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

[Steppesister]

WOW! Lots of nice work on the new CBR reservations! That certainly took more patience than I think I have. (Hence, I use a TA. LOL!!)

 

[mickeystoontown]

Yes! And I have a problem with quoting myself fake trips in hopes that I could possibly make one more happen. hahaha. I have a real problem!

We both do! I do that all the time. Thank gosh for our 2019 monthly road trips.

I'm proud of you for overcoming your fears of heights and conquering the big AK rides! Nice work!

I am such a sissy when it comes to heights but can usually ride Expedition Everest if I don't look down.

I didn't know CBR had an actual tent in place of the food court. They really must have gutted the place.

Oh yeah, they gutted it alright. It was redone top to bottom .

Good work on the new Disney reservations!

I'm excited to be going "home".

YAY for CBR deal

I know! I'm so happy that we are going back to CBR!

Hi Lisa! Love your trip reports!! Sooooo are you riding the new gondolas when they open? Thinking about your fear of heights!

Oh yeah, I'm going to at least give them a try. I may only do it once but at least I can say that I've tried them.

WOW! Lots of nice work on the new CBR reservations! That certainly took more patience than I think I have. (Hence, I use a TA. LOL!!)

Thank goodness I have patience. I once held for....get this (and I'm not exaggerating).....four and a half hours and the call took another 45 minutes to complete....for a client who was traveling a day after a hurricane hit Orlando.

 

[mickeystoontown]

It seems as if ever time I come to the Dis, I'm having to tell y'all why I have gone missing. Life. That's all I can say. Well, I can say....life....travel....helping others plan travel....garden.....yard.....rescuing a stray cat.....etc. etc. etc.

I'm working on an update and I want to wind this baby down so I can write about our 2018 trip to Disney. I have had the report title ever since we got back from Disney.

My boss had plans out of the office today so I'll get as many updates posted as I can so I'm one step closer to starting the new report.​

 

[mickeystoontown]

Noel! Noel! It's Santy Clause! continued

Just a reminder, we had started the day at Animal Kingdom, popped over to the then torn up CBR for lunch in the food tent and were now back at Epcot to see the holiday narrators. We had made the stop in Canada to see O'Canada and were making our way counter clockwise around World Showcase. On our way through the United Kingdom, I stopped to take a picture of this cute Christmas tree decorated with various tea bags. I popped in an bought my Mama a box of the holiday flavored tea. Once it was tucked into my bag, we were off again.


Morrocco was our next stop. The architecture is quite stunning!



John stopped for a moment to admire it himself.



Noooooooooo! He wasn't really taking a tinkle in the fountain. He is just kiddin' around!

As I have said before, I fell down on the picture taking at several points in the trip. But this trip was different for us. This was our first trip as just a couple with no kids in tow, no extended family to keep up with, etc. We focused more on "new to us" things and spending quality time with one another.

When we made it to the Japan pavilion, I was quite surprised that they had moved the Pick A Pearl section. As a matter of fact, they had built a whole new area for it. The walkway was still a bit congested but not nearly as bad as before.



As we walked out of the store, we saw the holiday narrator telling a story. We stopped for just a bit but then left because we had another destination that we had to visit this evening.

We briskly walked around World Showcase and back to the front entrance of the park and were off for the resort. We needed to freshen up and head on over to destination number four of the day.

**Up next: One of the best seats in the house! ​

 

[mickeystoontown]

One of the best seats in the house!

Our evening destination was Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort. More specifically Hoop Dee Doo Revue! We have been to the longest running show at Disney probably a half dozen times and love it every single time. If you like good food, corny jokes, music and laughter, then this is the place for you.

Because we were on the dining plan, it would take two of our credits. If you attend the first of second show of the day, you will be seated in Category 2 or 3. If you attend the last show of the day, you can be seated in Category 1. Given that we had a full schedule for the day, the last show would work better for us anyway. We got there a little early, posed for a picture holding a Thanksgiving pumpkin, made a pre-show tinkle stop and got in line. There's really no reason to stress about hopping in line immediately because the seats/tables are already assigned to you. You're gonna get a table so no need to worry.

When the doors opened, we were escorted to one of the best seats in the house. Okay, so we were a little to the right of the stage but we had a great view. We were right by the piano and banjo player and we talked with them several times that evening.


The show started and we laughed and laughed, stomped our feet, clapped our hands and ate. Where's the food pictures? Hum, guess that I didn't take any or maybe they are on my phone. We noshed on fried chicken, BBQ ribs, cowboy beans, corn and mashed taters. Accompanying that was cornbread with butter and a glass of tea. Yum ! Yum! I may have fallen down on the food pictures but I took so many of the show.




















