Walking Softly and Carrying a Big Stick: A TR-Approved TR Updated 8/30

[VBsHustla]

After our dance party, made our way over to the MK in order to catch a bus to the Yacht Club, for a dinner we had all been looking forward to at the Yachtsman Steakhouse! We moseyed over to our parents’ room to meet up with them, then over to the boat dock.

We took a boat to the MK, and missed Mike terribly. To get over our heartbreak, we took some pictures.


While on the bus over to the Yachstman, we noticed another set of twins, which we found odd considering we had seen the other set of twins on our last bus ride. We then also remembered a set of baby twin girls that we had encountered on the Maharaja Jungle Trek earlier that day. One of the twins from the trek was tottering around with a darling stuffed puppy, that she dropped and continued on without; Laura noticed the abandoned puppy and rescued it, returning it to its baby owner, whose dad was very grateful. Anyway, after reminiscing about our earlier twin sightings, we got to the Yacht Club a bit early, and had to wait to be seated, so we passed the time photoshooting it up of course.

 

[VBsHustla]

-

 

[VBsHustla]

Eww! I look horrifying in all of the latest photos! As does that mac and cheese. Oh well, nothing a little Norwegian wayfaring can't fix!

 

[VBsHustla]

After Illuminations, we went to get EMH bracelets. We waited in a fairly long line off to the side of the bridge, with a young family with a baby in a stroller right behind us the whole time, jamming the stroller in to Laura’s legs the whole time. There were also huge groups of people cutting in line, with CMs standing around doing nothing about it! Standing in this line was so frustrating! When we finally got up to the front to get our bracelets, Laura and Liz got their bracelets, and then Jen had her arm out to get hers put on when the pushy stroller family literally pushed Jen, and the CM with the bracelets put one on the baby in the stroller! This took forever, as the baby was crying and did not want to be touched or have a bracelet put on her. Jen was totally outraged, and before the rude parents could get their bracelets, asked the CM (way too nicely, actually) if she could get her bracelet put on as she had been waiting before this family came up and her friends were already done. With her bracelet on, an enraged Jen joined up with Laura and Liz and requested a quick stop in France for an adult beverage to numb the outrage.

Sweet relief came in the form of a Lemon Slush – delish!


We meandered around the WS and came upon one of our fav places, Norvay! Whilst waiting in line (yes, there was a line!) for Maelstrom, one of our fav Epcot attractions, Liz took the opportunity to slip some Soffes on under her dress. Classy.


After a bit of a wait, we embarked upon our first Norwegian adventure, but were disheartened to find that on Maelstrom and in the shop, there were no male Norwegian CMs, our fav kind! I’m sure we are not the only ones to notice that the CMs in Norway are particularly attractive, and while the girls are certainly pretty, we’re just plain not as interested in looking at them! We figured all of the boys must have been having a party this night.


But when Jen and Liz were taking a potty break, Laura spotted our fav Norwegian CM, who we have admired for our last three trips, a guy we call Logan Gilmore! Laura was so absolutely delighted to see Logan Gilmore pushing a cart into a CMs only area! Thank God he was there! Laura exclaimed as Jen and Liz emerged from the bathroom that Logan Gilmore had just passed her, and we all got to see him briefly before he disappeared with his cart into the back of the pavilion.

Delighted with our sighting, we bopped along to Future World to make a stop in another of our fav places, Mouse Gear! Does anyone else love the Mouse Gear tune “Hey, Hey Mickey” as much as we do? It’s brilliant! “Hey, hey, Mickey, here’s to the ears of love…”! It’s always on in Mouse Gear, and only Mouse Gear, and it’s just so wonderful and upbeat! Anyway, while enjoying our tune we stumbled upon Hannah Montana and Troy Bolton Crocs, which we found to be very good! A bit small for us, but lovely.

 

[VBsHustla]

After browsing for a bit, we walked over to the Land. We had wanted to ride Soarin’, but the wait was long, so we instead embarked upon another of our fav adventures, Living with the Land! We walked right on to a boat, which luckily included another family. Riding at night was super creepy, but it would have been way more frightening if we were completely alone.

We really do adore this ride and find it interesting, but the greenhouse being dark at night with just minimal artificial lighting was so frightening! Regardless, we enjoyed the ride and the interesting vegetation, including the Miracle Fruit, the Cinderella pumpkins, and those earning their ears! Too cute!

