Explosive-o's! An August Trip Report (FINISHED 1/11!)

coloredimage · Oct 23, 2014

Amuck, Amuck, Amuck

You can tell the nights I'm home alone lots of TR updating! I'm also really hoping to get done with Saturday (my longest day) before this weekend kicks off my friends' wedding week so hopefully I manage that between tonight and tomorrow!

We got up bright and early, around 7:30, which was actually one of the latest times we had slept to so far, and were out the door by 8 AM. We got to the Magic Kingdom somewhere between 8:45 and 9; the opening show was just ending. We sat down on a tree (spoiler: the same tree we watched the opening show from later on) and waited.

See, one of our best friends, Liz, works down in Disney and has for the last three years after doing her College Program. Liz and I grew up together, one of those I can't think of a time I didn't know you type of friends. She and Jem get along really well too, and when I was living in England they spent a lot of time together just the two of them.

We had had a teeny-tiny misunderstanding about which tree to meet at but we found her within five minutes of showing up. After hugs and exciting exclaims of YAY were had by all we went down Main Street to the bakery. Jem and I got coffee while Liz got a breakfast sandwich. We meandered while we ate, heading against the current towards Tomorrowland (notice that we always go to Tomorrowland first? I didn't realize that until I started writing this trip report!) and sat just near the entry to Space Mountain finishing up our breakfasts. We amused ourselves by watching all the people book it to Space Mountain because the wait time was only 10 minutes. Once we were done we calmly walked up through the Space Mountain queue. We were only in line for about six or seven minutes when a CM pulled us up to the front of the line (we were pretty close to it anyway) so we could ride in the back. Nice little pixie dust moment even if I have a total love/hate relationship with the back of the car

We decided to be pretty in our picture:

The best part about this picture is that none of us had talked about what we were going to do so we just kind of randomly all did something similar. I was dancing, Liz was making faces, and Jem was pretending to be scared.

Our ride consisted a lot of me going I hate the back! while laughing hysterically and getting whipped around.

Afterwards we headed on over to BTMRR, Liz's old haunt. The line was only about 15 minutes long so we hopped on in. We tried for the back but were denied the guy put us as close to the back as he could but it was pretty much the middle.

It was around 10-ish at this point and Jem and I had a FP to get to. See, we planned our FP+'s for this day without realizing that was the day that Liz would join us. She hadn't known her work schedule yet so she decided that she'd just wait for us on one of the couches near Tony's while we went to meet Mickey!

Sat. 9 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Sat. 9 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Sadly, these pictures never ended up on our MM. We mostly didn't want to get our pictures with him, we just wanted the experience of Talking Mickey, which was really cool and a lot of fun.

We met back up with Liz, who had been on the phone with her roommate. She had driven her to MK before going to work, but had a stomach bug and Liz was checking up on her. We all decided to jump on to a ride after leaving Mickey. It was still early enough that we could jump onto Pirates with only a fifteen minute wait.

Our FP+ time had just come up for Anna and Elsa so we went that way. Liz wanted to call her roommate again to check up on her since she hadn't answered and she was still early enough that her shift hadn't begun yet; their restaurant didn't open until lunchtime.

We stood in that line for a terribly long time of two minutes. Seriously. We walked in, we were the only ones in the FP+ line, and we were brought right away to the room to greet them.

They weren't all that memorable. Our interaction with Anna was kind of stilted and she looks uncomfortable in the picture we took with her.

With Elsa, at least, we had a decent conversation about the cold and how we were of good Viking stock.

We were out in literally five minutes. Liz had called us while we were in there to let us know she'd have to get going by noon as her roommate had been told to go home, that she was too sick to work. It actually took us a few minutes to get in contact with Liz because she was still on the phone with her roommate making sure she felt okay enough to drive to MK or if she wanted her to get herself to their restaurant. Liz came back with a Lefou's Brew that we all shared and we walked back to the front of the park with her.

Before she left we got some pictures!

