ANOTHER WDW trip- Presidents Week at Pop! FINALLY finished 5/10- post 71

[WDW Poly Princess]

(I wrote this pre-trip bit before the trip, but I am in fact home now! I promised myself I wouldn't start this trip report until I finished my lastone, but pretrip doesn't count, right?)

Important-type info!

Trip Dates: Feb 18-25, 2006
Resort: Pop Century (Oh my gosh, I'm not resort hopping!!)

The Cast:
Me- Again. Yeah, I just went in December. This time I'm traveling with actual humans!

The Actual Humans:

The Sister- The one paying for the trip! Her name is Thelma, but she goes by her middle name, Christine (well, by Chris.), but having a Chris and a Crystal gets too confusing, so we'll just call her The Sister!

The Nephew- Jesse, nicknamed "El Nephew" by me a few years ago for no particular reason. 15, son of The Sister.

My pre-trip reports always end up terribly boring and full of too much info, so this one is going to be short!

Only about 6 weeks after I came home from my Nov/Dec 2005 trip, my sister (she's the middle sister of 5 girls, I'm the youngest) called and said she was thinking of going to Disney World, and wondered if I wanted to go. Um, yes, of course I do! I was a little bummed when she said the week she had off was President's Week, because I usually do everything possible to avoid crowds, but even a crowded free Disney Trip is a good trip! She left the planning in my hands, since they have never been, and I am a weirdo with half a bookshelf of guidebooks.

Guess what? It is hard to plan for other people! Especially if you have been going solo for the past 4 years!

We finally came up with a basic plan:
Rent a car (so that we don't have to leave one of ours at the airport for a whole week and drive to St Louis (flying out of there instead of Springfield, where I usually fly from, because leaving from STL instead saves us about $500!) Because our flight is at 7:45am on the 19th, we decided to drive up on the 18th and get a cheap hotel for the night. This became slightly complicated by my dance troupe having a performance on the 18th at 5pm, which means we probably won't be on the road until at least 6:30.

We're booked for 5 nights at Pop Century, a new resort for me. (I showed them pictures of the values and let them pick. We really like the pac man theme on the 80's building, so we're secretly pulling for that one.) I am a tiny bit concerned about sharing a room at a value for five days with two other people (Sister and 15 year old nephew. Her husband won't be joining us because he had knee surgery last year, and isn't really up for all the walking). I've grown so used to having lots of space to myself from traveling solo that it is going to be weird to be sharing a small space, not to mention just one bathroom, with two other people!

We have 6 day Park Hoppers w/ plus options for them, and I'm getting a new Annual Pass. I had actually decided to *not* get an AP this year, because I was so frustrated with the Best Rate program, but then right around when this trip came up, they got rid of it! I sang songs, did dances, and called up to check room discounts. Oh, old AP discount format, I missed you so much! *sings* Reunited and it feels so gooooooood....

Um, but I digress. We were hoping to get a room at AKL for a couple of nights of the trip, and spend the rest at Pop, but all AKL had available was a 2-bedroom suite, which would cost us $8000 for the five nights. HAH! We'll stick with our giant can of play-doh and bowling pin shaped pool, thanks.

So, that sums up the pre-trip stuff, I think! I am so proud that I kept it under fifty pages! Let's sum up with:

Goals for this trip:

I will...
*Eat my weight in zebra domes
*Try something from the Boulangerie Patisserie other than the chocolate mousse. (I need a Chocolate Mousse 12 step program or something!)
*Remember that it is their first trip, and therefore be patient when they don't know/understand things (such as that we can not just walk on to Soarin at 6pm)
*Per request of my friend Tina, "eat an actual meal in a restaurant, not just pizza!"
*Search far and wide around WDW for a substitute for my beloved Wilderness Lodge brownies, since Roaring Forks will be closed (they make the best brownies there, with a ton of yummy frosting. But back off, they're mine!)
*Have the camera ready when they try their first sips of Beverly
*Try my best to share some of the history, the hidden details, and the magic, without turning into Tour Guide Barbie

I will not...
*get frustrated by the crowds
*try to sell the clothes off my back/vital organs/the promise of my first born in order to bribe the staff at the Polynesian into giving me a room
*Eat corn on the steps of town hall
*Punch out a dwarf
*Hold a sit-in for emu rights in front of the turkey leg stand
*Stick a party hat on Lincoln at the Hall of Presidents.

Okay, I just might do that last one, if I only had the nerve.

The real report and photos coming soon!
(Must finish old report first! Must!)

[Montana Minnies]

:thumbsup2 Looking forward to reading the rest! :)

[DisnyMama]

I just discovered the Chocolate Mousse this last December! :thumbsup2 I must have had at least four of them. Also, those WL brownies are excellent but I make special trips to WL just to get their Magic Cookie Bars. I agree that we do need some sort of 12 step program!!! :lmao:
Shannon princess:

[Disney owl]

Great report thanks for sharing

[IlluminationsUK]

Great as usual, looking forwards to reading the rest.

[pinseeker11]

Cant wait to read the rest! I am from Springfield!!!

[Cinerama]

I'll be waiting for more. Can't believe you didn't eat corn! :teeth:

[OhMari]

Thanks for sharing, I hope you met all your goals.

On a side note: I hope you are okay with the terrible storms that just went through your area. Hope you post soon to let us know you are okay.

Trip Moderator
OhMari

[DisneyDreamer2]

"I wil not...eat corn on the steps of Town Hall." Ahhhhh, if that doesn't bring back memories of the first trip report I ever read by Beth C, all those many years ago that started my complete obsession/addiction with WDW! Everyone must eat corn , from a can, at least once on Main Street! :earsboy: (we need a smilie with mouseears that eats corn.)

[Minniespal]

Can't wait to read more :goodvibes

[poohfan]

your last trip report was great... can't wait to read this one :thumbsup2

[WDW Poly Princess]

Woohoo, I finally get to start this report! This one is probably going to end up being a lot shorter than my last one for several reasons. First, the trip was only about half as long. Second, I only took about half as many photos. Third, we were running around so crazily the whole time, I took almost no notes, and didn’t get any time at all to type anything up at the end of the night!

So, just to recap the pre-trip part, I’m going to WDW with my sister and nephew (15) during President’s week, Feb 18-25, staying at Pop. Got it? Good!

Our story starts on the night of February 17th, right when the snow starts. I glared at the sky, and told it that it had better not snow much, because I had a lot to do tomorrow!

Not only was the 18th the day we were driving up to St Louis, but I also had a dance performance that afternoon. Snow was not allowed!

So, of course, I woke up about 5am to this:

http://www.lovemanythings.net/snow4.jpg

My 10am, the roads were only looking slightly better.

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My cat Tallulah and I spent a lot of time sitting by the windows, watching the snow melt, trying to tell it to melt faster. Faster!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/0snow1.jpg

Around noon, I started getting worried. If the roads were all like this, there was no way I was going to make it the hour and a half drive to Springfield, where my performance was and my sister lives. My mom suggested calling a shuttle company to drive me up, so we started calling a few places. Well, long story short, a few hours later, we had called EVERY shuttle service in the phone book, and NONE of them could take me! They were either closed because of the weather, didn’t come t my area, or all of their drivers were already busy. D’oh! We finally decided that my mom would drive me up, since her car is better than mine in snow, and if she drove, I wouldn’t have to leave my car in Springfield all week while I was gone. We somehow managed to squeeze all of my luggage PLUS my dance costumes and stuff into the car, and slowwwwly made it to Springfield in about two hours.

Our performance went pretty well, except for that during the first song, the DJ accidentally played the music double-speed! I’m amazed that we didn’t fall over trying to do it so fast! Plus, during the same song, I had an interesting wardrobe malfunction that I won’t really go into here! ;) Luckily I was wearing a costume that covered most of my body, since it was a folkloric dance, but let’s just say that if it had been a skimpy one, the audience would have been seeing a LOT more skin than they had bargained for!

Dance performance survived, I grabbed my stuff and ran out to the car. (This was a little sad, since we were performing at a convention, and my ticket to perform covered admission, and I would have liked to have stayed for a while, but I had a Mouse to visit!)

My mom dropped me off at my sister’s house at about 7pm, and my nephew answered the door. It turned out that my sister and her husband were on their way to MY house to drop off a bed they had sold my mom.

Wait a second.

They are DRIVING to our house with ice on the road? In the dark?

Wait another second!

I just spent ALL morning freaking out about how to get up here, and then they end up driving to my house?

ARRRRRRRRRRGH!!!

Jesse and I had a few hours to kill until they got back, so we looked at some Disney stuff online, and basically danced around all excited.

My sister FINALLY got back at about 9, and still had to get her stuff together. THEN we had to go pick up their van from a friend’s house they’d left it at. THEN we were finally able to leave (YAY!)

We took a cab to the airport, where we were picking up our rental car.

I’d looked around online, and Alamo seemed to have the best price, a Premium car for about $90. However, they wouldn’t let us rent it in my sister’s name since we were paying with my debit card (she’d put most of the money for the trip into my account so I could make reservations and such), and since we had to put it in my name instead, and I’m under 25, there was an extra $25 fee. Boooo! Then, they asked if we wanted to upgrade for $10, and she decided she did. Okay, now we’re up to $125. Then she wanted to add on the insurance… long story short, it ended up being $171 for a one day car rental! Technically about a five hour car rental! If I’d known we’d end up spending that much, I’d have just had us fly out of Springfield, since with the extra car expense both ways, we were now only saving about $300 instead of $500 by flying out of STL.

Our car was really cool. So cool that we started wondering what the heck kind of car it was, since none of us had been paying attention. We searched the inside of the car for the name (Don’t most cars have the name on the inside? Mine just has the pretty horsie on the steering wheel, I think, but that’s the same as a name.) but couldn’t find it anywhere. We looked over our rental documents, and no name there either! When we stopped at The Sister’s work to drop something off, we looked at the outside of the car for the name, but it was covered in snow! Thus, I named it the Chrysler Anonymous.

“While we are in the Chrysler Anonymous, we are anonymous! Nobody knows who we are!” I announced. “From now on, my name is Cinnamon Manhattan.”

“And I am Crispy Llamafingers.” The Sister added. The Nephew never came up with a conclusive alias. Very tricky, that kid.

(We did eventually give in and call the car rental place to ask what the heck kind of car we had- it was Chrysler 300. We decided that 300 was a stupid name, and we liked our name much better, so we just stuck with it.)

The very coolest feature of the Chrysler Anonymous? It has ESP! And, if for some reason, you *don’t* want to know what will be happening next on your trip, you can turn it off!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/0esp.jpg

What the heck is this button really for? Wait, don’t tell me. I don’t want to ruin the illusion.

So, now we drove. And drove. And drove and drove and drove. Luckily once we got out of Springfield, there was no more ice on the roads, so the drive went smoothly. We stopped at a Waffle House near Ft Leonard Wood for foooood. Sadly, I have no photos of this- I wasn’t yet back into the mindset of always taking my camera into restaurants. Anyway, I had the best grilled cheese sandwich EVER for $1.70, the sister had a really yummy pecan waffle with blueberry stuff on top, and I have no memory of what Jesse had, except that he got a cherry lemonade with it.

And now we drove some more. The kid fell asleep, and we talked for the eighty thousand hours between Springfield and St Louis.

Somehow, we got there!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/0car.jpg

The Sister shows off the Chrysler Anonymous at the gas station in St Louis.

