Figment's Journey Into W.Disney World - Updated 12-21-2011

[DizFan101]

"Figment's Journey into W. Disney World - A November 2011 Trip Report"​

Just Returned from a 6 day 5 night stay at the Fabulous Walt Disney World Resort, yesterday night @ 10:35pm. We (my mom and I) had stayed once again at the Pop Century - which is getting more crowded every year. Oy.

Hold It!....
Before you continue to read on, you must be a cast member:

You, as a reader, receive a magical pass to continue in a Cast Member Only Zone.

This trip was just my mom and I (and our mascot: Figment). It was a fun trip and was glad I decided to buy my new Nikon D3100 BEFORE my trip. I ended up taking more than 700 pictures at the parks this trip with it + movies, which I might upload to YouTube. lol. During my trip I received many compliments and finger points at my RED Nikon D3100!.

This trip was filled with excitement-thrills-fun and most of all LUCK. You will see why once you continue to read. Feel free to comment on here or message me about pictures or anything in general. You can see the PTR here:

I Blame it On the Ipod - PTR​

NOTICE: I know I stated I would be tweeting LIVE from WDW but I did not have internet service on my Sprint Phone. My phone service in general was the worst ever.

** For those who did not realize, each chapter is a different day...Chapter 1 = Day 1; Chapter 2 = Day 2. Etc.Just in case you were wondering.

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~*~ Chapter 1A: Arrival ~*~
~*~ Chapter 1B: Hollywood Studios ~*~

~*~ Chapter 2A: Epcot Morning/Afternoon ~*~
~*~ Chapter 2B: Epcot Late Afternoon ~*~
~*~ Chapter 2C: Dinner @ Via Napoli and EMH @ MK ~*~

~*~ Chapter 3A: Disney Hollywood Studios ~*~
~*~ Chapter 3B: Downtown Disney Adventures and Raglan Road Dinner ~*~

~*~ Chapter 4A: Magic Kingdom ~*~
~*~ Chapter 4B: Magic Kingdom (cont.) and an Animal Kingdom afternoon ~*~

~*~ Chapter 5A: Epcot & Animal Kingdom ~*~
~*~ Chapter 5B: Animal Kingdom & Down Town Disney ~*~

~*~ Chapter 6A: Disney Hollywood Studios -- Our Last Day ~*~

~*~ Conclusion ~*~
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[DizFan101]

Chapter 1A: Arrival​

​

Our November 2011 Disney World Vacation started on November 13, 2011 at 4:30am. That's practically around the time we had headed out the door to get to the airport at 5:00am for our 6:57 flight. My dad drove my mom and I to the airport.

Once at the airport we went through security and was seated at Gate 90.

As we waited I had gotten myself a medium Strawberry Banana smoothie from McDonald's - which is my favorite. We boarded the plane around 6:15am (our seats were 10E & 10F). The seats were equipped w/ tvs on the back of each seat that you had to pay $6.00 to watch (or $4.00 if you had a continental card.) So I decided to pay the $4.00 and watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2!

As we got closer to MCO figment decided to look out the window:

We got to MCO around 9:10am (early) and went right to the Magical Express (this year we did not get lost):

When we got to the Magical express we were (at least I was) surprised how long the line was. The only time prior to this trip where the magical express line was this long was in October of 2005!:

20 minutes later we were on the bus to the Pop Century Resort.

I must say going to Pop Century was fun w/ our bus driver who entertained us with impressions of Disney Characters and Bill Clinton. He was funny. Unfortunately he is no longer with WDW. He was moving on the 15th.

Once at Pop Century there was a long line at Regular Check In - which made me glad that I did online check in 10 days prior to the 13th.

While we waited a cast member came by serving brownies at 11:00am

Note: all pictures above in Chapter 1 were taken with a Nikon s6000​

I had asked the cast member checking us in if we could have a close room by the main building w/o paying extra for preferred. We ended up with room number 3458 in the Bowling pin area which turned out to be a really good location w/o paying extra.

After checking in we ate the meatball sandwiches my dad prepared for our flight and bought our Refill cup (I went with the Teal colored cup). After getting settled in our room, we headed out to Hollywood Studios.

