Trip of New Phases, Friends & 40! Updated 8/31 - As If Goodbye Wasn't Enough! The End

[TyRy]

I am a guac-girl. Love it, love it! I don't think I have tried it from Mexico yet...must do on a future trip!!! I think it will be closed this time though...

I just remember it had more garlic or something in it...it was really good.

That "lost Disney time" happens to me too. I attempt to take pictures every few minutes just for the TR!

Yep - on the days I forget to take notes, I use our photos.

Oooh, good October news...!!! We are gonna have to wait for the PTR though, aren't we???

Yep - I'm determined to finish this up quickly, and then get the PTR up. And maybe by then the news will be 100%

I am still very much enjoying your report! Loved the Canada pictures. This narrow walkway through the rocks is very much like one which I explored when I was in Canada and I love it.

Thank you very much. I've only been to Saulte Ste. Marie and it was absolutely beautiful. Someday I'll talk DH into a Canada trip.

 

[DisneyJo]

Hmmm is anyone home? Jo are you there?

That's exactly what my house looks like too I wish

Le Cellier doesn't even make our list anymore as we had a few meals that weren't great there

 

[TyRy]

I awoke this morning feeling great – which figures as it was also Evil Twin’s last day. While we had no firm plans for the day, we had an idea that she would like. BUT – since we didn’t have to go and get her for a bit, I really sat outside and enjoyed our Savannah view (even though you could hear the highway or roadway which kind of ruined it for me.)

Looking to the right:

Looking out:

Looking left:

Watering Hole:

Hello new friends -

Since DH was now awake, I ran down to Mara to get food to enjoy on our balcony. I FNALLY had a Mickey Waffle…I do LOVE these things. Although I still have not yet figured out how to butter it without tearing it all up.

DH had a breakfast sandwich with sausage.

It was now time (ok probably past time!) to go and get Evil Twin. Since we had seen the parks, we thought it would be nice for her to see a couple of the resorts. Off to All Stars we went and met up with her. She had been up for a while as she had done her RAC early that morning for her flight later. Although now she was all set and we just had to worry about getting her back later for Magical Express.

I will say she gave us a mini rundown of her night at the All Stars and she was not a happy camper. She said it was loud, kids running just wild, and she missed the serenity of the AKL. She absolutely swore she would never stay at a value again. I think we ruined her by having her at AKL then the All Stars.

We told her the plan and she liked it. We actually went back to AKV and started at Kidani since Mark had kept talking about it. It was still new to us (we had only been there once or twice) so we had a great time exploring. We parked and headed to the ground level.

While the Sanaa bar looks like it might be a semi ok place to have a drink, I still prefer Victoria Falls.

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[TyRy]

Up and out to the Savannah to take in the view from Kidani.

Hey wait – before we leave – I want to see the Community Hall..ok, back inside again. And we took no pictures! But DH did go in and get a couple more of Sanaa.

We found a hidden Mickey on our way out.

We headed to the WL next to show Evil Twin some of the similarities and so she could see just how cool that place is as well. I loved staying at the WL – DH not so much.

It’s another one of those resorts that is just awesome when you walk up to it.

Evil Twin finds a friend.

The indoor river was working – seems like every time we stop by it’s always under refurbishment.

We headed outside next to show her a couple of the fun features.

Waterfall

Pool

We got lucky and caught the geyser as well.

We headed up to the 5th floor next – wanted to show her how you could kind of see the monorail and MK from that side…the trees have blocked even more now since we were there three years go.

We then just took in the grandness of the lobby.

http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m172/tracycip/Disney%202009
/Other%20Resorts/IMG_6414.jpg

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[TyRy]

We also showed her the outside sitting areas…she love it.

Having had enough of the North Woods, we travelled over to the CR – something a bit different from what she had just seen. The first thing we had to do was to take her out onto the observation deck.

We headed back inside and were going to go show her the pool/lake when DH wanted to stop…needed the picture in front of the Mickey heads.

Outside we went -

And the two hams had to get more pictures

Showed Evil Twin the marina before heading out.

By now we were actually getting hungry again, and we were watching the time. Somehow we decided to run over to DTD. I’m thinking Evil Twin may have needed to pick one more thing up before she left.

