I Know There's A Hanna-Barbera Land Around Here Somewhere! **New and Completed 7/11**

[mickeystoontown]

Don't you just love the fact that there's lots of things to take pictures of while waiting in a Disney line? You should try Mama Melrose's in the future. We did the Fantasmic package and I thought everything was good. Mama and Lacey thought it was just okay but that could be because they were super tired and ready to eat.

 

[Bridora]

Don't you just love the fact that there's lots of things to take pictures of while waiting in a Disney line? You should try Mama Melrose's in the future. We did the Fantasmic package and I thought everything was good. Mama and Lacey thought it was just okay but that could be because they were super tired and ready to eat.

I do want to try Mama Melrose someday! Alas, it will not be this May since we are skipping Disney parks this time....

 

[princess_momma]

You were an updating fiend! I love it. I love the Beach Club pics and all from MK day. I really can't wait until Landon is old enough to stay up for 2 am EMH! (Although I'm not gonna lie...he stays up pretty late sometimes at Disney lol, the time difference for us helps too!)

And oh DHS so wonderful there! hahaha that Phineas and Ferb M&G is right near the exit of the Muppets so after watching that I had stumbled upon it. I didn't want to wait in the long line to meet them, but we did dance with the director! It was great. Although I left thinking that kids were so shy these days, I was like the only dancing. But I might just be overly-not-shy.

I'm so sad I didn't get to ride Star Tours since it's been updated. My last trip made it difficult because the majority of the time was just me and Landon and he's still a little guy. I actually had really good luck on ToT (the times my friends were there too, we went on RnRC and ToT of course!) and one of the CM's gave me a FP good for any ride in the park that didn't expire for 5 days and covered up to 5 people! But I opted to take the guys on TSM but I wish I could've managed it for Star Wars!

The good news is that I am trying to figure out how to make an adults only trip work in my head. We'll see. Do you and Davis have one planned anytime soon? I feel like you guys used to do one every other year? Or something? I can't recall now! Anywho, can't wait for more!

 

[Bridora]

You were an updating fiend! I love it. I love the Beach Club pics and all from MK day. I really can't wait until Landon is old enough to stay up for 2 am EMH! (Although I'm not gonna lie...he stays up pretty late sometimes at Disney lol, the time difference for us helps too!)

And oh DHS so wonderful there! hahaha that Phineas and Ferb M&G is right near the exit of the Muppets so after watching that I had stumbled upon it. I didn't want to wait in the long line to meet them, but we did dance with the director! It was great. Although I left thinking that kids were so shy these days, I was like the only dancing. But I might just be overly-not-shy.

I'm so sad I didn't get to ride Star Tours since it's been updated. My last trip made it difficult because the majority of the time was just me and Landon and he's still a little guy. I actually had really good luck on ToT (the times my friends were there too, we went on RnRC and ToT of course!) and one of the CM's gave me a FP good for any ride in the park that didn't expire for 5 days and covered up to 5 people! But I opted to take the guys on TSM but I wish I could've managed it for Star Wars!

The good news is that I am trying to figure out how to make an adults only trip work in my head. We'll see. Do you and Davis have one planned anytime soon? I feel like you guys used to do one every other year? Or something? I can't recall now! Anywho, can't wait for more!

And I hope to be an updating fiend again! Now that I finally graduated hopefully I can knock this TR out! (and maaaaybe start a very brief PTR before we leave...IN 2 WEEKS! )

One day Landon will be big enough to enjoy all that stuff with you, they don't stay little long, as I'm sure you know! I probably would've used the FP to TSM, too...It's been 2 years since we've ridden it, I think!

I would love to do another adults only trip to WDW. If we were closer we definitely would! But, no plans for that soon...

 

[Bridora]

Monday, May 30, 2011 (Memorial Day)

All refreshed, we arrived back at Hollywood Studios and I spotted this bus in the parking lot.

It says “Little Rock Tours” - It was like a little ‘hello’ from home!


I snapped a few pictures as we walked:

There were a couple of things I’d been wanting to do for a while. One I have pictures of and one I don’t. The one I do have pictures of…

Oh yeah! I finally got to pull the rope near Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular!

