(This was written in June 2009, but for some reason it was saved as a draft, and only published in April 2010)
(Warning-This post includes potentially boring and sloppy descriptions of our vacation last week. There are a few pics on Facebook with more to come as well as a highlight reel video that might be coming to YouTube…)
On Friday, 6-12, I finished my last day at Cranberry Middle School and immediately left for Walterboro, South Carolina. We stopped in Fort Mill to pick up our sweet ride, a brand new Town and Country minivan, at the Enterprise place. After a quick stop in Rock Hill to give the kids a break we continued on down to the low country.
Saturday we drove the 5 hours to Orlando and had plenty of time to swim in the hotel’s pool.
Sunday Isabella went with the aunts and Appy to Sea World. Megan, Emmeline and I met up with Abby and Tadd and drove over to Emeril’s at Universal Studios. Emeril’s has good food and a nice atmosphere (except for the bizarre and giant portrait of Emeril on the wall) for reasonable prices. If you go, don’t expect some kind of life changing meal, though. No bam. Also, if you’re going to Universal Studios just for Emeril’s, go at night when the parking is only $3 per car… not $12. I got the barbeque shrimp appetizer and the filet. I wish I had gotten one of the flatbreads (pizza), though, because while a filet is great, Emeril doesn’t do it better than any number of restaurants. However, the banana creme pie was OUTSTANDING. If you like bananas, you must try it.
Sunday night we checked into Orange Lake Resort where we would stay until Saturday. It’s a lovely resort with great restaurants, mini golf, water parks, pools, golf (not that I played), and, this year, INTERNET. It’s located on Hwy. 192 in Kissimee and borders on the Animal Kingdom. We could see Mt. Everest and Spaceship Earth from our suite. It was around this time that I noticed the heat. Just unloading the van drenched my clothes with sweat. It would take until Thursday before I finally started acclimating to the heat. It also took until Thursday until we figured out how to keep Emmeline cool.
Monday Isa went back to Sea World while Megan, Emmeline and I went to Downtown Disney to wilt in the heat. I had picked Emeril’s as my celebrity restaurant, and Megan picked Wolfgang Puck’s, so that’s where we ate lunch on Monday. We also perused many of the shops and had sundaes at the Ghirardelli soda fountain. I’ll just say that if you like chocolate, you must go to this place. I had a dark chocolate sundae that opened my mind. That evening Megan and I cooked ddukbbokki for everyone, and I was surprised that it was a moderate hit. I also think it was the best ddukbbokki I’ve ever had in the US. On the downside, it did cause a vile odor to creep into the hotel’s walls for several hours.
Tuesday we left Emmeline with Appy and took Isabella to the Magic Kingdom. Isa wore her Aurora dress. When we got to the monorail station Megan asked if we could ride in the front and they ushered us to a special line. We had a wait a little bit longer, but we got to ride with the driver in the front. Isa loved it, and I thought it was pretty cool, too. The morning was rough for some reason. We took Isa to meet the princesses. After an hour in line, we finally got there, but Isabella had a melt down. She cried and kicked and didn’t want to meet any of the princesses. We finally got her to take pictures, but she would not talk to them, smile at them, or even acknowledge them. We later found out she doesn’t like a) characters who talk and b) characters who talk and are in large groups. I took Isa back to the hotel for a nap after lunch and she was in a much better mood after that.
We were very disappointed that Space Mountain was closed, but we did ride several other attractions. Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain were just a couple of the mountains we rode (we usually ride the train over to Frontierland). We rode Pirates of the Caribbean mainly to get out of the heat. Aladdin’s Magic Carpets was like Dumbo, but more fun and with camels that spit water on the riders. Quite refreshing. We climbed up the Swiss Family Robinson tree house, where the line IS the attraction, and then drove race cars. And, of course, we rode the Teacups, one of our favorites. It started raining so we went into Philharmagic, a wonderful 3D movie, hoping the rain would pass. When we emerged from the theater we could not see across the street it was raining so hard! I got a poncho and a plastic bag to cover our camcorder, and when it looked like the rain wouldn’t stop, we ventured out anyway. In Tomorrowland we rode Buzz Lightyear and Stitch’s Great Escape, two attractions we’ve never done, two times each. Then we rode Peter Pan and the Haunted Mansion. By 10:30 pm they had canceled the parade and fireworks and all the fun rides were closed because of lightning, so we headed back a little earlier than planned. We did however get some delicious Disney fudge 
Wednesday was our midweek day off. We spent it by the pool at the resort. Wednesday night we went back to Downtown Disney for beef gorgonzola pockets at Wolfgang Puck’s and sundaes at Ghirardelli’s.
