A Very Magical Graduation Trip *Completed*

[PippiDancer]

It must have been nice to be in the park with not many people there. It is great for taking photos. Felicia wanted to do breakfast in one of the parks for that very reason and we didn't. Next time. What did you use for transportation that early to get there? Waiting to hear more. Oh and I hope your knee didn't get to bad!

It was really fun to be in the park before it actually opened. I would like to do an early breakfast at Magic Kingdom some day, it must be so magical to walk down main street with barely anyone else around. We just took the Disney busses, they start running at 7:30 every day.

 

[eagillinois]

Great pictures and TR, We are staying at POR for the first time in May to celebrate my DD HS graduation. Now I am thinking I should upgrade rooms !

 

[PippiDancer]

After a couple hours of relaxing, we headed back to Epcot for our 5:40 dinner reservations at Chefs de France. It was around 5:20 when we got to France and asked if we could check in that early and they said they could take us right away. That restaurant is gorgeous! We were seated to the side, next to the bar where they make the desserts.

We looked over the menu and ordered, we all decided to order from the prix fix menu. So, we got an appetizer included with the meal, and sense we were on the DDP it didn't cost any extra. While we were waiting for our food, the chef stopped by our table.

Remy! The CM going around with him was very funny. Mom asked Remy if she could take a picture of him and the CM said of course, put the cover over Remy, and posed for her.

Shortly after our visit from Remy, our appetizers came out. Mom got french onion soup, which she said was very good. Dad got a salad, I believe, which he said was good, but not anything special. I forgot to get pictures of their appetizers, oops. I got the lobster bisque

It was delicious, very rich and creamy. I wish it had more chunks of lobster in it though.

For entrees, I got pasta au gratin

The best macaroni and cheese ever. It was so creamy and yummy and the sauce was just perfect and the melted cheese on top made it even better. Unfortunately, I only ate about half of it because I was stuffed.
Mom got short ribs with pasta

She said it was really good, but it was like pot roast and she was expecting it to be more like steak, but she still enjoyed it.
Dad got half a chicken with potatoes and broccoli.

He said the chicken was very dry, the broccoli was cold, and the potatoes were ok. Basically, he didn't like his meal at all.
For dessert I got chocolate mousse because I was still full and just wanted something light.

It was very tasty. It came with a slice of pound cake, which I didn't eat because I didn't want my stomach to explode. I took a bite of it and thought it was kind of dry and tasteless, but I'm not a huge fan of pound cake anyway.
Mom and Dad both got the puff choux

Mom said it was good, Dad said it was gross.

After dinner we wandered around that side of World Showcase. We got to the UK and there was a Beatles cover band playing. We went into one of the shops next to them, and could still hear the music. We were wandering around inside and happened to find these guys dancing in a back room!

There was basically no line, so of course I hopped in it! I think there were only 2 families in front of me. When it was my turn, I went and gave Pooh a hug and he started dancing with me.

Then he grabbed my hand and put his other hand on my shoulder, like you would if you were waltzing or something and we danced some more.

And Tigger joined us for some photos.

After taking a bunch of pictures, Pooh gave me another hug and then kissed me on the cheek. Then Tigger grabbed my hand and we all danced some more.

And of course, I had to give Tigger a hug too

Then we said good-bye. It was the cutest thing ever! I'm so glad we happened to be in the right place at the right time and found them. What is better than getting hugs from Pooh and Tigger, dancing with Pooh, and getting a kiss from Pooh?

After making some new friends, we explored the UK a little more and of course had to take some pictures in a phone booth.

Then we headed over to Soarin to use the fast passes we had gotten that afternoon. And took some gorgeous pictures on the way.

We only had to wait in line for a few minutes and were seated in the front row of the top section again, but this time we were on the left. Once again, it was amazing. It was cool to see it from the opposite side as we were on before.

After Soarin, we went to Club Cool. I told Mom that I had read on Dis that Beverly was delicious and convinced her to try it. She said she didn't believe me, but tried it anyway. Once she recovered from the taste, she yelled "Jessica Renee" at me, you know I got her good when she breaks out the middle name. A lot of the flavors had signs on them saying they were unavailable, so we only tried a few before leaving.

