3rd Annual We are "NEVER" going to Disney in the summer again"

[Mndisneygirl]

OH BOMA!!! We loved Boma!!!
My DH ate his weight in those ribs! He starts salivating whenever Boma or ribs are mentioned!
I have to agree - it's almost too much good food! You got great pictures though!


Hope the school play goes well!!

 

[debf]

Boma looks great. DH and I would like to try it but both DD14 and DS7 are VERY picky. How are the kid selections? The lazy river sure looked packed. I think it's rude someone took your chairs at BB. You would of thought they would get the hint when you sat down.

 

[Mndisneygirl]

My DD9 ate mostly chicken strips and fries. They had mac and cheese as well as some other kid choices.

 

[natebenma]

OH BOMA!!! We loved Boma!!!
My DH ate his weight in those ribs! He starts salivating whenever Boma or ribs are mentioned!
I have to agree - it's almost too much good food! You got great pictures though!


Hope the school play goes well!!

I think Boma is my favorite restaurant at Disney. Cape May was great too (getting to that one), but we spent so much time helping our youngest with his crab legs and other seafood that it took us forever to get to enjoy our meals.

Have you been to Boma for breakfast? Ben and I went in 2008. Very, very good, but not easy to get to unless you are driving or staying at AKL. We always hit the 8 AM early opening park, so sadly we have not been back.

Opening night of our show went great!!! We have some really incredible talent in the cast and our costumers are unbelievable! This is our community theatre company's third show and we learned just before showtime that we have sold out all 5 shows of the run! Another show today, 3 next weekend.

Boma looks great. DH and I would like to try it but both DD14 and DS7 are VERY picky. How are the kid selections? The lazy river sure looked packed. I think it's rude someone took your chairs at BB. You would of thought they would get the hint when you sat down.

My DD9 ate mostly chicken strips and fries. They had mac and cheese as well as some other kid choices.

I looked back at my photos from this year and last, and I didn't take any of kids' station. Sorry! As Sheree mentions, there are chicken nuggets and mac and cheese, and there may have even been some pasta with tomato sauce.

My DS12 is very picky, but getting better. He has the carved meats and some of the kids stuff.

That particular spot in the lazy river was pretty clogged. Other areas were not as bad.

Yes, we were very surprised too that the girls did not move when we returned. I think while we were waiting for the rain to stop, Ben was playing in the sand and may have gotten a little close to where the girls were, but I "forgot" to remind him about personal space

 

[jmskinner]

Great shots of all the food. I'm not a big fan of Boma, but will eat there. Glad you enjoyed it!

I think I want to try those passion fruit gelatins though, the Domes are great!

 

[wlake]

I'm caught up again! I know what you mean about worlds colliding in the fall. I'm a teacher, and so in addition to everything going on with the kids and all of the home stuff, it's the hardest time of year at work. There are days when I just want to hide under the blanket on the couch.

I love the idea of a half day at AK and half at the water park. I was really hot at AK this year and sooo ready to leave by the end of the day. My DH dislikes water and my younger son is not a swimmer (still won't put his eyes in the water, even with goggles, but he's getting closer), so a day at the water parks doesn't really seem worth it to us either. But a half day -- that sounds doable. We'll have to try Tamu-Tamu on the next trip too -- those milkshakes look good!.

I've put in my request for White House tickets. I ended up asking one of the senators since our rep. was up for reelection and I wasn't sure what would happen if he didn't get reelected! We've got our Washington Monunment tickets, and I requested them not a moment too soon! The three full days we're spending there were sold out already! We're going early in the morning on the last day, before we catch the train home. Did you go to the Bureau of Printing and Engraving? It looks like (in my quick review) another stand in line early in the morning to get tickets kind of a place, but we'd love to see it.

 

[Queila]

Hmmm... Boma! Bring back good memories. The food looks great!

Q

 

[natebenma]

Great shots of all the food. I'm not a big fan of Boma, but will eat there. Glad you enjoyed it!

I think I want to try those passion fruit gelatins though, the Domes are great!

