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Monday, October 21, 2013

Annabelle's First Live Performance of the "We Not Bite Song" or Part 2 of Disneyworld for Dummies




Where were we?  Oh yeah, I'd been yelled at by Tinkerbell and discovered the hard way that Tyler's butt bone was indeed connected to his foot bone.  

So after lunch things were going relatively well until it started to pour.  Amy's girls wanted to wait in line to get Minnie and Mickey's autographs, and my boys wanted to go shopping for souvenirs.  I figured shopping was as good a way as any to kill time while it was pouring, so I took the boys into a huge souvenir store. Truthfully, I wanted to go shopping to test the validity of a helpful piece of information a friend had passed along.  

According to my source, all Disney employees have the ability to comp you $20 worth of merchandise at any given time.  Apparently, the Disney people want to keep you happy because their research suggests that happy people spend more money in their magical little kingdom.  

My thought was I'd take the children to the souvenir store and wait for one of them to have a nervous breakdown and see what happened.  If you follow my blog, then you know the odds of a nervous breakdown were in my favor; unfortunately, my rotten kids picked that afternoon to turn into perfectly behaved pod children.  

I was getting frustrated.  I'd been waiting for months to see if my friend was right, and my darn kids weren't cooperating.  I knew better than to include them in my scheme.  The last thing I needed was to get permanently banned from Disneyworld because my children ratted me out.  

As a last ditch effort to try to test my theory, I gave Annabelle two princess dolls and let her walk around the store with them for a little while.  I waited until we were within earshot of a helpful looking employee and told her she had to pick just one to take home with her.  Sadly, there were no temper tantrums to be had.  She picked Ariel and handed me Princess Sofia with a smile on her face.  

I finally decided to throw in the towel and just go pay.  When we got to the checkout register, I was struck with a brilliant idea!  They had ponchos sitting at the register, and it was pouring outside!  When the guy rung me up, I looked at him and said, "You know what would put the "Magic" back in this rainy day for me?"  Being a good Disney employee, he asked, "What?" I smiled and said, "It would be beyond magical if you'd throw in a few free ponchos to compete my purchase."  He began to do the mental math.  The ponchos were $6 a piece, which meant he could comp me 3 without getting in trouble.  "How many ponchos are we talking about," he wanted to know.  I'd done my math too, so I answered, "Three."  He threw them in my bag with a smile.  I smiled back thankful that an opportunity had presented itself to test my hypothesis.

Later that night, we were in line to watch the parade.  It was quiet, and we were all enjoying a little break.  Annabelle had been in my baby backpack thing most of the day and being held captive was starting to get on her nerves.  Whenever Annabelle gets cranky, she tends to bite. For whatever reason, the urge to bite is also often accompanied by the need to break out in song.  It was completely silent in the parade area.  You probably could have heard a pin drop when all of a sudden, I heard a little voice sing out at the top of her little lungs, "We not bite! We not bite!  We not bite Mommy!"  Then just when all eyes were on my teeny tiny performer, she sunk her little teeth in me and the pain was so severe I almost passed out.  I'm pretty sure at that moment Annabelle was Disney's most talked about attraction!

We made it through the parade without any further outbursts.  Right as the parade was coming to an end, Amy looked at me with a panicked expression.  "We need to go now," she insisted.  Amy and I have been friends for a really long time, and she's not the type to go off the deep end without a good reason.  

We began quickly packing our stuff, and I asked, "Why are we in such a hurry?"  When she turned around to address me, I could see the worry in her eyes.  "The last time Joe and I brought the girls we waited to leave until the parade was completely over.  We got stuck on the monorail platform for two hours!  We can't do that with five tired children.  We have to go now!"  

Amy was right!  We had to go, and we had to go fast!  We made it to the monorail without incident, and thanks to Amy's quickly thinking, we walked right on.

Amy and I were feeling pretty good about ourselves until we stepped off the monorail platform.  Amy looked and me, and I looked at her.  "I don't suppose you remember where the shuttle dropped us off this morning," I asked her.  "Nope, I was kind of hoping you remembered," she replied.

Our five children all picked this exact moment to remember that we hadn't fed them dinner yet.  They were exhausted, hungry, miserable, and not at all amused when Amy and I told them we were about to embark on one final adventure of the day.  

An hour later, Amy and I were ready to throw in the towel and spend the night in the parking lot.  We had walked all over, and we had no idea where we were supposed to meet our shuttle.  Nothing looked familiar, and we had absolutely no clue what to do next.  We were both about to break down in tears when a nice lady came over and asked what was wrong.  We explained our dilemma, and she pointed her finger to a bench that was maybe a two minute walk from the gates of the Magic Kingdom.  "Shuttle pick up is right over there," she said.  We'd spent an hour searching for shuttle pickup, and it had been right under our noses the entire time!

We made it on the shuttle and all five of our kids fell asleep as soon as their butts hit the seat.  Amy and I were trying to figure out how to get five sleeping children and a double stroller out of the shuttle with the least amount of effort when a nice man volunteered to help us when we arrived at our stop.  

When we arrived back on hotel property, the shuttle driver announced that he was going to make a courtesy stop at Tower 4 since it was so late.  Amy and I were thrilled!  We were staying in Tower 5!  Surely it would be quicker to get off at Tower 4 instead of Tower 1 like we had planned!  

We unloaded our entire crew at Tower 4 and managed to keep most of them asleep thanks to our helper!  We had just gotten everyone loaded up when we realized that the person who had designed the hotel couldn't count.  Tower 4 was nowhere near Tower 5.  Nope, Tower 4 was right in between Towers 3 and 6.  It wasn't anywhere near Tower 5. Tower 5 was right next door to Tower 1, the tower we were originally planning on getting off at.

On the twenty minute walk back to our room, Amy and I decided that maybe we weren't shuttle people after all.  Suddenly, the crazy fees the Disney people charged for parking sounded extremely reasonable and affordable!

PS...I'm doing a giveaway on my Facebook page.  Head on over to https://www.facebook.com/oneislikenonefor all the fun details.  Don't worry I'm not giving away a child.  I'm pretty sure that would have people running in the opposite direction!

1 comments:

  1. Hey fyi if your staying on disney property parking is free!!!

    ReplyDelete