Adventures of a DisneyWORLDholic! Updated1/24 I was an unofficial WDW tour guide.


After my nap and I think Jacob may have slept a little bit, we went on an adventure. Before the Dismeet, fellow Dis'er Gary, mentioned how he had gone over to Mouse Surplus. This is someplace I have wanted to go since hearing about it a couple of years ago.

I had the website up on my phone and followed the directions on it. It's about 30 minutes or so from WDW. Nothing really exciting to see on the way. Jacob wasn't very excited, he just wanted to go swimming.

Passed a candy store I thought about stopping at, but Jacob wasn't even interested in that.:sad2:

I was so glad I had asked Gary for directions because he had told me that when you see a trailer with the name on it, that would be the turn. Looking for that trailer made it super easy to find. This place is out in the middle of nowhere.

I pull up and then worry, am I in the right place? Is this safe? It is just an old warehouse out in the middle of nowhere, but first thing you see is an airplane with Harambi on it. Yup, its from the Safarai at AK.

In case you haven't heard of this place, it is a surplus store for unwanted theme park stuff. I've heard of monorail doors and even actual ride vehicles(cars) being there.

There is a lot of stuff you wouldn't want. I wanted the huge gold Mickey statue (I think there were several). About 2 feet tall.

Jacob saw this right away (sorry only had my phone for pics),


He wanted to know the price, so I made him ask. Just $5000. Good thing Jonas didn't come with us (when he saw the pic he said we have Jacob's college money.:rolleyes1) The guy that helped us said there were only two of these in the world. This one came from the FAO Schwartz in Las Vegas.

Then we found this:


Only $17,500! Wouldn't that be cool on the side of the house.:rotfl2: Our HOA probably wouldn't approve, but I don't think it specifially rules it out. Basketball hoops not allowed, but nothing about these things (sorry forgot the name of them.)

Mouse Surplus has lots of other things, nothing I could see me buying. They do have a huge Sulley that was cool. They also have a lot of furnishings. I saw these:


We have this huge wall in our dining room that looks empty with the artwork we have, thought this painted with a mirror behind it might look good.

That was our tour of Mouse Surplus. Now Jacob was happy, we were headed back to the resort to go swimming. Again, I didn't take my camera, but I have a lot of pics from last November so I thought I would share them.





















 
I wondered about that large thing coming out of the wall! Jacob's whole body is emphasizing how much he doesn't want to participate in your picture or this scene, though! :laughing:

Didn't you find anything to buy, there? I mean, aside from the fighter? I would hate to make a trip to a weird, outta the way place like that and then not find anything I wanted.

And what pool is that, from what resort? I have never seen any of those figures, before!!

...we got an offer on the house. It is way, way low -- what WE paid for it -- but we're crossing our fingers on our counter-offer. :)
 
The Mouse Surplus looks very interesting. I wonder how often they actually sell any of the old props.
 
I wondered about that large thing coming out of the wall! Jacob's whole body is emphasizing how much he doesn't want to participate in your picture or this scene, though! :laughing:

Didn't you find anything to buy, there? I mean, aside from the fighter? I would hate to make a trip to a weird, outta the way place like that and then not find anything I wanted.

And what pool is that, from what resort? I have never seen any of those figures, before!!

...we got an offer on the house. It is way, way low -- what WE paid for it -- but we're crossing our fingers on our counter-offer. :)

There were a couple things like that window frame I have thought about. A lot of people have been fortunate enough to find some cool stuff, such as Gary said he has purchased bedposts that were from AKL, brand new. It is one of those places you have to keep looking in on. Check out www.mousesurplus.com.

That is the French Quarter pool. Jacob just loves it!

I'll email you about the house. :goodvibes

The Mouse Surplus looks very interesting. I wonder how often they actually sell any of the old props.

I wondered that myself. I think the monorail door (still on their website) would be cool, someone (I think it was Sha) suggested to put it in a kids room and then paint the stripe around the room to match.
 


Mouse Surplus looks like a neat place! I had never heard of it. Thanks for sharing your field trip!
 
Mouse Surplus looks like a neat place! I had never heard of it. Thanks for sharing your field trip!

Your welcome. That is one reason why I enjoyed writing my last TR that spanned over a year. Showing some things others might not know about or wonder if it is worth the trip.