After we saw Liz out we headed back into the depths of the park. We had a FP+ at noon (man, we haven't even hit noon yet on Saturday? Yeesh!) for Splash Mountain but it was pretty humid and we weren't too keen on walking around in our wet things or having dinner in them, so we decided to regroup.

But first we needed a bathroom.

We headed on into Cosmic Rays since we were close at the time and used their restrooms. After we were out we sat down in the back near the restrooms to look at what we could change our FP+ to. We talked about how we hadn't gotten on Buzz yet and we had already done Splash so we decided to switch them out. They even had a Buzz right at noon so it was an easy switch! We waited about five minutes until it was noon then fought Zurg.

At some point between Buzz and leaving MK we went to see Ariel. I only know that because we have the pictures on our MM but they are horrible. Terribly. I am not sharing them, sorry. We only went because the line was like 10 minutes and Jem really wanted a picture of Ariel with her tail.

And with that, lunch! (There will be so much food in this day. Ugh. I'm sorry.)

coloredimage · Oct 25, 2014

Vu ja De

Hah, remember when I said that I wanted to finish this day before today? Yeah that's not happening. Oh well, hopefully I'll finish Saturday before I go away next weekend!

Okay so I forgot about this but at some point during the time before lunch and after seeing Ariel we needed to hide from the sun and have some water. It wasn't as hot as it had been but it seemed like we were more dehydrated than the last few days – probably because it was because it was less hot we weren't thinking about drinking as much.

So we hid in Gaston's tavern and had a drink. We were at a tiny two-top next to the side door.

Sat. 9 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Sat. 9 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Once it was time we went to lunch.

When we were planning our trip we had been waffling – did we want to try dinner in Be Our Guest or hope we could get into a lunch time there. We decided on dinner and I got the ADR, then they announced the FP+ experiment so we decided to try it. It's a good thing we did, too, because we ended up there during a time when they were doing the Standby-less tests.

(If this starts becoming a little erratic, sorry, I just found Queen Victoria's Children on PBS and I am currently typing without looking at my computer.)

A woman in front of us in line was not at all pleased with that fact. She was screaming at the CM that had the misfortune of telling her that the SB+ tickets were out for the day. She kept trying to tell him different things to get him to allow her in – that she had already been in, that she was special, that she had tried to do the FP for Be Our Guest but it had failed, that she had done the FP and it HAD worked but she didn't have the confirmation number. It was obvious that she was lying from the range of her stories. The man handled it with aplomb though, I must say.

We were inside quickly. We were in line for about six or seven minutes then waited for about another...hm...probably less than ten minutes but I'm not exactly sure how long.

We both got the croque monsieur. I was a bit surprised Jem did, as she is not a fan of ham, but I think because it's been given such a good review and we didn't want anything too big since we had so much food ahead of us during the rest of the day.

We also both got the Master's Cupcake, which I enjoyed but I do believe the strawberry cupcake from the Monday previous was definitely my favorite of the two.

We headed out after lunch and went back to Caribbean Beach. We had dinner fairly early(ish) and we didn't want to have to rush to change. There was a conversation about us doing something – Jem wanted to do something or go somewhere and I simply said “sure, we just have to wear this during the rest of the day” meaning our leggings/shorts and tank tops. Jem blanched and agreed that we go back.

We were back by 2 and pretty much barely beat the rain. We stayed in for a couple of hours just relaxing and left around 4:15.

We headed back to Mk but skipped over the park and hopped onto the monorail instead.

Sat. 9 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

We got to Poly quickly and after checking out the pin board we went and finally managed to find the check-in counter for 'Ohana. We went to 'Ohana for the first time last year with Jem's mum, and we really didn't get to eat all that much – we had one of the first reservation times for dinner and when we had gotten there early Jem's mum bought us frozen pina coladas as a thank you for bringing her to Disney. Even though we only had one those things are just as filling as a large ice cream cone, and we really didn't eat all that much that was brought to us.

