In which we take grandma to Disney

My parents never took us to Disney. Not Disneyland. Not Disneyworld. In fact, come to think of it, I don't think they ever took us to anything that could possibly be considered to be an amusement park of any kind. That doesn't mean that they didn't take us places. They did-- to national parks, state parks, big cities, remote Michigan towns, historical battlefields, farms--just not to Disney. And for years I was quite sure that we were the only children on the planet (or at least in the US) who had never been to there. (Blaise grew up on Florida, and trips to Disney were definitely part of his childhood.) Naturally, since my parents had never taken us to Disney, Mom had never been to Disney either.

When she came last fall, we had plans to go to Parc Disneyland, but ran into some problems. First, Cherry and Blaise were sick. Then, we ran into blackout dates for our park passes. Then it was cold and rainy. And then the kids had to go back to school. All of which meant that, of course, we didn't end up going to Disney at all, and so when she returned to visit us this spring, that it became one of the kids' top priorities to make sure Grandma went to Disney with them.

The weather on Saturday promised to be gorgeous, our passes were valid, and so we decided to go. One more question: what time? We could try to be there when the park opened at 10 and head home for dinner, or we could go in the early afternoon and stay until the park closed that evening. (Yes, I know we could go for the whole day, but that's too long for Cherry to handle.) Since the park (and Fantasyland in particular) is very pretty when it starts to get dark and the lights go on, we decided to go after lunch.

First stop inside the park, the FastPass line at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, then off to the Phantom Manor, where Cherry whined and complained so much in the line that Blaise offered to take her home and spend the afternoon working while she whined there. She settled down a bit after that, and we were able to spend the rest of the day without incident.

Later on, we went over to get in the FastPass line at Big Thunder Mountain, equipped with our six passes, and decided which one of us would sit out with Cherry should that be necessary. The minimum height to ride is 102 cm, and when I had last measured Cherry, she was 101.5 cm, sock foot. Since she would be measured with shoes on, she probably had those extra 5 mm, but we couldn't know for certain until they decided. We reached the front of the queue and the "cast member" measured Cherry. Twice. Then she called her coworker who also measured her twice. Then the first cast member measured her again. Then she took out a little slip of paper and wrote down that Cherry had passed her measurement, and we went into the waiting line. Down on the ride platform they measured her again, though fortunately only once, and we climbed on. Her verdict? It was fun except at the end where they "turned all the lights out and I couldn't see anything."

After dinner we headed over to Buzz Lightyear, thrilled to see that the line was only 30 minutes, since it typically has quite a long line and the kids really like it. Thirty minutes later, we hadn't moved, but they had made several announcements about "technical difficulties" and how they would "get the ride fixed as soon as possible" and Sapphire and Blaise's FastPasses for Space Mountain were coming up, so we ducked under some railings and headed out the emergency exit.

On the way out we rode the carrousel, the tea cups, and Dumbo under the lights, and then headed out to the RER station.