17 Days of Disney Magic (aka Brits, Pirates & Princesses) - Lots of PICS!

[seobaina]

Well, I hope people are enjoying this Ok, on with the next day.

Sunday was our first Animal Kingdom day, and like all good disers we knew to go straight for the safari!

We LOVE the safari and don’t care how long we have to wait but we also know that it gets a long queue fast so we dashed for it. When we got there the queue was already fairly long but the fastpass time slot was for right then, so we fastpassed and joined the much shorter line. If you’ve not done the safari you do not know what you are missing. One warning I will give – if you sit at the very back you will get bounced around all over the place! This time we were near the front, which is good in that when the driver slows down you get most use of it but bad cause you have the cab blocking some of your view.

Cute animal photo time:

On exiting the ride we did the Pangani walking trail as it starts right next to the exit. I like the walks as you get to see things at your own pace. However, this time it was a little busy and we kept having to speed up or slow down to loose some of the morning crowds. We did see some lovely animals though.

This is where I confess that I am a major Pocahontas fan. So, after the trail I smiled hopefully at Karen who laughed and said ‘ok, we can go to the conservation station’. Happily hoping on the train we took the short ride up to the station. I know a lot of guests miss this part of the park but I think that is a shame. It’s a lovely, quiet (kinda) detour from the main sections and it has some interesting exhibits. I don’t go to the petting zoo area but I always like looking at the conservation tanks and they have interesting talks. It’s also a good character meeting spot and the one place you’re fairly guaranteed to see Pocahontas.

I was hovering around the willow tree meet & greet area for ages and a cast member came up to me and asked if I was ok. I explained that I was hoping to meet Pocahontas and she laughed and said, well stay where you are cause she’s due out in ten minutes. By the time she did come out a small gathering had formed but the cast member very sweetly pointed to me and said ‘she’s first, she’s been waiting for ages’, so I got to meet my favourite Princess!

Before moving into the exhibits we also met Rafiki and Jiminy Cricket, neither of who had a line at all (see, good meeting spot).

Then we went to look at the tanks:

Beware, creepy-crawly alert! ( http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g156/seobaina/TripRep2008/Img_2404.jpg )

 

[MaleDisneyBeliever]

Loving this.... more please!

 

[seobaina]

While there we chatted to a cast member who kindly gave us an earthday pin badge each, which she said she had left over from the previous month. Then we headed outside to look at the shop/stall before we left the area.
Cue the obligatory ‘trying on hats’ photos:

Outside, in the picnic area, we had fun watching the kids play with the talking trash can (not sure what he/she is called but I think it’s pipa?).

I’ve heard that the can is no longer there. If that is true it’s a real shame because it was so much fun watching people trying to figure out if they were really being followed or spoken too by a can. And the kids were loving it.

Getting on the train we took the gentle ride back to the main park areas and after some debate we decided that, if we wanted to go see some of the things outside Disney we needed to do them now, while we had the car (the car was free for a week you see). So, we took our time walking back to the main entrance, meeting Ivy on route,

Animal Kingdom is so lovely to walk through when you have time to stop and look around:

If you’ve not done it I recommend taking time to look at the exhibits near the entrance. We found this brave (or foolish) tortoise

And this is my favourite parrot EVER! He was hiding behind a tree branch and there was no one else around. I took out my camera and he came out and literally posed. Then he went back behind the branch. Gotta love a ham, no matter what form they come in!

Leaving the park we drove back to the hotel to grab some lunch. That evening we had a reservation for Planet Hollywood, so we went to one of the malls briefly to do some much needed shopping. I had one disaster because I bought some M&Ms as presents from the M&M store and put them down while I was in the Mall Disney Store. I left them on the counter and went to get a smoothie. I remembered about halfway there and dashed back to get them but someone had stolen them. By this point I didn’t have time to go get more as it had been one of our last stops but Karen said not to worry and that we’d pop back within the next couple of days. It still made me kinda sad.

 

[seobaina]

Loving this.... more please!

Thank you

 

[MaleDisneyBeliever]

Ivy? DiVine! I've only seen her once!

 

[seobaina]

One good thing about getting back to the hotel in the light was that I finally remembered to take some photos of it.

After a quick change, we headed to Downtown Disney for dinner and shopping (can never have too much Disney shopping). We had 7:15pm ADRs for Planet Hollywood, which was a good thing as it was really busy.

