3 Caballeros, 11 nights, 4 parks, 1 world & lots of PICS!!!!

[seobaina]

We actually planned to get the bus to the Mall but we figured we'd take a look at the lego store and pop into World of Disney on our route to the bus stop.

They had the Toy Story lego in, which we got very excited about

We literally walked through World of Disney and the Sports store (think it's Team D) but I, of course, found time for photos on the way.

I love the fact that the Stitch 'spits' at you LOL Made us giggle.

This is their attempt at Stitch faces.

I found Andy's fave inside the sports store.

Then we caught the bus from across the road at DTD to the Mall. Took about 40 mins but it was very cheap (couple $ each)

 

[seobaina]

We walked into the back entrance of the Mall by the M&Ms store, which I love cause of the huge characters outside.

I have posed by these in the past but obviously the others hadn't, so we stopped for a few mins to do so.

We then did some SERIOUS shopping. Andy was thrilled cause due to a mix up in which store we headed into, he actually fit in a boys medium t-shirt in Abacrombie LOL. I spent about $50 in Bath & Body, which is always bad for me because I LOVE the 'vanilla sugar' and I can't get it in the UK. It's kinda my signature fragrance. Believe it or not but we also spent a fortune in the Disney Store. LOL yes, I know, we work in one and we were in WDW but they had some cool stuff I'd not seen elsewhere. We mostly bought t-shirts for our nieces and nephews but we also found some Mermaid items for a fellow cast member back home, etc. And I bought a couple of the reusable shoppers cause they are different to the UK ones. On the way out of the mall we bought some American candy (I LOVE hersey caramel kisses) and Jenni bought a new friend. She loves Giraffes and she found, in the last store, a small giraffe. He was the last one and very cute, so she couldn't resist. We named him 'Abe' after the gentleman we'd seen on the first day (There's a pic of him in tomorrows photos). Mall done we headed for the bus back to DTD.

So, whatta you do when you've shopped all day? Shop some more of course. We spent the next few hours at DTD and spent sooooo much we couldn't carry all the bags LOL.

We split up in World of Disney and set a time to meet but had to set another time because non of us had finished when we first met up LOL

I had to take a photo of this sign because it had Pocahontas on it as a princess...finally!

We mostly shopped for things to take home but we did get a few things for ourselves.

Our first big mistake was going into Art of Disney (again I love this). I could by 90% of that store if I had money.
I loved this picture.

Andy bought a Daisy Duck classics piece and they both gave me birthday money towards the Tiana Classics piece for me. I love her!
We tried the 'Make Your Own' t-shirt store for the first time and I've gotta say I'm a little mixed. I was very disappointed at the character range (no Pocahontas for a start and no Kronk for Jenni). Jenni decided not to make one but Andy and I went ahead. We originally thought it would be funny to have a Jasmine t-shirt (whom I also love) with the quote "I wish I was Pocahontas". But we weren't allowed to have that because of 'character integrity' aparently So we frantically came up with a quote from Aladdin. We went for 'They're after me? They're after you' but in hindsight I wish I'd put 'Sometimes you just feel so trapped'. Andy made a Daisy t-shirt with the word 'Fit' on it, which he was only allowed after saying 'fit' meant cool, amazing, etc. Although it's probably better described as 'hot' or 'awesome'. They were gonna take a while to do and it was late so we had them delivered to the hotel and went on to do more shopping LOL

Finally shopped out we went back to the hotel.

 

[seobaina]

Next morning was a VERY early morning as we had a Chef Mickey's reservation for about 7am. We'd asked the night before about the busses and been told if we go stand in the queue area the camera would see us and a bus would come for us. Needless to say, this didn't happen until about 6:50. We were worried that we'd miss the reservation, as were the other two families stood with us (one also for Chef Mickeys and another for the Polynesian). Our driver was fantastic though and dropped us at the various hotels rather than at Magic Kingdom. Thanks to him we made it just a few mins late, which luckily was not a problem.

I love Chef Mickey's, it's my fave. When we checked in they asked if we were celebrating anything this holiday and we said we were but had been delayed getting there. See originally we were gonna do Chef Mickey's on Andy and my birthday. Anyway, when we sat down they gave us these:

Honestly, it was a little early for cake but still lovely of them to do it and we had a little...which was yummy!

It was early and I knew we had a big lunch booked so i didn't go crazy. Andy and Jenni however pigged out LOL Here's a food porn photo.

