Maine-iacs 2007 - Now with even more pictures - Updated 09/22/07

[snowman]

Prologue

Cast:
Michelle (me) – AKA Tia – Celebrating my 40th birthday at the House of Mouse
Darla – my DSO – 34 -Princess Diva
Carl – DNephew – 13 - making his 3rd trip to Disney
Dustin – DAdoptedNephew – 14 – making his very 1st trip to the World.

Dates – August 26, 2007 – September 7, 2007

Location – Wilderness Lodge

Pre-trip prep:
We had booked this trip using Dreams Unlimited Travel just after Christmas, 2006, so prep has been going on for a long time. With the help of several talented people on the Creative Disboard I made matching name t-shirts for us for the trip. Using the Budget Board Freebies Threads I procured free laundry detergent, toothpaste, etc – in short, all those useful odds and ends that you always need when you travel. Thank you to posters on both of those boards, you all helped make our trip the great success that it was.

I also started frequenting the Disboard again after a nearly 4 year absence to learn what was new and to ask questions, get ideas, etc. Again, if it wasn’t for all the helpful people out there, this trip would have been a lot less satisfying.

A big thanks goes to our DUT agent, Sue Ellen. Our resort changed 4 times. I booked PO-FQ originally, but really wanted Wilderness Lodge. Once I got the girlfriend on board with that I needed to make that change. Then the free food special came out, but nothing was available at the time at WL, but Sue Ellen was able to get us the food package at the Contemporary. A few weeks later there was availability at the WL with free food and she was able to move us back to what was really my first choice of resorts. She was also able to secure a table at Cinderella’s Breakfast and Artist Point, both at less than 90 days out. If you are waffling on whether to use Dreams Unlimited or not, I say definitely use them. This was our 3rd time using them, dating back to 2000, shortly after they started. I’m working on plans for our next trip for Dec, 2008 and will definitely be using them for that trip.

2 weeks before we left I placed an order with Garden Grocer to have cereal, milk and water delivered to the resort on our arrival day. $60.00 later, it was delivered as promised, in good condition. They were a great company to deal with if you want food/water for your room. (And I wouldn’t have known about them if it wasn’t for the Disboard).

Next up - Let's get this party started.

[snowman]

Our flight out of Maine leaves the airport at 6:30am, so it’s a 3:30 wakeup for us. Fortunately its only a ½ hour drive to the airport and it’s a small airport, so we don’t need to be there 3 hours in advance. We get there about 4:45, check the bags in and grab some breakfast before going thru the boarding screening. By 5:30 we are sitting in the holding area waiting to get on the plane. Oh my word this plane is horrible. Its is a CRJ-7, one of the little jets Comair and the like fly, though this one is a Southeastern Airline (or something like that). Anyway, it’s a 50 seat plane in a 70 seat configuration and it is packed. But, most importantly, we get under way on time on our way to Atlanta. 3 hours later we touch down and drive around the tarmac in Atlanta because the gate we were supposed to be going into was still occupied. No worries, we have 45 minutes to get to our next gate. The Atlanta airport has an underground tunnel between terminals, but the train was not working, so we walked from C to A. No big deal, they have the moving sidewalks and good signage and we make it in plenty of time. Our flight from Atlanta to Orlando leaves on time and is much less crowded, having a large number of empty seats. We land in Orlando at 1201, 1 minute ahead of schedule. Woohoo! We’ll get there a minute early. LOL

Our next stop was Disney’s Magical Express. Once we got down to ground level and walked (forever) to the DME counter, I stood in the queue line for about 20 minutes. There was a CM directing people, “One person from each reservation wait in line, everybody have a seat please”. The CMs were all pleasant and helpful about directing you were to go next. Once we were in line for the bus to our resort it was about another 15 minute wait. They were running what appeared to be every bus they had available. There were DME busses, Mears busses and Disney Cruise Line busses all running. We didn’t get the airport to resort video as the DVD in our bus was broken. Our bus made stops at the Poly, the Grand Floridian and Wilderness Lodge. All told, from arrival at the airport to our arrival at the resort it was about 2 hours.

We probably won’t use this service again. Even before we saw the sign in queue we were saying how much we missed seeing the driver with our name when we came down to baggage claim. Next time we will probably simply hire a driver like we had done for all of our past trips. Its great for what you pay (nothing) and is probably a lot quicker during less busy times of the year. We simply discovered that we like the individual attention of having a driver just for us.

Our arrival at WL was exciting though. I was amazed at how big everything was. When we got off the bus and made our way thru the big doors into the lobby for the first time it was jaw-dropping :faint:. We had watched the Travel Channel special w/ Samantha Brown so many times that this should have been no big deal. But. IT. IS. HUGE! However, it is also well marked, so I had no problem getting to the check in desk. We had no wait to get thru the check in procedure. While there was no availability for the Flag Family for our week, our room was ready. A stop at bell services has our groceries from Garden Grocer on their way up. We were in 3113, inside courtyard view with bunk beds. Awesome room, close to the lobby. Vacation has officially started. :banana:

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[snowman]

We settle in to our room and unpack our carry ons and just chill out a little before dinner. We have a supper ADR at Chef Mickey’s for 5pm and it is only about 2:30pm now, so we have a little time to chill. We go down to Roaring Forks to get our resort mugs and to split a cold sandwich. We have been up since 3:30am with nothing much more substantial than crackers and peanut butter. Both boys are ready to chew their own arms off if we don’t feed them soon. But, with dinner at 5pm, there is no need for a big dinner. We get 2 sandwiches and split them between the 4 of us. Ah, just right – a little nosh before supper in 2 ½ hours.
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After Roaring Forks we go back up to the room to drop off our mugs and to get the bag for the evening. We had agreed to only take the camera bag to the parks with us, so we repack the camera bag to have just the necessities – park passes, $20.00 in cash and the boys gift cards…oh yea, and the camera. We make our way down to the boat launch to get the Blue flag boat that goes between WL, Fort Wilderness and the Contemporary. It’s a lovely ride as we are heading to FW before the Cont. Its about 20-30 minutes total travel. Its probably not the speediest way to go, but certainly delightful by itself. From the landing at the Contemporary we make our way to the 4th floor to Chef Mickey’s. We check in at 4:45pm, they don’t open til 5pm. We are given our pager and directed to the picture line. From there we head to the sofa to wait for our pager. A family that was on the boat with us and was just ahead of us in line was chosen to open the restaurant. I’m sure their little boys got a great thrill out of that.

