The "too many resorts" trip, Feb 5-20, 2013

[BellaBaby]

Loving this TR!

Wow, you guys did a lot of transferring with cruise and resorts. We have done that in the past and my DH is just tired of it, (mostly the luggage part). So now I will only book 1 transfer at the most. Last year we stayed offsite at WH for the the first week with other family members, then when they left, we did a split stay with AKV and the Poly. So that was plenty.

 

[bumbershoot]

You can pick up cards at the fire station, I think, but we got ours behind the Christmas shop (or, as we call it, the Oldeee Christmas Shoppeeee). It really is fun, but it becomes such a time suck!! I should clarify, we will be in WDW for one night. We fly in to Tampa mid day, drive to Orlando, hit a park in the evening, sleep, go to another park, then drive to my mom's house. It is good and bad. We get to pare down our trip, as you said, and highlight the important things. But we don't get to relax at all, or enjoy the little things, like the awesome pools. I had to force my kids to go in the volcano pool at the Poly in December (then I couldn't get them OUT, of course). That said, I think we still prefer most of the rides at DLR so I can't justify a long WDW trip at the moment.

I like your name for the Shop.

That's neat that your mom lives in Florida. (though if she's the one you were talking about some days ago when giving me empathy about MIL, well I give you empathy right back!)

Loving this TR!

Wow, you guys did a lot of transferring with cruise and resorts. We have done that in the past and my DH is just tired of it, (mostly the luggage part). So now I will only book 1 transfer at the most. Last year we stayed offsite at WH for the the first week with other family members, then when they left, we did a split stay with AKV and the Poly. So that was plenty.

Thanks!

And yes, it was a LOT of transferring. Spoiler alert...the title gives away how tired we got of moving.

We're kind of over it now. In the past (and in this trip) one of our moves has been to get to a 2 bedroom to host extended family, then another has been to leave it once extended family goes home. But that was in the heydays of a lot of DVC points. Now I think we have 4 left from the 2013 Use Year and 31 from 2014 UY. So we really can't even "afford" to host them unless we wanted to wait until 2016 and could bank some and use some! I think they understand this, and even talked about how in the future they can get a room and we can get a room and we'll just share a trip without having to share spaces.

 

[nancy drew]

I like your name for the Shop.

That's neat that your mom lives in Florida. (though if she's the one you were talking about some days ago when giving me empathy about MIL, well I give you empathy right back!)

Thanks for the return empathy. It was my dad who had similarities to your MIL. He had Parkinson's, and pretty much refused to acknowledge how badly it was affecting him, and refused to do his exercises/physical therapy unless the therapist was in the room helping him. While I now appreciate that he was working so hard to provide for us financially, he really should have worked on his own health too.

My mom has her own issues that make these visits not quite qualify for "100% fun family getaway relaxing vacation" status, but it is nice to get away from the daily grind for a week or so.

 

[bumbershoot]

 

[bumbershoot]

Now, where was I? 2/13, Magic Kingdom, C Royal Table, parasol, hey let's go. Ah yes.

The cab ride was convenient, but problematic. I had run out of cash and Robert wanted to use the CC. The driver said that his machine had difficulties, so I ran into Jambo to grab money from the Chase ATM, just in case. While I did that, they tried to run it twice, and both times after quite a bit of time it timed out.

Ha ha, found out when we got home that it charged twice, then was refunded once.

Except that we had paid cash, having been told that it had failed.

So I gotta call Mears when Accounting is there. (they run the taxis)


Got to the desk where they wanted us to be, got the grownups checked in then Robert took E over the few yards to the kidcare spot for this event. For grownups it was quite fun, and considering there were *games* played to get people *mingling* and chatting with strangers, it's saying a LOT that I thought it was fun. Because I really dislike that stuff. But just today I started expanding my horizons in terms of doing things that others find "fun"...E and I went out to dinner (Robert's still on a work trip) and I just knew there would be a lot of St Patrick's "weekend" dates and whatnot happening, so we went back in the condo and changed into green. I have green pants, E has a few green shirts. Just decided to be festive. And I was ALWAYS that one kid who said "you can't pinch me because I AM Irish and don't have to wear green". Yep, the annoying one. but I wore it today! And tomorrow's Sunday, we have no plans, I'm re-wearing.

OK OK so it was fun and the host was really jovial and sweet, and we did not win the gift card but we had snacks and drinks, and eventually it was done.

Came out and the kids (all those poor little deprived kids of DVC owners, LOL) were having a grand time playing drums!

