Friday February 11th 2022 – Perfection
Caption: Clark is wearing the only actual Disney Mike sweater I bought. I got it secondhand off of Ebay. When waiting for our next trip becomes so painful that reading Disboarder's trip reports doesn't cut the anticipation, I order clothes.
I swear I did not buy a matching set of Toy Story Alien shirts for my family. With multiple sizes so that kids can age into them.
Our last day in the parks. On shorter trips, this is an unbearably sad day. But the great thing about being in Florida for two weeks was when I woke up and thought about it being our last morning, I was happy to be in Florida and ready to enjoy the parks but I was also excited to go home. That is the perfect feeling to have.
I’d been feeling guilty about using the Disability pass so much and thought that maybe I could try just using
Genie+, so I was up at six fifty, buying the pass and booking our first ride.
The night before David had cooked up all the remaining chicken, it was a startling amount. It got packed into the park bag along with all the veggies that were left in the fridge.
We did home reading and got the kids sunscreened up. Seeing David get a sunburn sent me into a tizzy. If I got a sunburn, it would mean I got hours of sun and would be out of commission for a week. Not to mention the pain and scarring. So the kids got extra sunscreen because their Dad hadn’t put on enough the day before. Life isn’t fair, better for children to learn it early.
Caption: Claudia lost her mind shortly after this because we neglected to park the stroller in front of the Step Sister wearing a pink dress.
The kids watched Grizzy and the Lemmings while eating cereal and the last of the Gideon’s cake. There was no line at parking and we sailed through. We’d brought Clark’s bubble wand and two days before, Grandpa Jim had bought the kids a balloon so that bobbed along with the stroller, making the janky stroller extra easy to spot.
Each family member got to pick one ride they wanted for the day. Clark picked Big Thunder Mountain so that was our first fastpass for the day at 12:30. Claudia chose Peter Pan. David wanted Splash Mountain which was supposed to open that day after being down for refurbishment.
David booked a Disability pass for Peter Pan as soon as we got into the park. We wandered to Splash to confirm that it wasn’t working. (It wasn’t.) Then strolled through the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse, I remember being enchanted with the idea of living in a treehouse. The kids were like, “Meh. When can we go on a ride?” Well in that case, I won’t show either of you two ingrates the masterpiece which is the Carousel of Progress either.
Caption: Had I known how cute the matching shirt thing would be, I would have violated my environmental beliefs completely and bought a set for every day.
Then it was time to ride Peter Pan. As we walked off the kids started cheering, “Again! Again!” I gave them the option of Big Thunder Mountain. Nope, they both wanted to loop Peter Pan. All right. David booked another Disability pass and we went on Philharmagic to wait until our available opening. This time Claudia kept her glasses on and merely gripped the lenses with her little hands during scary parts. She was getting braver. Being on Mommy’s lap helps too.
We waited a short twenty minutes in the line for Little Mermaid. That ride is a people eater and there are games in the lineup, as well as lots to look at. We tried to feed the kids in the lineup but David had already snarfed all the chicken.
Claudia rode with Daddy and me. Clark was super independent this trip, managing moving walkways and the like. Claudia needed a little more watching and help so she ended up riding with Mommy and Daddy a lot. It’s difficult to lift thirty pounds of wiggling little girl if you’re not used to it. Jen commented multiple times that she couldn’t believe how strong my arms were. I definitely built muscle over the course of this trip because when we were staying at the Beach Club, my arms were so sore at the end of the day whereas in the Buzz Lightyear house, I didn’t feel them.
After that, we went on Peter Pan. It made my heart so glad that the kids loved this ride as much as my sister and I did when we were little. Diana loves it even still. I remember the last family trip we took as adults, we waited in that long, long line together.
Then we had to go see Mickey’s Philharmagic again, of course. This was a sleeper hit for the kids. I hadn’t done it in years prior to this trip but the kids couldn’t get enough. They were bopping along to the music and reaching for the gems. With each viewing, Claudia would cover her eyes less and less.
Then we went to Big Thunder Mountain. All week at the parks Claudia begged for a nap. On Wednesday, when we didn’t seem to understand how dire the situation was, she declared she needed ‘a big squishy nap’.
Caption: These guys were another surprise hit with the kids. Claudia talked about them after we got home. It was one of the few things from the trip that she’d mention.
