Doing Our Part to Stimulate the Economy – Sept ’09

[Roxychica7]

Subscribing! Can't wait to here about the rest of your trip! (And the food of course!)

 

[missj1975]

We made it to the park by 8:30am and it was already crowded. We did get to see the opening ceremony...from a distance.

We staked our claim in the sea of humanity and promptly got lost on our way to Toy Story Mania. Silly me asked a CM the best way to get to TSM and she told us to take a right at Sunset Blvd and take a left before Rockin Roller Coaster. Donald is looking skeptical but agrees to follow me. Yeah I know, how dare I think a CM actually knows anything about the park she works at. After waundering around aimlessly for ten minutes, Donald takes charge and we make it to Toy Story Mania.

Luckily not everyone headed straight to TSM. Apparently there are other popular rides at HS. The wait was only ten minutes. Of course Donald was irriated with me so I started warming up for my tap dancing routine and all was right in the world again.

I was glad for the ten minute wait because I got to enjoy the que. I even found a hidden mickey.

The guy behind me heard me point out the hidden mickey to Donald. He then pointed it out to his girlfriend who was so excited that her boyfriend found a hidden mickey. Instead of taking credit, he graciously mentioned that I was the one who found it. I was impressed with his honesty but told him he could have lied, I wouldn't have told anyone (just everyone on the disboards).

I love chatting with CM's and other guests. It really is Disney Magic because I can be a pretty anti-social person outside of Disney. In St. Louis, I am famous for my death stares but inside Disney I am a tap dancing fool ready to turn your frown upside down. Hmmm, where was I? Ah yes...Donald was whipping me silly at TSM. Actually I let him win because as with any man I have ever known, he is a sore loser I collected my rabbit and we hopped back in the line.

This time the wait was 20 minutes but it was all good. Time for more pictures and more hidden mickey spotting.

Well at least I think this is a hidden mickey, if you squint your eyes and turn your head just right.

I heard my other boyfriend was accepting visitors today so I decided to stop by and chat.

Donald contained his jealously and agreed to a photo. I waved goodbye to Prince Caspian and promised to find him a better wig maker. Ouch!!! I know but really can't costuming do a better job?

We pin traded our way to our next favorite ride, Tower of Terror. The line was relatively short, no fastpass needed.

I'm not much a fan of the Twilight Zone TV Show. I don't like black and white shows, they give me headaches for some odd reason. I did love the movie with John Lithgow. The gremlin was awesome. Anyway, Donald loves the black and white show and loves the episode featuring this creepy guy:

I did watch that episode on youtube after our last trip for Donald's sake. It was pretty interesting.

We rode The Tower of Terror twice this day and the second time was very interesting. After leaving the waiting room with the tv, the ride broke down for a bit so we were stuck in the Freddie Krueger Boiler Room. Mary Poppin's nephews were behind us chatting away and leaning against the wall. Well one of them knocked a chain down and it banged against the wall very loud. So loud that everyone jumped and Donald screamed. He would have ran away in terror if there would have been anywhere to run to. I meanwhile was trying to hide my laughter from Donald. Turns out one of the elevators were broken (for real) so only two elevators were running. I personally didn't mind the wait because I totally enjoyed listening to Mary Poppin's nephews chat and boy did they chat. They were quite chatty and their accents were spot on. I love listening to people with accents.

We finally got on the elevator and it was one of the scarest sequences we have ever seen on the Tower of Terror. I am sure being stuck in the creepy boiler room helped but we were definitely scared on this one. We loved it.

We saw these guys walking around Hollywood Studios. I had never seen these guys before so I was quite excited.

This was also the only time I had trouble with anyone in an ECV. My life flashed before my eyes as an EVC flew straight towards me. Apparently he was more excited to see the Green Army Guys then I was. Donald pulled me to safety and I stood in shock for a minute. Seriously the guy came very very close to running me over at the highest speed possible on those things and he didn't even pause or say sorry. I resisted the urge to give him the St. Louis single finger wave.

