cherry-pops
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Aug 15, 2005
- Messages
- 482
Apologies for not writing for a long time, I plan to get this finished pretty soon so I might make a lot of posts this week. With the snow keeping us inside at weekends and after work I really have no excuse!
Day Two
Today was our first Disney park day. The alarm was set for 6:30am and we found we had already adjusted quite well to the time difference. We were down for breakfast by 7am, finished with breakfast in 30 minutes and were waiting outside for the 7:45am bus to the Ticket and Transportation Center (TTC) near the Magic Kingdom. We had no idea what the shuttle bus would look like, luckily it wasn't late and the driver shouted the destination as he got off, so we knew we were safe. The bus headed south and made a couple more pick ups from other hotel, in all it took about 20 minutes from our hotel to the TTC. We took some instructions from the driver on how to get to the other Disney parks, we were heading to Animal Kingdom for our first Disney day!
We took the Disney Transport Bus from the TTC to Animal Kingdom, the sun was already pretty hot and it was quite a hazy morning - I couldn't get a good shot of the entrance sign.
We had a voucher to collect our 14-day Ultimate ticket from the Will Call window. The lady in the booth asked us if it was our first time, we said it was for James but no 'First Visit' badge was given to us. The lady gave us out tickets, maps and times guides for all four parks and we joined the line to enter AK. I was glad the bus got us there in time for opening, the turnstiles opened at about 8:45am. We jumped out of the crowd and into Guest Relations when we entered the park and picked up a 'First Visit' badge for James, seeing as the Will Call lady hadn't given us one. I wished I could wear one too, but that would be lying! I later got a 'I'm Celebrating' badge so I didn't feel left out.
The crowd all walked through the park until the Tree of Life was right in front of us. By the time we got to that point some kind of show was already going on with Goofy and Minnie on a bus - Mickey appeared in the distance by the Tree of Life and we counted down to the 9am opening. The crowds kind of split as some headed for Expedition Everest and others, us included, went for the Kilimanjaro Safaris.
As we walked towards Africa, Mickey appeared after his opening show and walked right in front of us! He's so funny, how he walks - he kind of swaggers and drags his feet! It's adorable. It was James' first encounter with a character and what a memorable one! I suspect Mickey was dying for a big piece of cheese after his already busy morning - we knew we'd see him again later, so we carried on our way.
We walked through the elaborate queue area of Kilimanjaro Safaris and waited in line for roughly 20 minutes, not a bad wait time when you consider the majority of people in the park are all in the same place! As we waited I wondered if the ride and storyline of the safari was still the same, it had a been a good 7 years since I'd last been on the safar, surely something must've changed.
"See you in two weeks!" Nope, the story was still the same!
We walked through the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail after the safari. It was already getting pretty hot in the sunshine, so the cool, covered trail was welcomed.
After the safari and the trail we had time for a few pictures with some characters! Our first character meet of the trip was with Pooh, Eeyore and Tigger. I remember feeling slightly nervous and shaky at the thought of meeting the characters, not because I was scared but because I was excited and this is one of the best things about Disney!
After we said 'bye to Tigger we headed onto wait in line for the 10:30am show of 'Finding Nemo: The Musical' in Dinoland. We ended up sitting quite near the front of stage and druing the show the performers walk and dance all around you. The show was brilliant and a definite must-see!
We planned our next show to be 'The Festival of the Lion King' in Camp Minnie-Mickey at 12pm. On our walk back we saw a character meet with Goofy and Pluto, the line was short and moving quickly so we jumped in for a photo.
I always remembered the queue area for 'The Festival of the Lion King' to be hot, sweaty and really uncomfortable, but it looked like they had made some changes to make it better with water-spray-fans and more foliage to give more shaded areas. The theatre was already filling up when we arrived, we headed to the seating area furthest away from the entrance. I didn't remember the theatre being completely indoors when I last saw the show, the whole place is now air conditioned instead of using only ceiling fans to keep the audience cool. Each seating area as allocated an animal, that animal's noise and a performer in the show - our area was the Lions! The performers enter from the four corners of the theatre and perform in a circle stage between the seating areas. Simba's float entered the theatre on our right hand side and Pumbaa came in on the left, near the exit. The show was just as magical as I remember it, it's something I could watch over and over again!
After the show we headed towards Restaurantosaurus in Dinoland for some lunch and on our way we found Lilo and Stitch!
Stitch is my favourite! And it was such a bonus to get Lilo with him as well, I was very pleased!
After lunch we went back to Camp Minnie-Mickey for more character meets with Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Donald who were all dressed up in their safari outfits!
We found time for some photos in front of the Tree of Life, thanks to the Photopass photographer who had just got through with a very tired child and impatient parents! We just wanted a few quick snaps together and then we were off to 'It's Tough To Be A Bug'.
