chairs! I would have been really unhappy if we'd had the same experience and weren't at least able to sit down! I'm sorry your DH wasn't feeling well, that makes it hard. I *think* the viewing area for both shows is the same?? I'll have that update pretty soon :-)

joining in. Loving your tr. So excited to learn that photo booths can be done on memory maker!!

Welcome and thank you!! Learning about the photobooths was one of my favorite things! The one at the Boardwalk, the one by Primeval Whirl, one by Space Mountain, and the one in the Imagination pavilion in Epcot are at least able to be used, those are the ones I know about.
 


Happy Friday!!

I hope everyone is ready for the weekend! Does anyone have big New Year's Eve plans for tomorrow night?? We do not. I don't like going out at night on NYE and being on the roads. That party ship sailed for me a loooong time ago...although I was very, very, good at it ;)

The kids come back home on Sunday, and I'm ready! I hate it when they're gone for too long.

Last night, DH and I FINALLY went to see Rogue One. It opened on our arrival day at WDW, so it wasn't in the cards to see it then, unfortunately.

I won't give any spoilers, but if you are invested in the Star Wars universe at all, you need to see this. It's incredibly well done and well acted, and it is an emotional roller coaster. Several parts had me crying. That's all I'll say.

But let's get this chapter finished up, ok?

Chapter Two Part Six

So let's recap...on this day we started at Animal Kingdom for Extra Magic Hours, then moved on to Animal Kingdom Lodge and Kidani Village for holiday decorations and Sanaa lunch. We made it back to the Boardwalk for a break and a short swim for the kids, and then ended up at Hollywood Studios for the Jingle Bell Jingle Bam Dessert Party.

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We hung around the party area after it started clearing out, but we were getting antsy and ready to go over and see where we'd be watching the show. We followed the taped off path area and the trail of CMs with green lightsabers over to a space roped off near the big blue DHS archway thing. Going by what I'd read on the Jingle Bam party thread, I knew to hang toward the back of the area for the most complete view. Someone had already beaten us to the space right by the wall of the arch thing, which is where I wanted to end up, so we'd have something to lean against. I'm lazy, what can I say?

Upon entering the area, a CM offers up bottles of water. And while we declined at first, we did eventually all grab one. We still had about a 15 minute wait ahead of us, so we just stayed back toward the roped entry. Off to the left was a raised landscape bed with the Hollywood Studios sign that lights up and looks like a film strip, to kind of give you an idea. The pictures I have of the show are not good, but here are a few to show the location:









Before the show itself begins, they start projecting snow falling onto the theater. I loved this because they even had the snowfall gathering at the right places, like piling up in the corners and clinging appropriately to the roofline. Details again. It amazes me.

We thought the show was cute! I read a lot of mixed reviews leading up to it, and I was nervous, but I thought it was well put together and it made sense if you paid attention to what was going on. The Oogie Boogie part worked fine, in my opinion, and that seemed to be the most contested part in the threads I'd been following. I do wish they had put more projections from Disney holiday movies rather than just scenes from "regular" movies and cartoons that fit with the music. That's the only minor complaint I had...and it's very minor.

The projections looked beautiful against the theater, and the lasers were awesome! I thought it was well done, and the fireworks worked well with the show overall. It didn't feel thrown together to me, which was something I'd been hearing. I was actually pretty confused as to how someone wasn't able to follow the storyline?? It wasn't complicated: The Prep and Landing team of Lanny and Wayne were getting ready for Santa to go, Santa was missing, Oogie Boogie took him, Wayne and Lanny rescued him, Merry Christmas. With themes of Christmas mentioned by the narrator, and songs with movie clips thrown in (love, family, etc...) that went along with each theme.

When the show ended, the snoap began flying all around, and it looked so pretty shining in the holiday lights. The four of us linked hands and left the area before the CM opened the rope completely, and began heading to our fast pass location.

Where were we going?? I'll give you a hint:




Do you know now?



How 'bout now??

Toy Story Midway Mania!