We were seated just a little after 5pm. Our waiter took our drink order and the boys went up to get food. While they were gone Minnie Mouse came by our table. Darla and I both got up to get our Minnie picture. Then she continued on her way. Shortly after she had been by the table the boys came back with their food. Minnie saw them and stopped by again so they could have their picture with her too. While I was at the buffet line Mickey came by. Darla took the boys picture with him, but I missed him. Next it was Goofy and then Pluto. Each stopped for pictures, even waiting for both adults to get out from the back of the table so everybody had a chance to be in a picture. Goofy was playing with Dustin by snagging his sunglasses and putting them on himself. Donald didn’t come around the tables, instead he held court in the inside lobby. Our waiter let us know that if we wanted to get his picture we should do it now because he was going to be leaving in a few minutes, so of course we went for that picture too.
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Next Stop – The Magic Kingdom Evening Extra Magic Hours

[snowman]

By the time we get done eating at Chef Mickey’s a check out the window tells us it is pouring. Since we are all wearing our white travel day t-shirts, a quick stop in the store at the Contemporary is in order. Adult Pooh-sized women + white t-shirts + rain = unpleasant experience for all. LOL $26.00 later we are on the monorail on our way to the Magic Kingdom.

Its still pouring when we get to the Magic Kingdom. But who cares? We are at Walt Disney World and we are gonna do some rides and have a great time! Well, its so dang hot and humid that I am sweating buckets in my rain poncho, so a detour into the first t-shirt shop on Main St is in order. $50.00 down and Darla and I are both in colored t-shirts, the white ones safely covered up and the rain ponchos in a store bag. Now the touring can really begin.

We hang a left at Casey’s and make our way in to Adventureland. Usually we go to Fantasyland first, so we decide to change things up and hit Adventureland first. I try to talk the boys into doing Aladdin’s Magic Carpet ride, but Carl isn’t thrilled with riding a flying carpet in a thunder storm. Geesh – chicken! We duck in and out of stores trying to find visors or bucket hats because Carl and I can’t stand rain on our glasses – no avail. But guess who we do find! Genie is holding court in a sheltered alcove near the Magic Carpets and there is No line! This is Dustin’s favorite character so we just have to get the picture. Genie takes the time to show them how he wants them to pose and I get a great shot. The verdict on that is “Genie’s Da Man!”.
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After getting our EMH wristbands we walk on to Pirates of the Caribbean – no wait! WooHoo! Our first real ride this trip. Dustin loves it and says it was the perfect first Disney ride. We like it so well that we get off and walk on again. The addition of Davy Jones is very cool. Also, the additions of Captains Barbossa and Jack Sparrow take nothing away from the story or the feeling of the ride. Its as if they have always been a part of the show.

From here we head to Splash Mountain. The Standby time claims to be 20 minutes with no Fastpasses available. I lose the argument for going to do something else until the line drops down a little so we spend about ½ hour getting on to this ride. As always, it is a great time. Dustin and Carl sit in front, while Darla and I are right behind them. We usually get a little wet on this ride…this time we got soaked. I don’t know if it was the extra water in the ride system from the torrential downpours or what, but we were drenched by the time we were done. And we loved every minute of it.

We go from here over to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. The standby time says its about 10 minutes. Well, if it was that long its just because it takes that long to walk the queue. We rode this twice in a row. I had only ridden during the day previously. Its true that it looks a lot different at night. I screamed myself hoarse on this one.

From here it was back to Splash Mountain for a walk on ride. The view of the castle was great from the top of the ride. We didn’t get quite as wet as we did the first time and everybody managed to keep their eyes open so we opt to buy the picture. While Darla and I do that we let the boys go thru the line again. By then it was back up to about a 20 minute wait. When they were done we said goodbye to Frontierland and headed to Liberty Square.

By this time I was hot and tired of being wet, so we made 20 minute pit stop at the Hall of Presidents. It was cool and comfortable (and dry), but not real exciting to teenage boys. By 10pm we were on our way to Tomorrowland.
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What to do first in Tomorrowland? Space Mountain has a 40 minute wait with no Fastpasses. Buzz Lightyear is a 20 minute wait with Fastpasses available. Astro Orbiter is a 20 minute wait. Stitch isn’t even considered. The verdict? Darla and the boys were going on Space Mountain while I rode the bench. Space Mountain was the favorite ride of the night. I’m not a big fan of Space Mountain because of the climb to get out of it. I’m “vertically challenged and horizontally enhanced” (A short Pooh sized person). Besides the fact that I’m afraid we will derail if I go on the ride, I look like an Oompa-Loompa trying to get out of it. Don’t ask me why I didn’t go get a Buzz Fastpass. I have no idea why I didn’t.
This is what I did instead:
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But when the family comes off the ride an hour later we head over to Buzz. Its about a 15 minute wait to get on (because no, I still didn’t get Fastpasses). It was fun, though not as fun as I remember it from last time. I’m sure that is not a change in the ride, just the fatigue of being up for the past 21 hours setting in.
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After Buzz the boys want to do Space Mountain one more time before we head to bed. So this time Darla and I both bench jockey and wait for them. They are out about 11:45pm. This day has gone on forever, so we head out of the park to the boat that will take us home to rest.
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On the boat ride back to WL it occurs to me that we have no idea if all our luggage made it to Disney with us or if Delta sent it on a separate trip of its own. We are soaking wet and want nothing more than to put on dry clothes. Arrival in our room puts our fears to rest, as does quick showers and clothes changes for our bodies.

Tomorrow we are sleeping in and then heading out to World Showcase.

[KimAshton]

Love this TR Cannot wait to read more.

[snowman]

Since it was after 1am by the time we got to bed last night, we decide against a wake up call this morning. We are heading over to World Showcase today. We have breakfast in the room (what kind of cold cereal interest you?) before moseying down to the bus for Epcot.

