I think we ate at every character meal.. TRIP REPORT w/pics! FINISHED!!!!!!!

[maroo]

I love your TR!!! Just found it today!

Your family certainly deserves lots of magic after all of those chemo treatments!

So glad you had fun in Disney!!

 

[jenseib]

What a great report! (I've ony read the first 3 pages so far)
We have gone the same week the last 2 years, but this year we went a week later. It's such a nice tinme of year usually. Did the wether warm up for you? It was really warm when we were down there. The crowds are usually pretty good too.
You have a beatiful little girl. She reminds me a little of my DD (she's a year older, and has blue eyes.)
I can't wait to read more!

 

[jenseib]

Alright on to Tuesday! 3/3!

We finished up our meal about 9:45 and headed over to Rock 'N Roller Coaster to get some FP's. So I put my ticket in and my FP ticket came out saying my FP was not available yet. It was 9:55. That had never happened to me before. I thought it was kinda funny. So while we were waiting another family came to get their FP's. One of the kids asked their dad if she was tall enough to ride. He had her stand next to the sign to see if she was tall enough. A CM was there helping out. The little girl was trying to stand on her tippy toes to make herself the 1 more inch she needed to make it. The CM politely told them she wasn't tall enough. Well Juliana was standing with me listening too. After the family left, Juliana wanted to see if she was tall enough. I measured her told her not yet. She said "Maybe when I get a little bigger" I said "Yes when you get bigger.... Now get back there so I can take your picture."
Continued............

It sounds liek you got your first FP at 8:55 ( I could be wrong there) and you usually can't get another till 2 hours later, or after the time of the FP, so maybe the time hadn't passed yet?

I know I tried to get a Peter Pan one 2 hours after I got a Pooh one, and though the clock on Peter Pan said it was the correct time, the FP machine wouldn;t give me one. I asked a CM and he said they FPachines were on computer time and it didn;t always match with everyone elses time. LOL! He told me to wait a few minutes and try again, and then it worked.

 

[jenseib]

.

The mad hatter was soooooo funny. I have some great video of him. He is so loud. He was screaming in the restaurant- yelling at Alice, yelling at people, yelling at CM's. He came near our table and stopped at the table next to us. The dad and the 2 kids went up to get some food and the mom was still at the table by her self. The hatter asked the mom where everyone was and she said up getting food. He asked what his name was.. she told him. So the Mad Hatter (and I do mean MAD as crazy) jumps up on the chair and starts yelling across the whole restaurant. "Max.. where are you MAX? You don't want to see me. Max I heard it was your birthday, come over here. MAX OH MAX!" Mel, Juliana, and me were all watching this laughing. The mom, who might of been a tad embarrassed, went to the food to get her son. So the Hatter starting talking to us (still standing on the chair). Just then Pooh comes over towards him. The Hatter starts talking 'junk' to Pooh. And then what does the Hatter do?????? He jumps off the chair and drops an elbow right on Pooh. Pooh falls to the ground and the Hatter is laughing.. we're laughing too. He turns to us and says in his high pitched voice "What is a bear doing in here? The nice people are trying to eat. They should never let a bear in a restaurant." We are all laughing.
In the meantime the mom came back to her table with her family and Hatter goes and talks to them. Pooh is still laying on the floor and Juliana goes over to him and asks him if he is OK and helps him up. So Pooh goes to visit with another table and the Hatter come over to see us. He was bending down talking to Juliana when Pooh comes over and puts his hands around Hatters neck and starts choking him for 5-10 seconds. It was classic and I have the whole thing on video.
We finished up breakfast and headed back to CSR for the next part of our 'relaxing' day.

EDIT: here is the link to the MAD HATTER VIDEO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isW65dSeIis


To be continued..........

OMG! That Mad Hatter video is SOO funny! I would've loved to been there for that. HILARIOUS!
Thanks for Sharing

One other question..Did you guys do the Delixe dining plan? We always do the regular one, and I have debated trying deluxe sometime. But we seem to have a hard enough time eating what we have. We usually do buffets or al you can eat TS, and we seem like we aren't even hungry much for the CS's alot of the times. We usually end up bring snacks home too. So I was wondering what your take on it was? or did you just buy some meals out of pocket and do the regular plan?

 

[that's nice]

We were at HS on Monday 3/2 and then left later that afternoon for home. It's always so sad to end a trip at Disney and go home to a snow storm! I jsut thought it was funny as I read your trip report because I kept saying, hey we just ate there too and this place and this place and this place!

