7/28/06 - 8/13/06 -16 nights of Pure Disney Magic! -Lots of pictures

[MelanieC]

Cast -

Melanie (37) – Crazed Disney Fanatic. I’ve been to DL several times as a kid and an adult. My 11th time to WDW since 1995.
Bill (42) – I’ve taught him to be crazy about Disney. He had no choice. He’s been to WDW 10 times since 1995.
Taryn (14) – Her first trip to DL was at 2 years old and her first trip to WDW was at 3 years old.
Ryan (8) – He known nothing but Disney! We took him on his first trip at 18 months old.


After last years trip to WDW in July we booked a Disney Cruise for the Saturday after Thanksgiving. After Taryn had someone from the High School come and talk about 9th grade, she decided that she didn’t want to take 4 days off from school this coming year. She wanted to go to WDW during the summer instead. Bill has been saying since we got home and booked the cruise that he was sad we weren’t going back to Disney. You start to get used to 2 week vacations and the thought of a week on a cruise and maybe 2 extra days really doesn’t seem the same. Even I had a slight disappointment about not going. So back in February or March when Taryn asked to switch to Disney, none of us seemed too upset. I suspect that I will mourn in November during the week we should have been on the cruise. At the time of the cancellation I had a two week Disney vacation to plan. There was no feeling sad at that time. I immediately got busy and planned a terrific vacation.

We knew we needed to do something to at least make an attempt to come close to getting to see the Space Shuttle launch. We decided we would book a Hot Air Balloon ride. So after months of planning the time had finally come.

Thursday 7/27/06

I got home from work around 2:30pm. I was excited because I thought we would be out the door and on the road by 3:00pm. It was not to happen this way. Bill was still packing, so it was closer to 3:30pm by the time we left our house. One town over we stopped for gas at a Turkey Hill and grabbed drinks and ice for the road. Finally we were on our way. It was about 4pm when we officially got on the road. It doesn't count until we stop for gas and supplies. We headed out towards Allentown Pa and turned on Rte 222. This is such a pretty drive. Much better than immediately hitting I-95. There are many things to look at including beautiful farms and countryside. It started raining some and then stopped for a while. When we were between Reading Pa and Lancaster the wind started blowing and a terrible storm came along. The wind was tough for Bill to drive in and it became so dark you couldn't see two feet in front of you. I wasn't driving at the time, but I sure was white knuckling it. Finally you could see a little easier and it sort of inched into lightness at a real snails pace. We were so happy when that was over. A short while later we got on the PA turnpike going towards Harrisburg. It rained off and on the entire time. It was not anywhere near what it was like before. As we were getting off the turnpike onto Rte 15, the sky got really dark again. We were thinking oh no, but luckily we turned away from the storm and headed in the opposite direction. Just as you are about to go into Maryland there is a bridge that I've been told has 4 rivers meeting into 1 and it possibly is a meeting of 3 or states (PA, VA & MD?). The view with the rivers all coming together is beautiful.

We originally anticipated (or rather hoped) to be in Fredericksburg Va. at dinnertime in order to eat at the Taco Bell we have stopped at in the past. Since I had eaten lunch at 11:00am, I was starving. I let Bill know I couldn't make it that long, so we pulled off at a McDonald's to eat. I do not eat fast food except on rare occasions and vacations. So for a change a Big Mac and fries sounded good. We filled our bellies, used the facilities and we were back on the road. We made it to Fredericksburg Va. at around 9:30pm, so I was glad we had eaten earlier.

Our original plans were to try to make it to North Carolina before stopping for a hotel. It was about 12:00am when we made it to North Carolina. At this point I was dozing in and out, but was really trying to stay awake to make sure Bill wasn't getting tired. About 1:00 we started looking for a place to sleep. We found a Day's Inn off 1-95 around 1:15am. $48 dollars plus tax later we were the proud owners of a piece of plastic that would allow us to get some much needed rest. We were in room 101. The room had a strange odor to it. It was sort of a citrus, cleaner like smell. We turned on the A/C and that seemed to make the smell go away in a few minutes. Thank goodness! The place was so-so. Bill and RYAN were out in minutes. They basically came in the room and crashed on the bed with clothes still on. TARYN and I took the time to wash our faces and brush our teeth. I got to bed a few minutes after 2pm. Luckily I feel asleep easily and before I knew it the alarm went off at 7am.

