This elevator leads directly to THE GIFT SHOP! A Dec. 2011 TR from BWI - FINAL 8-27

[usnuzuloose]

Okay, I am finally caught up with your TR. It looks like your having a great time. I have not heard of the Wave. I may have to look that up and see what that is all about. Sounds like you get to plan more trips, that is exciting...

 

[annmarieda]

What great character (out of character) interaction!

Kinda scary about the sky falling though!

 

[kwitcherkicken99]

Tarzan....in the flesh!

He was quite impressive and his "costume" didn't leave much to the imagination...

 

[kwitcherkicken99]

Nice pics of you with Cindy's family!

I LOVED that interaction. Gotta love Charming putting his hands on me, but what KILLED me was Anastasia and Drizella in the background.

Did your batteries conk out?

Nope...

I love your story about the statues...it gave me chills. Pieces of the firework falling from the sky...oh my! Loving all the character pictures!

I am sure you can put a trip together in 4 months... it limits the OCD of planning! At least you have a family trip in sight! I love the the idea of staying at BWV! I will show you our room in my TR in a couple of posts...

I'll still have to make ADRs and then cancel if we can't make it. The only one I'm really worried about is Le Cellier. DH wants to return and I can't fault him for wanting to do so. Our meal there was very good and very relaxing, even with two young kids. DH is pretty picky, so if he finds something he likes, by all means, we stick to it.

I can't wait to see pics of the room!

Yeah for Disney trip!!! Though the more I look at the Art of Animation I say you stay there.. it looks SOOOOOOO COOOOOOOL

No. You know Chris is a resort snob now. And if MIL comes with, I'd much rather have a 1 bedroom villa. We will visit and tour the resort. Heck, the way it's going, I've got 7 days to fill!

Did I mention I was in the show?

No. You. Didn't.

also he even said one of Jenn's jokes. Do you remember which one it was?

Um... no I don't. I've not slept since then...

 

[kwitcherkicken99]

Okay, I am finally caught up with your TR. It looks like your having a great time. I have not heard of the Wave. I may have to look that up and see what that is all about. Sounds like you get to plan more trips, that is exciting...

It's not widely spoken about, but those who I've heard talk about it have been pleased. I was really excited to go and the meal was quite good. I would definitely go back.

What great character (out of character) interaction!

Kinda scary about the sky falling though!

I knew they shot off the fireworks in FL, but didn't realize the shells would drop on us! That was one of the BIGGER pieces that hit the ground with a *THUD*.

 

[kwitcherkicken99]

My tripod plate was missing from my tripod.

For those who have never used a tripod, a tripod plate is what holds the camera ON THE TRIPOD.

Dangit.

1) I was now going to have to handhold my camera and
2) I would have a very limited range of using my flash with the parade floats and how far I could shoot and
3) the quality wouldn’t be what I wanted AND
4) the parade was about 30 feet from me…

This is the best I could do under the circumstances. It’s not what I wanted, but I was pleased with what I got.

I had to be careful with the flash because if I fired too soon, the image would be dark. If I fired too late, well, everything would be too light.

After I repacked all of my stuff, I grabbed a nighttime shot of the train station, again using a trash can as my tripod sad2.

I stopped just before I got to the buses to look at a pin board a couple of CMs were holding but again, still couldn’t find my elusive pin!

 

[mom2rtk]

Hey strangers!

I'm was almost caught back up, then life went crazy again, then you had to go and post more, so I got even more behind. This is just a crazy time of year. Hopefully I can catch my breath soon.

But I DID finally get to the explanation of the title. LOL! Sounds like something Jungle Cruise skipper would say!

Your photo at ToT sort of makes me want to give this ride a go one more time. You know.... just to get that shot! I guess if Drew wants to go on it, I'll leave Katie holding our bags and go give it one more try.

And I have t fess up....... I missed the Tiki Room the last 2 trips! Now, in my defense, in 2010 I think it was still under new management, so not much missed. And HOW I missed it with all the time we spent there in 2011 is just beyond me!

