What Now

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2009

The Magic Kingdom

Oh. God. I think I have permanent damage to my feet. I had another blister and the one on the bottom of my foot was swollen up again. It hurt to walk at all, but I didn't have a choice because today was the big day! Magic Kingdom Day! This one is Steve's all time favorite, and after yesterday's tiny come-apart, I decided that I was going to make sure I didn't do anything that would keep him from having the best day ever! It actually went well, believe it or not. I wasn't feeling great when I woke up, but I medicated all of my ills and we went on our way. Oh, it was a 5 band aid day today!

By this point, Steve was having to help me out.

Our bus was super crowded, so I just knew that the park would be jammed with people. I wasn't looking forward to the lines and the heat, but I had decided that it was going to be an awesome day and nothing was going to change that! We got there just as the park was opening, and we got to see the ending of some kind of Disney Welcome Musical Number! It was too cheerful for that early in the morning and I realized there and then that if I ever worked as a "cast member" in the park, I'd commit hari-kari with the blunt end of a Mickey Mouse lollipop. I'm usually cheerful, but I don't think I could reach the Disney level of cheerful without dangerous amounts of methamphetamine.

Anyways, I was right that the place was crammed with people, but the weather was actually nice. It was beautiful, in fact. That made things a lot better. My feet weren't hurting as badly at that point, but mainly because I'd wrapped bandages around my toes to keep them from swelling so badly, and also I managed to croggle my left ankle and knee on Tom Sawyer's Island, so my leg now hurt worse than either of my feet. Hey, silver lining!

It actually turned out to be a really great day. We rode everything we wanted to and there were no lines to speak of, even though the park was full, and I mean FULL of people. We finally figured out why that was, though. Part of the reason was the time of year, because even though the park was full, it wasn't as full as it could have been. The other reason was that everyone who comes into the park has the ability to do a Fastpass, which, as most of you know, is where you can reserve a time to come back and ride a specific ride. We heard people talking about how they were going to run in and get the Fastpasses for the rides they wanted to go on so that they wouldn't have to wait in line. That was a great idea...for them. So many people were getting fast passes to come back to do certain things, that they weren't getting in lines at all. Everyone who didn't get a fast pass, got on the rides right away! We got everything we wanted to do and then some. We got to ride a few things more than once without standing in any long lines (except for one because of what we believe was a delay caused by someone getting in and out of a wheelchair) but it was the fastest I'd ever gotten to do anything at Disney. There were a couple of drawbacks, but not many. "It's A Small World" still gives me nightmares. Mainly it was my leg hurting. I kept having to sit down because it hurt so badly. We also left before eating dinner at one of the park restaurants, even though we had a reservation. It was taking them so long to get us seated that we were afraid we'd get trapped at the park until it closed and have to wait forever to be able to catch a tram back to the resort. Also, and I shouldn't say this because it sounds kind of hateful, I was really very tired of children by this point in my day. Especially a particular child who's family was waiting to eat at the same place we had been waiting in. For a very long time I heard "Jeffrey! Jeffrey! Jeffrey! Stop, Jeffrey! Put that down, Jeffrey! Jeffrey! Jeffrey!" Also, Jeffrey thought that waving around a plastic, blinking light-sabre was great fun, even though he wasn't being careful of anyone else around him. As God as my witness, I have never in my life been so close to drop kicking a child. We cancelled our reservations as nicely as we could, and went back to ride the Haunted Mansion ride a 3rd time before we left. Shut up, I actually do like that ride.

Don't judge me.

After fighting a huge crowd, which had gathered to watch the electric light parade or whatever they are calling it these days, and only stomping on one or two of the inconsiderate buttheads that didn't respond to "pardon me," we finally managed to get out and get back to our resort. We had dinner and now I'm writing this. Today was our final day at the parks (thank goodness.) Tomorrow we have a day of rest and shopping. I'm really looking forward to that!