Despite the late night at Jellyrolls, I was up early and ready to go on Saturday morning. I had another fun day planned with my friends, but I didn’t know when the day started just how fun my day would be! It was even more magical and memorable than I ever imagined it would be.
I grabbed an everything bagel at the Boardwalk Bakery and went back to my room to eat it. When Masayo and I were ready to hit the parks, we started walking to Epcot. We ran into a family on the bridge to Epcot. The dad was taking a picture of his wife and daughter, and his young son was sitting in his stroller. As I usually do when I see someone taking a picture of their family, I stopped and offered to take a picture so all of them could be in it. The father was grateful for my offer, and went to get in the picture with his wife and daughter, but he forgot something. He forgot his little boy! I said, “What about him?” and the father was like, “Oh yeah, I forgot.” How someone could forget an adorable toddler sitting in a stroller right in front of him is unfathomable to me, but somehow this dad forgot. So he scooped the little boy up and I took a picture of the now complete happy family. I joked with the dad afterwards that I thought I was going to have to take his son to the park with me that day.
Once through the turnstiles at the International Gateway, Masayo and I made our way to Soarin’ for a RADP meet. My friends John, Sue, Catherine, and Jack were also there. We jumped in the standby line at Soarin’, and the time flew by as we chatted and joked around. We nearly filled the entire middle section of the ride!
I was seated next to Catherine on the ride, and Jack was on her other side. Midway through the ride, I purposely back handed Catherine in the face when the golf ball was shot. Jack said afterwards that Catherine had thought that it was him who she should be worried about misbehaving, but no, it wasn’t Jack. I am the one who doesn’t know who to behave! They should know me well enough to realize this by now.
After Soarin’, we had a bit of time on our hands, so some of us grabbed a snack Sunshine Seasons food court while the rest of the group went over to ride Sum of All Thrills. I got a yummy banana nut muffin with tasty icing. I sat at a table and chatted with Masayo and Sue while we waited until it was time for the next meet.
As the group began to assemble to get in line for Living with the Land, I went to a trash barrel to throw out my muffin container. When I pushed open the trash bin, my hand got covered with maple syrup from a previous guest. So, I had to run to the ladies room to wash my hands before I got in line with the rest of the group. By the time I got back, the rest of the group got in line, so I had to climb under the rail to get in line with the group.
When our group got to the boarding area, the cast member directed our party of 23 to five rows of the boat. I don’t know what the heck that cast member was thinking when he sent he expected to fit five adults in those rows! By the time we realized that we all wouldn’t fit in the boat, the rest of the boat was full. Sue and I wound up having to ride on another boat with two other RADP people.
While I was initially a bit disappointed to be separated from the rest of the group, something happened that made it all right. Sometimes fate steps in and leads you to something so fantastic that you are grateful that a twist of fate changed your plans.
When our boat went into the greenhouse section of the ride, the four of us who got separated from the rest of the RADP folks got to witness something totally fantastic. It was unlike anything else I’ve ever seen in my life, and made riding away from the rest of our party totally worth it.
What, you may be wondering, could be so fantastic in Living with the Land? No, it wasn’t a gigantic Mickey Mouse pumpkin or a huge bunch of bananas. We aren’t talking about run of the mill fruits and vegetables, here, my friends. But I’m going to make you wait a bit for the reveal because I have a bit more to say about Living with the Land first.
Living with the Land is one of those attractions that I only visit once every couple of years—usually when I’m with a group, or people who haven’t ridden it before, or I’m trying to kill time before my Soarin’ fast pass return time. I think this ride would be a lot more fun to ride if they handed out samples as you road (“here, have a banana”).
Also, the ride was decorated for the holidays, but you could tell that it wasn’t decorated by official Disney decorators. They had dollar store decorations, bows, and garland all over the greenhouse. It was the tackiest thing I had ever seen on Disney property until I looked in front of me and saw something fantastically tacky in the row in front of us.
Tacky decoration on Living with the Land
There were two older couples sitting in the row of front of us. When our boat went into the greenhouse area, the ladies put on their sunglasses. They were bejeweled and bedazzled with flowers, and beads, and leaves. These were the most wonderfully hideous sunglasses I have ever seen in my life. This is what happens, my friend, when you leave grandma alone with a hot glue gun.
Hey, Grandma, step away from the hot glue gun!
