"I am so hungry I am going to eat your arm off" Ohh motherly love... A Nov 2013 TR!

[DisneyMountainWoman]

Okay last I left you guys on a little teaser, our ADR, well to give you a hint, I was a tap dancer and I even tried my hand at a little Irish dancing. So of course I would need to go to Raglan Road Irish Pub and Restaurant.

I was very exited about this place, I have read they have good food, good drinks and good entertainment, what more could you want?

We went up to the hostess and I let her know we had a reservation. I also asked to make sure we are seated where we could see the show. This is important to ask because not all the seats can see it. She then asked if we are okay waiting and I said yes. So we head on over to the bar, it is really big and always check around back it has more room.

I ordered a fun drink called very berry blue berry martini and mom went with beer called Abita Purple Haze.

After we put in our order at the bar, I had to go the bathroom. So I took that opportunity. Of course that is when our little buzzer goes off... so I come back to mom trying to take all of our bags and drinks to the table, quite a funny sight indeed!

Our waiter came and was nice enough to take a pic of us.

The atmosphere is very pub like with all the dark woods.

Also they gave us yummy Irish bread and Guinness reduction sauce, it is amazing and just to let you know I do not like beer and I still looved it. We did not get a pic of it though, we were just too hungry.

While waiting for our food, we were able to enjoy a show

The dancing is great, but the biggest surprise was the production, I did not except all these cool lights and special effects.

At the end of the performance they pull kids to learn how to dance, soo cute.

Am I the only one who wishes they would pull up adults too, I would have loved to do a little Irish dancing too. Sorry cannot help myself

So after the show was done, we ended up talking to one of the dancers. She was very sweet. We found at the all the dancers were from Ireland, which is pretty amazing. We talked about how I did a little Irish dancing and that hard shoe is easier for me than soft shoe, which is opposite of most people. I told her is because I was long time tap dancers. Then we talked about the differences between tap and hard shoe dancing which was cool.

Our apps came so we said good bye.

Dalkey Duo - Dalkey battered cocktail sausages, with a Dalkey mustard dipping sauce. - $10.00

Okay first of the the presentation of the food is just fabulous! Then when you taste the sausages, they were to die for and the mustard was even different too and paired perfectly with the sausages.

Next we went with Fada Burger - Char-grilled sirloin beef burger. Add bacon and tomato chutney with Wexford Vintage cheddar. Served up with fresh fried potatoes. - $15.00

We are sharing our since we heard the meals and big and it helps us save money. Sadly I did not get a pick of it until Mom cut it in half, man is quick when she is hungry. They brought an extra plate for us.

Look how thick that burger is?

It also included very yummy, fries, just did not have enough room for more than a couple though.

Now many may ask why go with a burger in Irish restaurant? Well because I heard the fish and chips are only okay, but the burger was fabulous because it had a very special ingredient Wexford Vintage cheddar. This cheese is fabulous and is hard to find outside of Ireland and boy were we not disappointed. We got our medium rare, juicy, moist, super flavorful and the cheese just went with it perfectly. It was easily one of the top burgers we have ever had.

And last but certainly not least, the dessert . Now no offense to the other bread pudding served in a certain restaurant in Disney but this is the best bread pudding in Disney.

Ger's Bread & Butter Pudding - Like no other pudding you have ever tried. - $6.99

Their descriptions says it all, in the menu.
Again presentation is very good, mom again is quicker than me and already poured small pitchers into it. The pitcher are full of butterscotch and full of creme anglaise. Soo yummy!! The major issue you are going to have with this dessert is finding enough room in your tummy. We shared our food and we could not finish it.

As we finish our dinner another show was starting, before the show, the little boy next to us was ask if he wanted to join the show, which he did soo cute. He tried to kick really high like the other dancers.

Summary: I would highly recommend this restaurant, great food, drinks and great entertainment. Also prices are very reasonable too. The only downside here, finding enough room for all the food!

Next up with very full bellies, we head out to watch the Broncos game. We head off to Splitvilles, since we spotted some great big outdoor bar with TVs on football.
We get a spot at the bar, we order some drinks and we cheer on our Broncos!

