From Europe to Africa in America - A Sisters' Expedition

[marvali]

Great update! I love AK and the lack of crowd in front of you, and behind you, is !! Nice to see you had time to "stop and smell the roses" finding pictures like the little red flower! Katharina made some really nice purchases! I need one of those Mickey bags to carry some of my stuff around in! And Katharina's birthday was already in my calendar where you mentioned it before! She is two days before DS13's!

 

[Flossbolna]

Which also tells me this TR is a year in the making!

Isn't it sad... But then I realized that we have at least a bit of an excuse: Our trip was longer than many other trips here on the TR board, so more to write about!

I am stoked you got a fickle crowd and they all went left. WOOT!! Because that opened the door for 2 runs on the steam train through YetiLand.

It was sooo strange.

LOVE the bag! But ya know what, Katharina? I love your keychain more! I did hte same thing in my Shop-Around-the-World. Just everyday items that I see and love all year long!

I love every day items as souvenirs, especially my collection of mugs from WDW!

I love you picture of the 'Fairy Duster' flower. At least that's what we called them in California when I was growing up.

That's a lovely name! I think we never had seen a flower like it, so thought it was very exotic.

I did see the baby monkey. He was so cute!! Sorry he hadn't made his debut yet.

Well, we still will have one last visit to AK on our last day at WDW. We are going to check then again.

Nice update!

Katharina I love the little keychain it's so cute. I love the bag too!

I certainly hope neither one of you have the tantrum!

Thanks! Katharina got some really cute souvenirs, I love them as well. She used the bag quite a bit after the trip and it always made me happy when we met in Berlin and she had the bag with her.

On the tantrum:

What? I've never seen the dash to Everest so empty!

It was sooo strange, especially the crowds at rope drop were not light at all! You would think that it was only people who did not dare to ride the coaster... Actually we thought that we saw more families with smaller children on that morning than the other day.

I love that sign over the drinking fountain. It's one of my favorites in Animal Kingdom.

AK amazes me again and again with the fact how well themed it is in every little detail!

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

Happy birthday Katharina! Ok, this is a little late and I didn't get you anything, but it looks like it was a good one anyway! And it's great to see the family making for some nice birthday surprises.

Nice work avoiding crowds and getting 2 rides on EE. And I really enjoyed the pictures...the themes of Africa and Asia are so detailed and so well done, and it's great to look at them and notice details you never saw before.

 

[manntra]

That is such and odd start to rope drop. Great for you though!! I always head to EE first too.....Nothing like having a date with the Yeti first thing in the morning
It looks as if you had a wonderful start to your birthday Katharina I adore your hippo key chain....so cute I can see how it can make you smile every day...I have a little Vinylmation key chain and it makes me smile too Your socks look warm and super comfy I remember seeing that bag too....great choice
Can't wait to see how the rest of your festive day turned out

Oh nooo....a tantrum Well you did say you were going to Epcot and if there ever was a park for tantrums that is it Or so I have heard


Tracy

 

[kid-at-heart]

I keep thinking about how awesomely wonderful it was of Katharina's husband to "allow" (which is the wrong term since I know she does not need his permission, but I am blanking on which term would be correct) Katharina to spend her 35th birthday in Disney with Magdalena. I would love a little one-on-one time with my sisters in a get-away vacation but I am sure their spouses would feel very left out. Oh well, maybe when we are old and gray...

Meanwhile, loving the updates. Classes started here about a week ago so things are settling down - meaning I will more time for disboards.

 

[eandesmom]

What happy purchases all around! The colors just make you smile. It does look quite cold, how wonderful that you walked right onto EE and missed all of the safari crowd.

Great start to what I hope is a wonderful birthday but a tantrum...uh oh!

 

[nodnol]

Woody Goomsba- "Gitcha Goomsba Up!"

This was great, my DH's colleagues also enjoyed it, I think, he sent it ti everyone he knows

Will try to post them in the next few days! Katharina has some angels as little figurines in the same style and I know her DH took some special pics of them, so perhaps she could add a picture as well.

I get one each year - a very nice tradition I think. My MIL's MIL started it.

