Jen, Stacey & the December 2011 Shindig!

[DisFanJen]

Today was a mixed bag in that it was a fun & relaxing day, but very expensive!

Firstly we found out my driving licence was missing, eventually we found it was still with Avis in MIA. Doh! So after a few phone calls we eventually got them to arrange to over night it to our resort, for $35.

Then when we unpacked this morning we found all of our nice clothes for meals were trashed (wrinkled and dirty not damaged) so they were off to bell services for dry cleaning. Another $60+

And that was all before we left the room. So, an expensive day.

But anyway, back to the day.

We were up and at the TTC before 9am, a minor miracle for us and a quick ferry trip later and there we were.

Loved the new layout in front of MK.

Yay! the obligatory castle shot!

It was obvious that they were getting ready for the Christmas parade taping, in fact we went to MK today as we intend to avoid it like the plague on the 3rd and 4th.

They were doing some taping at the castle itself though, but if you avoided the hub it wasn't really noticeable.

Well, we'd forgot to grab breakfast so we decided to try to get a walk up here:

I know it's not the best food on property, but Stacey does love this fella,

Well, he is so sad, you just want to take care of him...

The food here is buffet style so it's just help yourself.

Stacey grabbed most of the stuff that was veggie.

Where as I avoided the eggs. I did have a thing that they listed as potato casserole that was really nice but the rest was average breakfast fare.

Stacey grabbed a second plate including some of the potato casserole which she thought was weird as it had crumble on top, and a cheese omelette.

Now I said earlier that I only eat egg at one place but I'm now calling myself a liar as Stacey got me a vegetable omelette.

It actually wasn't that bad, though that was mainly because the egg was so thin that the other flavours overpowered it.

Then I had some fruit for desert and I was done.
Once we left Crystal Palace it was off to Adventure land
(at this point I'm just going to list the highlights, you can assume we rode most of the other rides).

We rode the Jungle Cruise of course.

Our skipper was skipper Jeff. With the cruise the skipper makes or breaks the attraction and skipper Jeff was on the money. He did some of the obvious jokes but snuck a few others in there that were new to me and made me laugh.

Look!!! It's the world famous back side of water!

 

[DisFanJen]

We also hit the Tiki room.

It's so much better now that the original management is back.

The new graveyard line for the Haunted Mansion is awesome!

It's one of the rare times I wished the line had gone slower so I could explore more.

As we wandered through Fantasyland we could see Beast's Castle well on it's way to completion.

When we'd pretty much done all of the attractions we wanted we made our way to the exit but decided to pop in to see Mickey on the off chance he was feeling 'chatty'. No such luck but I said hi since I was there anyway.

Then it was back to the ferry.

Bye bye MK!

Then we just did a quick run to WalMart to pick up some essentials (How the heck did we run up a $150 bill?! )

Then back to the room to have dinner (I love DVC ) and an early night as we had to be up early the next day for Boma Breakfast!

And no photos of the evening meal, you don't get to critique my cooking.

 

[BRABUS]

Hi Jen & Stacey, glad to see you are having fun over there again - yes we are all jealous

TheStalker over on welshsmarties. co. uk spotted your report and all your mates at home are now watching with great interest. So don't let us down, keep the photos and reports coming. We need to see lots of sunshine photos as we saw our first snow yesterday with more forecast for tomorrow


Anyway like I said have fun and have a group hug from all your Smartie friends

 

[PJB71]

Glad to hear you arrived safely

Weather looks good?? hope it will still be sunny on Wednesday when we arrive

 

[Linda67]

Sounds like you are having a wonderful trip so far

 

[DisFanJen]

Hi Jen & Stacey, glad to see you are having fun over there again - yes we are all jealous

TheStalker over on welshsmarties. co. uk spotted your report and all your mates at home are now watching with great interest. So don't let us down, keep the photos and reports coming. We need to see lots of sunshine photos as we saw our first snow yesterday with more forecast for tomorrow


Anyway like I said have fun and have a group hug from all your Smartie friends

Wow BRABUS! Nice to see you here!

I'll do my best to keep you all entertained.

 

[DisFanJen]

Glad to hear you arrived safely

Weather looks good?? hope it will still be sunny on Wednesday when we arrive

Weather has been wonderful until about an hour ago when it came over dark and we had a light shower.

but you know Florida. If the weather's bad just wait 1/2 hour and it's bound to change! lol!

 

[DisFanJen]

This one may be a 3 parter as I've already got 19 photos and the night isn't over yet but we'll see.

Firstly...

Man Down!!!

I didn't notice but somehow I snapped off an ear from my plastic Mickey head. Luckily I have one more though.

Anyhoo, we were up with the larks today as we were off to Boma for breakfast.

Oh, and I drove.

Had my licence for two weeks and one day and I just drove a Camaro around Disney! WooHoo!

The tree at AKL is beautiful.

