June 2010: A Tribute To All Nations, But Mostly America - Update 8/22 MK FotD

[MouseEarsJenny]

Sorry for the delay - we've been working on VBS all week. But we built a 20 foot ship out of foam core poster boards.

Anyway, back to the trip report.

Our original Animal Kingdom touring plan had us leaving the Rainforest Cafe and heading to Dino-Rama, then proceeding in a counter-clockwise manner around the park. We wanted to minimize backtracking since we had the GAD fastpasses. But since we had already checked Primeval Whirl off our list before breakfast, that plan didn't make much sense. So we completely reversed our course and decided to head to Kilamanjaro Safaris first.

I took a few pictures along our route. I'm really fond of the atmosphere in Harambe and love the effort Disney puts into making it look not new. It's easy enough to slap a fresh coat of paint on something to keep it looking new. How does Disney constantly keep things looking distressed, but not actually let the elements destroy them? Boggles the mind.

We got our very first instant fastpasses, which was great. I know the CMs are probably used to it, but every time we did this, I felt like I was getting away with something. We would go to the machines, then walk directly to the line, and I would half expect someone to say, "Hey, you can't use those fastpasses now!" Of course, that never happened, but the whole experience was kind of surreal.

The safari line was pretty long, even with fastpass, and we probably waited 10-15 minutes before we boarded our truck. Nick has a short enough memory that he didn't remember the joke about the driver's favorite African folk song (It's a Small World) and thought that was really funny. The animals were great, as usual. I don't know why I take so many pictures of them. I do it at the zoo, too. It's not like I'm going to suddenly develop a need for six million animal pictures. But here's a ton of them anyway:

My favorite part of the safari was seeing this mother and baby rhino:

We walked through the Pagani trail next, because we had promised Scott we would actually see animals on this trip. What can I say about this trail? Hmm. Well. It was hot. Also, it was HOT. Did I mention it was HOT??

These little guys had the right idea staying in one of the few spots with A/C along the trail. Unfortunately, while they had a tank all to themselves, we were crammed into the little hut with half the population of a small midwestern town, so we didn't linger there too long. Especially after we saw the tank full of roaches. The turtles were cute, though.

I always like the meerkat area. Took a few pictures there, too. Probably singing "Dig a tunnel, dig dig a tunnel... quick before the hyena comes!" By the way, Lion King 1 and 1/2 is the funniest sequel ever made.

This section of the trip report is starting to sound like the Fellowship of the Ring. More walking. More walking. Only in this case, more walking. More animals. More walking.

More animals. More walking.

More animals. More walking.

More animals. More walking.

More animals. More walking.
So before you start wishing for a nice Balrog to liven things up, I'll leave you with this peaceful image of a waterfall. That I really wanted to jump into at this point. Cause did I happen to mention how HOT it was???

Up Next:

On My Summer Vacation, I Met A Walking Plant

 

[bobcat]

I'm really enjoying your trip report but what I really need to know about is where you found the brass hero shirt your son is wearing in the first post. My DS is a barritone player and would love that!

 

[MouseEarsJenny]

I'm really enjoying your trip report but what I really need to know about is where you found the brass hero shirt your son is wearing in the first post. My DS is a barritone player and would love that!

Welcome! Glad you're enjoying the report. Here's where we got the shirt:

http://store.marchingstore.com/07mwhero-brass.html

My son and daughter both have this shirt, since he's a trombone player and she plays horn. I think Nick prefers his other band shirt, though - it says "Without the trombone, there's no band!"

 

[arbolita]

Wow, you really lucked out with all the animals, and got some great shots!

 

[MouseEarsJenny]

We were really trying to see and do things we hadn't before in Animal Kingdom, so we headed next for Rafiki's Planet Watch or Conservation Station or whatever the heck it's called. The line for the train didn't look too bad. Last time, my mom and sister had reported standing in line for 45 minutes to catch the train. Just as they were about to board, we called them back because we were done at Everest. They were very unhappy about it. Gotta say, I don't think they missed much.

Other than the fact that it had three levels of benches facing the same way, the train was pretty much like any other amusement park train. What bugged me about the trip was the fact that we got to see the night enclosures for the animals. I understand the train was supposed to give us a backstage view, which is why these areas weren't prettied up for tourists. But if you're going to claim that you're not a zoo and that you are creating environments that are perfectly suited to the animals and so on, please don't show me that at night, you crowd those animals in small, dingy corrals and cages. Now instead of enjoying the animals in their "natural" surroundings, I have to think about them in caged barns all night.

Anyway, in addition to my disappointment with the backstage areas, I was HOT. And when we got off the train to discover signs stating that Rafiki's Whatever was down a trail through the woods and there was nowhere to buy water until we got there, I was not liking this area very much.

But Rafiki was pointing the way (although Scott said he was pointing him out as King of the Jungle) so we headed on down the trail. There were displays of how you could attract wildlife to your backyard, but they looked really run-down and dilapidated. When we came out of the overgrowth, we saw this building:

Now, I don't doubt that we are spoiled by being members of a world class zoo in Philadelphia. But this area seemed pretty standard to us. There was a keeper talking about a snake. (Okay, the fact that the snake was called Inigo Montoya was pretty funny.)

Some areas with tanks of small animals:

And several displays explaining how the animals are cared for during the regular operations of the park. Really, just your basic zoo stuff. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but considering we probably wasted 30 minutes each way getting to and from the building, I was underwhelmed.

The one blessing was the food cart outside and the air conditioning inside. We used a few snack credits on soda and lingered longer than we might have, knowing we had to walk back through the woods and ride back on the hot train.

The one great thing about Rafiki's Whatchamacallit was the character meet and greets. Obviously, Rafiki was there, which was cool because he's a favorite. I went all dorky and greeted him with "Jambo!" and thanked him with "Asante sana!" Can't help it. I'm a geek.

But much cooler on a purely geek level was the other character we met here. Actually stood in line while he took his break because how often do you see this????