And yes, Luke was concerned that I was not supposed to be doing that and probably feared the Disney Police would come and haul me away. We assured him that this particular time it was okay to disobey the warning sign!

And so he wanted to try it too! Just ignore me with that lost look on my face -- who knows!?



The other thing we (also finally!) got to try was the Animation Academy in the Magic of Disney Animation building. We actually visited twice! We must have gone the first time earlier in the day and then went again once we came back in the evening. But, we’ve moved since then and I’m not sure where our drawings went. I’m pretty sure they are in a tube somewhere…I can’t even remember who we drew now. Boo. But it was great fun and you should try it! It does not matter if you can’t draw well in real life. These guys take you step-by-step and you will come away with a decent sketch - I did!



We also took another trip with Star Tours that night…

…and played around on the speeder bike afterwards…

I’m not sure now if Allison was too cool to “take the bike for a spin” or what?


I’m sure we did The Great Movie Ride at some point that night, and probably Tower of Terror, too. I don’t think we did Rock N’ Rollercoaster, but I did just remember a little story that took place right outside there, near the upside-down car…

I guess we must have gone down Sunset Blvd. as soon as we entered the park and probably at least checked wait times on RNR and ToT. Suddenly, Davis became very worried that we had left the dryer running back at the Beach Club. This really bothered him. Even more so than it does at home. At home, I’m always the one worrying about stuff like that, but as he said, “I don’t want to be the one to burn Beach Club down!” We stopped outside the entrance to RNR while he made a call back to the resort. They were very glad that he called and said they would send someone to our room to check and turn the dryer off. He was then able to enjoy the rest of day worry-free!

 

[Bridora]

Tuesday, May 31, 2011: Animal Kingdom

“Highlights of Our Day in Animal Kingdom” or “What I Took Pictures of at Animal Kingdom”

I will say that we used a Touring Plan from www.touringplans.com for our Animal Kingdom day this year just to give it a try. We listen to several Disney pod casts, and had heard a lot about these touring plans. We were curious to see if it made a difference. Our past at least two years at Animal Kingdom had been pretty bad (Ok not bad, but we didn’t leave there getting to do everything we’d wanted to do - Kali River Rapids both years and even Kilimanjaro Safaris one year!) So what better place to test out a touring plan?

I have forgotten the order of operation for the day, of course, but it started out with Davis heading to Everest

to get everyone Fastpasses and the rest of us three going to Kilimanjaro Safaris to wait for him to return so that we could hop in line there. And somewhere, between Asia and Africa, he heard those words about Hanna-Barbera Land uttered.

Eventually, it was time for Expedition Everest! (and apparently, time to take the camera out from wherever it had been hiding!)

It always starts out so nice and calm--love the first part too!

And then of course, we have to go up the mountain…

(Forgive me if these pictures are out of order!)

Who can resist quoting Stacey here? -- “There doesn’t seem to be any track!”

Ladies first? Don't you wonder what the other side of that picture looked like?

Wonder no more, my friends!

We made it back safely, though and continued on with our touring plan which was working out very nicely. We had lunch at some point at Flame Tree BBQ - our first time there! It was very good. I loved the outdoor seating area around there. I wish I had pictures of it, but there were several covered seating areas separated from one another. They were out in the “jungle-y” area, seemed secluded, though they could seat several people at a time, we wandered around until we found a pretty empty one. Very nice.



We had never been to the Flights of Wonder bird “show”, so we decided to go this time. So glad we did! It was pretty cool to see all the birds and the things they could do.

Which seems to be...escaping all pictures, lol!

I still find myself calling out “Baby Webster…Baby Webster” from time to time…and if you don’t know what I mean--then you need to go see Fights of Wonder!


We took a walk down the Pangani Forest Exploration trail. This was something else we’d never done! Accomplishment, people!

…continued in next post…

 

[Bridora]

…Animal Kingdom continued…



And no visit to Animal Kingdom would be complete without a trip back in time on Dinosaur!

And we even let the kids run free in the Boneyard play area! Don’t kids just love that place? I think a pool and a playground are all most kids would need for a happy vacation!

