Oh the places We Go, The People We see

[jenseib]

More off topic.

Christmas Eve!
During the day we usually exchange gifts between each other.
Skip came in with a McDonalds bag with chicken nuggets and Claire grabbed it and ran to the table. Inside the bag was another bag with 2 presents. She threw that bag on the table and dug into the nuggets. LOL.

Skip then told us one gift was for her and one for me. I was shocked, he doesn't go buy gifts too often.

Claire opened hers and it was a necklace with a snowhite charm on it.
I opened mine and it was a necklace with a Pluto charm on it. I really liked this gift, mostly because Skip actually thought about something that I would like. He's fianlly listening to all my Disney talk!!!!

We gave him our gifts.
Claire is giving me heck in this picture. I think because we got Skip a box of candy and she wanted some? LOL





We got Claire an American Girl doll. She was so excited about this.








On Christmas Eve we go out to eat with my family. We used to go to the same place every year, a fancy steak place, but it closed now, so the last few years we have tried a few different options. This year we went to a Japanese place. I have never been here, but Claire came with my family while I was on the cruise in Sept and loves it.
We had a great time, great food and I think it was a hit for everyone.













The highlight of course is when the chef throughs food into your mouth.

[Dizzy4DL]

Oh my gosh, that last picture is fantastic!
I don't know what I liked more, the look on Claire's face, or the little girl behind her.

[tinkmom2]

Hi, I found your trip report! I have been wanting to get an American Doll for my daughter Claire. Did you buy it on the website? I think I am going to book the tea at the Chicago location this summer. That should give me some time to save up!

I surprised my daughters with our resort upgrade. The bus driver asked who was going to CBR? I raised my hand and my oldest was looking at me like I was crazy Kids have too little surprises these days!

I am loving your trip report

[mousetravel]

I finally got caught up again! I was about 5 pages behind, so I wanted to comment on some of your posts:

I LOVE the AKL pics, and the gift shop pics! I just love that gift shop. I could go broke in there!!!!

I love Claire's outfit that she's in with the Santa picture. That's too cute!

Also love her birthday cake!

Love the Disney on Ice pictures! I also got us the bucket of popcorn. Ours was $10, with no refills! But I liked the bucket, and DD liked the popcorn!

[Luv2Diz]

The Disney On Ice show looks incredible! Thanks for sharing your photos.

[Luv2Diz]

Originally Posted by jenseib

More off topic.


The highlight of course is when the chef throughs food into your mouth.

The food photo is too funny. Looks like she caught it!

[jenseib]

Originally Posted by Dizzy4DL

Oh my gosh, that last picture is fantastic!
I don't know what I liked more, the look on Claire's face, or the little girl behind her.

That is actually my niece (Alexis) in action there and it popped in her mouth and then popped back out. Thats her sister Abby) in the background. She loves this place, but when we are there she has mixed feelings. She wants to watch, but yet she gets nervous about it. LOL

Originally Posted by tinkmom2

Hi, I found your trip report! I have been wanting to get an American Doll for my daughter Claire. Did you buy it on the website? I think I am going to book the tea at the Chicago location this summer. That should give me some time to save up!

I surprised my daughters with our resort upgrade. The bus driver asked who was going to CBR? I raised my hand and my oldest was looking at me like I was crazy Kids have too little surprises these days!

I am loving your trip report

HI!!! I haven't seen you around for awhile, or I am not in the right spot! Glad you made it. I did get the dolls off the site. (we ended up with 2, one from us and one from Santa) In early Dec. the today show had a Jills Deal on them and they were $50 each plus shipping. It include the accessories as well, so each doll retailed at $124 - $129 and I got each for $50. It was such an awesome deal. I got one for my niece Abby too. They only had 2 to choose from, but since we had none, I figured Claire wouldn;t care and when she opened it up she said it was the one she wanted ...and then said "she has a friend and I want to get her too" and luckily Santa delovered on that one!
My niece Alexis has done the tea party a couple of times in Chicago too and just loves it.
It was fun holding that one secret, but I don't think I could do a while trip. I have too big of a mouth!

Originally Posted by mousetravel

I finally got caught up again! I was about 5 pages behind, so I wanted to comment on some of your posts:

I LOVE the AKL pics, and the gift shop pics! I just love that gift shop. I could go broke in there!!!!

I love Claire's outfit that she's in with the Santa picture. That's too cute!

Also love her birthday cake!

Love the Disney on Ice pictures! I also got us the bucket of popcorn. Ours was $10, with no refills! But I liked the bucket, and DD liked the popcorn!

I'm going super slow, so you are fine!
The gift shop is so nice.
That outift was a steal. I think I bought it last year, or the year before on clearance and it was only like $5, or something really cheap like that. She has gotten 2 Christmas seasons out of it, so that was a good deal.
The cake was good, but warning, don't get blue frosting. It was ALL OVER! I sent cupcakes with the same frosting at school and I bet every parent was cursing me when their kids came home with blue teeth and blue clothes.

I didn't think the popcorn buck was so bad when they said free refills. Claire eats a LOT of popcorn. (we always get the bag that gets free refills at the movies), so I knew we could make good. And then my nieces got to share in it too. The popcorn was good too.

Originally Posted by Luv2Diz

The Disney On Ice show looks incredible! Thanks for sharing your photos.

Thanks! It was a fun little dose of Disney.

Originally Posted by Luv2Diz

The food photo is too funny. Looks like she caught it!