Claudia fell asleep in the stroller en route to Frontierland. I’d given Claudia her pacifier after Peter Pan, it was funny because she knew that Daddy wouldn’t be happy about her having a sucky, so she kept her mask on to hide it. When David would reach down to remove her mask, he’d say, “Hey! Where’d you get that?” And Claudia would press her little hands to her face, guarding her sucky.
Big Thunder Mountain went down as soon as we walked up to it, which was what had happened on Wednesday but Clark still desperately wanted to ride it so we weren’t sure what to do.
We’d booked a Genie+ pass for Aladdin’s Carpets right after and both kids wanted to go. It was unbearably sunny and I was feeling a little unwell but even still we walked back across the park. David split off from the group to get another Dole Whip. He thoroughly enjoyed those and the kids enjoyed Daddy’s obsession with them.
At this point in the trip, I had been exposed to a lot of sun for over ten days straight. At it's core, erythropoietic protoporphyria is a blood disorder where when I'm exposed to sun, protoporphyrins become free radicals in my blood. Meaning that a a day at the beach leaves me feeling like I've drunk ten tequilas without the fun part. Although we hadn't spent any days at the beach, the cumulative effect of that much sun was catching up with me.
There's also the fact that it isn't just my skin that reacts to sunlight, it's all visible tissues. Meaning that my eyes were severely burned by this point in the trip, despite the fact that I'd worn my porphyria goggles.
Caption: This is the view out my front window and what you would see if you had glasses or sunglasses on.
Caption: This is the same view but with the porphyria curtains pulled to block out the exact wavelength of light that burns my skin. These let me sit next to the window and look outside without burning my skin or eyes. The goggles are similar. They aren't colour true and I can't drive in them, but they mean my eyes won't get burned like with regular sunglasses.
We'd been walking next to the water which was reflecting the light and I had been walking out of the shadows. My eyes felt like someone had rubbed glass in them so I bolted for the most shaded area I could find.
I don't talk about my disability with my family because it sounds weird and made up but my Stepmom realized something was wrong. Mobile ordering was proving to be a disaster so David wasn't back. Had he seen me curled up on the floor, protecting my face from the sun, he would have realized that we needed to go.
Wearing a giant hat, goggles and a long face mask is similar to a character head. When I worked at Disney, my friend Rose liked to say that her favourite place to cry was in a character head because no one could see you.
As I sat there with my eyes stinging and my body feeling so sluggish and unwell, I weighed my options:
1. I could wait until David got back and tell him how sick I was. We'd figure out a way to get me out of the park and this would be a really awful end to our trip.
2. I could suck it up but ditch my Dad who didn't understand that I couldn't walk in the open sun, or wait in the open sun, or stand next to water.
We were right next to the Country Bear Jamboree so I picked the second option. Because even though I'm a Mom with a weird disability, I'm still a Mom so I wanted my kids to have a good last day. I knew the darkness in the theatre might give me enough of a reprieve to keep going.
Caption: I still can't believe my Dad took this picture.
We waited there and once David returned, Jen, Dad and Clark went on the carpets. Clark laughed at the camels that ‘spat’ on the riders.
Big Thunder Mountain was finally back up but there was no way I could go on a sunny ride, so Claudia and I opted to go see the Country Bears again. She enjoyed the show even more a second time because she knew what to expect. “They wake up!” Claudia said, pointing to the mounted heads on the wall. She hummed a little during the performance to songs she liked.
After being inside in a dark theatre, my skin was feeling much better and we went to Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin as our last ride of the day. Dad hit some crazy target and got a hundred thousand points early on in the game.
“What did you do?” I asked, seeing his score.
“I have no idea!” he replied.
Caption: Claudia took it so seriously. After two times on the ride, we let her have her own gun. And boy was she determined to prove that she was the best Space Ranger.
Both Claudia and I needed to go home after that and Clark had a reservation at T-Rex to get to with Grandpa Jim and Jen, so we made our way to the exit. Claudia had a micro nap in the stroller so she wasn’t going to nap again but definitely needed some quiet play.
We had enough time to put the pizza in the oven before Barbara arrived. I wandered around doing some light packing but was glad that I’d done the lion’s share the day before. Paula was great but we really liked Barbara, she had the unflappable calm of Nicole, who was my regular babysitter growing up but Barbara combined with an uncommon kindness. I asked Barbara really nicely if she would wipe down all of the surfaces once the kids went to bed and she left the house spotless. I was appreciative because we were leaving at four thirty in the morning.