That evening was relaxed. I think we had some sort of food in the villa, we watched a movie, I remember it being very calm. I could very well be wrong, though. I have a vague memory from that day or the next of hurrying over to take part in some activity at the Kidani pool, only to find out after searching all through the pool area for the activity that it had been moved indoors with absolutely no signage to indicate this. (let me mention that there's a nice little Activities chalkboard *outside* the pool area that had obviously had something written on it, then had been wiped almost clean...they certainly could have put the updated meeting place right there) But that was probably the 14th. Not sure the date matters. Again, disney, use those signs.


When we woke the next morning and went into the living room to get E up (he was sleeping on the pull-out *chair*), this is what we were greeted with. (hint: not the sunscreen bottle in the foreground I just noticed)

 

[bumbershoot]

I was going to post some from the 14th, not wanting to make that a really obnoxious cliffhanger, but I'm really unprepared. Most of my pictures were taken by phone on this day so they need to be migrated over to gmail then to photobucket blah blah. And I'm tired.

 

[daisy_77]

Hi there Molly! I am loving your report! Your son has gotten so big! Our babies are the same age and have the same ginger hair

We met back in 2009 at the Dis Diva trip..my name is January. I am not sure if you remember me. You are super sweet and I am so glad I found your report.

Looking forward to reading more!

 

[bumbershoot]

Hi there Molly! I am loving your report! Your son has gotten so big! Our babies are the same age and have the same ginger hair

We met back in 2009 at the Dis Diva trip..my name is January. I am not sure if you remember me. You are super sweet and I am so glad I found your report.

Looking forward to reading more!

Hi! Did we sit next to each other at Carnation Cafe?

Aw, you have a new baby! I want a new baby! How is it having them so many years apart? (it's not something I worry about, I'm just curious)

 

[daisy_77]

I don't remember if we sat together at CC. I know we ate together at WCT.

Our new little guy is amazing! I thought I was done with having kids, but I guess not lol! He is lots of fun and the age difference is pretty awesome. Maddie is a great little momma to her baby brother. She is a huge help. His eyes light up as soon as he hears her.

 

[bumbershoot]

Aw, that's so cute that he recognizes her!



I'm currently trying to get pictures from my phone to email to computer to photobucket, and put them in SOME sort of order, and this is really not all that fun. It's the boring part of trip reports.

Not to mention I keep asking Robert (who is home at last from his trip abroad but I was asking from well before his trip) to scan the Navigators from the cruise for me, and he keeps saying OK but it doesn't get done.

 

[bumbershoot]

OK! I am more organized now.

The last picture I showed had E sleeping with a pillow on top of his back. This is highly unusual. I've actually never seen it before, and since we had a family bed for a long, long time I thought I'd see it all.

Notice his sleeping companions that he brought from Universal.

Once we were all decent enough to open the curtains...are there animals out there?

No. We saw birds out there. E says he saw an ostrich. The only 4 legged animals we saw were at the lobby's look out area, because they put food out there. They sure would frown on guests putting food out there! ha.


So this was the 14th, which means it was Hollywood Studios day with Brown Derby for lunch.

Following the "touring plan" I created and then fiddled with on my phone during the day, I have:

Guys went on Rock n Roller coaster. I was going to do something else but started chatting with an extended family from Brazil, and finally realized that they are escaping Carnaval just like the Louisianans were avoiding Mardi Gras.

So anyway, we chatted the time away. We had also pulled FPs for it for later. We were going to pull TOT FPs, but...at park opening the wait time was 90 minutes. We asked about that, and we were told that they had, if memory serves, either one or maybe two elevator shafts working, with NO assumption that they would get more working. So even if we got a FP, it's not like it would be a quick wait in the FP line. So we opted to avoid it completely. Eamon was not sad.

The guys came out. Robert had bought E a pair of drumsticks, because, and I quote, "we don't know where his one RockBand game drumstick is".

I tilted my head like a confused puppy and reminded them that the drumstick was in "time out" because E kept throwing it around one day, nearly breaking it, and I knew just where it was, and that was a horrible excuse.

But really it's just because they have flames up the side and are much cooler than the Rock Band ones. OK then.


The standby line and FP return times for Toy Story were just awful. With a limited time in the park that day we had no interest in more than an hour in a LOUD LOUD LOUD room, basically (the standby line for it), and we wouldn't be coming back at 6pm or so. So we skipped it. Line is more pleasant at DCA anyway.