 

[MelanieC]

Friday 7/28/06 ( We will be in WDW by bedtime – YEAH)

I got up and took a shower and got ready. At that point it was Taryn's turn to get up and take a shower, followed by Bill & Ryan. We were out of the motel by 8am. We hopped back on I-95 and looked for a McDonald's to have breakfast. We stopped and got a fill of breakfast sandwiches and hotcakes and sausage for Ryan. We filled up on gas prior to eating, so once we were done we were back on the road.

On our drive down I-95, I had to laugh at one point at how much the world has changed since Bill and I were kids. Technology has really changed the face of car travel. We had Ryan in the back playing his Sony PSP. Taryn was either listening to her IPOD or watching a movie on the portable DVD player. I was going back and forth between my IPOD and watching movies on my laptop. At around 1pm in South Carolina we stopped at a Taco Bell/Kentucky Fried Chicken. Bill was the one who woke up this morning saying he wanted to find a Taco Bell for lunch. When we were ordering our food he was the only one who ordered Kentucky Fried Chicken. I had to laugh at him, since it was his idea to eat at Taco Bell.

Once we crossed the border into Florida, everyone clapped. We were getting close. We saw a fire on the side of the road just past Jacksonville. It was very close to the side of the road and we could smell it. It was so smoky I thought it was rain before we got close enough to realize it was smoke.

Finally we saw I-4. We made the turn and knew we were getting close. After getting into Orlando, -it was getting close to 5pm, so I knew we would hit rush hour traffic. Everything was fine till we got close to Universal Studios. We ended up sitting in traffic that was bumper to bumper till roughly about the time we got to the Crossroads. What should have taken a few minutes, took hours. Shades of Green closes at 7pm. We wanted to make it to Shades of Green to buy Disney Annual Passes prior to it closing. We really didn't want to have to go prior to getting to MK tomorrow. It was 6:30pm when we got out of the bumper to bumper traffic. It turned out to be an accident, and finally the traffic was flowing.

We made it to the SOG ticket office at 6:50pm. 10 minutes to spare! Bill laughed and said the girl at the counter was the reason he didn't like staying there. She made some strange remark to him about having stubble on his face. Bill is very clean shaven, but gee we've been driving for 2 days. Just because he is Military doesn't mean he has to be clean shaven all the time, especially when he is on vacation.

We headed back towards the hotel, stopping to get gas over by the AAA service center. It felt so good to pull into the POP Century!

I went to check in while BILL and the kids walked around. They did not have any of my requests in the reservation. The whole reservation process at SOG was a nightmare. I had originally booked through Central Reservations, but in early June I called SOG and they were sold out but had an overflow rate available. At the end of June I called 3 days in a row trying to find out why my credit card had never been charged. I kept getting told it was and to give it more time to show up. There had been some controversy about the price as well. I was originally told $79 plus tax and then when the girl kept telling me it was already charged she said it was only $49 plus tax. Finally after calling Disney (and begging someone in Customer Service to help me) she told me my room was booked but it was only guaranteed with a credit card but was never charged. She said if it wasn’t charged by 7/7/06 it would be canceled. She was able to charge only 32.34 (and if you add it to the 55.75 that the girl at SOG kept telling me was my amount) it equaled the original price I was quoted. I then called and talked to a manger at the SOG who confirmed that the charge was never done, even though she had an e-mail from Disney from the beginning of June showing that Disney had said they charged it. So long story short (oops too late for that) they finally got it fixed. I had asked to make sure my requests were put in the reservation. I had wanted 4th floor facing the lagoon in either the 50's, 60's or 70's. They had put us in a pool view in the 90's building. I asked if she had any of our requests and she said no. She tried looking but wasn't having any luck finding anything else. She went to talk to someone and came back with a 3rd floor lagoon view in the 70's. I told her that was perfect!

As I sit here writing this tonight (12:53am) I have heard toilets and showers. This is why 4th floor is best, but that's ok!! I'm happy to have the really nice lagoon view. I really didn't want 80's or 90's. It just doesn't have the same feel as the sections over by the lagoon.