Just to let you know what we are up to and what future postings will be about. This past week they opened the Youth Education Program up to individuals. This is normally only for groups. I booked Jacob (and me since at his age he has to have a chaperone) one at MK where we will get to go behind the scenes to learn how the rides work. The funny thing is, it will involve Jacob's favorite ride and his least favorite.
:lmao:

That same day I am going to pick up our tickets for the big Star Wars Celebration at the Convention Center. I figure trying to pick them up Saturday will be completely crazy. George Lucas is being interviewed by Jon Stewart that day. Not planning on seeing that since wrist bands will be given out at 6:00am. At least everything else will clear out while that is going on.

But, to pick up tickets at the convention center, I have to park, I don't want to pay them for parking for 10 minutes, think it is like $12 or something. The trolley on I drive goes by there, so I figured out something else to do. Jacob and I will be going to Wonder Works, that upside down building you see billboards for. Anyone been?

Oh, and got a call yesterday, my camera was being shipped directly to me. I just might have it in time for next weekend.:banana::yay::cheer2::dance3::woohoo: Just a little excited to have it back.

Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend? Anything exciting going on?
 
So all week I have been trying to remember what it was we did on Sunday of our trip. Have pics at MK, but they are late in the evening. It has been driving me nuts. I knew we didn't sit in the room ALL DAY! I finally remembered, BLIZZARD BEACH!

Jonas still had his tournament going on, but it was to be over around Noon. Jacob loves water, so we had to go to a water park. TL is our favorite and I don't think we have been to BB since our first trip to WDW, so BB it was. Plus, our AP's expire in November and I am only getting the regular AP next time, no premium, which means no water parks or Disneyquest after November.

Again, my fear of stuff being stolen I didn't take my camera. I did have a water proof disposable with a few pics left on it, but I forgot to take it with us.:sad2: Sorry, no pics.

The last time we went to BB, it was after going to TL, so we were tired and only stayed a couple of hours. That's right, we did two water parks in one day that trip. This day we took our time and really explored the park. The details were amazing.

Jacob likes to stay at the wave pool, I am a slide kind of gal. I gave him about 30 minutes in the wave pool and then headed to the slides. Now, part of the reason he doesn't like slides is because at Schlitterbahn in TX, he got stuck in a whirlpool on one of their slides. You would drift in a little river, then slide down, then drift, then slide, over and over again. Well, he got stuck. I passed him and told him I would wait for him. I got to the bottom of the slide and waited...and waited. Finally I started walking along the pash that went beside this slide and found him. A lady had stopped to help him, but he was very upset. He thought he was lost.

None of WDW water slides are like this, so I know this won't happen here. The first slide we go on, is one where you slide down on a mat, on your belly. Jacob went first. I get in position, green light comes on, so I go. I'm having a blast, see the pool at the end and just as I am about to hit the water, there is Jacob.:scared1: Somehow he got stuck at the bottom of the slide. I end up, on the mat, over him. Seemed like forever that I got that mat out of the way and got to him. I was a little miffed the lifeguard didn't do more than just look at us. But Jacob was ok. Thankfully we didn't bump heads, which was my worse fear when I saw him.

Of course, Jacob doesn't want to do any more slides, but I wasn't having that. You fall off the horse, you get right back on.

We did the other slide requiring the mat. This time we each had our own lane, so no problem there.

Back to the wave pool. Jacob loved just sitting in a tube. He had me pushing him to the very back where the water fall was. That was a workout. While out there, I notice something going on behind one of the lifeguards. Don't know what happened, but the medics were there and someone with a laptop.

Then all of a sudden, we hear a whistle and I look over just in time to see a lifeguard jump in the water. There was an older gentleman trying to get a boy back on a tube. The boy was bigger than Jacob, but I guess he couldn't swim. By the time the lifeguard got to him, everything was ok. It was very cool to watch though. As soon as that whistle blew, I guess she hit the kill switch because the waves stopped and they didn't start again until she was back at her post. I also noticed, the other lifeguards stood up while she away from post. Just find procedures interesting.

I spent some time sitting on the beach reading a book and watching one of the tour groups do chants and sing there in the water. There were about 100 of them, I figure that must have made it difficult for the lifeguards, but they allowed it.