Went on to the new "The Legend of Captain Jack Sparrow" attraction. We kinda liked it. Had NO idea what to expect, the line was a bit long and boring (but we're talking 20 minutes long, not 70), and inside was a weird little storyline that was done with visual effects, lighting effects, sound, and this really interesting video thing where it almost looked like Johnny Depp was in the room with you. It's got to be similar to what Universal does with Christopher Walken in Disaster, which is *incredibly* realistic and mystifying. It's possible we mainly enjoyed it for the technical aspects, but that's OK with us.

Picked up a Star Tours FP, the guys rode RNRC again. I shopped. They met me.

Oh hey wait, Robert took a picture.

The first time they rode they took "honest" pictures for photopass. The second time they talked about it ahead of time and decided they would pretend to be asleep. E is squinting, and honestly it looks like Robert has had a medical emergency on the ride. I think they need to perfect their "let's pretend to be asleep" skills for ride photos.

Then on to Star Tours. You know how everyone is coming home with either a nasty nasty cold, or with GI problems right now? Umm, yeah... As we were filing down the hall after ST, I saw a man who was having some problems. 1, he was leaning against a door. 2, his rear was hanging halfway out of his pants. (ew ew ew...most people won't go out like that in public, and my first thought was "where is his family?" even though he was a grown man) and 3, just as I was watching, a CM came rushing up to him with a garbage can, and blooork, he used that garbage can just in time. Ew ew ew ew. I think that HE is the reason for everyone being sick when coming home. I mean, that was a crowded hallway. yuck yuck yuck.



...and then...we either ran out of time or did something else or I'm not really sure, but it was kind of sort of raining and no one could promise Lights Motors Action would run in the way it was raining, and that was a bummer b/c it would have made us just a touch late for lunch, but blah blah blah, one of those ride/math/calculus equations that resulted in us doing *something* instead of seeing the show. I think we wandered. I know I ended up with a pretty necklace that you should see in the pictures from the 15th, and I talked with the lady making them.

Snakes, why'd it have to be snakes?

Went to Brown Derby, had interactions with a character there; he was a Hollywood agent and he was pretty funny.

What's your name, son?
Eamon.
I like it, you should keep it. How about your last name?
he said his last name, which is hyphenated
Ah well you can change that later.

Gave Robert his card while asking if he'd done any wrestling, and told him he would change Robert's life with spandex and a name change to something like Rolling Thunder. (not quite that, more along the lines of Thunder Thighs, but not QUITE as potentially insulting)


While he was goofing around he heard a ringing. Went to the bank of payphones and answered it. It SEEMED like he was being real, because his personality changed entirely. He said (to the room and the CMs) that someone was asking about the soup of the day. He acted very confused. The CMs told him, he went back to the phone and told the person on the phone, and hung up. He kept talking about it for about a minute, then went back to his schtick.


That got us through until we were seated. We had the tofu noodle bowls again (this was my 3rd time having it which ALWAYS means I'll find something a bit "off" about it, and this was no exception, but it actually was still quite delicious), Eamon chickened out of that (whew, 3 $28 noodle bowls was sounding a little frightening!), we had a really nice time.

They also had a fixed price menu in honor of their true love limited time magic thing going on.

That's a lot of money. And a lot of food. And it's not vegetarian. So there you go.



E got his usual grilled cheese along with carrot and celery sticks. With mustard. Disney always gives LOTS of mustard.

I think they think you'll use it like people use ketchup. But mustard isn't *quite* the same, so the whole tub-o-condiment thing they do isn't really all that useful with mustard. But oh well.


The Noodle Bowl. As usual, my food pictures are too close and are unappetizing. Sorry. Gotta do better with that!

(Noodle Bowl - with Wok-fried Coconut Tofu, Soy Beans, Sugar Snap Peas, Bok Choy, and Shiitake Mushrooms in a Red Curry Broth)




After the meal it was time to go. We took some photopass pix on the way out, but I'm still editing those so I don't have 'em. We had our car this day, and headed out to it. On the way we met a nice family who had recently moved to Florida specifically for the proximity to WDW. They homeschooled their kids and the dad had taken that day off to be at the parks ON the birthday of one of their kids. The others have their birthdays on natural holidays so it was easy to go there for their days, but this was a bigger deal. They were so nice, and we stood in the parking lot, in peril, for too long just chatting with them.

