1st Trip (of many!) as Mr. & Mrs.--the TR-- UPDATE 9/9: Life Update--We're Moving!!

[stacikristine]

Continued from previous



Now that we were completely soaked, we decided it was time to take a ride on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad to try to dry off a little.

I think that it was posted that there was a 15 minute wait time, but it ended up being a little over 20. Oh well, it was still great!!! And we got in the front car!

Once our Mountain rides were over, we decided it was time to visit those good ole pirates! Oh, and it was a little before 11:00 at this time, which meant we’d made REALLY good time the whole morning!

It said there was a 5 minute wait, but it was really just walking…

These older ladies were walking in front of us, and they kept trying to take the wrong way. I felt so sorry for them! They said they couldn’t see anything in these dark halls. We ended up getting in front of them to help them go the right way (and then we let them back in front, of course).

We enjoyed the ride! Michael loved going through Barbosa’s face! He didn’t really remember the ride very much from when he came as a kid, but he liked all of the updates and seeing Jack throughout the ride.



We fought in the gift shop,

And watched a little bit of the Pirate Tutorial

And then headed out of Adventureland.

Aah. I don’t care where you take a picture of the castle, it’s just gorgeous!

We walked around the Hub (I’m pretty sure there was some sort of show going on), and continued on to Tomorrowland

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[stacikristine]

Continued from previous




But not without some PhotoPass Pictures!

Where were we going? To one of Michael’s “Top 5 Must Do’s”—Stitch’s Great Escape! I know that you all warned him to not go on this, but he really, really, really wanted to. He’d backed out as a kid, and he’d always regretted it. So now was his chance.

The Verdict? We really liked it!! And no, I’m not kidding! There was no wait, and we thought the effects were cute. I took everyone’s advice and held my nose during the “hot dog burp”, but other than that, we enjoyed it. We’ll be doing this again next time!




We decided to go the back way to Fantasyland so we could see Cinderella’s Wishing Well

We tried to get FPs for PhilharMagic, but they weren’t distributing them since the crowds were practically non-existent. Oh, well. We knew we’d be back to MK again!





We took these on our way out. There’s something just so magical about Main Street.

It was 12:30, and we hadn’t had lunch yet, but we decided to just go to our next destination and eat there.


We exited the park, saw a lonely PhotoPass Guy, and scanned our tickets to enter again. It was time for a photo shoot!

These were another case of the “oops—they forgot to put in the magic” pictures. Where are the balloons?

I couldn’t decided if it worked better as a “Runaway Fiancé” picture

Or a Halloween Chasing

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[stacikristine]

Continued from previous






Anyway, after our little photo shoot at the MK entrance, we hopped on the monorail to:









The Contemporary!

Michael was excited to visit here since this is where his family stayed last time. And we decided to just eat here since we had a special plan for that afternoon. So we were off to the Contempo Café

We loved these little ordering kiosks!

We decided to split a pepperoni flatbread and a bagel (1 counter and 1 snack). Later, we went back and got another bagel for me to take back to the room and save for breakfasts. Everything was really yummy! This ended up being one of my favorite lunches of the week! I could really go for one of those flatbreads right now…

After we relaxed and took our time at lunch, we decided to explore a little bit.

Bay Lake Towers look SO cool!

We had to get a picture in the Mickey Ears (I thought about your family, Tink!)

Then, it was time to spend some of our extra fun money we’d been given before the trip! I think I mentioned this back on day 1, but we saw the Sea Raycers at DTD, and decided to come back to the Contemporary and rent them one day! Again, this was special for Michael because his family rented them last time, but he was too little to be able to drive it. We rented a Sea Raycer for 40 minutes (and got to take advantage of the DVC discount!!), put our stuff in a locker, and were ready to go!


I was really bummed that they made us sign a form saying we wouldn’t take our camera on the boats (I’m sure it’s for liability reasons), but I’m glad there was no chance I could ruin it with the water. We had SUCH an enjoyable ride! We were going to switch about half-way through and let me drive, but I was enjoying riding along so much that I decided to just let Michael drive.


We went around to Fort Wilderness, the Wilderness Lodge, Magic Kingdom, the Grand Floridian, the Polynesian, and came back to the Contemporary area to just ride around. It was gorgeous! And it was so, so peaceful. We loved our time out there together. What a fun little addition to the trip!


Since we couldn’t take pictures of us actually on the water, we snapped a few before we left:

We ended up deciding to walk back to the Magic Kingdom after our ride. There was an Animal Kingdom Lodge bus waiting for us when we got there! We left at 2:44.