X was starting to have quite a bit of pain and was still talking about being cold. His hands were like ice. I knew that there was no way we were going to be able to stay and watch the Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular projection show, and I told him we would use our two fast passes, since they were back to back, and then we'd go home to the Boardwalk. I told DH that we were going to have to take him to urgent care, this had gone on without improving, and I knew it wasn't just his ears being messed up from the flight...which I'd been suspecting anyway, unfortunately.

He wanted to ride with me...in fact, he'd been encouraging me to drink more at the dessert party so I wouldn't be able to shoot and he'd beat me.
(Who is this kid??? The kids have never even seen me drink very much at all, except for at a Mexican restaurant in town after a particularly long and trying day. They both still say, "Why don't you have two margaritas and talk about <insert specific name here>")



Too bad, so sad, Kid. You. Lose.



No, I did not go easy on him because he wasn't feeling great. I do not play to lose. I might not be very good at the shooty games, but I'm going to give it my all!!

We had one last thing to do, a fast pass for Tower of Terror. The window was 5 minutes from opening up, so we began moving toward the front of the park. X didn't want to ride, he just wanted to sit down somewhere, so he found the little turret looking thing kind of near the entrance to the RnR area. It was empty over there, and he just sat in a corner and played on his phone while the other three of us got into the Fast Pass line.



I could NOT get a good picture of my precious tower at night on my phone :sad: We had a fun ride, and got this wonderfully awkward photo:



We had to bypass getting caught up in the store afterward, which was sad, but we had to go pick up our poor sick boy and get back to the resort. We said "see ya real soon" to the tree



And went to line up for the Friendship Boat.

Ok, I lied...we took another look at the tree ::yes::



We got back to the resort, and I took the kids upstairs while DH went to the front desk to ask about our urgent care options. The front desk lady wasn't very helpful...she kept saying, "I can call 911, do you need an ambulance? I can call 911!" M was like, no...it's not that serious, LOL! She finally handed him a brochure for CentraCare, and he came back to the room.

If you are sensitive to yucky things, skip down until the writing becomes pink again and says "Safe Zone"



I cleaned X's ear, because it was draining this horrible greenish mucus...:crazy2::crazy2::crazy2:




Safe Zone!!

He took more tylenol, told me he was freezing, and buried himself in blankets and went to sleep.

DH and I made the decision that he would take X to the urgent care in the morning while L and I kept our breakfast reservation, and then I'd stay with him in the room after he was back, so he could rest up for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas party.

Whew!! What a ride!! You survived the whole chapter!!

It was a long and busy day, and we were all so tired...we didn't seem to notice all the Boardwalk noise that night, because we all pretty much passed out!

Trip to urgent care, Grand Floridian Cafe, resort hopping, and MVMCP are ahead for you in Chapter Three! I'll work on that this afternoon.

Have an awesome Friday, Friends!!




 
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I definitely plan to return to Sanaa in May. I know my mother-in-law will enjoy it as much as we did. We'll do bread service again, and I'm not sure if I'll branch out from the Tandoori chicken. It was that good!

The butter chicken is delicious too!

Missing out on Osborne Lights was a huge disappointment for me personally...I had booked this trip in part because I wanted to see them so badly, and I was sad when last year ended up being their final run. I had no idea what to expect from Hollywood Studios in regards to holiday decorations, but I was so very pleasantly surprised!!

I was too :sad: There was no way we could've gone last year for the end of the lights. (Since we had literally just gone on our first trip a couple months before). I was very disappointed they wouldn't be back this year, but Hollywood Studios Christmas decorations are my favorite.

The photographer didn't do a shot with the whole tree, which I thought was odd, and did close ups instead...Oh well! At least we had the most famous reindeer of all in there with us! (Get lost, Rudolph! You're old news Pal!)

None of the photographers got the whole tree in ours. Josh thought maybe with where they were positioned they couldn't? We got a Sven picture too!

