The Bear and the Bow: Christmas with the Mouses - Update 9/11

[marDgreen88]

Hi! I'm joining in (a little late) and enjoying so far. I love the way you write.

[Nermel9]

I'm so sorry I got so far behind, but I'm caught up now! Had to laugh when you explained why you can't watch Star Wars 1-3, I have issues with those episodes too! I have a very hard time believing that Natalie Portman is Luke and Leia's mother. And that she would get involved with a 6 year old (isn't that how old Anakin was when she met him? ). And that THAT is how Darth Vader became Darth Vader. I felt they didn't spend enough time on that...they could have used 3 movies just to explain how he went from some heroic Jedi to the most evil villain ever, and they used what, like 15 minutes in the last movie?

Anyway, on to the Disney stuff...well, Florida stuff I guess!

Wow, that seems like it was a long drive to Florida! It's a nice way to see the country, though!

I don't know why check in always takes so long at some Disney resorts, the line can be so short and you will still wait for like 3 hours. And now they have that annoying person who will ask you what your name is while you're standing in line, and tries to go get your folder if you have done online check in, but then they can't find your folder and it just turns into a big mess and instead of it saving you time, you just get stressed out (haha, this happened to us at CSR in October!)...just give me my room key and let's go!!

Islands of Adventure looks nice. We always want to go there but we end up skipping it. I think we're actually going to go the next time we go to Disney, to sort of break up the days, my DH tends to get sick of all things Disney lately, so maybe he will enjoy this. Harry Potter World looks really nice, but...I've never read the books, never seen the movies. So I would probably just skip it if we went. Although I would like to try that butterbeer, that sounds amazing!

Can't wait to read more!

[archdandy]

YOU DIDNT LIKE THE FORBIDDEN JOURNEY?! How is that even possible? Haha. I thought it was amazing! I agree that each of the shops were way over crowded and it made it difficult to enjoy being there. I'm curious, did Bear enjoy his butterbeer more when it was frozen or when it wasn't?

[Merida]

Originally Posted by marDgreen88

Hi! I'm joining in (a little late) and enjoying so far. I love the way you write.

Thanks! It's definitely not too late, I'm kind of slow! To be honest, I'm awful at any sort of consistent writing voice, so it will most likely change during the report!

Originally Posted by Nermel9

I'm so sorry I got so far behind, but I'm caught up now! Had to laugh when you explained why you can't watch Star Wars 1-3, I have issues with those episodes too! I have a very hard time believing that Natalie Portman is Luke and Leia's mother. And that she would get involved with a 6 year old (isn't that how old Anakin was when she met him? ). And that THAT is how Darth Vader became Darth Vader. I felt they didn't spend enough time on that...they could have used 3 movies just to explain how he went from some heroic Jedi to the most evil villain ever, and they used what, like 15 minutes in the last movie?

Anyway, on to the Disney stuff...well, Florida stuff I guess!

Wow, that seems like it was a long drive to Florida! It's a nice way to see the country, though!

I don't know why check in always takes so long at some Disney resorts, the line can be so short and you will still wait for like 3 hours. And now they have that annoying person who will ask you what your name is while you're standing in line, and tries to go get your folder if you have done online check in, but then they can't find your folder and it just turns into a big mess and instead of it saving you time, you just get stressed out (haha, this happened to us at CSR in October!)...just give me my room key and let's go!!

Islands of Adventure looks nice. We always want to go there but we end up skipping it. I think we're actually going to go the next time we go to Disney, to sort of break up the days, my DH tends to get sick of all things Disney lately, so maybe he will enjoy this. Harry Potter World looks really nice, but...I've never read the books, never seen the movies. So I would probably just skip it if we went. Although I would like to try that butterbeer, that sounds amazing!

Can't wait to read more!

The other thing is that there's like.. 32 years, canonically, between Phantom Menace and A New Hope, making Obi-Wan in his fifties in A New Hope. No way that he was a general with all sorts of wacky adventures and retired and forgotten within a thirty-two year time period! Phantom Menace is my favorite of the prequels, just for the podracing scene and the Weird Al song parody. MORE WACKY OBI-WAN SHENANIGANS, LESS ANGSTY JEDI (also, less putting in Hayden Christensen into the end of Return of the Jedi I'm looking at you, Lucas).