Now we are not going to do a play by play, but we are winning and we leave at half time, since we are going to have a long day tomorrow at Epcot.

 

[DisneyMountainWoman]

Joining in! Looks like you're off to a great start! And I love your Mickey ears!

Also love all the Star Wars Disney hybrid tshirts. My favorite one is with Darth Vader on the carousel (? I think) with a quote "This will be a day long remembered"

Yeah, great welcome!

Thank you I love my Mickey ears

Hehe that Vader shirt I almost got my husband too. We are huge star war dorks, our dog is even named Anakin

Also I grew up next to Falls Church in Annandale VA inside the beltway

 

[DisneyMountainWoman]

Today is Epcot Day! Monday: Nov/18/2013

Man even though we had a busy day yesterday, we still woke up really early because of the excitement, man we are sad.

So yes we were up at 5am?!

The good thing about getting up so early, we do not need to rush. So I take a nice long shower

Next we head on down to our complementary breakfast that starts at 6am, surprise, surprise, we are the first people down there.
It is a nice size breakfast:

Here are the hot options:

But here is the real star of the breakfast

Yummy

After breakfast we go back up to our room and pack for Epcot. We fill my camel pack with the water we bought, no offense FL, you water tastes funny. This really helped save us money. It is the same camelpack I use when I ski too. I also packed my dslr cannon camera today and my travel tripod, I want to use for illuminations. (I have a little bit of photography background, I took classes in film photography, I can develop a pic in a darkroom, but Photoshop scares me, so not soo good with the newer digital stuff)

We headed down to the front desk and it is around 6:30am, man we are way early. Well we have the front desk call for a taxi today since we will be drinking a lot, and when I say a lot I mean a lot, we plan on doing the Drinking Around the World. So to play it safe, taxi day. I even have a shirt that I will be wearing and checking off every place we go to.

The taxi came right away and we head off to Epcot.

And then we see the sign!

So we arrive so early, the parking gate people are not there. A little before 7am I guess even if we are in a taxi we need to pay for parking, even though I think that is ridiculous since the taxi is not parking, just dropping off. But hey if you get there early enough it is free

So we have about 2 hours to kill before the park open at 9am, mom needless to say is a little grumpy at me for dragging to the park so early. My thought was we were already up, so we would be waiting at the park or hotel, I think the park is better.

I take this time to play with my DSLR camera, I have not used it in a while.

Mom headed to the bathroom. After the bathroom, I join her at the seats there. We are still the only people there other than CMs. One of the CMs comes over and starts chatting with us. We looked at her name tag and we realized she has the same name as my mom! And my mom does not have a common name, then her husband comes over and we freak out, he has the same name as my mom's dad and again he does not have a common name either. We have a fun time chatting with them. They are from Dominic Republic. We also talked about how crowded it was here just a couple weeks ago, how at this time there would have been people already. Well the security started opening up the bag checks, so we said goodbye to them and get our bag checked. What a great way to start our Epcot Day.

Once I get up to the gate, I get out my fancy camera to take a few more pics.

They also switched to gateless gates.

By this time some other people end up showing up, but they are going to the breakfast line. I confuse some of them by waiting in a different line and have to tell them I am not going to the breakfast, we are just extremely early. We plop down on the curb and wait now.

After a bit some other crazy people join us in lines. We chat a bit about where everyone is from, what is everyone's game plan and how magic bands are effecting the fp-. As an off site person, this is a sore subject for me. I just hate how we are getting treated like second class citizens..... But lets stay happy

Then we ended up chatting with another very nice CM at the gate, she suggested to all of us who have not used our bands/cards yet to get them checked by the ticket people to make sure there is nothing wrong. I thought that was a smart idea and mom heads off to check our tickets, while I keep our spot. She comes back nothing wrong with them, yeah!!

Next the CM goes over how we need go through gates.

As we get closer to opening time, the place fills up. For a recommend day at Epcot and during low season, it is still amazing how many people show up at rope drop.

9am the park opens up and we are the first people to get in the park and then the running of the bulls.....

 

[DisneyMountainWoman]

Mom gave me her card so I could go quickly to Soarin to get the fp- while she will meet me at Test Track.

