"Anythings possible, for a Possible!" - Oct 15-25 TR(Final thoughts 5/25-Post 249!)

[skier_pete]

Every time I see a picture of that ginger cake, I want a HUGE piece myself, but I have never even tried it! It just looks so delicious!!

I definitely got the best dessert of that bunch!

 

[skier_pete]

Gosh, I'm really trying to find the time to be finishing my TR - but work and life has been so busy. It's that time of year where the yards starts needing your attention (why's that grass have to grow so dang fast!)

So, I left off a few weeks ago with our lunch at Teppan Edo. After this, we had a Kim Possible mission to complete, and we couldn't pass up the chance to see Miyuki - the Candy Lady. If you have never stopped to watch her work, it is so worth it. She takes lumps of sugar candy and molds it into the most amazing animal carvings. DD got to pick an animal again for her to make. The shame is that she doesn't let you take them home anymore...oh well, we have the pictures as memories:

DD picked a penguin as her animal.

It was already getting late in the day by the time we left Japan, so we headed for the "Land" pavillion. DD had wanted to ride "Living with the Land"...we missed out on it the first day, and this was the one thing we wanted to hit. We also ended up watching the circle of lfe movie, which is an entertaining diversion.

After that, as I've said before, we are not allowed to enter EPCOT without a stop at the Seas. We had to ride Nemo yet again, and explore the reef and especially see the sharks:

Next we headed over to Spaceship Earth, which we hadn't had a chance to ride the first day either. DD was afraid of it for some reason (can you think of a less scary ride than spaceship earth). Maybe she sensed something, because we got stuck on the ride for about 10 minutes in front of the Romans showing us how a system of roads was a form of communication. I listened to those AAs repeat the same line about 200 times, and I never did understand what they said.

After checking out the exhibits in the exit area, we headed outside, where DD loves to play on the dancing lights - we had some fun with the camera taking time delay pix. These are the best of the bunch.

Believe it or not it was coming up on park closing by this time, and we wanted to get a jump on the Illuminations crowd, so we headed for the Pop Century busses. It was a fun day, even though we didn't accomplish much, it felt like more of a bonus day. It also had that bit of meloncholy as the last park day of the trip. We ended up getting some dinner at the Pop food court. Please don't ask me what it was, I don't even remember! (Actually, DW had a salad, and I had the chicken Parmesan which I split with DD...so I do remember.)

Anyways, I'll be coming back hopefully shortly with a final post wrapping up our last day, and also a link to a new Pre-Trip Report, which is essentially designed as a bookmark to an evenutal trip report in case anyone wants to follow along. We are past the half-way marks between trips, and 180 days comes this Saturday.

I am enough of a Disney geek that I booked a reservation yesterday that I hope to not have to keep - merely a placeholder to allow me to book 180+10. There's no dscount at all, and I hope to God we don't have to pay full price!

 

[laashley]

Sad that your report is coming to a close, it is one of the few I can keep up with. I am still stuck at day 3 on my own. I know how it can get to get busy with life.

Chris and I had the pleasure of watching Miyuki this past trip. That is just amazing how she can mold the candy! How cool that your DD got to pick what she made.

I really like how the time delay pictures turned out.

 

[PrincessInOz]

Pete - great pictures and memories as always. I'll echo Ashley's comments about how sad it is your TR is coming to a close.

Catch you at final thoughts!....with (hopefully) a link to your new PTR.




ps. I've started a retrospective TR from a trip taken in 2007. Link is in my siggie if you're interested.

 

[skier_pete]

Sad that your report is coming to a close, it is one of the few I can keep up with. I am still stuck at day 3 on my own. I know how it can get to get busy with life.

Chris and I had the pleasure of watching Miyuki this past trip. That is just amazing how she can mold the candy! How cool that your DD got to pick what she made.

I really like how the time delay pictures turned out.

I totally get why people give up on TR - they are really hard to maintain. I have the fortune to have (occasionally) time at work. I typically type the updates in a document file as time allows, download the pictures to photobucket at home as time allows, and then slap it all together on a lunch break - which I take at my desk.

DD was (and is) completely fascinated by those pictures. Quite a concept for a 7-year old mind - light and motion captured in an instant. I really wish I had time to do things like htat right - it's really just setting the camera in a picture mode and letting it happen.

Pete - great pictures and memories as always. I'll echo Ashley's comments about how sad it is your TR is coming to a close.

Catch you at final thoughts!....with (hopefully) a link to your new PTR.




ps. I've started a retrospective TR from a trip taken in 2007. Link is in my siggie if you're interested.

At least having an upcoming trip eases the pain...ended up doing ADR's over the weekend - yesterday was 180 days out! I thought about the fact that after this trip, we won't have another one scheduled. THAT might be hard to bear.

She keeps bugging me about doing AKL again. I have to keep telling her..."That's not going to happen."

 

[Disneychix]

I ALWAYS get stuck on SE! One time I was in the reclined postition on the way back 'home'. It was really uncomfortable. Good thing was my cell-phone worked so I was able to text to pass the time!

You don't think you would rent points again for another AKL stay? I do have to say after renting 2 times in a row and staying a few nights at POP before moving to SSR last trip it was enough to convince my DH to buy a resale DVC! (he really disliked POP, and so did my mother and I!) Hopefully we will be SSR owners by the end of June!