It is a nice drive, the only problem was we had both done the drive about, oh, 18 months ago? I moved to Colorado from Pennsylvania and Bear from Florida and.. well.. Kansas doesn't change that much in that time! At least I got to hit Nashville/Atlanta instead of Ohio/Pittsburgh (I'm from the Philadelphia region) this time.

Maybe because I was paying for everything OOP that day, but Islands of Adventure just didn't seem worth the price. I'm not really a fan of any of their properties (though if they switch out Marvel for DC I'd go - or even update the Marvel area with new movies. I like Dr. Seuss but now I've seen everything and Harry Potter is not worth the $200+ by itself). Harry Potter World was definitely built for the hardcore fans (lots of people in robes, lots of stuff word-for-word from the books, so very 'inside-joke-y'). I think I would rather go to Sea World or do a non-theme-park (I'm a museum junkie) if we left property next time.

The check-in CMs will go over every itty-bitty detail. Like seriously reading the pamphlets to you. How do I know this? Bear asked for all the information. Seriously. Twenty minutes is probably a lowball on our time at the counter. If at all possible, he likes to get information from an 'official' source (versus me and the Internet) so we got to hear all about the dining plan and the Christmas party and the Christmas decorations blah blah blah. I was ready to grab our keys and run but I got outvoted (Mr. T was watching cartoons and wanted to stay ).

Originally Posted by archdandy

YOU DIDNT LIKE THE FORBIDDEN JOURNEY?! How is that even possible? Haha. I thought it was amazing! I agree that each of the shops were way over crowded and it made it difficult to enjoy being there. I'm curious, did Bear enjoy his butterbeer more when it was frozen or when it wasn't?

I think a lot of it is that I'm really not that big a fan of thrill rides for the sake of thrill rides! I like it when there's a story that makes sense; throwing all the monsters at you one right after another was kind of cool, but also kind of confusing? Like, I couldn't put together the ride with stuff from the books. I think the technology and everything was amazing, they just need to take a breather and not use every single special effect in the book. It's similar to the stores, where there just isn't enough room/time to fully develop everything so they cram in all the stores/ideas into a too-small space and then I get a headache and a soda spilled on my shoes.

Hm, I think he liked it nonfrozen, but more because that CM was very generous with the foam part.

[Merida]

(This is a little later and a little briefer than I was planning but we just got two new foster cats and.. kittens win out over trip reports. I mean really, kittens)

We exited Hogsmeade, Bear and I trying uselessly to convince Mr. T to try to seats for some of the other thrill rides for which he had been excited. This was probably the biggest strike against Universal – not everyone can fit on the seats and a lot of our day was spent discussing this (not very fun and happy!). Mr. T also kept interjecting that it was not like this at Disney and, well, I just wanted to go to Disney!

Lost Continent Deco

So we headed in the Lost Continent to see some shows. Bear had – for some inexplicable reason – gotten it into his head that he needed to see the Sinbad show. Given that it was currently halfway through a performance, the three of us decided to finish any extraneous butterbeer we had and then head into Poseidon’s Fury.

Poseidon's Fury

Now this is probably about the time where everyone will swear off reading my reports for the conceivable future due to my bad taste but – I love this show (I also don’t care about the tarp over Main Street Bakery in Magic Kingdom. REBEL). On my high school senior trip, I’m pretty sure the only three things we did in Islands of Adventure were the Cat in the Hat ride, Jurassic Park, and this show. It’s just so awful and awesome at the same time. The big water tunnel? The fact that this mystical piece is hidden right in plain sight? The really enthusiastic actors (both live AND in the movies)? All add up to a truly excellent time.

Poseidon's Fury Deco

And – to make matters worse – we, as a group, liked the Lost Continent area better than Harry Potter. It was less crowded and more things to do (since we didn’t want to leave Mr. T by himself again). Also the ducks in the fountain were pretty adorable. On the ‘birds Merida loves’ scale, ducks outrank pigeons by a considerable amount.

Sinbad

By the time we escaped the archeological dig, it was time for Sinbad. We shuffled over to the theater which was blissfully empty. I could pick any seat I want! Given that I badger Bear into getting to a movie theater outrageously early (or wait five months for the point in which no one is going anymore) to get my specific seat, this immediately made me more favorable to the show.

