An evening of Disney fails by Mom at the Not-So-Scary-Halloween Party

Last night I had a bit of a Disney fail.

Okay, maybe it was actually fail after fail.

There was rushing due to lack of time (ummm, or poor planning), sweatshirts left at home and yes, even missed fireworks. (I am still kicking myself over that one.)

Here’s how it all happened:

We checked into our gorgeous hotel (Disney’s Polynesian Resort) a bit later than I had hoped, and that just sent us off on a series of lateness and rush that I could have done without.

Very soon after check in (and receiving fun leis… Shari, our foreign exchange daughter/ student, even got a real one with beautiful flowers since it was her first visit. I’m not sure if the fact that she was also from Germany played into that or not, but the flowers were definitely appreciated!), I ushered everyone out of the room so we could get to Downtown Disney for my daughter’s appointment at the Bibbidi-Bobbidi Boutique.

We made it in time and that experience, by the way, was absolutely adorable and lots of fun. And I was amazed at how well the boys sat and waited while in that sea of girlish-ness as my daughter was transformed into her princess of choice, Ariel. I took everyone to the Lego store after that for a little boy action. That definitely made up for it.

Next was lunner… the kids asked me if it was lunch or dinner and I just said I wasn’t too sure because, well, I wasn’t. I wanted us to have a calm, sit-down meal before the craziness of the Halloween party at the Magic Kingdom, so we went to Portobellos for some delicious Italian food. That place never disappoints! I have been eating there since a boy I was dating in high school worked there and my parents were kind enough to drive to Disney for dinner every now and then. The relationship with the boy? It didn’t go anywhere. The relationship with the restaurant? It has lasted for more than 20 years.

I think we might have been a bit too leisurely because the next hour was, again, a big rush on time.

I decided that it was a bit too breezy and mentally kicked myself for not packing the sweatshirts I had set next to my suitcase as I was packing for the trip.

I really didn’t want the possibility of having cold, cranky cold kids later so we zipped (ha-ha. Is ‘zipping’ ever possible in a Disney store with 4,000 shoppers around?) into a shop and bought sweatshirts for all the kids.

Way too much time later, we boarded the bus back to the resort, stood through way more stops than I had hoped and ran off the bus and into our hotel room to get the boys changed into costumes and make a few other pre-Halloween party preparations.

Off to the party we went, arriving one and a half hours after the start time. The party was from 7 p.m. until Midnight. I was not pleased with myself for my lack of planning. But what could I do about it at that point? Nothing. I tried not to get frustrated with anyone else.. it was my own fault for not planning enough cushion. Aaargh.

We walked through the parade crowd, found a good spot to park the kids and I ran off to buy cookies. It was awesome to have Shari’s help so I could leave the kids in her care.

So far, my fails are lateness, lack of sweatshirts, and a bit more lateness. But the kids still were on incredible behavior, even if Mom was on the edge. The smiled, said ‘thank you,’ and were, of course, mesmerized by the special Halloween parade.

So many of their favorite characters were dressed up in costume, dancing around and some even passed out candy. Our favorite part of the parade, though, was the group of undertakers who carried shovels, twirling them and dragging them in circles on the ground making sparks. Super cool!

As I was getting over my timing, we hopped in to ride the Buzz Lightyear ride, flew through there and headed over to FantasyLand to watch the fireworks.

Every time that I can remember I have always watched the fireworks from the from the front of the castle and they have always been spectacular. This time I made a huge timing mistake and we ended up in line for the Dumbo ride as the fireworks burst over us and we were under cover. We could barely see anything.

I honestly thought we would blow through the line (as we had the other ride) and view part of the fireworks from Dumbo and the rest from behind the castle. I was wrong.

Shari had come all the way from Germany. I told her how amazing the fireworks would be. And then I caused us to miss them by making a bad choice in timing (again!!). I apologized about 17 times still felt terrible (and still feel bad this morning) and vowed to not mess up the next night at Epcot. (I had better not mess up!!)

After the pressure of missing the fireworks was off, we kicked into serious ride-catching mode and had a lot of fun. Of course the trick or treat stations all over the park helped a lot, too. Disney while eating as much candy as you wanted? I bet my kids wondered if it could possibly get any better than that. (And wondered what was up with Mom that she would allow it.)

My kids did well and they had a great night. We rode rides until the park closed at Midnight and then rode a ‘ride’ back to the hotel… or at least they thought the boat was another fun ride.

Now they are all still sound asleep in the room as I tap away in the hallway.

Next up:
Epcot today. More rides, more fun and I might even let them bring along their treat bags form last night to enjoy all through the day.

And this time I am not going to rush. And I am NOT going to miss those fireworks!