She did, sort of. It went in her mouth then pooped right back out. We were all laughing so hard. I like that my sister is in the background with her mouth wide open like she might catch it too.

[Dizzy4DL]

Originally Posted by jenseib

That is actually my niece (Alexis)

Oops!

[jenseib]

Originally Posted by Dizzy4DL

Oops!

[jenseib]

I had left you all so long ago with a look through the AKL gift sho and we were heading out to the front to take a look.......


We sat down for a few minutes out front of the Lodge and Claire was ready for another swim. I told her I would give her 20 minutes and then we were going to go and ask about our room. I was at the point of starting to get a little mad that we hadn’t heard anything yet.









We headed out for the swim.



The only pictures I took that time were of Claire holding Flat Ben.

After about 20 minutes of swim time I told Claire we HAD to see if our room was ready. We needed to get changed soon to go to the Halloween party.

She reluctantly got out and we made our way to the front desk.



It was now 3 PM and when I went to the desk they said yes my room was ready and gave me my number. I was kind of mad that I never received a text and I did mention that fact that it never came and we had been waiting all day, but I got no response.

We headed off to our room, which was very far away from the lobby, but we figured that would be the case since I had booked a standard.

We walked in and Claire immediately had to see our view. Now I warned her that I didn’t book an “animal” view, so we may be looking at a lot of nothing. Well imagine our surprise. We went out to the balcony and this is what we saw.





Claire was so excited!



This was some sort of holding pen and animals were switched out every so often.



We were extremely happy with our view!



And you can see by the smile on her face that she was very pleased.





Back inside the room. As you can see, our luggage was already there, which led me to believe the room had been ready for some time now.













The bathroom door has a mirror on it.



The art on the wall, with a nice glare from the window.



This clock is not right. I have no idea why it says that time, but it was actually about 3:15 now. That could be displaying the time a message came though because we had a blinking light and a welcome message at 2 PM. That also irked me, because that meant our room has probably been ready since at least 2. That would’ve worked out perfect for a nice short little nap.

[tinkmom2]

I love the view! We ate at AKL and Kidani village a few times and last time at Saana. There you have a savanna view too by the windows. I love how the room is laid out and you even had your own wet bar. At CBR we just had a fridge. But that was a MOD. The bathrooms in the public areas are just beautiful. There are night vision goggles I hear you can use at one of the AK villages too.

I have been on the DIS and still read the BBB section. I just don't have any new reports. It's been a whole year since my Disney cruise I have also been going to school and graduate in the Spring so that's been taking up much of my free time. And my daughter Claire has been pretty ill. She had her gall bladder out in July.

That American Girl doll was an awesome find! I hope to get her one by the summer

Love the trip report so far!

-Chris

[Caretames1]

Heck, I would have been mad too! That's valuable nap time you could have had!
Nice view! It's not everyday you have giraffes hanging around outside your window!


BTW- Great Shot of your niece catching the food!

[dizneeat]

I think the "we'll text you when it's ready" nonsense is one of the things I hate most. One year we bought a US phone and they promised to text - NEVER happened and it seems to be the one thing that very rarely works.

That's a lovely studio you got there - I didn't even know you booked a studio!

And at least they made up some of the check-in flaws with an animal view. Not sure if this is considered a Savannah view.

[jenseib]

Originally Posted by tinkmom2

I love the view! We ate at AKL and Kidani village a few times and last time at Saana. There you have a savanna view too by the windows. I love how the room is laid out and you even had your own wet bar. At CBR we just had a fridge. But that was a MOD. The bathrooms in the public areas are just beautiful. There are night vision goggles I hear you can use at one of the AK villages too.

I have been on the DIS and still read the BBB section. I just don't have any new reports. It's been a whole year since my Disney cruise I have also been going to school and graduate in the Spring so that's been taking up much of my free time. And my daughter Claire has been pretty ill. She had her gall bladder out in July.

That American Girl doll was an awesome find! I hope to get her one by the summer

Love the trip report so far!

-Chris

I had used a friends DVC points, so I had a studio. But we really didn't need the kitchenette. It was nice though. The firdge is nice though at any resort.
Oh dear, Poor Claire. I hope she is doing better now. my sister had hers out in her late teens. She was so sick all the time and after she got it out she did much better. Claire is young to have that. I know they told my sister at her age she was young to have it out.

I was so excited about the AG price. The dolls almost never go on sale, and if they do, it's not anything big. They more often do a free shipping thing.

Originally Posted by Caretames1

Heck, I would have been mad too! That's valuable nap time you could have had!
Nice view! It's not everyday you have giraffes hanging around outside your window!


BTW- Great Shot of your niece catching the food!

We made it all night, but I was pretty tired by the end. It would've been nicer to have had a catnap.
It's not every day I see giraffes out my window, cows yes, but not giraffes.

Originally Posted by dizneeat

I think the "we'll text you when it's ready" nonsense is one of the things I hate most. One year we bought a US phone and they promised to text - NEVER happened and it seems to be the one thing that very rarely works.

That's a lovely studio you got there - I didn't even know you booked a studio!

And at least they made up some of the check-in flaws with an animal view. Not sure if this is considered a Savannah view.

Yes, we had a studio. I used a friends DVC points, which made it affordable for 1 night.
They never text me once at all 3 resorts, however my sister got her text right away. LOL
I think I was just lucky. I am sure this wasn't savannah view. As sometimes no animals were in the area and they changed out here and there. I sure wasn't complaining though.

[lovethattink]

Great room view! Love the look of the room too.