Sinbad Ship

And it was a good thing, too, because this show isn’t as spectacular as Bear had promised. It was corny and not always in a good way; the ‘pop culture’ jokes from the sidekick were awful (and I’m pretty sure there was one that bordered on Islamophobia which – not cool, IoA.). There were cool stunts (the princess had on gold sneakers. Awesome. And the lighting-the-villain-on-fire bit was very nicely done) but the story and interesting characters just weren’t there. Not that I really expected them from a 20-minute theme park show, but it would’ve been nice!

Also Bear and Mr. T made fun of me for the rest of the day because it took me legitimately half of the show to realize that it was just a skull on the mast (see above picture) and not a full skeleton of some creature. In my defense, I was at an awkward angle so could only see parts of the octopus behind the ship and assumed the skull + octopus were parts of the same animal. It’s an easy mistake to make, I swear.

Christmas Decoration

Having finished pretty much everything the Lost Continent (besides some browsing in the marketplace), I was finally able to drag everyone into Seuss Landing. I had fond memories of Cat in the Hat and I really really wanted to go on the train. For some reason, the boys were more willing to concede on the train than Cat in the Hat (I mean, obviously trains are usually the coolest things around but this is Cat in the Hat! And not the slightly awkward sequel, the original).

Mulberry Street Store

But it was getting more cloudy and we made the executive decision to ride the indoor/outdoor train when there was definitely no rain going on (we were also trying to escape some very determined Whovians. Characters milling around randomly definitely isn’t as great as people make it seem).

Sneetches RIde

I hadn’t realized that the train was themed primarily around the Sneetches, I had been under the impression that it was a medley of Seuss stories. But the general consensus was that Sneetches are cool, so who was I to complain?

Sneetches

Fishing Sneetches are probably my favorite Sneetches, star or no. The train was fun and, to my chagrin, much better than the Cat in the Hat ride. Some sort of swamp cooler is used in the Cat and the Hat building and it was so humid inside. We only had a three minute wait and that was more than enough! The actual ride itself was looking very worn down; it needed to be repainted and have more things added to it. There was lots of ‘blank space’ in between figures and you could see into the workings of the ride. It was not as vibrant as fun as.. six-ish years ago. I know we waited a ridiculous amount of time in line (45+ minutes) during my senior trip and I wouldn’t wait that time now.

After deciding against Thing 1 & Thing 2 cat shirts (really, the only option left to buy anymore. Couple Thing 1 & 2, children/family Thing 1 & 2 were everywhere in the parks. I guess it’s harder to make matching T-shirts for Universal compared to Disney?). We grabbed a quick lunch in Circus McGurkus (a resounding ‘meh’. You really need counter service places to be full in order to get fresh hot food and it was a ghost town inside Circus McGurkus). There was one more ride that we needed to go on – Spider-Man.

Spider-Man

Mr. T had made some noise about wanting to go on the Hulk coaster, but didn’t want to make us wait. He insisted this was the actual reason even though we assured him we didn’t mind; he had waited for Bear and I on Forbidden Journey after all. We didn’t press him and moved on to Spider-Man. This ride is so cool – and what Forbidden Journey is supposed to be.

Diner

Yes, they throw pretty much every well-known (and a few that aren’t!) Spider-man villain at you, but there’s time in between. And a decent storyline throughout the ride. It makes sense, oddly, to have these established villains coming at you as you drive through the city. It doesn’t make sense to have a dragon, Aragog, and dementors all coming at you in Forbidden Journey (Hogwarts is supposed to be rather safe.. and why does Hagrid have a dragon anyway??). The technology is old and slightly outdated in Spider-man so the Forbidden Journey should have easily been streets ahead of Spider-man but it’s not.

Despicable Me dolls

After coming out of Spider-Man, which was, defying explanation, a walk-on, all three of us were stumped. No one was willing to offer an opinion on what we were going to do next. We were at that point where Mr. T was feeling awkward about imposing on our vacation and I was feeling ready for him to leave Bear and I alone. Bear was oblivious to everything and was considering another butterbeer. Since that was the only opinion anyone had – and there was still half a park to walk around – we agreed to wander through Toon Lagoon and Jurassic Park on the way to Harry Potter and reevaluate when necessary.

