Mr. and Mrs. Potts Take a Honeymoon Holiday - Finished 8/5 Final Thoughts

[Sunstar]

Once we finished supper, we wandered out of WWoHP. We wanted to go into Dervish and Banges again, but there was a long line to get in and we didn’t feel like standing in it. We decided to go to Suess Landing and rode the Cat in the Hat ride. We were getting out and I dropped my sunglasses. That’s when I noticed that I had somewhere lost my room key. The team members looked around the cars and the loading area for us and we backtracked down the express pass line but it was nowhere to be seen. I was afraid that someone had picked it up and since we had charging privileges attached to it, I needed to cancel the card immediately. The team member at the cash wrap in the gift shop called our hotel and explained the situation. He handed me the phone. The team member on the other end said it would be no trouble to void our keys and we could pick up new ones when we got back to the hotel. I felt better at that point, but stupid for losing the card in the first place. We’d both been wearing them in our lanyards and mine must have fallen out between showing it to the team member at the beginning of the express line and when we got on the ride.

We decided to head back to the hotel and pack up and relax since we were moving to Disney early the next morning. We took the walking path back and stopped at the desk in the lobby to pick up my new card.

The entryway to Royal Pacific

The moat at the front of the hotel

The lobby when you first walk in

The check-in desk

This courtyard is in the middle of the lobby

There are beautiful and exotic fresh flowers everywhere

On our way back to IOA that afternoon, I had noticed that Kellan wasn’t wearing his wedding band. He figured he had left it on the back of the toilet after showering that afternoon. When we got back to the room, he went to get it and it wasn’t there. We looked everywhere and the ring was nowhere to be found. Turndown service had been in the room and we called housekeeping to report the ring lost. We figured it slipped off into a pile of towels and was scooped up by accident. We definitely didn’t think anyone had stolen it or anything. His ring wasn’t terribly expensive so we weren’t worried about having to replace it, but it would have been nice to find it.

The housekeeping manager called up to the room and we told them what happened. Then a front desk person called. Finally, a security guard came up and Kellan actually showed him where the ring was and told our story again. They took our information and phone number and said they would investigate and get back to us later in the week.

Funny story, my dad also lost his wedding band on their honeymoon. He was swimming and it flew off his wet finger into the woods near Niagara Falls, never to be seen again. Apparently, it’s a family tradition.

Steps Taken: 20,840

We would definitely come back to US and would want to stay on-site. That express pass was way too awesome and we’d want to do a day at each park again.

 

[Sunstar]

Hey Sunstar when I've started to this thread I just thought that you must enjoyed with your husband in that trip thereafter I realize that you guys got a lot of fun a one more interesting thing there was that so many useful things there are for those couple whose about to make this kinda trips.

Thanks for commenting! We had a wonderful time on our trip. I hope this will be helpful to others!

 

[Sunstar]

Day 4 8/19

This was our moving day. We were heading to WDW! Ed Korgan was scheduled to pick us up at 9:30, so we were up by 8 to shower, pack up the last of our stuff and grab a quick breakfast in room. At 9, we called bell services to come grab our stuff and said good-bye to our wonderful suite. We would miss the space at Disney.

Checkout was super easy, although we did have to deal with the lost ring issue some more. They took our mobile number and the information of where we would be staying over the next two weeks and said they would be in contact with us once they had completed their investigation. They did call us twice while we were at WDW to update us, but never did find the ring.

I love these parasols!

Ed Korgan was there at exactly 9:30 and we were off. With morning traffic, we were at CSR by 10:15.

Our first WDW sign!

Do you see what I see?

Yay! (said with much enthusiasm and Kermit the Frog-like arm flailing)

Almost there!

There it is!

We’re home!

After handing over our bags to bell services, we entered the beautiful lobby. Kellan was very impressed with the Southwestern themeing. We had a trainee cast member at the online check in desk. She was from Japan and very nice. Her trainer was also very nice and they both seemed grateful that we were patient with her. We were wearing our Just Married shirts and bride and groom ears. The trainer gave us a set of Happily Ever After pins that we put on and upgraded us to a Preferred King room, which was so awesome. Our room was ready so we went to Café Rix to get our refillable mugs (they came with our dining package) and then headed back outside to bell services to get our luggage. One of the bellmen took us around to our room in a golf cart. We were in room 3456, which was easy to remember. We were not too far from El Centro or the quiet pool (which was never quiet).

We had a towel Mickey head waiting for us!

Our room, with the easiest to remember room number possibly ever, 3456.

After putting our stuff away and relaxing a little, we decided to head to the Magic Kingdom.

We’re going to the Magic Kingdom!

I love this shot. I just wish I had thought to try and hide the camera when I was taking it so you couldn’t see it in the shadow.

More Kermit-esque arm flailing!

Our very first Photopass pic. It took Kellan a little while to get the hang of Photopass.

I cannot tell you how excited I was to see Kellan’s first reaction to the MK. He didn’t grow up with Disney and didn’t really understand the magic of WDW before we came here. I had the camera ready for when we came through the tunnel and then around the end of Main Street. His face was priceless when he saw the castle.

Holy Cow! There’s a castle here!

We took our time walking up Main Street, taking in everything and stopping at several Photopass photographers.

Don’t know what I was laughing about.

This was taken from the left side of the castle, if you’re on the path leading to Crystal Palace. I’d never seen a PP person there before and it’s a nice angle.

The first of many kissing photos. It took us about three days to realize that no one would see my face in the kissing photos because of Kellan’s hat.

Who’s ready for adventure? We are!

I was beyond excited that the Tiki Room had gotten rid of that horrible “Under New Management” show.

I decided that Pirates of the Caribbean would be Kellan’s first ride. We had a 1pm reservation at Cinderella’s Royal Table, but there was plenty of time until then.

I was surprised at the line at Pirates, as there was almost never a line outside when we had been there in the past. I suppose I underestimated the popularity of the movies. Lol.

Continued in next post

 

[Sunstar]

This line extends all the way to the right and then loops back around to the entrance to the building.

Kellan wanted me to take photos of absolutely everything.

Especially the guns

And the canons

And other interesting spaces

And things

It didn’t take too long before we were in the dungeons leading down to the loading area. The ride was great as usual, although we did get stopped in the area right before the dog with the key for about ten minutes. This becomes a theme of our Disney trip, at least in the MK. I think we only rode PotC once without the ride breaking down. Once we left Pirates, we walked to Splash Mountain to get fastpasses. We then took the back way through Frontierland and Liberty Square to the castle.

We’d meet up with this guy later in the trip. I love Donald!

The Notorious Banjo Brothers (aka the Frontierland Band)

I hate how you can’t walk through the castle during the day.

In all the times I’ve been to WDW, I’ve never noticed this wishing well behind the castle.

I’d never eaten in the castle before so it was a first for both of us. We checked in and I discovered that my travel agent put our reservations under my maiden name, even though the rest of our trip was under my married name. It’s silly, but that kind of annoyed me. I hadn’t been a Marcinkowski for a few months by this point and we never knew which name our reservations were going to be under.

We got our Royal Invitation and went inside to meet Cinderella.

She was really sweet, asking if Kellan was my prince charming and showing him how to pose for photos with princesses. After our photo, we hovered around the crowded waiting area for our name to be called.

I love armor.

It’s dark, but those are Cinderella’s mice friends. Great touch!

It was about ten minutes before they called us and we were told to go upstairs. We headed up and I was delighted by how the upstairs looked. It didn’t feel anywhere near as small as I was led to believed the room would be. We were seated at a window table overlooking Fantasyland and we could see the construction on Beast’s castle in the distance.

Beast’s castle in the distance

Fantasyland (yay for no tarps!)

Kellan was given a sword and I was given a wand and there was a wishing star on our table.

Ready to slay some dragons!

And I see Katie, and Kellan, and Sara, and Suzy, and Tommy (sorry, this just felt like it needed a Romper Room reference)

Our wishing star

Our waiter brought us our menus, congratulated us and took our drink orders. When he left, I excused myself to the ladies room and went to find him to make sure the surprise cake I had ordered for Kellan was ready. At first, he thought I wanted a podium cake and offered me a free cupcake instead. He said they were tastier and free. I clarified I had ordered a special cake from the pastry chef at the Contemporary and he said he would check to make sure it was in the kitchen.

When he brought our drinks and the appetizer plate, he told me we were all set. At this point, Kellan was definitely wondering what was going on. The plate had some tomatoes and mozzarella, some salad, and a few slices of salami. We shared this, me eating the tomatoes and cheese and Kellan eating the other stuff. He doesn’t like cheese or raw tomatoes, whereas I love them! Apparently, I didn’t take a photo of this.

Continued in next post

 

[Sunstar]

Snow White came in first, while we were eating our appetizer. She was lovely and just like in the movie. I’ve yet to meet a bad Snow White, so she’s either easy to do or they get better princess training. Lol.

For lunch, we both ordered the braised short ribs with potato and rutabaga mash and baby carrots. Those short ribs were amazing! The meat was tender and melt in your mouth good and the red wine sauce was so tasty! We practically licked our plates clean.

As we ate, the rest of the princesses made their rounds.

We saw Belle (in her blue dress) and she was delighted to hear that I was Mrs. Potts. Belle was the only princess who asked me if it was all right to take Kellan’s arm for the photo.

Then came Aurora. She asked where we met and I told her a science fiction convention. She then asked if there were dragons there and how many dragons Kellan slew for me.

Finally, we saw Arial who asked where we met and if my hair was purple because I’d been swimming in the red sea (no, it didn’t make any sense to me either). You know, I have always wanted to hand Ariel a fork at these meals to see if she would start combing her hair with it.

Our lunch plates were cleared and then I saw the cake coming.

Now, it was supposed to be a six inch re-creation of the top layer of our wedding cake. It was very similar, although the flowers on our wedding cake were prettier. The inside was white cake with chocolate ganache and fresh strawberry filling with green buttercream icing.

Here’s our wedding cake for comparison:

The cake was huge! When we cut into it, we discovered that it was only huge because the buttercream layer was at least an inch thick. It was delicious, but way too much buttercream. The strawberries weren’t quiet as fresh as I had been expecting (they had that dark red color of berries that had been cut a few days earlier), though the ganache was delicious. Overall, I think I would probably not do a custom cake at Disney again. I’m not sure it’s worth the price ($93.38 with tax and the 18% gratuity) and I think the chocolate slipper dessert would be equally special for an occasion.

Our waiter boxed up the rest of the cake (which we later decided we should have shared with the two tables on either side of us, since there was so much of it) and we headed back to our hotel to rest and put the cake away. Kellan was very nervous about the buttercream melting in the heat while we waited for the bus, but it survived just fine until we got back to CSR and brought it to our room. The cake would not fit in the mini-fridge, so we got plates and a knife from Café Rix and cut some pieces to keep in our fridge. The rest went into the fridge at bell services. We relaxed until it was time to leave for our reservations at The Wave.

I had wanted very much to do the Wishes Dessert party for our supper that night. I was watching carefully for when the reservations opened (which is so arbitrary) and my travel agent was supposed to make the reservations for me. She totally dropped the ball on me with this. I’ve always had good luck booking through her, but next time I’m going to just do it all myself (which is what I used to do). After calling Disney dining several days in a row, being told it’s not open yet, it’s not open yet, oh, it’s totally booked sorry!, I called my travel agent to see what was up. She admitted she had completely forgotten to check on the dessert party for me. That pissed me off. She was totally not caring at all, just like “oops, sorry, my bad.” So definitely not using her again even if I do use a travel agent.

I love the gift shop in the Contemporary.