I'd never been to the Bug show on my last visit to AK, Mum and I had seen that it involved some simulated bug presence on the warning sign and we quickly left the queue area before it was too late! But I decided that I had to give it a go, I'd researched the show and probably ruined the whole thing before our trip and kept my feet off the ground the whole time! lol.
We hadn't visited Asia yet and I quite fancied a go on Kali River Rapids since I was feeling brave after my experience in the Bug show! lol. The rapids weren't that bad, we didn't get very wet which is a shame really because the sun was really hot by that time! After the rapids we found a shaded spot for the parade outside the closed Flights of Wonder attraction. The parade began at 3:45pm and because we were so near the end of the route it was gone 4pm by the time it reached us.
Park closing time was due at 5pm, so we headed to the exit after the parade had passed by. I think a lot of people had the same idea. We stopped off in a couple of gift shops, didn't buy much really just a safari Mickey antennae topper and an Animal Kingdom pin.
Lots of people were already waiting in line for buses back to resort hotels, we needed to get a bus back to the TTC so we could catch our free shuttle back to I-Drive. We seemed to be waiting ages before we heard about a security incident that involves the entire Disney Transport system! No buses we carrying guests until they had been inspected at the main depot. We waited some more until buses finally started to arrive and take guests back to resort hotels. Our bus still didn't come, everytime a bus came into view we hoped and then were disappointed.
A friendly senior cast member on a Segway came over and was talking to a group of guests in our line, he explained that no buses were entering the Magic Kingdom resort area. We could go to EPCOT and get the monorail to MK if we wished, or simply wait for the TTC bus. Many went to EPCOT, but we had already missed our shuttle back to I-Drive. The Animal Kingdom extended it's opening hours and were letting guests back into the park until the bus service returned to normal. We didn't really know what to do, we'd been at Disney since about 8am and wanted to get back - it was almost 6pm. We had $40-ish in our wallet and chose to spend it all on a taxi ride back - it was an unfortunate one-off event. We had a really pleasent ride back with a female taxi driver, she told us how her son went the FU and she was a Gator-Mom - it was very sweet.
I don't know what time we got back to our room, but it was later than we'd hoped. At this point we still had no idea what had happened with the buses, so put on local news. Apparently, there was a mysterious box attached to the underside of one of the buses, it was later identified as a GPS tracking box which had been fitted to some buses a few years back and engineers had not recognised it before. That little black box cost us $40 and made us very stressed!
We had dinner at TGI Friday's on I-Drive and retired to bed quite late.
Day Three: Disney's Hollywood Studios
coming soon!
Day Two
Today was our first Disney park day. The alarm was set for 6:30am and we found we had already adjusted quite well to the time difference. We were down for breakfast by 7am, finished with breakfast in 30 minutes and were waiting outside for the 7:45am bus to the Ticket and Transportation Center (TTC) near the Magic Kingdom. We had no idea what the shuttle bus would look like, luckily it wasn't late and the driver shouted the destination as he got off, so we knew we were safe. The bus headed south and made a couple more pick ups from other hotel, in all it took about 20 minutes from our hotel to the TTC. We took some instructions from the driver on how to get to the other Disney parks, we were heading to Animal Kingdom for our first Disney day!
We took the Disney Transport Bus from the TTC to Animal Kingdom, the sun was already pretty hot and it was quite a hazy morning - I couldn't get a good shot of the entrance sign.
We had a voucher to collect our 14-day Ultimate ticket from the Will Call window. The lady in the booth asked us if it was our first time, we said it was for James but no 'First Visit' badge was given to us. The lady gave us out tickets, maps and times guides for all four parks and we joined the line to enter AK. I was glad the bus got us there in time for opening, the turnstiles opened at about 8:45am. We jumped out of the crowd and into Guest Relations when we entered the park and picked up a 'First Visit' badge for James, seeing as the Will Call lady hadn't given us one. I wished I could wear one too, but that would be lying! I later got a 'I'm Celebrating' badge so I didn't feel left out.
The crowd all walked through the park until the Tree of Life was right in front of us. By the time we got to that point some kind of show was already going on with Goofy and Minnie on a bus - Mickey appeared in the distance by the Tree of Life and we counted down to the 9am opening. The crowds kind of split as some headed for Expedition Everest and others, us included, went for the Kilimanjaro Safaris.
As we walked towards Africa, Mickey appeared after his opening show and walked right in front of us! He's so funny, how he walks - he kind of swaggers and drags his feet! It's adorable. It was James' first encounter with a character and what a memorable one! I suspect Mickey was dying for a big piece of cheese after his already busy morning - we knew we'd see him again later, so we carried on our way.
We walked through the elaborate queue area of Kilimanjaro Safaris and waited in line for roughly 20 minutes, not a bad wait time when you consider the majority of people in the park are all in the same place! As we waited I wondered if the ride and storyline of the safari was still the same, it had a been a good 7 years since I'd last been on the safar, surely something must've changed.