Jiminy Cricket! Wow! I don't think I've even seen him before.

We lucked out and caught a train in the station when we headed back to the main park. Our next stop was supposed to be Asia. As I started to walk toward Asia, I saw the drum set up for the rhythm band and detoured slightly thinking I'd take pictures of the kids drumming. (Maybe. Cause they both think drummers are evil. It's a marching band thing.) But Scott sharply called my name, causing me to look where he was looking. It was DiVine!!

We have never seen her and always wanted to. We were very excited and amazed. The pictures and descriptions on the DIS don't do her justice. For one thing, I don't know how anyone gets a good picture of her. She is constantly in motion, like an unending flow of plant. It was great to watch the unsuspecting reactions of the crowd she drew everywhere. Some people walked right by and others just stopped and stared. We joined the stopping and staring crew for a few minutes, but it was more of a walking and staring - as I said, she never seems to stop moving.

Finally, we decided to tear ourselves away and get some photopass pictures taken in the overlook for the Tree of Life.

The photographer was really nice and took a few with our camera without us even asking.

Then he started setting us up with magic shots. We knew just what he was planning when he had us all look at Kai's hand.

But we weren't real sure why there were so many people behind him as he set us up for this Simba shot. That is, until we saw who had snuck into the background...

Yup. Look REALLY close at the upper right hand corner of that photo. Now THAT's a magic shot!!

We crossed into Asia, in a really good mood from our encounter. Kai thought she recognized this statue - she claims it's the broken dragon statue from Mulan! (You know, the "great stone dragon" whose head MuShu borrows?) Makes sense to me...

Scott wanted Yak and Yeti for lunch. Nick didn't see anything at all he liked on the menu, and I was frankly not even a little bit hungry. So Scott and Kai ordered lunch while we ran over to Royal Anandpur Tea Co. for frozen chai. Hungry or not, I'd been craving a frozen chai for months. I got a large, and another one for Scott. Bad idea. I may love it, but it was hard to finish!

Meanwhile, Scott picked up honey chicken:

And Kai got some kind of Asian salad:

Kai thought the salad was just okay. I didn't much like the one piece of Scott's chicken I stole, but I don't remember what he thought of it. I'm fairly sure he didn't like it. They both got frozen lemonades for dessert.

The seating area was completely mobbed, and Scott and Kai had to take a table in the full sun. I couldn't stand it after a few minutes, so I started exploring around until I found a partially shaded table farther back in the courtyard, and moved everyone back there.

Turns out Nick wasn't hungry for two reasons. One, he didn't like the food. Two, he had decided now that we were in Asia, that he could NOT ride Everest. Now, we had bribed the child $10 for every new thrill ride he tackled, and he is quite the mercenary. So I was pretty surprised. He had talked big about being able to do the coasters this time. But something about Everest (okay, the lift hill of Everest) had him reconsidering. He was getting really upset and grumpy and once I realized it was about Everest, I told him that I would keep encouraging him to try, but if he said no, I wasn't going to drag him on kicking and screaming. He said "no" and his mood immediately improved.

Up Next:

On My Summer Vacation, I Climbed Mount Everest

 

[MouseEarsJenny]

Wow, you really lucked out with all the animals, and got some great shots!

Thanks! We did see quite a few animals - it was still fairly early in the morning, which I think may have helped.

 

[TaraPA]

LOVE the shot with Divine in the background! I'm a huge fan of hers. I've never seen the Divine you did - there must be a few different actors that play her. I get mesmerized just staring at her!

Here's a tip for next time (which you may already know about) - if getting Y&Y CS, take your food across the street, there are a few small sitting areas right along the water. You're just off the path, yet feel a million miles away.

 

[MouseEarsJenny]

Nick was in a much better mood now that he wasn't dreading Everest. He loves to take pictures and is always begging for the camera, so we let him take this shot of us and then left him in the gift shop to wait.

Even with fastpass, we waited in line a little while. We found a hidden mickey dented into a lantern from one of the "expeditions" on display. I probably would have enjoyed the queue more if I weren't worried about Nick being by himself.

I think Everest might be Kai's favorite ride in all of Disney World, and we were finally boarding!

So, after about 10-15 minutes of wait, we were headed up the mountain...

...discovering the (gasp!) broken tracks...

...getting menaced by the Yeti...

... and of course, laughing like loons. Everest is just such a rush. Fun, fun ride. Nick met us in the gift shop, but was not amenable to being talked on the ride. We didn't want him to have to wait while we rode again, because when you think about it, he really hadn't done anything yet except the safari. We didn't want to ride the safari again, either, so I paused by the standby line of Everest for a second. I heard a family debating getting into the standby line, which had about a 50 minute wait, versus getting fastpasses and having to come back later. I interrupted, explained the instant fastpasses we had, and led them over to the machines. The two boys with them were bouncing up and down with excitement and the mom and dad thought it was pretty cool, too. They decided it must have been about the hat - the dad was wearing a BoSox hat like Nick's. I didn't have the heart to tell them that Nick is the only Boston fan in the house. They were happy, we were happy. Kai and Nick especially liked giving away the fastpasses, and it would become a tradition over the next few days.

Nick had now patiently endured two coasters he didn't want to ride, a hot walk through the jungle, and lunch that didn't interest him. It was more than time to go to the one ride he actually looked forward to in Animal Kingdom - Kali River Rapids. We had never ridden on it before - either the line was too long, or fastpasses were for too late, or we just ran out of steam in the park. But he loves boat rides like this one.

I had planned to bring a change of clothes, but decided at the last minute to just get wet. I usually hate getting wet in my clothes, and hate even more walking in wet clothes. But changing seemed like such a hassle. And it was so hot by that point I don't think it would have mattered.

