Disneyworld: The Four Park Challenge

We are in Disney World for a few days, as it is my wife and my son's happy place, and a place that I really really like.  We became DVC members last year, which means we will be vacationing at the Most Magical Place On Earth for years to come.

We've got some time to roam and explore, now that we know that we will be here for a while, and so, on a random Tuesday, we embarked on a mad mad adventure: a quest to "do" all 4 parks in a single day.  The Four Park Challenge. It's kind of like a Disney Bucket list.

What does it mean to "do" a park?
Well, everybody has a theory, and here's ours.  Seeing every ride is right out of the question (You could do it in one park, maybe, and many people have, but I know you couldn't in all 4 parks on the same day.  Doing all 4 parks every ride in 4 straight days is another bucket list we might take on another time.  That would be like a Disneyworld Ironman!

For us, we decided that for our park to count, we would have to do the following.

• Go on at least 3 rides or shows..
• Have a photo taken at one iconic area.
• Eat something in every park.
• Trade a pin in every park (we are inveterate pin traders) (at least one of us)
• Use the restroom in every park. (at least one of us)

We did it!  Although our feet and backs were sore by the end of the day (by the time my day ended at midnight, I'd walked 24000+ steps (over 11 miles!), been on 17 rides, and had a great day with the family.

I highly recommend this for your family, especially if you've been to Disney before, and want to see it in a new light/push your boundaries kind of way.  I also recommend that you make up the rules to fulfill the challenge what feels right for you and your family!  It's your vacation, spend it how you please!

Here's our itinerary for our bucketlist day.

MAGIC KINGDOM

Us in front of the Magic Kingdom Castle

 We took our picture on the way in in front of the castle.
8 AM:  Visit Be Our Guest for an early breakfast.
8:40 AM: Get in line for early rides on 7 Dwarves Mine Train.  We rode it 3 times!
9:10 AM: Walk over to TomorrowLand. While here we rode TomorrowLand Speedway, Astro-Orbital Launcher, the Laugh Floor, the PeopleMover, and Buzz Lightyear.

This took us until about 10:30 AM.  We then took the Express bus over to  Hollywood Studios.  The Express bus is a new bus service that allows you travel backstage between all 4 parks.  It's brand new, and its advantage is that you don't have to go through security again.  The disadvantage is that it costs extra.  Right now in the trial phase it's $24 per person for one week of usage.  That's a pretty good deal!

HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS  

Us in front of the Bauman Chinese Theatre
in Hollywood Studios

We took our picture on the way in in front of Rockin' Roller Coaster,
11 AM:   We got in around 11 am.  It drops you off right at Rockin' Roller Coaster but my wife and child couldn't be convinced to get on.  So we took another picture in front of the Movie Ride/Main Street.   Then we rode the following three rides:
Star Tours
Muppets in 3D
Toy Story Midway Mania

We then stopped for lunch at 1:15 at the ABC Commissary, neither of us had been there before,  And then caught the bus over to Animal Kingdom for our third park of the day.

ANIMAL KINGDOM  

Us in front of the Tree of Life at
Animal Kingdom

We arrived at Animal Kingdom at around 2:30.  It took us a while to get our bearings.  We couldn't find a photographer right away, and we were trying to hook up with a friend who was in that park on that day (unfortunately, we arrived a little late, and they left a little early, so we missed them)

We ended up going on Everest (which both my wife and son were scared about, but ended up doing just fine on.  My son said Never Again.  But at least he conquered his fear about getting on.    After that we had a snack at the local shop.

After Everest we rode
•Bugs Life in the big tree of Life.  (where we finally found a photographer)
• Dinosaur

We  then had to walk back around the park to get to the Backstage Express to get to our final park of the day:  Epcot.

EPCOT

Last park of the day!  Us in front of the "Golf Ball" at Epcot.

By this time we were pretty sore and not sure if we could continue.  But we did anyway!
We rode 3 rides here as well.

Spaceship Earth (which had a fault as were were getting started, and was halted for about 10 minutes)
Nemo at the Seas
Imagination with Figment

We walked back over to eat dinner at the Electric Umbrella, and then slowly made our way back to our hotel (Beach Club)  My wife and son went back to the room, and I met up with a friend who performs on the Boardwalk (Coney Island Chris)

 It was cold by then, so Chris was inside the Boardwalk Hotel.  After that, I had drinks with Chris and his wife, and then went back to the hotel to try to get some shuteye so that we could be back in the parks the next day!  I got to sleep around midnight!  Long day!


Over all, trying the challenge was a great and different way to see the parks.  I'd definitely recommend it, if you have already been to the parks once, and want to see if you can do it!

Can You Keep a Secret? We Are Going to Universal Orlando!