Contnued in next post​

 

[micandminforever]

One of my goals on our next trip is to do the pick a pearl and create something with it to bring home as a souvenir of Disney. Plus pick up two of the paper fans in China. I love Hoop Dee Doo Revue.

 

[mickeystoontown]

One of the best seats in the house!

More Hoop Dee Doo Revue pictures! John absolutely loves corny skits/jokes like those at Hoop. He was having the best time and I had to laugh at him laughing at the comedian in the show.









Soon it was strawberry shortcake time!


After the show, we were directed to the buses. But there was a problem. There were no signs or any castmembers telling us what bus we needed to take. We were walking around like HUH? Finally, a bus driver got off the bus and hollered: "Get on a bus and tell us where you need to go." And that's exactly what we did and were back at Art of Animation in less than 30 minutes.

Up Next: Imagine that!​

 

[mickeystoontown]

One of my goals on our next trip is to do the pick a pearl and create something with it to bring home as a souvenir of Disney. Plus pick up two of the paper fans in China. I love Hoop Dee Doo Revue.

I have done Pick a Pearl several times and have quite the collection of pearls now. It's definitely something that you should experience at least once.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Well look what I found! Pictures!

I made one big folder for my 2017 trip pictures and it consists of two camera SD cards and my phone pictures. At one point, I said that I was going through them and would organize them into days. And, I did that at first. Now that I am nearing the end of the trip report, I am realizing that I didn't do that for the entirety of the pictures. Thus the reason, I keep finding "missing pictures".

These are from our walk around World Showcase.


Looks like we tried a snack in Japan:


We apparently took the monorail from Epcot to Magic Kingdom and then transferred to a boat to Fort Wilderness.






And look, I have pictures of food from Hoop:







Continued in next post​

 

[mickeystoontown]

More found pictures





















Alrighty then. I can move on!​

 

[mickeystoontown]

Imagine that!

It's Thanksgiving! When planning our trip, I was torn on where to spend Thanksgiving Day. Do we spend it at Magic Kingdom or one of the other three parks? Which would be less crowded? For several years now, we have spent our next to the last day at Epcot and our last day at Magic Kingdom. It's kinda sorta a tradition.

And where would we eat Thanksgiving dinner? Many of the Disney restaurants were serving the traditional Thanksgiving meals with turkey and all the trimmings. We, however, didn't want a traditional. We wanted something more non-traditional. As I was searching for the right meal, it was decided that we would eat in a park and wherever I found a good restaurant would be where we spent our day. A reservation came open, I booked it and we were going to Epcot on Thanksgiving Day. That was it and there was no changing it.

Our first fastpass of the day was for Soarin' but, can you believe it, we were early. So, we made a stop in Sunshine Seasons and bought a cinnamon roll to share.




I'm sure that there was a coffee purchased too because John likes a cup of coffee in the morning.

By the time we were done, the stand by line was already 70 minutes. Thankful for our Fastpass, we scooted on past and walked all the way to the tapstiles.









While I seem to be lacking in pictures that really matter....like food pictures and such, I wasn't lacking in pictures that don't matter. Like this one of the floor in the Soarin' waiting area. ?????



We were soon let into the theater and we were buckled into our seats. I may be afraid of heights but Soarin' is well worth being scared. I love it! I snapped a picture of the row in front of us.



And then a selfie of John and I:



Ahhhh, Soarin'! You are so worth the squiggly scary feeling in the pit of my stomach!

**Continued in next post​

 

[mickeystoontown]

Imagine that!

Our next Fastpass was for one of those "take it or leave it" / "love it or hate it" attractions. We were going to see a purple dragon named, you guessed it, Figment.











I happen to be in a category that doesn't fall within one of the two categories above. I like Figment and try to make time to see him every trip but, if we don't get to see him, we are okay with that too.

Several years ago, when we traveled to Disney in the Spring/Summer time, we found what looked like cotton balls on the ground near Coral Reef's entrance. It turns out that they had seeds in them and they were "cotton tree" seeds. We planted them and our trees got to be about four foot tall. They were thriving until our Winter hit and they died from the cold. The trunks of the trees are covered in big thorns so it wasn't easy to move them into the house when we had a dog in the house. I now wish that we had put them somewhere that they at least had a chance of making it.