It was me and another family in the front of the pack to get to the Soarin ride. At first they had a couple CMs to tell people to walk, I am a great speed walker esp at this altitude, I love lower level altitude it makes you feel like your super fit.

Then the family I was with turned the corner and started running, it seems like none of the CMs are in this area. So I start jogging. No way can I sprint anymore, but I can jog quite well

After a little bit of jogging I caught up to them I guess they cannot sprint that length either

So I head inside the building and go down the stairs and pick up one of the first 2 fast pass for 8:55 to 9:55. Bingo done!

Next I high tail my butt out of there and head to Test Track to meet up with my mom. It is a little harder getting out of here because I am swimming up stream, but I cross the the park, speed walking and get to Test Track were I see Mom just relaxing.

I hand over her card and we head on into the single line. This is the way to do TT. Fp dumps you into everyone else, while the single likes makes it so you can skip everything. We quickly walk through and make our car very quickly walk right up the the ride. I glanced over at the regular line and it is already packed. We were able to get into our own car too!

The ride is soo much fun

We then head back on to the Soarin, the line was already backing up but with our fp we get right to the pre show area. We were able to get front middle seats, yeah!! While waiting I take the opportunity to get some pics

Man Soarin is pretty cool, I just wish they would switched to digital, the static on the screen really breaks the effect.

2 main rides done Epcot before 10am, yeah
Next on our list is Mission Space: Orange. So we walk across the park again, man we are seeing this middle area alot

I love all the detail in this ride.

We were able to walk right to the dispatch area of Mission Space: Orange

It was funny how much they really warn you about throwing up in this ride, they must have had a few too many accidents.

I was commander and mom was the engineer. We were with another couple younger couple, they were really fun to do the ride with.

And ohh my gosh can I say, I was really not ready for how real this ride would feel. It was amazing, I loved it, this is now my new fav ride in Epcot, better than TT and Soarin. My mom loved it but was not sure if her stomachache could handle doing it again.

Next on our list, we need to see the big cheese today it is his B-Day!!
The sign said it was 20 mins long but not bad. This is one of those times I wish we had magic bands, because there was a fp+ for it but we had no access to it since we were off site and no fp-

So the sign was very much lying about how long it would take. It took us an hour to get through it. Mom was complaining about how she needs to go the bathroom. (Hmm who is the kid here? ) I entertained ourselves by getting out my Ipad and putting on a disney movie for us to watch. What did we do with out technology?

I do not have the photopass pics yet, we are sharing with a group so we have to use photos from my camera.

When we met Mickey Mouse we wished him happy b-day! He did his little thank you.

Next we get to meet Goofy. He is really tall!

And then we get to meet Minne. She loved our Minne Ears too

Man I was happy we were able to meet Mickey on his B-Day, but this got mom weary of the wait times that were shown on their signs.

Next we meet a surprise princess....

 

[JulieODC]

Joining in!! Hello to a former NoVA resident.....you are missing some winter weather here today!

You arrived just as we were leaving in November --- looking forward to your report!

 

[DisneyMountainWoman]

Joining in!! Hello to a former NoVA resident.....you are missing some winter weather here today!

You arrived just as we were leaving in November --- looking forward to your report!

Haha, I know my NoVA friends are all talking about it.

Welcome

 

[DaveinFallsChurch]

Great start to your Epcot day! Soarin' is one of my favorite rides. I tried Mission Space for the very first time in October but chickened out to the Green side. I still enjoyed it.

That's so cool you got to meet Mickey on his birthday!

 

[DisneyMountainWoman]

Great start to your Epcot day! Soarin' is one of my favorite rides. I tried Mission Space for the very first time in October but chickened out to the Green side. I still enjoyed it.

That's so cool you got to meet Mickey on his birthday!

At some point you should try the orange, it is soo real, I think it is the best ride in Epcot.

I know I was soo excited about meeting him on his B-Day, too bad everyone wanted to meet him too on his b-day

 

[DisneyMountainWoman]

Next after waiting about an hour to meet Mickey and friends, we head out the doors and guess what, we have some character training going on

And guess which princess?