While the kids were digging up dino bones, I spotted someone with super-cute hair! (Sitting just behind Allison in the above photo) I photo stalked her just a bit in case I needed to show her cut to my stylist back home. I ended up not being brave enough to try it, though!

A few more pictures of Animal Kingdom, I don’t know where they fit chronologically in our day, but I do want to share ‘em!

Still playing with the panoramic shots!

It’s like he’s saying, “Go that way!”


And with that, we had had a successful visit to Animal Kingdom, although we still didn’t do Kali River Rapids…

 

[Bridora]

Tuesday Evening, May 31
“Dinner and Mini-Golf”

In all honesty, I’m not 100% sure this is the night we dined at Cape May Café or not, but I’m going to go ahead and share those pictures with you now, in the possibly-non-chronological spirit of this TR!

We chose Cape May Café for dinner on a whim. We did not have dining reservations, but felt like having more than counter service that night. Since we were staying at Beach Club, where Cape May Café is located, we decided to give it a try!

We went down to the lobby, (which smells just wonderful, by the way) and checked in with the hostess at the podium.

While we waited for our pager to call us to dinner, we wandered around the lobby and took some pictures, too!

I loved sitting in these chairs!

Hidden Mickeys in the rug.

Looking down from the 2nd floor.

Panorama!

When I took this photo, we were saying “Next year, we’ll be on that!” And now we’re saying, “Next week, baby!”


The food was pretty good at Cape May Café. The kids L.O.V.E.D. it. Davis & I couldn’t really figure out why. To us, it was a pretty regular, though Disney-ized buffet. The big thing about Cape May Café is that it’s a seafood place, we hadn’t really taken that into consideration before going, however. Because Davis doesn’t like seafood, that may not have been the best choice for dinner, lol! It was priced as a seafood buffet, too!

A bad shot of my dessert plate!


The kids could eat here every night.

After dinner, we headed over to Fantasia Gardens Mini-golf. We played both courses there this year, Fantasia Gardens and Fantasia Fairways. I’m not real sure (ha!) when we played the Fantasia Fairways course, but I think it was sometime later in the week. (Maybe the next night?) That night, we drove over after dinner for a round of mini golf on the Fantasia Gardens course.

This golf course is very near the Swan & Dolphin. The kids and I decided to walk back to Beach Club while Davis drove the car back. The walk was pretty and nice. We walked through the Swan and Dolphin grounds, then toward Beach Club. I can’t remember the exact route, but it was easy to find since I had never walked it before and we had no trouble making it back!

The next day was our pool day -- so excited to spend the day at Stormalong Bay!

 

[Bridora]

Wednesday, June 1, 2011
“Pool Day” or “The Day we Woke up to Rain”


Noooooooooooooo! What’s worse than rain on your pool day? Maybe Alanis should have had a line about that in her song, “Ironic”.


You may not be able to tell in these next pictures, but it was really raining A LOT. A Florida-summer-thundershower, complete with big booms of thunder.

We tried to make the best of it, though and decided to just take it easy that morning and relax in the room. I let Davis sleep in. I had brought along one of those Martha White chocolate chip muffin “Just add water” mixes. I decided to make those for breakfast that day. It was only after I had them mixed up that I realized that there was no muffin pan in the room. So, I improvised.

And it turned out just fine. The kids loved it and it was very easy to make! In fact, I’ve already purchased one blueberry and one chocolate chip mix for this year’s trip!


It rained on and off the rest of the morning. We ventured out to find an activity room. We ended up over at the Boardwalk. The kids colored for a bit. There’s a time gap in there where I’m sure we had something for lunch before heading over to the Atlantic Dancehall for Welcome Home Wednesdays! They typically have these every Wednesday for DVC members. It’s just kind of like a fun little game show with a free snack and drink, and maybe a dessert sample or two on the way in. We’ve gone the last two years and each year, they’re also given us each a DVC cap on the way out. I think there are also other prize drawings as well.

The game show set-up.

Afterwards, we met Deevy See, the DVC Hostess (Mascot?) See was a hoot!


With our new caps to protect us from the sprinkling that was still going on, we made our way back perhaps to our room.

But later that afternoon, the sun came out and we hit the pool!