A short bus ride later we can see Spaceship Earth in all its Giant Golf Ball glory. Its already hot when we pass thru the gates. But before we can go anywhere, Tia wants to do the Photopass Pictures. And of course the first girl we see can’t get the pictures to scan on our brand new card, so she takes us to the other guy. We get our pictures and venture thru the graveyard also known as Leave a Legacy.
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Our planned first stop is Club Cool just for the Beverly. Dustin has never been here, so we tell him its “the best tasting soda in the world!”. No dummy that boy. He knows we are fibbing to him but gamely tries it anyway. The verdict? It tastes like Moxie (a Maine soda). The Beverly is not deemed the worst tasting soda. That honor goes to the fruit one from Costa Rica which Carl declares tastes like lipstick. I declined to ask him how he knows what lipstick tastes like. 2 Frozen Cokes later we are on our way to Mouse Gear because I still need a hat or my face will burn to a crisp. I spend $20.00 on an Epcot Visor, Carl picks up a Goofy face hat for himself while Dustin fancies a cowboy hat. Let the journey around the world begin.

We decide on clockwise, so Mexico is our first stop. The boys have a photo scavenger hunt to work on and Dustin’s first clue requires him to get his picture modeling a sombrero. Except he calls it a Senorita – so, for the rest of the trip Sombrero becomes our code word for girls. Okay, so it was funny to us at the time.
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We had lunch at San Angel Inn (no ADR, no wait). After lunch we enjoyed the Gran Fiesta Tour with Donald and friends. This was where Carl had to photograph the Skeleton Musicians for his part of the scavenger hunt. It was a nice little trip. We had only been on the old version once, so we really don’t have anything to compare it to. This one was fine by us.
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After Mexico it was on to Norway with Carl needing a picture of the big Troll and Dustin looking for a Viking wearing mouse ears that used to be in the queue for the Maelstrom. Unfortunately that picture was nowhere to be seen. However, the Maelstrom was a pretty short wait so we enjoyed the ride anyway. It was the biggest thrill of the day (besides food).
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Next stop in our World tour is China. Carl’s clue involves a Chinese hat, while Dustin’s takes us into the Tomb Warrior Exhibit. This was my third time around World Showcase and the first time that I ever went in to any of the buildings in China. It is a lovely pavilion. We did a little window shopping in the very large store towards the back. While in the store I noticed Mushu posing for pictures so Carl and I headed his way. There were only a couple of people ahead of us. This is a picture Carl has gotten on each trip. His comment this time was “I’ll finally be taller than Mushu”. I took a couple of pictures with Carl and Mushu before getting Dustin in there for a couple more. Then we were off to Germany.
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In Germany Dustin was looking for the Christmas tree with pickle ornaments on it, while Carl’s took him thru the Train Village to find a hidden Mickey. Darla checked out Der Teddybar Shop while I enjoyed the courtyard. Again, like with China, I realized there were plenty of things I never noticed here, like the big statue in the middle with St. George and the Dragon. How I missed it in the past I don’t know. Slowing down to do the photo hunt helped me get more out of World Showcase, even if the boys didn’t. A nice cold bottle of water each and we were ready to see Italy.
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Italy doesn’t really thrill me a whole lot (sorry fans). The shops are (or at least on our trip) crowded, expensive and just not to my taste. However, the architecture is lovely to see. Carl found the Neptune Fountain that was his clue, bringing us towards the back part of the pavilion. I found a quiet and shaded table for us to sit at for a few minutes. I will give Italy this – it was not crowded in the rear courtyard. I think maybe a lot of people do what I have done in the past and not bother going beyond the up-front stores. Dustin’s clue involved masks, but since he couldn’t touch them, he picked his favorite and we photographed that. Darla was hoping to buy some nice wine, but since resort package delivery can’t be used for wine and she didn’t really want to carry it around with her she opted not to. And with that we were on our way to the American Pavilion.
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Since both boys are Boy Scouts and the Boy Scout slogan is “Do a good turn daily” in the American Pavilion their task was a little different. Each had 2 small Pooh Frisbees that they had to give away. The only thing we told them is that they would be better to approach the parents first, before giving it to the child. While they worked on that task, Darla and I sat in front of the American Adventure waiting for the 4pm show time. After a couple odd looks and puzzled thanks, both boys had completed their tasks and we headed in to enjoy the air conditioning inside the American Adventure building. Shortly after we sat down the Voices of Liberty a cappella group came in to perform. I had never heard them before and thought they were very good. If you have a chance to hear them they are definitely worth the time. After their performance it was time to be lead upstairs to the theater. There are no bad seats in this theater, it is true. Since it wasn’t full to capacity nobody went all the way to the end. We stopped one seat from the people before us (no need to crowd). This is always a good show. This is the 3rd time I have seen this show and the closing montage always moves me to tears. The boys were more impressed with the Audio-Animatronics than they were with the show itself. The two big hits were Will Rogers (I had told Dustin that the AA actually twirls the rope, it isn’t a mechanical rope) and Ben Franklin (“Tia, he climbed stairs and walked!”).