Aurora (a.k.a. Sleeping Beauty)

There was a very short line for her, so even though my mom wanted to go the bathroom she held on for a little longer, love my mom

Now I wish they had a photopass photographer, here but it was interesting watching the other CMs around her. There were two other CMs standing with a clipboard to the side and strangely enough they were both were CMs that could look very princessy if dressed in costume.

Next we head quickly to the nearest bathroom because mom is about to kill me.

So next we head to the Seas of the Nemo and friends.

We check out the area including the cute little matinees.

I tried to take pics but at this time I had not figured out how to stop my flash on my new camera/phone soo no photos...

And then we head to the ride, it is a walk on perfect ride to do when the crowds are getting longer. Now I think this Nemo ride is really cute, I have read some bad reviews on it but, it is really cool how they mix the Nemo characters on into the real aquarium.

I wanted to do a pic inside the sharks mouth but there was a huge crowd, so we skipped it.

Mom starts talking about how she is getting hungry it is 11:30am. We have not eaten anything since 6am. I say we have a couple more things we need to do before we head over to the world show case including getting photopass pic in front of Epcot.

Sadly still waiting for photopass pics, so no pic of it.

(Insert Photopass pic)

Next we head to the Club Cool. Mom is getting a little restless, it is noon and she says we wants to eat soon. I said yes soon, but we have to try out the soda because we will not be back here again and I tell her it is free

And of course being the nice daughter I am, I tell her that she needs to try the Beverly. Hehe

She was not happy with me for some reason... So I try it too, man it does not taste bad when you first try it but the the bad taste builds up... Next we quickly try some other options to get the taste out of our money.

We head on out, mom is talking about now she is really wanting some Mexican food, right about now. I tell her a few quick pics and we will get there.

Had to take a pic of the waterfalls...

And how can anyone resit the x-mas tree?

Mom is getting a little grumpy, so we head on to Mexico.

Next we head to World Show Case and where the name of the Trip Report came from...

 

[DisneyMountainWoman]

It is food and drinking time!

So we are heading to Mexico, mom by this point is starving and complaining that she is ready to eat almost anything. She sees the La Cantina de San Angel counter service and says yeah food. I told her to wait there is better food here than that. (I do not want to waste our money on something we can get at home) I said there should be a restaurant some where here. So next I see a CM standing next to the La Hacienda de San Angel. I think yeah there is the restaurant I read about, but when I talked to her and asked if they have any room for lunch, she said we would have to go on to the disney app to get a reservation or call the disney phone line. Okay...first of all what? She could not check on her own, I had to go on to the slow, glitchy app, she could not do anything? What is the point of even having her? Mom at this point is freaking out a bit, she is starving, we have not eaten in about 7 hours by now... The CM starts finally being helpful and said there is another restaurant in Mexico and I said where? She said inside the Mexico Pavilion, I did not understand what that meant, I thought we walked the whole thing, she pointed inside the temple... I said isn't that just the entrance for the ride, she said no there is a whole big area in there. Ahh.... Mom at this point says really lets just eat the tacos at the counter service, I said give me one more chance and then if this does not work we will got get boring tacos.

At this point Mom is getting really mad, we go inside the pavilion and all we see is artifacts and this is when mom says....
"I am soo hungry I am going to eat your arm off" That just got me to burst out laughing. By this point we are tried, hungry, I sit mom down and I go find the restaurant. Man you really do not realize how far back this place goes... and then finally it opens up to the restaurant area. Now I just cross my fingers and hope they have room. I read that is pretty easy to walk up at this restaurant, so I am hoping that is true now. I talk to the CM and she said yes they can easily fit us in, they have plenty of room yeah...

I quickly go get mom, if looks could kill I would soo be dead, I promise her the restaurant is just right around the corner and they have room. We head in and get seated admittedly, yeah!!

Now that I can really look around this place it is super cool looking. Pictures do not do it justice.

It looks light night time in here, with an Aztec temple, volcano and river, what more can you want?

They even have x-mas decor here too...