Passion fruit is one of my favorite flavors. I think because it is exotic and rare. For about 3 weeks a year, we can buy imported passionfruit around here- But it is around $1 for each of the ugly, wrinkly, kiwi-sized, tart, crunchy, DELICIOUS fruit.

The gelatin mounds had great flavor. I liked the Zebra Domes a lot more this year than I did last year. Not sure why that is.

I'm caught up again! I know what you mean about worlds colliding in the fall. I'm a teacher, and so in addition to everything going on with the kids and all of the home stuff, it's the hardest time of year at work. There are days when I just want to hide under the blanket on the couch.

I love the idea of a half day at AK and half at the water park. I was really hot at AK this year and sooo ready to leave by the end of the day. My DH dislikes water and my younger son is not a swimmer (still won't put his eyes in the water, even with goggles, but he's getting closer), so a day at the water parks doesn't really seem worth it to us either. But a half day -- that sounds doable. We'll have to try Tamu-Tamu on the next trip too -- those milkshakes look good!.

I've put in my request for White House tickets. I ended up asking one of the senators since our rep. was up for reelection and I wasn't sure what would happen if he didn't get reelected! We've got our Washington Monunment tickets, and I requested them not a moment too soon! The three full days we're spending there were sold out already! We're going early in the morning on the last day, before we catch the train home. Did you go to the Bureau of Printing and Engraving? It looks like (in my quick review) another stand in line early in the morning to get tickets kind of a place, but we'd love to see it.

I am just starting to breathe normally again, I think I have a two week-window before the full swing holidays start! My part-time job starts in the fall. I am treasurer of the PTA and a lot of activity takes place in the fall. I accidentally became President of the middle school parents group. Preparing for the Mother-Son dance was a couple of weeks of frenzy. My prop duties for the play are over, but I am treasurer of the theatre group, so more work to get done there. We have 3 more shows this weekend.

A couple of hours at a water park at a time works well for us. It really is convenient to pair up a trip to AK and then cool off at BB. And I would recommend this park for families with younger kids and family members who are not wild about the water. The family ride rocks! The ski-patrol area is fun for elementary age kids. The wave pool is mild- the one at TL is pretty intense. The ski lift is a fun experience, too. The lazy river is also good for folks who do not want the full-on drenched experience.

So glad you got the Washington Monument tickets! It is so worth the small fee charged. We saw so many disappointed people walking up and asking how to get tickets in the afternoon, at that point it was WAY too late. If you are in the area of the WM one of the mornings you are touring, you could also try standing in line for tickets then for another trip (we are early risers and happened to be out walking so we got in line for tickets on another day). Another cool vantage point is the Old Post Office bell tower. Free tours. When I get a chance, I will PM you my DC notes. But I am at 100% of my PM storage, so I need to clear some messages first!

We did not tour the Mint. I would say if there is a possibility you want to go there, if they offer the option to reserve the tickets for the small fee, do it! With little ones, waiting in line can really wreck the experience.

Hmmm... Boma! Bring back good memories. The food looks great!

Q

Yes, I remember reading about your great dinner at Boma with your sister.

 

[natebenma]

In my last update, we had just finished our fantastic meal at Boma at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. We use the Disney bus transportation system to get around the World, and since the buses do not travel directly from resort to resort, we had a few options to make our return to the Beach Club.

1) We could get a taxi, door to door
2) We could take a bus to EPCOT and walk through the park, enjoying attractions along the way to the Beach Club
3) We could take a bus to Hollywood Studios, and then either walk back or take a Friendship boat to the BC.

As we did last year, we decided to head to Hollywood Studios, and spend a little time there before returning to the resort.

We were in luck, there was a bus to Hollywood Studios right when we got to the bus stop!

Earlier in my report, I wrote about how we discovered the luggage lockers outside of Hollywood Studios. I am going to repeat this part of my report, since this is actually when we found them.

As we exited the bus and headed towards the HS entrance, we passed a small green-colored building.

Thanks kldmom2000 for taking this photo during your trip in August!

