Dead Men Tell No Tales - A Dec 2011 Trip Report

[onnawufei]

​

Hello! After giving it more thought than was probably necessary I decided to give this whole trip report thing a try. I've never done one before so please bear with me. It may sound silly, but I'm actually really nervous.

The cast of characters is pretty short here, just me and DH.

I'm Sara, a 30 year old photography nut; all the photos here were taken by me either on my "real" camera, on my cell phone or on my iPod Touch. My favorite park is Magic Kingdom, with Animal Kingdom being a close second. My favorite ride in the world is The Haunted Mansion, and my favorite characters are Chip and Dale. I should probably mention that I have fibromyalgia, though I handle it pretty well at WDW. I like to say it's the Disney magic, but I guess technically it's probably the whole happy, stress free vacation thing. Disney magic sounds so much better though!

DH is Ryan, a 32 year old techno geek who stresses out way too much at work and needs the yearly Disney trip. His favorite park is Epcot, and his favorite ride is Test Track, though Soarin is a very very close second. He has the rotten luck of loving the Disney movies that never really seemed to take off; his favorites are Treasure Planet and Atlantis. He doesn't really have a favorite character, but he's always liked Stitch, even before watching the movie.

This was our fourth Disney trip, our third time staying at POFQ, and our second MVMCP. Oh, and our first that ended in us both being sick. But I can now say with complete certainty that being sick at Walt Disney World is still better than being well at home.

So here we go~

 

[lilaurora]

Hi, Sara!

Can't wait to hear about your report. I've stayed at POFQ once with my DH and will be staying again this summer with DD7 for a girls trip.

I had thought about doing a TR for our family's WL stay last November/December but chickened out! Maybe you'll give me courage to do a TR for my summer trip.

~Marcia

 

[onnawufei]

Day One​

Friday morning came bright and early, or dark and early I suppose since the sun wasn't up yet. Ryan and I got ready to leave, which I always manage to do faster before Disney trips than I ever do before work. Weird how that works out, right?

We got in the car and headed off. On our way out we passed a tow truck that was painted to look like Mater, but the result was one of the creepiest things I'd seen in a while. I wish I'd been able to get a picture, but sadly it only managed to permanently imprint itself on my mind.

On our way we stopped for our yearly pre-Disney breakfast at Burger King.

(All of Day One's pictures were taken with my iPod Touch.)

We also stopped at a gas station, wherein I saw these:

This isn't the first time I've seen these, they're pretty common around here actually. Still, they always creep me out. What do people use them for? Are they just decorations? Paper weights? Have any of y'all ever bought one? These are the tough questions.

After a very uninteresting six hour car trip, we arrived! WOO~!

Hello Port Orleans French Quarter... and your creepy jester guys. This was our third stay at POFQ, but our first since the room renovations so I was pretty excited to see what our room would be like this year. Unfortunately I didn't think to take any pictures of the room, so uh... sorry.

Our room wasn't ready anyway, so we headed straight for Downtown Disney, where we had a lunch ADR for T-Rex. This may actually be my favorite restaurant at WDW, I'm not sure. I've always been in love with dinosaurs.

I should probably mention that I wasn't actually planning on doing a TR, so I didn't take pictures of any of my food. Call this a practice run, and I'll make sure to do better on this coming trip, I promise.

After lunch we walked around to do a bit of shopping, mostly to pick up some things that Ryan's mom wanted us to get. We were in World of Disney when I stumbled upon the perfect pair of earrings!

It matches my tattoo almost perfectly! I had to buy them, even though I have sensitive ears and wasn't 100% sure they were going to work for me. (Spoiler! They did. I'm wearing them right now.)

Before leaving DTD I also snapped a quick picture of one of the new "sculptures" outside the Lego Store.

When we were done at DTD we headed over to take the boat back to POFQ when we hit our first snag. I'm not going to go into details but DH has a medical problem that makes going on rides difficult sometimes. It has to do with the inability to be able to just get up and leave whenever he wants, I'm sure y'all understand why I don't want to get into specifics. But it plays a pretty big part in our trip. It didn't stop us from going on all the rides though.

Once we finally got back to the hotel and got our room, we went to Epcot. We had an ADR at Garden Grill because I am a total kid and need my yearly pictures with Chip and Dale. At this point I pretty much stopped taking pictures since I knew we'd be back, but of course I had to bring my camera so we could get pictures at Garden Grill. Except... yeah no.

Before we'd left we decided to leave our little point and shoot at home since Ryan was manning the video camera, and I had my DSLR. At Garden Grill we discovered that the autofocus on my lens was broken, and while I love my husband madly, he can't use manual focus to save his life.

This was the only picture we got. At the very least I was determined to get a picture of me with Chip so I handed DH my iPod. It was better than nothing. And though the camera thing bummed me out, it didn't ruin the evening. The food was delicious as always, and I love the rotating restaurant's view of Living With the Land, which is my favorite ride at Epcot. Yeah, Ryan's favorites are based on driving fast and flying high, mine is a boat ride about agriculture. But hey, it takes all kinds.

I think we walked around a bit after dinner, though the correct word is probably "waddled" since we were stuffed. On our way out I grabbed one more quick picture with my iPod.

And we were off on the bus back to POFQ for a good night's rest before coming back to Epcot.

Up next: Fish. And I apologize a lot.

 

[onnawufei]

Hi, Sara!

Can't wait to hear about your report. I've stayed at POFQ once with my DH and will be staying again this summer with DD7 for a girls trip.

