Hobos in Wonderland! Updated 5/30--The Final Update :(

[mimiloveswdw]

Before I begin, I must admit that this is a late TR. I had all the intentions of starting it right after we returned from the MOST AMAZING TRIP WE HAVE EVER HAD, but alas, that was not how it turned out.

As it is, we are now approaching May and I will be writing about a trip that occurred from July 30 to August 7 of 2010. My notes from the vacation have survived though, so this story is correct!

Table of Contents
http://www.disboards.com/showpost.php?p=40918785&postcount=10

Introduction

First Day, Part One (Travel, Arrival)

First Day, Part Two (MK, Chef Mickey's)

First Day, Part Three (Chef Mickey's Cont., MK

Second Day, Part One (AKL, EPCOT morning)

Second Day, Part Two (Epcot Cont.)

Second Day, Part Three (Figment, Living Seas, Behind the Seeds Tour)

Second Day, Part Four (End of EPCOT, Mara, Giraffe!!)

Third Day, Part One (Beginning of DHS, RNRC, ToT)

Third Day, Part Two (Lotso, Star Tours, other DHS)

Third Day, Part Three (Starring Rolls, Animation Bldg, BC)

Third Day, Part Four (Cape May Cafe, End of DHS)

Fourth Day, Part One (AKL, beginning of AK)

Fourth Day, Part Two (Safari, More EE, Finding Nemo: The Musical)

Fourth Day, Part Three (More AK, AKL, Boma)

Fourth Day, Part Four (AK night EMH)

Fifth Day, Part One (1900 Park Fare)

Fifth Day, Part Two (Magic Kingdom)

Fifth Day, Part Three (More MK)

Sixth Day, Part One (Typhoon Lagoon and AKL)

Sixth Day, Part Two (EPCOT and Coral Reef)

Sixth Day, Part Three (World Showcase with unbelievable weather!)

Seventh Day, Part One (DHS!)

Seventh Day, Part Two (Sci-Fi and more DHS)

Seventh Day, Part Three (Basically Rock 'n Roller Coaster only haha)

Eighth Day, Part One (Our Disney Magic experience!)

Eighth Day, Part Two (Tom Sawyer's Island and Fantasyland)

Eighth Day, Part Three (All over Magic Kingdom!)

Eighth Day, Part Four (Break at AKL and back to MK)

Eighth Day, Part Five (Losing my bag, 'Ohana, and the last moments of Magic)

Ninth Day (Checkout, Airport, Final Thoughts)

From left to right: My sister Jess, my mom, my dad and me

This trip was really special for the four of us. We went every year for four years, but in 2009 we weren't able to go. Because of a combination of two job losses, a surgery, and a rush to the emergency, it just didn't make sense to go that year. That said, we were PUMPED for 2010

Also, we were able to take advantage of the 40% off discount, so not only were we going back to our happy place but we were going to ANIMAL KINGDOM LODGE!!!


So here are the basics:
When: July 30-August 7 2010
Where: AKL, standard view


Explanation for the title: When we were trying to save some money, my mom made the suggestion that we should think of ourselves as hobos and make purchases as such . We continued to refer to ourselves as hobos until now, so when we realized that we were going to be able to book at AKL, we exclaimed "WOW! We are going to be...Hobos in Wonderland!!" We were pretty scared if they would even let us riffraff in...but they were perfectly accomodating, don't you worry!

Let's goooo!!!

Introductions next post!

 

[mimiloveswdw]

Without further ado, let's get to the introductions!!

From left to right: My sister Jess, my mom, my dad and me


First is me, your narrator, otherwise known as Erin
I love everything about Disney!! I was raised on Disney sing-alongs and classic movies, and my love has never faded! I also love fish A LOT!
Favorite Disney Characters: Nemo or Pocahontas
Favorite Disney Rides: RNRC, Star Tours, TTA, Space Mountain, Splash Mountain
Favorite Disney Movies: Finding Nemo, Pocahontas, Toy Story (all of them), Beauty and the Beast, and Mulan

Second is my younger sister Jess!
She is one of my best friends! We get along like no other sisters we know and I love spending time in Disney with her especially! We have a lot of fun together! She's not really into thrill rides much
Favorite Disney Character: Snow White
Favorite Disney Ride: Splash Mountain, TT, EE, It's Tough to be a Bug
Favorite Disney Movies: Tangled and Lion King