The Mary Blair mosaic

Because of this snafu on her part, we needed dinner for that night. We had looked at The Wave and dismissed it because we didn’t have room in our schedule and the reviews were mixed. Now we had room so we thought we’d give it a try and booked dinner at 6:35. We were nearly an hour early, but they were happy to take us right in. This was something we experienced in almost every restaurant we went to. We would be early, but there would be no trouble taking us in. And, with one exception, we never waited more than fifteen minutes for an ADR.

We were seated next to a pillar in the middle of the room, next to a pair of couples, one of whom was letting their three or four year old run all around their table. Delightful.

I knew I wanted to try one of the Magical Star Cocktails (with regular rum, instead of coconut) so I ordered that and water. Kellan got his usual Coke.

The color changing glow cube was totally worth the whole price of the drink. Lol.

The waitress brought us a basket of the most wonderful bread and butter with sea salt on top. This bread was our favorite part of the whole meal (doesn’t bode well does it?)

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[Sunstar]

Since we’re on the deluxe dining plan, we each got an appetizer, entrée and dessert.

For our appetizers, I picked the pan-seared sea scallops with sweet bacon and sweet cream corn sauce.

Kellan picked the citrus and fennel duck salad with dried tomatoes and orange vinaigrette, without the blue cheese. His salad did come with blue cheese, even though he requested it without. It was okay though, because I like blue and I ate it and the tomatoes.

Neither of us were wowed by our apps. Mine was ok, the scallops were cooked well, but the bacon and corn overwhelmed their delicate flavor. Kellan didn’t really like his salad either. The dried tomatoes were too sweet, and the greens were wilted from being either over dressed or dressed too soon.

For my entrée, I had the grilled filet mignon with feta cheese, with roast fingerling potatoes and an heirloom tomato salad with pearl onions. The filet was good, but the dressing from the tomatoes was very soupy on the plate and gave anything it touched a weird sweet taste. It was especially unpleasant with the feta cheese.

Kellan, on the recommendation of our server Frances, got the chili marinated flat iron steak with a spicy green sauce (neither of us can remember what it was), whipped potatoes, green beans and caramelized onions. She said it was a good-sized portion and that it was quiet spicy, which appealed to him. When it arrived it was two small slices of steak and the spice was non-existant. I even tried a bit and it wasn’t even spicy to me (and I don’t care for really spicy food). His potatoes tasted strange and he doesn’t care for broccolini, which were substituted for the beans without letting us know. Needless to say, he didn’t really enjoy his dinner.

My dessert is in the front and Kellan’s is in the back.

For dessert, I had the creamy indulgences. I know there was coconut panna cotta, a lemon mousse and a cheesecake with a peach compote (peaches must have been in season, because they were all over the desserts while we were there). Kellan got the American flavors. His had a mini Boston cream pie, a peach cobbler and a chocolate mousse with a salted caramel sauce. I traded the panna cotta for his chocolate mousse. The desserts were ok, not great. They were what we were coming to expect from this restaurant. Kellan was enjoying his cobbler when he bit into something hard. It was a stick of some sort. We called the waitress over to let her know and she went and got the manager. He came and looked at the stick and then went into the kitchen. A few minutes later, he came back with the pastry chef. We were expecting an apology, but instead we got a bunch of excuses about how a stem must have gotten into the mix. No apology from him or the manager. Finally, our waitress apologized when she brought us the bill.

Overall, The Wave was a very poor first dinner at WDW. We will not be eating there again. The food wasn’t bad per se; it just all tasted weird to us, like the stuff on the plate wasn’t meant to go together.

I love the monorail!

After dinner, we rode the monorail around to the Magic Kingdom. We had plans to meet my cousin and her family at Aloha Isle for Dole Whips. I was so looking forward to a Dole Whip float and getting to see my Aunt Karen, who I hadn’t seen in almost ten years (they live in Virginia). We were early, so we wandered up Main Street, peeking into some of the shops and getting more Photopass pictures taken (I’d pre-bought the CD and was gonna get my money’s worth out of it. Lol) Eventually, it was time to go meet Samantha and her brood. She has twins, a boy and girl, who are seven (I think) and a little girl who is four.

It had been raining quite heavily (big surprise, I know) and the covered eating area next to Aloha Isle was packed with people trying to wait out the storm. Kellan and I had ponchos so we waited on the opposite side under the trees. Eventually, it stopped raining and we took off our ponchos to wait. Before long, Sam, the kids and her husband Earnie showed up. Aunt Karen and my cousin Ben (Sam’s brother) had run back to Fort Wilderness to get dry shoes for the kids. We had seen them in May for our wedding and it was good to see them again. Earnie ran the kids to the bathroom while Sam and I chatted. As soon as the rain stopped, the seating area opened up and we went to claim tables before they filled up again. Aunt Karen and Ben joined us and we got in line for snacks while Kellan and Earnie watched the kids.

To my utter shock, Kellan did not like Dole Whip. I figured, it’s ice cream, it’s pineapple, he likes both those things, but no. He doesn’t like those things together. Well, more for me. Lol.

It came time for Sam and company to be moving on. We said our goodbyes and Kellan and I headed to the Jungle Cruise. I hadn’t been on this since my first visit in 1989. There was a short line, about 5 minutes and then we were on an exciting, pun-filled trip through the jungles of the world. It was fun and silly and we enjoyed it.

We also rode Pirates again (it didn’t break down this time) and Big Thunder. Kellan liked it. I love this ride at night. Everything looks so cool. It is a little nerve-wracking riding with Kellan though, because he’s a tall guy and the lap bar doesn’t hold me down, which means I pretty much hold on for dear life on some of those turns. Lol.

This was an extra magic hours night and I wanted to take advantage of it. By the time we were off Big Thunder, Wishes was just ending and we wandered to Liberty Square. Kellan had to ride the Haunted Mansion. We walked through the new queue, but there were almost no people in line so we didn’t really stop to explore. Kellan really loved the stretch room and then we joined the crush to get to the Doombuggies. I don’t know why they don’t have some better way to get people from the stretch room to the queue. People always push and shove each other before they’re forced into a single file line. Kellan and I were holding hands and at one point he had to pull me through the crowd so we didn’t get separated by this rude woman and her eighteen kids.

The new effects in the Haunted Mansion are so cool. I loved the stair room and the bride’s story in the attic (especially since we were on our honeymoon, lol). When we rolled past her, she muttered ominously, “Until death do us part,” and an axe appeared in her hands. The new hitchhiking ghosts were awesome too. Kellan and I are huge fans of horror movie and other sorts of gothic stuff. The Haunted Mansion is one of my favorite rides and I knew it would be right up Kellan’s alley. He loved it!

At this point, we started to think that Kellan might be slightly cursed when it came to Disney rides. We got stuck on Pirates and again in the Haunted Mansion in the room with the doors and all the knocking. This curse would periodically pop-up throughout our time there.

As we exited the ride, EMH were in full swing and most of the shops were closed. Unfortunately, so were most of the places that sold food. Kellan hadn’t eaten much at dinner and now he was feeling cranky and hungry. We searched around and finally ended up with popcorn from a cart on Main Street. Not the best, but any place else that sold food had a huge line. Once fed, sort of, we moved to Fantasyland. Kellan had a date with a Small World.

The crowds hadn’t thinned yet.

Everything looks so beautiful at night.

My family has a theory that everyone who visits a Disney park must ride Small World once. Not because we like the ride, but because everyone should understand the pain of this ride. Lol! It would be so much better if they gave out softballs or bb guns when you entered and let you aim at the dolls, like Buzz Lightyear. Thank god, we didn’t have a break down while we were on it, like we did on Pirates and Haunted Mansion. I would probably have had a breakdown of my own.

Once back on solid ground, with strains of “It’s a small world after all” still ringing in our ears, I steered Kellan towards Mickey’s Philharmagic. Kellan isn’t a huge fan of immersive 3-D shows. We had seen Shrek 3-D at Universal and he was supremely underwhelmed. It didn’t help that they loaded us into the theatre before the computers had been reset. This wasn’t terrible, but the team member running the show told us exactly that. At Disney, they would have at least made up something that would go along with the theme of the show. You know, “The guards are still cleaning up from the last group to visit the dungeons” or something like that.

So he wasn’t real excited about seeing this one, but he said he’d try every ride at least once. We waited about five minutes and then entered the theatre. There weren’t that many people there and we had an entire row to ourselves. We moved back to the middle and popped on our 3-D glasses. This ride totally changed his mind on immersive 3-D shows. Of course, none of the other shows hold a candle to Philharmagic. Kellan adored it and so do I. Everything about this one is perfect.

Next on the list was Snow White. I knew that Snow White was going to be closing and I wanted to make sure that Kellan rode it at least once. One of the big things Kellan is always surprised by is how scary and dark Disney stuff is for kids. I told him about the first time I rode it, when it was still really scary. Snow White is still fun and I’m sorry it’ll be gone soon.

Kellan and I wandered through the now pretty empty park. It was about 2 am at this point. Kellan kept looking longingly at the tea cups and Dumbo, both of which are the kind of rides that would make me sick (especially the tea cups). I promised him we would ride Dumbo at least once, since I figured that one wouldn’t be quite as bad, but right then, I had the urge for Space Mountain.

The standby line had a 30 minute wait so we hopped in. I was surprised that the line was still that long. The new interactive queue was fun and there were a couple times we were stopped long enough to play a complete game. Once we got inside the main room, the line seemed to go super slow and we were both starting to feel the late hour. We finally came around the back wall in the left hand queue and were only steps away from the ride. The CM came down the line looking for two and my hand quickly went up. Since my dad and I are the “thrill ride” people (not my mom), I’m well used to watching CMs looking for couple riders. We squeezed past the remaining queue and hopped in line. Kellan insisted he be up front, thinking he’d have more leg room and I let him, since he wasn’t taking my advice to sit behind me.

When we got off (which isn’t easy for me anymore, you really have to pry yourself out of those seats!), the first thing he said was that his knees had been banged up right good on that ride. I told him to try sitting behind me next time. He really liked Space Mountain, especially not being able to see where you’re going. He said he thought about raising his hands, but decided not to, which was probably a good choice.

We walked back through Fantasyland because I wanted to walk through the castle. I though, hey let’s check the wait on Peter Pan. The wait time was finally down to about 15 minutes from its usual 70 minutes, so we decided to ride. This ride is so awesome, but the wait times are insane. I do miss the really comfy pirate ships they have in Disneyland, though. Their seats are padded and super comfy.

Well, while we were in line, there was a couple and their young teenage son (maybe 15 or so) right in front of us. The parents were doing the typical “we’re at Disney and you’re going to enjoy this vacation because we paid a lot for it” thing and the son is just giving it right back to them. The whole family was seriously in need of bedtime. They were being so rude to each other and just really nasty. Kellan gave me a look because I had warned him about people like this and how you can’t let them bother you. Well, after the family just stopped speaking to each other, the mother turns around and sees my green Mickey head tag on my bag. She suddenly turns all nice and asked me if I was on the Disboards. At this point, I so did not want to talk to her. I just said, “yup” and turned back to Kellan. Once we were on the ride, we laughed because we always joke that I get the nicest people wanting to have conversations with me.

Peter Pan was our last ride, and we walked out of Fantasyland through the castle. On our way, through I stopped and took photos of the mosaics, which are usually so crowded with people you can’t get a good picture. At 2 am, it’s empty and it’s the perfect time.

Look! I have no face!

We headed up Main Street, marveling at how beautiful everything looked all lit up. Happy and tired, we left MK for the day and for the only time the whole trip, there was a bus waiting for us at the stop.

