How Many Surprises Can One PTR Hold!?! (Updated 01/29) Almost There!!!

[jkCT]

I'm here! I'm reading! (and I'll try not to be my usual lurking self...must...speak...up...)

And hello from a fellow Connecticut resident!

 

[Oliquig]

Noelle looks so cute on her first day! I'm glad that you got power back finally!!

To get from Future World to the International Gateway (or, the back door of Epcot), go into World Showcase, and hang a right toward Canada and the U.K. Go through both, and instead of turning and walking over the bridge towards France, keep walking straight past the U.K. You'll see a gift shop on your right (I want to say it's called International Traders), and turnstiles. Go through the turnstiles, and on the left will be the boat landing for the Friendship boats that go between Epcot, Yacht & Beach Clubs (where Cape May Cafe is), the Boardwalk, Swan & Dolphin, and DHS. You can either take the boat to the Beach Club, or you can keep walking to the resort (not really that far a walk). The path will split - you can take either the lower or higher path. The Beach Club will be on your right, the blue first resort (Yacht Club comes second, it's gray).

Hope that wasn't much more complicated than you were looking for ! It's really very simple, you'll find it no problem!

Thank you, I'm pretty sure that will get me there; Go through Canada and UK and if I hit France I've gone too far!

I'm here! I'm reading! (and I'll try not to be my usual lurking self...must...speak...up...)

And hello from a fellow Connecticut resident!

Great! Thanks so much, and its so neat to hear from a fellow Nutmegger!

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

Hi Rachel!!! I'm joining in, found your link on another Jan '12 PTR! I LOVE that you are surprising them with POR! Try to hold out until the very end! I think you should wait until ME b/c lots of times they go to a few different resorts, they will be totally confused!

AND, I was looking through your plans and we are going to be at the same parks on your 1st and 2nd day (DHS & EP) how funny is THAT?!?!? Great minds think alike!

 

[Oliquig]

So the big plans for day four are...NO PLANS! This is our mid-week no park day! WHAT!!! Some of you may say, but this is what works for us. If its nice enough we will swim, or head to DTD or BW or we may do some mini-golf.

At some point we will end up at the GF for our dinner at Citricos! Yum! This is the dinner where hopefully (ONE MORE SURPRISE) I will have a birthday cake made for Nina. We are really looking foward to this dinner, the pictures of the food look amazing. After dinner, we will poke around GF then head back to the resort. Hopefully fully rested for the rest of our trip.

 

[Stringbean&Wingnut]

A no-parks day sounds like a nice plan! And Citricos sounds like a great dinner!

 

[Oliquig]

Okay…, so I’m a moron. I realized I made a mistake about my Day 4 plans a few days later. What I actually shared with you was my day 5 plans. Apparently I blanked out my real day 4 plans which is silly since it’s my first Magic* Kingdom day! (dummydummydummy) Anyway this will probably be the day Nina joins us for RD (the only day,) and we hope to catch the opening show, as none of us have ever seen it. There are no meal ADRs for today, as at MK we prefer to CS the day for flexibility. The flexibility to ride HM about fifteen times, as it’s one of our favorites. We love almost all the rides in MK, although hopefully Noelle will have outgrown the need to do Dumbo. The only ADR I am hoping to get is for the Wishes Dessert Party, but the time to book it hasn’t happened yet. Another reason to not deal *with a big sit down dinner.
*
In other news I may be making another trip to FL around Christmas, not Disney, but HP might get a looksee. My Dad (bio, not step) spends the month of December down there and I got an invite to visit. Usually I go to MI to visit, so this would be a change of pace.
*
In other, other news did anyone notice that Disney Store released its Holiday Preview! Noelle gets Disney PJs Christmas Eve morning every year, and I am so glad they have a version that is not plaid this year! Not that I don’t like plaid, I do, but the plaid ones from last year still fit, so something different is nice. Also the ornaments this year are super cute ( I may have ones in my cart for stocking stuffers already Tink for Nina and *P&F for Noelle.) **Oh, I guess I should mention, I’m one of those people who will be done with my Christmas shopping by Thanksgiving. Go ahead, throw things, call me names, I’m okay with it. It comes from working retail for quite a few years. When you’re at a store eight hours a day, the last thing you want to do is spend more time there.
*
So other than that, I’m tapped out on the new front! I’ll be in NYC next weekend where I will be seeing Mary Poppins! Noelle’s first Broadway (on Broadway) show!
*

*

 

[Colleen27]

Joining in. What a great surprise for your niece! I could never keep the secret so long.

