Fact: Day Six

Don't be mad.

Today we went to DisneyWorld for the whole day. And I have no pictures.

I have a very strict no-camera-at-Disney policy in my life. I've adhered to this strictly for the last 5 years and I find that I am always happy when I have spent a day at Disney with no worries of where's-the-camera, stand-over-there, or fix-your-hair-and-don't-slouch. My idea is that I'm there to ride the rides and no one really wants to see pictures of us with frozen bananas anyway. (I am consistently baffled by people taking pictures of things like floats in a parade...is ANYONE excited to look at those later??? Seriously.)

Plus I was worried about Dwight being at DisneyWorld when he's not exactly waterproof nor is he impact-proof. So he stayed home and guarded our stuff at the hotel.

Jim and I were awake before any of the kids this morning. We discussed the possibility of NOT going to DisneyWorld if the boys' sunburns were too painful. We thought if they were too miserable, we'd just hang out around here today and then do Disney tomorrow. And when they woke up, they acted like they didn't know what sunburns we were talking about. They were perfect. I put aloe vera on their backs (and Matt's legs) three times during the night and Jim was on cold-compress duty (putting damp rags on them and then changing them out when they got too hot from their backs). We were pretty worried (obviously). Also, this is the first time EVER my boys have gotten sunburned like this. We do a pretty good job overall of keeping out-of-direct sun.

So when they woke up feeling like a million bucks, we cheered and took off for DisneyWorld just as it opened.

Our first (and most baffling) stroke of luck happened at the parking gate. We pulled up ready to pay our $12 fee. The kid saw Jim's outstretched hand with a fifty dollar bill and he cheerfully waved us through and said "Hey, don't worry about it today!" Jim, slightly nonplussed, haltingly asked "It's free to park today?" and the parking guy (or at least he LOOKED like a parking guy--tall, thin, Disney tag, dressed like Tweedle Dee...) assured us that we were fine and waved us through.

We talked all day about why that happened. Was parking free for everyone? Then why have parking attendants at 11 booths? Why not just a taped up sign that said "This is your lucky day--find a good spot and enjoy the rain!"? Did he not have change for a fifty and couldn't be bothered? Were we especially chipper and he liked that? Does he hate his job and want to stick it to Disney by not charging anyone parking all day? We did have a great time speculating. And no answer in the end.

It rained while we were there.

And when I say rained, what I mean is that DisneyWorld was as empty as it is possible to be--a Monday, a school day, and water pouring from the sky as if a giant faucet were aimed over our heads. And of the 50,000 people at DisneyWorld Magic Kingdom today, we were 6 out of 14 that did NOT spend $8 each on rain ponchos. Which means a few things:

First, when the rain stopped, we weren't wearing soaking wet humidifiers with no place to put them.
Second, we got wet. Like jumped-fully-clothed-into-a-swimming-pool wet. At one point, I could feel water running in a river down the back of my neck. We were so wet that even though it stopped raining around 2pm, all of us were still wet when we got home at 7pm.
Third, it was really easy to keep track of ourselves...our wet clothes stood out in a sea of milky plastic. We were VERY easy to find.

We also had in-depth discussions about which we prefer--Magic Kingdom or Disneyland. Lots of rides are similar (none were identical, oddly enough), the layout is similar, the food is identical (thank you, Disney, for frozen bananas). And most of us agreed that we like Disneyland WAY better (maybe it's just what we're used to) but we like Orlando better than LA.

Tonight we swam, packed, laundered, and blogged. Tomorrow we are back on the road bright and early for a nice long drive to about the middle of North Carolina. Colleen, Jamie, and Tara--get ready to hear from us in the next day or two! We're heading to your neck of the woods.

Since I have no new pictures for today, here's a little update by the numbers:

$12--cost of "Hidden Mickeys at Walt Disney World" (Laura--am I right that the Disneyland edition was only like $7??? Ripoff!...but still immensly enjoyable). Our favorite Mickey was in the graveyard of Haunted Mansion which we got to ride 7 times without ever leaving the building because it was raining so hard

7--number of times we rode Haunted Mansion without ever leaving the mansion. The cast members just opened a side door and let us loop around.

1--number of pictures Jourdan took at DisneyWorld

3--number of frozen bananas that I ate at least part of

6--loads of laundry done in the last 3 days here

34--average number of minutes to dry a load of laundry on "rocket exhaust" heat setting

2--number of shirts that got ruined from shrinking due to "rocket exhaust" heat setting

6--number of cameras that I used today belonging to other tourists asking if I could get their picture together (ironic, isn't it?)

9--number of pressed pennies we got today (my kids' favorite Disney souvenir) (and mine--they're cheap and don't take up a lot of room)