Steps taken: 26,090

 

[Sunstar]

Day 5: 8/20

We decided this was going to be an Animal Kingdom day. We were up by 8 and went for breakfast at the Pepper Market. One of the reasons I love staying at Coronado Springs is that they had the best food court of any of the moderate resorts. Unfortunately, this breakfast was pretty yucky and kinda lived up to the poor reviews the Pepper Market’s been getting on the boards.

We went in and were seating near the back of the restaurant. The waitress (what do you call them here, since they don’t really get your food?) took our drinks order and we went to get food. When we got back, our OJ and bottled water were waiting for us. Kellan got the breakfast platter: eggs, bacon, a biscuit, and potatoes. I got French toast with sausage. The potatoes and sausage were good, but the rest of the breakfast was just blah, not particularly good. While we were eating, our waitress also took our mugs and got us root beer to go.

After using our dining credits for that unsuccessful breakfast, we headed out to the El Centro bus stop. The AK bus came along pretty quickly and we were on our way!

Now, I love the idea of Animal Kingdom, but I find that this park is the hottest of all of them. I don’t know if it actually is, or if there is something about it that makes it seem hotter there, but we never end up spending as much time at AK as we want because we get worn out and cranky so quickly. This morning, we were also really late getting started, so the FP times for things like Kali (which would have been awesome on a hot day like this one was) were later than we’d like.

We took some photopass pictures as we walked through the park, heading towards Expedition Everest. On our way, we got waylaid by It’s Tough to be a Bug, which was just getting ready to start the next show. Kellan liked this, but not as much as Philharmagic. He jumped when the bugs went running through the theater and I laughed. I’m short enough that my feet are usually just above whatever creates this effect so I don’t feel it.

After Bug, we walked down the Maharaja Jungle Trek to see the big bats!

We saw a huge Komodo dragon, some of the biggest bats I’ve ever seen and the gorgeous tigers. The tigers were so cute! They were all sleeping and one of them had its tongue sticking out, just like our kitty River sleeps.

We also saw some kind of deer like creature.

After the Jungle Trek, we decided to head over to Dinoland USA. We stopped to get an ice cream snack and then headed to Dinosaur. It was so much fun! There was hardly any line and we didn’t wait more than five minutes before we were watching the pre-show and heading into the loading area. I know some people find this ride too rough, but I love it. I think it’s tons of fun and Kellan really enjoyed it as well.

I wanted to see Nemo, but neither of us wanted to stand in the line and Kellan’s not a huge fan of the movie. We kept moving to the TriceraTop Spin. If you remember from earlier, Kellan really wanted to ride Dumbo, but I was afraid it would make me sick, plus the line was always long. Well, the line for TriceraTop was fairly short so we hopped into it. We were the only adults there without children, but it didn’t bother us! I was pleasantly surprised to discover the ride was very gentle and didn’t make me feel nauseous at all, so perhaps Dumbo is in my future after all. Not this trip though, because TriceraTop Spin satisfied my husband’s urge for Dumbo.

It was almost time for our FP at Everest and we took the back path from Dinoland to Asia. We hopped into the single rider line, which was so quick. We rode twice as single riders and then used our FP to ride together. Kellan loved this ride, as do I, but we both agreed it’s too short and we wish the yeti was working. I rode it when it first opened, so I remember when the yeti was working properly and it was awesome. Now, it’s so quick, if you don’t know what you’re looking for, you’ll miss it.

By the time we got off Everest for the third time, we were both feeling really hot and kinda cranky. We sat in the shade trying to find something else we wanted to do, but nothing jumped out at us. I don’t know why we didn’t head over to Africa and the safari or head to Rafiki’s Planet Watch, but we didn’t. I think we figured we’d head back to AK later in the trip so we left that stuff for later. We also had a reservation at Jiko at 7 and wanted to rest and possibly swim beforehand.

We left AK and made the long walk back to our bus stop. We waited about ten minutes before a bus showed up and then we rode back in air conditioned comfort. We decided to ride around the resort to bus stop 1 and grab some drinks and snacks at Rix. We got some chocolate gelato, a wonderful strawberry cake and a small fruit salad, as well as our drink refills. Kellan got cherry coke and I got unsweetened iced tea.

Back in our room, we enjoyed our snacks and got changed into our suits. The quiet pool was only a few buildings away from where we were. In past trips, this pool really was quiet and hardly anyone ever used it. This trip, however, the pool was always busy. Add that to the fact that the water was super warm and we didn’t spend too much time at the pool before heading back to the room.

After a relaxing afternoon, we showered and got all dolled up for our dinner at Jiko. We wandered back to El Centro and picked up the bus at stop 1. Several busses passed before an AK one arrived (it was getting close to closing time for AK) and we hopped on.

At AK, we transferred to an Animal Kingdom Lodge bus, which was nearly empty. There was a large family sitting across from us on the bus and their son stared at us the entire trip. After a little while, the dad started staring at us too! You can see it in the photos I took of the resort signs. Lol.

What are you looking at?

I couldn’t believe how beautiful this hotel is. I would love to stay here some day.

Continued in next post

 

[Sunstar]

We were very early for our reservations because we needed to get to AK before they closed, so we wandered around the resort.

I’d never been to AKL before, but it is easily one I would love to stay at. The savannah was gorgeous and there were so many animals to see. Once we had seen everything to see, we headed over to Jiko to see if we could be seated earlier. They checked us in and told us it would probably still be a half hour or more. That was fine with us and we took the elevator upstairs a few floors and found a quiet corner with a couple seats. We’d just sat down and gotten comfortable, when our buzzer went off. We laughed and headed back down to the restaurant. The ladies behind the counter were super nice and very friendly. They welcomed us and gave us many congratulations. We got a tour of the restaurant, where the hostess showed us the open kitchen and told us about the sun effect lighting, which was so cool. The lights on the walls change colors to represent the sun rising and then setting. We were seated in the Cape Town Wine Room, a little private dining room off the main dining room. It was quieter and more intimate than the main room, which was lovely.

Our server was Lucius, who was simply amazing. This was by far the best meal experience we had the entire time we were here. The food was so noms, the atmosphere was romantic and the service was fantastic!

I wanted to try one of the South African wines and, after asking a few questions about wine preferences, Lucius suggested the Delhiem Gewurtztraminer. It was lovely, fruity and sweet, just like I like my wines. Kellan ordered a coke.

After we placed our orders, Lucius brought out some delicious bread with tandoori butter. The bread was great and the butter was interesting, but I think I would have preferred some regular butter with the bread.

For appetizers, Kellan ordered the wild boar appetizer. The grilled wild boar tenderloin was served with mealie pap, chakalaka, white truffle oil and micro cilantro. The mealie pap was a kind of corn porridge and the chakalaka was a relish with tomatoes and onion. Kellan had never had boar before and loved it. He said it was really tender and flavorful.

I ordered the bobotie, which I didn’t take any pictures of. The bobotie were crispy beef roll with cucumber raita, green mango attar, and honey roasted groundnuts. These were nice, super crispy and a little spicy. You needed the cucumber raita with it. We both really enjoyed our appetizers.

After our appetizer plates had been cleared, Lucius presented us with a card signed by the staff at the restaurant and a small dish of lime mint sorbet as a palette cleanser. It was delicious, like eating a frozen mojito. This was a lovely little surprise that Kellan noticed no one around us received. Lol.

For entrees, Kellan ordered the braised beef short rib with truffled potato puree, pearl onions, baby carrots, and cabernet-tamarind sauce. These were so tender and yummy! He practically licked his plate clean, the sauce was so good.

I ordered the oak grilled filet mignon with sweet corn risotto and South African cabernet reduction. I asked if I could swap out the roasted mushrooms that normally come with this dish for baby carrots and Lucius said of course. I did think about asking about the mac and cheese, but changed my mind. And I was so glad I did! This dish was amazing and the sweet corn risotto was soooo good. The steak was perfectly cooked, the carrots were just the right doneness and the sauce was amazing!

Plates cleared, Lucius offered us the desert menu.

I chose the lemon cheesecake with blueberry and raspberry compote on a graham crust.

Kellan got the Amarula Creme Brulee. This had a chocolate-layered bottom and came with a white chocolate, cranberry, and pistachio biscotti. Kellan said it was easily one of the best desserts he had while we were there. Everything about it was really good. I also loved my cheesecake. It was perfectly creamy and tart. The compote added a lovely sweetness and the graham crust wasn’t dry at all.

This meal was perfectly paced, which is something we couldn’t say for most of our meals. Typically, we had good pacing with our apps and mains, but then it would take forever to get desserts and our check. Kellan’s a pretty fast eater (he says it’s from growing up with two brothers) and I’m certainly not slow. I think this throws off servers or something. But we didn’t have any of these problems at Jiko. Like I said, this meal was practically perfect.

Once we’d taken care of our check and said our goodbyes to Lucius and the ladies at the front desk, we made our way out of the restaurant and back up to the lobby level. We heard some sort of commotion coming from the lobby and found a couple cast members leading a parade of kids with drums and other instruments around the lobby.

I took a quick picture (which didn’t turn out terribly well) and we went to find a bus. We were headed to Hollywood Studios!

Not our bus.

Waiting for our bus.

We had originally said we were just going to go home, but instead, I thought, “let’s go to DHS and just ride Star Tours.” Kellan is a huge Star Wars fan and I was hoping this would be something he would like. I was also excited to ride the new version of the ride because I loved the old one. Kellan said sure and we hopped the next bus to DHS.

The new Star Tours is awesome! The 3-D glasses look cool and the new mix and match stories are great. The first time we rode we had the imperial droid opening, pod racing on Tattooine, Yoda’s message and the Coruscant ending.

I suggested trying Tower of Terror since it was on our way out. Kellan was game and we headed down Sunset Boulevard (with me humming the title song from the musical and Kellan laughing). There was hardly any wait and we were headed up to our rooms via the service elevator. I love how the drops are completely random here, unlike at Disneyland. Kellan adores the Twilight Zone, so I figured he would like this ride, as long as he didn’t mind the drop. He didn’t just like the ride, he loved it!

The park was getting ready to close by the time we left and there was quite a crowd at our bus stop. We just made it onto the first bus, standing near the front and we were headed home.

We got off at El Centro and got drink refills in our mugs before wandering back to the room for the night.

Steps Taken: 16,531

 

[Sunstar]

Day 6: 8/21

We work up early because we had an 8:20 reservation at the Crystal Palace. I love these early morning breakfast reservations because you get to be in the park before it opens! Crystal Palace has always been one of my favorite buffets in the park and I love Pooh, so that’s a plus.

After the bus dropped us off at the MK, we breezed through security and headed to the special turnstile for morning reservations. Once inside, the CM held us in a group on the left side of the entrance. They let us all in at about 7:45, so my walking down Main Street pic actually has a whole bunch of people in it. Lol.

It looks like any other slow day at the MK.

I got in line to check in and Kellan claimed a bench for us to wait on.

The black shirts were the best for calling attention ourselves, but not so great in the hot morning sun. Don’t know what I was thinking when I made these.

At 8 am, they started calling families in. We didn’t have to wait too long and were called about 10 minutes before our reservation time. Our table had been decorated with Mickey head confetti and a card signed by all the characters. Our waitress Sherri took our drink orders and sent us off to the buffet.

One of the things I love about this buffet is the wide variety of food on it. Everything is usually fresh and hot. I made two trips up, thinking I would probably not need to go back. I selected some fruit, grapes, strawberries, pineapple, a hard-boiled egg, some puffed French toast, bacon, sausage and a Mickey waffle. I also got a bowl of grits. I love grits and they’re super hard to find up north. I always get them when we go to Cracker Barrel for breakfast.