We had originally planned to drop the car off at the airport, and take the shuttle to the hotel, but then we saw the hotel before we even saw the airport, so we decided to just stop. The good thing about this hotel was that the Alamo car return was RIGHT across the street- score! We decided we were too tired to unload all of our junk now, so we made plans to just drop the car off in the morning, since we had it for 24 hours.

As soon as I walked in, I heard a man yelling at the guy at the front desk. Oh, poor front desk guy! I feel your pain! (I work front desk at home.)

The guy was yelling because they had reserved a certain kind of room, but some of the heaters had stopped working, making those rooms unavailable. I’ve soooo been in that exact situation! They offered the guy a different kind of room, but he didn’t want that, so he just kept yelling while I made sympathetic faces at front desk guy. Finally, after enough yelling, Yelling Guy left. Front Desk Guy sent Maintenance Guy off to see if a certain room was ready for us, and after about five minutes, Maintenance Guy said that yup, that heater was working- yay! I asked if it had two beds, since there were three of us, and front desk guy said that it did. YAY, sleep!

We finally got to our room at about 3am, and guess what- it had just one King bed! Of course now we’d just hauled our bags up three flights of stairs, and it was 3am, so we just set the alarm for two and a half hours later, plopped down and went to sleep. Let’s hope the rest of the trip doesn’t involve quiiiite so much “family togetherness”

[lauren_elizabeth]

Excited to read the rest of this report! :cool1:

[pixiedust23]

excited to read another one of your reports!!! o and i feel your pain on the rental car. I'm going down with my bf for our birthdays. He'll be turning 25 on our last day there...aka we have to pay the stupid surcharge!@ :rolleyes2 :guilty:

[poohfan]

Cinnamon Manhattan... loved it!!!

[Philadisney]

yeay, another Crystal report! I loved your last one. :sunny:

[dawnrose]

great report so far can't wait to hear more...
:Pinkbounc

[WDW Poly Princess]

Just wanted to let you guys know that I haven't forgotten about this report, the next part (where we actually get to wdw!) is coming soon! My nephew will be at my house tomorrow, so I'm going to look through all of his pictures, share some memories, and then I'll feel more prepared to tackle the rest of the report!

A preview of things to come: on the first day of our trip, Magic Kingdom is open until THREE AM!

[OhMari]

Wow, how was MK open till 3:00 a.m., what were the dates you were there.

[WDW Poly Princess]

Day 1

Day One is seriously long. Seriously. You’ve been warned!

Do you know what is not a fun time to wake up in the morning? 5:30 am. Do you know what is an even less fun time to wake up? 5:30am when you just got to sleep at 3:30am! Unfortunately, this is how our (LONG!) Day 1 begins!

Our flight from St Louis to Orlando was at 7:45 am, so our goal was to get to the airport around 6am. We got our things together as quickly as possible, dropped off the rental car, and took the hotel’s shuttle to the airport. Did I mention that it was stil around 10 degrees outside? BRR! We wanted on that plane, now!

At the airport, we used Southwest’s baggage check machine thingey, which involves some typing and pushing a lot of buttons, which is really not the kind of thing I am good at after two hours of sleep and before coffee! I crossed my fingers, hoping I didn’t just send my luggage to New Mexico, and we set off through security in search of breakfast (read: COFFEE!) There weren’t many places to eat past security, but we found the most amazing bagel place ever! My bagel with cream cheese was something like $5, but it was SO good! I want to go back to the airport just for another bagel. Yum!

We sat by the window watching planes take off while we ate, and in my case, drank some sweet, sweet Starbucks-in-a-bottle, which is the main ingredient it takes to turn me into a human in the morning.

We got to board in the first group, since I’d printed our boarding passes early yesterday. (everyone say Thank You, Crystal!)

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/1plane.jpg

It was Jesse’s first flight ever, so he was a little nervous, but got over it quickly. The flight did that thing that all flights to WDW do, where time pretty much stops, and you’re sure you’ve been on the plane for 18 hours, even though the clocks claim it has only been two. Thelma and I even got the kids’ packs from the flight attendants for amusement (If you fly Southwest, ask for one! They even come with little wings! SO cute!)

Nine million hours later (or around 11am) we touched down in Orlando. Welcome to my second home, dear family!

We picked up our luggage from baggage claim, and I had to drag my sister away from the shops- we have a Disney World to get to, woman!! You can shop later!

The line for Magical Express was HUGE- a trend that would continue on this trip! They didn’t have my name in the computer, probably because I’d only made the DME reservations a few days before, but the CM at the desk (Who checked me in on my last trip, too!) made a quick phone call and confirmed that we did have reservations. We only had to wait about 5 minutes for the bus, and we were finally off! We had landed just after 11am, and were on the bus by noon!

Enjoy these very blurry photos of my family on the bus!

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The ride from the airport to WDW is about half an hour, but of course feels like 99 hours. Pop Century was the first stop- yay! We got our luggage from the bus, and inside the lobby, I let the others sit down while I got in the Check In Line Of Death. As I’ve mentioned, I work front desk at a hotel, and I would CRY if I had to deal with lines like this! I waited in line almost an hour- that’s longer than I’ve ever waited for anything at WDW! The Pop check in line totally needs FastPass!

Since I’d just signed up for Magical Express a few days before we left, they wouldn’t be transporting our luggage to the room for us, so we went in search of bell services. (I think I may even opt for carrying my own stuff if I did book ME on time, just since I’ve heard it takes them several hours to get your stuff to your room sometimes.) I was surprised that bell services wouldn’t take our luggage to our room for us, instead they loaned us a cart (after signing a paper saying we’d be charged $250 if it wasn’t returned- yeesh!) I’ve stayed at several values before, but since it’s just been me, I’ve always lugged my own luggage, but I always just assumed that bell services worked the same there as everywhere else. Nope! Lesson learned!

If you’re looking at the 50’s area from the end closest to the lobby, it makes an upside down U shape. Well, more of an upside down [__]. Our building was the one that made up the bottom of the U, and our room was all the way over by the bowling pin, on the back side of the building, facing the parking lot.

We wheeled our stuff out to our room, dropped it off, and sent Jesse to take the cart back.

Check out our fab view! ;)

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/1view.jpg

Yeah, okay, the view isn’t exactly looking across the lagoon to the castle, but I’m sure we’ll live. Besides, I just had big rooms with pretty views two months ago, anything that happens on this trip is just a bonus!

While the view was easily overlooked, we suddenly discovered something that wasn’t- the beds here are TINY!!! Are the beds at All Stars this small? I’d almost bet my mickey ears that these are way smaller than the All Stars ones, but it’s been a while since I’ve been in the 2 Queen All Stars rooms. Jesse didn’t really want to share such a small bed with his mom, so we called to ask about rollaways or cots, which Pop doesn’t have. (I don’t know where we would have put it, anyway, since there isn’t much spare room. How can someone who does as much crazy Disney research as me miss the fact that a) the Pop beds are tiny, and b) there are no rollaway beds? I think this made the family doubt my Disney knowledge for a minute! So, what to do? We couldn’t afford to move to a bigger resort, and since it was such a busy part of the year, there probably wouldn’t be a ton of availability elsewhere anyway! We decided to build poor Jesse a bed on the floor out of extra pillows and blankets that we asked mousekeeping to drop by. I should seriously get the poor kid a t-shirt that says “I went to Disney World, and they made me sleep on the floor all week!” Sorry, Jes!

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I wish I had a picture of me *in* the bed, so you could see how tiny it is!

By now it was about 1:20, so we decided against our original idea of napping in the room in favor of just going straight to the parks. We were running on almost no sleep, but we were still standing, so that meant Magic Kingdom!

This is where we first discovered that it takes The Sister waaaay longer to get ready than the rest of us. Jesse and I sat with our feet in the pool while we waited, which we decided was a way better use of time.

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As you can see, it was pretty overcast today- kind of chilly for Florida! Still, it was way better than the -7 degrees we left at home!

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She emerges!

We were all starving, so we went up to Everything Pop to grab some lunch. Some of you have lectured me on my eating habits on vacation, since I tend to eat a lot of pizza and other junk food. Well, be prepared to be totally disappointed in me once again! I present to you my fabulous Pop Century Day One Lunch!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/1popfood.jpg

Hey, at least it isn’t pizza, right? Right? Great. You’re probably going to start hunting me down at WDW and force-feeding me green vegetables.

Our lunch was my first glimpse at how expensive things become when you’re traveling with other people! Thelma & Jesse both got the refillable mugs (I passed, since I don’t drink soda.), I got the fabulous cheetos/cheesecake/juice lunch, Thelma got a sloppy joe and the worms & dirt (gummy worms in pudding/oreo crumbles), and Jesse got the chicken strip basket. Total bill was $44.99! …and looking at the receipt to write this report, I just realized that it didn’t include my juice or cheetos! Did I buy those separately? I’ll have to look through my other receipts! Anyway, I’ve gotten so used to traveling solo and the lunch bill being about $6 that I nearly fell over at the $45 price tag! Granted it did include two refillable mugs, but yeesh! We’d just spent more on one meal than I usually spend on food in two days!

Poor Jesse was going to explode if we didn’t get on some rides soon, so we went out to catch the bus to MK. Of course, since the other two of us are female, we had to stop in the gift shop on our way to the bus. This is where we discovered that Pop Century is all about the tie-dye, and Jesse totally matched!

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We put off our shopping, and went out to the bus stop before Jesse exploded. On the ride over, Jesse got his first glimpse of Tower of Terror, one of the main things he was excited to ride. His excitement was totally contagious, I loved it!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/1jesbus.jpg

[IMN2DSNY]

Trip reports rock!!! I was at Pop at the same time. :goodvibes

Keep up the good work!!! I may even get inspired to do my own TR.

[Eeyore Excitement]

All these trip reports are getting me so revved up about our upcoming trip!!!! :love: Your reports are SO funny! :rotfl2:

[poohfan]

Is there more?

I love your reports! :sunny:

[heaven2dc]

What a beginning for your trip - your nephew looks so tired in that first photo. :thumbsup2 to all of you for being such troopers on your first day! Can't wait for more!!

[WDW Poly Princess]

Oops! My internet connection at work died just after I posted the first part of Day 1, and I totally forgot to post the rest! Sorry about that!

It was fun walking down Main Street with them for the first time! Is there anything better than the excitement the very first time you walk into the MK? And the best part of MK today? They’re open till midnight, but because of evening EMH, they are open until 3am! How crazy is that???

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The Dapper Dans were even out to welcome them!

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The required Partners shot.

And here is the first of our PhotoPass photos! We decided ahead of time to buy the CD, so we stopped at every Photopass person we could find! The only downside? I discovered soon after we arrived at Pop that I had left alllll of my makeup in the bag that I’d put my costumes in after the performance, which was still in my mom’s car! So I had NO makeup for the whole week at WDW! Needless to say, the pictures in this report are NOT the best ones of me you will ever see!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/1photopass.jpg

Poor Jesse was still about to die because he had technically been at Disney World for HOURS now, and still no rides, so we made a beeline to Tomorrowland. This is where I once again remembered that it was peak season- the lines were CRAZY! 100 minutes for Space, an hour for Buzz… what to do? We grabbed fastpasses for Buzz (and found someone had left their park ticket on top of the FP machine! I took it over to the nearby CM, so hopefully the person got it back!) and I had the brilliant idea to go ride the TTA. It never has a line, so the poor kid could finally get on some kind of ride, and he’d be able to get a gimpse of Buzz and Space, too.

