Concierge Level Here We Come! - Index added

[Avojeo]

OMG!! Those pictures are awesome!!! I am so excited about getting to do this in December!!!! Now I have to ask what camera did you use?? Whatever it was you did a fabulous job!!!

 

[Donald is #1]

OMG!! Those pictures are awesome!!! I am so excited about getting to do this in December!!!! Now I have to ask what camera did you use?? Whatever it was you did a fabulous job!!!

Thanks! I was using my Nikon D300 (digital SLR) with a 70-300mm lens. I just checked my files and I had set the ISO on the camera to 640 because the Safari area can be a bit dark at times, particularly early in the morning. The safari was the entire reason that I brought that camera with all of its lenses on this trip. Normally, I use a point and shoot camera at Disney and then use the SLR on my non-Disney trips.

 

[Disney Brat]

Absolutly amazing pics!! Thank you so much for sharing that with us!! Glad to hear that the breakfast was great too!!

 

[2xcited2sleep]

Awesome photos! I especially like the extreme close-ups of the hippo, gator and elephant. And the last shot of the monkey's pink behind... too cute!

I don't know what I've been thinking, but in my head I thought that I'd have to get up practically in the dead of night to do the sunrise safari. 7 doesn't sound too bad. Not great for vacation but worth it based on your pictures and review!

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Donald is #1]

Absolutly amazing pics!! Thank you so much for sharing that with us!! Glad to hear that the breakfast was great too!!

Thank you!

Awesome photos! I especially like the extreme close-ups of the hippo, gator and elephant. And the last shot of the monkey's pink behind... too cute!

I don't know what I've been thinking, but in my head I thought that I'd have to get up practically in the dead of night to do the sunrise safari. 7 doesn't sound too bad. Not great for vacation but worth it based on your pictures and review!

Thanks for sharing.

Thank you! I also thought that I was going to have to get up much earlier for the safari than I actually did.

 

[If U Had Wings]

Your pictures are fantastic. The safari looks like it was a blast!

 

[Donald is #1]

Sorry everyone, it has been a crazy week! I had planned on getting another post up during the week, but the week just seemed to disappear.

OK, where did I leave off? Oh yeah, we just completed breakfast after the safari. Well, I had been debating all week whether I was going to carry my camera equipment all day after the safari or not. By camera backpack must weigh 10-20 lbs so my back/shoulders can get pretty tired from carrying it all day. Well as soon as we left Pizzafari, the heat and humidity hit me and it made my decision real easy. Back to the hotel it was to drop off the camera bag.

Aside for the middle age and older women out there: When I was younger, heat and humidity never bothered me. But since I turned about 40, I have found it really bothers me now. I am hoping that in a few years (or more ) when "m" is over, I will be able to tolerate the heat again. At WDW now, it means that by 2-3 PM, I am usually ready to head back to the resort for a few hours.

OK, back to your regularly scheduled trip report. Before I headed to the bus, Marge and I headed over to EE so that we could both get FPs and then Marge could use both. The path behind the Tree of Life was open, I believe that it is now the exit for ITTBAB, so we took that path and took our time. Here are my pictures from along the path, plus a gorilla picture from the gorilla area just outside of the safari.

Once we get the FPs, we pick a time to meet and I head off to AKV. I didn;t have to wait too long for a bus and was soon back at the resort. I dropped off my camera backpack and picked up my other backpack with my point and shoot camera. I then headed back to AK. While I was waiting for the bus at AKV, the weather seemed to change and without any rain, suddenly the humidity was a lot less. Eventually (maybe 15 minutes) the bus came and I was back at AK about 11:30. I went to the pin station to do some trading and to buy the mystery pin bags for AK. I ended up getting all but 1 of the pins after buying way too many of those bags.

Marge was at our meeting place which was conveniently at the pin station a few minutes early. Gee, I wonder who picked that meeting place.
We decided to head off to Dinosaur to get FPs. We had about 40 minutes before our FP, so we headed off for the path between Africa and Asia to look for Devine. Marge had never seen her so I wanted to track her down. Here are a couple of pictures:

Of course I had to get a Tree of Life picture.

We then got FPs for Kali River Rapids and then headed off to use our Dinosaur FPs. For some reason, the line was stopped when we got to Dinosaur so it ended up taking us about 30 minutes. But it was still fun.