She went to charge our card and as happens every year (either at the hotel or at SOG when we buy our tickets) our Discover card doesn't go through. I tell her she just needs to call Discover because this happens every year. It's a pain, but I’m glad they freeze your card when they see you charging in several states, especially when we start charging hotels & Disney tickets. Once the girl from Discover verifies that we have charged gas at WDW, Disney tickets at SOG, gas in Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, she resets our account and we are good to go. We head back to the car to drive over to the 70's parking lot.

Me and Bill love the 70's because this was our childhood years. Once we get to the room, Bill and Ryan head back to the car for the last few items.

Here is the view from our room. This is our second time in this exact section.

Taryn and I start unpacking. We all work quickly to get unpacked, while Bill jumps in the shower.

Taryn, Ryan and I head down to the food court to get dinner. Bill wanted an Italian Hoagie. I don't remember them having that on the menu, but I told him we would check. They didn't so Taryn runs back while I stand in line for Ryan’s shrimp lo-mein. They didn't have the shrimp in the kids meal. I knew he wouldn't eat but a ¼ of it, but I got him the adult size anyway. I head over to get me and Taryn chicken strips with French fries. Taryn came back and said Bill wanted a meatball hoagie. She went and stood in line for that. The kids and I grabbed a Dumbo bar (basically it's a peanut brittle bar) for a snack as well as 3 of the refillable mugs. I gave her my DDE card for a quick 20% off and we headed to fill our mugs. Our arms were hurting us by the time we walked back to the room. I also had asked to get 3 of the plates with the to go lids to put our food in. It's tough walking back with open food with French fries flying everywhere. Everyone enjoyed the food. I was hungry and my chicken fingers, French fries and coke hit the spot. They were so much tastier than anything I had at POP last year. I hated everything I ate there the last year. Luckily this time was a winner. The soda was the best. Luckily we have a cooler with extra soda. I didn't feel like running back down to the food court for more. I finished my soda before I was even half way done. I was super thirsty. I had the kids take showers to save time tomorrow morning. I ironed everyone's clothes, including 3 more outfits for myself in case I decide tomorrow I don't want to wear what I picked. We decide on 8am as a wake up time. Bill say's he feels strange from so much driving. I tell him if he doesn't feel like waking up in the morning he can sleep in and we will meet him at lunch. I did tell him though; I was excited for us to go as a family so to try. I told him he should go to sleep. He was crabby most of the drive to Florida. I snapped at him a few times because of it. I couldn't figure out why as he is not like this normally. When we were walking from the parking lot to our room tonight, he told me he was worried about a new position at work (Air National Guard) that he took. He said he's been stressed the past few days and he was worried it was going to ruin his vacation. We talked about it and I told him, what's the worst thing that can happen? You could get fired, but that wouldn't happen. They love him there. When he was going to bed, he was talking about it then. I had no idea this was affecting him so bad. I sure hope he gets over it. It would be sad to have it ruin his vacation. At least now I know why he was so crabby.

Well it's 1:18am, I should get to bed. The faster I get to sleep, the faster I make it to the Castle tomorrow. I feel like the commercial – I'm too excited to sleep.

 

[MelanieC]

Saturday 7/29/06 – A wonderfully magical "freebie" day!

We had originally planned on arriving on 7/29/06 and starting our drive on Friday night after work. Then we decided to take Friday off and arrive really late sometime that evening. Then as we were driving to Busch Gardens in Virginia for Memorial Weekend, Bill mentioned that maybe we would leave Thursday night and try to make it to North Carolina. We decided to change the arrival date to 7/28/06. Anything we do today is considered a "freebie" day. I set the alarm for 7:29am, as well as a wake-up call for 7:30am. I awoke at 7:00am to a little girl yelling – No daddy and crying. This went on for a good 5 minutes. I'm not sure if they were in the next room our outside our room. I turned on the TV to watch the news to see if I could gather any info on the weather. According to the news they are calling for the usual scattered showers to cool the heat off in the afternoon, but otherwise a perfect day. Today was a 30% chance of rain in the mid 90’s. The alarm did not go off, I could tell there was a hum coming from it, but apparently I will need to investigate and find out how to make it have an actual alarm sound. The wake-up call was either a Tikki Bird or the bird from Aladdin. Then Mickey and Stitch come on to tell us how he has taken over the Magic Kingdom. Eager to get my day started, I jump out of bed and took my shower. Luckily everyone else has taken a shower the night before. Waking up the family is tougher. Bill says 15 more minutes and Taryn say's 5 more minutes. Ryan doesn't even respond to me. Finally after more prodding I get them up. We left the room a few minutes after 9am. We drive to MK (we have vowed to never take the bus again after a 2 hour wait from MK back to Pop Century last year) and park our car in Pluto 22. We hop on a tram over to the TTC.