Then we decided to go on a search for a spot to watch Illuminations.

 

[librarygeek]

Looks like a really fun first two days! You got a ton done at the Magic Kingdom extra magic hours, that's awesome. And your fireworks pics are gorgeous. I also really appreciated reading your report of your early Akershus breakfast, because I have an 8:05am reservation there in about two weeks! I can't wait to get some pictures of the park when it's empty like that

 

[PippiDancer]

It was about 8:30 when we decided to find a spot for Illuminations. We didn't even attempt to fight the crowds and go into World Showcase. We ended up finding a decent spot on a path that went around the back of a building across from the American Pavillion, next to the handicap veiwing and one of the torches. I'm sorry if that is confusing, but I don't know how else to explain in. We didn't want to squish in with people, so we stood against a the railing on the opposite side of the path. About 15 minutes before it started, Mom and I went across the path to stand with the crowd of people so we could have a good view. Dad stayed against the railing because he hates crowds and isn't a huge fan of fireworks anyway. I ended up standing right behind a stroller, so I had an unobstructed view. Once Illuminations started the girl (about 12 years old?) standing next to me kept pushing into me, like she was hoping I would move over and she could take my spot. Not even 5 minutes into Illuminations, I noticed the battery icon on my camera was flashing, so I had to keep turning my camera off and back on to take pictures. Therefore, I didn't get as many good pics as I would have liked.

It was cool, but a lot shorter than I thought it would be. On our first trip, we saw the holiday version of Illuminations, so we were expecting something similar this time and it was a bit of a let down. I'm glad we didn't miss it, but its not something I felt the need to see again this trip. And it doesn't come close to the amazingness of Wishes.

 

[Wishes2you]

You are doing a great job with your TR. Looking forward to hearing more. I totally agree with your last comment. I like Illuminations but not as much. I could watch Wishes every night. That is how I get my Disney fix when I am at home. I watch or just listen to it on Youtube. I know CRAZY!
I wish I got lucky and got to see Winnie the pooh and Tigger. Loved how you were dancing with them that is great. It was funny when I saw you in the phone booths I laughed. I have photos of my daughter in them too. We were there on Tuesday (1/8) of our trip.

 

[wiigirl]

Great TR!

 

[PippiDancer]

You are doing a great job with your TR. Looking forward to hearing more. I totally agree with your last comment. I like Illuminations but not as much. I could watch Wishes every night. That is how I get my Disney fix when I am at home. I watch or just listen to it on Youtube. I know CRAZY!
I wish I got lucky and got to see Winnie the pooh and Tigger. Loved how you were dancing with them that is great. It was funny when I saw you in the phone booths I laughed. I have photos of my daughter in them too. We were there on Tuesday (1/8) of our trip.

Thank you! I'm glad you are enjoying it! I agree that I could watch Wishes over and over. And the castle show right before it, Celebrate the Magic, I could watch a million times. Meeting Pooh and Tigger was such a magical moment, it was so wonderful to get lucky and find them like that!

Great TR!

Thank you, I'm glad to here that you are enjoying it!

 

[PippiDancer]

Once Illuminations was over, we fought the crowds to get into World Showcase. We eventually managed to get to the first country, Mexico.

And took shelter in there while the crowds passed.

We went on the Gran Fiesta Tour. Not only was it walk on, but the rest of our boat and the ones in front of and behind it was empty.

After that, we braved leaving the Mexico pavillion to find that the flood of people leaving the park had passed already (thank goodness). In fact, we were basically the only people around.

Next we went to Norway and rode Maelstrom. Mom got pretty nervous when she read the ride description and saw that it had a drop, but went on it anyway and was fine. After that we headed over to China.

It was pretty much closed up except for one shop in the back of the pavillion, so we looked around in there for a little while. The Africa area was completely closed down, so we walked through that and into Germany. We wandered around the stores in Germany for a little while and looked at all of the gorgeous things in the crystal store. Including this stunning Castle model.

