A weekend in Africa

Saturday was Spencer’s birthday. We were going to have a normal party – kids of my friends, maybe some friends of Spencer’s now. Bagels and breakfast, a playground. You know, normal. Low key.

But then I never got around to setting it up, and then by Tuesday it just didn’t seem like it was going to happen so we decided to go for a different route. We made last minute reservations at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, picked the kids up early and headed out to Disney. They didn’t really pay any attention to where we were until we hit the Disney area, and then they thought we were going to a park until we actually pulled up to the resort. Then they didn’t realize we were *staying* at the resort, and Spencer was very surprised and excited to find that we were (he’s always asking to stay at a resort, and there’s never any reason to do so – we live 80 minutes away!)

 

The room was nice but the weather was crappy and most the animals didn’t really want to hang out near our balcony with the misty icky rain. We explored the grounds and then Spencer decided that instead of fancy dinner with us, he wanted to spend a couple hours in Simba’s Cubhouse, which is basically a kids room with all sorts of toys and video games and adult supervision, and they feed you dinner if you stay a couple hours. Henry refused to stay so he came to dinner with us. He was in a ROTTEN mood, but finally we figured out that he was crabby because he was hungry and when he ate his weight in macaroni and cheese and strawberries from the buffet, he was a happier camper. C and I ate all the African offerings at Boma, and it was really delicious. Yummy. I took no photos of food, but trust me – it all ended up in my tummy.

I snuck a couple cookies off the dessert bar for Spencer, and we settled in to watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. The kids didn’t make it to the Americans – someone needs to change the alphabet so that doesn’t keep happening.

Saturday the weather was just plain gross, but we we going to forgo Disney because of a little rain and cold? I think not. My feet were solid wet blocks of ice by the end of the day and I can say that it was not my favorite day at Disney, but the kids had a solidly great time.

But first, birthday presents!! We got him a US and World map for his walls, the Hidden Mickeys book, and the box set of Harry Potter on Blu-ray. Henry picked out Turbo and a DM2 Fartblaster (possibly the most annoying toy ever, may soon be left out in the rain by “accident”). Spencer was impressed by all.

Because we went to a resort, we are finally set up to do FP+ ahead of time. We got fast passes for one of the good Epcot rides, and stood in line for the other. This was Henry’s first time for both, and it was a winner (Henry kept pumping his little fist after getting off and saying That was AWESOME in a gravely excited voice). We gave up the reins of what to do to Spencer (after all, he was the birthday boy!) and we went over to Magic Kingdom for the rest of the day. Spencer made all the decisions on what to ride which was evident by the fact that we rode the Astro Orbiter in the freezing rain. By 6pm he decided he wanted to go to Downtown Disney for dinner. On a Saturday. With no reservations.

Ha.

We actually ended up getting a little lost because they’ve changed the bus systems, so ultimately we skipped DD and headed back to the Lodge (it took us 2 hours to get there with our mess ups), and Henry fell asleep on the bus. We had dinner at the counter service restaurant and Spencer was allowed anything he wanted to eat so he had a blueberry muffin and fruit and apple juice. Dinner of champions, people. We had more delicious African food, and they also sold wine by the bottle so we had a bottle with dinner and then since Spencer promptly fell asleep on daddy’s lap at the restaurant, we got a second bottle to take back to the room with some fabulous desserts. C and I sat in the cold on the balcony talking and planning for the next day, drinking our wine and having our dessert. It was lovely. 

Henry woke up at 5am on Sunday “mommy, someone peed in this bed”. Kiddo, you’re the only one sleeping in that bed. C took care of it and then everyone except me slept until nearly 7am.

Day two of the parks was gorgeous. Man, how I wish we had that weather the whole weekend. We spent most of the day at Hollywood Studios. We got there at opening with the hopes of being able to ride Toy Story a few times but it was already swamped so we rode once and then had breakfast at Starring Rolls café – yum! It’s been months since I had a bagel, I was happy.

Again, we had passes for the rides we really wanted to ride, although other than Toy Story the others didn’t really have bad lines. Every cast member we passed told Spencer happy birthday (hurray for birthday pins). Saturday we didn’t really have a chance to do any birthday cake or anything so we made lunch reservations at the HS pizzeria, Mama Melrose’s. I handed Spencer’s #6 candle off to the waiter, and after lunch the waiter had the close tables sing and Spencer got a little chocolate cannoli cake with his birthday candle on it. He was excited, to say the least.

We hit Animal Kingdom for a couple hours before ending our day because Spencer wanted to ride Everest. He refused to try the single rider line to ride without me so we spent most of our AK visit standing in line, but it was worth it for the birthday boy. He played in the slide enclosure for a bit after that and then HOME. Finally.

We got home at 7:55pm, and both kids were still awake (they watched Turbo and ate McDonald’s on the way home, capping a weekend of indulgence). By 8:15pm we had both kids in PJs and bed, cleaned out the car, C rinsed off the bird poo that had hit it in the parking lot, I half unpacked to have my toiletries and phone charger, and I was in bed in my own PJs. I do not sleep well in hotel rooms, even resort hotel rooms, and I was flat tuckered out. Beat.

I think it was a success though.

(this was the birthday dance)