Our final day in the parks…so sad. This part of the trip is always bittersweet for me. I love everything about being at Disney with my family. The only responsibility while we are there is playing with the three people that I love the most in this world. The kids even seem to behave better there. Probably because we can focus our complete attention on them, all of the time. At home, there’s just so much other “daily stuff” to deal with.
But I love the “daily stuff,” and even though I’m never really ready to leave, it’s good to think about getting back into our daily routine. And as we have told Makgill about 300 times since we’ve been home, if we lived there, it wouldn’t be special anymore. It’s so wonderful to have a break from my responsibilities, and it makes me feel even better about getting back to them.
I was determined to enjoy this day. Sometimes it gets so rushed with trying to fit in all of your favorites from all 4 parks, and I didn’t want to do that. We decided to spend the last day at MGM, not because it’s our favorite, but because we just hadn’t done very much of it yet this trip. And the kids are just too young to rush them from park to park.
So we were there shortly after rope-drop, and headed straight for Playhouse Disney.
All four of the kids watch the Disney Channel every morning, and are big fans of Jo Jo, Little Einsteins, Mickey, and Pooh. Unfortunately, the current live show only features Jo Jo and Pooh. It also has Bear in the Big Blue House and Stanley, but my kids don’t know them. After the first of the year, Disney is adding some of the newer characters to the live show. I was sad that we missed the new show, but that just gives us a great reason to go back! 🙂
They all LOVED the show!
After that, it was time to head over for our breakfast with Jo Jo and Goliath and The Little Einsteins. By far the BEST character interaction of the entire trip! The food wasn’t great, but these kids LOVED seeing their favorite TV pals!
June did the whole Einsteins pat-pat thing with them! “Now raise your arms, as high as you can, and say BLAST OFF!!!”
I’ll never forget how happy they were. Each character came back to our table several times to visit, and never seemed rushed. I highly recommend this breakfast to Playhouse Disney fans.
After breakfast, we met back up with Heather, Alana, and Lili, and set out to do some rides. On the way, we saw 2 of Mak’s favorites, Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater! Mak can run pretty fast for a three year old, and frequently runs laps around our house, just for fun. Before he starts running, he says “I…AM…SPEED” and then takes off, just like Lightning. I love it!
We then headed over to do the Backlot tour. Makgill loved the fire, but didn’t care so much for the water. Clara Beth liked it all, but didn’t want me holding on to her. She thinks she’s such a big girl.
And then it was time for the Lights, Motors, Action stunt show. This is one of those things that Mak still talks about pretty frequently from his first trip. He loves the fast cars, loud noises, and motorcycles. This time it was just as impressive!
I LOVE this look from Lili! This is what she gave me anytime I called her name. How cute is that?!?
Baby CB took this time to fall asleep in Daddy’s arms. He was pretty okay with that. 🙂
We then went and got milkshakes from the 50’s Primetime Diner. Heather introduced us to the peanut butter and jelly milkshake…yum!
From here, the Granger kids were tired, so they headed back for naps. Parson and Brandon also did that boat-ride now, and really enjoyed it.
I still wanted to go see the Beach Club resort, so the rest of us took a short boat-ride over there. While Lili slept in the stroller, Alana, Makgill, and Clara Beth ran off some energy.
And then Collin tried to get some Christmas shots for the girls, but Lili wasn’t so into it!
After we finished up here, we went back to MGM to see Fantasmic, their closing show. I had never seen this one before, but heard it was great. We tried to see it last year, but got rained out. This show is SO GREAT! Definitely my favorite! It involves all of the Disney Villains, and in the end Mickey of course wins. Makgill kept saying that he helped Mickey fight off all those bad guys. I was a little nervous that he would be scared, but he loved it too. He truly believes that he helped Mickey. How cool is that for a little kid?
It was then time to say good-bye to Heather and the girls. Makgill hates good-byes, and had a pretty hard time with this one. He cried and cried, and wanted Alana to come back with us. He LOVES that little girl! I was so glad that we were able to share Disney with them, and hope that we can do it again soon (with Patrick, too!).
We got in the CRAZY-LOOOONNNNG line for the bus to the Polynesian, and just knew we would be there for an hour. But then, right next to us, we noticed that there was a bus for the Ticket and Transportation Center with nearly no one in line. And the Polynesian is right beside the TTC. There’s even a walking path between the two! So we hopped on and saved a TON of time. We were probably in bed asleep before we would have even gotten on the bus if we had waited!
Tomorrow…breakfast with the Mouse and Good-bye. 🙁
BUT…We get to see Collin’s Dad and Grandfather on the way home!
