The Queen's Rambles

All those people who tell you to take time for yourself and your marriage–“make going away a priority, spend time without kids.” They know what they are about, don’t they? I always knew they had to be right, but it was not something we could ever manage. It was such a gift to be able to concentrate on each other without worrying about the very demanding, specific, often illogical needs of our children. When you spend the whole day giving someone every ounce of your attention and energy, it’s hard to find even MORE attention and energy after the kids go to bed.

Our vacation was worth every penny and every moment of stress beforehand. It was almost as perfect as it could be, except for a glitch at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter that has made me swear to become the anti-Universal Studios blogger of the year.

Sure, not everything went right. I ended up with huge blisters on the bottoms of my feet by the end of the first day. Our most expensive meal was also the worst meal of the whole trip. We were rained on at Epcot. Details, schmetails.

Overall I can’t even begin to describe how badly we needed this time away for ourselves. I am very, very grateful that my mom was able to watch the kids for five days and I am not even going to complain about the things she did that have me scratching my head. Everyone is alive and happy and that’s what counts.

We started our adventure at Animal Kingdom. I thought we would be spending the whole day in line, but the people behind Disney are brilliant. Everyone can get a FastPass! Other theme parks offer this service for a super-expensive price, but at Disney it is a little different. You go to the attraction and get a ticket with a time printed on it. Once the clock strikes your specific time, you can go through the FastPass lane, which means a pretty short wait (maybe 10 minutes). You can also wait in the stand-by line, which we did on a couple of rides with low wait times. Overall, Disney totally rocked my world with their planning and guest services. Everyone was friendly and happy. I am sure the employees must have been tired by the end of the day, but it never showed. The attractions are all really well planned and everything flowed beautifully. Even with crowds and long lines there was really no feeling of being completely overwhelmed (except for the babies. The poor babies! We saw so many little infants and toddlers at Animal Kingdom who looked completely miserable. It almost seems cruel to bring such young children to a theme park with such high stakes (Disney! Have fun gosh darnit! Even if you are only six months old and sunburned! We paid hundreds for these tickets!).

Animal Kindgom was a lot of walking around, looking at animals. We did the jungle safari ride twice, rode the big thrill coaster and took in two shows. The Lion King show was pretty amazing! They say it is the best show at Disney and I believe it. We also had our best meal of the trip at the Flaming Tree BBQ stand. I never knew theme park food could be good! I was also really impressed with the way they had the lines organized–seems like a silly thing to think about, but keeping those lines under control is so important in making a guest’s experience more positive.

By the end of the day my feet were hurting pretty bad. It has been so cold here in Maryland that I’ve been wearing my big winter moccasin type shoes all the time. I knew I should take my running shoes, but they really hurt my back. I made the incredibly bad decision to wear my Birkenstocks. I’ve worn Birkies for years, but have fallen out of the habit now that I spend a lot of time at playgrounds. I don’t like the mulch on my feet. Thus, blisters.

The blisters were hideous. By the time we got to the hotel that night I couldn’t even walk and was convinced our trip would be ruined. I thought I’d have to be like all the other fat people and rent a scooter or have Mike push me in a wheelchair. But my problem wasn’t my fat! It was my dumb blisters! We did some first aid on them, and hoped for the best.

The next day we decided to forgo common advice to be first in line at Islands of Adventure and spent our morning relaxing. It was a vacation sans children–we were not getting up at 6 am.

Animal Kingdom really died down around 4 pm (all the kiddos needed naps) so we were hoping the same
would be true of Islands of Adventure.

We went to the pool and watched families freeze their tushies off (we didn’t swim), then we did lunch and spotted Footlocker. A very knowledgeable young lady helped me find a great pair of shoes that I will love forever now that I’ve given up on insisting that I only wear women’s shoes. I know that is silly, but I do like to be feminine. I hate feeling like a man.