The front desk lady wasn't very helpful...she kept saying, "I can call 911, do you need an ambulance? I can call 911!" M was like, no...it's not that serious, LOL! She finally handed him a brochure for CentraCare, and he came back to the room.

Aw, I'm sorry he got sick. Being sick at Disney is no fun! I've never had an ear problem there, and that's awful because that doesn't sound like something rest would fix. but I felt icky enough to almost go to an urgent care place too. Unfortunately I realized I left my medical card at home, and since it was just a really bad cold (possibly the flu but I'm not sure) I just tried to take it easy.
 


I think your TOT picture is great!
It's going to be awhile until I get to my review of JBJB, but I agree with you that the show was much better than I though it would be based on the reviews I was reading when it began. As for the food.....well, most of my family would agree with you, but one person liked pretty much everything she ate :rolleyes1 and I'll leave it at that!
You were lucky the added all the chairs by the time your party rolled around! For ours it was still just a few tables with chairs and mostly tall "standing only" tables, which was annoying. Luckily after about 10 minutes of standing we got a table, but we had to jump on it!
Loved the glasses they gave out, each of us saw something different with ours :goodvibes They gave similar ones out to passholders last year for the final year of the Osborne Lights :sad:
I know X got better, but I also know how much it had to suck while he was sick.
Happy New Year pixiedust:
 
The butter chicken is delicious too!

I was too :sad: There was no way we could've gone last year for the end of the lights. (Since we had literally just gone on our first trip a couple months before). I was very disappointed they wouldn't be back this year, but Hollywood Studios Christmas decorations are my favorite.

None of the photographers got the whole tree in ours. Josh thought maybe with where they were positioned they couldn't? We got a Sven picture too!

Aw, I'm sorry he got sick. Being sick at Disney is no fun! I've never had an ear problem there, and that's awful because that doesn't sound like something rest would fix. but I felt icky enough to almost go to an urgent care place too. Unfortunately I realized I left my medical card at home, and since it was just a really bad cold (possibly the flu but I'm not sure) I just tried to take it easy.

I did like the little bit of the butter chicken I tried from my DH's plate...if I don't do the tandoori again, that's what I'll get!

Oh, the Osborne Light thing is just so sad! I'm sorry you guys had to miss out on it, too!! They did do a great job there on the decorations, and they were my favorite too!

I felt so bad for him that he was sick! Ear infections are awful...and we got lucky and he improved pretty quickly after he got some medicine. Having a bad cold/flu at Disney sounds really bad too! I hate that stuffed up, tired feeling. I hope it wasn't too hot there when you were feeling like that, because that always makes it seem worse to me.


Jumping in and hoping to see a quick remedy for the ear ache

Welcome to the party, I'm glad you're here!!

I think your TOT picture is great!
It's going to be awhile until I get to my review of JBJB, but I agree with you that the show was much better than I though it would be based on the reviews I was reading when it began. As for the food.....well, most of my family would agree with you, but one person liked pretty much everything she ate :rolleyes1 and I'll leave it at that!
You were lucky the added all the chairs by the time your party rolled around! For ours it was still just a few tables with chairs and mostly tall "standing only" tables, which was annoying. Luckily after about 10 minutes of standing we got a table, but we had to jump on it!
Loved the glasses they gave out, each of us saw something different with ours :goodvibes They gave similar ones out to passholders last year for the final year of the Osborne Lights :sad:
I know X got better, but I also know how much it had to suck while he was sick.
Happy New Year pixiedust:

I was very pleased with the JBJB show! The reviews really had me worried, but I had nothing to compare it to, so maybe that helped?? I don't know. The food situation was probably my own fault. The spinach dip was good, and the flatbread/pita that went with it was too, but I was so caught up in worrying about X that I felt very distracted, if that makes sense? I did regret not going and getting more of my own. I regretted not at least trying the kale salad and the other little thing over there in the cone...I think it was antipasto? The meatballs didn't appeal to me since the sauce was sweet.
The addition of the tables really made all the difference. I think I'd have been really cranky without a seat!!

