Okay, I'm on the home stretch, only a day and a half of trip report left to complete. We returned back to Buffalo yesterday, so I'm writing this while curled up with a blanket on my lap looking at the snow outside. I miss the palm trees. I don't know how people can manage to write a trip report months after the trip, I can barely remember what happened, and it was only three days ago. So I last left off with Tigger napping back at our room. Well like usual he eventually woke up, I don't remember the time, but we once again decided to ignore the hamburger sitting in our fridge, and headed back to Magic Kingdom, we would surely be able to find food there...or would we? So back we go. We still had some very important attractions to cover, namely the train and the enchanted tiki room. Those two items were our sole goals for this trip, anything else would be a bonus. Because we were now addicted to racing the parking tram, we couldn't help but race again. And we won! Grizzly was keeping score, I think we were now 5/5 or something like that. Tigger enjoyed the stroller rides by pointing out all the odd colored poles in the parking lot, most were red, but he would find the yellow and purple ones and would screech out gleefully "another yellow one!" each time we came across a different color. Once arriving at the MK, we noticed that the train was in the Main Street station, so we quickly extracted Tigger from his stroller and went bounding up the stairs to try to get on the train. We made it, and thus began the huge cloud of pixie dust we must have been traveling through that evening. I don't have any pictures of the train, but Tigger liked it. We got off in Frontier Land.
Ah Frontier Land. This is where Tigger decided to walk for the very first time all trip. Believe me, we would have loved for him to walk (or at least ride in his stroller) a little earlier. So Tigger walks all the way from the bridge over Splash Mountain to the Enchanted Tiki Room. We were in no particular hurry, so it was okay that this walk took FOREVER. There were many leaves and sticks that had to be investigated, and the grates, oh how Tigger loves to stand on grates. So we get near to the Enchanted Tiki Room and I can see that the pre-show has started, and I know that if I let Tigger walk the rest of the way we would probably have to wait for the next show, which would mean waiting in line for 15 minutes rather than 2, so I scoop him up, run around the corner and hop in line. The pre-show is terrible, the bird is up there mumbling something that is hardly entertaining, but Tigger stood patiently, and was kind of amazed at the talking bird:
So we go into the room, and skip over people already sitting down so that we can be near the door. Although Tigger has done remarkably well this trip, he is still wussy, and I wanted to be able to make an escape if things got too loud and scary. So the tiki tiki tiki tiki room song starts and Tigger is captivated. We have been singing this song the best we could all week, and he recognizes it, and thinks it's fantastic. When the song ends he claps his hands and screams "YEAH!". Everyone else is silent and wondering when they will get that 3 minutes of their life back. I am waiting for the 'management' to show up. So in starts another set of birds. I think the horrendous white birds come down. These birds are sooooooooo boring. But I was fine with them because 'the new management' was going to show up any minute and save me from this train wreck of a show. Where was Iago? And then the white birds went away and the flowers sang some Hawaiian song which was kind of fun, but where was 'the management'? Where where where? And then there was really loud thunder and lightening and darkness. And my wuss child? Completely fine! I can't believe how not scared of things Tigger has been on this trip. He was awesome. So the totem poles started singing and eventually the show ended with 'the management' never making an appearance. I was so dissapointed. I really liked the version of The Enchanted Tiki Room Under New Management, without the management it was just singing birds. With the exception of my son, and possibly people over 70 who once thought singing birds were the highlight of entertainment, I can't imagine who likes this version. No nostalgia of days gone by for me here. These birds were dull.
So Tigger continued his walk once out of the Tiki Room. He saw the flying carpets and wanted to ride them, so we herded him in the general direction. Of course on the way he found the only puddle in the MK:
He jumped in this puddle. Walked away, but had to turn around and jump in it again. Now, rarely is there just a random puddle hanging around. No no no, all puddles lead to other larger puddles. And Tigger found that larger puddle oh so easily. He found this:
And he had a blast running through it and screaming really high pitched screeches every time those guys squirted. Although this picture is blurry, you can easily see the joy this fountain brought to Tigger:
What I liked best is that he discovered it all on his own. So after about 30 minutes or more of playing in the fountain we finally made it to Aladdin's Carpets. This time the camel was spitting, and he spit on us, and of all the things that Tigger has not been afraid of this trip, the spitting camel was not one of them. He didn't like this camel at all, and wanted off the ride immediately. We flew high above the camel the rest of the flight, but Tigger did not want to return. Kind of odd since he was already wet from the fountain.
It was now well past our dinner time, so we headed over to Pinnochio's because we were now addicted to their chicken breast nuggets, and Tigger was really excited to eat spaghetti. When we got there, just past 6:30pm, they were already closed! Apparently, you are not allowed to eat anywhere in the MK after 6:30 because I think the place in tomorrowland was closed too. All out of choices we headed out of the park to go to Downtown Disney for an Earl of Sandwich Sandwich. Except on the way out I noticed some mighty nice looking hotdogs, and Tigger agreed to eat one, so I stood in a ridiculously long line on Main St to get us some hot dogs. Perhaps the line wouldn't have been so long, but it was the only place serving food left open in the entire park. We got a Chicago Dog, and BBQ Pork and Coleslaw Dog (AMAZING!) and a plain dog for Tigger. I didn't mind paying nearly 9 dollars for our fancy hot dogs because they were pretty spectacular, but I thought Tigger's plain hot dog was very overpriced. 7.50ish for a plain dog. Really? We plunked down on Main St to eat because there was no way we would find a table with everyone camped out for Wishes already. The doggies were messy and the buns were soggy, we made a huge mess. With hot dogs eaten it was only 7:25. Hmmm...35 minutes to Wishes. We just might make it, but we certainly wouldn't make it if we just sat there and did nothing for 35 minutes. So we headed over to Buzz Lightyear and did some spinning. After Buzz I asked Tigger if he wanted to ride Buzz again or ride the train (TTA). His response was "ride the cars!" Heck yeah we were going to ride the cars. Tigger and I went to ride the cars while Grizzly snuck on Space Mountain. We got in line at the speedway and we waited. And waited. And waited. They were purposefully loading the cars slowly, letting everyone get off the cars before sending people down the walkway to get in. Sooooo frustrating. It was 7:50 and we still weren't in a car yet. Ugh. We finally get in a car, drive around and have a great time. And then when we return we have to park the car away from the platform and walk back up to the unloading area. Time is just tick tick ticking away until Wishes. I hear the first few fireworks going off, and people are just moseying along. WALK FASTER PEOPLE!!!! We finally make it out of the ride only to find Wishes in full swing, certainly no time to walk around to the front of the castle. But did you know right outside of the speedway is a really awesome view of the fireworks? Really great. So we just stayed there. Tigger wouldn't have understood any of the story anyways. And he loved the fireworks from up on Daddy's shoulders:
That was it, the end to a perfect day, and we finally made it to Wishes. Yeah. We walked out with the sea of humanity. Opted for the boat rather than a crowded monorail, and of course raced the parking tram back to our car. 6 for 6 baby! Up next a last visit to Animal Kingdom to end our magical vacation, but as was typical with this trip things didn't go exactly as planned.