Once again, Leah wanted to get up early, so I took her out for a spin around the Boardwalk in the early hours this morning, but this time, I brought my real camera and got some good shots across the lake. We hit the Boardwalk Bakery for a chocolate chip muffin (sorry, gluten-free Leah!), checked out the Christmas decorations inside the Beach Club, and continued around to the Yacht Club, where Leah watched their train for a while. Crossing back over to the BW side, we saw them setting up the satellite uplink trucks and security perimeters at the Atlantic Dance Hall for the College Football Awards show, which is here tomorrow night. Denard, swing by and see me if you’re town baby!
Aly had another slow morning after hanging out late with magical Brian (who didn’t make my funnel cake magically appear. pfft, some magician), and by the time she was ready to head over to MGM, Leah was already asleep for her first nap, so I got started on an ethics paper while Rachel and Aly headed off to Toy Story Midway Mania for some plate-breakin’ alien-ringin’ fun. About ten minutes after they left, the maintenance crew decided to mow the lawns below our room, and Leah decided to get up and see what all the noise was about. So I grabbed her and we started the walk over to MGM to join the other girls. It was a beautiful morning for a walk, and the weather has been great all week, barely hot in the middle of the day, pleasant all the other times.
Leah and I met the girls coming off Toy Story, then we got a rider swap pass and I rode Toy Story with Aly while Leah headed over to the playground with Rachel. Aly got 22,000 points riding with Rachel, and 19,200 while riding with me. Rachel, of course, claims to have beaten me by like 200 points, but she only said that after I told her what my score was – and I have a picture to prove my score. The good news? They didn’t collect our rider swap pass on that ride, so that meant we got to ride again later in the day again without waiting!
We headed over to the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground, where Aly had a bunch of fun climbing spiderwebs, sliding, and crawling through tunnels. Leah headed off to the baby center for snack and diaper change, then we all met at Hollywood & Vine for lunch. We were seated almost immediately, and the restaurant was mostly empty, so the characters came by our table five times or so. Aly finally got to meet her most-wanted character, Jake of the Neverland Pirates, you can see she was over the moon. Leah also found a new favorite character, Special Agent Oso. By his third time to our table, she was talking to him and reaching out to touch him. So of course, being the spoiling father than I am, I bought her a stuffed Oso after lunch. And a talking Minnie Mouse cellphone. She’s cute, can you blame me?
We used the rider swap ticket and Aly rode Toy Story a third time, this time with Rachel, and scored 50,000 points. You almost never get to ride Toy Story three times in a day, let alone before 2pm! We even had fastpasses and could have ridden a fourth time, but Leah needed a nap, so we gave away our fastpasses as we headed out of the park. We’re already dreading checkout tomorrow, though we’re also excited to move over to Bay Lake Tower at the Contemporary resort in the morning. Flying home on Friday, not so much. Resting up for a couple hours before we head over to MK tonight for dinner with Pooh and friends, and hopefully we’ll get Leah on some rides over there.
Lots of Brazilian tour groups at MGM today, which means 8 year old girls in 4-inch heels and thigh-high boots, but they were well-behaved from what we saw today – none of the singing rowdiness and pushiness we’ve seen in the past. Also tons of Pop Warner football players and cheerleaders around WDW this week, but there aren’t many staying at the Boardwalk, so that hasn’t been much of a bother.