From the Imagination pavillion, we took a walk over to see the cotton trees. They didn't have the cotton balls on them but they were in bloom and they were so pretty. The blooms were gorgeous!





We had dawdled long enough as it was time to use our third Fastpass of the trip. We were going to travel through time on Spaceship Earth.





**Continued in next post​

 

[mickeystoontown]

Okay guys and gals, I need to stop for a bit. My boss just called and he actually expects me to work for my salary. Geeze! Hope to be back in a bit to post more.​

 

[mickeystoontown]

Imagine that! continued

Our third fastpass of the day was for Spaceship Earth....see the pics above. And then these two:





Not knowing how busy the parks would be on Thanksgiving, we were afraid not to make both a lunch and dinner reservation. After Spaceship Earth, we started making our way towards our lunch time destination which was in World Showcase. On the way over, I snapped a couple of pictures.



What's the snowman made from you ask? From this beautiful silver plant. Oooh, this looks kinda creepy! Like something carved out two eyes in the plants.


There's the big Christmas tree up ahead.



We strolled by Japan again.



And then past the Christmas tree in the American pavilion.


We were almost to the restaurant.

**Continued in next post​

 

[mickeystoontown]

Who ordered pie for Thanksgiving? We did!

As I said, we were a bit worried about how thick the crowds may be on Thanksgiving so I made both a lunch and dinner reservation. We would be paying out of pocket for our lunch and saving this night's credit for our dinner. Where were we going? To a restaurant that has never let us down.

Via Napoli!

We ordered the Quattro Formaggi Signature Piewhite pizza: mozzarella, parmesan, fontina, provolone to share. We ate every single bit of the pizza. It was that good!

And for dessert? The Zeppole di Caterina,Ricotta cheese fritters, served with whipped cream and chocolate sauce. Or as we refer to them: Balls of goodness. Oh my heavens, they were delicious! Simply delicious!



If you have never eaten at Via Napoli, you should. The food is great. The price is budget friendly. And the service has always been good.

We waddled out of the restaurant and began making our way around World Showcase again. Stopping whenever we saw something that caught our eye. I don't remember us buying anything or stopping for anything in particular. Again, we were just enjoying our time together and letting our pizza and zeppoles digest.

In Norway, there was another Santa entertaining the guests with his stories from his country.



By the time we made it to Mexico, we had seen and done almost everything there was to do at Epcot. After all, we had visited the park several times this trip. We made the decision to go ahead bid adieu to Epcot. It was good to see you! We'll be back in a year!

I'm sure that you've already guessed (and if you hadn't, pleeeeeeze... you know that I can't leave well enough alone.) I had made dinner reservations outside of Epcot after more thought was put into trip planning. Dinner was at another one of our favorite restaurants and it wasn't at Epcot.

We made our way to the bus stop and waited for an Art of Animation bus. While standing in the bus stop line, we spotted a hawk atop one of the lights in the parking lot. It looks so small in this picture but it was really a big hawk.


I've heard many complain about the walks from the main area of Art of Animation to the Little Mermaid rooms. To us, it wasn't bad at all. I don't know if that's because we enjoy walking or if we are used to the walks at Caribbean Beach. We strolled along happy as can be. We passed through the Lion King area.



And on to the Little Mermaid buildings.





We had a bit of time before our dinner reservation so we rested a bit before going back out for the evening.

**Up next: Hopping to it!​

 

[thumper*]

Okay guys and gals, I need to stop for a bit. My boss just called and he actually expects me to work for my salary. Geeze! Hope to be back in a bit to post more.

Some people.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Some people.

Some people.

I know right! I hope to get more updates knocked out today.

 

[Steppesister]

What a whirlwind of posting (and reading!) All caught up now, Lisa! Thanks for all the fun photos and stories of touring. I love HDDR so much and will maybe someday get to see the Christmas Storytellers.

 

[Navychica]

All caught up! We’re heading to the World for Thanksgiving this year (staying at CBR for the first time!) so I’m really enjoying your take on the crowds, can’t wait to hear about your Thanksgiving feast!

 

[mickeystoontown]

What a whirlwind of posting (and reading!) All caught up now, Lisa! Thanks for all the fun photos and stories of touring. I love HDDR so much and will maybe someday get to see the Christmas Storytellers.

I had hoped to get more posted and then......real work interrupted. LOL

All caught up! We’re heading to the World for Thanksgiving this year (staying at CBR for the first time!) so I’m really enjoying your take on the crowds, can’t wait to hear about your Thanksgiving feast!

We will be at CBR for Thanksgiving too! What are your dates?