By the time we leave it is around 4:30pm and we have been at this since noon and its hot and we are getting tired and hungry. Nothing sounds much better than a burger and swimming pool. Plus the sky looks pretty scary (stormy that is) so we opt to abandon the scavenger hunt. We also decide to skip Japan all together (except for snagging a cool and fruity Kaki Gori). In Morocco Darla has to have a butt (or as we called it for the trip Cancer Candy) and the boys need to find a bathroom. This leaves me to take pictures of some of the lovely tile work. Everybody gets done at about the same time so we stroll over to France.
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Before we get full on into the France Pavilion I see a short line with my favorite Princess and her Beast holding court. I have tried for the last 8 years to get my picture with Belle and it has never come out well. Dang it, I’ve got Photopass and its gonna come out this time, so I get in line. (Yes, I know, I’m such a baby about things like this). Just as I get to the front of the line a woman carrying a little girl about 2 years old, with just a few tufts of hair and scars on her chest comes up to the handler and speaks to her. I only catch “Make a wish” and know that the little girl must be there as part of her wish. The handler apologizes to me for making me wait longer, but hey, its no problem. Whatever that tiny body has been thru so far deserves a little special treatment. Besides that, we have friends who will be there this winter with their little boy as his “Make a wish” wish and I hope whoever he goes in front of will understand as well. Belle and Beast were so sweet with the child and her family. The PP photographer takes lots of pictures of them before they continue on. Then its my turn – how anti-climatic after the M-A-W family, but still, Belle was very nice. I got my pictures (and yes, they came out this year) and we continued on our way. Darla wanted to go to the perfume shop, while I wanted the Pastry shop. Well, the boys wanted to watch the street performer. So, we split up. They watched the guy stacking chairs and climbing on top of them while Darla bought perfume and body lotion (and spent nearly $150.00 doing so). I found the 3 windows that went with Beauty and the Beast and took lousy pictures of them (reflections were horrible) while I waited for everybody else. We hit the pastry shop together, buying snacks for later. We see Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) in the gardens near the perfume store but since none of us are dying to have our picture taken with her we let all the little girls have her to themselves as we move on towards the United Kingdom (and more importantly for us, the front of the park).
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After we cross the bridge and enter the United Kingdom I head towards the back garden. I have never seen the hedge maze and really would like to. Who do we find back here but Mary Poppins strolling through on her way to cooler locations. We say hello to her and she responses back as Practically Perfect in Everyway as she is. We have been in these stores on previous trips (having started in Canada other times), so we skip by the shops. However, there is one photo op that I will not let pass. In the scavenger hunt, each boy was originally going to have to see how many people he could talk into getting into a phone booth for a picture. With the hunt abandoned, so is that task. However, I still want to get a picture of them in the phone booth. So, they both climb in to one and press their faces against the window. Darla holds the door shut like she won’t let them out. Ahhhh, great times. LOL
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We stroll into Canada knowing that we are almost done. Since we live in Maine, which some people believe is a part of Canada anyway, we only stop here long enough to stick our faces in the wall for yet another photo op.
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Woohoo – we have made it around the world in a day. We know we didn’t see everything, but we saw more than we have in other years so now its time to head out. But first – another stop in Club Cool to cool off and to see if the Beverly is really as bad as it seemed this morning. Was it? Yes indeedy it was.

4 sets of tired legs drag us out of the park to our bus stop where we just miss one bus so we pull up some lawn to wait for the next one. 20 minutes later we are on our way back to Wilderness Lodge. We have supper at Roaring Forks before hitting the arcade (the boys) and pool (Darla and I, the boys come down later). It’s a lovely way to relax after being on our feet all day. By 1030 we are all pretty tired, so its lights out as we rest up for MGM tomorrow – see ya then.

[Dixielady908]

Enjoying so far....looking forward to reading more....

Denise

[disneydreamer1970]

I am loving your trip report, and the pictures. Thank you for sharing!!

Trish

[disneydreamer1970]

Shhh....don't tell anyone but I just logged in from work to see if you had updated your TR and you have not....:lmao: I will try to wait patiently.

Have a great day!!

Trish

[Clutterbug]

Another Maine-iac here! Your travel day itinerary was so similar to what we have planned that it's eery. From departure/arrival time, to WL to Chef Mickey for dinner. Great minds think alike, I guess. I can only hope that our travels in December are as uneventful as yours were.

Great TR so far. I can't wait to read more!

[snowman]

Tuesday morning we got up by 8am (without a wake up call even ;) ) We have a 9:30 breakfast ADR for Whispering Canyon Café. But first, about 9:15am there is a knock on the door. Its room service with a birthday cake for me. :goodvibes My birthday isn’t actually until Saturday, Sept 1st, but this is cake day because we check out the day after my birthday and we won’t have time to eat this all in that one day.
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It is chocolatey goodness, but we don’t have time to eat it right now. However, Darla does light the candles and I am serenaded with a slightly off-key version of Happy Birthday.

After a fun breakfast at Whispering Canyon we decided just to hang out for a while. The original plan was to head to MGM after the 3pm parade and take advantage of the EMH that night. However, the boys were EXTREMELY anxious to do Rock n Roller Coaster so we relented and headed over around 1:00pm.

To say that was a mistake is a gross understatement. It was HOT!!! It was CROWDED!!! In short, this was really the worst of the park days we had. We decided to head towards Star Tours first. No problem, the Fastpass time is 2:45-3:35, about an hour from now. So we have to find something to do for an hour. Well, Muppet 3-D is packed – no surprise there, it’s the middle of the day. So, we go back to Tattooine Traders. Darla would like to do the Star Wars picture, like in the trip planning video.
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If you have never seen this, you pick a Star Wars scene and then, one at a time, you stand in front of a screen and they take your face and resize it until it will fit onto the body in the scene. Its really kinda neat how they do it. Well, I’m not a big Star Wars fan, so I let her and the boys do the picture. It is free to do, but expensive to buy. The 8 x 10 picture w/ a cheap plastic frame was $47.00. Darla says she definitely wouldn’t buy it again.

Anyway, this store is packed. Bodies are everywhere. So, we head back to the exit with another 45 minutes to go before our Fastpass time. Darla goes for a cigarette and I tell the boys they can get in the 40 minute Stand By line. BIG! MISTAKE! First of all, Darla busts a nutty because now we can’t go anywhere else. Second, they were at least 40 minutes, if not a bit more than that. On the bright side, we were able to see the parade (between rounds of bickering of course). As with all things, they do eventually come off the ride and find us and we all go thru the Fastpass line together. With Fastpass it’s a less than 10 minute wait. Star Tours is one of my favorite rides and is the very first ride I ever did at Disney, 8 years before on our first trip.

After Star Tours we make our way thru the sweltering day and massive crowd towards The Great Movie Ride. This is more of an attempt to find a place that is cool and has seats than anything else. Plus, it is on our way to Tower of Terror and Rock n Roller Coaster. The wait time is listed at about 20 minutes, but we know that the time to Air Conditioning is only about 5 minutes so we go for it.

TGMR is always fun, if not the most thrilling ride one can go on. And its little one friendly, with one caveat. The film of trailers that they show in a loop as you make your way thru the queue is very nice. However, there is one transition that, in my opinion, could be done better. You are watching lovely, happy scenes from Fantasia when suddenly you are watching pretty dark scenes from Alien. Not anything for me to make a big stink about, but something I noticed and thought people with small children might want to be aware of as well.

