Kimpup and MLinDisney CELEBRATE!!! ~ 1st TR~ POP/POLY, DxDP!! 8/31 -9/8 UPDATED 10/24

[MUFFYCAT]

Your pics are great, especially of my favorite the castle
DH loves the fun factory. We crossed Stitch off our list years ago. Very disappppinted!

 

[MLinDisney]

The Halloween decorations were up early. One day I'll have to get there to see the Fall decorations - they look so nice. Great pics of the MSEP! Kimpup looks so cute in the sparkly ears!!!

Thank you! Yes and apparently someone else thinks so too!

Your pics are great, especially of my favorite the castle
DH loves the fun factory. We crossed Stitch off our list years ago. Very disappppinted!

Some parts of Stitch are good such as the special effects when you feel something touching your shoulders or the loud burb emitting a foul smell

 

[MLinDisney]

Today after breakfast that we bought from Main Street Bakery (see DR) and ate on the balcony, we walked to the TTC and headed for Epcot.

We were there at Rope drop and it was empty. We headed for Soarin' first and decided to try the first row. I thought it would be great because we wouldn’t see feet dangling in front of us. It wasn't as good I think because we could see the top of the screen and some things that we shouldn't see that were hidden in row 2. Also this time, I noticed little specks on the screen. I read here on Disboards about these but yesterday I didn't see them. We grabbed a fast pass on the way out and took a look at the Soarin' merchandise.

Next, we saw the Circle of life movie. There must have been ten people watching it. I'm sure later on in the day it would be a good thing to see to get out of the heat.

We left there and went to the Sum of all thrills again! This time, we decided to program it differently. We picked up the speed and made us go upside down more. As we left they gave us another card. Don't Miss this attraction!

We then went back to Soarin' to use our fastpasses. We tried the third row. There was no one in row two at all. It was nice in the third row with no one in front of us, but I think that the best row for Soarin' is row two! Also this time there were no large specks floating on the screen. I wonder if there are two theaters.

We headed for Imagination. We haven't done this since DD was 8. She remember the cars as purple, but they were a red/orange color.

Here is a photo I took in Imagination:

This seems to be the only photo I took that day of Future World.

We went next door to see Captain EO. Neither one of us has seen this. So it was new to us. Interesting attraction. I thought it was ok.

We then went over to the World Showcase. We started on the Canada side. We usually start at Mexico. We had an ADR at LeCellier at 11:30, so we had time to look around. We looked at some shops in Canada and the gardens.

This area is very pretty. Then we walked a little further and looked in a few shops in UK. We decided to head back and see these shops later and we saw this:

I posed for this photo. I had the phone numbers for these booths, but I think I left them home. For some reason I thought it was three closed phone booths, but it turned out to be two phone booths and one open one that you see on the right hand side of this photo.

We headed back to Canada to our ADR at LeCellier:

The entrance was beautiful too. I took more photos on the walk to the restaurant:



I had so many more photos, but decided this was enough of this area. I wish I had more of Future World.

We went into Lecellier for our 11:30 ADR. (See DR)

After lunch, we browsed shops in UK and France. We peeked into Boulangerie Pastisserie! We knew what we were going to purchase there, but waited until later on in the trip. After window shopping some more, we went into see Impressions de France. We had never seen this movie. I enjoyed the movie, but I like the China movie the best.

We then walked over to Morocco to look in the shops and stopped for a snack (see DR.)

At this point, we were getting a little tired and we walked back to the Monorail to the TTC and walked back to the Poly for a shower and a rest. When we got there we saw this:

This looked like a rabbit but I wasn’t sure so I took a few more:



Still couldn't figure out what it was, so I put a lei on it. What does it look like to you?

We took some time off here to rest for our ADR at California Grill and back to the MK.

NEXT UP: DAY 2 PART 2 HALLOWEEN DECORATIONS, MK OPEN UNTIL 2

 

[Terrie..]

Nice update! Soarin' is great no matter what row!!! Canada is so pretty - looks like you had great weather. Can't wait to read the DR review of LeCellier.

BTW: I think the towel animal is a dog

 

[MUFFYCAT]

The pics are great, I love Epcot! I hoped you Le Cellier at least the pretzel bread!

Could that be Pluto?? I'm only guessing that because you're at WDW

 

[NoOrdinaryPrincess]

I found this link as well. Following along!

To answer your question: Rabbit. I think it's a rabbit.

 

[MLinDisney]

Nice update! Soarin' is great no matter what row!!! Canada is so pretty - looks like you had great weather. Can't wait to read the DR review of LeCellier.