 

[nodnol]

LOVE the bag! But ya know what, Katharina? I love your keychain more! I did hte same thing in my Shop-Around-the-World. Just everyday items that I see and love all year long!

I think the keychain wins the best souvenir contest

I love you picture of the 'Fairy Duster' flower. At least that's what we called them in California when I was growing up.

As Magdalene mentioned, we had never seen anything like that and even wondered whether it is a flower. Now I can look it up!

Nice update!

Katharina I love the little keychain it's so cute. I love the bag too!

I certainly hope neither one of you have the tantrum!

I think we always have some kind of breakdown at some point when we travel together - but who will it be????

Sending early 36th birthday wishes Katharina! I'm afraid I might forget next Thursday.

I will try to remember but Happy Birthday to Katharina early just in case.

Thank you!

Another fabulous update ladies! Katharina, I'll be at Hollywood Studios next Thursday so I'd like to wish you a happy birthday early too! I hope you have a wonderful day!

Katharina, I love all of your souvenirs! I really, really do! The keychain is darling! And the socks look so comfy, I'm guessing it must get a wee bit chilly over there in Germany. That Mickey bag is adorable! I'd love one like that, may I ask how much it was if you remembered?

Well thank you, I hope you have a wonderful day at DHS too!

I have no idea any more and I think all receipts or what's left of it are still in some boxes from the move...

Great Update Magdalena !!! Sounds like a great Birthday for Katharina !!

It was a great birthday, I'm a little bit afraid this year's might have problems to compete...

Great update! I love AK and the lack of crowd in front of you, and behind you, is !! Nice to see you had time to "stop and smell the roses" finding pictures like the little red flower! Katharina made some really nice purchases! I need one of those Mickey bags to carry some of my stuff around in! And Katharina's birthday was already in my calendar where you mentioned it before! She is two days before DS13's!

Happy birthday Katharina! Ok, this is a little late and I didn't get you anything, but it looks like it was a good one anyway! And it's great to see the family making for some nice birthday surprises.

Birthday are quite a big event in our family, so I was sure Magdalene would want to make a special day for me, and she succeeded!

I keep thinking about how awesomely wonderful it was of Katharina's husband to "allow" (which is the wrong term since I know she does not need his permission, but I am blanking on which term would be correct) Katharina to spend her 35th birthday in Disney with Magdalena. I would love a little one-on-one time with my sisters in a get-away vacation but I am sure their spouses would feel very left out. Oh well, maybe when we are old and gray...

I know what you mean, I'm very happy he is so kind. But of course I have a bad conscience "leaving" him behind anyway sometimes. And I have to admit that in the beginning of our relationship I was a little bit concerned because he didn't want us to do everything together. But I learned that this way it is much better. There are places to go and things to do with Magdalene and places to go and things to do with my DH.

 

[marvali]

I get one each year - a very nice tradition I think. My MIL's MIL started it.

Wow Katharina, those are super!!! What a great tradition!

 

[Poolrat]

I get one each year - a very nice tradition I think. My MIL's MIL started it.

Those are beautiful.

 

[dekkerdisneydreamer]

So cute!
Katharina got this little hippo key chain:

One of the best purchases ever, I think. It puts a smile on my face everyday when I use it (so sometimes even more than once), remembering this great trip!

I love that!!! What a great souvenir!

I'd be glad that I wasn't staying, either. That's why I never go to WDW without park hoppers!


Next: Chapter 31: Beware: Tantrum ahead!

Uh oh.

Great update ladies!

 

[Flossbolna]

HMMMM I have not seen this bathroom before. I stumbled over many between Asia and Africa but I must have missed this one.

I think it is the first when you walk from EE towards the entrance to Asia - in the not yet finished hostel building?

Another fabulous update ladies! Katharina, I'll be at Hollywood Studios next Thursday so I'd like to wish you a happy birthday early too! I hope you have a wonderful day!

Have a great trip! Are you planning to do a TR? If so, please let me know when you start it!

