Magic Kingdom - Phoebe's Wish For a Nap, a Street Party and Spectromagic

We found our way to the first aid station and asked the attendant if we could go in. She unlocked the door and showed us around. She had us sign in on a clip board and it was 3:00. There was a mini fridge with bottled waters, several love seat/settees, and an armoire with books, tv and movie drawer. She opened the drawer and we let Tessa choose from among the many Disney movies and she chose Monsters Inc. We asked her about the sippy cup and she told us where to ask. Tim left me and the girls and set out to find a cup. He texted me that the next person told him the whole park was sold out (!?!?) so he was going to go to the parking lot and get hers out of the truck. Phoebe was tired but I wasn't sure if she would fall asleep in this room. At least I had plenty of time to try. I threw some of the big cushions on the floor. Phoebe ate some of the fruit we had left from lunch and relaxed on the cushions while Tessa watched the movie. It hadn't been long when Tim reappeared with a cup. Thankfully the CM who told him they were sold out was wrong. It wasn't similar to her favorite kind but I hoped it would work. She took a couple of sips from it and I decided it would be good enough. I proposed that Tim and Tessa go out and hit some rides while I tried to get Phoebe to take a nap. It wasn't long after they left that Phoebe was out and I had nothing but my camera to keep myself entertained.












I loved this little checkerboard table because it really looked antique. The checkerboard pattern had etchings of castles on the squares. Very European.



I moved Phoebe further onto the cushions to be more comfortable and she barely made a move.


I had to go to the bathroom but Phoebe was asleep and Tim was gone. I poked my head out and asked the first aid attendant if there was any way they could sit with her for a minute. No problem. They sent me down the hall to the first aid restroom. This was certainly not the typical corner of Disneyworld. I don't think anywhere else would an employee have been willing, nor would I have even wanted to ask!

At one point I heard what I thought was thunder (Tim later said it was fireworks) and I could tell it was raining very hard outside. The predicted rain had finally started to pour down. I was thinking that this was not the day I had hoped for so far. We did enjoy the Castle lunch, but other than that we hadn't DONE anything. Not a single ride. It was obvious Phoebe needed some sleep though, so I tried not to worry about anything.

Daddy took some pics while he and Tessa were off playing and Phoebe was asleep in the Wish Lounge. They managed to hit 4 rides in 2 hours.
Dumbo first. You can see the skies about to burst open.


And then they did!


The carousel kept them dry.


Snow White. Tessa covers her ears when she thinks there might be scary or loud noises.


Still covering.


Peter Pan. Not as scary I guess. Except, now Tim looks concerned.


I laid down next to Phoebe and almost fell asleep myself until another family came in. Rachel was the name of the wish child and she seemed fairly medically involved. Her brother Alexander ran around the room exploring it and playing. The parents were from NY and we shared about wheelchairs, AFOs, all those other details that "typical" parents haven't been exposed to. They were a nice family and they mainly came in to change Rachel's clothes because they had all gotten soaked in the rain. Phoebe didn't budge an inch during this whole exchange, even when Alexander touched her a couple of times, maybe hoping for a friend to play with? The door was opened again and this time a dad and son came in. Joshua was this wish child's name, from MI, and he and dad were looking for a dry spot to hang out and wait for mom and sister to finish their castle dinner. Shortly after they joined the room, Tim and Tessa returned. It was a real party now.


I debated making Phoebe wake up but if she could sleep through all of this, she must have been truly exhausted.


The first family took off, but Joshua's mom and sister Allison joined them. Allison was waving her new magic wand around and Tessa ran to to our bag to get hers out. Joshua was feeling a little left out so I gave him one of our extras and he seemed really excited to be able to join the girls' game. After a few minutes that family left also and I decided we needed to wake Phoebe. We got her changed, might as well while we're alone in this clean, comfy room, grabbed some waters and headed out. It was only when we were signing out that I realized how long we had been in the Wish lounge. We signed in at 3 and it was now 5:45pm!!! Phoebe had slept for over two hours.

