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We were all exhausted from our long night at MNSSHP, so it
didn’t take very long for any of us to fall asleep.
However, at about 3 a.m., I was awakened by the sound of my
daughter throwing up in the bathroom. My first sleep-induced thought was that
she had eaten too much candy and junk food, and her tummy was revolting. I had
a weak stomach growing up, so I’m no stranger to midnight puke parties.
But she kept going…..
Finally, she was done, and she called me in to the bathroom
for help.
Help with what, you ask?
In her haste to get to the bathroom in time so that she
didn’t soil the bed, she did not have enough time to LIFT THE LID of the
toilet. Apparently, after Mousekeeping cleaned the room, they put the toilet
seat down, and The Kiddo either wasn’t awake enough to realize it was down, or
didn’t have time to lift it. So,
needless to say (and I won’t describe it for you), the bathroom was a
mess.
Still more asleep than awake, not thinking that we are
staying in a room that cost $500+ a night, that comes with concierge service
and a whole slew of Mousekeepers, I told her to run hot water in the tub and start
trying to clean up, that I would come help her.
I started really waking up then, and realizing just how bad
it was and that there was no way that a hotel guest, armed with a few
washcloths and towels, could possibly clean this up. I called Mousekeeping, and they sent up a
cute little guy (he must have been only 22!) to clean. I felt SO guilty that this poor guy had to
clean up this mess (again, big mess – not gonna describe it to you, but if you
have kids, you KNOW what they are capable of).
I got the Kiddo tucked back into bed, and I curled up next to her while
Mousekeeper Bob was cleaning. He must
have been in there for almost a half-hour before finally coming out. He told me that he got everything that he
could, but that a new shower curtain would be installed tomorrow (well, later
that day) because he couldn’t get that clean. Ew. I thanked him profusely and
then crawled back into my bed after he left.
An hour later, there is a knock on the door – it’s the same
guy! He asked if Kiddo had been sick again, and we called for Mousekeeping again,
because apparently he was told to come back. It was probably a fluke in their
computer system. I thanked him again, and went back to sleep.
I think the Kiddo went in one more time that night and was
sick again, but I could be misremembering.
Morning came way too soon, and she seemed to be feeling a lot better, if
not achy and tired. We wrote it off as
an icky tummy from all the food and candy and whatnot that we’d been eating the
past 6 days.
We packed our bags, so sad that it was our last day, and had
a bellman take our luggage and store it for us (he even took our “cold” bag and
stored it in a special cooler room – we didn’t want our MNSSHP candy to melt or
our drinks to get hot before we headed home).
The Kiddo was draggin’ when we hit up Magic Kingdom, walking
really slow. I figured that she was probably out of energy since she had thrown
up all the food in her system (now that I think about it, I don’t know if she
even got any chocolate milk from the Lounge!). She didn’t want to do anything like Tea Cups or Big Thunder, because she
said she still felt kind of sick, so we let her decide what we’d do before
lunch. We did Jungle Cruise, then she wanted to do Tiki Room. While we waited
at Tiki, she ended up plopping down on the floor with my iPod until it was time for the
show.
After Tiki Room, it was time for our last ADR – lunch at
Liberty Tree Tavern. It was our first trip here, and we were looking forward to
a ‘Thanksgiving’ dinner for lunch.
We were seated in the Washington room, at the first table
closest to the entrance. There were a few other families there, but it didn’t
feel crowded in there. This is good.
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| Always get water! It's free, and Disney is HOT! |
We all sat down, and immediately the Kiddo put her head down
on the table, like she was going to take a nap.
The waitress came by to take our drink order and saw that the Kiddo was
sleepy. I said that I thought that she was feeling icky because she was sick
the night before and had thrown up. The
waitress mentioned that there was some sort of bug (dun Dun DUN!) going around,
and lots of kids were getting sick. I
kept telling the Kiddo to drink her Coke (yes, real Coke) so that she could get
some sugar back in her bloodstream, as well as caffeine. She’d sip a bit, but
then put her head back down on her arm. At this point, I’m beginning to wonder
if she IS sick, not just tired from the trip and the candy and the puking….
We all ordered our meals, and I requested that the Kiddo’s
meal came out as soon as possible – we ordered her a kid’s meal with soup, because
as you know, chicken soup fixes everything, right?
Our meals came, and it all looked SO GOOD! Three huge slices
of turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, veggies and even stuffing!
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| The stuffing is hidden under the mass of turkey and gravy |
The kiddo’s meal came with mac & cheese (a la
Stouffer’s) and some funky looking chicken soup. I tried to get her to keep eating at least
the soup, while the waitress came by to check on us again, and again she told
us about The Bug. Stop it, lady! I’m
starting to get really worried here!
