It's our Date-A-Versary with Deluxe Dining, DVC and MNSSHP!! 11/13 UPDATE! [Archive] - The DIS Discussion Forums

ariel1025

09-13-2009, 07:10 PM

Sadly, we are home from another fun-filled, gut-bustin’ laughing, amazing trip from Walt Disney World. This was our second trip together, the first being our Honeymoon. It was as magical and amazing as we had remembered it and we created even more memories that remind us constantly of why we will always return. For those of you who did not follow along with the Pre-trip report here is a quick background and introduction so you can feel like you “know” us

My name is Shannon and I am a 27-year old Accounting student who works full-time at a privatized Motor Vehicle Department in my wonderful hometown of Albuquerque, NM.

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Although, I am currently a student and a full-time worker, it is my dream to be a stay at home Mom (we don’t have kids yet, but hopefully someday soon). If there are any of you out there reading, I would love to hear your idea of the pros and cons to this . Anyway, back on track, I have loved Disney for as long as I can remember and always choose a Disney movie when it is my turn to choose for movie night. I grew up watching Disney movies and am thankful that my Mom showed me all of the old movies along with the new. There is something that is so magical to me about the “old” animation style and, sometimes, I miss it! My favorite movies include “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “Aladdin.” I also enjoy the non-animated movies with my favorite being “Angels in the Outfield.” Besides planning for, dreaming about and visiting Disney I also love to listen to music (I am definitely a Country girl), taking pictures, swing dancing and having “Lazy Sundays” with my Husband.

Speaking of my Husband, he was my partner in crime on this trip. His name is Candido, but we call him Candi for short and he is also 27 years old.

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He is currently taking a break from school and works at the same company I work for – only he is about 15 steps higher up in the company. He, like myself, loves Disney but won’t always admit it. Sometimes, he can get frustrated with my over-planning but knows that I won’t usually hold him to any type of schedule when we actually get there . His major loves in life, well besides me of course LOL, are the Atlanta Braves, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Chicago Bulls and the New Mexico Lobos. In case you can’t tell, he is a MAJOR sports fanatic. He also enjoys music, video games and swing dancing.

Background – How this all came about – the shortened edition ;-)

We have been married for just over a year, we celebrated our one-year Anniversary in Disneyland over Memorial weekend. However, we have been together for 8 years so we decided it was necessary to do something to celebrate that too. Well, what better way than to spend it in Disney World for the “What Will You Celebrate?” campaign. While on the trip we nicknamed this our “Date-a-versary” and I have made it my goal to consider this a yearly thing … the “Dateaversary” not the Disney trip … really that’s what I meant ;-)

Just to fill you in – The Where & The When

We were in Disney World from September 4 – September 12. Our trip was broken into two “trips” because we were too indecisive to decide where to stay. Oh, and just so that it makes more sense, we became Disney Vacation Club (DVC) owners shortly after our honeymoon.

We stayed at the Villas at Wilderness Lodge from September 4 – September 8. We really wanted to stay at this resort because we spent our Honeymoon in the main lodge and thought it would be special and sentimental to start our vacation here. The second portion of our trip was spent at the Animal Kingdom Lodge – Kidani Village. We also really wanted to stay here because it is our “home resort” through DVC and had just opened back in May.

We were on the Deluxe dining plan and had reservations planned for breakfast most days, lunch some days and dinner every night. I will include small recaps and pictures on the dining, but will not go into major detail here as I am doing a dining report on the dining board. I am also going to be completely and totally honest with all aspects of the trip – the experience, the food, the customer service, the rides and a break-down of the costs. I don’t do this to brag (we do not have tons of money – we saved our booties off to afford this trip ;)), but I think it is helpful for those who are planning their own trips to get a “real” feel for what things cost.

Alrighty, there you have it with the background information. I hope you all stick around, I promise there will be lots of laughs, maybe a few tears, tons of pictures, several repeated outfits - don’t worry we had a washer in our Villa LOL and an overall amazing time that I can’t wait to share with you.

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So, buckle up your seatbelt folks, this trip report is fueling up (aka loading pictures into photobucket) and preparing for take-off …..

wannago2disney

09-13-2009, 07:57 PM

Great start! Looking forward to reading more.:thumbsup2

I am a stay at home Mom and it is great! Though sometimes I wish I had a nice part time job to go to just to change things up a bit. My DH loves me to be at his beck and call so to speak. He works shifts and it makes things easier to only have to plan around one schedule. However, my kids are now in JK and grade 1 so that part time job is probably looming on the horizon some where soon. That's ok ...more $$ for disney trips!!

Jenna319

09-13-2009, 08:03 PM

Looking forward to your report! We were at the world the same time- Sept 5th-12th and also did a split stay, 3 nights at POR, 4 nights at Poly..... it was magical and i miss it already!!

luvdumbo

09-13-2009, 08:57 PM

Can't wait to hear more!

ariel1025

09-15-2009, 09:35 PM

First, I just want to say "WELCOME" to everyone that has responded. I promise I normally reply to everyone individually, as I love to get comments and feedback. However, I am currently stuck with the slowest internet known to man ... think dial up and then slow it times 10 HA HA! This seems to be causing me all sorts of problems ... other than the obvious. For some reason, it is not letting me click on several parts of the internet including the quote button and the super fun "smilies."

I am super excited to have you all join along and I look forward to speaking to you when our fast cable internet is installed next week.

Hoping to start this thing soon ... hopefully tonight!!

ariel1025

09-20-2009, 09:20 PM

Thursday, September 3, 2009

The day before leaving was the longest and most hectic day I think I have encountered since the night before our wedding. It started, as usual, with us waking up at 6:30 am to get ready for work. You see, the only downfall to our new house is that it is 45 minutes away from where we work. That’s a lot of gas money and a whole lot of lost minutes of sleep :coffee:.

Work actually went by relatively fast. Since it was Thursday, it was our “short shift.” All this really means is that we were at work until 2:00 pm but then we had to go directly to our Supervisor Academy class and this lasted until 6:00 pm. Now, I normally enjoy this class – it is a requirement for our business to be in Management and it is usually very interesting and very informative. However, all I could think about during this class was how hungry I was and how much I had left to do before our flight in the morning. You see, I tend to be a procrastinator and I had not packed – it gets worse – I also hadn’t done ANY of our laundry and I still needed to go buy a couple of shirts for the trip. But, there are more important things to do – like get a manicure and pedicure so that I can feel all pretty for the trip :thumbsup2. So, that is exactly where I headed after work with my best friend, Erin.

After our spa time we went to Target so I could get the last minute essentials and then attempted to go to Kohls, but sadly, they had already closed. This is why you will see so many repeated outfits on this trip!!
Erin brought me home at around 10:00 and, needless to say, I was slightly stressing. We had 8 hours until we needed to be at the airport, which meant we needed to leave the house in 7. I still needed to do at least 3 loads of laundry and pack EVERYTHING!! Imagine my relief (and surprise) when I walked in the house to see my AWESOME Hubby folding clothes and placing them in piles on our bed. He had already washed all the whites (only 2 loads to go) and was laying everything out so I could go through and decide what needed to be packed. Do I really need to point out why I married this man???

This is where the real chaos began ….

Since we have just recently moved, several things are still packed in boxes and sitting in our garage. This includes things like – ponchos, suitcases, lanyards, pins, travel items etc. I had my trusty packing list ready as we attempted to conquer the “black hole” which is really meant to house our cars LOL. In the midst of trying to find everything, Candi accidentally knocked over a model car my Dad bought me for Christmas. Now, I know I sound like a little kid but this car means A LOT to me and I freaked out a little bit. I didn’t want to yell at him because I knew it was an accident so I just sat on the garage floor and started crying. This is not the way our trip was supposed to be starting out and I felt awful – both now and in the moment. Candi felt horrible and kept apologizing and I kept telling him it was ok, but he knew it wasn’t. Eventually, I made a joke over the whole thing telling him he now had to by me the real deal – a 1957 Corvette :car: – and we continued with the travel item search. By the time we got everything from the garage, finished laundry and finished packing it was 3:30 AM!! Or at least that’s what Candi tells me. I must admit, I was somewhat of an awful wife and crashed out somewhere around 1:15. Apparently, I was lying in the middle of all the piles of clothes on the floor, with a pair of socks in my hand and just fell asleep – yes, I was THAT tired!!!

Friday, September 4, 2009

The alarm clock went off at 5:00 am and Erin was ringing our doorbell about 15 minutes later. IT WAS TIME TO GO TO THE AIRPORT!!!!!!!!

We packed up Erin’s car with all our luggage and started to pull away when Candi realized his second pair of shoes were in the car. One quick detour and we were ready to go.

Of course, we were at the airport, checked in and through security with more than enough time remaining – better early than late right? So, we grabbed some seats in the terminal that were somewhat secluded and started talking about how excited we were. Candi had one thing and one thing only on his mind – Fultons. Yes, it was 5:30 in the morning and this man was craving him some crab legs :lmao:!!

Then it happened, you know how no matter how big a room is it always seems like you are the one who gets stuck by the “extreme” people. The ones who are super loud or who are fighting or can’t sit still or in this case don’t know how to separate their faces from each other. Yep, two people who were at least my parents’ age plop down right next to us and start making out!! Now, it bothers me when anybody does this in public – in my opinion there is a time and a place (and that place is not next to me in the airport terminal) – but these people were loud and obnoxious about it too. I hate to sound mean, but all I kept thinking was that I hope they didn’t do this the entire flight.

Soon enough our boarding number was called – we always fly Southwest so it was open seating and we were boarding group B. Luckily, we were able to sit next to each other and right over the wing of the plane. I can’t explain it, but this is where I always sit when I have the option. As we were walking back to our seats we saw the two sucky faces and they were still at it puckerup:– next to this poor business man who was already asking the stewardess for a drink – and I don’t mean water folks :rotfl:.

Our flight was smooth with a quick layover in Houston and then the longest flight known to man as I sat looking out the window waiting to land in Orlando. The Disney tunes on the Ipod helped pass the time and then I let out a small scream as I saw WDW underneath us – sorry for any passengers I may have scared … or annoyed!!

I practically ran off the plane and kissed the ground in the Orlando airport because I was so happy. Ok, I wouldn’t really kiss the ground – I don’t want any diseases to interfere with my Disney World plans ya know! I told Candi I would follow him as he navigated the way to the Magical Express check-in – if you read my honeymoon report you know that we got a little bit lost and that made for a not so pleasant start to the trip. We boarded the little moving walkways and reminisced about how we were stuck in this airport for EIGHT HOURS last year after our cruise!! This was a very happy conversation filled with wonderful memories ….

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Can’t ya tell??? ;)

We took the escalator down a floor which was baggage claim and then Candi decided that we were headed the wrong way. I kept saying that we were going the right way and that we just needed to go down one more floor. He, however, insisted that I was crazy (which very well could be true) and back up the escalator we went.

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Twenty minutes later and two floors down and we saw this

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yes, my navigation skills were correct this time!

I went to go sit with the luggage and sent Candi to the counter. He came back about 30 seconds later and said we both had to go up together. Woops, last year we both went up and we were told that only one of us could go through the line?!? We had to explain to them that we never received our luggage claim tag things – they said it was not a big deal – they just needed to see our baggage claim tickets from the airport and they could still retrieve and deliver our luggage to our hotel for us. That’s when I knew FOR SURE we were truly back!! Ya’all know what I mean right? Just knowing how the folks at Disney always go out of their way to lend an extra hand to make things extra magical for you. And that’s the exact conversation we had as we skipped, yes there was even a hop to Candi’s step, as we made our way to the line for the buses.

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We only waited about five minutes before they lead us to our bus. I was secretly hoping to sit up front so that I could get a really good picture of the “welcome” arch, but the bus was already really full. Not to worry, this was the magical bus and nothing was going to bring me down. We had to wait another 10 minutes or so before the bus was ready to leave, I figured this was the perfect opportunity to take the first picture of us of the trip

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Not the greatest of pictures, but hey, what do you expect when we’ve only slept 3 hours, been in a plane all morning and I didn’t put on any make-up LOL. Candi, made a comment about how he was glad I would find things to take pictures of other than him when we got there. “Ummm, would now be a bad time to bring up the fact that I planned on ordering the photopass CD babe? :rolleyes1”

The drive went by fairly quickly and yes, I did watch AND enjoy the video they play on board. Before long I saw the most beautiful thing of all

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Hey, it might not be the whole arch, but it still meant we were really and truly here!!! I let out shrieks of excitement and Candi joined me – everyone else looked at us like we were nuts :rotfl2:.

Not long after we passed under the “welcome” arch we reached the Magic Kingdom arch and I was seriously like a little kid that couldn’t sit still. Candi was super excited that the Halloween decorations were already out and insisted I try to get a picture of this

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Now, jack o’lantern Mickey is VERY cute but I still think Candi was secretly plotting to keep the camera pointed away from him!!

Our first stop was the Polynesian

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I think only two people got off here and we noticed how they were greeted with leis placed around their neck. We both thought this was a neat touch and don’t remember seeing this last year. Now, every time I think about or read about the Poly, I always think it seems so neat. But, when we actually pull up there it doesn’t “do it” for me. Please don’t hate me, it just doesn’t make me want to run out and book a reservation there. I remember, for our honeymoon this was one of our top choices and when we pulled up to drop people off we felt a sense of relief that we hadn’t chosen it. I’m not sure why this is?!?

Anyway, our next stop was the Grand Floridian

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A LOT of people got off here – in fact I would say ¾ of the bus unloaded at the Grand. Including, two sets of people with bride ears on. I made sure to congratulate them both and, of course, Candi and I reminisced about our honeymoon for a minute. This was exactly why we had chosen the Wilderness Lodge as our hotel for the first half of our stay. We knew it would stir up so many memories and emotions from our honeymoon and that’s exactly what we wanted.

I love how the employees are dressed the part here

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It makes the resort seem that much more magical and is the exact reason I love Disney World. Everywhere you go, it seems like you’ve walked into another place or time.

The final stop was our stop …

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THE WILDERNESS LODGE!!

Candi went to go get our carry on for us

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excellent tip for anyone using Magical Express – always bring a carry on with a change of clothes or whatever you think you may need - it can take up to 4 hours to receive your luggage at your hotel.

We were both overflowing with excitement and I’m sure we looked like total goofballs with our ear-to-ear grins as we made our way through the massive doors into the hotel. And then it hit us – “the smell” – I’m not sure what it is but the Lodge just has this wonderful smell that let's you know you are away from all your worries and truly on vacation. At that moment Candi turned to me and said “we’re finally home.”

wannago2disney

09-21-2009, 01:54 PM

Great updates. Love the pictures! Can't wait to read more!:goodvibes

ariel1025

09-23-2009, 12:18 AM

Great updates. Love the pictures! Can't wait to read more!:goodvibes

Thank you :goodvibes I am such an addict when it come to taking pictures ... over 4000 this trip alone. That's part of what is taking me so long to update - I have the worst time trying to figure out what pictures to leave in and take out :) Thanks for reading!!!

ariel1025

09-27-2009, 09:13 PM

When we last left off, Candi and I had just walked through the beautiful doors of The Wilderness Lodge

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I’m pretty sure we stood there for a good ten minutes just taking everything in. Everything about it was exactly as we had remembered it – the smell, the feeling, the CMs, the décor – it truly was like we were coming home.
After we had soaked in the atmosphere for a bit we headed to the check in counter to get our room assignment.

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I decided against doing the online check-in because I love the feeling you get while you are waiting your turn in line :cloud9:. There’s something about the excitement and anticipation I feel and I thought it would be lost if we checked in online. There was only one person ahead of us in line and before we knew it, it was our turn. If I remember right we were checked in by Zahnyoun from Australia. He was very nice and I LOVED his accent, but he was also incredibly forgetful and slightly rushed. He must have asked us 3 different times if we had a car with us :confused3. No big deal, but I was slightly disappointed that we didn’t receive our “Happy Anniversary” buttons at check-in. Now, I know that this wasn’t our actual Anniversary, but when we planned the trip it was planned to be our belated Anniversary trip – and then my incredible In-Laws got us a trip to Disneyland as our Anniversary gift – so that is how this trip became our Date-a-versary trip :hug:!!

We received our packet of information and headed out towards the Villas. I stopped to take one last look in the main lobby before we headed outside.

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A part of me felt slightly sad that we wouldn’t be staying in the main lobby, but another part of me was incredibly excited to check out the Villas and our very first DVC room!!

We slowly made our towards the Villas – again, we were so lost in the atmosphere and the feeling of the resort – we were not in any rush to get anywhere. Now, in Zahnyoun’s check-in packet he gave us the wrong room number. It wasn’t actually somebody else’s room, but a room that didn’t even exist :lmao:. We decided that instead of going back into the lobby we would try the last room in the hall and we were in luck – it was our room!
I was slightly nervous as I opened the doors – I had built this up in my head for a really long time. Here is what we saw when we walked in

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The bed was too firm for my liking, but my Husband slept like a baby the entire time. The couch on the other side also stored a pull out bed, allowing the room to sleep four people.

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Our first, and only, towel animal of our stay. For those that don’t know, when you stay DVC you do not get normal housekeeping every day. Instead you get what they call “trash and towel service” on your fourth day. This is exactly what it sounds like. They empty your trash and replace your towels and toiletries. If you are staying longer you get a full housekeeping on the eight day and then the cycle repeats itself. This was not something that bothered us, but if I hadn’t known beforehand I probably would have been upset.

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This is the cabinet where the TV was held and there were dresser drawers on the bottom half. I have to say, we were both disappointed with the TV. It wasn’t a flat screen, which we didn’t care about, but it was SMALL – our laptop had a bigger screen :rotfl2:. We don’t go on vacation to watch TV, but we love to watch a movie each night before going to bed. Plus, Candi is lost without watching ESPN!!

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the lantern style lamp above the table area though!!

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The kitchenette area – it was really nice to have the fridge, and we used the sink to rinse out or refillable mugs, but we never did use the microwave or the toaster. There were also plastic utensils and paper plates available – we didn’t end up using those either, but I’m sure they are nice to have if you do a grocery order or anything like that.

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I thought this set-up was super cute!

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This was my favorite area of the room – I love the décor here. I also loved how the vanity/sink area was outside of the actual bathroom. This is very useful for us when we are both trying to shower and get ready. The wooden doors are to the closet area – it was a HUGE closet that stored the vacuum, ironing board and iron, a playpen/crib style thing and the safe. There was also plenty of room for hanging clothes. The safe actually required a key instead of sliding your room key and was built into the wall – it was pretty small, but not a big deal to us because we just used it to store credit cards.

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The bathtub was a little on the small side, but the shower had amazing water pressure.

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This was the picture hanging in the bathroom – I just had to post it because it is so adorable!

Lastly, we had to go explore our balcony area to see what kind of view we had ended up with. I had read several reports of people who had ended up with a view of the dumpsters or the bus stop, so once again, I was a little bit nervous.

I walked outside and saw instantly that we had a woods view. But before Candi made it outside I let out a scream. He thought it was because we had either a REALLY good view or a REALLY bad view – he couldn’t tell. In all actuality it was because I ran into the third member sharing our room

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We named him Bob and he hung out with us until the next day.
Once we had introduced ourselves to Bob we took a look at our view.

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Looking straight out and to the right from our balcony it was nothing but trees!

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Looking to the left it was more trees and balconies from the other rooms. We were the last room in the hallway so there weren’t any rooms to our right.

Overall, we were happy with our room. We had booked a studio and got pretty much what we had expected. The biggest let down was the TV, but HELLO we were in Disney World so it wasn’t anything to cry over!!

After checking out the room we both decided that we were a little bit hungry and since our reservation still wasn’t for over 2 hours we decided to head to Roaring Forks to pick up our refillable mugs and a snack. We were on the deluxe dining plan so the refillable mugs were included in the meal plan and we each got 2 snacks per night of our stay.

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I loved the look of the hallway with all the Mickey arches and light fixtures – it was honestly my favorite part of the Villas decor.

We really enjoyed the walk from the Villas to the Lodge – it was a really nice night that wasn’t too humid. Plus, we were still on our “we’re really here” high!!

Roaring Forks wasn’t at all crowded and we were back in our room with our snacks in no time.

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I got carrots and celery with ranch dressing and Candi got a bowl of chili. The mugs in the background were the refillable mugs – they were somewhat small and we learned to just fill them with our beverages and get ice from the ice machine in the Villa.

I had been looking forward to the veggies & ranch because I ate them every night on our honeymoon. I was a little disappointed that they now used baby carrots instead of strips of "adult" carrots - they taste different to me :rotfl:. I still enjoyed them though. Candi thought the chili was too greasy but said it had great flavor.

Candi decided to take a quick nap and I went on a search for our Ethernet cable so I could get on the internet. I couldn’t find it so I called and had one delivered. They were very nice and brought it to me in less than 10 minutes!

*** For those that end up staying here, the Ethernet cable is inside a fabric bag hanging on one of the hangers in the closet ***

There was a slight problem with the internet – it wasn’t allowing me to connect and kept giving me an error. Another call to the tech number listed and that was fixed extremely quickly as well. They also let me know that although it stated I would be charged every 24 hours for usage that it would be free for us since we were DVC owners. WAHOO – I love saving money :woohoo:!!!

After I did everything I need online I woke Candi up to start getting ready for dinner.

** Next up – Our night Downtown

MONEY SPENT SO FAR:

2 Refillable mugs – Included on the Deluxe Dining Plan - $27.67 with tax if paying in cash

Veggies & Ranch / Bowl of Chili – 2 snack credits - $7.23 with tax if paying in cash

Internet Usage – FREE for being a DVC owner – around $10 for 24 hours if a non-DVC owner

Total cash spent $0.00

JennisSilly

10-03-2009, 12:39 PM

MiaBella05

10-03-2009, 01:52 PM

popcorn:: joining in popcorn::

ariel1025

10-05-2009, 07:25 PM

Gosh that sounds so creepy :rotfl2:

I absolutely adore your trip reports. I'm so glad you posted photo's of the villas at Wilderness Lodge, we're planning our next trip and were deciding between those villas and the Contemporary! I think I expected Wilderness Lodge to be more like the Grand Californian- so I'm glad I have a better understanding :)

Loving it so far- subscribing popcorn::

Thank you so very much :hug: I'm glad that my overzealousness in picture taking was helpful for you. Personally, we love the Wilderness Lodge but we also consider it "home" since that's where we stayed for our honeymoon. I have some other pictures of the lobby and such coming up later in the report - it is absolutely breathtaking. Hope you stick around :goodvibes

popcorn:: joining in popcorn::

Thank you and Welcome :goodvibes My parents are in town so I won't be updating for a couple of days, but once they return home :sad1: I promise a double update for all those waiting :thumbsup2

wannago2disney

10-07-2009, 06:34 PM

Love all the pictures. great job:thumbsup2

ariel1025

10-07-2009, 09:06 PM

Love all the pictures. great job:thumbsup2

Thanks so much :goodvibes Working on another update right now!!

ariel1025

10-07-2009, 10:14 PM

Hi Everyone!! Sorry I’ve been away for a little while, but I promise it’s been for good reason. My parents came to see me this past week!! Since they live so far away – about 600 miles – we only see each other every 4-6 months. And, this trip was a much needed one, both for them and me. I was getting incredibly homesick and it was starting to affect me at work and home :sad1:

While they were here we went to the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. If you’ve never seen or heard about this you are definitely missing out – it’s awesome! Unfortunately, I had to work on Saturday – I mean, they act like I just spent a week at Disney World or something :lmao:. Anyway, Candi got up and took my parents to the mass ascension and then they went to the casino for brunch and gambling. Tough life huh? :rotfl:

That night we went to the “balloon twilight twinkle glow.” For those who don’t know, this is where all the balloons are aired up but remain on the ground and then they all “twinkle” – blow their flames so that they light up. It’s super pretty, unfortunately, it was cancelled due to rain and wind :sad2:

They announced that they would still be doing the fireworks show so we decided to stick around and I headed to get some food. One hour and a philly cheesesteak later and I was back sitting with my family!