This year we went drink-less. Okay, not drink-less, we had water and diet cokes, but we went alcoholic beverage-less.

There are no pictures of our meal because we were right on the floor in the way of the broom races. We were watching the little kids for the most part. We were also really sad that we didn't think to go grab leis downstairs before we had come up.

Don't worry, though. The singing lady that annoys so many people (we actually enjoy her) came over and asked us very sweetly if we wanted some.

This was the only picture I took at dinner:

We had a decent meal. I like 'Ohana still, and it was a good filling meal.

We left and went back out to the monorail, heading for our next adventure!

coloredimage · Oct 26, 2014

Tutto Gusto

We took the monorail all the way to...

Sat. 9 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Epcot!

You know, when we planned this trip, we were going to spend less time in Epcot because we spent 80% of our time last year in Epcot. And, technically, we did spend far less time there then normal since we went to Hollywood Studios more than normal and we didn't spend as much time in the countries as normal this trip.

We spent the first forty minutes talking with Ryan, a CM at the gate. Then we snapped a quick picture together:

And basked in Futureworld in the sunset. The colors were just really pretty at that time of day.

Sat. 9 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Sat. 9 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

We headed on over to Mission Space since it had a really short line and it was close to closing time for it so we wanted to jump on before we wouldn't have time to do it:

Sat. 9 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Sat. 9 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr
Once we were done visiting Space we went to Club Cool and tried out some of the new sodas, then headed on into World Showcase as Illuminations was about to start.

We were headed to Italy, though we weren't 100% planning on watching Illuminations. We did try to stand near the water and I got these awesome pictures

Sat. 9 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Sat. 9 Aug. 2014Sat. 9 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Sat. 9 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

but we decided to go into the pavillion itself instead. We sat in the palazzo and listened to the music/watched what fireworks we could see. We would have probably cared a little more but we just enjoyed sitting around, listening to the music and relaxing.

When Illuminations ended we went on over to Tutto Gusto. See, we had decided to do the wind down. Or, more appropriately, I had decided to do the wind down. Jem didn't seem all that interested in it and I almost canceled it three times. I just really wanted to experience it, to see what it was like.

Unlike what I had heard from some other accounts, they shut the bar down for everyone else who wanted to come in. They were checking names and if you're name wasn't on there they wouldn't let you stay. They were even given out wristbands so that you could come back in if you left. I would have probably loved going to the Rose & Crown, as I like a good beer flight, but since Jem loves wine and I really like wine I figured it was the better choice of the two.

We were one of maybe 10 parties, and were definitely the youngest in Tutto Gusto, which was nice. We had a very attractive and very charming waiter. Jem and I both got the Sweet Dreams wine flight which was all moscatos and sweet wines. Jem got the Piemonte Hills plate while I stuck with the dessert plate. I couldn't help it, I love desserts too much.

coloredimage · Oct 26, 2014

Epcot At Night Montage

We had a nice, relaxing time and by the time we left the park was practically empty. We took our time leaving, and I went on a photography kick through the countries.

Untitled by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Sat. 9 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

figment52 · Oct 26, 2014

great report...keep on writing

scrpbookr · Oct 26, 2014

Loving your TR! You have a great eye for photography! So many lovely shots! I'm subscribed so I can follow along....

ribollita · Oct 26, 2014

Just read the entire thread- great details! Looking forward to more!

coloredimage · Oct 27, 2014

figment52 said:
great report...keep on writing

Thanks! Hope you keep reading!

scrpbookr said:
Loving your TR! You have a great eye for photography! So many lovely shots! I'm subscribed so I can follow along....

Thanks!

And thanks for the compliment! I just love playing around with my little Nikon Coolpix.

ribollita said:
Just read the entire thread- great details! Looking forward to more!

Thank you so much!