Let me just say, we loved Stormalong Bay! It is as good as you’ve heard. I even did the Macarena with a castmember, much to the embarrassment of my children (thankfully, no pictures of that!). That is where the red beads I'm wearing in the above picture came from.


When we were finished there, we cleaned up in our room and went back down to try out Beaches n Cream.

No Kitchen Sink for us, but we did see 1 or 2 people order one! This banana split was large enough for us!

Continued below…..

 

[Bridora]

…..continued



And after that is when we played mini-golf on the Fantasia Fairways course! Woo hoo for having a bit of organization in my photo bucket albums!



This was our first time to play on the Fairways course, which looks just like a traditional golf course, only on miniature scale. We walked over there from Beach Club since I knew the way.

They even had flags in the holes!

Illuminating the grass -- looking for Luke’s lost ball!

Fun course! We loved it! We were just talking the other day about which course we’d go to this year. I think my vote might go to Fantasia Fairways.



After playing (it was getting pretty late and I was worried that the kids would be too tired to get up early enough to make it to Universal at park opening - I wanted to make sure we had enough time there since we’d only be going that one day and I didn’t know what the line at Harry Potter would be like) we walked back to the Beach Club and got ready for bed.


Tomorrow we'd be off to visit Harry, Ron, and Hermione!

 

[mickeystoontown]

You're on an updating roll. We were just talking about going to play mini-putt this year so I was glad to see your pictures.

Don't you just hate it when it rains on your "what are we going to do today" day. But, it looks like it all worked out in the end and you were able to take a dip in the pool.

Wowza! That banana split is one heck of a big split!

 

[Bridora]

You're on an updating roll. We were just talking about going to play mini-putt this year so I was glad to see your pictures.

Don't you just hate it when it rains on your "what are we going to do today" day. But, it looks like it all worked out in the end and you were able to take a dip in the pool.

Wowza! That banana split is one heck of a big split!

I am determined to get this TR finished before I've waited too long to start one from this year's trip!

I say, even if it rains, as long at you're in WDW, you'll have a great day!

 

[Bridora]

Thursday, June 2, 2011
“In Which We Venture Off-Property”

The first thing I did after we bid farewell to these sea-monsters (which we had discovered at some point) living at the Beach Club

was to set the navigation for Universal Studios! It felt weird to be leaving Disney property and not be heading home, but onward to Universal!

We followed the directions precisely to some sort of Universal employee parking lot, which we quickly exited. From there we were able to follow ordinary road signs to the proper place for guests to park.

When will we learn to use the navigation for general which-direction-do-we-head-in questions and leave the exact directions to those local road signs?

We paid an extra (I don’t remember how much) for preferred parking, parked, made our way toward some cool moving sidewalks, and backtracked to the car for the tickets. Might need those!


Davis, more in favor of walking than riding, led the way by walking next to the moving sidewalks and into Universal’s version of Downtown Disney. It’s called City Walk, but I have no pictures of it. It’s full of restaurants, stores, and even a movie theater. After a quick pit stop at the restrooms, we were entering the park proper and making our way to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter!!!!! This is what happens when your 11 year old won’t keep the park map away from her face:

Does anyone else have kids that are constantly biting their fingers/fingernails? This girl does, and let me tell you, we had to keep telling her not to put her fingers in her mouth the entire day! She would be touching handrails, walls, whatever and then next think you know she had her hands in her mouth!

We wound our way through some pretty well-themed areas, following the people in front of us, until we caught a glimpse of this:

Well, that was more what it looked like as we were walking past it, but…It’s the train at King’s Cross Station! I thought we had a better picture of it, but I can’t seem to find it.

When you enter the Wizarding World from this end (because there is another way you can get to it from the Jurassic Park area) you walk through Hogsmeade to get to Hogwarts where the big attraction, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, is located. Let’s walk, shall we?

How annoying, I seem to have only taken close-up shots of building tops! Not sure we’ll walk through in the right order, but let’s keep going anyway, just imagine you’re looking up as you walk and not straight ahead, lol!

And then, we were there!

I do not remember the wait time, but maybe 75-90 minutes is a good guess?