 

[onelilspark]

Figment is my favorite! Joining in!

 

[DizFan101]

Figment is my favorite! Joining in!

yey my first poster!

 

[NMW]

Subscribing

 

[DizFan101]

Chapter 1B: Hollywood Studios ​

We got on the bus to Hollywood Studios with little wait. (unfortunately on our first day I forgot figment who was sitting on the dressed by the tv.) We got to the studios around 10:30am. I realized in the days to come that our first park of our vacation is always Hollywood Studios. I guess that's because it's one of my favorite parks. Our First ride of the day was:

I also liked to take many B&W pictures with my new Nikon D3100:

On the way to Tower we went through all the stores looking for pins to trade but the first day we did not find any good pins to trade for! Since we could not find any good pins, we decided to try to get tickets for a movie but there was no ticket taker:

"Oh well."

I held my camera the entire ride fearing that it would get squashed in the bag my mom had brought with us. Something strange/abnormal happened to us. The Tower of Terror had broke...no pun intended. We got up to the top floor, moved forward and right before the doors opened to get to the outside, we just stopped...the lights came on after a min and cast member/mechanic pressed the reset button. After we got off the ride we were let right back on.
After Tower of Terror I decided to do Aerosmith.

My mom decided not to ride and to hold my camera. So i went through the single rider line and just walked right into the 2nd room (the movie area). One year I remember riding the Coaster 29 times in a row and now I can't even do 2 in a row. In my opinion they should install volume controls on each seat because the music is soo loud and right in your ear!

After two of the main thrill rides we walked over to see how long the wait time for Toy Story was. We stopped in One Man's Dream on the way because I knew they redid it.

Toy Story's wait time was 55 minutes so we decided to head over to the new star tours.

There was little to no wait for Star Tours (20 minutes) which turned out to be like a 10 minute wait. I really liked the new ride compared to the old version. I heard that there are 15 different scenes to get? (True or False?)

After Star Tours we then we walked over to the great movie ride which is one of my mom's favorite rides. On this trip through the movies we had a great guide who really knew how to act - along with the "gangster."

I could not believe how my camera did on this ride without flash. It took better photos then my point and shoot. But i guess a SLR camera would take better picture's then a point and shoot. lol.

After the GMR it was 4pm and so we headed over to The Brown Derby. This year I decided to treat ourselves to a two table service restaurant because we always wanted to go to the brown derby. We got there at 4pm but it was soo backed up we didn't get seated until 5pm. While we waited we traded pins with a little girl (who had permission from parents). She gave us a medium size pin for a small pin that she wanted. So we gave her an extra pin.

As I said we didn't get seated until 5pm. Then we had a very rude and creepy waitor named Raul. We got seated at 5pm didn't get our orders taken until 5:20pm then got our food at 5:45pm. After we ate, Raul came back again. He kept saying "momma and daughter on trip" but it was soo creepy and weird. Then after we ate he said "Momma scarfed down her food" omg. Who would say that! He was totally creepy A---H---.

Anyway for dinner my mom had the steak and i had the duck which was good.

The Steak:

and the duck:

If you have ADR's for The Brown Derby, I would highly suggest the Duck. ​

For Dessert I had the banana tower which was really gross after a while because they put too much banana in. it left my stomach upset and I was tasting it in "burps" all night. Blah. My mom had the nest cheese cake:

Once we finished eating, Raul never came back again until 6:30pm and that was after we got up to see if we could pay at the front desk. We did not give him a tip what-so-ever and plan to write a very hefty letter to Disney. The Brown Derby is NOT worth 2 table services. We missed the beginning of the Osbourne lights but were able to catch it from the middle of the show after having to walk all the way around Star Tours and past Muppets...

after that we headed back home despite it being Extra Magic Hours. I was not feeling well and my feet were hurting. This was the first evening I started writing in my diary, and since we were back at our hotel room, figment was able to write:

 

[DizFan101]

Chapter 2A - Day 2: Epcot​

My plan for the 2nd day was to go to Epcot and get a fast pass for Soarin to be able to ride when we returned to Epcot from the Magic Kingdom for dinner at Via Napoli. But it did not turn out that way at all.
We got up around 7ish and headed to the Pop Century Food Court for breakfast where we got the french toast platter (as always). This year I decided to see if they would give me a side of the strawberry topping that they used for the pancakes, and they did in the small cup which was enough.

