Dr. Jones and the Spitting Camel - Link to Alaska Cruise TR 9/18

[Charleston Princess]

Mmmm, that sandwich does look amazing! Paired with a Grey Goose or Grand Marnier slushy would be heavenly! Another food idea to add to the mix for our trip!

 

[eandesmom]

Popping in to say hi! I'm behind on all my TRs, but I'm still here!

Hi Kat! No worries, I have the same recurring issue everywhere myself.

And I don't have the excuse of wee ones!

you are just a wealth of info!!! DH & I caught the last hour of the program Walt: the Man behind the Myth...and of course then I started telling him about your post of the tour & Ranger Joe. I teased him a bit because I wouldn't tell him about the Ranger's fav hidden Mickey

That sounds freakin' awesome!!! I know you will have a blast. And I now have DH also anxiously anticipating the grey goose slushies!!! yippee...he's prone to giggling at WDW anyway so add a grey goose and LOOK OUT!!!

Oh that hidden Mickey is so cute! I hope you enjoy the tour and Grey Goose slushies are the best!

Bagless in the park. THAT is bliss!!! I did that a few times on our December 2009 trip because FIL & MIL were with, so Henry was with them! It was amazing to just walk through.

I try to go bagless as much as possible at home as well but it really only seems to work for the gym. It is bliss. Not sure how achievable it will be in May without Sherpa Jeff but I'm going to try!

That apple tart is high on my list of things to try. I just posted about our visit to the little bakery and while I chose what I was wanting for that particular day, looking back at the pictures I'm kicking myself! That apple tart looks AWESOME. It wasn't overly sweet, right? Sweet, yet savory?

Exactly only a little sweet and flaky and savory, the perfect snack, dessert...breakfast....I may have more than one in May!

And I'm not a big fan of cheese on sandwiches, but sometimes I do like it with ham. I just might have to try that sandwich...good bread makes a sandwich usually!

I'm not usually a big fan of swiss which is what is used but oh was it good!
Bread makes all the difference

How is it that I keep missing your updates? I think I have to get my head out from under that darn rock again (or maybe it was from being buried in the snow?).

Hey turnabout is fair play, I miss yours all the time. no snow here though so it must be a rock. Or Laundry and Dishes.

In any event, I am back. That ham sandwich looks absolutely delightful and right up my alley. I definitely think that will be on the list come September. I had the Grand Marnier slushie, but not the Grey Goose one. Do you prefer one over the other?

Grey Goose, hands down. The GM is good, don't get me wrong but the GG is

I kept thinking; What the heck kind of vodka comes in a can?? OMG, I"m so blonde (not)!! What a doofus!1

OK, got it, a CAN of each (IN the lemonade can, doy), and they WILL be served liberally while you're all here.


Yes! Text me your number, we need to get rolling on a plan. same as before.

OMG, that was a riot! You ARE blonde under all that red! Reminds me of my Hot buttered rum recipie...which is a pound a pound a pound. LOL! Here it is

Lemon Creamsicle (She called it a Lemon Fizz but the collective renamed it at the shower lol).

A recipe from: Happydog (aka Jennifer)

Ingredients
• 1 can of frozen lemonade
• 1 can half and half (yes, using the lemonade can)
• 1 can vodka (see above)
• Ice

Blender

Directions
Blend!

Happydog's Notes, which were spot on!:

Now typically this will be too much for the blender to manage in one blending, it will overflow with froth. Messy. So I split it up, add a little more than 1/2 a can of half and half and of the vodka, but keep it at 1/2 of the frozen lemonade. Then fill the rest of the blender with crushed ice and flip the switch. It will make two pitchers (blenderfuls!) These are foamy really creamsicle like! VERY potent... as I said, we add a little more than 1/2 the can of vodka and they taste awesome. Reblend if it sits a little, we stick the whole pitcher in the freezer between pouring. You CAN add a bit of lemon zest on top, but only if you are going for presentation! HA!!! they go down easy anytime and are great for brunch!

Mmmm, that sandwich does look amazing! Paired with a Grey Goose or Grand Marnier slushy would be heavenly! Another food idea to add to the mix for our trip!

It was pretty darn perfect!

 

[carissanboys]

Hey Cynthia! Sorry it's taken me so long to get back over here. I'll try to be better about keeping up.