The fireworks got off to a late start and there were a lot of gaps in between them but they were still beautiful.

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During one of the breaks in between fireworks launches the news channel came and interviewed my Mom about the cancellation

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We still have this news airing saved on our DVR – she felt like such a celebrity!!

On Sunday I didn’t have to work so we all went to the mass ascension together. We had to get up super early (around 4am :scared1:) but it was definitely worth it.

Isn’t the moon beautiful? Yep, it was still out and shining when we got to balloon park :eek:

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Getting there so early was definitely worth it because we got a great spot on top of the hill overlooking the entire balloon park. It wasn’t too long after we arrived that they started airing the balloons up and preparing them for launch.

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There couldn’t be enough pictures to show how beautiful it really is – you just have to experience it. At any given time there are over 200 balloons in the air in front of you – truly spectacular!

Eventually, the sun made an appearance and you could really see all the colors of the balloons, it makes it a whole different experience when this happens.

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After the launch they had a Fiesta Car Show and the boys couldn’t resist checking it out.

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I think this might be my next car – who cares that it cost more than my house? ;)

Sadly, I had to take off and leave my parents to hang out with Candi again. I had made an appointment to take engagement pictures for a friend of a friend. We made the appointment before I knew my parents were coming and I felt awful cancelling on her – planning a wedding is stressful enough as it is!

I’m not a professional photographer, but I love to take pictures and I would really like to do it as a “side job.” Tell me what you guys think ….

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Other than the above we spent the weekend just hanging out; watching movies, eating junk food, trading stories … all my favorite things :thumbsup2

Just like everything else great in life it went by way too fast!

I promise a Disney update is next ….

ariel1025

10-10-2009, 03:07 PM

After gently waking Candi up from his nap we quickly got ready for our night at Downtown Disney. This is just something that I think is molding into tradition for us – starting at DTD. It helps build the anticipation to save the first park for the next morning, and there is always somewhere we want to eat downtown.

We quickly made ourselves all nice and spiffy –

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And headed out to catch the bus. I gave a brief, sad look towards the boat dock – secretly wishing that we were headed to the Magic Kingdom instead and then continued on to the bus stop.

We saw a bus pulling away as we were halfway towards the stop
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I must admit, I really like the balloon decorations for the “What Will You Celebrate?” campaign. I know it isn’t anything super creative, but I still think it’s super cute!

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We barely made our way to this sign when we saw

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WAHOO!! No wait for us tonight!

I think we only stopped at one other hotel, The Grand Floridian – or was it Fort Wilderness Camp Grounds – maybe both :confused3 – sorry can’t quite remember. At any rate, before long we were getting off at Downtown Disney.

Oh my goodness, I could not stop grinning, vacation was really and truly underway. No worries, no stress, no work - for the next 10 days :thumbsup2

We slowly made our way towards our destination as we pointed out all the places we had to stop at before we left. I reminded Candi that we had to go check out the Christmas store and he reminded me we had to go into the Sports store. I guess we had slightly different ideas of what would make a great souvenir!

As we were walking towards the restaurant they were doing some sort of street dance and it was cracking me up. This grown man was the one leading the way and all these little girls were screaming at him like he was a rock star while they were doing the “ho Down” dance from the Hannah Montana movie and he was really getting into it – too funny :rotfl:

We reached our destination and realized we were super early so we decided to just sit and people watch. We were both pretty tired from traveling all day and, although we were still on our Disney high, the sleepiness was starting to take over. We saw tons of cute little girls in their ‘princess wear’ and tons of people who had obviously spent all day walking around – as they were limping and hobbling along at this point.

There were also tons of these guys to watch
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Don’t worry – we never feed them, we just enjoy watching them. I think Ducks are some of the cutest animals and they are so funny the way they interact with everything around them!

We also checked out the new TRex restaurant

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We kept trying to figure out a way we could fit it into our schedule because it looked super fun to us, but we knew that it just wasn’t going to work this trip.

After a while we decided to see if we could check in early – we hadn’t really seen too many people go in and decided that they might have some empty tables they could seat us at.

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Smile – you are finally eating at

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Candi has been wanting to eat at Fulton’s since we planned our honeymoon. Unfortunately, it ended up being a restaurant we cancelled because of money situations after the wedding. I knew how disappointed he was having to do that and so I promised him we would start our next trip by eating here. Needless to say, he was super excited as we walked inside to be seated.

They didn’t have any problems seating us early. I was hoping to get a window seat, but we were on seated at the end of a long booth on the other side of the restaurant. I’m sure I could have asked to be moved, but it really wasn’t a big deal so I didn’t.

Our servers name was Steven and he was super friendly and an excellent server. Our drink glasses were never empty and he kept the food coming at a nice even pace. Steven went through all of the specials and pointed out his favorites on the menu.

We decided against doing an appetizer, but did receive bread and a house dip.
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I’m really not a fan of seafood, but I did try the dip and it wasn’t too bad. It wasn’t super fishy but I didn’t love it and stuck with regular butter.

* Candi and I had promised each other that we would try at least one bite of everything placed on the table at all meals – this meant I would be trying a lot of seafood!

For our main course Candi had the Alaskan King Crab Legs

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These were the biggest crab legs I had ever seen! I’m not kidding they were almost as big around as my arm. They also included a King Crab Claw – which Candi claimed was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted!

I order the Filet Mignon with a side of Asparagus – I love Asparagus!

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Oh my Heavens – this was the most incredible steak I have ever had. It literally melted in my mouth and had just enough flavor without being overpowering. It was one of the only times I have ate every piece of meat on my plate – I almost broke my promise by not letting Candi have a bite :lmao::lmao:

Like appetizers, we passed on dessert – we had other things in mind for later ;)

We left Fulton’s with extra full bellies and extra big smiles

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Next up - shopping, shopping, shopping!

MONEY SPENT SO FAR:

Fulton's Crab House: $98.90 including tax and tip (this meal was out of pocket as it is not included on the meal plan).

swankybeth

10-10-2009, 06:13 PM

ariel1025

11-08-2009, 01:47 PM

Enjoying your report so far. DH and I are also new DVC members. We can't wait for our first trip home next month to Kidani and Beach Club Villas. We're excited to try all of the DVC resorts eventually. WL looks really nice! We've stayed once in the main building, now we definitely have to go back DVC style!

The pics of the balloon festival were awesome.

I also really enjoyed your pics you took of your friends, they came out great!

Fulton's looked yummy, it's one place we've never tried (the prices kind of scare us off a little :scared1: )

Looking forward to your next update! :)

Ooooh, I SO want to stay at Beach Club during one of our next trips. I absolutely loved Kidani :thumbsup2

Thank you for the compliments about the pictures. Balloon Fiesta is definitely a unique but fun experience - I've lived here for 7 years and still go every year!

The price of Fulton's is somewhat high, but I think it's worth the money. And you can save by doing what we did and skipping the appetizers and dessert ;)

Uploading pictures for my next update now - should be up sometime this afternoon!

MAJ RN

11-08-2009, 05:24 PM

I am in for your trip report, what a great start to what I am sure was a great trip!! Those crab legs look sooo delicious, I will have to go on our next trip. Can't wait to read more!!

Melissa

ariel1025

11-08-2009, 05:57 PM

I am in for your trip report, what a great start to what I am sure was a great trip!! Those crab legs look sooo delicious, I will have to go on our next trip. Can't wait to read more!!

Melissa

:welcome: and thank you!! I'm pretty sure the Hubby will never allow us to go to WDW without going to Fulton's again :rotfl:

wannago2disney

11-08-2009, 06:20 PM

yay you're back! can't wait to read what happens next!:thumbsup2

ariel1025

11-08-2009, 07:03 PM

After a fantastic first meal we decided to roam around Downtown Disney for a while. We had discussed going to Disney Quest but after seeing the prices and not having a park ticket for that day we passed. It is something we always talk about doing and never end up doing

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Just another reason to keep coming back ;)

While walking around we saw the balloon that everyone has been buzzing about

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We walked over to where you buy tickets because we thought it would be really cool to see all the scenery at night, but the ticket box was closed. We assumed it was because they didn’t do the rides at night; however, later on that night we saw the balloon in the air so maybe we just didn’t buy our tickets in time before they closed :confused3

It was one of those perfect nights that wasn’t too hot but wasn’t too chilly either – an absolutely perfect way to kick off our vacation!

Eventually we stumbled upon this little gem

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It smelled delicious – you could smell all the goodies from outside the door. I suggested we go in and check it out but it was PACKED in there and Candi wasn’t really in the mood to fight a big crowd tonight. Don’t worry he understands there are crowds at Disney World but he wanted this one night to be crowd free :laughing:

As we were continuing on our way we passed by the window of the Candy Cauldron and saw these little cuties

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Caramel apples are Candi’s absolute favorite treat in the whole world and these were almost enough to make him go in and deal with the mile long line of people …. ALMOST :rotfl:

Instead we headed on to my absolute favorite store in all of Disney

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I know, I know, I just said we were going crowd free tonight but I persuaded him with my good looks and charm :rotfl2: Ok, actually I reminded him that we promised his Goddaughter a special present because she couldn’t come with us and that this would be the BEST place to buy that. I’m pretty sure he knew I just wanted to go in but he bit the bait and the quest for Sophia’s gift began.

While we were in there shopping around I saw this display

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I think it is the cutest Halloween decoration ever!!

After circling the store at least once we came across the perfect gift for his Goddaughter

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Minnie Mouse is her absolute favorite and she just made the cheerleading squad with the “big girls.” Quick side story: she is 5 years old and they are from a little town so every year the little girls can try out to cheer at the football games with the High schoolers and she is VERY proud that she made the squad. I was a cheerleader for as long as I can remember and she knows this so she loves to talk to me as much as possible about cheering and all the new dances she’s learned – TOO PRECIOUS!!! Anyway, we both decided this would be the perfect gift for her.

While we were standing in line for bobble head Minnie I noticed the ceiling and declared it the cutest thing ever

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I know I keep saying it but it really was so cute to see and is that special touch Disney has all over the place that makes me love coming again and again – I am secretly planning our next trip now – shhhh, don’t tell Candi :rolleyes1

After paying for Sophia’s gift we ventured back out to enjoy the night. We stopped into a few other places including the sports store – it was Candi’s one request so how could I say no

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Candi is majorly into golf so I had to take a picture of this. Plus I almost bought the blue hat you can kinda see in this picture, now I wish I would have :mad:

Eventually we were both starting to get sleepy so we decided we would make one more stop and then head back to the Lodge for the night. Can anyone guess where that stop might be?

Why, the world famous Goofy’s Candy Company of course!

I had read so much about the make your own treats that I KNEW this is what I wanted for dessert. This is why we didn’t order anything at Fulton’s plus I had about a million snack credits burning a hole in my pocket :thumbsup2

At first Candi was just going to buy a regular caramel apple with peanuts on it but after he saw all the fun everybody was having making their own unique creations he decided to join in on the fun :woohoo:

We grabbed the little cards and started picking out what we wanted. Candi knew for sure that he was going to make an apple of some sort but I couldn’t decide. At first I wanted a rice krispy treat but then I saw the gingerbread men and then I decided on a marshmallow :lmao: I seriously could not make up my darn mind.

When we put in our order we saw that there 15 orders ahead of ours – WOW! I’m not even kidding I counted them – only because Candi and I had a bet about who could get closer to the correct guess. We are super big dorks and do things like this all the time – winner got a kiss :upsidedow

While we were waiting for our snack we roamed around the shop for a little while just checking out everything else they had to offer. It all looked so good; fudge and cookies and lollipops – it was like a sugar lover’s paradise in there!

After a while we headed back over to see if they had gotten around to making our treats yet because I wanted to watch them.

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Yep, ours was next. The girl at the counter was reading our order right as we walked over. I felt SO bad for her because a little bit later she asked a customer what they wanted their apple dipped in and he said caramel. Well, they don’t dip them in caramel at the time you order them so you have to dip them in some sort of chocolate for your candy or what not to stick to it and the customer was VERY angry about it. He told her off very loudly – I really hate rude people. It’s not her fault, it’s just how they do it. When she brought us our treats I made sure to tell her thank you and how yummy it looked. Hopefully this made her feel even a little bit better!

We asked for our treats to be bagged up and then headed to the bus. We were at the peak of sleepiness and knew we had a HUGE day planned tomorrow so we were ready to call it a night. We only had to wait about 5 minutes before our bus arrived and the trip back was peaceful and quick. Yes, I said bus and peaceful in the same sentence. There is something so Disney and calming about the buses to me and I cannot lie I quite like them?!?

When we got back to the room we grabbed our refillable mugs and headed down to Roaring Forks to fill them up and then stopped over and grabbed a movie from the rental stand in the gift shop. With these two essentials in hand we took our time strolling along back to our room. Once there we popped in the movie and opened up our yummy treats.

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Candi had the caramel apple dipped in white chocolate, sprinkled with peanuts and drizzled with more white chocolate. He hates chocolate but LOVES white chocolate?!? Crazy kid! He said it was delicious but probably would stick with the “original” from now on as it became too sweet after awhile. I had a bite and thought it was just ok, but I don’t like white chocolate so my opinion doesn’t count too much!

I had the pretzel rods, yep I changed my mind at the last minute, they were dipped in milk chocolate and peanut butter chips and then drizzled with more milk chocolate. They were FANTASTIC!! The perfect combination of salty and sweet and I was super happy with my choice!

I was still so full that I could only enjoy one pretzel rod so I wrapped up the other two and put them away for a later time. I’m pretty sure we didn’t even make it 20 minutes into the movie before we were both out cold and dreaming about our first full day at Disney!

** Coming up Next - Our first full day and we actually go to a park!!

Money Spent So Far:

Bobblehead Minnie for Sophia - $16.99 including tax

Create your own apple / Create your own pretzels - $14.33 including tax (The apple was $8.95 and the pretzels $4.50 before tax)
* Side note – the pretzels no longer count as a snack credit and I accidentally got charged $1.00 for an extra topping so the pretzels should have only been $3.50 but oh well!

Movie Rental- Free for us because we are DVC ($4.99 per night if you are not)

Refill in our mug - Free if you have the refillable mug or $2.49 each for a 20 oz beverage if you don't

ariel1025

11-08-2009, 07:06 PM

yay you're back! can't wait to read what happens next!:thumbsup2

Yep, I'm back and hopefully in full force this time :thumbsup2 Work and life in general have been crazy hectic lately and I need the happy memories to keep me sane :rotfl:

wannago2disney

11-08-2009, 08:09 PM

bballdiva

11-08-2009, 08:54 PM

joining in!!!

ariel1025

11-11-2009, 01:01 PM

Great update:thumbsup2 Those pretzel rods looked YUMMY....chocolate and saltpopcorn::...when I was pregnant i would get crazy cravings for kit kat and hickory sticks...together....My DH thought I was insane:sick: .... so that sounds like heaven to me!

Life can get very crazy sometimes....take a deep breath and enjoy your disney memories!....and the wishful next trip planning.

Thanks!! The pretzels were delicious, I honestly wish I had some right now popcorn:: I already crave salty/sweet all the time so I wonder if the craving will get worse when I'm pregnant?!? :confused3

The wishful trip planning is this close to being "real" trip planning :woohoo:

joining in!!!

Welcome and thanks for joining :goodvibes

heaven2dc

11-11-2009, 02:33 PM

I am so enjoying your TR! You are a beautiful couple (loved your wedding photos in your siggie!)

Wilderness Lodge is so beautiful! I would love to stay there sometime (I grew up in Oregon and went to Timberline Lodge up at Mt. Hood and loved the beautiful wood used. My cousin worked on upgrading the huge fireplace and when they reset the stone, he engraved him name & date behind a stone.) The rooms at VWL are so rustic and pretty :love:

ariel1025

11-13-2009, 09:43 PM

ariel1025

12-05-2009, 02:58 PM

The next morning had us up bright and early - it was our first park day and we had a special breakfast to make it to. I got up first and allowed Candi as many minutes of beauty sleep as possible - ok, ok, more like minutes of "less grouchy sleep" :lmao:

Much to my surprise we were ready and out the door ahead of schedule!!

We decided to grab the boats - and since we weren't running late we took our time walking the grounds of Wilderness Lodge. If you ever stay here it's really worth it to wander around - it is honestly so breathtaking!

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These little guys were already wide awake and enjoying their morning swim!

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As you can see the humidity was already out in full force today :eek: Oh well, we expected it and planned our days accordingly. Not to mention, since I'm from Kansas I'm used to the humidity. Candi, however, swears he can't breathe with even .05% humidity :rotfl2:

A few more pictures of our stroll to the boat docks

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A boat arrived about 5 minutes after we arrived at the dock and we were on our way to the Contemporary

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This was the first hotel I ever stayed at - back in 1996 - and I can still remember exactly what it looked like and where our room was! I also commented to Candi how I would love to stay at Bay Lake during one of our trips.

Now the plan was to grab the monorail to our final destination but while we were walking towards the Contemporary Candi tells me "Let's just use the walkway" HUH? You wanna do what?? I seriously asked him twice to make sure he wasn't kidding.

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Here's the proof that he wasn't! I can't really explain why, but I was so excited about this. I love being able to take everything in and it was just so serene and peaceful being able to walk hand in hand with my Husband as we made our way to the Magic Kingdom :cloud9:

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It only took about 10 minutes before we made it to our destination. I know most people say it takes around 5 but we really took our time - plus Candi has a bad foot/ankle/knee so I am always trying to make sure he doesn't over-do it!

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I was really excited to see all the fall decorations - it is my favorite time of year!

This morning made me especially excited because we had "before park opening" reservations for breakfast. I had read so much about how special these reservations make you feel and how empty Main Street is - it was pretty much all I talked about leading up to the trip!

With big smiles on our faces we walked up to the first cast member we saw and asked where we check-in for breakfast. He pointed over to a line off to the side and within minutes we were through the turnstiles. WAIT! WHAT? You don't need to see my confirmation or scratch my name off of a list or anything?!?!? I have to admit this bummed me out and I got bummed out even more when I heard several people talk about how easy it was to sneak into the park early by lying about having reservations :scared1: This did not seem very special to me and I was majorly let down :sad2:

Candi lifted my spirits by suggesting we go into City Hall to get our Anniversary buttons since they didn't have them at check-in the day before.

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And I have to admit - this helped!!

Since we were still early for our reservation we decided to just walk around Main Street and soak up the atmosphere.

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He is so super cute - my favorite decoration in all of Magic Kingdom!!

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He was Candi's favorite!

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Ahhhh, my happy place! I honestly don't think I will ever lose that feeling I feel when I walk onto Main Street and see the castle for the first time each trip! I truly feel like a little kid and cannot stop myself from grinning from ear to ear. It is exactly why I know we will always come back to Disney World - by ourselves, with our kids, with our grandkids......

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Ok, so it wasn't the super empty Main Street I had expected but ya know what? WHO CARES!!! I realized right at that moment that just BEING here was a bigger blessing than most people are allowed and I quietly started to cry. I cried a little over letting myself get so self absorbed but mostly over how lucky I knew I was!

After my moment with the castle it was Candi's turn

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Now, I have to tell you a secret about him - he HATES his teeth and most often will just not smile in a picture because of it. Sometimes he will do the "no teeth" smile but it looks fake so then he does the "no smile" and he looks mad. Well, obviously, he went with the "no smile" route here and as I took the picture a super nice lady yells to him "Geez! Smile! It's not like you're at Disney World with your wife or anything" which resulted in this picture

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0104.jpg
Awwww, much better!!

The lady, who's name I sadly didn't get, was completely joking with her comment and it was totally obvious which made Candi crack up laughing. We spent a few minutes talking to her afterwards. She congratulated us on our one year anniversary and we told her that we also came here for our honeymoon. We found out her and her husband came for their honeymoon many years ago (sorry, I can't remember how manY - and that they have come back EVERY year for their anniversary! EEK, it's a woman after my own heart! We parted ways soon after, but it was so nice to be able to talk to a complete stranger and yet feel like we had known her for years. If by any chance you are the nice woman who made my Husband smile and you are reading this - thank you for making our first morning extra special!!

At this point it was almost time to check in for our reservation so we made our way closer to the castle but not before stopping for a few photopass pictures

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http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/Image011.jpg

Coming up Next:

Breakfast and our morning tour of Magic Kingdom!!

wannago2disney

12-06-2009, 07:34 AM

ariel1025

12-06-2009, 12:41 PM

love the lady who made your DH smile:thumbsup2...he has a great smile! The morning looks absolutely beautiful....Your walk to the boats looks very welcoming and peaceful. Can't wait to hear about the rest of your day!

Aren't the people at Disney just fabulous :goodvibes Thanks for the compliment on DHs smile - I love it too - he is self conscious because he still has two baby teeth and thinks you can tell :confused3 The walk to the boats was my favorite part of the morning :thumbsup2

ariel1025

12-06-2009, 05:50 PM

After beginning to fill up our photopass CD we headed off to the castle for breakfast.

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From any angle - it's just absolutely breathtaking!

I'm sure, by now, you've already figured out that we were eating at

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0115.jpg

We got a last minute reservation here on our honeymoon for our first park day - many thanks to the concierge level staff at Wilderness Lodge!!! - and declared that it would be tradition from now on! We both spent the last year craving the cream cheese stuffed french toast and couldn't wait to get our eat on!

While waiting in line for our picture with Cinderella I found these little guys

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0116.jpg

and I was beyond excited!!

At this point they also did a really cute opening ceremony for the first family to be seated for the day. There were two little girls with their parents and they were so happy and excited - you could tell it made their day!

Immediately after the ceremony it was our turn to take our picture

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/Image015.jpg
I was much happier with our picture this year than last year and I LOVE how it's included in the price of the breakfast - even when you do the dining plan :goodvibes The photo package comes with an 8x10 of the castle and an 8x10 of the photo as well as 4 4x6 images of the same photo. The photographer took 3 or 4 images and since I bought the photopass CD I was able to view these images as well. In this case they all looked the same but I saw them doing several poses with smaller kids and larger families.

After our picture we were led up the staircase to breakfast and brought to our table. We were, once again, lucky enough to receive a window seat and I was back in my own little heaven. It was completely surreal to be sitting inside the castle eating breakfast while overlooking Magic Kingdom slowly start to "wake up" and start the day.

I have to admit, that I almost didn't enjoy being one of the first seated for breakfast - it seemed like everyone was still trying to wake up and didn't feel quite as magical as it did when the restaurant was full of people and energy :confused3 However, the food was just as good as before.

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All the fruit was fresh and juicy - exactly how we like it.

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We both just kind of nibbled on the different pastry offerings - the OJ in the background was super yummy though and tasted fresh.

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Mmmm, yummy, hot, bad for you, goodness on a plate. Of course, the french toast was my favorite part with a close second being the potatoes!

While enjoying breakfast the princesses started coming around. They do a little presentation of each one coming out - telling a piece of their story and then at the end all of them are out together roaming around the tables.

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Snow White - and those are the two little girls that got to be the first seated - they were so cute and giddy with excitement!

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Princess Aurora - she was friendly but you could tell she had a hard time with dialogue with adults - she spent much more time at tables with children. No biggie!

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Princess Jasmine! She is one of my favorites! She was very friendly and talkative and I loved our interaction with her - almost the most.