"See you in two weeks!" Nope, the story was still the same!
We walked through the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail after the safari. It was already getting pretty hot in the sunshine, so the cool, covered trail was welcomed.
After the safari and the trail we had time for a few pictures with some characters! Our first character meet of the trip was with Pooh, Eeyore and Tigger. I remember feeling slightly nervous and shaky at the thought of meeting the characters, not because I was scared but because I was excited and this is one of the best things about Disney!
After we said 'bye to Tigger we headed onto wait in line for the 10:30am show of 'Finding Nemo: The Musical' in Dinoland. We ended up sitting quite near the front of stage and druing the show the performers walk and dance all around you. The show was brilliant and a definite must-see!
We planned our next show to be 'The Festival of the Lion King' in Camp Minnie-Mickey at 12pm. On our walk back we saw a character meet with Goofy and Pluto, the line was short and moving quickly so we jumped in for a photo.
I always remembered the queue area for 'The Festival of the Lion King' to be hot, sweaty and really uncomfortable, but it looked like they had made some changes to make it better with water-spray-fans and more foliage to give more shaded areas. The theatre was already filling up when we arrived, we headed to the seating area furthest away from the entrance. I didn't remember the theatre being completely indoors when I last saw the show, the whole place is now air conditioned instead of using only ceiling fans to keep the audience cool. Each seating area as allocated an animal, that animal's noise and a performer in the show - our area was the Lions! The performers enter from the four corners of the theatre and perform in a circle stage between the seating areas. Simba's float entered the theatre on our right hand side and Pumbaa came in on the left, near the exit. The show was just as magical as I remember it, it's something I could watch over and over again!
After the show we headed towards Restaurantosaurus in Dinoland for some lunch and on our way we found Lilo and Stitch!
Stitch is my favourite! And it was such a bonus to get Lilo with him as well, I was very pleased!
After lunch we went back to Camp Minnie-Mickey for more character meets with Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Donald who were all dressed up in their safari outfits!
We found time for some photos in front of the Tree of Life, thanks to the Photopass photographer who had just got through with a very tired child and impatient parents! We just wanted a few quick snaps together and then we were off to 'It's Tough To Be A Bug'.
I'd never been to the Bug show on my last visit to AK, Mum and I had seen that it involved some simulated bug presence on the warning sign and we quickly left the queue area before it was too late! But I decided that I had to give it a go, I'd researched the show and probably ruined the whole thing before our trip and kept my feet off the ground the whole time! lol.
We hadn't visited Asia yet and I quite fancied a go on Kali River Rapids since I was feeling brave after my experience in the Bug show! lol. The rapids weren't that bad, we didn't get very wet which is a shame really because the sun was really hot by that time! After the rapids we found a shaded spot for the parade outside the closed Flights of Wonder attraction. The parade began at 3:45pm and because we were so near the end of the route it was gone 4pm by the time it reached us.
Park closing time was due at 5pm, so we headed to the exit after the parade had passed by. I think a lot of people had the same idea. We stopped off in a couple of gift shops, didn't buy much really just a safari Mickey antennae topper and an Animal Kingdom pin.
Lots of people were already waiting in line for buses back to resort hotels, we needed to get a bus back to the TTC so we could catch our free shuttle back to I-Drive. We seemed to be waiting ages before we heard about a security incident that involves the entire Disney Transport system! No buses we carrying guests until they had been inspected at the main depot. We waited some more until buses finally started to arrive and take guests back to resort hotels. Our bus still didn't come, everytime a bus came into view we hoped and then were disappointed.
A friendly senior cast member on a Segway came over and was talking to a group of guests in our line, he explained that no buses were entering the Magic Kingdom resort area. We could go to EPCOT and get the monorail to MK if we wished, or simply wait for the TTC bus. Many went to EPCOT, but we had already missed our shuttle back to I-Drive. The Animal Kingdom extended it's opening hours and were letting guests back into the park until the bus service returned to normal. We didn't really know what to do, we'd been at Disney since about 8am and wanted to get back - it was almost 6pm. We had $40-ish in our wallet and chose to spend it all on a taxi ride back - it was an unfortunate one-off event. We had a really pleasent ride back with a female taxi driver, she told us how her son went the FU and she was a Gator-Mom - it was very sweet.
I don't know what time we got back to our room, but it was later than we'd hoped. At this point we still had no idea what had happened with the buses, so put on local news. Apparently, there was a mysterious box attached to the underside of one of the buses, it was later identified as a GPS tracking box which had been fitted to some buses a few years back and engineers had not recognised it before. That little black box cost us $40 and made us very stressed!
We had dinner at TGI Friday's on I-Drive and retired to bed quite late.
Day Three: Disney's Hollywood Studios
coming soon!