After TGMR we stop for cold drinks and to form our next game plan. That’s pretty easy – we are heading down to Tower of Terror.
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By now its probably near 5pm and believe it or not, there is hardly any wait time for ToT. Since Tia (me) doesn’t Tower, I send them thru and I hold all the stuff and park passes. This time I’m not as foolish as I was Sunday in Magic Kingdom. I get Fastpasses for ToT, with a return time of 5:30-6:30pm. Then I go in the back way to wait. This has to be one of my favorite places to wait for my happy family. If you go thru the store at ToT, all the way to the back, you end up at the ride exit. Its cool there. There are benches to sit on. There are the TV’s with the ride pictures on them. And the themeing continues here as well.
http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x262/msnowman_2007/IMG_1508.jpg
http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x262/msnowman_2007/IMG_1513.jpg (its a hidden mickey even)

I see the happy family picture come up on the screen just before I see them come down the walk way. The verdict? It was cool. Dustin says “Tia, I was the penny trick” and Darla says “Even I was the penny trick” :lmao: Okay, so here, take your Fastpasses and go again. Except that it is only 5:20 and the Fastpasses aren’t good for another 10 minutes. No problem – the family goes thru the ride again and then hits their Fastpass time by 5:40 or so. By 6:00pm they have been on Tower of Terror 3 times and are ready to move on to something else.
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(that’s them, in the matching dark blue t-shirts – shirt of the day).

That something else? Rock n Roller Coaster!
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Unfortunately there are no Fastpasses available for this ride. :sad2: The stand by time is about 30 minutes, the single rider line is about 10 minutes. So, we go thru the stand by line together.
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Since the line moves slow I take some pictures inside part of the queue
http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x262/msnowman_2007/IMG_1523.jpg (the ceiling inside the first air conditioned goodness)

Carl had told me that this year I HAD to keep my eyes open on this ride. I always close them because I am such a chicken. Well, I did pretty well. I actually saw most of the ride inside this time, though I still can’t keep them open on the launch. My only complaint about this ride? Its too short – though I have to say that it feels longer when your eyes are closed. LOL.

We all wanted to do this again. The Stand by line was still about 35 minutes and Singles was still about 10 minutes so we split up. Darla and I went together thru the Stand by line while Carl and Dustin hit the singles line. In the time it took us to get thru once, they went another 4 times. By 8:30pm we were all ready to get something to eat. (“Eat AFTER, not before”).

On the way out we stop at the entrance to the picture & frame shop right at the entrance end of the street. Carl says “Tia, I remember this place, I had a protein spill in their doorway last time”. Well yes honey, you certainly did. On our trip in 2003 Carl was sick the day we did MGM and we were on our way to the restroom when he made an abrupt deposit on the sidewalk. So lovely that he remembered the exact spot. Ahhhhh, those are the things that take you back – Good Times.

By the time we get to the resort I’m pretty grumpy – hot, tired, just over all in a miserable mood. It was nobody’s fault but my own, but there it is – I admit to being grumpy at Walt Disney World :mad: . So….at the resort, when I couldn’t do laundry because that was crowded too :headache:. I went back to my room and cried and just wallowed in being miserable. Darla and the boys ate at Roaring Forks, and Carl flitted between the room, the pool and the arcade. Why did he come back to the room? Because he wanted to call his girlfriend and we wouldn’t let him take our cell phones out of our hallway. I heard the Electrical Water Parade and Wishes Fireworks but didn’t get up to see if I could see them.

By 11pm everybody was in bed in anticipation of our 6:30am wake up call for Animal Kingdom.

[snowman]

Shhh....don't tell anyone but I just logged in from work to see if you had updated your TR and you have not....:lmao: I will try to wait patiently.

Have a great day!!

Trish

I won't tell on you if you don't tell anyone that I've written this today at work :lmao:

[disneydreamer1970]

Your secret is safe with me.:thumbsup2 I can't wait to read more!

Trish

[snowman]

Late to bed, early to rise makes a party ready to be at Animal Kingdom for rope drop. Cereal in the room for breakfast helps cut some time so nobody has to wake up too quickly. Carl asks “Tia, what is the shirt of the day?” I tell him its our lovely light blue with the animal prints. He groans because light blue is not his idea of a “Guy Color”.
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By 7:45 am its down to the bus stop we go. Hurry, hurry because the bus is here already. Woohoo, no waiting this morning. We get to Animal Kingdom shortly and still have plenty of time to wait because the park doesn’t open until 9am today (yes, we knew that). I want to take a picture in front of the Animal Kingdom sign but being the fool that I am I had forgotten to take the camera out of the camera bag so it could warm up.

The camera being cool first thing in the morning was a problem this trip. I kept the AC for our room set at about 65 degrees. This meant that we were very comfortable when we came back to our room each night. However – it also meant that the camera was very cool and comfortable as well. “So what?” you may ask. Well, that means when I would take the camera out of its cool camera bag the lens would immediately fog up until it warmed up. That meant no early morning pictures. So – if you want your room cool and want to take pictures in the morning – open the camera bag up when you get outside and let the lens warm up.

We sat in the outer courtyard (before the turnstiles) for a while before queing up. While we were waiting in line Wes Palm came rolling out. If you’ve never seen him, he is pretty cute. He is a rolling, talking, joking Palm Tree. Even our jaded teenage boys thought he was pretty funny. It was a nice diversion while waiting for the turnstiles to open. Wes’s best line? “Does somebody have an extra ticket they can give me? I can’t buy one because I have no money. Why don’t I have any money? Because Money doesn’t grow on trees.”
No? Well we thought it was funny. Maybe it’s a funnier line when you are still half wake and melting already. ;)