After looking around Germany we decided to head out of World Showcase. Everything was either closed or closing and it was too dark to enjoy any of the themeing. Since we had only seen half of it we decided to come back to Epcot on one of our unscheduled nights to see the rest. On our way out, they closed the bridge between Africa and Norway so they could move all of the Illumination barges out of the lagoon. So we waited and it was kind of cool to see the barges up close.

I wanted to ride Test Track again because, as I've said before, I love going on fast rides at night. I think the posted wait time was 20 minutes (maybe?) which was pretty accurate. We were planning on skipping the design-your-own-car thing like we did earlier, but it wasn't an option in the stand-by line. So, I designed a bright pink car with flowers (of course). Once again it was a fun ride, the dark definitely makes it better. By the time we got off the ride, it was after 11 and the park was closed. My knee had started bothering me again while we were in line and at this point it hurt so much that I was basically limping. Our bus line was pretty long and we had to wait for the second bus, which didn't take too long. Luckily I got a seat, I didn't want to have to stand with my knee hurting as much as it did. We got back to our room around midnight. I took some ibeprofen, slathered my knee with biofreeze, and we watched a little TV before crashing.

 

[NatalieCA]

Love this trip report!!!!!! Will be following....

 

[PippiDancer]

Love this trip report!!!!!! Will be following....

Thank you! And welcome!

 

[PippiDancer]

On Tuesday, we slept in a little later since we didn't have anywhere to be early morning. We got ready and headed to River Mill for some breakfast. We all decided to get bounty platters, which comes with scrambled eggs, home fries, bacon, sausage, a biscuit, and either pancakes, french toast, or a small mickey waffle. I had the Mickey waffle platter, Dad had the french toast platter, and I don't remember what Mom had but I think it was either french toast or pancakes. Everything was very delicious, especially the Mickey waffle, which is the most delicious breakfast food ever created.

After breakfast, we went back to the room to drop off our mugs and grab our park bag. I also took some ibeprofen and put some more biofreeze on my knee. Then we headed to the bus stop and didn't have to wait long for a bus to the Magic Kingdom. We got to MK and hopped on a monorail to the TTC. Why were we going there? Because we were going to Seaworld! We had no idea where the busses were at TTC so we wandered around trying to find it and eventually found a CM to ask. We finally figured out where the Lynx bus stop was and got there just in time to watch it pull away. And city busses aren't like Disney busses, they don't come one after another. So we sat at the bus stop for another 20 minutes until the next bus came. We got on the bus, I put my $2 into the machine thingy, and the driver asked if I needed a transfer. I had no idea what that meant so I think my response was something along the lines of "uhhh..." Remember, we live in Maine, where public transportatin doesn't exist. Mom told him we were going to Seaworld and he told us we didn't need one. The bus ride took about a half hour since there were a bunch of stops. One of the stops had a Seaworld sign on the side of the roof thingy and someone sitting next to Mom told her it was the stop for Seaworld, so we thought that was our stop. In case you were wondering, it wasn't. We got off and were trying to figure out where to go, a man waiting at the bus stop told us that we should have gotten off at the next stop but it would only take us a few minutes to walk there. So, we started walking. The bus driver honked at us and motioned for us to come back, so we got back on the bus. Good thing he did, because the next stop was a lot further than that guy made it seem. We got to the right stop and the bus driver explained where to go to get the bus back. He was very nice and very patient with our lack of knowledge about public transportation.

We had to walk across the very large parking lot to get to the entrance, and waited in line to exchange our print out voucher things for actual tickets. Then went over to the actaul gates. The lady in front of us had a ticket that expired the day before and she started freaking out at the ticket-scanner when he told her she couldn't use it. We were all like seriously, it isn't his fault that you have an expired ticket. I just don't understand some people. It was about 10:30 by the time we finally got into the park.

We grabbed a map and show schedule and tried to figure out the game plan for the day so we could get to all the shows we wanted to see. That's the one thing I hate about Seaworld, the way they schedule the shows means you have to carefully plan out your day in order to get to everything. For example, one show might start 5 minutes before another one ends and they are on opposite side of the parks. This would be fine if there were a bunch of show times, but each show only happens about 3 times a day, which makes sense with the animals. I just think they could schedule them a lot better. Ok, rant over now.

