Fast Passes, We Don't Need No Fast Passes!

[eandesmom]

Joining in for the ride! Which apparently may be a fast one since you don't need fast passes! I love the costumes, beautiful and what a neat thing to share!

Off to a very good start, I love AKL/AKV and AK is one of our favorites as well. It is just a magical and very different experience staying there, I really think everyone should do it at least once.

 

[tinkmom2]

Hi, I am a lurker here from Jen's review lol I am looking forward to reading your review. I miss WDW!

 

[KatMark]

I'm joining in; LOVE AKL and hope to be there in 2014 for a trip with our youngest son and his new wife.

 

[Wicket's Mom]

I'm joining in; LOVE AKL and hope to be there in 2014 for a trip with our youngest son and his new wife.

Glad to have you joining in. AKL didn't hold much interest for me, but once I was there I really felt the love. Bob also liked it a lot. We did a fair amount of resort time this trip.

 

[Wicket's Mom]

Hi, I am a lurker here from Jen's review lol I am looking forward to reading your review. I miss WDW!

I remember seeing your posts on other TRs. Glad you joined in!

 

[Wicket's Mom]

Joining in for the ride! Which apparently may be a fast one since you don't need fast passes! I love the costumes, beautiful and what a neat thing to share!

Off to a very good start, I love AKL/AKV and AK is one of our favorites as well. It is just a magical and very different experience staying there, I really think everyone should do it at least once.

AKL certainly has a different feel to it. So laid back & the CMs were so nice.

Glad you like my historical clothes. I try to make them as correct as possible. I also do hearth cooking demos, which I really enjoy.

 

[Wicket's Mom]

Another sewer here, although I never made a dress from curtains and it certainly is a great idea. Your historical costumes are great.

It's been 7 years since I stayed at AKL on a trip with my family and staying at that lodge was a special treat for me. I love wildlife and I LOVED AKL. You didn't say if you had a safari view room. My DD and I couldn't spend a moment in our room....cause we were perched out on the deck of our safari view room watching and taking pictures every moment we were in the lodge. I can't wait for the day I can stay there again when visiting WDW.

Happy to meet another sewer. About all of the sewing I do now is historical. I use a lot of curtain fabric to make historic clothes.

We had a standard view, but spent a lot of time at the lobby overlook. The night viewing was awesome.

 

[tinkerbellandeeyor]

Cant wait for the next update

 

[Disney9.9.10]

You guys are too cute! I am also married to a disney resister AKL is a wonderful resort, I can't wait to read about the rest of your trip!

 

[MEK]

Mother of Wicket! Thou art so stinkin cute in thy costumed frock!

I was just thinking the same thing, but not in so many words!

I finally made it here Doris, but I still have to go back and get properly caught up!

 

[Wicket's Mom]

We were really enjoying our Safari this day. We had been up since 4:00 am because of our flight time. So this was relaxing for us, love watching the animals.

This guy was enjoying the water.

As were these guys!

We continued on our way when we encountered these handsome creatures.

Looks as if the giraffes are trying to hide behind the tree!

Here the giraffes are in the open. I can’t get enough of them. Hard to believe the males will fight to the death over the females!

Next up are the Hungry, Hungry Hippos, Lord knows I spent a lot of time playing that game with my sons!

My favorite birds are the flamingos, these aren’t very pink, but they will do!

Of course the lions weren’t out, nor were the cheetahs in sight. All of the zebras were someplace else since WDW was creating a new area for them. The new zebra area was in the old poaching scenario location.

We decided to check out Dinosaur next. Guess what, standby time was 3 minutes! The ride was as jerky as usual, but I loved it. Nothing like a few jerky rides to get one’s joints back in order beats a chiropractor!

All of the rides in AK seemed to have a very short standby time. We were beginning to see a pattern & were hoping against hope our entire stay in WDW would be like this!

On our way to the exit we decided to try the Nemo Musical. We have never seen this as we aren’t much for the shows. I will say we have seen most of them, but once is enough. Nemo was really pretty good & Bob wasn’t griping about being there! He hates musicals & cartoons, so I was doing good to get him in there. I didn’t push my luck to see anything else. So I still have not seen Lion King, maybe next time.

It was so dark in there, made it hard for me to get any good photos, this was it. The rest had to be deleted.

We wanted to eat since the last thing we ate was McDonald’s at MCO. Our plan was to eat CS for dinner & save the TS credit for a signature meal later. I had heard about the Pepper Market Buffet, so we were going to try that. Left AK & caught a bus to CSR. Bob was starting to get grouchy as he was hungry! Don’t keep that man away from his meals! Arrived at CSR, footed into the Pepper Market, no buffet! I didn’t know the buffet was only for lunch! We were sorely disappointed, now what?!

Well it was back to our first choice, WPE! We hopped on another bus to DTD to get something to eat. All I can say is we had a nice, but long ride. It was around 5 before we finally got something in our bellies.

Bob ordered his favorite, the Half Rotisserie Chicken Rosemary & mashed potatoes. Also a nice cold Yengling to wash it down. Now he was a happy camper.

I ordered the Cavatappi Chicken Alfredo with a Sprite to drink.

Bob had the Crème Brulee Cheesecake for dessert.

I had the Crème Brulee! I wanted this so badly & I finally got to have it!

After dinner we looked into a couple of shops, then decided to call it a night. We had been up since 4:00 am & were very tired. Besides this was to be a very laid back vacation.