Our glasses were elves and gingerbread men...the gingerbread ones were the best! I like using them to look at our tree!

X is a terrible patient when he's sick (so am I, honestly, he comes by it naturally, LOL!), so I was REAAALLLY glad when he started to feel better. He was like a whole different kid, and to be honest, this trip didn't start off so great because I could not get into a "Disney" mood when I was so fixated on him feeling bad...it wasn't the most magical vacation overall, but it ended up having some awesome moments.
 
My AP magic band arrived today...it's one of the new ones. It's a lot wider, here it is with my watch for comparison

IMG_8373.JPG

**editing to add...my watch face size is the smaller 38mm one, for size comparison

It feels thinner as far as the band goes, and my name is on the little puck thing that you can change out.

Just wanted to share in case anyone hasn't seen the new style of magic band yet!!

Happy New Year's Eve!
 
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We've been getting reports in our TA group that only AP's are getting the new bands so far, what do you think of it? I don't know if I'll like it since it's wider :scratchin
Thanks for sharing! Curious when everyone is going to start getting the new bands!
 
We've got APs so it looks like we'll be getting the new bands soon. (We never ordered our AP bands for our last trip).

It was hot when I was sick and that made it even more miserable! I was soo stuffy too I used about 10 tissues boxes throughout whatever I had.
 
We've been getting reports in our TA group that only AP's are getting the new bands so far, what do you think of it? I don't know if I'll like it since it's wider :scratchin
Thanks for sharing! Curious when everyone is going to start getting the new bands!

Umm...I'm not sure what I think of it quite yet. I was really surprised when I saw that it was almost as big as my watch face. The band part feels thinner than even the more recently redesigned "old" bands. I showed DH and his first words were, "It feels cheap". I thought that was a bit of an exaggeration.

I'm really curious to see what the things like key rings or whatever, that you can swap the disc thing into will be like...and if they come with a screwdriver! It has teeny tiny little screws in it, that something like the small screwdriver in an eyeglass repair kit would work for.



We've got APs so it looks like we'll be getting the new bands soon. (We never ordered our AP bands for our last trip).

It was hot when I was sick and that made it even more miserable! I was soo stuffy too I used about 10 tissues boxes throughout whatever I had.

Yep, you should be getting the new ones then! I'm curious to see what other people think of them! And I'm so sorry you were sick when it was hot, that's the WORST!
 
We were there most of the same days as you for our trip and it must've been a bad week for ears because my boyfriend had ear pain for the first 3 days as well. I don't think it was quite as bad as your sons, he refused to let me see or help but after 3 days and lots of q-tips and hydrogen peroxide he was able to fix it. He said a lot of stuff came out, which is weird because he obsessively cleans his ears at home.

Hope your son was able to find some relief as well!
 
We were there most of the same days as you for our trip and it must've been a bad week for ears because my boyfriend had ear pain for the first 3 days as well. I don't think it was quite as bad as your sons, he refused to let me see or help but after 3 days and lots of q-tips and hydrogen peroxide he was able to fix it. He said a lot of stuff came out, which is weird because he obsessively cleans his ears at home.

Hope your son was able to find some relief as well!

Oh, I'm so sorry your boyfriend had to deal with ear issues, too! I'm glad he felt better without having to go to the doctor. I hope your trip was great aside from that!!
 
Happy New Yearrrrr!!! pixiedust:

I hope everyone had a safe and festive weekend. The kids were gone for NYE, so DH and I were wild and crazy. We watched the Twilight Zone marathon and put together a Thomas Kinkaide Tangled puzzle. We are pretty intense, hardcore partiers...can you tell?? The boys came home yesterday afternoon, and I still haven't seen them yet this morning. It's going to be really hard to get back on schedule around here, I'm afraid!!

Since I have to go back to real life this week, I want to get another update or two out today before things get hectic and I inevitably slow down on post frequency! Let's get started with...

Chapter Three: Doctor, Doctor

Today is the day X got to visit the urgent care at WDW. It's not very glamorous, and all of my info comes secondhand from DH, but I'll try to be as accurate as possible!