We met our waiter he seems very nice, mom talked to him about what tequila she should choose, she loves good tequila and our waiter was very informative and helpful. They have a very good extensive list of tequila and let me tell you the margarita options are to die for too.

We get some yummy chips and salsa to munch on while we wait on our drinks. We devour into it!

I love these plates they have on the table, soo cute!

We get our drinks, they look fabulous!

We officially start our drinking around the world and get drinking!

Our waiter was very nice and attentive.
He brought our food out really quickly, I love quick service!

Enchiladas Verdes de Pollo: corn tortillas filled with pulled chicken, covered with green tomatillo sauce, topped with sour cream, queso fresco and onions served with black refried beans $18.25

We asked to have the sauce on the side, since I do not like onions. We also will be sharing this meal because we have a lot more food we will be eating ( I want to be able to try a lot of yummy treats in Epcot)

So this enchilada is the best enchilada we have ever had this side of the Mexican border, delicious...I am not sure what they put into it but everything just tasted really, really, good. Even the black beans tasted better the normal. I think if I remember correctly the waiter said they try to making everything from scratch and you can really tell the difference than from your normal neighborhood Mexican restaurant. Also the waiter mentioned they upgraded everything about a year ago, so it now a bit more upscale, since I have never been there before the upgrade I am not sure on the differences, but I think that is where a lot of the not so nice reviews come from.

We pay the bill and head out for our next stop Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballero ride.

Summary: This is a great place for lunch, prices are reasonable, great drink selection, and the atmosphere is really cool. This is a must stop in Epcot.

Also now the big joke for the rest of the trip is how hungry are you? Would you eat my arm off? Or something along those lines

 

[DisneyMountainWoman]

Next after a great lunch we went Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballero. It was very cute

I love that they made a Donald Duck Pinata!

I love these fireworks in the ride

Next we hit up Donald Duck. The line was not to long and it is in a shaded area and easy to sit on ledge. Perfect!

We also had some nice background music!

Next we head to Norway and of course we had to go to the
Kringla Bakeri and get an Aquavit shot and a school bread.

Now Aquavit shot was refreshing and the school bread was yummy, but nothing like the reviews were making it out to be. We check out the line for Frozen, it was a very, very long line. So we skipped it.
We next went on Maelstrom it was a easy walk on. This ride does not make me want to visit Norway anytime soon... but it was fun.

Next we head to China!

And my fav place

Chinese pork BBQ buns, these are delicious!! They are the perfect snack.

Next we meet my fav princess!!

 

[DisneyMountainWoman]

My Fav Princess

So Mulan is one of my fav princess. Love her. But to meet her I had to figure out where she was. I had my notes from the http://kennythepirate.com/ (Love this place) But it was not helping to much, soo I ask some CM that were around, they pointed to two locations she can be at, he thought yesterday she was in the shaded area in the trees right in the front. So that is where we waited, a whole bunch of people show up also looking for Mulan too. I let them know this is where the CM thought it was but it could also be up there too, I point off in the distance. So they all get in line behind me. Mom and me work on finishing our snack and drink while we wait. I think that is the best way to do character meet and greets with food and drinks

So we Mulan come out and of course what do you know, she goes to the second spot, ergg

So we all mad dash over there. Honestly they need to put a sign up saying this is where she meets, line starts here kinda of thing because it is confusing.

I am third in line, not bad and get everything in order.

Mulan is very sweet, I tell her she is may fav princess she says thank you and also says she loves all my medals I have. At first I did not get it then she pointed at my pins and I go ahh yes, thank you. I then asked her if she can teach me some her martial arts (this is a character interaction tip from Kenny the Pirate) and that got us doing some fun poses. Looove it

After that we walked around the China area a little more.

I love all the details, mom made a comment the only thing missing here in China to make it more realistic is the smog

Then we head off to our next country Germany!

Now we are not big beer drinkers, so we pick a nice Riesling. Then head to the snow white line. I like that they had a CM, there to direct people where to wait to meet snow white, why did they not have this for Mulan? Drinking while waiting in line, such a great way to pass time. The Riesling was nice and refreshing drink.

The line was not bad and we could sit down too. The area for snow white is really cute, love the well.