Guess what! There was a LINE for the TTA! Am I the only one who has never seen a line here? Ever? Oh boy, this peak season stuff is going to take some getting used to!

So, of course, it was only about a 5 minute line (but still!), and we were quickly on the ride. Well, about 50 feet into the ride, it stops. I assumed they were loading a wheelchair or something, and explained to my family that rides stop a lot for a minute, that we’d be moving again in a second.

A few minutes later, we were still sitting there.

20 minutes later, we were STILL sitting there. We called my mom to tell her we were stuck on the TTA, and she cracked up. I think poor Jesse was about thiiiiis close to losing it- all the kid had wanted all day was to get on a ride, and now we were stuck!


After a while, we noticed a gathering of CM’s over at the loading zone (Yup, we could still see it!) Soon a CM came up the track, and we all ended up walking off the ride! I thought it was the coolest thing ever, since I’ve never had to get off a ride, and thought it was even cooler when as we left, they handed us a FP good for any ride in the park!

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This face says “my little sister got me stuck on a ride at Disney World!”

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Looking down at Tomorrowland- look at that crowd!

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There’s only one way to use a bonus fast pass like that! We dashed over to Space Mountain, with it’s 100 minute wait, and were on within 10 minutes. Score! Not only did Jesse *finally* get to ride something, but his first ride got to be Space Mountain!

After Space, we decided to go over to Adventureand, but on the way, we saw that Cinderellabration was starting, so we stopped to watch. This was my sister’s dream come true, because all she’s wanted since she was 7 was to see Cinderella at the castle!

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Me taking a picture of Jesse taking a picture of the castle.

After the sun set, it was getting pretty chilly, and this is when I found out that neither my sister or nephew had brought a jacket! I made them a packing list before the trip, and I’m pretty sure that “jacket or sweatshirt- even Florida gets cold in Feb!) was underlined with stars, but they still didn’t bring them. So, I’ll try to pass the wisdom on to you guys who have never been in the winter- bring a jacket! Disney sweatshirts/hoodies are $50+, you don’t want to be stuck without! They decided to put off buying any until we could go to World of Disney, so I could at least get them 10% off.

We waited in line for Pirates, which was about a 25 minute line, so not as bad as what we’d seen in Tomorrowland! The girl running the ride told us she’d been there since early that morning, and was working until 3am. Poor CM’s!

After Pirates, we picked up fastpasses for the Jungle Cruise, and then did a little bit of shopping around Adventureland before going back over to Tomorrowland to use our Buzz fastpasses.

Inside the line for Buzz, I could not believe how messy the floor was! Anyone who’s been to WDW knows how quickly trash is usually swept up, how shiny and new everything usually looks, but the floor in here was icky! There was popcorn everywhere, dirty napkins, empty drink cups, everything!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/1dirty.jpg

The photo doesn’t do it justice, but gives you some idea. I would never have believed it if I hadn’t seen it!

I finally managed to hit the 100,000 target on the back of the robot’s arm, but my Buzz score was still pretty mediocre.

There was no line for Carousel of Progress, so I got to ride it for the 2nd time ever, the first having been just 2 months before. Afterwards, we walked back towards Adventureland, but stopped in our tracks when we saw a man drop to one knee in the rose garden in front of the castle- someone was proposing right there in front of us! (She said yes!) AWWW!

By now I was about to fall over- it’s hard when you’re used to hitting the parks at a slow pace, but the people you’re with can’t wait to see everything! Over the years, my trips have evolved from commando style to a lot of hanging out at the resorts, and meandering around taking photos. None of that on this trip! I decided that I’d probably only stay until Wishes, and then go back to the hotel, and let my sister and nephew stay late into the Extra Magic Hours.

We used our Fast Passes for Jungle Cruise, and this was my first time getting to do it in the dark. I don’t know if it was the skipper or not, but I didn’t think it was as much fun in the dark (although I’ve heard that a lot of people like it more at night.)

We walked over to Pinnochio Village Haus for dinner- I was planning to show them the super-secret balcony seating, since everywhere in MK was so busy. When we got there, I was amazed to see that the stairs leading up were roped off! I thought they always had the upstairs open when the parks were busy- guess not! I was bummed about not getting to show off my favorite quiet dining place, but by now I was so tired and hungry I just wanted food and to sit! I got a pepperoni pizza (sorry!), Jesse got fries, and Thelma got the antipasto salad. By about halfway through dinner, I was totally spacing out, trying not to fall asleep. I wouldn’t be able to tell you anything that happened, even if a hippo wearing a tutu had danced around the restaurant while we ate! I really wanted to at least stick around for Wishes, but I knew there was no chance now, so I decided to go on back to the resort to sleep, while the others stuck around for EMH. I filled them in on what time the parade and Wishes were, how to get back to the resort, and headed up towards the front of the park. Now, what will always, always happen when you are in a hurry to get somewhere? (In my case, the hurry was to get to the bus before I fell over in the middle of the park!) Yup, something slows you down. In my case, I was trying to leave just before 9pm, so the crowds for Spectro were HUGE. So huge that they were routing people backstage behind Main St. to get out of the park! If I’d been in my normal state, I would have snapped a photo or two, but I was set on the goal of getting out of the park alive! (In fact, if you want further proof of how tired I was, I hadn’t taken any photos since before 7pm!)

I somehow made it back to the room at Pop in one piece. And here I present further proof of how tired I was- I got back to the room just before 10pm, so I turned on the TV to catch Grey’s Anatomy (so very much my favorite show!), and I fell asleep during the first 5 minutes! So wrong!

I heard the sister and the nephew get home several hours later, and I’m sure they told me some things about what they had done, but I was way too out of it to know what they said! I made a mental note to ask them about it tomorrow, and fell back asleep!

Stay tuned for Day 2!

[Minnie_Moo]

I got a BIG kick out of the picture of your sister where her face says “my little sister got me stuck on a ride at Disney World!”

So glad to see your new installment. I have been reading this trip reports board for quite a while and finally decided to sign up so I could let you know how much I've enjoyed your reports.

::MinnieMo Moo

[studentmom]

Lovin' your trip report so far! Can't wait to hear the rest. It's nice that you had the pics, too, as they helped us visualize what was said in the report.

Oh, yah...so that is what the tie-dye cheesecake looks like at Pop. I may have to switch our resort from ASM to Pop just for that, lol. Keep up the great reports! :goodvibes

[tlinus]

to see how your Nephew liked his trip to the world!

Waiting for moreof this great report!

[WDW Poly Princess]

Day 2!

Day 2 started out bright and early- at least for me! My falling asleep at 10 last night meant that I woke up just before 6:30am today. I tried to fall back asleep, but I was totally awake, so I tried to find my clothes in the dark as quietly as I could, so I could go get dressed in the bathroom. This is one time when traveling solo has it’s benefits- I can usually make all the noise I want in the morning, but now I have to be nice! I scrawled a note on my notebook that I was getting breakfast, and to call me if they woke up, and left it on my bed.

I went up to Everything Pop for some breakfast, and passed the usual crowd of dads carrying resort mugs and breakfast back to their rooms. I picked up a chocolate croissant, milk, and a water, paid the lovely cashier Mabel (watch for her repeat appearances in this report!) and found a table outside where I could hang out and people watch while I ate. This is when I finally figured out why the dads always do the early morning food court run- it gives you time to catch up on quiet. Most of the resort is still asleep, there is fog over the pool, and you’ve been surrounded by your family 24 hours a day here, but now you get to be alone with your thoughts, and drink in the quiet. It’s wonderful!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2popmist.jpg

The morning mist

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2lady.jpg

Lady must wake up very early!

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(As a side note to fellow chocolate addicts, Pop has the chocolate croissants that are sort of square and filled with chocolate, while All Star Music has the ones that have chocolate on the outside, and are croissant shape. I personally prefer the ones with chocolate on the outside, but the others will do.)

While I’m sitting, I decide that today would be perfect for Animal Kingdom- it’s a little chilly and overcast, so the animals should be way more active. I decide to go on out, and the family can join me whenever they wake up.

I stop in the gift shop for a surprise for my sister- I pick up one of the postcards shaped like Cinderella, and write a note to my sister from Cinderella, saying thank you for visiting her at the castle yesterday. In a stroke of good luck, the cashier in the gift shop mentions that today is early entry at AK, so they’re opening at 8!

Back in the room, I left the card for my sister, scratched out the word “breakfast” on my note and replaced it with “Animal Kingdom”, grabbed my stuff, and went out to the bus stop. AK opened at 8, and I made it there by 8:15, which is pretty good for me, since I’m awful at making it to parks for opening, especially when they open early!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2dak.jpg

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Hey, isn’t there supposed to be a tree here or something?

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2akmist.jpg

It was cool and still a little misty- perfect animal weather! I decided to head straight for the safari, since I’d heard the animals are most active during cool, early hours. Boy did that turn out to be right! I think I saw more animals on this safari than ever! My version of “rushing” to the Safari as soon as the park opens is still pretty slow, with lots of stops for photos.

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2macaw.jpg

The macaws at AK always seem to enjoy attention!

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I *love* details like this that make it look like you’re in a real African villiage! The one you hear about on the boards the most is the coke bottle up on top of the phone pole, but I loved this tangle of wires, too!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2zulu.jpg

What do you do if you’re Disney, and you want to put some thatch roofs like the Zulu make in your park? You fly some Zulu people to Florida, and get them to weave some, of course!

Instead of trying to take photos of the safari, I decided to video tape it this time. I don’t have the video online yet, but I promise to upload a clip, because it was seriously the best safari ever! I saw more animals up close than ever! Video coming soon!

After the safari, I hit the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail. I love the trails at AK- they’re some of the few attractions in WDW where you can go at your own pace. Unlike the safari ride, where they can’t stop for photos, here you can spend all day watching the naked mole rats, if that’s what strikes your interest. The trails weren’t very crowded yet this morning, which made me happy, because it just isn’t the same when you’re having to peer over the heads of a crowd to see anything!

I noticed that there was a bunny in the meerkat exhibit again, so I decided to ask the CM this time if it was supposed to be in there, or if it was just a wild bunny who made bad life choices (To find out why being a bunny in a meerkat area is a bad idea, read my last report. Well, don’t read it if you want to be traumatized and have meerkat nightmares.) The CM said that wild rabbits made themselves at home all over the park, and unless they ended up somewhere dangerous like with the lions, they mostly let them run free. Not wanting to come right out and say “but meerkats EAT bunnies!”, I went the subtle route of asking if they got along okay with the meerkats, and she said they did. Was she lying on purpose, or had she, like me, been totally fooled by Lion King 1 ½? Either way, I hope the meerkats didn’t get any ideas about our cotton-tailed friend.

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2meerkat.jpg

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2meerkat2.jpg

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2bunny.jpg

(Insert your own Veggie Tales/Silly Songs with Larry jokes and lyrics here)

The gorillas are my favorite part of the Pangani trail. I could watch them all day! I spent about 20 minutes there this time, but I’d like to sort of camp out there next time for an hour or so.

My favorite this time was a gorilla in the family troupe, who had what appeared to be a big stick that he was eating, corn-on-the-cob style!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2gorilla1.jpg

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2gorilla2.jpg

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2gorilla4.jpg

And everyone’s friend, the big silverback:

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2gorilla3.jpg

I asked the CM if the two troupes ever communicate (there is a bachelor troupe of males, and a family troupe, separated by the path that you walk through on), and he said that they didn’t, other than the juvenile male in the family troupe occasionally getting a little too self-confident, and calling out challenges to the males across the way. I was a little surprised that they don’t communicate more, but I guess they just keep to themselves!

