1 crazy family+2 resorts+5 parks+1 snake+1 surprise=A Mickeystoontown report 4/3x2

[mickeystoontown]

MMMM, love WGP.
Ooh you left with what Mama’s great idea was. Looking forward to more.

I love Wolfgang Puck too! Can you believe that it took us years to even try it? If only we had known what we were missing out on.

 

[Millie12591]

Yeaaaaa, everyone is finally there!!

BOMA....

I looooove the resort, and I love eating there!! I hope y'all got a chance to walk around the resort some and enjoyed the animals and beauty of the place. Mackenzie and I went outside when we got there to waste some time before our ADR and we got to see the giraffes. They were really active and close by, it was so A M A Z I N G!!

That's pretty cool about your BIL selling his house to Willie and Korey, is it a second home for them out in the country, or the house they plan on moving into full time? Yes, I realize it's none of my business, just wonderin.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Yeaaaaa, everyone is finally there!!

BOMA....

I looooove the resort, and I love eating there!! I hope y'all got a chance to walk around the resort some and enjoyed the animals and beauty of the place. Mackenzie and I went outside when we got there to waste some time before our ADR and we got to see the giraffes. They were really active and close by, it was so A M A Z I N G!!

That's pretty cool about your BIL selling his house to Willie and Korey, is it a second home for them out in the country, or the house they plan on moving into full time? Yes, I realize it's none of my business, just wonderin.

I felt bad about leaving Lacey & Jesse at the resort and offered to try and get them in with us but they were fine with just hanging at the resort while we went to eat.

The Animal Kingdom Lodge is gorgeous! We are eating there again next May and I'm going to factor in more time to look around. It's so beautiful!

From what I understand, Willie and Korie will be moving in the new house. The house that they are in now is very accessible by everybody. I'm thinking that they want something that's more out of the way and not accessible to the public. My brother in law's house is out in the country and you have to have access to get through the gate to get to the main house. The barn (if you want to call it a barn) is a house in and of itself. It's going to be neat to see on television.

 

[jenseib]

Thanks for that Duck Dynasty update. I had told Skip about it and he keeps asking for an update.
Do you have a picture of the new house?

How fun that Lacey and Jesse decided to come early.
AKL is one of our new favorite resorts!

 

[mickeystoontown]

Thanks for that Duck Dynasty update. I had told Skip about it and he keeps asking for an update.
Do you have a picture of the new house?

How fun that Lacey and Jesse decided to come early.
AKL is one of our new favorite resorts!

I'm sure that one of my kids have a picture of the house on one of their cell phones since they visited it more often than I did. You'd never have a clue that there was a big old house and second house way back there in the woods.

I would absolutely love to stay at the AKL but I know that John's not ready to give up his beach for animals.

 

[wiigirl]

Great update!

 

[mickeystoontown]

Great update!

Thank you! Hoping to get another one posted today!

 

[eandesmom]

Updating machine!

I am glad you were able to get the tee shirt but boy that sounds like a project to go get it and a bit of a bummer that it wasn't more conducive to resort exploring.

Yes, that parking lot is forever and a day away, isn't it!

Hope the noise was ok for Mama!

 

[distripplanner]

Yay! Glad to see our home made your post (Coronado springs!). We love it there and find it to be relaxing, peaceful and a great stay w/ good quick and table dinning options too! However, with that said our next trip we will be staying over at your home.. Don't worry, I only mean Caribbean beach not your actual home of course! Finally going to give another resort a shot and just hope we don't miss Coronado too much. Great updates!!

 

[disneylvr4vr]

The Animal Kingdom Lodge is gorgeous! We are eating there again next May and I'm going to factor in more time to look around. It's so beautiful!

From what I understand, Willie and Korie will be moving in the new house. The house that they are in now is very accessible by everybody. I'm thinking that they want something that's more out of the way and not accessible to the public. My brother in law's house is out in the country and you have to have access to get through the gate to get to the main house. The barn (if you want to call it a barn) is a house in and of itself. It's going to be neat to see on television.

I am all caught up! Can't wait for your review of Boma! That has got to be one of my FAVORITE restaurants in all of WDW. Of course, AKL is my favorite resort and AK is my favorite park!

Ohh thats very interesting about Willie and Korie buying your BIL's house.