BTW: I think the towel animal is a dog

I was thinking maybe donkey because of the ears. Could be Eeyore?

The pics are great, I love Epcot! I hoped you Le Cellier at least the pretzel bread!

Could that be Pluto?? I'm only guessing that because you're at WDW

I'm wondering whether there is a quick serve that sells that cheese soup and pretzel bread? If not, they should have one.

I found this link as well. Following along!

To answer your question: Rabbit. I think it's a rabbit.

This is so funny all the different guesses. My original guess was rabbit and I think it probably is.

 

[MLinDisney]

We just finished dinner at the California Grill and headed over to Magic Kingdom. This was my first ever EMH. Closing was 11:00 but EMH kept MK open until 2:00.

We walked in and it was very crowded. I got a chance to take some more Halloween decoration photos.



I was a little obsessed with the decorations. I was also a little used to walking around in empty parks. This night was supposed to be a crowd level 6, but it seemed like it was more crowded than that.

We headed for Frontierland this time. We had never been on the Magic Carpet ride and decided to try it because there was no wait. It was a fun ride but very mild. We walked over to the Tiki Room because we hadn't seen that since 1985. I don't remember if it changed, but I now know why I never went back there. It is ok, you have to do it once and I think young children would love it. We went into Pirates of the Caribbean. I really like this ride and it changed since the last time I went in. I never saw the Johnny Depp character there before. I was also more aware of the dog with the key in his mouth, since reading on Disboards about it being taken by someone.

We went over to Fantasyland and went on this:


The Barnstormer! The line wasn't too long for this one. It's in the new fantasy land right near the two new Dumbo rides. I liked this one. I was advised by my brother to try it and sit in the first car. But someone was waiting on the side to ride that car. Next time I go I will be trying that out first car. BTW, We did the DOUBLE DIGIT DANCE yesterday!! There are 98 days until our next trip in January when we run the 5k!!

We then walked over to Tomorrowland to go on Space Mountain. There were no more FPs and the wait was so long. I was not liking these EMH. We decided against this and went to Laugh Floor because we liked it so much last night. It was after 11:00 now and because of EMH, they asked us for our KTTW card to get in. The line wasn’t that long though. We enjoyed this, but not as much as the night before.

It was after 9 when we arrived at MK and at this point, we were getting tired. I didn't really like EMH at MK. We walked down Main Street and stopped in a few stores. It was so crowded we didn't make it until 2 AM! I think we stayed until around 12. We had never taken the boat from MK to the Poly, so we went to the dock to try it out. It was a nice ride. We stopped at the Grand Floridian first. Next stop was the Poly. We needed to rest up for our day tomorrow.

NEXT UP: DAY 3 PART 1 -MK - KTTK TOUR!!

 

[Terrie..]

We don't like EMH either!! We try to avoid the parks with EMH becasue of the crowds. We find going to a non-EMH to be so much better - lower crowds even though it closes earlier.

Wow - 98 days until your next trip! That means 97 for us. Can't wait!!

 

[MLinDisney]

We don't like EMH either!! We try to avoid the parks with EMH becasue of the crowds. We find going to a non-EMH to be so much better - lower crowds even though it closes earlier.

Wow - 98 days until your next trip! That means 97 for us. Can't wait!!

YAY!!!! We can't wait either! We tried 3 EMH all evenings. We gave up on the third one. No more!

 

[MLinDisney]

After breakfast at Captain Cook's, we headed over to the monorail to MK. It was around 7:30 when we arrived at MK. It was pretty empty. They let us in at 7:45 for our 8:30 tour.

We headed over to the Chamber of Commerce where they gave us our name tags and a carrier to wear around our neck that held the earphones that we were to use on our tour. They also gave us a menu to order our lunch at Columbia Harbor House.

They told us to come back at 8:15. We then headed down Main Street. There were some families on Main Street with us going to their before park opening breakfast. We took many photos:

Here is DD with Walt and Minnie. She has her tour name tag on.

and me with Walt and Minnie. There is DD's shadow taking the photo. Notice the carrier around my neck. It held the earphones and receiver? Not sure if receiver is what it's called.

Couldn't resist taking a few of THE HALLOWEEN DECORATIONS:


Empty :

A few families headed for breakfast:


We walked down Main Street to the Castle and back.

DD with Goofy. I like the way she's looking at him!
Back to the Chamber of Commerce to meet up with our Tour Group.

