Cue the Music: How we MADE money and slept with Ariel! Done!

[mickeystoontown]

Sleep In and Hollywood Studios revisited continued

Remember when we walked into Muppetvision 3D and we saw the pre-show? Here are some more pictures.






Every single time that I see these two, I think of my Uncle Harold. Not that any of y'all know what my Uncle Harold looks like or acted like. Just take my word for it.


From there, we went to use our Tower of Terror Fastpass.




I am so glad that I found these pictures because I had forgotten about a very special moment. I know that this may come as a shock to some of you....but....my kids are very outgoing. Not afraid to stand up in front of a crowd and act crazy. Not afraid to do one armed push-ups with Green Army Men while dozens stood around and watched. Not afraid to jump up and down until they are chosen to be a stand-in in the Indiana Jones show. I have no idea where they get that trait from.

Back to the story. We were wandering back over to Star Tours when we ran into several Citizens of Hollywood actors doing a skit. John and I both love watching them so we stopped. At the end of the skit, I asked one particular actress if I could take a picture with her. She said "Of course! I'll let the men doing the packing up."

But, first, I had something to show her. I pulled up this next picture that I just happened to have on my (now old) phone (and which looks like crap because, for the purpose of this trip report, I had to pull from my Facebook page). The actress on the left is one that pulled Hunter from the crowd years and years and years ago to participate in a skit. He was rewarded with a "fake gold statue". He was just a little old thing then.



This is the same actress in the picture below!




Y'all, she was almost in tears when she saw the old picture of her. She even broke character for a minute or two while she told us that those guys were some of her very dear friends. I thanked her for stopping and talking with us. She said "no thank you for the sweet memory". Man, I love Disney and the memories that we have made over the years!

Of course, being the Mother of the Year that I am, I immediately text the picture to Hunter just to rub it that we had met an old friend of his.

Continued in next post

​

 

[mickeystoontown]

Hooray for Hollywood!

Just as I suspected, we did make a stop at The Voyage of the Little Mermaid. See, I have proof. We were some of the last ones in the theater and had two seats alllllllll the way over to the right of the stage and in the middle of the theater. Perfect spot for napping if your name is John.



I was trying my best to get a good picture of Ursula.







In between taking pictures, I was jabbing John in the ribs because he was starting to snore. Imagine that? Actually, don't imagine it. It's a most irritating noise.

Annnnnnnd, then we took a ride on Star Tours:


Look at that line would ya!



Again, even if you don't know a thing about Star Wars, you can still take a ride on Star Tours and enjoy it.

Previously, I posted that I sent Hunter the picture of us and the actress. John was trying to outdo me in the Parent of the Year award and had me take this picture and send it to Hunter. Back in the day, Hunter always always had to be the one to put 3D glasses back in the bins. To this day, we still give them to him. Since he wasn't with us at this most magical place on Earth, John had to do it himself.


Ahhh, we are such sweet kind hearted parents.

**Continued in next post​

 

[mickeystoontown]

Hurray for Hollywood continued!

I must have totally flubbed up the first Hollywood Studios day posts (pre-the newfound pictures) because I'm finding these next set of pictures after the Star Tour pictures. Looks like we backtracked to Rock N Roller Coaster.

If we hadn't rubbed it in Hunter's face that we were at Walt Disney World without him, I sent him this picture to ask if he liked this shirt. Hey now! I was trying to be a nice Mama and bring him back a cool rock n roll tee. He didn't answer. Hum, okay. I'll wait and see if he answers after we take a wild ride to Hollywood.



The pre-show area:


And a poster as we were walking into the garage.


There was a 30ish guy and his pre-teenish daughter behind us. They had never ridden before and we were talking to them. Turns out that they lived in a town south of us, just about three or four hours away. Small world.


We squealed the tires, did our loopdiloop, corkscrews and pulled into the garage just a few minutes later. Hunter hadn't responded yet. I knew that I'd wear the tee even if he didn't so I made the purchase and put it into my backpack.