Simba & Nala are adorable. I ♥ ferrets.

Have you found the cake thread on the restaurant board? Disney can do some amazing custom cakes! January will be our third birthday trip with a cake order, and let me tell you - the strawberries and custard filling that the Grand Floridan bakery does is to die for.

 

[Oliquig]

Thanks for joining in Colleen!

This has come to a stand still for awhile due to the fact that I caught what we are refering to as "the cold that will not end." It sucked, and everyone got it me, Nina, Noelle, my parents, and 4-5 other friends in my circle as well. We were all one big ball of misery.

Plus I went to NYC for the weekend, so that took some recuperation too! I am going to post some pictures and give a mini TR, because I can!

 

[Oliquig]

So here is a mini TR to get me ready to do a real Disney TR!

We left the house mid-morning and 2 1/2 hours later we were arriving in Queens to drop the car off at the hotel. One good thing about staying in Queens is free parking!

We hopped on the subway and headed off to our first stop of our whirlwind weekend tour of NYC. Where were we going? Well here is a photo clue!

That's right, the main branch of the NY Publc Library. Becase not only are we tourists, we are nerdy tourists.

Here are the original stuffed animals that belonged to Christopher Robin that were the inspiration for the Hundred Acre Wood gang. Noelle thought these were really cool, although she was miffed to find out you could bring a drawing or letter to leave in Pooh's mailbox. Who knew?

After that we stopped for a quick lunch at Pret A Manger, they are all over NYC and was quite yummy. Sandwiches for me and Nina, soup for Noelle.

Noelle people watching at Jamba Juice, while waiting for her Mango-a-go-go.

After JJ we walked and window shopped up 5th Avenue, stopping at one of the hundreds of NY chotchkie shops for a sweatshirt, because we forgot how cold Noelle gets when it dips below 68 degrees.

Then a little bit of shopping in Times Square.

We headed off to dinner at Ruby Foo's which was excellent, and if you go there get the Chinese Eggplant side dish. To. Die. For.

After dinner we had a bit of time to kill so we walked around TS for a bit, and maybe did a bit more shopping.

TS at night

The Disney Store! Where I bought this T-shirt:
http://cdn.s7.disneystore.com/is/image/DisneyShopping/7157036490066?$mercdetail$ which is very cute.

Why were we killing time? We were waiting to go here:

Squee!

Noelle modelling her new '80s retro (IMO) sweatshirt.

We all thought the show was great, the set was awesome and for those of you who have seen it, we totally want to go up the stairs the Mary Poppins way.

After the show we headed back to Queens to do a (very) late check-in.

Our room

Our view

I think that was enough activity for one day don't you? Stay tuned for Day 2, where we spend the day exproring a museum, but which one will it be?!?

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

Oooooh, so much fun! I'm green with envy, I've never been to NY and want to so badly (but clearly want to go to WDW more b/c that's where I'm spending my money.)

LOVE your pics! Can't wait to hear more but sorry to hear you are a sickie! Your shirt is adorable as well as Noelle's sweatshirt!

 

[Stringbean&Wingnut]

Looks like you guys had a great first day in NYC! I love Pret A Manger! Isn't Mary Poppins a great show? I'd love to have magic stair transportation like her too!

 

[Oliquig]

The next morning we made it to the subway by 9, unfortunately for us this was the weekend the MTA decided to do some major construction on the main Queens to Manhattan line there were other ways to go, but it took a little manuvering.

Before we left I took another photo of our view (and I remembered to resize it!)

When we got off the subway our first thoughts were food and we saw a little place that looked non-touristy so we stopped in.

Awesome food. Seriously. I got eggs and hash, and the hash was homemade. And the OJ was fresh squeezed. And the serving was super fast. And it was pretty cheap. Awesome.

After breakfast we headed down to catch another subway to our final destination, but on the way we stopped to look at:

The carriages outside of Central Park!

And Columbus Circle!

All on the way to:

The Natural History Museum!

This was a must do for us since Noelle is a huge dinosaur fan, and I am a huge astronomy nerd.

We pre-purchased the "do everything" tickets, which turned out great because it was quite busy.