Kellan got the most of the same, plus some eggs and some peach cobbler thing they had, which he said was really good. Just as we settled down to eat, Pooh Bear himself came to say hi. He saw our bride and groom shirts and kissed the back of my hand. Then, he signed my autograph book and took photos with both Kellan and I.

Eeyore came by next and then Piglet.

Finally, Tigger came by and bounced around when he saw our bride and groom shirts. He hugged us both and made kissing noises at me.

When he was done with our table, he went over to the next table, which was a family of four. The mom, dad and older brother (maybe 9ish) had gone up to get food, leaving the younger sister (maybe 5 or 6) at the table with her breakfast. You can see her in the pink shorts in the corner of the photo with Tigger and I. So Tigger comes over and makes a gesture like, “where is everybody?” The little girl pointed to the buffet and Tigger sat down across from her to wait. Every so often, he would lean against his paw or check his imaginary watch. The handler came over after a few minutes and told Tigger the friendship parade was about to start. He took the little girl by the hand and they marched around the restaurant together in the parade. When the parade was over, he brought her back to her chair, gave her a big hug and a wave. The whole time, the rest of the family was getting food and completely missed all of it. A few minutes later, the older brother came by and the little girl started telling him about how Tigger was there and he sat in the brother’s chair, and they marched in the parade. The boy didn’t believe her, until the waitress came by and told him it was all true. The look on the boy’s face was priceless. I’m sure those parents were probably kicking themselves when they got back to the table and heard what had happened. We decided we were full and settled our check and headed out to the park, still 10 minutes before opening.

You can just make out people heading down Main Street towards us.
We went through the castle and were held by two CM and a rope right before the carousel. I wanted to ride Pooh and the lines were usually long during the day, so this was a good opportunity. As soon as they dropped the rope, we went towards Pooh and everyone else went to Dumbo. Lol.

We were the first ones to ride Pooh that morning and since no one was behind us in line, we walked slowly, taking a look at the new interactive queue. The honey wall was very cool and I can see kids spending a lot of time here playing.
This ride is so much fun. Kellan really likes Pooh, especially the very simplistic philosophy of the stories. I pointed out the portrait of Toad handing over the deed to Owl to him as we passed it too.

After Pooh, it was time to grab FP for Space Mountain. We also hopped in the line, since standby was only 10 minutes. We were getting lots of compliments on our bride and groom shirts, but standing in the sun, I was definitely starting to question the wisdom of the black shirts. Lol.

The nice PP person who was waiting for Chip and Dale took our photo. This is what I like to call my “mom” smile, as it’s what my mom often looks like in photos.

After grabbing two more Space Mountain FPs, we went to Buzz Lightyear, where I schooled my husband, mostly because he couldn’t get used to the targeting system. This is funny because he’s a huge video gamer, so you’d think he’d be good at these rides.

Once I’d beaten Kellan thoroughly, we went over to Carousel of Progress. My mom loves to tell us about how she rode this and Small World when she went to the 1964 World’s Fair in New York City. Lol. This relaxing ride is fun and we had a good time giggling over the last scene and how unfuturistic it seems now.

Empty hub early in the day. It’s lovely!

The Haunted Mansion – we’d be back for this one later.

One of these trips, I’ll actually ride the riverboat.

We crossed over the hub and headed into Frontierland. We got FP for Splash Mountain and rode Big Thunder Mountain.

The Liberty Tree

We stopped in the Christmas shop on our way to Hall of Presidents so I could check out the wedding merchandise. I bought the mr/mrs mugs and a photo album for our wedding photos.

What Kellan would have looked like in those silly groom ears.

Then we went to the Hall of Presidents, which Kellan wanted to see. All I remembered from the last time seeing it was having a lovely air conditioned nap. Lol. Well, this time I really enjoyed it. I loved seeing all the cool presidential memorabilia in the lobby and I thought the show was really well done.

Sorry for the fuzziness of the photos.

Some days I take worse photos when I’m sitting down and steady.

We used our FP on Splash, which was a welcome relief to the very hot day. I could so do without the lap bars on this ride. Kellan’s knees were very squished because of the bar and he would have been fine if the bar hadn’t been there. Despite that, we both really liked this ride and had a good time. We got wet (but not too wet) and it cooled us off a little.

We decided to try our luck at Pirates and see if we could get all the way through with no delays. I think we must have because I don’t have any notes about getting stuck. Lol.

What happens when I ask Kellan to take a photo of the chess game.

By this time, it was time for lunch. I steered us toward Cosmic Rays, because I knew Kellan would enjoy the toppings bar for his burger. Unfortunately, it was the lunch hour and the seating area was jam packed. Kellan got a bacon burger (no cheese), a coke and chocolate gelato. The server at the counter gave him cake instead of gelato, which he didn’t notice until we sat down. I got a Greek salad, no onions, an unsweetened iced tea and mango gelato. I was out of line before Kellan was so I went to find a seat. After about five minutes of wandering around, I found a couple getting up from a table on the left side of the restaurant. A very nice CM wiped the table down for me and we chatted about him being on the college program from SUNY Oswego. We live about two hours south of Oswego. I told him I was looking for my husband, but he probably wouldn’t find me in the restaurant. He asked me what Kellan looked like and said he would keep an eye out for him.

He didn’t just do that, he actually went searching for Kellan. The next thing I know, the CM is escorting Kellan to the table. I thanked him profusely and we sat down to eat. Kellan said he couldn’t find me and he was just going to find a table and eat and worry about finding me after. Of course, I wouldn’t have. I would probably have gotten up and wandered around until I found him. Anyway, we sat down and started eating. We both really enjoyed our meal. Kellan said the burger and fries were very good and when asked about the toppings bar, he said, “mmm…toppings bar.”

My salad was good. I gave Kellan the olives in it and went to the toppings bar to grab some tomatoes. The dressing was Ken’s, I believe, but it was good whatever it was. The salad was exactly what I was looking for too: something lighter and veggies! The gelato was also very good, fruity and cold. Not a terribly lot of mango flavor, but still refreshing. This is when we noticed that Kellan got chocolate cake instead of gelato. He went back to his counter with the receipt and the cake. The CM just handed him a cup of gelato and told him to keep the cake. So we had an extra dessert. The cake wasn’t terrible. It was surprisingly moist and tasted chocolaty. His gelato was very good, really rich and chocolaty. We finished off most of our desserts and decided to head back to the hotel.

A quick PP photo on the way out of the park.

The poor bus service at WDW was an ongoing problem throughout our trip. One of the things I’ve always liked about CSR is that they don’t share a bus and they’re usually the first mod bus stop at the parks. I also don’t remember the bus service ever being as slow as it was on this trip. We waited probably 20 minutes for a bus to come to our stop. We noticed a lot of buses for Saratoga Springs (and very few people ever waiting there) though.

Finally on board the air conditioned bus (thank god they’re always freezing or Kellan would have been very unhappy), we headed back to CSR. Our plan was to go back to the room, change into our suits and head to the quiet pool. This plan was foiled by the many large families already in the pool. It just isn’t relaxing in a quiet pool when you’ve got eight million screaming kids running around. It was hard to even find a place to just be in the water without being splashed or being bumped into.

We went back to the room and changed out of our suits before deciding we wanted some cake! Kellan went to the Pepper Market to get a knife and Café Rix for some take out boxes and I went to bell services to get the cake. We took it into the bar seating area and started cutting up pieces. We quickly realized we were still going to have way too much cake to fit in our fridge, so we went to the families sitting around us and asked if they wanted to share our wedding cake. We were quickly able to relieve ourselves of the rest of the cake and headed back to our room with our cake.

Continued in next post

 

[Sunstar]

We had some cake and wine and rested for a few hours before getting showered and dressed to go to Hollywood Studios. We went to the El Centro bus stop to catch our bus. The CMs who work here in the mornings often had a lot of trouble keeping people from waiting out where the busses drove in. The CM this morning must have gotten tired of telling people to step back and we found these instructions waiting for us.

We had dinner that evening at 50s Prime Time Café. Our ADR was at 7:30 and we had time to kill when we got there.

We headed down Sunset Blvd and took some pics on the way down.

Oh he so wishes this was his car!

We got FP for RRC and then I decided I wanted a frozen lemonade from the stand on Sunset Blvd because it was so hot. We spilt this and Kellan really liked it, which surprised me because he doesn’t traditionally like lemonade. It was really tasty, tart and refreshing.

We went to ride the Great Movie Ride, which I love. Kellan liked it a lot too. We got the gangster story.

I wanted to see what characters were out at the Animation Courtyard so we headed that way. I have to say I was quite disappointed Kellan wasn’t going to be able to see The Voyage of the Little Mermaid, since it was closed for referb. The CM at the door pointed us in the right direction for character greetings and we quickly hopped in the short line for Sorcerer Mickey.

There was also Pooh Bear and the Incredibles, both of whom had huge lines. I would have liked to meet Mr. and Mrs. Incredible and Fro-zone but their line was long and the CM at the door said they were only going to be there another five minutes. Sure enough, by the time we were done with Mickey, they had left.

We spent some time looking over the memorabilia on our way out, especially all the Academy Awards and checking out the art in the shop at the end. By then, we were hungry and ready to make our way over to the 50s Prime Time Café for supper.

There was a large crowd waiting outside, which made us nervous. We hadn’t had to wait long for any of our ADR times but it looked they were backed up. The CM at the desk said it was going to be about 20 minutes and we were going to go wait in the bar. About two minutes later, one of the CMs called for “The Potts kids”. We went over to make sure it was us and it was! Yay! We were seated in a room in the back on the same hallway as the kitchen.

Continued in next post

 

[Sunstar]

Our Aunt Patty made everyone in the room give us congratulations on our honeymoon before pointing out bits of the menu. I ordered a Grandma’s Picnic Punch and a cherry coke to drink and Kellan got a cherry coke.

Another glow cube! Yay!

For my appetizer, I got Auntie Annie’s Seafood Salad, which was lump blue crab, bay scallops, and shrimp tossed in citrus vinaigrette served on seasonal greens. I got the dressing on the side, just in case I didn’t care for it, but the salad really needed the moisture. The seafood was cooked ok, but the whole salad was just kind of dry and blah, even with the dressing.

Kellan got the chicken noodle soup, which I remember liking a lot and probably should have ordered this time around. He thought it was just ok and was helped a great deal by the addition of a ton of pepper.

For mains, I got a sampling of Mom's favorite recipes, which was crispy fried chicken, fork tender pot roast and traditional meatloaf with mashed potatoes and veggies. The fried chicken was good, the meatloaf was ick (it had tomato sauce on it, which I don’t like and the grind on the meat was too fine), but the pot roast was delicious.

Kellan had Aunt Liz's golden fried chicken. He subbed corn for the greens and skipped the gravy on his mashed potatoes. He really felt the food here was only average. He didn’t like the fried chicken, but he did like my pot roast. We decided it’s probably because he comes from the south and grew up eating a lot of this food. His aunt is one of the best cooks I’ve ever met and unfortunately, this place doesn’t hold a candle to her food.

One of my favorite things about eating at this place is the s’mores dessert. I love s’mores! Of course, I got that for dessert. Kellan got Dad’s brownie sundae.

As you can see, we both cleared out plates for dessert. We took care of the check and headed out. Kellan isn’t sure he would want to come back here, but I love it for the kitsch and the atmosphere, more than the actual food.

50s Prime Time Cafe:
Server: Patty
Cherry Coke $3.19
Mom’s Favorite $19.99
Seafood Salad $9.99
Smores $4.79
Cherry Coke $3.19
Fried Chicken $15.99
Brownie Sundae $6.49
Grandma’s Picnic Punch $10.50
Total (with tax and tip) $99.33

It was getting dark when we emerged and we took a minute to decide where we wanted to go.