Relaxed and refreshed, we decided to stop at Kidani Village on our way “home”. We pulled into Kidani at 3:00.

Their lobby is beautiful, but we were actually a little let down after we’d been in Jambo House. It was just so tiny! I think we were both expecting something different. It was very, very pretty though. I think it does have more of a “vacation home” feel, which works well for DVC, but we liked the huge-ness of the Jambo House lobby better.


It did have a gorgeous view through their little mini-Jambo House window, though

And these light fixtures were awesome!

Everything was super peaceful here. In my opinion, it was even more peaceful than the Grand Floridian! The theming was fantastic as well.

These girls were playing the drums and singing outside of Sanaa. They were having a blast!

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[stacikristine]

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I must say, their observation area is fantastic! It seems like they have more animals—or at least the animals get a lot closer. I loved just being so close and taking a ton of pictures!

Some of the rooms

And the back of the lobby

It felt like we were really on the savannah with the animals!


I really liked this light fixture! It went along perfectly with their bead theme.

Here’s another shot of the lobby. It was beautiful!

Right after I took this picture, I heard my name. It was Crocko!! “Hi John!” We made proper introductions, and chatted for a while. They’d had a wonderful week so far, too. It was so great running into another DISer—and especially one from Oklahoma!



After we met Crocko, we decided it was time to head back to Jambo House so we could get ready for dinner. These are some (more) pictures of our lobby. I guess we’re just partial, but we loved it much more!

By this time, it was 3:45, and we had to get ready so that we could try to catch the PhotoPass guy in the lobby before we left for our 5:00 dinner reservation.



It had been a FANTASTIC day! We’d accomplished so, so much at Magic Kingdom, and enjoyed a relaxing break at the Contemporary and touring Kidani. We couldn’t ask for more!




Up Next:
Are we going to make it?!
Our by far favorite meal of the trip!
A few more firsts
New Wishes viewing spot

 

[haleofafamily]

To prove what a true Disney nerd I am - I put in my Wishes CD to listen to as I read your update
We finally got our kids to go on Haunted Mansion. We actually made them and they were so mad at us in the line and stretching room. After the ride, they were very apologetic for their attitudes and for some it was their new favorite ride. Glad y'all liked it too.

 

[jenny105]

I can't believe you've never been on HM before! I love, love, LOVE that ride! I think we went on it about 3 or 4 times.

That is the only spot where you get soaked on Splash, if you have the misfortune of being outside the tunnel when another boat comes down. That's happened to us on our January trip a couple years ago and we were FREEZING!

Love all your pictures!

 

[stacikristine]

To prove what a true Disney nerd I am - I put in my Wishes CD to listen to as I read your update
We finally got our kids to go on Haunted Mansion. We actually made them and they were so mad at us in the line and stretching room. After the ride, they were very apologetic for their attitudes and for some it was their new favorite ride. Glad y'all liked it too.

Haha! Awesome! That's such a good CD! Parents know best--they should have just listened to you! We really enjoyed it!

I can't believe you've never been on HM before! I love, love, LOVE that ride! I think we went on it about 3 or 4 times.

That is the only spot where you get soaked on Splash, if you have the misfortune of being outside the tunnel when another boat comes down. That's happened to us on our January trip a couple years ago and we were FREEZING!

Love all your pictures!

I know! I could just never get anyone to ride it with me! But never again...from now on, we WILL be on that ride at least once each trip! Oh my goodness, it was horrible! I was SOO wishing I'd put on my poncho! Oh, no. I guess I'm at least glad it wasn't freezing! Thanks!

 

[LilAnn]

I love that when you update, we got such a long update! It's so much fun to read! I also can't believe that you haven't done HM before!? I love it and have to ride it at least once each time. I still can't get over how much you guys got accomplished in one morning! That's crazy! I need to look into visiting during off peak times for sure.

 

[Dancegrl624]

Another great update! Your wait times at MK remind me of our 2nd day there back in January. Almost everything was 5 minutes!!! It's too bad about them forgetting to put the balloons in your pic. It would have looked so cute! I always love your creative and fun poses. My DH totally wouldn't do anything like that. He's such a party pooper sometimes!!! I can't wait to read more!

 

[hkrox]

Great update like always. It's so great that you guys like didn't have to wait for anything. I can't believe you never went on Haunted Mansion until this last trip. That rides so fun. And it's so surprising that you got so wet on Splash Mountain. That rides usually nice when you just wanna get a little wet so you can cool off. So was Stitch's Great Escape really that good? I've never gone to it cuz I've heard it's really bad.