BTW, your family pictures are so sweet! You all look so happy and that you were having a great time! That's as it should be, right?

Where are you from? We are from CT and we missed the storm. They got around a foot a snow. When we got back there was none left! Don't all trips end too quickly? LOL

What a great report! (I've ony read the first 3 pages so far)
We have gone the same week the last 2 years, but this year we went a week later. It's such a nice tinme of year usually. Did the wether warm up for you? It was really warm when we were down there. The crowds are usually pretty good too.
You have a beatiful little girl. She reminds me a little of my DD (she's a year older, and has blue eyes.)
I can't wait to read more!

It was warm at the beginning, then the front came through on Sunday. It stayed cool until Tuesday. Then on Wednesday it started to warm up. Thanks for reading.

It sounds liek you got your first FP at 8:55 ( I could be wrong there) and you usually can't get another till 2 hours later, or after the time of the FP, so maybe the time hadn't passed yet?

I know I tried to get a Peter Pan one 2 hours after I got a Pooh one, and though the clock on Peter Pan said it was the correct time, the FP machine wouldn;t give me one. I asked a CM and he said they FPachines were on computer time and it didn;t always match with everyone elses time. LOL! He told me to wait a few minutes and try again, and then it worked.

I got my 1st FP at 9:01 at TSM. So I had to wait until 10:01. You can actually get another FP at the start of your current FP time.

OMG! That Mad Hatter video is SOO funny! I would've loved to been there for that. HILARIOUS!
Thanks for Sharing

One other question..Did you guys do the Delixe dining plan? We always do the regular one, and I have debated trying deluxe sometime. But we seem to have a hard enough time eating what we have. We usually do buffets or al you can eat TS, and we seem like we aren't even hungry much for the CS's alot of the times. We usually end up bring snacks home too. So I was wondering what your take on it was? or did you just buy some meals out of pocket and do the regular plan?

We did the regular dining plan and payed oop for the other meals. I set up a spread sheet showing which meals would be better using the DP and which one would be better paying oop for. We could of cut out a few breakfasts but hey, we were on vacation!!!!! I can let you know which ones we did if you want.

 

[that's nice]

Well we woke up and its Saturday. Our last real day in Disney We were getting ready to goto breakfast but I had my camera out looking for something to take a picture of and found one of the only Mickey's in our room.

We had to switch our Friday and Saturday park days to be able to hang out with Melody's family in MK on Friday. So we originally had Donald's Safari Breakfast @ Tusker House booked on Friday, but I had to cancel it. I tried to get another ressie on Saturday but it was all booked up. We decided to try out the Pepper Market at CSR for breakfast. It was such a warm morning we walked over to it. The lake was so still I had to take more pictures!

Being our 1st time eating at the Pepper Market we had to figure out the 'system' since we were using this as one of our CS meals. We were shown our table and ordered our OJ's. While we were waiting for our waiter to come back, Juliana did a little coloring.(and was also being quite silly)

Our waiter came back and then we headed up to get some food. They had a big selection.... the hardest part was figuring out what went with our meals being on the DP. The CM's there really weren't all too helpful. We had a few questions and I don't know if there was a language barrier or an attitude barrier. But we made out OK and had a good breakfast. I ended up with the southwest omelet and it was good. Melody had a bagel and a coffee and Juliana, once again had a Mickey waffle!

After breakfast we headed over to El Centro to catch our bus to AK. We hopped on the bus and we had to make a quick stop at Blizzard Beach then we were on our way to AK. I think CSR & AK share a backyard because the ride was really short. (another YAY for the busses!) We arrived at the gate at 9:40.... a little later than we wanted but after all week of busting it to the parks, it was fine.

Our plan was to head over to the safari 1st, then wing the rest of the day from there. We stopped in front of the tree for a quick pic.

On our way to the safari we saw Lilo & Stitch (yea the one yelling at me every morning this week!). There was a short line, maybe 3 people in it, so we HAD to stop to see them.

We made it to the safari at 10 and we were deciding whether to get a FP or just get in line. The wait said 20 minutes.... we just got into line. It took exactly 20 minutes from the entrance to getting on the jeep. Being in a moving line, 20 minutes isn't bad.

This is our 3rd time on the safari. The other 2 times we went more towards the afternoon. This time being a little earlier we saw a lot of animals. This hippo was taking his morning stroll.

