Finally, it was our turn to go inside Belle's house. The first room is the hearth room in the house she shared with her father. Since Belle loves to read there were lots of books. From there, we were brought into another room where a castmember talks about the story and asks some questions. The room has a few of Maurice's inventions around, along with their blueprints. Then, she reveals the point of the attraction--to create a surprise play/story for Belle! A magic mirror on the wall transforms into a door (it was pretty darn cool) and you walk into another room where parts are decided. Due to his extreme enthusiasm, Jack was selected to be the Beast! Thomas was donned with knighthood and Anna and Kara got to be enchanted silverware. Then, it was off to the final room. Belle came in and the kids marched around a bit and did other nonsense stuff that was very cute and fun. Jack, the Beast, got to growl at Belle and ended up dancing with her. Jack is now in love with Belle. The effects of Lumiere and the wardrobe were really impressive. It was a great experience and was worth the wait. Although, my theory that the line would only get longer did not hold true. It was shorter when we left and the few times we walked by, was significantly shorter than what we waited in. Unfortunately, there was no flash photography allowed. I have some pictures coming from Photopass, that will hopefully be significantly better than these:
From there, we rode Kara's favorite ride--Dumbo. We rode lots of other rides, including the new Little Mermaid (which was okay and would not have been worth the 60 minute wait posted with no fastpass). We managed (almost) all our favorite rides. Kara held firm to not riding on Splash Mountain and Anna was not interested in Big Thunder. Kara was also scared to go on Pirates of the Caribbean because of "the drop." Because I know that the drop she was frightened of is minuscule I made her ride and she was fine (in line, Thomas and I alternated holding her and demonstrating the difference between the Splash Mountain drop and the Pirates "bump" by pretending to drop her to the ground and do a gentle up and down motion respectively). We had lunch at Thomas' favorite place, Pecos Bills. I really wanted to go to Belle's Castle, but the line was already long at 1030 and after waiting for almost an hour for Enchanted Tales with Belle, it just didn't make sense to stand around for another hour waiting for lunch. Maybe next time. I think my favorite Magic Kingdom ride is the Haunted Mansion. Every time I ride, I see something different and I am just so amazed at the enormity of that ride (it's a close call though, I also love Splash Mountain).
Around dinner time we were debating whether to leave or not. We ended up getting some hotdogs and snacks at Casey's. Someone gave us their fastpasses for Space Mountain, so we decided to stay. We went to the Hall of Presidents, which Thomas really wanted to see. We told the kids if they were good we'd get ice cream afterward. The bribe was unnecessary, they really liked the show. Jack was especially interested in seeing all the "talking robots" including his favorite George Washington. But, we got the ice cream anyway and then Jack and Thomas headed for Space Mountain.
Our last ride of the day was Buzz Lightyear. Thomas was really impressed with himself, he somehow managed to max out the machine with 999,999 points! His pat on the back was cut short when we noticed Kara had done the same thing! (I got something like 150,000, we couldn't see what Jack and Anna had).
By now it was about 8:30 and everyone was tired. Since we were planning on going to Epcot on Wednesday, we decided to skip the evening parade and head home. As we exited the tram and began walking toward our car, Thomas noticed our stroller (a rental) was missing a wheel. So, he took off running to catch the tram. Unfortunately, while doing so, he stepped in a pothole and twisted his ankle. It was really painful for him, he couldn't walk (but, he did manage to get the wheel back). We got home, he hopped inside and iced it down and we decided to wait until morning to decide what to do (we feared it might be broken).
By Wednesday morning, it was no better. It was swollen to twice it's normal size and very painful. We started calling around for an urgent care, worried that it might be broken. Fortunately, it took about an hour for our insurance to sort out where we could go (since he was so fresh off his IA, he wasn't registered with any doctor to get a referral for an out-of-town visit) and by then he decided that he could put a little bit of weight on it and that it was probably only sprained. We decided to take the day off and give him a chance to rest and elevate it. So, it was another relaxing day. I took the kids to the neighborhood park, where they experienced their first real teeter totter. We swam in the pool and went out to lunch and hoped that Thomas would be able to walk on Thursday.
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