 

[blabbermouth]

wow, great update! I still can't get over how quiet it is. Love your ideas for the missing balloons photo! Too funny.

 

[praisehisname]

Great update! You really did get a long done this day. The sea raycers sound really fun. I love all your photo pass pictures, and can't wait to see the ones from before dinner!

 

[tinkgurl]

This was a great update! Loved the Castle shots!

Oh my gosh, we always get wet at that part on Splash too! Next time, I'm bringing a poncho! I don't remember it always being like that though.

Oh BTMRR! B/F and I always end up laughing on this one.

We had walk-on's like that on PoTC the whole trip! It was awesome, but we couldn't believe it was that short for June!

Aw, the Mickey ears! I'm so glad you thought of me too!

Wow, AKV is so nice! It does look peaceful there!

 

[bballdiva]

I noticed You guys have a lot of beautiful pics of both of you together that don't seem to be "photo pass" pics...did you have a small tri-pod are did you just found a lot of very nice people to take pics for you??? I always find on our trips we don't have many pics of us together (your pics are great by the way).

 

[amandaluvsgoofy]

What a fun day!! Sorry about you getting soaked on Splash Mountain, but at least it was nice outside! And I LOVE the fall theme at MK!! Makes me wonder if we should try and plan our next trip around Halloween or Christmas...hmmm??
Can't wait to read more!!

 

[cdotla]

Great updates!!!

I can't wait to hear all about your favourite meal!

 

[xoktenox]

I'm back and only missed one update! Good deal LOL What a wonderful morning at the MK! You guys got so much done, I think your crowds were even less than ours were last week.

I'm shocked you guys like Stitch's Great Escape! I think that ride is so stupid so I'm glad there are people out there that enjoy it! To each their own, right?

Renting the Sea Raycers sounds so much fun! We were thinking about doing it while we were at DTD but we figured they were really expensive. Do you remember how much it cost if you don't mine me asking?

Isn't Kidani so pretty?! I agree, it's definitely less grand and big than Jambo House so it does give it a different feel. We went to Jambo House at night for Boma and it was breathtaking. We still liked our little Kidani Village though! I think (actually I know) you got better/more pictures of the outside viewing area than we got our whole trip staying there

 

[ariel1025]

Hi Staci! HM is one of our favorite rides - we always go on it several times during our trips

Also, thank you so much for all your pictures of AKL. I have fallen in love with Jambo House so much from your pictures that we have decided to book our anniversary trip there. We stayed at Kidani this time around and absolutely love AKL - can't wait to see Jambo!!

 

[stacikristine]

I love that when you update, we got such a long update! It's so much fun to read! I also can't believe that you haven't done HM before!? I love it and have to ride it at least once each time. I still can't get over how much you guys got accomplished in one morning! That's crazy! I need to look into visiting during off peak times for sure.

That's just me forgetting to update, and then being really bored at work... I know...no one I was with ever wanted to go on it! We love it now, though!! Definitely look into non-peak times. It's SO nice to not have huge waits! We could stay at Disney for fewer days and get more done than staying for longer during a peak time!

Another great update! Your wait times at MK remind me of our 2nd day there back in January. Almost everything was 5 minutes!!! It's too bad about them forgetting to put the balloons in your pic. It would have looked so cute! I always love your creative and fun poses. My DH totally wouldn't do anything like that. He's such a party pooper sometimes!!! I can't wait to read more!

Thanks! Those wait times were incredible!! We were really lucky with the crowd levels. I had a feeling January would be like that too... We were bummed they forgot them. But we *might* get another later on! Sorry your DH won't do crazy poses--we're a little too crazy sometimes. But at least it's fun! haha...

Great update like always. It's so great that you guys like didn't have to wait for anything. I can't believe you never went on Haunted Mansion until this last trip. That rides so fun. And it's so surprising that you got so wet on Splash Mountain. That rides usually nice when you just wanna get a little wet so you can cool off. So was Stitch's Great Escape really that good? I've never gone to it cuz I've heard it's really bad.

Thanks! I know--it was incredible. The non-waits were the best! We love HM now!! The last time I rode Splash (before this trip) it wasn't bad at all, but this time we were soaked!! I can't speak for everyone, but Michael and I liked Stitch. But some hate it...but there's never a wait, so you might as well try it!

wow, great update! I still can't get over how quiet it is. Love your ideas for the missing balloons photo! Too funny.

Thanks! It was so empty practically every day. There was never a big wait for anything! Haha--thanks. I had to redeem it somehow.