We then take the Express Monorail over to MK.

Here is our first glimpse of the front of MK from the monorail.

We get into the Guest Services line to exchange our Annual Pass vouchers for actual tickets. The wait is about 10 or 15 minutes. As we are standing there, I ask Bill if he had his driver's license. He say's no, so I'm hoping they don't give us a hard time. I advise Bill that should bring his ID with him every day. He can't imagine why, but will find out later today. The first thing the girl at Guest Services asks us, is if the adults have photo ID. I advise that Bill left his in the room. She uses mine and all is well. We go through an empty turnstile and we are finally entering the MK! The first day at the parks is always special, and because we are at MK it is even better. Seeing that first glimpse of Cinderella's Castle always makes me giddy with anticipation.

Everyone has smiles on their faces as we walk down Main Street. Nothing is better than this in the entire world. At this point it is 10:00am. I don't think we have ever arrived this late. Luckily MK seems empty this morning. We walk down the walkway past the Plaza Restaurant, down by the Tomorrowland Terrace Noodle Station. There is absolutely no one else but us there. I see some chairs that when together resemble a hidden Mickey, so I take a picture of chairs. Bill looks at me like I'm crazy! I'm a Dis'er, therefore I am crazy!! Disney Crazy that is.

We head towards Space Mountain to get a Fast Pass or ride it and we see a 5 minute wait on a virtually empty Buzz. We decide to do Buzz first and it really was just a 5 minute wait. We just walked right on. Next we head over to Space Mountain. The Standby line said 5 minutes, so we walk on and only end up waiting 5 minutes before we are riding Space Mountain. We rode the ships on the left hand side. For some reason, we barely ever ride this side. Next it's a restroom stop and a quick check of our watches. Lunch is at 11am and we have 15 minutes left. We walk towards The Plaza Restaurant and there is no one at the podium. We head over to the gift shops on Main Street and walk through some of the shops. We pick up Ryan a pen and an autograph book. Taryn has declared this trip she is too old for autograph books. She almost threw away all her old books, until I confiscated them from a bag she was throwing away. These are special to me, and I'm keeping them as keepsakes. They are dated and go back many years. Taryn gets asked if she is Bill’s wife. Hmm, I really don’t think she looks that old.

After checking in to the Plaza Restaurant, we are the 3rd table called. Taryn has such a small appetite and usually likes to order from the kids menu. She also likes doing the puzzles on the menu. She is very young at heart. The kid who sat us gave us the sure, but they will charge her more for an adult portion spiel. We say fine, could she still have one. Our waitress was really nice and we ordered a round of Root Beers. The Plaza has the best Root Beer! It's hard to find fountain Root Beer at WDW (although on this trip I seem to notice more places that have fountain Root Beer).

I usually order the hamburger here, and was wavering on the vegetable sandwich. I asked her how it was and she asked me if I like humus and pesto, which I quickly answered yes. I immediately asked for the vegetable sandwich before I changed my mind. I have had too much fast food on my drive in, that something healthier sounded so much better. Bill had the Rueben with German potato salad. He said it was wonderful. Ryan had the grilled cheese and potato chips. He didn't eat a ton as usual. Taryn had the 2 mini hamburgers and French fries. She also only ate 1 of them and maybe a bite of the second one. She said they were very good. My verdict on the veggie sandwich with sweet potato chips…………It was FABULOUS! The sweet potato chips were wonderful too! She brought refills of our Root Beer in to-go cups when she brought the check. She applied the DDE discount (along with no extra charge for Taryn's mini hamburger kids meal). The meal before tip was only $29.00. That's cheaper than our fast food meal at the Pop Century last night.