The ride was your basic circle raft ride. It was nowhere near as wet as the one at our local amusement park, but we all got fairly soaked. The theming was nice, but the ride itself was quite short. The best bit was the relatively long drop (for a raft ride) at one point. Nick loved it. He wanted to go again. The Daisy GAD fastpasses are only good for Kali, Dinosaur, and It's Tough to be a Bug. We all disliked Dinosaur last time. We have NO desire to be in a theater featuring bugs. So we rode Kali again. And again. We were like drowned rats by the time we finished off our fastpasses.

I did have a little guilt about riding three times in a row while so many people waited in the standby. Especially since the design of the queue here is so very foolish. The fastpass side is open to the non-fastpass side many, many times during the long walk from the entrance. We saw tons of families switching over to the left side as they walked, only to get turned back at the very end because they didn't have fastpasses. And once you got to the merge point, the fastpass CMs just waved you in and expected you to merge into the line - which was not easy with the standby people giving you angry looks.

But we had done our homework, and done our volunteering, and my son was happy. So I shrugged off the guilt and had a good time. Kai seemed to keep getting the "lucky" not wet seat - but it was unlucky for her because she WANTED to get wet.

Actually, even after three trips on Kali, Nick decided he wasn't quite wet enough. So he stopped to breathe underwater for a minute.

It was only early afternoon, but we decided we didn't want to try to see Finding Nemo or walk the Maharajah Jungle Trek dripping wet. So we headed back to the buses.

This little guy greeted us when we got back to our room at Pop.

After we changed, Nick decided he was too hungry to wait for dinner at Chef Mickey's (remember, he skipped Yak and Yeti) so we headed over to Classic Hall to kill some time and get some food, and refill our mugs.

Nick had a bacon cheeseburger, fries, and a chocolate cake. He liked it all, which was not a surprise.

Kai and Scott both decided to spend snack credits. Kai got an apple turnover and Scott got a sundae.

Our package had come with an arcade play card that purported to be for 30 minutes. When scanned, what it actually gave us was about 8 quarters worth. The kids pooled their credits to play some air hockey.

Then they played a two player round of Donkey Kong. It was a bit too old school for them and they both failed utterly.

Nick has a fanatical obsession with Fantasmic! and he had decided that one of his souvenirs this time was going to be sorcerer Mickey ears. We detoured by Everything Pop to get them.

We hung out in the room for a bit, reading and doing laundry. The kids watched closed captioned TV on mute for a while. Finally, we decided to just head to Chef Mickey's, even if we'd be a bit early. We took the bus to the MK and walked over to the Contemporary.

While we waited for dinner, Nick decided he wants to stay at the Contemporary next time because of the view we had of their pool and water slide. Keep dreamin', kid! We also had our family portrait taken, which they suckered us into buying, naturally.

Maybe it's because we weren't very hungry, but we spent quite a lot of time at Chef Mickey's just waiting for characters to show up at our table. We all went up for a plate of food. Then a plate of dessert.

We were more or less done, but we'd only seen two characters. So we lingered. Nick wanted to just leave, actually. But we convinced him to stay, even when we were only waiting for Minnie Mouse. The food was okay, but not as good as we remembered. But it was still fun, if a bit noisy and crowded. And I know this may bring flames down upon my head, but we've never let our kids behave in a restaurant the way some of the kids in the restaurant were behaving. Not even when they were little.

Anyway, we got lots of good pictures with the characters, who spent about 20 seconds at our table after seeing we had well behaved older children. Maybe we SHOULD let our kids run around and scream and jump on the characters...

Goofy was the only one who took a few minutes to be, well, goofy.

And after much waiting, Minnie finally stopped by.

Unfortunately, it took another 15 minutes for our waitress to stop by with our check. And another 10 for her to return with it. By the time we left, Scott and I were reluctantly saying that this was probably our last trip to Chef Mickey's. The kids love the characters, but it's not the driving force it used to be. The food is decent, but nothing special. Plus, for $35.99, Nick ate some salad (from a mix), one piece of broccoli, and a soft serve ice cream. (Granted, he had a late lunch, but really? $35 broccoli??) And the atmosphere is just not for us anymore. But tradition may win out in the end, and bring us back next time.

If anyone is curious, our total came to $186.70, plus the picture. Since we stuck with the quick service dining plan, this was out of pocket.

When we got to the Pop bus stop, there were three families in the handicap lane with strollers. Not ECV's, or medical strollers, just standard baby strollers. The bus pulled up and started offloading someone on a ECV. I was a little frustrated because the handlers weren't telling the families in the handicap line to get into the regular line. Just then, another bus pulled up and the entire regular line was moved into that bus, leaving the families with their strollers still waiting for the first bus. Oops. The bus was crowded, and hot, and standing room only. Someone yelled for the bus driver to put on the A/C, but it was broken. But at least we were on our way back to the hotel.

After another nighttime swim (again, no pictures because I was swimming, and it was dark) we all headed to bed. It was only our first full day, and it felt like we had accomplished quite a lot. Plus, the next day was the dreaded and feared EPCOT day! (Ominous music....)

Up Next:
On My Summer Vacation, We Piloted a Spacecraft

 

[MouseEarsJenny]

LOVE the shot with Divine in the background! I'm a huge fan of hers. I've never seen the Divine you did - there must be a few different actors that play her. I get mesmerized just staring at her!

Here's a tip for next time (which you may already know about) - if getting Y&Y CS, take your food across the street, there are a few small sitting areas right along the water. You're just off the path, yet feel a million miles away.

Nope, had no idea about the water seating. I'd say we'd hunt it up next time, but I think we may switch back to Flame Tree for lunch. Or maybe try Tusker House. Thanks for the tip, though!

I thought the DiVine we saw looked different from the pictures I had seen, but I wasn't sure. She is pretty incredible! Kai kept worrying about how hot she must be in her costume. This from the kid who marches in polyester long sleeves and pants carrying a mellophone in August.

 

[PrincessPSU]

Hi!

I'm loving your trip report. It is getting me through the next 29 days until we leave!

I also have a girl and a boy, they are 5 and 2. I love having them still as "babies", and don't want to speed up time. But there is something to be said about touring the parks with older ones. Looks like you are all having a great time.