I know not everyone likes it, but I enjoy eating at PI. I guess it might be because we don’t have them in the UK but I really like the atmosphere and looking at all the memorabilia.

We were down on the main floor, which is not as good as being up top but it was still nice. Our server was lovely though and he offered to take a photo of the two of us together.

Ok, food porn:

Finding nothing on the dessert menu that really interested us , we figured we’d wander around this section of DTD instead. We did pop into the store though (we’re shopaholics only when in Disney ), where I bought a t-shirt and we found these men’s tees that were thought were fabulous!

Although we grabbed a photo of the PI sign we’d already decided to go on another day, so we stuck to the Westside area.

We made our way to Virgin (which I believe has gone now ) and found some LOVELY desserts.

Food porn again:

I know Karen’s looks nice but my gooey cake was actually much nicer . Then we decided to catch a movie, as they come out there much earlier than they do back home. We saw Made of Honor, which was cute, then all caked out, and with most of the shops shut, we drove back to the room and slept.

 

[seobaina]

Ivy? DiVine! I've only seen her once!

Oh really? I heard she was called Ivy, sorry.

 

[teedee]

Great trip report so far, I'm looking forward to reading more of it!

Terri

 

[seobaina]

Great trip report so far, I'm looking forward to reading more of it!

Terri

Thank you Working on more as we speak. You guys will be sick of this by the time I get all 17 days done though

 

[seobaina]

Monday = BLIZZARD BEACH!

We needed a ‘chill by the pool’ day – well, actually we probably didn’t need it cause we’d been fairly relaxed up until now. But we’d planned the schedule before getting to Orlando (told you, military operation) and according to our schedule it was ‘chill by the pool’ day. So off to Blizzard Beach we went . We’d never been here before so we were kinda excited to see it.

If you’ve never been either then the theming in BB is really fun. There are more big rides here than TL and because of that I probably prefer TL (I’m getting too old and wussy ) but I still liked BB.

We quickly located a fairly shady spot and laid out our towels ready for a later relax

Then it was off to the lazy river and some rides.

I dunno if you’ve ever tried to stay together on the lazy river but it’s virtually impossible. One of us kept getting way ahead of the other and we finally gave up. Using hand signals we tried to signal where we would meet each other and just about managed .

Off the river, we went for a walk and ice cream – gotta have hot fudge! On our walk we came across this section.

It looked so much fun but unfortunately….

So sadly us big kids moved on . Heading back to the deck chairs we read for a while before hitting the wave pool.

Again, you can see how well we did sticking together LOL

Ready to leave the park we got dressed and decided to do one of the ‘musts’ we had for the trip – getting Disney tattoos. We actually planned on our other ‘musts’ to be BBB (done), wearing Minnie ears (to come), wearing a mickey hat (to come) and face-painting. We failed on the face painting but we’re still not sure what happened.

Anyway, tattoo wise, after a LOT of debate, Karen went for the Cheshire cat

And I went for a pirates one (I love pirates)

Then, before we left we found a photopass photographer (we’d pre-ordered the cd along with some other dis’ers, so we wanted to make the most of it).

The photographer asked us where we wanted to pose and we said ‘anywhere’. She told us that some people refused to have their photo taken by the snowman family

We thought this was kinda sad so we made a point of taking photos of it and near it. She also added stitch to one of our bench pics.

 

[seobaina]

We had ADRs for the evening but still had some time, so we figured we’d take a quick trip back to the Mall for my M&Ms. We went through the back entrance this time and I’m sorry, but we just had to play

While we were walking around in the store, one of their staff members (who had served us last time) laughed and said ‘you didn’t eat all of those already did you?’. When I explained what had happened with the stolen sweets/candy, she said ‘that won’t do’ and gave us two mix bags free, which was incredibly nice of her!

Laden down with chocolate once more (most of which I promise were gifts cause you do m&m flavours we just don’t have), we headed back to the hotel to change for our ADR. Then it was off to the Contemporary Hotel. I have to give a nod to the dis’ers for this one in particular cause I never would have thought of eating at the California Grill if it wasn’t for recommendations on here so THANK YOU!!!

We parked up, headed inside and checked-in.

Yet again I’d like to give thanks to the dis’ers for their tips because we’d asked for a window seat during the fireworks. I asked the cast member again about the chances of a window seat when we checked in and she said she couldn’t guarentee but would see what she could do. Then we went up to the bar and waiting area.

