MAGIC VACATION, PART I

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Last year, my family went to Disney World, and I made the mistake of telling our daughter we were going about a month before the trip. This year, I told her we were going to Disney about the time we were in Savannah.

Yes, I kept good on my promise of keeping our next big trip a surprise, thereby avoiding a month of days that began with, “Are we going to Disney TODAY!?!?!?” Instead, I whittled down the questioning to a couple of hours of, “NOW will you tell me where we’re going?”

When we pulled over for lunch, my wife and I told Allie that we would give her a hint where we were going and handed the character autograph book from our last trip. “You’ll need this,” I said.

She stared at it for a minute and then looked up at us and said, “WE’RE GOING TO DISNEY!!!!” She then screamed, “Yahoo!” I have no idea where she got that, because last time I checked we are not cowboys. Her little brother, Parker, knew that we were going to Disney, but was able to keep it on the down-low. He’s no squealer.

In what has become an annual tradition for our family, we kicked off our first day at the parks at the Magic Kingdom. There is nothing like seeing a 4-year-old turn the corner on Main Street and see Cinderella’s castle. And there is nothing like seeing a 2-year-old turn the corner on Main Street and see an eight-foot chipmunk.

Our first ride of the day would be the teacups, which I noticed for the first time are not actually called the teacups, but rather “Mad Tea Party,” a fact that the rest of my family seemed wildly unimpressed with.

Our next ride would be the carousel. Allie has had some less-than-brave moments in her carousel riding days, but assured us she would be brave this time. “Brave? It’s a wooden horse. At worst, you may get a splinter!” I said, in my calming, fatherly way.

After a several-minute parenting lesson from my wife, we boarded the carousel. Allie was brave, and rode the fear-inspiring wooden horse like a champ. What we did not count on was our wrecking ball son ­- the one who thinks nothing about sprinting across the room and diving into a pile of laundry - being terrified of the horse. Perhaps it was post traumatic chipmunk syndrome.

For the bulk of the day, we hit shows and rides that the kids would enjoy. We also got autographs from some characters, the most important one being that of Mary Poppins. And why? Because Mary Poppins will give youngsters some nanny orders. A 4-year-old snaps to attention when Mary Poppins - the actual, real, in-the-flesh Mary Poppins! ­ tells her to clean her room. I plan on milking that one for a while.

As the afternoon wore on, I decided it was time to up the ante a bit. It was time for my daughter’s introduction to Splash Mountain. For those of you not familiar, Splash Mountain is a log flume ride that goes through Brer Rabbit’s world, and ends with about a five-story plunge down a waterfall. Allie is finally at the height where she can ride these things, so I decided it was time. I told her we were going to go on a boat ride and would see rabbits. She thought that would be fun. My wife started to tell her about the end of the ride. I cut her off. “Forgiveness, not permission,” I said.

“You ride it with her, then,” my wife said. Apparently, when this comes out in therapy in a couple of decades, my wife doesn’t want her name associated with it.

Allie was enjoying the ride, and at about the halfway point, I said, “Allie, the ride ends with a BIG FUN DROP!!!!” One thing she has definitely inherited from her mother is the icy stare of incredulity. As we approached the final drop, she asked me to hold on to her, and then said, to no one in particular, over and over, “I’m not going to be scared. It’s just pretend. I’m not going to be scared. It’s just pretend.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the “just pretend” part we had sold her on during previous rides didn’t, technically, apply to gravity.

As we took the plunge, I am pleased to say my daughter screamed with delight, and thought getting drenched was just hysterical. When we got to the bottom, we had this conversation:

ME: Did you like it?

ALLIE: YEAH!!!

ME: You wanna do it again?

ALLIE: NO!!!!

Splash Mountain was going to be hard to top, so we decided to wrap up our evening with a quick monorail-jaunt to Epcot for dinner. I highly recommend riding in the front of the monorail, as we did, so you, too, can wonder why someone would put an entire train on a rail that appeared to be about as wide as a loaf of bread.

By the end of the night, both kids were completely spent, having used up all of the magic they could muster. We got them home, and falling asleep was not a problem at all. I guess the kids went to bed easily, too.

Tune in next week, when the family heads to Animal Kingdom and MGM, where we learn that, in a parade car featuring Jerry Rice and Goofy, Goofy wins the popularity contest from my group by a 3-1 vote.