Day 4 - Magic Kingdom and dinner with Cinderella

We planned in advance to spend only three to four hours at the park in order to give the girls (and the adults) some downtime in the afternoon at the resort pool.

Here's the summary of the day:

1. Met Snow White
2. Met Anastasia, Drizella and Lady Tremaine (Cinderella's stepsisters and stepmother)
3. Rode the Dumbo the Flying Elephant ride
4. Rode the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
5. Rode Peter Pan's flight
6. Met Pinocchio
7. Swam in the resort's pools
8. Had dinner with Cinderella

And here's the Triplet Field Guide for the day:

• Allie - Blue shirt, purple sandals
• Anna - Pink shirt, baby running sneakers, Mickey ears with the tail
• Emily - White shirt, white sandals

So remember how I mentioned in an earlier post that the Times Guide gives times and locations for some of the character meets and greets? Well, I happened to overhear, in passing, another park visitor say that they had met Snow White on Main Street. This was not listed on the Times Guide so when arrived that morning, I asked someone in the Information/Visitor Center about finding Snow White.
For breakfast that morning, Rich had run over to the food court and picked up cereal and milk, which the girls ate without issue. We missed a ferry and had to wait for the next one, which took a good deal of time. We didn't walk into the park until 10:50. The woman in the Visitor/Information Center was extremely helpful in showing me exactly where Snow White would be, which was directly across the plaza. She then called some character hotline and informed me that Snow White was scheduled to return at 11:00.

I ran outside, grabbed everyone and we practically ran over there. By the time we arrived, others were starting to show up and/or figure out that a character was going to be there. We managed to score third place in line. I was patting myself on the back for that one. And then we ran into Society Offender #2 of the trip.

Snow White was positioned in this gazebo type thing. Directly in front, leading right up to her were stairs but off to the side was a ramp. The Line Monitor had us form a line on the ramp. The line then started to fill up fairly quickly. As the Line Monitor was organizing the line (stay on the right side of the ramp only), I noticed this woman with two girls standing at the steps looking up at Snow White (the first people in line were starting their meet and greet.) I witnessed the Line Monitor yell over to her, "Ma'am, the line is over here." She nodded but didn't go join the line.

The people in front of us moved up and decided to push their stroller off to the side so that it wouldn't be in the way. While we were preoccupied with unloading the girls and all of our gear so that we too could push our strollers off to the side, that lurking woman and her two girls snuck past everyone and positioned themselves to be the next ones to met Snow White! Well, that was just unacceptable so I took a few steps closer to her and said,"Excuse me, the line is over here. You just cut everyone."

Now I expected her to play dumb and innocently say, "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know." You would have to be the most oblivious person on the planet who just stepped foot into a Disney park for the first time ever for me to believe that. And deaf. Instead, she had the nerve to whip her head around and yell,"Well, you don't have to be rude about. I don't know why people have to be so rude." Oh, lady you are messing with the wrong person.

"Um. You cut the line and I let you know that you cut the line. AND you cut the line after I watched that woman over there who works here TELL you that there is a line. Whose being rude?" She sulked off and got into line. Grammy overheard her say to her friend, "That bitch over these blah blah the line blah blah." Save it for the judge, lady. If you think that was bitchy, you haven't seen anything.
Okay, so enough of rude people who are teaching their children, who are the next generation, that it's okay to cut in line. By the time we met Snow White, the girls were on the same status level as professional princess meeters.



Come on! Isn't this adorable?



Our plan for the day was to return to Fantasyland to hopefully check out the rides that we missed the day before. But then we spotted Anastasia, Drizella and Lady Tremaine, Cinderella's stepsisters and stepmother, so we HAD to wait in line to meet them. That was a long line too. I thought that they were pretty funny but they talked a lot, which lead to the slow line.



Just to prove that the girls really do believe that these are Cinderella's REAL LIVE stepsisters and stepmother, Allie nervously asked me, "Are Anastasia and Drizella going to tear my shirt?" My poor baby was scared. She was thinking of the scene in the movie where the stepsisters rip apart Cinderella's dress.



This was a Tuesday morning and the park was noticeably less crowded than the day before. The wait time for Dumbo was only 20 minutes. That one received six thumbs up. We then waited about 20 minutes for the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. This attraction received mixed reviews. Allie enjoyed it but Em and Anna were a bit afraid. Most of the ride was dark and had the undertones of a scary dream.

The longest wait of the day (20 - 30 minutes) was for Peter Pan's flight . Should I mention how I caught the kid behind us pulling on the tail on Anna's Mickey ears while it was on her head. The kid was old enough to know better (years older than the girls) and his dad (instead of supervising) was talking on his mobile phone. I gave that kid the look of death and he didn't get near her again.

That ride was very dark and again left Anna and Em a bit afraid. They didn't cry or anything - just tightly held onto us. Allie claims to have liked it.

We bumped into Pinocchio on our way out of the park.





A tired little mouse.



(Love crazy Em in the background.)

After lunch, we returned to our hotel so that the girls could go swimming. Unfortunately, the kiddie pool at our resort was a bit blah in my opinion. It was basically this small circular pool set off to the side in the shade. No theme or anything. The girls, as most kids will do, had fun anyway. They made friends with the only other kid (a girl a bit younger than them) in the pool. Their big fun was splashing and cleaning the leaves out of the pool.

Rich had managed to get us reservations at the 1900 Park Fare restaurant for a Cinderella dinner that night at 7:35. Yeah, kind of late but you gotta do what you gotta do. I'll have to discuss the fiasco of dining at table service restaurants later. The girls watched Cinderella on the portable DVD player while Grammy and I did some shopping at the resort's gift shop.



The Grand Floridian has this huge lobby and all the little girls waiting for the Cinderella dinner became friends and danced and danced. At first, there was a jazz band playing. That was replaced with a pianist. And apparently, we didn't get the memo about dressing our girls up in Cinderella (or other princess) dresses for the dinner. In the parks, those dresses cost $60 each. That would have been $180. That doesn't include having hair done, etc.

Don't get me wrong. I think it's okay for people to do this. Those girls looked adorable and seemed over the moon. Interestingly enough, at least 75% of the families we saw with little girls dressed up only had one girl in the family. I saw a few families with two little girls dressed up but no families with three girls. And interestingly enough, even though my girls saw all these little girls dressed up and they love getting dressed up, they never once asked why they didn't have princess dresses to wear.

I've read mixed reviews about the food at this restaurant. I thought it was okay. Not fantastic. Not horrible. The meeting and greeting was a bit odd. The characters walked around to each table, talked and posed for pictures. I felt that it was more personable at the parks.

So last grumpy story of the day. Emily had to pee. Really bad. She had mentioned it on our way over the restaurant, fell asleep for 5 minutes and didn't mention it again until we had started eating. For whatever reason, the bathroom nearest to the restaurant only has 3 stalls so there was a line. Can you believe that this little girl, whose mother was behind me, suddenly showed up in front of me? Think again, line cutter, I have a three year old who is about to pee on me.

When the next available stall door swung open, she tried to step into it before me. I cut her off. Would you believe that she gave her mother a dirty look and her mother shrugged. Where do these people come from? You think it is acceptable for your kid to cut people in line? And believe me, I made it very obvious that Em was the one who had to go.

The girls were tired but seemed to enjoy the dinner. Unfortunately, they thought that Cinderella was actually going to eat at the table with us.



Only Em would pose with Lady Tremaine. Can you see Rich holding a terrified Allie?



Grammy took this picture on my camera while I had Emmy in the bathroom. (Please note that Rich's head is distorted from the wide angle lens.)




Anna, do you want to get in the picture with Cinderella? Anna?