It was sooo funny - because Candi couldn't stop staring at her and she noticed so she turned to him after our picture and said "I must get a picture with my admirer - just don't tell Aladdin"

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0138.jpg
This is one of my favorite pictures from the whole trip - he is trying so hard to act like this didn't make him happy:rotfl2:

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Lastly, was Belle and she is my absolute favorite! I even made Candi stand up to take the picture to try and get a better angle - still don't like the way I turned out - but the interaction was awesome. She stayed at our table for close to 5 minutes talking to us about all sorts of stuff and even told Candi he better shave or she might mistake him for the Beast :lmao:

After Belle left the waiter - who was incredibly attentive the whole time - brought me a magic wand and a sword for Candi. Well, we decided to have a sword fight with these little items and before I knew it Belle came to my defense and joined in on our sword fight - I SOOOO wish I would have had my camera ready! We stayed for the wishing ceremony and then left so that another family could enjoy such an awesome table.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0145.jpg
Bye, bye perfect view of the park - hopefully I will see you next year ;)

After an amazing breakfast we decided we would head out and stop to ride whatever sounded good at the moment - no plans just lots of spur of the moment stuff - perfection :cloud9:

Our first stop was Peter Pan's Flight

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This was a first for me and the first time Candi had ridden it at WDW. I thoroughly enjoyed it but honestly don't understand why it usually has lines so long it needs a fastpass :confused:

From there we just enjoyed the sites and we roamed around and decided what to do next

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And then we ran into this guy

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/Image024.jpg
First character that ever made me feel like I needed to squat down so I didn't feel so tall and I'm only 5' :laughing:

The line up for Donald was a little disorganized and a couple accidentally walked up ahead of us - we honestly didn't mind - but the photographer was very rude about it. We kept saying it was ok and we would go next but she basically yelled at them about their manners and I felt really bad. I told them not to worry and we didn't mind but I think it hurt their feelings and I hope it didn't ruin the rest of their day.

After hanging out with our favorite duck we decided to jump in line for our favorite ride ever.......

ariel1025

12-06-2009, 06:06 PM

JUST GOT HUBBY TO AGREE TO A MEMORIAL WEEK TRIP FOR OUR ANNIVERSARY :lovestruc:lovestruc:lovestruc

DVC has already confirmed our one night studio stay at Animal Kingdom Lodge - Jambo house for May 29. Now just waiting on confirmation for a 1BR at the same hotel for May 30-June 5!
:woohoo::hug::woohoo::hug::woohoo::hug::woohoo::hu g::woohoo::hug::woohoo::hug::woohoo::hug::woohoo:: hug::woohoo::hug::woohoo::hug::woohoo::

wannago2disney

12-07-2009, 10:36 AM

ariel1025

12-07-2009, 08:27 PM

I understand the photographers deal with line jumpers all the time, but if you were not worried about it and the family was apologetic, they should have just left it at that and moved on....sometimes I would think that it is less likely that people are meaning to be rude but just don't think or realize what they have done...and if the line was not organized to begin with, well:confused3

Your CT pictures are great. I love that you had great character interation. I am hoping that we will have lots of charater interation at our Princess storybook breakfast in january...our reservation is for 8:30am on our very first park day. My DD is soooooo very excited about it! DS not so much, but when you are a 6 yr old boy the princess are just not that exciting I guess...although he was very interested in watching Xena last night and couldn't explain to me why it was such a good show:rotfl:

Yay! you are going in again! I am so happy for you!:banana:

Tosh

I can understand where they have constant line cutters as well, but I felt the CM was a lot more rude than was necessary - especially since we stated that it wasn't a big deal. Oh well - by gones!

I will cross my fingers that you get awesome interaction at your Princess breakfast next month. Are you doing the one at MK or Epcot? It is so perfect to be able to do it on your first park day - I hope this is something we can always do :goodvibes

Thanks for the banana dance :banana::)

ariel1025

12-07-2009, 08:53 PM

After stopping to get a photo op with Donald we decided to head over to our favorite ride in all of the world

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I actually got to ride this for the first time last year and I fell absolutely in love - it is by far my favorite ride and I make it a point to ride it over and over again!

The wait time was listed at 15 minutes but we didn't even have to wait - by the time we walked through the que area there was a log already waiting for us. Score!!

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This is my favorite scene in the ride :rotfl:

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Such a smart lil rabbit!

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http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0165.jpg

Ahhhh - love it from start to finish!!

And I am the person that takes a picture of the screen with our picture on it. I was already shelling out cash for the Photopass CD so I refuse to buy a picture that has a group of strangers in it with me :snooty:

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0167.jpg
Even though it doesn't scare us we still think it makes the ride more fun to scream!!

After conquering splash mountain we decided to try our luck with another

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0168.jpg
This is my favorite nighttime ride and it's another one I just can't get enough of!

The wait time here was also posted at 15 minutes but once we walked through we saw this pulling up

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0169.jpg

And we didn't even have to wait to get a seat in the back - our favorite. SCORE AGAIN!!

This round of Thunder Mountain was a little scarier than most - I wasn't paying attention and when it went to whip around a corner I almost flew out :scared1: Ok, I probably didn't really "almost fly out" but it sure felt like it - enough so that Candi grabbed my leg and pushed me down! Who says WDW doesn't have scary rides :rotfl2:

Candi stopped to tie his shoe for the hundredth time and sadly this wouldn't be the biggest pain caused by forgetting his other pair of shoes. While he did that I took this picture

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0171.jpg
I honestly can never get over Disney's attention to detail. Every time I'm in an area of a park I always forget what the rest of the park looks like.

We decided that we were done with Frontierland for the moment and walked over to another favorite - yep, we have a lot of favorites :rotfl:

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0174.jpg

Since we had recently been to Disneyland we decided to try and pay careful attention to all the differences. Well, we didn't have to wait long because we got to walk directly into the stretching room. SCORE TIMES THREE!!

Some of the most obvious differneces are in the area you walk through after the stretching room - I must say that DL has WDW beat on that portion :rolleyes1 However, the ride itself is SO much better at WDW!!

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0175.jpg
I reminded Candi when we walked past here on the way out that we HAD to come back and take the special image picture during the Halloween party.

After grabbing our ghostly pal we decided to take him with us to ride

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http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0187.jpg
I can never leave this ride without singing this line over and over and over again! Candi was in a super great mood and he even started to sing along with me as we walked through what was, yet another, non-existent line. We couldn't believe our luck with the crowds this day. At this point Candi decided I was a big storyteller when I told him that we waited over 45 minutes for most rides when I came with my parents :laughing:

I haven't mastered taking dark pictures without a flash yet but I tried my hardest to get my two favorite scenes

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0193.jpg
This scene cracks me up every time!!!

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0195.jpg
Do I really need to explain why this is one of my favorite scenes??? :lmao:

After Pirates we decided to form some sort of a game plan. We had lunch reservations at the Plaza at 2 but it was only 10:30 and we had already knocked out 5 of the rides that usually have long lines.

So what did we do???

acejka

12-07-2009, 10:10 PM

wannago2disney

12-08-2009, 10:16 AM

oh NO what happened to all the pictures?

ariel1025

12-08-2009, 08:33 PM

YAY for another set of Chiefs fans! My DH is a diehard Chiefs fan, he's from KC.

I love yout TR, and I'm especially fond of the money rundown at the end of the night :)

Your wedding pictures are beautiful!

And tell DH not to be so shy about smiling, from one person who still has a baby tooth to another... but really his smile is nice.

Splash is one of our faves too. I'm sad its going to be under refurb during our next trip :(

GO CHIEFS :cheer2::cheer2: If only they'd give us more to actually cheer about :sad1: But I was born and raised in Kansas so I will cheer for them through the good, bad and ugly :thumbsup2

Thank you for reading and for all the compliments :goodvibes

oh NO what happened to all the pictures?

All fixed :goodvibes

wannago2disney

12-09-2009, 04:21 PM

Great pics!! i love splash mountain but last time we went it was closed for refurb. and apparently it will be again this year....that is such a bummer:sad1: I sooo wanted my kids to do this ride. But just another reason to keep going back i guess.
i hope you decided to do something that you wouldn't normally have done with your extra time!

ariel1025

12-09-2009, 10:54 PM

ariel1025

12-12-2009, 03:21 PM

The last we left off Candi and I were standing around trying to come up with a game plan

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We had gotten up really early so we were kind of tired, we ate a HUGE breakfast so we weren't hungry and we had ridden 5 awesome rides in less than 2 hours!! We knew that we had lunch reservations at 2:00 but Candi honestly didn't know if he could hold out that long. Not from being hungry, but because of how tired he was. Although we always try to get in a lot of rest the day before the trip it NEVER happens :sad2: After discussing it a while we decided that we would try to hang around MK until our reservation and then I promised after lunch we could hang out in the room until he got bored or until it was time for dinner.

With that plan in mind we decided to head over to the Jungle Cruise and that's where we encountered our first line. I guess the rest of the world had finally woken up ;) So I decided to snap pictures to wait out the line

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0204.jpg
I have a really strange addiction to taking pictures of flowers that are not common where I live - and that's basically anything not considered a cactus :rotfl2:

I think we may have spent 10 minutes in line - still nothing to cry about!

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Here's our boat pulling up - the blonde girl was our cruise captain

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This scene cracks me up!

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0210.jpg
And this one never fails to make Candi laugh

All too soon our cruise came to an end - we had a good time - our captain was really funny and never missed a beat!

After that we decided to wander off to a different part of MK but not before stopping for a quick drink. It was starting to get really humid - I'm not joking when I say the humidity just kind of hit ya like a slap in the face!!

While Candi stopped at the snack cart I saw a lonely Photopass photographer and so I drug Candi over

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As you can tell Candi was not too thrilled with more pictures of himself being taken :laughing: Plus he was mad because he tried to drink and walk at the same time and spilled Sprite all over himself :rotfl: <-- yes, I was mean enough to laugh at him about it :rolleyes1

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I love the angle of the castle in this picture - but I wish we would have looked up the pictures on our laptop and known to come back and re-do this shot. I'm sad that you can barely see Candi's face because it's so shadowed - oh well, you get some bad with the good right?

After I was satisfied with the amount of pictures taken - don't worry there wasn't anybody else waiting - we headed over to Candi's favorite land

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Our first mission was to capture Stitch

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0220.jpg

I know a lot of people really dislike this ride but we love it!! I was able to ride it when it was the Alien ride and I think this is much more MK appropriate. Even though lots of people think they should bring it back I think if they did it should go into Hollywood Studios instead. Just my opinion ;)

Anywhooooo - Stitch managed to escape and didn't even burp on us which made us super sad!! Well, actually he burped but the smell machine didn't work and yes we are so warped in the head that we were let down about it :lmao:

Once we left the Stitch ride Candi did the unthinkable .... the unpredicatable ... the unimaginable ......

HE POINTED OUT A LONELY PHOTOPASS PHOTOGRAPHER!!!!!!!!!!!! :scared1:

He said he felt so bad about being a grump on the last one that he promised himself to point out the next one he saw to me before I saw him/her :littleangel:

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/Image038.jpg

I absolutely adore this picture - it is one of my favorite character pictures - and he even got Candi to pose so Buzz is a hero in my books!!!

After meeting the main man himself it was only right that we go take a spin on his ride! Last year I focused a TON on accuracy and Candi kicked my butt - this year I was determined to shoot until my poor thumbs couldn't hit the trigger anymore.

So how did I do you ask?

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0221.jpg

I'm on the left!! Candi swears his laser was broken but I think he just doesn't want to admit to being beaten by his wife :laughing:

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0223.jpg
Come on - look at that determination on my face - there was no way I was going to lose!!!!!!

After we left Buzz, Candi said he just really couldn't handle the heat anymore and asked if we could check-in early for our reservation ....

Momof2princess

12-12-2009, 04:31 PM

Great TR:banana:

The one and only time I beat my DH at Buzz he claimed his was broken too! (yeah right)...LOL must be a guy thing.:sad2:

Can't wait to read more!!!

ariel1025

12-13-2009, 11:24 AM

Great TR:banana:

The one and only time I beat my DH at Buzz he claimed his was broken too! (yeah right)...LOL must be a guy thing.:sad2:

Can't wait to read more!!!

Poor guys - they just don't know how to let go of their pride :rotfl:

Thanks for reading!!

wannago2disney

01-01-2010, 08:34 AM

Hope you and your families had a wonderful Holiday Season. Happy New Year!

ariel1025

01-01-2010, 02:55 PM

Hope you and your families had a wonderful Holiday Season. Happy New Year!

Thank you so much!! I hope you guys had a fantastic holiday as well :goodvibes

ariel1025

01-02-2010, 06:05 PM

Hey everyone, sorry for the delay (again) - the holidays have kept us super busy!!

Anyway ...... let's get this thing rolling - once again :rolleyes1

After kicking Candi's butt on Space Ranger Spin we decided to see if we could check in early for our Plaza reservation.

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It is a very simple restaurant, but we loved it last year and were really excited to eat here again. It's that comfort food that makes ya smile - know what I mean?

Now, as I said we were early for our reservation - about an hour I'd say - but we figured it was worth a shot to see if we could be seated early. I went up to the hostess and explained to her about being early but wishing to see if there was an spot available for lunch. She stated that we could get a buzzer and wait, but that more than likely it wouldn't be a possibility. As I turned to ask Candi what he would like to do another gentleman turned in his buzzer stating that they would just go somewhere else. A different hostess took the buzzer and was trying to turn it off when our hostess turned and told her "don't worry I never turned it on because he tried to check-in early" :scared1::scared1::scared1:

I'm sure I don't need to tell you that we decided not to stay. I don't expect to be seated before my reservation and probably would have waited but that was just annoying to me, so we left!

I still just wanted something simple so we decided to head back over to the hotel and grab some food at Roaring Forks.

I had the chicken nuggets and fries, a bottle of lipton lemon iced tea and a Mickey rice krispy treat (the one with the ears dipped in chocolate); Candi had a double cheeseburger with fries, a bottle of water and a magic cookie bar. Mmmmm, Mmmmm good. That's all I have to say - it was exactly the type of meal I had been craving and it didn't disappoint!

After enjoying our little meal at Roaring Forks we decided to head back to the hotel and nap until dinner. We were both tired and trying to adjust to the humidity - I knew a nap would do both of us good and I really wanted to be wide awake for our dinner that night!

I have to admit that I slept almost all the way until it was time to get ready for dinner that night. Usually on vacation I am "go, go, go" but I napped for almost 5 hours - and man, oh man, did it feel GREAT! If I learned anything on this trip it was that more fun is had by all if you go with the flow and rest as needed :thumbsup2

I let Candi continue to sleep while I got ready - making sure to leave enough time for transportation to ensure we wouldn't be late.

Tonight we were heading to Narcoossees and I was beyond excited! I was able to get reservations during fireworks and this was the dinner I was most excited about during the whole trip.

After we got all gussied up we headed down to the boat dock. But not before taking pictures!

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Candi was still trying to wake up :laughing:

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I was SO excited to take a picture with the DVC sign - becoming members has been one of the best decisions we have made so far :thumbsup2

As usual, we were way ahead of schedule so we decided to run over and see if we could catch the geyser going off. We never had a chance to see it on our honeymoon and I made it a goal to catch it during this trip.

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Sadly, we had just missed it!

So, instead we just took our time walking to the dock and talking about our day.

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I will never ever get tired of this walking path - you truly forget that you are at Disney World ... except for the fact, that Disney is the only one who could create such a wonderful place!!!

When we got to the dock we realized we had just missed the boat we needed. The plan was to take the boat to the Contemporary and then grab the monorail to the Grand Floridian. Thinking about it now, I guess we could have grabbed the boat to the MK and done the same thing - oops :rotfl:

Oh well, it was a fantastic night and we didn't mind waiting. Plus, it gave me time to do - what else - take pictures!

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0238.jpg

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0240.jpg

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0242.jpg
Doesn't it look just like heaven? So peaceful and relaxing!

It only took about 10 minutes before the next boat to the Contemporary pulled up. And we had the best captain ever

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0245.jpg
Check out that awesome clothing choice :thumbsup2 Candi and I got such a kick out of it - not in a "making fun of him" sort of way, but in a "I clearly love my job" sort of way. He was the only one we saw all week dressed up like that and it was so fun to see how into his job he got.

And now, just in case anybody is wondering why we chose the boats as much as we did as our transportation choice. Check out the view

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0246.jpg
It really just doesn't get any better than this!

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0251.jpg
If you look closely, you can see the Castle lit up in the background - now that's what I want to see every night on my way to dinner!

As we were walking through the Contemporary to get to the monorail, Candi decided that he is not a fan of this hotel. He said it seems too "hustle and bustle" for his liking. This kind of made me sad, it's the first hotel I stayed at when I came with my parents and sister back in 1998. But then he said he would still give Bay Lake Towers a try, so I felt better.

There was a monorail waiting when we walked up

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0255.jpg
In fact, we had to run, er, I mean speedwalk :rotfl: in order to avoid missing it.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0256.jpg
Here's Candi on our first monorail ride of the trip. It was standing room only, but we didn't care. We were so excited to be at Disney and for the dinner we had to look forward to that night..........

wannago2disney

01-02-2010, 07:41 PM

great update. can't believe the CM at the plaza...that is just plain rude. Naps are good:thumbsup2

can't wait to hear about dinner!

Momof2princess

01-02-2010, 08:35 PM

Great update, and as for the CM we;;:headache: enough said.

We surprisingly too, on our last trip, took naps and I am so glad we did.

Can't wait to see how you liked Narcoossees.

Brandy

yourMaire83

01-02-2010, 11:04 PM

You are such a talented photographer! We are thinking of becoming DVC members someday (soon, I hope) so I will have to show your TR to my hubby.

I love those pictures you took of your friends and the photos of you and Candi waiting for the boat to the Contemporary. you should frame those.

ariel1025

01-03-2010, 04:39 PM

great update. can't believe the CM at the plaza...that is just plain rude. Naps are good:thumbsup2

can't wait to hear about dinner!

Thank you! Naps are my new found friend :lmao:

Great update, and as for the CM we;;:headache: enough said.

We surprisingly too, on our last trip, took naps and I am so glad we did.

Can't wait to see how you liked Narcoossees.

Brandy

Thank you! I think the only reason the Hubby agreed to another trip is because I promised naps again :laughing:

You are such a talented photographer! We are thinking of becoming DVC members someday (soon, I hope) so I will have to show your TR to my hubby.

I love those pictures you took of your friends and the photos of you and Candi waiting for the boat to the Contemporary. you should frame those.

Thank you so very much :goodvibes Photography is a hobby that I am trying to perfect so the compliment truly means a lot! We honestly have not regretted becoming DVC members for a second. Now, keep in mind we got bonus points for our first year but in that first year we did were able to go to WDW (the trip you are currently reading about), Disneyland for 5 days, Sedona, AZ for 4 days in a beautiful condo like resort and lent the remaining points to a friend to go to WDW for a week. That first year we had 420 points because of the bonus points - from here on out we have 210 points. Hope that helps your fight to become members :thumbsup2

ariel1025

01-03-2010, 05:40 PM

Within minutes the monorail was dropping us off at

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0257.jpg

This was the first time either of us had been inside the Grand Floridian. I remember when I came with my family and we saw people getting off here my Mom couldn't believe people actually stayed at a place so nice. At the time I decided that I had to stay here some day. Then when we were looking up hotels for our honeymoon, Candi and I decided it looked to "stuffy" and not relaxed enough for us ... especially for the money. So .... what did we think when we saw it in person?

ABSOLUTELY BREATHTAKING!!!

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0258.jpg
It looks like a place straight out of a dream!

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0260.jpg
Everywhere you turned there was something beautiful to catch your eye!

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0262.jpg
The band playing on the balcony was Candi's favorite part of the hotel - it seemed like a place created for royalty - truly!

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0263.jpg
Even the ceiling and light fixtures were like a work of art.

After we had absorbed the lobby - and accidentally (almost) ran someone over trying to get the picture shot of the light fixture shown above :rolleyes1 - we decided to head out and find the restaurant. I knew from reading other reviews that it was outside in a separate building, but we didn't know how long it would take to find it. We currently still had a lot of time to kill, but we didn't want to miss our reservation time.

I really didn't take long before we found it

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0269.jpg
It looked so beautiful all nestled behind the trees on the edge of the water. I was instantly in love with the restaurant and knew that I had made a great choice for dinner that night.

Once we had ensured that we were truly at the right place we decided to roam around the grounds outside for a while. Everything had gone so smoothly up until that point so we were still incredibly early for our reservation time. This time we didn't want to try to check in early because I had made this reservation specifically to try and time dinner with the fireworks. In my mind the perfect setting would be to have a window seat and for Wishes to start as soon as dessert was served :cloud9:

While we were waiting we decided to head down to the boat dock and check out the view.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0282.jpg
I love how you can (ever so faintly) see the castle in the background.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0284.jpg
Now, one of the hardest parts about traveling with just the two of us is how hard it is to get a picture of the both of us together. That's exactly why I knew I wanted to buy the Photopass CD. However, on this night there was a very nice guy waiting for the next boat watching us attempt the perfect self portrait. After we got a picture we were satisfied with, he offered to take another picture for us.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0286.jpg
This is my absolute favorite picture of the entire trip. I love how you can see the castle, space mountain and the Contemporary in the background. I also think this picture shows how truly, truly happy we were on this trip!

We thanked the gentleman for taking the picture for us and chatted with him until the boat arrived. At that point Candi's Mom called and I took that opportunity to take more pictures.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0291.jpg
This was my favorite shot - I love how the boat dock looks like it's framing the Magic Kingdom!

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0295.jpg
This is my favorite shot of the Grand Floridian. The Palm tree and how the hotel is glowing just bring a smile to my face.

After Candi finished up his phone call we decided to head on up to the restaurant, but not before Candi could check out the menu

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0292.jpg
This was the one restaurant I didn't let him have any say on. I had absolutely fallen in love with it from all the reviews I had read and I don't think he really knew what to expect.

After checking in we were told that they were running a little bit behind and they gave us a pager to wait. We decided to wait outside on the patio and were able to catch part of the electric water pageant (I think that's what it's called?) while we waited. I didn't get any good pictures of it but we were so happy we got to see it. It's one of those smaller Disney touches that we had on our "to do" list for this trip. Funny thing is, we forgot all about it and just got lucky that it was happening while were out there!

I think we had to wait about 15 minutes past our reservation time, but no big deal, there was still plenty of time before the fireworks started. And, we were led over to a table by the window ... SCORE!!!

Our waitress came by after a few minutes and seemed very rushed and not all that interested in being a waitress … uh-oh, please don’t let this be sign of things to come! She took our drink order and rushed off before we had a chance to tell her that we were ready to order appetizers, oh well, no real biggy. It seemed to be about 5-10 minutes before she arrived with our drinks and then tried to take off again without asking if we were ready to order. Candi quickly caught her and told her we were ready and she sighed rather loudly before asking what we wanted.

Candi had the crab cakes and I had the green goddess salad to start with.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0301.jpg

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0302.jpg

Candi loved his crab cakes - it was his first time having them and definitely would not be his last. They look rather small in the picture but he said it was the perfect amount to enjoy but still leave him hungry for the rest of his dinner. My salad was just ok, it had a lot of ingredients that I'm not a fan of, but I did enjoy the avocado dressing which was unique and wonderful at the same time. The appetizers were $13.00 and $11.00 respectively - had we not been on the dining plan I probably would have skipped an appetizer all together. I knew that the salad wouldn't be something I would love from reading the ingredients, but it was the only thing that seemed like something I would somewhat enjoy and went with it. I find $11.00 to be steep for a salad that is meant to be an appetizer, but that's just my opinion.

Now, I hate to be a complainer but I have to tell you I was starting to get frustrated with our waitress. The entire time we were eating our appetizers we never saw her, not even when our glasses were empty – not even when our appetizers were finished. Finally, Candi saw her at another table and politely waved her over. She just sort of came over and was like “yeah” to which we said we would like some refills and to check on our entrée order. Without a word she took our glasses and left. This time she was back within a minute with our refills and our entrees.

