Two good days

After the rain-fest at Epcot on Monday, we were in the mood for a little break, so Tuesday was a "no park day" - we had a big breakfast at the buffet in the hotel, and wandered over to the sister resort - Kidani. Both Jambo and Kidani share a view of the wild animal plain, but they seem to have different "regulars" - Kidani had some great Vultures sunning themselves, along with a couple of ostriches.

Jambo is a grand hotel, but Kidani is more suites-driven, with a smaller lobby, fewer rooms, and a cozy atmosphere. But they have a different pool area, and that's where we spent over 4 hours - a pool with a pretty fun waterslide and a "splash park" - zero depth with lots of fountains and misters. Jenny came to join us for a couple of hours too. The kids swam and swam, and got a little crispy in the sun.

The weather held nicely for us - it would have been a good park day, but we needed the rest.

We hopped into the car for dinner at the Wilderness Lodge, the Whispering Canyon restaurant. There was very little whispering going on, but lots of fun. Loud boisterous waiters, hobby horse races, and if you needed some ketchup, well, you needed to holler our for it, and chances were you'd wind up with a dozen bottles for your effort. The food was FANTASTIC as well - some of the best we have had on the trip.

A wander around the grounds of the Wilderness Lodge was good - it's a beautiful property, but all told, it does the north woods feel a bit TOO well - we thought we probably wouldn't want to go there for vacation since, well, we get that sort of think up at Ruttgers, so why do it here?

Today was an EARLY day - Up by 6, at the Magic Kingdom by 8, and on the Dumbo Ride by 8:10. In rapid succession we hit all of the Fantasyland greats - Peter Pan, Dumbo, Merry Go Round, Small World... No wait on any of it It was my first trip to Small World since, well, since it cost an A-Ticket to ride. And I loved it - it's WAY more charming than I remember it - and I'm sure they've updated it with certain PC tweaks, but it still feels like a wonderful call back to when you could point at a mountain and a doll in Lederhosen and say "That's SWITZERLAND!!!" The world doesn't feel quite as identifiable any more does it? Maybe it never really was, but I loved remembering those touchpoints.

On a whim we hit the Haunted Mansion - Isaac loved it, Bella hated it, even though we tried to prep her that it was "All Scooby Doo style ghosts - nothing real". Isaac was a real thrill seeker in general - he insisted on the Race Cars (he also insisted on steering, which led to many many jarring "bumps" as the car corrected itself on to the guide rail). AND he insisted on the Ripsaw Roller Coaster, which he laughed manaicallly during - he wanted to go on it again and again.

We pretty much hit everything we wanted to hit with no waits (again, thank you Tour Guide Mike), and laughed as we saw the Dumbo Ride with 50 minute waits by the end of our day. We're planning on revisiting the Magic Kingdom on Friday and hitting TomorrowLand with everything we got.

We left by 2, had some chill time at the hotel, and then started back to the Magic Kingdom for dinner, just in time for a short squll to pass through, throwing lightning around and forcing us down to 20 mph on the highway while sheets of water poured across our windshield ("A nice way to get the car clean" said Isaac). The rain cleared up just as we pulled up the The Contemporary Resort.

The Contemporary is the hotel that has the Monorail going right through it, which I thought was AWESOME. But inside, it really doesn't do modern much more than your average Courtyard by Marriott... it was just sort of blah. I wish it had a retro-sixties futurism happening, but it was more just, retro 80's Hyatt Regency sort of feel, which was not terribly awesome.

We did have a buffet dinner, and we had all of the characters drop by - Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Pluto, and Goofy. Isaac was out of his mind jumping around and hugging them all... but he did ask "why don't they talk?". Then Isaac and Bella did a 5 minute spontaneous dance which I will call the "cupcake sugar rush dance" - but it got quite the audience.

As we left, Pamela was beckoned to the table next to ours - they wanted to know if Joe and I were by any chance TV stars, because they could SWEAR they'd seen us somewhere before. I think that we just live a little big, maybe we give off that "comfortable in the spotlight" vibe. Because I'm pretty sure nobody saw that TV Pilot we made back in the late 1990s ("Papa and the Jimmy").

Tomorrow will be a lighter day - if the weather holds, we may revisit Epcot to see what we missed and spend a little more time in the international areas. But no big plans. At the very least, we're sleeping in for a while.