My 1st PTR/TR: An unexpected trip, Disney in December 4 *Day 3 6/5 Illuminations!*

[Roxychica7]

Hey Jess!! I am so happy to see you have started and are on your way into your report!! We've been down in NC for 10 days so I kept checking the Disboards every few days on the TR thread but I kept missing your TR.
Anyway.... I will cut you total slack for being remiss in starting your TR due to the fact that finished ALL of the Twilight books!! Didn't you just love them!!?? Have you gone on Stephenie Meyer's web site and read Midnight Sun? Definately do that if you haven't... it tells the Twilight story from Edward's point of view but it isn't finished yet.
Your eyes are absolutely sparkling in your picture in the lobby of the resort, sort of the "I'm at DISNEY!!!!" sparkle!
I'm so glad you are starting with light fixture photos for LL! We all love to see them!
I agree about the TTA, one of my favorites for just soaking it all in and realizing where you are... fun, fun, fun!!!
Congratulations on your A!!! Good job!!!

Thanks girl! I've been wondering about where you had gone to as well! But yes, thank you for excusing my absence for Twilight I so want to read books 3 and 4 again. I had heard about Book 5, but that it was suspended indefinitely because the author was so upset that the book got leaked. I haven't decided yet if I wanted to read it, since it's not finished, I'll have to think about that one! But hope you had fun in NC! And thank you for all your compliments! I'm so glad that I finally started this TR too!

wow some good updates, looks like you got a good amount of stuff in that we ran out of time to see,

we never made it to HM, or montsers.

Thanks Dan! I bet whatever you got to we didn't get a chance to see and whatever we got to see, you didn't. It is amazing how many things there are to do down there!

 

[Roxychica7]

Hey everyone! Thank you so much for the update comments! I have a few minutes, so we'll finish out Day 1!

Ok, so Dbf and I took a nice long nap. A 4 hour nap to be exact We didn't set our alarm clock and had planned on going to DD anyway, and decided to let our bodies tell us when they were ready to wake up so that we wouldn't be tired the rest of the week. We ended up napping from 3:15 to 7:15. We changed our clothes, I fixed my hair and we headed out to the DD bus.
Here's Dbf waiting for the bus, all polished up

We love Rainforest Cafe (we have one about 20 minutes from my house) and they have some amazing drinks. Dbf likes the Green Python (Coconut Rum, Midori, 99 Bananas, Sweet and Sour and something else..) it's good, but quite strong. I got a Strawberry Daiquiri, but made with Coconut Rum, so it tastes like a Pina Colada. Good stuff!
Here's one of us together that the bartender took and then seperately with our drinks

We decided to get our usual. BBQ Chicken Wrap without onions, but we split it and got some calamari as well. This meal with drinks, food, tax and tip came to $42, which was fine because it was our only OOP meal since I had saved for everything else for our food from the flight reimbursement and ebay stuff.

Next we went over to the World of Disney store to try and find Riley a Disney stuffie that didn't have any fur, hair, or detachable body parts. No luck yet, but I still love that store and we had fun looking around.

A light for LL

Does this count as a light fixture LL?

Then we finally got a chance to go into Goofy's Candy Shop to make some goodies.

I love chocolate covered pretzels, so Dbf agreed and since you get 3 of them for $3.50, we couldn't pass up that deal.
Here's some candy porn before we got started.
Yum.

And Dbf with our finished product

 

[Roxychica7]

We found a spot across from the Lego shop to eat our pretzels. We ended up doing:
1) White Chocolate with M&M's and caramel drizzle
2) Milk Chocolate with Reese Cups and caramel drizzle
3) Milk Chocolate with Oreos and caramel drizzle

Dbf took on the Reese and I started with the M&M's. (and of course ate the Oreo one on our way back to the resort) SO GOOD!

