I woke this morning still brushing the pixie dust off of me, listening to the rain hitting the roof above my head. It made me angry, like the rain was going to wash away all the amazing things that I had just experienced. But I knew I had to pull myself out of bed and try to adjust back to reality. And after the emotional experience I had this past weekend, it would be, and is, difficult to do.
The cast of characters for my adventure grew from just me to include Susan, my birthmother, and Timothy, my little brother (Susan’s son, age 11). I was nervous about this whole trip, foolishly wondering if we would run out of things to discuss over the course of our days together. I was nervous about Susan meeting my parents, and I was nervous about meeting Timothy. But once it was all said and done and the ashes had settled, I realized how silly that was. I realized that Love is really at the foundation of all of this, and when that is the case, things have an amazing way of falling into place.
We made record time from Atlanta to Orlando, and even included a side trip near Tampa to “rescue” (his words) Timothy. The hotel check-in was quick and we were soon settled in for the night. On Friday morning, we woke early, excited about the Magic Kingdom. We arrived just in time for the “Good Morning” song, which never left our heads for the duration of the trip. Timothy sang it to us every morning. Right out of the gate, we headed for the Main Street Bakery and had breakfast and then hit Fantasyland, knocking out the majority of it. From there, we hit the mountains in Frontierland, and Liberty Square. We had lunch at the Columbia Harbor House, and headed for Tomorrowland via Adventureland so I could introduce Susan to the sheer joy that is the Dole Whip. After we finished most of Tomorrowland, including the Carousel of Progress (which got a little off so we had to sit through the first scene a little too long), we decided to head back to the hotel for a nap and swim. About that time something called “Tropical Depression Number 7” rolled through and stopped dead center on Main Street. I whittled my way through the crowds in the stores to stay out of the rain, and we tried to wait it out but no luck. We ran to the monorail and stuffed ourselves inside with the other thousand or so drowned rats. The rest of the night was low key, spent catching up on thirty years, if it’s possible, and marveling at the similarities between us.
On Saturday we tackled the Animal Kingdom and caught a glimpse of the new baby elephant wandering around the Savanna. The talking trashcan was out at Conservation Station and sang Happy Birthday to Susan. Timothy was amazed. We saw the majority of Animal Kingdom in a relatively short amount of time, but once again, the bottom dropped out and we headed back to the Hyatt for a nap before our dinner at the Rose and Crown at Epcot. We made it in plenty of time and I told them at the podium about Susan’s birthday and how great it would be if we could get a wonderful outdoor table. They came through as always and we had a spectacular view. We told our server about our story and how this was the first birthday we had ever spent together and it was a beautiful night. We all ended up crying at the fireworks and hugging, just trying to make up for lost time I suppose. I can’t really find words to describe how I felt right then. I have always heard mothers talk about children recognizing their voice from the womb and recognizing their touch. Maybe I remember.
The end of our great night was playing in the interactive fountain on the way out of the park just like all the kids. I took my shoes off and jumped right in, as did Susan and Timothy. There was a precious little girl about 4 years old playing named Amilcia, and she was in charge of where I stood. By the end, we were all soaked and the other adults thought we were crazy but we had a blast. As we exited the park, Timothy decided to delight us all with some Billy Elliot dance moves and had us laughing so hard I wondered if I could control my bladder. I’ve never met a funnier little boy in my entire life.
We spent all of Sunday at Epcot, and we tackled Future World in the morning. As we were about to jump into the World Showcase, I noticed they had put out the Mission:Space preview sign, and I knew we couldn’t pass it up. This was our first time on the new ride, and I must say it was an incredible experience, but it made me sick for about 2 hours. It had nothing to do with the enclosed space but the amount of pressure was almost unbearable. I’m glad I did it, but unless they change it, I’m afraid I won’t do it again. My concern is those folks who have a few drinks and then go--- what a mess that would be to clean up. It was also a little disconcerting that they had a mini-firstaid tent of sorts set up as you exited—cast members asking “Is everyone all right? Just take it easy… sit down right here…” There were chairs set up on top of a black mat of some sort, maybe of an easily-cleanable material, if you catch my meaning. I thought I would be a little queasy for a few minutes, but this one knocked me and Susan both out for about 2 hours. I think I fully recovered by the time we hit Morocco. We browsed all the countries, saw American Adventure, and rode both boat rides. Amazingly, Timothy loves to shop so we all had a good time. We did pictures with the Living Statue, worked our way back around and headed home. We stopped at Pacino’s Italian restaurant on 192 for dinner before we headed back to the hotel. There we were serenaded by a creepy accordion player with only a few teeth and spaghetti stains on his tux. He was pretty pitiful, but he was sure sweet on Susan! After dinner, we hit the hot tub for some relaxation before bed.
