Live from WDW!

[Shir Kahn]

We just went on test track and now we've found our spot for Illuminations. Can't believe it's time for Illuminations already, but we did get here pretty late. I just bought us two bottles of Norwegian glacier water and wow is it good! It almost tastes sweet!

I'll now use the wait time to tell you all about various miscellaneous things that we've seen or experienced since we arrived in Florida.

We saw the aftermath of a fatal car crash as we were heading back from Universal. Somehow the guy went off the road and smashed right into an overpass, ending up with his car leaning against the wall with his headlights pointing straight at the ground. The car burst into flames but it sounds like the poor guy died on impact anyway.

We accidentally left our pillows at our first hotel when we switched to Pop Century. My pillow is a special one for my neck that cost me $175! Luckily they found them.

At Universal, we went on all our favorites, Simpsons, MiB, Terminator 2 3D, ET, and a few others I can't remember at the moment. The Simpsons ride was a bit rough on my neck but the rest were ok. Strangely enough, Forbidden Journey wasn't rough at all!

I have been getting tons of compliments on two of my t-shirts. One says "I'd be a vegetarian if bacon grew on trees" and the other has a picture of Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory and it says "I am immune to your sarcasm.". If you haven't watched it yet, you really should give it a try!

 

[Shir Kahn]

Sitting on the bus back to Pop, we left the car there today, as we didn't have anywhere to go. It's been a good day.

 

[mickey2minnie1]

You sound like you are having so much fun! Glad to be along for the ride.

 

[Shir Kahn]

I hope you guys have a great supper!! Glad to hear that Epcot wasn't too busy! We love FJ too...I think Universal did such a fantastic job with he HP stuff!

Yeah seriously, they exceeded even my highest expectations. I am very much impressed.

You sound like you are having so much fun! Glad to be along for the ride.

I'm glad you're along for the ride as well!

So after getting back to Pop, we headed to Walgreens to buy some bandages and then to 7-11 to buy a slurpee! I love the US slurpees, but DW hates them. In case you don't know the difference between Canadian and US slurpees, the US ones are more like foamy texture and the Canadian ones are more icy. Like small ice chips. Still kind of hard to explain. I love them both though! When we got to Sev, there were 5 police vehicles in the parking lot. Apparently, some drunk guy didn't like the fact that he couldn't go inside without a shirt and got seriously belligerent. Still not sure why that required 5 cars and about 8 cops. Maybe they were all headed over to get slurpees anyway.

So anyway, tomorrow we're off to DHS. Can't wait to try the new Star Tours! We're having supper at 50s Primetime. I have very good table manners so I never get in trouble from "mom". . I think we're going to even see Fantasmic again this year, after having skipped it the last few years.

Something that happened to us at DHS one year that I meant to put in that years TR, but didn't because I didn't finish that TR: DW and I were waiting for the park to open, about 20 people back in one row. DW leaned out to see if the CMs were getting the gates ready to let people in. A CM happened to notice her and walked over to her. He asked how many people she was with and she let him know that it was just herself and me. He then asked if we were stage-shy. Now she is for sure (I'm a complete ham. ) but there was no way she was going to let him know that! So he took us out of line and into the park, via the cast member entrance. He brought us to a small "celebrity" room and then went to get us drinks. After a while, he came and got us and we got to be the extras in the park opening show! The Director got us to say who we were and where we were from, and we had a line to say to officially open the park. Then we were driven to Rock n Rollercoaster where we got to be the first ones to ride! TSM wasn't open yet at this time. When we got off RnR, we were given VIP fast passes and a large picture of ourselves. The rest of that day, we kept hearing our names as people recognized us!

 

[Shir Kahn]

It's tough typing all this out with a stylus on an iPad! Especially with auto-correct "helping" me out the whole way! Every post I submit, I have to reread to make sure auto-correct didn't change my text into something amusing. There's an actual website devoted to accidental miscommunication due to auto-correct, and it's funny to read but I'll warn you now, it is definitely not safe for work! Some of it can be pretty disgusting, but if you can skip over the nasty ones, it's worth a look. Anyway, kind of went off on a tangent there, just meant to tell you all why you might read something that makes no sense. In that last post, when I typed that the drunk guy didn't like the no shirt policy, it somehow came out as " the drunk guy didn't pokey".

Have a good night all, or morning, depending on when you read this!

 

[Shir Kahn]

Oops, I skipped a day! We're not going to DHS today, we're going to AK! We slept in a bit again today, as we're still both not feeling 100%. Off we go!

 

[Shir Kahn]

So we've been on the safari, lots of baby animals right now! Then we decided to head over to see FotLK. A CM spotted my New York Rangers shirt and had to tease me a bit about Boston winning this year. We got talking a bit about various things and all of a sudden he tells us to wait right there. He comes back and tells us to follow him. We were given VIP seating and got to go in the back way before almost anyone else! it's an amazing show to begin with but we felt like we were part of the show, being so close! The guys on the stilts were kicking their legs around my head!

 

[Shir Kahn]

Just finished eating at Pizzafari, now we're off to see the parade!

 

[bartleyosu]

We are heading to Disney Sat. How are crowds and heat?

 

[dvc at last !]

Just found your report ---

Wow - In the Park Opening Show !

Glad your long trip was a good one - hope you have a super vacation and
great weather.

Guess we will have to wait till your return home for the pics !

 

[Leigha]

I don't think anybody answered so I'll tell you Body Glide is a GOOD thing and can be purchased at sporting goods stores. I th ink they do have knock-offs now at regualar drugstores though. Thanks for doing this!

 

[Shir Kahn]

Got great seats for the parade. I think this is the first time we've seen it from start to finish. Now we're waiting for Finding Nemo to start! . I want to hit EE after this, and we want to do one more safari.