Next I took some nice pics of Epcot across the lake.

Next Italy!

We went to the wine cellar, it is located in the back of Italy. Such a perfect stop for some adult time. Which is always important when you are in Disney. It was a nice quite place, you would not know at all you are in Disney in here and there was no kids for the first time

The details is this room are just amazing!

We went with a wine flight, soo much fun!

Our waiter was super nice and informative on wines, she helped us pick out our wine flight and took the cute pic of us.

I just love all the details in Italy.

We do some shopping here for one of our friends, got some cute cooking books with wine and olives.

Next we head to US.... (Wait, aren't we already in US? )

 

[DisneyMountainWoman]

Now, US, no offense US but you are a boring area and no good drinking options either...

Also maybe because I lived in VA and saw Williamsburg all the time, so this area really does not interest...

S we grab a beer, so we can check it off our list and head to our next country, Japan.

We noticed that they had a cool show going on and we stopped and watched it while drinking our beer.

We skipped the drinking here because we planed on coming back here at the end of the night to watch the nighttime show here. They have a bench right next to the water that is just perfect.

Morocco

Next we head to Morocco, we looove this country.

We got a yummy alcoholic slushie and sat in the lovely courtyard area just taking in the view.

So next we wonder around trying to figure out where Jasmine meets and we find it. So we get into line and then of course that is when she leaves for her break. The line is long and it will be a while till she gets back so we decide to leave. No Jasmine this trip

France

These guys are very funny!

Next we head to get a drink, specifically Grey Goose Citron Lemonade Slush, expensive but sooo worth it!!

And of course we have to go to the bakery!

Now I had the hardest time choosing what to eat here, too many yummy options. So I talk to one of the CMs, they are super friendly and they are all from France, which is fabulous! I told the CM that I went to Pairs for a week and had a chocolate croissant every morning from a little bakery. And do you think the chocolate croissant is as good as when I went in Pairs or should I get something else? He said he thinks they are the best ones you can get in US. So far the CMs have not let me go wrong, so I went with his option.

Now you can see how much I looved it because I almost ate all of it before I took a pic....

I then did a little shopping, I got the cute little Minnie mouse shot glass with Pairs in it. I always get a shot glass from everyplace I visit.

United Kingdom

Now Mary Poppins is my mom's fav character so who did we have to see in UK....

I loved the fact the line was not very long, sadly they did not have a photopass photographer with her though

Next we head to the Pub!!

We went with the Cider & Black Pub Blend, soo yummy. Good for people who not big beer drinkers, like us.

What was great about our spot, we were sitting next to some people from England. So with their English accents we felt like we were sitting in a real pub in England. This is a great place to relax after walking around all day.

Canada
We head to Canada, not much here, for food and drink options if you do not have a ADR.

We get the trontopolitain, yummy! I love all these slushie drinks.
It is getting dark, so we will be heading to dinner soon and then illuminations.

 

[DisneyMountainWoman]

Man I have been busy with real life during the holidays and skiing with the family.

Okay back to Disney.

While drinking our yummy martini smoothie (man I love this thing) we see the wonderful x-mas tree all lit up.

I take this opportunity for a wonderful pic moment with mom, man where are the photo pass people? Instead we have a nice couple try and get a pic of the two of us, but it just turned out really blurry.

Next we head to the boat to take us across the lake for dinner.
This boat has great views and we just loved not having to walk all the way back around again.

We head off to Morocco for the Marrakesh Restaurant.

I love the tile work in the restaurant. Just like what you would see in the middle east.

Even though we did not have reservations they were able to sit us really quickly.

We ordered our drink.
Marrakesh Express - Made with rum, orange juice, pineapple juice, topped with dark rum. - $8.99

Our app

Goat Cheese with Crispy Bread - Mixture of cheese and kalamata olives served with tobouleh, red pepper sauce, and balsamic vinegar reduction. - $13.99

Ohh my gosh so delicious.... The goat cheese so fresh and yummy, the presentation is even unique.