Then I noticed a bunny over by one of the benches. I crept over to the railing and got a quick picture. He didn’t even run away until I said, “I got him!” Lol. I had been wanting to see a Disney bunny on this trip and now I had.

We went to find the Speeder Bike, which I had heard had been taken down. I was really hoping it was still there, because Kellan would think it was cool. We found them pretty easily and took turns taking our pics.

Then, it was off to Star Tours! Kellan found that depending on which beginning we had, he felt a bit nauseated after the ride. Also, we found that the ride was usually very, very warm and that didn’t help with the nausea. He was really disappointed by this because he’s such a big Star Wars fan.

After Star Tours, we rode the Great Movie Ride. I know this one gets a lot of flack on the boards, but I love this ride. Kellan did too. He liked the interaction between the CMs during those parts of the ride (we had the gangster side). We’re huge movie buffs and I think that’s a big part of it. I love the movie montages in the preshow and at the end of the ride.

We were thinking about going to Fantasmic! so we headed down to Sunset Blvd. The line for the first show was super long so we decided to use our FP on Rock and Roller Coaster and see what the second show was like. When we were done with RRC, we headed to Tower of Terror. The line for RRC was short when we were done with Tower so we hopped into the standby line for another ride on the coaster. Kellan loved this ride, especially since it was the only inverted rollercoaster he could ride.

When we came out of RRC, the line for the second Fantasmic! show was heading into the theatre. We hopped into the line and, after a much longer walk than I remember, ended up in the Malefecent section. The two far sections on either side were closed to seating and only a handful of families ended up sitting in the Jafar section. We decided that sitting right down front didn’t bother us. We went to an empty bench in the very first row of the amphitheatre. There were lots of family sitting behind us, but no one had taken this bench, so we did. Apparently, the family directly behind us thought that bench was theirs, even though there was no indication of anyone sitting there. I could hear the mom complaining about us sitting there, but the dad told her that if the kids had wanted to sit there, they should have been. Eventually, the little boy and the dad in the family came up and sat with us, which was fine since there was plenty of room.

I did put my poncho on, expecting to get quiet wet, since CMs warned us we were in the “splash section” several times. In reality, it was more like a constant mist, which was quite refreshing given how warm it still was. This show is so good. I loved the new Malefecent Dragon. Being right down front was awesome! You had such a good view of everything and could really see the details of the floats.

Once the show was over, we stayed in our seats for a while to let the crowds thin out. We made our way slowly back up the steps and down the long walk to back to the park. Sunset Blvd was very empty and there were only a few CMs still waving goodbye as we walked to the exit. The line at our bus stop was still quite long and it was a while before a bus came for CSR. We did get on the next bus that came and were able to grab a couple seats near the back.
Once home, we filled our mugs and headed back to the room for the night.

Steps: 29,911

 

[Desiree]

Ok I just stumbled upon your ptr from your signature and just had to say that I LOVED that your kitties are all named after Firefly characters! How awesome! Love that you met Summer Glau too! (I met Adam Baldwin at New Orleans Comic Con this past January!) And btw, a couple of my animals are named after Whedon characters as well. I have a Doyle (Angel) and an Osbourne "Oz" (Buffy)!


Now I need to go back and read from the beginning! Bookmarking these so I can go back and read at a later date!

Ok pardon the interruption for geek talk!

 

[Sunstar]

Day 7: 8/22

This was our tour day. We were doing the Undiscovered Future World tour at EPCOT. We got up early, had a quick breakfast of cake and were at the bus stop by 7. The EPCOT bus was actually the first one that came, so we were going to be super early. There aren’t many photos in this part because of the tour. We could take photos when we were “on stage” but so much of this tour is backstage so I didn’t even have my camera out.

We were at the EPCOT turnstiles by 7:45 and checked in with the CM with the clipboard. Once inside, we stopped one of the CMs and asked them to take our pics in front of Spaceship Earth. He actually took a bunch of pics and posed us in a couple places. Then I tried to take a pic of Kellan holding up Spaceship Earth, but he didn’t quite get what I was going for. Lol.

Since we were so early, we went past Guest Relations and took some pictures of the empty park. Kellan got yelled at by a CM when he tried to go past the rope towards Mission: Space.

I’ll admit I did giggle at him. He honestly didn’t realize we couldn’t just wander around. We went back to Guest Relations and checked in for our tour. We got our name tags and took a seat on the bench inside. Before too long, the rest of our group had arrived and our tour guide came out. His name was Robert and he was really good. The tour was scheduled to be a four hour tour, but it ended up being a little over six hours. He started out talking about the history of EPCOT, while we stayed seated in Guest Relations. Then, he distributed our ear pieces so we could hear him when we were out in the park.

From there, we headed backstage through a door in Guest Relations. We were shown some of the CM stuff backstage, including the computer that tells them where to go for their shift. We emerged inside Innoventions East. They were putting in a new exhibit so there were quite a lot of walls up. We saw the Kuka arms at Sum of All Fear, which Kellan and I quietly cursed, since they were the reason he couldn’t ride the Harry Potter ride.

We came out of Innoventions in the main plaza and perched against the wall near Mouse Gear. Robert told us lots of facts about the fountain, including how some of the water in it was originally brought from bodies of water all over the world. This part was tough, because we were sitting in bright sunlight the whole time. Then we crossed over to Innoventions West.

As we crossed the plaza, Robert told us that the EPCOT logo on the ground was once the center of the World, but is no longer. It is still the center of EPCOT though. He also talked about the old logos that each pavilion used to have. We walked through the building and came out near the Seas. We were taken inside the Coral Reef restaurant to get out of the heat and learned a bunch of cool information about the pavilion. My dad has a huge fish tank and loves aquariums and this is his favorite pavilion. I thought it was particularly cool that they filter the water in the tanks through a process that actually electrocutes the water before pumping it back into the tanks.

We then went over to the Land. Robert stopped us a couple times outside to point out how the landscaping helps create the feelings of being in the various pavilions. The landscaping between the Seas and the Land transitions from plants that looks like seaweed and other underwater plants to flowers that create the illusion of big puffy clouds. Once inside, we were given a 15 minute break. Kellan and I got Soarin’ FP, used the facilities and got a snack at Sunshine Seasons. I got the strawberry shortcake and Kellan got a cookie. The shortcake was amazing! So yummy. Kellan also liked his cookie, but not as much as the shortcake.

When our break was over, we met back up and were escorted outside and backstage. Robert explained how Soarin’ was designed and worked and then we went inside through the CM entrance for a front row ride on Soarin’.

Now, I want to say that I love this ride. I remember when it first opened in EPCOT and how amazing it was. Unfortunately, this is a ride that badly needs some TLC. The picture is badly damaged and there are several places where pops and scratches really throw you out of the illusion. Kellan really found this ride overrated and I wondered if a large part of that was because of the poor quality of the movie.

We didn’t go into Journey Into Imagination, which in retrospect, I’m disappointed about. I was hoping to get to see the old ImageWorks area, but the tour was so long and it was so hot outside that at the time, I forgot to ask about it. When we finished on the west side, we headed over to the east.

We started this side at Universe of Energy. Robert took us backstage and gave us a history of the ride and the facts about the building. In the CM area, we got to touch and examine one of the AA Pterodactyls. You could really hear the ride in the CM area.

Once outside, a couple of the other tour members had to use the restrooms. We waited for them under some lights and then I noticed that the garbage can we were standing near was blowing bubbles! When we were all back together, Robert took us over to Mission: Space and up into the HP VIP lounge. He told us how corporate sponsorship works and told us a bit about the old Horizons Pavilion. He also explained how the Mission: Space pavilion works. When you enter, the temperature is cooler than other air conditioning temps in the park. This is to lower your body temp and helps to prevent nausea. The temp stays cool until you enter the post-show area, where they have the temperature a few degrees higher than normal. This is to help acclimate your body for going back out into the heat. They put in the games and stations in an effort to get people to hang around and let their bodies get back to normal. He said when you go in, get cool, ride the attraction and then run right back outside, you are far more likely to get sick or feel the effects of the ride. It’s interesting what Disney thinks about when they are designing their attractions.

From here, we were entirely backstage. We walked down and around Test Track, actually walking under the track and touching the support poles as cars went round. Almost makes you not want to ride again! Lol. We went into the garage where they work on the Test Track cars. He told us about the evolution of the tires on the cars and how often they have to switch out cars. He also showed us the former CM parking lot that now houses GM cars. He said GM thought it would work like subliminal advertising as you just get a glimpse of the cars as you swing round the track, but in reality, most people don’t even realize the cars are there.

From there we went to costuming and he showed us how it worked. We saw the repairs department and talked characters. I’m the same size as Mickey or Donald and my husband is Goofy sized. We saw some of the princesses getting ready. Belle was all done up from the neck up (hair and makeup) but was wearing jeans and a hoodie, which was kind of cool. He showed us the wig department and how there are three stylists who just take care of creating hairstyles for the face characters. One of the stylists really liked my hair, which is short and bright purple for this trip.

The final thing we did was take a look at the Illuminations barges. He gave us a bunch of facts about the barges and the fireworks show itself. Disney has four proprietary fireworks colors: pumpkin orange, lavender, sea blue and some shade of green (can’t remember what he called it). It was very hot in this area and smelly from the diesel fumes. At this point, Kellan and I were very hot and hungry, and kind of ready for the tour to be over.

We walked along the back of World Showcase (backstage you realize how close together everything is). Before we went back onstage, Robert took our ear pieces, gave us our pins and explained that we would have VIP seating for Illuminations that night. We thanked him and he escorted us back through a door into the shop in China. Kellan and I decided to go back to the hotel and rest for a bit since we had reservations at Teppan Edo at 7:30.

This tour was awesome and so packed with information for an EPCOT geek like me. I would just recommend taking it in cooler weather since so much of it is outside and not in the shade. That being said, it was totally worth it and super enjoyable.

On our way out, I saw one of the retro EPCOT t-shirts in the gift shop and had to go in and get one. We headed out and caught a bus back to the resort.

That evening we had reservations at Teppan Edo. We love the hibachi place near us and I’d had good meals there when it was Teppanyaki. One thing the tour this morning taught me was that my Crocs desperately needed to be replaced. We had looked in Mouse Gear but there wasn’t anything I really liked and found comfy. Since we wanted to use our Soarin’ FP before our reservation, we were headed over to the Land. On the way, there was a kiosk that had the blue, red and white Mickey Crocs. I stopped to check and see if they had my size and they did. I bought them and changed out of my uncomfy Crocs into my new comfy ones. We rode Soarin’ again. The CM saw our just married badges and put us in the front row by ourselves, which was so cool. The picture was a little better than when we rode it that morning, but this ride still needs work.

After Soarin’, we walked slowly to the World Showcase. We really enjoyed just walking along, not letting the craziness around us bother us. Once we got to Japan, we checked out the store for a bit, since we were still early to check in. I thought about getting a pre-tied obi for my kimono, but changed my mind last minute. We went to check in. We went up the stairs and were given a pager for Teppan Edo. Tokyo Dining looked very busy.

Before too long, our pager went off and we joined out table group. The hostess took us over to table in the first room. Our waitress was Mari and she was very nice. I ordered an iced green tea and Kellan got a coke.

My tea was really good and very refreshing. For appetizers, I got the assorted tempura, a mix of veggies and meats fried and served with a nice soy dipping sauce. Kellan got the wafu ribs, which were delicious! They were so tender they just fell off the bone and the glaze on them was yummy. They were cooked on the grill by our chef.