Off now to finish catching up........

 

[momabaarjo]

What great pictures...even if you were missing the tripod plate!

 

[mom2rtk]

OMG! THat stepsister choking photo is AWESOME! You need to post that in the photobomb thread!

We should have visited the Cindy group again that night. I love Cindy's gown with the jacket.

So do you know how why that princess line was moving so slow? NO, it's not because i was ahead of you holding things up! Actually we were in the Dwarf line at the start of the party. But I'm surprised we didn't run into you on our way to the princess line soon after.

I'd be pretty devastated to about the "no tripod plate" thing. You go to all that work ........ carry it into the park....... rent the locker....... go retrieve it.......... get your expectations up.......... then nothing.

Did you get to see the Magic, Memories and You show? I really loved that.

I see you mentioned buying tickets before prices go up in August. Actually they went up last year the first week in June. And they just announced a REALLY BIG jump for DL effective Monday. Smart money says WDW will be right on their heels. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news........

 

[LegoMom3]

What great pictures...even if you were missing the tripod plate!

What she said!! Those are some pretty dang nice shots!

.

 

[PrincessInOz]

No tripod plate???


Your pictures are great...but if you are anything like me, you'll be looking at them and thinking about the missed opportunity and what might have been.

 

[kwitcherkicken99]

OMG! THat stepsister choking photo is AWESOME! You need to post that in the photobomb thread!

If I remember to, I will!

So do you know how why that princess line was moving so slow? NO, it's not because i was ahead of you holding things up! Actually we were in the Dwarf line at the start of the party. But I'm surprised we didn't run into you on our way to the princess line soon after.

I have no clue. I mean, Charming was quite chatty that night AND touchy-feely. So maybe he kept leaving his story in search for a new century?

I'd be pretty devastated to about the "no tripod plate" thing. You go to all that work ........ carry it into the park....... rent the locker....... go retrieve it.......... get your expectations up.......... then nothing.

I was devastated. I couldn't believe I pulled such a rookie mistake. I felt so dumb.

Did you get to see the Magic, Memories and You show? I really loved that.

No... I needed to haul it up to the front to get my tripod so I didn't have time to stop.

I see you mentioned buying tickets before prices go up in August. Actually they went up last year the first week in June. And they just announced a REALLY BIG jump for DL effective Monday. Smart money says WDW will be right on their heels. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news........

Ugh... I'm not sure DH will go for it right now, even though it's what we are planning on. I saw that DLR was about to go up, but for some reason, I could've sworn WDW went up in July, not June. Oy vey...

What she said!! Those are some pretty dang nice shots!

.

Thanks!

No tripod plate???


Your pictures are great...but if you are anything like me, you'll be looking at them and thinking about the missed opportunity and what might have been.

Absolutely. I was so dang mad at myself.

I realized after we got back to the room that I had taken it out of my bag and put it in a drawer.

 

[kwitcherkicken99]

We decided to do the Backstage Magic tour on one of our days. The best fit just happened to be the morning after the party. I was tired even though I left the party and was home around midnight. I didn’t want my bus to turn into a pumpkin…

Anyway… these posts will be hit and miss with pictures. Being that the majority of the tour was in the backstage area of the parks, we weren’t allowed to take pictures. We got to see parts of the park that I could have never dreamed seeing.

If you can’t tell, I’m a “how’d-they-do-it” junkie. I like to know all the little things done behind-the-scenes that makes stuff awesome. I want to know all the details. So today was going to be a good fit.

We started our day in EP at the front of the park. We got our ID tags/lanyards and loaded the bus. We were split in two groups, one group went with Walt, from Disney, and our side of the bus went with Stu, a former animal trainer and bird handler from Flights of Wonder. The bus drove us to the back of EP to the American Adventure. They were starting to run the morning checks to make sure the show was running the way it was supposed to.