[marDgreen88]

I just can't believe that in the most popular section of the park that the seats would be too small/awkward for some people. Seems like poor planning!

On the other hand, Seuss Landing looks adorable!

[Merida]

Whoops, thought I’d get this up this morning, but better late than never right (actually, I rarely hold to this philosophy and hate being late. I’m punctual to a fault)?

Anyway, we had just gotten off Spider-man (aka one of the best rides in the park) and didn’t really know what to do. We hit the bathroom quickly and then just kept walking. There really isn’t much to ‘discover’ in Islands of Adventure; there’s one main path that winds through the park and not many things that truly ‘branch’ off.

Toon Lagoon

Toon Lagoon was a quick pass-through for us; we don’t get the newspaper and thus don’t read many comics. And while I’m at least familiar with everyone in Toon Lagoon, none of them are sentimental favorites. Unless they decided to amp up the Rocky and Bullwinkle concentration by, like, a thousand, that is.

Toon Lagoon Deco

But still, somehow I managed to miss Dudley Do-Right growing up (being content with Jem, Captain Planet, Rainbow Brite, My Little Pony, and Batman).

Toon Lagoon - Ripsaw Falls

Mr. T tossed around the idea of going on Ripshaw Falls, but it was a cool, ‘tut tut, looks like rain’ sort of day and Bear and I hate getting wet on rides. He decided against riding by himself (possibly the seats? I’m not sure) and, as we neared the Jurassic Park entrance, had an excellent idea.

Jurassic Park Lamp

He steered us towards the big drop from Jurassic Park: the ride (they need better name differentials here) to try and convince Bear he wouldn’t get wet at all. We in Chez Bear and Bow greatly enjoy dinosaurs in all shapes and forms and it didn’t take much to nudge Bear towards the queue. Unfortunately the line for the lockers was immense – and I was pretty sure Mr. T wanted to do something by himself with Bear – so I headed into the dump shop while the two boys ran into line, barely beating out the bag line groups.

Jurassic Park Tree

They only had about a ten minute wait + ride but the gift shops in Islands of Adventure are boring. I know that there’s lots of diversity in the merchandise, but they’re still boring. The trees were distractingly fake-looking (not that Disney puts real pines everywhere, but these were bad quality trees) with just normal ornaments.

Jurassic Park Gift Shop

I didn’t particularly care for any of the merchandise either, but my parents never encouraged souvenir shopping on our vacations so it may just be me.

Jurassic Park: The Ride

I wandered outside to the ‘dock‘ and watched the boats come in; I did spend about five minutes trying to figure out the dryer that is placed there. For some reason, I missed the directions and was positive it was some sort of piece of theming. It’s not, for those who are wondering, and it costs like $5 for a really quick dry.

T-Rex

Eventually – after about a year of waiting – Bear and Mr. T came back and I dragged them over to the educational section of Jurassic Park. There’s an impressive amount of stuff down in there, including a simulation ‘dig’ and a ‘machine’ to splice your DNA with a dinosaur’s. It was fun and indoors and not very crowded – all add up to a winner.

Jurassic Park

After finishing there was another entry in the endless series of ‘What do you want to do next?’ Seriously – that was how boring our day went after leaving Seuss Landing. I’m not sure if it was the weather or trying to figure out the dynamics of the three of us or whatever else, but this part of the trip didn’t really gel for Bear and I. Since we were close to Harry Potter, and had nothing better to do but unwilling to call it quits at 3PM, we headed back for butterbeer.

Signpost

Thank goodness for the butterbeer carts – our day would’ve been a good hour, hour and a half shorter if they hadn’t been there. Mr. T asked if we wanted to go on Forbidden Journey again – no – and if not, would we mind stopping in Ollivander’s?

Hogsmeade

The line wasn’t too bad and we duly shuffled in. It seemed as though quite a few people weren’t sure why they were in line (Bear included) and Mr. T and I gave a quick overview of the experience. We did get a very nice glimpse of Ollivander as he ducked out in between sets.

And then we finally got in Ollivander’s. And then – despite having two cameras, two iPhones, and Mr. T’s camera phone in their possession – neither Bear nor Mr. T decided to photograph what happened next.

I was chosen to find a wand!