Thursday was the Animal Kingdom. We took Isabella early to the Tusker House African restaurant for Donald’s Safari Character Breakfast. Breakfast was a buffet with all the typical fare and a few African specialty dishes. I tried the curried frittata and the coconut-sweetened sweet potatoes, but wasn’t that impressed. The best things on the buffet were little Mickey Mouse shaped waffles. Isa did much better with the characters Thursday… I guess because they couldn’t talk to her.
Animal Kingdom was Emmeline’s first trip to a Disney park and she was riding in style. We packed a cooler full of frozen gel packs that we wrapped in towels and placed in Emmeline’s stroller. Then we duct taped three little fans to her stroller so she would have a constant breeze. I must say I was envious. We rode the Kilimanjaro Safari first–it’s our favorite. Then we rode the whitewater ride and walked through the Asia animal exhibit. I was most impressed with the bats this time around. Many of the animals were hiding in some shaded corner where we couldn’t get a good view. By early afternoon, the heat was really getting to us so we went indoors ($$) for lunch. We decided that’s how Mickey Mouse gets you in the summertime–make it really expensive to eat in the air conditioning. The Yak and Yetti restaurant was pretty good Chinese food… but not Indian/Tibetan like the name implied. After lunch we saw It’s a Bug’s Life with no wait! Then on our way to Mount Everest to use our fastpasses the clouds burst shutting down the attraction… and the ice cream vendors. I got the last Mickey-cicle for Isa and frozen banana for me at one stand before they shut down.
We decided that one attraction the rain wouldn’t shut down was the characters in Camp Mickey Minnie. We were wrong. Blerg. While we were there we decided to duck into the Lion King show just to get out of the rain. Talk about lucky! I never would have gone to that show, but it was amazing! Fire eating, acrobats, ballet, singing and dancing. Very entertaining. After that we headed over to Dinoland to check out the midway. Surprisingly Isabella was tall enough for the roller caoster with the tallest height requirement, Primeval Whirl, so we rode it. It made Megan and me sick, but Isa loved it, of course. By then the rain had abated and we were able to ride Expedition Everest… twice. I begged Megan to ride with Isa the second time, but to no avail, so I manned up and rode despite the nausea the first ride had created As the park was closing Megan and Isa rode Primeval Whirl and Triceratop Twist while I frantically shopped for Emmeline.
Friday was Epcot. I went through the gate at 9:04, got to The Land at 9:09 and saw about 1000 people in front of me trying to get to the Fastpass kiosks for Soarin’. Outrageous. Finally I got our Fastpasses by around 9:30. Then we rode Living With the Land, a slow moving boat ride through Disney’s farm. I really liked that one more than I expected to. We even saw one pumpkin growing inside a hard plastic ball shaped like Mickey Mouse, forcing the pumpkin to match its shape. While we stood in line (in the air conditioning, thank goodness!) for photos with the characters, I called the Moroccan restaurant and made lunch reservations. I liked it, but Megan didn’t.. I’m not sure if she didn’t like it because it was hot and we were tired and cranky or if it was the belly dancer entertaining us. For an afternoon snack, we stopped by the patissérie in France for a sampling of good eats. Then we went over to England to see a cool Beatles cover band. While we were watching some intrigue was going on behind us. Not sure what it was, but Tigger and Alice kept running around the building. The fireworks were great, and Emmeline loved them. Epcot has the best fireworks show except for Hollywood Studios, but we didn’t go there.
On the way home we stopped for the night in Savannah, Georgia. We met a family at the pool from Denton, Texas, of all places. They gave us some useful info. We had dinner at a seafood place where everything was fried, and the grilled cheese sandwiches were filled with salt. That’s what Isa meant when she complained that hers was “spicy.” We didn’t believe her until Megan tasted it. It was like they had dropped it in salt or something.
It was a great vacation!