We figured out that the Shamu show, One Ocean, was starting in about 40 minutes, so we decided to head over there. Dad and I studied the map to figure out the best route while Mom took a bathroom break.

On the way over to Shamu Stadium, we spotted the dolphin nursery, so we stopped to watch some baby dolphins.

We took our time walking over, since we had plenty of time. They still had their Christmas decorations up.

We made it over to Shamu Stadium but the doors weren't open yet.

There was a line forming to get in, so I jumped in it while Dad got coffee and Mom got an Icee. Dad finished making his coffee and joined me in line just as they started letting people in. The line was moving really fast and we couldn't get Mom's attention, so we got out of line to wait for her since we knew she would never be able to find us. It ended up being fine because the line disappeared almost immediately since it was just people waiting for the doors to open. Mom got her mango Icee, which was very tasty and I ended up eating half of it.

We went in and got seats. We were in the upper section (out of the splash zone) and towards the middle. We ended up finding spots on a bench between an isle and a concrete barrier, so the bench was the perfect size to fit just us and we didn't have to squish next to anyone. And it was only a few rows back from the beginning of the section. Perfect seats.

We had to wait about 20 minutes for the show to start, but it wasn't that bad. We just used that time to look at the map and try to figure out where to eat lunch.

They splashed the crowd several times. I thought it was hilarious to watch all of the people running out of the splash zone every single time it happened. They had plenty of warning that they would get very wet if they sat in the bottom section. There were signs everywhere and they made several announcements before the show started.

The show was wonderful. The whales are such incredable creatures and I love watching them. You never knew what was going to happen, so all of a sudden you would just see a whale jumping out of nowhere. If you go to Seaworld, this is a must see.

 

[Wishes2you]

Looking forward to more as I sit here and watch the snow fall. Enjoying all the photos you took. I like the warm thoughts of our trip your TR is reminding me of. Maybe I will have to go up and and work on my trip scrap book while the storm keeps us in. If you are getting this storm at school be safe. My DD Felicia's school is in an area where they may get 30" from this storm. She is on duty tonight and dreading it.

 

[PippiDancer]

Looking forward to more as I sit here and watch the snow fall. Enjoying all the photos you took. I like the warm thoughts of our trip your TR is reminding me of. Maybe I will have to go up and and work on my trip scrap book while the storm keeps us in. If you are getting this storm at school be safe. My DD Felicia's school is in an area where they may get 30" from this storm. She is on duty tonight and dreading it.

I'm doing the same thing today, just watching the snow fall. I had a snow day today, so I didn't have to venture too far into the storm. I'm actually on duty tonight too, fingers crossed that nothing too crazy happens.

 

[PippiDancer]

As soon as One Ocean ended, we headed half way across the park to Clyde & Seamore Take Pirate Island becuase that was starting soon. I think a lot of people had the same idea because we followed a crowd the entire way there. We ended up getting some pretty decent seats.

Even though the show didn't start for another 20 minutes, a pirate mime came out a few minutes after we sat down.

He was hilarious. He kept making fun of all of the people coming in and most of them had no idea he was doing it. I think he was better than the actaul show.

The show was ok. It was kind of cheesy, which it was supposed to be. It was obvious that they kept messing up or the sealions weren't always doing what they were supposed to. But they did make fun of themselves when that happened, so it made it kind of funny. I think I would have enjoyed it more if we didn't watch it directly after One Ocean. I was getting antsy and was ready to go do other things in the park.