It was actually kind of weird, because Mr. Ollivander’s spiel is lifted pretty much directly from the book and I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to do things improv-style or supposed to do what was in the book as well. (Mr. T later informed me that I was not as entertaining as I could’ve been. It definitely would’ve been helpful to see the show before I did it). But we got through it and a 15.25”, yew (yessss), phoenix feather (yesssss again), rather bendy wand chose me. I didn’t end up buying it because this thing was the Big Baby Vinylmation of wands, through no fault of its own. Perhaps fewer skeletons at the bottom and more phoenixes? I do wonder who designed the wands and why they put skulls or skeletons on all of them (no lie).

We browsed through the connecting (jampacked) gift shops for awhile, discussing wands and Ollivander’s (we figured that I was chosen because I had waved at Mr. Ollivander while in line, in case anyone was wondering. I think he scopes out the line in between groups).

It was still an excellent way to end the day and definitely improved our (okay, mine. Bear still insists that he didn’t take any pictures because he was too focused on me being famous. I think he likes the park better now too, if only because he likes when other people think I’m special).

Seuss Landing Tree

We browsed our way out of the park, being much more inclined to find small pretty details. Our primary focus was Seuss Landing since we had covered the Lost Continent pretty well earlier in the day – Seuss Landing was also, coincidentally, much closer to the exit.

Seuss Landing - Lorax trees

The Whovians were out in full force, having all apparently come from Who-Mart and were now ready to meet new people. I seriously think almost the entire character budget are spent on these guys; they’re certainly of a much higher quality than the superheroes.

Croissant Moon Bakery

I really wanted to stop in the Bakery when we got back to the Port of Entry but Mr. T wanted to stop at the restroom again and, well, I didn’t want to spend any money when we had Deluxe Dining and Disney Rewards dollars waiting for us at Port Orleans.

We only got lost once getting back to the car (this would soon become our record for quickest return to car) and exited (after about 30 minutes of driving) the massive parking garage.

We were going back to Disney!

[Merida]

Originally Posted by marDgreen88

I just can't believe that in the most popular section of the park that the seats would be too small/awkward for some people. Seems like poor planning!

On the other hand, Seuss Landing looks adorable!

Yeah, there's really not much space in Islands of Adventure in general (except Toon Lagoon, we found). They're expanding Harry Potter into Universal which should help with some of the crowds, I think. They did the best they could with their space (ironically, having Walt Disney's problem with Disneyland! )

It is! I love Seuss Landing, it's so cute and done very well. It's definitely faded a bit from what I remember but it still works. I wish Disney had done something similar for the Muppets (I know there was stuff planned that never got realized).

[Merida]

We parked behind Magnolia Terrace in what would soon become our special parking space and tried to figure out where our room was, exactly. Past a quiet pool, up a flight of stairs, around a corner and – [i[abracadabra[/i] – our room! Bear and I were reenergized by finally being in our vacation spot (this trip had actually been delayed six months so we were more than ready for vacation) and didn’t want to hang around in the room

Riverside Refurbed Room

I convinced Bear to come with me to pick up our refillable mugs; I was really really excited for the possibility of citrus white tea whenever I wanted and as much as I wanted. Mr. T turned down the offer – he was more tired and sore than Bear and I and had no reason to see how far our room was from the Mill.

We had never checked out the room view or anything, so to our great surprise, if you walked the away from the parking lot side, there was the Sassagoula River. We technically had a river view room (plus lots of trees) that had pretty much direct access to the bridge to the main pool and Riverside Mill. Our check-in cast member, Darrell, was pretty much the most awesome person in the entire world and, as we crossed the bridge, literally started singing his praises.

Inside the Mill, we wandered around a bit before finding mugs and drinks and getting everything settled. Bear, having finished before me, checked out some of the DVC pamphlets on the omnipresent DVC stand in the lobby. There still wasn’t someone manning it (he also looked when I was checking in, which lead to the Abbot and Castello routine of Bear asking a question, me answering it, and then Mr. T, in all his infinite Florida Resident wisdom, promptly repeating my answer with slightly different wording. To be fair, I do tend to hedge my answers as to not sound like a know-it-all (adding in lots of ‘I think’ or ‘If I remember correctly’) but not-so-deep-down I really am a know-it-all and do not need other people to validate my answers). So remembering this morning, I wasn’t quite ready to go back to our room yet and suggested heading down for beignets.

