The Happiest Place on Earth

Or so they say. And it was, honestly, a pretty happy place for Zoey, who was so excited about meeting Mickey Mouse, even though we had to stand in line for over 30 minutes for the priveledge of a 2-minute meet and greet. Little kids do not understand waiting in line, or waiting at all, much less the concept of "get out of the way kid your time is up." Still, she spent the rest of the day saying, "Did you give Mickey Mouse a hug?" (She's currently conversing in question mode.)

It's amazing how an oversized rat in ridiculous clothing can make little kids so happy. I know that underneath that costume there's a tired wannabe actor who makes the same 10 poses over 300 times a day and is damn thrilled no one can see his face. But to Zoey, wow, he's a superstar. Along with every other big-headed character roaming around the place.

Needless to say, she had a fantastic time. Me and Trey, well, we got alternately tired, irritated, overwhelmed, and cynical, but it was hard not to feed off some of Zoey's intense joy. We didn't ride all that many rides, because Zoey was too small for many of them, and the wait was just too long for the rest. But we did enough to make a small child happy. We rode the Cinderella Carrousel, with its smiling white horses, first, because Zoey loves her some carrousel. I should correct myself, because we actually went to Toontown first because Zoey really wanted to meet Mickey Mouse. He was there when we walked in, and we got in line to meet him at the front gate, but the line moved slowly and Trey got impatient so we bailed and headed past Cinderella's castle to toontown, where the map promised Mickey likes to hang out. (Wait a minute, if he's in ToonTown, how come we just saw him at the front gate....) We mistakenly went through Minnie's House, and it's long crowded line of people walking past and just looking at stuff. But Donald Duck's park was just next door and we were able to let Zoey run around there for a few minutes before getting back into a line to meet Mickey.

I'm such a nice wife, I let Trey go wander around and find some coffee and aspirin while I took Zoey to meet Mickey. And while it probably took us 30 minutes to get in to see the mouse, get our picture and get out, Trey still hadn't returned. So I let Zoey play some more in Donald's park, which was a pretty happy place for many of the smaller kids, until they fell or ran head on into another kid and started crying (I saw this happen at least three times). Because the kids, you know, they're crazy at Disney World. Crazy or tired. Or crazy tired.

Trey finally made it back, though for a minute or two I was really worried that he was lost. He brought me an iced coffee that I immediately dropped in the restroom stall, much to the surprise of the mom and kid in the adjacent stall (heh heh, I left rather quickly after that). Oh well. We decided that the first ride of the day should be Cinderella's carrousel (see above), and that the second ride should be "It's a Small World," because I remember when I went to Disney World, oh, back in 1981 or so, my sister really, really loved that ride. And she was pretty much the same age as Zoey at the time. After a 40 minute wait, we boarded the little boats and floated through the disney-fied world of multiculturalism. It was great, mostly because it's just so much fun to watch Zoey be amazed.



Oh, and there's video of it here. It's very dark, but I think it conveys some of Zoey's excitement. ( quicktime version )

Then we ate a surprisingly good lunch: a turkey bacon pannini, which Zoey and I shared because she didn't like her turkey and cheese wraps. After lunch, we got fast past tickets to the Winnie the Pooh ride. Fast Pass is Disney's alternative to waiting in their giganto lines. You get one fast pass at a time, and it tells you when you get to come back to the ride, where you get in the fast pass line right onto the ride. The ticket told us to come back between 5:55 and 6:55, and as it was only about 3:00, we had some time to kill, so we went into Piglet's park, which, like Donald's playground, is an enclosed space especially designed for the smaller kids. She played around in Pooh's house for a bit, and went down the slide, and all was well and good until she discovered the water fountain feature in the park. She jumped right in to the fountain to play in the water, because, like all kids, she loves to get wet. And me, like all parents, just cringe at these fountains because it always induces such a contradiction of feelings. On the one hand, I really want her to have a good time. On the other, I don't want her to run around in wet clothes and I didn't bring a change of clothes with me into the park. But oh well, because the kid always wins and gets to get soaked. And then Disney wins, too, because we had to buy her a new shirt, but that's okay, because I wanted her to get a shirt anyway.