 

[skier_pete]

I ALWAYS get stuck on SE! One time I was in the reclined postition on the way back 'home'. It was really uncomfortable. Good thing was my cell-phone worked so I was able to text to pass the time!

You don't think you would rent points again for another AKL stay? I do have to say after renting 2 times in a row and staying a few nights at POP before moving to SSR last trip it was enough to convince my DH to buy a resale DVC! (he really disliked POP, and so did my mother and I!) Hopefully we will be SSR owners by the end of June!

I've gone through the DVC point argument and I can't justify it. We really enjoyed all of our stays at Pop. We sort of had the opposite experience, while we enjoyed AKL very much...we felt like we were spending a lot of money for something we weren't really getting full usage out of. If we spent more time at the resorts, we probably would be OK...but I felt that we barely had time to enjoy the resort.

That's not to say we would NEVER rent points again...it's just I went WAY above our normal budget to do it. Can't say that I'll never be able to do it in the future, but right now we are saving towards a big (HUGE) trip in 2012, and I certainly can't spend the money this next trip. I could see split stays where maybe we spend a few days enoying a deluxe resort. But length of trip stays??? Not so much...unless I ever get a raise in salary...which seems awful unlikely in this economy.

In fact, after our upcoming trip (see next post for PTR link) we will have to reconsider how we handle trips in general. When DD turns 10, and they force her onto the adult DDP, how will we handle that? It seems stupid to pay $45 a day for her to probably basically eat the kids meals. At that point, do we stop with the DDP? If we eat in less TS restaurants, can we then afford a nicer hotel?

Can't worry about that just yet, though.

SkierPete

 

[skier_pete]

HEY EVERYONE -

I've started a PTR - with the somewhat lame title of:

"Look ma, we're planning a Disney Trip!"

Click on the link if you want to follow along. I admit that PTR's are kind of boring...so I don't think I will be devoting a lot of time to it, but if you want to follow my next TR, click over and subscribe, because this thread will likely be long locked by that point!

 

[skier_pete]

This is the end - the last day!

There's really not much to say...we had a 12 PM flight out of MCO on Monday, and so we had to catch the ME at 9 AM. That really didn't leave us time for much. We had mostly packed the day before, so packing was easy.

I find it a bit annoying that ME insists on picking you up 3 hours before your flight - we always seem to be at the airport 2 1/2 hours early and just have to sit around and amuse ourselves. We decided in this case to get some food at the airport for eating on the plane, but that didn't help kill the time. We also spent time playing on the moving walkways and looking at the giant fish tank at the food court. No time spent in the Disney stores...too depressing.

We had a stop in Baltimore that was uneventful. We got home safely, got our car and spun on home. We had left our car at a friend's house near the airport, and she was nice enough to pick us up.

That's it. The trip is done. Shortly after the trip we decided that this had been the best trip to date. Here's a quick recap of the best (and worst) of the trip:

The Awesome:
-Weather was beyond stellar. Not a drop of rain for 10 days, and mostly low humidity with warm temperatures.
- Staying at AKL was fantastic. I could get used to this (but better not, since we can't really afford it). Best parts were the decor and animals, but the pool and the sitter service were nice too.
- Pacing. I think we finally got it figured out combined with DD being old enough. We didn't kill ourselves this trip, even when we had late nights. I really feel like we've got it down now - as long as we can have 9 days!
- Food... Again, not really a bad meal in the bunch. I do not fully understand the complaints about food quality. Yup, it's overpriced as any tourist destination in the US would be, but we didn't have a bad meal in the bunch.
-...and wine. Really enjoyed food and wine and see why this is so popular.
- Sanaa and Jiko in particular were excellent choices.
- CMs (in general) were just stellar. They make the trips special every time.
- Jasmine going to fetch DD will be a lifetime highlight for her, and having it on video is super-special.
- Three times on TSM in a single day without waiting in line is pretty special.


The not-so-awesome:
- DD having her stuffed animal taken with the bedsheets. While CM services were mostly good, I was disappointed in the apathy the CM seem to show to the situation. The response was about all I could ask for really (pay to replace the item), but somehow I wanted someone to seem to CARE a little. It sort of downgraded the whole Deluxe hotel experience a bit, and it still stands out as pretty much a low-point of all our stays in the last 5 years.
- The Halloween Party (MNSSHP). I knew what to expect going in, and while we had an OK time, it was the biggest crowds and longest lines of the trip. We were talking about it recently, and while we wouldn't mind trying it again someday, we are in no hurry to repeat it, especially at the rate the prices go up. We also discussed attending the MVMCP next trip, and shot it down almost instantly. So much better ways to spend my money.
- Boma also served the biggest disappointment for a meal. We much preferred the buffet at Tusker House, and won't be returning here anytime soon.

So - that's it for this trip. If you made it this far, thanks for coming along for the ride! I hope I was able to give you a small amount of entertainment for the time you gave to me. I really appreciate the feedback everyone gives, too.

I hope you follow me over to my new Pre-trip report (link in previous post or in my signature). It's not particularly exciting, but it will eventually lead to a new trip report, in which I promise even MORE pictures and videos of WDW (we'll probably have my DM pix as well as ours and the photopass).

 

[onescgirl]

I cannot believe your trip is now over, boo!
I will go over & join you on the PTR, I'm so jealous!