Roast Lamb Meshoui - A Moroccan tradition - Roasted lamb shank in natural juice served with couscous. - $27.99

We went with this meal to go with something traditional and it is hard to get anymore traditional than lamb. Man was this a fall off the bane yummy lamb, very tender and melted in your mouth. It had a nice Mediterranean rub or marinate on it. The couscous tasted just like the couscous we had in Egypt!

After dinner we had a belly dancer show, it was cute, but we have seen a lot of belly dancer since we have traveled to the middle east a lot and she did not know alot of the harder belly dancer dance moves, but still entertaining and fun. The live musicians with her would good.

They even pulled up some girls to learn how to bellydance. Soo cute.

I would highly recommend this restaurant to everyone, I guess less Americans like to try ethnic food, but it is soo good and not as crowded as other restaurants in Epcot and you get a show too!

After watching the belly dancer we headed on out and claimed our spot for the fireworks. We have a nice little bench in Japan right by the water. Then we grab our last drink in Japan with a Sake Cocktail. Sadly I forgot to take a pic of it

But here is a pic of my shirt all filled out from every place we went too. Man did we have a great day.

This was our view.

I set up my camera on my travel tripod and start taking pics and getting all my setting figured out to get ready for the Epcot night show.

One of my fav pics

Nexts it is showtime.... (if you love photos the next one will be great)

 

[DisneyMountainWoman]

So here comes my fav part illuminations time!!!

Sorry for the huge amount of photos you will be seeing. I just could not help myself.

In order:

More to come but loading pics is a pain here so I am going to split this up

 

[DisneyMountainWoman]

The end...

So how did I take these pics?

I have a dslr cannon camera. I brought my travel ipod and put my camera into night time mode (this is the cheat for people who do not want to learn about shutter speed, etc..) I use to know this stuff since I took photography classes in highschool but it has been 10 years now and I just want to do it the easy way now. . I also made sure I had clear view of the lake, so we got into place more than an hour ahead of time. (Grab a drink or two and you will be fine waiting) Also made sure the wind was not blowing to us. Then for the editing process, I did not use photoshop, (I know how to develop pics in a darkroom but cannot use photoshop to save my life) so these photos have only the most basic editing that comes with the standard photo program on any comp.

Things that I would do differently:

I would bring me real tripod, my travel one meant I had to sit on the ground or be on my knees. Could not stand and that hurt after a while. Also I would bring my clicky thing, not sure what it is called but it is the cord that connects to your camera so you can take pics without being right behind it. When I would click the button on my camera some times I would shake the camera enough it would come out a little blurry. I had to make sure I pushed the button very carefully.

So after the show, which was amazing!!! We started to head back (here is the sucky part about being in Japan, we had to walk all the way around again) I told my mom there is a back exit and it most likely has taxis too but mom did not want to risk it. I took a one more fun nighttime pic and kept my camera on the tripod.

I wanted to take a few more but Mom kept saying she was dead tried (we have been up since 5am)

We waited in line to get one iconic pic of Epcot all lit up and we got a taxi cab and headed to our hotel. Also there are plenty of taxi cabs all inline waiting for you making it very easy to use and not after to worry about drinking and driving.

Goodbye Epcot...
Tomorrow Magic Kingdom!!

 

[DisneyMountainWoman]

So today is Magic Kingdom day, yeah!!!

And yes I still woke up early, man this is not good, I need to get my beauty rest but I just cannot help it. But good news is that we have a lot time to get ready, so we take our time showering, eating a yummy breakfast and packing our lunch.

My goal is to make it by 8:15 to Magic Kingdom. That way we have plenty of time to get to through the transportation area and make rope drop.

Well by the time we left at 7:15 am I think we will make it in time. We put the address into our nav system and it looks like it is sending us to the employ entrance like I have read about before. I mention that to mom, she looks at it says it look right to her and lets try it. Well after a while of driving and us auguring back and forth she finally turns around. We end up turning off the nav system and going on to the highway and following the signs off of it. And then bingo!!! We found it!!

So no lines at the gate, yeah being super early. Then mom follows the other early risers. So the signs say to park to the right, but everyone is going to the left, I told mom right she said no, everyone is going to the left. So we ended up going left.... I did try to warn her. Well we ended up parking in the employ lot, we looked around to see if any of the cars have permits, none do so we just park here and walk in.

