A Very Lurkyloo Christmas is FINISHED! New 3/16: Last Day of the Trip!

Sorry I didn't get a chance to say "Howdy" in person this weekend. Happy (late) Anniversary!
 

I too was reading my issue of D23 and who should I see standing out in the crowd? :-) I had read you were there at the convention, but never knew you would be a star of it! Made me realize I had been off the boards for a while and needed to get back to your trip reports. Glad I did! I have been laughing hysterically while on mute during an over the phone meeting!
 
Sorry it's been so long! I was working overtime to get my Disney weddings book updated in time for Valentine's Day. Whew! :faint:


Now that *that's* out of the way....

Another great update, Carrie! They're never boring. Everest looks amazing at night. Who knows when I'll be back to WDW (points down at new ticker) but when I do, I'm going to Jiko.

Whohoo! I hope you like it! Then again, what's not to like about a steak served with macaroni 'n' cheese...

Isn't that sight of the white birds sleeping in the trees at AK something to behold? We were treated to that view on the way out of the Park after the EEC. That combined with riding EE at nite makes night EMH at AK a must-do!

Unfortunately, when we will be there in May, AK is only open for EMH until 8pm, and sunset at that time of year is typically about the same time. So unfortunately I don't think we will get to experience the park after dark this trip.

Dang! But it's cool that you've been able to do it at least once. Have fun in May, you lucky so-and-so...! :cutie:

From your picts, it looks like I will have to look into AK evening EMH!!! And yo uare right, there seem to be less EHM for there than any other park!

Yes! I wonder if it's something to do with the animals or just that AK is the least popular park... :scratchin

Don't mean to hijack the thread but that is a great idea. When we go in Dec we'll be celebrating our 7th anniversary of when we first met (it's actually the day we arrive, but that doesn't matter ;)) and this last Sept DH really wanted a cake but we couldn't justify it and would never have eaten it all, but now there will be about a million Diser's and I can suprise him with a cake. I may get it delivered at a meal with just the two of us but we can share it later if it looks llike we won't finish it

Ooh! Ooh! You have to promise to post pix on the Cake Chatter Thread! :hyper:

Hi and welcome back...glad to see you posting and updating your TR!

It's so funny! (Ironic) because before I even read your last update I told DH..."We must do AK EMH hours this trip!"....

Now that I've seen the pics, I'm glad I made that decision!

Hooray! It's almost like a different park - you'll love it!

Hey Carrie! I got my latest issue of Disney Twenty-Three. I was reading the article about the expo and was looking at a crowd shot. And who do I see in her pink top? Lurkyloo!

OK, when I read this I had to run to my still-unopened copy and wrestle it outta the plastic wrap to see for myself. I'll be danged - there I am! Of all the crowd shots they took that day, they chose that one.

The crazy thing is, they had this pro photographer at the Magic & Merriment events in December - every single one - and he was always taking pictures and we always seemed to be in them. He must've taken thousands of them over the 2 days. Yet, in the same issue that had that ginormous pic of D23 Expo, there was one measly, dark, generic picture of the Magic & Merriment dinner at Lights, Motors, Actions. We were like, "That's it....?" What a waste of their money!

I'm getting caught up on your trip report -- we just got back from a week at WDW. Had a piece of peanut butter cake from BW Bakery in your honor. So good! After we devoured it I thought it would've been cute to take a picture of it with "Hi Lurkyloo" written on a napkin next to it - so just try to picture it. Thanks for the tip -- DH said it was his favorite dessert of the trip.

I love that picture you didn't take! And I'm so glad you guys liked the cake - especially your DH. It seems rare that you find a guy who can appreciate the chocolate + peanut butter combo.... :confused3

We too LOVE the BWI, and I love that little always empty seating area! The rooms look fabulous since the rehab. We usually get a deluxe room since there are six of us, we recently bought into DVC, though, so I don't think I will be talking DH into that again when we have points to use :)
I have always done the traditional early to bed, early to rise, hit the parks at opening style of touring, but your report has definitely convinced me we need to try at least one evening EMH, I know it would make the teenagers happy if we stayed up late and slept it. They really love getting up for rope drop

Hee hee hee! Well, AK is good because the EMH don't last so long. And as you'll see, I began to be increasingly frustrated by our abandonment of the early to bed, early to rise style of touring. I think we'll be back to our old ways next time.


My DH too is getting tired of the Disney trips (Hellllloooo we just bought into DVC and we have those shiny new AP vouchers, if you think we aren't going back and often, think again) So I have been trying to think of ways to change things up a little for our June trip...