 

[missj1975]

The near death experience left me hungry so we headed to the Backlot Express. This is the only counter service that we didn't really enjoy.

Donald had a double cheeseburger and I had a turkeymelt. I took a bite of my turkeymelt, gave Donald a "this is the worst sandwich ever" look, and he promplty offered to trade. Ahhh, what a sweetie. We didn't linger over lunch too long because the place was quickly filling up and becoming a mad house.

We decided to take a break from Hollywood Studios and took a boat over to Boardwalk. Donald wanted to visit all the deluxes for future reference, ya know just incase he ever wins the lotto. Nothing too exciting at the Boardwalk, probably because the sky was starting to look scary.

We decided to walk over to the Yacht club. It was quite a walk so we needed to stock up on energy first.

Yacht club was very nice, Donald was very impressed. We stopped by the gift shop and did a little pin trading. One of the CM's handed me a phone and said I had a call. I was like but took the phone and listened. It was Goofy wishing me a Happy Birthday. I almost cried. The moment was so sweet. The CM had noticed my birthday button.

We headed back to the lobby. Donald had to use the restroom so I started to chat with the greeter, a very nice man named Woody. We had a great conversation but kind of sad conversation too. I have a twin sister. He had a twin brother that died at birth so we were talking about the bond between twins, etc. As we were leaving, he gave me two Pixie Dust pins, one for me and one for my twin sister. Again, I almost started crying.

I was constantly amazed by the friendly CM's that I encountered this trip. Since we pin trade a lot, eat a lot, and shop a lot, we encountered a lot of CM's. I would say we probably interacted with at least 200 CM's (and that is a low estimate). Anyway, out of all those interactions we only had one rude CM. I was very impressed, especially since all I seem to read on the disboards is about crabby CM's.

We took the boat back to Hollywood Studios. I forgot to mention early that the captain on the first Friendship boat from earlier was so cute. He was feeding the ducks bread while the guests were boarding. While I started to sing Feed The Birds in my head, I'm sure some guests were silently reprimanding him. Actually probably not because I am pretty sure only in disboardland do people get upset at people for feeding the birds. Tuppence a bag, anyone?

It started to rain. I had bought us mini umbrellas for this trip so we were prepared. We walked around a bit before deciding to just sit and relax until dinner time.

We had reservations for Mama Melrose's. The lobby was packed with people trying to avoid the rain. We squeezed in and luckily didn't have to wait long for our table.

I had the spaghetti fra diavolo. Donald had the charred butcher tender steak. We had truffle cake and crema limone for dessert. I said "we" because we always share our desserts with each other unless it is creme brulee and then it is every man for himself.

The food was great, service was great, everything was great. After dinner we pin traded our way to Toy Story Mania. The line was way too long so we headed to Fantasmic an hour early. Thank goodness we did. By the time the show started, the place was packed with no empty seats.

We watched the show in January in the rain. I offered to buy Donald a poncho in January but he refused. Instead he sat in the ran miserable but he did enjoy the show. This time I didn't offer, I just bought him a poncho and said wear it. **umbrellas and metal seats don't mix so we put umbrella's away** We had fun people watching before the show. Last time we saw people get in a fight and escorted out over seats but this time, no such excitement. Just lots of improperly dressed people.

Fantasmic was awesome, even better then last time. I didn't take pictures since it was raining (I take no chances with my camera). I was happy because Maleficent in dragon form was in the show. She wasn't in January so it was like a completely different show. After the show, we just sat a bit listening to the CM's yell at anyone walking on the benches, fun stuff. We eventually got up, pin traded our way to the buses, and went to bed. I think we actually made it back to the room by eleven which is way early for us.

We spotted Stitch at Hollywood Studios. Did I mention that I am very unphotogenic? I have a really bad blinking problem which means my eyes are closed in 90% of my photos. Either that or I look like I am on drugs. See, I really do love public humiliation since I post all my great photos here.