We next headed over to Kali River Rapids to use our FPs and got soaked! Now, today wasn't my best selection of clothing. I was wearing jean shorts and they didn't want to dry. -> more about this later.

After Kali, I was ready for some lunch so we stopped at Yak & Yeti counter service place and I got the shrimp Lo Mein. This was only fair; maybe a 2 out of 5. It was on par with the chinese food that you get at a mall food court. We sat in the sun to try to dry off,. but it didn't help me much.

Next we headed over to the Asia Jungle Trek and this time one of the tigers was laying in the water trying to stay cool.

This is my favorite since Daisy likes to sleep like this too!

Once we did the jungle trek, we headed over to Flights of Wonder because Marge loves bird shows. As soon as we sat down, a man behind me asks me if I am on the DIS boards, I reply yes, I am Donald Is #1. He replies that his wife, sitting a few people down, is also on the boards. She is MouseHouseLover! I talked to them just for a couple of minutes. They were just starting their vacation. The show was ok but Marge enjoyed it. We then tried to head over to Lion King but there wasn't a show for about 1.5 hours. So we headed to the Pocohantus show. After sitting through the show, we both agreed that it was definitely too heavy handed in its environmental message and that we didn't need to see it again. At this point, I was still soaking wet so we decided to head back to the hotel to change.

 

[Donald is #1]

So, we went back to the resort and we both changed into dry clothes. Here is where I made a big mistake! My legs weren't bothering me from the wet shorts until I changed into a pair of capris. Once I was in the capris, my thighs were really bothering me from the chaffing/wet shorts. Well, eventually I decided to use some moleskin. -> not a good idea! I use moleskin all the time on my feet but it didn't dawn on me that the skin on my feet was much tougher than the skin on my thighs. Dumb me!!!! Anyways, I put a large piece on both thighs and thought great! My legs are fine. Well, later that night when we got back from MK, I tried to take it off! Let's just say, it took me 2 more days with pulling it off a little at a time to to get it off!

Anyways, back to Sunday. After we changed, I think that Marge went down to the pool and I headed over to the lounge to of course have wine & hors d'ouerves. Can you tell that I am really spoiled now??? When I was there, the guy that had asked me all of the camera questions, sits down with his large plate of food. He said that he was just up there during 1/2 time of the basketball game, but he sat down and talked for 30-60 minutes! He just wouldn't leave. I kept hoping that Marge would come by and give me an excuse but she came by about 10 minutes after he left. There was nothing really wrong with him but he seemed to always be in the lounge without his family and he just talked and talked.

After the hors d'ouerves, we decided to head over to MK. As soon as we got to MK, we headed over to the pin store in Liberty Tree Plaza/Frontierland because I was still missing one of the Donald Duck pins from MK. As we were heading over there, it started pouring! But luckily it was over in about 10 or 15 minutes. When I was in the pin store the day before, they had a pin trading book that you could look through and trade from. Unfortunately, the CMs this time couldn't find it. Well, I decided to buy 2 more packages of the pins and luckily, I got the pin I wanted!

Next, I believe that we headed over to haunted mansion which had almost no line. We then headed over to fantasy land. Tonight, I believe that we did Winnie the Pooh (my 2nd favorite fantasy land attraction after Mickeys Philharmagic) and the tea cups. I have never been on the tea cups before and it was a lot of fun! I can't remember if we did anything else in Fantasyland, but we headed over to tomorrowland and went on the TTA again. I just love riding the TTA at night.

We also did Buzz Lightyear again. This time Marge beat me. And I can't remember if we did Space Mountain but I don't think so. We then headed towards the center in front of the castle to watch Wishes. Sorry for the blurry photos, but I didn't bring my tripod to the park with me.

After the fireworks, Marge decided to stay for EMH but I was tired so I headed back to the resort. Since it was an EMH night, the lines for the buses weren't that long and I was back at the resort fairly quickly.

 

[If U Had Wings]

The pictures are great. I'm really enjoying your trip report.

I know exactly what you mean about the uncomfortable wet clothes. I have a pair of seersucker shorts that I save for every trip to AK, just so that when I get soaked on Kali I dry fast.

 

[Donald is #1]

The pictures are great. I'm really enjoying your trip report.