This was Sunday 12/18, our Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party night. Our only plans outside of that for today was a 9am breakfast at Grand Floridian Cafe, followed by some resort hopping to see holiday decorations, and resting at the resort before going to the Magic Kingdom for the party.

If ever there was a day for it to be convenient to have to make a trip to the doctor, today was that day. Thank heaven for small favors, right??

Since seeing the decorations at the GFlo was a priority of mine, DH said he would take X to the urgent care, and L and I could go to breakfast so we wouldn't have to pay the no-show fee.

Our reservation was at 9am, so I wanted to be on some kind of transportation by 8am. I planned to do bus to MK, monorail to GFlo. The urgent care opened at 8am, so we were all going to be on the same sort of schedule, which ended up working out very well!

L and I left the room at about 7:50ish, and a bus to MK was at the stop as we approached. We had to run, but we made it! After we sat down, DH texted me saying he'd just called and arranged the pick up for CentraCare. The CentraCare location is near Disney Springs, and there is a free shuttle that takes you from the resort to the dr. office, and then back to the resort (maybe even a park, I'm not sure about that though!) after you are finished.

L and I got off the bus at MK and went over to get in line for the monorail...but it was early so there was no line! Our transportation luck continued, and a monorail pulled right up. Because we were going to the Grand Floridian, we did have to go through the whole loop, but it was our first ride on the monorail of the trip, so we didn't mind! It doesn't take very long, so soon we arrived at our beautiful destination. No one in my family besides me had ever been to the Grand Floridian before, and I was feeling sad that DH and X weren't there to see it. L loved it and wants to stay there. Fancy looking things are right up his alley!!



We walked downstairs to the lobby, and just took in our surroundings. They sure do Christmas right at the Grand Floridian. Emphasis is definitely on "Grand"!! Making plans to check out the tree and gingerbread house more closely after breakfast, we went to check in for our meal. This was our first visit to the Grand Floridian Cafe, and I was once again feeling sad that DH wasn't with us...because there were two menu items I wanted to try, and now I knew I had to pick because he wasn't there to get the other one, LOL!!

I did enjoy my special date with this guy, though!!



Because we had such good luck with transportation this morning, we checked in about 20 minutes or so early, and they said we'd have to wait, but we were seated within less than five minutes. It was pretty empty in there for being almost 9:00am.



About ten minutes later though, it started really filling up.


I was debating between ordering the lobster eggs benedict and the pancakes with cranberries and orange butter...if DH had been with me, he would have got the benedict and I would have got the pancakes, and I'd have been able to taste both. Since he wasn't there to help me out, I had to settle on only one option, and I went with the lobster benedict. I was halfway finished with it before I remembered to take a picture, but with some creative angling, I got a pretty good photo:



I was very, very pleased with my choice - it was delicious! I wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone on the fence about what to order here.

L ordered the kid's Mickey (it might have been Minnie??) pancake, and was sad when the person dropped off a plate with two Mickey waffles on it. Our server came by to check on us, and noticed it was wrong, so she went back to the kitchen to figure out what went wrong. She told him he could eat his waffles, too, and she'd be right back. Just a few minutes later she was back with his giant mouse shaped pancake, so he had double breakfast. He was totally ok with that!! I guess I didn't get a picture of his food, but I did get one of the light up Buzz Lightyear that came on the drink he ordered:



He wanted the Buzz Lightyear punch that came in the special cup with the light up thing on it. I falsely thought it would be like the special cups with light ups like they have at SciFi, but it was just a cheap crummy plastic cup with Toy Story 3 pictures on it, kind of like the ones you can get for $1 in the party section at Walmart, with a regular lid and straw and the plastic Buzz clipped on. It was NOT worth $7 at all...if your kid wants it, just ask if you can get the Buzz or Tinkerbell light up thing by itself. The punch drink wasn't very good, and I'm not sure he finished it. I'm pretty sure he just drank his water. Oh well...you live, you learn, right?? My advice is...if your kid wants a specialty drink somewhere, make sure it's at a place that gives you a cool cup like SciFi or Be Our Guest or Gaston's Tavern. I don't usually mind paying extra for stuff like that once or twice a trip, and I know the prices are inflated for what you get, but this was the first time I really felt kind of ripped off by something.