As you can see by my name, I'm a huge PSU fan, I hope your son gets his dream job!

 

[MouseEarsJenny]

I woke up with a nasty rash on my arms from the mangoes in the food at Chef Mickey's. Or maybe the tropical iced tea at Wolfgang Puck's. Who knows? At the time, I was blaming it on Chef Mickey's. We headed to Pop for breakfast. It was still dark. Why, oh, why, was I up before dawn on vacation??

There was only one station open at the Pop food court this early, so we had our choice of waffles, waffles, or possibly waffles. We chose waffles. Nick got a waffle with bacon and two drinks.

I had been told off on the restaurant board a few weeks ago when I asked if a pastry or fruit could be substituted for the second drink on the dining plan at breakfast. The replies were basically "I've NEVER heard of getting food for a drink!" and heavy on the implication that I was trying to bilk the system. Thing was, I HAD heard of it. However, since I had gotten yelled at for suggesting it, I wasn't even going to bother asking. But Kairi wanted a chocolate croissant instead of a waffle. So I was going to use a snack credit for her croissant and counter service credits for everyone else's breakfast. When I got to the counter, the CM looked at me like I had two heads. "Why would you want to use a snack credit? You can get her croissant as a side item instead of a second drink!" I thought about telling her that she was wrong, and that the DISboards OBVIOUSLY know more than the actual CMs working the food court. But in the end, Scott got a piece of fruit instead of his second drink, and I got Kairi's croissant instead of my second drink. Okay. Done being snarky. Here's pictures of the rest of the food.

Only problem was, if you've been counting, you know we now have two extra counter service credits - one from my skipped lunch yesterday, and one from Kairi's skipped breakfast. It was free, so no big deal, but it was starting to become clear that the QSDP was not for us. But the breakfast meats were good, even if the waffles were dry, and we headed to the bus stop with full stomachs.

Course, we got to watch the sun come up from the bus stop.

In case you're wondering why we're up so freakin' early, it comes down to two words - Le Cellier. The only ADR available at Le Cellier for this trip was a lunch on this date. This date happened to be morning EMH at EPCOT. We usually avoid morning EMH like the plague. So far this trip, we'd hit it at both AK and EPCOT. So we were a bit tired.

The bus arrived after the usual 15 buses for other destinations. The bus driver turned off the canned spiel and commentated on the park. He was very funny, and we enjoyed the trip. We got to the park to discover that once again, Will Call wasn't open to get our GAD fastpasses. We lined up at a Will Call window to wait, when Nick spotted an open one at around 7:20. We hustled over and got our fastpasses, and were in line by 7:30.

When the rope dropped, everyone hustled toward Soarin'. Except us. We stopped to have our picture taken by a Photopass guy.

And by mom.

Then we strolled onto Spaceship Earth.

We figured the CMs must have thought we were total Disney newbies. Why would we get there for rope drop to ride Spaceship Earth? The ride was pretty deserted. I spent most of my time trying to find the right camera settings to capture dark rides without flash. This was the best I came up with, so I still had some work to do.

Nick and I rode together, and he loved the video of us in our house of the future. We took our sweet time walking across the Innoventions plaza, enjoying the nearly empty park.

We headed over to Test Track next, and were completely bummed to discover it was down. It's another ride we've just never managed to try before, so it was a priority for this trip. Instead, we detoured to Mission:Space. There was no wait, so we didn't bother with our fastpasses.

I'm claustrophobic and don't do well on spinning rides (the Tilt-a-Whirl makes me ill) so I had always avoided this ride. But I figured if I could handle the little box for Cyberspace Mountain, I could handle the green side here. While we went through the pre-show and boarding, Kairi was getting seriously nervous. We talked her onto the ride. I actually really, really liked it. Enough to seriously consider trying the orange side. Someday. In the distant future. The computer had to override every time it was Nick's turn to push a button because he would bang his hand over the entire button, but the button was encased in a metal ring so you had to actually poke the center rather than press the whole thing. He just didn't get it, and I couldn't reach over to help. The tight quarters did bother me, but as long as I looked at the screen, it was okay phobia wise.

We stopped to send video postcards, which I just now realized we never got. But it was fun to create them anyway.

Test Track was still down when we came out, and Innoventions was not quite open. Innoventions was supposed to open at 9:00 AM, but we waited by the doors and they didn't open until 9:15. No matter, we were still in the first group onto Sum of All Thrills.

That is, until we got through the pre-show and Nick decided he had to go to the bathroom. We had already started designing our coaster, so Scott was trying to tell me he would take Nick, and with the time it took to try and explain, we ran out of design time. The computer automatically filled in the rest of the track based on what we had done so far. Since we had only put in one relatively small hill, we ended up with a pathetically lame ride.

We got off and looked around for Scott and Nick. Nowhere to be seen. I called them and found out why - they had gotten back in line and were in the pre-show. *sigh* They had the full design time and their ride looked much more fun.

In the interest of avoiding an "EPCOT Day" (which is family code for a meltdown due to historic events at EPCOT), we tried to curb our argument about splitting up. It didn't really matter anyway, because I think everyone liked Cyberspace Mountain better. Meanwhile, Test Track was finally working, so we grabbed our GAD fastpasses and got in line.

This ride had the longest post-merge wait time of all of the fastpass attractions we visited. The theming was cool, but it's a really slow loading ride. I think when we come back without GAD fastpasses, I would hustle here first rather than Soarin'. While we waited, we discovered Kairi was apparently the perfect size to be a test dummy - 13 year old girl model.

Finally, we were in our car. The kids decided they wanted to be in the back, but the CM wanted us two and two. So they were pretty much on their own for a new ride they were both nervous about. Turned out just fine, but I love the expressions on their faces in the photopass shot.

Test Track is now one of our favorite rides at EPCOT, but that's not saying a whole lot. You may be getting the vibe here that EPCOT is not our favorite park. That's a bit of an understatement, really. There are selected things we like, but for the most part, we're just not EPCOT fans. But we are Club Cool fans, so that's where we headed next.