We also wanted to try the grilled crispy sukiyaki beef roll, which is under sushi on the menu. This was also cooked at the table by the chef. These were so good. The mix of the crispy outer bits from the grill and the tender beef inside was nice.

For dinner, I got the akasuka, sirloin and shrimp.

Kellan got the nihon bashi, which is sirloin and chicken. Our entrees came with veggies, udon noodles and steamed white rice. I love white rice, and I understand that fried rice isn’t Japanese, but I do love fried rice and missed it a little. We both really enjoyed our meals. Everything was cooked well and very tasty.

For dessert, Kellan had the green tea pudding, which he found gross. The taste wasn’t bad, but the texture was very off-putting.

I had the chocolate ginger cake, which Kellan shared. It was good, a light gingery cake with a nice chocolate frosting. Overall, we very much enjoyed this meal and will definitely come back here.

Teppan Edo:
Server: Mari
Asakusa $29.95
Crispy Beef Roll $8.50
Ginger Cake $6.50
Iced Green Tea $2.95
Nihon Bashi $28.95
Green Tea Pudding $6.95
Wafu Ribs $9.50
Assorted Tempura $8.50
Coke $2.95
Total (with tax and tip) $126.56

We wandered around the World Showcase since we still had a half hour before Illuminations. We found the VIP section and then decided to get a snack at the caramel shop in Germany before staking out our spot. Kellan doesn’t like caramel, so I got a caramel coated rice crispy treat and he got some chocolate. We went back to Italy and checked it with the CM with the clipboard. It was cool to have our names on the VIP list and be allowed past the rope, while people wondered who we were. Lol. I asked her where the best view would be. The VIP section we were in was to the right of the bridge in Italy if you are looking out at the lagoon. She said the side nearest the bridge so we staked out a spot there.

We were sitting under a tree that was just showering flowers down on us so we put some in our hair.

Illuminations was great as always and Kellan liked it a lot. We looked for the special Disney colors of fireworks and we knew that they did the whole show that night, since Robert told us about the different versions of the show they had for different weather conditions. After the show, we decided to go to Hollywood Studios, since they didn’t close until 10. We took one of the Friendships, which would have been more pleasant had it not been incredibly hot on the boat. We started out in the middle of the boat but moved up to the front (which was better) when we made our first stop. Being in the front row was much more pleasant, but I think walking probably would have been even better if our feet hadn’t been sore from the tour that morning.

We got to DHS and I thought we should try Toy Story Mania. The standby wait was 40 minutes and Kellan didn’t want to wait. We decided we’d rather just go back to the hotel, but on our way out, Kellan wanted to stop into Guest Services for some reason. I plunked down on a bench to people watch and wait for him.

Kellan did this a few more times during our trip and I later found out he was desperately trying to make some magic happen for me as a secret. He couldn’t get anyone to help him out. Part of the problem is that he would get an okay for an idea from one CM and then when he went to make it happen, someone else would tell him no, he couldn’t do that. He said it was very disheartening and he actually wrote a letter to Disney about it when we returned.

After a while, he came back out and we left to find a bus. One came fairly quickly and we were off for home.

Steps: 24,377

 

[Sunstar]

Ok I just stumbled upon your ptr from your signature and just had to say that I LOVED that your kitties are all named after Firefly characters! How awesome! Love that you met Summer Glau too! (I met Adam Baldwin at New Orleans Comic Con this past January!) And btw, a couple of my animals are named after Whedon characters as well. I have a Doyle (Angel) and an Osbourne "Oz" (Buffy)!


Now I need to go back and read from the beginning! Bookmarking these so I can go back and read at a later date!

Ok pardon the interruption for geek talk!

Welcome! Glad you've decided to join us!

It's ok; I love geek talk! My plan is to someday have the entire crew's worth of animals. Summer was super nice and super tiny! She had a huge line and I waited forever but I'm so glad I did. I'm dying to meet Adam Baldwin. He's been booked for Dragon*Con for the past six years, but every year he's canceled. He's booked again this year and there's faint hope he might actually come since Chuck has been canceled. Is he nice? I hate when celebs aren't at least personable. You're at a con to meet fans and sign autographs! Don't be cranky!

 

[Sunstar]

Sorry to go so long between updates. It just seems like life really doesn't want me to finish posting this TR. My computer decided to start acting very strange last night when I intended to update and I had to run all sorts of scans to see what was wrong. Turned out to be a Trojan with a keylogger. It's all good and cleaned up now, but man those things can slow down a PC.



So without further ado (if there's anyone who's still reading) here's the next installment.

Day 8: 8/23

This was another low photo day for us. Don’t know why, but I suspect it had something to do with Kellan being sick.

Kellan woke up this day with a cold so we decided to sleep in a bit. I had been fighting a cold just before we left for Florida, so I had Dayquil, Nyquil, Mucinex, Advil Cold and Sinus and Sudafed with us. Lol. Once we got up, I gave him some Dayquil and we decided to go to our 11:30 ADR at Le Cellier.

My family always liked Le Cellier when we ate here, so I was expecting a decent meal. We were about an hour early so I suggested we check out O Canada! Kellan and I love Canada and all things Canadian. We’ve even talked about moving to Canada some day.

We enjoyed the film and killed enough time before our ADR. When we got back to the restaurant, the lobby was full. The hostess had checked us in when we had poked our heads into the restaurant before, so we were actually seated first. After the waitstaff opened the restaurant with a rousing chorus of “O Canada,” we were seated in the Quebec province and were taken care of by Katrina. I think she thought we were picking on her when we said we wanted to be Canadians, but eventually she just laughed and told us we could be honorary Canadians for today.

To drink, I ordered the Red Maple, which is a raspberry smoothie with Sprite.

Kellan ordered the Niagara Refresher, a mango smoothie with cranberry juice. Both were really good.

The basket of yummy breads.

For appetizers, I ordered the tomato stack with caramelized onions, cucumbers, crumbled blue cheese, and a yuzu vinaigrette. I enjoyed this very much, but I love all tomato salads.

Kellan got the spicy chicken and chipotle sausage which was served with roasted corn polenta and sweet onion jam. This was very, very spicy and Kellan didn’t care for it at all. He like spicy food, but found this to be nearly inedible.

I ordered the Le Cellier mushroom filet mignon with wild mushroom risotto, medium rare, but asked them to leave off the white truffle and herb butter sauce. My steak was kind of meh. It was edible and cooked well, although a touch too close to medium. But I’d had better steaks at our local Longhorn and that’s not what I expect from Le Cellier. I did take a photo of it, but I was half done with the steak by then and it’s not particularly appetizing.

Kellan ordered the NY Strip, medium, without the butter and with fries instead of the gratin. When the steak came, it was well done. We got our waitress’ attention and he showed her the steak. She agreed and promised to have him a new one cooked. She left the plate with the well done steak, so that Kellan could nibble on the fries, which were ok. The next steak came out about ten minutes later and when Kellan cut into it, it was practically raw inside. This one went back too. By this point, I was done with my steak (I did love the risotto, though).

The last steak was brought out by the manager, who told us the cook usually did the evening shift and wasn’t used to working this early. Like that’s a reason for bad cooking! He cut into this steak and this one was only slightly more well done that the second one. He told the manager not to worry about it and she said she would take his meal off the bill and brought us some champagne. When our waitress came back to take our dessert orders, she also gave us an anytime, any ride FP.

I ordered the Mont Blanc semifreddo, which is a semi-frozen white wine sabayon, with chilled fruit soup and fresh raspberries and blackberries. This was so good! The semifreddo was light and just a little sweet, which went really nice with the chilled fruit soup.

Kellan got the chocolate-on-chocolate whisky cake. This was the only thing about the meal he really liked. It was nicely chocolaty and rich.

I was very disappointed by our meal at Le Cellier. I know it’s often hit or miss with people on the Dis, but we’d never had anything but good meals here before this one. My parents ate here at the end of September and they enjoyed their meal, so maybe we just had a bad cook. The service was excellent and our meal would have been properly paced if there hadn’t been issues with the food.

We decided to take the long way out of the World Showcase and stopped in the store in Canada first. My dad and I used to make a tradition of trying on the Anne of Green Gables hats, but they don’t have them anymore. So I made Kellan put on the moose hat instead.

From this point on, I’ve only got Photopass pics. I don’t know what happened, but I didn’t take any pictures after the moose hat one. Sorry!

We decided to use out FP on Test Track. It was actually running so we got in line and were at the pre-show doors pretty quickly. I really like this ride, but Kellan felt that he could have driven faster on a trip from New York to Tennessee. I tried to explain that wasn’t the whole point of the ride, but he still thinks it’s overrated. I can’t wait to try the updated version of the ride.

The guy in the front row was REALLY enthusiastic about going on this ride.

On the way, we hopped in the non-existent line for Spaceship Earth. Which proceeded to break down. *sigh* The curse strikes again. And we had been doing so well on the ride front. Lol. We were the next ones in line so we waited it out, about 10 minutes, and then we were on. This is one of my favorite rides at EPCOT and I was excited to see the new version. It was cool and we enjoyed it until we got stuck right in the World War II homefront scene and in the computer lab in the 1970s, right at the top of the sphere.

It took us about 10 minutes to get moving again and then we were picking our future lives. I don’t remember what our future was, but I do remember the computer thought I was a guy, I guess because of the short hair.

Since Kellan wasn’t feeling good again, I figured this would be a good day to do some laundry. We got back to the hotel and Kellan went to lay down for a nap. I packed up the dirty laundry in one of the suitcases, changed into my swimsuit, grabbed my kindle and something to drink before heading to the laundry room. I loaded up a couple of washers and went to find a chair by the pool.

The pool was as busy as usual, but I managed to find an open lounge chair and relaxed with a good book. I took a few cooling dips in the not cool pool and just hung out until the washing was done. I managed to find two open dryers across from my washers. I would like to say that the washers at CSR are fine, but the dryers suck a lot. I ran the clothes for as long as it would let me and some of the stuff still wasn’t dry. Part of the problem is that the dryers are meant for smaller loads than the washers, so you have to use more dryers. The other problem is that they just don’t dry very well.

I decided to go back up to the room and change while the clothes were drying and then come back to pick them up. Kellan was sort of half conscious and I said I’d grab something for him to drink from Rix when I came back.

Back in the laundry room, I packed up the clothes, discovering more damp ones than I was happy with and brought them back to the room. Then I grabbed the mugs and went to Rix for drinks and a snack. I also bought a packet of Theraflu from Panchito’s for Kellan since he’d used the last of the Dayquil by today. The CM at Rix gave me a Styrofoam cup of hot water for the medicine and I got a strawberry gelato.

Kellan was awake when I got back and reluctantly took the Theraflu (men are such babies when their sick). I unpacked the suitcase, hung up the damp clothes to dry and put the rest of the clothes away. Then I hopped in the shower to get ready for dinner that night. We had a 9:20 reservation at California Grill that evening. Kellan said he was feeling better, so we decided to go back to EPCOT and do some of the things we hadn’t yet. It was raining when we left, so I wore my poncho over my nice dress. It was quite a stunning look as you can see! Lol.

We decided to start on the west side of Future World and got in line for The Seas with Nemo and Friends. I enjoyed everything about this ride, including the queue themeing. I thought the ride was fun (Although we did get stuck in the “fish are friends, not food” section for a few minutes. Cursed? Yes, we are.) Once we got off the ride, we saw some fish and other sea creatures. This pavilion always makes me dizzy. It’s the concave glass. It’s very hard to tell where the glass stops and that gives me vertigo. Needless to say, we didn’t spend a ton of time here.