Hope you keep on reading!

coloredimage · Oct 29, 2014

End of the Day

We took a monorail back to MK. People on the Monorail platform were cheering and teasing people leaving for their cars which was uncool, but we put it aside fairly quickly. Our plan was to get into MK and get as far back as we could, but our plan was a bit of a failure.

Why?

Here's a hint:

Sat. 9 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Good enough hint? I took a bunch of pictures but this was the only one that didn't come out ridiculously blurry. We had been a bit further back, still next to the firehouse, but there was a small gap right next to the parade route and people were ignoring the CM who was trying to keep them from darting to or from the Emporium so Jem and I decided to schooch up and stand there as human barriers because we felt bad that no one was listening to her.

Once the parade was over we darted into the Emporium ourselves so we didn't have to walk through the flood of people still watching the parade. We came out on the other side of Casey's and hot footed it over to Adventureland. We figured we'd get stuck again if we tried to go any further so we got onto Pirates.

After we got out there was still a few minutes left before EMH really kicked off. We just enjoyed walking around ab it before hopping into a nonexistent line for Small World. I took this picture because I adore the signs at the end:

Sat. 9 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

We were getting a bit thirsty and I had made a comment about how I had wanted a Lefou's Brew after having a sip of Liz's earlier in the day. We headed on over to Gaston's and got one.

Sat. 9 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

This time there were no bees involved in the appreciation of the drink!

We sat outside and drank it before heading on to the Little Mermaid. It was just us, a woman by herself, and a family that seemed like they were having their last ride of the night. I only remember them because the woman talked to us at one point and the little boy in the family had an uncanny resemblance to my friend Avery at that age.

After our trip under the sea we headed into Storybook Circus and since there was absolutely no line and the wait was only the length of time Dumbo was flying. I love Dumbo, especially pictures of Dumbo:

Sat. 9 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Sat. 9 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Done with our flying elephants we headed back to Frontierland and hopped onto Big Thunder Mountain we got the back this time! And we got a lot of bruises thanks to being in the back lol.

We decided we were tired but wanted one more ride before EMH ended. We chose Haunted Mansion and hopped into the line. You know the one that was just the two of of. We were in the stretching room when three boys around 14 at the oldest came in with us. We were so far away from them on the ride that it was actually eery because we could hear every speaker before and after us echoing before ours turned on in our doom buggy.

When we got out one of the boys was trying to plan how they were going to get back to their parents in the huge crowds. The older of the three of them just said Umm....what crowds? As we walked out. It was true we were the only people in Frontierland!

We left and were home in bed by 2:30. Our next morning we decided was going to be late so we could rest up after our relaxed day.

scrpbookr · Oct 30, 2014

These nighttime pictures are gorgeous!

coloredimage · Oct 31, 2014

scrpbookr said:
These nighttime pictures are gorgeous!

Thanks

I appreciate it! It took a lot of practice lol

coloredimage · Oct 31, 2014

Last Full Day

I got up way too early this morning thanks to my body naturally telling me to go to work when I took the day off for my friend's wedding, but hey it means I get to try and plunk out one more update before I'm gone (again)!

We had gotten home around 2:30 AM the night (er, morning) before, so we set our alarms for the big girl times of 8.

Yeah. So. 8 came and went. After resetting my alarm twice I just turned it off and went back to sleep. Eventually we both decided not to waste anymore time because we had to go to lunch at some point. It was around 9:30 at the time.

We got dressed and headed on out to Hollywood Studios.

Sun. 10 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Apparently the time we got there wasn't important because I don't have that down at all. The time stamp on my file says around 1:30 and I can't remember if that's true or not. But the Streetmosphere was bustling about and we enjoyed taking some pictures of them:

Sun. 10 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Sun. 10 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

We wandered down to Starring Rolls and got some coffee. I love the look of the Studios

Sun. 10 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Sun. 10 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

After getting coffee we meandered in shops for a bit. Jem finally found the Rapunzel Alex & Ani bracelet (she had just bought the Ariel one our first night after my mother tried unsuccessfully to get it for her when she bought my Aurora one a few weeks previous....now I just wish they'd put out a Tiana one! I know, wishful thinking.) We chatted with the woman working there for a bit before heading out of the Studios and for the Beach Club.