We thought about stopping by Laura’s beloved Environmental Fable, but it was already late at this point, and we knew we would see it when we were in Epcot during the day, so we passed on it this time (much to Laura’s dismay ). Instead we entered another must-see attraction, Figment!


We truly adore Figment, and cannot understand why it is always a walk-on! We loved the old Figment, and love the new version, too! This night we enjoyed our own personal Figmenting experience, which allowed us to fully express our Figment love via nuts dance party. It was grand, and actually a shame that no one was there to witness our moves.

We finally exited Epcot.


And we arrived at the GF after what seemed like 17 hours after taking the monorail to the TTC then transferring to the resort monorail. Why are there no buses from Epcot to the monorail resorts!? Taking the two monorails takes forever, and is never a pleasant experience!

Relieved to return to our room for the night, we found a room service order form on our door, on which someone had ordered a few very large breakfasts. How bizarre. Jen probably would have enjoyed the gigantic breakfasts, but as per usual, we had plans to be out of our room ridiculously early, so we would never order room service and eat there. We did some investigating, and found that the slip on our door had a room number a few doors down from us on it. Whyever would someone write down their room service order then travel down the hallway to affix it to someone else’s door? We found this totally absurd, then realized the paper must have fallen off the rightful door and someone else must have placed it on ours. Glad that we had noticed the mistake, we placed the room service slip on the correct door so that we would not be getting someone else’s food the next morning.

After all of this excitement, we went into our room, got ready for bed, and enjoyed some nice sleeps!

Up next: will we stick to our plan the next day, or be totally crazy and veer off course? Will we all head to the same park?

 

[VBsHustla]

Oh no! My behind is looking rather gigantic in that hot pink sack of a dress I was sporting

Who knew soffees would be a more appealing ensemble?!

I am loving the odd dancing photos though!My slush looks pretty full too, so I know the adult beverage was not the impetus for the insane moves! There is just something about the World Showcase that gets us in the party mood, I guess!

 

[VBsHustla]

August 30, 2008

We had been planning on going to the MK today, even though it was an EMH day at MGM (since we had stayed out late at Epcot’s EMH the night before and like to spend a few mornings at the MK). Liz and Laura decided the night before that they wanted to get to MGM to ride Toy Story Mania before our only planned morning at MGM, which was to be our second to last day. I (Jen) really wanted to get in a few MK mornings/ rope drops, and also did not want to wake up at 6:30, which I would have to do in order to make it from the GF to MGM by 8 am for EMH, so I happily opted to stick with the MK plan. I awoke at about 8:20, got myself ready, and moseyed over to the monorail.


So far, the one major downside I saw to heading out alone was that I needed to Coppertone myself on the balcony before leaving our room, since I didn’t want to carry the Coppertone with me (Liz’s usual job, which I can't complain about ). Anyway, after a quick monorail ride, I was strolling through the MK gates, and in mere moments, enjoying a lovely opening show. I was delighted to see my fav bug Jiminy next to my fav people, Alice and the Mad Hatter!


Since I had enjoyed the opening ceremony, there were already quite a lot of people ahead of me walking down Main Street, but I wasn’t rushing since I didn’t have plans to hit anything big this morning. Being alone felt totally fine, since I guess I am quite used to the MK (and to traveling alone in my regular life, to work and such!), but I thought I would feel rather weird riding Dumbo alone. So, no need to run up Main Street! I took some pics, and made my way back to Fantasyland.


Ugh, that crane!


Let’s just cut off a bit of the castle, and much better!

And, ugh, those icicle lights! I would love to see the icicle lights turned on some day at Christmastime, but in the daytime in August, they did not thrill me.

Even though Main Street was more crowded that I would have liked, Fantasyland was still blissfully empty!

There was no question what my first ride would be – alone or not, Peter must always come first! Peter is just my fav!

After riding to Neverland, I reentered Fantasyland and pondered what to do next. I do adore Small World, but it seemed silly to ride a ride that never has a line at about 9:07 am. Ordinarily we would do Dumbo, but again, alone I thought I would feel odd. I thought I should experience something else whilst in Fantasyland, so I headed to Pooh!

I got my own honey pot and had a great time hopping along!


Next, I decided to head over to Frontierland. Usually we would do Splash this early in the morning, but I thought I might get ridiculously soaked sitting alone, so I quickly decided against Splash.