Third my mom!
I love my mom; she was the one who really got me into Disney...the whole planning aspect and stuff. She also loves everything about Disney, but doesn't love the real "thrill rides" either.
Favorite Disney Characters: Minnie or Pluto
Favorite Disney Rides: American Adventure, Hall of Presidents, Splash Mountain, BTMRR, Space Mountain, TT
Favorite Disney Movies: Lion King, Pocahontas, Finding Nemo, Toy Story, Beauty and the Beast

And last, but not least, my dad!
My dad's awesome! He's a lot of fun and also loves Disney! He's REALLY into Star Wars, especially Yoda! He's my thrill ride friend! We managed to go on RNRC thirteen times in two days this trip!
Favorite Disney Characters: Goofy, Friar Tuck
Favorite Disney Rides: RNRC, Star Tours, Space/Splash Mountain, ToT, EE, TT
Favorite Disney Movies: Robin Hood, Sword in the Stone...and Star Wars

 

[mimiloveswdw]

Not many pictures, since my camera was packed away safely for most of it

At 3:30 a.m. on July 30, 2010, I heard the most wonderful sound I had heard in over two years: my alarm clock.

I do not usually react this way to my alarm, even though I am a morning person. But this, of course, was not a normal morning. Oh no, this day would be the best day in a looonnnggg time. Because this was the day I was going to Disney World!!!!!

I got up and did the very last things I had to do. Very, very chipper! And HAPPY! I waited downstairs like a creeper until my sister came downstairs. Then I jumped up like a creeper!

We waited for our family friend who was taking us to the airport, and we arrived at the airport at around 5 a.m. We were flying JetBlue so we went to wait with our luggage at the checked luggage counter.



We waited.


And waited.

We took this picture of my sister!

We watched the security line get longer and the time until our flight get shorter.

So after twenty-five minutes, in which time a line of about forty people formed behind the counter, Jetblue finally opened their luggage counter! We were luckily only the second family in line so we weren’t as worried as some others in line, but it still was enough to make us worried for a bit!

But all was well and security was actually a quick process! We made it to our gate and sat around. We grabbed a quick airport breakfast of cereal and bagels I think?

Our plane!

We just sat around until we were allowed to board at 7:00!

The flight was uneventful and pretty quick, and we landed in Orlando Airport at 9:30!! Unfortunately no pictures :sad1

We went to Side B to go to Magical Express and skipped (literally!) to the lines! We got into the Animal Kingdom Lodge line and were immediately led to this beautiful sight:

We got a seat in the back and took our first family picture of the trip!

Oh! These were my toes and my sister’s after our pedicure for the trip!

The most wonderful bus ride that exists was amazing!

And then….there it was…the greatest sign in the entire world.

WE’RE IN DDDIIIISSSSNNNNNEEEEYYYYY!!!!!!!

After that, the ride went very quickly!

But we were going to…

YES!

We retrieved our carry-on bags from the bus and we headed inside to the lovely Animal Kingdom Lodge! We had wanted to stay here since we visited AKL years ago, but never thought we would be able to! Thanks to the 40% off public discount, we were able to!

How great is this?

Mom and Dad went to check-in and sister and I went looking around the lobby and such. We saw giraffes from the Sunset Room balcony.

Our room wasn’t ready yet, but the CM marked the general area of it on the map. We had standard view so I was hoping we wouldn’t get a parking lot view (even though most of the standard views were of the parking lot).

I asked my mom if I could see the map of where our room was. And my heart cried happy tears.

There was a red circle around the first section of Kudu Trail. We would be getting some kind of savannah view! If it was an even number, that meant we would get a view of the feeding pen and drainage systems…if it was an odd number…it would be a gorgeous view of the Arusha Savannah!

We signed up for a text alert to tell us when our room was ready so we headed to Mara, the counter service restaurant after dropping our carry-on bags at the front desk!

Mara is….DELICIOUS. Seriously. I got rotisserie chicken I believe and it was aaaaaamazing! It was pretty crowded for lunch at a resort counter service, but they give you a buzzer so you aren’t waiting around the food stations.

For desert, my dad and sister got zebra domes…and fell in love!!

I got one of these lovely things…

Of course I couldn’t finish it…I never do…but I always get it the first day!

As we were eating, we were discussing what kind of view we thought we would have. We didn’t want to get our hopes up in case it was terrible, so we tried not to talk about it too much! We also made the decision to just go to the theme parks immediately instead of taking a pool break.