Even though we didn't have breakfast we still didn't really have that large a lunch. We went to Beaches & Cream.

Jem ended up getting the tomato bisque, the salmon sandwich, and a chocolate shake with some vanilla coke.

For me, I got the tomato bisque as well:

For my meal I got a hot dog with cheese:

And for my dessert I got the Tropical Sunset because someone on instagram had gotten one the week before I went down (DisneyFrump maybe?) and I had been craving it ever since:

I can't deny my love of fruity flavored things.

It was a decent lunch. No frills and nothing too fancy. We got to watch a group of boys destroy a Kitchen Sink so fast I thought they'd explode. It's like that old Mickey Mouse cartoon where the flies descend on the fruits in the garden and they're gone in seconds.

With some good food in us we headed back into Hollywood Studios, content to kind of laze about the rest of the day.

Since the line was short we went to the Great Movie Ride and I am so proud that I finally got a decent picture of this dress (I kept trying every time we went this trip):

Sun. 10 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Gangster again. We usually have great luck getting the cowboy but not this trip. We had a Star Tours fastpass soonish so we took the long way 'round, stopping in the Muppets store, watching Phineas and Ferb for a bit (while singing along with the songs), and then we went into the Christmas store on a mission.

See, a few years ago Jem bought me an Aurora ornament for my car for Christmas. I had put it on my rearview mirror and it stayed there for about a year and a half, but there was a ton of stuff on my rearview mirror since I had had my car for a good few years at that point. Needless to say she got a bit battered and beaten. When I got my new car she broke and I had to throw her away. Jem was a bit upset by that and I had promised I would buy a new one for my new car when we were in Florida. We had fond her at the Christmas shop earlier that week but knew we'd be back so we waited, but we didn't want to chance not going back towards Star Tours the rest of the day so I picked her up then. Here's a quick picture of how she looks in my car:

After grabbing that we headed on down to Star Tours. Then back to the Great Movie Ride for our FP.

And then the rain came.

coloredimage · Nov 5, 2014

Downpour Time!

We were lagging a bit so we stopped at the Writer's Shop for some coffee. The woman behind the counter was really sweet and reminded me of an American Maggie Smith. She was talking to us about something I can't remember what and was telling us how we had to go see Philharmagic if we were going to Magic Kingdom the next day. When we assured her we had already done it twice she was very proud of us.

We were deciding what to do when it started to definitely threaten rain. We were already thinking about going into the Animation building since we didn't have any time to do it earlier in the week. We were almost ambushed by Sofia and her line of waiting fans who were bound and determined to stay in line for her. We just enjoyed watching the characters interact with the kids since all the lines were ridiculously long. We also spent quite a lot of time watching Jake take a drawing class:

Sun. 10 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

After a while of character watching we made a mad dash for One Man's Dream so we could listen to darling Judy talk to us. Let's start the One Man's Dream photo session!:

Sun. 10 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Sun. 10 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

(any excuse to photograph my favorite duck)

Sun. 10 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Sun. 10 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

(my childhood!)

Sun. 10 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Sun. 10 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

(hopefully I'll get to see the real thin this summer!)

Sun. 10 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

We enjoyed reliving Walt's life and had to make a very hard decision: to leave and use our TSMM FP+. We braved the rain (because we were too lazy to take out our ponchos for such a short walk) and had a wonderful ride. Jem just barely beat me I had been ahead of her until the very last bit where she managed to squeak by me.

We had a dinner reservation to get to, so we headed over to the Brown Derby. I love the Brown Derby, but I absolutely hated it as a child. I went once when I was about 15 and didn't like any of the food there I only went because it was my uncle's birthday dinner and we were all going. Now that I'm an adult it's one of my favorite places to go.

Well...