Next, we head past the Crystal Palace into Adventureland. We stop and get Autographs with Timon & Raffiki. We saw the Lion King in Philadelphia last Sunday 7/23/06, so it was strange seeing these costumes, which are so different from the Broadway version. Timon seemed to have a crush on Taryn. He was really flirting with her.

The standby line for Pirates was 40 minutes. It was only a 25 minute wait. They played the music from the movie in the Outside queue and the music from the original ride in the inside queue. I was nervous about them changing the ride, but was very pleasantly surprised. There are just subtle changes and the improvements made the ride so much more enjoyable. I can't believe how the line is so much longer than normal though. Usually we just walk on this ride. Bill had gotten FP's for Splash Mountain while we waited for Raffiki and Timon. It was now time to do these, so while Bill and the kids used the restrooms I went and got FP's for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. I waited for them at the entrance to Splash Mountain, but after an unusually long period of time I headed back to Pirates to see what was taking so long. I found them waiting for autographs with Wendy & Peter Pan. I was just in time to take pictures of the kids with them, and of course sneak one of me in there too. Next we head to Splash to use our FP's. The standby line was 150 minutes (YIKES!). Why would people be waiting this long when we literally waited about a half an hour to use FP's? At this point it looked like it could rain Within 5 minutes of getting in line for Splash Mountain we were on the ride. We sat in the first and second seats. Luckily we only got splashed, but me and Taryn had wet pants when we were done. Now it was time to ride Big Thunder Mountain. After going through the FP line they made an announcement that there was inclement weather coming to the Orlando area and that BTMR was a ride that would be shut down for inclement weather. We decided to ride it and take our chances. Good thing, it only took about 5-10 minutes and we were on the ride. We picked a ride next that would give us our best chance of missing rain. The kids wanted Mickey's Philharmagic and Bill wanted Hall of President's. We decided to do Hall of President's first since we were right there. I went to get FP's for Peter Pan. The next FP was due at 4:00pm. By the time I got back to Hall of President's we had just missed the 2:00pm show. We decided to go get Dole Whips and water. Bill remembered that he didn't like it after taking the first bite. I reminded him he had it last year, and he said – yeah and I didn't like it then. In my head I'm thinking – GOOD more for us, hahaha! We were sharing 1 Dole Whip. This hit the spot, but my stomach cramped up for a few minutes because of the coldness. Luckily it went away after my stomach warmed back up. We went back to Hall of President's and waited in the A/C. It felt so good since we had been standing in line for Dole Whips with the sun on our backs. My back had even started to have sweat dripping down it, because it was so hot. The first line we got in for a Dole Whip took twice as long as the other line. When there was one last person in front of us, I got in the other line and ended up having the person in front of me finish as well as our order being finished before the other guy even finished ringing up the lady in front of us. That line took forever.

Once we did Hall of President's we did Mickey's Philharmagic. This show never ceases to amaze me. I am giddy like a child when watching it. The sounds, smells, air blowing and movement are incredible. It's such a good show. We shopped at the Philharmagic shop, Tinkerbelle's Treasure and the art shop in the Castle.

Ryan wanted a picture of him pulling on the sword in the stone.

Prior to going on Peter Pan, we got FP's for Pooh. These FP's were good from 4:55-5:55pm. We rode Peter Pan using the FP's with about a 5-10 minute wait. We were going to ride It's a small World, but the line was 30 minutes long. I've never seen it that long. Snow White was 30 minutes. We skipped both and headed over to Haunted Mansion. The Standby line said 30 minutes, but we were inside the elevator within 10 minutes. We decided to hang out and get in the back of everyone to avoid the usual squeeze into the queue. Two minutes later another group came back out that made us staying behind a waste. Next time, we will just stay where we are and squeeze in with the masses. We shopped in the store next to Haunted Mansion that has the housewares. Then we visited the Christmas shop in Liberty Square before heading over to Pooh. By this time it's starting to look like it's going to pour in the distance. We even hear Thunder. We head over to pooh and use our FP's. When we came back out, it still looked like it would pour. We decided to head over to the Contemporary for our 6:30pm ADR at Chef Mickey's. We were afraid that we would get soaked if it rained. We had planned on walking through the gift shops, but decided just to head to the Contemporary. We didn't want to get soaked. We check in at 5:53 pm and they could only guarantee that we would get called by 6:20pm. We get called 5 minutes after that. We sat in an area we never sat in before. Minnie was just leaving as we sat down. Dale came by twice in a very short period of time. We had the BEST waitress. She kept the drinks coming continuously, even after we had dessert and were waiting for Mickey and Minnie to come by.