In fact, I may possibly have worn this shirt just because we were coming to Club Cool. I like the watermelon soda, but I wish they had familiar Coke products, too.

Nick tried everything, and every combination of everything. Scott actually LIKES Beverly, and he talked Nick into it again. (He always manages to do that...) Nick's Beverly face:

There were several broken stations this time - I think only two were actually working, which was a bummer. Kai bought her first souvenir in the form of Cherry Coke lipgloss. Scott was flabbergasted by the price, but hey, her money.

We headed over to the Living Seas and rode the Nemo ride. As usual, I was the only one who liked it. But we all like the seagulls outside. "Mine!"

I would have wandered around the aquariums for awhile, but the kids were bored (they've both been to many aquariums) and Scott was nauseous (the Living Seas always does that to him) so after finding Nemo, we left.

Up Next:

On My Summer Vacation, We Went Hang Gliding

 

[MouseEarsJenny]

Hi!

I'm loving your trip report. It is getting me through the next 29 days until we leave!

I also have a girl and a boy, they are 5 and 2. I love having them still as "babies", and don't want to speed up time. But there is something to be said about touring the parks with older ones. Looks like you are all having a great time.

As you can see by my name, I'm a huge PSU fan, I hope your son gets his dream job!

Glad you're enjoying the report! That last month is the hardest!

Our last trip included a four year old and a two year old along with our own and an extra 9 year old. I can definitely say touring was much easier this time! But the little ones make it even more magical.

I hope he gets his dream job, too, but as a parent it's hard when your kid picks a one-of-a-kind job like that. Might as well want to be the starting QB for the Packers, or the President, or an Oscar winning actor, know what I mean? But we shall see!

 

[arbolita]

I actually like Beverly too. My former roommate is planning a Disney trip and our trips will overlap on two days - one we have set at Universal, and the other at Epcot. I am hoping she'll join us in the morning at Epcot so I can con her into trying Beverly and get her picture, hahaha.

 

[MouseEarsJenny]

My kids came home from Grandma's and brought chaos with them. But I'll try to get a few updates done here. For starters, let's finish off Future World...

From the Living Seas, we headed to Soarin'. Nick hates this ride. Last trip, he wouldn't ride it. He's afraid of heights, so that makes sense. But the rest of us really like it. Surprisingly, he agreed to ride with us.

The line was really long. Even with the GAD fastpass, it took us about 15 minutes. The standby time was listed at 50 minutes, but I highly doubt that was accurate. We were willing to wait even longer for a front row seat though, so I asked the CM about it nicely when we got to the front of the queue. He immediately sent us ahead to the next loading area and put us in the front. I'd say it's definitely worth asking if you like the top row.

As we rode, I found out why Nick was willing to ride. He kept his eyes firmly shut for the entire ride. Didn't open them once. He was pretty miserable. As usual, the rest of us loved the ride. It really feels like you are flying - or at least, it makes my stomach feel the same way floating up in the zoo balloon feels.

We realized we didn't have time for both Living with the Land and Journey into Imagination before our Le Cellier ADR, so we decided to forgo the greenhouses and headed to the Imagination Institute.

I realized about halfway through the ride that I really don't like this ride any more. I mean, yeah, Figment is cute. But it's really a fairly boring little ride. I think I actually like the Cat in the Hat ride at Universal better. I know. Rank heresy. But there it is.

We headed to Le Cellier for our lunch ADR. We've never really understood the negative reviews this place sometimes gets on the DIS. We've had consistently good experiences here. Until now.

The trip to Canada started innocently enough. We took our time walking in and enjoyed the gardens.

When we got inside, the restaurant wasn't actually open, so we got to hear the staff start the day with O Canada. Which was kind of cool. Except that all of the early ADRs were crowded into that tiny entryway. And until they started singing, it looked like 10 employees were just standing there ignoring the crowd.

Our waitress seemed nice enough as she took our drink orders. Nick ordered the chef's selections, which meant he got to choose an appetizer and he picked the Spicy Chicken and Chipotle Sausage. Scott ordered a cup of the cheddar cheese soup. We waited several minutes for the appetizers. She brought out three breadsticks. We broke the breadsticks to share them between four people and set them on our plates. When the waitress returned with the appetizers, most of the breadsticks were still on our plates. She looked at the empty basket and said "Wow, you INHALED those breadsticks!" Um. There are four of us. You brought us three breadsticks. They're divided on our plates. Seriously?

We all shared Nick's appetizer when he found it a bit spicy. It was probably the best thing we ate at this meal - the polenta was delicious and complemented the sausage and greens very well. Nearly 15 minutes later, the waitress came back. She stared at the empty appetizer plate and said "Wow, did you even taste that?"

Okay. There are FOUR people at the table. We've had fifteen minutes to eat one sausage, a bit of polenta, a cup of soup and three breadsticks. Maybe I'm oversensitive because I'm a recovering fat girl. But do you really think commenting on the amount of food your patrons eat and the time it takes them is polite?? Really??

She then brought out our main courses. Nick ate the steak off of his salad and left all the greens. I tried the onion tart that came with his entree. It was mushy and nasty. He REALLY should have ordered the kids' steak, but he was afraid they wouldn't let him because he's ten. Oh well. That was an ordering issue, not a restaurant issue, so I won't hold that against them. Kai had the caesar salad, which she proclaimed not as good as Wolfgang Puck's. Scott and I both had the mushroom filet. The filet was delicious as always and the truffle butter takes it right over the edge into heavenly. But the risotto was horribly salty this time.

So we're sitting there trying to enjoy our meal even though we all feel slightly disappointed by our favorite restaurant. And who should come back to the table but the waitress. We've all got more than half of our entrees on our plates, and are clearly eating. She says "Did you save room for dessert?"