We started off in the main area, then took in all the animal displays on the main floor.

We went to the IMAX movie Tornado Alley (narrated by Bill Paxton ) then took in the ocean life section.

Then lunch! Nina decided to have Noelle experience another new thing:

Lunch from a food truck! We copped a squat on the stairs and ate our respective lunches, Chicken and fries (Noelle,) hot dog (me,) and a gyro (Nina.)

Then we went to my favorite part, the Planetarium. The show was Journey to the Stars (narrated by Whoopi Goldberg.) It was really good, and fun to watch.

After that we toured around the minerals and gems section on our way to Frogs, a special exhibit:

(I love the expression on the second frog, slightly pissed off at me.)

We then had a very special mission to complete. We headed off to the Margaret Mead Pacific Islands area to see:

Did you bring gum-gum for Dum-Dum? Noelle was very happy to finally find him, and was patient to wait for her turn for a photo.

So it was finally time to head up to the dinosaurs.

We walked all around the 4th floor and made it to our final special exhibit, all about the largest dinosaurs. It was really cool, and Noelle had a favorite part too:

They had an area where you could excavate "dinosaur bones" and we spent quite a bit of time here. Noelle took her job very seriously.

After this we were ready to head out, the museum was about to close, and we were all hungry. So where did we go?

Well we are tourists!

They had these cool touch screen tablets that showed all the memorabelia they have at all their restaurants all over the world.

We sat under Madonna's underwear, I mean stage outfit. The food was good. Not great, but pretty decent. I had a burger, Nina had a pasta dish, and Noelle went for the mac and cheese.

After that it was back to the hotel for the night, we wanted to make it an early night since we had been out so late the night before and since Nina and I were both still sick.

 

[Colleen27]

Sorry to hear about the cold that just won't end. It must be making the rounds because we had the same thing passing around our family earlier this month.

NYC looks like so much fun! I haven't been since I was young and childless and more interested in nightlife than museums. Your pics make me want to go back and see the more family-oriented side of the city.

 

[Oliquig]

We interrupt this PTR/Mini TR/random stream of consiousness to say:




I am at 99 days!!

I am afraid if I use any more smilies, the smilies police will fine me, so picture imn your mind many more and you will understand my excitedness.

 

[Oliquig]

Hey I have power! Once again a freak storm rendered us powerless! For a bit longer and with it being a great deal colder.

Oh well, I had planned on sharing some Halloween photos of Noelle, but didn't really manage to get any! So I will share some photos from previous years!

Zombie Punk Rocker:

And Elvis:

Anyway, on to finishing up the mini TR to then get back to my PTR, tangent anyone?

We woke up Sunday morning with one thing on Noelle's mind. We had watched a program on the Travel Channel a few weeks before and Noelle had seen a segment on Doughnut Plant and their awesome doughnuts. So we subwayed it over to Chelsea and ate some of the most amazing doughnuts I have ever had. Seriously, wicked good.

Then we headed back to Times Square because we had missed a very important stop the day before:

Toys R Us! Both of these shots were taken from the ferris wheel in the middle of the store. Noelle (and the rest of us) were suitably impressed. We had to do one more thing before we left TS:

Sit on the red stairs, like the kids in Glee did. Now understand that Noelle has seen only about 3 episodes of Glee, but she loves the music, so she really wanted to do this.

We had to fit in at least one more touristy thing in TS, so we headed for lunch at Bubba Gump:

We had some awesome non-alcoholic fruity drinks in light up glasses and some of the best fried shimp I've ever tasted.

After that we hoofed it down to Rockefeller Center to take in Top of the Rock. It was really cool, I'll just share some photos to show you the view.

The views were amazing, but it was blazing hot. After that we decided to make it an early day and head back to the hotel. With all of us being in different stages of sick, a relaxing evening was really needed.

We watched "How to Train Your Dragon" on my laptop and then got a reccommendation for dinner for a local place in Long Island City, Bella Via. We all loved the food, Nina and I sharing a pizza and a spaghetti carbonara
and Noelle went with Linguini with clams. Super awesome food and the desserts were very good too.

Back to the hotel to pack up for our last day, which is a little WILD (hint, hint.)

 

[Oliquig]

So we woke up our last day and decided to make it easy on ourselves and eat breakfast on the rooftop restaurant at the hotel. It was decent, not great, but not bad either.

