We had a leisurely morning and jumped on a bus to Downtown Disney, beneath heavy black storm clouds.
It wasn't raining though - not until we got off the bus...
Then it rained.
It REALLY rained. Massive drops that made ankle-deep puddles in minutes flat. For the first (and only!) time, we dug the waterproofs out of our rucksack and made a run for the nearest shop.
It turned out to be the Disney Christmas shop, and it was lovely and festive, albeit a little strange to be surrounded by Christmas stockings and tree decorations in April, with 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing' blasting out of the sound system.
We treated ourselves to a Mickey/Minnie ornament for our Christmas tree, which felt a bit sad pre-Easter, but it'll be a lovely reminder of our fantastic holiday for many years to come!
We picked up some souvenirs and presents for Charlie's friends back home, and the kids talked us into buying more 'pins'.
All the parks here sell lanyards with different pin badges to put on them, and you can swap any you don't want with lanyard-wearing Disney staff.
Both Charlie and Rosie are very taken with their lanyards and have amassed quite a collection of pins from all the different places we've been to.
I was hoping that if they had pins, we might be able to avoid buying any of the cuddly toys, but to no avail!!
What with the ones we were given by the hotel and Virgin, plus the Minions that they HAD to buy, plus various sundry other furry toys, my plaintive 'But you don't need ANY more cuddly toys...' fell on deaf ears.
And then they spotted Disney cuddly toy pillows - Rosie latched onto a Minnie Mouse, and Charlie had his eye on a Tigger one. (And I've already told you how much Tigger means to us...)
Oh well.
I guess we'll find room for them somewhere, and maybe they'll help them sleep better on the plane on the way home... :-S
Charlie was pleased to find the Lego shop, and as you can see, he and Rose had lots of fun meeting more characters - but this time of the Lego variety!
We finally made it to Disney Quest - it's a massive multi-storey games arcade, where you pay once to go in, then all the games are free. Even better, it was included in our Disney ticket so we didn't have to pay.
(Talking of tickets - I don't think I've mentioned our 'Magic Bands'. When we first checked into the hotel, we were each given a Disney wristband to wear. The wristbands are a great idea, and are multi-functional. They work as the key for our suite, and the hotel swimming pool/laundry etc, they also act as park tickets, so you just scan your wrist on the way in and don't need to bother carrying paper tickets around with you. They are also scanned any time a Disney photographer takes your picture, which collates all your pics under one account, and they are linked to your hotel account, so we don't need to take any cash at all with us when we go to anywhere Disney - we just scan our band, key in a pin and it is charged to our account. Really clever! Anyway, I digress...)
The kids spent a happy (and somewhat manic) couple of hours in Quest. Charlie was tickled pink to finally get a few rides on the motorbike racing games that I (mean mother!) will never fork out a pound for him to play on back home, and he and Pete had a rather vicious game of air hockey. Rosie was in seventh heaven, just running round and pushing every button she came to.
So after a couple of hours, we headed back to the hotel, so Rosie could have a really long afternoon nap.
Charlie and Pete chilled out and I went to the laundry to do a couple of loads of washing. It does feel very middle-aged, doing the washing on holiday, but it means that a. there is less dirty washing for me to do when I get back home, and b. all of our favourite clothes are clean again, so we don't have to resort to those 'emergency, end of a two-week holiday outfits'. You know the ones I mean...
Another lazy dinner at the hotel, and an early night all round.
The weather is supposed to be back to its hot and sunny norm tomorrow, so I think we're going to have a quiet morning (the kids are asking for Denny's pancakes again...) and then head back to Magic Kingdom later on in the day, so we can stay late and see the fireworks. They aren't until 10pm, so it will be a late one for Rosie, but she'll really enjoy the light-up parade beforehand, and I'm not too worried because she's been so amazingly flexible with her sleeping. She's always brilliant when she's in her cot, she knows her sleep cues and just goes out like a light when I put her to bed, but previously she's not been so keen to sleep when we're out and about.
Anyway, we seem to have cracked it - I brought a couple of her old muslins with us - they've got hearts on and she calls them her 'heart tissues'.
So every day at sleep time, if we're out and about, I tell her it's time to sleep, then roll one 'heart tissue' up under her neck like a pillow, and tuck her in tightly with the other, and in less than a minute she's out for the count.
So with a very late bedtime planned for tomorrow, let's hope those 'heart tissues' don't lose their magic!
No comments:
Post a Comment