The artistry of the Islands of Adventure park is really beautiful, but it does not have that Disney touch. The employees all looked tired and a lot of them were downright surly. Disney and IoA both had their fair share of shops, but it felt like IoA had a lot more and was a lot more expensive. Maybe I’m just bitter. Their fastpass system was a pay system, so we didn’t buy one. There weren’t enough rides that we wanted to go on to justify it. Half the rides were either big thrill coasters or water rides. It was way too cold for water rides (even though crazy people were giving it a go!).

Finally we arrived at Harry Potter world! It was so crowded that we couldn’t even move, much less get a good look at any of the things we wanted to see. The biggest disappointment was the ride that we came all the way to Florida to go on–the Forbidden Journey through Hogwarts. It has a pull-over-the-head restraint that is not built to accommodate all people. If you have a big upper body you can’t go on the ride. I have big shoulders, huge boobs and a big belly. I couldn’t go on the ride.

I know I am fat, but I have never, never in my life been denied anything (except cute clothing) because of my weight. I don’t have to use seatbelt extenders or anything like that. I’ve never put much thought into something like this happening. I rode several rides at Disney with the same pull over restraints and it wasn’t an issue. Obviously this spoiled that whole day, but I am trying not to think about it too hard. I will never, never go to Universal Studios again, that’s for sure. Also, the food at the Three Broomsticks was pretty awful and the butterbeer was way too sweet. Boo.

Onwards to day three!

Everyone said we had to see Epcot, so we did the whole “go in the afternoon” thing again, even though it didn’t work out so well at IoA. It was actually raining when we arrived and it wasn’t so fun to stand there in the rain, but we got in a fast moving line that was mostly covered and by the time we were done exploring the iconic big golf ball (Spaceship Earth) the rain was pretty much over.

We did a few of the rides/shows in the World of Tomorrow, which were fun but a little dated and a little too educational. It was not crowded at all so we didn’t get FastPasses for any of the rides. I think our longest wait was about 20 minutes (we skipped the water ride that had a long line. We were already cold and wet.)

The best part of Epcot, by far, was the World Showcase. We spent hours going through the different countries. It was very well done and I loved going in all the shops. Yes, most of it was probably really overpriced, but it was still fun to see such a wide variety of things I’d never dreamed of. And I learned something new! All those anime animal like characters actually have a meaning. They are based off Japanese gods. I never knew that! I find anime annoying, but that certainly shed a different light on the whole art.

I was dying to buy a little Chinese outfit for Elsa. They had all kinds, but the prices were just a little too much for dress-up box clothes. It’s not like she’s Chinese and has a place to wear silk floral clothing. I also wanted to buy one for myself, but I doubt they would have my size and, of course, where would I wear it? I loved looking at the outfits, but there is no way I could comfortably wear one in public. I won’t even wear American florals most of the time.

We are getting technologically advanced in our old age and managed to make reservations at the Moroccan restaurant using a Disney app! Whoo-hoo! Using the app to make reservations was about the most exciting part of the meal. Being in a loud, packed restaurant is not exactly romantic. The food was fairly bad, too. We get the same thing at a local take-out place and it tastes much, much better for less than half the price.

After dinner we kept walking and I had a really tasty bit of chocolate trifle in the UK. By the time we reached Canada (the end!) it was time for the fireworks, which was a fantastic show!

Friday was our last day and we debated going to another park. In the end we decided my feet weren’t up to it and there was nothing we were dying to see. We spent most of the day at Downtown Disney, which is a restaurant/shopping district outside the parks. Nothing too impressive (the balloon ride was down because of storms), but it did have a movie theatre so we went to see Oz the Great and Powerful. Fun movie, but we really should have picked something a little more adult.

And then it was time to come home. We flew on AirTran, which was not the best airline ever. For some reason they don’t seat parties together, then once the plane is loaded the start juggling people around so children can sit with their parents. We were able to juggle ourselves into an exit row together. Whoo-hoo! Since the plane didn’t crash, I didn’t even need to test my strength on the door.

And now we are home! It was great to get big kisses and hugs from the kids, but returning is sure a trial by fire. No easing in to it–it’s just instant go go go get the soccer shoes, brush the hair, why are you naked? clean the mirror, talk on the play phone, and so on and so on and so on.

When’s our next vacation?