We did one more slide, where we rode on a tube together. This one is kind of hidden and I remember last time the lines were really short. And it was the same way this time. Walked right up and got a tube. Then as we are walking up the hill to the slide, people are panicing. Seems there was a snake that crossed the path. :scared1: Even the men weren't going anywhere until it was gone. Jacob had to tell the CM at the top all about it.

We also took the lazy river around the whole park. Just a really nice relaxing day.

From there, we went back to the room, can't remember if Jonas had come back yet or not, but we took a nap while Jacob again watched Disney channel.

After our naps, we went to MK. It had rained while we napped, so you know what that causes:


On the bus to MK, the volume was turned up on the music playing. Ever noticed that once you get to MK it gets louder. It was so loud Jacob covered his ears.

But we were at MK. After security, I tried to go through the turnstile and had issues with my pass, and its a brand new pass, wore the old one out.
But I finally made it in:






I hadn't seen these balloons before:


Honestly, they look like they are for Halloween.





We got a kick out of watching this duck chase this bird for the food that it had:




Headed over to Haunted Mansion:

Line was a little shorter than the last time we tried. We saw this sitting to the side:


I guess this was storage, but seemed really weird that nothing was proctecting it.

We went to Columbia Harbor House to eat and sent Jacob to find a table and also hold the camera:


Jacob's Chicken Nuggets, Jonas had the same:


My fish sticks:


Our view:




After eating, Jacob wanted ice cream, we grabbed some FP's for Buzz first:


By the time we were finished with the ice cream, it was time for Buzz. Some how I beat Jacob. He normally gets the highest score you can on this game, but not lately.

Got this pic of Jonas:


Do you think he gets into it?:rotfl:



Afraid I'm running out of my allotted images, so will continue in next post.
 


After Buzz we decided on CoP. The fireworks started about this time. Little side note here. Since Jonas returned from Iraq, he doesn't like hearing fireworks. If he knows their coming and can stand and watch them, he is fine, but just hearing the bangs makes him jump. Except having to sit facing the door of places, this is the only change I have seen since he came back. Here is a little video, notice the loud booms.


I enjoy CoP. Jacob wanted to sit up front, but Jonas didn't want to, so Jacob became a member of another family for a little bit.:rotfl:

Then we caught this going on (just click on the pic to see video):


I wish Jacob would dance, this looks like so much fun. Think I will make him next time.

Next up was the TTA. I was very excited to hear them page Mr. Tom Morrow!:banana: Jonas wasn't that impressed. But we do love this little tour of Tomorrowland.













This man was just going in circles, but I think he was having a great time:


After TTA, we ended up on Winnie the Pooh.












For the scavanger hunt I needed carousel and also moon, got this pic:


Then we rode Splash Mountain, where we got soaked:


Then I tried to get a nice nighttime shot of the Mountain. I stupidly didn't realize water was shooting out towards us and got even more wet, including the camera.

Next up:


Then we headed to the bus stop, which was waiting just for us.;) So glad, POFQ has their own bus now, we had lots of room.

Next day was a big day for us, Kara was arriving!:banana:



 
I loved the pic of you after you entered the turnstiles at MK - and the little boy behind you looks excited too! How cute!
 
Wow what an eventful day! The water park sounds like so much fun. One of these years we are going to try them. Also loved all the details from your MK evening. Love that upstairs seating at CHH. Love all of the night pictures in Tomorrowland. The parks are just so cool at night! I bet you all had a good night's sleep after this busy day:goodvibes
 
Great pics! We have never done putt putt there.....it seems we never have anytime for that. I wish I lived closer and could go more often.:worship:
 
LOVE the pics! Nothing better than visiting Disney through a great TR!! what fun you had. ::yes::
 
What a fun day. The picture of Jacob with Zurg is GREAT!!! Also love the picture of you making it into the park.:thumbsup2

How do you all like Columbia Harbour House? I've heard it's a really nice quiet place to eat, well upstairs is quiet. I think they have GF/allergy free chicken strips there too.

Can't wait for Kara's arrival.:banana:
 
I loved the pic of you after you entered the turnstiles at MK - and the little boy behind you looks excited too! How cute!