Lunch was at WPE – I told DH to order while I found a table since it was getting crowded. DH and Evil Twin come back and it’s just a few minutes for the food. Ummmm – where’s my lunch since just his comes out first. He says he didn’t order my lunch, he thought Evil Twin was going to do that. I asked why would my friend and not my husband order my lunch? We went back and forth for a minute, Evil Twin is laughing and the poor server was standing there during this and finally asked what I should have had. We told her and she says not to worry. Our server comes back five minutes later with my lunch, and I point out we had not paid. She said it was on the house and we ended up not being charged - she must have a DH like mine!

DH and Evil Twin had some type of pocket sandwiches.

Evil Twin ordered a side of Mac n Cheese – was great.

I had chicken fingers and fries. These are the best chicken fingers on site!

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[TyRy]

After lunch Evil Twin wanted beignets for the road…so back to POFQ we headed. I do love these beignets.

And while the food court has a lot of cute things -

some of the masks have always seemed a bit creepy.

It was now sad time – we drove back to the All Stars so Evil Twin could catch her ME. We only had to wait a few minutes with her before it showed up. I was so thankful that she made this trip, and she really had a good time. Being from California she’s been to DL many times. Now she got to experience my Disney and how much larger it is.

DH and I headed back – the Bears were on National TV and DH wanted to watch the game. Of course on our way back we pass the McDonald’s that he always said he wanted to eat at…why I have noooo idea.

Hello home…

I love the lookouts around the Lodge.

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[TyRy]

Back in our room, I took advantage of the animals out on the savannah.

First was the new breed of giraffe, a two headed one!

The rest were just hanging out in the heat.

I’m guessing this little guy doesn’t pay attention to the boundaries.

We were supposed to go to the MK for dinner at LTT that night, but DH just wanted to relax. I really wanted to go and he really wanted to stay in. I think he had had enough running around with all my friends for most of his vacation, and wanted to just enjoy the Lodge. I finally told him we could stay in, and yes, I did pout about it for a while.

We finally grabbed something at Mara. He had a bacon cheeseburger –

Hmmm – not sure if it was good or not.

I had the cheese flatbread – otherwise known as a pizza.

After dinner it was off to Victoria Falls since we did not get to enjoy that as much as we wanted to this trip either.

Tomorrow is our last full day/night at Disney, and we’ll do our traditional say goodbye to the Castle after popping in at Epcot. The one tradition I was happy we broke this trip was DH getting sick for a day or part of a day…or at least I thought so.

 

[nebo]

Some of you may recall my deathly fear of flying…for those that are new, let’s go back in time through our handy dandy flight machine to 2004 :

We flew down with my parents and here’s what I looked like before the flight:

The flight attendant tried to give me the speech about safer than driving, blah, blah, blah (which is what I heard ) and DH told her that talking does no good. Now that we are back in 2009, we are having the eternal debate again about flying vs driving.

Hi Tracy, just noticed this report today. I am totally with you on the flying thing, out of 17 trips to Disney we've only flown 3 times and I was scared to death each and every time.
As I've said before, I think I just hate the "not being in control" thing, at least in a car I can choose my own accident.

Ever notice that you hardly ever hear about planes having fender benders?
You either get where you're going or you die a horrible death.
And even if you do survive a "fender bender" in the air, you wind up in the Everglades with an alligator chewing on your knee.

Or in the Andes mountains with soccer players gnawing away.

Just thought I'd check in to cheer you up for the next time you fly, great report, and don't worry about a thing, the next time you do have to fly,I'm sure nothing will go wrong wrong wrong....

 

[brookelizabeth]

I totally agree with you on the masks at POFQ. They are creepy!

Poor Evil Twin experiencing a loud resort. It is a hard switch to go from quiet AKL to a value though, I can understand that!

Loved your idea for her last day! What resort was her favorite out of the ones she experienced throughout the trip?

I hope your DH didn't get too sick....eek!

 

[TyRy]

Hi Tracy, just noticed this report today. I am totally with you on the flying thing, out of 17 trips to Disney we've only flown 3 times and I was scared to death each and every time.
As I've said before, I think I just hate the "not being in control" thing, at least in a car I can choose my own accident.

First - to the party! And are you now psychic? Cars do have accidents too on the way home from WDW..hmmmmmm

Ever notice that you hardly ever hear about planes having fender benders?
You either get where you're going or you die a horrible death.
And even if you do survive a "fender bender" in the air, you wind up in the Everglades with an alligator chewing on your knee.

Or in the Andes mountains with soccer players gnawing away.

Just thought I'd check in to cheer you up for the next time you fly, great report, and don't worry about a thing, the next time you do have to fly,I'm sure nothing will go wrong wrong wrong....