 

[missj1975]

"Donald was amazed that I fell asleep, I was just amazed that I didn't drool on him."


Jenny, you are so funny!

You are too kind Teresajoy. Glad you are enjoying the report.

Subscribing! Can't wait to here about the rest of your trip! (And the food of course!)

Thanks for joining. I'm having a great time writing the report.

 

[kathleen27]

Great updates!

Wow, you really did a lot of pin trading!

We met a ton of really nice, friendly, helpful CM's and one not very nice one as well.

 

[ILuvCrush]

Great Update!!!

My DH always blinks/closes his eyes for pics too

Thats why all my DHs pics have his sunglasses on

Paula

 

[SmithFamily2003]

You are way too funny!!!

What's wrong with feeding the birds? I like to feed the birds. Isn't that why they hang out at Disney? To get free food!!

 

[missj1975]

Great Update!!!

My DH always blinks/closes his eyes for pics too

Thats why all my DHs pics have his sunglasses on

Paula

I tried the sunglasses trick several times but most times the photopass photographer told me to take my glasses off. I think I have one with my sunglasses on but since the lenses aren't dark, you can still see my closed eyes. I'm hopeless.

 

[missj1975]

Donald put a lot of thought into my birthday on the 24th. No one has ever made a big deal out of my birthday before (especially a boyfriend) so I was quite thrilled with Donald.

When I booked the vacation in May, he told me not to plan anything on the 24th not even dinner reservations. The planner in me was worried but also excited that the 24th was going to be a complete surprise, mostly.

I say mostly because a month later Donald told me to pack a nice dress for our Florida trip. A nice dress...now I was stressing. First off, I no longer fit into any of my nice dresses (my other addiction is chocolate) and secondly I haven't had to dress up in forever. I'm not even for sure what a dress looks like anymore. As an accountant, I have had past jobs where I did wear dresses and nice suits to work but for the last three years I have dressed in "business casual." In otherwords, jean and free polo shirts from our vendors.

So I showed Donald my meager dress choices and he decided a shopping trip was in order. Yeah!!! He bought me a wonderful dress which I posted in the beginning of my trip report.

Did I mention I'm not use to surprises? And that I am pretty good at figuring out secrets. Yeap, I ruined my first surprise. I teased Donald that he was taking me to Victoria and Alberts and he gave me that "why don't you ever just shut up look." Oops, my bad. So after I finished my irish jig, Donald was ok with me spoiling the surprise. He still had plenty of surprises up his sleeve.

Back to the 22nd, Donald had me open a very sweet birthday card that brought tears to my eyes. (He is excellent at picking out sentimental cards). In the card was an itineray for Discover Cove. I was so excited and very surprised. You see, I didn't learn my lesson after learning about V&A and had spent the last two months trying to figure out what other surprises Donald had for me. I know, I'm like a little kid who secretly opens her christmas presents and then rewraps them before her parents notice. Thank goodness Donald and I don't live together because otherwise I would have snooped until every cat was out of the bag. Donald did his best to waylay my suspicions without outright lying to me. Long story short (too late) he gave me the impression that we were going on a manatee tour or maybe a boat tour.

I was thrilled with my surprise and even more thrilled when I opened my wrapped present, an underwater digital camera. An amazing underwater camera that worked perfectly, so perfectly that I ended up taking 350 pictures at Discovery cove. Donald gave me the present two days early because he knew I would want to practice with the camera. Good thing I opened it because the camera needed a memory card which Donald thought was included but of course it wasn't. No biggie, nothing a quick trip to Walgreens can't fix.

 

[missj1975]

We decided to spend the morning at Downtown Disney instead of going to a park. On our last trip we had a great time at Downtown Disney and had some great pin trading experiences. This trip, not so much.

Maybe it was because we got there when all the shops opened or because it was a Tuesday morning but DTD just wasn't happening.

Sure it was nice that the shops weren't crowded but it was boring. Maybe because all the merchandise we had seen before on our January trip. Note to Disney, please change your merchandise selection more then every five years.