Candi had the surf and turf and I had the filet mignon which were $58.00 and $41.00 respectively.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0304.jpg

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0303.jpg

The surf and turf was a complete no brainer choice for Candi. It was pricier than we would have paid for a meal if we weren't on the meal plan, but since we were no prices were being viewed that night :thumbsup2

We both found the filet mignon to be good, but not as great as the one from Fulton's the previous night. Also, the choron sauce on the steak became overbearing after a while. It tasted good but about halfway through it overpowered the taste of the steak and that was kind of a bummer. The lobster tail, however, was perfect down to the last bite. It was right then and there that I realized I like lobster. Yep, that's right, this seafood hater loves her some lobster!

Once again, our waitress was slow to come around so even though we were finished with our entrees we did not actually see her for quite some time. I was kind of bummed because I really wanted to enjoy dessert while Wishes was going on. However, I quickly realized that you can't actually watch Wishes from inside because everyone goes onto the balcony to watch it, which blocks the view from your seat. No big deal, we just got up and joined them.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0309.jpg

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0321.jpg

At this point in the night, we both forgot all about how the meal was not going quite as planned. Wishes is my favorite fireworks show EVER and I got completely caught up in the moment as we enjoyed the show. And, I cannot lie, I even started to cry a little. Seeing Wishes from a different angle was exactly why I had booked the meal and it went perfectly. Standing on the balcony with Candi holding me - nothing can top that!

After the show we made our way back inside to order dessert and observed our waitress laughing and having a great time at another table. We were relived and thought maybe she was in a better mood

WRONG!!!!!!!

It took her 20 minutes before she came around to our table to get our dessert order. In that time we saw her go to 4 or 5 other tables offering to take pictures for them and even offered a couple there for their anniversary some free champagne. Now, I don’t EXPECT a waitress to do any of those things but I DO expect to be treated the same as any other paying guest. By this point I was so irritated I started to cry out of frustration . She had basically ignored us all night, had an attitude every time we made a request and then I watch her treat every other table like actual guests.

I wanted to just leave without ordering dessert, but Candi reminded me that I had been looking forward to the almond crusted cheesecake for months and we should at least order dessert to go. I decided to just stay and eat it there - that I shouldn't let a waitress ruin my night - a night we had talked about over and over again while planning this trip.

Finally, the waitress came over to get our order. Of course I ordered the almond crusted cheesecake and Candi got the key lime creme brulee. I gave him an odd look because I know he doesn't like limey things, but knew he ordered it because it was my second choice dessert and he was trying to make my night better by letting me try both :lovestruc

A few minutes later our waitress came back and threw the dessert menu in front of me - I'm not kidding - she actually threw it, in fact it almost slid off the table - and told me "choose something else, we're out of cheesecake."

I chose the strawberry cheesecake and sat there and cried. I wasn't crying because they were out of cheesecake. I was crying because I didn't understand what we did to make her treat us like this. I was crying because I was mad at myself for letting her ruin most of our night. I was crying because I knew that Candi was trying so hard to fix everything and couldn't. I was crying because it just wasn't supposed to go this way.

We finally received our desserts - without getting a refill on our our drinks - and Candi stated he was going to ask for the Manager. At the time I begged him not to so he didn't. I know that a lot of people are surprised that we didn't say anything, but I knew that it wouldn't fix anything. I didn't want an apology from a Manager or anything free or anything like that. Nothing could fix what had happened so I left it alone. Thinking about it now I wish I would have talked to a Manager because I hate knowing someone else may have had to experience this bad service!

We did enjoy our desserts though

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0326.jpg

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0327.jpg

I traded with Candi because I knew he really didn't want the creme brulee but both were very, very good. They were each $7.00 and I would recommend either one.

For the first time all night, our waitress was at our table before our plates were empty - to leave the check. We gave her the card before she walked away and came back in less than a minute with the receipt to sign and had the nerve to point out where we were to leave the tip :headache:

Now, we did leave a (very small) tip, I just don't have it in me not to. Call me crazy, but I believe in karma, and I know that tips are a major portion of a waitresses income. If Candi would have had his way, he would have left the lonely one dollar bill from his wallet and left it at that.

(continued in next post)

ariel1025

01-03-2010, 06:06 PM

After dinner we slowly made our way back to the Wilderness Lodge.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0329.jpg
I saw this banner while waiting for the monorail and reminded myself to just let it all go and move on with the rest of the night.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0330.jpg
The monorail pulled up and we decided to get off at the Magic Kingdom and grab the boat from there.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0333.jpg
While waiting for the boat to the WL, Candi saw the ferry and asked me where it went to. I told him it was probably to the ticket and transportation center. He said he was sad, because it looked like fun and he wanted to ride it - silly boy!!

Once we got back to the Wilderness Lodge, we, once again, took our time walking to our room.

Now, if I have not convinced you yet about how beautiful the Lodge is, check this out

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-2/DSC_0340.jpg

We just stood out there taking in the beauty. Regardless of how beautiful the Grand Floridian is, and it is - in it's own way, we knew that we had made the right choice for us with WL. There were no regrets about not choosing the Grand for our honeymoon last year, Wilderness will always be our "home."

After we got back to the room we grabbed our refillable mugs and went down to Roaring Forks to fill them up and the gift shop to grab a movie to watch. We snuggled up in bed and reminded each other - everything didn't go perfect but it was still a day together!

Money Spent Day 2:

2 - 7 day park hopper tickets - $575.00 (this is approximate as I can't find the receipt)

Cinderella's Royal Table Breakfast - 4 table service credits used (2 per adult) - $79.98 if paying cash

20 oz bottle of Sprite - 1 snack credit used - $2.50 if paying cash

Roaring Forks lunch - 2 quick service credits used - $29.12 if paying cash

Narcoossees dinner - 4 table service credits used (2 per adult) - $160.79 if paying cash

Momof2princess

01-03-2010, 07:49 PM

wannago2disney

01-03-2010, 08:38 PM

I am sooo sorry for the lousy waitress. I totally would have said something to the manager. she is working in a very expensive resaurant...the service should reflect that. And I have to agree with Candi $1 or less for tip...perhaps then she would have got the point that being a "B" does not earn the money!!

Love the pictures. WL is such a beautiful resort...I think that this trip we will actually try to tour some new resorts and WL is definitely on the list. We considered booking a dinner at Whispering Canyon but the kids just don't eat enough and we seem to have so much extra things that we are doing this trip that QS and storybook princess breakfast is all we want to commit to for time.

we are down to 14 more days....I am sooooooo excited!!:banana:

dvc4life

01-03-2010, 08:38 PM

Thanks for all the photos and comments about WL. I can't wait until we stay there for the first time in March. We will be in a 2BR villa. It looks absolutely breathtaking.

Sorry about your dinner at Narcosses's. You should have complained. But I understand about not wanting to. I just hope the rest of your trip is better.

Can't wait to read more.

ariel1025

01-10-2010, 03:17 PM

Oh no!!! I am sooo sorry your waitress was a total :headache:(insert word not allowed on the DIS)

I cannot imagine why in the world she acted that way and that is just not right. But your DH was so sweet trying to make it better for you! I hope it did not ruin your great day.

The Wilderness Lodge is beautiful!!! Great pics:thumbsup2

I have to admit that, unfortunately, I did let it ruin the majority of my dinner :sad2: But, that mood can't last for long when you come back to such a beautiful resort :thumbsup2

I am sooo sorry for the lousy waitress. I totally would have said something to the manager. she is working in a very expensive resaurant...the service should reflect that. And I have to agree with Candi $1 or less for tip...perhaps then she would have got the point that being a "B" does not earn the money!!

Love the pictures. WL is such a beautiful resort...I think that this trip we will actually try to tour some new resorts and WL is definitely on the list. We considered booking a dinner at Whispering Canyon but the kids just don't eat enough and we seem to have so much extra things that we are doing this trip that QS and storybook princess breakfast is all we want to commit to for time.

we are down to 14 more days....I am sooooooo excited!!:banana:

Oh my gosh - you are going to Disney in a week :dance3:

Thanks for all the photos and comments about WL. I can't wait until we stay there for the first time in March. We will be in a 2BR villa. It looks absolutely breathtaking.

Sorry about your dinner at Narcosses's. You should have complained. But I understand about not wanting to. I just hope the rest of your trip is better.

Can't wait to read more.

I can't wait to hear about your experience at WL! Hopefully, the next time we stay there it will be in a 1BR:thumbsup2

ariel1025

01-10-2010, 03:57 PM

Our second morning had us once again boarding the boat

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0345.jpg

We were sitting towards the front and I thought this sign was so cute

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0346.jpg
(hopefully we never need Mickey's helping hand here though :scared:)

Once again, we would be getting off at the Contemporary to grab the monorail

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0347.jpg

However, we weren't headed to a park just yet. This morning we had breakfast reservations at

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0353.jpg

I had read so much about Kona and I couldn't wait to try the infamous Tonga Toast! Candi, on the other hand, wasn't that thrilled about getting up early to eat again. But, he knew how much eating here meant to me and happily obliged.

We grabbed the monorail from the Contemporary to the Polynesian and once again we arrived about 20 minutes early, but this time it appeared to be for the better as there was quite a long line when we arrived. After finding the end of the line we realized it wasn’t quite as bad as it seemed – it was sort of “mixed in” with the Ohana line. By this I just mean that you couldn’t really tell where the line for one ended and the line for the other began until you got close enough to see which way people were standing. We hopped in line and I took pictures as we moved along

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0354.jpg

After about 10 minutes we were already at the front of the line. Then this couple walked up and cut everybody in line and walks directly up to the check-in podium. Apparently she didn’t find it necessary to wait in line because she had an ADR. Ummmmm, sweetie pretty much all of us have ADRs. The hostess politely let her know this and that it should only take a few minutes before it would be her turn. To which the customer stated “well, I’m late and my ADR time was for 10 minutes ago so you should check me in now”. WHAT?!?!? :scared1: In the end she got mad and stormed off yelling at her Husband to get on the phone and find somewhere else to eat.

Once we checked in we only had to wait about 10 more minutes before we were seated which was only 5 minutes or so after our ADR time.

We were seated to the side of the restaurant in a little booth for two – I love these and think they super cute. Candi hates booths but did not make a fuss or asked to be moved to a regular table or anything.

Our waitress came to the table within 2 minutes of us being seated and took our drink orders and let us know that smoothies were included in the dining plan here. She also informed us that since it was a breakfast meal we could get 2 drinks apiece. .

It took her about 5 minutes to get back with our drinks and take our order but she was super apologetic and it was completely obvious that she was in charge of WAY too many tables.

Candi ordered the supercharged tropical smoothie ($4.29) and the Big Kahuna ($11.99)

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0357.jpg

The smoothie was a blend of tropical juice with yogurt and I believe a protein powder. The big kahuna included: Eggs (he ordered them over easy), ham, bacon, sausage, breakfast potatoes, French toast and macadamia-pineapple pancakes.

Overall, he said he enjoyed his meal and he LOVED his smoothie, but he said this wasn't a restaurant he would put on our "must do" list.

I ordered pineapple juice ($2.29) and the tonga toast with bacon ($10.99)

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0356.jpg

I was disappointed with the pineapple juice, as it tasted severely watered down! The tonga toast was the entire reason I made this reservation, and although it was good, I found it to be incredibly sweet and couldn't finish it. I would definitely come back again, but, like Candi, don't consider it a "must do."

At one point Candi really wanted to order the Kona blend coffee but since coffee in general gives him massive heartburn he decided against it. As our second drink we both got a bottled water to take with us – this was suggested by our waitress when she realized we hadn’t ordered a second drink. It was a great idea and I never would have thought of it.

When our waitress brought our check, which by the way wasn’t the only time we saw her :thumbsup2, she also brought us a special surprise

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0359.jpg

Coco Puffs! They were SO good and super thoughtful of Kona to do for us! I don’t normally eat dessert for breakfast :laughing: but these were delicious and we LOVED them. I’m not sure if these are offered as a dessert option for lunch or dinner but if they are I would definitely get them!

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0360.jpg

This was the chocolate stamp on the plate – so super cute!!!

As you can tell, we both enjoyed Kona but don't have any need to run back and eat there anytime soon - for breakfast anyway - I would love to try it for dinner as I have heard great things about it!

After a great breakfast, which was much needed after our dinner flop last night, we decided to roam around and check out the Polynesian.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0362.jpg

You can tell that the humidity was out in full force today - even inside the the lens was starting to "fog" up.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0365.jpg

I absolutely love this area (it's in the middle of the lobby) and after our individual shots wanted to try and get a good self portrait in front of it.

This proved to be slightly difficult, for some reason we both had the giggles and couldn't hold a real smile at the same time. We spent a good ten minutes trying to get the "perfect shot" and here are the results

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0366.jpg

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0369.jpg

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0371.jpg

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0370.jpg

People must have thought we were absolutely looney - must have been all the sugar I had at breakfast! This ended up being one of our favorite memories of the trip! Once again, it was proof that you don't have to be going commando in the park to have a good time :thumbsup2

Once we got the best shot possible in front of that darn waterfall Candi wanted to see if the gift shop had any Crocs for sale. His feet were killing him in his tennis shoes and we had accidentally left his spare pair in our friends car when she took us to the airport. He thought Crocs would give him extra room to avoid getting blisters on his toes.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0372.jpg

The name of the gift shop once again sent me into a fit of giggles. I seriously would say its name at random times throughout the day just to get a good laugh!

Unfortunately, we couldn't find any Crocs. We did find some other sandals that looked super comfortable, but then we saw that they were over $100!!! Ummmmm, no thank you!

After our failed attempt to find some Crocs we took a look at a little shop across from there with a bunch of beautiful art pieces. I absolutely love the bright colors of the beach and I would have gladly taken all of these paintings home with me, but again, my pocketbook stopped me!

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0376.jpg

Instead I took a picture with this guy!

From here we grabbed the escalator back upstairs and Candi spotted this

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0378.jpg

He was so proud of himself!

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0383.jpg

We took one last look at the beautiful Polynesian and decided to grab the monorail to our next stop for the day .......

mickeysgirl17

01-21-2010, 07:19 PM

Hey. I was reading your dining reviews earlier and knew I had to read your TR too! It is great so far. Keep it coming.

ariel1025

01-23-2010, 04:59 PM

Hey. I was reading your dining reviews earlier and knew I had to read your TR too! It is great so far. Keep it coming.

Thank you so much for reading both :goodvibes

ariel1025

01-23-2010, 05:12 PM

From the Polynesian we grabbed the monorail to get our park day started at our most favorite park

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0384.jpg
EPCOT!!! Neither one of us can ever get enough of Epcot and you will find us here several times throughout the trip. Candi always laughs at me when i plan out park days at home before the trip because he knows we will always end up here more than anywhere else :laughing:

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0386.jpg

Upon entering the park I attempted to capture as many pictures of "the ball" as possible while still walking. Candi was not slowing down - he was on a mission for some fastpasses. To where you might ask?

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0390.jpg
Ok, ok ... you probably weren't asking where. I mean, really, where else does everybody run off to for fastpasses at Epcot :rotfl:

I allowed Candi the joy of obtaining passes while I took the opportunity to take another 5 billion pictures - I am slightly obsessed if you couldn't tell ;)

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0389.jpg

I love the ceilings here - it's like you can look up and find peace amongst all the chaos going on around you!

With passes in hand we decided to head over to do the land boat ride, but alas, it was closed. I was a little sad, I remember riding it when I came the first time and I truly loved it. I constantly tell Candi about it and he is dying to ride it but each time we've been it's been closed .... so sad!

Since that was no longer an option we decided to head over the the Seas pavilion and check out everything it has to offer.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0392.jpg

Oh look, you can see the ball from this angle :laughing:

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0445.jpg

Once we got inside the pavilion we actually spent a long time just looking at all the aquariums - something we rushed through last trip.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0407.jpg

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0413.jpg
Of course we had to stop and say hi to Nemo!

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0416.jpg
I absolutely love seahorses - they are such interesting creatures to me.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0423.jpg
Now I have a confession that most people don't know .... Although I think jellyfish are one of the most beautiful and graceful creatures in the world they are also one of my biggest fears. Whenever we go to the ocean I am never afraid of sharks but I secretly freak out the ENTIRE time that I am going to stung by a jelly fish. Sometimes I even have nightmares about it :eek:

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0426.jpg

This little guy was super interesting to me. He is a cuttlefish and i learned that he has 3 hearts!!!

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0429.jpg

Starfish - another of my favorite sea creatures!

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0435.jpg

Oh no - did you get lost again Dory?

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0441.jpg

Candi also ensured that we went to check out the stingrays - they are quite possibly his favorite animal. We've even gone to snorkel with them which Candi loved and kind of freaked me out :laughing:

I think we spent almost 2 hours looking around all the different aquariums. In that time we didn't go ride Nemo or talk with Crush, we just walked around enjoying our surroundings.

ariel1025

01-23-2010, 06:15 PM

While looking around the aquariums we realized that it was already time for our lunch reservation. Luckily we didn't have to go far because lunch was at

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0446.jpg

We hardly waited at all before we were seated on the first level after the floor seating. Although we had been hoping for a window seat we still had a good view of the aquarium - which of course was a big reason for making a reservation here!

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0450.jpg
He hung out in this spot for almost the entire time we enjoyed our lunch!

Our waiter came by quickly to get our drink orders and pointed out that the smoothies were included on the meal plan.

Candi had iced tea to drink ($2.29) and I had a Lava Smoothie ($4.29) with water (free)

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0453.jpg

Smoothie = SUPER DUPER YUMMY!!!! It's basically a strawberry pina colada without the alcohol which is perfect in my opinion as me and alcohol = bad bad times :sick:

Matt (our server) returned about five minutes later to check on us and bring out the bread and let us know that the appetizers would be out shortly. He was an excellent server – he never left us alone for too long but didn’t linger or bother too much either – perfect service!!

As promised our appetizers arrived within a few minutes of Matt refilling our drinks.

Candi had the shrimp and lobster cakes - $11.49

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0451.jpg

Candi said there was a good amount of seafood in the cakes and he enjoyed them but he prefers crab cakes over these :thumbsup2

I had the corn chowder for my appetizer - $6.99

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0452.jpg

I had only had corn chowder for the first time the previous Christmas and it is now one of my most favorite things to eat. This one was quite a bit runnier than most I'd had previously and also sweeter (it had coconut milk in it), but it was still good and I had no problems finishing it!

For my main entree I had the apricot glazed short ribs - $24.99

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0454.jpg

These were really good and I LOVED the apricot glaze. The sides however didn't really rock my world - the potatos were overly buttery and the snap peas were undercooked.

Candi got a little brave and ordered the mahi mahi - $20.99

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0455.jpg

The reason I say that he was brave is that we both have had mahi mahi before and neither one of us cared for it. But, the waiter declared it the best meal on the menu and Candi decided to take his word for it. Sadly, he was disappointed with this fish once again :sad2: He did, however, enjoy the bok choy which is another thing we have only be introduced to recently.

After our meal we of course still had dessert to go and when our waiter brought it out he also brought us champagne to enjoy for our anniversary.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0456.jpg

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0457.jpg

Today was definitely shaking up to be better than the previous night as far as meals go. We were now two for two with great service and congrats on our Anniversary - and just in case you're wondering I don't consider the service great for that reason only ;)

For dessert Candi had the butterscotch creme brulee - $7.99

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0458.jpg

It was lacking as far as the butterscotch flavoring but was good otherwise.

I had the infamous chocolate wave - $7.99

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0459.jpg

Although I enjoyed it I didn't find it to be anything out of the ordinary :rolleyes:

Overall, we thought the atmosphere was slightly overrated - maybe because we just spent 2 hours looking at the awesome aquariums in the Seas pavillion :confused3 The food was a little split down the middle for us - I enjoyed most of my meal but Candi wasn't too fond of his - more than likely we won't be back.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0463.jpg

After lunch Candi had to try to adjust his shoes - his feet were majorly bothering him and we still didn't have any other ones for him to change into. I asked him if he wanted to go back to the hotel and rest for a while but he said no so we headed over to the Imagination Pavilion.

One of our biggest goals this trip was to go into the area where you can be a music "conductor." Some of our friends had been telling us about it and since Candi is a musician on many levels he declared this a "must do" on the trip.

We didn't really know exactly where it was so we decided to grab a ride on Figment while we looked for it

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0468.jpg

This was definitely a smart choice because after exiting the ride look at what we found!!!!!!

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0471.jpg

Candi was beyond thrilled and had so much fun playing around here!

Once he had his fill he promised me I could choose anything I wanted for our next adventure....

mickeysgirl17

01-24-2010, 11:28 AM

pinkxray

01-27-2010, 09:32 PM

Great update.
I hope Candi finds crocs soon.

The 4 "Quay"balleros

02-08-2010, 09:47 PM

Great report- We've been fallowing this and the dining thread for a while(We just joined). My family and I enjoy reading your posts and we're waiting for updates!:)

ariel1025

02-14-2010, 11:50 AM

Still enjoying your TR, thanks for the update. By the way, I love that ball too. Actually, I love all the big icons (castle, ball and the tree) except for the hat at DHS. I just don't think it belongs.

Keep it coming!

Thank you for continuing to follow along :goodvibes

Great update.
I hope Candi finds crocs soon.

Thank you!!

Great report- We've been fallowing this and the dining thread for a while(We just joined). My family and I enjoy reading your posts and we're waiting for updates!:)

Thanks for joining! Sorry for making you wait so long :guilty:

ariel1025

02-14-2010, 12:54 PM

When we last left off, many moons ago, Candi was in a super good mood from playing music conductor and promised me we could do anything I wanted to do!

Now, I will admit, I was slightly mischievous about it, I knew he was meaning a ride or food. But, after turning the corner in the Imagination Pavilion, he knew he was regretting his words :rotfl:

I had the choice to do anything I wanted and I wanted to take pictures. Remember, slightly obsessed here ;) But, this wasn't any picture. It wasn't an icon picture or a photopass picture .... this was the most super, duper fun picture in the whole world. I'm not making this up - see for yourself ....

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0529-1.jpg

This picture currently sits on my desk at work and whenever I am feeling stressed or frustrated I look at it and my world feels a little bit better :goodvibes

After taking the picture we decided to head back to the Lodge for an afternoon nap. Candi's feet were really starting to hurt him and we still hadn't been able to find any Crocs in his size. Of course, this wasn't a mad rush off to nap and we took our time making our way out of Epcot.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0472.jpg
Oh, look at that, you can see "the ball" from over here too :rotfl:

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0473.jpg
We both love all the fountains in this area ... especially how excited all the kids get with them!

While strolling around we stumbled upon Club Cool and were super excited about it. This was something else we had placed on our "must do" list but forgot about it until we accidentally found it!

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0479.jpg

My favorite was definitely the one from China, but Candi was partial to the one from Germany.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0478.jpg

This was seriously like his fourth cup of the one from Germany. Now, I wasn't mean enough to make him try the Beverly. Ok, I'm mean enough, but I didn't know how to persuade him without laughing and letting him know something was up :rolleyes1 So, I left it alone and told him that I would check and see if they sold bottles of the different types of drinks. Sadly I did not see them .... I think this would be a great idea though!

When I came back to deliver the bad news I saw Candi filling up his little cup with the infamous Italian Soda ----- he was drinking Beverly on his own free will ....