I looked over and noticed that there were luggage lockers at this building, with a rental fee of $1 (4 quarters). Although I don’t often carry around a lot of cash at WDW, and usually no change, I did have a supply of quarters and pennies to use for pressed penny souvenirs. So we stashed our backpack and Ziploc of wet BB clothes in a GINORMOUS* INEXPENSIVE locker. How awesome is this??? Huge locker, we didn’t have anything that needed to be searched at bag check, and it was a huge savings from the $7 plus $5 deposit for a locker inside the park! About the only disadvantage of these lockers are that they are single use. You can’t keep coming back to get stuff, plus it would be inconvenient since it is outside of the park. But it was perfect for our needs.

* FYI: The dimensions are: 23"H x 16"W x 29" Deep. I looked it up.


I have since read that there are similar lockers at EPCOT (front of the park) and at the TTC, but I haven’t confirmed that there are any at Animal Kingdom.



When we breezed around bag check and passed through the turnstiles, it was around 6:40. I picked up a times guide and noticed that the Backlot Tour would be closing at 7 PM. This is one of Ben’s favorite attractions at HS. He especially likes the Pearl Harbor show at the beginning. But this is not a “must do” for the rest of us, and it is hard to justify the time commitment to do this tour when attractions like Toy Story Mania, Tower of Terror and RockNRoller Coaster are calling for our attention.

This would be the perfect time to fit it in- it is bonus time at HS, we have no touring agenda and the headliners are probably too busy to attempt.

We decide to go for it, but there were a couple of problems. We only had 20 minutes to get there. We are not sure exactly where it is located. I am severely directionally challenged, and HS is the park I have the most trouble navigating. We know it is somewhere near the Streets of America, but we don’t spend much time there, so we get pretty lost. Plus apparently this attraction does not rate an appearance on the crossroad signs that appear everywhere. We are full and hot, but we race through the Streets of America and at 7:00 on the dot, we see the entrance. The CM at the gate is entrance is reaching to attach the chain link across the gate.

The world goes into slow motion… NOOOOOOOOO!!!!

We arrived, redfaced and out of breath, the CM drew his hand back, let us in and closed the chain link behind us. We are in, just under the wire. I don’t think the family that was a few paces behind us had the same good fortune.


Oh, here's the entrance!

Pearl Harbor Special Effects show

Backlot Tour/ Earful Tower(s)

Catastrophe Canyon

Since we were on the last tram of the last show/ride of the night, the museum at the gift shop was not very crowded so we looked around for a bit.

Next we went to see Muppets 3D, one of our favorites. We realized we could have cut through this plaza to get to the Backlot tour!

This is where we encountered our biggest concentration of obnoxious people. We had been standing around watching the preshow for a while, when family with two preschool girls walked in. The mother and father were obsessing about whether their daughters could see the screens. Which would have been fine, except the 6 foot tall father did this while stepping right in front of Ben, blocking his view! Clueless! Then once we were seated, the mother proceeded to take flash pictures throughout the movie. Maybe she has one of those new 3D cameras. Otherwise, not quite sure how she would be getting any meaningful photos.

It was close to 8 PM at this point. As we meandered towards the exit of HS, we stopped by and pulled the “Do NOT not pull the rope” at the well outside of the Indiana Jones theater and decided what to do next.

I’ll end here with a cliffhanger… Last year on this marathon day, the boys returned to our room and I headed to EPCOT to watch Illuminations. My 4 park day (AK, BB, HS, EP). Here’s a hint. I did watch fireworks that night. Alone.

Do I stay behind at HS and watch Fantasmic? Take the boat and watch Illuminations at EPCOT? Get on a bus to MK to catch Nightastic? Go back to our room and watch Illumniations and Nightastic from our balcony?

Or something else???

 

[jmskinner]

I'm guessing a park, Epcot or MK?

Those people at Muppets would have made me mad also. I have Jacob around to handle people like that, he has no problem yelling "No Flash Photography!".

That's cool about the lockers. Really a good deal if you have a purchase you don't want to carry all day and no reason to open the locker back up until you are ready to leave.

Glad you made it for the Backlot Tour.

 

[natebenma]

I'm guessing a park, Epcot or MK?

Those people at Muppets would have made me mad also. I have Jacob around to handle people like that, he has no problem yelling "No Flash Photography!".

