Loges in Disneyworld- Day 3

This morning we had a character breakfast booked- for 7 people! It was finally time to unveil the second part of the surprise!!! Avery has a friend that is equally crazed about Harry Potter, and when we first started planning this trip last November her family decided to make the trip as well. So we became co-conspirators with the Rinks. They were in the same resort as us, and we were able to sneak a quick meeting amongst the grownups once we got back to the hotel the night before. And so the girls 'accidentally' ran into each other in the resort gift shop. Stunned, disbelieving looks, whole-hearted hugs and high pitched squeals ensued....

Totally worth sneaking around and being evasive!

And with that we hopped on the bus to the Polynesian Resort where the restaurant Ohana was waiting for us! We got to meet Mickey, Lilo and Stitch (although somehow we missed getting a picture with Stitch, the girls' favourite). Breakfast was delicious too!

What else do you do with a Tiki statue except pick its nose? 

Of course we all joined in the dance parade, shaking our touchas' and maracas! 

And with that we were off to The Magic Kingdom!

 along with everybody else... It was hot and crowded in the park!!!

Avery and E! 

We learned from the Rink family all about pin trading, something they started when they went to Disneyland California a few years ago. They had their lanyards on, and Avery decided to join in on the fun. We fit her out with a trading set and she quickly decided that she wanted to trade for all things 'dragon'.  It was a lot of fun stopping and chatting with different cast members to trade and learn about the pins. This became our mission rather than photos/autographs with characters.

Avery and her fresh, dragon free lanyard, ready to trade!

The other thing we learned about from the Rinks was how to use fast passes.  It wasn't that we hadn't noticed them in Disneyland- we just figured that they were for guests that had a different 'level' of park pass and never thought more about it!  Turns out they are for everyone!!!!!  BUT you can only hold one fast pass at a time, and they only give out a set number for each hour the park is open, so you have to play it carefully. If the ride's fast pass doesn't let you use it for 6 hours, you are blocked from getting another. (There was an exception to this, but I never heard what it was. The Rinks understood it though, and just let us in that regard, so occasionally we did hold more than one. Full disclosure, right?) So, I was pretty excited when we got a fast pass for 'Splash Mountain' when the lines were over an hour long. We were trucking along in the fast pass line when a storm hit. Like typhoon type storm. I think there were tornado warnings out with it too.  That is when our good friend Murphy joined the cabaret. You wouldn't think you could close down a wet ride because it was wet out, but that is just what happened!  As we were in line inside the building, we decided it was as good a place as any to wait out the storm. And that's just what we did. For an hour and a half. And that is how the Loge's first fast pass ride actually took them longer to get to the ride than if they had gone the regular route.

A little peek through the window by our indoor lineup spot! Miserable, no?

Finally we had enough waiting and devised a new plan that allowed us to have fun even though it was P.O.U.R.I.N.G.  We decided to head to a gift shop and buy the fancy plastic ponchos they sell for the wet rides and carry on our merry way to rides that are indoors on the theory that they shouldn't be affected by the storms. And we found out that they would honour our precious fast passes outside our allotted time, so even better! We would come back and fast pass when things were running again. Off we went to the nearest gift shop (never very far, lol!) and spent almost $30 on what were essentially 3 garbage bags with arm and head holes already cut into them. We smugly hit the road... and the rain stopped.  Murphy is such a joker!!!!!!

In the end we rode Splash Mountain a few times. All was well:0)

The night ended with a dance party, where many characters came and danced with the kids (including Stitch again, but he is a popular guy and hard to photograph amongst the hordes of children- including ours- around him).

And a parade. And a light show. And fireworks.

We arrived back at the resort, tired and pleased with the day's events, even with Murphy's company for a good part of the afternoon.  We thought we were just heading to bed, when I checked my phone for emails and found a barrage of messages from my neighbour through facebook and imessage that she couldn't get the key to work in our front door and she was not able to check on the cats and feed them.  Was there a trick to making the key work?  After some back and forth I realized that I had given her the wrong key. I gave her my inlaws' house key!!!!! I took my phone off 'airplane mode' and had to face the roaming charges to text my parents who hopefully had a house key with them (they were in the city for the night).

In the end, it worked out and our poor cats were saved.  That was a far-beyond-blonde moment. Wrong house key. Who does that??????