When we left the Wish Lounge the rain had stopped and the scattered puddles were drying up. I was hopeful that it was done raining for the day. We had barely gone a few feet when we heard music and an announcement that the "Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It! Street Party" was starting. I'm not usually big on parades but we were right in front of the castle and the floats were just going around the circle as we approached. It wasn't too crowded yet and we were able to walk right up to the edge of the sidewalk.


The floats stopped and the characters came down to the street to dance.


After a minute the emcee invited everyone to come out to the street and dance along. Woody walked straight up to Phoebe and let her take his hands (well, fingers) and dance with him for a minute.


Tessa was pretty interested in watching, but never tried to join in.


Phoebe thought it was fantastic.


She was laughing and dancing the entire time.


Woody danced amongst the crowd but Phoebe was the only one he danced "with".


We kept having to remind Tessa not to hit people with her magic wand. Or bring her back to where we were. Tim kept trying to get around the people in the crowd to take pictures.


When they asked everyone to get back on the sidewalk, we were exhausted and felt like we just had a great workout. The floats resumed their course and we got to see some other characters. Mr. Incredible saw Tim's shirt and gave him a double gun salute.


Mickey blew kisses to Tessa and Phoebe.



Goofy was, well, Goofy.


I tried to get Minnie's attention to see her "mini-Minnie" in the crowd but she didn't hear me.


It was a very fun parade, which surprised me.

After the parade was over it was about 6:30pm and Phoebe had yet to go past the castle. So where did we go next? Fantasyland, of course! Via New Orleans Square. We had barely made it as far as the Haunted Mansion when it started to rain again. We saw the line for Haunted Mansion and figured we might as well escape the rain so we asked the CM where the wheelchair entrance was. At that moment, it was like God dumped a bucket on Disneyworld. The CM pointed some 30 yards away to a different awning so Tim said we should wait under the awning for a minute. (Googled pic)


It seemed like rain was never going to stop and I was just trying to convince Tim to go ahead and make a run for it when it when the rain stopped pouring down and changed to a steady stream instead. We made our break for it and a CM welcomed us inside the exit, where there was a traffic jam of people surprised to see the heavy rain as they were exiting the ride and not sure where they wanted to go or how they were going to get there. We surged upstream until we were in a less crowded area and the CM asked if Phoebe could stand for the 5-minute pre-show. I told her no, we should skip it. (I figured this is also the part that would most likely scare Tessa, so if we could skip it that would be great) She led us to the boarding area and we got right on. I sat with Tessa who covered her ears (I think the dark made her afraid of scary noises) but she was interested in watching the "happy ghosts" have their birthday party. Tim said that Phoebe was alert and fine for the whole ride as well.

(Side note, I was very surprised when I started reading reports here to see that the Haunted Mansion in WDW looks nothing at all like the one in DL that I grew up with. Both look extravagant and creepy but I thought it interesting that where most of the park is the same or similar, these houses are very different.) Here is DL's - (Googled also)


It was still raining when we finished the ride so we trudged on toward Fantasyland and looked for indoor rides. It's a Small World was the first one we came to. They just happened to have the wheelchair boat ready and waiting when we were got in line. It was certainly convenient not to have to transfer Phoebe out of her chair.


Tessa yelling "quack" when we saw the girl with the geese in Holland.


Doing the hula in Hawaii.


The girls loved it. We went on Peter Pan and Tessa was excited to tell me what to expect since she had gone on it earlier.

We also went on Dumbo once the rain had slowed down to a drizzle. Since we had not been out in the park for very long I decided to cancel our ADR for dinner, at Tony's Town Square. I had planned to watch Spectro from their porch, then make a beeline to the nearby exit. Since Phoebe had a 2 hour nap I figured we should grab something faster and spend more time in the back of the park instead.