As I was standing watching the gorillas, a little girl passed by, whining rather loudly, “What are we going to DO here all day?” A few people nearby exchanged looks. Seriously? You’re standing in one of the coolest theme parks in the world, and you’re bored? Seriously???

After the trail, I decided to be a hobbit today and enjoy a “second breakfast”. I stopped in Tusker House for an order of biscuits & gravy, which I ate outside (right near where I lost my camera last time!).

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2tusker2.jpg

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2tusker3.jpg

Check out where they cook the chicken!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2tusker.jpg

My quiet little seating area

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2customs.jpg

[WDW Poly Princess]

After 2nd Breakfast, I was ready to continue on to Asia!

I stopped along the way to Asia to snap some photos of the Tree. There’s a great little area just off the main path that offers a beautiful view of the tree against the water!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2tree.jpg

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2treeclose.jpg

Just as you enter Asia, there is a little kiosk that used to be the Drinkwalla soda place, but it hasn’t been open in a while. However, you can still step inside and check it out, which I highly recommend! It is one of the coolest buildings in all of WDW, full of art and amazing things everywhere you look!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2drinkwalla1.jpg

Looking in from a cool window

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2cokes.jpg

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2drinkwalla4.jpg

(Is it just me, or does that mask look like George Bush?)

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There is a message board where the “travelers” of Anandapur leave messages for each other. It’s fun to look through!

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http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2temple.jpg

This little temple is right outside of the Drinkwalla building. There are a few chairs inside, but I’m not sure what it’s for!

I continued on to the Maharajah Jungle Trek. I can never decide if I like this one or Pangani better. Tigers vs. Gorillas? That’s almost as hard to answer as Ninjas vs. Pirates!


http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2trek.jpg

I love this sign that tells you what’s there! (That’s a komodo dragon.)

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2komodo2.jpg

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2komodo1.jpg

However, I have no idea what the heck this animal is!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2animal.jpg

I love the fruit bats (flying foxes), but I can never get good photos of them! So instead, here are some photos of the cool posters and decorations in the bat building:

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2batsigns.jpg

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2batsigns2.jpg

They’re big on their feasting here, I guess!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2batsign3.jpg

[WDW Poly Princess]

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2tigersign.jpg

Bring on the tigers!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2tigers.jpg

I fell in LOVE with the tiger that was sleeping on his back! Looked JUST like how my cat Tallulah sleeps at home!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2tiger3.jpg

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2tiger2.jpg

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2tiger1.jpg

I love the murals painted on the buildings around the tigers! This time I decided to just snap a couple of the birds in the murals, just for something different.

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2birdie.jpg

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2birdie2.jpg

A random statue on the trail:

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2statue1.jpg

I’ve never spent much time in the bird area before, but this time I slowed down a little to check it out. It’s worth taking some time to pick up the bird guide, and see what you can spot! These guys were my favorite:

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2pigeon3.jpg

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2bird.jpg

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2pigeon.jpg

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2pigeon2.jpg

All along the bird area were these amazing little bird houses. Only at Disney!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2birdhouse.jpg

As I was coming to the end of the trail, my cell phone rang. It was Jesse, calling to tell me that they had just woken up. Slackers! He was going to go to Blizzard Beach today, and his mom and I would meet up at Pop, and then go out to Epcot.


By the time I left Animal Kingdom, the crowds were really picking up. Look at all of these people entering the park as I exited!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2akexit.jpg

Coming up in the rest of Day 2- Epcot with da sister, MGM, and the Polynesian (just visiting).

[WDW Poly Princess]

Wow, I'm flying through the updates today!

Here for your viewing pleasure is a video I threw together of clips of Animal Kingdom taken on Day 2, including the Best Safari Ever, as well as parts of the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail and Maharajah Jungle Trek.

A disclaimer- anyone who's been on the safari knows how super hard it is to video, so my apologies for any motion sickness caused by the first minute of the video! ;) It's also my first time combining clips to music, so be kind!

And yes, I left in the audio of "They are Tommies! Tommies!" ;)

Click Here to watch the video! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUSGm-dHJJQ)

[mrFDNY]

Awesome video,thats for sharing it.

[averill94]

Love your report! Wish I was poolside with my coffee at a foggy POP right now.
THe pictures are beautiful, what camera are you using?

[fizz13]

Hi Crystal :wave:
Superior trip reporting once again, cool photos as well. If I was you, I would save them all up for a Where In The World quiz or something, you always manage to get the unusual shots I wouldn't think to take. Poor Jesse, hope his back holds out on that floor,will look out for more,

BTW just watched your video and my two little boys (4 and 2) were captivated by the footage, especially the gorillas. Good job :thumbsup2

Claire xx

[poohfan]

the video was great... what song was that? I really liked it

your trip reports are the best

[fizz13]

I thought the song was great too. It's by Savage Garden and its called aptly enough "The Animal Song", you can find it on their album "Affirmation", not that I'm a fan or anything :teeth:

Claire xx

[uicbear]

:wave: A Disney Aunt here, who had to say, #1:I love your reports; and #2: I was always the coffee runner in the AM because it was the best way to get my "slacker" family out of bed before 9am. I mean, what did they think that they were on vacation or something? :rolleyes1

[heaven2dc]

Wow Crystal - love your video! Your pics have so far been awesome but the video was super - love how you were brave to stick your camera under water for the fishy shot :thumbsup2 (teehee). My alltime fav was Magilla Gorilla - great choice in music too!

[PURTYPAT1]

I love your report, it's great. Thanks for sharing.

I was also, with my family at the very crowed Disney Feb 18th to the 25th and guess what, I left my Disney ticket on the fastpass machine. I really almost fainted. :guilty: A very "NICE" person turned it in to a CM. When the CM gave it to me, I started to cry (real tears) Thank you so much!!!

Patricia

[a*lil*bit*goofy]

awesome report! and i am enjoying the video right now, i am going to rate it a 5! :O)

[LtlTee]

Awesome! I just love reports with pictures, and the video is even better!
Thanks!

[WDW Poly Princess]

After leaving Animal Kingdom, I went back over to Pop Century to meet up with my sister. It was around 11:30 now, and I’d been up and running around since 6:30, so I was ready for a nap, but that wasn’t going to happen for a while! Of course, as I’ve mentioned, it takes my sister *forever* to get ready to go anywhere (and then when you think you’re finally leaving, she realizes that she forgot her camera, or forgot to put eyeliner on, or something, and she has to go back to the room while you sit by the pool. Not that I speak from experience!) Anyway, we finally made it over to Epcot at 1 pm!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2photopass1.jpg

Oh, Epcot, I missed you so much in the two months we spent apart!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2epcot.jpg

A bird hanging out on Leave a Legacy

Our first stop was Innoventions for some internet postcards!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/postcard1.jpg

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/postcard2.jpg

We decided to start off over at the Living Seas, which I still love, even though they’ve totally changed it around. I really hope they bring back the hydrolators and the ride (or at least fix it so that you don’t have to enter through the exit!) soon! I didn’t even realize until I was looking through some old photos that the eels are gone! Or maybe they’re still there, just behind all of the construction in progress?

Does anyone else remember when Crush was brand new, and the CMs had to stand outside and beg people to go watch? Well, my friends, those days are gone! LOOK at this LINE!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2crush.jpg

Crazy!! I think they may need to build a bigger theater for Crush that can hold more people!

After Seas, we went over to the Land to see if there were any Soarin fastpasses left. It was 2:30, so of course there weren’t any, so we went down to the food court to find something to eat. I wasn’t really in the mood for food until I saw this piece of chocolate cake!!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2choccake.jpg

SO yummy!

I was really getting tired (have I mentioned that I am SO not a commando style person?) but the World Showcase was so close, I couldn’t resist going in to just a country or two! However, first we had to stop for SSE photos. I like taking pictures of SSE, so now you get to see a bunch of them!

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And a really weird picture- as we were standing around, we noticed this faded skywriting overhead!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2skywrite.jpg

I thought the area over Disney was a no-fly zone? And what the heck does it say??

Being female, we had to stop at the little store near the WS entrance for some shopping.

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I though I left Stitch at home this trip, but it looks like he followed me here!

Eventually, we did make it to Mexico!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2mex.jpg

Yes, I’m still obsessed with the cool carvings that they sell here and no, I *still* haven’t bought one! I’m holding out for just the right one. That doesn’t stop me from taking a lot of photos, though!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2carvepaint.jpg

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2dragon.jpg

If I had $250 to spend on one of these, I’d totally get a dragon.

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2carvstitch.jpg

I think this is supposed to be a rabbit, but it reminds me of Stitch!

Okay, are you ready for me to admit the stupidest mistake ever? Our goal in WS today was to pick up a lucky cat for my mom, since that was the souvenir she requested. I usually buy them every year, because it’s hard to find such a cute souvenir for $2.50 at WDW! So, the stupid part? For some reason, I’ll blame lack of sleep, I was leading us towards China to buy the cats! It wasn’t until I walked into the shop in China that I realized it was the wrong country! D’oh! This was especially bad because I was already so tired I wanted to lay down on a bench and nap, and I’d just led us in totally the wrong direction!

As things at Disney tend to do, though, it worked out in our favor! As we left the China shop, we ran into Mulan, who had just walked out, with nobody else around!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2mulan.jpg

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2china.jpg

My nephew called and said that he had left Blizzard Beach, and was on his way to Epcot, so we walked up towards the front of the park, and I decided to take that opportunity to take a break!

I had planned to just go back to Pop for a nap, but as I was walking to the bus stop, the urge to go visit my beloved Polynesian popped up, so I went to that bus stop instead. I have accepted that I am powerless to resist the call of my favorite resorts! (I did manage to resist the urge to kiss the floor of the Polynesian’s lobby, and beg the front desk CM’s to give me a room. But man, after just one night at Pop, I was so happy to be back at my real “home” resort!!)

Oh, hey, did I mention that besides being addicted to resorts, I also have a bit of a brownie addiction? Yeah, I do. So here.

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2polybrownie.jpg

Not even close to being as yummy as the Wilderness Lodge ones, but it worked.

I spent a little over an hour at the Poly, just hanging out on the beach and relaxing. Mmm, home sweet home!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/2tiki.jpg

My sister called to let me know they were going over to MGM, so I gave up my plan of a nap in favor of hitting a 3rd park today.

When did they move the Polynesian bus stop? You used to wait right outside of the Great Ceremonial House, but now it’s a bit down the path. Strange! Anyway, I took the bus to MK, and switched to the Pop bus there, so I could meet up with the family. I couldn’t believe that even this late in the day, there was STILL a huge line to check in at Pop! Those poor front desk people! (I should point out that I’m typing this up from the front desk at work. I am SO glad I don’t work at Pop!)

So, now it seems that some kind of time warp happened. My photo of the bus stop at the Polynesian was taken at 6:13pm, but then the photo of the front desk as we left Pop for MGM was taken at 9:20pm! What the heck did we do for three hours? I can assume that it took me about an hour to get back to Pop from the Poly, so that accounts for an hour, but what about the other two? Did I have to wait for my family to get back from Epcot? Or did we just have to sit around waiting on my sister for two hours? I honestly have no idea, so let’s make something up! Here’s what happened- I was sitting at the bus stop at the Polynesian when a huge crowd of CM’s came up to welcome the Princess of the resort home with gifts of mickey rice krispy treats and a complimentary DVC membership. They wanted me to stay there with them, living in a lagoon view room for the rest of the year, but I had to leave them to be with my family, because I knew they’d be totally lost at MGM without me. I finally slipped out quietly while they were doing ceremonial dances in my honor, with promises to return soon.