Here are pictures from the Disney Institute page of

Stu http://disneyinstitute.com/facilitators/stu_levine.aspx?f=39

and Walt, from Disney. http://disneyinstitute.com/facilitators/walter_kurlin.aspx?f=31

It was surreal being behind the illustrious curtain. The sheer mechanics of that attraction are truly one of a kind. A projector bulb that burns hotter than any other was created specifically for the attraction in the 1970s. The different scenes are all folded into a special pattern and once they’re done in the show they move to a different pattern backstage. They all unfold and reset after the show is run. IIRC, there are over 20 scenes in that show that rise, fall, and pancake into the back of the theater.

After we talked inside we went out to the front of the theater, on stage, where we talked about the placement of the American exhibit and how tall the building actually is vs. how tall it appears. The Imagineers couldn’t make a 7 story building (which they needed to accommodate the massive show scenes) – they didn’t exist in colonial America. So what we see is one of the fantastic optical illusions at work. We also talked about how the Christmas tree was completely out of place in the American exhibit being the Christmas decadence was actually illegal in early America.

From there we loaded up the bus and headed for DHS. I was a lot disappointed with the first leg of the stop as all we did was unload by ToT, stand by an empty elevator and listen to Walt, from Disney, talk about safety and future fast passes. We took a “potty break” and reloaded the bus. I didn’t need to go so I hung back by the bus and had a great conversation with Walt, from Disney, about the therapeutic value of WDW. Hell, that’s part of the reason I was there. I needed a break. Work had been stressful and last October, my nephew was hit by a personal truck while going to board the school bus. I was so thankful I had this trip on the horizon or I was probably going to go to some very dark places. This trip kept me in the light.

Anyway…

We drove to another section of the park where we entered the costume shop. This part was great! We got to see a lot of costumes for regular on-stage CMs and some of the folks making dresses for princesses such as Rapunzel. One of the guys was operating what I would call a gigantic Cricut. It was their pattern and fabric cutter. He was cutting out snowflakes for the department Christmas party. We saw Ohana Mickey’s Hawaiian shirts being sewn and we also got to smile and wave at a tram from the Backlot Tour as it drove through the costume shop. Stu made it very clear what was expected of all CMs. They are to make the last guest of the day feel as welcome as the first, hence the smiling and waving seemed to go on forever! On our way out, he highlighted a set of miniature costumes that were mock ups of dresses and suits we’d see later.

 

[kwitcherkicken99]

It was time to break for lunch so we headed over to Wilderness Lodge and Whispering Canyon Café. At the start of the day they made sure to address all allergy concerns and called them ahead. Granted, the chef here thought that corn was a vegetable even though it’s a grain… and E doesn’t eat grain… Anyway… lunch was good but it needed something, so I asked for ketchup.

Cousin Jed happily obliged my request. The people at the table thought he was nuts. I’m guessing they didn’t do their homework. Soon the lunch dishes were cleared and dessert was brought out.

I was still full from two days ago so I skipped dessert. Cousin Jed told us that there was a BOX of trading pins behind the front desk so we snapped a quick picture with him (it was his idea to stand there – so we’d get the great tree in the shot and well… THAT worked out well…)

Didja see it? Isn’t the tree beautiful???

I SWEAR I saw him at AK in FoTLK as a bird handler a couple days later…

We were told we had about 10 minutes to roam the grounds and then get back to the bus. We had a standing date in AK and needed to get going.

The AK section was interesting. We started out at the holding area for Mickey’s Jungle Jammin’ Parade. We got to see all the details of the floats up close. We did learn the major difference between the AK parade and the others – that the sound is actually self-contained per vehicle as opposed to being filtered in through ambient speakers like at MK. I think if I ever worked at Disney and had to walk the parade, I would want to walk this one. The floats are just incredible – much like the Broadway version of the Lion King.

We boarded the bus again and headed for the horticulture department where they grow and prune all of the plants in the World including the plants for the Flower & Garden festival. Granted we were still “backstage” but the plants are no secret so we were allowed to take pictures again.