By 830-845 they opened the turnstiles so we could move into the Oasis area. There were cast members walking around with various critters in tanks or cages (think Scorpions, Spiders, Snakes, etc). We meander towards Discovery Island with about a million of our newest, closest friends. You know how that crowd goes – pushing, stroller hockey, elbow roulette. And then we stop. There is a rope keeping anybody from going any further until the rest of the park opens at 9am. No sir, it doesn’t matter how much you shove me, there is no place to go. But, at a little before 9 the music (was there music or was that in my head? I can’t remember now) starts and there is Mickey, Minnie and Pluto on their tour bus. I’ve never seen the opening at AK since they have done that – its pretty cute.
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After Mickey leaves, the rope drops and every disperses thru the park. Or at least along the path to Everest. I have already declared I am not running for any ride. Period. End of story. We do, however, make it to Everest in plenty of time to get a Fastpass for 1045-1145.
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No problem – lets go do Kali River Rapids while we wait. Kali shows a wait time of 20 minutes. How can that be? The park just opened. Then we see – Kali doesn’t actually open until 930 – which is (you guessed it) 20 minutes from now. Now that I think about it, we probably should have left to do something else (Maharajah Jungle Trek, Kilimanjaro Safaris, something) but we didn’t. Instead we enjoy watching the monkeys that are climbing above a pool near the end of the queue area for Kali. Ah yes, the joys of live animals – watching them walk out on their vine and pee into the water below. We were treated to that site 3 or 4 times. LOL At least that water isn’t part of the ride system….I might not have been so keen to go on Kali if it had been.
http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x262/msnowman_2007/IMG_1542.jpg (monkey NOT peeing)

Anyway, we while away the time chatting with the families near us. With so many cell phones, PDA’s etc sometimes this seems to be a lost art. But it was interesting and it passed the time. Before we knew it the line for Kali was moving. Since we were there when it opened the only wait was the time to get thru the queue. We have done this ride nearly a dozen times in our 4 trips (over 8 years). Not once have I had to go slow thru this queue area. I hear that it is well themed, but I can’t confirm or deny that with first had knowledge.

Kali is fun, as always. Carl and Dustin sit together while Darla and I each sit alone. We are sharing our raft with the family from NJ that we were taking with in line. We are taking bets on who is going to be the wet seat. My money is on Carl, because it is always Carl. The ride is very misty with lots of steam and low fog coming off the water. I suspect that its real, not stage steam LOL because of how hot it has been. But off we go, down the river, past the logging truck, heading to the big drop. It looks like I’m going to be the wet seat this time…until the last minute when the raft turns a bit more and it is Dustin going down backwards! He certainly does get swamped while the rest of us get moist (well, more moist than we already are). Luckily for him though it isn’t the full, going down backwards and having the whole wave land in your lap type trip this time. The raft was spun to be kinda between seats…so was came in came just to Dustin’s right side…his left wasn’t bad.

Well, one trip thru the wash cycle and we want to try something else, but it still isn’t time for Expedition Everest. So, we go for the Maharajah Jungle Trek. I’m still not sure why we didn’t go for Kilimanjaro…except that we would have had to walk all the way back to Asia again. And geez, we should have paid more attention to our Fastpasses. We could have gotten another one at 1045. In hindsight, we should have done this a little differently. Go to Everest for the Fastpass. That was the only thing we did right. Then we should have gone to Kilimanjaro. From there we either could have queued up for Kali or gotten a Fastpass for it. This would have saved us from spending 75 minutes in the standby queue for Kilimanjaro later (but I will get to that in a bit).

Ah, the Maharajah Jungle Trek. A lovely, steamy, jungley, planty walk. The boys are grumbling before we ever start. Grr, can I slap them now or do I have to wait? LOL Nah, I love my guys – even when they are being teen boys with all the difficulties that come with that. Anyway – the first animal we see is the Komodo Dragon. That does merit some ooohs and aaahs from the guys, especially when they are told that the thing get bigger and can eat like 150lbs of meat a day. Gee Dustin, that’s you, except your head.
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We wandered thru the area, checking out the wildlife. We met one kinda unpleasant CM who was very haughty in correcting us on the difference between a horn and an antler. Okay, whatever. :P The best part is usually the tigers, but they were sleeping because of the heat. This time, the best part was the bats. We spent probably 10 minutes in the bat room watching them. I’m afraid of flying bats in my real life (you know the urban legend about them getting stuck in your hair – that’s what I’m afraid of), but found this to be a pleasant experience. I was able to get several nice bat pictures.
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From there we went past the tigers
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Towards the aviary (stopping, of course, for pictures on the way).
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The aviary was very nice. The birds were everywhere. This is a crowned pigeon we saw in there.
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I think its pretty funny going to Disney and taking pictures of pigeons…but the ones in McDonald’s parking lots do not look like this. I tried (in vain) to get pictures of the beautiful Golden Pheasant. Even Grumpy Boy from the above picture was impressed and tried to get his picture.

Ah, we are now out of the jungle and ready for Expedition Everest. Let’s hit it! I’ve been looking forward to doing this ride since I saw it on the trip planning video. I was worried about fitting in the car (30W, 5’4”) but figured what the heck – the worst that can happen is I’ll be mortified and my life will never be the same again. I had read EVERY post regarding Pooh people fitting on Everest and had decided it was going to be O. K. And guess what! I was right. Since each seat has its on lap bar, mine only had to be okay for me and it didn’t but my 22W, 5’9” DSO in any danger. This is so totally my new favorite ride! I’m a pretty big roller coaster chicken. I keep my eyes closed tightly when I do Space Mountain. I opened them for the first time this year on Rock n Roller Coaster (read our MGM day). But I have no problem with Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, so I knew I was going to keep them open on this. See, for me the problem is this – SM & RnR are both open track rides. There is nothing adjacent to the ride track that will keep us all from plummeting to our deaths. On the other hand BTMRR and most of EE has the track going across land. Okay, so we could still be thrown out of the car and die, but we aren’t going to fall off the track and die….and that’s where my concern lies. All of that being said, I will admit to closing my eyes on the steep uphill where the track is just out there in midair – for the reasons previously explained. But the rest of it? Oh My Word – this is my new, all-time favorite ride. Even though I knew it was coming, the stop at the broken tracks is still a little disconcerting – but in that really fun way. And going backwards was exciting. I don’t recall noticing when we ended up going forwards again though. Zooming past the Yeti and then plunging down for the picture – WooHoo! Great times! We bought this picture without a thought, the looks on our faces is priceless. I told Dustin “You look like you are saying Oh! (insert expletive for poo here)!”. He said “Tia, that’s exactly what I’m saying!”. LOL – the camera misses nothing.
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After realizing that another Fastpass for Everest would be in the middle of our ADR for lunch, we head towards Africa for the long delayed Kilimanjaro Safaris. Their FP time is also for our scheduled lunch time, so we stand in the posted 50 minute queue. However, this 50 minutes turns out to be about 75 minutes (1 hour, 15 minutes).What the heck were we thinking? Like I said earlier, this was our biggest mistake and mostly based on stubbornness on my part. But, hindsight is 20/20. The ride was a bit disappointing after that wait – it was so hot that most of the animals were hiding near the tree line to keep cool(er). After enduring teasing from each of our past 3 trips about getting pictures of animal butts I had already decided to leave the camera in the bag and just enjoy the ride. It was nice seeing the animals with both eyes instead of just thru a little glass square. The most enjoyable parts were seeing a Scimitar Oryx right beside the truck and a baby giraffe partly hidden with its momma. They do still include the poacher story-line on the ride which has never been a favorite part for me, though they have done away with the still figures that used to be at the poacher truck (at least they were there a long time ago, when the earth was green…).