Ok, what is going on with the crowd pattern there at Animal Kingdom? Seriously, all those people heading for the safari could not have been members of the disboards. Because, as all good dissers know, you ALWAYS head for Expedition Everest first! Always. How great for you though, riding stand-by and having fastpasses for later. Perfect plan and I love a good plan!

I have no idea what was going on that day, I have never seen this and have experienced quite a few rope drops at AK.

Katharina, I love all of your souvenirs! I really, really do! The keychain is darling! And the socks look so comfy, I'm guessing it must get a wee bit chilly over there in Germany. That Mickey bag is adorable! I'd love one like that, may I ask how much it was if you remembered?

Katharina had no chance to find the receipt - it is in her Passporter as all of our receipts are in there. And the Passporter is at my house at the moment for the purpose of writing the TR. I did look it up for you, it was $ 15.95 which I think is quite a good price. It is a nice bag with good material, not flimsy in any way.

Great Update Magdalena !!! Sounds like a great Birthday for Katharina !!

Thank you, it was a fun day for me and I think for her as well!

Great update! I love AK and the lack of crowd in front of you, and behind you, is !! Nice to see you had time to "stop and smell the roses" finding pictures like the little red flower! Katharina made some really nice purchases! I need one of those Mickey bags to carry some of my stuff around in! And Katharina's birthday was already in my calendar where you mentioned it before! She is two days before DS13's!

You seem to be very thorough with remembering birthdays! It is amazing how many people I know who have their birthdays in the first week of February. Actually one of the colleagues in my "group" at work has his birthday on the same day as Katharina.

 

[Flossbolna]

Nice work avoiding crowds and getting 2 rides on EE. And I really enjoyed the pictures...the themes of Africa and Asia are so detailed and so well done, and it's great to look at them and notice details you never saw before.

The Wild by Design Tour really made us appreciate the design even more, it is such a beautiful place. Katharina and I talked about how we want to try to really enjoy the detail at DLP during our next trip there as well. I think DLP and AK have a lot in common with the level of detail that went into it.

That is such and odd start to rope drop. Great for you though!! I always head to EE first too.....Nothing like having a date with the Yeti first thing in the morning

I love this first rush to EE as well! I have noticed that people seem to enjoy EE much more then, there is such a level of excitement around. I have experienced the whole train applauding after the trip a few times and it was always that first ride in the morning.

Oh nooo....a tantrum Well you did say you were going to Epcot and if there ever was a park for tantrums that is it Or so I have heard

I am sure Epcot is a great place for tantrums. But this was not caused by the typical Epcot problem: lots of long distances to walk...

I keep thinking about how awesomely wonderful it was of Katharina's husband to "allow" (which is the wrong term since I know she does not need his permission, but I am blanking on which term would be correct) Katharina to spend her 35th birthday in Disney with Magdalena. I would love a little one-on-one time with my sisters in a get-away vacation but I am sure their spouses would feel very left out. Oh well, maybe when we are old and gray...

Meanwhile, loving the updates. Classes started here about a week ago so things are settling down - meaning I will more time for disboards.

for more time for the DIS! I really want to get this TR finished soon, I would love to start my PTR for my next trip!

I know what you mean about Katharina's DH. I was a bit concerned about this as well. But I think we never planned this trip as a birthday trip, it was just that we wanted to avoid President's Day and go during value season, so these dates just worked out the best for us.

What happy purchases all around! The colors just make you smile. It does look quite cold, how wonderful that you walked right onto EE and missed all of the safari crowd.

Great start to what I hope is a wonderful birthday but a tantrum...uh oh!

I think it was rather cool in the morning, but at this point in the trip we really rather wanted to wear a few layers to many than be cold again. And the day improved a lot in the coming hours.

 

[Flossbolna]

Uh oh.

Great update ladies!

Thanks!

And just as you said: park hoppers are really great when you encounter crowds like this. But I must say that in my experience if I followed the advice from Touringplans or Tourguide Mike on which park would be best, I normally was rather happy with their recommendation. The only exception was when they just had started to have Fantasmic only on a few nights each week, nobody was expecting the crowds to be so much more on these days at DHS. And we ended up in a dreadfully crowded Studios park where we were supposed to meet Brook and ride ToT with her (that was in January 2009), but then the wait was 50 minutes or so!