 

[eandesmom]

oh no worries! I've been horrible, I feel like I get caught up and then immediately behind everywhere! I'm glad you are here, whenever you can stop by

 

[tinacaplan]

All this bag talk has me thinking... I LOVE the way handbags and purses look, sure. But carrying them around drives me absolutely batty! I did enjoy the few days I went without mine last year... With a three year-old I'm fairly certain that's an impossibility!

 

[eandesmom]

All this bag talk has me thinking... I LOVE the way handbags and purses look, sure. But carrying them around drives me absolutely batty! I did enjoy the few days I went without mine last year... With a three year-old I'm fairly certain that's an impossibility!

Well the good news for you is... you have a stroller to put it in! I loved that.

 

[englishrose47]

OMG I missed your update !!I would have been with you at the Bakery !!!I did not care for the Tangerine cafe , don't get me wrong some of the food was very tasty but the meats were awful !!! I can't resist the Raspberry Schluss at the bakery !!! It's my choice every time !!!

 

[eandesmom]

OMG I missed your update !!I would have been with you at the Bakery !!!I did not care for the Tangerine cafe , don't get me wrong some of the food was very tasty but the meats were awful !!! I can't resist the Raspberry Schluss at the bakery !!! It's my choice every time !!!

I think Tangerine is very hit or miss for a lot of people. I'll need to check out the Raspberry Schluss next time, that sounds yummy!

 

[englishrose47]

I think Tangerine is very hit or miss for a lot of people. I'll need to check out the Raspberry Schluss next time, that sounds yummy!

I am stuck at workSo am doing some Dissing between cleaning !!!

 

[eandesmom]

I am stuck at workSo am doing some Dissing between cleaning !!!

DISing sounds much better than cleaning to me!

 

[eandesmom]

All finished up, we wandered out of Tangerine Café. It was about 1pm so we are actually doing pretty well all things considered. Did I mention how HOT it was? Did I mention that Paul does not do well in the heat? We’d known this going into the trip but now that we were here, on the heels of a rather big scare the previous morning we just didn't want to take any chances. And so we began a type of touring I’d never done before, albeit one we’d planned to employ when the time was right.

I call it the AC slide. Where you “slide” as much as possible from one AC attraction, to the next. In and of itself this would be a change. We are outdoor people and don’t do a lot of indoor attractions. Jeff and I were kind of excited about it actually, an “excuse” to see new stuff that maybe the kids wouldn’t have chosen were it not for the heat and the need to keep grandparents cool (literally and figuratively). It might mean waiting in lines we’d typically try to get a FP for, but that was ok too!

We slid back…to France! And, to Impressions of France. A new indoor attraction! None of us had ever any the WS movies so this was a big first.

This looked tempting but…not now

While we were waiting, Evan met a new friend, and we had a fun gargoyle discussion.

What can I say about Impressions of France? It impressed us! 18 minutes of air conditioned bliss. It really was gorgeous and we all left wanting to go, or for me, wanting to go back, NOW!

We did have a little fun on the way out

Sufficiently cooled it was decided that a FP run was in order. Test Track was on certain people’s minds. I mean Jeff’s. And mine. And Eric’s. I’m not sure anyone else got a say. According to my trusty android app, the return times seemed good and the better choice given a short wait (still) at MS. Sadly, as expected, the FP's for Soarin' had a return time that was well into our dinner ressie.

Jeff, K&T decided to sprint ahead and get tickets and then we’d text on where to meet from there.

Bye Bye France, see you in May!

We were strolling by and saw a Photopass photographer. So of course I had to get Sandie and Paul into a few shots!

Continuing our stroll, we saw these guys! You can see the steam on my lens.
If we were hot, imagine it in kilts!!!!

So had Jeff and Taylor and so they’d stopped in their tracks to hear them for a bit, we enjoyed listening to them together. So much for the sprint.
We listened to 2 or so songs and enjoyed them as much as before. But time was a wasting, the day was heating up and so the sprint started again for some, the stroll for others.

As we sauntered…or slid really, we were a bit slimy and getting slimier by the second we received a text that FP’s had been gathered and to meet at Spaceship Earth.

Perfect! SE had been our first ride of the 08 trip and was such a fun intro to Epcot! With a 5 minute wait we slid….into air-conditioned bliss
I admit, I didn’t get any pictures of the ride itself. Not because I’m a rule follower but because my camera sucks at indoor shots. Case in point. I did attempt a few redneck photos after.