Next we moved on to the Land. I wanted to ride Living with the Land. I love this ride. The greenhouses are so cool and I would love to work here. I do miss the live captains and the song at the end. I think I would like to take the Behind the Seeds tour one day. When we were done, we went to ride Journey into Imagination. I love Eric Idle and everything, but I do miss Dreamfinder. Then we hopped in line for Captain EO.

I first saw this on my first trip to Disney. It was so cheesy and good. I remember my grandfather (not the most tolerant man) commenting after, “That black guy sure can dance.” Kellan’s a big Michael Jackson fan so I knew this was a must see for us. It was just as wonderfully cheesy as I remember. Kellan said it was pure awesomeness.

Once we finished, it was time for a leisurely stroll to the monorail to take us to the Contemporary. The monorail was just pulling in as we came up the ramp and we hopped into an open car. The ride was lovely as always and we quickly got to the TTC. Not paying attention, we went up the wrong ramp. The CM at the top kindly pointed us in the right direction and we went back down and back up. Again the monorail arrived just as we did and we were on and riding around to the Contemporary. We arrived about a half hour before our ADR. The CM at the desk, checked us in, gave us a pager and let us into the elevator. Once upstairs, we found seats at the bar. I ordered a sangria and Kellan got a coke, as usual. After a few minutes looking at the drink menu, Kellan decided to get a twisted mai tai (Mt Gay Rum, Crème de Noyaux, and Orange and Pineapple Juice with a splash of Lime, from Party Through the Parks).

We were buzzed about twenty minutes later and were seated against the window on the wine room side of the restaurant. Our waiter was Raub, and he was a little snobby. We started off the meal with unsweetened iced tea for me and another coke for Kellan. We each ordered flatbreads for our appetizers. Kellan got the BBQ chicken with chipotle-corn salsa and roasted peppers, but without the cheese. He didn’t like it at all. He’s very picky about BBQ, but he also said it was a bunch of flavors that just didn’t go together well for some reason. I got the chef's garden heirloom tomatoes with baby mozzarella, tomato jam and micro basil. I loved this! I could have eaten the entire thing, but I knew I would be too full for the rest of the meal then.

At this point, Raub came back and asked if we would like to have our entrees before Wishes, or wait until after. We decided to wait until after, since there were only about 15 minutes until the show. I ordered the filet (at this point, are you shocked?), which was delicious. Kellan got veal of some kind. I can’t find it listed on the menu (of course not, our trip was months ago) and the receipt just says veal. It was the first time he had it and said he liked it. However, he also said he wouldn’t get it again, unless we were on the dining plan because it wasn’t special enough to warrant the cost.

Watching Wishes from the balcony was great. Kellan loved it. I do think that if we were to come back here again, we would come earlier. It was very loud and sort of crazy, especially when a very large birthday party of mostly children were seated next to us. The second half of our meal seemed to take forever (though not as long as at Yatchsman, but more on that later) and our waiter disappeared for long periods of time.

For dessert, we both decided on the Valrhona chocolate cake, which was served with strawberry ice cream and macerated strawberries. This was very good, but the cake definitely needed the ice cream to help mellow the richness of the chocolate. This meal was good, but not great and I was surprised given the love California Grill gets on the Dis. It was neat to see Wishes from a different viewpoint and we got to see the fireworks of Fantasmic! while we were eating too, which was cool.

Our check took forever to come (like I said, Raub disappeared for long stretches of time), but finally we settled the bill and were heading back downstairs to the monorail. We rode the resort line all the way around to the MK and then hopped a bus back home.

California Grill:
Server: Raub
Tomato Flatbread $13.00
Filet $44.00
Chicken Flatbread $13
Veal $44.00
Valrhona Cake $26.00 (for two of them)
Total (with tax and tip) $169.10

Steps: 16,024

 

[Sunstar]

Day 9: 8/24

I totally freaked when I went to type up this section, because I couldn’t find my notes. Then I realized I misdated them. Crisis averted. Lol.

One of my favorite photos of us from the trip. We were waiting at the bus stop for a DHS bus.

We decided we were going to do rope drop at DHS today. Kellan was feeling better and we had an early lunch at Sci-Fi Dine-In. Plus, we decided to do the Toy Story Dash.


We got there about 8:30 and were about half way down the street from the rope drop show. Since I’m short, I had a hard time following what the show was all about. It was something about making a commercial and we had to do something when cued, but all I got was a lot of cheering when they let us into the park proper.

This was by far the biggest crowd (outside of the nighttime shows) we saw the whole time we were at WDW.

We walk/ran with the rest of the crowd, bypassed FP and jumped straight in line. We were back by the far gate to Pixar Place, just inside the Streets of America. Before too long we were inside the ride building, and it took us about 30 minutes to get on the ride proper.

Taken after the craziness of the ride, but I thought it fit nicely here.

Outside while we waited. Someone wasn’t thinking when they stuck a potentially crazy popular ride in a tiny little alleyway.

I love that the frame is made of popsicle sticks. Reminds me of being back at camp, making popsicle frame for my parents in Arts and Crafts.

So it absolutely could have been worse, given this part of the queue was blocked off and empty.

I used to play with my dad’s old Viewmaster when I was little. He even had this disk!

I tried to take photos only when we were stopped or as we moved along slowly, but I guess there were a lot of people who would just stop in the queue to take pics. The CMs kept making announcements about not taking photos and keeping the line moving.

The ceiling was so awesome!

I never played with the Barrel of Monkeys when I was little so I don’t understand the point of the game.

You really do feel toy-sized as you walk through the queue.

This guy was very funny. Great way to keep us entertained as we slowly shuffled around in circles. Lol.

Luxo, Jr.’s ball. This is one of those things that is included in every Pixar film, so it's cool they included it here.

I miss my tinker toys.

This ride is so much fun! Kellan finally beat me, but I had far better accuracy. I liked the shooting mechanism and it was so much easier to aim than in Buzz Lightyear or Men in Black. We probably should have gotten FP for it, so we could have ridden it again, but we didn’t get on it again during this trip.

We decided to get FP for RnR and check the wait time for ToT. As soon as we got out of Pixar Place, the crowd level dropped significantly. There were tons of characters in the main plaza area, near the hat, but we bypassed them and cut across Starring Rolls to Sunset Blvd. We popped into Beverly Sunset for a quick snack and picked up a trio of chocolate covered marshmallows on a Mickey straw.

I loved these boxes! We ended up getting one later in the trip with a snack credit.

On our way down, we had our pictures taken by a great PP guy. He posed us in front of a marquee that said Once Upon a Time.

After grabbing FP for RnR, we headed to ToT. Wait time was 5 minutes so we hopped in line.

Sorry that one's fuzzy

I have to say we had the crankiest CM in the load area. She was so not in character at all, which is always part of the fun. After our ride, we ran around and rode again. The line was a little longer this time, but that gave me time to take a few cool photos.

We didn’t get the cranky CM this time and had a great ride. I love the complete randomness of the drops. We thought we were done and suddenly we shot back up and down a few more times. We poked around in the gift shop when we were done. I was hoping to find some of the Tower Hotel merchandise, specifically the Hollywood Tower Hotel tumblers. I bought one years ago and loved it. It broke about a year ago and I really wanted to replace it. Unfortunately, they stopped selling them (as far as I could tell) and all I could find in glassware were shot glasses.



To Be Continued...

 

[Sunstar]

I apologize for the size of my photos. I've resized them multiple times on Photobucket, but they just won't get any smaller!

Day 9 - Part 2
As we walked back up Sunset Blvd, we decided to pass through the shops. Kellan took a bunch of photos of the props in the Planet Hollywood store.

I recently found out that the girl who played Jules in Joss Whedon’s The Cabin in the Woods (the blonde) was also the one who played this Power Ranger (the Yellow Cheetah Ranger).



Since our ADR at Sci-Fi was 11:30, we decided to head to that side of the park. We grabbed FP and then jumped in line for Star Tours. Again, our Star Speeder was warm and Kellan felt a little icky afterwards. In the shop, Kellan found a Boba Fett baseball cap that he loved. Once we paid for the hat, we crossed the path to Sci-Fi. They had just opened their doors and were checking people in. We checked in and plunked down on the floor by a wall.

Kellan’s awesome new hat

We sat for about fifteen minutes before CMs started coming out and calling names. We were seated in the first row of cars, as hitchhikers in the rear of a car.

I adore the atmosphere of this place! The food’s not the greatest, but it’s good enough. I didn’t like that they wanted us to order our whole meal at one time though. I don’t know what I’ll feel like for dessert until I’m done eating!

I ordered a Tinkerbell Punch to drink, which was tasty. Kellan ordered a chocolate shake, which he really liked.


For apps, I got the spinach artichoke dip. This was cheesy, salty goodness. It was huge and could have been for two people (if Kellan liked cheese). There were also way too many chips. Lol. Kellan got the onion rings, which were also good.

We both had burgers for our entrees. Mine was plain and Kellan had bacon and onion on his. They were a good choice, juicy and delicious. The fries were good too! A lot of people on the Dis suggested burgers here and they’re right. Burgers are good here. (Didn’t get pics of any of this.)

For dessert, I got the cheesecake. Turns out it was red velvet cheesecake, even though it didn’t say so on the menu. I didn’t really like the combination of the cheesecake and the red velvet cake and ended up just eating the cheesecake part, which was good.

Kellan got the apple crumble. He liked this, but it arrive molten hot and the CM didn’t warn him. Kellan burned his tongue, but soothed it with the French vanilla ice cream the crumble was served with. He said that once it cooled, the crumble was delicious, nice and cinnamon-y.

Our biggest complaint about this restaurant is that the loop of clips they play isn’t long enough. They need to make a loop of at least two hours worth of clips in order to not repeat. It felt like we started repeating clips pretty quickly too. So a longer movie would be cool.

After lunch, it was time to use our Star Tours FP. This was our best ride yet. The Star Speeder was properly air conditioned and we had a completely new ride. We had the Darth Vader opening, then we went to Hoth, with a message from Admiral Ackbar and the Death Star finale. Our other rides all started with the droid opening, podracing on Tatooine, messages from either Yoda or Princess Leia and a Coruscant finale. As many times as we rode, we didn’t have that many variations, which I thought was weird, given the number of possibilities there are.

After Star Tours, I wanted to go to Muppet*Vision 3D. Kellan had recently developed an appreciation of the Muppets and he was excited for this too.

It’s so much fun and the new print of the film is very nice. In the shop on the way out, we bought my dad a little Swedish Chef doll and Kellan got a Beaker doll. Then we walked around the Streets of America.

We found the Singing in the Rain umbrella, which Kellan had no trouble make work, but I couldn’t get the rain to go. I don’t think I was able to put enough pressure on the panel.


You can almost see it’s raining.

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We also found a fire hydrant that was open and spraying water. It was cool and really added to the feeling of being in old New York. It was very hot and the cold spray felt good, although we looked like we'd been sweating badly when we got done. Lol.
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[Sunstar]

On our way back to RnR to use our FP, we found a PP CM in the spot by the Fantastia topiaries. She offered to do all the magic shots for DHS, except the Darth Vader one, for us. We had fun doing all the poses.

See what I mean about being wet? Kellan enjoyed the water a little more than I did. Lol.


Hi Everybody!




I love this one!

Kellan looks so serious in this, like I’m really going to float away. Lol.



Then it was off to RnR before leaving for our afternoon break.

We waited a good ten minutes or so before a bus came and we were on our way. We got off at El Centro and filled our mugs, then headed to our room for a rest.

While getting ready for our evening in the World Showcase, Kellan decided he’d like to drink that evening. We had a bottle of Jack Daniels we’d picked up a few days earlier and he drank some of that with the Coke in his mug. I had a few glasses of the wine in our room, so we were both feeling good when we headed out. I had read that any drinking around the World should start in Mexico, since that’s where the hardest stuff is and it gets easier from there. So that’s where we started.