Last year the food was just ok. Not bad, but nothing spectacular. This year the food was great. The special of the day was ribs and they were great. They had a chicken pasta dish that was great too! We had shrimp which is something we always eat there. BILL and I got the rare Roast Beef, but it was pretty fatty and tasteless. We decided not to finish it and go back for ribs.

I like the fact that the desserts here have gotten smaller over the years. It allowed us to sample several. I do miss the slices of key lime pie. Now it's just a little tart. I decided it wasn't worth my time to get one of the tarts because the key lime part didn't look to great. They had these really cute chocolate mouse on Oreo cookies that looked like Mickey Mouse.

Ryan had Mac and cheese and shrimp. He didn't eat a whole lot. Taryn got adventuresome this year. Besides her usual chicken fingers, she tried the pork (which was too dry for her), the garlic parmesan cheese mashed potatoes (she LOVED these and got seconds), stuffing which has become a recent favorite of hers. This meal turned out to be wonderful. I really wasn't super excited about this meal, except that it's a FUN restaurant. The character interaction was fabulous. They were funny, personable and really spent time with everyone. I was really impressed with Chef Mickey's this time.

After dinner, we went to the Contemporary gift shop. Bill was given the riot act for not having his photo ID when trying to buy something with his room key. He had not signed the back of the card. Luckily I came to the rescue and told her to put it on my key since I had my driver's license.

Then we decided to call it an evening since it was a "freebie day". The MK wasn't that crowded at all. With FP's we were able to ride all our favorites with very minimal wait. We even arrived late and left early. It turned out not to rain at all today, at least as far as we could tell. We hopped back on the monorail, grabbed the tram and headed back to Pluto 22.

We were back at the hotel by about 8:30pm. Ryan had bought a duck whistle from Mickey's Philharmagic. He used it to quack at some of the ducks at the Pop Century. He seemed to be like a duck charmer. They really took a liking to him.

Bill took a shower and went to bed. He still was slightly tired from the drive, but overall felt good. I took the kids to the arcade. They played games for a little while.

I also took some pictures of the lobby and we shopped in the gift shop. We filled our refillable cups up with blue frozen slush. What a yummy treat prior to bed.

Here is Ryan by the Goofy Water area with his refillable cup of frozen blue slush.

So once again it's 1:02am. I'm off to get sleep prior to our AK day tomorrow. We eat at Boma for dinner tomorrow! It's my all time favorite at WDW. We are also very excited about riding Expedition Everest.

Today turned out to be such a wonderful magical day. It couldn't have been any better. What a great "freebie day". I just love Disney and can't imagine anyplace else in the entire world I'd rather be.

 

[MelanieC]

Sunday 7/30/06- Animal Kingdom – Our first time on Expedition Everest!

I set my alarm for 7:00am and expected to get Bill up by 7:30am. The alarm went off at 7am and I was really tired this morning. Stitch & Mickey called this morning for the wake-up call. I turned on the TV to see what the weather was like. Looks like a 40% chance of rain today. I climbed out of bed and into the shower. It was 7:40am when I woke up Taryn and I immediately started to try to wake Bill and Ryan. Bill said he would get up when Taryn got out of the shower. This is the part about Disney I hate the most. I spend more time getting people out of bed and hearing (5 more minutes, when Taryn gets up, etc). We ended up leaving the room at 8:30am and we were at the gate at 8:55am. We parked in Unicorn 24. The lines were long to get into the park, so we used a little trick I learned from Tour Guide Mike. It worked like a charm, but we were faced with huge crowds on the inside of the park. Once the Characters did the opening ceremony we weaved our way to the other side of the crowd and headed back towards Asia.
Here is a picture of how many people were ahead of us at the opening ceremony.

Well it took about all of 30 seconds to figure out that everyone else we in the park was doing the same thing. I could see masses of people heading towards Expedition Everest through Dino Land as well as Asia. We quickly decided to just grab a Fast Pass. The line to Expedition Everest was lined up outside the ride. The FP lines were huge as well, but I jumped into the shortest line. With FP's safely tucked away we headed to Dinoland. We rode Triceratops spin twice with 0 wait.