Of course I had to point the sunglasses out to Sue and the other RADP folks. It set me in a fit of giggles for most of the rest of the ride. Sue’s wheels were turning as she was trying to figure out how she could make her own hideously tacky bejeweled and bedazzled sunglasses. I think she already started working on making sunglasses to sell at the RADP meets next year, so start saving your rhinestones and pennies now!
As our boat was approaching the dock, there were about a half dozen RADP people standing by the rail, cameras ready to take our picture. Sue and I motioned to the folks to take a picture of the ladies in front of us, who now had the sunglasses sticking out of the shirts. Hopefully someone got a full frontal picture of the tacky glasses. I also joked that the paparazzi had found me because I am a two-time Academy Award winner.
After riding Living With the Land, John, Sue, Masayo, and I went to use the Soarin’ fast passes we had picked up earlier in the day. While we were in the loading area, Sue noticed a kid wearing a shirt with the name of the small Ohio town where she grew up on it. She asked the boy if he was from the town in Ohio, or the town of the same name in Georgia. He told her he was from the town in Ohio. The boy was travelling with his parents and grandparents. Sue and John started talking to them, and it turned out that the grandmother knows Sue’s mother! Of course, that caused all of us to break into song—“it’s a small world” to be specific.
After Soarin’, John, Sue, Masayo, and I headed over to the Electric Umbrella for lunch. I ordered the meatball sub with French fries. They seemed to be having trouble with the fryolator this afternoon because we had to wait a long time for our fries. John and I watched about a dozen meals sitting on the counter waiting for their fries! Finally after close to ten minutes, the fries were done, and John and I got our food. Masayo had to wait a bit longer for hers. I guess they ran out of fries, again.
After lunch, Masayo and I said goodbye to John and Sue, who were heading over to Mexico for the tequila meet. Masayo and I took rides on Test Track and Journey into Imagination with Figment.
We then walked out to the International Gateway for the annual Big RADP meet. Of course John, Sue, Catherine, and Jack were there, but more of my friends were there, including Ray, Linda, and Deb. It was great to see so many wonderful Disney friends all in one place. It’s always great to catch up with the people I see just once a year.
Here I am with two of my oldest and dearest
DIS friends: Ray Sharpton and John (Towncrier)
Gloria, one of the RADP people who I didn’t really know, came over to Linda and me while we were chatting. Gloria was wearing a Santa shirt, and she said that everyone was saying how much they loved the shirt. So, me being me, had to be a bit of a wiseass, and I jokingly told her, “I don’t like the shirt. I think it’s the ugliest shirt I’ve ever seen.” Gloria was sweet, and she held her tongue because she doesn’t really know me, but I assured her I was just joking around. She could have given me a witty retort, and I would have had something to shot right back at her.
After the RADP meet, I went back into Epcot, intending to see some of the holiday storytellers. Father Christmas in the United Kingdom was going to start telling his story in about 10 minutes, so I made my way to the UK to see him. He was very entertaining, though I found an error in his story. He said that “Jingle Bells” was written in New Jersey, but it was actually written in my hometown of Medford, Massachusetts.
I checked the schedule to see if I could fit another storyteller in before I had to leave Epcot, but the timing wasn’t going to work for me. I had to run back to the Boardwalk to pack my bags for the cruise the next day. I had plans to meet my friend Joe and his friend Amy, and wasn’t planning on being back in the room early, so I wanted to pack my bags before meeting them.
When I got back to the resort, I grabbed a soda and a delicious S’mores cupcake at the Boardwalk bakery. The cupcake was very yummy, though it was a bit messy.
When my bags were packed, I walked over to Disney Hollywood Studios to meet Joe and Amy. I think everyone and their aunt Margaret was in the park that night, as there were wall to wall people. There was even a long line for the Great Movie Ride, which none of us really wanted to wait in since we had all been on it so many times.
We began to wander around the park. We stopped to take pictures with some of the busts near Sounds Dangerous. In all of my trips to Disney World, I don’t think I took more than a passing glance at the busts, so it was kind of neat to stop and really look at them. Joe was very willing to pose for pictures with a lot of the statues. One interesting thing was the Desi Arnez bust—it was hollow in the back, while the rest of them were pretty solid.