 

[Flossbolna]

When we left AK at around 10:30 am we were lucky that an Epcot bus arrived pretty soon. I really like these direct park to park busses, only for the MK don't take the bus to the TTC, but rather the bus to the Contemporary and walk from there. There even is an DHS to Epcot front entrance bus besides the boat to the International Gateway.

We arrived at Epcot before 11 am – I know this because once we got there we picked up a FP for Soarin at 11:01 am. And this FP unfortunately is still in our Passporter. We did not have the time to use it and forgot about passing it on to others. What a waste...

Our first ride at Epcot was The Living Seas with Nemo.

Katharina really loved the shells you travel in. I am always a bit dissappointed by this ride, it is so dark in there and I feel that I can neither see the real fish nor Nemo and friends correctly.

We then went to the next dark ride in Future World: Journey into your Imagination. I did not tell Katharina about a possible not so pleasant smell, but she figured it out herself and could hold her nose just in time! She is a smart girl!!

By now it had become much warmer and nicer outside and I was really enjoying the sunshine:

Next stop was Club Cool, Katharina had seen some shot glasses in shape of coke glasses that she wanted to get as a present for her DH. Here is the picture again:

Once those were purchases Katharina wanted to get more presents for her DH and something for herself, both with the sea gulls from Nemo. A t-shirt for DH and a pool towel for herself. I told her that Mousegear for sure would be the place to get these. After searching around Mousegear we realized that they did not have the right size for DH. We had not checked the merchandise at the Living Seas because I told Katharina that the t-shirt would be at Mousegears as well. So somehow the atmosphere had a bit of tension suddenly, Katharina was afraid that she would not be able to buy what she wanted, I was annoyed with myself for giving her bad advice, I was also afraid that we did not have much time for everything we wanted to do that day and instead would just spend all of our time shopping... So when we walked towards the World Showcase we started bickering about nothing and it ended with me bursting out in tears!

Since this is the way things were between us for a long time during our teenager years we could laugh it off very easily – we had been talking about the expression “to throw a tantrum” which does not exist this way in German, we would “have” a tantrum, not “throw” it, so we thought this was an interesting way of expression. So we had a laugh about how I now had thrown a tantrum, which appears to belong to every Disney trip!

Of course Katharina was still on a quest for t-shirt and pool towel so before entering the WS we stopped at the “Port of Entry” shop.

And Katharina was successful:

Unfortunately the t-shirt is the wrong size, I must have been still worried by Magdalene’s tantrum. So now I have a oversized t-shirt and DH didn!t get as much presents as I planned and I feel bad everytime i wear the shirt...

Oh, you never told me that! How sad - I guess that's a very good reason for you to return to get the right size this time!!

I also got a mug with this design as well at the shop.

She spent quite some time chatting with a lovely CM in the shop who had a brother in Hamburg, so they talked quite a bit about that. They also debated about the boats on the World Showcase lagoon and that they seemed so slow. The CM agreed and said that walking would always be faster. In the meantime I was very intrigued with this Christmas ornament:

I thought it looked rather ugly and to me was just plain weired, so grey and not really festive at all...

I was not successful in convincing Magdalene to buy it, but I tried hard. I think it will become a classic and in ten years she would have thanked me.

Next we decided that we needed some food and wanted to get a speciality that was very new to us: Tostones: fried plantains. Plantains are very uncommon in Germany, but Katharina and I both love them. So when I read that the snack place which used to sell McDonald fries had now changed over to selling empanadas and these snacks, I was quite determined to try them. And it was 12:30 pm by then, so time for a snack since we would have a rather late lunch that day...

We did not like the tostones we got. They were dry and very salty. I am not sure wether they were supposed to be like that, but I think this was the only food item I had during this trip that I would not bother spending money on again.

We wandered around the WS a bit, starting in Canada where Katharina bought a fun soap for her In-Laws, it was called “Moose Spit”:

We had a brief look inside the pub at the UK and thought that it looked like the real thing, but way too clean!

Rosie, don't be mad at us, but a proper pub is frequented by people in muddy rubber boots and has empty crisp packages lying around. And of course some dogs...