Continued in next post

 

[eandesmom]

I did get our videos though







These are weird. Evan did not ride solo, pretty sure he was with Paul and my hair kills me, I have a pull top head or something! Which makes no sense at all as it was in a low ponytail bun type thing. Weird

It was a huge hit all around and I really enjoyed the changes since our last visit.

Continuing our journey, it seemed appropriate that Mission Space would be next.

Some very crummy queue pics just to prove we were really there

With Paul’s blood pressure, green was chosen for some of the crew and for the rest of us, yes…another date with Orange! Honestly I can’t recall who all went on which, I’m pretty sure Sandie, Paul and Kendall did Green, I know Jeff and I did Orange. One of the other kids did green but whom, I’ve not a clue.

As usual, it was a hit. And, as usual, our postcards home never seemed to show up. Honestly I’m still surprised that the SE ones actually did. By now we were approaching our FP time for TT. So that’s what we did.

This picture cracks me up! It is the exact expression that Kendall gets on this ride, and for that matter when she is really going for it in soccer. I just downloaded a bunch of soccer pics from last week’s game and she looks just like her grandma! I don’t think I’ll tell either of them that as well, it’s not a flattering look, but it sure is funny!

Somehow I didn’t get the other car onto my card. Bummer.

The verdict? They loved it!

It was 4pm by this point and we’d done a few of the big ones. We had a 7:20 dinner reservation, it was hot, everyone wanted to swim and we had 4 Soarin’ FP’s from the morning.

There were 8 of us.

What to do?

Ok what I wanted to do was to go on Soarin’. I admit it. But there were others who needed/deserved it more, others who hadn’t gone on it in April (at DCA) and so, with more than a little sadness from some of us, we did the right thing and gave them to Sandie, Paul, Kendall and Taylor.

Since we had made such a huge personal sacrifice, Jeff decided we deserved a reward. One that involved sprinting. I kid you not. That man MOVED and we were just scrambling trying to keep up. He had a mission.

A very special, adult only, mission.

To

Here

Yes, it’s true. We ditched our family (well most of them), gave up the coveted Soarin’ FP’s to go to…

The Ditch.

Except I didn’t know people were calling it that then, it was still pretty darn new at that point. It was actually a little hard to find for some reason, it hadn’t occurred to us that it was actually INSIDE the pavilion so we walked around the exterior looking for signs to La Cava before somehow we were directed or just decided to go in and see if it was there.

Our CM greeted us with what was becoming a familiar greeting anytime Jeff had his hat on.

"What can I get you Dr. Jones?"


Oh it was hard to choose! But, after much debate while we enjoyed the air conditioned bliss, it was determined that the Clasico was calling our names. One with, and one without, salt.

Our amazing CM , whose name I don’t recall because I suck at ever remembering any of the CM’s names, finished making the drinks and stepped away. We took a healthy first sip. Ahhh….Pure heaven. Just then he came back. And uttered some words I honestly never expected to hear.

“You ordered these strong, right?”

We looked at each other, looked at him, nodded mutely with grins on our faces and watched dumbfounded as he completely topped off what we had just sipped and then some with a VERY healthy splash of tequila.

Ah…now this is a Cave we could hang out in!

.

Except really, there was nothing for the E’s to do in there. We weren’t eating, or buying them drinks so sadly we left, hoping to make it back someday.

The plan had been to meet back in Canada. We’d all been ok leaving Off Kilter early as we knew with the show times we might make it back to see another one on our way out. And sure enough we did!

Jeff was enthralled

The drink was easing the pain felt by a missed soar

It was HOT. And the drinks were melting fast.

These two were less than thrilled with the waiting, the fact they didn't get to go on soarin', the heat, and the band (and the fact that they didn’t have drinks). It wasn’t so much that they didn’t like the music as I know they do, the other stuff was getting to them and me, being the mean cheap mom that I am, didn’t want to waste snack credits on drinks when we were 10 minutes away from our room and our own refillable mugs.

Finally, the rest of the group arrived. They were not moving quickly

Paul and Sandie enjoyed the show

Now. During this Sandie decided everyone else needed a drink. And attempted to get them at the Canada coffee kiosk nearby. They all ordered, frozen cappuccinos and some bottled drinks. Sandie went to pay.
Their machine wasn’t working.