I didn't notice that little boy until I posted that pic here. I bet his family got some really great shots, looks like he is a camera hog.:rotfl:

Wow what an eventful day! The water park sounds like so much fun. One of these years we are going to try them. Also loved all the details from your MK evening. Love that upstairs seating at CHH. Love all of the night pictures in Tomorrowland. The parks are just so cool at night! I bet you all had a good night's sleep after this busy day:goodvibes

I love all amusement parks at night. All the lights! I think we did sleep well that night.

Great pics! We have never done putt putt there.....it seems we never have anytime for that. I wish I lived closer and could go more often.:worship:

I know we are very fortunate to get to live so close. That's why I try to go as often as possible.

that store looks soo cool! theres a lot of great stuff but who can afford to buy it? :rotfl:

i love the pool! it looks so fun! is that dragon a waterslide?

and the picture of after the rain was creepy in a cool way... i dont really know how to describe it but i liked it! :goodvibes

They did have smaller stuff, the big stuff was just cooler.:cool1:

Actually it is a sea serpent and yes it does have a slide in it. Not a real long slide, but everyone enjoys it.

Hadn't thought about how the steamed over lens might cause a creepy picture, but when I think of the history of the French Quarter (the real one), it does give it a creepy feel.

LOVE the pics! Nothing better than visiting Disney through a great TR!! what fun you had. ::yes::

Glad I can bring a smile to ya! And we did have a lot of fun.

What a fun day. The picture of Jacob with Zurg is GREAT!!! Also love the picture of you making it into the park.:thumbsup2

How do you all like Columbia Harbour House? I've heard it's a really nice quiet place to eat, well upstairs is quiet. I think they have GF/allergy free chicken strips there too.

Can't wait for Kara's arrival.:banana:

That would be great if they have GF chicken strips for the boys. We went last week and Jacob requested CHH, said they have good chicken strips. I do love the atmosphere. A good time to eat there is 10:30am, but that is for another day to report on.

Jacob loves taking pics with Zurg.

Family!!!!:woohoo::hug:

We saw lots of your family waddling along.:laughing:
 
While we were all sleeping, Kara was having to be up at 4:30am to get to the Charlotte airport for her 9:30am flight. There was only one nonstop flight each day with Airtran, and of course they fall during rush hour. The weeks preceeding her arrival, there was a lot of drama trying to make sure she would get to the airport, but her Stepdad was nice enough to get up a little earlier and take her in. She was trying to be a grownup and have friends take her, but none of them wanted to get up that early.:confused3 :lmao:

Jonas was going to pick her up at the airport, so what should Jacob and I do? Seems like a good time to go to Disneyquest. I forgot to mention our strange AP renewals. Some how, Jonas' AP renewal date ended up a month earlier than ours. Which, last year meant his renewed before the free 3 months, so his expired in June, where Jacob and mine expire in Nov. I don't mind this because paying for 3 at once is not fun. We went ahead and renewed Jonas' without the Premium, so he is not allowed into the waterparks or DisneyQuest anymore.

I had a hard time getting Jacob moving this particular morning, but he finally did. I was hoping to get to Disneyquest early, but had no idea what time it opened. Decided to drive since it would only take a few minutes, remember, we had both cars at the resort. Got to Disneyquest about 10:30 and guess what, it didn't open until 11:00.:banana: We made a rope drop.:rotfl2: No ceremony here though folks. Sorry, didn't take my camera, but I do have pics from a previous trip if anyone wants to see them.

The elevator you get in first thing, is one of those you go in one door and exit out the other side. All these people stepped in and then stood towards the entrance door. So the back of the elevator was empty, we went ahead and stepped on back, first off elevator!

We were the very first people to do Pirates!pirate: This is my absolutely favorite game in DisneyQuest. The CM said he could put it on autopilot, but Jacob likes it better when I steer, so I was steering and firing the canon right beside me. Mulitasking at its finest. When we got to the final battle, I realized steering didn't really matter, so I started just firing cannons, jumping from side to side.

After defeating the ghost pirates (not sure what they are really called), we played a jungle safari game we had never played because normally they are full. We were shooting at really large insects. First thing was spiders, we both stated how Dad would not be playing this one. He hates spiders.

Then we probably spent 30 minutes playing Fast and Furious, Jacob will play this all day if I let him. Somehow my game had to reset itself. Then on to another game he likes, the Hydro something or other. Racing jet boats! Finally, Jonas texted me that they were on the boat to DTD. We left DQ, got the truck to move it closer to the Marketplace. I figured the parking lot at Marketplace would already be full, so I parked by Planet Hollywood, of course it turns out the other parking lot was empty.