We pin traded some. I bought an Alice in Wonderland teapot, Cheshire Cat plant stake, mickey shaped egg thingamajigs, and window decals for my car. I also bought Donald a Donald stuffed animal. He loved it. Oh and I bought some more pins because you know I don't already have enough. We lasted about two hours at DTD and decided to head back to Pop Century. We had lunch at the food court. I had the chicken parmesian again. It is excellent. Donald loves the beef and broccoli.

We had some time to kill but not enough to actually go to a park and get back in time to get ready for the party so I decided to do my favorite afternoon pasttime, take a nap. I love taking an afternoon nap. Donald on the otherhand doesn't so he decided to walk around Pop for awhile. Or so he said. He was secretly buying more presents and talking the front desk into sending me balloons and a card for my birthday.

 

[ILuvCrush]

OOoohhhh the suspense of the birthday stuff is killing me!!!!

It sounds like Donald is DEFINATELY a keeper

It was really neat that you got to go to Discovery Cove... I think that will be awesome (when i finally manage to go!!)

Please please please post lots of your DC pics... I can't wait to see them!!

Paula

 

[missj1975]

After my refreshing nap, I got ready for the party. We headed to the bus stop by 3:30 and I think we reached the party by 4pm.

We had an ADR at Tony's for 4:50pm. We pin traded some and then checked in early. I was hoping maybe they would seat us early because I was starving. I am pretty sure my stomach had started to eat itself out of desperation. We didn't get seated early. Instead I just watched all the neat costumes go buy as everyone else got seated early.

We finally got seated and I was happy to see our waiter was the same waiter from the last trip. He was great, food was great, yada, yada, yada. Unfortunately I was distracted by my growling stomach and forgot to take pictures of the food. I did remember to take pictures of my favorite dessert.

The party was awesome. We pin traded our way to the Haunted Mansion. I got lots of compliments on my costume. Two more CM's gave me pixie dust pins because they loved my costume so much.

We had to make a quick stop for some squished pennies. Donald even joined in on the hunt.

On our way to the Haunted Mansion, we spotted these singing guys. They were very funny.

The Haunted Mansion is awesome during the party. They had a photopass photographer taking pictures with one of the hitchhiking ghosts. Plus they had a southern lady entertaining guests as they entered the mansion. She made funny comments to almost everyone as they passed by her.

I saw her walking around the front of the mansion later. She loved my dress too.

Sorry got to actually work today. Have to pick up lunch for my boss, really hard stuff. I will post parade pictures after lunch.

 

[missj1975]

After riding the Haunted Mansion, we trick or treated some and then headed to our favorite parade spot in Frontierland. I loved the parade. My Headless Horseman picture did not come out but he was cool to see. I went to a MNSSHP in 2005 and I don't remember the headless horseman. Plus I had a terrible viewing spot in 2005, like five people back. My friend thought watching the parade on Main Street was a good idea. My tip, go to Frontierland. I have never had a problem getting a good spot. Front row spots make this parade so much better.

Alice from my favorite Disney movie. I almost dressed as Alice for this party, even bought a costume but the Giselle dress won out.

Character from the Haunted Mansion graveyard scene. Funny, I never noticed him on the ride until this trip, after the parade.

After the parade we headed to my favorite Trick or Treating Spot.

I just loved seeing all the Alice characters.

Bye this time, I was limping pretty bad. Me being the silly girl I am thought it would be ok to wear sturdy dress clogs. They gave me a little height and looked pretty good with the dress. In my dressing up days I could wear them all day long without a problem. Well being as that was three years ago, my feet had considerably softened and disagreed with the constant arch of my foot. I was in pain but I kept quiet and just suffered in silence. Donald did notice I had slowed down the pace but I said I was fine.

We went back to our favorite spot to watch fireworks.