Here's just a few pics of what we saw. Juliana had a fun time seeing the animals.

After the safari, Juliana took some time to bang on the drums in Harambe. Then we hurried over to the "Finding Nemo' show. I didn't know how well Juliana would sit for the 40 minute show but she had her eyes fixed on it the whole time and she loved it. I would suggest that everyone see this show. It was well done.

To be continued......

 

[that's nice]

After Nemo, we went over to DinoLand to ride a few rides. This was our 3rd time to AK and I've still never done Primeval Whirl. There was a 80 minute wait and no FP available. Guess I'll have to do it next time. I got a FP for DINOSAUR, then we went to get some food. I went to Flame Tree BBQ and the girls went to Pizzafari. The line was very long but it moved fast. I got the pulled pork sandwich w/ cole slaw and a water. I saw someone walking away with a beer and it looked so good. I had to have one too. Ordered one as well. Then I carried my food over to Pizzafari and met Melody & Juliana as they were trying to find a seat. We had lunch. My sandwich was awesome! It blew the pork sandwich that I had at HS away!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I will be eating here every time I come to AK. (unless I eat somewhere else in AK!LOLOL) We finished lunch and headed over to EE. Another pic opt.

Being that this was AK, I didn't take as many pictures as I thought I would. I did take quite a bit of video though. On our way over to EE, we (melody & I) got thirsty again. Time to find another drink. We remembered Yak & Yeti Quality Beverages from our last trip. Mel got the Yak Attack and she sucked it down. I think I ended up getting a Sapporo- a Japanese beer. It was good as well. OK... time to ride EE. We had gotten FP on the way to the Nemo show so we got right on. After we rode, we were getting hot. It was very warm and this was our last day. We decided skip the parade and to go back to CSR and enjoy some down time before our dinner ressie at Jiko. I know the title of this TR is about Character meals. This was the only day we didn't do one. With having to change park days, it messed up my schedule a bit. So back to the bus. There was a cute little girl 7ish that got on the bus when we stopped at BB. She ended up sitting next to us and was befriending Juliana. They were talking it up. Juliana makes friends so quickly (when she wants to)

We got dropped off, got changed, and headed to the pool. IT WAS PACKED- most likely because of this:

We tried to get Juliana a life jacket but they were all being used. So I brought her into the pool. Finally we found one and she was ready to go swimming. All she wanted to do was swim all by her self.

Then we saw the same little girl that we saw on the bus. We found out her name was Mya and she was from Canada. She was so cute.. she was trying to teach Juliana how to swim. Then Mya was teaching Juliana how to do spins while jumping in the pool. They were playing for about 30 minutes. Mya went to talk to her parents...... when she came back Melody, Juliana, and I were swimming together. She said "I've been wanting to ask you this since the bus but I was scared. Are you going the Luau tonight for dinner? I hope you are because it would be fun" We told her no and I think she got a little sad. I felt like getting my phone rite then and calling to see if they had any openings for dinner. Her parents came to get her shortly after and they left the pool. We had to get back to the room as well..... we had to get ready for dinner.

To Be Continued...........

 

[PopArtGal]

Thanks for the Nemo recommendation.

I'm hoping to catch it during our upcoming trip.

 

[heaven2dc]

Your pics of CSR and the lake are absolutely beautiful! The lake was so still - great job

I still haven't seen the Nemo show - last trip I finally got to see the Lion King show and it was amazing! Julianna is a doll - how sweet that the little girl befriended her and they got to play in the pool. The last day always seems to go by so fast in my opinion but seems like you got to experience new things and had a great time!

 

[serene56]

But we made out OK and had a good breakfast. I ended up with the southwest omelet and it was good. Melody had a bagel and a coffee and Juliana, once again had a Mickey waffle!



did you use your counter service credits for the above??? (yikes)

 

[that's nice]

edit double post

 

[that's nice]

Thanks for the Nemo recommendation.

I'm hoping to catch it during our upcoming trip.

We had a great time at this show! It was cute.

Your pics of CSR and the lake are absolutely beautiful! The lake was so still - great job

I still haven't seen the Nemo show - last trip I finally got to see the Lion King show and it was amazing! Julianna is a doll - how sweet that the little girl befriended her and they got to play in the pool. The last day always seems to go by so fast in my opinion but seems like you got to experience new things and had a great time!

We wanted to see the lion king show too, but thought it might be a little too much for our day here. DW & I saw it on broadway. It was awesome.... if the one at AK could be 1/2 as good, it still would be great!