At this point, I'm wanting Zoey to take a little nap. She's tired and getting alittle fussy. She doesn't want to ride in the stroller (did I mention that renting a stroller was the best thing we did that day?); she wants me or daddy to hold her, but her shorts are soaking wet and it's not really comfortable to hold her. Trey and I need some more coffee, because we're getting a little tired, too, so we start walking toward Tomorrowland. Zoey's starting to cry because I've belted her into the stroller thinking she'll just eventually fall asleep. I mean, there were hundreds of other kids sleeping in their strollers (or parent's arms). There were also hundreds of other kids in various states of unhappiness--so much for the happiest place on earth. This kid was tired and overstimulated; I was just sure she'd pass out in the stroller. But she never did. She cried through much of our walk through tomorrowland (there were no good rides for little ones there). We finally just let her out of the stroller to run around a bit, which not only stopped her fussing, but also woke her up. Oh well.

We exited tomorrowland and came upon Cinderella's castle with about 10 minutes until the next showing of the Cinderella show. It's not that much of a show, just a little song and dance and into of the princesses who all came to watch Cinderella get crowned a princess. But it was Cinderella, and Zoey loves Cinderella, so we had to stay and watch it.



After the show, we still had some time to kill before our fast pass tickets were valid, so we went into adventureland and came upon a deserted Pirates of the Carribean ride. There were people streaming in, but as we walked up a disney employee pointed to the other line and let us know there were two, so we went into the empty line and literally onto a boat. Yeah! Another boat ride! Zoey loves boat rides. But uh oh, tunnels. Dark tunnels. Zoey hates tunnels. I had forgotten how frightening that ride can be. It starts out really dark, and then the boat drops off about three feet. Zoey started with the "no more! no more!" cries that she uses when she's scared and both Trey and me are starting to think we made a mistake. Fortunately, the ride livens up quite a bit once you get past the fake gun battles, and start seeing all the mangely animals interacting with the drunken, dancing and laughing pirates. By the time it was over, it had become one of Zoey's favorite rides.

We then got in line for the Jungle Cruise ride, but after about 30 minutes we bailed on the line. It gets frustrating to wait and wait and then watch all those fast pass people walk right in front of you. We meandered into Frontierland, but all those rides are too big, so we headed back to Fantasyland and the winnie the pooh ride. On the walk over there, I noticed the line for small world had gotten smaller, and so had the one for the Snow White ride. It was getting dark, so maybe a lot of the crowd had left. We walked right into the Winnnie the Pooh ride, which is one of the typical get-in-a-cart-and-wheel-around-a-track-to-look-at-scenes-from-a-story ride. It was cute, but really, meh. Then we rode Snow White, which really scared Zoey. Do any of you really remember Snow White? That story is terrifying, really terrifying. Everything about it is dark and sinister.

Surprisingly, Zoey wanted to ride the Dumbo ride, which she called the elephant merry-go-round, so I took her to stand in line while letting Trey sit down for a while. It was a long slow line, exacerbated by the fact that you could easily watch people get on the ride. And with Zoey, you just have to pick her up and hold her while in line, because otherwise she would wander off, maybe try to walk to the front of the line. She kept saying, "first they finish, then Zoey." Yes, that's right, first they finish. ANd then they finish, and then them and them and them.. Then Zoey. But it was worth it because Zoey loved the ride, which is a good sign for amusement parks in our future. I rather like riding the faster rides, and it would just suck if Zoey decides they're not for her, because I'm really looking forward to taking her on some.

Anyway, we're almost done with our day at Disney. We rode the carrousel again, because there was no wait (and again, Zoey loves her some carrousel), same with the small world ride. Then we found a place to watch the SpectraVision parade. I don't think I've ever seen Zoey's face more full of awe as during the parade, with it's millions of lights and every Disney character you've ever heard of riding electrical floats in front of you. She waved frantically to Mickey, who waved back to Zoey's sheer joy. She saw Cinderella and Snow White and Arial and Belle and all the princesses she's never heard of yet but will someday probably worship. And Donald and Goofy and Pluto and electic fairies and crazy looking creatures with funny faces, all dancing and fake singing to this really stupid, typically Disney orchestral soundtrack. For an adult, it's horrifying and magical. But for Zoey, it was just magic.

We got more pictures. Go here.