And in Japan we were on a mission to get more of the chewy candy which we had bought on our first visit there:

We also got some gummi candy which was just a long rope. This is the packaging:

And here I am showin how long it was, I am holding both ends:

The chewy candy was wonderful, but the gummi rope was a bit boring. I even made an effort to go to a special Japanese store in London in search of the chewy candy when I was there last August and stocked up on it. Unfortunately I need to go to WDW soon since my supply hasn't lasted until now...

We enjoyed the WS for a bit:

Continued in Part 2

 

[Flossbolna]

Especially had a good look at Germany since Katharina had only seen it at night so far:

Katharina was very amused that the church in the German train village is not a typical Bavarian one, but rather from Bohemia, a region of the Czech Republic

By now it was getting a bit late and we had to head to the Epcot exit to get to our ADR...

Of course I could not resist getting another Photopass Picture:

and here we got the best balloon picture of the trip – we gave prints of this one to our parents for Christmas:

and then I wanted to try the photographer at the exit as well:


I had to humour her, she had thrown a tantrum....

Now it was getting late for our ADR, so we decided to splurge on a taxi to our destination!

Next: Chapter 32: A Birthday Tea

 

[Poolrat]

So sorry you had a tantrum. Another phrase we have is "having a meltdown". Disney trips are famous for both.

I am glad it was short-lived and you were able to enjoy that beautiful day.

 

[Flossbolna]

So sorry you had a tantrum. Another phrase we have is "having a meltdown". Disney trips are famous for both.

I am glad it was short-lived and you were able to enjoy that beautiful day.

The good thing about travelling with your sister: she does not get too upset when you start behaving irrationally!

Yes, meltdown is a great word as well, but it does not sound nearly as exotic as tantrum!

 

[lovealldisney]

So when we walked towards the World Showcase we started bickering about nothing and it ended with me bursting out in tears!

Since this is the way things were between us for a long time during our teenager years we could laugh it off very easily – we had been talking about the expression “to throw a tantrum” which does not exist this way in German, we would “have” a tantrum, not “throw” it, so we thought this was an interesting way of expression. So we had a laugh about how I now had thrown a tantrum, which appears to belong to every Disney trip!

Throwing a tantrum and having a tantrum are the same thing, we just word it differantly. I think when traveling anywhere not just Disney you are bound to have a tantrum sometime.

Last Disney trip I had my melt down while at DHS. It was so hot that day we had stopped for lunch at Back Lot Express well it took FOREVER to get our food, when I finally found our table and was just about to take a bite of my food, someone said there was something wrong with there order! I got up didn't say a word and went across the way to the restroom locked myself in the stall and cried! I went back told them to suck it up and eat what they had because I wasn't about to stand in line again to re-order! I heard not a peep of a complaint the rest of the trip!

And on our recent trip to Germany I had a crying melt down in Berlin. I think it was a combination of being on the move and missing home and the kids. DH was at a loss of what to do. I said let me work it out and within 10mins. I was fine. Of course we later made sure we called home

Love this picture! Did your parents like it as well?

I like the ornament. I think your right Katharina she should have bought it.

Lovely update ladies! What a nice and sunny day you had compared to the rest of the trip. Was this the only sunny day you had?

 

[marvali]

Nice Updates!!! Some really great pictures of the two sisters. To throw another twist to your tantrum story, we always referred to it as "pitch" a tantrum; similar to throw, but still a different variation.

Such a pleasant, sunny day! Surprised you didn't throw a tantrum on one of the less pleasant days of the trip (or maybe you still might).

I agree with Katharina, that is a rather intriguing ornament. I might have been tempted to buy it myself, but maybe it looks better in the picture instead of when you're actually holding it! Sorry Katharina got the wrong size shirt, but like you said, an excuse to come back and get the right one!!!

As for your comment about me remembering birthdays, I don't have your's recorded. I remember earlier in your TR, or possibly another report we both visit, you mentioning Katharina's and also saying something about yours, but I can't find it again! Let me know when it is sometime and I will make sure I put it where I can remember it in the future!!!