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0477.jpg

:rotfl::lmao::rotfl2::rotfl::lmao::rotfl2::rotfl:: lmao:

When he saw me laughing he tried to get mad because he realized I knew it was a bad idea. But, all he could do was crack up laughing. After that we each took a cup of our favorite to go and continued our journey to the front gates.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0474.jpg

Hey - haven't seen that in at least 3 pictures :laughing:

After I took the picture Candi noticed a Photopass guy and offered to take some more pictures. I think he was finally getting into the spirit of "getting our money's worth" :rotfl:

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/Image046.jpg

We also had to stop and watch the dancing fountains; it still amazes us how they are able to time it all so well. We could truly sit around watching them for hours.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0481.jpg

After the fountains we had finally made it to the entrance - only 2 hours had passed since we agreed to go take a nap :goodvibes However, right before we left Candi remembered that there was a camera strap I had wanted to buy last year and we forgot all about it. I was shocked he had remembered because I hadn't said anything about it in over a year. But, the next thing I knew he was leading me into the photo store by the front gates to buy my strap.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0512-1.jpg

To this day, it is my favorite souvenir EVER!!!

After that we actually did leave the park and head back to Wilderness Lodge. The plan was to take a nap and then come back and work our way through World Showcase - starting in Mexico and stopping in Japan for dinner - allowing enough time for me to do the "pick a pearl" thing in the before our dinner reservation.......

mickeysgirl17

02-15-2010, 12:57 AM

Glad you are back with a update. That souvenir is so cool. I love it. I was mean enough to let my DH try Beverly. :rotfl: It was hard to do with a straight face though.

Disneychix

02-15-2010, 10:14 AM

I just found your TR now. I've enjoyed reading it. We fell in love with the WL on our last trip. It was sooo nice! You've made me jealous with your DVC points! :)

Your pictures are wonderful! Were in EPCOT did you make that hysterical flying photo! I've never seen anything like it! Cute!!

RachelNinja

02-15-2010, 11:51 AM

Found your TR and read all your installments! Loving it :)

That picture of you and Candi flying over the castle is great! Where was that taken exactly? How much did it cost? That's definitely much more fun to have than just a regular ol' posed pic in front of the castle!

I'm definitely going to show that camera strap to DBF! He will probably want a Mickey camera strap, maybe not so bright though. Were there other ones there?

Looking forward to more!

emmakatbaby

02-15-2010, 11:55 AM

Just found you TR and I love it :love:. I have to know, where did you take the picture "flying" over the world :confused3? I have read MANY TR's and have never seen this. It is awesome :cool1:. Do you mind sharing?

Karen

Figment1990

02-15-2010, 01:58 PM

I love your trip report! DH and I also try to go back to WDW for our anniversaries - we honeymooned in 2002 at WL and fell in love with the resort. Nothing else matches that feeling, no matter how much I like staying at the Grand, the WL will always be "home."

Waiting (im)patiently :rolleyes1 for your next update....

my2disneyboys

02-21-2010, 09:42 AM

I was reading your dining reviews and decided to hop over and read your Trip Report!! I love it and all your detail. I am writing one form our trip and I am just not good at it!! :rotfl2: Do you write things down on your trip or do you just have a great memory!!??

I love all your pictures and all your good comments about WL! We were at the Poly and didn't love it like I thought I would and had lunch at WC on our last day and did fall in love with the Wilderness Lodge and booked it THAT DAY for our next trip!!!! :cloud9:

yourMaire83

02-22-2010, 09:24 PM

I can't believe you got such a good picture of that jellyfish! I tried forever and couldn't get a good one. Also, that turtle that was watching you eat lunch is too cute!

ariel1025

02-23-2010, 01:28 PM

Glad you are back with a update. That souvenir is so cool. I love it. I was mean enough to let my DH try Beverly. :rotfl: It was hard to do with a straight face though.

Thank you! The only reason that he didn't see me laughing at first is because I was around the corner when I saw him fill up the cup. He so badly wanted to be mad at me for not stopping him from drinking it :rotfl:

I just found your TR now. I've enjoyed reading it. We fell in love with the WL on our last trip. It was sooo nice! You've made me jealous with your DVC points! :)

Your pictures are wonderful! Were in EPCOT did you make that hysterical flying photo! I've never seen anything like it! Cute!!

Thanks for joining :goodvibes The picture was taken in the gift shop in the imagination pavilion. We just happened to stumble upon it after exiting the Figment ride :thumbsup2

Found your TR and read all your installments! Loving it :)

That picture of you and Candi flying over the castle is great! Where was that taken exactly? How much did it cost? That's definitely much more fun to have than just a regular ol' posed pic in front of the castle!

I'm definitely going to show that camera strap to DBF! He will probably want a Mickey camera strap, maybe not so bright though. Were there other ones there?

Looking forward to more!

Thanks for reading!!!

The picture was taken in the gift shop at the Imagination Pavilion. The one you enter after exiting the Figment ride, but I'm sure you can enter it from outside as well :confused3 I believe it was $15.00 or so, I will be digging up my receipts and posting prices of everything when I do the installment of the end of each day :thumbsup2

The only strap I saw was the red one, but to be honest, I wasn't looking for a different color ;)

Just found you TR and I love it :love:. I have to know, where did you take the picture "flying" over the world :confused3? I have read MANY TR's and have never seen this. It is awesome :cool1:. Do you mind sharing?

Karen

Thank you so much :goodvibes I had never seen a picture like that before either and absolutely fell in love with the idea. They had other ones you could do as well, but we liked this one the best. It was taken in the gift shop after you exit the Figment ride in the Imagination Pavilion.

I love your trip report! DH and I also try to go back to WDW for our anniversaries - we honeymooned in 2002 at WL and fell in love with the resort. Nothing else matches that feeling, no matter how much I like staying at the Grand, the WL will always be "home."

Waiting (im)patiently :rolleyes1 for your next update....

Thank you very much! We are staying at the Beach Club for a couple of days before our cruise this year for our anniversary. I'm sure I will like it, but am worried I will miss WL :sad2:

Hoping to get an update up today :thumbsup2

I was reading your dining reviews and decided to hop over and read your Trip Report!! I love it and all your detail. I am writing one form our trip and I am just not good at it!! :rotfl2: Do you write things down on your trip or do you just have a great memory!!??

I love all your pictures and all your good comments about WL! We were at the Poly and didn't love it like I thought I would and had lunch at WC on our last day and did fall in love with the Wilderness Lodge and booked it THAT DAY for our next trip!!!! :cloud9:

Thanks so much for reading both :goodvibes Thank you for the kind comments as well. To be honest, I don't make any notes except on the food. At each restaurant I made a few small notes on the receipts but that was it. My memory is awful with everything except for Disney :laughing:

I can't wait to hear how much you like WL - as pretty as I think the Poly is I've never been enticed to stay there. Maybe it's just because of the price :confused3 If I remember correctly WL is the least expensive of the deluxe hotels, but (in my opinion) is so much more beautiful and peaceful :littleangel:

Going to check out your TR today - I'm sure it is MUCH better than you say :thumbsup2

I can't believe you got such a good picture of that jellyfish! I tried forever and couldn't get a good one. Also, that turtle that was watching you eat lunch is too cute!

Thanks for reading! Trust me, I can't take any credit for that jellyfish - it was all in the camera ;) For our anniversary last year Candi bought me a new camera and it does so many amazing things - it's almost a year later and I'm still learning new things with it!!

ariel1025

02-23-2010, 03:16 PM

Candi's feet were really bothering him and we were both exhausted so we napped for quite a while. I'm not sure if I mentioned it or not, but Candi has had several major surgeries on his foot, ankle and knee in the last 10 years. He has a metal plate and screws in his ankle and the arch of his foot, so extended walking really bothers him. He's generally alright if he can trade off his shoes so that he alternates the arch support, but I forgot them in our friend's car at the airport :sad2:

After our extended nap time we did our usual boat to the Contemporary then monorail to Epcot to finish our our evening. On the way back to Epcot we talked about maybe doing a Kim Possible mission. Even though they are meant for kids we both thought they looked like tons of fun and since we both love World Showcase, it was kind of perfect for us.

We entered Epcot and made our way to World Showcase

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0483.jpg

I love these little signs, but, unfortunately you can see trouble in the background. Do you see it? No? Look harder! Still no?

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0486.jpg

Now, I know you can see it here ... there was a storm a brewin' and it was threatening to ruin our afternoon/evening plans :sad1:

You would think we would be hightailing it over to our first stop. But, nope! We are a bit dorky and took our time strolling over to World Showcase.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0489.jpg

Hey look! It's the monorail AND the Epcot ball :rotfl:

Soon enough we made it to World Showcase

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0491.jpg

Even though it hadn't actually started to rain yet, it definitely wasn't looking any better.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0493.jpg

The good news was you could see an end to the stormy clouds. So we continued on to Mexico, crossing our fingers and hoping for the best. I mean, really, what else can you do anyway?!?

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0494.jpg

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0497.jpg

I'm not kidding, we walked inside and the rain started to come down in buckets!! We were rolling with laughter because we could not believe our luck.

Once inside, we both immediately fell in love with the Mexico pavilion. We had not made it to Mexico or Norway on our honeymoon and had spent the year wondering what we had missed out on.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0499.jpg

It was definitely packed in there, anybody who was nearby when it started to rain were definitely inside there now. Since we knew we had some time to kill we roamed around looking at all the different things they were selling. I loved the wooden animals that they painted in all the bright colors. They were definitely talented and I debated getting one for my desk at work. In the end I passed, because I figured I could get something similar at home, being from New Mexico and all. As a side note, I have not :sad2: Candi also commented on how pretty the restaurant was and how he wished we would have made reservations there. We had discussed it, but I had read so many bad things about it we decided to pass. I must say, we were regretting our decision now.

After a while we decided to hop in line for the boat ride - sorry, I don't remember the correct name. I'm not sure how long we waited, I know there was a line though because of all the people running inside from the rain.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0500.jpg

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0501.jpg
This scene cracked me up - I honestly couldn't stop laughing - the people on our boat must have thought I was nuts!

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-3/DSC_0503.jpg

After the ride we decided to check out the weather - it was still raining but you could tell it was starting to let up so we just sat by the fountain and waited. We probably waited another five minutes and then the rain cleared and we headed on to Norway.

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I was super excited when I saw the grass roof - I can't remember what special I was watching when I heard about it, but I was excited to see it nonetheless :laughing:

We were also super stoked to see that the skies had cleared up and hoped that was the last of the rain for the day. With that hope we got in line to ride the Viking boats and waited around 20 minutes or so before we got on. Now, we didn't dislike the ride, but we didn't love it either. If we passed by and there wasn't a wait we would definitely go on it again, but we wouldn't go out of our way to ride it either. We bypassed the show at the end of the ride to try to make up some time before dinner. Unfortunately, we quickly learned that was a mistake, right as we went to walk outside it started pouring rain again. We hung out in the gift shop to wait for it to pass and wouldn't you know it, as soon as the show was let out, the rain stopped!

By now it was starting to get really close to our dinner reservation. We had spent over an hour in the Mexico showcase and almost an hour in Norway on top of napping way longer than planned. So the new plan was to make a run through each showcase until we made it to Japan and hopefully put aside a different day to really see the showcases!

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Oh look, it's the friendship boat and the ball :rotfl:

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Yay! You can see the sun was forcing it's way back out!!!

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Hi Germany!

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Skies are clearing .... WAHOO!!!

Continued next post....

ariel1025

02-23-2010, 03:23 PM

Continued from previous post...

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Ok, I was literally running when I snapped this picture, but, don't the skies look all pretty now?

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Candi took a restroom break which gave me enough time for some detail shots!

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This is one of my favorite shots from that day

We made it to Japan with time to spare. Ok, ok, with a lot of time to spare. Maybe, just maybe, we ran a little too quickly :lmao: Oh well, this gave us a lot of time to do my pick a pearl right? Wrong! There was an entire tour group in line for a pearl so that was also pushed back for another day or maybe after dinner if it was still open.

While we waited to check-in we just relaxed by the lake ... pond? ... lagoon? Not sure what it is :laughing:

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Candi was really infatuated with this bird and kept waiting to watch him fly. We decided he knew this because he would open his wings a lot and act like he was going to take off but never do it. Little tricky thing :rotfl2:

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If you look really closely you can see a rainbow ending right over the pyramid. It was really beautiful to see in person!

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Getting ready for Illuminations! I felt a little sad that we would probably miss it tonight because our dinner reservation was for later than I had hoped.

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Look, look, he's going to fly ..... but he didn't:rotfl:

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I decided this would be a really pretty spot for Photopass pictures!

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Yay ... there he goes. Yep, we are dorks!

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One more Epcot ball picture before we go inside to eat. I call this my artistic shot :rotfl2:

Dinner was at Teppan Edo which we were super stoked about. For our honeymoon they had just finished the renovation and were completely booked up for the week. We love teppan style cooking at couldn't wait to try it here. I will apologize now, I do not have any pictures of this meal. It wasn't that I was embarrassed to take them, but was too lost in our table's conversation and forgot.

We checked in about 15 minutes early for dinner and had to wait about 30 minutes before we were seated. It was crowded in there, we stood the entire wait because there weren't any more chairs and it was even more crowded when we were finally sat. While we waited we heard them turn away several disappointed parties trying to walk up. Based on our experience, I definitely recommend reservations if you want to eat here!

For those of you not familiar you sit at one large table with other guests. I believe each table seats 8 people - 2 on each end and 4 across one side. The table is actually a cooking table top and the chef comes to your table and cooks your food in front of you while putting on a show. It's really neat and incredibly yummy!

We were seated on one of the ends and had two other families at our table. Candi was sitting next to this little boy who was so excited to be at Disney and told us all about his trip and home and everything else. He was so cute, I don't remember his name but he told us when he grew up he was going to open a doughnut shop and name it "A Hole In One" :lmao:

I don't remember the name of our chef but our server was Ayumu and both of them were fantastic. Our chef sang and did all sorts of tricks and to top it off made some really scrumptious food.

Teppan Edo was definitely one of our top three meals!!!

After dinner we walked out to see that Illuminations hadn't finished yet :woohoo: When you leave Teppan Edo you are actually up a flight of stairs and there is a big wrap around patio out there. It ended up being a perfect place to see Illuminations from!

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There weren't any Extra Magic Hours tonight so after Illuminations ended Epcot was all closed up. After our sprint through World Showcase before dinner we decided to take our time that night. I put the camera away and we enjoyed the rest of our time in Epcot just walking together and enjoying each others company. I'm always so focused on capturing every single moment in pictures that I sometimes forget I'm missing out on moments that can't be captured by a camera!

When we made it to the front of the park they still had Photopass photographers and once again, it was Candi's idea to take advantage of them.

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There couldn't have been a more perfect picture to end the night than that one!

Once we made it back to the hotel we visited the gift shop to pick up some batteries for Candi's razor, some moleskin for his blisters and of course, some waters and a tea!

Money Spent Day Three:

Kona Cafe Breakfast - 2 table service credits used - $33.42 if paying cash

Coral Reef Lunch - 2 table service credits used - $92.68 if paying cash

5x7 flying castle photo - $13.80

Camera Strap - $19.17

Teppan Edo Dinner - 2 table service credits used plus $10.12 for sushi sampler (not included on dining plan) - $83.93 total if paying cash

WL Gift Shop (4 pk AA batteries, 3 pk moleskin, 2 Dasani waters and 1 Nestea) - 3 snack credits used plus $10.46 in cash - $18.18 total if paying cash

RachelNinja

02-23-2010, 06:42 PM

Disney25th

02-27-2010, 04:49 AM

ariel1025

02-27-2010, 03:00 PM

I love that you captured the series of that bird that refused to fly! It may seem silly to post, but those are the things that make reading TRs really fun. You share more about who you are through those stories as opposed to just the "we-rode-this-then-ate-that" kind of recaps. You two are so cute together! :lovestruc

I think your artistic shot of the ball is a really good one! Love how you used whatever it was to frame the ball. So different than the typical shots, haha, as in the ones I will probably be taking!

Ooo, thanks for posting those prices! The flying castle photo is definitely a doable price, and the camera strap is not expensive like I thought it would be!

Thank you so much! I was pretty surprised at how inexpensive the castle photo was. When I saw it posted I was a little nervous when asking the cost :laughing:

I love your pics & updates.........My wife & I had our 35th last Sept & had a BLAST!!!!! and yes we both are Disney Freaks....
I have 2 questions.........What kind of camera do you have?You sem to have some nice clear shots!!
Also The Pic of you 2 flying where was that taken??
Thanks & looking FWD to more

Thank you :goodvibes The camera I have is a Nikon D5000 and I absolutely love it!!!! Even my Husband, who normally has problems getting a clear shot (he shakes a lot when taking pictures) can get some really good pictures when using it :thumbsup2 The castle picture was taken in the Imagination pavilion gift shop. We just happened to stumble upon it after exiting the Figment ride. Thanks for reading!

ariel1025

02-27-2010, 03:23 PM

Today was the day in our trip that I think I was most looking forward to; this was the day we were going to Blizzard Beach :woohoo: Candi, however, wasn't too excited about it so we made a compromise .... he would go to the water park if I would let us sleep until our "natural alarm clock" woke us up. I was more than willing to agree and, of course, I woke up looooooong before the Hubby did :laughing:

In keeping with my promise I decided to wander around the resort taking pictures with the plan of buying breakfast on our my back. Getting ready that morning was great - ponytail, no make-up, shorts and t-shirt - no need to be pretty when I was gonna be gettin' wet :rotfl: I wrote a quick note to Candi, in case he woke-up while I was out, and headed out on my adventure.

Upon leaving our room I saw the saddest thing ever

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Do you see it?

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Ok, now you definitely can't miss it! But, no worries, we aren't leaving Disney we are just switching resorts the next day :thumbsup2 After leaving the room I make a photographic journey of my explorations.

ENJOY :goodvibes

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We were on the third floor and this was our aerial view of the lobby when we were waiting for the elevator each day. I absolutely love all the details of the wood work and the chairs and the fireplace and the chandeliers .....

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Even the elevators fit into the theme!

Once downstairs I spent some time exploring the lobby of the Villas. I'll be honest, it isn't as grand as the main hotel, but it is definitely charming in it's own right. I absolutely loved all the seating areas they had everywhere

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The fireplace was always going whenever we were around and I loved how it made everything seem so peaceful and relaxing.

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Off in one corner of the lobby or main area of the villas

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Around the corner on the opposite side from the last sitting area.

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An entire row of game tables - they had checkers and chess and some other games that I'm not sure of the names of?!? I wish we would have made time to come down here and play one night, but, we never did. Guess that's for next time!

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Right as you walk in the main doors of the villas.

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And of course, a "welcome home" right beside the doors on the outside of the villas!

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I just think this is one of the cutest signs ever and another piece of Disney detailing!

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Outside the gift shop in the main lobby at Wilderness Lodge - don't forget to rub his nose as you walk by!

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A look at just a portion of the grandness of the main lobby - it is absolutely breathtaking in person!

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It made me feel happy inside when I saw the American Flag by the massive fireplace.

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The sitting area in front of the fireplace

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And, of course, a look at the whole fireplace in all it's beauty!

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More hotel detailing - on the way to Roaring Forks

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The hot springs - it starts inside the lobby and then flows outside, turning into a waterfall that flows into the pool.

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The bridge over the hot springs and a look at where it starts its way outside.

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The pathway that we took each day to get to the villas - I truly felt like I was walking into a whole different world each time we came back. It is completely wooded and beautiful ........

ariel1025

02-27-2010, 07:17 PM

After enjoying my morning adventure I took the pathway back to the villas and made it back to the room to see ........ Candi was still sleeping :lmao: I came into the room and looked up the water park times online and started to get situated to eat my breakfast when the Hubby opened his eyes. I may have also said (not so) softly "if you don't wake up I'm eating the pastry and leaving you the muffin" to help encourage that eye opening :rolleyes1

We enjoyed a quick and easy breakfast purchased with snack credits.

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We still had about a bajillion snack credits left and since we were switching resorts the next day we had to start the meal plan over again for that reservation. That meant we had to use up all of our meal and snack credits for this reservation before the next day at midnight.

After our tasty breakfast we made our way to the bus stop for a day full of fun and sun and slides

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Good Morning duckies - I loved seeing them every morning!

This was probably the longest we had to wait for a bus our entire stay at Wilderness Lodge. Then again, it was one of the only times we used the buses too :laughing: However, once we boarded the bus it didn't take too long to make it to Blizzard Beach. I have to say though, the walk from the bus drop off to the entrance was rather lengthy:confused3 Oh well, we were still there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our first plan of action was to find out where to rent a locker and so our quest began. But then I spotted it ....... a lonely photopass photographer :rotfl:

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Ok, picture fun out of the way. Let's continuing searching for the locker rental stand. Oh, look over there. No, it's not the locker stand it's another photopass photographer :rotfl2:

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Alright, now let's go lock up our stuff! We figured out that you pay for the locker rental inside one of the gift shops. We got our key and they let us know that we would receive a portion of the payment back when we turned the key back in. We had brought a small bag with sunscreen, KTTW and a change of clothes; we also needed to lock up our shoes and the clothes we had on over our swim suits. Candi had brought water shoes with him and they were allowed on almost all of the slides without any problems.

After locking up our stuff we headed out to figure out where we wanted to start first. Well, actually, I knew where I wanted to start first, I just had to figure out where it was. I had been to Blizzard Beach way back in the day, when I came to WDW with my family. My Dad and I had spent almost the entire day there and had a blast. When Candi and I were deciding which water park to visit I kept wanting to say we should try Typhoon Lagoon, but in the end I really, really wanted to go back to Blizzard Beach.

Our first stop of the day was to Teamboat Springs - the family raft ride. I absolutely love this type of water slide and was secretly hoping we would get all adults in the raft with us. The "heavier" the raft the more thrilling the ride is. We actually got paired with a set of parents and their little boy. No big deal, it was still a super fun ride and the little boy was so cute. He clung on to the handles so tight his poor knuckles where solid white; but you could tell he was having a blast - laughing the whole way down.

After leaving Teamboat I didn't have a real preference where we headed next. I knew I wanted to try everything and that included Summit Plummit :scared1: I had chickened out when I came with my Dad and was determined to conquer my fears this time. Candi suggested we do it right away so that I didn't have time to psych myself out during the rest of the day. It was a rather long line and each flight of stairs that we had to climb made me more and more nervous. At one point I really wanted to turn around and go back, but then I started listening to this younger boy in front of us. He was maybe 9 or 10 years old and kept making his Dad convince him that he would have fun on the slide. I knew there was no way I could chicken out and be a bad example to that little boy. We finally got to the top and he insisted his Dad go first "to make sure it was safe" :rotfl: It took a little encouragement but he did go right after his Dad. It was so funny to watch him - I swear he hadn't even come to a stop at the end of the slide when he ran off and declared "never again" :rotfl2: I'm not laughing because he was scared, I'm laughing because he ran so fast at the end. After his go, I decided to go next. I wanted to watch Candi come down and I knew it would help me to have him up there when I went.

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OH MY GOODNESS!!!! I don't think I took a single breath the entire way down, but it was a ton of fun. I must say though, it kind of hurt. The pressure of the water pushing back towards you hits your thighs and bum rather intensely.

After getting off I turned around to watch Candi go and got a little freaked out.

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I'm pretty sure you aren't supposed to ride the side of the slide like that :eek:

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He couldn't stop laughing at the end of the slide; he clearly had a great time. I think at this point he realized that going to Blizzard Beach was a great idea!