I had thought about doing a TR for our family's WL stay last November/December but chickened out! Maybe you'll give me courage to do a TR for my summer trip.

~Marcia

YAY! Hi! I've thought about doing a TR for the past couple of trips but chickened out too. I keep telling myself that no one will read it and then I'll just feel silly, but I decided that eh, it's worth a shot. Though I'm already a little over the fact that there are some stretches where I didn't take as many pictures as I would have if I'd known I'd be doing a TR. I just hope no one minds!

 

[onnawufei]

Day Two​

Somehow DH and I both have lost our ability to sleep in, plus we had the YAY DISNEY excitement happening, so we were up before our alarm went off. So far so good! We got dressed, I spent way too long deciding which camera stuff to bring, and we went to grab breakfast. It was then that I realized something. I [dramatic pause] had never had a Mickey waffle. How on Earth did I manage that? So breakfast was a no brainer.

(After this I use a real camera, I promise.)

We always eat breakfast at Sassagoula, and since this was our third time there I didn't really grab any pictures. But I have pictures from a past trip!

I love Sassagoula because of the decorations. To me they're a fantastic blend of bright colors, interesting designs, and sometimes mild to moderate creepiness. I might be alone on that last point though. Really I just think they're all around fun! These are some of my favorite decorations:

This guy here is my absolute favorite. I always refer to him as Jambi the Genie, a character I'm sure some of y'all remember from Pee Wee's Playhouse. (Tangent! When I was a kid I had a Jambi toy, which was just the cabinet with his head inside. One day I'd snuck a piece of cheese out of the kitchen and was eating it in my room when I heard my mom coming, so in a moment of panic I shoved it in Jambi's cabinet. I never did get all of the cheese out of his face.)

Moving right along! We headed off for our first full day at Epcot and immediately followed the herd to get FPs for Soarin'. This is where I make a confession.

I have an awful memory. Like I said, I'd never planned on doing a TR for this trip, and I'll do a better job of chronically my next trip. But there are parts of the day that I don't remember. While typing up my Day One post I started to worry that maybe this was a mistake, but I'd rather keep trying than give up. And I apologize if I'm apologizing too much.

I didn't take a lot of pictures at Epcot this year because I'd taken so many in past years and I felt like I was just taking the same ones repeatedly, but I always take a lot of pictures of animals! Finding Nemo also happens to be my favorite Disney/Pixar movie so onwards to The Seas With Nemo and Friends!

As always I attempted to take pictures during the ride but they were too dark. (Someday!) So I made up for it by going snap happy on the fish after the ride. To mix things up a bit, instead of using my regular lens I decided to use my Lensbaby Scout with the fisheye optic. I quite like using my fisheye to take pictures of fish.

Oh look, my reflection!

I don't know what these are, but I love them.

Since the next part is pretty picture heavy I guess I'll leave this off here. Up next: Don't eat the sand.

 

[onnawufei]

Day Two​

After wanting to go on it for years but always putting it off until I was too tired, we finally decided to go on the Behind the Seeds tour! Our tour guide was fantastic, very personable and she made absolutely everything seem interesting. One of the more memorable parts was before we went into the greenhouse, where we were instructed not to step in, touch or eat the sand. We were also instructed not to to touch anything, which proved harder for me than I thought it'd be. There were a couple of times where I had to stop myself.

I thought this was really cute.

I love these, they're my favorite things in the greenhouse.

Clever!

I love the little house.

I found it a little strange that while our guide said that the alligators were basically raised to eat, they didn't serve them at The Land. I wonder why they don't. I wouldn't eat it since I'm a vegetarian and all, but I'm not going to tell other people what to eat.

After the tour we did what only made the most sense, which was to go on Living With the Land.

Beyond that, instead of taking pictures of the various bits of scenery, I took pictures of things like the floor in one place.

And the ceiling in another.

Once we'd had our daily fill of Epcot we headed back to the hotel. When we'd first booked our trip we'd planned on spending this day at Universal so we didn't have any ADRs for dinner. Since Sassagoula doesn't really have much in the way of vegetarian food for dinner we opted to try Riverside Mill. I was giddy to be able to get some good fettuccine alfredo with broccoli, and I fell totally in love with their cookies. I'm sure they have the same cookies on both sides of the resort, but I somehow managed to not think about that at the time.

Anyway, I also really love this... thing. I am apparently fascinated by things that are water powered.

After dinner Ryan headed off to the arcade while I bummed around the lobby taking pictures of Christmas decorations and getting weird looks from people. Though I get a lot fewer weird looks at Disney than I do when I take random pictures elsewhere. Probably because people at Disney are almost always more awesome.

Unfortunately they were all very dark pictures. Eventually I gave up and just sat and listened to the guy performing whose name I didn't catch, but whose performance I loved.

So once Ryan got his fix of shooting aliens or racing cars or whatever else he was doing, we went back to our room and flopped into bed. On the next day we were doing Magic Kingdom and MVMCP, so I was all kinds of excited. Sleep? What's that?

Up next: Rain, rain go away and I take a whole lot more pictures.

 

[lilaurora]

You took a lot of nice pics! I really enjoy the aquarium at the Seas but haven't had much opportunity to take my time in there the past two times I've been. My husband liked it fine, but it was his first time and lots of other things he wanted to see and same with my most recent trip which was DDs first. Maybe this summer she'll take her time a bit more!

Was the Behind the Seas Tour worth it to you? Living with the Land is a neat ride. It would be nice to take it, but my DD is little Miss Grabby where ever we go and can't keep her hands off of anything! So maybe not this summer....

Great job with the TR so far!