She was able to take tiny bites of food while the two of us
were able to finish our meal and order dessert – THIS is why we booked this reservation!
Look at how beautiful it is…
For me, Ooey Gooey Toffee Cake - a cake with chocolate chips, topped with ice cream, hot
fudge, caramel and toffee chips. Wait –
a WARM cake!
For Hubby, Martha Washington Cake - chocolate layer cake with chocolate icing and whipped cream.
I took my first bite and fell in love with this dessert. WHY
is this not available anywhere else? I offered a bite to Hubby, who did the
Eyeroll. I then offered a bite to the Kiddo, but I got a very different
reaction.
Yep, that’s right – more pukemanity, right at the table…
There was no “oh, I think I’m going to puke again”, no “uh, oh, I don’t feel
well”, she just let her puke flag fly.
Luckily (unluckily?), she didn’t have a whole lot in her to begin with,
so there was no craziness like this morning, but I was up and out of my seat in
a flash, going to her side of the table to comfort her. Our waitress saw what happened, and sent a
manager over to us.
He first asked me what had happened, but I just freaking LOST IT!
I got about 2 words out and then turned into a blubbering idiot that couldn’t
string a sentence together. He didn’t even try to get me to calm down, but
instead swung from me to Hubby and asked him what happened. I think that is
probably the smartest thing a Manager could know how to do! He wanted the full
story and ain’t nobody got time for a hysterical mother.
He requested a cast member with a wheelchair come get us,
and our waitress comped the Kiddo’s meal and beverage, so by the time we packed
up our stuff and paid the bill, our wheels were ready to go. I thought it interesting that, while we were
sitting there, or even when we were getting ready to go, they never sent
someone over to clean off the table. It was like they were respecting our
situation, and didn’t want to make her feel worse for ‘making a mess’ or
anything like that. I felt SO bad for our fellow diners, but none of them,
including any of the kids, piped up to say anything like “ewww!” or “Mommy,
LOOK!” I was very thankful of my fellow
Disney-goers for their silence.
By this time, I had stopped freaking out, and we took a
little trip down the road to the First Aid Center. We signed her in, and we
were taken back to a stall (for lack of a better term). The doctor, of course,
blamed heat and dehydration for her condition (it’s the number 1 problem at
Disney for a lot of people), but when he took her temperature, it was
102.5! He gave her (and both of us)
bottles of PowerAde and told her to lie down and take a nap. Oh, he also gave
her Advil to drop her temperature.
I think this was the most boring 2 hours I’ve ever spent at
Disney World. Hubby and I played on our
iPods for a while. I went through the photos on my memory card. I walked
around. I tried not to freeze (it was so cold in there). I went outside to warm up and check my
voicemail (I’d gotten a call from Amaree, my massage therapist – she needed to reschedule me to a later time tomorrow). One of the nurses gave me a blanket, and I curled up in the other
bed in the stall for a while. The Kiddo
would roll over every 10 or 15 minutes, but she didn’t fully wake up for a good
2 hours, and she had this look on her face like, Where am I?
We had the doctor come over and check on her
– her fever had gone down tremendously (it was still high, but at only 99 or
so), so he let us go. I jokingly said that I was going to steal the blanket (it
was a nice Vellux-type blanket), but I left it behind and we wheeled our
daughter right down the middle of Main Street USA, to the Wilderness Lodge
ferry. Our trip had ended on quite an
explosive note – it was time to go home.
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| This photo makes me so sad - you can see that she's definitely not feeling well! |
The boat trip was uneventful, and we first went upstairs to
the Lounge to see if they had any more crackers for the trip home. They didn’t
have any in the actual lounge, but they sent one of the concierge cast members
to go find some (I assume they got some at Roaring Fork, but I never did find
out for sure where they went to get them). We also grabbed some drinks (Sprite
for her tummy, Diet Coke for me of course!) and snacks for the road. We thanked
all of our concierge staff CMs for all the help they provided, not just at that
time, but throughout our whole stay, and then we took the elevator to the lobby
and out to the front.
Hubby and the Kiddo had the bellman bring our bags, while I
went and got the car. I pulled around, and the Kiddo got right in and closed
her eyes, still feeling pretty crappy. Our luggage was loaded quickly, the
bellman was tipped and all was ready to go.