Better? I think so.

So, where were we? Oh yeah, MGM! The strangest phenomenom happened at MGM- it was my sister’s favorite park! Is MGM really anyone’s favorite park? I can think of like.. three people! (My own personal list has Epcot first, MK and AK tied for 2nd, and MGM 3rd). I’ve tried to love MGM, I really have, and given that I am a huge (HUGE) movie nerd, I’m surprised that I don’t love it more, but somehow it’s just never been my favorite. So needless to say, I was a little surprised that it became my sister’s favorite! (And Jesse’s 2nd favorite after Blizzard Beach!)

(The rest of Day 2 coming soon in the next post!)

[WDW Poly Princess]

An intermision to catch up on some replies:

I was also, with my family at the very crowed Disney Feb 18th to the 25th and guess what, I left my Disney ticket on the fastpass machine. I really almost fainted. :guilty: A very "NICE" person turned it in to a CM. When the CM gave it to me, I started to cry (real tears) Thank you so much!!!

Wow! Was it in Tomorrowland? That's crazy!


I thought the song was great too. It's by Savage Garden and its called aptly enough "The Animal Song", you can find it on their album "Affirmation", not that I'm a fan or anything :teeth:


Isn't that the greatest CD ever?

Love your report! Wish I was poolside with my coffee at a foggy POP right now.
THe pictures are beautiful, what camera are you using?

My trusty Nikon coolpix 995. I do use Paint Shop Pro now and then to make them a bit sharper and crop out random arms and legs that pop up in photos- it is my dear friend!


Okay, back to typing for me!

[fizz13]

:woohoo: keep typing girl, loving it all,
Claire xx

[WDW Poly Princess]

Okay, in between posts, I remembered what we did in that weird 3 hour gap. We ordered pizza.

No, stop laughing, I’m serious!

We ordered Pizza at Disney World. I am so ashamed.

You have no idea how much this crushed my very soul. No wonder I repressed the memory!

It went down pretty much like this:

Sister- “I’m hungry, let’s order pizza!”
Me- “Um, really? Okay. Wait, I don’t know if Pop has the pizza delivery like All Stars does…is there a button marked pizza on the phone?”
Sister- “I think I have a coupon for Pizza Hut.”
Me- (long silence) Um, we could just eat somewhere at MGM…
Sister- “No, pizza sounds good.”
Me- But… we’re at Disney World! We can just eat at Pizza Planet when we get there…
Sister- “Nah, this will be cheaper.” (opens up the phone book)

I am so, so sorry, beloved Disney chefs, who work so hard to make yummy food for all of us on vacation! Please don’t judge me. If it makes you feel any better, they didn’t consult me on the pizza toppings, so I ended up not even getting any of it.

Note to self, introduce family to the Food Porn Thread on the restaurant board, so that such a tragedy can never again take place.

Okay, back to the story! MGM!

We didn’t get to MGM until after 9:30, and they were open till 11, so we didn’t have a ton of time. First stop, Muppets!

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The Jim Henson Muppet you can spot up in the rafters.

Next, Star Tours, which had practically no wait!

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R2 is my favorite!

And then, the most important stop of the night- TOT! We only had time for one ride before the park closed, but they both loved it, so it’s on our “to do again” list!

On the way out, we stopped in the candy/villain store, which I’m sure the poor people who work there are still grumpy about. If you think it takes my sister a long time to get ready to go to the parks, you should see how long it takes to get her out of a store! The poor CMs were just standing there patiently, obviously thinking “Get these crazy people out of the store so we can go home already!”, but I couldn’t drag my sister out! I am so sorry, CM people!

I have always loved these Siamese cats in the villains store, but now someone had stuck hats on them, which made them even cuter!

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FINALLY, about 40 minutes after the park was closed, I got my sister out of the store (where they bought bottles of soda, even though we had refillable mugs and would be back at the resort in 10 minutes- these people confuse me!!!), and we made it out of the park, and back to the resort!

We stopped in the resort gift shop to pick up Jesse’s shirt from MK the day before, but they had accidentally given it to the wrong person! (Apparently someone else had the same last name!) They promised to get him a new one, and have it there within the next couple of days. Crazyness!

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I’ve heard all about the Mr. Potatoheads, but this is the first trip that I’ve seen them!

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Found these in the 70’s box in the lobby- I love that the Polynesian has been around pretty much forever!

And so Day 2 FINALLY comes to an end! Coming up in day 3, we have a slightly more crowded AK and way too much food at the AK Lodge!

[WDW Poly Princess]

Day 3

Believe it or not, the plan for day 3 was for *everyone* to get up early! Of course, when the clock went off at 7:30, I was the only one who woke up. I let them sleep for a little while longer while I got ready, and then kicked them out of bed (or in Jesse’s case, just kicked him) until they got up so they could get ready while I went for breakfast. I picked up a chocolate croissant, and once again, Mabel was at the register. (If you’re going to Pop anytime soon, say hi to Mabel! I think I tend to form attachments to the people who feed me.)

They were finally ready to leave at 9am (9! We have an Animal Kingdom to get to, people!) but between bus waiting, stopping for drink refills, long bus ride, etc, it was almost 10am before we got there. Then, just after we got through the gates, my sister’s husband called, so we sat around for about 10 minutes while she talked to him. Yeah, I’m impatient when it comes to safaris! ;)

The required “we have to stop and take photos on the way to the safari” photos:

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Yeah, it’s a tree.

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And that’s a nephew with a tree.

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Did I mention that I had no makeup on this trip? (And dude, how many blue tie-dye shirts with wolves on them does my sister have??)

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Random monkeys painted on the wall near the restroom.

When we got to the safari, there was about an hour until the fastpass return time, so we picked some up (there was a big line just to *get* fastpasses! I had to wait about 5 minutes!!!), and then went to the Pangani Forest trail.

The gorillas were asleep today, so instead, you get this picture of a mouse that lives in the same building as the naked mole rats:

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/3mouse.jpg

And this one of a meerkat with some kind of antelope thing? Not sure what they’re called, but they are so statuesque and shiny, they look fake!

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We shopped in Harambe for a little while to kill time until our Fastpass time, and then went to get in line. Oh, my goodness- I have NEVER seen a fastpass return line like this before! It was huge!

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This is the line to get into the fastpass line!

The fastpass line wait ended up being 20 minutes! At this point I was casting a few glances of blame towards my family for that whole “we didn’t get here till 11” thing, but I didn’t say anything. I was glad that I was here yesterday, though, when it was nice and cool and uncrowded!

How about some safari pictures?

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Check out the rearview mirror!

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“Nobody calls them Thompson’s gazelles! They are tummies! Tommies!!”

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This is a normal picture of whatever this animal is. And then we have….

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This may be the funniest photo I’ve ever taken. Look at it for a few seconds, you’ll see why.

And we’ll end the safari photos with this super cute baby elephant!

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We did a little more shopping in Harambe (LOVE the store there! I wish I could afford one of the Zulu baskets!)

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We were getting hungry, so I suggested that we go eat at the Rainforest Cafe. First, however, we walked over to Asia to pick up fastpasses for Everest, so that we could ride when we got back.

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Gotta stop for one more photo at Drinkwalla!

It was 1PM when we got our FP, which had a return time of 3:45-4:45- the perfect amount of time to go grab some lunch and relax for a while!

Unfortunatly when we got out to the RFC, there was about an hour wait, and we just weren't up for that, so I suggested that we go to the Mara at AKL instead- we could get a break from the heat, and they could see what a deluxe resort was like!

I’m pretty sure it’s the law that if you arrive at AKL by bus, you have to enter through the Zwadi marketplace instead of the regular entrance. Nobody can resist the gift shop! Muahahah!

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I now have two of these giraffes- love them! And they’re totally affordable! (The medium sized ones are like $12!)

After the gift shop, we stopped to look around the lobby, and I ended up with this amusing photo that makes it look like my sister’s head is on display!

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(No sisters were decapitated in the making of this photo!)

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We followed our rumbling tummies down to the Mara. If you read my last report, you probably know that I’m in love with the Mara. No, it isn’t the same as the yummy variety of Boma, but it won’t cost you $22 per person, either!

Oh fine, you all know I was just here for the zebra domes.

Apparently a lot of other people thought that the Mara sounded good today, too, because there was a pretty long line for food! I got a cheese pizza and zebra domes, my sister got the African stew in a bread bowl and zebra domes (I guess I raved about them too much!), and I think Jesse got chicken fingers and fries.

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Pizza!

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Zebra domes with stew in the background (I tried a bite of the stew, and it was yummy!)

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The awesome “tree” inside the Mara.

[Sweedee]

I have had the best time reading this! Thanks for entertaining our family this evening! I would love to print out that pic of the meerkat asking for bunny! The face is soooooo funny! Looking forward to your next post!

[WDW Poly Princess]

So, we had a bunch of food, and we pretty much sat there and ate and ate and ate! I ended up being so stuffed from my pizza that I gave my sister the haf of my zebra domes! After we’d stuffed ourselves silly, we went back up to the lobby to go out to arusha rock to see the animals. Unfortunatly, they were all off on their afternoon break or whatever it is that they do mid afternoon, but I did get to talk to a super cute South African CM who was working there. (Hey, sis, remember when you said you’d get me a souvenir? I want that one!)

Cute South African Guy even pointed out the hidden mickey on the outside of the Lodge for us!

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Look right about in the middle of the photo

About this time, I started feeling a little queasy, which quickly escalated to really queasy. I decided that stuffing myself silly at Mara and then going out in the heat wasn’t the best idea, so I found a chair just inside the lodge, and plopped down to rest. Jesse took an awesome photo of me looking totally awful sitting there, but he still hasn’t e-mailed me his photos (must call and nag again!) So instead, you’ll have to settle for this one I took of him:

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(The huge lunch plus crazy day didn’t make him feel too great, either!)

I stayed in my chair for about 15 minutes until I felt less like I was going to die, and then went back outside with my sister and nephew. Of course, then my brother in law called, so we had some time to kill!

Now, don’t these chairs look all the same size from this angle?

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They are not.

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Sitting in the chair, I couldn’t figure out why my hips barely fit in it- I didn’t eat THAT much at lunch! Then my sister confirmed that yup, I was in one of the kids’ chairs.

Oops.

It was getting close to time for our fastpass return time, so we took the bus back over to AK, where we were surprised to see a bunch of characters hanging out at the entrance! There were practically no lines, so we got photos with Baloo, Donald, Goofy, and Minnie, all within about 10 minutes! Goofy was the most fun (as usual), and he loved it when Jesse did the “goofy laugh” (that huh-hyuk! kind of noise)

We made it back to Everest at 4:42 (our fastpass window ended at 4:45!)--It was time for Everest!

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You know I wouldn’t miss taking pictures in line!

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The line has some really cool theming, but the fastpass line made the ride practically a walk-on, so I didn’t get time to snap many!

Our review of the ride? Two big thumbs up! We all LOVED it! You must ride, soon!

Our only disappointment was that the cameras to take the on ride photos weren’t set up yet! Sad! The gift shop does have some really cool yeti themed merchandise, though!