I had been telling Timothy for the whole trip how great MGM was for the thrill rides, so when we arrived on Monday morning, he was pumped. And, being Susan’s actual birthday, I knew the day would be special. We did Tower of Terror three times in a row—we got a fastpass then waited about 20 minutes in the standby line. After our first ride, we rode on our fastpass and the castmember handed me the little timing card and told me to give it to the castmember at the elevator and he would give us something. The something was another ride—without having to walk all the way back around and go through the library again! It was great. We putzed our way through MGM at a pretty leisurely pace, and made a priority seating reservation for the 50’s Prime Time Café, knowing that Susan and Timothy would both love it. But this point we had discovered all the weird similarities we have—rubbing our feet together before falling asleep, crunching our toes when we’re thinking, etc. Quite a few times we caught ourselves saying the same thing at the same time. We left for the hotel for a nap and a swim—boy, was it hot Monday—and our goal was to eat dinner, ride Tower of Terror and Rock n’ Roller Coaster as many times as we could, and see Fanstasmic. We did it.
Dinner was the best. Some people don’t like Prime Time, but it is one of my favorites. It is almost a necessity that you be an extrovert to enjoy this place, as was demonstrated by the extremely strange, quiet family sitting on the other side of the room. They looked like they wanted the floor to open up and suck them in. Our waitress, Patricia, was excellent, and played her part to a tee. We befriended the mom and daughter sitting next to us and had a great time talking to them and telling them our story. The highlight was the birthday card that Patricia made the room sign for Susan. One guy signed, “Thanks for the best night of my life, love, Todd.” And his wife was sitting right there! It was incredibly funny. One person wrote, “I hope you’re taking a bus home!” We had been celebrating just a little bit by this point. We finished up the night with Fantasmic and trudged our way back to the hotel to pack and rest for the ride home.
What a great trip, with wonderful people… learning about these people that I have always loved but never known. I didn’t want to leave, because I didn’t want it to end. My friend Carolyn came by the night I got home to hear all about it, and I was happy to tell her, even though I was feeling a little selfish and wanted to keep it all to myself. As overused as it may be, I truly believe that Disney is the happiest place on earth and that magic is real there.
I never really thought of Disney World as an emotional place, per se, but rather a place where laughter is the rule and memories are made. And being a seasoned Disney veteran, what I most enjoy is watching others experience the magic for the first time. This time, I recaptured that magic for myself. I believe in magic, I believe in miracles, I believe in dreams and laughter, and family, and hope, and fireflies disguised as tinkerbell. (That last one’s for you, mom.)
The cast of characters for my adventure grew from just me to include Susan, my birthmother, and Timothy, my little brother (Susan’s son, age 11). I was nervous about this whole trip, foolishly wondering if we would run out of things to discuss over the course of our days together. I was nervous about Susan meeting my parents, and I was nervous about meeting Timothy. But once it was all said and done and the ashes had settled, I realized how silly that was. I realized that Love is really at the foundation of all of this, and when that is the case, things have an amazing way of falling into place.
We made record time from Atlanta to Orlando, and even included a side trip near Tampa to “rescue” (his words) Timothy. The hotel check-in was quick and we were soon settled in for the night. On Friday morning, we woke early, excited about the Magic Kingdom. We arrived just in time for the “Good Morning” song, which never left our heads for the duration of the trip. Timothy sang it to us every morning. Right out of the gate, we headed for the Main Street Bakery and had breakfast and then hit Fantasyland, knocking out the majority of it. From there, we hit the mountains in Frontierland, and Liberty Square. We had lunch at the Columbia Harbor House, and headed for Tomorrowland via Adventureland so I could introduce Susan to the sheer joy that is the Dole Whip. After we finished most of Tomorrowland, including the Carousel of Progress (which got a little off so we had to sit through the first scene a little too long), we decided to head back to the hotel for a nap and swim. About that time something called “Tropical Depression Number 7” rolled through and stopped dead center on Main Street. I whittled my way through the crowds in the stores to stay out of the rain, and we tried to wait it out but no luck. We ran to the monorail and stuffed ourselves inside with the other thousand or so drowned rats. The rest of the night was low key, spent catching up on thirty years, if it’s possible, and marveling at the similarities between us.
On Saturday we tackled the Animal Kingdom and caught a glimpse of the new baby elephant wandering around the Savanna. The talking trashcan was out at Conservation Station and sang Happy Birthday to Susan. Timothy was amazed. We saw the majority of Animal Kingdom in a relatively short amount of time, but once again, the bottom dropped out and we headed back to the Hyatt for a nap before our dinner at the Rose and Crown at Epcot. We made it in plenty of time and I told them at the podium about Susan’s birthday and how great it would be if we could get a wonderful outdoor table. They came through as always and we had a spectacular view. We told our server about our story and how this was the first birthday we had ever spent together and it was a beautiful night. We all ended up crying at the fireworks and hugging, just trying to make up for lost time I suppose. I can’t really find words to describe how I felt right then. I have always heard mothers talk about children recognizing their voice from the womb and recognizing their touch. Maybe I remember.