Finally we were on our way and we headed back to Kidani. There was talk of E taking part in a pool activity, and I can't remember if I already mentioned this, but if so know that it happened on THIS day. We had a little bit of time between getting back and needing to head out to Tea, so we were going to do that. The pool is incredibly awkwardly positioned when you're alllll the way on the OTHER side of the resort, and it took ages to get to it. There was a chalkboard outside the gate with the words "Today's Activities" on it, but there was nothing below it, you could tell someone had wiped it clean. We still went in, to see, and looked around for something vaguely activity-like. Finally gave up and headed back inside.

As we walked past the library (?) we saw two CMs packing things up, and found out that the activity had been moved to that room because it was sprinkling. I mentioned that they could have had someone put that on the chalkboard, to tell them where to go for it. They said that that would have been a good idea.

Some of the activities at AKL for kids end with them giving beads, which E liked. They offered him the bead, but since it's not meaningful unless you do the activity he declined. We then went into the community center for a few minutes, but finally had to go back to the room. Got all pretty, got Robert up from his rest (his poor leg wasn't happy), and headed out to the Grand Floridian.


But here are some pictures from the Kidani lobby to make up for all the reading.

 

[bumbershoot]

We have to go to the Y soon, but here are a few pictures.

So sorry about the blur. This is what the grounds of the GF look when they are being worked on. (the blur was from me, though)

This blur is by Eamon, though.

Blueberry "hidden" Mickey.

E is not bored. He is doing his Remy imitation as the flavors combine and make a new, wonderful flavor. He's just not good at that facial expression yet.

Well I guess I have a little more time than I thought.


We have the Tables in Wonderland discount card (AP holders, DVC members, and FL residents can buy it, and it gives you 20% off most table service and some counter service restaurants, though it does throw an auto-tip of 18% onto TS places), which allows you fee-free Valet parking when dining at a resort (and using the card). You have to show them the receipt with that discount on it at the end so they don't charge you, and the meal has to be within a reasonable amount of time from parking. Makes sense! We like using this, and a couple days later Robert REALLY knew that he liked the service, because the parking lot for the GF is obnoxiously far away!

Here is the menu for the afternoon tea.

Turns out that since I was there in September 2011 they have changed some things. The china isn't the same. It's by a different company, it's thicker and squattier, nowhere near as pretty. And they seem to be making their OWN jam, which is better than the jars of jam from before. But on the other hand, the strawberries and cream is vastly different. E loved it, but I didn't ask the ingredients. His reaction to corn syrup (and things made from it) is different now AND he's older and can deal with it a bit better, so I'm only 99% vigilant instead of 110%.


You would think "they can't order much, they just had lunch!" and that's what we had thought would happen. But it turns out no, we were actually rather hungry.

So we shared a British Cheese plate, then each got our own fave dessert-type treats, along with our own tea. Eamon ordered the Harmony tea, which is a chamomile and mint blend along with allspice and orange blossom. Robert got the "Prince" tea (which is the Princess tea but it's called Prince when menfolk order it), which is described as follows: "[a] sweet custom blend of South African organic rooibos flavored with vanilla bean and a hint of strawberries. Rich in antioxidants and vitamins, and naturally decaffeinated."

They liked their choices, but E tried the Prince tea and fell in LOVE. We were glad that we had a second Tea booked with family in a couple days!

I ordered the Russian Earl Grey ( Inspired by the old tradition of shipping tea with lemon for flavor: Made from the rind of spicy Bergamot orange to give the exotic blend of citrus.) which is what I thought I had ordered before, but it was decidedly not. It wasn't my fave. When we came back for our second reservation, we had the same awesome server, and she was so sad that I had had something I didn't love, and told me in no uncertain terms that if that happens again, to tell them so they can make me happy. Awwwww.

Robert got the scones, I got the Assorted Tea Pastries (your choice of 2 little pastries), and E got the strawberries and cream


This is what it used to look like (and you can see the old china):

This is it now (and the new china):

Here are my pastries. The swan has a blueberry filling, which wasn't the best.

And here are the scones. Tasty tasty. (I had them a couple days later)

It was a lovely experience, and I adored our server (young, fast-talking, woman whose name started with R). Although my blueberry thing wasn't what I wanted and my tea was disappointing (no one's fault by my own!), the guys LOVED their food, and the cheese plate was REALLY good and great to share if you want something to eat but aren't absolutely ravenous (it also works out that we have different fruit favorites and so didn't have to fight over the honeydew, etc). We forced ourselves to not rush. This was their first time having Tea there (E's first Tea at all), and they really really liked it. Everyone was really happy we had booked it again (and happy that we had it on our own as well).