Me by my buddy again. Don't I look like I am having so much fun? Actually it was a great spot to throw up my feet. I did a pretty good job balancing myself on the iron rails. Donald did his best protecting our small piece of the world and we had a great time watching the fireworks. *Just in case you couldn't tell (because my sister couldn't), my topiary buddy is a swan.

After the fireworks, we hit more trick or treating spots. I said enough was enough and spent $20 on flip flops. It was the best $20 I ever spent and now I have cute but impratical silver flip flops decorated with plastic jewels. Beggers can't be choosers so I am happy with my gaudy flip flops.

The most interesting trick or treat line is the one that goes down by the Liberty Bell in Frontierland. I was taking a picture of this neat display...

when Donald pointed out this creepy guy. It was my turn to be scared. The creepy guy was good, very good and he was at both parties. He just paced back and forth, back and forth and never cracked a smile. The people behind me were commenting on what a neat animatronic he was. Really, I bit my tongue and moved on.

We both had a great time at the party and was very sad when it was time to leave. We prolonged our departure by pin trading our way through the gift shops. The line for the bus was long but we were use to the long lines by that point and just amused ourselves by checking out everyone else's costumes.

This is something you don't see too often...

An empty Pop Century pool!!! Seriously, kids were even swimming at seven in the morning. Did I mention that I was glad we were out in the boonies, way away from the pool?

 

[SmithFamily2003]

You have some seriously long hair!

 

[Dr_Finkelstein]

I can't believe I'm so far behind!
Anyway, all caught up now!
Fab TR so far, am really enjoying it! Really funny! The photos are great too, the MNSSHP looked so good - bah humbug! we missed it! Next time!
As for checking out the deluxe resorts - I'm glad to know I'm not alone! We have our photopass session booked at GF, and I plan to show the photos to very many people......."yes, our hotel was lovely - as you can see....."
Creme brulee - of course it's every man for themselves when thats the dessert!
You sure do like your pins!!!!!
Di x

 

[missj1975]

We managed to wake up at a decent time and reach Discovery Cove by 8:15am. The cove doesn't official open until 9 am but they open up for registration at 8 am. I am glad we got there early. We had plenty of time to explore the park, take pictures, and eat breakfast before our dolphin encounter.

This is just a pretty spot on the entrance path to the main area of Discovery Cove.

The first picture is a dolphin pool. Anyone can view the pools but only guests who pay extra can enter the water (with their dolphin trainer of course). We watched the trainers give the dolpins breakfast, vitamins, etc before we walked around and explored the park some more. Not too many guests showed up early so we really felt like we had the park to ourselves for the first hour. The second pool is the lazy river entrance.

We sat down for a nice breakfast. Food, snacks, and drinks are all included in the price of admission. The eating area is so nice and the staff are so friendly. Since the seating area is outside, there is a slight bird problem but I love birds so I didn't mind. As I scooted my tray to the side, a bird landed on the table and grabbed some food. A waitress quickly cleared the table and smiled, saying something about the birds. It was funny. Everytime we ate, a server was kind of hovering waiting to remove our empty plates.

After breakfast, we picked up our water-vests. We could either get wetsuits or vests. We decided on vests but could always come back for the wetsuits if we changed our mind. Yeah right, like I was really going to attempt to squeeze myself into a wetsuit. The vest were very nice, comfortable, and helped with floating. I really don't need help with floating because I'm a professional floater but Donald on the other hand sinks like a stone. We stowed our stuff in the complimentary lockers before we headed to our dolphin encounter.

Before the encounter, we all watched a short video on dolphins and then met our dolphin trainers. We were broken into small groups. My group had three couples and two individuals. Everyone was friendly and our trainer introduced us to our first dolphin Clipper. Clipper was a smaller female dolphin. We then met Capricon, a bigger older male dolphin. We spent the most time with Capricon, feeding and touching him. We posed for pictures and then took turns riding the dolphin.

After the 30 minute encounter, we looked at pictures from the session. I of course am a sucker for pictures and bought the CD with pics for $150. The CD only had like 20 pictures on it but I figured since Donald had paid for everything else, I could splurge on the CD. I do love the CD and pictures so I don't regret the purchase.