After a great lunch, we went exploring in the hallways to see some animals!



We didn’t go far because we got a text saying our room was ready at around 12:15!

We already had our room keys so we headed to our room which was…


Continued next post! (Too many pictures)

 

[mimiloveswdw]

It was ODD!! And it was the first room down the hallway! Such a great location already!

We dropped everything on the beds and ran to the balcony! We were greeted by this

To the right

To the center

To the left

It was really gorgeous. I suppose it was an “obstructed savannah view” but it was beautiful so who cares! I loved the flowers on the rock, and behind the rock was the water hole, which attracted all sorts of animals!

There were some zebras wayyy in the back

As we were looking at our view on the balcony, the strangest thing happened.

I turn around and our luggage is there. We heard nothing, saw no one. It was just…there! HAHAHA Disney MAGIC! So we had our walking shoes here! Which was great! We got those on but didn’t head out just yet…we watched Stacy! Oh…how I had missed her!


After a loop or two of Stacy, we decided it was time to go in pursuit of more magic!

To be continued

 

[mimiloveswdw]

It seems that no one is reading, but I wrote it so might as well post it!



After watching some Stacy we went down to the bus stop and waited a couple minutes for the bus that would take us to….

MAGIC KINGDOM! We always go here the first day! You can’t beat it!

We got in smoothly to MK and even before we saw the castle, we went into the hat shop because my sister was convinced that was the tradition? I knew it wasn’t, but I really didn’t mind much.

After making ear hat purchases (I got the Minnie ones), we went to gaze at the castle. It was lovely. No pictures from my camera at the moment since
we got some PP

After that we headed towards Tomorrowland to get some Space Mountain Fastpasses!

We stopped on the way..

We got the fastpasses and my sister got to decide the first ride. She picked POTC so we trekked to Adventureland!

After a lovely cruise on POTC, Jess and I split from Mom and Dad and went to
Mickey’s Philharmagic! As we were getting in line, however, we saw these friends and got in their line!

We had a nice chat as you can see

After Mickey’s Philharmagic, Jess and I went over to HM since Mom and Dad said they went on it and would meet us after we went on it.

It was great, as always, and we met Mom and Dad in one of my mom’s favorites…Hall of Presidents!

After a nice nap OOPS I mean show we went to Country Bear Jamboree, which we all love! It was awesome to see one of our favorites. We just think it’s adorable and so corny!

After CBJ, it was almost time to get to our Chef Mickey’s ADR, so we started heading towards the front of the park. My dad said he would go see if he could get Splash or BTMRR fastpasses for after dinner.

We saw some of the Celebrate a Dream Come True show!

My dad was able to get fastpasses for BTMRR so with those in his pocket, we hopped on the monorail to the Contemporary!

We looked in the gift shops but decided that, instead of trying to waste time, we try and check in early. Since we were early in the dinner schedule (5:15) we only had a short wait and we soon passing under this!

Continued next post

 

[mimiloveswdw]

Continued


The food was pretty mediocre. I wrote that I thought the turkey was good…but that was it. We’ve decided not to go back on the next trip. Not that we don’t love the atmosphere, because we do, we just would prefer better food

We enjoyed the napkin twirling…it’s my FAVORITE!

The characters came around!

Sarah, because we were celebrating her birthday this trip, got a special treat!

Our waitress, because of her extra magic, got one of our crafts. We made keychains that we would give in tip envelopes and to special CM’s or other people we met this trip! Here’s a sample of a few!

These were from a few years ago, but you get the idea!

After dinner, we took the walking path back to MK. We went straight to Space Mountain to use our fastpasses!

Then we went to BTMRR to use our fastpasses. We didn’t stop along the way because we didn’t want to waste our FP’s, but we were pretty tired and wanted to go “home.”

After the WILDEST RIDE IN THE WIIIIILDERNESS we left the happy happy happy place and went to the AKL bus stop. The bus pulled up very quickly and we went back to the Lodge. We were in bed by nine and asleep by ten .

All in all, a pretty great day!!!

 

[jakeybake]

Looks like I'm the first to post!

Sounds like a great start to your trip! Totally lucked out with your room location!

Looking forward to reading the rest.

Jay

 

[NYDIS]

I am enjoying reading your trip report and looking forward to reading more! AKL is an awesome resort, very relaxing. Great to hear that you got an upgrade and were able to see the animals from your room.