**Up Next: Don't look now but it's the creature from the black lagoon!​

 

[mickeystoontown]

Don't look now but it's the creature from the black lagoon!

It was time for our dinner reservation. And, once again, we were criss crossing the park. This evening, we were dining at:

Oops, can't see the sign very well. That's the Sci-Fi Dine In Restaurant. We have found that the restaurants in Disney's Hollywood Studios are known more for their "theme" and not their food. Keeping that in mind, we booked an ADR at Sci-Fi because the atmosphere is great. Since we were a party of two, we would either be sitting at a small round table at the back of the restaurant or we would be hitchhikers. On this night, we were thumbing it.

Our waiter took our orders and we watched the fun black and white film clips while we waited.







Gettin' all snuggly in the backseat.


If you've ever eaten at Sci-Fi, you know that the lighting does not make for good pictures. I don't even remember what we ordered. I'm thinking the first picture is a Reuben sandwich which is what John usually orders.




This looks like a bacon burger something or other.


I think that I've mentioned before that in 2017, the Dining plan included desserts.






**continued in next post​

 

[mickeystoontown]

Don't look now but it's the creature from the black lagoon!


A few more "scary" movie clips later and our desserts arrived.



Dinner done, we signed our ticket and left the tip. As we rounded the corner near Indiana Jones, we could see the Hollywood Studios Christmas tree and they were just lighting it for the night.




We decided to bid Hollywood Studios for the evening. We had another Disney destination to visit this evening.

**Up next: His butt comes up to my chest!

​

 

[mickeystoontown]

His butt comes up to my chest!

Lacey has collected Disney pins for years now. Before our trip, she had seen a new
mystery series of pins and wanted us to buy one or two for her. She hoped to get a Dole Whip or Space Mountain pin. We figured that we would head to the pin store at Disney Springs to see if they had the series.

At the time, they were still working hard on Disney Springs. The name had just changed and the stores were taking on a whole new look. While looking around, I took a bad picture of the Christmas decorations.


And we visited the "new" Coca Cola store. There was a Coca Cola logo on anything you could ever imagine.





We didn't buy anything and moved on towards the other end of Disney Springs and the pin store. Despite the fact that we had slept in, we were getting tired and were ready to get back to the resort. We purchased two pins for Lacey and walked to the bus stop.

In front of us was a man and woman and their two daughters. He was soooo tall. How tall? His butt came up to my chest!

You know the bars (not drinking bars) in the bus stops? The ones that come up to around your waist? He could easily rest his behind on it without stretching at all.



Let me put it into a better perspective. This is John leaning up against the bar. John's 6 foot tall.



Yeah, he was tall. Okay, so it's the little things that amuse us people! Our bus rolled up and we hopped on. Not much later, we were strolling through the Lion King section of the resort again.





Lacey had told us to go ahead and open the pins. If we didn't get a Dole Whip, then trade it for another. She got this one:


And this one:



Yay! One was Space Mountain which is what she had hoped for.

**Up next: Poop? This is poop? Get the firehose!​

 

[krr126]

Good morning Lisa, thanks for getting my day off to a great start with a lot of trip report updates!

 

[mickeystoontown]

Good morning Lisa, thanks for getting my day off to a great start with a lot of trip report updates!

Good morning to you! I'm getting ready to write more updates!

 

[mickeystoontown]

Adding something else to the trip report

I found these pictures. It seems like we went to the food court for a late night snack.






Poop? This is poop? Get the firehose!

We took turns in the shower meaning that I was ready before John. I grabbed the refillable mugs that came with our dining plan and set off for the Art of Animation food court for coffee and a Coke. While there, I snapped a picture. I believe that I was trying to get a picture of the pretty light fixtures.




By the time I made it back to the room, John was out of the shower and getting dressed for the day. Today, we were off on a new adventure!