Our food there was excellent, but our service really wasn't. Our waitress was on top of the food mistake for L, but she never refilled our drinks or came back again to see how we were doing, or if we needed anything. It wasn't just us, she didn't come back for the tables on either side of us that were hers, either. I had also told her that I had an annual pass for the discount, but she forgot to put it on the ticket. I was going to pay with my magic band, but her reader wasn't working, so I just handed her my card, and she eventually came back with it and the corrected ticket.

It was a great breakfast, and the minor "bad" things weren't bad enough to keep me from wanting to go back. The food quality was excellent and it's so beautiful...this will probably be a repeat meal in the future!

We left the restaurant ready to check out the decorations in the lobby. No matter how many pictures you see of the gingerbread house, it doesn't prepare you for seeing it in person! It's a work of art.






I admired the tree some more...



and noticed there was a photopass photographer there!



L was ready to go up to the Mercantile to look around and do some shopping, so we walked up the stairs (the carpet is so plush and squishy...I love it!) to engage in a little retail therapy.



We ended up buying L a new lanyard for his pins (he had a wide one that was uncomfortable to wear around his neck, so he got a thinner one). He also got a pin, and we got a pin for X and one for DH as well, since they were missing out on our morning fun.


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Speaking of DH and X...DH had texted me as we got to the MK and were walking to the monorail on the way to GF that the shuttle had picked them up, and during breakfast he'd messaged me that they were in the room and waiting for the doctor. While we were in the Mercantile at the Grand, he said they were heading to pick up X's antibiotic and ear drop prescriptions, and would be finished soon.

something to note about the CentraCare shuttles...they will take you to the urgent care place, but not to the pharmacy. The dr. told them they could *ask* the shuttle drivers if they'd take them to the Walgreens, otherwise they were going to have to walk to the Walgreens, then walk back to CentraCare to get the shuttle back to the resort. He asked a few of the shuttle drivers if they'd be willing, and they all said no. He was going to just call Uber, but then their original shuttle driver pulled up and asked where they needed to go, DH told him, and he agreed to drive them to Walgreens! He even waited for them the whole time they were in there, and then took them back to the resort. DH said he had tipped him really well after he brought them to CentraCare the first time, so in this case it really paid off, because the guy went beyond what he was required to. It was great that they found someone willing to help, especially since it wasn't exactly super magical to have to go to the doctor on a trip to Walt Disney World!!
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L and I paid for our purchases ( I was LOVING the AP discount...20% off goes a long way over time!!) and went back to the monorail. Our next destination was the Contemporary Resort!

We had monorail luck again, and it pulled up right when we got there, but it was pretty crowded this time. Luckily, most people got off at the Magic Kingdom, and we were able to sit for the short trip to the Contemporary.

When we arrived, we went right to the escalator and headed down to find the Frozen gingerbread display.

This really impressed me!! I'll be honest, I had no idea what to expect. I had seen pictures of course, but for some reason I thought it was small...this thing was huge!!







L wanted to go look in the stores, so we spend some time in Fantasia looking around and wanting all the things. I pulled him away from Bayview gifts and admired this neon artwork for a minute:



and then I drug (dragged?? I never get this gramatically correct!) him out to the observation deck.

Hello, Monorail Yellow!





I reallly want to watch Wishes from here sometime! It's such a perfect view!!

We went back inside and were walking to the escalator when DH texted again...they were heading back, where should we meet up? I told him we were getting ready to go upstairs and get on the monorail to the Polynesian, so he said he'd meet us there.

L and I found a mostly empty monorail car (which I was surprised to find, because the other cars were packed with standing room only...we walked all the way to the back and got lucky!) and rode to the Poly.