 

[VBsHustla]

As I slowly walked over to Frontierland, I stopped in to one of my fav bakeries in WDW, the Frontierland Bakery, where I got a giant chocolate chip cookie, which I highly recommend.


I was the first customer of the day, and I had a lovely chat with the CM in there, who had just moved from another location to the bakery (we chatted about the baked goods they offer, the location of the shop, the Halloween décor and festivities, what I was planning on doing the rest of the day). You don’t have to go very long stretches in WDW before you feel like you’re not alone anymore!

I stowed my cookie away for later, and headed to Thunder Mountain, a Frontierland ride I could enjoy without the danger of getting soaked.


Once I got to Thunder Mountain, there was no wait at all, and not even a slow poke prolonging my journey up the mountain, so I was on the train in an instant! I was one of the only riders in my car, and the one seated furthest back, so along with taking general pics of the ride, I took the opportunity to take some self portraits, of course!


It was now about 9:45, so I went up to the train platform to catch a ride to Toontown for its opening. The train took forever to come! I was the first person up on the platform, so I chatted with the CM there for a while, who explained that they were doing some maintenance on the trains and that only one was running that morning (as opposed to the two that are usually on the track at the same time). I also took this opportunity to take some pics.


While waiting I also enjoyed some of my Frontierland bakery cookie – delicious! I was putting it away as I got on the train and a woman sitting behind me asked me where she could get one and all about it, so I raved about the cookie and we discussed our trips all the way to Toontown!

 

[VBsHustla]

When the train pulled in to the Toontown station, I could see that Toontown had once again opened early! I was pretty disappointed, as on previous trips, I really enjoyed watching Mickey and the gang open up Toontown, and getting some great pics of them doing it! I wandered through Mickey’s house. Even though Toontown had opened early, there was no one in Mickey’s house at this time, so I was able at least to get some pics of Mickey’s house, if not the mouse himself.

I checked back in on the judge’s tent, hoping that others were not aware that Toontown had opened early and that I could visit Mickey and Minnie to get some autographs on postcards for my friends. Unfortunately, the line was already rather long, so I decided to skip Mickey and Minnie today.

Instead, I popped into the main tent to check out the posted wait times for the princesses and Mickey’s pals. Mickey’s pals only had a five minute wait time posted (the princesses were longer, but I thought I would feel weird meeting them alone anyway!), so I hopped in the line and was taken into their room almost immediately. There were probably two or three other families in there, all with one or two really small children, but I have to say I didn’t feel weird or awkward at all when I was in there meeting the characters! I really went in to get autographs on my postcards, but I would never pass up the opportunity for pics, and I pretty much love these weird solo character pics!


After meeting with my pals, I walked through to Tomorrowland, thinking I might ride Buzz, but the posted wait time was about 20 minutes, and I just can’t bear to wait in that queue room for even a minute! It always smells and always makes me feel claustrophobic.

So, I consulted my times guide to see when the next castle show (sorry, no idea what it’s called) would be. I have been wanting to see this show for the longest time, but no one else ever wants to see it, so this was the perfect opportunity! I was hoping to get in a ride of John Carousel, but there wasn’t quite enough time, so I headed straight to the castle.

Being that this was to be the first castle show of the day, it was not crowded at all. I had gotten a free cup of ice water from that CS place that sells those blue drinks and Tolucas under the TTA, so I got to sit down on a bench in the middle of the hub and sip my water and enjoy my delicious cookie. While waiting for the show to begin, I took some pics of the trolley stopped in front of the castle.


The show finally started and I loved it! I enjoyed a good portion of it from sitting on my bench, but when Peter came out, I had to run up to see him up close! It had been sweltering, but during the show some clouds rolled in, and although it wasn’t as beautiful a background as it could have been, the temperature became much more tolerable. I thought this show was so adorable, and totally enjoyable!

 

[MushuGirl06]

I just read your whole TR! and i must say that i LOVE it
cant wait til you update again

 

[VBsHustla]

I just read your whole TR! and i must say that i LOVE it
cant wait til you update again

Glad you're enjoying our TR! We love your sig!

-Jen

 

[VBsHustla]

Hi, we're finally back with an update! Thanks to OhMari for rescuing us from the completed TR board!

Now, let's go back in time to August...