You may recall that we received a gift card for opting out of mousekeeping. Part of the money went towards buying John's co-worker's nephews some gifts. With the rest, we bought a tee shirt for John and we signed up for the new Caring for the Giants tour. I was super duper excited about this. John? Well, he likes animals but he's not a big Animal Kingdom fan. Good thing I love him as fiercely as I do. Otherwise.....

Flights of Passage was still fairly new and we hadn't ridden it before. I was able to book Fastpasses for our first Animal Kingdom day and, because it was getting such rave reviews, I grabbed another set for this day. If we didn't like Flights of Passage or it didn't live up to its hype, I'd simply cancel it and we'd go somewhere else. Well, it more than lived up to the hype and we were definitely going again. Thus, we were on our second day at Animal Kingdom. The plan was to stay for at least half a day and then leave. Then, we got the gift card and the tour was booked.

We arrived at the park not long after park opening and went right to Pandora and Flights of Passage. I attempted to take a picture of the posted wait time but it came out like this. Even that early in the morning, the wait time was over two hours. Thank you to all that is Disney holy for Fastpasses. The two hour time later turned into over 200 minutes!

We moved quickly through the Fastpass queue and I hastily snapped pictures.



Disney did such a fantastic job with this new land. It is gorgeous and it's so hard to remember when it looked like Camp Minnie Mickey.





**Continued in next post
​

 

[mickeystoontown]

Poop! This is poop? Get out the firehose!​

Flights of Passage was just a fun as we remembered it to be. Not that it was hard to remember because it was just a few days ago but still. It was time to skidaddle from Avatar. We had places to go and animals to see.

I needed to take a potty break before the tour. Given my luck, you would know that the bathrooms in Africa were closed. I had to hotfoot it over to Asia. I was crossing continents just to go pee. Being the good trip reporter that I am, I snapped pictures on the way back.

I made it back to John who was waiting for me near one of the counter service windows. We decided that we needed a snack before our trek through elephant territory. A coffee and a cinnamon roll sounded perfect so we got in line and waited.

I loved the Christmas wreaths at Animal Kingdom.


Treats in hand, we found a spot to perch and ate this delicious cinnamon roll while waiting for the time to line up for the tour.



**Continued in next post​

 

[mickeystoontown]

Poop! This is poop? Get out the firehose! continued

John finished up his coffee and we went to the table to check in. Even though we had lingered over our roll and drinks, we were still a wee bit early for the tour. We were given name tags and told to wait over to the side.







Okay, so I need to stop for a bit. I'll be back to finish up the tour update.
​

 

[oopsiDAISY]

That is so very cool that you had such an amazing interaction with the Streetmsphere actress! Oh, poor Hunter! I just love it when my parents send me photos from the beach....while I am freezing my butt off at work!

 

[mickeystoontown]

That is so very cool that you had such an amazing interaction with the Streetmsphere actress! Oh, poor Hunter! I just love it when my parents send me photos from the beach....while I am freezing my butt off at work!

I was so happy to run into the Streetmosphere actors and find an old friend! Gotta love it when family members are posting pictures of them on vacation.

 

[Connie96]

Loving all the updates!

 

[mickeystoontown]

Poop! This is poop? Get out the firehose! continued

Before I inudate you with pictures of the elephants, let me post the following regarding the tour as found on the www.disneyworld.com site.

First, the tour description:

An Experience You’ll Never Forget
Delve into the wondrous world of our park's largest inhabitants.

During this 60-minute experience, you’ll meet with dedicated animal specialists who provide for the care and wellness of our African elephant herd. They’ll give you a glimpse into their day-to-day responsibilities as they provide fascinating facts about the elephants.

African cultural representatives will also be on hand to share stories of Disney’s conservation efforts dedicated to the preservation of wild populations throughout their homeland.

Throughout this experience, you’ll be able to observe the elephants from approximately 80 to 100 feet away—so you’ll enjoy a closer encounter with the elephants than you would during other in-park experiences.

And the important details that guests should be aware of:


Know Before You Go
Be sure to review important information, including Guest restrictions, recommended attire and cancellation policies.