For the last four months my wife and I have been keeping a pretty big secret from my son.
Do you promise you won't tell? Shhhh....

For his eighth birthday we are going to Universal Orlando!  (And he doesn't know!  So don't tell him!)

We are going as part of Family Forward Conference.  It's run by two friends of ours, (the guys who own MomItForward)  and basically it's a conference for social media influencers where the family of the influencer is specifically invited and encouraged to come.

It's held at Universal Orlando every year, (this is the fourth year)  and features VIP tours of the parks, social media topics, time at the pool, a trip to see Blue Man Group, discount hotel, and bonding with other families just like ours, and more importantly lots of vacation time!

Here's what they say:

Join 70 digital families for 4 nights and 5 days of hands-on activities the whole family can enjoy, theme-park entertainment, and fun in the sun by the pool.

 ​Family Forward gives families experiences, ideas, and skills to embrace bonding in the digital age through workshops centered on topics like charity, communication, creativity, team building, and trust. Our premise is that whether you are unplugged or are plugged in, you can maximize opportunities to create connections with your family.

THANKS TO THE SPONSORS OF FAMILY FORWARD!

A big part of any conference is sponsors (believe me, I ran a conference, I know!)  So I want to give an extra big shout out to the Sponsors of Family Forward.

• Universal Orlando Resort  #UniversalMoments
•  Mom It Forward, #familyforward
• Blue Man Group #Universal Moments
•  CityWalk     #UniversalCityWalk
• Honey Bunches of Oats  #HBOisEverything
• Loews Royal Pacific Resort  #LowesRoyalPacific #TravelForReal
•  Mobicip  #InternetSafety
• Play-Doh. #PlayDoh60

You can find out more about each of these sponsors on the Family Forward Sponsor page.


So I can hear you asking:  But how did you keep such a big secret from your son? And more importantly, why?  (Go ahead, ask.  I'll wait!)

The why is the harder question to answer, and so I'll answer that first.  As a professional clown, it should come as no surprise to you that I am a bit of a joker. My family has a tradition of surprises (my wife surprised me with a 50th birthday party 6 weeks late!  I surprised my brother on his 40th birthday by flying to Bogota Colombia.  (and he had surprised me by appearing at my doorstep 3 days before I was scheduled to depart.  Great minds think alike!)  And I have a series of April Fools Pranks on my son that have so far have been quite good.

It's fun to give stuff to people, especially when they aren't expecting it.

The how is easier to explain-- we snuck in a grain of truth.  We were already planning to go to DisneyWorld (as you probably know, we are rabid fans, recently became owners of a Disney Time share, and we've gone there a bunch of times.)
My wife is a guru about when the park will be empty, and according to historical data, the last week of August is one of the slowest weeks for the parks.

So we told him we were going to Disney for 5 days, and as a special treat, we organized with our friends in New York  the McGills (note: not their real name) for Aaron and his best New York friend to meet at Disney.  (You can read about some more of our adventures with the McGills here.)

We are actually taking all the kids to Disney, while the parent McGills have an adults only vacation, because the parent McGills can't stand amusement parks, and we want their kids to grow up relatively normal. (And because the Bear would love it!  We're basically renting siblings for him!)  We are spending 5 days at Disney with the McGill kids, and then my son thinks we are going to visit Grandma who also lives in Florida.  But in reality Grandma is coming to visit us!

Click the image (or this link) to get a Gryffindor robe of your own.

To prepare for this event, I did have to do some devilish preparation, including having my son read all of the Harry Potter books, see most of the Harry Potter Films (we have finished 6, we have both Deathly Hallows movies to watch, which hopefully will happen tomorrow or Friday (we leave on Saturday!))  And we have had to studiously avoid him noticing all of the preparations, including buying him Harry Potter robes, not letting him look at all the emails we've been getting from Family Forward, etc.  It's been hard, but it's been manageable

In the end it will all be worth it. My son gets the best birthday present ever, (two parks, hanging out with his friend, seeing his grandma) we get to hang out with the McGill's (who will spend a day on either end with us at a water park and a dinner before going off to have a lovely adults only vacation).

We are big fans of Disney, but have never been to Universal, so this is the perfect time.  My son is not much of a roller coaster kid, but he loves Harry Potter, he loves having fun, and he loves to swim.

Personally, I'm excited about The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and all the rides (which are supposed to be awesome!) but I'm perhaps most excited about Blue Man Group-- amazingly, I've never seen their show live, and it seems like such a natural for me.  When I lived in NY (and now in Chicago) I have just never gotten around to it!

Here's a video/ad of Blue Man Group:

And they lived Happily Ever After.  (at least until the credit card bill comes in.)