We did some exploring when we returned to AKL.

 

[jenseib]

Did you get a new haircut? It looks so cute.
the giraffes do look like they are trying to hide. Dinner looks good. I am craving your dessert right now.

 

[Wicket's Mom]

Did you get a new haircut? It looks so cute.
the giraffes do look like they are trying to hide. Dinner looks good. I am craving your dessert right now.

Yes I did get a new haircut & thanks. When were checking out the CM commented on my hair. That took me by surprise, she said it suited me.

I could use one of those right now, but I have carrot cake instead!

 

[englishrose47]

Great pix of the Safari !!!! I too love your hair cut !!! I love WPE my fav is the bacon wrapped meatloaf and for dessert Creme Brulee!!!

 

[MEK]

Beautiful pictures of your room and the resort! So glad you loved it and that the dates worked better for you.

More please!

 

[Wicket's Mom]

I'm trying to keep it rolling, but in two weeks we leave for Florida. We will be gone for 6 weeks! I will be able to post when gone, but I will be pretty busy lying on the beach or at the pool!

 

[jenseib]

Hey you got to have your priorities and lying on the beach or at the pool is always number 1.

 

[KatMark]

I remembr Hungry Hungry Hippos...my youngest loved that game.

Great picture sof the animals...especially the giraffes.

Sorry you didn't know that Pepper Market was only a buffet for breakfast and lunch and not dinner. Now it's back to not being a buffet for any of the meals. We had the buffet for breakfast on our departure day last month.

Your dinner looks yummy.

 

[Wicket's Mom]

I did some checking out of the pool bar, which I decided to skip for tonight. I loved the atmosphere in the area around the bar.

After we finished our exploring, we filled our mugs and headed to our room where Bob added some adult liquid to his Diet Coke. We sat on the balcony enjoying the nice weather and each other.

So far the weather that day had been very nice, not real humid and tolerable sunshine.

Tuesday morning had arrived it looked like today would be a nice day like Monday was.
We decided to try Mara for breakfast I mean how bad could it be?

I had a Mickey waffle and Bob had the Bounty platter. I forgot to take pictures, sorry. The food was ok, nothing special, but nothing bad either.

We were getting a rather late start since no grandchildren this time. This meant no rush to the parks so as not to miss anything! We headed out around 10:30 to Epcot.

After a short wait for the bus we were on our way to Epcot. We got through bag check fast since all I had was my VB tech case to carry my iPhone and of course Bob wasn’t carrying anything. This is the way I like to travel in the parks, but I don’t get many pictures.

Soarin’ was the first thing we rode, standby time was 5 minutes. This was becoming a standard for our trip. We rode Soarin’ twice in succession! Sweet! Next up was the Land, no wait boat after boat was empty, woohoo!

After leaving the Land is when I decided on a title for my TR if I were to write one, Fast Passes, We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Fast Passes, with thanks to The Treasure of Sierra Madre!

I was going to make it my goal to take photos of all our ride wait times!

Next up was Mission Space! The funny thing is the times didn’t show on these types of signs. I didn’t notice it until I downloaded my photos, anyway the standby time was 3 minutes & 5 minutes.

It was getting to be time to eat so we headed over to the world showcase. I wanted to try La Cantina de San Angel in Mexico. This was the crowd at 11:30 or 12:00 when we were heading to Mexico.

Not very busy at all. The way we love to see WDW!

This was my order the Tacos de Carne with pico de gallo, lime and corn chips with Pineapple Jarritos. I also had coconut Paletas for dessert.

Bob had the same thing except he had Churritos with milk caramel for dessert. I really wanted to like this, but the beef had a strange seasoning on it. Bob, who loves all Mexican food hated this. He thought the flavoring taste liked bad barbecue. We ate most of it, but would defiantly not order it again. He likes the churritos, but I never have, too greasy for me. The Paletas had a good flavor, but after awhile it grew tiresome. There is too much coconut fiber in it, I got tired of chewing.

We did have some excitement at lunch that I could have done without. A squirrel decided to literally join all the diners for lunch. He was very aggressive, jumped onto the chairs and sometimes the tabletops! I thought he was going to run up someone’s leg as he was that close. I was afraid the darn thing would jump on me, made for a nervous time. It did jump on the chair next to Bob, but I had gone to get my dessert at that point. Bob did chase him down, but he still hung around for a while. He finally found someone else to pester. They really need to do something about the squirrels. I was afraid that a child would get bitten. The darn thing was running around people’s feet under their tables! Much too close to nature for me!

Next up was El Rio de Tiempo, of course no wait just walked on. After that is was Maelstrom.

I know this is not a great shot of Epcot like most however how many visitors to WDW get to see numbers like these!?


We toured the around the world for awhile checking out the shops and the countries when we decided to head back to the front of Epcot. We didn’t want to walk all the way back around so it was on to the boat for a shortcut!

We stopped in the Cool Zone so I could have a glass of Beverly. I know most don’t like it, but it is a favorite of mine. Quite refreshing and tasty!

On our way out we passed Destination Earth and since this was the wait we hopped aboard.

Our last sight on our way out was Disney’s remembrance of the September 11 anniversary. Very respectful indeed.

Up next our dinner at Ohana & my inebriated purchase (according to my DH)

 

[Wicket's Mom]

Somehow one of the pictures printed twice. This is the missing photo, it was how crowded it was on our way to Mexico to get something to eat.