The Magic and the Misery ~ Updated 6/13: June Trip Report Started!

[Goofy442]

Great update. When we got back from our trip we talked about what we saw and what we missed. We missed alot and not having a plan everyday was nice.

 

[cinderella crazy]

I love it when ToT is walk-on! It's like a dream come true!

That's crazy about the single rider line! Wonder why they did it that way?

That make your own pasta sounds yummy! I had never heard of that before.

Can't wait to see pictures from the new camera!

 

[Dugette]

all four parks! wow.
I bet it was nice to get your hands on that new camera!

Yes, Dug was thrilled to have a camera in his hands again. As you will see in the upcoming post...

joining in

Enjoy!

I can't wait to see what your next day brings. Did you sleep in? Lay by the pool? or do another 24,000 steps. 4 parks in one day, you're my heroes.

Thanks! Our next day is not quite as crazy, but we do get up at a reasonable time and spend our day in a park. But, not quite 24k steps...

Great update. When we got back from our trip we talked about what we saw and what we missed. We missed alot and not having a plan everyday was nice.

Thanks! And anything you miss on one Disney trip just gives you an excuse to go back...

I love it when ToT is walk-on! It's like a dream come true!

That's crazy about the single rider line! Wonder why they did it that way?

That make your own pasta sounds yummy! I had never heard of that before.

Can't wait to see pictures from the new camera!

Yes, ToT walk-on would be your dream come true, wouldn't it? I love it at night too...all the pretty lights and it's a little more spooky. So, maybe aim for late night on an EMH night to walk on?

Avoid RnRC single rider line at all costs! I don't think I'll ever go back in that again!

The pasta was yummy! Dug even had some another night too.

 

[Dugette]

I don't remember what the time was, but we actually got up reasonably early this morning. We had Animal Kingdom planned for the day and wanted to get a trip to Rafiki's Planet Watch in before our lunch ADR at Tusker House.

But first, we had to cross another item off our "try with snack credit" list. So, we headed out of our room at Riverside and made the short stroll over to the French Quarter (well, first I still had a small bowl of Reese's Puffs ). The weather was beautiful again. I believe the high was forecasted to be in the 70's and it was already nice and sunny with blue skies I think we really lucked out with the weather on this trip. It was really nice most every day. The only real rain we got was that first night.

Anyway, since we had the new camera now, I think I'll just let Dug's picture-taking-frenzy tell the story of our walk to POFQ:

That snack/breakfast you see above is Beignets. Dug had been really looking forward to them. He thought they were okay, but not as good as he was hoping for. Since I hadn't known what to expect, I thought they were good. We also split a drink with another snack credit.

Beignet advice: don't eat them at an outside table in the breeze! They are full of powdered sugar and it blows everywhere...both of us were getting coated in powdered sugar.

After we finished eating and looking around POFQ, we headed to the bus stop to catch a bus to Animal Kingdom.

Up next: Lions and tigers and buffets, oh my!

 

[Mouse's Shadow]

Love the pictures. POR is such a beautiful place. We stayed there the last trip, but never made to POFQ. I love seeing the blue sky in your pictures. It's a wonderful diversion from a wintery Ohio.

 

[Goofy442]

Great pictures with your new camera. Where are all the people or did you get up with the roosters.

 

[Dugette]

Great pictures with your new camera. Where are all the people or did you get up with the roosters.

Thanks! You know, I can't remember when we got up, but it couldn't have been terribly early. According to Dug's tweets, we got to Animal Kingdom around 10:30am...and we went there right after eating our Beignets. Just a quiet morning, I guess.

 

[Dugette]

Love the pictures. POR is such a beautiful place. We stayed there the last trip, but never made to POFQ. I love seeing the blue sky in your pictures. It's a wonderful diversion from a wintery Ohio.

I love the blue skies too! It's a good diversion from not-so-wintery-but-very-gloomy MN too. POR was surprisingly pretty. It seemed really peaceful. And I loved the river! It was also nice that our building was really close to POFQ.

 

[RedPanda]

I'm really enjoying your trip report! We'll be staying at POR soon, so I loved those pics. I hope someday to try the 4 parks in 1 day thing -- I have a feeling it won't be on this next trip, though.

I love your userpic, by the way! I really hope we get to see Dug and the rest of the Up bunch on our trip.

 

[honeydiane1953]

What kind make model of camera? Great pix and am enjoying your TR.

 

[A&Bmama]

Dugette,

I can't believe that I just realized you were currently writing a TR.

I found it yesterday and have read every bit and am enjoying it very much!

I love that you tried a taste of the poly and wilderness lodge before settling in at POR. It has me thinking...the only drawback for me is that it might be a little more cumbersome to switch resorts when you have luggage for 4 people rather than 2. We would most likely have a rental car that would make it easier I would think.