We didn’t have a lot of time left before the park closed, but we did have just enough time to go catch the last Festival of the Lion King show- hooray! (I could watch this show all day!)

Neither my favorite singer guy nor my favorite dancer chick were there, but it was still great!

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The fire twirling guy actually lost his flaming stick thing while he was twirling it! Jesse got a great video of it yet, but he hasn’t sent me that yet, either! I’ll share when I get it, though.

On the way out of the park, my sister noticed this cool waterfall:

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/3water.jpg

Cool!

We decided to go over to Disney Quest for the evening- this was a big one on Jesse’s to do list! There was no direct bus from AK to Downtown Disney, so we decided to take the bus to Pop for a quick break first. I was totally worn out (SO not a commando Disney person!!!) but I decided to go to DQ anyway, since I never get to go with other people.

DQ was pretty crowded- we went down to the virtual reality ride area first, and had to wait about 10 minutes for the jungle cruise ride/game. It was interesting, but not a must-do. The lines for the other big attractions were pretty long, so we decided to split up and try them again later when the crowds weren’t quite so big.

Know the problem with splitting up when only one of you has a cell phone whose batteries aren’t dead? It is HARD to find the rest of your group again here!

DQ was open until 11, and we stayed until they kicked us out! Thelma did the Mickey drawing class, and really liked it! (I got there a minute too late, and there were no free seats left!), and she and Jesse made a coaster on CyberSpace Mountain, and bought the DVD of their ride. I played a lot of Ms Pac Man, and then spent a little time on the internet up in the Wonderland Café. (Did I mention that the only internet access Pop Century offers is dial-up? Unfair!)

I was pretty much falling asleep by now (it was almost midnight, and I’d been up since 7:30!) so Thelma and Jesse went to Planet Hollywood for some food, and I walked zombie-like to the bus stop to go home!

The only bad thing about getting back to Pop? They had the sprinklers on over in the 50s section, and they were flooding the sidewalks- my jeans got soaked on the walk back to our room, and I was freeeeeezing!

I fell asleep pretty quickly, and barely even heard it when Thelma & Jesse got back. Mmmm, sleep!

Coming up in Day 4- Quite possibly the busiest day I’ve EVER had at WDW!

[a*lil*bit*goofy]

OMG i saw this picture:
http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/3funny.jpg

and thought omg that thing has a little thing growing out of his behind! LMAO then i read your caption saying how it was a funny picture... funny is right!

your positioning for the pic was perfect. LOLOL :rotfl2: :rotfl2:

[Sweedee]

not to be too picky or anything...but we have a houseful of people here waiting for your continuance! :surfweb: :wave2:

[MomofCKJ]

Really enjoying your report! Can't wait for the rest!

Allyson :)

[WDW Poly Princess]

Day 4

All of these super long days must be getting to me, because I slept in until 9:45 today! Amazing! Thelma and Jesse wanted to sleep even later, so I decided to go to Magic Kingdom and have breakfast from the Main Street bakery. On the way to the bus stop, I stopped at the front desk to ask for a printout of our room charges so far, so I could make sure we were still on budget- it only took them a second to print it out for me- very convenient! The bus line for MK was huge, so when a MGM bus pulled up, I decided to just go there and get some breakfast at Starring Rolls Bakery instead.

I had never been to Starring Rolls before, but I heard they had yummy things, so I wanted to check it out. I was thrilled to find that they had the good chocolate croissants! I picked one up, but then I saw the cheesecake! I couldn’t resist, so I got that, too. Hey, it’s vacation!

I took my food outside, and sat near the entrance of the Brown Derby to enjoy the sunshine!

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Breakfast of Champions! (There was no way I could eat all of this- I ended up sticking the croissant in my backpack for later!)

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Close-up of the yummy cheesecake

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The empty outdoor seating area of the Brown Derby. The CMs were just setting up the tables, since they’d be opening soon.

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I love how the building behind the Brown Derby is painted to look like sky!

I wasn’t really in the mood for MGM, so I decided that what I really wanted was to go visit the WL, so I took the bus from MGM over to my 2nd favorite resort, and was the only one on the bus! Always nice to have a private “limo” driving you around property!

I usually spend a LOT of time on my trips just hanging out at my resort, relaxing and enjoying the place. So I took this morning as a chance to catch up on some of that! I love the parks, but the peace of just hanging out by the fireplace at the WL nourishes my soul.

Some WL pics:

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My favorite sitting area at WL. There is no better place to relax in the world, as far as I’m concerned!

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I really want this watercolor painting!

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I wanted to stop by Roaring Forks and see how the construction was coming. They still had the left side closed down, but the right side (where you pick up food from the window, with the seating area) had been set up with some limited offerings. They actually had a lot more in there than I expected (including my beloved WL brownies, which I skipped since I’d just eaten cheesecake and had a croissant in my bag.)

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After some time relaxing at the Lodge, I was ready to go over to Magic Kingdom for a while. I really just wanted some time to wander around and take photos, and maybe ride the HM. I took the boat over to MK (LOVE the boat ride from WL to MK!), and spent about a half hour at MK just wandering around.

I decided to go hang out on the Polynesian beach for a while again, so I took the monorail over (so far today I’ve taken the bus, boat, AND monorail!). As we passed through the Contemporary, I noticed that they had part of it sealed off. Strange!

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Back at the Poly!

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While I was sitting on the beach, I noticed that my water bottle left a flower-shaped imprint in the sand!

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[WDW Poly Princess]

After my relaxing time on the Polynesian beach, I decided to walk over and check out the Wedding Pavilion. I’ve seen it from far away, but never had a chance to go see it up close. Luckily, there were no weddings going on today, so I got to take my time and wander around.

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I don’t know if you can usually get inside to look around, or if I just got lucky since they were painting today! They had a big fan set up in the chapel, probably to dry paint, and some various other equipment scattered around.

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It’s hard to tell from the photos, but the pavilion is SO pretty! I was ready to go find some random stranger to marry!

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Think the guy painting is available?

The other building of the wedding pavilion is where they do the planning, and you can only get in with an appointment, but that doesn’t mean you can’t peek in the windows!

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One of the cool cakes inside the building.

My sister *finally* called me around 1:30 to tell me that they were awake now, and we made plans to meet up at MGM while Jesse went back to Blizzard beach, and I walked over to the Grand Floridian to catch the bus.

Let’s review, shall we? While my family has been asleep, I’ve been to: MGM, Wilderness Lodge, MK, Polynesian, Wedding Pavilion, and GF!

I think the main problem we had on this trip is that we’ve got different ways of doing things- I like to get up early, hit the parks, and spend the afternoon relaxing, and they like to sleep in, and then stay out late. This ended up with me already being pretty tired by the time they woke up each day, which made it hard when they wanted me to stay out with them till the parks closed, and I was worn out and grumpy! Add that to the difference in mentalities (“This is our first trip, and we want to see everything!” vs. “Yeah, I’ve done that before, leave me here with my brownie and my view of the lagoon!”), and I’m surprised that we didn’t kill each other!

I met my sister at the MGM entrance, and we went over to ride the Great Movie Ride, which I always love. I know there have been rumors of it being closed, but I wish that instead, they’d just update it a little. How great would it be to have a LOTR scene, maybe when they’re at the Council of Rivendell? A Star Wars scene would be really neat, too, even though the park already has Star Tours. And while I’m on the topic of additions, what if MGM added a ride like the GMR that was dedicated to TV? You could start back with I Love Lucy, move through Gilligan’s Island, to the Brady Bunch, ride through the coffee shop of Friends, past tribal council of Survivor, past Buffy and her friends hanging out in the Sunnydale library, and end up on Wisteria Lane, or maybe in the ER of Grey’s Anatomy. I’d ride it!

Oh, wait, was I writing a trip report? Sorry for the tangent!

We stopped in the ABC Commisary for my sister to get a drink, because the lines at the drink carts outside were like 20 people long! While she waited in line for her drink, I looked around. I’m not sure if the stuff on display here rotates, but right now it was Lost stuff. Here’s some Charlie stuff for you Lost fans!

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Our next stop was Millionare. If you haven’t been, they decide who gets to be in the hot seat next like this: The whole audience plays along during the game, and you get points for getting the right answer and more points the faster you get it. They check in every now and then to see who in the audience is leading, and when the current person is out, the audience member with the highest score gets to play next! So while the first person is playing, they check in on the audience scores when she hits 1000 points, and seat 174 is #1. Hey, I’m seat 174! Go me! Well, a while later, when she hits 32,000, they check again, and I’m still #1! Two questions later, the woman is out, and they check the scores again, but somehow I’ve dropped down to #2! Booooo! There goes my shot at a free Disney cruise!

Just after we got out of Millionare, Jesse called me to say he was on his way to MGM, but that his phone battery was almost dead. Unfortunatly, Thelma’s phone *was* dead. We somehow managed to meet up with him anyway, and decided to go see if we could get into Mama Melrose for lunch. They were totally booked up, and I was exhausted, so I suggested a few other places for them to eat, and I went back to Pop Century for a nap! We made plans to meet up later for the 2nd showing of Fantasmic, and I was off!

Here are some MGM photos in no particular order:

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Stitch was determined to be on this trip with us!

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I like that I caught this at just the right second so that the guy on the left looks like he’s wearing those flowers on his head.

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They were doing some major refurbishing on NY Street!

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I’d never noticed this before! A staircase on NY Street, supposedly leading down to the subway! (It actually goes nowhere.)

I took the bus back to Pop (after waiting about 40 minutes for it! Yeesh! They always know when I’m sleepy!) I spent some time just laying around reading, and a while later, just as I was starting to fall asleep, my phone rang- it was my sister calling to say that there was only one Fantasmic tonight, and it was at 7:30. It was already about 6, so chances are I wouldn’t make it over in time to get a good seat, so I told them to go on without me, and reminded them that they needed to get there about an hour early to get a good seat, since the parks were so busy. They called a little while later, waking me up from my nap, and said they were eating dinner at Hollywood & Vine. I glanced at the clock- it was 7:30. “Um, what time is Fantasmic again?” I asked them. “7:30” “But it’s 7:30 now, and you’re still eating?” Yup. They missed Fantasmic! Crazy kids! I checked the schedule on TV, and said that we could still make Wishes at 10:00, so we made plans to meet back up at MK for that, and I went back to my nap!

I really was tempted to just stay asleep, but I wanted to be with my family when they saw Wishes for the first time (and to make sure they didn’t miss it! They were now 0 for 2 of the shows they’d tried to go to!) I somehow made it to MK in time!

One quick castle photo before Wishes starts-

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And now a few Wishes photos:

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Yeah, I realize that this is probably the best Disney photo ever taken.

We had about an hour before Spectro, so Jesse & I decided to ride Haunted Mansion while Thelma did some shopping. The timing worked out perfectly, and we met up afterwards to watch the parade from in front of the Hall of Presidents.

I entertained myself by watching the cute Haunted Mansion CM who was working “crowd control” for the parade (if you can call it that- it was the 2nd Spectro of the night, so there were about 5 people around.) As if just being a cute HM CM wasn’t enough, he started waltzing down the street with another CM to the Spectro music as the parade approached, which means that I’ll probably have to marry him now. Cute HM CM, whoever you are, call me!

[WDW Poly Princess]

I can never get good photos of Spectro, so you only get two!