That's cool about the lockers. Really a good deal if you have a purchase you don't want to carry all day and no reason to open the locker back up until you are ready to leave.

Glad you made it for the Backlot Tour.

The other place we had trouble with flash photography on this trip was on Star Tours. Seriously?

I loved finding the luggage lockers! It was perfect timing for us that evening.

We are so happy we made it into the tour! If we had literally been 10 seconds later, they wouldn't have let us in.

I just had to post this- about 30 minutes ago we were all coming home from the theater- the boys had their 4th of 5 performances of Schoolhouse Rock- and Ben said "Do you know what I just thought of? When we almost didn't get into the Backlot tour". He doesn't look at my trip reports and I hadn't talked about it recently, but it cracks me up that I posted this part of my report today and he mentioned this episode a few hours later!

 

[dtr_angel]

yay an update - and a good one!

You know what, I used to love the Backlot tour before they cut half of it out to put in the Lights Motor Action show (which was pretty cool I have to admit) because I loved seeing the Golden Girls house! Ever since then, I just get my feelings hurt when we go on it and I feel short changed.

 

[DrMomof3]

What a busy day!!! I can't believe you're still going after your 3rd park. I think I would need a wheelchair at that point!
I've been afraid to try Boma. I'm not a picky eater but I hate, hate, hate any and all forms of curry. I find the smell nauseating.

Amanda

 

[Mndisneygirl]

That's too funny that your son mentioned the backlot tour! Sometimes I think they must be a little psychic! My DDs were just talking about WDW (because I was DISing and getting nostalgic for our Dec 09 trip.) I asked when they liked to go, holidays or other times. DD9 said she wished she could go for her birthday. They said one of they're favoirte things was going and having a meal in Norway with the Princesses. Little do they know that we are doing it in March for their birthdays!!! HA!

I think you went to Epcot for Illuminations. It's close to your resort. You have a lot of energy - that's all I can say! But isn't it fun to run around and do lots of stuff on vacation at WDW? I love it!

 

[natebenma]

yay an update - and a good one!

You know what, I used to love the Backlot tour before they cut half of it out to put in the Lights Motor Action show (which was pretty cool I have to admit) because I loved seeing the Golden Girls house! Ever since then, I just get my feelings hurt when we go on it and I feel short changed.

Thanks for your comment. It made my day!

Yes, I remember when they had the "full" backlot tour, but the Golden Girls house is the only thing I can remember from it. Did the trams drive through the Streets of America back then?

Was there much actually filmed at Disney/MGM as a studio? Maybe some kids shows? Universal California is really the gold standard of backlot tours- the Psycho house and the Back to the Future town set before it burned Movies were actually filmed there!

Is the backlot tour the only place you can see the Earful tower in park now? I can't recall seeing it from other locations but I thought when the park first opened you could see it.

What a busy day!!! I can't believe you're still going after your 3rd park. I think I would need a wheelchair at that point!
I've been afraid to try Boma. I'm not a picky eater but I hate, hate, hate any and all forms of curry. I find the smell nauseating.

Amanda

That's funny, I totally know what you mean about the smell of curry. It used to bother me, until I started eating curry dishes. I decided to try something with curry and now love it. I'm not recommending you go to Boma, though. There are so many wonderful places to eat at Disney that it probably isn't worth the risk for you to try it. Or maybe try breakfast there sometime. Ben and I really enjoyed that, but Boma/AKL is not the easiest place to get to and from plus no characters at breakfast.

A wheelchair would have come in handy for the next 20 minutes of our evening...

That's too funny that your son mentioned the backlot tour! Sometimes I think they must be a little psychic! My DDs were just talking about WDW (because I was DISing and getting nostalgic for our Dec 09 trip.) I asked when they liked to go, holidays or other times. DD9 said she wished she could go for her birthday. They said one of they're favoirte things was going and having a meal in Norway with the Princesses. Little do they know that we are doing it in March for their birthdays!!! HA!

I think you went to Epcot for Illuminations. It's close to your resort. You have a lot of energy - that's all I can say! But isn't it fun to run around and do lots of stuff on vacation at WDW? I love it!