Okay. Ya know what??? A few minutes ago, I was INHALING my food. Now I'm not eating fast enough for you?? As civilly as I could manage, I said, "Maybe when I'm finished with my entree."

I've never seen how someone could not like Le Cellier. But if this had been my first experience with the place, I would not be back, and I might be one of the DISers who doesn't understand the appeal of the place. Which is sad, because like I said, it's a favorite. I'm hoping we caught them on a bad day. We'll probably be back. But probably not next trip.

At any rate, the kids finished off with chocolate moose and they were happy. So it was all good.

Our bill, including tip (yes, I gave her the standard 20%, I'm a sucker) was $149.10.

Fortunately, we didn't have time to dwell on our lunch disappointment. We were going to attempt a challenge that would cleanse our palate and probably terrify our waitress. If she was surprised we could eat three breadsticks in 15 minutes, she would be shocked to discover we were now going to try and eat our way around the world showcase in only 5 hours! Could we do it??

Up Next...

On My Summer Vacation, I Ate In 11 Countries

 

[natesmom11]

Flightless Duck has an irrational fear of matching shirts. Okay, so it's a mostly rational fear due to a nasty trick my mom inadvertantly played on him last year. She knew we all had the same shirt - a blue shirt with a gold pelican advertising her business. So she told him that "everyone" was wearing it on our last day at MK. Being a very good son-in-law, he wore it, even though he hates it like Gollum hates hobbits, precious.

I admit, we all looked pretty horrible in the shirts. But worse yet, only our family and grandma actually wore the stupid shirts.

So as you can see, Scott spent most of that day hiding and being miserable, and has therefore declared matching shirts taboo.

But I like the way it looks in pictures when we don't clash. So, very sneakily, I took the family to the Disney Store.

And wouldn't you know it, we came home with four shirts that match enough for me, but don't offend Scott's sense of individuality.

Scott got:

I got:

Nick got:

and Kairi got:

(Yes, I know. Last one is my pathetic attempt at simulating the Disney store pictures. But the online Disney store didn't have this shirt. It has sparkles when you see it in person. So does mine, for that matter.)

So now you will see us (oh, so very soon) in front of the castle matching. But not really matching.

(But I KNOW I won. So that's okay.)

i got all the same shirts the top one for my husband, 2nd one is mine and then my son nathans and my mom got the last one for our sept trip

 

[MouseEarsJenny]

i got all the same shirts the top one for my husband, 2nd one is mine and then my son nathans and my mom got the last one for our sept trip

I hope they bring you luck! The day we wore those shirts we were picked as Magic Kingdom Family of the Day! But I'm getting ahead of my story!

 

[MouseEarsJenny]

Too much food, too many pictures - this post is going to need to be a two-parter.

So. We've been to Disney quite a bit. Not as often as some DISers, but 4 times in the past 8 years, and several childhood visits for DH and I. But we'd never made it all the way around the World Showcase. The closest we came was last year. We made it as far as Norway in one direction, and then cut across the lagoon to Japan, Morocco, and the American pavillion. But we'd never been to the UK, France, Italy, Germany, or China. And we'd never made the full loop of the lagoon.

This time, we were determined. We were psyched. And we were loaded down with more snack credits than we knew what to do with. So we decided we would sample a snack in every country of the world showcase. It's a dangerous job. But someone's gotta do it.

We had already eaten in Canada, so we figured we had that covered, cuisine-wise. Our next stop was the UK. We figured the first thing we should do was phone for EMTs to meet us at the end of our trip.

Okay, so maybe we didn't call the EMTs. But we tried to get into the Ministry of Magic by dialing 62442. Then we realized we were in the wrong theme park for that. While we were being giant dorks, we heard a conversation of someone passing by. He asked, I kid you not, "What does the UK stand for?" And he was serious. The person with him answered. And he said, "Oh." We may be giant dorks. But you, sir...

We took a few minutes to enjoy the theming. I liked the look of the Rose and Crown Pub, although Raglan Road is better, obviously.

I also thought this little cottage housing a tea shop was adorable. We wandered the shops for a bit, and laughed at the Harry Potter merchandise on sale in the toy shop. We almost waited for Mary Poppins in the character area, but there seemed to be a snafu in the character breaks and we got tired of hanging around.

We headed to the Yorkshire County Fish Shop to get an order of chips. Listening to the CM ring up our order was worth the price of admission. I honestly could just sit there all day and listen to her talk. Her accent rocked.

Speaking of rocking, the chips definitely did. Crisp on the outside, soft and flavorful on the inside - Nick now swears his favorite fries aren't fries, they're chips from the UK pavillion.

Munching on our chips, we headed across the bridge. And what's just across the channel? France, of course!

Nick expressed interest in the movie, to our surprise. So we headed back to watch Impressions de France. Stopping to imitate gargoyles, cause, hey. It was there.

The movie served its purpose on two levels. First, it was air conditioned. More to the point, however, watching the movie made me wish I was actually seeing the sights of France, rather than sitting in a sanitized version watching a movie. Which I realized was the point. Why does a nation sponsor a pavillion in EPCOT? To connect with people who have discretionary vacation money and get them to think that their country might be a nice place to visit.

Anyway, we headed to pick up our snack for France when we came across two street performers just starting their show.

The Serveur Amusant show was great. The performers were funny and conveyed their meaning without speaking once.

My only problem with this show was that watching them made me convinced that we were going to witness a horrible accident when the balancing waiter fell to the pavement.

To my surprise (although presumably not to his) the performer survived to balance precariously another day.

We headed to the two kiosks near the water. I wanted a chocolate crepe as our snack for France. Scott wanted a Grey Goose Slushie.

The crepe was delicious...

...but the slushie was better! Kai didn't get to try the slushie, obviously, so she was just happy to sit down for a minute. It was getting really, really, really hot.

Our next stop was Morocco. We got a baklava at the Tangeirine Cafe, paying out of pocket because they didn't take snack credits. It was a baklava. I've had better, but then I've had homemade. This tasted like any boxed baklava you've ever eaten.