Then the kiddo piped up and asked where her Crocs were (we
travel in sandals so we can go barefoot in the car, if we choose to). We checked her luggage and the Go Bag, but no
shoes to be found. Hubby ran upstairs to see if they were still in the room,
but the room had since been turned over for the next guest. Concierge staff to
the rescue – again! We filed a Lost Item
report (or whatever it’s called), but we assumed that the Crocs were long gone,
not to be seen again. Oh well, Kiddo
said. She’d gotten her $40 out of ‘em! She quickly fell asleep, Hubby came back
down, and we started the sad drive home.
Because of where we live, in relation to Disney World, we
take a portion of the Florida Turnpike, which requires us to stop at a toll
plaza on our way to or from. About 20 minutes before we got to said toll plaza,
there was a sign stating that there was a traffic jam about 20 miles
ahead. We didn’t worry about it too
much, and it was quickly forgotten about.
(The Kiddo, by the way, has not been awake since we pulled out of
Wilderness Lodge).
10 minutes after that sign, we start seeing the jam. Traffic was at a standstill! We had no idea what was going on, but traffic
would move in fits and spurts. It was really weird. About an hour later (no, I’m not kidding), we
are getting closer to the toll plaza, and traffic starts moving slightly
faster.
Here’s a lesson in Turnpike geography – the FL Turnpike
between SR-529 and I-75 is two lanes.
When approaching this toll plaza, the road expands to like 12 lanes, to
accommodate all the tollbooth lanes.
THEN, once you go through the tollbooth, it goes from 12 lanes back to
two. (It’s almost exactly like the
approach to The Magic Kingdom, now that I think about it!)
So, approaching the toll plaza, traffic is moving slightly
quicker because everyone is spreading out (except for those of us in the left
lane because we have Toll FastPasses, i.e. SunPass – we have to use specific
lanes). Then everyone who has gone into
the other lanes, now have to MERGE BACK IN to that right lane. It was CRAZY! As we pulled through the 2nd-to-left
SunPass lane, I see now why the far left lane was so backed up – a car had
broken down, and because there were pylons (well, those stupid traffic poles
with reflectors on them) lining the lane, people behind the broken-down car
could not go around him, so they were all stuck in the far left lane! I’m so
glad I decided to move over one lane (I’d been worried that I was screwing
myself!)
So we made it through, but it’s still SO backed up, that
we’re going at a turtle’s pace. I look to my right and there are scads of
vehicles (mostly semis) just parked on the right shoulder, waiting for the jam
to clear. I see the logic. They don’t waste as much gas, they get a break and
can sit outside of their cab, and they don’t have to deal with stupid drivers! It took us over 45 minutes to get out of this
jam, and back to traveling speeds. All
in all, I think we were stuck in this jam for what must have been two hours! The Kiddo woke up once and asked if we were
home (because we were stopped), but conked right out again.
Finally, though, we made it home safely. No one broke into
my house, nor had it burned down at any point while we were gone. The Kiddo woke immediately, and, once she
realized we were home, headed right to the bathroom where she lost it again.
Interesting – she was able to hold it in the car for like 4 hours (she had a
barf bag from the clinic), but the moment she got home, she lost it.
She crawled into bed while Hubby and I unpacked the car, and
then he and I headed to bed to. What a
LONG day it was!
Oh, but what you think they do AFTER??????
(5 Bonus Points if you get the reference!)
After our trip and our long drive home last night, I was
really looking forward to my massage today! I told Amaree all about the trip,
then got my massage. Afterwards, I went out and did my usual errand running and
grocery shopping.
After putting the groceries away when I got home, I plopped
on the couch because I was feeling a bit tired and icky. Hmmm….
Yep.
Thanks Kiddo. She passed along her wonderful stomach bug to
me. A stomach bug that laughs when I take Pepto or drink Ginger ale. I lost everything I ate that day, and
probably what I ate yesterday too. I
went to bed early, and felt miserable all night.
Hubby came to bed in the early hours of the 7th,
and as you can imagine, he was feeling a little off too, he said.
Yep. He’s got it too. Great. I just have to say – when WOMEN
get sick, we have the balls to deal with it, but when MEN get sick, they whine
about it for a week. Now, not only am I sick, but he’s sick, the Kiddo’s still
sick AND I still have to deal with all of this crap so the household doesn’t
fall apart!
All three of us lazed around the house on Sunday. Hubby of
course called out at work. The Kiddo was starting to feel better, so she
started taking care of us.
By Monday morning, the Kiddo was ready to go back to school,
so my sick ass had to get vertical enough to drive her there and back. Hubby
and I called in sick to work again.
What a way to end a vacation!
Next up - I'll show you all the cool stuff we got!