Now that it's become more of a thing to get the Fantasmic package it was a madhouse in there. There were so many kids, little kids, who absolutely did not want to be there. We were seated after about a half hour of waiting in an overcrowded lobby (some people were hiding from the rain) we were brought to a two-top at the back of the restaurant, on the upper level (if you can call it that?)

Out waitress was wonderful. She was fast and accommodating and really sweet. I lvoed her.
But the two families across the aisle from us. Woof. I felt bad for her. The first was a family of five that just had so many allergies and didn't let anyone know until they started ordering and then complained when it took a while for the chef to come out into a crowded and busy dining room. They settled down after a bit and weren't problematic, they just amused me a bit.

On the other side of them, next to the wall, was another family of five. Mom and dad and two kids around 4-5 and a baby that was maybe 12 months old. They were ordering dessert when we had gotten there but by the time we left they were still there.

Guys. I know that there's a thing called the cry-out method. I don't claim to be any sort of expert when it comes to babies and children and even though Jem works in a baby store she definitely doesn't claim knowledge either. But there's a line we all draw in the sand where we just can't ignore things anymore.

See, for the entirety of our meal, which was nearly 2 hours in length because it was busy and it's a slower-service restaurant anyway, this little 12 month old baby cried.

No. Not cried. Wailed.

It was like someone was taking their favorite toy and slowly destroying them all at the same time. He was just done. And instead of dealing with him or anything the father just turned the high chair towards the wall and left him there. I know you have to just wait out a temper tantrum but yeesh. It definitely seemed like something other than exhaustion/temper/heat and it was really beginning to both others in the other areas of the restaurant by the end of our meal from what we could tell. There were multiple people staring and trying to figure out what was going on.

Anyway, dinner. The food was as good as it normally is for us. Jem got the corn chowder after I had gushed about it for the past two years while I got the cheese platter to get something a little lighter:

We both got the duck two ways because my father had suggested it and it really did sound good.

It lived up to expectations:

And for dessert...eh. Um. Well. Jem got the grapefruit cake/cream puff/creme brulee trio. I definitely got the cream puff as well but I couldn't tell you what the other two were maybe banana toffee cake and the flan? I'm not 100% sure and I apparently could remember exactly what Jem got enough to write it down in our TR journal but not my own?

Oh well. If you can figure out what I got you win a prize maybe an invisible cookie just like my students do!:

coloredimage · Nov 5, 2014

Fantasmic

We headed out, away from the screaming child and the crowded dining room and managed to catch one more ride on Star Tours. Then we headed over to Fantasmic. We weren't sure which side we were on in the preshow games but we decided we were on Team Groot.

Have some Fantasmic shots!:

Sun. 10 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Sun. 10 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

As we walked out I snapped this picture of the Tower of Terror. It's such a pretty building, but I never want to go on it again.

Sun. 10 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Sun. 10 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

We headed back to the hotel. I somehow managed not to write down the time we got back to the room for once. I called down to ask if someone would come and get our bags for us in the morning then trundled off to bed, sad that we had to leave the next evening.

coloredimage · Nov 9, 2014

No Sleep 'Til Boston

Our alarm went off at 6:30 on our last Disney day

. We ignored it and didn't get up until 6:40. We finished packing the essentials that we had needed the night before, dressed, and hung around. The bellman was supposed to come a little after 7:30 but he got there at 7:20. He helped us bring our bags up and brought our carry-ons to baggage to hold them for us while we were at the parks. We checked our bags for the flight and headed on over to the closest bus stop.

We got the Magic Kingdom by 8:15. You know, only a little early. It was our plan we wanted to catch the opening show. Jem had never seen it, and I had seen it when I was younger, but I had only seen the end of it and it was the tail end of it anyway. We were the only people around so we sat on a tree and hung around.

I started playing with the settings on my camera for the day.