The photopass people gave us a card, but it was way better than the ones you get in the regular parks. It was a smaller version attached to a rubberband type wrist strap. We ended up using this for the remainder of the trip. It is much more convenient than getting the credit card sized one out of your wallet all the time :thumbsup2

After conquering my fear we decided to just start riding everything we came across. I was able to get a good starting push on the Downhill Double Dipper and ended up beating Candi which made me super happy! I wasn't so lucky on the Toboggan Racers though; I came in dead last out of all the racers :sad2: Our most favorite area of the park, by far, was Runoff Rapids. It has three different water slides you can go on. One of them is a closed-in water slide and you go down solo and the other two slides are open and you go down in pairs. You get your raft of choice at the bottom of the slides and then climb a million steps to get to the slides. Our thighs were seriously burning from the climb at the end. But we endured the climb 6 times to enjoy the rides. Without a doubt, the double rider slide on the far right (if you are facing the slides at the top) was the most fun. We rode that one 3 times and loved it every single time. We had ridden all the slides in the park, with the slides of Runoff Rapids being at the end. We were tired and starving from our fun day and decided to go grab a bite to eat at the counter service. However, while walking back to the front I noticed Candi was getting pretty sun burnt and we decided to head back to the hotel. The only things we didn't do were the lazy river and the wave pool and I was more than satisfied with that. On the way out we helped a poor guy figure who was super lost find where to get a key for the lockers and grabbed a snack on the way out. I had an ice cream sandwich - one of the best ever since it was shaped like Mickey ;) While Candi enjoyed a frozen lemonaded - both purchased with more snack credits!

On the bus ride back we talked about our plans for the rest of the day. We had a dinner reservation at Artist Point for 8:00 pm and it was around 4:00 pm when we left Blizzard Beach .....

ariel1025

03-07-2010, 01:43 PM

After returning from Blizzard Beach we were both completely pooped and decided to take a nap. With the exception of Blizzard Beach and our Artist Point reservation, we didn't have any plans for today. Water parks are definitely draining and I'm pretty sure we both fell asleep withing 30 seconds of laying our head on our pillows! I woke up about an hour later, but Candi was still snoring away. We were about halfway through our trip, he had worked tons of overtime before we left home and now he was slightly sunburnt .... all a combination for major exhaustion.

While Candi continued to sleep I decided to look and see if we could trade our Artist Point reservation for our "free night" we had planned later in the week. Sure enough there was a reservation available for the exact same time we were supposed to go on this night! I know it sounds kind of silly, the reservation was in our own hotel, but we were tired and, truth be told, I didn't feel like getting all dressed up.

With a new reservation made and this one canceled I decided to run down to Roaring Forks to grab a snack while I worked on a new game plan. I, once again, wrote a quick note in case Candi woke up and ran to the main hotel. I refilled our refillable mugs and grabbed a bowl of chili and a bowl of chicken noodle soup - both covered with snack credits. Candi was awake and watching ESPN when I got back. I filled him in on changing the reservation and asked if he wanted to stay in tonight or try to head out somewhere. After discussing everything for a little while we decided to head over to the Beach Club to see if they had any seating at Beaches & Cream. This is one of the places that was on our "wish list" and this seemed like the perfect night to make it happen!

Since we love the boats so much we decided to grab the boat to the MK and then take the bus from there to the Beach Club.

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I had to grab a picture of the sign since we would be going later in the week to the party!

The bus stopped first at the Yacht Club and then next door to the Beach Club and I immediately started to fall in love with the resort.

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It seemed so simple and charming and relaxing and I told Candi we definitely had to stay here some day. He reminded me that we weren't coming back next year and I agreed that we would stick to our commitment of going somewhere new for vacation in 2010 :rolleyes1

Candi did, however, agree that it seemed like an amazing resort and we took our time making our way inside.

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These are the shots that I wished I would have bought a tripod before the trip so I could have set the timer and got both of us in the shot.

Once we got inside I was a little bit confused as to why Candi was rushing through the hotel to go outside. He didn't even slow down to stop and ask where the restaurant was :confused3 I decided to just go with the flow and follow him to see what he was up to. We began walking away from the Beach Club and although I was confused I didn't say anything. We were about halfway between Beach Club and Yacht Club when we saw a photopass photographer and asked him to take our picture. Although we meant with his camera, he though we were asking him to take it with our camera, and we just went with it.

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Next to the picture down by the lake the night of our Narcoossee reservation, this is my favorite of the whole trip. I love how you can tell we are just relaxed and enjoying ourselves!

After the picture we made our way over to the Yacht Club

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and I finally asked Candi where we were headed; to which he said the boat over to the Boardwalk because he was starving. Ok, no biggy, so I asked him where he wanted to eat and he said "I thought we were eating at Beaches & Cream?" I said "so did I, but it's at the Beach Club;" and then he says "are you kidding? I thought it was at the Boardwalk and you were just making me tour Beach Club to get me to stay there" :rotfl2:

With that we turned around to make our way back to Beach Club.

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Backside on our way back into the lobby

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We finally stopped to ask somebody where the restaurant was because we couldn't find it. They were super friendly and actually took us outside and pointed us in the right direction. Thank goodness we finally asked, it was over by the pool and I never would have thought to look over there!

We made our way over to the podium and were seated immediately!

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I love the retro feel of this restaurant and was immediately glad that we changed our plans. This was definitely the type of night we were in the mood for!

We were both thrilled when we saw that you could add "fresh flavoring" to your cokes - so I had coke with vanilla syrup and Candi had coke with cherry syrup. Both were delicious!

For dinner I had the Roast Beef Sub with melted provolone and Candi had the double cheeseburger with chili fries.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-4/DSC_0697.jpg

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-4/DSC_0698.jpg

Candi was a little worried when he saw his cheeseburger, but both meals were incredibly good :thumbsup2 While we were eating there was a couple at the bar who we could overhear talking. We weren't trying to eavesdrop but our table was very close to where they were sitting. Anyway, they were talking about how glad they were that they had canceled their "fancy dinner" to come here. I had to laugh because we felt the same way and when I turned around they had my exact camera with the same camera strap. I know I'm weird, but it was such a funny thing to me how alike our minds were to these complete strangers :cutie:

Although we were both stuffed from our meal we couldn't turn down dessert - it is after all the whole reason we wanted to eat here. Candi kept it simple and ordered a butterscotch milkshake and I thought I kept it simple by ordering a banana split.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-4/DSC_0700.jpg
Nice, easy, simple and tasty dessert ....

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-4/DSC_0699.jpg
My simple dessert, however, required a plate :lmao:

Let me tell you, this was the most amazing and delicious dessert EVER!!!!

After eating we roamed around the resort while we decided what to do next

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-4/DSC_0701.jpg

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-4/DSC_0706.jpg

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-4/DSC_0707.jpg

So, did we follow them to the Boardwalk :laughing: or did we choose something else .......

mickeysgirl17

03-09-2010, 05:24 PM

brechan

03-10-2010, 01:27 AM

Hi,
I am new to the board and accidentally came upon your posts...I have been sitting here for over an hour reading the entire thing!! I love it! Thanks for all the great info and beautiful pictures!

We will be taking our kids for their first trip in 24 days! I have been doing so much planning my hubby thinks I'm crazy! :rotfl:

Can't wait to read more!

ariel1025

03-27-2010, 10:20 PM

Thanks for the updates! Glad you got lucky with the storm in Epcot. I live in FL, and we get some pretty bad storms.

I can't wait to try teppan edo and beaches n' cream. It's on my to do list for the next trip.

I can almost promise that you will love both restaurants :thumbsup2

Hi,
I am new to the board and accidentally came upon your posts...I have been sitting here for over an hour reading the entire thing!! I love it! Thanks for all the great info and beautiful pictures!

We will be taking our kids for their first trip in 24 days! I have been doing so much planning my hubby thinks I'm crazy! :rotfl:

Can't wait to read more!

Thank you for such kind words and welcome to the boards :goodvibes I hope you and your family enjoy the trip! Oh, and there is NO SUCH THING as too much planning :lmao:

ariel1025

03-28-2010, 12:54 PM

After our late lunch/early dinner we discussed options for the rest of the night. We were both pretty energetic and ready to do something. We decided that the choices would be between going to Disney Quest, strolling the Boardwalk or hitting whichever park had evening extra magic hours. In the end we decided to hit the park with EMH, even though it was the same park that was planned for our visit the next day.

We knew that there was a boat that took you to Epcot and Hollywood Studios so we took our time making our way to the dock.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-4/DSC_0708.jpg

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-4/DSC_0713.jpg

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http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-4/DSC_0716.jpg

If you can't tell, I was really falling in love with the resort and it's surroundings. Just like WL, it really felt like you were somewhere else completely. It didn't have the same romantic, peaceful vibe as Wilderness but, it had this relaxing, carefree vibe that was nice as well :goodvibes

The boat was pulling up right as we got to the dock and soon enough we had reached our destination. Have I mentioned yet how much I love the boat transportation option!

Tonight we would be enjoying our time at Hollywood Studios!
http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-4/DSC_0717.jpg

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-4/DSC_0718.jpg

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I really loved the way the sky was looking as the sun was starting to set. It seemed so peaceful and was the perfect surrounding for the day that we were having.

After entering the park we did what we always do and headed right .... wait just a second! Don't I mean left? Ya know towards Toy Story Mania? Nope, I really mean right :rotfl:

Our system is always the same at Hollywood Studios. We head right towards Tower of Terror and Rockin' Roller Coaster.

We first check the wait time for Tower

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-4/DSC_0723.jpg

If it's less than 15 minutes we hop in line, if it's more than 15 minutes we grab a fastpass and continue on our way. And, yes, I know 15 minutes is not long, but it's just what we do :laughing:

Tonight the wait time was around 30 minutes so we grabbed our fastpass and continued to our next destination. This is, of course, Aersomith's Rockin' Roller Coaster ...... also known as, my favorite ride in all of the world :woohoo:

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-4/DSC_0726.jpg

I could barely contain myself as we headed towards the line. I honestly turn into such a little kid when we go on this ride. I love roller coasters, especially if they have twists and turns and upside down loops. And I love, love, love Aerosmith so this ride is like pure heaven to me!!!

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-4/DSC_0728.jpg

I was completely stoked to see that the line didn't even reach the outside

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-4/DSC_0733.jpg
and when I made it inside, I was beyond thrilled when this was where our line began!

For those who don't know this is the pre-show area that then opens you up into the smaller portion of the inside line. I would say that after you go through the pre-show your wait time is about 5-10 minutes at the most. You also get to see all the super stretch limos take off and hear the screams of the riders .... it's pure and utter bliss I tell ya :upsidedow

Once we reached the CM that splits you into your ride section we requested the back of the limo and were on my favorite ride within 2 minutes. It was just as fun as I had remembered and it totally made my night!

After the ride you, of course, exit through a gift shop and I was forced to buy a new Aerosmith T-shirt. And then Candi felt left out so he had no choice but to buy himself one as well :lmao:

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I LOVE this shirt - it fits perfect and is super soft - it has become my "weekend wear" :laughing:

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This is actually the exact one Candi bought on our honeymoon, but his brother kinda sorta adopted it so he bought it again :rotfl:

We had our purchases delivered to our room and they ensured us that it would not be a problem that we were checking out of WL the next morning :rolleyes1

After leaving the gift shop we headed back to Tower of Terror; it wasn't quite time for our fastpasses so we hopped in the standby line, which was now only 10 minutes. I must say that Tower is a million times more fun at night - when you get to the top and the doors open it is amazing to see everything all lit up!!! We had an awesome ride with several drops and tons of screams so once we got off we hopped back in line again and were dropping and screaming within 5 minutes. Guess we didn't need those fastpasses after all huh?

Two rounds of Tower later and we decided to give the rest of the park some of our attention. I figured it was pointless, but decided we should check out the wait time for Toy Story Mania. When we were on our honeymoon we had the chance to preview this ride before it officially opened and passed :eek: Since then we had ridden it at Disneyland and always talk about how silly we were to have passed the opportunity to preview it ......

ariel1025

03-28-2010, 12:59 PM

Now, I had spent a lot of time on the boards before this trip and had read many, many times about the wait time always exceeding 1 hour, even on extra magic hours. So, imagine my surprise when we walked up and saw

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-4/DSC_0742.jpg

MAJOR SCORE!!!!!!

We hopped in line which was just slightly outside and made me wonder if the wait time really was only 30 minutes.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-4/DSC_0744.jpg

I, of course, killed some time taking pictures

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-4/DSC_0745.jpg
Candi wasn't feeling very photogenic :rotfl2:

We were inside within 5 minutes and this is what we saw
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http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-4/DSC_0748.jpg

Sneaky, sneaky Disney, making the line look longer than it was :rolleyes1

We loved the theming of the line and the wait time easily felt like less than 30 minutes!

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I could have sworn that I took pictures of our score, but I can't locate it :confused3 I will be honest and admit that Candi kicked my booty :rotfl:

After our spin on Toy Story we decided to get in one more ride on Aerosmith and Tower and then call it a night. We were both getting sleepy and a little hungry and didn't want to push ourselves into the point of cranky. Both rides were amazing as always and were the perfect last rides of the evening!

As always we took our time leaving the park

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We also stopped at Villians in Vogue to pick up a coke, even though it was night it was still super humid, and we had a ton of snack credits to burn through :thumbsup2

And, a park wouldn't be complete without some Photopass Pictures :lmao:

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-4/Image078.jpg

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-4/Image072.jpg

Our only option to get back to our hotel was the bus which was actually nice, as we both were in need of some air conditioning.....

ariel1025

03-28-2010, 01:01 PM

Upon returning to the hotel we decided that since we had some spare meal credits we would order some room service. Candi offered to order while I hopped in the shower and I told him to just surprise me, that I was in the mood for anything.

Imagine my surprise when I got out of the shower and saw this sitting on our bed

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-4/DSC_0766.jpg

Ummm, honey, are Mickey and his pals joining us for dinner or something :rotfl2:

Apparently, Candi called down for a pizza and they told him with meal credits he had to add 2 desserts and 2 appetizers just like normal with the deluxe plan. Holy moly, we were never going to be able to finish all this food!!

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-4/DSC_0770.jpg
Pepperoni pizza with extra cheese - obviously super cheesy which is exactly how we like it. It was very tasty and we both enjoyed it very much.

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Chips & Salsa - we were told these were the same ones they serve at Whispering Canyon Cafe. I enjoyed them but they tasted too much like Pace Picante for Candi's liking :laughing:

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Cheese Tray - which was stated to be the same one from Artist Point. This was honestly my favorite part of the meal and may have started a small cheese plate obsession with me :rolleyes1

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-4/DSC_0767.jpg
Bourbon Pecan Pie, I believe from Whispering Canyon as well, and Fresh fruit and yogurt. We were both too stuffed to take more than one bite of these but were tasty and put in the fridge for later.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009-4/DSC_0771.jpg
Candi asked for the largest bottle of water they had and this is what he received :lmao:

Overall, this had been the perfect day and still ranks as my favorite day of the first half of our trip :goodvibes We were both glad that we had changed up our evening plans and realized even more that it's ok to break plans, and better to just go with the flow. We didn't ride a ton of rides at Hollywood Studios, but it was still the perfect choice for us :thumbsup2

Money Spent Day Four:

Roaring Forks (muffin, danish and chocolate milk) - 3 snack credits used - $7.23 if paying in cash

Waterpark Fun & More Option Added to 2 Tickets - $104.00 - $90.00 if you just bought a one day waterpark ticket for 2 which is what we should have done since we never used the option on our ticket again ... Oh well!

Small Locker Rental @ Blizzard Beach - $20.00 deposit with $10.00 refunded upon return of key

Frostbite Freddies (frozen lemonade & Mickey ice cream sandwich) - 2 snack credits used - $7.19 if paying in cash

Roaring Forks (chili & chicken noodle soup) - 2 snack credits used - $7.06 if paying in cash

Beaches & Cream - 2 table service credits used - $44.88 if paying in cash

Rock Around the Shop (2 Aerosmith T-shirts) - $58.53

Villians in Vogue (20 oz Coke) - 1 snack credit used - $2.49 if paying in cash

WL Room Service - 4 table service meal credits used - $98.46 if paying in cash (that includes the delivery charge and the automatic 18% gratuity charge)

brechan

03-30-2010, 10:05 PM

Wow! That was a lot of food for 2 people! That cheese plate looks yummy though!! :)

ariel1025

04-03-2010, 10:42 PM

Wow! That was a lot of food for 2 people! That cheese plate looks yummy though!! :)

Yeah, it really was too much food. Especially since it was just meant to be a "midnight snack" and not a full meal :rotfl2:

ariel1025

04-05-2010, 03:44 PM

Just stopping in to say I hope everyone had a wonderful time on Easter. We had a great day with family. Unfortunately, I woke up feeling under the weather and just found out I have Strep Throat :sick: Was hoping to get an update in, but just realized that I don't have all of my next day's pictures uploaded and the Hubby has the portable memory with him :sad2: Hopefully later today :thumbsup2

ariel1025

04-05-2010, 11:03 PM

Ok, picture problem solved and I'm ready to continue on :thumbsup2 I will have to warn you though, for some reason this day is a little bit fuzzy, and I don't have as many pictures as normal to refresh my memory :sad2:

If you will recall, we had spent a late night at Hollywood Studios followed by a midnight "snack" in our room. Because of this I let Candi sleep in, and I even stayed in bed for quite a while after waking up. After about 15 minutes of laying around I flipped on the TV to Stacey and started packing up our bags. Today we would be switching resorts and I was a little surprised at how much it was bumming me out. I had been so excited about the switch leading up to the trip, and now that it was here I found myself shedding a couple of tears. This was probably due to the fact that Wilderness Lodge is starting to feel like "home" to us, it's where our Honeymoon was spent and where all of our Disney memories together were up until this point.

Anywhooo, after wiping away my tears I got out my leftover fruit bowl from the night before and started munching away while I finished up the last minute packing. I knew that we didn't have to be checked out until 11:00 a.m. and so I wasn't in any huge rush to get out. I was really starting to enjoy this newly found "go with the flow" vacation mood of mine!

I had just zipped up the last suitcase when Candi started stirring awake .... perfect timing if I might say so myself :rolleyes1 I asked if he wanted some of my fruit for breakfast and he said no, but he wouldn't mind terribly if I got his Pecan Pie out of the fridge :laughing:

While he enjoyed his mighty nutritious breakfast I started getting ready for the day

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You can see the combination sleepy/crying eyes in this picture

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Candi absolutely HATES when I wear my hair in a ponytail so he was trying to distract me so that I would get frustrated and leave it down .... ummm, yeah, you try the Florida humidity with your hair sticking to your neck buddy ;)

While Candi started to get ready I went down to the gift shop to pick up our packages that were supposed to be delivered (our Aerosmith T-shirts and our picture from Epcot) as well as turn in our DVD rental from the previous night. When I gave them my receipts for the merchandise they had my picture but not the T-shirts :scared1: I asked them if they could please double-check and they still could not locate the shirts. They promised me they would get the issue resolved and have the shirts delivered to our new resort by this evening. I was somewhat frustrated but appreciated the CMs willingness to help out and let it go.

After I returned to the room we packed up the toiletry bag and made our way down to the Wilderness lobby for the last time this trip

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I stopped for a few minutes just staring while a few tears came down my face while Candi held his arms around me. He knew how much this place means to me and I appreciated that he didn't push me along or crack any jokes about how sensitive I can be. He just got it :hug:

After I had absorbed enough of the atmosphere to last me until next time we went up to the nearest CM to find our where we dropped off our bags to be transferred. This was absolutely a piece of cake; we were directed to the outdoor valet stand where they tagged up our luggage, gave us our claim tickets and told us to enjoy our day. We were ensured that our bags would be in our room whenever we felt like checking in for the day.

We made one final trip down to the WL bus stop and waited for the correct bus

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I'm pretty sure that I had barely snapped that picture when the Hollywood Studios bus showed up! We were the only people to get on and hoped that the empty bus was foreshadowing of the park crowds that day ....

tlhbdm

04-05-2010, 11:32 PM

I can't wait to stay at the Villas at Wilderness Lodge in a studio in about a month and half. I'm glad to hear that you liked it so much. Can't wait for the rest of your TR.

ariel1025

04-06-2010, 03:53 PM

I can't wait to stay at the Villas at Wilderness Lodge in a studio in about a month and half. I'm glad to hear that you liked it so much. Can't wait for the rest of your TR.

Thanks for reading! You will LOVE the WL :goodvibes

ariel1025

04-06-2010, 08:31 PM

Within minutes we were pulling up to Hollywood Studios and from the entrance it looked "so far so good" as far as crowd levels were concerned.

On the way to scan our tickets and start our day I told Candi how sad I was that our favorite ride wasn't running

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On our honeymoon we had a little bit of time to kill before our reservation at Hollywood & Vine so we decided to go to the Sounds Dangerous show. Major mistake ... on the restaurant and the show .... we laugh about it now, but my goodness we did not enjoy that portion of our trip :lmao:

We walked into the park and the crowd levels still seemed minimal and I finally let myself believe that it wasn't going to be a crowded day

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I absolutely loved when we would get Photopass photographers who would take several pictures. You can't tell in this picture because I have my sunglasses on, but I have a lazy eye and sometimes it gets really bad when I smile. So, it was nice to constantly have options for the pictures :thumbsup2

After we had our "beauty shoot" we decided to find the Sci Fi Dine In, so we weren't rushing around to find it when it came time for lunch. Once we located where it was, we just took our time strolling around to see what caught our attention.

We passed by the Indiana Jones Stunt Show and made note of the future show times.

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This is one of the two things that we didn't get to do last time that Candi was really hoping to do this year.

From there we made our way back across the park to follow back through with routine.

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I mean, afterall, it had been like twelve whole hours since we sang along with Aerosmith while screaming our heads off :rotfl2:

If I remember correctly we rode both, Rock'n and Tower twice apiece before we decided we should give some love to other parts of the park.

However, with the exception of those two rides, Studios just really isn't our "cup of tea" so to speak. It's not that we hate the park, but we don't necessarily love it either :confused3

After walking around for a while we decided to check out the Backlot Tour and see how many character spots we could find before lunchtime.

On our way to the Backlot Tour we ran into this guy

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After dodging his bullets, we got in line for the Backlot Tour

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We picked the perfect time to get into line, because we weren't qued up for too long before we were taken into the the area where you watch the special effects show

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*** Oh, darn it, gotta stop the update for now .... hopefully will be back later!

NYmickey

04-07-2010, 09:53 PM

ariel1025

04-08-2010, 10:32 PM

I am LOVIN your trip report!! And I am loving your pictures.You guys are such a cute couple. My question is did you use a tri-pod when you took your night photos. My hubby and I have been considering getting the camera you have b/c ours takes terrible night/fireworks photos. Thanks a bunch and can't wait for the next installment! (Oh and if we do purchase the camera you will have to give me some tips)

Thank you so much :goodvibes To be completely honest, I did not use a tripod for any of my pictures. I know it would have made them look a lot better, but I just didn't want to carry it around all the time ;) For the fireworks pictures at Epcot after our dinner at Teppan Edo, I did rest my camera on the ledge of the balcony. For the other night pictures, they were all handheld. The trick is to take lots of shots and delete the bad ones so that nobody every sees them :rotfl: I also do all my night/fireworks shots with the flash off. I would highly recommend my camera (Nikon D5000) to anybody who was interested in a DSLR; it is quite simple to use and does some amazing things! If you have a Costco near you or a membership to shop online they have an amazing package on the camera right now. You can get the camera, 2 lenses (they are 2 of the 4 I own), a carrying case, a memory card, a battery and an instructional DVD for around $850 - that's less than I paid when the camera came out for the body and 1 lens :scared1::laughing:

ariel1025

04-08-2010, 11:24 PM

So, I last left you with a bunch of unsuspecting volunteers getting soaked with special effects. Once the demonstration was over, we made our way over to the tram for the next portion of the tour.

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I had to stop and take a picture of this from "Hannah Montana: The Movie." My sister absolutely loves Hannah and she was thrilled when I emailed it to her that night!