After the dolphin encounter we decided to eat an early lunch. I didn't have my camera on me at that moment so no pictures of that lunch. ***Notice I say that lunch. Yep, we ate again later that afternoon. Snorkeling is very hard work and requires lots of fuel. Anyway, for our first lunch we had lobster salad sandwiches, ceaser salad, and strawberries.

After lunch, we picked up our snorkels and mask. We then stopped by the lockers for my camera and headed to the coral reef. We saw this cutie on the way there. I love sloths. I wish I could have held her but I at least I got to pet her.

I have been snorkeling before but that was a long, long time ago, before I developed a terrible gag reflex. It took me 30 minutes to get use to the snorkel but it was smooth sailing after that. There are lifeguards everywhere and there was an employee helping people in the coral reef. I asked for tips on snorkeling and he said "Just Relax." Gee thanks, now I'm all set.

There are two main snorkeling pools, the coral reef and the lazy river. The coral reef is salt water and the lazy river is fresh water. The fresh water is a lot warmer so when we got too cold from the salt water we would hop in the lazy river for awhile. We rotated between the two pools all day long.

Coral Reef is full of amazing fish, stingrays, and mantarays. The Lazy river has no fish but it does have very nice floral vegetation. Plus there are sunken items through out the river which were interesting to spot. The lazy river also passes through a bird atrium. There is a walk up entrance to the bird atrium and a swim up entrance that we used. The bird atrium was very cool but we only visited it once. We spent the majority of our time swimming.

My underwater camera from Donald was awesome. I took 350 pictures throughout the day. I would have taken more but we ran out of time. The park closes at 5:30 pm. At closing they don't rush the guests out of the park, just out of the water. The staff gives the guests plenty of time to shower, shop, and look at pictures before leaving. I was talking to the staff and they mentioned that sometimes they don't get to leave until eight because of slow guests. We weren't that slow and were out of there by 6:30pm. I absolutely love Discovery Cove. We had so much fun!!!

 

[missj1975]

The first picture is the waterful near the Bird Atrium entrance.

In the afternoon, a photographer was stationed there taking pictures. I had already purchased the cd so of course I jumped at the opportunity to get more pictures taken for my cd.

There are employees throughout the atrium who give food to the guests to feed the birds and to answer questions about the birds.

The birds are very friendly to anyone who has food. At one point I had three birds on me at once. It was kind of freaky and I started singing "Feed the Birds." Ok not really but people did start pointing and saying "Look at the bird lady." Finally the birds moved on and we walked around the atrium for a bit.

The lazy river goes through the atrium. You can see guests on this walking bridge that we swam under numerous times. It was a lot of fun swimming through the atrium. You can also see the backside of water ;-) in the background. That is the waterfall from my first picture. I think it helps keep the birds in the atrium.

 

[missj1975]

 

[missj1975]

Did I scare anyone with the last picture?

Lifeguards are stationed everywhere throughout the park and the coral reef. We were resting in the water near one of the lifeguard stands when the guy noticed my camera. Donald started to give the lifeguard a thirty minute dissertation so I started to swim away. Donald said look below the lifeguard stand so I went underwater and about had a heart attack.

There is an aquarium underneath the lifeguard stand. We had swam by it numerous times but I just never noticed. Donald knew there were sharks somewhere in the park, he just never mentioned it to me. I have an insane fear of sharks so even though they were behind a thick sheet of glass, I was still a little nervous. And when I first went underwater for a split second I didn't realize there was glass there. Yeah, I was ticked because I thought Donald was trying to scare me. He knows I hate anyone trying to scare me so he had some major dancing to do before I was happy again. In all fairness to Donald, he didn't realize it was the shark aquarium beneath the lifeguard stand. The lifeguard just asked if we had seen the fish beneath his stand. So I gave the lifeguard my death stare and moved on.

 

[missj1975]