 

[GrammyJudy]

Are you thinking of switching to Coronado Springs? We loved Bona when we ate there a few years ago. And AKL is beautiful but so far away it seems. I think I would prefer to stay at the Wilderness Lodge, in fact I would love to stay there! Maybe next tome��

 

[EastYorkDisneyFan]

Bomas is one of my favorite buffets at WDW tto between the wood fired rotisserie for the roast beef and zebra domes for dessert plus they also have some good soups too how can you go wrong with it.

 

[MK2010]

Hey Lisa, I rarely comment but I follow all of your trip reports. Hunter just cracks me up! (He's about 3 years older than my oldest son.) His womanizing is out of control on this trip report! Lol. Poor guy. He's grown up to be so handsome you just have to beat those girls off with a stick don'cha? I love that he and Jesse get along just like brothers.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Are you thinking of switching to Coronado Springs? We loved Bona when we ate there a few years ago. And AKL is beautiful but so far away it seems. I think I would prefer to stay at the Wilderness Lodge, in fact I would love to stay there! Maybe next tome��

We actually had Coronado Springs booked for our May, 2013 trip but changed when we found out that there was supposed to be a big convention there. It's definitely on our radar and especially since they've changed up the food court.

We had Wilderness Lodge booked several years back but changed. Yes, it seems to be a reoccurring thing with us. I couldn't see paying over $1,000 more for the WL that trip. It was a tight budget that year.

Bomas is one of my favorite buffets at WDW tto between the wood fired rotisserie for the roast beef and zebra domes for dessert plus they also have some good soups too how can you go wrong with it.

The chicken and corn chowder was soooooo good!

Hey Lisa, I rarely comment but I follow all of your trip reports. Hunter just cracks me up! (He's about 3 years older than my oldest son.) His womanizing is out of control on this trip report! Lol. Poor guy. He's grown up to be so handsome you just have to beat those girls off with a stick don'cha? I love that he and Jesse get along just like brothers.

Hey! Love seeing you post! Hunter is a hoot! You know what? Most of the time, he's totally oblivious that girls like him. We have to point it out to him when he's telling us stories of things that go on at school.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Updating machine!

I am glad you were able to get the tee shirt but boy that sounds like a project to go get it and a bit of a bummer that it wasn't more conducive to resort exploring.

Yes, that parking lot is forever and a day away, isn't it!

Hope the noise was ok for Mama!

I've been cranking them out haven't I!

My boss hardly ever asks for anything so I knew that I had to get the t-shirt. It was a pain in the rear end though trying to find it.

Thankfully, the drummers left the restaurant soon after we arrived.

Yay! Glad to see our home made your post (Coronado springs!). We love it there and find it to be relaxing, peaceful and a great stay w/ good quick and table dinning options too! However, with that said our next trip we will be staying over at your home.. Don't worry, I only mean Caribbean beach not your actual home of course! Finally going to give another resort a shot and just hope we don't miss Coronado too much. Great updates!!

The CSR was beautiful! I just wish that it hadn't been so doggone hot and we could have looked around more. Like you, I'm afraid if we try something new, we will be missing our home resort.

I am all caught up! Can't wait for your review of Boma! That has got to be one of my FAVORITE restaurants in all of WDW. Of course, AKL is my favorite resort and AK is my favorite park!

Ohh thats very interesting about Willie and Korie buying your BIL's house.

Boma was fantastic! We liked it so much that we are going back in May, 2014.

It's kinda neat that there's a celebrity living in someone in my family's house. Well, it's not in the family any more but you know what I'm saying.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Going Exploring! Why are you running? Because Aunt Lisa is!

Part 2

I’m not sure how long we waited until our buzzer went off and we were shown to a large table near the far side of the restaurant. It didn’t seem as loud there and it was pretty close to the buffet so it was all good. Our waiter came and we explained who was with each party. He then took our drink orders and told us to go on up to the buffet.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Boma (and we weren’t before this trip), the buffet is set up similar to one on a cruise ship. There are different pods or stations and if you want to skip over one station to another, it’s perfectly acceptable. Now me? I didn’t want to skip over anything so I went all the way down until I came to the dessert station. As tempting as the desserts looked, I wanted to wait and sample them later.

