Adventure In The Great Wide Somewhere

The sun rose cool and clear on our first day of the Disney Youth Education Series  Program. Day six in the parks with an 8:15 meeting time? Good morning! Good morning! It's great to stay up late! No problem. We were even early enough to use the wash rooms and plop on the ground to invent our very own version of Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom.  Do Dalmatians beat fairies? The world may never know. We met our group leader who lead us in to the park and straight for a restroom break (just in case!) and then introduced our merry band of six kids and their adults to Main Street U.S.A as you've never seen her before...  Waving hello to the cast members as they ride down Main Street in the morning quiet. Main Street, U.S.A. slowly wakes up as the cast members call merry greetings in a way that makes the whole "transported to 1900" even more real. The kids searched high and low to fulfill their first mission: to count how many kinds of moving machin...

The three mouseketeers took our brand new Senior Wilderness Explorer badges and hopped a bus to Magic Kingdom.  Faith, trust and Pixie Dust! We swung by Town Hall to meet Tinker Bell courtesy of a FastPass+ then mixed in our first ride on Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin to "de-girl-ify" the afternoon. Then I got to pick the next ride, so Carousel of Progress! The kids enjoyed the surprise (as they had no knowledge of the ride going in) but they liked it.  Kylee in the Rose Garden We headed back to Main Street, U.S.A. to meet Mickey (our second FastPass) then wait for our last FastPass, reserved viewing for the Festival of Fantasy parade. But first snacks!  As much as I'm a Dole Whip purist, everyone must visit the Plaza Ice Cream Parlor for a parade snack. Waiting with his (regular) ice cream cone until his sister received her special dairy free cone? So sweet. Thankfully we planned a little extra time for Kylee's ice cream cone an...

After ending the day Saturday  with twenty Wilderness Explorer badges, the kids voted unanimously to head back to Animal Kingdom for more. The badge stations opened a little bit later than park opening, so we ducked into the Tree of life to warm up while we waited. Guess who was coming out just a we left the world of the bugs?  Squirrel! Our fellow Wilderness Explorers, Russell and Dug greeted Christ and Kylee. The kids told them all about their mission to become Senior Wilderness Explorers. Russell wished them well and signed their Wilderness Explorer Handbooks. We hiked off to the Maharajah Jungle trek through the quiet of the morning.   Beautiful and fun. The tigers weren't out yet, but the badge guides were.  Talking tiger with their badge guide. We hopped one of the first trains out to Rafiki's Planet Watch and the kids faced their biggest fear...the petting zoo. The badge guide insisted that the kids had to go into "Affection Secti...

Previously on the Three Mousekateers , Agent K foiled the evil Dr. Doofenshmirtz, my daughter found her Voice and my son upped his defenses. With four days of magic on the books, we were very much in need...  Some time to take a breath and appreciate the details. Of a little bit of a break! Groundhog's Day crowd level predictions for the parks were medium, so we decided to take a day to kick around the resort and Downtown Disney and just rest. Racing cars at the Lego Store. After returning Susan's iPhone charger , we played at the Lego Store for a while, then window shopped and the kids collected another few pressed pennies from the various machines. Our friend, the Lego Dragon! When we started to get hungry, we headed back to the Downtown Disney buses. It was time to resort hop! Disney's Beach Club is a lovely place for a break. We arrived at Beaches and Cream with plenty of time to wander a bit before our ADR. Kylee and I split the falafel while...

Previously on the Three Mousekateers , pixie dust rained down, younglings completed their training and we just barely escaped Akershus unscathed. With food in everyone's belly and alacrity returning to the mouseketeers, the promise of pixie dust hung in the warming afternoon...   Once upon a time three intrepid Mousekateers set out to take on the World one Dole Whip at a time. Christopher directed us toward Spaceship Earth after his near brush with the princesses. As luck would have it, we arrived at the FastPass+ queue just as a large tour group also entered the line. Thankfully with the continuous loading, we got to go straight back into the history of communication with hardly any hang ups. The kids just finished up learning about the ancients and loved seeing all of the different animatronics of Egypt, Rome and especially the Phonecians. (I don't know why they love the Phoenicians so much, they just do.) Anyway, they asked us to squeeze three across so we all sha...

Early to bed and early to rise meant that we reached Epcot almost a full hour prior to Epcot opening so we hopped aboard the kids favorite ride from their first trip to Walt Disney World. The monorail.  Wild About Safety cards! “Por favor manténgase alejado de las puertas!" They asked the conductor of the monorail if he had any of the transportation card. Not only did he hand over a few monorail cards, but he hooked my kids up with half a dozen of the "Wild About Safety" cards too. I love the smell of monorail in the morning. They opened the park a bit before the scheduled opening and we were on Test Track before 9. Chris did the engineering, Kylee did the decorating. There's nothing quite like the wind whipping through your hair first thing in the morning or designing your dream car without any wait. #OffSeasonRocks Before the adrenaline rush wore off, we headed over to Mission: SPACE. The cast members measured Kylee twice at the entrance to...