Our Tour leader, Claire is at the door. She was very informative. She knew a great deal about the Parks and Walt Disney. We started up Main Street and she pointed out some windows with names on it and gave stories behind the windows on Main Street and in the Alcoves.

CONTINUED in the next post.......................

 

[MLinDisney]

This is the little alcove/side street where we sat and listened to an introduction. There were around 18 - 20 people on this tour. Here is another window she pointed out on this side street:

Great stories behind these windows. She then led us out of the alcove to see this:

She told us to look up Main Street and there were people rushing up Main Street after the rope drop ceremony. It was quite a spectacle.

We walked up Main Street and she gave a constant commentary about the buildings and little things on Main Street and how it was built. The earphones came in very handy after rope drop!
We headed to Adventureland first:


We saw Peter Pan and his handler. We learned quite a bit about Adventureland. At this point we went into the Jungle Cruise. We had our own boat. We stopped and learned some things about this ride too.
We continued on and saw the back lots where they kept floats and the tunnels (utilidors) which were very interesting to me. I know some people weren't impressed on the Disboards. I was told to put away the camera No one could take photos of that area. So one last photo of:

Halloween Decorations!
We stopped to have lunch at Columbia Harbor House. DD and I sat with Claire and another woman who was solo. (She left her family back at the resort.) We learned a great deal about Claire and more Disney tidbits! DD thought she was a great tour guide
After lunch we continued on the tour and we were able to go into the back of the Haunted Mansion and walk through. We got lots of information and rode on the ride too! The ride broke down for 20 minutes while we were sitting on it! According to them it was the fault of the ghosts! There weren't long lines this day, but we got ahead of the Haunted Mansion line that happened to be there.
The tour lasted 5 hours. DD thought this was a little too long. We ended up back at the Chamber of Commerce where we got our pin.

This is a photo of the Name pin, KTTK Pin and a name plate that was on the table when we ate lunch. I took this photo at home.
After we left the tour, we went to Liberty Tree Tavern for dessert ( See DR.) We were tired after that and headed out of the park to go rest up for our dinner at Kona and night at Hollywood Studios!

NEXT UP: HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS AND FANTASMIC!

 

[MUFFYCAT]

The pictures are awesome! Your trip seems to be getting better and better with each update!

 

[TIME2DISNEY]

Great trip report!
Would you recommend the behind the scenes tour?
Can't wait to read your Hollywood Studios adventure!

 

[MLinDisney]

The pictures are awesome! Your trip seems to be getting better and better with each update!

Thank you! We had such a great time! Well it only gets better! One more tour on this trip and some neat ride photos!

Great trip report!
Would you recommend the behind the scenes tour?
Can't wait to read your Hollywood Studios adventure!

I would highly recommend the KTTK Tour!

 

[MLinDisney]

After we had dinner at Kona, we took the bus to Hollywood Studios. This is the first time we took the bus. We had only taken the Monorails.

We got to HS at around 7-7:30 and headed for ToT. It was posted a 10 minute wait, but it was more like 5 minutes. I don't know why because it was so crowded that night. I wanted to try out this one in the dark and once during our day at HS. Here we are:

That's us in the back row, both in blue. Look at the two next to us. They knew when the photo was going to be taken. DD said this ride was awesome! She noticed that each time you go on it’s a different ride and this night was the best! It went very high and tossed us many times! The other times we went on weren’t as good. We got this one as a digital download. We also got 4 other rides on digital download too. Some of those are not going in this TR! Turns out this is the only photo we had of HS that night. I have more from our morning visit (to come later in this TR.)

After this we went on the Great Movie Ride. We visited Walt Disney, One Man's Dream. Very interesting exhibit! The park was very crowded. The crowd level for this night was 8.5. It was Labor Day and an EMH evening. They added on a 10:00 Fantasmic! We Went to line up for the show. We had never been to a Fantasmic! show before! It was 9:20 when we got on the line. They let us in after waiting for 25-30 minutes. I enjoyed the story and the show. DD didn't like it as much. Unfortunately, she sat next to kids that have those squirt fans! She got soaked!

After we exited Fantasmic! We went into Sweet Spells. We noticed that they had the Carrot cake cookie there. I was surprised. I thought they only sold them at The Writer's Stop. DD got this:

Rocky Road fudge. She ate this back at the Poly another night. You can see the Poly bedspread under the fudge.

We were starting to realize that evenings with EMH are really crowded. We went to some shops where I bought this:

This is inside of the mug:

I really like this mug. It holds so much coffee!! We bought some other things there too. It was almost 12 and we decided to leave HS. Again, we didn't make it to the end of EMH - 1:00 closing! We took the bus back to the Poly.