It totally freaked me out when Ben said that! I wonder if he saw me uploading the pictures. That is so awesome that you have the March plans in place for the girls' birthdays! I forget when you are planning on telling them.

Disney is such a great place for me because it is difficult for me to sit still for long periods of time, and there is always something to do. I feel perfectly safe and comfortable venturing out on my own, and Mark is very accomodating about taking the boys back to the room when they are done and need a break.

 

[natebenma]

Racing the HS-BC boat. Part II.

As we were pulling the Indiana Jones rope, an announcement came over the loudspeaker that Hollywood Studios was closing for the night. So I guess I didn’t stay for Fantasmic (nobody guessed that, anyway).

We exited the park, picked up our bag of wet clothes from the luggage locker and then had to decide whether to use the Friendship boats or walk back to the Beach Club.

We eyed the line at the boats, and I thought we would get on, but since Hollywood Studios had just closed, Mark was afraid the boat would be crowded.


Some of you may recall that one of my favorite memories from last year was racing the Friendship boat back to the Beach Club after Fantasmic! We were ahead for the awhile, then the boat pulled ahead of us but we ultimately and just barely beat the boat. We were near the YC when the boat docked and started letting off people. It was going to be close, so my oldest son Nate raced ahead so he could enter the BC before a couple of girls in their 20's who had come from the boat. As he entered the doors, he turned around to do a playful "in your face dance". And he tripped on the rug! The girls smiled and our family cracked up!

We decided to walk. Despite our marathon day, leaving our resort at 7:30 AM, EMH at AK, a couple of hours at BB, dinner at Boma, and a visit to HS, it was on, baby!

At first, we had the race well in hand. The boat was loading and hadn’t even left the dock yet. But once it got going, the boat closed the gap easily. The boat caught up to us at the bridge, but the stop at S/D really held it up. It was a personal challenge for Nate, so he was keeping a pretty brisk pace and the four of us ended up beating the boat. Nate recreated his “grand entrance” from last year. Sorry for the blurry shots.

So, we are back at the Beach Club and I have promised you all fireworks.

I was pretty hot from our walk from Hollywood Studios. Before Mark and the boys returned to our room, I took my bathing suit from the bag of wet clothing. Time for a swim! I changed in the Stormalong Bay restroom. ICK!!! It was uncomfortably HOT in there and it was clear that cleaning crew had not visited recently.


As I was looking for a lounger to place my towel, on the ground I saw a pair of clear Speedo swim goggles on the ground next to an empty lounger. I wondered if those were the goggles that were lost yesterday.

I had a wonderful, refreshing swim with a nice view of Illuminations from one of the pool bridges.

After my swim, I returned to the room, and stayed up to watch Nightastic from our balcony.


Tomorrow: I promise the boys 3 Mountains and an Island. By 11 am. Can I deliver?

 

[jmskinner]

Sounds like you now have a family tradition of racing the HS-BC Boat. I can't imagine doing that after a long day at Disney.

And I never would have guessed watching the fireworks from the pool. What a great day!

 

[natebenma]

Sounds like you now have a family tradition of racing the HS-BC Boat. I can't imagine doing that after a long day at Disney.

And I never would have guessed watching the fireworks from the pool. What a great day!

DEFINITELY a family tradition. Although I may lobby for a family tradition that involves hot fudge sundaes instead of a 1.2 mile brisk walk at the end of a 12 hour day.

Fireworks at the pool definitely appeal to my love for efficiency- I could do both at once. I didn't know when I decided on the swim that I could see the fireworks. I was just HOT!

 

[bellebookworm9]

Hi Dee, I finally clicked on this link from the Y&BC thread. I'm still on about page 3, but I just had to comment that I know exactly how you felt with the "I think I'm gonna like it here" and "Movin' on up" upon going from All Stars to BC. We had the same reaction when we stayed at Kidani Village this past May after staying at ASMu in 2007! Next October we'll be at BCV, and hopefully we'll have a similar reaction!

 

[DrMomof3]

So cool to watch the fireworks from the pool! I never would have thought of doing that. Next year!

Amanda