Thanks so much for that lovely image of the plane...just what I needed!

Loved your idea for her last day! What resort was her favorite out of the ones she experienced throughout the trip?

I think her favorite was still AKV, although she really liked the Wilderness Lodge as well. The only ones I know she will never stay at will be any of the Value resorts.

 

[TyRy]

It was my least favorite day of vacation today…our last day . At least I didn’t have to start worrying about being on a plane in 24 hours …although that might have been better!

I managed to have another Mickey Waffle and got DH another breakfast sandwich…we were making up for lost time with Mara!

On our last day we always try to stop at the MK (my request) to say goodbye to the Castle, and to Epcot, to hit the countries one last time. So that was the plan as we headed out. We were going to park at the TTC and hop the monorail over so we could finish at the MK. Before even getting into the parking lot, there was one picture we still had to get. And let me tell you…it must have taken us 5 or 6 loops all around to get this photo. This just always sums up my feeling on that last day (ok any day really )

Yep we finally pulled over and hopped out to get the picture. And then finally pulled into the lot.

DH actually stopped an thought we should add a few more photos of my favorite place.

We finally made it to one of DH’s favorite things.

And we were off. DH was a little quiet this morning, but I figured he was just thinking of that loooong ride home tomorrow.

For some reason, it took a really long time for the monorail to come…longest wait of the trip. But it finally did and we were off.

As we headed in, we, of course, had to get PP photos taken…we even had another “magic” shot.

We asked if we could turn around and get a photo with us and the exit sign..so we did…

and then he told us to at least look sad

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[TyRy]

First stop – the graveyard, Stonehenge, whatever you may call it – to say goodbye to us.

The park was once again pretty empty, so we ran over to Test Track for a quick ride.

Then we headed to Soarin’ (DH favorite…as it was for my DMIL.)

We then headed to the Seas again.

The clam mobiles were a walk-on so we jumped on that. We then spent a long time just looking at the different sea life. DH LOVES salt water fish and tanks, eels, etc., so he could spend hours in here…and he might have tried!

Club Cool was up next where I think DH spent at least 30 minutes just trying to capture people tasting the Beverly….it’s all on video of course! I wandered around, shopped a bit and then finally dragged him out of there.

He did manager a couple of photos inside.

By now it was time to head over to Les Chefs so I could have the best soup at WDW! Found another PP of course.

This is the crowd we had to fight at noon to get there.

Told ya the parks were empty this trip.

After a quick stop in Canada…

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[TyRy]

We headed to our reservation. We were given a beeper, but only waited about five minutes. We were seated by a window which was great for people watching.

We decided we would get the Prix Fixe menu for lunch. So we both ordered pop and a French Onion Soup (the best!) to start. We were soon brought out the absolutely yummy rolls.

The soup was not far behind and did not disappoint.

For lunch DH ordered the Quiche Lorraine.

I had their version of Mac N Cheese - Gratin de Macaroni.

I don’t know if it was the heat, or just that the soup is so filling (we usually get that and a small salad only) but DH only ate about half of his and I barely touched mine.

Both were just ok – don’t know if I’d get them again.

Our waiter came by and said the chef would want to know what was wrong with the food and why we didn’t eat – I do remember he was very persistent even though we told him over and over we were just not as hungry as we thought.

He then brought out desserts…for some reason I had in my head I was getting something else and DH laughed at me. It was just one of those space out moments..I thought I was getting something more Sundae like…but this worked as well. Profiteroles au chocolat – it even came with a birthday candle.

And was a bit messy…

I was pretty full, but it was still good – I just had to eat around most the chocolate sauce. DH had the usual, Crème Brulee.

DH got a couple of good shots around the restaurant.

I managed to get a couple of Remy who did stop by, but we forgot to take photos!

As we headed out DH started to complain of not feeling well – SEE – I knew we couldn’t get through a trip without him getting sick one day. And the weather seemed to follow him…the sky started getting dark, and DH was feeling bad, so we grabbed a boat back to FW.

Park was still empty and it had only rained a tiny bit even with all those clouds.

I wanted to do another ride on SE, but DH just wanted to go, so we did and said goodbye to Epcot.

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[TyRy]

We actually took the ferry over to the MK, walked onto Main Street, found the mouse ears a friend wanted and then that was it. DH was feeling too sick to continue on and do anything. We didn’t even get any pictures at the park. He at least managed to feel well enough to take a couple of photos we take every year on our “goodbye” day.