 

[mimiloveswdw]

Yay I have readers

Looks like I'm the first to post!

Sounds like a great start to your trip! Totally lucked out with your room location!

Looking forward to reading the rest.

Jay

Thank you for reading! Yes, we were very excited by our room; we were really happy with it!

I am enjoying reading your trip report and looking forward to reading more! AKL is an awesome resort, very relaxing. Great to hear that you got an upgrade and were able to see the animals from your room.

Thank you for reading!! AKL is amazing; I cannot say enough good things about it! It was a great view!

 

[mimiloveswdw]

All right, might as well continue! Maybe get some more readers?

Everyone knows that waking up in Disney is one of the best feelings on Earth! And that’s the feeling I got the next morning at around 6:00 a.m.! I got ready with my mom and we walked around for a while.

We took the short walk to the rocking chair outlook and saw the savannah wake up, complete with the sunrise!

The feeding truck

My notes tell me we saw warthogs, ankole cattle, zebras, and flamingoes!
We went inside around 6:45

We went by the pool area to go get some breakfast at Mara. One of the interesting things about Animal Kingdom Lodge is that you have to go outside to get to Mara, since the only doorway is facing towards the pool. There is a walkway with a roof though, so you don’t get wet if it’s raining! Personally, I liked it; I thought it was a nice and interesting way to get to the restaurant!
ANYWAY, we got breakfast around 7 and took it back to the room.
Jess and my dad were awake at this point, and they started to get ready.

We were going to EPCOT today! No EMH so we had some wiggle room as to when we had to leave, but we still wanted to be at rope drop!
When my sister was ready, she and I went down to Arusha Rock to see if we could see anything interesting. All we got were pelicans

To be honest, we liked the view from our balcony more.

We headed down to the bus stop afterwards and took a seat on one of the benches. We struck up a conversation with a nice family from Belgium. They were REALLY into pin trading and were really nice! They weren’t going to EPCOT, so when our bus came, the son gave Jess and me a pin each. We gave him a keychain!
After examining the pins, we found they were from Disneyland Paris! So that was cool!

Jess’s

Mine

We made it to EPCOT before rope drop! We were all let in before the actual rope drop “ceremony” and had to wait at a rope right in front of the Fountain of Nations.

IT WAS HOT.

Before long, a car from Test Track came out with a family inside and the characters came out. They did their thing and the rope was dropped along with CMs telling you NOT TO RUN. Just don’t run. You ruin stuff if you run. OK?

Anyway, we went to Test Track first, since we’re not big Soarin’ people.

We decided we would go to Soarin’ next since it was still early, but TT had a wait by now. Dad went to get Fastpasses for TT but for later, while Jess, my mom, and I started walking towards the Land. On our way there we stopped in Mousegear!

I think this store is so great for some reason! It just has everything! While we were there, we picked up mini Star Wars figurines for my dad since he loooooves Star Wars! They were really cute!

After our quick purchase we had to hurry to the Land to meet my dad.
We saw the Tronorail!

I was a bit crazed about the Tronorail on this trip. Whenever I would see it I would cry “TRONORAIL!” and take a picture. Sometimes I wouldn’t have my camera in my hand…so I had to stop in my tracks and open my bag and dig like a crazy person to get a picture I apologize to anyone who may have been disturbed in their walking by my behavior.

We made it to the Land right before my dad did and immediately went to Soarin’. It obviously wasn’t a walk on, but 25 minutes at 9:25 isn’t bad!

In the past, whenever we had gone on Soarin’, we had been lucky enough to get placed in the first row. However, this time, we were put in the second row The feet dangling in front of us were pretty noticeable to me, even though others have said they weren’t distracted by them. We did enjoy Soarin’ overall, but first row is definitely preferable

After going on Soarin’ we went on one of Jess’s favorites: Living with the Land. Really, the girl loves it. She flipped when my mom brought up the Behind the Seeds tour months before. So they were going on the tour that day! I tolerate the ride…I opted out the tour though

You get one blurry picture of the rainforest scene hehe

By this time, it was 10:35 and we were pretty wiped out. It was our first early morning and we had been running around in the heat and still had a while before our lunch ADR. So we decided to have a snack in Sunshine Seasons! Now, I know now that SS has a plethora of delicious choices, but I didn’t then I guess? So I walked back to the middle of Future World for a
Mickey’s Cookies & Cream.