Great update! You really did get a long done this day. The sea raycers sound really fun. I love all your photo pass pictures, and can't wait to see the ones from before dinner!

Thank you!! Yes--and the day isn't even over! They were really great. They don't go fast, but it's relaxing--which is just what we needed. We loved taking some before dinner. I'll post in the next few days.

This was a great update! Loved the Castle shots!

Oh my gosh, we always get wet at that part on Splash too! Next time, I'm bringing a poncho! I don't remember it always being like that though.

Oh BTMRR! B/F and I always end up laughing on this one.

We had walk-on's like that on PoTC the whole trip! It was awesome, but we couldn't believe it was that short for June!

Aw, the Mickey ears! I'm so glad you thought of me too!

Wow, AKV is so nice! It does look peaceful there!

Thanks Tink! I love all Castle shots...it's just so gorgeous! Seriously--never again will I ride Splash without one!! I didn't get wet at all last time. Oh well--we eventually dried. BTMRR is a goodie! I think it must have still been super popular b/c of the movies the last time I was at Disney because PoTC had one of the longest waits last time. I'm glad it was down this trip! We had to take the Mickey Ears pic when we saw it! It was so peaceful to visit...

I noticed You guys have a lot of beautiful pics of both of you together that don't seem to be "photo pass" pics...did you have a small tri-pod are did you just found a lot of very nice people to take pics for you??? I always find on our trips we don't have many pics of us together (your pics are great by the way).

Thanks! No, we didn't have a tripod. There were a few pictures (at the Christmas store in DTD and at the Mickey Ears this day) that we sat on something and used the timer. But most of them we'd just ask a nice person to take it or offer to "trade" with someone--I'd take their family's and they'd take ours. We also took tons of "arm length" pics.

What a fun day!! Sorry about you getting soaked on Splash Mountain, but at least it was nice outside! And I LOVE the fall theme at MK!! Makes me wonder if we should try and plan our next trip around Halloween or Christmas...hmmm??
Can't wait to read more!!

It was so great!! And it's not even over yet! I was drenched. But I was almost dry by the time we left. YES!! You should definitely try to go during fall or winter next time--it's just so gorgeous! We want to go during Christmas next time.

Great updates!!!

I can't wait to hear all about your favourite meal!

Thank you!! I can't wait to tell about it. It was actually a back-up location!

I'm back and only missed one update! Good deal LOL What a wonderful morning at the MK! You guys got so much done, I think your crowds were even less than ours were last week.

I'm shocked you guys like Stitch's Great Escape! I think that ride is so stupid so I'm glad there are people out there that enjoy it! To each their own, right?

Renting the Sea Raycers sounds so much fun! We were thinking about doing it while we were at DTD but we figured they were really expensive. Do you remember how much it cost if you don't mine me asking?

Isn't Kidani so pretty?! I agree, it's definitely less grand and big than Jambo House so it does give it a different feel. We went to Jambo House at night for Boma and it was breathtaking. We still liked our little Kidani Village though! I think (actually I know) you got better/more pictures of the outside viewing area than we got our whole trip staying there

YAY! I'm glad you made it back! I'm so excited to read about your trip! We went with TourGuide Mike's suggestions, and I'm SO happy with the results! The crowds were minimal. Haha--yep. We liked Stitch! But there are tons of attractions that we don't like that others do...I guess we just have a funny sense of humor/likes. The Sea Raycers were great. They weren't fast--so you'll be disappointed if you think they're like wave runners, but they're a good break. I don't have my binder with me, but I'm pretty sure it was around $35 for 30 minutes. So not bad at all! Plus, you get 15% off with DVC (even if you're renting). And just for the record, I don't have a problem sharing any money stuff--we got great deals, and I love passing them on! YES! Kidani is so pretty and peaceful. haha--I'm just a picture freak!

Hi Staci! HM is one of our favorite rides - we always go on it several times during our trips

Also, thank you so much for all your pictures of AKL. I have fallen in love with Jambo House so much from your pictures that we have decided to book our anniversary trip there. We stayed at Kidani this time around and absolutely love AKL - can't wait to see Jambo!!

HM was so great--we'll for sure ride it every time from now on! YAY!! I'm so glad you've fallen in love with AKL now. We just loved it there. Kidani was so pretty in a quaint way, but we LOVED Jambo House!!

 

[princess_momma]

You always have such amazing super posts when you update!! I love it!! Unfortunately I don't have much time to write a full reply! But I loved it. I loved your description of everything and your pics look professional! I just love it!! Can't wait for more!