We continued to wander a bit, and we wound up running into my DIS friends Cheryl (CherylP3) and Todd, who were at the park with Todd’s brother. Cheryl and Todd are originally from Boston, so I had met them at meets here once or twice, but now I only see them when I’m at Disney World. It was great to see them again.
In our travels, we also saw an older man wearing a Buzz Lightyear sweatshirt. We were fairly certain that he was the real Buzz Lightyear enjoying a night in the park in honor of his retirement, but when we walked close by him at one point, I said, “To infinity and beyond” and he didn’t even acknowledge it.
We wound up heading to see “Beauty and the Beast.” I haven’t seen this show in years, and I had forgotten how entertaining it is. They did a great job staging a mini-version of the story.
We then started to walk back to New York Street to see the Osbourne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights. Before we came to the Osbourne lights, we came to the blinding lights at the Disney Channel Rocks stage. Despite the fact that there wasn’t a show going on, they had the bright, blinding lights from behind the stage shining. I joked with a cast member standing next to them with a flashlight directing people to the Osbourne lights that here light paled in comparison to the stage lights.
Walk into the light!
Photo Op!
The Osbourne lights are absolutely stunning. Pictures and videos just don’t do them justice, especially when they are dancing to your favorite holiday songs. When the lights started dancing to “Feliz Navidad” I had to call my friend Jen, who was with me in December 2007 to videotape me dancing to the song with my good friends Diane and Mary Anne.
Hanging with Joe and Amy at the Osbourne
Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights
And speaking of dancing, there was a cast member named Aaron from Tulsa was dancing to the music near the Nativity Scene. So, me being me, I had to join in and dance with him. And I had to get Joe to immortalize it on my Flip cam.
While we were admiring the lights, a nice family asked a man standing near us to take their picture. I stood behind him and watched as he took the picture, and he zoomed in close on the family, barely getting any of the lights in the picture. When he handed back the camera and walked away, I told the mom that the guy didn’t get any of the lights in the picture, and offered to take another one. She was afraid that the guy might be offended if he saw them posing for another picture, but when he was far away, she let me take the picture for them.
When we had our fill of the dancing lights, we decided to find something to eat. As we walked, we spotted a woman carrying a funnel cake with ice cream trying to take a picture while she walked. I asked her if it was for me, but more than that, I was waiting for her to trip and fall into the thing. Why would anyone try to take a picture of their snack while walking through a crowd?
Our quest for food turned into a series of decisions and changing our mind on the fly that lead to one of the most perfect evenings I’ve ever had at Walt Disney World. It was one of those evenings that wouldn’t have worked out so well if we had tried to plan it.
And it all started with our indecisiveness over what to have for dinner, and where to go to eat it. Nothing sounded particularly appealing at Disney Hollywood Studios, so we decided to leave the park. We decided we would see if there was a line to get on the boat to the Dolphin so we could have dinner at Picabu. But the line was long, so we started to discuss other options. Joe suggested that we go to Downtown Disney, but I didn’t think it was a good idea on a Saturday night, especially since we would have to transfer buses to get there.
I suggested that we go to a monorail resort for dinner so that we would be in the Magic Kingdom area for the fireworks, figuring we could watch them from a beach or something. The Magic Kingdom was opened until 1:00 a.m. this night, so we would also have the option of going to the park after dinner if we wanted to go. We decided to go to the Polynesian for dinner, so we hopped in the line for the bus that went to the Polynesian, Contemporary, and Grand Floridian. It was a long line, and we figured we’d have to wait for the second bus.
While we were waiting, the bus to the Wilderness Lodge and Fort Wilderness showed up. The line wasn’t that long, and it was one of the older buses with lots of seats. I turned to Joe and said, “We should go to the Wilderness Lodge. We’ll definitely get on the bus, and we’ll probably get seats, too.” Joe agreed, so we got Amy off the nearby bench and went to get on the bus to the Wilderness Lodge.
When we got off the bus at the Wilderness Lodge, we started to walk into the building. When we saw the cowbells outside the building, Joe said, “We need more cowbell,” a reference to a classic Saturday Night Live skit. Just seconds after Joe said it, a little boy in front of us said, “We need more cowbell.” Joe and I started laughing because we knew this little boy didn’t hear Joe say it first, and he was far too young to have seen the skit. His mom heard us laughing and told us that she taught him to say it.