While watching the show, I had exchanged some texts with Laura and Liz about them coming to meet me at the MK (I wanted them to come, but they were quite hesitant since they were enjoying their time at MGM). Just as my show ended, they arrived at the MK! I was glad to see them, and we made our way back into the lands. Upon walking over the Liberty Square bridge, we spied Peter and Wendy involved in a private pirate adventure! Although we could not participate, we could take some stalker pics (one of our specialties)!

We then explored the backside of some shops in the Liberty Square area.

Laura and Liz walked up to that door, which happened to be right next to a CM only area, but then a CM walked out so we didn’t take a pic. But we did take this pic of Laura feeling bashful.


Instead we moved along to knock on this door.

After all of that fun, we walked through Liberty Square and on to Frontierland to grab Splash FPs. Then we took a spin on Pirates and meandered through Adventureland, finding that one of our brother Kevy’s most admired guys, Aladdin, was out, so we hopped in his line.

When we got up to Aladdin and Jasmine, Aladdin asked if we had any questions for him! How strange! But yes, we asked, how was the Holland Tunnel built? Not really, we were caught totally off guard by Aladdin’s asking if we had any questions for him, but immediately upon finishing our encounter, we regretted not being able to come up with something great for him. Although we found Aladdin’s chatting totally bizarre, we apparently were totally enthralled by him, as evidenced by this pic that the Aladdin gang’s minder took for us!


P.S., does everyone love that we all (Jen, Laura, and Liz, that is, not Aladdin and Jasmine) have on the exact same outfit in different colors? We love it.

After our exciting meet and greet, we went to one of our number one attractions, the Jamboree! We really adore this show. The songs are so fun and totally inappropriate! We love how the blood on the sidewalk bear looks just like Brandon Davis (oil heir extraordinaire/ socialite). Here’s a pic of that great bear, and next, for comparison purposes, is Brandon Davis.


And the finale is superb! What could be more fun than stomping and screaming along to “Some folks say he looks a lot like me! Davy, Davy Crocket, king of the wild frontier!”? It’s good times!

After that excitement, we decided to overload our hearts with delight by paying a visit to the Hall of Presidents!

Wooot! Finally a meeting with TR!


TR’s riding spurs.


Inside of the Hall, when our hero TR was announced we gave him a round of rousing applause and burst into hoots! The audience all joined in our TR-themed party. JK. We politely and respectfully applauded.

After a moving and exciting show, we made our way back to Splash to use the FPs we had collected earlier, only to learn that Splash had been closed down due to rain (and that we could wait in a very long line of returning FP holders for an indefinite period of time to ride upon Splash’s triumphant return). No thanks, we said to the aggravated CM minding the FP return area and answering the disgruntled guests’ questions.

Due to the now drenching rains, we decided to head back to the GF. We thought a photo of us in front of the castle in a monsoon would be fun times, but were horrified to learn that no Photopassmen were out! Understandable, we guessed, but disappointing nonetheless.

 

[VBsHustla]

After being forced to leave the MK without documentation of our arduous trek through the rain, we found a boat to the GF waiting for us at the dock. We were sad to see that Mike was not our captain, but delighted when our driver Hector handed us old rags as we boarded to wipe our seats down! We appreciate being put to work for a good cause.

The rain was still coming down, down, down in rushing rising rivlets when we docked at the GF, but we were in need of sustenance so we braved the elements and trudged along to Saspys. We all got wraps or sandwiches from the sandwich station, including a tabulleh wrap and a specially ordered cheese sandwich, both of which we highly recommend.


Liz also recommends the brownie with fudge icing, which gets better with age. Really, space out your consumption of this delight over a few days and you'll see what she means.

So we enjoyed our lunches whilst watching some Wizards of Waverly Place and then Liz and Laura headed to the Contemporary to do some shopping, while I (Jen) took a long hot shower and then got to enjoy taking ages getting ready for the evening and using the lovely free H2O Spa products in our room. I had really been looking forward to swimming on this day, but this afternoon break turned out to be lovely. I also set out these surprise pajama tees I had ordered and had customized from DisneyShopping quite a while before our trip.

My shirt has little Tinks on it.


Liz’s shirt has little Poohs (hahah).


And Laura’s has little Mickeys.


After a while Laura and Liz called and said they wanted to go from the Contemporary to MGM so I planned to meet them on a bus over to MGM. They called me when they got on a bus, I left our room a minute or two later, and the bus with Laura and Liz on it pulled up! Perfect! And here I am boarding!