After a few moments we were shown to our table and we had the most amazing seats. We couldn’t have asked for a better spot. Just look at our view:

Not only did we have a clear view of the fireworks from there but we also managed to watch the electric water parade while eating.

Our waiter came over and he was GREAT!!! He knew I was a cast member and asked what we were here celebrating. When I told him it was a birthday trip he said ‘where’s your badge’. It was actually still in my bag so he told me to wear it. Then he sat down at the table and discussed all the menu options with us. You see, some things are known by different names in the USA and we needed to check (cause I can be fussy). He spent ages with us and basically said ‘what do you want to eat cause that’s what I’ll get you’. He couldn’t have been nicer.

Anyway, on his recommendation we shared a starter. It was basically garlic bread but soooooo yummy.

Then we ordered our main courses. Food Porn time!
This was Karen’s

And I had the chicken

Her meal was ok but mine was SOOOOOOOOO good. At this point the fireworks had started and although we could see them, we decided to go join some of the other guests out on the balcony. It’s a great view from there and a lovely atmosphere. Our waiter was the one who actually told us to go outside. He said he wouldn’t clear our food away while we were gone or let anyone pinch our table .

Coming back inside he asked if we wanted dessert. We said yes we were planning to share one and he looked down the menu with us (again sitting at our table). After a moment he said ‘well, you could order one of these or you could just trust me to bring you the best dessert we have…that’s not even on the menu’. We looked puzzled at him then shrugged an ‘ok, we’ll trust you’, so he asked if we liked chocolate. After laughing that we were women, of course we liked chocolate, he disappeared to the kitchen and came back with this:

It was free-of-charge and ABSOLUTELY delicious. We shared it between us, which we needed to do cause it was also rich. But soooo good!

After dinner and BIG thank you's to our waiter (along with a big tip) we went to have a look around the contemporary resort. They were near to closing some of the shops for the night so they were quiet. We spent some time talking to the cast members there (one of whom was English and we saw again in EPCOT later in the holiday). They were all really friendly and we were there too long…finally saying ‘shouldn’t you guys be closed by now?’. So leaving them to it we headed back to POFQ for our beds.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Subbing until I have time to read it all! The only way I surviving the waiting until our next Disney vacation is by reading trip reports and looking at pics!

 

[seobaina]

Subbing until I have time to read it all! The only way I surviving the waiting until our next Disney vacation is by reading trip reports and looking at pics!

To be honest that's why I'm writing this now. We are hoping to do WDW next year but nothing booked yet and poss talk of postponing til 2011. Don't think I can survive that long So I'm reliving this one!

Btw, you'll LOVE pop. After looking round all the others we decided it's pretty much our fave!

 

[lizet313]

I'm on board trying to catch up the view from the second post so breath taking I think it was from the plane. WOW can't wait to actually catch up

 

[ZeroToHero]

I really hope the talking trashcan isn't gone! He was one of my favorite parts of the parks!

Meanwhile, I'm loving your trip report, and can't wait to hear more!

 

[smithpack]

I can not believe somebody stole your M&M's. I am loving all the pics, and food porn!!! I am so glad you decided to finish your TR. Keep the updates coming.

 

[shebaxric]

Thank you Working on more as we speak. You guys will be sick of this by the time I get all 17 days done though

I think most of us wish we could have 17 days!!! We don't usually get that much time off of work.

I am seriously enjoying this by the way.

 

[seobaina]

I think most of us wish we could have 17 days!!! We don't usually get that much time off of work.

I am seriously enjoying this by the way.

Thank you - and thanks everyone else for the nice comments.

Ah, see we get more days off in one go because we have hardly any bank/public holidays. I get 4-5 weeks holiday to take during the year but I work most public holidays instead (I get one day off at christmas). We need it - it's a long way to fly for a week...although I still would if I could

 

[jenseib]

Great report. Where are you a CM at? Is it a Disney store over there? Or something else?
Sounds like you had a blast. I wish we could go for 17 days too.

 

[seobaina]

Great report. Where are you a CM at? Is it a Disney store over there? Or something else?
Sounds like you had a blast. I wish we could go for 17 days too.

Thanks, I'm really enjoying yours too

I'm a cast member at a store in my home town (chester). I was an opening team member there, left for a couple of years then came back (part time). I did take part in the Pocahontas Animation Discovery Adventure during my time out from the stores - I was living in maryland at the time. And luckily for us, TDS Europe has always remained part of the company unlike TDS USA which has been a bit back and forth in recent years.