Since we were all hungry, we headed to Roaring Forks to grab some dinner. I wound up getting a Wilderness Salad, which had chicken, apples, and walnuts on it. It was made to order and tossed in a delicious vinaigrette.
After dinner, we browsed around the mercantile for a while. Although none of us bought anything, I did enjoy browsing in the shop. The Wilderness Lodge gift shop always has the most interesting merchandise.
We then headed to the boat dock to catch the boat to the Magic Kingdom, hoping that we would make it to the Magic Kingdom in time to catch Wishes. When we got to the dock, there were a lot of people already in line for the boat. The small boat wasn’t big enough to take everyone, and we wound up having to wait for the next boat. We were the second party in line.
And having to wait for the second boat ended up being a stroke of luck. We were able to watch the Electric Water Pageant from the boat dock! We stayed in line, so we didn’t have the best view of it, but it was still fun to watch it.
While we were waiting in line, we started chatting with the family in back of us. Mostly we were talking to the mom, who shall henceforth be referred to as Drunk Oklahoma Lady. Drunk Oklahoma Lady was very awed when she heard that we were from Boston. She called us the quintessential Americans, and kept on telling us how adorable and perfect we were (hmm, maybe she wasn’t that drunk, since she was obviously correct about me being perfect and adorable).
Drunk Oklahoma Lady was the mother of an adorable son named Luke. Her friend showed us a picture of her son by the pool, and said that he could be a J. Crew model. I totally agreed with them. Drunk Oklahoma Lady is going to have to fight the girls away from her son with a stick in a few years.
We continued to listen to Drunk Oklahoma Lady talk about how wonderful, and adorable, and perfect we were until the boat arrived. Once again, we realized that missing the first boat was a stroke of luck. The timing was perfect and we would now be able to watch Wishes from the boat as we made our way to the Magic Kingdom!
When the boat arrived, it was one of the large boats. I decided that I wanted to sit outside in the front of the boat. The first party took seats inside, so we had first choice of the seats outside. I sat in the front row on the right, and Amy and Joe sat in the front row on the left.
Drunk Oklahoma lady sat in the seat behind me. She continued to tell me how adorable and perfect I am. She told me that everyone loves me because I am so fun, and vibrant, and adorable, and energetic. Drunk Oklahoma Lady is really perceptive when she is drunk because she had me perfectly pegged. Drunk Oklahoma lady introduced me to her beautiful daughter Sophie and told me that she wanted Sophie to be just like me when she grew up.
Some great kids from Alabama sat with me on the boat. Their names were Zanna, Kalie, and Eli. They were very inquisitive kids, and I really enjoyed chatting with them. They really seemed to enjoy watching Wishes on the boat. When we came around the Contemporary and could see the castle, the kids were very excited to see the castle lit in different colors.
One of the crew members on the boat, Ed, instructed the boat’s captain to take the long way to the Magic Kingdom so that we could watch all of Wishes from the boat. Ed stood at the front of the boat, and even softly sang some of the music for wishes.
When Wishes ended, we still had a few minutes left in our boat ride. I enlisted Drunk Oklahoma Lady, Kalie, Eli, and Sophie to join me in trying to get everyone on the boat singing “Jingle Bells.” So, we started singing, and just about everyone on the front of the boat joined in (although Joe likes to say that only two people joined in—but he was singing along too).
When the boat docked, Joe, Amy, and I said goodbye to our new friends, and made our way into the Magic Kingdom. We arrived shortly before the Magic, the Memories, and You show was supposed to start, so we found a spot in the hub to watch from, as Joe and Amy had not yet seen it. This was my first time seeing the holiday ending to the show, and I absolutely loved seeing the castle looking like a candy cane and a gingerbread house. When I first heard about this show, I didn’t think I’d like it, but I really do love watching it.
We then made our way over to the Haunted Mansion. We took the graveyard queue, as Joe and Amy had not yet seen it. After our ride on the Haunted Mansion, I said good night to Joe and Amy. I had to be up early in the morning, as I had to have my bags ready to go for the cruise by 8:00 a.m., so I knew I had to be up bright and early the next morning.
It sure was a magical day at Walt Disney World—one that I won’t soon forget. There were a lot of laughs, a lot of memories made, and a lot of quality time with my wonderful friends.
Loving your blog Karen!
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