Next we did Primeval Whirl with about a 5-10 minute wait. We were going to do Primeval Whirl again, but the line had grown since we first rode it. We rode Dinosaur with a 5 min wait. It was technically 0, because there was no one in front of us, but we had to wait for the next room to open. We basically walked on after we saw the pre-show. The standby line said 20 minutes (but I think it always says that). By this time it was time to go to Expedition Everest and use our FP's.

As we were walking over we saw Smear, Splat & Dip.

They were a comedy act using paint cans, paint brushes etc. They were cute.

We also saw a boat of characters coming under the bridge near where they are building the new building for the new Finding Nemo show. Ryan was wearing a Mickey shirt and he swears Mickey was pointing to his shirt in this picture. I love how everything seems so personal and magical at WDW.

We realized there was a single rider line for Expedition Everest. There was no line for that. We jumped in line for our FP's and it took about 15 minutes. We had forgotten the coupon in the room for the free Expedition Everest ride photo. We will have to remember to use it next Sunday when we go back to Animal Kingdom. One thing we realized that your picture's won't be together if you’re in two separate cars. We sat right behind Bill and Ryan, but our pictures were not together. When we bring the coupon we will wait in the front of the line queue, so we are all together in one car. EE was awesome!! Disney did a great job and the part where you say Hi to the Yeti was great. He is really realistic looking. We went back to ride EE in the single rider line. This time there was a line, but basically no line for the FP line. It figures, we always get in the wrong line. If we knew, we would have did the single rider first, then used our FP's. It was 11am now, so we headed to get FP's for Kilimanjaro Safari. We headed to Pizzafari for lunch. It's our favorite, although we wouldn't know about the other fast food restaurants at Animal Kingdom because we have only ever eaten at Pizzafari. We love the Hot Italian Deli sandwich. Bill, Taryn and I got the Hot Italian Deli sandwich with side salads.
Here is a picture after I ate most of my sandwich. I wasn't very good about taking pictures of food at the beginning of my trip.

Ryan got the peanut butter sandwich kids meal.

I got water, and Bill and Taryn got coke. Lunch was great. Everyone loved it. After lunch and restroom breaks, Bill went to get FP's for Kali River Rapids while Taryn shopped in a gift shop and Ryan and I got Stitch's autograph and picture.

On our way to Kilimanjaro Safari we stopped and took a picture.

Then we shopped in the gift shop in Africa. We rode Kilimanjaro Safari with about a 5 minute wait at the very end. Our driver wasn't the best. He was hard to understand, didn't stop for pictures at all and basically didn't seem to know anything. Bill and Ryan went to ride Kali River and Taryn and I went to ride Expedition Everest. We decided that we did not want to get wet, although it was super hot. In retrospect, we should have just got wet. It was so hot, and I ended up feeling sick a little later on from the heat. Next week when we go to AK again, me and Taryn rode Kali and it really improved our day. We felt cooler and dried quickly. Next year, there is no backing out of this ride. Taryn and I used the single rider line. We were going to get FP's for everyone, but they were already gone at this point around 1:00pm. It took about 30 minutes. Bill and Ryan used our FP's as well so they actually got to ride twice. Taryn and I split a Dumbo bar while waiting for the boys to meet us in the gift shop. The air is not as cold as it should be in the EE gift shop. Maybe it's because it's so small and crowded. We saw an older gentleman lying on the ground from either the heat or the ride. Maybe it was a combination of both. The heat was starting to get to me at this point in the day. When we all finally met up we got waters and I took some Advil. I was starting to get a headache. Next we went to the 2:00pm Flights of Wonder show. At least it got us out of the heat, but it's still not as good as being indoors with A/C. This day is going nice and slow. I love it when that happens. So many times at Disney the day just flies by.
Next we went walked through a trail with some birds, turtles and other animals while on our way to It's Tough to be a Bug.