We hop on the monorail to head to MK!

Not many people here yet, we have about an hour to wait. The group behind me is looks like some sort of professional thing, they got to go in before the park opened.

We get a seat under the tree and wait. Love seeing all the cute outfits for the kids going to breakfast.
We look at the sky hoping it is not going to rain.

The place slowly fills up and then the welcome show beings!

Man this is soo cute, I wish they did this at every park!

Then we head to the gates and the fast walking beings!

The first ride we head too Space Mountain, my fav ride
We were able to walk right it and we were the only people there.

And then a freak out happened...

 

[DisneyMountainWoman]

While heading out of Space Mountain, my mom look down and realized her pass came of her lanyard!!!
WE Freaked out of course!

We went to the nearest CM which was the person manning the fp line and told her what happened. She radio down one of the CMs at the loading area to see if they can find it and then we waited, and waited.... Let me tell you this was the longest 20 mins of our lives... The CM that we waited with was nice and chatted with us and said that even if fell off in the ride they find stuff in the ride all the time. After a while the called back saying they found mom's pass!! YEAH!!!

We then headed down and they give us the pass. Mom checked her pass after all the rides. Since we were already down there we decide lets do another ride on Space Mountain

Then we grab a fp for it, what can I say I am a sucker for this ride

And we headed off to mom's fav ride Tea Cups! We head the back way which is really quick to the Tea Cups.

We only had to wait through one ride of the tea cups, not bad for being behind the timeline because of the pass scare.

Man do we have fun trying to spin ourselves as fast as possible. We end up leaving the tea cups all giggly and happy.

And as we head out, guess who we find? Alice and the Rabbit!

So we headed back to Space Mountain, yep I know soo sad right. I cannot help myself using our fp. It was nice having the fp the line started backing up to the point you had to actually wait and not walk on and who wants to do that?

Next we headed to the Buzz Lightyear's ride, since the wait was really quick on it and we were in the area.

So this is my mom's new fav ride. Once she discovered she could control the spin on our pods, I was doomed. She started trying to spin the pod when I was aiming, it was very frustrating for me but mom was having a blast

But hey I beat her in the score!

Yeah see I am super concentrating... this is serious business you know

I do love all these shooting rides though

Next we head to Big Thunder Mountain so that means we have to cross the middle, I stop to take some pics.

And get our pic in front of the castle!!

Then after our pics we stop to watch a show.

Man they were cute!

Next we continue to frontier land and guess who we see? Our fav chipmunks of course. We have alot of them in our backyard in CO too.

 

[DisneyMountainWoman]

Then we head to Big Thunder Mountain!
It was basically walk on, I love all the details in this ride.

We got the last car which is the best place for max speed.

After our ride, I saw some great pic opportunities soo of course I had to stop.

Right after taking the pics a CM shows up and ask if we would mind helping them. After reading these forums soo much my only answer was yes

They then tell us we will be helping a CM earning his ears learn how to load people with handicaps. So we go around back and head in through the exit. We chatted with the CMs while we waited, they are super nice. So we got to ride on the Big Thunder Mountain ride again, yeah just as fun as the first time

Next mom needs to go the bathroom and does not want to get wet. So I go on Splash Mountain. First, I hand off everything to mom but my jacket to help keep my dry including my camera so no pics here sorry.

Nobody wanted to sit in the front in our group, I thought that was soo funny. I normally love the front but it was not really that warm so non of us wanted to get wet. I went for the second seat, finally a boy jumped in the front.

I head over to the bathrooms to meet up with my mom, she took this fun pic Woody while she was waiting.

Next, after I collected all my things we went to Pirates of the Caribbean.

I love this ride!

Next we are getting hungry and it is lunch time. So we decided to go to meet my next fav princess Merida, our plan is to eat lunch while in line.

As we are heading over, we catch some of the show.

Next up Brave

 

[JulieODC]

WOW! So many updates!!

Your Epcot report is making me thirsty And HOLD THE PHONE! There are pork buns all the time in China? I have made this note for our next trip!