Day One: Disney Christmas Vacation 2010

Merry Christmas, everyone! Well, after a long wait, the time has finally come for the Tupua family to make another long-anticipated trip to the Happiest Place on Earth! On Saturday (the eighteenth of December) we made our way to Grandma Bailey and PopPop's house in Palatka. We had a great visit, albeit short, but we will be back after Christmas. Thank you to Grandma and PopPop for giving us a place to stay for the night and the great biscuit and gravy breakfast to send us on our way.

We then set off in search of wonder and magic. We found both! We arrived safely on property and aimed to visit the Polynesian Resort to see the decorations and to play a game. Our game actually started several months ago. Barbie read about this game online somewhere and we liked and decided to try it for ourselves. I give you "The Monorail Game." (Dum-da-da-dum!!!) The rules are simple. Each of us chose a favorite monorail (by color -- Barbie chose the purple line, Dianna the silver line, Jarod the orange line, and I chose the blue line.). The person whose monorail we see first gets to choose the park that we would go to for the day. There are several monorails in use on Disney property, so there was no guarantee that any of us would win. We headed to the Polynesian because we knew it had a monorail station, therefore a good chance of seeing one of our choices. And the winner is: Jarod James! Jarod picked Disney's Hollywood Studios. We did not do a whole lot because of the time of day we arrived at the park. To start with, we went to a live show of "Beauty and the Beast" (a broadway-style musical show performed daily right here in Orlando, Florida). The children really enjoyed the show, since they only recently saw the movie. After the show, we watched a parade that we had never seen before - it was the "Disney-Pixar Block Party", featuring characters from "Toy Story", "A Bug's Life", "Monsters, Inc.", and "The Incredibles". It was really fun; I mean, how many places can you be and see all of those characters and get hollered at by a green "plastic" army man? Fun, right? It was a great time (say that as Scotty from Star Trek)! Well after that great fun, we went to ride the ride that Dianna has waited for months to ride -- The Twilight Zone's Tower of Terror, or as Dianna calls it "the ride that people scream on because they are having fun." This trip marks a new era in how the Tupuas do Disney, in that the chidren are now tall enough to ride new rides ("big kid rides" as Jarod calls them) So this was the first time for both of the children on this Headliner. This ride is computer-controlled and takes riders up in an "elevator" and drops them randomly. Up, down, up-maybe-no down. Jarod and Dianna (and myself) were screaming out in sheer terror. Dianna said she would not ride it again until she was a little older -- it makes her dizzy, all the ups and downs. Jarod said he would never ride that ride again because it scared him too much. After being scared out of our wits, we figured it was time to check into our resort (Pop Century) and get some dinner. Barbie made triple cold cut sandwiches for dinner (very yummy), which we ate with chips. For dessert, chocolate muffins that Aunt Terri made for us (super delicious). And now Jarod and Barbie are asleep and I am working on this post and Dianna is watching the Disney Channel. Well, we are off to bed; busy day tomorrow. Animal Kingdom opens at 7:00 am! We will post something tomorrow. Alofas to all. E Mauia le Kerisimasi!!