It was about 2:00 when the show ended, so we went in search of food. We all had vouchers for a free meal that came with our tickets. We ended up going to the Spice Mill because the description sounded good. It is cafteria style, so you go through the line and they hand you what you want as you go. Dad got a turkey club with fries and Mom and I both got cheeseburgers (aka pre-made frozen hamburg patties on a bun) with fries. They ran out of burger patties, so we had to wait while they brought another tub of them out. I'm not kidding, it was litterally a tub of burger patties sitting in burger grease-juice. While we were waiting, the person behind the counter spotted my "I'm celebrating" button (it was on my park bag and I hadn't taken it off) and asked what it was for. I told her I was graduating college and she said congratulations and asked if I wanted her to announce it to everyone. I said I would pass and she said "why? It is such a big deal!" We finally got our burgers and continued down the line and got our drinks (aka flat soda). The food wasn't that bad for fast food burgers but it didn't compare to Disney food.

After we ate, we went to the Shark Encounter. We looked the feed tanks outside first. There were some people next to us that were feeding them.

These birds were around the entrance.

The Shark Encounter is basically a giant tunnel that you walk through (well, more like ride a moving sidewalk through) and you can watch sharks swimming over you.

It was pretty cool to watch them swim all around you. There are also some other aqauriums to look at once you got through the tunnel.

 

[librarygeek]

Glad you made it to Sea World, I love it! I completely agree with you about that pirate mime before the one show, he is hilarious and almost certainly better than the actual show! And I remember when we ate there, I forget what place we were at, but the food was pretty bad at Sea World. That was definitely the one big disappointment.

 

[Wishes2you]

Well I have finally made it back to see more of your TR. Love seeing all your photos. I love photos and take lots myself. The path with the tanks looked great. Love when you can see all the fish from different angles. I would have enjoyed the mime too. We saw a human statue in Downtown Disney that was just amazing. I could have stayed there all night photographing him. I also got lucky in Animal Kingdom and got to Photograph DeVine. Glad to hear you fared well through the storm. We were without power for 28 hours and I have friends that still don't have it. We got about a foot of heavy snow w/ hurricane force winds. We will be cleaning out for awhile.

 

[PippiDancer]

Glad you made it to Sea World, I love it! I completely agree with you about that pirate mime before the one show, he is hilarious and almost certainly better than the actual show! And I remember when we ate there, I forget what place we were at, but the food was pretty bad at Sea World. That was definitely the one big disappointment.

We love Seaworld! We went on our last Disney trip and it was a must do for this trip as well.

Well I have finally made it back to see more of your TR. Love seeing all your photos. I love photos and take lots myself. The path with the tanks looked great. Love when you can see all the fish from different angles. I would have enjoyed the mime too. We saw a human statue in Downtown Disney that was just amazing. I could have stayed there all night photographing him. I also got lucky in Animal Kingdom and got to Photograph DeVine. Glad to hear you fared well through the storm. We were without power for 28 hours and I have friends that still don't have it. We got about a foot of heavy snow w/ hurricane force winds. We will be cleaning out for awhile.

I'm glad you're enjoying it and it's good to know I'm not over doing it with photos, I took so many and it is very difficult to decide which ones to leave out. I would have loved to see DeVine, I'm very jealous! We actually didn't get that much snow here. They got a lot more at home than I did at school, which is surprising since I'm in the mountains. The worst part about the snow was the wind, it was a complete white out walking outside, you could barely see anything because of all the snow blowing everywhere.

 

[Wishes2you]

Okay let me start off by saying there are never too many photos. lol You are talking to the person who took 1500 photo on my trip and now trying to choose my absolute favorites because my scrapbook can only be so big. I love to take photos. My camera goes with me everyday. As far as the Blizzard storm I can't believe the damage because we had hurricane force winds and heavy snow. Even now a week and a half later I am still surprised at the extent of the damage here. I have forgotten where do you go to school.

 

[PippiDancer]

Okay let me start off by saying there are never too many photos. lol You are talking to the person who took 1500 photo on my trip and now trying to choose my absolute favorites because my scrapbook can only be so big. I love to take photos. My camera goes with me everyday. As far as the Blizzard storm I can't believe the damage because we had hurricane force winds and heavy snow. Even now a week and a half later I am still surprised at the extent of the damage here. I have forgotten where do you go to school.

I agree that you can never have too many photos. I actually wish I had taken more on our trip. I go to school in Maine, only about an hour away from where we live.