The end of our great night was playing in the interactive fountain on the way out of the park just like all the kids. I took my shoes off and jumped right in, as did Susan and Timothy. There was a precious little girl about 4 years old playing named Amilcia, and she was in charge of where I stood. By the end, we were all soaked and the other adults thought we were crazy but we had a blast. As we exited the park, Timothy decided to delight us all with some Billy Elliot dance moves and had us laughing so hard I wondered if I could control my bladder. I’ve never met a funnier little boy in my entire life.
We spent all of Sunday at Epcot, and we tackled Future World in the morning. As we were about to jump into the World Showcase, I noticed they had put out the Mission:Space preview sign, and I knew we couldn’t pass it up. This was our first time on the new ride, and I must say it was an incredible experience, but it made me sick for about 2 hours. It had nothing to do with the enclosed space but the amount of pressure was almost unbearable. I’m glad I did it, but unless they change it, I’m afraid I won’t do it again. My concern is those folks who have a few drinks and then go--- what a mess that would be to clean up. It was also a little disconcerting that they had a mini-firstaid tent of sorts set up as you exited—cast members asking “Is everyone all right? Just take it easy… sit down right here…” There were chairs set up on top of a black mat of some sort, maybe of an easily-cleanable material, if you catch my meaning. I thought I would be a little queasy for a few minutes, but this one knocked me and Susan both out for about 2 hours. I think I fully recovered by the time we hit Morocco. We browsed all the countries, saw American Adventure, and rode both boat rides. Amazingly, Timothy loves to shop so we all had a good time. We did pictures with the Living Statue, worked our way back around and headed home. We stopped at Pacino’s Italian restaurant on 192 for dinner before we headed back to the hotel. There we were serenaded by a creepy accordion player with only a few teeth and spaghetti stains on his tux. He was pretty pitiful, but he was sure sweet on Susan! After dinner, we hit the hot tub for some relaxation before bed.
I had been telling Timothy for the whole trip how great MGM was for the thrill rides, so when we arrived on Monday morning, he was pumped. And, being Susan’s actual birthday, I knew the day would be special. We did Tower of Terror three times in a row—we got a fastpass then waited about 20 minutes in the standby line. After our first ride, we rode on our fastpass and the castmember handed me the little timing card and told me to give it to the castmember at the elevator and he would give us something. The something was another ride—without having to walk all the way back around and go through the library again! It was great. We putzed our way through MGM at a pretty leisurely pace, and made a priority seating reservation for the 50’s Prime Time Café, knowing that Susan and Timothy would both love it. But this point we had discovered all the weird similarities we have—rubbing our feet together before falling asleep, crunching our toes when we’re thinking, etc. Quite a few times we caught ourselves saying the same thing at the same time. We left for the hotel for a nap and a swim—boy, was it hot Monday—and our goal was to eat dinner, ride Tower of Terror and Rock n’ Roller Coaster as many times as we could, and see Fanstasmic. We did it.
Dinner was the best. Some people don’t like Prime Time, but it is one of my favorites. It is almost a necessity that you be an extrovert to enjoy this place, as was demonstrated by the extremely strange, quiet family sitting on the other side of the room. They looked like they wanted the floor to open up and suck them in. Our waitress, Patricia, was excellent, and played her part to a tee. We befriended the mom and daughter sitting next to us and had a great time talking to them and telling them our story. The highlight was the birthday card that Patricia made the room sign for Susan. One guy signed, “Thanks for the best night of my life, love, Todd.” And his wife was sitting right there! It was incredibly funny. One person wrote, “I hope you’re taking a bus home!” We had been celebrating just a little bit by this point. We finished up the night with Fantasmic and trudged our way back to the hotel to pack and rest for the ride home.
What a great trip, with wonderful people… learning about these people that I have always loved but never known. I didn’t want to leave, because I didn’t want it to end. My friend Carolyn came by the night I got home to hear all about it, and I was happy to tell her, even though I was feeling a little selfish and wanted to keep it all to myself. As overused as it may be, I truly believe that Disney is the happiest place on earth and that magic is real there.
I never really thought of Disney World as an emotional place, per se, but rather a place where laughter is the rule and memories are made. And being a seasoned Disney veteran, what I most enjoy is watching others experience the magic for the first time. This time, I recaptured that magic for myself. I believe in magic, I believe in miracles, I believe in dreams and laughter, and family, and hope, and fireflies disguised as tinkerbell. (That last one’s for you, mom.)