Several months earlier my Dad bought timeshare points for resort ownership and he was willing to book the resort stay for us. There was a water park at the resort and Sandy, her older daughter, and I spent the day there while Chip was driving down. Lazy river and frozen piña coladas? Yes, please!
Chip had planned this vacation a while ago. She wanted to see fireworks. Disney fireworks. She got there mid-afternoon and we hung out with Sandy and her daughter for a while before Sandy had to leave to take her kid to soccer.
I had a surprise planned for Chip and it turned out, she also had one planned for me. My surprise for her first: The Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor (see previous post titled: Disney Weekend (part five)) selects various audience members to participate and Chip has always wanted to be picked as "That Guy!". A girl has never been picked as "That Guy!" and I think a large part of that is they don't consider guy a gender neutral term (I think it is as long as it is 3rd person plural, but it's a little hinky for 3rd person singular). So, I made her a sign.
You can see her surprise for me in the same picture. She made us "Mean Girls" shirts.
We had to buy tickets when we got to the park. Chip knew that she was going to be back at least a few times in the coming 12 months, so she got an annual pass. Since I had moved several hours away and did not need the temptation (you know, with all of these super hard and important classes I was going to take [no sarcasm]), I bought the 4 day non park hopping ticket. The Cast Member who sold Chip her pass liked ours shirts and the sign so much that he gave her a fast pass!
After dinner we headed to Monster Inc. to see if we could (finally!) get Chip picked to be That Guy. We hoped that we would be at a late enough show that they would be willing to pick a girl to be That Guy and that we would get out in time to watch the fireworks.
While standing in line for Monsters Inc, one of the Cast Members asked about the sign we were holding. After explaining it, she wished us luck. Several of the other guests overhead the plan and thought it was awesome. We headed into the auditorium and tried to sit in the middle and towards the back. The moment we walked in, I had the sign open and pointed at Chip. That got me on the pre-show (with the sign). The caption they gave me was something like "Loves attention". The show started and one of the cast members who walk around with the microphone gave Chip a "That Guy!" sticker. He put it on top of the rolled up poster.
We thought that was our consolation prize for not getting picked to be That Guy. Oh well, at least we tried.
Wrong! They actually came back to us later and asked why she would want to be that guy if she was a girl. And we both responded with "So?" We talked with the monster for a few more minutes and it was awesome. Definitely an above and beyond Disney moment.
After the show got out we talked to a cast member about the fireworks. We had missed them.
While we were talking to the cast member, another cast member came out to talk to us. He worked at Monsters Inc and just saw the show. He wanted to know our thoughts on the show and the improvements we helped them make that night. Below is the picture of the cast member and Chip's summation from Facebook.
(I got chosen to be THAT GUY! This is us with Wayne, who works with the monsters at the Laugh Floor, and the sign Jen made so they would pick me.)
Since we missed the fireworks, and it was close to closing time, we decided to head back to New Fantasyland. This was Chip's first time being at Magic Kingdom since it opened.
I gave her the tour and we each sat in Gaston's chair in his tavern.
Very, very good day. But it was time to go back to the resort and do it all over again the next day.
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