Lastly, there's something innate that makes people hold their tea like this. I don't know where he picked it up.

 

[kaoden39]

I wish they had a tea at Disneyland. I would so be there! Great update! It looks like we have both been MIA for a while. I hope all is good with you and yours.

 

[pld5]

I am loving your report.

Port Orleans Riverside looks very beautiful!

Your son is adorable with the princesses.

I love the comparisons between CA and also how it was and what it is now.

 

[bumbershoot]

I wish they had a tea at Disneyland. I would so be there! Great update! It looks like we have both been MIA for a while. I hope all is good with you and yours.

I am loving your report.

Port Orleans Riverside looks very beautiful!

Your son is adorable with the princesses.

I love the comparisons between CA and also how it was and what it is now.

Thank you! And thank you thank you.

We did like POR, but for the time period we're looking at next it's so expensive! Of course Universal's no better. Just hoping for AP rates to come out soon (for both).




I'll get back to things, I promise!

 

[appleorchard]

My DH bought the RNRC drum sticks for our Rock Band set, too lol. The tea looked really interesting, I'm debating trying it on our next trip.

 

[bumbershoot]

Oh gosh, where were we? DHS day, lunch at HBD, tea at GFGVTR (OK that's taking it too far, especially if I abbreviate it being Valentine's Day, ha ha)..... Lovely server, nice time... DH and DS had taken me seriously when I said that they needed to be super extra over the top nice given the fact that it was 2/14 and that could be their present to me.



Eamon, while he does his subtraction (with carrying), has informed me that that evening we had our pilgrimage to GiftLand. Ah, giftland...how different would our trips be if we hadn't found you?

OK so on this visit we didn't find all that much to buy. And it took about an hour to get there because the traffic was just horrible, and you have to do a nasty u-turn to get there if you go the way we went. And once you do the u-turn the traffic is STILL horrible, as you go past all the traffic you were just in.

But hey, if we had been even remotely hungry we could have gone to Waffle House. Giftland has an agreement with Waffle House that their customers can use WH's restrooms without a problem. And it's a nice break from the prices of WDW.

They also have more sizes than WDW. Same exact shirts that are sold over at WDW, quite often still being sold there, but in more sizes. Which is nice for DH. He got one or two shirts that he had been admiring, but WDW didn't have his size. I didn't find a sleep shirt there this time, but I had found a (full price) sleep shirt at Universal so I was OK. (it shows a minion with a clip board, and it says "don't bother me, I'm making plans!" which was SO perfect for my last month or two pre-trip that Robert and Eamon actually MADE ME get it)

And then they gave us 3 free kitschy Florida keychains when we made our purchases, and it was all good.

I'm sure we watched a movie that night, maybe had some ice cream, relaxed... Relaxed evening. Apart from packing up, of course

 

[bumbershoot]

While just posting in another trip report (you know who you are, LOL) I just started wondering why we say such different things when describing peoples' hair color.

I used to be "a blonde". I was never quite blonde enough to be "tow-headed", though.

If you have brown hair you're "a brunette" if you're female. Or just "brown hair".

If you have black hair, you have just that, "black hair".

But if you are "ginger", you're a "red-head". It's rarely "red-haired", it's "red-headed".



Why is that? Why is DS "a red-head" but DH "has black hair"?


The things I think....

 

[bumbershoot]

Checkout day! from Kidani.

Checkin day! to SSR.

Animal Kingdom, and therefore Tusker House, day!


Still no animals.

No animals but we weren't expecting them.

Got packed up, got irritated with each other, had breakfast, packed up the kitchen stuff, managed to somehow get all our stuff down to the car. Even though we were 18,000,000km from the elevators to the lobby, we were a hop skip and jump away from the elevator down to the garage where our car was.



I will pretend this happened this day (though it didn't, it was the day before). As we left our room, the cover to the RFID door lock fell off. Fabulous. I will also pretend that we remembered to tell them that it had fallen off after we put it back on.




OK so the garage! I had heard "it's not an underground garage". I had heard "it's under the hotel". I then had to pick up the mess from my brain exploding, and put it out of my mind. Well, it's both. It's halfway literally underneath the building, but not underGROUND, and it's open to the elements although half the cars are parked under the building. Make sense? If only I had taken pictures.


Anyway, we got outta there nice and early to get over to SSR. By this time we had something ridiculous like 13 bags to store with them, though some were groceries, so the sooner we foisted them off on Bell Services, the better.