But it was great so whatever! I personally like those better than the Mickey bar, but that’s just me!

I love those balloons!

Continued later!

 

[mimiloveswdw]

After our rest, it was time to use our FP’s for Test Track!

This was the ride that we met a pair of people that would live on in our vacation memories

We met Keith and his brother. We remember Keith’s name because he was LOUD. And HILARIOUS. And he insisted that we sing throughout the ride. So we sang Be Our Guest. And he knew every word, to every verse. It was great! It was his first ride on TT, so that was fun too. When you’re going up the hill and they kept increasing the speed, Keith didn’t know what was going on, so it went like this.

TT lady’s voice: “Increasing 30%”
Keith: “Wait, what’s happening”
Lady’s voice: “Increasing 40%”
Keith: “INCREASING WHAT?!?!?!?”

It was definitely the most fun we have had on TT; they were a bunch of fun and weren’t those awkward people you usually get from the Single Rider’s Line.

After our ride Keith and his brother asked us where they should be going.
They had a mission to ride every single ride in EPCOT today, but TT was their first. We directed them in the direction of Soarin’ since the line would just keep getting bigger. And then they literally ran to the Land

We must have also gotten fastpasses because we had some later in the day!

After this, we decided to start walking to the World Showcase for our ADR at Teppan Edo! We were leaving some time to shop and stuff, and the WS had just opened.

I remember it was VERY HOT and the walk seemed VERY LONG. Teppan Edo wasn’t open yet so we browsed the store under the restaurant.

OH MY GOSH that store is HUGE! I was looking around at the front and then
Jess came up to me and pulled me to the back of the store…which was like a mile away! There’s this market-type set-up in the back with all this authentic Japanese food and bowls and such. It was really, really cool! The store had so much to look at that it made the time pass by really fast, and it was time soon enough for our ADR!

We checked in at Teppan Edo and were seated with another family of four…from Chicago I think. They were nice! It wasn’t awkward for us, being seated with another family…but we like to talk to people, so that probably helped!

This was our chef

He was funny! I don’t have a good picture, but he saw Jess’s birthday pin and he made her wear a big chef hat hahaha she was so embarrassed because the family we were seated with had a cute boy her age But we still made her wear it. I know, how terrible of us!

Lunch was really good! We all really enjoyed it!

After lunch, Jess and I split from mom and dad…we found ourselves in..Germany I think? Wherever Snow White came out, that’s where we were

We had a photopass picture taken but I can’t seem to get it on photobucket?

Ok, funny story time!

After meeting the lovely Snow White (she had a very high voice, by the way)
Jess and I continued on to a ride that she requested on the bus ride this morning.

Me: “Jess, is there anything you want to make sure we do today?”
Jess: “Hmm…OOH! I want to go on Nordstrom!”
Me: “Erm…could you mean…Maelstrom.”
Jess: “Oh. Yeah the one with the trolls.” :rotfl

And that is how, at 1:30, I took this fabulous picture

We embarked on the strangest cruise that ever sailed the Norwegian waters.

Oh it was WEIRD. As you all probably know. I had forgotten how weird it was. The people behind us laughed because I kept saying how I remembered being scared by the polar bears. And as we passed the first one, I thought that was it.

Then we went past the one that’s like TWENTY FEET TALL and SCREAMED. For our lives, obviously. It was funny…if you weren’t Jess and me.

Anyway, Jess was getting worried because her Behind the Seeds Tour was at 3:05 and we were supposed to meet our parents in The Land at 2:30 just to be safe. Jess and I are very…punctual people. We cannot stand being late.

I didn’t mind walking to The Land early, there was plenty to do! Also, we still had quite the walk from the WS to Future World.

All right, so my picture of the line of Maelstrom was at 1:30 exactly. This picture, near the entrance into Future World from the WS was at 1:49

So we were making pretty good time I would say!

I took some pictures while walking, so forgive the blurriness!

Then Jess saw this

Club Cool could definitely keep us occupied for a while!

I couldn’t get Jess to try the Beverly :sad …so she was happy HAHA

The view towards the Fountain of Nations

After Club Cool, it was about 2 o’clock, so we decided to go to The Land.

But we got distracted.

Because we needed to see a very special friend.

Stay Tuned!

 

[mimiloveswdw]

So...that friend that we were so excited to see?