We walked right on It's Tough to be a Bug. We shopped in a few of the shops outside the entrance to ITTBAB. We headed over to Rafiki's Planet watch prior to the 4pm parade. We tend not to watch the parades. We took the train over and headed into the A/C. Ahh it felt so good. We watched a talk with an alligator and then petted it. We did the Mother Willow headphone exhibit in the booths. That always relaxes me so much. We also got to watch someone weighing the food for some of the animals. They make the food for the next day. All the food gets weighed individually for each animal to the gram. They are only allowed to be up or down from the exact weight by 1 gram either plus or minus. Ryan did the petting zoo and I had Bill go out with him. Taryn and I stayed in the A/C. I'm not sure why the heat bothered me so much today. By the end of the day I was ready to just go eat dinner. The great thing was by this time of the day the crowds were thinning. We did the Pangoni Trail in Africa and there was basically almost no one there. All 6 gorillas were out. We got to see them together playing and interacting. We also saw them after they left the glass window area walking in the back in their habitat.

Next Ryan found some drums to play.

There was no wait for Kilimanjaro Safari and there was no wait. We literally walked right on. The animals were really active. We saw Rhino's running as well as 3 hippo's out of the water. One of the hippos's was running and chasing birds. The vultures were chasing after them. It was great to see this interaction. Especially since we had such a boring ride earlier today. Next we headed to ride Expedition Everest again, but the single rider line was closed. We decided to go ride Dinosaur again. It was now 6:55pm and the park closes at 7pm tonight. The sky was starting to look like it was going to pour. Taryn wanted to shop for a bit, but we decided to try to get to Animal Kingdom Lodge as soon as possible in case it rained. We took the tram back to the parking lot and headed over to our 7:30pm Boma ADR's. Bill dropped us off at the front before parking. It was starting to lightning and thunder. Bill just barely made it to the covered area where you park to check in to the hotel before the sky opened up. Thank goodness it waited till we were at the hotel. We checked in at 7:11pm and we were seated at 7:33pm. Dinner was GREAT as usual. This is my favorite restaurant. Bill say's it's just OK. Luckily I get my way and we eat here twice every year. Technically this was my Birthday dinner. My birthday was on July 14th. I loved every last bite. Taryn mostly ate off the kids portion of the buffet. I sure wish she would branch out and try some new things. I finally got to try the carrot ginger soup. I ended up eating 2 bowls of it. It was so good. I had Bobooti (one of my favorites), Tofu and green beans in a curry sauce, Fru Fru (another one of my favorites) and roast beef with the Boma mustard (again one of my favorites). For dessert I had Zebra Domes (my favorite desert here), coconut tiramisu and apple cobbler. I would have liked one more glass of Ice tea, but I was glad to have at least gotten one refill. Sometimes at the buffet's you get overlooked. Good service, but not quite as good as last night at Chef Mickey's.

We shopped at the AKL gift shop for a couple of minutes before heading back to Pop Century. Luckily the rain had stopped. We were going to go swimming, but since it rained we decided to have Bill take the kids to the arcade. Ryan loves the arcade. I stayed back and ironed for tomorrow.

Today was a wonderful and productive day. We actually saw a lot even though it seemed really busy. EE really changed the dynamics of the park. Now Asia is swarming with people. It used to be a nice reprieve from the droves of people. At around 5pm the park pretty much cleared out. This was nice and really allowed you to be able to do things with little or no wait. Except of course there were lines at EE no matter what time of the day it was. I always find it so strange how it seems so much hotter and the sun and heat affects you more here. Today was a very tiring day for me. I really ran out of steam in the afternoon and didn't feel so hot. Bill felt really good today. Taryn said she felt tired today too.

Tomorrow is EPCOT.

 

[jdtopgun71]

Subscribing. very good so far!

 

[pickles]

If it is any comfort I found your hidden Mickey in the chairs in your pic

I always thought the pic of your hubby and you(I think memory fading) sitting at the table and leaning towards each other..if you look closely at hubby he is wearing MINNIE EARS!!! very cute

Nice report and pics

 

[travelbug]

I'm really enjoying your report so far! Can't wait to read more.

 

[Kycha]

Melanie,

Any trip report that starts out with gassing up at a Turkey Hill is my kind of trip report!! I am truly addicted to their iced tea.

Can't wait for the rest of your report.

 

[Glendamax]

I just found your report! I can't believe you drove down! I live a little further South than you, and I still won't drive. But it sounds like you guys enjoyed the ride

I'm really enjoying your report, and pictures so far. Looking forward to your next installment!