​

• 
  
  
  • You will be approximately 80 to 100 feet away from the elephants during this experience.
  • Please keep in mind that this is an outdoor experience. Be sure to check the weather forecast and dress appropriately, including wearing comfortable shoes.
  • No cameras, video equipment or cell phones may be used while backstage. However, photography is allowed and encouraged in non-backstage areas.
  • Guests under 18 years of age must be accompanied by a participating adult (18 years of age or older).
  • Guests must be 4 years of age or older to participate.
  • Please check in 15 minutes prior to start of experience at the Curiosity Animal Tours kiosk, located across from the Kilimanjaro Safarisattraction entrance. Late arrivals may not be able to join the experience.
  • Itinerary, content, duration and availability are subject to change without notice.
  • You will forfeit the entire price of this experience if you no-show or cancel within 2 days of your reservation.
  • For information about service animal policies for this experience, please call the Guest Animal Experience team directly at (407) 938-1487.
  • Non-transferrable wheelchair guests may remain in their wheelchair throughout this experience; however due to limited capacity onboard the backstage transport vehicle, all accommodation requests should be confirmed by calling (407) 938-1487.
  • Guests using an ECV must leave their mobility device onstage where they will retrieve them upon conclusion of the experience. Guests must walk by themselves, or be assisted by a member(s) of their party in a courtesy wheelchair to participate in this experience.
  • This experience visits outdoor areas containing common allergens such as dust and hay, as well as biting/stinging insects.

Once everyone was all checked in, we were greeted by a nice cast member who told us that our phones had to be put away and asked us not to take any pictures until we were given the okay. Everyone warned, we were off on foot and walked behind the wall to "backstage". I don't know about y'all but I love that kind of stuff. Knowing that I'm somewhere that I'm really not supposed to be. Well, I was supposed to be but I had to have special permission and some coins in order to do so.

The cast member told us what we were about to be seeing and reminded us that this was an approximately hour long tour. She then pointed to the backside of the floating mountains of Pandora and told us that the Disney Imagineers had placed a hidden Mickey that could only be seen from certain vantage points. I didn't get to see it because we never stopped walking. Dang it! It's okay though because were about to be going on a close encounter with gentle giants.

We then loaded into a small bus type van thing. Once she made sure that we were strapped in, we were on our way. We passed by the backside of Kilimanjaro Safari and then down a rocky bumpy road. Along the way, she was giving us inside information about the safari, how they kept the animals, etc. Soon, we were stopped at a set of stairs and greeted by another cast member who would take over the next portion of the tour.

Up the steps we went and onto an overlook. And there were elephants! Lots and lots of elephants and they felt so close. All that separated us was a moat. I have two sets of pictures. One that I took with my phone and one that I took with my camera. So, these are all out of order but you can definitely see how close we were.









Continued in next post
​

 

[mickeystoontown]

Poop! This is poop? Get out the firehose! continued

As we were looking out at all of the elephants, the cast member was directing our attention to the various elephants. He was telling us their names and their ages, etc. We were welcome to ask any questions that we had about them and their care.









Again, I know that these are out of order/













Continued in next post
​

 

[mickeystoontown]

Poop! This is poop? Get out the firehose! continued

Are you guys tired of the elephant pictures yet? I wasn't! And I'm still not.....








The cast members let us take as many pictures as we wanted and walked from one of the overlook to the other to give us some one on one time with him if we wanted. He told us to take as many elphies as we wanted too.




After a little while, the cast member started telling us about how they studied the elephants' interaction with one another. Without going into too much detail and ruining the tour for any of you who may possibly want to take the tour too, I can tell you that they had a time figuring out how to get a collar long enough and sturdy enough for an elephant. Their solution? A firehose!

See that box over there? That's a box that they use as a demostration. Farmers in Africa use bees to keep the elephants away from their crops. You see, elephants are scared of bees. Who would have thought it?

And you see that guy sitting on the bench? He wasn't listening to a doggone thing the cast member was telling us. As a matter of fact, he didn't really pay attention the entire tour.

