My grandmother is not an easy woman to please. I love her dearly, and so does my mom but her birthday is something we’ve come to dread. No matter what we do, it usually doesn’t turn out well. Last year Mom called asking if I had suggestions since it was a big one and Nana would be turning 80. I remember the conversation distinctly, driving on the Florida Turnpike.
“If it was anyone else, I’d say let’s take her to Disney, but we’d be miserable and she’d probably be miserable.”
By the time I’d gotten home, it had progressed to, “Screw it. Let’s take her to Disney. We’ll be miserable and she’ll probably be miserable, but at least we’ll have tried.”
I got to planning the next day. Nana doesn’t fly so that meant Mom would have to drive her down to Florida and back again; that’s twenty hours total in a car and I did not envy her that. I knew she wouldn’t be able to do the kind of walking the theme parks required, and rather than a daily wheel chair rental I opted to get one for the week so we could use it getting to and from the car rather than just in the parks. I asked Mom to see if Nana qualified for a Handicap Tag so we wouldn’t have to fool with the parking trams. I found us a two bedroom condo in Kissimmee we could stay at for the week since where I live is pretty far to drive for multiple days to the theme parks, and as well we could cook to knock down on food costs. I even picked her up a couple of Disney shirts to wear.
SeaWorld had their “Bring a Friend Free” offer going for September for annual passholders so we opted for park hopping two days at Disney and one day at SeaWorld. She likes animals as long as they don’t get close to her, so SeaWorld was perfect. I was confident we could hit the best of all four Disney parks in two days since we were skipping most of the major thrill rides.
We were supposed to Facetime to tell her about the trip, but my mom had an appointment run late, so by the time she was ready to call Jay and I were at Magic Kingdom. We wound up finding a quiet corner by the Riverboat and did our best. She seemed skeptical at first, but then she started crying. It had been more than twenty years since she had been to Disney.
You would never know it because she refused to smile in any of the pictures, but we actually had a wonderful time.
Sadly due to the timing of her birthday, we found ourselves faced with going to theme parks on Labor Day, so we started at SeaWorld. I knew it would be less crowded than the Disney parks. At SeaWorld we did Pets Ahoy and One Ocean, and went to all of the exhibits. The only ride we did was Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin on the “mild” option. Even then, I think she could have handled the “wild” just fine. We tried to watch Blue Horizons but their wheelchair viewing is off to the side and we really didn’t see much, so I don’t quite count that.
Her actual birthday was Tuesday, and thankfully the Labor Day crowds would be going home. We started at Animal Kingdom, planning to do the Safaris quickly and hit the first showing of Festival of the Lion King. The rhinos had other plans. We got stuck and I realized we weren’t going to make it in time for the first show, and if we waited it would put us getting to Magic Kingdom too late for some of our Fastpasses. We abandoned Animal Kingdom without doing Festival of the Lion King, but the good news was Nana didn’t know what she was missing.
Magic Kingdom could not have gone better. All the crowds were low, the waits weren’t bad, and when you’ve got a little old lady in a wheelchair with a birthday button, Cast Members are super nice. We did Winnie the Pooh, it’s a small world, Mickey’s Phillharmagic (which was her first experience with anything 3D), the Country Bear Jamboree, the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, Jungle Cruise (where I went to talk to a coordinator friend of mine to make sure we got the skipper I wanted), the Tiki Room, and the Carousel of Progress. We watched the 3 o’clock parade while eating dole whips in Liberty Square. I had to get her a poncho, but I got her on Splash Mountain! To my shock she even wanted to ride Seven Dwarfs Mine Train! That’s right, my grandmother rode her first ever roller coaster on her 80th birthday!
[lgc_column grid=”50″ tablet_grid=”50″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”false”]We finished out the day with dinner at the Crystal Palace. Winnie the Pooh is her favorite character so it was the perfect choice. Except Pooh was the single worst character interaction I’ve ever seen. No hug, he barely patted anyone on the shoulder and just sort of stood there for the photos. Luckily, Tigger, Eyeore, and Piglet made up for it. I’ve never seen Tigger go so crazy, and I’ve seen Tigger do a ton of cute things as often as I meet characters. He hugged the stuffing out of Nana and gave her a big kiss, then proceeded to swoon while Mom, Jay and I were dying laughing. He told Nana to call him and wandered off to his next table. The character attendant appeared moments later with pen and paper to tell Nana Tigger wanted her phone number. She blushed and told him to go away. Eyeore didn’t make quite as big a fuss until I showed him he was on the back of my shirt. He almost fell over! Then he dragged Piglet over so he could show him too.[/lgc_column][lgc_column grid=”50″ tablet_grid=”50″ mobile_grid=”100″ last=”true”]
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We made it out of dinner just in time for Celebrate the Magic and Wishes, and then joined the world’s largest stroller derby as we made our way to the monorail.
Our last morning we started at Epcot bright and early for Soarin’ Around the World. Mom, Jay, and I hadn’t been on the updated version yet, and Nana had never been on it at all. It would have been fine if we hadn’t gotten stopped right before the warning sign and some comedian in line thought it would be a good idea to tell Nana it went upside down. If looks could kill, the glare my mother gave him would have done it. It turned out fine in the end, however she still tells me how scary that ride is. We took her over to Living With the Land and to see Figment before we made our way around World Showcase. We stopped in France for snacks and pastries, and Nana said she wasn’t hungry. By the time we go to Hollywood Studios we learned she was hungry-she just didn’t want to eat anything there. Oof. Still, that was the biggest hiccup of the day and all things considered, it was easily fixed. We rode the Great Movie Ride and went to One Man’s Dream. We saw Beauty and the Beast and finished out the night at Fantastmic, which she loved. We headed back to the condo and they left for Tennessee the next morning.
Surprisingly, what I was sure was going to be the worst idea I ever had turned out to be a really fun trip. Nana got what she calls the best birthday of her life and it’s the only real family trip I’ve been on since I moved. Normally it’s just me and mom.
This is the only picture I have of her smiling, and she had no idea I was taking it.
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