Four parks is one day. Wow. It's a good thing you guys are up for the walking that this requires! Looks like a lot of fun but I don't think I would ever attempt it unless for some reason I wouldn't be going to the parks the next day.

As for the impetego, my DD had it as a toddler in her armpit, If I remember correctly it did take awhile to clear up. I think I put the ointment on and taped a teflon coated badage over it. Not fun, thanfully no one else caught it from her. I haven't a clue where she got it in the first place, she wasn't attending a daycare or school at the time. Just one of those things I guess.
I hope Dug got some relief.

 

[Dugette]

I'm really enjoying your trip report! We'll be staying at POR soon, so I loved those pics. I hope someday to try the 4 parks in 1 day thing -- I have a feeling it won't be on this next trip, though.

I love your userpic, by the way! I really hope we get to see Dug and the rest of the Up bunch on our trip.

Looks like your trip is coming up soon! Have a great time! I thought POR was really pretty. The rooms are fairly standard, but the surroundings are impressive.

I hope you get to see the Up bunch too. I had regretted bypassing them on our Sept. 2009 trip, so we made sure to catch them this time. I had to have a picture for my avatar!

What kind make model of camera? Great pix and am enjoying your TR.

Thanks! The camera is a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS15 in blue:

Dugette,

I can't believe that I just realized you were currently writing a TR.

I found it yesterday and have read every bit and am enjoying it very much!

I love that you tried a taste of the poly and wilderness lodge before settling in at POR. It has me thinking...the only drawback for me is that it might be a little more cumbersome to switch resorts when you have luggage for 4 people rather than 2. We would most likely have a rental car that would make it easier I would think.

Four parks is one day. Wow. It's a good thing you guys are up for the walking that this requires! Looks like a lot of fun but I don't think I would ever attempt it unless for some reason I wouldn't be going to the parks the next day.

As for the impetego, my DD had it as a toddler in her armpit, If I remember correctly it did take awhile to clear up. I think I put the ointment on and taped a teflon coated badage over it. Not fun, thanfully no one else caught it from her. I haven't a clue where she got it in the first place, she wasn't attending a daycare or school at the time. Just one of those things I guess.
I hope Dug got some relief.

Glad you came over!

I'm really glad that we had the chance to try out some different resorts on this trip. I have heard that it's easier to resort-hop when you have a rental car, but we really didn't have any problems without. We gave out more tips than we would have staying in one place, as so many people were handling our luggage, but all went quite smoothly. With a rental car, you could just throw everything in the trunk and move it yourself.

Impetigo is no fun! Sounds like your daughter was like Dug in that we have no idea how he got it. And it definitely took some time to heal.


Hope to get another update up sometime soon. With the new camera in Dug's hands, there are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO many pictures, many of them pretty good, so between that and my indecisiveness, this is a lot of work. I think the next update will be many posts long, due to pictures.

 

[Dugette]

We took the bus from French Quarter over to Animal Kingdom:

Because we'd just done the headliners the previous day, we were taking a more relaxed approach this morning. We actually had time to wander through the Oasis and take in the sights:

We love the theming in Animal Kingdom. Lots of cool little touches. Here's a couple of signs we liked:

And the cool ladybug lights:

We entered Africa:

Here's another one of those cool Disney theming things. Notice how the concrete is made to look old and broken:

We made it to Harambe:

While in Harambe, we picked up Fast Passes for the safari.

We encountered some lonely characters, so we took some pictures:

You can see the fun Dug was still having with his lips in that picture. It was hard for him to smile.

One of the things we'd been hoping to encounter on our last trip was Devine. We hadn't found her in September, so we wandered a bit looking for her now. I believe we asked a CM who pointed us in her direction. And here's what we found:

In that last picture, she was staying completely still in that position for quite awhile. The crowd that had been watching her when she moved was still watching her. But the people who were just walking by all kept looking at the wall in confusion, wondering what we were all looking at. I found it pretty amusing. The people walking by had absolutely no clue that the vine on the wall was a human!

After this encounter, we made our way to the train for Rafiki's Planet Watch.

Continued in next post...

 

[Dugette]

Dug really wanted to check out Rafiki's Planet Watch. It was something we hadn't done on our commando-style September trip, but we had more time for these secondary attractions on this trip. Here's the train:

We passed the "backstage" areas where animals spend their "days off":

The view of the RPW building from the train was pretty cool:

Rafiki was waiting to greet us when we disembarked from the train:

This Cotton Top Tamarin was showing off for us:

Once inside the building, there were a lot of exhibits lining the walls. Here's one I found amusing:

I also found a turtle that was trying so hard to eat a giant piece of whatever turtles eat. He was having such a hard time, because the food was as big as his head and his little arms just couldn't hold it:

I also spotted a Semi-Hidden Mickey by the turtles:

There were a couple of characters around:

We also discovered the best place to take a nap in the parks! There were a bunch of little booths (private rooms with doors and signs that say "in use" when you're in them) that are dark and have headphones to listen to various nature audio programs. I think our audio program was about rainforests. Which sometimes sound peaceful, but also can sound loud and startling when you're drifting off on your cushion in the dark... At least during the non-busy seasons, these are great little private nap rooms

They had announced an upcoming animal appearance/presentation, so we hung around to see what that would be. Turned out to be this creature:

After a few minutes, we decided that we'd seen enough snake and didn't need to pet it, so we headed out to the petting zoo. There were goats:

After a little while out there, we decided we'd seen enough of Rafiki's Planet Watch. It's nice to experience once, but wasn't anything we'd consider a must-do. I think it would be more ideal to bring little kids to. We headed back to the train station and caught the train back to the main part of the park:

Continued in next post...

 

[Dugette]

We headed back into Harambe:

It was time to use our safari fast passes:

After our safari, we grabbed some more fast passes for later (but didn't end up using them). Then we checked out the gorillas:

Also saw the monkeys:

Then we trekked the Pangani Forest Trail:

These guys were cute:

A CM gave us a lot of info on the Naked Mole Rats. For one, they have a queen. Also, they organize all their little holes into rooms, as we do with our homes. They have bedrooms, bathrooms, dining rooms, etc. Never would have noticed otherwise, but if you take a close look at their display, you can see it:

We saw some other critters:

Continued in next post...

 

[Dugette]

Here we are, enjoying the AK:

Dug found a wall with artwork done by kids. It was super impressive:

We were especially impressed with this one:

A couple more animals:

Now it was time for our 1:30pm ADR at Tusker House:

We had reserved the Finding Nemo lunch package. If you have this package, you get priority seating for the 3:15pm Nemo show. But you have to be at the show half an hour early to get into the special section. And Tusker House was making us wait quite awhile to be seated. We weren't liking the timing of all this. A 1:30pm ADR, a wait to be seated, a big buffet, a hike over to Nemo, and you have to be there by 2:45pm? Wasn't looking promising. Dug went up and talked to a CM and was able to exchange our 3:15pm Nemo voucher for a 4:45pm (4:15pm seating) voucher. Good, more time to enjoy our meal! And, finally, we were seated. This was our (empty-ish) section:

Here's the buffet area:

And the ceiling:

And, finally, the food:

Notice my awesome combination plate in the back of this one. It has soup, corn dog nuggets, corn bread, and desserts. Yummy! :

We enjoyed Tusker House.

Up next: Spending the afternoon and EMH at the Animal Kingdom. Will it be busy at night? Will it be empty at night? How many times will we ride Everest? All this and more, coming up!

 

[cmp1111]

Nice day! Rafiki's is an "eh" for me, too, and the last time we went my kids were 6.

How was the food at Tusker House? We ate there when it was QS and not a buffet, and it was good, but I've not heard much about it since the changeover.

 

[Dugette]

Nice day! Rafiki's is an "eh" for me, too, and the last time we went my kids were 6.

How was the food at Tusker House? We ate there when it was QS and not a buffet, and it was good, but I've not heard much about it since the changeover.

Good to know we're not the only ones that felt that way about Rafiki's.

We thought Tusker House was pretty good. The food is similar to Boma, but I still prefer Boma. This was good, though. We had no complaints and filled ourselves up pretty good I must say that I was glad they had corn dog nuggets (pretty sure that was at the kids' table), since we never made it to Casey's on this trip! Good little substitute!

 

[reyasmommy]

Great update(s) .... I love all the photos. TR's loaded with photos are my favorite!

We did Rafiki's for the first time on our vacation last week and we rather enjoyed it. I'm not sure if it's something we'd do again but I'm glad that we did. My 4 year old loved the actual train ride and the petting zoo.

I'm sad that missed out on Nemo and Devine this trip. So thanks for sharing your photos.

I look forward to reading more and looking at your fabulous pictures.

 

[Dugette]

Great update(s) .... I love all the photos. TR's loaded with photos are my favorite!

We did Rafiki's for the first time on our vacation last week and we rather enjoyed it. I'm not sure if it's something we'd do again but I'm glad that we did. My 4 year old loved the actual train ride and the petting zoo.

I'm sad that missed out on Nemo and Devine this trip. So thanks for sharing your photos.

I look forward to reading more and looking at your fabulous pictures.

Thanks! If you like pictures, I think you'll enjoy the rest of this TR There are a lot!

Glad your family enjoyed Rafiki's. I can definitely see how it would be more entertaining to small children than it was to us. It just didn't seem much different than anything we could experience at our local zoo.

Glad you enjoyed the Devine photos. She's pretty fun to watch. We're glad that CM helped us find her!

More pictures coming up soon!