The Polynesian looked beautiful as always, but was a little lacking in terms of holiday decorations. I did like the flowers mixed in with the garlands though, it was very pretty. DH texted us almost right after we'd arrived. We had been looking at the Moana merchandise in appropriately, the Moana Mercantile, when my phone buzzed. They were down in the lobby and we were just walking down the stairs - can't beat that timing!

I stopped to get a quick picture of the Poly tree (while using a weird angle to not get the people taking pictures in front of it in my own pictures)



We struggled to find each other for a minute, because we were facing in opposite directions, and they were on the backside of a bench behind the Tiki. X was laying down on the couch/bench thing, and looked miserable. He was SUUUUUPPPPER grouchy. Since they hadn't eaten, I asked if they wanted to go to Captain Cook's for food or anything, but X just wanted to go back to the resort. L wanted to stay with DH and go to Epcot, so they decided to walk to the TTC for the Epcot monorail, and X and I went upstairs to take the monorail back to the MK.

We had to wait a bit for the Boardwalk bus at the MK, but not too bad. We went back to the room, I gave X his ear drops, his antibiotic, and some tylenol, and he went right to bed, covered his head with blankets and extra pillows, and passed out for two hours! He didn't even move!

I used that time to get the room picked up and organized. It was lunch time, and the ESPN club was having trivia hour or something?? OMG, it was SO LOUD. I could hear the announcer guy, the laughter of the crowd, everything. I was glad X was able to sleep through it in the little blanket/pillow cocoon he'd made for himself.
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DH and L were at Epcot, and were waiting standby for Mission Space, so he sent me a picture:



He said L wanted to ride Figment after that, so I made a FP for them on the MDE app, and told them to stop for photopass pictures and do the photobooth inside the Imagination Pavilion. They did the photobooth but not the regular photopass stops.



They also did one of those picture things where they put your faces into like, movie posters or whatever?? They chose to do Indiana Jones, and they ordered a keychain for DH and an 8x10 print of THIS gem:



L looks like an adult!! It freaks me out!! He wanted to order a blanket with the picture on it, LOL!!

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When X woke up two hours later, he was like a new person! He was drenched in sweat so I had him take a shower, and then we went down to the Boardwalk to find some food. He contemplated the pizza window and the bakery, but ultimately settled on the food truck thing with corn dogs. He loves corn dogs! He got a footlong one and we ordered some fried mac and cheese bites to share.

After we'd ordered and were waiting for our food, DH texted to say he and L were on their way back, and they got meatball sandwiches from the Boardwalk Bakery and we were all able to sit together and eat. Well, X had already finished most of his corndog by the time they got there, but I was really impressed with how we'd managed to have such good luck with timing all day!

I feel like this is when I went to Dundies Sundries to get the Vera Bradley lanyard to match my little zip up ID pouch I'd bought there the day before...I was going to go bagless to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas party...was I brave or stupid?? I guess we'll see in our next update!!

Have a great Monday!!








 
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Glad to hear the change in plans went ok for you! Ear drops are wonderous things for an ear ache
 
Glad to hear the change in plans went ok for you! Ear drops are wonderous things for an ear ache

Me too, lol!! I was really glad the altered plans didn't make things too crazy. And oh boy, those ear drops were life savers! They made all the difference for him.
 
Glad to hear that your son was starting to feel better. Not the best way to spend the day but atlas you did' have to change your plans too much. Hope everyone is up for the party later! Can't wait to hear how it was.
 
Glad to hear that your son was starting to feel better. Not the best way to spend the day but atlas you did' have to change your plans too much. Hope everyone is up for the party later! Can't wait to hear how it was.

Thank you!! I was so happy when he woke up and was already feeling a bit better. I really think that knowing he had a concrete solution to his problem, with the drops and pills, made all the difference for him. And thank goodness for those ear drops, because they were a lifesaver!
I've started pulling out pictures for the MVMCP part, and I'm going to start the post soon! We had a lot of fun!
 

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