Focht Family Blog

Thursday was our last day of Disney so we went to Epcot. Timmy was in a mood and didn’t want to ride on any rides. I wanted to go on Spaceship Earth since I knew it was recently renovated and I haven’t been on it for years. I had to drag Timmy in and it ended up being his favorite ride. He kept wanting to go on it.

One of our first stops was the Living Seas which now starts with a Nemo ride in a clam shell to get you into the tanks. We went to the Turtle Talk with Crush and while waiting there are two tanks with stingrays. Timmy and Josh loved them. They kept coming up to the glass and moving across the glass. Here is a picture of Josh and one of Timmy watching the stingrays.

After that we went to the shark section which is just education about sharks and the kids decided they needed a picture inside of the shark’s mouth.

Upstairs there were manatees, dolphins and fish to look at. The kids decided to take a stop at one of the Kidcot stops and color sharks and dolphins to wear.

Next we had to go see Figment. It is Samantha’s favorite. Figment is a figment of imagination. He is a purple dragon and after the little ride the kids get to play with all kinds of things. Here is Samantha and Timmy conducting an orchestra. The machine picks up on their movements and plays music with them. The bigger the movements, the louder the music.

On another section they can make noises by running over lit boxes on the floor. Here are all three of them running around making noise.

We left relatively early in the day since we needed to drive back to GA to be in Perry early for check-in at the Rally. On the way out Nathan spotted a lizard and the kids decided it needed to be watched. You probably cannot see the lizard because it is in Timmy’s shadow.

The rest of the day was spent driving. We called ahead to find out if the Perry Walmart allowed overnight stays. It is listed as a yes, but I didn’t know if it would be a no because of the rally. The manager said it was okay and we pulled in around 11:00 alongside about 2 dozen RV’s and filled up on groceries.

Tuesday was our busy day. Nathan and I got up early and went on an off-road Segway tour around Fort Wilderness. It was SO much fun. I told mom I would take her on the Segway tour of Epcot on our next trip to Disney. Here is a spot that we stopped for pictures. The tour guide took a picture of Nathan and I on our Segways.

After we got back from our tour we made lunch and started to get ready for the Princess and Pirate night at the Kingdom. We arrived early at the park and we had four or five families ask to have pictures with us. They thought we worked for the park. One of the employees near the Pirates of the Caribbean ride offered to take a picture of all of us. Samantha wanted to be a princess so she was our prisoner for the night. We even bought her a pair of shackles to wear.

We were able to catch one of the special shows before dinner. Samantha and Josh took it as an opportunity to dance to the music.

We were also able to ride the carousel. We found out a tidbit of trivia on our tour and we were told which horse is Cinderella’s. We hunted for it and Samantha was able to ride on it. It has a gold ribbon wrapped around its tail.

Here are Nathan and Josh on their horses…

Timmy was next to me so I couldn’t get him and his horse but here is Timmy….

Next we went to the castle to have dinner with Cinderella. At lunch all of the princesses come and visit you so I was expecting the same. You still get your picture with Cinderella before dinner but the only characters at dinner were the Fairy Godmother and a couple of the mice and they didn’t personally greet each table. I would do lunch again but the dinner wasn’t worth the cost. It was wonderful food but you pay extra for the characters and the pictures and that part was not worth it. Here is a picture of Josh. On his left cheek you can see a red mark. He was kissed by Cinderella and it is her lipstick…

Timmy was being very grumpy while we were waiting in line for our pictures. He wouldn’t cheer up for the picture so this is the memory he will have of dinner with Cinderella…

Oh well… he cheered up once we were called for dinner because he received a sword. Both boys got a sword and Samantha got a wand. After dinner we walked around to all of the treasure spots and ended up with LOTS of beads. It looked like we had been to Mardi Gras. We caught a few shows, including one where they teach the kids how to be Princess Jasmine’s guards. The man in charge yelled that they forgot the swords for the demonstration and Joshua threw his in. He was trying to be helpful and the guy took it well and joked about it. However, the Disney employees who were trying to make sure the kids didn’t cross the rope line were annoyed.

While we were walking towards one of the treasure spots we crossed over the path where the parade was getting ready to start. One of the employees was sitting in the middle of the road so my family joined her and waved at the crowd…

The kids enjoyed being on display… we stuck around until the fireworks started going off and then we called it a night.

The next day was spent at Independence RV in Winter Garden. They were able to repair the short that caused the fire and replaced the headlight. Mom and I walked the kids down the road to a local diner for breakfast while Nathan stayed with Misty. We had lunch from a nice lunch truck that stopped at the RV center. I had a wonderful empanada and Nathan had some lasagna. Unfortunately the truck didn’t have anything the kids liked so they basically had chips and soda. After lunch we asked if it would be okay if the kids and I stayed in the coach if we stayed in the back so we spent the afternoon watching videos in the back of the coach where we were out of their way but the kids were at least able to play with their toys and stay out of trouble.

When we got back to Fort Wilderness, Nathan had to take a phone call outside. Josh is getting to the stage where he likes to imitate Nathan so he took his toy phone outside and followed Nathan around. We couldn’t help getting pictures because he was doing such a great job matching Nathan stride for stride and movement for movement.

I am finally getting around to catching up. The next day we did go to Hollywood Studios. The first thing we went to was the new Playhouse Disney show. They have changed the line up of characters in the show. While we were waiting the kids decided to get their picture taken with some of the Little Einstein characters.