During all the food, we finally got to meet the fab five. Here come the photos...

First we met Goofy, who almost took out Andy's eye LOL

Then came Minnie, who Andy normally doesn't like but did today

The the main mouse himself

The Donald - we told him he was number one, so he loved us!

And finally, one of my faves...Pluto.

 

[seobaina]

After breakfast we decided to go in to Magic Kingdom. To be honest we were actually planning to go to Hollywood Studios for the day but we were so close and it was so early we figured we'd try to meet the fairies. I'd heard on the forums that the best time to meet them was to get there are Toontown opening. So that's what we aimed to do.

We did plan to go straight to Toontown but we walked in the gates and there was Daisy. We had a breakfast booked to meet her but Andy couldn't resist and there was hardly any queue, so we figured 'why not?'. She left for a drink of water when we were second in line *rolls eyes* but she was only a couple of minutes. Andy almost burst with excitement LOL.

As we came out of the line we realised there was no queue for Pinocchio either, so we ran over to meet him.

I took a photo of this over by Tonys.

Then we decided to head to Toontown as originally planned. It was getting busy on Main Street so we walked through the shops. The castle wasn't busy yet, so I literally snapped this pic as we ran past.

 

[seobaina]

On our way we past the teacups and almost literally bumped into Alice. She had no line at all, so we stopped once again. She was really cool and spoke to us all about tea etc back in England LOL.

With all the delays, by the time we got to Toontown and the Judges tent, there was a 45 minute wait for them. There was a seperate line for the princesses with a shorter wait time but I knew we could find them elsewhere, so we figured we'd just wait for Tink. We were a little dissappointed that there were only two fairies (I'd kinda wanted to meet Silvermist) but the two we had were fantastic!

We were second in line and while waiting, Tink and Rosetta ran out chasing each other and ran back in...which woke everyone in line up LOL.

When we finally made it in there, we met Rosetta first. She got very excited about the books we'd made and showed Tink. Tink decided that I had to be a tinker fairy myself as I'd made them LOL. We also told them that Andy was a Peter Pan, which made Tink give him a few strange looks before we said he was 'like' him not actually him

 

[seobaina]

We decided as we were already here, we'd take a look around Toontown. First stop, naturally, was Mickey's house.

Then we had a look around Donald's ship (have to say it needs a bit of repair work but I guess with the expansions...)

Finally, we headed into Minnie's house

Before we left Toontown, we thought we'd go on barnstormer. I don't think I've ever done this before...or not since I was 16. It was fun, not very long but actually kinda wild for little kids.


As we were having a character day, we thought we'd see if Tiana was home on our way out of Magic Kingdom. She was but they were closing the line. The cm told us she'd be back in twenty minutes, so we decided to stay. While waiting we chatted to the cm and other guests and it was actually fun. Then finally we got to go down to meet Tiana and Naveen.

 

[seobaina]

On our way out of the park we also happened to walk past Crystal Palace where there was a photopass photographer with no line. I took a chance and asked if she could do any special photos and she said yes. So we took a few more.

 

[seobaina]

At this point I should point out that Jenni normally gets 8hrs sleep a night - Last night on the trip, we got five. Andy and I were fine with this, Jenni however? Well, imagine having to drag a corpse around with you and you'd be close. On the bus from MK to HS she dozed off. She kept falling forward and did wake up each time she almost toppled over but there were several moments where the neighbouring guests (or Andy) were about to grab her lol.

About halfway there a group of teens, who were apparently there to sing, decided to sing Happy Birthday to Andy and I (individually), which was so sweet of them. By the second round they had woken up Jenni LOL

Our first stop at HS was Moma Melrose where we had a late lunch reservation. Yeah, I know we had a big breakfast but when everything fell through with the Volcano delay we kinda had to take what we could get and this was the only slot they had for a fantasmic! package.

I've not eaten at Mama Melrose before and I've gotta say...I LOVED it! We were given paper chef's hats to wear and our server was so nice. She found me funny because I don't like tomato and kept having to ask for things without it LOL Anyway, here's the food porn (the 4 cheese flatbread was soooooooooooo good!):

We ate sooooooooooooooooooo much and I swear we vowed never to eat again afterwards LOL


We figured, because we could barely move, we should go do the backstage tour. On the way there we walked by the streets of America and, naturally, posed for a photopass photographer. She even let us take some photos with a couple of friends.