As soon as we walked up and entered the doors, we were immersed in the chaos that was Universal “cast members” shouting at people that the lockers were “this way” and other such noises as well as people going in every direction to and from rooms of lockers where you were to stow your thing while on the ride. There were clumps of people gathered in front of the locker rental station. There was one station per bank of lockers. It was pretty cool, they were free while you ride and you rented one by scanning your fingerprint. After the scan, it would assign you a locker and you would cram your stuff in and take off! The locker could only be opened again by entering your locker number and scanning your finger—pretty cool! Once we had stowed our belongings in a locker, except for our small camera, we found our way to the end of the line.

The line starts off outside the castle and you can see the greenhouses once you get around the back. I don’t have many pictures of that part of the queue, but we were very intrigued by this cautionary poster:

Especially the part that you can't read clearly here that states prosthetic limbs must be removed prior to riding!

We soon found ourselves winding back and forth back and forth in the greenhouse. I did get a picture of some of their plants:

Once we were finally through the greenhouse, we entered the castle!

I think this is keeping up with House points:

Go Gryffindor!

The kids wanted to go up to Dumbledore’s office, but he must have changed his password.

In a passageway

As you walk through the hallways you’ll see paintings on the walls. These paintings are just like the paintings in the Harry Potter movies—the people speak and move!

Continued in the next post…..

 

[Bridora]

…..continued

Pretty soon, you’ll enter this room:

There you are, Dumbledore! Yes, he speaks to you in this room! I think he’s telling us all how we are about to hear some sort of lecture on the history of Hogwarts. (Can’t really remember!)

After leaving Dumbledore, you’ll enter this room:

Where soon, these three will appear from underneath the invisibility cloak:

Their plan is to sneak us out so that we don’t have to listen to that lecture. I think there’s a bit more involved in their plan, like we are supposed to meet them somewhere…and there are two versions of the scene where Hermione does a spell—one where it snows! Which is, I think, what is in that picture above.

You leave that room and pass through a few more. You also go past the painting of the “Fat Lady” at some point.

A few more paintings you’ll see:

And soon, you board your broomstick and fly off with Harry, Ron, and Hermione!

As far as motion-sickness goes the ride pretty much messed up Davis, but no one else in our party. Part of the time you’re going past real scenery and then at times you’ll pause and be in front of a screen which is like being in a motion simulator –that’s the part that got Davis. He says the ride vehicle is similar to what Disney uses in Sum of All Thrills at Epcot.

Later we went back at just did the “castle tour” which walks you through the queue, but on a different “track” than riders so that you can take your time as you wander through the castle. That was fun! It really is very detailed in there! – All of the Harry Potter section is, really.

On our way back down into Hogsmeade, we caught the Beauxbaton and Durmstrang students performing a demonstration:

The girls twirled some ribbons and the guys did some dancing with their staffs—pretty neat!

Next, we caught the “show” at Ollivander’s Wand Shop. While waiting in line we also tried out Butterbeer and Pumpkin Juice. Both were good! You can go into the wand shop to purchase wands and other souvenirs without waiting in line to see the “show” or you can wait in line to enter the actual shop where Mr. Ollivander's helper is working and watch as he chooses a child to participate in a wand lesson. He has them point at different things in the shop and practice spell on them—watering flowers and such—with surprises thrown in, of course—at the end the child is allowed to keep the wand and the others in the room are “let out” into the store. I’m not sure how many people it takes to fill the room, but quite a good number—they pack you in!

The kids each bought a wand at the store. They character wands for sale and they also will “choose” a wand for you based on your birthday. Both kids chose that option and were happy with their wands.

We also went through Zonko’s which linked up with the candy store.

Puking pastilles in the window—the “puke” actually moves!

Another window display

Wow! I just noticed how those two pictures above line up! How cool and purely accidental!

There were so many things for sale in the stores from the Harry Potter books! The kids each bought chocolate frogs which came with wizard cards!

...Continued in next post...

 

[Bridora]

…continued

We had lunch at The Three Broomsticks and it was pretty crowded in there, but their system worked pretty efficiently. Once through the ordering line you’d be shown to a table so there wasn’t that Disney problem of table saving or sharking. The dining area was also pretty large. We ordered the Great Feast to share—think it had chicken and something else, corn on the cob, etc.—it was a lot of food and it tasted good too!