After the Safari its time for a potty break before heading to Rainforest Café for our afternoon break. Its almost noon at this point and our ADR is for 1pm, but maybe we can get on the list a little early. But first, lets send the boys to get FPs for Its Tough to be a Bug. Well it was a good idea, in theory, but one that failed in practice – all of the Fastpasses were already gone for the day. Well that’s a bummer, but we suck it up and head out to Rainforest Café. We check in at 12:15 and are seated right away. Wow, one thing has gone well today.
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We enjoy a too-big lunch and lovely air conditioning before venturing back out to the park. Its 2pm, so we head towards the 3:40pm Festival of the Lion King. However, the heat plus too much food is making us all a bit queasy, so while we are in the queue for FotLK we decide that after the show we will go back to the resort and chill by the pool. I know, I know – we haven’t touched Dinoland yet. But wow, if I don’t have a protein spill right here I’ll be lucky.

They are running the big misting fans over the queue are outside the doors for the Lion King. That feels nice, but it would be better if they’d just open the freaking doors and let us in. Okay, so patience wasn’t one of my virtues at this point. But, I did keep my grumbling to myself because, the way I figured it, everybody else wanted to go in too, so by peeing and moaning about it I was only going to flare tempers higher.

Anyway, after half an eternity, the opened the doors to seated coolness. The theater filled pretty quickly, though it wasn’t a capacity crowd.
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This is my all time favorite show at Disney. And even our boys found it to be an excellent show (and you know teen boys – its all about the thrills).
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After the show we walk out into the rain. Wow, this park is really going to be steamy when this stops. I ask Carl where his hat is – “Crap, the Lion King stole my hat”. But he didn’t care badly enough to want to go back to get it so we continue to head out of the park. By now it has stopped raining and the steam is indeed starting to rise.

By the time we got back to the resort it was nearing 5pm. I gathered up our laundry and headed down to the washers to take care of that. Dustin tried out the resort gym (giving it 2 thumbs up) while Darla showered and Carl helped me. When Dustin and Darla were ready they joined Carl and I at Roaring Forks for supper (burgers and chicken fingers again). After dinner it was back upstairs to put laundry away and in to bed by 10pm because tomorrow we have breakfast with Cinderella.

[snowman]

Stitch woke us up at 6am because we have to leave by 7:15 to get the boat to Magic Kingdom. We have a breakfast date with some Princesses today and its not polite to keep princesses waiting. Since we aren’t going to a park on Saturday, which is actually my birthday, I have choosen today to be my Theme Park birthday. So, I pin my birthday pin on as we head out in our matching, red t-shirts.

We amble down to the boat dock where just a few other people are waiting. From the walk way I notice a crane (or perhaps it is a heron, I’m not sure which). It’s a pretty blue bird and its fishing for its breakfast. If you look over the edge of the dock, you can see smaller fish in the shallows near shore. No doubt this bird was able to find him/her self plenty of nice fresh fish.
http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x262/msnowman_2007/Resort%20shots/IMG_1912.jpg

The boat comes just a few minutes after we get to the dock and from there we head to Fort Wilderness before finally heading to our real destiny – Magic Kingdom. Darla is the first camera bag sherpa of the day, so she goes thru the bag search line while the rest of us wait. Several CMs notice my birthday button and wish me a happy birthday. There was a little girl in line in front of us who also had her button on and pointed mine out to her father and we exchanged smiles and waves. I use the wait time to get Happy Family pictures in front of the Train Station before we move into the Park.
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Eventually they open the Magic Kingdom and we move into the tunnel to make our way to Main Street USA. It’s a beautiful, sunny morning so, of course, that means pictures. We start right out taking pictures with the castle as the background before we get to the hub.
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There we each choose “our” Disney character and pose with its statue.
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Its nearly an hour before our scheduled ADR but we figure it won’t hurt to check in early. While Darla is taking pictures of the Cinderella mosaic, I go to check us in. And guess what? We can get right in line for our picture w/ Cinderella and then go up to breakfast. We are a beautiful happy family in our picture.
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We were seated shortly after we got upstairs. Dale (our waiter) noticed my birthday button, so he had confetti spread on the table and brought a special certificate for all the Princesses to sign. Breakfast was pretty typical for Cindy’s – you eat here for the experience, not the food. Belle was the first to visit our table. She spoke with us for several moments and signed my birthday certificate. After getting my Belle picture again she wished me a happy birthday and continued on. Then it was Snow White, Aurora and the Fairy Godmother. The FG was the most hurried of all of them because it was nearly time for the wishing ceremony. When the little boys pulled our their swords our big boys said “But we want swords too”…..but they were teasing.
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It was about 9:10 when we headed into Fantasyland. Our first stop? The store next door to the castle to get a bag for our picture. But, the CM I spoke with did even better – she packaged the picture up and had it delivered to our room. Great! Now we don’t have to worry about leaving it behind or losing it.
http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x262/msnowman_2007/Magic%20Kingdom/IMG_1944.jpg