 

[seobaina]

I like the backstage tour because I like to see some of the old props and things. I think they could do a lot more with it but for what it is, it's fun. Something especially good this time was that they had lots of Pirates stuff and I love pirates! For those who have never done it, here are some photos.

Btw, this is Abe.

At the end of the tour is an exhibit on movie villains.

 

[seobaina]

The backstage tour exits you near the meet & greet area for Mike and Sulley, so we thought we'd go say hi. Gotta say...VERY dissappointing. I've met them before and they've been lovely but this time they were just kinda 'there'. I understand it was pretty hot that day but they literally didn't move. There was no interaction at all...and you can see how far away from Mike I'm stood. They just stood there, we positioned ourselves around them, took a photo and left. Not good!

We kinda laughed about it and wandered back around to towards Moma Melrose. As we were walking we saw Bolt. I've never seen Bolt before so we were very excited. We asked if we could still join the short line and the cm with him said absolutely but be aware that if it starts with the thunder & lightning, then Bolt has to go in (apparently he's not great in rain and it certainly looked like it was about to rain). Luckily it held off and we got to meet him.

The CM with bolt was great and we were chatting with him quite a bit. He told us to wait because Bolt was going in but Jessie would be coming out. We waited and ended up first in line.

Jessie was fantastic and the cm's were great. Jenni went up first and as soon as Jessie saw her page in the autograph book, she got REALLY excited. We were all laughing (including the cm with her) and calling her 'Americas Next Top Model'.

She finally calmed down enough to pose with us and it went fine for Jenni and I.

Then Andy went up. It was fine to start wtih and she posed like this:

THEN, she saw Andy's name and collapsed on the floor.

It took us ages to work out what she was doing (even the cm was confused) but then we suddenly twigged that she was pretending to be a toy because of 'Andy' LOL. We fell about and the cm (whose name I've forgotten) was laughing loudly with us. It took us a while but we eventually explained that it wasn't THE Andy, so she got up. Andy said she was amazing and they took one last photo together.

 

[jenseib]

Wow! You've been an updating fool! I'm fianlly caught up. We've had a fw nice days, and I haven't been on the computer as much.
Looks like alot of fun. Mama Melroses food looks so good. I might have to put that on the list! (it keeps getting bigger)

 

[seobaina]

Wow! You've been an updating fool! I'm fianlly caught up. We've had a fw nice days, and I haven't been on the computer as much.
Looks like alot of fun. Mama Melroses food looks so good. I might have to put that on the list! (it keeps getting bigger)

it is good! The only reason I've not put it on my list for next year is because I'm going with someone with food allergies who would struggle here...otherwise...YUM!

 

[seobaina]

We still had some time before Fantasmic so we figured we'd go do a few things we'd not done before or things we wanted to do again. On our way around to the front of the park we came across the NBC cafe and Andy had to dash inside to see what they had. It's kinda cool to see the odd prop around the place. Here's just a couple.

Ty's megaphone

From there we went on Star Tours again because the line was ten minutes, if that. I LOVE the way Disney dump you into a store at the end LOL

We decided to go back and see One Man's story again, as we hadn't really looked at the exhibit and someone had talked through it last time. On our way there I just grabbed a couple of photos (as you do)

And then we went in the fabulous exhibit

Walt desk

This photo makes me cry because we did Keys to The Kingdom tour in 2008 and the cm told us a lovely story about Why Mickey is stood there with Roy.

So true

Then we finally made our way to the seats in Fantasmic. It was kinda funny cause there weren't really any cm's guiding us backstage but I've done this before so I strode off along the route and all the other guests followed me blindly LOL. We got really good seats.

I LOVE Fantasmic! It's my fave show in Disney and I love the atmosphere beforehand.

We had to take a photo of this lady because she was just so happy and bubbly. She laughed when we took her pic and we weren't the only group to do it LOL

After that we sat down to enjoy the show. I don't have pics because I filmed it...it's still amazing though and the others loved it too Oh and 'bird corpse' was still in the window on our way out.

 

[seobaina]

Back to Animal Kingdom

We had another early start due to a booking at Donald's Safari breakfast. I'd never done this before and was curious about it but we'd booked it mainly because of Andy's...shall we say obsession...with Daisy Duck.

One really cool thing about this type of booking, is that you have to get to the park before it opens and walk all the way to Asia. You obviously can't go on anything but you can take photos of a virtually empty park.