While on our tram ride we passed by the Lights, Motor, Action stunt show and Candi asked me to check the times for it - it was the second thing he wanted to make sure we did this time.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009%20-%205/DSC_0795.jpg

I know a lot of people don't particular care for the Backlot Tour, but I have to say that I really enjoy seeing all of the different props and things. I guess it's not the same since they don't actually film movies there anymore, but we still enjoy it.

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From "Pirates" one of our favorite movie series!

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I have a picture of this when it read "Disney's MGM Studios" from when I came with my family in 1998!

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After riding this ride on the previously mentioned family trip, I bought one of those clapboards in the gift shop. I actually still have it and it is in our Disney decorated guest room!

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The costume designers are such talented people - I could only dream of being so great at something!

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You can never see too many pictures of Walt's plane.

Uh-oh, it's time for the scary part of the ride :laughing:

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This is the one part of the ride that gets a little old for me. It's kind of like the Safari ride at Animal Kingdom - it was really enjoyable the first couple of times, but you wish it would change every so often.

After leaving the tour we were hoping to get a good look at the Villians showcase but it was so darn crowded in there. Normally lots of people don't bother me, but it was a massive group of pushers and shovers ARGH!

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And....that's all we looked at before hightailing it out of there....

From there we weren't really sure what we wanted to do. We had about an hour before lunch and it wasn't allowing enough time to catch the next time slot for either of the stunt shows we wanted to see. So, instead we decided to roam around and see how many character spots we could find!

The first one we stumbled upon was Monsters Inc. I absolutely adore this move - Candi's goddaughter looked exactly like Boo as a toddler, and it's just an all-around cute movie to me.

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This is one of my absolute favorite character shots from the trip!

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After hanging out with Mike and Sully we came across my favorite pair of vehicles. Lightning McQeen and Mater ... "The name's Mater .... like Tamater without the Ta" :lmao:

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I'm pretty sure we crisscrossed around several portions of the park, but we just didn't have a particular destination in mind. At one point, I shrieked like a child because I saw it ....... the infamous umbrella picture spot!

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From there we strolled along and I let Candi control the camera for a while. He always teases me about my obsession with taking pictures, but boy it's hard to get that camera back once I give it to him!

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Candi commented that he would like to eat here next time we come - funny thing is, when I was going over menus while planning this trip he said "ugh, I don't like Italian enough to eat it on vacation" :lmao:

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After this we stumbled upon the Muppets show and decided to head on in. This is another one that I know people think is outdated, but it's the exact stupid humor that makes us laugh for days!

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While laughing our way around the park we started heading back towards Sci Fi

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So, do I finally get my camera back before it's time to eat?????

RachelNinja

04-11-2010, 09:31 PM

NYmickey

04-12-2010, 09:08 PM

Thank you so much :goodvibes To be completely honest, I did not use a tripod for any of my pictures. I know it would have made them look a lot better, but I just didn't want to carry it around all the time ;) For the fireworks pictures at Epcot after our dinner at Teppan Edo, I did rest my camera on the ledge of the balcony. For the other night pictures, they were all handheld. The trick is to take lots of shots and delete the bad ones so that nobody every sees them :rotfl: I also do all my night/fireworks shots with the flash off. I would highly recommend my camera (Nikon D5000) to anybody who was interested in a DSLR; it is quite simple to use and does some amazing things! If you have a Costco near you or a membership to shop online they have an amazing package on the camera right now. You can get the camera, 2 lenses (they are 2 of the 4 I own), a carrying case, a memory card, a battery and an instructional DVD for around $850 - that's less than I paid when the camera came out for the body and 1 lens :scared1::laughing:

UPDATE!!!!! I GOT THE CAMERA. love it so far but it will take me forever to figure half of the tricks it does. I have to "practice" and get comfortable with it before our trip in August. We bought it at sam's club, it came with bag, DVD, and 1 lens for $780 including tax. Happy Anniversary to me!!:love:

ariel1025

04-24-2010, 02:51 PM

Great update! I especially loved all your Backlot Tour pictures since DBF and I missed it this past Friday. I didn't realize it closed at 7pm (park was open until 10pm), so we were all the way on the other side of the park when we saw it on the times guide.

And how cute is that pic of your hug with Sulley!

Thank you! I had no idea that Backlot closed early either :confused3

UPDATE!!!!! I GOT THE CAMERA. love it so far but it will take me forever to figure half of the tricks it does. I have to "practice" and get comfortable with it before our trip in August. We bought it at sam's club, it came with bag, DVD, and 1 lens for $780 including tax. Happy Anniversary to me!!:love:

:woohoo::woohoo::woohoo:WAAAAAHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOO:wo ohoo::woohoo::woohoo:

How are you liking it so far? That's such a great deal, I was impatient and bought mine on the first or second day it came out so I paid more than I would have liked for mine. Oh well! It's been an AWESOME camera and I have no complaints so far!

You will have to show me some of your favorite shots you take with it - I love seeing pictures from other people's perspectives :goodvibes

ariel1025

04-24-2010, 03:30 PM

Well, after walking all over Hollywood Studios for a couple of hours it was finally time for our Sci fi reservation :goodvibes

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We checked in and were told there would be a small wait. So far, I loved the theming of the restaurant. While we were waiting I heard the hostesses talking to a group of guests and informing them that not all guests get to sit in cars during their meal ..... WAIT! WHAT????:scared1: Ok, Ok, call me crazy, but this really broke my heart and I started to panic a little bit. This reservation was based purely on atmosphere and sitting at a regular table was like taking the atmosphere away for me. I occupied myself by talking to Candi and held my breath slightly when we were led to our table.

Our hostess was very friendly and must have seen the fear in my eyes, because she quickly told me "I hope you don't mind but ....."

Oh no, this is not good, not good at all :sad1:

Oh wait, she hasn't finished her sentence yet, guess I better pay attention. "....you will be hitchhikers for the afternoon" I seriously wanted to give her a great big hug right then and there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All panic aside I started absorbing the atmosphere

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I have to say, I truly miss the old Drive-In theaters. We used to go a lot when I was little and it is one of my favorite memories!

It took a few minutes for our waitress to come around .... the place was PACKED! So we killed some time by doing ... what else? .... taking pictures

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Once our waitress made it to us we were ready to place our full order, and asked if she could space it so that we didn't receive everything at once.

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I had a chocolate milkshake as my "drink" but it was way too think to drink out of the straw.

For our appetizers we had the spinach and artichoke dip which was "ok," nothing great but nothing bad and the 7 bean chili which was phenomenal!

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Our main courses were a cheeseburger with bacon and swiss cheese, it was good. Again, not bad but not especially memorable either.

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Candi ordered the ribs and said they were really good, but he wasn't hungry enough to actually finish them all. At this point, we were really starting to become overly full from all the food we had been eating.

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For dessert we had an apple crumble/pie type thing and fresh fruit. The apple dessert was very good, but the fruit was nice and refreshing and much needed.

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Overall, our meal was enjoyable and we loved the atmosphere so we will definitely be back in the future.

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ariel1025

04-24-2010, 03:34 PM

After lunch we decided to go ahead and stay in Hollywood Studios until we were ready for our "nap time" :laughing:

As we were walking we realized the Block Party Bash was about to start and there were plenty of spots along the walkway open, so we decided to stay and watch it.

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Hmmmm ..... not exactly what I was expecting it to be. I thought it was going to be like the parade we saw at California Adventure earlier that year. We quickly realized it was not, it wasn't our type of entertainment so we moved on. We stumbled upon "Voyage" and since "Little Mermaid" is one of my all-time faves Candi said we should go watch it. We had just missed the start of the show so we sat along the wall to wait for the next one. After about 2 minutes a CM came in and told us she had some bad news. Of course, I thought she was going to say they weren't doing the next show or something. Actually, she told us that we were not allowed to sit in the waiting area :confused3 About 2 minutes before they let us into the show it got so crowded in the waiting area. We were all seriously crushed in there like little sardines. Luckily, we were quickly allowed in to find seats for the show!

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Now, I know that this show gets a lot of bad feedback, and I can understand due to all the other shows that go on at Hollywood Studios. However, I still quite enjoy it and will keep going back to watch it!

After we became part of Ariel's world we decided to immerse ourselves in the movies once again and check out The Great Movie Ride. The line was non-existent and we were in our car within 2 minutes. We got to ride up front with the "guide" which was a neat experience.

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I was secretly hoping for the Old West scene because I have never seen it. However, we got the gangster scene ... oh well, maybe next time!

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Ahhhh, Wizard of Oz, my favorite scene. I'm from Kansas and loving Dorothy and the gang is a must!

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Again, I know a lot of people don't like this ride, but I think it's fun in a super cheesy sort of way. I will keep riding it ..... at least until I experience the Old West scene :rotfl:

After exiting the movies I remembered about the Lights! Motors! Action! Stunt show and we hightailed it over there. This would be the first of the leg cramps I would get on this trip. I am not exactly the most fit person and although we had walked every night leading up to the trip, my muscles are not used to running. Let me say, they were ANGRY that I was running to the show :rolleyes1

We made it with a few minutes to spare and I asked Candi if he had any cash for a Sprite to re-hydrate me from our sprint :laughing: He said he didn't and offered to run to a snack place to use some snack credits. I declined and a super nice man let us know the vending machine takes credit cards .... super smart move Disney!!

Alright, Sprite in my hand and ready for the show. Candi was grinning from ear-to-ear as we had missed this last time and he was super bummed about it.

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All of a sudden, in typical Florida fashion, the heavens opened up and it started to pour!!! And, I don't mean pour, like it was all sunny and then started to rain ... I mean it was POURING to the point they shut down the show and people ran for cover.

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Luckily, we were already sitting under the little awnings so us (and my camera) were safe :rotfl2: They said when the rain calmed down they would re-start the show. We didn't want to get wet so we just waited it out. It was probably 15-20 minutes before the rain stopped, but they did in fact continue the show once the sun came back out for a few minutes.

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Overall, it was a fun time, and I'm glad that Candi got to do something he had been wanting to do. At points it kind of dragged on, but I'm sure this is in part due to having the lengthy timeout from the rain. It also stops and go's because they explain how they do all the different stunts. This was super cool, but also takes some of the thrill out of it .... purely my personal opinion though ;)

Once the stunt show ended, we decided to head back to the resort. It was super humid from the rain and we were both tired AND super excited to see our new "home" for the next few days ........

ariel1025

05-16-2010, 05:58 PM

Ok, so I have 3 1/2 days of this trip report to write about and I am right here and now making a vow that I will have it completed before we leave on our next trip .... in 12 days :thumbsup2

So, without further ado .... let's get this show back on the road!

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We left a semi-rainy and majorly humid Hollywood Studios with a bit of a flutter in our tummies. If you recall, we had checked out of our "home away from home" - The Wilderness Lodge (Villas, this time) - in order to try out our DVC "home" resort - Animal Kingdom Lodge. We were both excited and scared at the same time. We were excited because we had scored a room at the Kidani Villas, which were not only our home resort, but had just been completed 4 months prior to our check-in! We were scared because we absolutely adore Wilderness Lodge and we weren't sure if we would regret our decision to try somewhere new.

I'm not going to lie, when we first pulled up to AKL - Kidani, we weren't overly impressed. They are made to look like an African type hut and it was cool, but it just didn't blow us out of the water the way the log cabin look of WL does. We walked inside the lobby and, to be honest, I don't even recall remembering what it looked like at first :confused3 We were greeted with a warm "Jambo" and "Welcome Home" and immediately helped at the front desk. I apologize as I do not remember the CMs name, but she was super friendly and helpful. We had originally planned on staying one day extra and then changed plans, but I forgot to shorten our stay and our dining plan :headache: The CM was more than helpful in taking care of both - the only bummer was that our points were now lost, because we were at the end of our use year. Not her fault and no point in dwelling over now though ;) She also took care of shortening the dining plan for us; in fact she even made sure we wanted to remain on the deluxe dining plan. We had discussed the night before switching to the regular dining plan if it was an option, but in the end remained on the deluxe plan.

We were given our portfolio of information about the resort, a calendar of events going on during our stay and a map highlighting where our room was located. The AKL is set-up a little odd and although I don't remember what level our room was on (I believe it was third floor) we were informed that it was actually the floor we were on now :confused:

After we had completed all our changes and received our key, we set off for the hike to our room. And, I do mean hike. My goodness, the resort just keeps on going and going and going ....... In hindsight, it was probably the same distance as walking from the main lobby at WL to the DVC villas and then down the hallway to our room :laughing: but boy it felt like a long walk to that room.

We had booked a Savannah view and we couldn't wait to see it .... so, immediately upon opening the door we, of course, ran out to the balcony

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breathtaking! But where are all the animals :rotfl2:

Ok, remember how the outside of the resort didn't really "WOW" me, well the looks of the room sure did

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I love all the colors on the balconies and the subtle artwork towards the bottom and the wood posts. Maybe I was just in "doubt" mode when we first pulled up, but, at any rate, I was starting to really love the look of AKL.

After sitting out on the balcony for a while we went inside to see if our luggage had been delivered over from WL yet. Remember how they said it would be absolutely no problem .... you see where this is going right?

Well, we called the front desk for our luggage and they said that there wasn't any luggage brought over. We gave them a listing of everything we had checked at WL including the ticket claim numbers and kindly asked them to check again. They called back without any success, but said they were currently contacting WL and would make sure to make everything right. I kept telling myself not to stress out and within 20 minutes (that felt like 2 hours :rolleyes1) they arrived with our luggage. Even though the claim tickets were marked with "Kidani" they had been delivered to "Jambo." Oh well, all was good in the world and I had clothes to wear :rotfl:

After we had gotten unpacked we decided to take another glance on the balcony we had "paid" for and sure enough there were some animals out now :thumbsup2

*** Quick backstory .... Candi grew up on a Ranch; his Dad now co-owns and Manages a Ranch; both ranches were for raising cattle for ... well, we all know what it was for so I just won't say it .... but, Boy Oh Boy do we love to have ourselves a BBQ after what is done :lmao:

So, we walk back out to our balcony to relax before dinner and what do we see

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Ankole cattle

Candi's response? "I came all the way to Florida for a view of cattle?" :lmao::rotfl2::rotfl:

It was by far one of the funniest moments of the trip ... and if it isn't funny reading it ... trust me it was hilarious when it was said!

After a while Candi decided that he wanted to take a nap and I wanted to wander around the resort. We agreed that he would wake up in 2 hours and I would meet him in the room so we could get ready for dinner. He asked me if I would grab him a water while I was out and within seconds he was "out" :laughing:

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At certain spots around they they have these outdoor seating areas. The rocking chairs are very peaceful to me and I love the detailing of the wood carvings in them!

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My "artistic" shot of the AKL ;)

I apologize, but I didn't take too many pictures, I was really just on a mission to explore and (I can't lie) compare:rolleyes1 Don't worry, I took lots of pictures on a different day!

I made sure to grab Candi his bottle of water. They were out of the size that you can use a snack credit on, so I just bought the 1.5 liter instead of going over to Jambo house to check their gift shop. I wanted my first trip over to Jambo to be with Candi, but, sadly, we never made it over there :sad1:

In what seemed like no time at all my phone was buzzing which meant it was time to meet Candi back in the room. Just like he promised he was awake and getting ready for dinner. Might have something to do with the fact that we were heading to Le Cellier, which he had been "dreaming" about since we made meal reservations :laughing:

CONTINUED IN NEXT POST

ariel1025

05-16-2010, 06:01 PM

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST ON PREVIOUS PAGE

Our luck with the buses continued, as there was an Epcot bus pulling up right as we walked outside!

In no time at all, we were back at my favorite place

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Just in case anybody forgot what the ball looks like :rotfl2:

We were actually cutting it kinda close to check-in time so we hightailed it over to Canada.

Upon arrival the waiting area was full of people and I couldn't tell if it was because it was so tiny or if there were really tons of people waiting :confused3 We were told that our wait time was going to be at least 20 minutes so we grabbed the last two spots on one of the benches and watched how many people got turned away. We did, in fact, wait 30 minutes for our table and counted 13 people that tried to walk up for a seat! Also, while waiting we found we weren't the only people counting - a family next to us decided to count backwards from 1000 over and over until they were seated. Chalk it up to me being slightly cranky from being tired, but this annoyed me to no end after the second round :headache:

Once we were seated I felt slightly guilty because we were seated at a table meant for four. It didn't make sense to me, because we saw 3 sets of tables for 2 and they remained open our entire meal :sad2:

Our waiter arrived relatively quick and then disappeared for the majority of the meal :mad:

We both had the cheese soup to start

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It was really good, but didn't exactly prove to me what the hype was all about :confused:

For my entree I had the Filet Mignon, but I substituted the mushroom risotto with cream cheese mashed potatoes

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The mashed taters were divine :cloud9: .... the filet mignon? Not so much!

Candi chose the entree he had been dreaming about for months; the salt encrusted prime rib

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Sadly, he was slightly disappointed in his meal. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. He wasn't sure if it was because he overhyped it, because he was so tired or if it just wasn't that good :confused3 Either way he was pretty bummed!

For dessert I had the chocolate "moose" and Candi had the maple creme brulee

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The mousse was the better of the two, and my favorite part of the whole meal .... especially the maple cookie antlers YUMMY!

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We left Le Cellier slightly confused and not certain we would be returning. Like I said, we may have just hyped it up too much, or maybe it was an off night. But, it is not on our "must do" list :scared1: I know this is like a sin in the Dis world ... hopefully I can redeem myself later :laughing:

ariel1025

05-16-2010, 06:18 PM

After dinner we decided to just slowly make our way out of Epcot. We both think it is absolutely breathtaking at night and wanted to take it all in. Even though neither of us were willing to discuss it, we were both feeling a slight bit bummed that our vacation was officially half over :sad1:

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During our stroll out of the park Illuminations was beginning so we stopped where we were a took in some of it.

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And with the end of Illuminations and knowing the park was officially closed, we took one last look at a nighttime Epcot

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before realizing we really had to start exiting the park ... for real!

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Overall, it had been a great day. We had got to try some new things at Hollywood Studios, checked-in to a new hotel, tried a new (not-so-great) restaurant and wrapped up the day at our favorite park!

As expected, the lines back to the resort were horrendous ... they always are when leaving Epcot. So we just continued to slowly stroll towards the bus stop, knowing that it would be a few buses before we would get on anyway.

It was on the bus ride back that Candi finally admitted that his feet were so far past the point being in pain, that he didn't know if he could handle it much longer.

When we got back to the hotel I walked with Candi back to the room to evaluate the foot issue. I won't post the pictures or go into too much detail, but I couldn't believe he was actually walking at this point. He had a blister the size of a half dollar around and stood almost 1/2 an inch tall on his big toe :scared1: I broke down crying, because I felt like it was my fault for forgetting his extra pair of shoes in our friends car at the airport :guilty: He assured me that he knew it was just an accident and calmed me down before asking me to run to the gift shop for him.

I was worried about not getting there before they closed so I literally ran down the hallway to get the stuff he needed .... yep, my leg muscles were angry again after that :laughing:

But, I made it to the gift shop with 10 minutes to spare :woohoo: I grabbed some Aleve and nail clippers (I won't tell you why :sick:) along with a bottled Nestea for me :thumbsup2

And, I made sure to take a moment to look at the lobby this time

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009%20-%205/DSC_1168.jpg

As I made my way back to the room I was wished a "good night" by 3 different CMs ... and I fought back the idea of liking the AKL as much as WL :rolleyes1

When I got back to the room Candi was on the balcony soaking his foot in hot water and epsom saltsplaced in a bowl from the kitchen .... we "accidentally" threw it away after because the thought of somebody having to eat out of it afterwards grossed me out so I took the time to take pictures of the room.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009%20-%205/DSC_1171.jpg
The dining room / living room area

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009%20-%205/DSC_1172.jpg
Master bedroom area

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009%20-%205/DSC_1174.jpg
Master bathroom :cloud9::cloud9::cloud9:

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009%20-%205/DSC_1175.jpg
Rest of the master bathroom

I apologize as I didn't get pictures of the kitchen, laundry room or the extra bathroom :sad2:

After my pictures were complete I helped Candi mend his foot and then we sat on the balcony until we were too tired too keep our eyes open any longer

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW%202009%20-%205/DSC_1182.jpg

MONEY SPENT DAY FIVE:

Sci Fi Dine-In - 2 table service credits used - $84.90 if paying in cash not including tip

Vending Machine 20 oz Sprite - Approximately $2.50

1.50 Liter of Dasani from Johari Treasure - $3.50

Le Cellier - 2 table service credits used - $95.34 if paying in cash not including tip

Johari Treasure - 20 oz Nestea, nail clippers, 24 count bottle of Aleve - 1 snack credit used for tea and $9.03 in cash - $11.54 if paying all in cash

not_Joanna_eggs

05-16-2010, 10:46 PM

Wow... I just avoided doing laundry reading your entire TR... I'm late to the party, but I'm in.

DH and I had the same reaction to Le Cellier. It was nice, but we still can't figure out what all the hype was about.

Kidiani is our "Home" as well, and we're staying there for the first time in December, so I was interested to hear your opinion of it.

Can't wait for the last 3 days. And how exciting your next trip is right around the corner! I'm so jealous :cutie:

not_Joanna_eggs

05-16-2010, 10:52 PM

ugh - duplicate post - sorry!

jlindemer

06-10-2010, 03:29 AM

I just read your report start to finish! :surfweb: It's 2:25 AM now! :rolleyes1I absolutely love the WL as well! We stayed there for 2 nights in March. At first we thought it wasn't going to be so great. The room they gave us was not completely clean when we were told it was ready. However, Disney upgraded us to a Woods View, and when the guy brought our luggage, he said, you know, you can see the castle from the balcony! :scared1: What?! :eek: I bulldozed my way to the balcony (sorry kids!) and made that guy show me where it was. Yup! There it is! :cheer2: In that moment it felt like all of my Disney dreams had come true! :wizard:

We spent a day at the pool, and enjoyed watching Wishes from our balcony. I wish we were staying there again in November/December, but I just couldn't afford it this time. :teacher:

I am debating between Le Cellier and Rose & Crown for our Epcot Lunch. Have you ever ate at R&C? I would love to hear your opinion.

I hope there is more to come. It seems that this report is a tad unfinished. :confused3 I need closure! :lmao:

Can't wait to hear more! :cool1:

ariel1025

06-11-2010, 12:54 PM

Hey Everyone, sorry I've been MIA lately .... I swear upon swear I have good reason for it this time .....

First we recently celebrated our two year Anniversary ....

Let's take a trip down memory lane shall we?

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September 13, 2001 - Our First Date (don't worry, that's not what we wore ;))

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May 24, 2008 - We finally say "I Do"

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May/June 2008 - We celebrate our honeymoon at Disney World and aboard Disney Wonder

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May 24, 2009 - We Celebrate our one year Anniversary at Disneyland

May 24, 2010 - We Celebrate our two year Anniversary at ........ Target & Hooters!

Yep, you did not misread that .... we did in fact celebrate the day of our Anniversary enjoying some hot delicious wings and shopping at Target :lmao:

Let me back up just a bit here ......

Originally the plan for our Anniversary was to cook dinner together at home, light some candles and enjoy a romantic meal for two.

Then, our Boss' offered to let us leave work early in honor of the big day and so we made reservations at my favorite place ever - The Melting Pot :cloud9:

So, we came home to change into our "fancy clothes" :laughing: before heading out to dinner. As usual, we stopped at the mailbox to collect all the fun :rolleyes1 stuff the mailman has delivered. As Candi pulled into the garage I flipped through the mail .... bills, junk, bills, junk, bills, bills, junk, card from parents. Oooh, mail that really is fun! Inside the card was a check for our Anniversary, so I told Candi to turn around and go to the bank to cash it - Thank you Mom and Dad!! Well, while sitting in line at the bank we were talking and realized that neither one of us really felt like getting dressed up. We were both just doing it because we thought that's what the other one wanted to do.