Now its time for Snow White’s Scary Adventure. There is no wait, we just walk right on. It is always a nice little ride, though I can see where small children might find it a bit frightening. After Snow White we headed to Mickey’s Philharmagic. This is the best 3D show I’ve seen yet. Carl came out of the show saying “I wanted that ruby”. Dustin was amazed at how good the apple pie smelled.
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After the show we headed to Peter Pan and then it’s a small world. Neither had any line to speak of. Carl and I rode together on Peter Pan, while Darla and Dustin also shared a boat. This is one of Carl’s favorite rides, even as a cool 13 year old. He talked about how cool it would be to work here and to be able to walk thru the set. “You’d feel like a giant” was his observation. Small world had broken down just as we got in line. Since they said the anticipated downtime was going to be about a half hour we stayed because once we left this part of the area we weren’t planning on coming back. That proved to be a great choice. A lot of other people left the line. Actually, enough people left the line that we got right to the front…and as it turned out the ride was only down for less than 10 minutes. I love Small world but everybody else has begged to not be made to ride it ever again. We’ll see….lol
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From here we start towards Toontown, making a stop first at Pooh. I love the Pooh ride and the wait was still less than 15 minutes. While in line for Pooh I ask Dustin if he’ll pose in the Dumbo ride car so I could take his picture and then he could do mine. He’s willing if it will make me happy, so after Pooh he and I head to the ride car while Darla shopped at the Pooh Store. But there is one problem – I forgot I have the camera bag and with it, Darla’s room card – meaning she couldn’t buy anything if she wanted too and she gets very grumpy about it. So, I tell her to take her card and I’ll be right here on this bench. After doing pictures with the boys I send them on their way to do the Tea Cups. I’m not worried about them finding me, they can’t miss the large flying elephants. Apparently there was little wait for the Tea Cups because the boys are back before Darla is and they want a snack. So, I give Carl his room card so they can get Snack Credit ice creams. When Darla gets back she thinks those look so good that she goes for one of her own. Now we head to Toontown.
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As we near the Teacups the boys ask if they can go again, so Darla and I pull up a bench while we wait. In the meantime we formulate a new plan. Originally we were going to go to Toontown, do pictures and then head back to the resort. But, with the new plan, we will skip Toontown, grab lunch at the resort and head to Disney Quest. When the boys get back we run the new plan by them. Surprise, surprise, they are all for heading to Disney Quest early. So, its off back towards the hub, cutting thru the edge of Tomorrowland. We have done everything we want to in Fantasyland in about 2 hours.

Just as we near the hub, 2 guys stopped us and asked if there were just 4 people in our party. Yup, this is it. They tell us that they are leaving and hand us 4 Fastpasses for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad that expire at 1145. Neither Darla or I really care to do the walk, so we have the boys take all 4 passes so they could go on twice. We point them in the right direction and tell them to meet us at the yellow building with the American flag and off they go. Since we have no pictures of just the two of us this trip, we use the Photopass Photographer to do our picture in the hub before heading onto Main Street to shop and wait.

I know its going to be about an hour before they get back, so I go into the store nearest Casey’s to add to my pressed penny collection. Okay, so it started out as Carl’s, but its mine now. :P
After a while I head back out to the sidewalk and start scoping out a place to sit that will still allow me a view of Casey’s. Ah ha! A woman is just leaving a shaded table outside the Ice Cream Parlor. So I snag that and wait for Darla. She’s a few more minutes and then I see her looking for me. A shout and she joins me at the table, bringing a dish of strawberry ice cream for me….ahhh, its so nice to have someone love you enough to bring you ice cream. LOL We wait about 20 minutes for the boys – they have been gone for about an hour but have gotten to do BTMRR another 2 times.

On our way out of the park I bought myself a balloon. It was a clear plastic one, with a Blue, latex Mickey head inside. It cost $10.00 and was worth every penny to me because it was my birthday balloon. This balloon would probably be reasonably safe for a small child to play with in their resort room because the outside plastic layer is a pretty durable plastic and wouldn’t be easily broken or shredded like a standard latex balloon would be.

As we walked towards the exit, some of the Main Street players stopped us and talked to us. They also sang Happy birthday to me as part of their bit. I’ve never watched them before, so it was pretty fun being part of their thing. It was fun note to exit the Magic Kingdom on.

When we get to the dock there is a boat just leaving, so we wait in the shade for the next one – about 10-15 minutes. The boat is not crowded at all, though they do have to take a little extra time and care loading a wheelchair on board. Wilderness Lodge is the second stop this time, but that’s okay. That gives us more time to enjoy the ride.

Its close to 1pm when we get back to the resort and we hang out there til about 5pm. Instead of taking a Disney bus to DTD and having to walk from Pleasure Island to Disney Quest, we opt for a cab. It was a $15.00 cab ride, but Darla gave a $5.00 tip, so it was $20.00 total for the 20 minute trip. We were dropped off right in front of Disney Quest.

Once inside we agree to meet the boys at the sign post at 6:30 (in one hour) and we go our separate ways. Except that Darla wants us to stay together – so we head up to the 5th floor. Our first activity at Disney Quest (besides the elevator)? Lets find the restroom. LOL. After that exciting experience we line up to do “Ride the Comix” and that’s where the boys catch up with us. Its is a VR game with a very heavy helmet. It was fun to do once. From here we stayed together to do the Alien Encounter ride because it was a 4 seater experience. Again, it was okay to do once. Since its close to our original meeting time we agree to meet again in another hour.
We played air hockey to a tie, I tried some video trivia and we both played various video games before heading to the Wonderland Café for a Coke and a Cappuccino. We found an available computer and I checked my hotmail and enjoyed our drinks. From here we went down to the first floor and tried the Jungle Cruise. That was fricking hard! I’m not sure it was fun enough to wait in line very long for, but I’m glad I did it once. We met up with the boys and left around 8pm. For us, 2 ½ hours was plenty of time here. The boys would probably have been content to stay longer, but I was bored and they didn’t complain about leaving.

We took another cab back to the resort. Both ways we used Checker Cab and it was $15.00 each way. The first time we crowded into a regular 4 door sedan cab, the second time we took a van and the price was the same.

Once back at the resort we headed down to the pool for a couple of hours. Tomorrow we can sleep in because the only plan is Epcot for Future Worlds evening Extra Magic Hours. We didn’t go down to the beach to see the Electrical Water Parade, but we could hear the music from the pool.