Me not wanting to leave, which I really did not want to today!

We did make one quick stop at the store at the TTC. Evil Twin had been looking for the light up ghost necklaces for her nephews, but everywhere we went, they were out. We took one last shot and – found them for her (and we bought a couple too.)

For some reason, as soon as we got out of the MK parking lot, DH magically felt better…argh ! He did not want to go back though. I don’t remember who made the decision, but we ended up at DTD to do a little shopping.

And this came home with us.

We then realized we had not yet checked out the Treehouse Villas. DH was always semi-obsessed with these and was really sad when they closed. He’s very happy they are open again (even if they are rebuilt) and we could stay there. We ended up at a back entrance where you needed a key to get in, but still managed to get a photo.

It was back to AKV after that to finish packing and get ready for the ride home tomorrow. When we walked in there was a photopass person in the lobby. I almost walked right past thinking they were only there for the resort shoots. But he asked if we wanted our phots taken, so of course we did.

On our way back to the room…pictures look dark!

I don’t think I posted this, but here’s our room number and door shield.

We walked into our room and had a great surprise for us!

WOW – talk about towel animals…it was such a treat for our last day.

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[TyRy]

We watched a lot of Weather Channel when we got back, as this was when Atlanta was having horrible flooding rains. We weren’t sure if we should try and book another night, or maybe just drive home through Alabama as many roads and highways were closed. Both our dad’s even called to make sure we were aware of the situation and told us to keep a very close eye on it.

When we weren’t coming up with contingency plans, we relaxed and took a few more photos of our friends outside.

Dinner that night was another tradition…room service. DH still wasn’t feeling great, so we split a cheeseburger and fries.

OMG – I wish I had my own of this…it was the best cheeseburger I’ve ever had at WDW. We’d had a couple of terrible ones this trip, and were wary, but this was FANTASTIC. We put our tray out in the hall with the breakfast one that had not been picked up yet.

We had made up our minds that we would leave the next day, we just weren’t sure of the route…too bad we chose the wrong one.

 

[brookelizabeth]

Wow, look at those masses you had to fight at Noon. Gotta love that!!!

What a nice last day...until your DH got sick! Major bummer about being in MK for about 2 minutes...that would be very hard for me to not get crabby over!

The ride home doesn't sound too promising....

Henry wants to put some "guys" on:

 

[TyRy]

Wow, look at those masses you had to fight at Noon. Gotta love that!!!

I know - it was crazy

What a nice last day...until your DH got sick! Major bummer about being in MK for about 2 minutes...that would be very hard for me to not get crabby over!

I was really bad for a while

The ride home doesn't sound too promising....

I'll have that up tomorrow so you'll know before you leave.

Henry wants to put some "guys" on:

Thank Henry for me, he can add "guys" whenever he wants, although now he's reminded me I really need to do some laundry.

 

[brookelizabeth]

Thank Henry for me, he can add "guys" whenever he wants, although now he's reminded me I really need to do some laundry.

 

[TyRy]

First thing we did when we woke up this morning was check with the Weather Channel. Looked like I-75 had reopened, just the bypass around Atlanta was closed. DH made up his mind we would go back through Atlanta, just like we came down.

I took some time to take a few more pictures of the room and view before heading out.

While we were walking back and forth loading the car, we discovered a little nook we had never seen. We took the stairs up just on your left when you walk into the lobby. We found this great desk/area.

After a quick wave to a few places and a stop for gas we were on our way.

I reset our GPS – you can see, it didn’t really take all that long to get down in terms of actual driving time. I turned the GPS off a bunch when we were stopped, so that calculation was useless.

Bye bye my favorite place

We were soon out on the open road with not much to see.

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[TyRy]

Don’t know if I want to stop at this rest area again!

Back on the road…

When we had to pull off for gas at one spot, we found a bunch of deserted places..it was kind of creepy.

We were also a bit hungry by now, so we stopped at a gas station/Krystal’s combo…yeah, I had something very small.

Our whole goal was to maybe get to Southern Illinois today, to make for a short day tomorrow. When we finally stopped for gas again, I told DH I’d switch with him – it made him happy .

Or maybe it was the snacks he had been hiding!

I did say I would drive for now, but he’d have to drive when we got closer to Atlanta just in case we ran into any trouble with flooding. I also did not want to drive downtown as we were scheduled to hit it right around five pm! I do have to say, I have no idea why I have that phobia since I drive to/through downtown Chicago each day, but I did.

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