So, by the time we finished wandering around the resort, it was about 1:30. I called to see if our room was ready but it wasn't so we decided to head to EPCOT for a little while. First we stopped at Bell Services so that Marge could leave her backpack plus change shoes and get her sunscreen. Once we got sunscreened up, we headed to the bus stop. We only had about a 15 minute wait for the bus. Once we got to Epcot, Marge went off to buy her tickets and I went to Guest Services to activate my AP and to buy a DDE card.
Our first stop was Spaceship Earth. Neither one of us has ridden this since the rehab. There was no line so we walked right on. We both enjoyed it even though we had a problem with the audio in our vehicle for part of the ride. Once we were out of SSE, my phone rang but by the time I pulled it out of my pocket, I missed the call. We waited for a couple of minutes and then I checked my voicemail. It was 2:30 and our room was ready! The message included our room number (6206) and since we already had our keys, we could go to the room whenever we wanted.
Now we had a dilemna: do we head to the room now or wait? We decided to spend some more time at Epcot. So we went over to Canada to watch the movie. We were lucky again and within about a minute of us walking into the waiting area for the movie, the movie was starting. This was the first time that I have seen the movie since its update and I enjoyed it. I am not a big Martin Short fan but he really didn't bother me.
By the time we got out of the movie, it was really getting hot! We decided to wander around WS a bit and about 4:00 decided to head back to the room. By this time, I was vert hot and I was tired of carrying my camera bag. Normally, I don't carry my camera bag around WDW. I usually just have my point & shoot camera with me and leave my SLR and its lenses at home. However, since we were going to be doing the Sunrise Safari on Sunday, I wanted my SLR with me.
I don't think that we waited that long for the bus and soon we were back at AKV. We went directly to our room and found it to be excellent! It was a studio with the bed near the sliding glass doors.
Looking at the room from the slider.
The kitchenette:
The sink area:
I didn't take a picture of the shower, but it was a normal shower/tub combination.
When we looked out from the room, we noticed that they were painting the building. Also, the area of the svannah that we overlooked had a lot of trees and we didn't see any animals on the first day.
View from the room:
I called down to Bell Services and we had all of our bags plus my owner's locker within 5-10 minutes. The CM from Bell Services explained that much of the furniture came from Africa or was made with African wood. He also let us know that the pool was open for 24 hours.
By the time that we had our luggage, it was just about 5. So we decided to head to the CL lounge for our first wine & hors d'oueve session. Luckily for us, we were on the 6th floor and the CL lounge is also on the 6th floor. So it was extremely convient. We were very impressed with the spread. They had:
- 3 types of beer (Michelob, Miller Lite, Tusker)
- 4 types of South African wine (1 white, 1 rose, and 2 reds)
- milk, soda, iced tea, juice, tea & coffee
- flat breads with 3 different spreads avialable (olive, yogurt, and ?)
- cold selection of cheese & crackers, olives, morrocan carrots, roasted peppers, hearts of palm, uncrustables
- a selection of 3 hot dishes which was a soup and 2 other dishes.
The hot selections changed each day while the cold selection was the same. For the hot selections, there was always a soup and then 2 other dishes. The other dishes varied but included: chicken satay, chicken wings, ribs, meatballs, stc.
We both definitely got spoiled by the selection available in the lounge!
After our snack, we decided to head to MK for the fireworks. By this point, I had switched from my camera bag to my almost empty backpack.
When we got to MK, we first stopped right by City Hall so that Marge could try to hula hoop.
Next we walked through the Emporium and Marge found a set of Pirate Mickey ears that she had to have!
We decided that our first attraction would be Haunted Mansion. So we started heading that way but stopped to take the obligatory castle pictures.
We had virtually no wait for Haunted Mansion and as always we both enjoyed this attraction. We then headed towards Fantasy Land and got fast passes for Peter Pan. The return time was something like 9:30. We then went to Mickey's philharmagic. This is my favorite 3-D attraction at the parks!
By this time I was getting a bit hungry since I didn't eat that much for the hors d'ouerves. We stopped at Cosmic Ray's and I made the mistake of ordering the double bacon cheeseburger instead of the single. Well I ate about 1/2 of it and when I said that I was done, Marge asked if I was going to finish. I said no that I was full. So she asked me to cut the remaining burger and half and then she ate most of the burger remaining.
After my dinner break, we went to Monster's Inc. We probably had about a 5-10 minute wait before the show. This is the second time that I have seen this show and I love it. It always makes me laugh.
Next up was the TTA which I love at night. I think that it is so neat to see the castle and tomorrowland all lit up.
(not taken from the TTA)
From there we were off to Buzz Lightyear which only had about a 5 minute wait. We decided to get separate cars and on this round, I outscored Marge by about 3:1. When we got out of Buzz, it was time for Wishes. However, Marge confused me a bit here. Originally, we had been planning on heading to DTD this evening. But Marge said that she likes to always go to the fireworks on her first night. So we decided to go to MK instead of DTD. So, now it is about 10 minutes prior to Wishes when we get off Buzz and Marge says "Let's see what the line is like for Space Mountain."
At this point I am very confused! I said, but don't you want to see the fireworks because we won't be able to do both. Well she then agrees to do the fireworks. As we get to the bridge out of Fantasyland, Marge decides that she wants to stop here to watch. I point out the trees and tell her that I have been on the other bridge from tomorrowland and most of the fireworks were blocked by the trees. She insisted so we stood there to watch and
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Yes, many of the fireworks were blocked by the trees.
After Wishes, we headed to Peter Pan to use our FP and then we decided to head out. We didn't make the first bus but did get seats on the 2nd bus. This ended up being quite a long day. We were up at 4:30 AM and we didn't get back to our room until 11:20 PM. At that point, Marge decided to go to the pool for a swim and I decided to take a shower since it was sooooo hot out!