I know exactly what you mean about the uncomfortable wet clothes. I have a pair of seersucker shorts that I save for every trip to AK, just so that when I get soaked on Kali I dry fast.

Thanks! There are more pictures coming. I'm up-loading the pictures from our last full day now. So, I should have another update posted either tonight or tomorrow.

Yeah, on the shorts, I had the perfect shorts with me that would have dried quickly. But for some reason, I didn't wear them that day.

 

[ChelleinNC]

All caught up now

Pictures from the safari are fantastic! It looks like you were standing next to the animals. The breakfast sounded really good too

Been there done that with the denim shorts on Kali DH was the one that got the new shorts That was our first time at AK and on Kali, we certainly learned our lesson Now I always plan what I'm wearing to AK when I pack ---the moleskin sounds like a painful mistake hope your thighs have recovered

Looking forward to the next update

 

[Donald is #1]

Well this was our last full day at WDW. I also have to say, it is the day that for some reason I didn't take any notes. So, this post will be from memory.

Today was our EPCOT day. EPCOT is my favorite park so an EPCOT day is always one of the highlights of the trip.

As usual, breakfast was at the concierge lounge. They we headed off to EPCOT. We got there before opening and stopped to take some pictures at the topiaries in front of Space Ship Earth.

We then headed over towards the ropes and waited for the opening on the side towards the land. We were a good ways back from the rope but we made it over with the crowd in good time and first went to get our FPs. After getting the FPs, we decided to ride standby. I think that we had about a 20 minute wait, but it went quickly enough. We ended up being in the first row which is the highest row. As much as I love this attraction, I always have to hang on during the ride. This was the first time that I didn't hang on for dear life for the entire ride. Once we got off, we had probably about 15 minutes before our FP time. As we were hanging around, we saw the signup for the Behind the Seeds Tour and decided to sign up for that. If I remember correctly, we got a discount due to my AP, DVC card, or Disney VISA. We then went on Soaring again using our FPs. This time I think we were in the second row. After Soaring, we had about 15 minutes before our tour so we just hung out in the Soaring area.


Marge is much more of a gardener than I am, but I had been thinking about trying this tour so I was glad that we signed up for it. I think that we had about 10 people on our tour. We headed behind Soaring and our first stop was a room where they discuss using bugs for pest control and such. Then they took us into the greenhouses. This tour lasted about an hour and was very interesting! I definitely recommend it. The guide explains all of the different growing techniques that they are using and explained that all of the food grown there is used by the restaurants on property. We were able to take pictures anywhere in the green house so here goes.

When you get to the area where the fish are, the guide hands everyone some fish food and you get to feed the fish. It is fun to watch all of the fish race for the food.

After the tour, we headed over to Test Track to get our FPs. However, the FP time was 1:30 or 2 in the afternoon! We then went to Mission Space and we were able to walk on. I went on green side and Marge went on Orange. Here I had a strange experience. I was with a family of 3 and by the time the briefing ended, all 3 of them had chickened out. So I was on the ride all by myself which was a bit strange. When I got off, I went and played the game at the end while waiting for Marge. I think that this game is a lot of fun as long as there is a good size group playing.

I didn't have to wait long for Marge which surprised me since the posted wait time for the orange side was much longer, 15-20 minutes, than the green.

Once we got out, it was getting towards our ADR time at Teppan Edo. So we started heading towards the World Showcase. Of course I had to take a few pictures.

Both Marge and I love eating at Japannese steak houses. So this was an easy ADR to decide on. We had a reservation for about 1:15. We were seated very quickly and were soon picking out our meals.

I got the Crispy Suklyaki Beef Roll for my appertizer and the filet mignon for my entree. Marge got a salad for her appertizer and the scallops for her entree. The Crispy Beef Roll is a bit different because although it looks like sushi, it is grilled on the table. Both Marge and I loved our meals! The only slight (really slight) disappointment that I had was they didn't have a spicy mustard dipping sauce. They had I think 3 sauces but none of them were spicy. Our chef was a woman and she was a lot of fun. At our table was a mother and her 2 sons from Scotland and another group of 2 women. Marge was sitting next to the group from Scotland and she had a great conversation with them. I was next to the other 2 women and I got to hear them complain about how none of the restaurants in FL (where one of the women now lives) are as good as the ones in CA. They also couldn't understand why they couldn't have fried rice. Personnally, I always order fried rice when I am at Japannese steak houses but when they said that they didn;t have it, it didn't bother me. These 2 women jsut couldn't understand why they couldn't have it. First they asked the waitress and she explained the fried rice is chinese and because there is a chinese area in EPCOT, they couldn't serve it. They the chef comes out and prepares all our meals. When she is done, one of the women says "You are already going to get a great tip. But to get an even better one, will you put this rice on the grill, add some vegetables and soy sauce." So the poor chef has to explain to them the same thing the waitress told them. Then the manager comes out and explains the same thing again. They still didn't understand! Oh well!