So down to Boma for breakfast.

Stacey dove into anything veggie.

And I had pretty much the same apart from the boiled and scrambled egg. I love the food at Boma, especially the stewed tomato and onion thing called Chakalaka (sp?). I really need to get the recipe.

And this is the place that I eat the omelettes. I love the way they make them here and could eat them all day.

Then it was some fruit and a naughty bit of non-diabetic friendly yoghurt. Well I am on vacation.

Then it was off to AK for the day.

Just look at that blue sky. A beautiful day.

And another beautiful tree. But it does look a bit incongruous in all that blue.

Look! The obligatory tree shot!


We strolled around the park just relaxing and taking in the sights, though we did do a couple of my favourite rides 'Everest, Dinosaur, Primeval Whirl'. Mostly we relaxed and took in the atmosphere.

Oh, and Stacey met her friend again.

DiVine was out entertaining the guests. some people thought she was an animatronic!

And the the scenery was loverly... Till I dropped my walking stick and it fell in the river! So we had an exciting 5 minutes as Stacey got a castmember and we frantically tried to fish it out. Finally a random passer by jumped the fence and grabbed it for me. Well, that was exciting!

then we headed off to Conservation Station (with my cane squishing all the way ) and watched a couple of the animal encounters.

We met a frog mouthed bird of some kind (the one on the right, not AJ. )

A Macaw.

And this fella who obligingly came up and posed for me.

 

[DisFanJen]

Then we did the Pangani Forest Trail. Strangely we'd never done it before.

We saw these guys (no I don't know what they are).

And this little guy. You could tell how many Brits were around us by the amount of groans after I said 'simples'

Then we picked up 2 of the AP 2012 calendars (again, Disney and free, we just had to!) then it was a quick stop for at subway and back to the room to slowly get ready for our Cali Grill reservation.

For those who are interested, here's the calendar.

It has two pockets. The bottom one has the month in it and the top one has several different amazing Disney prints in it.

So you can mix and match what print you have with what month, or even take the prints out and frame them. Disney also provided a handy dandy guide of what print they thought best matched what month. As giveaways go this is a pretty good one.

Anyway, I'm off to watch a bit of telly before getting ready for our meal at Cali Grill. I'll post pt 3 when we get back. If I'm sober enough!

 

[Jordanblackpool]

Really enjoying your trip report, you have a great sense of humour!

 

[BRABUS]

Glad you are having a laugh. Rhiannon and I can't belive you drove that huge car after only just passing your test - Well Done


Now we need to see some roof down shots of BOTH of you driving it


Oh and why no pictures of your stick in the river, you know you will get home and people like TheStalker will try to re- enact the scene hehehe

 

[DisFanJen]

Really enjoying your trip report, you have a great sense of humour!

Thank you, thank you, I'm here all week. Don't forget to tip your server...

 

[DisFanJen]

Glad you are having a laugh. Rhiannon and I can't belive you drove that huge car after only just passing your test - Well Done

I was a bit of a 'granny' driving it, extra slow and careful and it was almost like lessons again with Stacey going 'A bit left, gentle on the breaks, etc.' but I did it.

Now we need to see some roof down shots of BOTH of you driving it

I'm sure that can be arranged.

Oh and why no pictures of your stick in the river, you know you will get home and people like TheStalker will try to re- enact the scene hehehe

Honest answer is I didn't think about it. Too busy worrying about getting it back. I really can't manage around WDW without it.

WDW is big, really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to WDW...

 

[DisFanJen]

So, off to the California Grill! Yay!!!

First thing I'd say is the dress code has got a lot more lax since I was last there. It was always 'business casual' not 'formal attire' but there were way to many people in shorts and T-Shirts for my liking.

Anyway, we got there way too early and sat around twiddling our thumbs and feeling overdressed till the magical buzzing machine told us it was time to be seated, then we were taken into the main dining area and sat right next to a window with this view!

Then we were told that the fireworks were at 10pm that night. In about 10 minutes. Result!

So we ordered and watched the fireworks while they prepared our meal.

Firstly we both had the goat's cheese ravioli. These were amazing! If all we could order was this we'd have still been happy.

Stacey then had the Butternut squash Lasagne. She really liked it but I only thought it was OK.

For me they made a medley of vegetarian dishes that were scrumptious!
There was a cheese polenta with mushrooms, Asian vegetables with rice, an Asian salad and some vegetarian flat bread. Absolutely marvellous!

Then is was on to desert!

Stacey had Bananas and Caramel, she said it was great but I didn't get the option to try it.

And I had trio of no added sugar deserts (from left to right):
A Pumpkin panna cotta. A banana desert similar to Stacey's and a cold rice pudding dish that was a lot nicer than it sounds. I wolfed it down! It was, in the technical term 'yummers'!