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http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/4spectro2.jpg

After the parade ended, we took our time wandering down Main Street, exploring the shops. That led to this lovely photo of Jesse in princess hat.

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/4jeshat.jpg

Now that’s quality entertainment!

We got out of the park around midnight, and went back to Pop for some much needed sleep!

Coming up in Day 5- A whole day at Epcot, and some good old fashioned Kungaloosh!

[roberrl187]

Great photos of WL. I loved them. Thanks for sharing. :thumbsup2

[heaven2dc]

Enjoying your report (great again as always :thumbsup2 ). I can empathize with you regarding "family" trips - I'm the one getting up early and see what I can at a leisurely pace until my afternoon nap, then if my feet hold up, hit the parks again in the evening. I've only been once but during the 10 days we were there with "family" it was frustrating waiting for people to get up (and I'm not asking them to be up at 6 a.m, 8 or even 9 would be fine but noon???!!! :furious: ) This is why I need a solo trip :rolleyes:

I think from your earlier trip report with your friend you looked much happier - just a thought :smooth:

[Joann]

Love your trip reports!! You now know 4 more ppl who love MGM , it is my families favorite park. Every time we go the day we arrive, we drop our luggage in the room and off to MGM we go. Animal kingdom is my second favorite park aswell as my daughters as we are BIG animal lovers... shows as we own 13 animals from 2 dogs a chinchilla a frog a guinnie pig( sp?) and 8 parrots, 1 of them being an endangered one in the wild. can't wait for more!

[a*lil*bit*goofy]

can u please share your technique for such awesome pics of the fireworks at the castle? flash on or off (ok so i am a dolt what can i say) tripod? did u set camera to 'fireworks' or what? thanks!

[fizz13]

Hi Crystal :wave:
Spectacular work once again girl, yes that trippie castle photo is very cool :thumbsup2 . Can't imagine how frustrating it must have been for you with your opposing touring methods, but props to you for doing what you wanted anyway, otherwise you would have been a very unhappy bunny (was that a meerkat? :teeth: )
Anyway, keep up the good work as always, your loyal reader,
Claire xx

[Belle Amy]

I'm one of those three people whos favorite park is Epcot...What can I say, I'm addicted to Star Wars and Millionaire...

I think the TV version of the GMR is a fantastic idea...of course I'm a bit (and by bit I mean extremely) partial to Buffy...what a great idea...

Looking forward to more pics and more report!!

[WDW Poly Princess]

can u please share your technique for such awesome pics of the fireworks at the castle? flash on or off (ok so i am a dolt what can i say) tripod? did u set camera to 'fireworks' or what? thanks!

No flash for fireworks photos, and no tripod, but I think I may have balanced the camera on Jesse's head once or twice. ;)

I pretty much point the thing in the general direction of the castle, and click a few zillion times. Out of eight gazillion photos, a few will turn out. I'm sure someone else has a much more scientific method, though! :goodvibes

[casey49781]

what a great report

[WDW Poly Princess]

You people read too fast! It means I have to keep typing! ;)

(Fizz gets bonus points for a reply including a meerkat joke.)

Day 5

Somewhere around the 5th day of a Disney trip, it all starts to catch up with you. Your feet are tired, you’re lacking sleep, and suddenly, that bed in your hotel room seems so much better than any theme park could ever be. If you’re on a longer trip, you can just call it a lazy day, and spend it hanging out by the pool, ordering room service, and just catching up on your lazing about. However, when you’re on a short trip and Day 5 means you’re going home tomorrow, you sleep in a little, suck it up, and go to Epcot.

Well, sort of. If you’re me, you sleep in a little. If you’re my sister, you sleep in till 2pm.

I slept in till around 11:30, did my quiet getting ready dance, and slipped out of the room, on my way to Epcot for some quality Epcotting time.

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5pop2.jpg

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5pop1.jpg

I forgot to mention it, but yesterday as I was walking up to the bus stop, I saw them cleaning the yoyo staircase by using a big firehose to shoot water through each hole in the yoyo! I bet birds like to build nests there!

A quick bus ride later, I was back at Epcot. I did some browsing around in the Art of Disney store, rode Figment, and then set off for one more trip around the World Showcase.

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5epcot.jpg

A cool epcot painting in the art store

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5figment1.jpg

Figment’s house

I’ve written about that crazy showcase of countries so many times, I can’t think of anything new to say, so here are some pictures instead!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5canbird.jpg

Apparently this bird is a huge Off Kilter fan- he’s waiting around for the next show.

I always feel kind of bad for the kids in France that see the “arcade” sign and think it actually means arcade.

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5arcade.jpg

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5italy.jpg

Italy

In Japan, I decided that a rainbow kaki gori sounded really, really good. I sat out by the walkway, watching people walk by while I ate, and everyone kept stopping to ask where I got it. I mostly did the “my mouth is full of yummy ice” point to the stand right behind me. Disney owes me a free one for the advertising I did!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5kakigori.jpg

While I was eating, my phone rang- my sister and Jesse were finally awake, and on their way into the park. I decided to just hang out there until they made it over to Japan.

When they arrived, I raved about how good the kaki goris were, so Jesse had to buy one. Of course, I had to steal a few bites, as did my sister, which led to Jesse running away with it in self defense. (Kind of how leopards will drag their kill up into a tree so that the other leopards won’t try to steal it.) So, the only obvious solution was for me to buy another one, which I kind of shared with my sister (I resisted the urge to climb a tree with it, but it was tempting. You gotta protect the snow cone!)

Okay, more World Showcase through photos!

Japan:

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5japan2.jpg

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5japan3.jpg

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5teacups.jpg

Kitty teacups! I wish I’d bought one!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5mix.jpg

Just how crazy do you want your snack mix?

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5japan.jpg

And if Crazy Mix isn’t crazy enough, how about this one, which appears to include tiny whole fish?

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5candy2.jpg

Hi, milk!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5candy1.jpg

Nothing like a good bar of Crunky!

Some Germany train photos

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5train.jpg

The giant lizard is attacking this farm!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5train2.jpg

And look who’s in the window!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5germany.jpg

We stopped in France to pick up some food from the Boulangerie Patisserie. I love this place SO much!!!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5francelunch.jpg

Jesse and Thelma got ham and cheese croissants, and I got the cheese plate. Oh man, the cheese plate is awesome! You get three big pieces of cheese (one was brie, not sure what the others were), grapes, a baguette, and some sort of green things (I am anti-salad, so I wouldn’t know). SO yummy! Jesse had cheesecake for dessert, and Thelma had a giant crème puff. I, amazingly, had nothing!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5rue.jpg

The Boulangerie is on “La Petite Rue”- “The small street”. Cute!

More of Day 5 coming soon!

[WDW Poly Princess]

Oh no, I killed my own thread! :rotfl2: ;)

Tomorrow I plan to spend the day eating cadbury eggs, but Day 5 Part 2 should be up on Monday!

[a*lil*bit*goofy]

enjoy the eggs, and i will watch for your report tomorrow!

[dgaston]

No cadbury eggs for me (got boxes for DS25, DD22, and DD17) and really LOVED reading this trip report!

[WDW Poly Princess]

Over in the UK, we were just in time to catch the British Invasion’s show! I have a lovely video of us all singing along to Yellow Submarine, but to spare your eardrums, I’ll offer these photos instead:

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5beatles1.jpg

Apparently, Ringo hates me.

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5beatles2.jpg

Now Ringo wants to punch the camera, and John is tired of pictures.

And more WS:

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5china.jpg

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5sombrero.jpg

Before we left home, my mom made me promise to get a video of Thelma & Jesse trying Beverly for the first time. On our way out of the park, we stopped at Club Cool for their first Beverly experienced, but it was already closed at 7pm. Drat! We made plans to comeback first thing tomorrow to capture the experience.

…and now, Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s time for a Cameo Guest Appearance by Katie, who you are all quite familiar with if you read the last report. After we left Epcot, Thelma & Jesse went to Disney Quest again, while I made plans to meet Katie at Pop so we could go out to the Adventurer’s Club. After a phone call to give her um.. interesting… directions (No, you want to park near the bowling pin…), so made it, and we were off!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5kt80s.jpg

Katie in front of “Our Childhood in a Box” in the Pop lobby

What is there to say about the AC? Let’s let the photos speak for themselves again!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5ac6.jpg

My favorite part of this photo is the woman standing under the Colonel looking a bit tired.

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5ac4.jpg

Katie with some random Adventurers getting down on the bar behind her.

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5ac5.jpg

Hathaway Brown can play tambourine and drink a martini at the same time! That’s the sign of a true adventurer.

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5ac1.jpg

Rhythm Ritual (Note Fletcher’s lovely shell bra.)

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5ac2.jpg

More AC fun

The night included Katie getting rather up close and personal with Fletcher Hodges when he stood on the chair right in front of her, as well as an amusing photo of me that Katie took when Emil Bleehall was dancing with his bootie right in front of me. Another regular night at the AC!

The club seemed to close early tonight, and we aren’t sure why, but there weren’t many shows, and we were being kicked out before we knew it! Oh well, we’re getting old anyway. At least I got back to the room later than my family one night of the trip!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5vending.jpg

Hey look, you can even get alcohol from the vending machines here!
(Um, that was a joke, kids.)

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5lights.jpg

Katie took this photo of the lights in the sky. Trust me, after a few Kungalooshes, they really are very interesting!

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/5pibus.jpg

Caution: Your friends may look a bit blurry after a night at PI.

Just one more day to go, and it isn’t even a full day! Will we actually make it home?

[lauren_elizabeth]

If only alcohol really did come out of vending machines! :woohoo:

[FigmentKid]

Where did you go? I need closure!

[WDW Poly Princess]

Eep! I just realized that I never posted day 6! Luckily I already wrote most of it, so I didn't have much writing to do today :)

Day 6

Well, this is it. If I can just make it through today, I will have officially survived nearly a week of vacation with my sister and nephew, sharing very close quarters. :crowded:

They should award medals for this kind of stuff!

For the morning of Day 6, everyone actually got out of bed, because we had a mission! We had to get to Ice Station Cool, and then pack in as much Disney goodness as we could before it was time to leave!

Being a total nerd, I had packed up my stuff after coming home from the AC last night. Thank goodness! We all went down to get breakfast one last time, and I was a little sad that I wouldn’t be forking over my money to Mabel every morning anymore.

Back in the room, I ate while they packed and ate, and before long, we were ready to drop our bags off for the resort to hold while we went to Epcot.

Club Cool (You’ll always be Ice Station Cool to me!) was already open when we got there, so that was stop #1! A cup of Beverly for everyone- welcome to the club, newbies! :rotfl:

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/6beverly.jpg

( I just discovered this smiley by the way :clown: . How freaking creepy is that?)

Today is unfortunately a very short park day. Our Magical Express bus will be picking us up at Pop at 4pm, and we didn’t get to Epcot until about noon. Time is of the essence! Must cram ever last bit of Disney magic into this time!

So, of course, given our limited time, my sister wants to get in some last minute shopping. Stupidly, I show her Mouse Gears. After she’s browsed for ten minutes, Jesse and I go sit outside and people watch. Half an hour later, we go in the shop to tell her we’re going to go somewhere else while she shops. Luckily, she has decided on what she wants, so we just have to wait for her to pay. Forty five minutes after showing her the shop, we’re on our way to Mission Space so Jesse can ride one more time. I don’t think I need to say much about how we felt about spending 45 minutes of our last 4 park hours waiting for her to pick out a t-shirt!