I was not feeling well after all that sun. It was David and my last date night. I'd booked it so we might have a chance at riding Splash Mountain a final time but after all that light, I was limp during the car ride back to Magic Kingdom and couldn’t sit up straight on the tram. Walking into the park, I was made of molasses and David had to wait for me. “This is my top speed,” I said.
We rode Jungle Cruise. The skipper wasn’t memorable, unfortunately half of comedy is
Timing. And this guy didn’t have it.
It was only when we joined the line for Pirates of the Caribbean that I started to perk up. When I’m exposed to that much sun, it’s like my blood turns to sludge and slows. I feel like it takes a while for my body to recover.
Caption: I remember loving the darkness in this queue when I was little.
Just as the fireworks were beginning, I saw a crowd of people sprinting towards Big Thunder Mountain.
That’s weird, I thought before it clicked.
Splash is open.
David and I joined the throng of people rushing Splash’s queue. There was no time to book a Disability pass because it could close at any second. The only thing I had on the crowd was that I was fast and small. Despite the rush of people, Splash was a walk on. As we were waiting to board a flume, David booked a Disability pass. “I want to ride this twice,” he said. Sometimes during the trip, I felt like I shouldn't have a disability pass, but after feeling so unwell the whole day to the point that I wondered whether I'd be able to open my eyes in order to walk out of the park, I let that guilt go.
The first time through, David filmed the ride. It was the perfect end to our trip. As we ascended the mountain, fireworks went off in the distance. Everyone on our log was as caught up in the perfection of the moment as we were. Splash is a special ride during the day but there’s a joy that comes with riding it at night, the twisting turns around the houses where Brer’ Roadrunner lives seem more quaint. Then there’s the celebration of going into the bright paddlewheel scene after plunging into the briar patch in the dark. I loved it.
Even the lady sitting in front of me made it better. She had a giant, black afro – I love hair that grows up and out instead of giving into gravity– and was wearing Minnie ears, making her hair even taller. This meant that after the drop, I was dry as a bone. The lady’s hair caught all of the water.
We jogged around back into the line up and tapped in. Beside us the overflow queue was filling with people, what had been a five minute wait was probably an hour. This go round was equally special because David and I realized that this was likely our last ride on Splash as it was. Riding Splash was the cherry on our trip. I wasn’t as lucky during the second drop though, the cowardly man in front of me ducked at the end and I was hit with a spray of water.
Getting out of the Magic Kingdom was bedlam. We joined the ferry line and trudged our way forward sending frantic apology texts to Barbara. But the jaunt across the water was quick and we booked it for our car.
The next day, we showed the kids the video David made of Splash Mountain.
It’s since become an obsession of Clark’s with him talking about Splash, reenacting the ride, and having one parent send messages to the other about Splash Mountain. David texted me the following message weeks after we got home.
“Daddy, you need to send a message to mommy, here’s what you need to say, “Dear Mommy, Clarky Clark is old enough to go on Splash Mountain so we need to go.” Yep tell her that.”
David recently got out
Lego boats that he had purchased for the kids. He bathes the kids, so the boats come out around bath time and the kids can play with them in a tub of water in the kitchen afterwards. While playing with the boats, Clark set up a flume, placed the mini fig of himself and David in the boat and narrated the ride to the mini figures concluding with, and now there’s going to be a splash at the end, dropping the boat into the water.
Caption: Our view of the fireworks from Splash Mountain.
Splash Mountain has become such a big thing in our house that the other night I was rocking Claudia in the glider and she gave me a piercing look and said, “I’m old enough to go on Splash Mountain.” I laughed really really hard and told her she needed to get bigger, that they don’t let babies on Splash Mountain. Then, wanting me to laugh again, Claudia repeated it.
I relived the trips that we took as children through imaginative play with Diana so it’s really neat to see all the ways that Clark is reliving the trip through his play. Whether it’s when we receive a toy and he’s reminded of something, or with Lego or when he acts out a ride at the dinner table.
Saturday February 12th 2022 – A Nineteen Hour Day
Four o’clock came way too early. Woof. I shot out of bed and got dressed, did a last quick check for belongings then got the kids up. David had packed the car the night before, so we just had to get on the road. The kids were cooperative; we had warned them that they’d be woken up in the middle of the night. I put them both on the potty, Claudia refused and cried because she was two, then we whisked them into the car.