Ok, plan one thousand .... pick up some movies, snacks and dinner to-go and have a movie night! Now that that's settled let's head over to the movie store first ... but wait, I see a Hooters and I suddenly want wings BAD! Of course, we can get them to go, but then you miss out on the "atmosphere" :lmao: Besides, I love the cheesy tots and they only taste good nice and fresh! So, after a million changes to the plan we ended up eating a nice hearty and romantical second Anniversary meal at good 'ol American Hooters!

And then, of course, we had our Anniversary Cruise for the next week, which I won't go into on this board since it's for a completely different vacation ;)

Last, is the biggest reason of all for the delay in updates ......

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Yep ... that's right .... the best Anniversary gift we ever could have hoped for ... WE'RE HAVING A BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, I know that many people don't tell people this early (I am only about 7-8weeks along), especially with their first, until they are past their first trimester. But, I am so excited I can't keep it in any longer. We already told both our parents and a couple of friends plus a whole lot of strangers on the cruise that asked if we had any children :laughing: Besides, the best thing for the baby (in my opinion) is a lot of support and prayers, and what better place to receive both right :goodvibes:thumbsup2

Needless to say, we were (and still are) beyond thrilled!

yourMaire83

06-14-2010, 10:09 AM

Congratulations!!!! I don't really know you, but I am REALLY excited for you, LOL. :lovestruc

Lisa29

06-14-2010, 10:54 AM

Congratulations, that is great news!!:yay: I have one daughter and remember how excited I was when I found out. Hope all goes well and will let you off if there's a delay between updates! Hope you get to finish it though as I am really enjoying it.
Thoughts and prayers are with you.
Congratulations again x

RachelNinja

06-14-2010, 08:17 PM

Oh WOW! Congratulations to you and Candi!!! I will definitely keep you, your DH, and baby in my prayers. Yay for another DIS baby!!! :cloud9:

kaylajr

08-22-2010, 02:05 PM

Back on the TR board so you can continue...:thumbsup2

ariel1025

08-22-2010, 02:55 PM

Congratulations!!!! I don't really know you, but I am REALLY excited for you, LOL. :lovestruc

Thank you so much ... all the thoughts and well wishes are truly appreciated :goodvibes

Congratulations, that is great news!!:yay: I have one daughter and remember how excited I was when I found out. Hope all goes well and will let you off if there's a delay between updates! Hope you get to finish it though as I am really enjoying it.
Thoughts and prayers are with you.
Congratulations again x

Thank you! How old is your daughter? I have a couple of updates all ready to go, just waiting on pictures to upload :thumbsup2

Oh WOW! Congratulations to you and Candi!!! I will definitely keep you, your DH, and baby in my prayers. Yay for another DIS baby!!! :cloud9:

Thank you for the prayers :goodvibes So far everything is going perfectly and we couldn't be more grateful or excited!

Back on the TR board so you can continue...:thumbsup2

Thanks, promise to wrap it up quickly :thumbsup2

ariel1025

08-22-2010, 04:19 PM

When I last left you several months, one Disney cruise, one WDW stay and one trimester ago :lmao: we had just headed back to our beautiful room at Kidani after an average meal at Le Cellier and wrapping up, yet another night, at Epcot ...

The next morning was meant to be an early start with a pre-park opening breakfast reservation. Well, tiredness had gotten the best of us and we hung up on Stitch, followed by hitting snooze on our cell phones at least three times before crawling out of bed and deciding to see if we could still make our breakfast reservation.

Before dashing out the door we decided to take a gander at what animals called themselves at home outside our balcony that morning

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW-6/DSC_1183.jpg

Yep, Candi's good friend, the cattle, were still there :rotfl2: With a "good day" called out to the Ankole we dashed out the door in an effort to reach our destination in time.

This morning had us back at Epcot .... this time for breakfast at Akershus. We were already in love with Cinderella's Breakfast and were interested to see the differences in this princess meal. As with our last Princess breakfast we had a reservation at 8:30 a.m., which was before park opening. Now, if you will remember correctly the pre-park opening breakfast at MK left me desiring something more as far as VIP treatment went, so I wasn't expecting too much out of this one after that ...

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This is how close we were cutting it to making it to breakfast on time .... 7:43 a.m. when we loaded the bus :eek: Luckily, the only other stop the Kidani bus makes is at Jambo House before it heads to its destination. Even so, I was slightly frustrated at myself for allowing us to get a late start that morning. I hate the "being rushed" feeling and that is definitely how I was feeling at that moment.

I was in too big of rush to take a picture when we arrived, but it was about 8:20 - talk about cutting it close! There was already a line to get through bag check and this did not help my frustration over getting a late start at all. Once we got through there we realized that there was a separate line for those with early reservations .... difference one between Akershus and Cinderella's! We got in line and had to provide our last name and our reservation number with the super sweet CM .... difference two between Akershus and Cinderella's! Once we were let through the turnstiles we stumbled upon a completely empty Epcot :cloud9:

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Mark that as difference three between Akershus VIP and Cinderella's VIP pre-park reservations!!! This alone caused my frustrations to disappear. This was the entire reason that I wanted such early reservations and Epcot was able to provide this for me!!!

However, the fact still remained that we were running late so, we hightailed it over to Norway to check-in.

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Now, it may be due to the fact that we were a tad late checking in for our reservation, but after doing so we had to sit around and wait

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW-6/DSC_1189.jpg

and wait .... and wait ... and wait ... and wait for our name to be called; difference four between the two Princess meals :sad2:

We tried to pass the time with smiles on our faces, and I, of course, took many pictures to document the meal. Like Cinderella's breakfast, you enjoy dining with the Princess' in a castle.

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Obviously much more quaint, but still charming in it's own right!

About 25 minutes past our ADR time (5 of which were us being late :rolleyes1) our names were called and we were escorted inside. Immediately upon entering the restaurant you stand in line to wait your turn to take pictures with Belle in her yellow ball gown. I've heard that Belle is not always the picture package Princess, but since she's one of my favorites I was uber excited we got her!

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As with Cinderella's you get a photo package which is included with the cost of your meal that includes an 8x10 and several 4x6s. If you are buying the photopass CD make sure to get your photopass number off the large picture to add all the shots they took to your CD!

After our picture, we were seated and our waitress came immediately to get our drink order and explain the process. At Akershus they have a buffet of "cold" items and pastries that you, of course, serve yourself. The "hot" items, referred to as the skillet are brought to your table - all items are all you can eat. Our waitress was Merethe and she was fantastic from start to finish!

Once she left to fill our drink orders we made our way over to the buffet

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Can you guess which plate belongs to who :rotfl:

The buffet had several types of pastries, fruit, fish, and other meats. Overall, it was really good and everything tasted very fresh.

Merethe brought us our drinks immediately and allowed us to enjoy our current plates before brining us the skillet, which we both appreciated. Once she could see that we were about halfway through those plates she brought out the rest of our food

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Sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs and cheesy potatoes.

All the food was good, not great, but good!

It was about this time that the Princess parade began - there was some music that started playing and then they all began to come out. As soon as the first visited two or three tables, the next one would come out. There wasn't a big production that went along with it like there was at CRT.

They all came around rather quickly and we didn't get a chance to really eat during this time.

First up was Princess Aurora.

We were seated by the check-in podium and the CM up there noticed we were doing separate pictures and jumped in insisting we get a group shot as well which we were both very grateful for. As noted previously, one of the hardest parts of traveling with just the two of us is the lack of pictures we get of us both. This is why we are ever so grateful for the Photopass photographers around the parks!

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Princess Aurora did not converse with us at all other than to ask if we would like a picture.

Next up was Cinderella
http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW-6/DSC_1202.jpg

She actually almost completely skipped our table and then Merethe came by and said "don't forget about our lovely couple over here."

Following Cinderella was Snow White
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She was more interactive asking us about our trip and how long we had been married etc.

The last Princess of the day was Ariel .... my absolute favorite of all ... ever since I went to see Little Mermaid for my 7th birthday I have been in love with her!

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW-6/DSC_1209.jpg

She was the most into her role - telling Candi that he looked just like Prince Eric, only her Prince didn't wear such peculiar "thing-a-ma-bobs" on his head :lmao:

The entire interaction from start to finish lasted about 10 minutes. I did notice that they were definitely interacting a lot more at tables with children, which is fine, but is also difference number six.

After the Princess' had finished with our table we finished up our meal and then headed out to begin our day. Overall, we are glad that we tried Akershus, but I'm not sure we will do it again in the near future. Epcot did give us that VIP experience I had been anticipating with the pre-park opening reservation. However, the meal was only average and I much prefer the food and interaction at CRT.

So, with full bellies and real smiles on our faces we headed out for our next adventure ....

Lisa29

08-23-2010, 03:50 PM

Thank you! How old is your daughter? I have a couple of updates all ready to go, just waiting on pictures to upload :thumbsup2

She will be 2 at the start of October - a very lovely and sometimes frustrating time! She is talking loads but there are the words we can't understand and she gets frustrated because we don't know what she wants!

Being a parent is absolutely amazing. :lovestruc I hope the time goes quickly for you and that you reach the counting down part (eg, 19 weeks to go rather than 21 weeks pregnant!) soon.:)

ariel1025

09-11-2010, 11:32 AM

She will be 2 at the start of October - a very lovely and sometimes frustrating time! She is talking loads but there are the words we can't understand and she gets frustrated because we don't know what she wants!

Being a parent is absolutely amazing. :lovestruc I hope the time goes quickly for you and that you reach the counting down part (eg, 19 weeks to go rather than 21 weeks pregnant!) soon.:)

That's awesome! I'm sure the frustration is worth it when she says words you do understand!

Monday I reach 20 weeks ... the halfway point :woohoo: so I'm sure I will start the counting down soon!

ariel1025

09-12-2010, 11:02 AM

After a late start that morning and a filling breakfast we decided we would hang around Epcot and explore Future World for a while. We are always spending so much time in World Showcase that we tend to overlook what the rest of Epcot has to offer...

On our walk over to our destination Candi became fascinated with yet another bird friend.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW-6/DSC_1211.jpg

This guy was hilarious ... he would let Candi get within around 3 steps of him and then he would walk a step away. Candi would take a step and he would take a step, all the while leaving his eye on us.

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW-6/DSC_1214.jpg

We probably spent a good 5 minutes laughing and playing around with him before heading off to our first ride of the day.

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Test Track!

Now we had both ridden this before, on our honeymoon, but Candi didn't exactly enjoy it. Not sure what it was about it, but he didn't even really want to ride it again today. I pointed out that the wait was only 10 minutes and we should just take advantage, so he agreed. Well, the line was way less than 10 minutes. In fact, they had us walk right past the video area and into a car :laughing:

I'm not sure if it's the lack of waiting, the lack of watching the video, or having a car to ourselves, but Candi absolutely loved Test Track this time! In fact, it's one of the rides he still talks about now. Men .... geez :lmao:

After testing out our little yellow convertible, we decided to hit the gift shop ... and not just because they "dump" you into it after the ride :rotfl: We were in need of a souvenir for my Dad and his Brother. Since they are both huge car junkies, we figured this would be the best place to find something they would both love. Upon entering the gift shop I immediately headed over to the Corvette section, my Dad's favorite type of car. It only took me about 2 minutes to locate the perfect item

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http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW-6/DSC_0524.jpg

It is simple, which is definitely his taste, and as soon as I saw the back I immediately started singing that Bruce Springsteen song (who my Dad is a fan of). Come on, you know the one .... "Booooooorn in the USA, I was boooooorn in the USA ...." Ok, fine, laugh at me, I don't care, but you know you're singing it now too :rotfl2:

Once I had found my item, I checked in on Candi, who was still searching for something for his brother. I love the man to death, but he takes forever to make a decision sometimes. Especially, when he is trying to find something for somebody else. He wants it to be perfect and special and meaningful ... bless him! I decided to help him with his search and we finally decided on a T-shirt for him as well

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http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m276/shanz1025/WDW-6/DSC_0526.jpg

Simple, manly and slightly tough looking .... exactly like my Brother-in-law :thumbsup2

Once we had filled out the paperwork to have the shirts delivered to our hotel ... making sure it was marked Kidani and making a mental note to ourselves to check up on our lost Aersomith T-shirts we headed out for our next piece of fun.

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Misson:Space, of course! This is another ride that Candi had decided last time he could do without. I'm always teasing him saying he just can't handle the motion, but he swears he just doesn't "get it." We grabbed our passes for the intense side and, once again, walked straight through the queue and were lined up to be next on board.

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Well, unlike Test Track, Candi is still not a fan of Mission Space. He says he will always ride it if I want to, but he just doesn't find it enjoyable. Oh well, can't agree on everything right ;)

Since we were already in the area, we decided to take a ride on something new for both of us

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Now, I know what ya'll are thinking .... we had to be filled with regret for making that decision. Well, call us crazy, but we didn't mind it. Was it long? Yes! Was there some dry humor? Yes! Does it need to be updated to include new versions of energy sources? Yes! But, all in all, we liked it and even found parts of it to be pretty funny to us. We may not always run and do it each trip. But, we aren't adding it to our "never again" list either.

Once we had enjoyed our trip our the Universe with Ellen and Bill Nye, I needed to make a "girly stop" and Candi said he would wait outside for me. Luckily, there was a restroom right across the way .... I absolutely hate when you have to go on a journey to locate a restroom :rolleyes1 I handed off my camera to Candi while he waited

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When I came out he was waiting for me with my favorite snack in the whole wide world .... a chocolate covered frozen banana!!!

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We decided that the lines were starting to get pretty long and there wasn't really anything else we wanted to do in Future World, so we made a plan for the rest of the afternoon ....

The 4 "Quay"balleros

09-12-2010, 08:33 PM

Great to see you back:thumbsup2

ariel1025

09-25-2010, 11:22 AM

Great to see you back:thumbsup2

Thanks :goodvibes Working on another update now :thumbsup2

ariel1025

09-25-2010, 02:17 PM

So, it had become apparent that the plan for today was ... no plan at all. Well, other than those ADRs we had set for breakfast and dinner :thumbsup2 Since, we had conquerqued what we wanted to in FutureWorld we decided to do what we really love about EPCOT.

Yep, we headed back over to World Showcase. We decided to start out in Canada and see how far we could make it before we were ready for some lunch.

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While in Canada we decided to do something we had never done before ... we waited for the next showing of O Canada. Unfortunately, we had just missed the start of a showing so we had a good few minutes to sit in the air conditioning to wait for the next one. During this time, Candi's Mom called and it was then that I realized how much more he really enjoyed this trip than our honeymoon. I know it sounds sad, but I felt the same way. I think we were both just too scared (or ashamed) to say it to eachother. I mean, a honeymoon is supposed to be a lifetime memory of perfection. The truth is we were just too tired and put too much pressure on it to make it perfect that it wasn't. Don't get me wrong, we both enjoyed it, but we learned a lot from that trip that we implemented into this trip :thumbsup2

Candi wrapped up his conversation with his Mom right as they opened the doors to let us into the show. For those who don't know, this is a standing only show, so we were both glad that we got to sit and chill for a few before it began. I know the shows in World Showcase get many mixed reviews, but we did enjoy the Canada one. We actually have decided to space the shows out, and so far have only done one each trip. We both find it very neat to see different countires and their culture. Plus, Canada is a place we both very much want to visit .... if we ever deter from going to WDW for vacation :laughing:

After the show we headed on to the United Kingdom, which happens to be Candi's favorite country in World Showcase!

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I'm convinced he loves it solely because it is the country of his favorite restaurant. Of course, he also points out how much he loves a girl with an English accent and then there's also the Twinings tea that he is a major fan of. Ok, ok, I guess he has several reasons for his love of the UK!

While in the UK I went into the Toy Soldier to see if Pooh and the Gang were out for photo ops. They weren't so we decided to continue on with our tour of the World.

Before crossing the bridge into the remaining countries we decided it would be fun to grab a Fastpass to do a Kim Possible mission.

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With Fastpass in hand, we made note of the time to check-in and headed on.

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Right as we were crossing the bridge a Photopass photographer came out, so, of course, we took advantage.

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I'm so glad we stumbled upon this Photopass guy ... he took tons of pictures and captured some of my favorites of the two of us this trip!

With our photo session over I continued on capturing all the details of my favorite country, France!

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I was so excited to find this window ... I love, love, love Beauty and the Beast. And although the picture doesn't really capture it, the stained glass window is such a beautifully romantic piece of work!

We were both really enjoying our stroll through World Showcase. It was so nice to be able to just take our time and enjoy all the details for a change. I will admit that sometimes I get so caught up in being a PCF (Park Commando Freak :rotfl2:) that I overlook all the little things. In fact, sometimes I become so Commando I even forget to do things we are really excited about when planning the trip ....

heatherenae71

09-25-2010, 04:53 PM

I have spent the last couple hours reading your TR and have loved every second of it! The pics, the details, you and your DH - it's all just fantastic! Congratulations on your pregnancy!!!!

ariel1025

10-17-2010, 10:47 AM

I have spent the last couple hours reading your TR and have loved every second of it! The pics, the details, you and your DH - it's all just fantastic! Congratulations on your pregnancy!!!!

Thank you so much for all the wonderful compliments and for joining in on my TR :goodvibes

ariel1025

10-17-2010, 12:03 PM

When we last left off our tour of the World, I was capturing all the details that Disney does so well

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* Sidenote: I'm very sad to hear this window is no longer there due to the new Givenchy shop inside :sad2:

While taking pictures I had noticed that Belle had come out for pictures and Candi happily obliged with my request to go get one .... as long as I did what he said next. Hmmmmmm, well, Belle is one of my faves so .... I guess :rolleyes1

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After our picture was complete Candi led me back into France .... ok, ok, so far so good

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And then I realized he wanted to grab a snack at the Patisserie ... request granted my love :thumbsup2

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We grabbed a little table outside to enjoy our snacks and (as is typical with us) traded snacks before we were even halfway through :laughing: It was one of those perfect days, that wasn't too hot but wasn't too cold even if you were in the shade. Once again, I thought to myself how nice it was to be taking it easy and really absorbing what Disney had to offer. I think EPCOT has always been my favorite due to the fact that it isn't so "run to this ride and that ride" but this was the first time I had really let go and relaxed! We probably sat there enjoying the atmosphere and the conversation for close to an hour before continuing on. We realized that we had missed our Fastpass time for our Kim Possible mission, but all of a sudden we just didn't care. The idea seemed fun, but we were much more enjoying ourselves with our own personal mission!

Eventually we made our way over into Morocco

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Every time we pass through here we also want to be brave enough to try one of the restaurants, but both chicken out :confused3 I'm not sure why, especially for Candi, as he is typically all for trying new foods. It's sad really, and one of these days I will just force us to get a platter to share, just so we can say we tried it. Who knows, it may even become a favorite if we would just do it!

As we were walking around we spotted Jasmine AND Aladdin doing photos ... this time I didn't even have to ask; Candi just started walking over there!

These were two of the greatest characters we have encountered, spending just as much time with adults as they were with children and being completely creative for every picture. When we got in line there were about four people ahead of us and I never heard them use the same lines or use the same poses twice! Now, what I am about to show you is my all-time, most favorite, character picture EVER and I am so, so, so glad that timing had us here at this moment

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We were riding on our magic carpet :rotfl2::rotfl2::rotfl2:

Once our carpet ride was over, we bid farewell to our BFFs from Agrabah and headed on into Japan. We had spent plenty of time in Japan on our previous visits into World Showcase so this day we only had one thing we, or should I say, I wanted to conquer ;)

It was time to pick a pearl!

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As is always the case, I made Candi search for an oyster for me, while I went to pay for it and retrieve my voucher.

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I ended up with a 7.50mm all white pearl. I was very happy with it, but Candi was sad because last time he had picked one with an 8mm champagne pearl. So, he went and paid to try one more time, and this time we picked an oyster together.

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And guess what???? I ended up with a 7.50mm all white pearl :rotfl:

I thought about having them made into earrings, but since I already have a beautiful set of pearl studs I decided against it. I wasn't in love with any of their other settings and decided to hold onto both pearls for another time.

We were starting to get hungry but decided against eating in Japan and since we had thoroughly toured the Japan pavilion previously we moved on to America after wrapping up my pearls.

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We definitely were not interested in eating in America :rotfl: and I decided to call and see if I could get us a lunch reservation in surprise spot for Candi ....

pinkxray

10-17-2010, 12:52 PM

I totally missed you coming back!

First off,

Congrats!!

Looking forward to morepopcorn::

ariel1025

11-06-2010, 01:59 PM

I totally missed you coming back!

First off,

Congrats!!

Looking forward to morepopcorn::

Hello! Thanks for jumping back in. I am trying so hard to get this TR finished, but life keeps stepping in the way :rotfl: I will definitely have an update up this weekend!

ariel1025

11-13-2010, 03:10 PM

While Candi enjoyed the end of the Fife and Drum players, I snuck off around the corner to try to grab a reservation for us as a surprise for Candi. I was able to snag a spot for 20 minutes from that point and so we headed off towards our destination. I told Candi that I knew where we should eat and he should just follow me and off we went for lunch. Since there weren't that many showcases left in the world I'm sure he figured out pretty quickly where we were eating but he was still thrilled when I checked us in for San Angel Inn!

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We checked in right on time and were seated within a couple of minutes in a table for two, one row back from the seats along the ride. As many people have pointed out, it is rather dark and slightly noisy in the restaurant but it didn't bother us in the slightest. We were happy to be sitting in air conditioning and trying, yet again, somewhere new for us. I wouldn't exactly say the dark lighting made it romantic due to the noise level, but it definitely add to the atmosphere!

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Candi started with the shrimp cocktail and I had decided to go with the tortilla soup as my appetizer. They also bring out chips and salsa to enjoy before, during and even after the meal if you so desire :laughing:

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Candi was not at all impressed with the shrimp cocktail and I started to worry if we would be as disappointed with our meal as many other people had been that I read about.

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My tortilla soup, however, was A-mazing! It easily could have been a meal in and of itself and I enjoyed every last bite.

For our mains I had the chicken enchiladas which I thought were delicious. Candi had the beef tenderloin (which had a fancy name I cannot pronounce nor spell :rotfl:) but he really enjoyed the Spanish flavorings they added to the dish. We were both full and weren't inspired by any of the dessert offerings so we passed on those. Overall, we were really impressed with our meal, the only down point was Candi's appetizer, everything else from the service to the remaining dishes definitely impressed us. Lesson learned - don't be afraid to try something you're interested in, regardless of what you've heard (or read) :thumbsup2

After enjoying our meal we left the Mexico pavilion to find Mariachis performing outside so we stayed around to enjoy them for a while

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Once they had completed their set we decided to head back to the resort to rest for the afternoon. We had been up since early, the morning was rushed and it was starting to get hot, so we knew moods would be better all around after an afternoon in the room.

Like always, we took our time leaving EPCOT, enjoying our surroundings as we made our way to the exit

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There was a bus waiting when we got to the bus stop and we were quickly back at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Candi quickly fell asleep and I head out to explore the Lodge ... I guess we have different ideas of what resting means :rotfl2:

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The neverending hallway :laughing:

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I spent at least an hour just walking around Kidani and stepping out on the different seating areas they had outside. I still wasn't ready to admit that it was just as great as WL, but I was allowing myself to admit that I liked it :rolleyes: It was also while wandering around that I decided I definitely wanted to try out Jambo house next time, as I'd heard it has more of a "grand" feeling to it.

After my adventure around the resort, I headed back to our room to shower and wake Candi up so we could get ready for our evening plans ...