We also got a water because we were all really thirsty from the heat. We wandered around the pavillion for a bit, looking at architecture. I really did try to appreciate it, and the theming was nice. But to be honest, it was kind of boring. I think I'd be less bored if it were real architecture in the actual country.

Our next country was Japan, and we were a bit early to see Miyuki. We took in more architecture...

...and lined up by the rope. We were really early, so Scott offered to go get our Japanese snack - Kaki Gori. He doesn't like Miyuki, so don't let him con you into thinking it was a sacrifice.

The Kaki Gori was refreshing and the flavors were interesting. I like the texture of Rita's ice back home better. But it was frozen sugar on a hot day, so what's not to like?

Kairi decided she didn't want to wait by the rope in case she got picked instead of her brother. She was picked last time and she knew he really wanted to choose an animal, even though he wouldn't get to keep it.

Sure enough, Miyuki started by demonstrating a flamingo and then asked for a suggestion from Nick for the next animal. He chose a tiger.

Nick and I are of the same opinion of Miyuki - we think she's awesome. We could have stayed for her whole show.

But Scott and Kai were looking bored, so after we saw Nick's tiger completed, we only hung around for one more animal and then headed into the gift shop.

Everyone but me looked around, but I just found a corner of the store and sat down in the A/C for awhile. When we left, Miyuki was just finishing up her show, but Nick didn't want a picture with his tiger. After a stop to watch the koi, we strolled on. Okay, so we were trudging at this point, not strolling. It was hot. We were bored.

Up Next...

On My Summer Vacation, I Ate In 11 Countries (Part Two)

 

[MouseEarsJenny]

Our next stop was the American pavillion. We had debated about whether we should bother getting a snack here. I mean, after all, we were IN America. So technically, they were ALL American snacks, right? Plus, we thought it was a bit silly hanging around a replica of Independence Hall. Cause you know. We're from the Philly area. We have the real one.

But we decided to try the American Dream from the Fife and Drum Tavern. As the CM who rang it up said, it was "Very patriotic!"

Actually, all kidding aside, it turned out to be one of our favorite snacks of this little adventure. The combination of the two slushy flavors with the soft serve ice cream was really quite tasty. Plus the treat was super cold, and we were easily able to find shaded seating to eat (drink?) it.

Our table infringed on the territory of this very odd bird, however, who came begging for a handout. Since Scott's not a bird fan, we moved on to Italy.

Being dorks, we made jokes about Percy's dad.

Attempting to feign interest, we oohed and aahed over the fake architecture.

Realizing the only available snack was gelato and we JUST HAD ice cream, we settled for Italian chocolates.

They weren't half bad. And these half masks were gorgeous. But just a touch out of my price range for decorative and useless things.

Next stop, Germany. We looked at the model train. And yawned. And complained about the heat.

We walked toward Sommerfest and Kai wisecracked "How'd we get in Fantasyland?"

We ate a stupendously bad pretzel. (Again, Philly area. With ties to New York. We know from pretzel.) Scott had a beer. I got annoyed. It was his third adult beverage of the afternoon. I don't honestly know why that annoyed me. Except he generally will not drink more than one alcoholic beverage when we are out with the kids. And I felt like, hey, you made us walk around this stupid World Showcase and you're fighting boredom with drinks and I just have to be bored?? Which made no sense. Cause I could have had drinks. But it was EPCOT. Arguments in EPCOT don't need to make sense.

We moved on to China. It was unbearably hot. We had just missed the Dragon Legend Acrobats. The next show wasn't for almost an hour. No freaking way we were hanging around.

We got caramel-ginger ice cream. It SUCKED. It was easily the worst thing I ate all trip. It tasted like cardboard. Only more stale. Really, really gross. We all took one bite and threw it away.

Then, something wonderful happened. We saw a RIDE. An actual RIDE. Yes. We're pathetic. And low brow. And uncultured swine. I really don't care. We were in Norway, and they had a ride. A cheesy ride. A troll-infested ride. But a ride, nevertheless. We were all in a much better mood almost immediately. Even when this guy attacked.

We skipped the movie like experienced Norway visitors. We posed with the troll, cause hey, he's there.

We ate school bread, and it was yummy.

And we found out they have an exhibit inside the stave church. Who knew? Eric the Red, that's who!

Plus, now we could say we went to church on Sunday.

The final pavillion drew happy dancing from the kids.

I did some happy dancing myself when Scott said "We never have to do that again." YES!

Actually, I like the Mexico pavillion. I even like the Gran Fiesta Tour. So we went in and enjoyed the atmosphere and the ride. Although Scott was spacing out on the ride and texting which annoyed me. Cause it was an EPCOT day, despite our best efforts to the contrary.

We got in line for churros to finish our snacktacular. But while we were in line, my mom called my phone, and I felt like I should answer because she had only been communicating by text to this point. This annoyed Scott, but he was even more upset when he got the news - our dog had gotten sick and had to be rushed to the vet. She's very old, and we were pretty worried she might not make it. I took a bite of churro to be completist. I didn't like it.

We headed out of the park sad and mopey. Scott was seriously considering ending the vacation to go home and deal with Honey (the dog). Then it started raining. We ducked into a gift shop, where Kai did some shopping. We considered other rides, but we all voted to return to the hotel (Scott might have been the dissenting vote for Ellen's Energy Adventure, I don't remember.) We still had plenty of GAD fastpasses, so we stopped and gave away a set of Test Track passes. Unfortunately, the family we chose didn't speak English well, so they went to the wrong entrance, but I think the CM sorted them out.

We did get stopped on the way out by a photopass CM. I wasn't hopeful because of our mood, but oddly, the pictures turned out to be some of my favorites from the whole trip. Guess we're pretty good actors!

To cap it all off, we were seated on the return bus by a family who was loudly discussing their princess lunch at Akershus. The father, who I nicknamed "Redneck Joe" was joking that they needed a "redneck princess" who was into "tractor sex". Um. Hello. CHILDREN ON THIS BUS??

