CJK
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2001
- Messages
- 7,594
We were up at 8:30am and as usual, went out to the balcony to watch the animals. Oh no! There weren't any out there and it was our last morning! Well, I guess we can't really complain since we had spent so long during our 3 day visit watching and enjoying them. We had express checkout so we didn't need to go to the front desk. We brought our luggage to Bell Services so they could hold onto it until that evening when Mears came to pick us up.
I wanted to ride Test track one more time so we were off to Epcot. There was only a 5min. wait so we decided to go on twice. We decided to do the Imagination ride another time as well and were surprised to see a free computer at Image Works so we sent a picture email to family/friends. We never wait in line for this so we we really aced it today. We had basically seen all we wanted in Epcot so we took the monorail to the Grand Floridian to do a little exploring. I love sitting in the lobby listening to either the band or piano player. This hotel is really beautiful, but I still think the Poly would be our favourite monorail resort. We had heard that there are a lot hidden mickey's at the Wilderness Lodge so we took the boat over there to check them out. We did manage to find a few, but not all of them. It was really frustrating! There weren't many CM's around to help us out like there were at AKL so we basically gave up and went to sit on the beach. I really enjoyed watching a para-sailer. I'd really like to try that sometime. The boat came to take us to the Magic Kingdom and once again we were struck by how much busier the MK is compared to the other 3 Disney parks. Thankfully we had already done our favourite rides except for Splash Mountain so we were able to do the less common/popular attractions instead. This was the second night of our trip that the MK was offering spectromagic and Fantasy in the Sky so that probably had a lot to do with the high crowd levels.
We wandered down main street and went into a few of the stores. I finally found the old fashioned phone in the general store that has a conversation between a mother and daughter going on! What a fun find! I was deterimined to ride Splash Mountain today so we head over there. I don't know why, but fast pass wasn't working and the standby line was over an hour long!
We decided to save it until later in hopes the fastpass machines would open. Dh wanted our ritual citris swirl so off we went. We love the citris swirls, dole whips and strawberry swirls, but the citris swirls have the edge with us! Even the pirates line was busy so we opted out riding this one again and went to the Tiki birds to cool off. It was another hot day. I didn't mind it though as we were leaving to go home tomorrow! Isn't it amazing how quickly time flies during our trips yet drag by during the work week?? 
Anyway, it was time for our PS at the Liberty Tree Tavern. We were seated immediately. The food was very good as usual, but our waiter had absolutely no personality! I don't think he said more than 10 words to us the whole time! It was almost 3pm so the lunch period was almost over and I think he was anxious to finish his shift. I think someone needs to spray this guy with some pixie dust! When we finished lunch, the parade had just started to go by the Liberty Tree Tavern. We decided to watch it right outside the restaurant. What a great spot because the doors to the restaurant were open so we had air conditioning behind us to keep us cool!
We realized that we were running out of time today so we decided to go back to Splash Mountain. Fastpass still wasn't working today, but I decided to do the standby line. We actually only ended up waiting 20min. which was pretty good. We got chatting with two couples behind us so the line was over before we knew it. I just love splash mountain! We did get quite wet, but that was just fine on a hot sunny afternoon! We decided to do another go of the Country Bear Jamboree followed by the Haunted Mansion. We did another line shuffle in the Haunted Mansion line and people followed suit. We hadn't done the Hall of Presidents for a while so we decided to go there before going to Tomorrowland. Our feet were really tired by now and we no longer had a hotel room to go back to so we looked for lots of opportunity to sit down.
Over at Tomorrowland, we got a Space Mountain fastpass and went on Buzz. Hooray! I finally redeemed myself and got 443,000. It's still not close to my best score, but it's certainly better than earlier this trip! We went on the TTA another time and then we went for a strawberry swirl. Those things are sooo refreshing! Our fastpass window had opened so we went on Space Mountain. This time, the left side was open as well so we were excited. That side is so much better! We both laughed all the way through (in between the...ahem.....odd scream from me!).