Not sure what is up with that smile. I don’t think I was aware that Laura was photographing me, but that smile sure looks posed. This pic also shows what happens when I have too much time to get myself ready - I ignore the fact that it is monsooning out and 100 percent humidity and straighten my hair. As you can guess and will see in later pics, it did not remain straight for very long.

We arrived at MGM and grabbed FPs for the Tower, and then hoped to catch the HSM show. Sadly the show was canceled due to the rain! Instead we went over to the animation studio, where we hadn't visited in years. We're not big fans of the film with the Mulan dragon and didn't realize until we had read of a few accounts in TRs that we could participate in drawing lessons. We thought this sounded cool enough to warrant sitting through the little movie so we queued up for it then went on in. Check out this quality poncho, straight out of the bag it came in, never-before worn!


This is what we get for defying Disney by bringing our own Dollar Tree ponchos. It's okay, Tree, we still heart you.


Anyway, we entered the theater for the animation film and saw that the exit doors were still open, so though we felt a bit mischievous, we high-tailed it on through! Walking through the animation exhibits was pretty good. We found the area to enter the animation class only to find that we were the first group not to make it in because the room was full. Splendid. But we took this opportunity to meet Sorcerer Mickey (who of course took a break right before it was our turn to party with him; but we did have time to kill).


Note for future - do not wear bright strawberry if you will be photographed with someone in red as it freaks out cheap digital cameras. Also, terrible picture in general. Great job making it blurry and not straight, Photopass guy! Why, oh why, do the photographers insist upon including their subjects’ entire bodies, including unbecoming Crocs and sneakers in the photos? Close-ups from the waist up, only, please! No one needs to see our Soffes and we won’t be heartbroken if Mickey’s shoes are cut off.

With quite a bit more time to kill before the next drawing lesson, we wandered into the art shop and realized that we could have come through that entrance and avoided waiting for the film to start and running through the theater. Oh well, a lesson for us for next time and for our dear readers (have we got any that might actually be going to WDW and who are not our friends IRL who we are forcing to read this TR??). So we went back to the animation holding area and waited around some more. When our session finally began we were one of the first groups to enter so we got prime seating in the front row.


The animator leading the class gave us a few character choices to vote on, including Minnie, Daisy, Goofy, Chip or Dale, and Jiminy (!!). Daisy had some very vocal supporters and since we were up front we couldn't see which character the most people had raised their hands for, so we spent a few suspenseful minutes waiting before we learned that Jiminy had won! Woot! Jiminy is our fav insect and we were so pleased to learn to draw him! We thought the class was so much fun and are totally impressed that our drawings actually came out looking like Jiminy! We will definitely return for more animation classes on future trips.


Satisfied with our masterpieces, we artists moseyed over to the Toy Story area. Liz and Laura used the FPs they had collected earlier in the day before leaving MGM and I (Jen) bought Laura a Toy Story Mania tee, which is adorable but also crazy gigantic for a children's sized shirt. I arranged to have the shirt shipped to the GF and asked if I could stick our Jiminy drawings in the bag (since it was raining and we didn't have bags big enough to fit the papers) but the CM said they can't put anything not purchased from their shop in the bags because the items couldn't be replaced if damaged or lost. I tried to explain that I really didn't care if the drawings got damaged or went missing but the CM would not budge, so I left with a receipt for Laura's shirt and three poorly rolled up Jiminy drawings in my bag.

Laura and Liz emerged from another amazing ride through TSM soon thereafter, and we then got out of MGM to catch a bus to the MK to bear witness to Spectro's triumphant return (although many will not remember this far back in history, Spectro had been cancelled for most of August due to a refurb of the Liberty Square Bridge).

 

[VBsHustla]

We had an uneventful bus ride over to the MK and since we had some time to spare, decided that we should get in one of our top attractions before Spectro. We hoped against hope that the line would be manageable as we trudged through the crowds to Tomorrowland. Phew! Miraculously the Carousel of Progress was crowd free!


We settled in wishing we could enjoy some cold saspsrillas with John and looked forward to our great big beautiful parade-filled evening. After John we made a pit-stop at Cosmic Ray's to grab some fries to go to eat along our journey to our top Spectro viewing spot (real dinner not necessary as we were still full from our Saspy's lunches).


