After our special moments with Woody it was time to get back to the rides 😉 Next stop on our itinerary was Adventureland. The Unofficial Guide Book had a list of rides to avoid for young children, and one of them was Pirates of the Caribbean. I do agree with the list and wouldn’t suggest having your young child ride the ride. However, it’s one of mine and Zach’s favorites. So I have spent a TON of time preparing Kye for it! Tip If you do have a young child and want them to ride Pirates then I suggest preparing them for it the best you can. We have a walk-in closet in Kye’s playroom so Kye and I will hide in that closet, with the lights off, and I’ll sing “yo ho yo ho pirates life for me” over and over again. Whenever we see skulls I always say “oh look! pirate stuff!” Kye doesn’t know what skulls are at all and thinks they are just something pirate related. Whenever we see boats we always say “cool, pirate boat!” We just try to make pirates as happy and fun as possible 😉
All my preparation totally paid off! I was nervous at how he’d do in the complete dark and during that rather large dip, but he LOVED it ALL. I’m a BIG believer in being upfront with him about things so when we got on the boats I told him it’d be very dark and that we were going to go down a big hill. I think lots of roller-coasters are in the kids future because he didn’t mind that hill one bit. He said “yay!’ after it was over! He loved touching the “waterfall” (the smoke that comes down in the beginning of the ride) and he kept saying “look at the pirates!” Zach and I were pumped that he liked it so much and we didn’t meet another kid near his age while we were there who enjoyed it! The rest of our trip became all about pirates and I totally see how parents spend the money on the Pirate Dress Up thing they have there!
saying “arggggggg”
Mrs. Charlotte and I took turns riding in the wheelchair, at first we parked it before each ride or show but then we learned that if you take it with you through the line that you get better seating and to the front quicker (at least majority of the time). So usually I’d ride in it while we walked from land to land and she’d ride through the lines (I wanted to walk with Kye and experience everything!). It worked out awesome and we had some amazing seats for everything! While we waited for The Tiki Room we got to be right up front!
I know most people consider The Enchanted Tiki Room on the same level of lameness as The Hall of Presidents, but it’s one of my favorites. I have such good memories of my brother and I singing The Tiki Room song and I love that it’s a classic Disney experience. In other words, I don’t care if anyone else wanted to do it or not – we were doing it 😉 The wait wasn’t long and the show itself is short and well air-conditioned. It was a nice little break and Kye enjoyed fanning everyone off (and by everyone I mean all of us, the birds in the pre-show, and the other people in line).
This is a good place to mention Kye’s shirt! I blogged on it before, but this is the shirt I made for him for the trip! It is red Mickey Mouse material and I think I did pretty good with it. We saw TONS of little girls in adorable Etsy type outfits but the boys just get pretty left behind on that. I mean you don’t wanna have your son looking too cutesy am I right? Zach approved of this shirt since it is a tie and Kye got several compliments on it throughout the day (I loved that Mom was there because she totally bragged and told them all I made it! haha!). You can see an EASY tutorial on how to make your own here!
I love how he sticks out his little tongue when he’s concentrating
Talking to the birds in the pre-show
watching together 🙂
I spent 99% of every ride, show, and other activity watching KYE!
My boy and me enjoying The Tiki Room Show!
cheesy grin
When we left The Tiki Room we realized it was 1:00! Kye hadn’t had legit lunch yet and hadn’t been to the potty in several hours (I seriously don’t know how anyone takes a kid who isn’t potty trained to the park…it’d be a nightmare! The bathrooms are not that convenient at all!). Mom and I trecked all the way back to Frontierland to the closest bathroom with Kye while Zach and Mrs. Charlotte got the adults a little treat. Zach and I got Orange Soda Floats and omg they were SO GOOD! Very refreshing and totally yummy! If you know me at all then you know that Kye doesn’t drink anything other than white milk, water, or my own blend of juice (Naked Juice mixed with V8 Fushion mixed with water). Zach and I aren’t big soda drinkers and don’t want our children to be either. We’ve never given him even a taste of soda, tea, coffee, chocolate milk, etc. We didn’t really think about that when we ordered the soda floats! Our kid sees ice cream and duh he wants some!!! We both gave him some of ours but blended it really well with the ice cream, he didn’t know he was drinking anything other than ice cream so it worked out okay. He sure did love it though! Here‘s a video of him enjoying his treat!
We caved on the floats, but did not let him have a bite of G-Mama’s and Gramma’s chocolate covered bananas 😉 I think they were enjoying them TOO much to share anyways!
It was a nice, relaxing break and felt good just to sit down and take our time for a little bit. No rushing needed. I felt confident that we would be done with everything else we had to do before the rain was set to come at 3 so we weren’t having to hurry or anything. We continued on with the itinerary plan of completing each land. In Adventureland the only thing we didn’t do was Swiss Family Treehouse. Zach enjoys it but it’s SO much climbing and Kye would hate it…plus it was closed so we couldn’t see it even if we’d wanted to!
We had our lunch/snacks at tables right next to The Magic Carpets of Aladdin and Kye asked to ride it so we did that next. Since I wasn’t a fan of Dumbo I had no desire to ride the magical carpets. Daddy’s turn!!! Mrs. Charlotte and I enjoyed watching 🙂
It’s funny to me how both Zach and I will hold our kid up on a high-flying ride just to make sure we get a picture 😉
The Jungle Cruise finished up our Adventureland fun…and it’s another of our favorites. I LOVE the sarcasm all the “guides” use and think it makes it even more fun. It’s one line I don’t mind waiting in either because there’s lots of funny things to see. Of course, we got to skip the line so we didn’t see that stuff this time. Kye was getting pretty sleepy, as it was nap time, but he enjoyed the ride. He loved seeing the elephants especially and has talked about them and the snake since we’ve been home!
The cave section of the Jungle Cruise was actually more scary to Kye than Pirates was. It’s a pretty long cave and it’s very dark with no music or entertainment. Pirates only completely dark for a couple of minutes and the dip down the hill is very short. He got a little scared in the cave and wanted me to hold him and I could feel his heart racing. I’d still ride the ride again with him, as he DID enjoy it, but it’s good to remember that it may scare young kids some!
“driving” the pirate ship
We did not do any of the attractions in Liberty Square. I’ve actually seen the Hall of Presidents once (we went with some friends and it’s a favorite of one of the girls in our group so I offered to see it with her while the others rode Splash Mountain) and it’s MEGA boring. We love Haunted Mansion but knew it’d be wayyy to scary for Kye. I don’t think I’ve ever ridden the Liberty Square Riverboat and I’d like to someday but we didn’t bother with it on this trip. That meant that we were headed to Tomorrowland!
When we first discussed taking Kye to Disney we both agreed that we should invite the grandparents to come along. I knew Mom would want to see Disney through Kye’s eyes as she’s a HUGE Disney fan (I grew up living only 45 min away so we went ALL the time). I thought Mrs. Charlotte would enjoy it too but I didn’t know until recently that she’s a big Disney fan! She actually grew up visiting quite often and even went there for her honeymoon with Mr. Rusty! We did invite Mr. Rusty to come along but were not surprised he didn’t come…it honestly couldn’t have gone ANY better. Everyone got along great, Mrs. Charlotte and Mom got to bond a lot which was nice as they both are so busy they don’t often get to hang out with friends, and Kye LOVED having all of us there together. It especially worked out great when Zach decided I had to have a wheelchair. If it’d just been the three of us, who would have pushed me while Zach pushed the stroller? Mom was a champ pushing me around and while I hated it (who likes to make people push them like that?!?! It was embarrassing for me!) I also appreciated her doing it for me!
One more land to go!
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