Yikes! That's a good tack, though. Let me know if I can help you brainstorm some ideas. :thumbsup2

Yay, another Lurkyloo Trip report !
I already informed my family that I WILL be getting a slice of P butter chocolate cake at the Boardwalk Bakery !!!
That is my #1 priority in March, thanks for letting us know where to find it

I am glad to see you have your priorities straight! :rotfl:

Happy Anniversary!

Thank you! :flower3:

First off Happy Belated Anniversary!!

Second, love that last installment. I would never have thought about doing AK at night but next time we go I am hitting it up. The empty park and the beautiful pics make is so worth it. I Jiko!! DH had the steak with the mac n cheese when we went and loved it. It was one of the best meals we have ever had at Disney.

Oh boy! I'm glad you liked it. I'm still sorry we weren't able to connect in December, so it's nice to hear about your trip!


Let me second that!!!!!
ps.....we are about to get snowed in big time here in the midatlantic, so hopefully you will update again soon.

I'll third that!

And I'm stuck in PA for the weekend so I'm secretly hoping too


I wish I'd been able to get something posted for you guys. But I think I heard there's been another storm big storm out your way, so maybe the forthcoming entry will fill the void.


Animal Kingdom looks beautiful at night! We've only been there during the day, so I really enjoyed seeing all your pictures

Denise

I'm happy you like them! It's DH's hobby, so it's nice when people comment.

ok..I just chatted with you, but I wanted to say HAPPY ANNIVERSARY again! Enjoy your weekend away!

Thank you so much! It was a blast!

Awesome trip report Carrie. Your photos of the Boardwalk have made me want to stay there even more.

Thanks! I hope you like it as much as we did!

Like everyone else, your photos of the BW are making me want to stay there even more than I already do. I've wanted to stay there for years, though, so it's nothing new.

Boy, now's the time to make it happen, what with all the discounts they're throwing out there... :)

Sorry I didn't get a chance to say "Howdy" in person this weekend. Happy (late) Anniversary!

Thank you! :wave2:

Happy Anniversary!

Thanks! :goodvibes

A belated Happy Anniversary - hope you both had a lovely day :lovestruc

Thank you - we did!

I'm a little late but wanted to wish you a very Happy Anniversary! Hope it was great.

Thanks! It was a lot of fun!

I too was reading my issue of D23 and who should I see standing out in the crowd? :-) I had read you were there at the convention, but never knew you would be a star of it! Made me realize I had been off the boards for a while and needed to get back to your trip reports. Glad I did! I have been laughing hysterically while on mute during an over the phone meeting!

Thanks for coming back! I'm glad to know I've been able to provide you a diversion from boring phone meetings - and thank goodness picture-phones haven't really taken off the way we all thought they would! :teeth:
 
Our third day at Walt Disney World was one I’d been looking forward to. Our plans were to spend the day getting the small dose of Hollywood Studios that I can stand, followed by dinner at bluezoo, which I’d been dying to show Patrick.

Once again, we slept in. And once again, we ate a breakfast in our room simply because we’d brought food, desperately pretending we didn’t have lunch reservations in 90 minutes. When we got to the BoardWalk boat dock, the weather did not look promising.

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But, like idiots, we sat on the back, uh, porch of the boat anyway. Sure enough, just as we pulled away from the Yacht Club dock, it started to pour. I tried to make a wish on a penny in the lake, but a seagull ate it. (Well, OK, he prolly missed it, but he *tried* to eat it!). At that point, we acknowledged defeat and moved inside the boat.


Even Hollywood Studios’ Christmas tree looked glum…
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Continuing our trend of bass-ackwards touring, the first thing we did when we moseyed into the park well after rope-drop was go straight to lunch. Oh wait – no, we got FastPasses for Rockin’ Roller coaster and THEN we went straight to lunch. You can take the girl off the DIS, but you can’t take the DIS outta the girl…

I’d grudgingly made a reservation at ’50s Prime Time Café (I refuse to punctuate it incorrectly even if that IS how Disney does it!) because I knew Patrick would love the theming and the over-the-top antics of the servers. I did not have high hopes for the quality of the food, though.

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They had some fun Christmas decorations up.

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DH took a ton of pictures while I wrung buckets of water from our underwear.*


*Gag contributed by MAGICFOR2


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“Hey, that’s our house on TV!”
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So, I dunno if it’s because it was the beginning of their business day or just that ’50s Prime Time gets a bad rap, but our meal was pretty dang good! We split the fried chicken.


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The fried chicken was crispy and tasted like it had been cooked in fresh oil – it was at least as good as the chicken at LA institution Pann’s (which you have to try someday, if only to see the fabulous Googie architecture!)

The gravy on the mashed potatoes tasted like dish soap to me, though, and I’d forgotten to bring a Ziploc to hide my uneaten greens in so the waitress wouldn’t bring them back under a pile of whipped cream—d’oh! Luckily, she turned out to be one of the more mellow ones, and we didn’t get any of the theatrics the restaurant is known for.