Main Street was terribly crowded but we managed to make our way down to our ideal Spectroing area right near the Confectionary. It's usually relatively empty there, but as this was the night of Spectro's return, it was pretty grossly crowded. But we danced away even as people insisted on standing on top of us and thoroughly enjoyed Spectro's spectacular return!


One major benefit of watching Spectro from this early point in its route is that we can fit in a ride before Wishes (or watch Spectro again in its entirety from Fromtierland). This night we cut through the Emporium and Casey's and soon found ourselves in Adventureland, where we enjoyed a spin on Aladdin's magic carpets. We love that we can see and hear Spectro going through Frontierland when we ride Aladdin at this time! And we also love how empty Adventureland is at this time.


After Aladdin, it was still quite early but we decided we would walk over for Wishes early (about 15 minutes early) to get a spot near the hub. This is insane for us as we generally stroll up to our preferred spot close to the ice cream shop for easy after-Wishes sundae access about 30 seconds before the show starts. But we found being up closer really nice! It actually felt much less crowded than Main Street does and there were no distractions of people walking by. Plus we think we got some pretty nice pics! Wishes was magical and delightful, as always!

 

[VBsHustla]

After the show we slowly made our way over to the ice creamery to get some sundaes (this was the only thing we wanted to accomplish before watching the encore performance of Spectro, so no rushing necessary).

Jen and Liz got giant sundaes, which we were disappointed to learn, are not included in the DDP. We were also disappointed to find that our sundaes were way less enjoyable than they had been on previous trips!


Not enough ice cream or fudge, way too much whipped cream, and a staleish cinnamon-flavored waffle bowl. Cinammon and mint chocolate chip do not make a winning combo. Yuck. While our sundaes did not delight us, eating them in Exposition Hall did. Laura had read about it as a great quiet place to always find a seat a few years ago on the DIS and it never disappoints!


What time is it? Spectro time!

Another bonus was that when we finished our sundaes we walked out the door and were right at our fav Spectro spot! We were a bit upset to find that Spectro had started a few minutes early but we didn't actually miss any of it. We know now that DW must have known of the drenching monsoon that was to plague us later that night. But at this point we were just thrilled to sing and dance along on this magic night when a million stars played before us. They were glimmering, we were shimmering, the world was carouseling, and good times were had by all.


After reveling in the magic we high-tailed it out of the park and over to the boat dock to beat the rush. We could see a boat about to arrive and hopped on as soon as it docked. Great, we thought, this will be a quick and easy trip back to our room. Not so, screamed the rain clouds, who then dumped giant buckets of rain upon us. We cannot properly describe how unpleasant this was. We were pelted with giant, cold, stinging drops of rain for about 20 minutes while our little vessel rocked and bobbed across the lagoon. What relief when we reached the GF dock! That's the closest we'd like to ever come to a maelstrom. While glad to be back on land, we were still getting even more drenched. It took three days for our sneakers to dry out and it's a complete miracle that none of our cameras were ruined. Once back in our room we all took hot showers and went to sleep.

Up next: A day filled with even more singing and dancing than usual. Really.

 

[Neve]

I too love that despite the impassable crowds of Tomorrowland, the Carousel of Progress is always delightfully empty. A wonderful cooldown spot, singling spot, and general place to be!

Despite the whipped cream overload, I would much prefer one of those sundaes to the Nutrigrain I am currently eating!

I cannot wait for the next update! Though I cannot imagine any more dancing than has already transpired!

If only everyday afforded the opportunity for so much dance-partying!

 

[VBsHustla]

August 31, 2008

This morning we got to majorly sleep in - until about 7:15 for Jen and 7:30 for Laura and Liz since 1900 Park Fare (where we were eating to replace the Kona meal we had planned for this morning but had bumped up when we canceled Chef Mickey's) did not open until 8 am! While getting ready we enjoyed an odd puppet named Seymour on that great Playhouse Disney show Johnny and the Sprites. Anyone else see John Tartaglia in Avenue Q and find it a bit strange to see him puppeteering in an actual children's series? Odd but totally enjoyable. After suddenly singing about Seymour and chi-ing and Fructising, we skittered over to the GF's main building and walked up to a beautifully empty 1900 PF podium. Sweetly smiling (but probably inwardly scowling) at us was our all-time fav DW CM, Jean! Jean is a regular fixture at the Garden View Tea podium, from behind which she has been looking down upon us for years. But oh what a lovely curmudgeon! Perhaps she finds it less acceptable to arrive to tea in plastic tiaras than to arrive this way to a character breakfast? If this is the case we can't imagine why, for what is tea if not a royal tradition? Regardless we loved getting a nice smile from our Jean as we checked in for our ADR, rather than being told that she just wasn't sure if she could fit us in to a completely empty tea lounge when we do our usual walk-up and then are made to wait about 30 minutes while Jean performs a thorough search for that one perfect empty table among the 20 others. Oh Jean!

