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Monday, September 27, 2010

We brought the Ghetto to Asia

Our first day at Disney World was spent at Animal Kingdom.

Why?
Well, because I researched the best day to visit each park based on historical data, avoiding parks with special events, staying away from extra magic hours, and the alignment of the moon.


Glad you asked.

We had fun, yadda yadda yadda.

Here are the chicklets and I in front of the tree of life.


And here is Derek, fascinated yet again by bodily functions.



Here we are enjoying a nice lunch in Asia.


(The park is divided into regions: Africa, Asia, and the often globally overlooked, Dinoland. Discovery Island and Camp Minnie-Mickey have also not made it onto most world maps. I believe their actual location may be in the great white north of Canada. I tried to find out for myself, but it didn't pan out.)

If you take a closer look at that last picture, you will notice that we had brought along two strollers for our trip.
The large blue one was our very first purchase as first-time expectant parents. It was part of a travel system with an infant car seat.
To date, I have been unsuccessful in finding the perfect stroller. I'm convinced such an animal does not exist. But that big blue stroller is was remarkably easy to push and turn, despite being a bear to fold up. And with it's roomy basket and large sunshade, we decided it was Disney-worthy.

The other stroller was borrowed from a friend.
We used to have an umbrella stroller, but as it turns out, in a Stroller vs Minivan showdown, the Minivan comes out on top.
We planned to leave it folded, and stowed in the previously mentioned roomy basket, until Alex tired and requested a ride.

However, on this the very first day of our trip, as we unfolded the big blue beast, we decided that we probably should have looked it over before assuming it was ready for Disney.
Turns out that the roomy basket was broken.
And the back right wheel was a little...crooked.

But we pressed on.
Right up until this meal was over.

Because as we strolled out of Asia after lunch, that back right wheel just flew off the stroller and rolled itself under a bench.

It was only mildly embarrassing to have a stroller breakdown in front of a small crowd. After locating the wheel, but not the hubcab, we parked our ghetto stroller next to a trash can and snuck away.


That was the precise moment that Alex declared her legs too tired to walk any farther.

Guess who has two thumbs and visited The Walmarts in Orlando that night?
This girl.
(Picture me pointing at myself with my two thumbs.)

This is how we rolled for the rest of the trip.

And that, my dear friends, is how we brought the ghetto to Asia.

6 comments:

Taylor said...

I love that she wore her Belle dress.
I have a love/hate relationship with strollers, too. Currently, I own two doubles and one single. Excessive, is it not?

Proverbs 31 Wannabe said...

Just be glad you didn't bring a $300 stroller to just have it stolen. My sister took her favorite stroller to Epcot a few weeks ago and someone stole it while they were on Spaceship Earth. Disney guest services said "but that never happens!" Everyone else we've talked to has said "Yeah, I know someone who had a stroller stolen from Disney." Glad you had a great trip!

Heather and Scott said...

We left a stroller at Disney too! Except ours was our ghetto umbrella stroller that no longer had a foot rest, so we always had to tell the kids to lift their feet so they wouldn't get dragged. :) And we still have way more strollers than we need. I should've given you one while you were here. I mean, really, my kids are 4 & 7, I don't need strollers anymore (and yet I do).

Jennifer said...

Ha ha! We too had a stroller break -- at the zoo in Tokyo. Not as fun as Disney... And it was a MacClaren that I'd bought from a friend. Ugh!w

Beth Lewis said...

On our trip to see Amy in Mt. Home (our first time traveling w/a baby), the back stroller wheel broke off during the first leg of our flight. Of course, we had packed WAY too much carryon baggage, in addition to a baby and a car seat.... so we were stuck using our ghetto stroller to carry all our stuff thru the airport. Best part was all the people that kept stopping us to point out that we were missing the back wheel - yeah, ya think?!?!

Sunk Costs said...

Okay NOW I see that it's a skirt. Forget what I said before.