After lunch we started wandering along and we went over to the Imagination Pavillion to do the Figment ride. At this point, I was tired and the heat was really getting to me. Plus I wanted to go back to the room, check in for the flight home, and pack. Marge wanted to do the Norway ride but I wasn't really feeling up to it. So I headed back to the resort while she went over to Norway.

 

[Donald is #1]

All caught up now

Pictures from the safari are fantastic! It looks like you were standing next to the animals. The breakfast sounded really good too

Been there done that with the denim shorts on Kali DH was the one that got the new shorts That was our first time at AK and on Kali, we certainly learned our lesson Now I always plan what I'm wearing to AK when I pack ---the moleskin sounds like a painful mistake hope your thighs have recovered

Looking forward to the next update

Thank you! To be honest for the safari pictures, I was using a 300mm lens on my digital SLR. Of course that was the reason that I lugged the camera all the way to FL.

Yep, I learned an important lesson on both the shorts and the moleskin. Of all of the shorts that I had with me, I had to pick the heaviest shorts to wear that day. Well, hopefully I have learned from my mistakes!

 

[swwake]

I <3 the topiaries!!

 

[Donald is #1]

I <3 the topiaries!!

I just love visiting EPCOT during the Flower and Garden Festival. There are just so many flowers and topiaries around.

I think that my favorite times are EPCOT are:

1) Food and Wine

2) Flower and Garden

3) Any other time

It has been too long since I have been at Christmas . So it will be interesting after my December trip to see where I rate it with respect to Food & Wine and Flower & Garden.

 

[Avojeo]

I finally got caught up!!! I love your pics with the toparies at the Flower and Garden. We went this year and did not take pics. I was upset when I got home and realize. I hate to hear about your issue with the moleskin. I know that had to be painful.

I am like you that I cannot wait until December and see Epcot in all the decorations!!!

 

[chaoscent]

We are going to be staying at the AK Concierge 1 BR DVC to celebrate my 60th birthday the first week of December. DH is really not a Disney person, but he loves his new camera. I keep showing him all the neat photos you have taken and he is now psyched about going.
so thanks for all of your great pictures.
Penny

 

[If U Had Wings]

Love the pics from the behind the scenes tour at the Land pavillion. I'm thinking of doing this next year when I make my solo trip. It just never seems possible when I'm with my family and no one ever wants to go.

 

[Donald is #1]

We are going to be staying at the AK Concierge 1 BR DVC to celebrate my 60th birthday the first week of December. DH is really not a Disney person, but he loves his new camera. I keep showing him all the neat photos you have taken and he is now psyched about going.
so thanks for all of your great pictures.
Penny

Awesome! I will be at WDW during the first week (arriving 12/3) of December also. However, I won't be at AKV for that trip because I wanted to try out BWV and BCV. (I here another add-on coming. ) Please feel free to ask any questions. If your husband likes to take pictures, he should be in 7th heaven with all of the Christmas decorations. When I saw the pictures of the castle from someone's trip report from last December, I just had to go this December.

Love the pics from the behind the scenes tour at the Land pavillion. I'm thinking of doing this next year when I make my solo trip. It just never seems possible when I'm with my family and no one ever wants to go.

Definitely do the tour if you have the time! It is fairly inexpensive and you can signup that day.

 

[meriann]

whoooo, I am finally done reading it all up to this point! I am so jealous that you stayed at AKV I want to stay there SOOOOOO bad but the bank account won't allow that at this time.

Hubby keeps saying "someday" we will stay there. We went to dinner at Jiko one night on our vacay and after dinner walked out to the viewing area and I think I could have stayed there all night long. I love looking at the animals.

I love all your pictures too!