After breakfast we went to the bus stop to wait for the Epcot Bus. After waiting only 5 minutes we got onto the bus w/ little to no wait. We sat down near the front but apparently figment didn't know how to read the no sitting sign:

We got to Epcot and headed straight to Soarin. My mom wanted to ride Spaceship Earth prior to getting the Soarin fast passes but I told her they sell out. So we get to "The Land" and I went to get fast passes and luckily we were able to get them for noon time. After "The Land" we decided to head to Test Track. We went on via Single Rider and decided to go on the Single Rider Line and were able to bypass the intro movie which i find highly boring after seeing it a few dz times between 2005 and 2011. lol:

figment made a new friend, although he did not say much:

by the time we were finished with test track it was lunch time and was a bit late to park hop to the magic kingdom and be back to Epcot at 5pm to head over to Italy for dinner. So we stuck around and had went to the Electric Umbrella for lunch for our first hamburger. (Sorry no Pics).

We like the Electric Umbrella. This year they did something new. They had added menu's to hand out. I guess they got tired of people holding up lines trying to figure out what they wanted.

After lunch we went on Figment:

After we took the tour of figments house, we made our own Figment. I think they should add more options for making your own figment because only having 6 options for each category kind of sucks. I think the old "hands on" was much cooler. But i did make 2 cute figments:Missy and Figgy:

Figment was my whole time favorite when i was way younger. I still wish they would bring back the original ride because in my opinion the version they have now kind of sucks. After figment we headed to The Seas with Nemo and Friends and were caught up by a High School Band:

and was able to catch a photo of the monorail going by:

We got to the Seas which was only a 5 minute wait.

I tried to take some pictures of the ride itself w/o flash but i forgot to turn the setting to movement and got really blurry pictures. Oh well. After the ride ended there was a diver getting ready to dive in the tank.

​

afterwards, we decided to check out the fishes upstairs in which figment loved the clownfish and wanted to them home.

​

Unfortunately Figment did not care for the sharks that much. The sharks thought figment was food. Apparently Figments aren't fish so he doesn't fit in with "Fish are friends not food" category.

Stay tuned for what we did after The Seas in my next segment.

 

[DizFan101]

Chapter 2B: Epcot Late Afternoon ​

We left off in the first section of Chapter 2 at the Living seas with Nemo and Friends at Epcot in Future World. Figment didn't want to leave and wanted to live with the turtles:

The weather all week was in the 80's. After Figment we went into Innoventions (West?) where they had Sum of All Thrills and The Storm thingy. I did not ride S.O.A.T since there was a line and didn't care to wait. Instead we just walked through and at the end we found a cool little area where we got to make our own paper!

My paper:

It's more of a cloth consistency rather than the smooth paper we know today. But it was cool none-the -less. The guy was really nice as well. He told us his story about how he retired from a printing press up north and how he moved to Florida and got a job at Disney one or two days a week. Some cast members are really friendly compared to others (which i will get to in Day 3.).

After THAT! we headed to Spaceship earth which was a you turn for us, since we headed right back to World showcase afterwards.
Here's our Video in Spaceship Earth:

http://youtu.be/kEtzEg6EFao

You can hear us state that it didn't work since our picture was not in the video. Oh well.

After Spaceship earth, I went to Guest Relations to see if Via Napoli had any early openings then 6pm. The sign outside G.R said to "Check at Restaurant." But i went in and asked the lady who said they did not have any openings. After that, we headed to the World Showcase to go to Norway. However we made a few pit stops on the way, at England:

Once in England we browsed through the small shops and came upon the meet and great for Pooh and Tigger. (sorry no pics). We exited the stores and walked right by Mary Poppins which was my favorite "non cartoon" Disney Character."