The first time we visited the Cali Grill about 4 years ago it was nice but I had to make do with a fruit bowl for desert and we both left still feeling a little hungry. Not so this time. All the food was great and we were stuffed by the end of it.

We thoroughly enjoyed it.

Oh, for those who like to do the maths and check value for money, not including the free valet parking (which saved us $24) we've already saved $40. One we've eaten at V&As it will have paid for itself.

 

[DisFanJen]

Today we decided to Tampa, the home of our baseball team, the Tampa Bay Rays. But we weren't heading there for a game, we were going to Busch Gardens.

Even so, we didn't get up till after 8 and by the time we got ready, had breakfast in the room, etc. we ended rocking up outside Busch Gardens at about 11am.

Errm, the obligatory Busch Gardens sign shot?

Just like Disney they were all decked out for Christmas.

Though the 'elves' on stilts made of presents were a bit weird.

We did the animal trail and rode the train through the 'savannah' and got a few good shots.

Like the chimps.

Gorillas.

Giraffes.

And a very cool baby Zebra.

Stacey then went and rode the new ride called 'Cheetah Hunt'.

I couldn't join her however as I'm a touch 'Pooh sized' and Busch Gardens aren't as generous as Disney is for size. which is a shame as it looked pretty good as you can see from the next shot we took from the skyline.

The skyline was really relaxing, and we got to see some of the animals from a new perspective.

Pretty cool eh?

But forget about all that stuff, bring on the food!

We ate at a place called the Crown Colony Restaurant.

I had a vegetable platter.

And Stacey had a Portobello Mushroom Sandwich.

Which she started munching before I could take a photo.

Then we went back so Stacey could ride the woody.

Then back to the car.

Oh for my friends on Welshsmarties, just to prove Floridians have taste, look what we found in the car park!

Then we were back on the road to Orlando. But even today we couldn't totally avoid Disney.

Yep, it's the Mickey Head Power Pylon.

Once back in the room. We chilled for an hour or two then Stacey wanted to go to a specific restaurant she's been dying to visit all trip....


Taco Bell!

I know, I don't get it either!

But anyhoo, we popped over to the Crossroads Mall and asked them for 'one of everything veggie'.

This is the only pic I took as well, stuff wrapped in a tortilla looks pretty much the same the world over, right?

It wasn't exactly fine dining but given that it was $12 including a drink for the both of us you can't complain.

Then it was back to the room where I typed a trip report and Stacey snored!

 

[DisFanJen]

We only just got back to the room so I'll post day 6 tomorrow morning.

But I will say this, I just had the best meal of my life...

 

[Linda67]

We only just got back to the room so I'll post day 6 tomorrow morning.

But I will say this, I just had the best meal of my life...

Oh the suspense !!

 

[DisFanJen]

I just tried to post last nights TR and it lost the lot after close to 2 hours typing so I'll try and give you a double post tonight. Used up way to much park time already!

 

[BRABUS]

Hey ladies I don't know if you are aware or not but you can track all of the cruise liners via this site

marinetraffic.com/ais/


and if you want to track your flights then try this

flightradar24.com

Sorry about the links, I haven't got enough posts to do proper ones yet but I am sure you can work it out

 

[DisFanJen]

Ok, Stacey is having a lie in after two late nights back to back so I've got a chance to catch up a little. So here we go again...

So today we were off to DHS, we grabbed a quick breakfast in the room and away we went.

Look! The obligatory hat shot! Hat shot? How lame it that?!

Again I'm just going to show the interesting stuff, and one of the first things we did was the new Star Tours as we hadn't seen it since it changed.

The outside looks pretty much the same.

But inside it's been snazzed up a bit.

I was a bit worried about what they had done as I was a fan of the original ride but the new ride was great! I won't go into details for those who want to avoid spoilers but I loved it.

We hit Toy Story Mania of course.

Stacey beat me and got the cat and I got the beaver. I didn't mind though, there's nothing wrong with a nice beaver.


Then we went to One Man's Dream. we always visit to see what cool new exhibits they have and it was Walt's 110th birthday.

Look! Proof! Lincoln was a robot!

Imagination!

Veggie, veggie, fruit, fruit!

Have you ever seen the film this is from? The Rocketeer. I've got it at home somewhere on Region 1 DVD.

We also had to do the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular. I mean it's a tradition!

Look! An actor pretending to be a member of the public!

Look! An actor pretending to be a camera man!

Look! Actors pretending to be actors! Oh, wait...


Then we had to leave early as the one down side of travelling light is more laundry!

So we went down to the closest pool and laundry room at SSR, put the stuff in then I read the Steve Jobs biography while we waited.

Look! A blue whale!

Then it was back to the room to get ready for dinner.

The Grand Floridian was beautiful as always.

The tree was wonderful.

And the Gingerbread house was amazing to see.

But we weren't here for sight seeing, we were here for the food.

Time for the best meal of our lives. In part 2...