Good morning and Happy Monday. And Happy Day Light Savings Time.
Many apologies for the delay in an update. I was all set to get to a good one on Friday and work blew up in my face. My weekend is now began at about 9:15 p.m. Sunday night and ended 8 hours later. And people wonder why I want to go to Disney so much.
The plan for Day 5 was a very un-Tour Guide Mike. For the most part, my touring normally consists of Get to a Park Early; Take a Break, and then back to a different park at night. I am a hopping machine. In fact, I simply do not know how to go to Disney without hopping. It's almost like one of my god-given rights, along with freedom of speech, religion, and hot dogs.
The original plan for Tuesday, February 6th called for a morning in the Magic Kingdom before a wonderful evening at Cirque de Soleil, which would be a first for me. Because of the late night at the Pirate and Princess Party Monday evening (well, at least it is late for my increasingly older self), I decided to forgo the morning in the Magic Kingdom and just sleep in.
Thats right, I slept in. First time I ever decided to do that. At 8:00 a.m. I woke up in a cold sweat ready to go to the park. Sleeping? What is that? I got up for a drink of water and saw FT sound asleep. Not in the mood to wake her up, I decided to head out back to visit with the woods. Or at least stare at them intently for a good half an hour.
Now, I could have gone to Roaring Forks and gotten a morning beverage, or perhaps just walked around the hotel a bit. But no, I decided to sit on the back patio. You know what? It was nice. And relaxing. I decided right then and there that I would schedule at least one morning in on my subsequent trips. Just to take it in, let go of everything, even Disney for a bit. Of course, knowing my freakish tendencies to ensure that I get the most out of my time, I will be sure to schedule this morning off following an extremely late evening in the park, of which the only reason I will attend is to make certain I am tired the next day.
Lunatic. Thats me.
Steph was up and moving around by 9:00 a.m., which was rather nice of her.
What are we doing today?
No idea.
What?
Im not sure.
No, seriously, what are we doing today?
Wait for it. Hold. Hold. HOLD
..
Well
Go ahead.
I thought that maybe we could head over to the Polynesian Resort for some breakfast at the Kona Café. They have this Tonga Toast that I have heard rave reviews on, and have always wanted to try it. Then I thought after breakfast we could drive over to Animal Kingdom and maybe see the Lion King and Nemo show this afternoon, and then take a break before the show tonight.
I thought you said you didnt know what we were doing to me.
What can I say, you gave me 45 minutes to think about it. I could design a plan for war in that amount of time.
So off we went after some cleansing. It took us about 45 seconds to drive from the Wilderness Lodge to the Polynesian, but about 5 minutes to walk from the parking lot to the hotel. Thats a hike if you are an idiot and park as far away as I did.
We walked into the hotel and chatted up a DVC representative who hailed from Buffalo. This was the point where western New York was getting pummeled with yard sticks of snow, so we made fun of everyone back home, and after some brief directions, we headed upstairs to the Kona Café.
Now, this is one of those restaurants that I never would have tried had it not been for the Disboards. We all have little nuggets we glean from this board, whether it is completely useless knowledge about where to find Daisy Duck wearing pink slippers in the afternoon, or helpful tips like where to park to escape from Illuminations crowds (you are most welcome). The Kona Café is one of those for me. Always wanted to try it, but was always in the park in the morning.
My lazy day allowed it to happen today.
We waited about ten minutes for a table, which wasnt too bad. Allowed us to look around the lobby where I decided once and for all that I really have no need to ever stay there. Dont get me wrong, Im sure it has its awesome bits of Disney coolness just like everything else in there, but it is not for me. The monorail is clearly the best aspect of it, but if Im staying somewhere for the monorail, I think I would try the Grand Floridian. Anyway, dont flame me, Im funny.
We sat down and met our waitress, who was also from Western New York. This was a growing trend of the day, particularly for Steph, as she is a native of Canandaigua. Not that any of you know where that is.