The start of a topiary:

Some of our friends:

They prune these plants all year. If you’ve ever been during F&G Fest, you’d know that Mater has a bed of flower instead of a hood. You can see in this picture they don’t have that part started yet. They build the topiaries out of wire, then lay them with a watering system, fill it with the brown stuff, then plant the plants. It’s the neatest thing!

This topiary was almost completely planted, but still had a ways to go.

 

[LegoMom3]

Glad you got some behind-the-scenes stuff done! I'm kind of the opposite...I don't really want to know (except at EP with the plants..that's cool!! I'd love to to the Behind the Seeds tour sometime). The details are fascinating, though, like a Christmas tree being out of place due to colonial customs.

Do you know I saw an honest-to-goodness tow truck the other day, made to look like Mater?! It was a riot!

.

 

[usnuzuloose]

Interesting, I am like you, I am so curious and I need to know the full details of things. I could probably drive people crazy with questions. Love the tree...

 

[DISNEYaddict4evr]

::sigh::

This TR is making we need a Disney fix again, we had such a great time, a week is too short for me. We should have stayed longer with Mickey

Nice Update, excellent story telling without photos

 

[kwitcherkicken99]

Glad you got some behind-the-scenes stuff done! I'm kind of the opposite...I don't really want to know (except at EP with the plants..that's cool!! I'd love to to the Behind the Seeds tour sometime). The details are fascinating, though, like a Christmas tree being out of place due to colonial customs.

Do you know I saw an honest-to-goodness tow truck the other day, made to look like Mater?! It was a riot!

.

E was worried it would ruin it for her too. I don't think we saw anything that I didn't already know was happening. There was nothing super secret, it was just neat to see.

 

[kwitcherkicken99]

::sigh::

This TR is making we need a Disney fix again, we had such a great time, a week is too short for me. We should have stayed longer with Mickey

Um... you will get your next fix before ME...

 

[kwitcherkicken99]

We were starting to run late so we had to book it to the bus and on to MK for the 3 o’clock parade. We were escorted through the door by the Chapeau, near Tony’s, to a special spot – literally across the street from where I shot the Christmas parade the night before. The regular CMs walked the route to make sure the street was clear and then the parade started.

This lady really stuck out to me during our time in MK. I had seen her twice on the trip and she was awesome. She even sang to me one of our mornings in MK. I was glad to see MB caught her on film.

The show started and it was a dream come true for E…. Sorry, she HATES parades!

The mini-dresses we saw as we exited the costume department were now being showcased in their full-sized glory on the princes and princesses for all to see.

We walked up Main Street, taking note of the music speakers being re-hidden and looking at the names on the windows. We turned towards Tomorrowland and stopped near the Plaza to look at Walt’s window. Just past the Plaza, before heading towards the Tomorrowland Terrace, we stopped at a non-descript location and ducked through the CM door into the backstage area again.

We were off to the Utilidors.

I’ve always wanted to see them. A whole city under the Magic Kingdom!

We descended below and were placed in front of a map of how they worked. We listened to Stu talk – all the lands had colored stripes on the wall, so if you switched to the wrong color, you needed to turn back and go another way.

I was a bit underwhelmed after 10 minutes because we didn’t walk very far. At all. We walked around a corner, listened to Stu talk some more (by this point I kinda stopped paying attention…) then we back tracked, made a stop a the pin exchange window – the place where CMs get all their pins… an entire room full of pins! , then walked down another hall where Stu stopped us in front of a display case full of the FLE-released drawings and the last one had info on Avatarland.

Stu said something to the fact about something new and exciting coming to AK and I’m sorry – I just couldn’t hold it in.

I blew a HUGE raspberry before he could end his sentence. He stopped immediately and said, “well, I guess you know what’s going on...” to which I responded, “yeah and I don’t like it! I believe in the Imaginears to do an amazing job, but I don’t like it!”

I kinda killed the conversation…