We grabbed a fast dinner at the Village Haus restaurant. Tim had pizza, I had salad, Tessa had nuggets and Phoebe had mac. Nope, no pics of this meal. It wasn't bad. Just not great either. There was a nice CM in there that was humoring Tessa, letting her tell her excited stories about the day and she let her choose a couple of buttons (the big celebration pins) out of her bag. We promised Tessa that after dinner she could get dessert and she requested popcorn. Even as I stood in line at the ice cream counter she wanted popcorn. (Remember when I said my girls don't like ice cream? Crazy!) Tim took her to get some kettle corn and I redeemed our free ice cream coupon. The girl who took the order didn't know how to enter the coupon so she got the manager, who looked at Phoebe and then asked if I wanted two. My girls don't even like ice cream, but it was very sweet of him to offer so I said sure. Tim and I enjoyed the ice creams while the girls munched away on popcorn.

It was getting late and we weren't sure how long the girls would last. We tried to think of what other rides we really wanted to go on as we made our way toward the front of the park. We decided to hit Pirates when we saw that it was practically empty. I figured the parade must be about to start. The girls both enjoyed Pirates, although Tessa kept her ears covered in the beginning. She kept asking if the ride would have a big drop, like the Atlantis at Sea World. I don't know if she was hoping it would or it wouldn't.

We saw the magic carpets next and decided to give it a whirl but we couldn't tell where we should go in with the wheelchair. The CM at the entrance was chatting about her date with a couple of other CMs so we asked a sweeper who was walking by. She pointed to the other side of the ride. We walked over there and started up the exit ramp when the operator yelled at us it was the wrong way. We were supposed to enter in the main way, which annoyed us because we had stood there looking stupid in front of the CM who never noticed us. The ride was empty and we were boarding it a minute or two later and explained to the operator that another CM had told us to go in that way. He apologized and offered for us to ride twice. We ended up riding three times.


As we were getting ready to leave we were sort of hoping that the parade was over so we wouldn't have to fight the crowds. We overheard someone say that the parade was just starting so they must have changed the time since my planning. Another person told us we should head down the way a bit to Frontierland for a great viewing spot. We decided what the heck. We found a quick route to Frontierland and only had to wait a couple of minutes before the parade came our way. It was a nice spot with the riverboat lit up on one side of the street and the castle lights glowing from behind. Even the street vendors looked cool with the reflection on the wet sidewalk.


I tried to choose a few favorites, but this was a very visually interesting parade so it was difficult.






Both of the girls enjoyed it.




A couple of the characters came up to say hi to Phoebe. Brer Fox and the Big Bad Wolf.





Tessa was not at all interested in getting out of the stroller when these guys approached.


Snow White's Evil Queen was giving me a really wicked look but I joked back to her by motioning over Tessa and making a mean face. She raised her eyebrows in approval which made me laugh.


The girls were definitely worn out by the end so we just walked straight for the exit.
Stopped at the castle on the way out for a Photopass pic.


Phoebe was wiped out and the Photographer suggested we take one where Phoebe wasn't the only one...


I did not want to be in the park for the fireworks because I knew they would scare Phoebe and possibly Tessa too if we were too close. We made it to the ferry boat right as the show started and thankfully we were just far enough away that both girls were nervous at the first couple of booms but fine when they realized we were going away from it. Tessa did like watching from the upper deck.


We were totally beat as we made our way to the truck.


We didn't get far before everyone was asleep.






Just kidding! These shots did remind me of the National Lampoon scene where the camera shows each person sleeping and then shows Clark right before they veer off the highway in the middle of the night.

We got home around 11 and this may have been the one night I didn't do a load of laundry. The weather report was calling for yet another day of rain tomorrow and I was tired of it. I was thinking my master plan for the week was going to need some serious re-working. There were so many pixie dust moments that day and even a couple of days later I appreciated them more than I did that day. We were on day two of our trip and I was still trying to make everything go according to plan.