Mon. 11 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Mon. 11 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

We stayed there, chatting with the families around us that showed up. We let a couple little kids who had been waiting with their parents about as long as we had been squeeze up between us so that they could see better once the crush of people made it harder for them to see. Soon it was time for the opening to begin!:

Mon. 11 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Mon. 11 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr
(I was teasing Jem with these Anna pictures because, in the ones I posted on Facebook, Facebook kept trying to tag Jem in the pictures. We already knew they had the same personality but apparently Facebook thinks they're the same person!)

Mon. 11 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

coloredimage · Nov 11, 2014

Early Morning Wanders

Welcome, invisible readers, to what will probably be the least image-heavy post of our final day.

We were part of the crush of humanity heading on into the Magic Kingdom that morning, but we were some of the first people into the bakery. We picked up some coffee and headed on over to.....

Mon. 11 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

.surprise surprise we went to Tomorrowland! While we were finishing our coffee we saw that Stitch was out by himself and we felt bad so we had a photoshoot with him until more people came into the area and found him.

Mon. 11 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

We hopped into a 5 minute wait for Buzz and then headed onto the TTA. I had to snap this picture because guys, look how empty it is. It's astounding!

Mon. 11 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

As we headed out of Tomorrowland into Fantasyland we stopped and watched the White Rabbit and Alice interact with some kids. Then we continued into New Fantasyland. Apparently THIS was when we went to see Ariel. I'm still not sharing the picture though, because ew, we look gross. Then we used our FP for the Little Mermaid ride. We doubled back and began to walk through Fantasyland into Frontierland, stopping first to take some pictures of the Tangled bathrooms because they were pretty empty:

Mon. 11 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Mon. 11 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Then we went on Haunted Mansion. After getting off we slowly made our way over to Big Thunder to use up our FP.

Mon. 11 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

And after we got off Big Thunder we walked over to Splash, not to get on but because Jem wanted a picture of her conquered fear. I decided to take some pictures too since I have no good pictures of Splash.

If you look closely you can see the minor differences in these pictures. I actually edited each differently to see which I liked:

Mon. 11 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Mon. 11 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

We were slowly making our way back to Main Street so that we could leave for lunch. As we were walking the heavens opened up and it started to rain, hard, so we hopped into the Emporium, and it's a good thing we did, because we found the Dapper Dans performing inside:

We watched their set before leaving the Magic Kingdom for lunch at Kona. We were seated fairly quickly but man was our waiter slow. It's not like the restaurant was all that crowded, she just seemed far more interested in the older women behind us than she was in us. It took about twenty minutes for her to order and get our drinks.

Our food was good though. We both got the pork dumplings for an appetizer and man, I would have gotten this as a main course if I could have

Jem got the poly chicken and really like it. I got the chicken noodles which were very good and filling.

Jem got a crème brulee for dessert after hearing my mother talk about it. I got the torte because I am obbsessed with chocolate.

All in all a decent meal, but we were on a schedule and we needed to get back to the Magic Kingdom pronto.

coloredimage · Nov 11, 2014

Castle Show Part One

Alright, strap in folks! The next few chapters are going to be wicked image heavy. Ready? Okay!

We went back to the Magic Kingdom. So, minor backstory: our original plan was that, on Saturday, we were going to watch Festival of Fantasy. What happened, however, was that I had figured out that we wouldn't have time to go back to our hotel to change before dinner. I gave Jem the choice, but she didn't want to wear our grimy t-shirts and shorts/leggings to dinner so we skipped.