His name is FIGMENT!!!!!!!!

How excited were we? I’ll let Jess explain

That excited! And now for some random Journey into Imagination pictures!

Here we GOOOOO!

You know you can’t keep yourself from sniffing every time!

I wish the moon looked like this… HAHA JK IT’S CREEPY!

I love this dragon.

The ending always freaks me out with the wind…not sure why!

OK so we got off Journey into Imagination at 2:10 so we did need to get to The Land. I told Jess that we could do pin trading since we hadn’t had time before now.

We made quite a few pin trades and waited until mom and dad came. They came soon and Mom and Jess went to the Behind the Seeds Tour. Jess was really excited!

My dad and I decided to go to the Living Seas! I loooooooooooooove love love fish! I feel really strongly about the preservation of marine life because it’s all beautiful and some of the most complex organisms in the world.
Although I’m not a vegetarian, I choose not to eat fish and other marine animals because of my love for them.

We went into the building through the cheesy Finding Nemo ride. Finding Nemo is definitely one of my favorite Disney movies and I LOVE the musical but I don’t really like the ride…except for the Turtle Tunnel! That’s awesome haha

We watched the manatees first

Then we saw other fish…I like how they play the Finding Nemo musical score in the Living Seas!

YES.

We went to Turtle Talk too! It was really cute! One kid asked, “Why do you have fins?” And Crush said, “Why do you have arms?” And the kid replied immediately with, “Because God made me that way!” Too cute! Then Crush said, “Well He made me this way too!” Awww love it!

Now after this, we decided it was time for something my dad and I had waited over two years for. And that was…

DISNEY POPCORNNNNN!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHH!!!! We are a pair of popcorn gourmets, you see, and Disney popcorn has no equivalent. We always try to do stuff to make our popcorn like Disney’s, and we’ve gotten pretty close recently, but never the same. So it’s always an important experience to have the real deal!

We took our popcorn and drinks to The Land to wait for mom and Jess.

Oh yum.

Anyway, mom and Jess came to meet us soon enough and told us about their adventure! Jess especially loved it!

Also, when they were walking through the area where people riding Living with the Land could see them they heard screams and shouts and turned towards the boat. There, waving their arms and shouting were none other…than Keith and his brother from TT :rotfl I guess they were trying to go on ALL the rides!

Here are some pictures from the Behind the Seeds Tour. I’ll let my mom or my sister tell you about it later

 

[mimiloveswdw]

Continuing talking to myself!

After sitting and talking for a while, we decided to get most of our shopping for souvenirs done so that we wouldn’t have to take time out of the rest of the trip to do so. I got my beautiful bracelet that I wear every day (no picture, maybe I can upload one soon ) and two of the same bracelets for my best friends, but in different colors. I also got a bracelet for another best friend, but it looked like a turquoise ribbon and said “Think Happy Thoughts!” on it. I thought it was cute! I still needed to look for one more, for my best friend who happens to be a guy…he wouldn’t like a bracelet

ANYWAYY, by this time it was time to go back to TT to use our fastpasses that we had gotten hours ago!

Even after three rides, we still wished we could go on it again :thumbsup

After that, we were pretty much done with EPCOT so we started to head for the exit/entrance.

We saw Keith and his brother again right after I took this picture!

TRONORAIL!

Of course, you cannot leave EPCOT without riding…

I rode in the car with Jess and this was our weird picture…

That is not my normal face, by the way :rotfl

And here we are SCUBA DIVING!

After our glimpse into our future, we decided we were hungry but too tired to go back into the park to get food. It was about 5:45. We decided to just go back to AKL and eat dinner at Mara, and do some swimming.

We went to the AKL bus and within a minute a bus pulled up! I cannot say enough good things about AKL’s busses. They were ALWAYS there within minutes, and were almost never crowded! We loved everything about AKL, but the bus service was especially great :thumbsup

Once we got to AKL, we went straight to Mara.
(By the way, my pictures of Mara were taken less than an hour after we got on line for SE! Good timing, huh?)

Mara was very good! We really enjoyed having a nice, quick option for dinner at night!

After dinner, we went to our room to change into our swimsuits. But we were delayed…because of this!

(Click for video)


Oh yes. We were extremely excited, as you can tell by my dad’s exclamation in this video!


Because the giraffe came here

Zoomed

No zoom!

To see how close we really were look at this!!