I had done online check-in, and indicated we would be there nice and early. So we went to the online check-in line. The Dis talks a lot about how they do the packets a WEEK in advance, how they are all ready, and it's super-quick.

OK. We haven't quite had the super-quick experience and I've done online check-in since our first trip in Dec 2010. We also haven't experienced them wanting us to just take what we got and run away; they want us to like our rooms (except for at Jambo house in 2010, which was the ONE time we did NOT do online checkin!), or to have a room that's ready (and assigned to someone else) if our assigned room isn't ready. So...not super-quick.

And with this one, not only was it not super-quick, but the CM next to our CM said "oh, ThatLastName? I just did that folder, it's right there". So it wasn't even in advance.

Let's see...SSR...they had lost our CC info (which was required to put into the forms at that time), but that was OK because with extended family I didn't WANT charging on our account), our room was not ready (that's fine, gosh it was like 7am), and they hadn't made up our KTTWs yet. And since this was going to be a 2 bedroom with 8 people, that wasn't an immediate thing. She gets them all made and is trying to stuff them all in the packet even though I'd already told her that the other 5 were arriving at night and could we not do that.

She agreed to leave them "behind the counter" so that extended family could have the fun of doing a checkin process. She didn't quite understand it, but they hadn't stayed at SSR yet and wanted to do it right, or at least from the beginning. We get that squared away. Thankfully we were then ready to go.

I think it was then that we got the Bell stuff done, because there's always a tiny part of us that says "maybe no one stayed in our room last night and it's been clean since yesterday!", and sometimes that works, but usually not at 7am.

At last we were on the way.

Coffeeeeeeee stop. Joffrey's Kiosk outside AK was a must-do. For Eamon, running through the output of the bubble-gun was a must-do.

Stopped at the Great Bathroom Ride just outside the turnstiles, and then we were off. Mmmmm, flamingo smell.....


Even though we've been to AK and we basically like AK, we get really really turned around inside AK. There is a lot of map consulting that goes on. But I had my touring plan app doohickey to mess with (Refresh, Optimize, Refresh, oh finally you refresh, but are you optimized?) and they had maps and it was all good. Either the Times Guide or the app told me that there was a Festival of the Lion King showing in something like 5 minutes, and we decided to just do it now now now! So we powerwalked on up and into the area.

I may have mentioned in my Cruise report that I'm not a show person. And I'm not. Even though it's my deepest desire for my own life that I suddenly be "discovered" and become a Great Actress (though I prefer the word Actor as I don't like adding "ess" to things to make them female because English doesn't really do the whole female/male word thing except when it comes to professions and isn't that odd?)....I don't like SEEING shows, especially not musical shows.

But I had not yet seen FOLK, I had nothing better to do, and why not?

And it was a good, good show. I didn't really follow the storyline, but I know the basic stuff about Lion King (not a good movie to watch on Father's Day, by the way) and it was fun even with my faulty hearing.

I did not take pictures. I do not know if pictures are allowed. By the quality of these pictures you might see that it wasn't my camera (what is wrong with my wittle camera? does it need to be recalibrated? replaced? thrown off a cliff?). It is Robert's. It's not my fault if we weren't supposed to be taking pictures, as WE were not. He was. (there. he is thoroughly under the bus.)

Then they brought out this big mat thing and set it up, on the move. I was FASCINATED by this! There were stage techs out there all wearing black and looking gruff and serious and like they belonged to really good Unions, and they had the safety of the performers first and foremost in their minds. It was really interesting for me to watch them, but I didn't have the camera so I don't know if we have any pictures of them but I don't think so because the next picture is of the TumbleMonkeys bouncy/trapezey stage all set up and ready to go!

And then they took that away and brought out something else for a fire twirler.

There's a whole side dance/song thing with birds, one of whom is female and obviously a ballet dancer and also someone with an iron stomach because she's twirled HIGH in the air and spun all around the room. It was really something.

All in all, I was very glad we'd gone in there!

 

[nancy drew]

The Lion King show is one of the few things that makes me want to take my kids to AK. That and the safari. I took DD to the Lion King show when she was 15 months, and I was pregnant with DS, and DD and I were alone, and she wanted nothing to do with the show. We had to stay, because you know from being there that it is hard to leave mid-show without being really obvious and annoying, and she was sort of happy to just play on the floor, but I was so bummed that she didn't like it! It is such a cool show, and so cool to watch them set it up, as you noted!