They couldn’t take the DDP for snack credits. Even though I’m almost positive they had the little purple box there to indicate they could.
They couldn’t take a credit card.

All of a sudden it was a scramble for cash while the drinks sat there and the blended ones melted and weeped, kids eying them longingly.

I’ll admit. I hardly ever have cash. Heck, I’d been making the E’s wait to just use their refillable mugs and save the snack credits for something more worthy than a bottle of powerade. If a place only takes cash (or their machine is down so that’s all they can take) they sure as heck ought to tell you before you are ordering 6 drinks! We were not happy about it. All they needed was a little hand written sign that said cash only! Thankfully we scraped enough together, the heated kids were cooled off and we headed out, having done all that anyone could handle in the heat.
Arriving back, we found these!

Rufus and Snowy, Eric's animals had gotten on the bed! They know better.

We wanted to go the pool. Sandie and Paul wanted to rest and Paul wanted to get on his laptop to work on a Sermon. I poured them each a glass of wine and we took off, knowing that we really only had about an hour to get wet and cool off before we’d need to get ready for dinner. As we left we determined that a cab was really the only way we’d manage to squish the pool time and Sandie agreed to make the arrangements while we were out cooling off.

All in all, a great first afternoon and one where we’d survived being split up, finding CS for 8 in the WS, hitting some of the key must do’s, and a bit of melting, all with relatively good grace, moods and minimal issues. We had done a lot of never dones. Grey Goose and Grand Marnier Slushies, the Ditch, Captain EO, lunch in France, Impressions of France, ORANGE, and we at least went IN to Innovations even if we didn't find SOAT. SAB was definitely in order for all! I’m not sure I’ve ever changed and thrown a glass of wine at someone so fast.

I’ll admit, I have no pictures of our dip in SAB but can say it felt great, and the rum and coke in my refillable mug, was equally refreshing!

So refreshing that a new concern arose. Could we get them out of the pool in time to make it to Ohana? The menu that had single handedly won the top spot in our stack ranking menu review by every single member of my family? Would it live up to the loft expectations we all had? Would it really feel like “family”

Most importantly…would I finally drink out of a pineapple?

 

[glennbo123]

La Cava looks amazing...I definitely need to try that.

You folks did look rather hot. I can relate.

I hope you make it to Ohana.

 

[All7OfUs]

You are making some serious headway in cranking out a great trip. I love your EPCOT day, especially a dive into the Cave. Great place, eh??

Minimal issues is always a nice bonus! I was worried there for a minute about having a cranky kid meltdown moment while you were watching Off Kilter.

AND YIKES, that was something I'd have very little patience with-the drink stand fiasco. I think I would have been tempted to say something. I NEVER had cash (a whole ugly story in itself for my trip), and would have had to walk away without my drink.

 

[GreatBiscuit]

I had to pull up D-Cot and take a "Walk In the Irish Rain". Kudos on catching Off Kilter.

 

[Charleston Princess]

I had no idea that there was an actual word for going from one AC attraction to another -- the AC Slide. Almost mandatory in that the brutal summer heat.

Jeff was a very smart man to reward you with a drink from the Cave -- giving up Soarin' FPs deserves nothing less.

 

[creativeamanda]

Gosh, I really want to try La Cava now. And since we'll be so close, I think it would be perfect.

Even if I have to try it myself!

 

[Poolrat]

Ah yes the AC slide! I know it well. A similar action is the raindrop slide
I think a visit to the Ditch it is a good consolation prize for giving up Soarin' FP.

 

[that's nice]

Great update!!!!

I'm not a tequila drinker but I think I would love one of those nice cold drinks on a HOT day!

Glad you were able to fit in a little pool time and cool off a bit.

I can't wait to hear about your meal at 'Ohana. That could be my favorite restaurant... I hope you guys make it!

 

[natebenma]

Nice afternoon in EPCOT. Ya know, you could have stuck with the "Ditch" theme and ding dong ditched the drinks! But it sounds like they were just the thing needed to cure some woes. They really do need to post the cash only thing more clearly, especially since it is so different from almost every place else in the World.

It is good that you had time for a dip in the pool. Hope it was enough time for everyone. Or was is TOO much time? I'm curious to see if you make it to 'Ohana, how late and what they assess you for a penalty punishment. We got 30 minutes in a crowded lobby, no drinks in pineapple for our tardiness.