EOS doesn't have anything Jacob will eat. He has started eating hot dog buns dipped in ketchup. Won't eat the meat, but at least it is something until I can get him something else. We saw Jonas and Kara getting off the boat, and I got Jonas to grab a hot dog from one stand while we headed into EOS and ordered. Sure helps when at least one of us knows what they want. One of the CM's was having issues this day. When one bag of food would come out, she would hand it to the customer, who would then walk off. Only problem, a lot of times, there is more than one bag. This CM wasn't taking the time to make sure she was passing out the full order. :headache: Happened to several different people.

After EOS, Jacob wanted to go to Legoland and Kara wanted a nap. Jonas decided to take Jacob to Legoland and would get the truck. Kara and I took the boat back to POFQ. First off, I should never let Jonas take Jacob to Legoland, because he loves legos just as much as Jacob, so we are always going to end up with more legos. Second, what were we thinking, how was Jonas going to know where the truck was. Jacob never pays attention. Just as Kara lays down, my phone rings. Jonas wants to know where the truck is. I was just about to hop in his car and drive over when he found it. It was behind a bus is why he couldn't see it or the pirate antennae topper I have on it. Those sure do make great vehicle finders.

We let Kara sleep a couple of hours and then off to MK for our little surprise for Kara.

Some of you know what the surprise was.




 
Took awhile to get Kara up, but we finally got her out of bed and to the bus. On the bus I looked at the WDW website and it showed Space Mountain FP's were low.:scared1: I had thought about getting over to MK before DQ to get FP's for SM for Jonas and Kara (Jacob doesn't like it), but sleeping in had won over that decision. When we entered the park, I took off to grab FP's for SM, but sadly they were gone. Grabbed them for Buzz instead and then it was time for the Laugh Comedy Floor. Kara had never seen this show.





"That Guy" was sitting right in front of us. Jacob wants to be "That Guy". I wonder if I made a t-shirt saying that if they would use him.:idea: They did use his joke in the show....:headache: I forgot the joke.

After a few laughs we headed over to Haunted Mansion. Line:


Wait time:


It seems we get stopped on this ride...a lot. Usually in the cemetery scene, right next to one of the heads popping out. But this time, we were stopped in the dining room:






I have gotten some pics in here before, but not this good. The previous ones had to be edited a little, these didn't.

Fortunately we all made it out safely. A little side note here, read a rumor that WDW has sent out survey's asking people's opinions on Haunted Mansion rooms at POR or POFQ. We would stay in one, too cool!

Now we were getting hungry. Jonas had never eaten in here

I knew they had chicken nuggets and also hoped we could get a table where we could see IASW, but they were all taken. Jacob saw stairs and decided to look for a table up there, once I figured out what I wanted, I went to find him:



I noticed there were tables outside, but it was too hot. I decided to run out and get some pics though:




Behind the wall action:


I went to go back inside and the door wouldn't open. Kara was nice enough to let me in, Jonas was too busy laughing at me.

After dinner, we headed over to Splash Mountain, which had a long wait and so did BTMRR, but we could now get another FP, so we got it for BTMRR.

And headed over to PoTC, where we saw this:


This actually wasn't that bad, the week after Christmas I have seen the line do that all the way from the very front of the building. We made our way through the queue, which wasn't that long of a wait. We weren't packed in like sardines.

Had a nice time being pirates. Quick question, what is the deal with the hats? Sometimes this one guy has a large stack of hats on his head and sometimes he doesn't. In fact, this time he had them, but when we rode on Friday morning, he didn't.

Quick pic after our ride:


We had enough time to use our Buzz FP before our surprise for Kara.






We then decided we had time for the TTA also, and for some reason I had never looked at the newspapers in the stand:




I can't remember what my husband was doing at this point:




It was time for the surprise, anyone care to guess what it was?

 
I don't think I realized there was upstairs seating at Pinnochio Haus. We've always sat in the section by It's a Small World. Was the upstairs seating crowded or was it peaceful like CHH? The suprise for Kara can't involve dinner since you just ate. I'm thinking maybe you did the Wishes dessert bar?
 

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