This hadn’t exactly been the plan originally and I hadn’t bothered to bring my camera to the Mill with us. But Bear agreed with me about needing a break (and beignets) so our walk to French Quarter went unphotographed. This turned out to be a good thing because that walk was probably a highlight of our trip. Maybe just because it was so nice to be by ourselves after Islands or because the weather and sunset were so lovely, whatever it was, we really fell in love with Port Orleans during that walk.

French Quarter was nice, in a different way from Riverside. Funnily enough, we explored French Quarter more than Riverside during the trip due to our frequent beignet excursions. I don’t think there’s one we necessarily like better than the other, with the exception of Alligator Bayou. Just not our style. And French Quarter’s food court has those scary statues/deco (not even sure what to call them) hanging up, but the cobbled streets more than make up for that!

We picked up two orders of beignets, figuring Mr. T would want some, and power walked back to Riverside. Beignets, Bear assured me, were not as good cold. We had each tried one in the food court (delicious) and did not want the others to go to waste.

In the room, Mr. T was on the phone (like always) and we hustled him through finishing the call, eating his beignets (I helped by eating one of them) and getting ready for dinner at Downtown Disney. We were meeting one of Mr. T’s friends at Earl of Sandwich for dinner and I wanted some time to look through the shops beforehand.

Boatwright's

Camera bag repacked, we headed down to wait for the boats. These boats are the best idea ever and I’m now hardpressed to choose a resort to stay at that isn’t on the river.

Riverside Mansions

The views, the nice captains, the relaxing rides, the excellent music (which changes according to where you are, which I found adorable. Bluegrass for Riverside, jazz for French Quarter, and then more “traditional” once we headed towards Saratoga Springs) were all wonderful, especially when you consider the nightmare stories about DTD buses.

Downtown Disney Carousel

I had never been to Downtown Disney before and wasn’t exactly sure what was there. I was dragged past an art store, a Christmas store, and a kitchen store because the boys didn’t feel like ‘shopping’ – they were too hungry. Given that I had suggested Earl of Sandwich, they sat down on a curb with menus to decide while I watched the carousel.

Carousel Horses

I was fairly confident we would end up going to Earl of Sandwich anyway, so I tuned out the discussion. I love carousels; we still have a few originals near my hometown. Bear doesn’t appreciate them the same way so I rarely have a chance to ride one.

Carousel Horses

I still didn’t ride one that night; I wasn’t sure if you had to pay to ride or anything and the boys’ discussion was winding down. Bear wanted to go to the Lego store and I wanted to go to World of Disney and our time was running short.

Carousel Horses

So I said goodbye to the ponies (the carousel was starting up again anyway) and followed Bear and Mr. T. They had decided on Earl of Sandwich (like I had figured) and were eager to see the Lego statues.

Lego Dwarf

The Lego store and surrounding area were packed. There was a dance party thing going on nearby and people on stilts and all sorts of exciting things going on, so I’m not sure if that’s normal?

Bluebird

Or is it always really difficult to take pictures of the statues? With other people using flashes and walking in front of me and the poor lighting in the area, I spent more time admiring them than photographing.

Lego Dwarf

My favorite was the Maleficient dragon followed by the Toy Story rocket. But the Toy Story rocket was obviously held up with poles/other means (based on the center of mass) so I think the dragon fight was more skillfully done.

Lego Heads

Bear headed off to go search for a keychain the moment we stepped in the store, taking Mr. T with him while I went around more slowly.

Lego

It took forever to realize that these are set up as Lego bricks. I’m not very proud of that but I do like them! I miss having all my old Lego sets around; my parents weren’t into the model type of Lego so I had mostly free range Lego.

Lego Store

I was glad that they didn’t have those silly “girl Legos” that just came out. The ones with the different people shape? The only purpose of Lego people is to have them all be the same so you can make up wacky outfit and body combinations. Also “regular” Lego are plenty girly enough without changing around the sets and everything.

Lego Gringotts

I do have to say that Lego Harry Potter was better set up than Wizarding World of Harry Potter – how awesome is the Lego goblin?

After admiring the sets (Bear was particularly enamored with the spaceships; I liked the trains), we headed out.