At some point, all of us were together again at the table and I took pictures of some of our plates. Don’t even try to ask me what are on the plates ‘cause I’m going to say this is some sort of vegetable, this is a rice, oh and that right there is meat, and over there is a potato something or other. I will, however, post a copy of the menu:

African Breads
Watermelon Rind Salad
Pasta Salad
Chicken Salad with Chili Cilantro
Kool Slaai
Tunisian Cous Cous Salad
Ghana Tomato Salad
Tabouleh
Pearl Cous Cous Shrimp Salad
Spinach and Quinoa Salad
Artichoke and Preserved Lemon Salad
Apple Jicama Salad
Avocado, grapefruit and papaya salad
Lentils and Hearts of Palm Salad
Fresh Fruit
Butternut Squash Soup
Zanzibar Crab Soup
Carrot Ginger soup
Mulligatawny
Harira Soup
Lentils and Sausage Soup
Chicken Corn Chowder
Coconut Chicken Curry Soup
Curried Coconut Seafood Stew
Mushroom Soup Curry Cauliflower Soup
Seafood Gumbo
Pap and Chakalaka
Pork Shoulder
Bobotie
Durban Style Roasted Chicken
Mater Paneer
Spice Crusted Beef Striploin
Slow Roasted Pork Ribs
Fufu
Whole Roasted Salmon
Children's area
Desserts may include: Zebra Domes, Kenyan Coffee Tarts, Cinnamon Chocoloate Mousse, Bread pudding, cookies and brownies.

Now, let me move on to the pictures:











Every single one of us enjoyed our meals and went back for seconds. Admittedly, there were a few things that I tried that I didn’t care for as did some of the others at the table but, for the most part, we enjoyed it all. I would definitely go back there again and, in fact, we are in May.

Had I thought about it when I booked our ADRs, I would have factored in time to look around the resort grounds more. As it were, it had gotten dark outside while we were eating and we weren’t sure if we would be able to see any of the animals on the savanna but we were certainly going to try.

Sculptures on the wall of the lodge:





Looks like the artist had gone home for the day:



Mama took one look at the stairs that we had to go down to get outside and decided that she’d fine a nice chair to relax in. We got her settled and then went outside. Not before taking another picture though:



The lights were beautiful:




As were our surroundings:


We could see animals out on the savanna and we walked ever so quietly over and looked at the giraffes there. Some were standing and some were lying down. It was one of those “ooh aah” moments. We decided to walk down the trail a little further to get a better look and my sis-in-law, Jeannie, let out a shriek! A snake! Of course, me being me, I didn’t stop. I started hopping around and continued moving forward like an idiot and shrieking myself. Jeannie was telling me “It’s right in front of you!”. Well, that’s all it took for me to take off running which made my niece, Emily run too. My brother in law and John who were quite a ways behind us asked “Why are you running?” and she said “Because Aunt Lisa is!”

To tell it now, it has me laughing like crazy. At the time, we were all scared to death that there was a snake. A gosh darn, real live, honest to goodness snake. I’m terrified of snakes no matter their size and this one was a monster of a snake. Big! Huge! Gigantic! Wanna see it?

































































Okay, so it wasn’t Big! Huge! Or Gigantic! But it sure did seem like it at the time. After getting a good look at it, the giggles set in all of us. I can’t tell you how many times we retold the story of the snake, how I did the Lindy Hop and how Emily took off running “Because Aunt Lisa is!”. Oh what a fun memory!

We walked down the pathway a little further and saw a castmember and another guest. We told her about the snake and she didn’t say much. I think that she said something about seeing them pretty often. I honestly don’t remember. It was getting too dark to see the animals so we turned around and went back inside. Mama was still sitting in the lodge relaxing and people watching. We started telling her the snake story all at once and I’m sure that we looked like a bunch of silly gooses. Again fun memories!

Lacey had called us and asked when we would be back and we told her that we were going to take the rest of the family back to their resort and then we’d be meet back us at Caribbean Beach. I thought that it was a little strange that she was calling just to see when we’d be back but who knows with that girl.

We made the long walk back to the parking garage and started trying to figure out how we were going to get 7 adults and 1 child into our vehicle. It’s a CX-7 which is a crossover. It’s not as small as a car and not as big as a large SUV. How was this going to work? I was the driver, John sat in the passenger seat, Mama, Stephen and Jeannie fit on the backseat, Emily sat in one of their laps and Hunter and Eli got in the very back. Yeah, not something that we would normally do but it would do in a pinch.