We went back on Snow White in Fantasyland and went to Tinkberbell's store to find Tinkerbell! Sure enough, she was there! On the carousel nearby, we had heard that one special horse has a gold ribbon on its' tail which is supposed to be Cinderella's special horse. We had trouble finding it, but we finally did! The ribbon is low on the tail, rather than right where the tail attaches to the rest of the body. By now we are REALLY tired. We decided to ride IASW again and I honestly think dh fell asleep. His eyes were closed and he started breathing louder than usual! ha ha The Pirates of the Caribbean is one of my old favourites so I really wanted to ride it again. There was only a 10min. wait now so we decided to go for it. Have any of you ever gotten wet on it?? There's a little hill at the beginning of the ride and for the first time ever, dh and I got SOAKED! We were sitting at the front of the ride. We were so caught off guard that we couldn't stop laughing! I think this unexpected shower perked us up a bit and we suddenly had more energy!
After pirates, we took the train back to mainstreet to do last minute shopping before spectromagic. On the lower level of the train station, we found a shelf with some "luggage" of some of the characters (ie. Brer Rabit, Captain Hook, Pooh). It was really neat! Mainstreet was absolutely jammed packed including the stores! We quickly made our purchases and went back to our parade spot by the Liberty Tree. I just love this parade and particularly like the Ursula float! We stayed for the fireworks in front of Liberty Tree and then we made a mad dash to the AKL bus. We only had to wait about 15min. for a bus this time round but we did have to stand. Ouch! Talk about feet pain! We got back to AKL and we had a little time before Mears came so we decided to cool off in the pool for the last time. Ahhh, how I've grown to love this place!!!
Mears came right on time and we were on our way to the Hyatt Regency Orlando Airport hotel. Our driver was really friendly and told us that he had recently driven American Idol star Kelly Clarkson. He said that she was very friendly and sang a few songs for him. I said that I wa sorry, but I wouldn't be giving him the same pleasure! We arrived at the hotel just after 11pm and boy, were we bushed! Checkin was a breeze and we went right to our room. The hotel was beautiful and our room was wonderful. It had a king size bed, bath and separate shower and everything you could possibly want. I wished we were more awake to enjoy the hotel, but we went straight to bed. We had arranged for a 5:30am wake-up call!
I wanted to ride Test track one more time so we were off to Epcot. There was only a 5min. wait so we decided to go on twice. We decided to do the Imagination ride another time as well and were surprised to see a free computer at Image Works so we sent a picture email to family/friends. We never wait in line for this so we we really aced it today. We had basically seen all we wanted in Epcot so we took the monorail to the Grand Floridian to do a little exploring. I love sitting in the lobby listening to either the band or piano player. This hotel is really beautiful, but I still think the Poly would be our favourite monorail resort. We had heard that there are a lot hidden mickey's at the Wilderness Lodge so we took the boat over there to check them out. We did manage to find a few, but not all of them. It was really frustrating! There weren't many CM's around to help us out like there were at AKL so we basically gave up and went to sit on the beach. I really enjoyed watching a para-sailer. I'd really like to try that sometime. The boat came to take us to the Magic Kingdom and once again we were struck by how much busier the MK is compared to the other 3 Disney parks. Thankfully we had already done our favourite rides except for Splash Mountain so we were able to do the less common/popular attractions instead. This was the second night of our trip that the MK was offering spectromagic and Fantasy in the Sky so that probably had a lot to do with the high crowd levels.
We wandered down main street and went into a few of the stores. I finally found the old fashioned phone in the general store that has a conversation between a mother and daughter going on! What a fun find! I was deterimined to ride Splash Mountain today so we head over there. I don't know why, but fast pass wasn't working and the standby line was over an hour long!