The highlight of the meal was getting to see part of an episode of The Dick Van **** Show on the TV at our table. (Thank you, The DIS, for protecting virgin eyes from the name of a beloved Disney icon…)

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I had to see the dessert menu even though I’d just polished off a peanut butter shake.

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One of the only things DH specifically asked to do at DHS that day—or on the whole trip, really—was watch “Playhouse Disney – Live on Stage!” because so many of the puppeteers he hires at Swazzle got their start doing the show in Florida or California. I told him that when the cast got wind he was in the audience today, the puppets would start vamping their butts off.

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“I'm at Playhouse Disney Live and I don't have kids, so I must be married to a puppeteer...”
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“Hi! I’m Tiny Mickey! Never you mind that I am three times bigger when you see me in the parks!”
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“And we’re Tiny Donald, Daisy, and Goofy!”
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I liked Handy Manny’s tool puppets, but his (pre-recorded) voice was TERRIBLE! I thought maybe there was a reason, like that he was voiced by a real-life construction worker or some other nonprofessional who’d maybe won a contest or something… turns out it’s Wilmer Valderrama from That ‘70s Show, and those in the know say he just refused to do more than one take on any line at the recording session! Nice…


“Gee, Manny, why do you sound like you’re totally baked?”
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“Yeah, Manny, are you phonin’ this one in?”
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“Whatever, tool guys – is my royalty check here yet?”
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“Um…What royalty check…?”
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The human hostess was WAY perky – whoever they got to record her voice was totally into it! DH didn’t take any close shots of Ms. Perky… thank gawd—I woulda smacked him…

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Next up was some show about nerdy children with giant heads and their flying car. Not sure what their mission was… maybe scientific advances in head-reduction surgery?

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Then Winnie the Pooh & Pals showed up with some girl who was definitely NOT Christopher Robin…

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And then it was Mini-Minnie’s birthday and all the other shrunken characters surprised her with one of those fabulous classic birthday cakes you can never seem to find in real life.

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I wanna see a Disney bakery make a cake that looks like THIS!
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After the show it was my turn to do the only thing I really wanted to do at DHS: Meet Dug!

As you know, I’m always turning up my nose at character interaction, but I’ve just never really been that crazy about any of the Disney characters… until now. [Cue “Theme from Romeo & Juliet” as Lurkyloo and Dug run toward each other across a field in slo-mo…]

So for the first time ever, I waited in line to meet a character at a Disney park. And boy did I wait – I think it was 30 minutes, each one fraught with tension as news of the character–appearance cycle rippled through the line.

“Oh no! They’re taking Russell backstage – he’s the only one SkyyLur wanted to meet!”

“What do you mean it’s just an old man out there? Didn’t that movie have a talking mammoth in it?”

“You take that diaper off your head and put it back on your sister!”

etc.

Fortunately, by the time we got up there, all the main characters from Up were there to greet us, even the flat cardboard bird that doesn’t move.

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And, at long last, I got the big hug I’d been wanting from Dug!


[I was having a Bad Thigh Day, so we’ll just go ahead and censor that…]

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Isn’t he CUTE?!
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Awww…. Look how cute the cute doggy is!
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Sign, boy – SIGN!!!
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Carl looks pretty darn amazing too!
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I’m not really sure what happened after that – I was still in a daze! It looks like we went by the remnants of the animation studio and then took in the display for The Princess & The Frog.

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Hmmm… who knew that Burbank, CA time is about 2 minutes ahead of Emeryville, CA time?
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Looky! More future artifacts we won’t be allowed to photograph one day!
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Nice puppet.
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This one is my favorite, so I’m showing it again:
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DH had to photograph the in-jokes in that one…
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He is also physically unable to walk past a Muppet picture without shooting it…

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We had a little time to kill until, uh, nothing happened, so we decided to see what Voyage of the Little Mermaid was all about.

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Apparently it is all about the audience randomly getting sprayed in the face with water. We gave it a resounding “Huh?!” I guess it was one of the first big shows at DHS, so maybe it gets props for that. But I just don’t expect to randomly get sprayed in the face with water during a stage show. 3D movies, yes. Over-acted and under-plotted musicals, no….

Fortunately my iPhone survived the soaking so I could get a text from Jensey telling me her mom was working in the information booth at DHS that day – hooray! So we went over to the corner of Hollywood and Sunset and stood in line for my second-ever Disney character meeting. It was funny because there were two CMs working in the booth, and the one who wasn’t Jensey’s mom was prolly wondering why a line had formed for her co-worker but nobody wanted to talk to her… When the guests in front of us had finally wrung from Jensey’s mom the location of every churro cart in DHS, it was our turn!