We also Stopped at France where we bought an alcoholic beverage at the Kiosk which was the only place where I wasn't asked for my ID. I guess she thought it for my mom. But we both Split it. We had chosen the Iced Cranberry Marien? Not 100% of the name, but wished i had chosen the orange instead.:

We had devoured our drink at roped off section that was for the food and wine event. We had seen a mother w/ her baby sitting so we thought it was okay. After we finished our drink we headed over to Norway, which I thought was RIGHT next to Germany...Eek. I was wrong. We took the boat to the Germany Pavilion:

​

As we were waiting for the bus (a 10-15min wait) I looked in the water between the bars and saw a medium size bass just hanging out:

Once on board the three of us just sat and relaxed...It beat walking to Germany from France.Figment liked the ride as well

Once we got to Germany, I realized I was wrong about Norway being right next to Germany and had to walk more. It is better to take the boat from Mexico to get to Norway. Once at Norway we decided to get our 1st snack of the vacation which was the school bread at the Baheri og Hate. I heard all about it here on disboards and decided to give it a try:

Sorry to say it was one of my least favorite snacks at WDW and probably would not get it again. After our snack we took more pictures and went on Maelstrom which we haven't done in a few years.

Stay Tuned for Chapter 2C.

 

[adoerr72]

Enjoying the review (and the pictures of Figment, of course). Looking forward to more.

 

[ilovedisney1]

You left us hanging not really lol. Where is this school bread I have not heard about it before? I've also never done the making paper either.

 

[DizFan101]

Chapter 2C: Epcot - Dinner and MK EMH​

Once the ride was over and we watched the movie at the end it was 4pm. Our ADR for Via Napoli was at 6pm. By the time we walked to Italy it was 4:30pm, and from the outside the place looked empty! So we walked to the counter and asked and they did in fact have openings despite what the Guest Relations lady told us. We were seated early to get to the Extra Magic Hour at Magic Kingdom later.

At Via Napoli we were seated and received drinks. We had ordered the candela and the pollo parmigana. The Candela looked like a lasagna at first so i thought the waiter brought us the wrong plates:

The Candele

The Pollo parmigno(?)

for dessert I had the zeppoli's (which was the only reason I chose the Via Napoli (lol) and my mom had the pecan ice cream:

After Italy we caught the boat to Future world where we used the ladies room (and searched for pins). We were thinking bout catching the boat to france but since we had just missed it we decided to walk to the boats that goes to the Epcot Resorts to catch a bus to the Magic Kingdom. We decided to go to the boardwalk since it was the first stop. We talked to two girls who were eating at the Flying Fish and did not know exactly where it was or if the boat stopped there. We got on a bus to MK which was not really packed. On the bus I found a squished penny of Cowboy Mickey on a horse.

We got to the MK at the worst time. The electric parade was going on, just ending too. So we were caught up with the people heading to rides after the parade. My mom got stampeded by a wheel chair going the way we were going and a double stroller at the same time.. Ouch. We headed to Tomorrowland where we went on the TTA. I was surprised there was a line formed for it! We got on and in the tunnel prior to going through Space Mountain the ride just stopped and the lights came on.:

After TTA, I went on Space Mountain 2x. The 2nd time I exited "Wishes" fireworks were going off. My mom said it just stated 2 min prior to me getting off. I only missed the opening of it where Jiminy speaks. After Wishes we headed over to the racetrack thing where we decided to drive and get two licenses. We got a total of 4 but i dropped one onto the race track. oops.

I got some pictures of the castle prior to leaving:

the castle B&W:

and Main Street on the way out

 

[DizFan101]

Chapter 3A: Hollywood Studios & DownTown Disney​

Happy Thanksgiving. It's 10:55pm and I'm thinking about heading to Target soon. But first I'll leave you with a Thanksgiving treat...

Day 3 of my trip report. It seems like only yesterday I just started this trip report. lol. So the 3rd day we got up early again at 7am, got up and out at 8am for breakfast at the Pop Century Food Court (french toast platter with sausage + a cup of coffee and a cup of Diet Coke for me in our Refill Cup.). We were out the door by 9am and on the bus to Hollywood Studios at 9:15am.