In honor of my lazy morning, we ordered two mimosas, which are fantastic if you are in the right mood. Definitely in the right mood today. I cant for the life of me remember what my dear companion ordered, but I jumped for the Tonga Toast as quickly as possible.
Let me tell you. Much like the Dole Whip, this little delicacy (yes, it can be referred as that), lived up to the hype for me. It is insanely sweet, and about the most filling thing I have had in my time for breakfast. But boy was it delicious. Fantastic really. Thankfully, I had read the reviews that said syrup was not absolutely necessary, which was extremely helpful, as I tend to drench my breakfast foods in syrup. Thats a product of growing up 30 minutes from Vermont.
Cant say enough about breakfast. It was just what we both needed, and the smart thing to do. Rather than getting up and trucking around the morning after a late evening, we took it easy. It was a surprisingly enjoyable concept.
After breakfast I kicked it back into park mode, as I remembered from a few days ago that we needed to catch the 11:30 a.m. Nemo show. It was that or wait quite awhile. So off we went. And boy were there a ton of cars in the parking lot. Remember, Im one of those nuts who is in the parking lot by 8:30 a.m. So getting there at 11 a.m. was quite the wake up call. So this is why I leave so early. And we werent alone. As we got out of the car and walked towards the park the tram was just pulling up, and there were at least 200 hundred people that were going to board this thing.
Think we can beat this sucker to the entrance?
No doubt.
Good FT. Very good.
And we took off. It is not an overestimation to say that between the people waiting for the tram, and then those we zoomed past on our sprinting walk, that we probably jumped ahead of 400 people. And got some good exercise. Remember, I had plenty of energy from basically eating a sugar cane for breakfast.
With those 400 people in our dust (we were inserting our tickets when the tram pulled in), we headed quickly to Expedition Everest for a Fast Pass. I was very pleased to see that the return time was just after one, which meant we could successfully complete a Nemo, Lion King, EE trip efficiently. Im nothing, if not efficient.
Lets talk about the line for Nemo. Wow is it long. I mean looooonnnngggg. We just kept walking, hoping to get to the back of it before I died of thirst on this balmy 55-degree day. Eventually we did come to the end, and there was a little leprechaun standing next to a pot of gold. We jumped in line behind him, just ahead of the unicorn.
I had heard that the Nemo show was an inexplicable 45 minutes, and was rather hesitant about how much I would enjoy it because of that. Semi-disappointing because I did find Nemo (ha!) to be quite the entertaining movie.
Lets get this out of the way right now. Between getting in line, waiting for the show to begin and then leaving the attraction, you are probably looking at a good hour and a half.
And it is worth it if you love the movie. And maybe if you only enjoy the movie. The scenery was colorful and fantastic, and the actors, particularly the girl who played Nemo, was amazing. I give it three and a half stars. Very creative, and all of the kids seemed to love it. And those that didnt, fell asleep. And thats acceptable too.
After Nemo we ran, almost literally, over to the Lion King in time for the 1 p.m. show. If you have read the trip report to this point you understood my frustration with the show two days ago. Well this time, absolutely no glitches. We had seats in the middle of the Lion section, which I again purposely sought out. The show was wonderful as always.
Wow, that was something.
Which one did you like better, Nemo or the Lion King?
Nemo was good, but definitely the Lion King.
Indeed FT.
Out of Camp Minnie Mickey and Into Africa (still funny to me). The idea was to take a quick walk through the Jungle Trek before riding Everest. FT needed to see her Tigers.
Meow, kitty.
Once at Everest we jumped in the Fast Pass line. I cant sing the exploits of this line enough. It has to be the best fast pass line in Disney. Within two minutes we were boarding the ride, while the rest of the suckers waited for 40 minutes. Unreal.
Amazingly, we were not in the back of the coaster this time. Instead we were in the second to last row. This was becoming an unbelievable run. Back, Back, second to back. What an awesome ride. Even thinking about it makes me want to jump on a plane this afternoon. Just a good time. I know I keep saying this, leave me alone.