I, on the other hand, paid very close attention. I love this sort of stuff.


Continued in next post​

 

[mickeystoontown]

Poop! This is poop? Get out the firehose! continued

The female cast member was from Africa and she told us stories from her country. She had never seen an elephant with its mother until she left Africa. Again, I won't go into further detail in case you want to do the tour yourself.




This portion of the tour was nearing the end but the little one was starting to come closer and they told us all to take as many pictures as we wanted. How many did I take? Oh about 1,113 but I'm only posting six.








Continued in next post​

 

[mickeystoontown]

Poop! This is poop? Get out the firehose! continued

and how many pictures can one take of the baby with a massive elephant? 1,114 but I'm only posting 6







Our observation time was up. We walked back down the stairs and onto our waiting bus. We were told several more stories about the elephants and their care. When we pulled into the parking lot where we originally left from, our guide told us that we needed to take our name tags out of the plastic case and that they were our's to keep. Sweet! And that's when she told us...................................................................




..................................................................................................................................

they are made from poop!

Despite the fact that we had poop hanging from our necks for 60+ minutes, I would highly recommend the Caring for Giants tour! Even had I not had the free money, I would have gladly paid out of pocket for the tour.

**Up next: The rain falls gently on the plains!
​

 

[mickeystoontown]

The rain falls gently on the plains!

The forecast had called for rain and I had, literally, prayed that it would hold off until after the tour. From our lips to God's ears. And they worked. Thank you!

John and I weren't sure what we wanted to do at that point. We were starting to get hungry and we couldn't decide on what to eat in the park. Ultimately, we decided that we wanted to eat at a resort. The nearest resort was Animal Kingdom Lodge so why not? Yeah, why not?

It started sprinkling as we were walking to the bus stops. Not hard. Just enough to get you wet. We waited for just a little while before a bus came. We, along with just one other family, got on and we were off.

We had visited Animal Kingdom Lodge before when we had eaten at Boma. Oh and there was that time that we walked out to see the animals on the savanna and a snake slithered into our path. Lordy mercy! I screamed like a little girl and jumped about three feet in the air. It was scary then but funny at the same time.

We knew where Boma was and we knew where the animal viewing area was. However, we had absolutely no idea where to find their quick service restaurant. We blindly followed the family in front of us into the resort.


I know that we looked like chickens with their heads cut off. That's such a weird saying because, I mean, really, have you ever seen a chicken with their head cut off? I have. Anyway, we followed the signs and ended up turning around this way and that. We finally ended up on a pathway outside. A couple more turns and we were at Mara, Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge's quick service restaurant.

I was surprised at how small the restaurant was. Not small small. Just small compared to the other value and moderate resorts. But, the resort has multiple other wonderful restaurants to choose from so that's a good trade off.

We stood in line for what seemed like forever because the people in front of us were booty faces. You could tell that they felt they were super entitled and better than most. It just oozed from their pores. They would bump into other guests and not say "excuse me". They broke into line several times. The "kids" (they looked to be in their late teens and early 20s) were rude to their parents and to the other guests. On top of all of that, they didn't have a clue what they wanted to eat despite the fact that they had plenty of time to view the menus and decide. I was so happy to see them get their food to go.

Once they were gone, the line moved very swiftly. I ordered a chicken sandwich and was pleased.




John ordered a bacon burger which he said was good.


While we were eating, the rain picked up a bit. By the time we were done, it was back to just sprinkling again. I wanted to go out to the animal viewing area before we left. You can see the dark skies as well as a sprinkle of rain on the lens in the picture below.

The animals were the smart ones and almost all had hunkered down somewhere dry.

We gave up and started making our way back to the bus stop.




Even though we weren't gone from the park for too long, it was still a nice break. We waited for a bus to take us back to Animal Kingdom and I seem to remember that it took a good while for one to arrive.

**Up next: Bugs? Why'd it have to be bugs?​