Up Next...
On My Summer Vacation, I Went Over A Waterfall In A Tube

 

[FlightlessDuck]

Sorry for the delay - we've been working on VBS all week. But we built a 20 foot ship out of foam core poster boards.

What she said. I am going to chime in with my thoughts on AK now and try to catch up to Jenn tomorrow.

I took a few pictures along our route. I'm really fond of the atmosphere in Harambe and love the effort Disney puts into making it look not new.

I tend to miss stuff like this, but made sure I made note of theming this trip. I really liked this area of Animal Kingdom, as well.

We got our very first instant fastpasses, which was great. I know the CMs are probably used to it, but every time we did this, I felt like I was getting away with something. We would go to the machines, then walk directly to the line, and I would half expect someone to say, "Hey, you can't use those fastpasses now!" Of course, that never happened, but the whole experience was kind of surreal.

I had the same feeling. It was weird seeing NOW as my FastPass time, and every time we got one and headed for a return line, I was expecting someone to mention we had to wait for our return time.

Which reminds me. This trip was the first time I noticed groups of people just standing in front of the FastPass return entrance. That's annoying.

I think I discovered that the secret to me liking the safari was to NOT sit in the back. Last year, it felt like the ride was so bumpy we were going to be jettisoned out of our seats. This time it wasn't nearly as bad.

My favorite part of the safari was seeing this mother and baby rhino

While I know Disney doesn't put fake animals in the safari (except the baby elephant), these just seemed fake to me. I don't know why.

We walked through the Pagani trail next, because we had promised Scott we would actually see animals on this trip. What can I say about this trail?

It had animals?

I always like the meerkat area.

They are one of my favorite animals. Probably because I love Timon.

This section of the trip report is starting to sound like the Fellowship of the Ring.

Remember when we weren't allowed out the entrance next to Rainforest Cafe? That was Gandalf: "You SHALL NOT pass!"

We were really trying to see and do things we hadn't before in Animal Kingdom, so we headed next for Rafiki's Planet Watch or Conservation Station or whatever the heck it's called.

I am going to cut the chase and say that I felt basically the same way Jenn did during this entire part of the park. I don't understand why the only way into and out of the area is by train. I also thought the area, in general, was kind of lame. Maybe we'd appreciate it more if our kids were smaller. Maybe it has to do with the fact that we go to the Philly Zoo at least 5 times a year. I dunno. What I do know is that besides seeing Jiminy Cricket, the whole Planet Watch thing was a dud.

As I started to walk toward Asia, I saw the drum set up for the rhythm band and detoured slightly thinking I'd take pictures of the kids drumming. (Maybe. Cause they both think drummers are evil. It's a marching band thing.) But Scott sharply called my name, causing me to look where he was looking. It was DiVine!!

What's funny was that I didn't even notice that we were by the drums or that Jenn wanted to stop to take pictures of the kids. Also, I noticed DiVine first, and then the groupies following her around.

Up until this point, I was under the impression that she actually tried to hide in the foilage. But no, she was right out on the sidewalk, strolling around like Treebeard on his way to an Entmoot. (Yes, that's four Lord of the Rings references so far!)

But we weren't real sure why there were so many people behind him as he set us up for this Simba shot. That is, until we saw who had snuck into the background...

I was aware that DiVine was still around, but didn't think she'd make it into the picture. That was pretty cool.

I didn't much like the one piece of Scott's chicken I stole, but I don't remember what he thought of it. I'm fairly sure he didn't like it. They both got frozen lemonades for dessert.

There were two big problems with this. First, it was too hot. The food itself was very hot, and also we were sitting in the blazing sun. It made it difficult to eat. I really liked the food, actually. I just wish it wasn't late June in Florida. If I was in the air conditioning, I would have been very happy with the food. I did feel bad Nick didn't want anything, though.

Also, I wasn't that hungry. We don't normally eat a big breakfast when we are home, let alone when we are on vacation (granola bar while running out the door is the usual MO). Between the frozen chai, the frozen lemonade, and the orange chicken, I was getting overfull. But I did really like the food.

I think Everest might be Kai's favorite ride in all of Disney World, and we were finally boarding!

It might be mine as well. It is definitely my favorite ride in Animal Kingdom. Although Kali is right up there.

... and of course, laughing like loons.

You forgot to mention the epic story of my disbelief in the existence of the Yeti. 2009 was my first riding on Everest, so I never got to see "Beti" in full on "try to rip your head off" mode. In 2009, I swear I did not see the mechanical Yeti. If I didn't know for sure there was one, I would have said Jenn was making fun of me. But this time, I saw the light! Oh yes, my brothers! I found the yeti! "She" wasn't moving, of course, but I saw "her" this time.

They decided it must have been about the hat - the dad was wearing a BoSox hat like Nick's.

I didn't even notice that any of them had BoSox stuff on. Which I guess just shows how unobservant I am. Anyway, we got a kick out of giving away those passes.

The ride was your basic circle raft ride. It was nowhere near as wet as the one at our local amusement park, but we all got fairly soaked.

While I don't quite like it as much as the raft ride at our amusement park, or even Bilgerat Barges at Islands of Adventure, it was still a lot of fun and a great way to cool off.

Kai and Scott both decided to spend snack credits. Kai got an apple turnover and Scott got a sundae.

The sundae looked a lot nicer when it was just made. It started to melt by the time we all met up and got seats. It was OK. A standard sundae.

We were more or less done, but we'd only seen two characters. So we lingered. Nick wanted to just leave, actually.

I don't really remember this being a problem before. We usually didn't feel like we had to sit around for awhile and wait for characters. I think we might be done with this restaurant (until we have grandkids to bring). The food is only so-so and the other kids are annoying. While we are usually on the dining plan and don't care about the price, now that we did it once and paid OOP, I can see why people don't really like the place all that much. Still, I like it better than other character meals.

 

[kate_wdw]

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