Mission Space luckily only had a ten minute wait, so Jesse went to ride. (There’s no way you can get me on that ride- that’s probably the only thing at WDW that I flat out will not ride!), so Thelma and I got in line to get pictures with space Mickey and Goofy. Thelma had seen Mickey at the character area earlier, and had freaked out when we hadn’t stopped, but now was the perfect time for pictures- hardly any line, and we had ten minutes to kill, anyway! (Plus, Mickey in Costume = extra fun!)

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/6mickgoof.jpg

(I solemly swear to NEVER forget to take makeup to Disney ever again!)

Okay, is it just me, or does Goofy always flirt with you ladies? Every goofy ever! (Err, not that there’s more than one.) My second trip to Disney is the first time I got character pictures- on an e-ride nite at MK, and that Goofy sat next to me at the hub and put his legs across my lap. Today, Goofy motioned for me to call him as I left. How do you look up Goofy in the phone book?

After our pictures, Thelma found this Hidden Mickey in the pavement outside of Space:

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/6hiddenmick.jpg

We went in to the gift shop to kill some time until Jesse got out, and even found the place to send video postcards! (If you don’t ride MS, you can still go in through the gift shop and check out the neat interactive area at the end of the ride!)

This Stitch pin in the MS gift shop felt very appropriate today:

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/6stitchpin.jpg

With time starting to run low, as soon as Jesse was out, we stopped in Innoventions to send one last photo postcard home, and do some looking around.

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/6tunnel.jpg

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/6look.jpg

This sums up my Disney World philosophy!

Next we stopped at the character greeting area for a few more photos. There were no lines at all- it was great! We took a bunch of pictures, but I’ll just show the most important:

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/6figment.jpg

FIGMENT! I was singing his song while we waited for Jesse to snap the picture (…eyes big and yellow.. horns like a steer… but a loveable fellow!), but he didn’t really react. Apparently Figment isn’t a morning person, either!

Jesse still hadn’t been to Living Seas, so we decided that would be our last stop before heading back to the resort. On our way there, Thelma saw the DVC info booth and wanted to stop, so we left her there and went to say goodbye to the fishies!

After some looking around, I sat outside to wait for Thelma so Jesse could look around a while longer. While I was sitting outside waiting for my sister when these coral walked by.

http://www.lovemanythings.net/wdw06/6coral.jpg

The best part was the Australian man sitting on the bench next to me, who looked up from the book he was reading to comment, “Well. You don’t see THAT every day!”, and then went back to reading.

I have to admit that I was a little grumpy most of today, because we were having a difference in opinion about when to go home. I wanted to go ahead and drive home from St Louis tonight, which would put us back in Springfield around 2am, and me home around 4am. I always feel like once my vacation is over, I just want to get *home*, to my cats and my own bed. I wish I could just click my heels as soon as I pass under that “see ya real soon!” gate, and be transported back home instantly. My sister, on the other hand, was in anything but a hurry to get home. She wanted to spend tonight in St Louis, get up the next morning and go see the arch, maybe stop in a casino for a while, and then drive home. I pointed out that if we didn’t stay in StL tonight, we’d save the hotel money, which would mean more shopping at WDW, but even that didn’t do much for my case. We decided to see how we felt when we got to St Louis, and go from there.

We made it back to Pop with just enough time to get our bags out of storage and join the huge crowd waiting for Magical Express. Huge crowd. Giant crowd. Really, really big crowd.

A few minutes later, a bus pulls up, a bunch of people get on, and it’s full. Off they go, with promises that another bus has been called to come get the rest of us.

Now wait a sec. When you make ME reservations, you tell them what time you need to be back at the airport, and they tell you what time they’ll pick you up, right? So wouldn’t they know how many people to expect at Pop that day? So if you know you have X number of people to pick up at Pop at 4pm, wouldn’t you send enough busses?

Nope!

Twenty or so minutes later, another bus came, already half full of people- I guess a bus from another resort was sent our way. Luckily, the rest of us made it on, and we were off to the airport!

At the airport, Thelma and Jesse went to get food, but I had only one mission- the Lush store! They ate, I bought bath bombs. Everybody was happy. (Well, as happy as you can be when you’re going home!)

We ended up staying in St Louis that night, of course. By the time we got to St Louis, we were all pretty tired, and just weren’t up to dealing with renting a car and driving. We stayed in the same Days Inn as last time (two beds this time!), and drove home the next day. (My sister did manage to drag the 3 hour drive home out to about 7 hours, including a 45 minute Wal-Mart stop.)

However, before we were able to embark on that drive, we encountered a HUGE roadblock.

I hadn’t made rental car reservations, since we weren’t really sure if we’d be driving home yesterday or today. We did some calling around for the best price, and settled on going to the Avis office that was right across from our hotel. Well, everything is fine until the rental car agent tells me that since I’m paying by debit card, they will be charging me an extra $400 deposit, which will take up to two weeks to credit back to my account after we turn the car in.

You want to charge me a WHAT?

Um, I just went to Disney World. My bank account does NOT have an extra $400 in it! Actually, my bank account never has an extra $400 in it!

We decide to go on over to the airport and shop around at the rental car desks for a car. We stop at Every. Single. Desk. Nobody will rent on a debit card without a huge deposit! I try calling my mom to see if she can book us a car online, like I did the first time, but it’s really hard to talk someone through that on the phone, so I go off in search of somewhere in the airport with internet. I find a little office area where I can get 5 minutes for $5, so I do some of the speediest internetting ever (good thing that years of e-mailing and message boarding have brought my typing speed up to about a million words per minute!), but I’m not having any luck. When my 5 minutes is up, I give up, and decide to go suck up to the rental car people again.

Finally, a beautiful, lovely lady at the Hertz desk calls her manager for me, and they work it out where I can rent a car with just a $50 deposit instead of hundreds of dollars. I was pretty sure that I had an extra $50 in my account, so we promised to build a cult around the Hertz agent, building statues of her many stories high, and went to pick up our car. (It was some kind of Ford, totally not as cute as the Chrysler Anonymous.)

Anyway, the moral of the story- renting cars is evil! Either have a regular credit card to do it with, or lots of extra money in your bank account that you don’t need back any time soon if you want to use your debit card.

The Wrap Up:

First, let’s look back at the goals I posted for this trip back in the pretrip:

I will...
*Eat my weight in zebra domes
I did get my package of domes, so I think we can call this one a success.

*Try something from the Boulangerie Patisserie other than the chocolate mousse. (I need a Chocolate Mousse 12 step program or something!)
Another success! Got the cheese plate this time, and it was yummy!

*Remember that it is their first trip, and therefore be patient when they don't know/understand things (such as that we can not just walk on to Soarin at 6pm)
This one was hard! “No, we can’t just go walk on to Splash Mountain right now.” I think I did a pretty good job of being patient, though.

*Per request of my friend Tina, "eat an actual meal in a restaurant, not just pizza!"
Sorry, Tina! Wait, unless you count the aforementioned cheese plate? I’ll try again next trip!

*Search far and wide around WDW for a substitute for my beloved Wilderness Lodge brownies, since Roaring Forks will be closed (they make the best brownies there, with a ton of yummy frosting. But back off, they're mine!)
Funny enough, Forks DID have the brownies, even though they were only half open! Unfortunately I passed on getting one, since I’d just had cheesecake for breakfast, making this the first trip since 2001 with no WL brownies! (For the record, the Poly’s brownies do not compare!)

*Have the camera ready when they try their first sips of Beverly- We just read about this in Day 6!

*Try my best to share some of the history, the hidden details, and the magic, without turning into Tour Guide Barbie- The funny thing is that we all spent a lot less time together than I expected, so I didn’t get to show off too many of the little things. They did both end up as Hidden Mickey addicts, though!

I will not...
*get frustrated by the crowds
Failed miserably at this one. I don’t think I ever stopped complaining about them. But seriously, a LINE for the TTC??

*try to sell the clothes off my back/vital organs/the promise of my first born in order to bribe the staff at the Polynesian into giving me a room
Came very close to doing this once or twice, but I did in fact survive the whole trip not just having to live without resort hopping, but in a value resort! I am quite proud. (I will make up for this on the next trip by dividing it between WL, Polynesian, Swan, ASMu, PO-R, and AKL.)

*Eat corn on the steps of town hall
I resisted the urge.

*Punch out a dwarf
I don’t think I ever saw any!

*Hold a sit-in for emu rights in front of the turkey leg stand
Didn’t do that either!

*Stick a party hat on Lincoln at the Hall of Presidents.
I’m really a little sad that I didn’t do this. I haven’t even made it to H of P in a few years, which is sad since I’m one of the people who really like it!

What I Learned:

I am not cut out for going during busy times of year.

Renting a car is evil! If you must do it, be SURE you either have a regular credit card to charge it to, or several extra hundred dollars in your bank account that you won’t miss being gone for a few weeks!

If you do end up going during a busy time of year, Animal Kingdom is best seen on a nice cloudy morning with early extra magic hours.

The beds at Pop are really tiny.

Trips with family members seem to work best (at least for us!) if you all go do your own thing now and then. A lot of times my sister would sleep in, Jesse would go to the water park, and I’d hit a park before it got crowded. This worked out way better than being together 24 hours a day for almost a week!

Next trip? Solo in January! (And a short one after that for a Kentucky Derby party Katie and I are planning next May. We’re going to wear gigantic ugly hats, and you’re invited!)

Thanks for reading, and your patience while I finished up!

[Belle Amy]

Yay, closure! I thought maybe you got amnesia and forgot to finish. Glad to see that wasn't the case!

Are you sure you can't come down again before January? I don't want to wait that long for another trip report! You always entertain and I love that you take the time to see the details...that's my favorite thing about Disney!

And yes, this :clown: is creepy....is it an off color oompa loompa? or a clown? or an oompa loompa clown? It gives me the willies.

[FigmentKid]

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! FIGMENT!!! I'm so freakin' JEALOUS! I have never had such the honor.

Oh, and I always though this was an oompa loompa :clown:?

(I know I've commented on like a bazillion of your threads today, well 2, but seriously this is THE. slowest. day. at work. EVER.)

[WDW Poly Princess]

I would looooove to go for Halloween, but since I have yet to make $3600 on a Disney trip ;) I'm probably stuck until at least January. Gotta get in that second trip on the same AP!

Unless someone wants to let me stoway on their trip! I'm very easy to care for- a pizza here, a brownie there, and all I ask is that I don't have to share a bed at Pop! :rotfl:

[lauren_elizabeth]

I would looooove to go for Halloween, but since I have yet to make $3600 on a Disney trip ;) I'm probably stuck until at least January. Gotta get in that second trip on the same AP!

Unless someone wants to let me stoway on their trip! I'm very easy to care for- a pizza here, a brownie there, and all I ask is that I don't have to share a bed at Pop! :rotfl:

What days are you going in January? I've been planning to take my first solo trip to Disney this coming January :banana:

[Simba22]

I read your last TR and I love this one too! Present for you:
http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i287/TrueBlue2282/Malayantapir.jpg = Malayan Tapir...I think you asked about this guy on your TR from December too....Star Wars Nerd meet Animal Nerd (that would be me :rotfl: )

The giant version of Stitch that followed you to WDW is the same one that followed me home from my May trip! I love him! And he was UBER comfy to pass out on on the plane ride home!

Your safari video and your pictures are awesome. I LOVE that picture of the Tree of Life with the little lake in front...I am convinced to find that spot on my December trip!