We were actually too early when we got there and they seemed to have a backlog. The cm on the desk told us to come back in half an hour and she would make sure that we were registered and wouldn't lose our place. It sounded a little complicated but it did mean we could go for a wander. We decided first of all to head up to Pangani Forrest Trail and I'm so glad we did.

We started off seeing some of the normal animals.

But then the cm told us to hurry down the trail because a mummy Gorilla was sat by the glass with her baby. It's not the best photo because the glass was dirty and reflecting the sun but...

She moved about ten minutes after we got there and disappeared for the rest of the day into the thicker trees. The baby was so cute and we were so lucky to see her.

We wandered round the rest of the trail, seeing some of the rest of the Gorilla family,

before grabbing a Safari fastpass and heading to a store (now open) to kill some time.

We wandered back to the restaurant and were told to take a seat in the waiting area. It was already getting hot and we had a LONG wait, which didn't put the others (now hungry) in the best of moods. By the time we met Donald, they were starving

However, we did eventually make it inside and had just enough time to get some breakfast before Mickey arrived.

I learnt an important lesson this morning. Don't ever let Andy take a photo *rolls eyes*. He put his finger over the lense and this, for the rest of the holiday, became known as 'ghost finger'.

 

[jenseib]

I'm looking at doing that breakfast for our next trip. How was the food?

 

[disneyshakeygirl]

I'm finally caught up! I burst out laughing at the ghost finger and got very weird looks

 

[seobaina]

I'm looking at doing that breakfast for our next trip. How was the food?

It was pretty good. Fairly standard buffet but lots of it and yum. We were REALLY slow sitting down though, so be warned. You kinda wait for ages and then go have a photo with Donald...which they then try to sell you. We didn't buy it but, to be fair, they took a photo for us on our camera too. The food itself was a mix of bagels, pancakes, fruit, cereals, cooked etc. The others ate loads. Sorry i didn't take photos of it but it's pretty similar to Chef Mickeys.

I'm finally caught up! I burst out laughing at the ghost finger and got very weird looks

LOL Sorry about that. Ghost finger will return in more posts

 

[seobaina]

The next visitor that morning was the one Andy had been waiting for - Miss Daisy!

To say he was pleased to see her is an understatement. In fact, he told Daisy that if she ever got fed up with Donald, he would marry her LOL

Then the rest of us got to meet her. It's not a flattering photo but at least there is no ghost finger

Then we met Goofy. Goofy nearly always takes out Andy's eyes.

At the end of the meal I explained to one of the cast members what had happened with Mickey, and he said to follow him. So we went to where Mickey was (somewhere else in the restaurant) and the cm told Mickey what had happened. Mickey shook his head and laughed about Andy, then posed for another photo with me.

After that, with me happy again, we left Tusker House.

 

[seobaina]

From here we went to use our fastpass for the safari. I love the safari here. I like the way you can see different things on different trips and I love all animals. I'm glad we got to do it again. However, Jenni did end up with a young girl next to her (about 11) who wanted to chat the entire time and not look at the animals. It became a little waring but oh well

I posted a lot of Safari photos on the last one and I filmed this tour, but here are two elephant photos:

On our way back up the path Jenni decided to pretend she was on a real safari

We decided to head to camp Mickey & Minnie. Partly so the guys could see the Lion King festival again and partly so that we could meet Thumper and Miss Bunny. I've never met them before and thanks to the info on the forums I'd heard they were available to meet.

On the way we, naturally, stopped for some photopass photos.

The photographer asked what we were celebrating this trip and laughed that Jenni must be sad that she didn't share our birthday, hence this photo...which I love.

Then we got to do a magic shot

As we walked in to Camp M&M we saw Pocahontas again - hence it became a running joke that we had met Pocahontri! We'd been told that morning that Meeko was not available, so we were a little surprised to see him. We decided to meet them both and I'm glad we did cause Pocahontas was great. We even got the proper Powhatan goodbye..after we'd given her a proper Powhatan hello.

Jenni and I decided to get revenge on Andy for that morning...so ghost finger made an appearance.

We did take a normal one too

We then went to wait in the heat for Thumper and I was thrilled when he and his lady arrived. The CM in charge took a group photo for us.

 

[jenseib]

I love the miss bunny pictures. I've been seeing her in alot of TR's lately. I hope she is stil lthere when we go next time