We decided to save it until later in hopes the fastpass machines would open. Dh wanted our ritual citris swirl so off we went. We love the citris swirls, dole whips and strawberry swirls, but the citris swirls have the edge with us! Even the pirates line was busy so we opted out riding this one again and went to the Tiki birds to cool off. It was another hot day. I didn't mind it though as we were leaving to go home tomorrow! Isn't it amazing how quickly time flies during our trips yet drag by during the work week?? Anyway, it was time for our PS at the Liberty Tree Tavern. We were seated immediately. The food was very good as usual, but our waiter had absolutely no personality! I don't think he said more than 10 words to us the whole time! It was almost 3pm so the lunch period was almost over and I think he was anxious to finish his shift. I think someone needs to spray this guy with some pixie dust! When we finished lunch, the parade had just started to go by the Liberty Tree Tavern. We decided to watch it right outside the restaurant. What a great spot because the doors to the restaurant were open so we had air conditioning behind us to keep us cool!
We realized that we were running out of time today so we decided to go back to Splash Mountain. Fastpass still wasn't working today, but I decided to do the standby line. We actually only ended up waiting 20min. which was pretty good. We got chatting with two couples behind us so the line was over before we knew it. I just love splash mountain! We did get quite wet, but that was just fine on a hot sunny afternoon! We decided to do another go of the Country Bear Jamboree followed by the Haunted Mansion. We did another line shuffle in the Haunted Mansion line and people followed suit. We hadn't done the Hall of Presidents for a while so we decided to go there before going to Tomorrowland. Our feet were really tired by now and we no longer had a hotel room to go back to so we looked for lots of opportunity to sit down.
Over at Tomorrowland, we got a Space Mountain fastpass and went on Buzz. Hooray! I finally redeemed myself and got 443,000. It's still not close to my best score, but it's certainly better than earlier this trip! We went on the TTA another time and then we went for a strawberry swirl. Those things are sooo refreshing! Our fastpass window had opened so we went on Space Mountain. This time, the left side was open as well so we were excited. That side is so much better! We both laughed all the way through (in between the...ahem.....odd scream from me!).
We went back on Snow White in Fantasyland and went to Tinkberbell's store to find Tinkerbell! Sure enough, she was there! On the carousel nearby, we had heard that one special horse has a gold ribbon on its' tail which is supposed to be Cinderella's special horse. We had trouble finding it, but we finally did! The ribbon is low on the tail, rather than right where the tail attaches to the rest of the body. By now we are REALLY tired. We decided to ride IASW again and I honestly think dh fell asleep. His eyes were closed and he started breathing louder than usual! ha ha The Pirates of the Caribbean is one of my old favourites so I really wanted to ride it again. There was only a 10min. wait now so we decided to go for it. Have any of you ever gotten wet on it?? There's a little hill at the beginning of the ride and for the first time ever, dh and I got SOAKED! We were sitting at the front of the ride. We were so caught off guard that we couldn't stop laughing! I think this unexpected shower perked us up a bit and we suddenly had more energy!
After pirates, we took the train back to mainstreet to do last minute shopping before spectromagic. On the lower level of the train station, we found a shelf with some "luggage" of some of the characters (ie. Brer Rabit, Captain Hook, Pooh). It was really neat! Mainstreet was absolutely jammed packed including the stores! We quickly made our purchases and went back to our parade spot by the Liberty Tree. I just love this parade and particularly like the Ursula float! We stayed for the fireworks in front of Liberty Tree and then we made a mad dash to the AKL bus. We only had to wait about 15min. for a bus this time round but we did have to stand. Ouch! Talk about feet pain! We got back to AKL and we had a little time before Mears came so we decided to cool off in the pool for the last time. Ahhh, how I've grown to love this place!!!
Mears came right on time and we were on our way to the Hyatt Regency Orlando Airport hotel. Our driver was really friendly and told us that he had recently driven American Idol star Kelly Clarkson. He said that she was very friendly and sang a few songs for him. I said that I wa sorry, but I wouldn't be giving him the same pleasure!
We arrived at the hotel just after 11pm and boy, were we bushed! Checkin was a breeze and we went right to our room. The hotel was beautiful and our room was wonderful. It had a king size bed, bath and separate shower and everything you could possibly want. I wished we were more awake to enjoy the hotel, but we went straight to bed. We had arranged for a 5:30am wake-up call! 