NYC- visiting Family and Friends

We are back in NYC for a week, visiting family and friends and checking in our house in Yonkers (we are renting it out, because it made much more sense than selling it, from the financial perspective)  This is our first time back east as a family since moving almost exactly 1 year ago.

My new favorite candy store- better than Dylan's Candy Bar!

We got into Kennedy at midnight, and the bear was a complete trooper-- he didn't even sleep on the plane!  And then we arrived at my brother's house at around 1 am.  Fortunately they had the bed made up for us, and we got to tool around in Manhattan in the morning.  We found a great Lebanese fast-food place,SemSom  (which is an international franchise!) an amazing candy store, and my wife's favorite pastime, shopping!  There are 3 or 4 stores that are not in Chicago, ONLY IN NY, and she enjoys shopping the bargains there. (UNiqlo, Joe Fresh, and Muji)

We then went to Brooklyn to my brother's sister-in-law's house (confused yet?) to hang out with my other brother, his wife, their kids, and my brother's sister-in-law and her wife.  We had some fun time with them at a local park, followed by dinner.  My brother's sister-in-law and her wife are great people-- the kind of people that we choose to have as relatives!  They are expecting twins in the next couple of weeks, (to be named Gustave and Camille, to which my other brother apparently responded-- "Really?  Do you want them to be teased?  How about Bob and Mike?") which is that brother in pretty much a nut-shell.  Outspoken and without a filter!

After the playground we walked by a cool Brooklyn street festival on our way to dinner, where they closed off the street and put on Shakespeare in the middle of the street, which was pretty darned awesome!  They were doing Much Ado, and while the performance looked middling to good (to be fair it was their first performance!), they had a huge crowd, who were clearly enjoying themselves, so I say MORE POWER TO THEM!  Shakespeare in the Streets is something that should happen more often!  And it will a few more times On different blocks of the festival there was music and yoga classes and fencing and all kinds of fun stuff.

After dinner, we were so tired, that we ubered home rather than take the subway, which was financially unfeasible but physically necessary.

Fun at Le Pain Quotidien

Sunday  morning we ended up having 4 get togethers with various friends.  Early breakfast with my host brother and his wife at the always delightful Le Pain Quotidien (although my brother ended up not making it- not feeling well)  We then packed up and moved north to some friends in Yonkers who are out of town and lending us their car  and beautiful house for the week.  We then had brunch in Tuckahoe, an informal high tea (ice cream, iced tea, and cookies!)  on the upper west side, and then dinner with friends in Riverdale.  

It's so much fun to see all these people from our past and pick up with them where we left off. With most of them we have been keeping in touch via Facebook, but seeing how a kid has grown in a year (and how quickly the kids can just jump into playing with one another) is pretty awesome.

This morning was lazy recovery morning, but this whole week we've got a full schedule of sightseeing, friend seeing, theatre going (scored tickets to An American in Paris!) and in general fun fun fun times.  We then pack it all up and go on the road again to Rhode Island, my ancestral homeland, where we will do it all again!  I think I might need a vacation after my vacation!

Home Alone

I've had the last few days by myself, and it's been kind of nice and kind of terrible.

Here's what is going on:  Once we knew when school was going to end, my wife wanted to go to Florida to see her mom. And my son is always up for a trip to Florida, because his grandma has a pool in their complex and he can go everyday and eat McDonalds.  Oh yeah, and he loves his grandmother too!

I might have gone too, but there was a big circus festival in town, and I wanted to attend.  And it cost an extra $400 to go. And I'll see the MIL next month  in July and then again in August, which is plenty.  I don't have a bad relationship with her, (slightly contentious is probably most accurate) but too much of something is still too much.

So on Saturday, after our big awesome Lego adventure, my wife and son took off, and I went to the circus festival.  It was awesome!  I saw a bunch of friends, saw some amazing shows (I counted 10 shows that I saw in a 4-day span, and I was sad because I missed a couple.)  I also got to meet some new people, and in general had a lot of fun at the event.

For the last couple of days, I've been rattling around the house.  I've been sleeping late and going to bed late, and reading, and doing some of those things I was supposed to do while my wife was gone (but not all, honey.  There's still plenty left to nag about, don't you worry! :O) )  And not one RISKY BUSINESS moment at all!  I must be getting old!


This is the first time I've been home alone for an extended time in a while.  I generally like it, but I really do miss my wife and son.  The house seems so empty without them.

Before I had a kid, I spent plenty of time by myself, (I was a little bit of a hermit-- I could spend several days in my apartment by myself and never leave it)  I just don't remember it being so lonely.  I wonder if I was just inured to it, or that I've gotten used to having my family around.  Or maybe I really do love them that much!

When they get home, I'll probably remember all the things that bug me about them, but I don't care.   They get back on Thursday, and it can't be soon enough for me.