The others were staying at All Star Sports so Jeannie gave me directions and we were soon there. We dropped them off at their car in the parking lot and I got a glimpse at the resort. It looked super cool and, again, I wish that we had some time to explore. I gave Jeannie directions to Caribbean Beach just in case we lost each other in traffic and we were off again.

When we got to the resort, the rest of the family followed and parked near our building. They were going to spend the rest of the evening with us there. Lacey had been keeping an eye out for us and opened their door to a surprise! Lacey and Jesse had their room decorated with balloons and streamers and signs. There was a Mother’s Day gift for Mama and I and a Father’s Day gift for John. I love my babies!

We gave Jeannie the room key so that the kids could change into their swimming suits. John, Stephen, Jeannie and I hung back a little bit and the rest went ahead to the pool. The Martinique quiet pool was pretty busy so they went to the Barbados pool and we met them there. Mama called is a night and hit the sack. Oh and I brought laundry along to wash while we were hanging out together.

It was so nice to sit around in the lounge chairs and chat and catch up on things. John’s family lives about an hour from us and we don’t get to see each other as often as we would like or, rather, should. When you get John and his brother together, everybody needs to look out. They were telling all sorts of stories and tall tales. We laughed and laughed and laughed.

I’ll share one of the stories with ya’ll. John’s probably going to kill me. Wait, John doesn’t read my trip report so I’ll be okay.

Several years back, John’s medication trough levels got all screwed up and they were testing him on so-and-so medicine. It wouldn’t do what it should so they’d start weaning him off one but put him on another. It was a vicious cycle that lasted over a year. During that time, John was very heavily medicated. If he sat down for more than five minutes, he was asleep. He could fall asleep anywhere.

One evening, I told John that I was going to bed and he said that he was going to sit in the rocker recliner (the kind with a round base) and watch a little television in the living room. I warned him that he was going to go to sleep. He said that he wouldn’t. Sometime, during the middle of the night, I woke up to a thump. I was still pretty groggy and I didn’t hear it again so I went back to sleep. The next morning, I walked down the hallway to see John had tipped the rocker over backwards. He was still in a sitting position in the rocker but flat on his back and snoring away. I sooooo wish that I had taken a picture before I roused him.

Anyway, John was retelling the story and we started laughing and he laid down on the ground to show them how I found him that morning. The people who were near us had been listening in and they burst out laughing too. Oh it was so funny!

After a nice visit and some funny story telling, it was time to hit the hay. Stephen and his family went back to All Stars Sports and we gathered up the rest of the laundry and went to bed. There’s no better place to spend time with family than at Disney!

**Up next: You’d think that they’d dust this place every once in a while!

 

[oopsiDAISY]

Boma... It is on our must try list for sure! Your pictures confirm that it SHOULD be on the must try list. Thanks for the warning on the long walk! And I will be sure to keep an eye out for snakes too!

So sweet for Jesse and Lacy to decorate your room and have presents for you! That is just awesome!

 

[lovethattink]

What a nice dinner at Boma. But that SNAKE!!! EWWW!

 

[Millie12591]

I felt bad about leaving Lacey & Jesse at the resort and offered to try and get them in with us but they were fine with just hanging at the resort while we went to eat.

I figured them being a married couple they had their own plans. No worries Mama, they knew what they were doing.

The Animal Kingdom Lodge is gorgeous! We are eating there again next May and I'm going to factor in more time to look around. It's so beautiful!

Just wait until you go back when you have time to see everything, it's going to take your breath away. Pictures just don't do justice to this place. WEll, come to think of it...most places around Disney.

From what I understand, Willie and Korie will be moving in the new house. The house that they are in now is very accessible by everybody. I'm thinking that they want something that's more out of the way and not accessible to the public. My brother in law's house is out in the country and you have to have access to get through the gate to get to the main house. The barn (if you want to call it a barn) is a house in and of itself. It's going to be neat to see on television.

I wondered if that might be the case. When you said your BIL's house was out in the country I wondered if it was more secluded and harder for people to get to. Good for them, it's good to feel protected, especially with all the kiddos.

I'm so glad you liked BOMA, so many people won't give it a chance because it has some different types of food, but honestly it's one of the best buffets on property, at least in my opinion.
They have a great breakfast buffet too.

 

[shan23877]

Sounds like a really nice dinner! Boma is on the list of places I'm saving until Maddie is a little older, but I've never heard a bad review of the place!

What a sweet surprise from Lacey and Jessie! What a fun night with family. Love the story about John asleep on the floor/chair