But we made out OK and had a good breakfast. I ended up with the southwest omelet and it was good. Melody had a bagel and a coffee and Juliana, once again had a Mickey waffle!



did you use your counter service credits for the above??? (yikes)

I used 2CS for my omelette and the waffle, 2 OJ's, a bottled water, and the coffee. Then a snack credit for the bagel w/ peanut butter. So it wasn't 3 CS meals. Thank goodness!

 

[Harters2WDW]

Great report! We arrived at Coronado Springs -- with our DD3-- the day you left and stayed in Cabana 8A. Great resort, right? Glad you cleared up Pepper Market, I glanced it and was confused. We never had a chance to eat there. Love your report. It's helping me relive and hold on to my trip for a bit longer! The trip goes by way too quickly!

 

[Ela1972]

Your trip report is amazing!!
It is oly 1 "more sleep" till we go.

Just a quick question, the lifejackets in the pool for the little ones. Do you just get them while you are at pool or do you keep them for the duration of your stay?
Can you take them to the waterparks?
Thanks if you could answer them
Ela

 

[that's nice]

Great report! We arrived at Coronado Springs -- with our DD3-- the day you left and stayed in Cabana 8A. Great resort, right? Glad you cleared up Pepper Market, I glanced it and was confused. We never had a chance to eat there. Love your report. It's helping me relive and hold on to my trip for a bit longer! The trip goes by way too quickly!

I don't care how long a vacation is.... its NEVER long enough....... ESPECIALLY at Disney!!!!!!!!!!!! You had great weather! Thanks for reading.

Your trip report is amazing!!
It is oly 1 "more sleep" till we go.

Just a quick question, the lifejackets in the pool for the little ones. Do you just get them while you are at pool or do you keep them for the duration of your stay?
Can you take them to the waterparks?
Thanks if you could answer them
Ela

There were lifejackets at the pool for daily use and I did see a sign if you want one for the duration of your stay to get it at the marina. If you can find a Coronado thread over on the resort boards, ask Buzz2001, KatMark, or JamesLynn (a CSR CM)... they are very helpful and know every thing about CSR!!!!

 

[bucknuts]

great trip report.

 

[PopArtGal]

great trip report.

Wow just noticed your ticker!!!

Have a great trip!!

 

[that's nice]

After getting ready for dinner, we headed out to the rental for the drive over to Animal Kingdom Lodge for our 5:55 dinner at Jiko. Juliana was being her cute self again.

She wanted to wear her lanyard with the pins she was accumulating over the past year. She's yet to trade any... those are HER pins and she's not giving them to anybody!!!!!!

We started our short drive over to AKL we saw the parking lot to AK and even saw the tree of life and Expedition Everest sticking out in the distance. We pulled up to the gate at AKL and there was something a little different than when we went to our other ressies at other resorts. The guard asked if he could help us. We told him we had a dinner reservation at Jiko. He had a pile of papers and started looking through it. It took him a minute or two then said "OK I found you. Enjoy your dinner." We thought it was a little weird at the time. Come to find out later that night on the news either Britney Spears or K-Fed and the kids was staying somewhere in Disney that weekend for a concert. Then when I came home and got my DIS fix, there were many posts about them staying at AKL! We parked the car and walked over to dinner.

We were a few minutes early so instead of checking in, we took a little 'tour' of the lobby.

Then we headed out side to see if we could see any animals. It was such a nice evening. There were people relaxing on benches just watching the animals. We could also see quite a few people sitting on their balcony's just 'relaxing'...... (something we didn't do much of this tripLOLOL)

We took a few minutes and just watched. There were two CM's out here answering people questions and it looked like they were enjoying themselves. Melody took a picture of Juliana and I. Then one of them asked if they could take a picture of the 3 of us. They were very nice.

We walked around for a few more minutes.

By now it was already 6:05 and we had to go and check in for dinner.

 

[that's nice]

great trip report.

Wow just noticed your ticker!!!

Have a great trip!!

Thanks for pointing that out POP.

buck HAVE A GREAT TRIP!!!!!!!
Enjoy the 80 degree weather. (I saw a 92 on there for Saturday!)

 

[maroo]

Britany Spears...what a trip!!!

I love the Savannah views. I have never seen a picture from that perspective. I had no idea that the animals were that close! Looks really cool! I just might have to try that sometime.

Your daughter is beautiful!!!