We talked to a few people about pins and who has to carry the bag in the parks...usually the mom. lol. I got the best mom ever.
Anyway, we get to DHS and we make a mad dash to Toy Story Mania for fast passes... Okay I make a mad dash to Toy Story Mania and scored 2 fast passes for noon time for TSM. Yay-yah. After my mad dash we headed to The Backlot Tour:

For this image, I did not want to take any risks of my camera getting wet so i stuck a clear plastic bag over it to save it:

After the ride was over, we went into the museum for a bit. I enjoyed the new costumes/items they had placed in the museum such as POTC (new?) but especially the red queen's costume from Alice in Wonderland (2010) and Enchanted. Awesome. That day I got my 2nd souvenier: a stuffed kermit the frog plushie which we had sent back to the hotel. We would have sent him to the front of the park but we were going to Downtown Disney for the afternoon.

We were in the area of the "We Shrunk the Kids" Play area and decided to take some pictures. I loved taking pictures with my new fancy Nikon D3100.

Even figment got a piece of the action, lol:

[/center]

Afterwards we headed to the animation court to take a drawing class. In this drawing class we drew tigger, which was nothing new to us. Unfortunately every time we go to the drawing class every year we always get stuck with the same old Donald or Mickey or Pluto or Tigger or pooh. Figment helped me draw figment:

Also we saw Sorcerer Mickey at the art of animation and just had to say Hi:

After THAT! we decided to head downtown, but only after our Toy Story Mania Ride in which I scored a 102, 600 on!:

I'll you hanging here for Chapter 3A. Next up in Chapter 3B, we discover our adventures at Down Town Disney.

 

[DizFan101]

Chapter 3B: Downtown Adventures​

Last chapter I left off at Toy Story Mania at Disney Hollywood Studios. After Toy Story Mania we headed to Downtown because we an early dinner at 4:15pm at the Raglan Road. I took a few pictures as we headed to the store to see if we can find the lens cleaner that we lost. No one had it ...not even in the huge Disney store.

My goal for the day was to go on the Characters of Flight. So we get there, and pay and I go by myself since my mom didn't want to go.

For those who are wondering, you can only see Spaceship Earth, and the Tower of Terror. Cinderella Castle is hidden behind The Contemporary

After the balloon ride we went to a few more stores to look for pins and the lens cleaner. I did not find either. We stopped at the Harley Davidson store where I posed on the motorcycle that is bolted to the ground. It was cool because I never been on a motorcycle before stationary or in motion.

After that, we took the boat to Marketplace, to West Side and back to Pleasure Island just to relax and pass the time. After the boat ride we went to dinner at Ragland Road. It was still early, but they sat us at a table to sit. At the Raglan Road I got the "Lambo" while my mom got the steak.

Lambo

The Steak

For dessert I had a strawberry/apple crumble which is not located on the menu here on Disboards. In fact, since the menu appeared here on disboards the menu has changed... You can find the more updated menu at allears.net. My mom had the bread pudding. Our waiter was really nice. We also ordered an alcoholic drink which was really good. One thing we really liked about our waiter was that he gave us a doggy bag for the left over bread pudding we brought back to our room and put on ice in our room, saved for breakfast.

Strawberry-Apple Crumble
The Strawberry Apple Crumble was really good but tasted more like pie. lol. I guess that's what Strawberry Apple Crumble is?

Bread Pudding

After dinner, we decided to go into some stores just to browse and take pictures.

We got back to the resort at 7/8pm and decided to call it a night since there was no EMH hours. In the lobby we saw that they put the christmas tree in the lobby.

On the way to the room, i saw a snail trying to get to the other part so i helped him across so he wouldn't get smushed by people.

That's about it for Chapter 3... stay tuned for Chapter 4/Day 4.

 

[DizFan101]

Chapter 4A: Magic Kingdom​

Day 4 started like every other day. We got up, had breakfast and went to get a bus. I believe my mom returned to our room to get something while I waited in the gift shop (wanting to buy everything). Then we were on our way to the Magic Kingdom, which is a far drive from Pop Century...for the bus driver that is.