We checked out, loaded up the car and headed off to our last destination of the weekend:

The Bronx Zoo! Noelle hadn't been to the zoo in a long time and Nina really wanted to go. It was very busy here, as they were running their Boo at the Zoo promotion and if your child dressed up they got a basic ticket free.

We headed off to the lizards and then into the Madagascar building where we saw these:

Lemurs! Twelve seconds after I took this photo I dropped my camera into the lemur pen.

For I am dumb.

And clumsy.

I waited for the guy Nina found to get the camera out listening to at least a dozen people say (in variation of course) "Look, someone dropped their camera in the lemur pen!"

For they are observant.

So after that snafu we carried on to the "Haunted Hayride" which we wanted to hit early.

Noelle waiting patiently to get on the hayride. It was cute and a nice way to see a bunch of the zoo without walking it.

I need to mention one thing. It was hot. Crazy hot. Hot for NYC in October, hot for ME in October. Mid eighties, and with being at the zoo, unless there was heavy shade it felt crazy, crazy hot.

Moving on with the story...

Tigers! This was one of the three tigers born last year. As you can see he was hot, in fact he is the only one I could get a picture of because the other two wouldn't come out of the wooded area. This one flopped back and forth like a housecat in a sun spot from the window. It was cute.

Next we headed off to get some lunch, but first we came across some brown bears:

Do you see what he is eating? Pumpkins! It was really cute, they had tossed them in there and the bears went nuts for them.

We headed off to the cafe and had a pretty decent lunch. I had a cheeseburger, as did Nina and I do not remember what Noelle had, although I treated her to Nachos, for I am an indulgent Aunt.

After that we headed off to the Congo to see the gorillas, who were much more active than any other of the animals we saw.

This gorilla was too funny, he was eating and kept looking over at us with this expression of "Really, watching me eat lunch is that interesting to you?" He cracked me up!

We wandered around for awhile and the heat was really starting to get to us so we decided to head out, along the way we came across these guys:

Its kind of hard to see, but that is the mama and baby giraffe that was born a couple of weeks before visited. How cute is it. Baby giraffe love. Squee.

We also came across the Butterfly Garden. Sigh. I need to explain my feelings towards butterflies, on stickers or clothing, great, no problem. On television, sure why not. In real life, no. They are bugs. BUGS. With legs, and antennae, and legs. Ick. Super ick. My way of dealing with this is to walk through very quickly and take VERY quick photos as I do so. Here are the photos that didn't come out too bad.

There you go, butterflies (BUGS) are you happy?

(Shudder)

Moving forward! We headed out, and after getting turned around a bit hopped on the highway and after hitting massive traffic, made our way home!

My next post will be back to the Disneyfication of my life. Promise!

 

[Twoboysnmygirl]

butterflies are bugs! I'm cracking up here!

 

[littlesparkler]

Fun report!

 

[Oliquig]

butterflies are bugs! I'm cracking up here!

Yes, everyone finds it very funny. It was the same way the last time wer were at Disney, we went during the Flower & Garden show at Epcot, and they had one there too.

Fun report!

Thanks so much!

 

[Oliquig]

It's been so long since I've shared plans, I had to go back and re-read my other updates! So now I am at day five (more than halfway through the vacation ) at our day at Animal Kingdom. Last time I went was the first time I'd been to AK, and unfortunetely the weather pattern that had given us such great weather ended and gave us hot humid weather.

It also was very crowded, very crowded. We ended up not staying as long as I'd hoped, so I really am looking forward to this day.

We will probably head over to the planet watch first, I know its not the most popular thing, but I've heard if you get there early you can see them work on the animals. Noelle is really into animals so this is a must do. I saw the Nemo show last time, but not The Lion King, so that is also a must do.

For lunch we have a reservation at Tusker House, which apparently will be a character lunch now. Well Noelle will love the characters, and the food is reputed to be good!

We will be skipping Kali, as I have no intention of getting soaked again. Last time I was the ONLY person in my boat to get wet. We will aslo hit the safari and Noelle and I will hit EE. I just really like the atmosphere at AK, especially the set designs of the different villages.

Once the park closes we will head out to get some diner. We don't know where we will end up tonight. Either the Boardwalk or DTD for something, or if we are tired we will just head back to eat at the resort.