 

[Shir Kahn]

We are heading to Disney Sat. How are crowds and heat?

The heat is about what we expected. It's very hot and humid, but for some strange reason, I love that! DW can tolerate it, but she sure loves when we get to an air-conditioned ride! As for the crowds, I am surprised to be able to tell you, the crowds are really a lot lower than we expected! I have quite a few pics of empty walkways and low wait times. Tonight I went on Expedition Everest, stand-by had 5 people ahead of me!

 

[Shir Kahn]

Just found your report ---

Wow - In the Park Opening Show !

Glad your long trip was a good one - hope you have a super vacation and
great weather.

Guess we will have to wait till your return home for the pics !

So far so good on the weather front. We haven't had a drop of rain since we got here! I just broke the 1000 mark for pics, so I'll have a lot to share!

I don't think anybody answered so I'll tell you Body Glide is a GOOD thing and can be purchased at sporting goods stores. I th ink they do have knock-offs now at regualar drugstores though. Thanks for doing this!

Thanks, I think I found one of those knock-offs. It seems to be working great! And I'm quite happy to do this, it's a lot of fun!

 

[Shir Kahn]

So yeah, after Nemo, we were heading over to EE, but DW had to hit the restroom first. I sat down near them and when she came out, she pointed out to me that I had been sitting with my back a few feet away from one of those 2 inch long spiders they have here. Then we noticed another one a little bit farther away. We've seen four of these monsters so far in just a few days here, so I imagine there must be a ton that we don't see. Sorry arachniphobes! . Anyway, once she pointed the first one out to me, of course the first thing I had to do was make it move! (I'm still a boy at heart ). So I got fairly close and blew on it. The thing went crazy! It looked like it was having a seizure while tap-dancing!

So after I'd had my fun, I got to help these people who were trying desperately to decipher a phone book at one if those pay phones. The poor guy just needed the info line for Luftthansa (pretty sure I've messed the name up). Airlines. So I brought out my trusty iPad and googles the info for them. I'm pretty sure I sold at least one iPad with that demo!

Then off to EE where, as I said in a previous post, I walked on with only five people ahead of me! I got to sit in the front row finally! I recorded the ride and I'll try my hand at uploading it to YouTube later. My neck barely survived this ride, but it was still one of my favorites!

We decided to do the safari one more time, hoping that some of the animals would be a little more active. We saw some of the hippos out of the water but other than that, the ride was a bust. Oh yeah, we walked right onto that too, our truck wasn't even half loaded!

It was 6:30 at this point and we decided that tonight would be a good night to go see the new Smurfs movie. We went and got tickets, but the earliest show not sold out was 10:50pm. So we decided to get some food and do some shopping for miscellaneous items that we needed. Before we left the theater though, we spent a bit of time learning about Dine In Theater! You pick a movie, go to your seat, open a menu, pick what you want to eat and press a button by your seat. The waiter/waitress comes over takes your order and brings it to you during the movie! There are fold out tray tables that go over your lap too! Having heard some people eat though, I'm not sure if this is something for me.

So off we went to one of our favorite fast food places in the area - Checkers! I got the Big Buford and seasoned fries and DW got a smaller burger. I also had a nice big strawberry shake and DW got her favorite Cherry Coke. Then we went to sit down, eat and watch people get launched into space! This Checkers is right in front of one of those Fun Spots, sort of a permanent mini-carnival. One of the rides is called the Slingshot. It has two gigantic poles that spread upwards and outwards. People get into this seat, get locked in and it propels then a good 150 feet in the air. Crazy, but entertaining as long as I don't have to do it.

We went back for our movie, which was hilarious by the way, and are now back at Pop. Another great day in the books, we're off to DHS tomorrow,this time for real! Good night all!

 

[Shir Kahn]

GooD morning all, we decided to go to Earl of Sandwich today for lunch, I had a cannonball and DWhad a Hawaiian BBQ. Both were excellent! We're about to take off for DHS now, it's just started raining for the first time this trip!

 

[Shir Kahn]

We went on Star Tours, wow is it good! One version down, 53 to go! the rain just poured buckets for a bit, but we managed to get over to Muppetvision 3D. Then DW and I split up, she went to draw at the animation building and I went on RnR. Hurt the neck a bit but I survived. She got to draw Goofy! We headed over to ToyStory Mania to see how bad it was and the standby time reads 110 minutes! But then we noticed the line wasn't even out the door. Hmmm.... We've decided to give it a try. No sooner did we get inside than the chanting and clapping started. still a couple of hours until supper. Should be good!

 

[Shir Kahn]

We ended only waiting about 40 minutes for TSM. The CM at the stairs asked us if we were a party of two and when we said yes, he sent us through a small gate which led straight to the loading area! . He probably saved us 25 minutes! We went on Star Tours again, 2 scenarios down, 52 to go now! we just got done eating at 50s Primetime, my brother Joey was our server. The food was great, but we had a hard time finishing it. Must be getting food exhaustion! . Now we're off to do Star Tours one more time. Some nice person gave us extra fast passes!

 

[Shir Kahn]

We ended the day with Fantasmic, which was just as good as I remembered it. It was in some serious jeopardy of being cancelled, but the super grey clouds didn't drop any rain. We headed home and stopped off to pick up some packages that were sent back to Everything Pop. I have two new t-shirts, one of Yoda standing next to the "you must be this tall to ride" sign, and one of Goofy asking what time the 3:00 parade is. . Oh, three new shirts actually, the third one I got from Universal. It says "I served time in Azkaban. Approach with extreme caution. Do not attempt to use magic against this person.".

 

[Disney999]

I love live trip reports! Thank you for including us in your adventure. I have a little over a month wait till my next trip to WDW and this helps build the excitement!! Can't wait to try out the new Star Tours...glad you liked it!!