One of the reasons MK isn't my first favorites is because of the long walk around to the gates. Not only do you have a far walk to and from the buses you have to walk down a hill around the gated section and then go through baggage. Pheww. Just tired just thinking about it. lol.

First thing we did was go through all the Main Street Stores on the left side, looking at Cast Member's Pins and decorations.

When we were in one store we heard the Main Street song and decided to see the small show on main street.

. I did trade with a few cast members. We were on our away to Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain. When we got to the Mountain's we saw that the Big Thunder Mountain RR was closed! So I highly suspected more crowds on Splash and Space Mt's and got a fast pass for Splash before I walked on the ride. ( I ended up never using the Splash MT fast passes)

On the ride, I ended up in the first seat, but didn't get too wet. It was my first time on Splash Mt with the lap bars. I still say it was more exciting w/o them. lol. There was a girl and her father right behind me. The girl was scared so i tried to calm her down by saying, that it's not that bad. You'll be wanting to go on again. (And i was right...she did). It was her first time at WDW. I pointed out some hidden mickey's on the ride.

After the ride, the 3 of us...Figment in tow, went on the train to Toon Town
.

Not sure if you can see the smoke​

Boy was I surprised to see it closed. I had forgotten it was closed. So they just filled the train with water and went back to main street.

We got off on Main Street, walked up main street on the right side and headed to Frontier land. My mom and I did Pirates of the Caribbean .

On Pirates I took my camera... We ended up getting the first seat/row of the boat. When we went down the hill, we got really wet which left me upset because I had my new SLR camera. But luckily i had a plastic bag covering the camera but we both (my mom and I) got soaked... I didn't get THAT wet on Splash...Grrr. The only two pictures I got at Pirates were:

and

I was surprised how good this picture turned out because he was in motion. ​

After THAT, we walked around and got lunch @ Peco Bills and then proceeded to the Haunted Mansion. My mom went on the Haunted Mansion (i can no longer go on there due to my issue's with death). I stayed in the Trader's store looking at all the merchandise. I really wanted to get the mickey lolly pops but didn't think that getting cavities were worth $5.75. lol.

Stay tune for Chapter 4B: Magic Kingdom Continued.

 

[onelilspark]

I always get wet on Pirates!

 

[DizFan101]

Magic Kingdom and an Animal Kingdom Afternoon​

The last I left off, was lunch at the Magic Kingdom @ Peco Bills. Again No pictures of lunch ( hamburger/carrot cake/fries a drink). After lunch we headed to fantasy land to ride my mom's favorite ride: Peter Pan's Flight. The wait line said 10 minutes but it felt more like 20. We were also handed one of those magical RED cards to hand the cast member at the front of the line. (It was our 4th one on this trip.)

Shh. I took "Flash" photography. lol.​

On the way back from Fantasy Land we decided to go a different way around the castle:

After that trip we decided to get our dole whips for a snack. Yummy Dole Whips.

Afterwards, on our way out of the park, we stopped by the baby day care where they have benches outside to call my brother to wish him a Happy Birthday. This is what photo i got from the bench we were seated in:

As we exited the park, I got my picture taken in front of the Christmas decor:

We took the monorail to the Contemporary:

The picture of Space Mt was taken from the Monorail as it passed by.​

When we got to the Contemporary we talked w/ a Cast member of the Disney Club (to look for pins/and stickers) we headed to the buses to catch the bus to Animal Kingdom where our reservation at Yak and Yeti was waiting for us!

We get to Animal Kingdom and just head to our restaurant with taking pictures as we go.

We get to Yak and Yeti and on my paper i have it down for 4:15pm. But the lady behind the counter said it was for 4pm. Luckily it was only 4:05pm when we got there. lol.

We got a table by the window (not right by the window but a table over) and so we were able to catch part of the parade.

Some pictures of Yak and Yeti with loveable Figment.

We decided to both get the duck for our entre and for dessert we both got the Fried Wontons. Who would go to Yak and Yeti and not pick the Fried Wontons?

The Duck was REALLY good. In our opinion, we believe this is the best duck on property. I had duck at the Brown Derby on the trip, it was "okay." I had the duck in "chefs de france" it was good. but this duck was REALLY good.