Then it happened.
As we pulled into the station there was a strange announcement I had not heard before.
Blah blah blah.
Wow, that is such an awesome ride, I laughed while looking at FT.
Seriously. It is, she said.
The speakers were blaring.
Blah, blah, blah.
We should do it again.
Yeah we should.
Blah, blah, YEAR OF A MILLION DREAMS.
WHAT?!?!
What?
I think we won something.
Huh?
They just said, YEAR OF A MILLION DREAMS.
And
AND there they were. The dream team. In powder blue. I had completely forgot about lanyards and fast passes and castle stays. I was in Disney and having fun. Didnt even cross my mind until I heard, Year of a Million Dreams.
We won!
What did we win?
The lanyard with some pretty cool looking pins. It doesnt take much to please me.
Thank you so much.
You are most welcome, said a cheery CM. He spoke like me.
Outside of the gift shop I took a look at my new booty. Sweet.
What is that, asked FT.
Thats the single rider line. If you dont mind riding alone, you get on pretty quick.
Want to go on again?
Really, you dont mind.
No.
So in we went. This was my first attempt at any single rider line ever. And it seemed like a good idea. After all, we were having a pretty sweet unplanned Disney Day.
It should be about 10 minutes guys, said the cast member.
Not a problem for us. There were 6 people in front of us. And they went quickly. In fact, after about 5 minutes FT and I were up.
You can go first, I said.
I was listening to the CM ask how many people, and got the seating process down fairly quickly. If there was an odd number she would check with the group behind them for an odd number. If it was even, the single riders went. With only one cart left she asked the next group how many.
Six.
And then the next.
Three.
And then the next.
Eight.
Too many.
Two single riders, last row please.
HA!
Five-minute wait and FT and I were in the back row of the train once again. We had beaten the single rider system. Dumb luck? Sure. But it was also a tiny piece of Disney magic. And it was proof that you dont always need to stick to the damn schedule. You see, when we left the Lion King, the original plan had been to hotfoot it over to EE. But FT wanted to see her Tigers. I agreed. And it worked out well.
You know, if we hadnt seen the Tigers that never wouldve happened, I said after another awesome spin on Expedition Everest.
Its a Disney Miracle.
Wiseass FT. But funny as well.
We decided against trying our luck any further and headed down to Dino-land to ride Dinosaur once more.
On the way, we walked by the game where you smash the dinosaur heads that pop up. For the life of me I cant remember the name of this one, or the generic version Ive played a thousand times. Im getting old.
Lets play.
Really, asked FT.
Why not.
So I handed the gentleman $5 and waited for the game to begin. At this point it was FT, a six-year-old, and me. I was going to crush these guys.
Over the next five minutes seven more people came until we were completely full and playing for the largest prize- a rather cute, and pretty sizeable, dinosaur.
Something you should know about me. I have an innate ability to win carnival games. Sure this will never get me anywhere in life, but some people are good at solving things like World Peace, whereas I can crush the heads dinosaurs that pop up out of little holes.
I have no idea why everyone cant do this as well as I can. Its rather easy. I employed my strategy, which always works, and off we went.
30 seconds later I was the Dinosaur Head-popping Out Champion of 2:30 p.m. I handed FT her dinosaur, and then took a pompous picture of me posing with my winning score of 150. Pictures this week I hope (Im not cool, I know)
That was fun. I usually never spend money at these types of games in Disney, but I figured I would ride the Disney magic as long as possible. We rode Dinosaur after that, and FT had her best Thrill Ride Face, on. She was not letting that carnotaur get the best of her again.
Then we did some shopping and she bought her mother the Tigger, is that you? mug with the tiger on it. One of my favorite items in Disney. After that it was out the gates and time to prepare for our evening at Downtown Disney.
Up Next: Chapter 11. La Nouba! Dinner! And, What do you mean I was supposed to be at the 6 p.m. show?