Pumpkin Carriage

World of Disney is close by, so we headed in. I secretly wanted to get Bear interested in Vinylmations

Stitch

Instead we got stuck in the stuffed animal section.

Mickey

Which is not always the worst place to be stuck in.

Technicolor Mickey

Everything is soft and squishy, though I tend to stay away from Toy Story toys. I can’t bring myself to buy anything from Andy’s gang because, well, they’ve been abandoned already – especially Jessie. Like, she had a song about it. I couldn’t in good conscience buy a Jessie and then – as is inevitable – misplace or get rid of her.

Figment Pin

I asked Bear if he wanted to do pin trading (Figment!), but that was a no. Honestly I didn’t really want to do pin trading, I’m not good at interacting with people. I dragged him over to show him Vinyls but he wasn’t quite convinced of the process. The women who were in charge of the trading box were busy helping another customer so I didn’t have a chance to put the best Vinylmation foot forward for Bear – yet.

Ornament

We found Mr. T and quickly ran through the Christmas section, trying to find T-shirts. I wanted to show Bear the Up-themed castle shirt as a hint that this was a souvenir I wanted.

Ornament

The shirt was too big for me but I loved this ornament. Mr. T’s friend – Sara? Maybe? We’ll go with that – called him, saying that she was just going to park and then meet us at Earl.

Earl of Sandwich

We waited outside of Earl of Sandwich for a few minutes until Sara arrived. Honestly, she was a very nice person but she was insistent on giving Bear and I Disney advice. And it was stuff like ‘Go to Toy Story Mania first!!’ Which I don’t really need.

Bear and I finished up our sandwiches quickly – I had the meatball one, which was excellent! It was just crowded in there – and said our goodbyes to Mr. T and Sara. It was probably close to 9PM at that point and we had had a busy day. It also seemed more polite to let Mr. T and his friend have some time by themselves.

Just in case Mr. T came back late, we made tentative plans of getting up between 6:15 and 6:30 the next morning for our Grand Floridian Café reservation. Mr. T assured me that this would be plenty of time for him, so don’t worry!

Mickey Head

One boat ride, a quick trip to refill our mugs, and a shower (for me) later, Bear and I were tucked in bed, enjoying a Phineas and Ferb marathon. I honestly don’t know what time Mr. T got in that night; within an episode, I was asleep.

[Nermel9]

I'm sorry I missed so many updates, I'm so far behind!

IOA looks, well...not really like my type of thing! We always say we're going to go and then we don't, and I think there's a reason for that! I don't care about Spider Man, I know nothing about Harry Potter, and comic strips? Does anyone read those anymore? I do think the Seuss section is cute, and the Jurassic Park ride looks fun, but anything else seems like it would annoy me quickly! That's awesome that you were chosen to get a wand though, even I know what a big deal that is, knowing nothing about HP!

I love the new rooms at POR, it's about time they changed them! I loved the boat ride from POR to DTD, it sounds like it's really nice at night! We only used the boat once and it was during the day.

I love all of your DTD pictures! I haven't been in the Lego store in a while, but the displays look really cute! I love World of Disney, I could spend hours in there!

Isn't EoS the best place ever? There are so many places I want to eat at DTD, but I can't bring myself to not eat at EoS! Ugh, I can't stand Disney advice from random people...DIS'ers, yes, but random people no. There are times when people at work find out I'm going to Disney and they'll tell me things to do and I can't deal with it, I just have to smile and nod and try to escape!

[Stringbean&Wingnut]

I STILL have not been to EOS! Maybe someday...

I love all of the structures and colors around the Lego store. It's so fun there! I think the new Toy Story Buzz and Woody structure is so cute!

[IheartDDuck]

I'm here! Going back to catch up!

[archdandy]

It looks like I missed quite a bit while I was in disney! It's always hard to be somewhere on vacation and be with other people. DH and I have thought about going with his brother and his wife to disney before but we don't always get along on non-stressful theme park days so it probably isn't a good idea! I hope you got the chance to go back downtown because there is so much there to see!

[Merida]

Originally Posted by Nermel9

I'm sorry I missed so many updates, I'm so far behind!