AHHHH!!!! It was so amazing! Really something I will never forget!
After the giraffe sauntered away, we went down to the pool.

Alright, the pool was warm. Not what I was expecting! It was beautiful surroundings…just…warm

Well, it didn’t matter much because thunder soon ruined our plans of swimming

We walked around for a bit to see if the storm would blow over, but it never did. So we just went back to the room, and were asleep by ten o’clock! All in all, a loooong…but GREAT GREAT GREAT day!

 

[NYDIS]

I'm still here reading....I love the early morning pictures at the resort. Maybe on our next trip I will get up early to take some pictures.

I am enjoying your trip report, good work!!

 

[Mrs. Sojourner]

Enjoying your TR; it looks like your family had a lot of fun! I especially loved the stories about Keith & brother....hilarious!

 

[Tegan_Shade]

Hey, I'll be reading your TR! Man, I can't wait for my trip. Gotta wait till December. I tried beverly. It was awfull. Not as bad as lobster benedict though. Can't wait to read more.

 

[mimiloveswdw]

I'm still here reading....I love the early morning pictures at the resort. Maybe on our next trip I will get up early to take some pictures.

I am enjoying your trip report, good work!!

Oh, thank you! I was worried I was alone Yes, I love taking pictures early, it's like you're completely alone in Disney...and when does that ever happen?? Thanks again for reading!

Enjoying your TR; it looks like your family had a lot of fun! I especially loved the stories about Keith & brother....hilarious!

We really did, thanks for reading! Yes, they were quite the characters, I had to put them in!

Hey, I'll be reading your TR! Man, I can't wait for my trip. Gotta wait till December. I tried beverly. It was awfull. Not as bad as lobster benedict though. Can't wait to read more.

Thanks for dropping in! Sorry about waiting until December, but it's still a trip this year, right? I never personally tried Beverly, but I'm sure it's as bad as others make it out to be haha! Thanks again for reading!


I have our DHS day done, so I'll start posting that next! Thank you guys for reading!

 

[mimiloveswdw]

So! This morning we got up pretty refreshed. For a Disney day yesterday, we were in bed early and had a pretty good night’s sleep! Today was Hollywood Studios day and I was SOSOSO excited! It was time for my beloved RNRC!!!!

But, there was some breakfast to be had before we could go! So let’s go to Mara!

Get your drinks!

Get your cereal!

How about a few pieces of toast? Or perhaps a muffin?

And pick up your breakfast platters!

What a nice tour

We also saw some flamingoes by the pool

My notes say we got ready very fast after breakfast and were down at the bus stop quickly! The bus came soon after, of course, because AKL transportation is AMAZINGGG!

This picture was taken at 8:24, for time reference

OHH how ominous!

We got in line and soon this guy was around, looking for the next great singer!

Guess who he thought would make a great duo…(click on the picture)


It was GREAT! We were already having fun and we were just waiting to get in the park!

Soon enough we were let into the park!

We had to watch that annoying pre-show. UGH. I can’t stand it. Knowing that some director wants to keep me from my RNRC is horrifying But seriously, it goes on for way too long, IMHO. But we were near the front of the line, so that was good!

After rope drop, Dad and I booked it down Sunset Boulevard to get to my love…

This was taken at 9:00:20

This was taken at 9:00:45 :haha 25 seconds aw yeah!

WOOHOO!!!!!!

AHHHH…………..after all my waiting, it did not disappoint! I looove RNRC! Ah!
After we went on once, we got fastpasses, then went on again!
After we got off the second time, we were pretty amped up on adrenaline.

So we decided to take advantage of this rare mood to go on…

I had gone two years before for my first time and wasn’t crazy about it. Just not as fun as RNRC to me but I was willing to go again!

We got FOUR drops! It felt like sooo much more haha! But it was really a lot of fun! I liked it a lot more!

Here’s our cheap ride photo! We’re in the second row on the left, near the middle

 

[DisneyDianna]

Enjoying your trip report! My family loves AKL too. How nice that you received some pixie dust with a view of the Savannah. Looking forward to reading on.

 

[mimiloveswdw]

Enjoying your trip report! My family loves AKL too. How nice that you received some pixie dust with a view of the Savannah. Looking forward to reading on.

Oooooh a fellow AKL fan I was so so so happy with the room view and location, it was amazing! We're trying WL this summer, so we'll see how that will measure up! Thank you for reading!