Anyway, after starting our morning off right with that thrilling encounter, we were brought into the restaurant. This was one of our fav meals!

We thought they did a great job of seating everyone in an orderly manner and keeping the characters coming out at a great pace. The characters here were Pooh, Tigger, Mary Poppins, Alice, and the Mad Hatter. We particularly loved the Mad Hatter! All of the characters even stopped by a second time (to wave or say hi). We did not ask for a second round of pictures with them, so we are not sure if they would do that on their second trip around. We think they probably just came around again because the restaurant was pretty empty the whole time we were eating. We also loved that this meal was so quick. We had a great waitress who kept our orange juice glasses full and brought out our check about 15 minutes after we sat down, when we had asked her for it. She said she brings out checks early all the time during breakfast because she understands that people want to get out quickly and get to the parks, and then she brought checks to all of her other tables as well. We thought the food here was really good too.


Jen tried the strawberry soup, which she thought was pretty good, though doesn’t like strawberries. She likes strawberry artificial flavoring, so she really enjoyed the taste of this, but the main thing that bothers her about strawberries are the little seeds, so those seeds floating around in the soup put her off. If only the soup were pure artificial flavoring and did not pretend to be authentic, she would have been crazy about it!


More of Jen’s food – we love Mickey waffles!


The fruit here was really fresh and delicious!


Laura thought the potatoes weren't good here, but everything else she tried was! She didn't think the Mickey waffles would be that great, but they were the best waffles ever! She ate them plain and they still tasted so good. She also really enjoyed being able to eat my normal breakfast food, oatmeal and bananas, both of which were very good here.

Liz especially enjoyed our close location to the breakfast! The characters were all great- she especially enjoyed meeting Alice and Mary Poppins (two of her absolute favs!)

Below are some pictures of us with the characters at Park Fare. Although this restaurant was not in our original plans, we did actually all have the lovely supercalifragilistic shirts you will see below with us because we planned to carry them in our bags on an Epcot day and stick them on when we found Mary Poppins. It turns out we got to wear them for breakfast over our regular shirts and pull them off before we headed to Epcot! In case anyone is dying to get one of these beauties, we got these at the Mary Poppins Broadway show. (Wow, we wrote about Broadway shows/ included musical references quite a bit throughout this short segment.)

 

[VBsHustla]

When we finished breakfast and settled our bill we popped into the bathroom in the GF lobby and peeled off our supercalifrag tees, then threw them in our bags. We were then off to Epcot and arrived in what seemed like 45 hours after a monorail ride to the TTC, an insanely long walk up and down the platforms to transfer, a long wait for the Epcot monorail, and then finally a monorail ride to Epcot. Our journey was almost as long as that last sentence. Almost. We arrived not too terribly long after rope drop. But man, what a journey!


and then ran over to Test Track to grab some FPs since we hate waiting in that queue for even a few minutes, then went over to The Land to check out Soarin's wait time. It was only posted at 10 or 20 minutes so we decided to hop in line since the FP queue takes at least that long to get through. This turned out to be the first time any of us had gone through the actual line and we totally loved the weird interactive computerized games we got to play while waiting! We highly recommend taking a trip through the regular Soarin’ queue if you've not yet done so.

Once we were sufficiently danced out from our waiting games, it was time to head back to the actual ride, which was lovely as usual.

What to do at approximately 9:30 am while the crowds are still minimal? Take in a viewing of Laura's fav attraction the Environmental Fable, of course! Laura was a bit upset when we were let into the theater almost immediately, missing most of the 30 minute pre-show. Jen was rather glad. The Fable was, obviously, superb. When we exited, we had planned on taking a trip through Living with the Land by daylight, but found that there was an outrageous 20 minute wait time posted, so we moseyed on out of the Land.

Next up was a ride through Test Track with our FPs.


This ride just is not our fav. We love that Cory and Topanga introduced it to the world on TGIF, but that's pretty much where the love affair ends. Also, Laura missed her tiara terribly. At least Test Track does provide the opportunity for us to snap super-attractive pics like the ones below.