IOA looks, well...not really like my type of thing! We always say we're going to go and then we don't, and I think there's a reason for that! I don't care about Spider Man, I know nothing about Harry Potter, and comic strips? Does anyone read those anymore? I do think the Seuss section is cute, and the Jurassic Park ride looks fun, but anything else seems like it would annoy me quickly! That's awesome that you were chosen to get a wand though, even I know what a big deal that is, knowing nothing about HP!

I love the new rooms at POR, it's about time they changed them! I loved the boat ride from POR to DTD, it sounds like it's really nice at night! We only used the boat once and it was during the day.

I love all of your DTD pictures! I haven't been in the Lego store in a while, but the displays look really cute! I love World of Disney, I could spend hours in there!

Isn't EoS the best place ever? There are so many places I want to eat at DTD, but I can't bring myself to not eat at EoS! Ugh, I can't stand Disney advice from random people...DIS'ers, yes, but random people no. There are times when people at work find out I'm going to Disney and they'll tell me things to do and I can't deal with it, I just have to smile and nod and try to escape!

It's okay! I've been bouncing around other trip report, I'm super behind on some and have read others like twenty times! It's weird how some times certain writing/photo styles are more interesting (or type of trip! I read like all the recent Disneyland Paris trip reports this past weekend).

Probably the one failure of Islands of Adventure was that it couldn't get me to care about anything in the park! Like, I'm not normally all about the Wild West and mining towns in real life, but I still really like Big Thunder Mountain. There's just something missing from IoA that keeps it from being a vacation destination for us.

Yes, Port Orleans is so nice and peaceful. They're even making Alligator Bayou much more palatable! It's a Disney miracle! I do wish Disney would update the website with new room pictures, I had to go searching the Internet to figure out that places like Yacht/Beach Club aren't entirely outdated with ugly bedspreads.

I liked Earl of Sandwich pretty well, but it wasn't my favorite sandwich ever. Maybe if it hadn't been so crowded (and I had picked a better sandwich! The Cannonballs was good but not what I was feeling that day). I do really want to go back but there's just so many good places in Downtown Disney! I definitely liked it a lot more than I thought I would and I'm pretty sure I will always get lost in World of Disney. There's just so many different kinds of stores to look in; I actually can't imagine what Disney was like in the souvenir heyday. To me, a souvenir novice, there's WAY more choice/variety than I could ever deal with and I can't believe there used to be more.

Originally Posted by Stringbean&Wingnut

I STILL have not been to EOS! Maybe someday...

I love all of the structures and colors around the Lego store. It's so fun there! I think the new Toy Story Buzz and Woody structure is so cute!

Earl was nice, but really crowded and I have had better sandwiches (I mean, the bread was good but not, like, amazing. I was pretty tired so it's not an objective review though!)

I know! I really wanted to play at the little tables outside but they were always swarmed with kids. Plus I wasn't really certain of the hygiene there... I wish they would add some labels to the statues; I can't remember which dwarf is which one was which!

Originally Posted by IheartDDuck

I'm here! Going back to catch up!

Yay! There's really not very much yet (esp. Disney) because, well, I'm slow and easily distracted by things like wedding photography (why are they all so pretty?!).

Originally Posted by archdandy

It looks like I missed quite a bit while I was in disney! It's always hard to be somewhere on vacation and be with other people. DH and I have thought about going with his brother and his wife to disney before but we don't always get along on non-stressful theme park days so it probably isn't a good idea! I hope you got the chance to go back downtown because there is so much there to see!

Haha, not really! School and our impossible foster kittens have really slowed down my efforts of going through pictures and such. Yeah, after talking with my boyfriend we've agreed that other people can come with us but a) they don't interrupt our morning routine/mornings in the parks b) OWN ROOMS and c) we don't spend all day with them.

We did go back to DTD a little on our last day, but just to grab some last minute souvenirs (my castle blanket!) and ended up getting lost after parking by the movie theater. So we definitely got to see more accidentally!

[Merida]

Okay, I've fallen really far behind in the past week! School started and since both Bear and I are entering the last stretch of our masters' program, we've had a lot of talking to do about future plans and sort of mapping out the next few years (vacations included ). It took us a lot longer than we had thought because, well, we're scientists and will research everything! I've got the next batch of pictures edited and uploaded and will try and get the next post up tomorrow/before the weekend.