Since it was our last day we weren't about to miss it again. We were early. So early, in fact, that the last Dream Along With Mickey before the 3 o'clock parade hadn't even started yet. We talked strategy with two CMs who were working the FP+ section and took their advice to stand just where they were. We were about level with the Partners statue. Here's an idea of how far away from the stage we were:

Mon. 11 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

That's still kind of zoomed, but it's my best idea of how far away we were. I spent the time taking pictures, because I hadn't watched Dream Along with Mickey in a while (though Jem, Liz, and I were doing the hand movements to it while walking by Saturday). Without further ado, let's relieve Dream Along with Mickey together:

Mon. 11 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

coloredimage · Nov 11, 2014

Castle Show Part Two

Mon. 11 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Mon. 11 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

The show done we hung around in our place. We sat on the ground for a tiny bit before people started trying to slip in front of us so we stood at the rope, talking with the two guys behind us and their mother. One of the guys had brought his daughter for a daddy/uncle/grandma day and we were letting her sit near us so she didn't get crushed by the people gathering behind them while one of the brothers went to get drinks for them. It was hot and humid; the rain earlier had not made the humidity dissipate. It kind of made it worse, actually.

Mon. 11 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Mon. 11 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

A woman next to us on the other side let her daughter go sit in the FP section. She honestly didn't seem to realize that it was a FP+ section (she was a day guest, from the conversation she was having) and I do agree that the FP+ section isn't well watched or handled that great, but what I didn't agree with was the fact that she had her daughter sit down in front of a family's two strollers, pushing the strollers out of her way so that she could sit where her mother could see her. If you're that worried, have your daughter sit in front of you, not strangers. But the reason why she wanted her daughter there is because we were on the side while that put her daughter in direct line of sight of the floats and performers as they came over the bridge from Liberty Square and she wanted her daughter to be the one they all interacted with. My only reason for saying that is because throughout the duration of the parade she kept yelling into my ear (to her daughter) to wave and be proactive to get the actors' attention. I can't say much, I'm not a mother, but I do have complete empathy for the disgruntled family that felt it was no use arguing with the woman (I heard their conversation because we were close enough to the FP+ rope; they didn't want to tell the girl to move because they didn't want to ruin the day that they were having) even though they had Fps for that view of the parade and their children were getting pushed further back (they were maybe 18 months or so, so they stayed in the strollers the entire time).

Anyway, that's my mini rant. If they want to have a FP+ section for the parades they should have some more eyes on it because there was no FP+ sign near us. Or something. I don't know. FP for the parades seems a bit misguided if only because it's a lot harder to monitor it than the FP+ lines.

coloredimage · Dec 3, 2014

Hey there long time no write! Sorry about that to those of you following along at home. The end of November became a pretty hectic few days with Thanksgiving, work, and NaNoWriMo deadlines.

But it's December and I'm back (also, you know...I'm home sick from work and want to be back in Disney and not sitting here feeling gross)!

Festival of Fantasy (P. 1)

I'm going to be frank here. There will be MANY FoF posts in a row. I won't dump them all today, because that seems silly (and also I'm probably going to end up needing to take a nap at some point again), but there will be a lot.

Why?

Oh, my god, you guys. My camera nearly had an attack during FoF. Jem and I chose the perfect place to take pictures and I took soooooo many of them! It hasn't stolen my heart in the same way as SpectroMagic ever did but it's definitely my favorite afternoon parade, just squeaking by Disneyland Paris's Once Upon A Dream Parade (actually it reminds me of it a lot).

I'll try to pare down the photos I took, but I'm not promising miracles.

Of course the parade was heralded about ten minutes before it started by the marching band

Mon. 11 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

Then the Grand Marshals of the parade:

Mon. 11 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

And soon afterwards the parade began. Hold tight and enjoy!

Mon. 11 Aug. 2014 by wildvictorian, on Flickr

xlsm · Dec 10, 2014

I'm finally caught up!! I'm behind in almost all the TRs I'm reading

I love your pictures of the castle show and FoF!!

I kept looking for myself in the background of a few of your pictures, b/c I think we might have overlapped ever-so-briefly a couple of times. And of course, the Poly DisTeamAug meet that was thisclose...you and I were both at 'Ohana and Liz was at Kona.

Oh well!
Anyway, I'm enjoying your report. It's fun to see the differences in our week. We're heading back for more heat in July, lol. But we're used to it!

Looking forward to the rest!

Explosive-o's! An August Trip Report (FINISHED 1/11!)

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