After Test Track, we were in a nice position to head over to the World Showcase and open it up by being the first patrons at the margarita stand (totally planned, btw). However only Jen and Liz got and enjoyed some 11 am fresh margs, as Laura does not drink.

After grabbing our two margs, we ventured into the Mexico pavilion and attempted to ride the boat ride, but our attempt was rudely thwarted on account of our margs! Never had we been denied this simple pleasure before! Fine, we said, the new Donald version without that classic “hola mis amigos” tune is nothing compared to the original anyway! Except really we said okay and then took pictures with tacky sombreros and were on our way. Where to? You've guessed correctly! Up and across the sea to Norvay!

One of Jen's greatest pleasures in life is enjoying a fresh marg on Maelstrom because, how absurd! But we were once again rudely denied! Waaat?! We think it may have been because female CMs were in charge of minding the queues in both Mexico and Norway. As we may have mentioned before, the Norvegian boys are particularly delightful and generally love us. Rejected from entering the ride, Liz and Jen sat on a bench and gulped down their margs while Laura enjoyed a solo Norvegian adventure. Right after she popped out Jen and Liz were ready to head in, so we all got to head back, back ov-er the falls and weather the maelstrom together (pun intended, hope you loved it! ). On our journey we created a nice little soundtrack for our shipmates, serenading them with a little yo ho, yo ho, a Norvegian's life for me. In the exit shop, we think we saw our Norvegian Logan Gilmore again! And of course we were very pleased. Jen then picked up a school bread to go and we meandered around the world (showcase) conducting photo shoots whenever the spirit moved us (often).

 

[VBsHustla]

There is so much wrong with this attempt to get the Epcot ball to wear a tiara!

We made it over to Japan just in time to see Miyuki's first candy show. We'd never watched her before, and thought it was very cool, but particularly loved her adorable commentary throughout the demonstration about the yummy yummy candy being hot hot. So cute!


Next we back-tracked to another number one attraction, the American Adventure. Another CM who may rival Jean for number one in our hearts is George, proprietor of the American pavilion. We don't know his real name but have dubbed him George as he is such a good oldentime American guy. George is at the Adventure at all times of day and night, and performs every duty associated with the show, from screaming "hear ye, hear ye" outside to entice guests to patronize his great show to escorting guests to the escalators to announcing and beginning the show - and all with such unabashed enthusiasm! We don't know how he does it all, but thank goodness he does or it might just seem like an American story rather than an adventure.

Once inside the American pavilion, we enjoyed a Voices of Liberty performance.


Then we took a look at a few national treasures.


Jen adores Benjamin Franklin. If she had to choose her fav founding father (a very difficult decision), it would probably have to be dear old Benjamin. Give his autobiog a read sometime, you’re sure to love it! Even Jen admits that this rendition of Benjamin is quite bizarre.

The American Adventure is really a great and moving experience. And who could resist a show featuring an animatronic TR?!

Feeling inspired and uplifted, we exited the show and sat down at a table outside so Jen could enjoy her gigantic school bread!


This was her first school bread experience and she found it delightful, though Liz did not enjoy it and Laura did not taste it.

 

[VBsHustla]

Now that Jen was about 15 pounds heavier, it was time to do some more walking.

We visited Morocco.


Then we visited France.

We continued taking in the sights and made a stop in the UK's Toy Soldier shop, where Laura purchased a sweet, adorable stuffed Roo from really sweet, completely adorable CM Luke. We also stopped in to the tea shop, which is always a delight.

Since we were in England, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to devour some delicious chips.


Jen was about to go for full-on fish and chips, but in utter horror Laura strongly cautioned that Jen would surely vomit after having consumed a giant marg and an enormous school bread in the last hour or two. Jen heeded the warning and settled only for a rather large order of chips. She gobbled them up and did not vomit at all, thanks for asking.

Bellies full of scrumptious grease and starch, we pressed on to the great white north - land of steak, moose mousse, and Franck.


We had never seen the circle-vision Canadian experience and had heard that Franck was the host, so we absolutely had to pop in.


We enjoyed the film - lovely scenery and Franck is always a delight - but got a bit tired of standing and a bit dizzy. We weren't sure if the circle vision was cool enough to warrant the necessity for standing, but it wasn't too bad so we didn't complain too much and will now stop complaining here.