The new restaurant. I wanted to try it, but Kellan’s not big on Mexican food. Usually too much cheese.

I needed to use the restroom, so Kellan waited for me in the tequila bar. While I was gone, he made friends with a guy at the bar who was also drinking his way around the world to celebrate his birthday. He bought Kellan a shot and let him try his margarita (not sure which one). Alcohol hits Kellan in weird ways. He gets drunk very quickly and it wears off quickly as well. So he was feeling really good when I found him. I got a delicious pineapple margarita (no salt) to go and we went out to check out the vendor stalls. I’m not a huge fan of margaritas normally because I’m not a tequila person, but without salt they’re ok. This one was pretty good.

I dragged Kellan on the Three Caballeros ride. When he’s drunk, he’s a bit ADD and it can be difficult to get him to focus on going somewhere. Lol. We had watched the Three Caballeros at the start of the summer so he would know who these strange birds with Donald were. This was the first time I’d ridden the new version of the ride and it was a very nice update.

The other thing we did while in Mexico was buy a new Epcot passport. I’ve done this every time we’ve come to WDW and I wanted to continue the tradition. We got this stamped and signed before leaving the pyramid. Outside, we found Donald in his caballero gear and there was just a short line. We went to hop in it and the handler told us he was leaving soon. It was probably a good thing, given that my husband kept shouting “It’s uno caballero!” Donald waved to him the first time he did it, so that probably encouraged him. Lol.

We kept moving to Norway because I wanted to ride the Maelstrom.


“Am I in your picture?”

This is the most deceptive queue line in all of WDW. I swear it always seems like the line is super short, but it takes forever to get to the loading area. Kellan had no idea what was in store for him, although he did now understand why I periodically mutter “Yoo are not de first to pass dis way.”

I’m sure riding this drunk was entertaining, as he seemed to be much more concerned with the trolls and he really did think we were going to go over the falls. We skipped the movie, like always and wandered back out into the heat.

So I know that we had to walk through China and Germany on our way to our dinner reservation in Italy. I’m pretty sure I bought a caramel covered rice krispie treat. I also know that we got our passport stamped in China, Germany and Italy. Beyond that, I’m not really sure what we did between the Maelstrom and dinner. I didn’t have anything else to drink until dinner, so I know it wasn’t because I was drunk. Lol. I just didn’t make that many notes from this evening.

We had a 7 pm ADR at Tutto Italia. I started with a Rossini, which is Prosecco with strawberry puree. Very nice, sweet and bubbly. Kellan had a coke to drink. Our waiter, Andrea, was very nice, super handsome and very attentive. He had another young man with him but I don’t remember his name. He acted as a runner, getting us refills on drinks and bread.


Bread


They brought us the assaggini, a selection of olives, veggies and breads. There was a verdure of veggies, an olive giardinier, a spread of basil ricotta, bread and olive oil and herb and parmesan grissini breadsticks. The ricotta spread was delicious on the bread and Kellan really enjoyed the olives.

For appetizers, I chose the Bufala mozzarella salad, with fresh tomatoes and basil. It was so good! The mozzarella was creamy and a little salty, the tomatoes were perfectly tomato-y. Kellan ordered the prosciutto di parma, wonderfully salty prosciutto wrapped around slices of ripe melon. The combination was really delicious. We didn’t get any pics of the apps or desserts.

My entrée was risotto ai gamberi a aragosta, risotto with lobster and shrimp. It was very good. I enjoy risotto but I find it hard to find in my part of NY.

Kellan got the spaghetti with pomodoro sauce and veal meatballs. He really liked this, especially the veal meatballs.

We ordered the same thing for dessert, the copetta sotto bosco. This was a zabaglione cream gelato, with berries and chocolate sauce. Even though we’d had a pretty heavy meal, this was surprisingly light and tasty. The gelato was not too sweet and went nicely with the berries and the sweetness of the chocolate sauce.

We really enjoyed our meal here and I’ll be interested to see what it’s like after the remodel. I don’t know if they’re going to change the menu at all, but I hope not.

We were sobered up by this point, but it was still so hot, neither of us really wanted to drink any more. We decided to make it an early night and took our time wandering out of Epcot.

Steps: 23,032

 

[Sunstar]

Day 10: 8/25
Kellan woke up sick again and we slept in. His throat was sore and he just felt blah. Part of that might have been the tequila though… When we finally got up and around, we decided to go to Epcot. I wanted to eat at Sunshine Seasons. I also wanted to go on Universe of Energy. I figured this would be a good low-key ride for Kellan. He doesn’t like Ellen DeGeneres, but he loves Bill Nye. After the ride, we went to the Land for lunch. We both got the ginger beef. We also got a regular brownie and a s’mores brownie and sodas. The beef was delicious, but surprisingly spicy. The spice crept up on you, so you didn’t feel it until you were almost done. Both brownies, however, were gross. They were just too dry and dense.

From there, we decided to wander around the World Showcase from the UK side. There was a really nice breeze coming off the lagoon, because Hurricane Irene was passing by Florida. We had two or three days of nice, cooler weather because of her and it was great. Of course, it was heading straight up to our area and we were getting worried about being able to get home at the end of our vacation. Lol. Who goes to Florida and has to worry about getting home because of a hurricane in NY?


The bridge to France.

We looked in all the shops in the UK and Canada. In France, we were accosted by the perfume ladies in the Guerlain shop before going into the main gift shop. Man, those ladies are pushy! Lol. When we came out, I saw Aurora just coming out. We jumped in her line and had our second photo taken with her. Don’t know if I mentioned it, but Sleeping Beauty is my absolute favorite Disney movie ever.

That being said, I’ve yet to meet a really good Aurora. The one at CRT wasn’t bad, but most of them have no personality. My theory is that she’s only in about 14 minutes of the movie so there’s not really time to develop a personality and these girls have to wing it.

I got a Kir Royale at the kiosk, which is when we found out there was something wrong with one of our gift cards. The CM at the register couldn’t make it work and I was very worried. This was the card with most of our money on it! The other CM at the kiosk told us to go up to Guest Relations at the front of the park and they would be able to help us out. After a quick discussion, Kellan and I decided to continue our tour around the World Showcase and take care of it on the way out. We had some cash so we weren’t completely broke if we wanted something. That settled, we headed towards Morocco. We must have just gotten on the schedule of the character times as we headed around World Showcase, because we hit most of the character greetings between France and the American Adventure. We found Belle in her blue dress lagoon side before Morocco. The handler took my drink so we could meet Belle. She was so delighted in my new last name and the PP guy got a great photo of her reaction. She asked us if we were planning on any Chips yet and we said not quite yet. She took several photos with us, including an “I’m a little tea pot” one. When the CM went to hand me back my drink, she went “oh, for me?” and we laughed. She was just really nice and we had great interaction.

“Your name is what?”


“That’s wonderful!”


Regular pose


“I’m a little tea pot…” Kellan has never once in his life sang this song, so he wasn’t really sure what to do.

Next was Morocco. I love this pavilion because it’s far deeper than it seems from the main path. We walked back into the shops and checked out all the cool stuff for sale. We found a rack of fezzes, which we found amusing. We’re Doctor Who fans and there was a line in one of the episodes where the Doctor is wearing a fez, and he says “fezzes are cool.”


Fezzes are cool!

The museum had a display of clothing and accessories used in Moroccan weddings, which was very neat to see. Some of the jewelry was so elaborate and gorgeous.

When we emerged back onto the main path, we saw that Jasmine and Aladdin were going to be coming out in less than five minutes. There was a line and we got in it. Turned out, everyone in the line had lined up in the wrong direction and we ended up at near the front of the line. We didn’t do it on purpose, but the CM told us to just turn around. There were some angry people at the end of the line as to be expected, but there wasn’t anything we could do about it really.


Waiting for Aladdin and Jasmine

Anyway, Aladdin and Jasmine signed my autograph book and we took photos. Kellan was very impressed with Jasmine’s, um, assets. I was impressed she could deal with wearing that wig. Our tour guide Robert told us that the Jasmine wigs are quite heavy.

We walked through Japan, but didn’t go into the pavilion because we’d spent so much time there earlier in the week. We kept going and entered the American Adventure building. I wanted to see the show. We also got lucky and Voices of Liberty was just starting their show. We found a spot near the edge of the center dome and sat on the floor. This show was songs about the states and the first one they sang was Rocky Top, the Tennessee state song. Kellan grinned from ear to ear and they did an amazing job.

When they finished their set, the CM came out and introduced the American Adventure show. We climbed the stairs up to the auditorium and found seats right in the front row.

This show is fun. I really love all the animatronics and the story it tells. Plus, the song is so good. Kellan felt eh about it, because it left out a lot of the bad stuff in our history. Of course it did though, it is Disney. Lol.

We decided to finish the World Showcase loop and go back to the hotel.


Hey, it's Germany!

One of these days, I’ll catch Snow White here so I can get a photo of her with her wishing well.

We stopped in Germany so I could get a snack at the caramel shop and the bakery in Norway for a cinnamon roll for Kellan.


China is where we realized we were no longer on the meet and greet schedule because Mulan was just finishing up for the day.


Welcome to Norway!



I think Kellan makes a gorgeous girl Viking! I’m going to call him Brunhilda from now on.

We also stopped for a few photopass pics on our way out.

To be continued...

 

[Sunstar]

Back at the hotel, we took a nap and watched some TV before getting ready to go back out. As we were heading out, we took a bunch of photos of our section of the hotel.


The courtyard near the elevator.

Having left the room many times during the trip while it was raining, Kellan and I found several completely covered paths leading to El Centro. I really think it helps if you explore all the walkways and paths of the Casitas section when you get there. There’s a surprisingly lot of different paths to get where you’re going.




Really, you’re taking a picture of me in here?

At this point, we realized I’d left the extra camera battery in the room and my camera had been sucking juice like nobody’s business, so I ran back up to get it.


The decorations I made for my room window. I attached them with small pieces of tape in each corner and no one said anything about it.


Waiting for the elevator

We had an ADR at Artist Point at 8:30 and thought we’d spend a leisurely evening walking around the MK. We went over to Town Hall as soon as we got there to see the princesses and Minnie and Mickey. There was no line to meet either, so we picked princesses first. We saw Cinderella, Belle in her gown and Aurora. The interaction was lovely and not rushed at all.


This is the second time with this same Aurora. Remember that…


This Belle was nowhere near as excited about my being Mrs. Potts, but she was still lovely.







One of the nice things here was that the CM who was taking photos with my camera took more than one as we met with each princess.

We exited and looped back around to meet Mickey and Minnie. There was a little line now, just three or four families. The posters in the queue were neat to watch and before we knew it we were going in. The CM on the other side of the door asked if we wanted to be prince and princesses for the day and gave us stickers that said so.

Mickey and Minnie were very cool. Minnie was very impressed with my ring and kept showing it to Mickey. Mickey shook Kellan’s hand and we all posed for photos.

We exited again and explained to the confused CM in the hat shop that we’d gone back around to meet Mickey. She had said congrats to us as we went through the first time and started to say it again when she recognized us.

Some photopass pics. That grey sky behind us is what it looked like most of the day. It didn’t rain, just was really windy.

The PP CM obviously wanted to have a little fun with us. She made us switch hats. Unfortunately, none of these came out really well.


I also got to hold Tinkerbell.


The photographer up at the castle was really taking his time with people and doing poses and stuff. Most of which were kinda cheesy, but fun.




Hey, did you do the photos for my prom?


Apparently, I’m trying to kiss Tink here.

To be continued...