And So This Is Christmas

We were at the eye doctor at 8 am on Monday and were on our way by 8:30. We traveled east over 105 and were in Beaumont in less than two hours. I was talking on the phone to Karen in Cincinnati when a truck in front of us pulling a small flatbed trailer started to lose control. There were at least 20 5-gallon plastic buckets of white paint and once the liquid started sloshing I'm sure it worsened the situation. I was on the phone hollering "woe, woe, woe" and poor Karen was frantic on the other end. The truck finally ended up plowed into the grass but white paint was flying everywhere. Luckily we missed the paint and skirted the pails to continue on our way. The guy got out of the truck so we knew he was OK or we would have stopped.

We made it to Biloxi by late afternoon and checked into our Isle Casino room. We rested up for awhile, then went to play some games and finally ate at the buffet which wasn't very good. We were in bed early and on our way a little after 7 on Tuesday morning.

It was a long haul to Disney. We checked into our studio at Old Key West and met up with Kara, Allen, Sam and Morgan. They had just finished eating at Chef Mickey's in the Contemporary Hotel so we walked over to the snack bar and got a bite to eat. It was another early night because Kara said we had to be at the gate for "rope drop" at 8 am the next morning.

Kara has visiting Disney down to a science. They have a time share and she belongs to a group that studies crowd behavior and inside info to help plan time in the park. For example, we approached the turnstiles that were not open yet and there were long lines at most. We walked to the far right and got first in line. No one moved out of the long line the whole time we stood at this turnstile.

 

 

We went through first and immediately gave our tickets to Allen so he could go get Fast Passes for Soarin', the most popular ride at Epcot. Then we were stopped at the "rope" to wait for opening. When it dropped, everyone hurried past us while we stopped at the Kim Possible exhibit to get a ticket for a mission in the park and then went on to The Land. While everyone else was heading to Soarin' we walked right on three different rides. When our hour interval was up, Allen went to get Fast Track passes, another popular ride. We let the kids play in an area and then went to Soarin' with our Fast Passes. While others were waiting 90 minutes we were on and off in 15 or so.

 

After a few more quick rides, we rode the boat to World Showcase and kept our noon reservation at the French restaurant. I wasn't expecting much but it was fantastic! We were visited by Remy the Rat from the movie Ratatuille (spelling?).

 

 

 

Aftet lunch we did our Kim Possible mission. It took us to Germany where we made steins sing, nutcrackers play music and trains run. We did all this using a device that looked like a cell phone. We got a kick out of a sign near the train that said Wurzburg. We visited there in 2006. We took time to listen to singers in the Liberty Inn all dressed in Dickens attire followed by the fyfe and drum corp.

We went back to the park part and went to Fast Track where the wait was one hour for Fast Passes and 2 and a half hours for the regular line. Apparently it had broken down and got backed up. So we went to the Energy ride with dinosaurs and by the time we got back, the line was gone at Fast Track for those with passes and we were on in 15 minutes or so.

By this time we were all pretty tired so we decided to leave. After a quick stop at Walgreen's we then got a pizza and headed for home. They were going to Magic Kingdom in the morning. Ted and I were sleeping in and taking our time checking out. We had reservations at 11 o'clock at Park Fare in the Grand Floridian for all 11 of us.