After that we went to lunch at the 50’s Prime Time. We had a very sassy waitress who enjoyed her role. The point of the 50’s restaurant is that you are having dinner at someone’s house and they will yell at you if you do not follow good manners and they make you set the table. If you do not finish your dinner they will embarrass you in some way. Some of the times we have gone there the waitresses have been too nice and didn’t get into their role. This one didn’t have that problem.

After lunch we walked around the park. We went over to the Star Wars ride to see if Josh was tall enough yet. He wasn’t and Timmy didn’t want to go on the ride. The kids found a Star Wars relic to pose on for a picture.

Timmy was mad because he wasn’t driving so after the others got off he got back on for another picture.

While we were in the same area one of the parades came through. Josh was enjoying dancing along while Nathan was holding him.

Once the parade passed we let Samantha ride the Rock-n-Rollercoaster once. There were mobs of cheerleaders at the park for some kind of competition so the lines were very long. I walked her through the single riders line and since we were not able to get on the same coaster, once she was seated I went around to meet her at the other end. Our last stop of the day was that we found Mike and Sully from Monsters Inc and we all got a picture with them.

The next day was spent at Animal Kingdom. We were able to go on the Safari ride where we were actually able to see the lions this time. Usually they are sound asleep and laying down at an angle that you can barely see them. Here is the lion..

And here is the lioness…

After the Safari ride we ate lunch and went on the Dinosaur ride. We had never been on this one before because I thought it was supposed to be scary. It was a little scary and very bouncy. After that ride Nathan had to leave to get something resolved for work. I took the kids over to the Dinoland section and let them play carnival games which I have never let them do. Most of them were a waste of money because there was only one winner and the kids were competing against adults. I even tried to play some of them with them but I guess the other adults were better than me. There was one game the kids did really well at. They had to throw balls into cups and if they got the ball in a colored cup they got a dinosaur. Timmy won two small dinosaurs. Josh won two small dinosaurs and Samantha won two small dinosaurs and a medium dinosaur. Timmy traded his two smalls in for a medium one like Samantha had. This is Samantha and Josh on the bus ride home hugging their dinosaurs.

That night it was late hours at Hollywood Studios so after dinner Nathan took the boys to the playground and I took Samantha back to Hollywood Studios to see how many times she could ride the rollercoaster. The lines were still long so we kept going through the single riders line. I managed to get a seat on her coaster two times…. but she rode the coaster five times!! She was thrilled. It was a late night though and the next day was a busy one.

This is the question Samantha asked a little girl on the boat ride back to Fort Wilderness tonight. I just thought it was so cute I had to share.

Anyways… we checked in today with only minor issues and decided to go over to Magic Kingdom for a few hours. Here is a picture I took of us walking towards the marina to catch the boat.

When we saw the boat sitting at the marina we started running to catch it until we noticed the captain walking on the pier. Come to find out that the water was too choppy so the boats weren’t running. SO… we took the bus.

Here we are waiting for the bus…

We didn’t have a restful night last night. The wind was blowing hard and all night long we heard the chains on the rock guard squeaking. I guess we should have let Nathan have a day of rest. I went to take a picture of Timmy on the bus on the way to the Kingdom and didn’t even realize that Nathan was snoozing.

One of the rides the kids wanted to go on tonight was the Astro Orbiter. It was cold and windy so it wasn’t a great ride for the adults. Mom and Josh ended up getting onto the ride before the rest of us so I tried to take a picture of them in their rocket while we were waiting in line.

I also took a picture of Samantha in our rocket after I got out.

One of the other rides they wanted to go on is the Buzz Lightyear ride. This is the boys’ favorite. By boys I am including Nathan because he loves to get the highest score everytime. The kids wanted to have their picture taken with Zorg behind bars.

One of the last rides we rode tonight was the Speedway. The kids like driving us adults around. Here is Samantha and my mom in their car.

I tried to take a picture of Josh driving me but he kept hitting the center line and flinging me the other way. I took a picture of Timmy and Nathan while we were waiting to get out of our cars. They were behind us. Timmy is holding up his drivers license that they gave him when he got into the car.

We are thinking of going to the Hollywood Studios (Disney MGM) tomorrow and see some of the shows they have recently changed but I need to check and make sure that is not the park with the extra morning hours tomorrow. If you go on the day with the extra hours it tends to be a bit more crowded. I will try to post more tomorrow.

Okay… my lesson for the day is to learn how to get the fire extinguisher out of its holder. Apparently this is a lesson you should learn before you actually need it. Yesterday while we were driving the indicator light for the high beams wouldn’t go off. We called a tech and they thought that maybe moisture was near the wires and as soon as it dried it should be fine. We stopped and checked the lights and they didn’t seem to be on high beams but the high beams wouldn’t come on, although the indicator light was on.

We are also having an issue with the radio not being able to turn off if the running lights are on. Today we stopped in Lakeland to look at some truck campers that Nathan found that are light enough that we could probably tow. Mom is considering trading in her trailer for a truck and camper so we would have a vehicle. Once we stopped Nathan smelled something that smelled like burning electronics.

The children were already dressed so I threw them out the door while Nathan was yelling for the extinguisher. He had opened the fuse box and nothing was there but when he opened the front access door there was a high flame coming out of the back of the headlight. He had it mostly blown out by the time I got the extinguisher out of its holder but he used the extinguisher to make sure it was all out. Apparently two of the wires must have crossed or something and we should have been more concerned about the high beam light that wouldn’t turn off. Now I am a bit more concerned about the radio issue. Nathan is going to try to take the RV into a local dealer on Monday while I take the kids to a park to see if they can look into the radio issue and fix the headlights. Right now we only have one headlight.

Here is a picture of the wires and a picture of the burnt housing.