After dinner we walked around and head back out to the buses since AK was closing at 5pm. We stopped at all the stores on the way, where I got more compliments on my camera, and looked for more pins.

When we got to Pop Century (another early night), we realized we forgot the papers to pick up Kermit from the gift shop...oh well. When we got back to our room, I looked at my camera and realized I took 570 pictures soo far.
I decided to take a picture of the pins I got today that I loved from the cast members.

 

[Chicago Mo]

I'm Here!!! I'm late to the party but enjoying your report!

 

[DizFan101]

Epcot and Animal Kingdom​

Chapter 5 takes us on quite an adventure to Epcot and Animal Kingdom.

The morning of the 5th day, I wake up early as usual, but now instead of just wasting time, I head out to get breakfast to bring back to the room. The first thing I see when I get out the door is the Disney Magical Express for the ride home the next day. After bringing it in the room, I head out to go to the Pop Century Food court to get our "French Toast," but this time I decided to get a bottle of orange juice instead of the coffee and put the coffee in the Refill cup.

After everyone dressed and out the door we hopped on the bus to Hollywood Studios. Eeek. You must think I typed that wrong. Nope. The line for Epcot was so darn long, we decided to head to Hollywood Studios to get the boat to Epcot.

The first quest of the day in Epcot was to get an Apron signed by all
the characters for my friend's Birthday present.

We got to Epcot, and boy was the World showcase empty. I wondered why, but then realized that World Showcase opened LATER.

So we head to the Character Spot before the line got crazy long. Lol. I only needed Pluto, Minnie, Donald and Goofy to sign the apron since I got Mickey's signature 2 days prior at Hollywood Studios.

Donald was a bit much about the apron. He signed his signature HUGE on the apron (Thank god he's my friends favorite character. He also made sure everyone in the room saw the apron. He signed his signature "Donald Duck #1," I guess he wanted to out do Mickey Mouse. lol.

and then there was Goofy.

After the character spot, we decided to head over to Soarin to use our fast pass.

We went on the ride and got the top spot, which I asked for. While waiting in line, there was a lady in front of us, with a cool stitch hat. I asked her where she got it, and i found out she made it. It was so cool. (I love Stitch by the way).

I believe we ate at the Electric Umbrella for lunch early. This time I went in and was amazed that the upstairs part was OPEN. It was never opened before...but we didn't go up. We found a spot downstairs as usual. I love the electric umbrella. . Always eat here when we go to Epcot. After lunch, we headed to Animal Kingdom.

On the way out, I needed to take a few pictures of the Spaceship Earth, and topiaries.

I didn't notice I had caught the monorail in this picture until I got home.

We decided to take the monorail to the Transportation Center where we hoped on a bus to the Animal Kingdom since we didn't really do anything at AK the other night except eat dinner. (I would eat at the Yak and Yeti again).

We got to Animal Kingdom and took a few pictures of all the awesome Christmas Stuff.

Okay not THAT many just piglet:

and the making memories signage

We headed straight to Expedition Everest:

and you can't forget Figment :

After going through the que line (yes, I knew there was a single rider line), the que line was only 5 minutes. The 2nd time around I went through the single rider line. Did you know that the single rider line is divided up in 3 sections? The first row gets you the first seat of the ride while the last row gets you the last seat. Next trip I'm trying the last seat. lol.

OKay, I'll leave you here for Chapter 5A...

Stay Tuned for Chapter 5B: Animal Kingdom continued

 

[jking6]

Just hopped on board enjoying your trip report. This is my first ever trip report I have read on the Disboards.
I will be leaving for a mother daughter trip with y 19 yr old DD in 6 days. Glad to know there are other people enjoying a mother/daughter trip. I will be checking back another day.
Oh and HS is our favorite park as well!!

 

[DizFan101]

Hey Thanks for joining in. Mother/Daughter trips are a lot of fun. . I have been going yearly since 2005 with my mom and it's become a tradition. We have tried to get my dad to go one year but he doesn't like the lines or the florida weather. Oh well.

I have only like 2-3 posts left until I finish my trip report.
Anyway, I'm off to do favors for my mom.