At some point, probably before lunch, we took a ride on Flight of the Hippogriff—a smallish roller coaster, but it was a pretty rough ride!

The kids & I also rode Dragon Challenger (formerly Dueling Dragons) Davis sat that one out, but once we were in the queue I wished he’d come along through that with us—it was full of cool Harry Potter things like:

Tri Wizard Tournament banners!

The Flying Car!

Great views of the castle!

And Hagrid’s Hut

The ride itself was pretty cool, but we were all feeling a bit woozy when we came off. We decided that it would be a good time to leave the Wizarding World and explore a bit of the rest of Islands of Adventure.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Even though I have never seen any of the Harry Potter movies or read the books, I can still say that the Harry Potter area of Universal looks pretty darn cool. We thought about adding a Universal Studios day to our 2013 trip but I'm not sure if we will.

 

[Bridora]

Even though I have never seen any of the Harry Potter movies or read the books, I can still say that the Harry Potter area of Universal looks pretty darn cool. We thought about adding a Universal Studios day to our 2013 trip but I'm not sure if we will.

Has Hunter read/seen any Harry Potter? If so, he'd love it! If you're anything like us (and you probably are!) you could probably do both parks in a day if you got there close to park opening time. It just depends on how much time you want to spend exploring and how many attractions you are interested in.

Girl, I am determined to finish this report, if only so you'll know how the rest of our trip went, lol!

 

[Bridora]

We had just decided to explore the rest of Islands of Adventure and find out what it had to offer besides Harry Potter. We were interested in checking out the Jurassic Park section for sure. It’s a favorite movie series around our house. And luckily for us, there’s an exit near Hogwarts that leads right to Jurassic Park.

Yep, that’s Hogwarts Castle in the background!

The kids ate their chocolate frogs on the way and it wasn’t long before we were boarding the Jurassic Park River Adventure.

They look ready to me!

I wonder what lies ahead?

Ominous-looking gates do!

After floating through a peaceful dino lagoon:

We floated right into the raptor containment area!

Uh-Oh! I don’t like the looks of that!

Apparently, what happens in the Raptor Transport Unit stays in the Raptor Transport Unit! However, we all made it back safely.

(And maybe a bit wet)

…continued in next post…

 

[Bridora]

…continued…

There is also a huge playground (think The Boneyard at Animal Kingdom) called Camp Jurassic that we waited in while the kids were on-line for Pteranodon Flyers. We thought they could handle riding these things by themselves, but the line must have been awfully long because it felt like we waited f.o.r.e.v.e.r. for them to ride. While we were investigating just exactly where the thing boarded, we were able to find them in line and get their picture as they took off!

These guys took kids (or parents) for a flight around the area and looked like so much fun! I guess it's a really slow boarding process as each pteranodon only holds 2 riders and they didn't have all that many pteranodons flying.

Here's a weird picture of a bridge/some stairs in the play area.

After riding, we let them hang around Camp Jurassic and play in the caves/slides/etc. for a while.


We also took a walking tour through the Temple of Poseidon which was a very neat experience/special effects adventure. I don't remember where exactly in the park it was, but here are a few pictures of the outside:

And we paid a visit to the Seuss Landing area – themed, of course, in the style of Dr. Seuss and filled with fun things from the books.

The Sneetches was/is one of my favorites!

And to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street!


We rode The High in the Sky Trolley Train Ride, I don’t have any pictures of it, but here is one from the DIS:

It was fun, but couldn’t quite compete with the Tomorrowland Transit Authority!

Some truffula trees!

The Once-ler’s place

Listening!


After a ride on the Caro-Seuss-el:

We headed out of the park.

I don’t remember what time it was, but the next day was Friday; our last park day of the vacation; the day we usually hit our favorites again or visit things we hadn’t had time to visit before.


Notice how I said, usually…

 

[mickeystoontown]

Hunter has seen each and every Harry Potter book so I'm pretty sure that he'd like to see the Harry Potter section of the park. The one section that I know absolutely, positively that he'd like is the Jurassic Park section. He and I love the Jurassic Park movies!