NEXT UP: Animal Kingdom and Wild Africa Trek

 

[Terrie..]

Love that mug - especially the inside! Nice surprise when the coffee is gone!!!

 

[MUFFYCAT]

Awesome updates! I love how you guys did so much!

 

[MLinDisney]

We got to AK about 8:20. Rope Drop was at 9:00. We sat around awhile waiting it was very empty!

They let us through the turnstiles about 8:45. We went up to the rope:

Those are my sneakers. about five minutes before 9 they took down the ropes and two of the CMs led the way:

We headed for Dinoland and right for:

Dinosaur!! There we are in the middle row. I forgot what we were looking at, but we don't look too frightened. After this we went on:

Primeval Whirl! I thought this was fun. Not scary and wild at all. It was getting close to 10:00 so we headed over to check into the Wild Africa Trek. Our tour was 10:15 but we had to be there to check in at 10. We were a little early but they took our names and we sat in this little area to the left of Tusker House. One of our guides came over and introduced himself to us. He said you are the only ones on this 10:15 tour! We were so excited - a private tour!! Our guides were Mandy and Jason. They were knowledgeable and we learned so much! Jason used to work on the Jungle Cruise ride. He knew many corny jokes.

We went to weigh in, store our belongings and get a vest and water jug. Here we are all ready:

I got this photo from the CD we received in the mail in about a week after this tour!! Of course there was no one on the CD except us!! We walked through the Pangani Trail. Mandy had the camera and took many photos!

This is Jason explaining why the Okapi is related to the giraffe and not the zebra.

Here is the Okapi. We then went into a gate that led us to a practice bridge:

That is DD practicing. We are not tethered to anything at this point. There are no animals underneath us and it isn't very high. I took this photo of DD crossing the second bridge while I was crossing the first:

This is a photo of me taken by DD:

Here is what I saw looking down:

That is my sneaker on the bridge in the bottom of the photo. After the views of the hippos from one bridge and alligators from the other bridge, we went to get a closer look.

This is DD taking some photos on a ledge overlooking some alligators. Look at how close she is to the ledge (on the bottom of the photo)

This is another one taken from the photo CD.
We got to see the hippos like this too. We were tethered (see the wires coming out of our backs! ) Each time we came to an area, we met an expert on the animal we were viewing. So far we met the alligator expert. this is the hippo expert:

We are on the end of a ledge where the hippos are. He threw some lettuce out there, but the hippo wasn't interested. We then took off those heavy vests and kept the bottled water with us. We went on one of the jeeps. We stopped many times to get some photos.

We saw a giraffe sitting down. I had never seen one sitting before. I like this photo of the baby elephant:

I have over 100 photos of the animals. We stopped to have lunch. (I have photos of this in the dining report.) Here is the view from where we stopped to eat:

I have that yellow towel around my neck. That was a cold towel that they gave us. It was so refreshing. Here we are eating:

After lunch, we got back on the truck and saw this:

It was so close to us! At the end of the Trek we went back to the lockers to get our backpacks and posed for some photos with our Guides:

Most of the photos were corny and posed like this one! But some were posed but nice. We also got a pin that said we contributed to the Disney Wild Life Fund. This contribution was part of the fee we paid for the tour. We chose which fund we wanted our contribution to go to. This tour was outstanding! I cannot recommend it highly enough! The tour was 3 hours long and it was now 1:15.

We went out and headed off to see Its Tough to be a Bug! I like the special effects on this one and it was cool inside. We then went to see the Festival of the Lion King. What a show!!! Another must do if you haven't done it! We went into a few of the stores to see what they had. We then left to go to AKL as we had an ADR at Jiko.

We left Jiko at around 7:20 and headed back to the Poly. The laundry room was right near Tokelau, so we put in a few washes and then went to watch the Water Pageant on the beach. Right after this passed by, we saw Wishes. I thought it was a beautiful night and watching it from there was a different experience than watching it in the park. After wishes we put our laundry in the dryer and when it was done, we went back to the room to rest up for rope drop at HS!!!

NEXT UP: HS, DTD, MK - Tomorrowland Terrace Dessert Party!!

 

[MLinDisney]

Love that mug - especially the inside! Nice surprise when the coffee is gone!!!

Yes! A reminder of HS!

Awesome updates! I love how you guys did so much!

We did do so much, and wanted to do even more but had to cut a few things out as we went along. ~ We'll have to save it for next time!