She was so sweet – she actually knew who we were (maybe cuz of Jensey’s restraining orders against us…?), and she came out of the booth so I could take a picture with her to Tweet!

Ms. Jensey Mommy! (a.k.a. Tia)

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We had a nice chat, and she gave us some tips about what to do on Saturday night if they wouldn’t let us transfer from the D23 Magic & Merriment event to the DIS party. (And none of them were “Poke the CM in the chest and shout, ‘I could buy and sell you!!!’” – who knew?)
 
Eventually we had to let Ms. Jensey Mommy go back to work, cuz people loooove their churros... We were conveniently located next to Starring Rolls Bakery, so I decided it was time to try their Massive Peanut Butter Chocolate Cupcake ™.

I thought somebody on the DIS might be interested in seeing the painted white-chocolate cake toppers they were selling.

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Unfortunately, there had been a run on Massive Peanut Butter Chocolate Cupcakes™ - and I wasn’t the only one disappointed. A couple people ahead of us in line were asking about them too! Instead we got the Gargantuan Butterfinger Cupcake ™.

This photo gives you no idea of the scale of the thing – that green disk you see under it is actually the courtyard in front of The American Idol Experience!
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OK, I thought I’d never met a cupcake I didn’t like and there was no such thing as “too rich” or “too sweet”… I was wrong. This cupcake was DISGUSTING! The cake tasted like it’d been made from a box mix, and it was stuffed with a giant blob of what appeared to be solidified hot fudge. The whole thing was piled high with about a cup of greasy buttercream frosting and then topped with Magic Shell and stale Butterfinger dust.

Seriously. It almost made me want to eat a piece of fruit.

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Gertie the Dinosaur was also topped with frosting!
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The last thing we did before leaving the park to freshen up for dinner was waddle down Sunset Blvd. to use our FastPasses for Rockin’ Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror, the latter of which we must have wished into existence, because they’ve certainly never been mentioned previously in this installment of the trip report.

The now-obligatory Carthay Circle Theater shot:
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Getting closer…
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Closer…
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Too close!
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Between that picture and this next picture some pretty scary stuff went down—I don’t really want to talk about it. Let’s just say I may never ride an elevator again…



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I love this doorway to a nonexistent ballroom!
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And then DH’s camera ran out of film… JUST KIDDING! Thanks to the digital revolution, I can go on boring you with pictures for DAYS!!!


But not today…

Up next: Dinner at Todd English’s bluezoo and our first-ever viewing of the Osbourne Fambly Spectacle of Break-dancing Lights!
 
I was so happy to discover your TR this morning! Thanks for taking us along with you -- love all the pictures!

Kristen
 
loving your TR, take your time.........:surfweb:

btw, I enjoyed a very good piece of chocolate peanut butter cake from the BW bakery last Saturday. WOW:lovestruc, I will go back for another piece when I return to the world!
 
I am so excited for your newest update! I like the food at the 50s Prime Time Cafe. They have the best pot roast. Thank you for all of the pictures of Dinsey's Playhouse. I don't have kids either and I was wondering what the show was about. Now I really want some chocolate after seeing those toppers! They are cute, but I still would eat them. :lmao:
 
Only one food shot... and it was icky? Disappointing! I was kind of stumped as to why it was so... tall. It looked like it had a chocolate covered strawberry under there. Now THAT would have been good. To me. But not to you either.

Looking forward to bluezoo review! (hee!)
 
oh, I forgot about the chicken by the time I got to the end. It looked good, nice and crispy! Too bad you and Patrick didn't get any sass from the server though.
 
Yeah more TR! I can totally back up the icky weather you experienced, except we dealt with it while changing resorts (nothing like changing busses at DTD in the pouring rain) But hey a rainy day in Disney is better than no day in Disney! Looking forward to more!
 
"DH took a ton of pictures while I wrung buckets of water from our outerwear."

At first glance, I thought this said you wrung buckets out of your UNDERwear! :rotfl2:

Your update was worth waiting for! I'm sure your book turned out great. Lots of great pics - It sounds like someone (not sayin' who :rolleyes1) needs to watch some Playhouse Disney! :goodvibes After having my DGS and DGD live here for 2 yrs, I have all the characters and plots memorized! So I have that goin' for me:thumbsup2

 
For anyone who doesn't know who the girl with Tigger and Pooh is, that's Darby. She's allegedly Christopher Robin's cousin. When I worked at MK, we got so many confused parents asking us what the heck had happened to Christopher Robin and why he looked like a girl now :rotfl: I haven't a clue why they changed. Probably to try and make Pooh more "accessible" to girls or something? I dunno, my sister and I loved it just fine when we were little.
 












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