Next we went into the Christmas Shoppe to get our holiday ornament for the year. We saw a sign that said ALL ornaments, tree skirts and stockings 50%. What we didn't realize was that ALL the gift shops in the parks had this deal, including 40% off ALL tshirts (short and long sleeved), baseball hats and beach towels. We ended up getting 4 ornaments for the price of 2. I didn't take a picture of them yet, but I can save that for the end under the gifts section

Inside the ornament shop

And this is from the Surf Shop, I just really liked the bright colors on white tree look

Then a stop off at the Harley shop to sit on the Chopper

Now here's where Dbf and I became geniuses. Our feet were starting to hurt and we decided to call it a night. We waited for our bus at the Planet Hollywood stop, but it was kinda long and we didn't fit on it. So, we went directly across the street to the Hess Station. What was our plan? Well, we had seen in the gift shop at the resort that a 4 pack of wine coolers were $15!! So, we stopped in, grabbed a 6 pack of Bud Light lime for Dbf, a 6 pack of Smirnoff Ice for me and most importantly? A CASE of Dasani water for $4.50. Why might you ask? Well Dbf and I only drink water. We will occassionally drink a soda, maybe once everyone 2-3 weeks as a treat. Bottled water at Disney is $2.00 a piece. We figured we'd go through 3 bottles a piece, times 2 is 6 bottles. At $2.00 a piece that's $12.00 times 6 days is $72.00 for bottled water. So, $72.00 vs. $4.50, there's no comparison! And for beer, we got 12 for $16.00 vs. $8 a piece at the bars. Again, no comparison.

So, lesson learned? Stop in at the Hess Station directly across the street from the bus stop at Planet Hollywood at DD and grab a case of water for your family!

We ended up using the entire case perfectly for the week and saved some major money. What we ended up doing was bringing a water bottle along, one of those 32 ouncers. I filled mine up every morning with 2.5 bottles of water and a Lipton Green Tea packet and Dbf put 2 in his backpack with him for each day, that way with our meals, we NEVER had to buy a drink, only pay for the food portion. Gotta love that!!

And with that tidbit boys and girls, I'm off!
Up next...Day 2, what park did we go to, any guesses?!

 

[Lady Lallie]

Yes, Lumiere counts as a light fixture!

Sounds like an awesome evening at DD. We love Rain Forest Cafe too, the calamari looked really yummy.

That's an awesome deal that you got on your ornaments!

 

[disneydusted]

Love the chocolate pretzels!! Yum! Every Christmas we get 2 tins of Hershey ones.
Your daiquiri looks good too!
I just read on AllEars that so much of the Disney merchandise was on sale all during the holidays. Good deal for you guys!
Ok.... hummm... where do you go next???? I am guessing Epcot, no reason just a random guess.... maybe I picked Epcot because we end up there first???

 

[Roxychica7]

Yes, Lumiere counts as a light fixture!

Sounds like an awesome evening at DD. We love Rain Forest Cafe too, the calamari looked really yummy.

That's an awesome deal that you got on your ornaments!

Good on Lumiere! I was worried about that one

 

[Roxychica7]

Love the chocolate pretzels!! Yum! Every Christmas we get 2 tins of Hershey ones.
Your daiquiri looks good too!
I just read on AllEars that so much of the Disney merchandise was on sale all during the holidays. Good deal for you guys!
Ok.... hummm... where do you go next???? I am guessing Epcot, no reason just a random guess.... maybe I picked Epcot because we end up there first???

We certainly did luck out on the merchanise! And I will be trying to order that daiquiri with coconut rum now, so good!
Unfortunately (well only because it's over so quickly), I went to glance at Breaking Dawn around 10pm and damn if I didn't finish the thing all the way through. Took me 3 1/2 hours. I always hate when I do that, read through it so quick then there's nothing left to read. Now, there's REALLY nothing left..unless I start on Book 3 again...

 

[disneydusted]

Are you serious?? You are a super speed reader! You could always go check out Midnight Sun... I'm going to keep putting that out there. It really is very fun to see Edward's point of view.

 

[Roxychica7]

Are you serious?? You are a super speed reader! You could always go check out Midnight Sun... I'm going to keep putting that out there. It really is very fun to see Edward's point of view.

Midnight Sun! That's what I meant. I stayed up reading Midnight Sun last night. I read Breaking Dawn in about a day and a half right before New Year's. Man, I can't imagine reading BD in 3.5 hours, that's like over 700 pages! haha. So yes, I may need to reread Eclipse and Breaking Dawn again since Midnight Sun is over!
Ah, Edward, who doesn't love him?

 

[FauntleroyFAN07]

one thing we missed was the pretzels and make your own statoin, but we did get a make your own slushy drink it was good, candi loved it

 

[Roxychica7]

one thing we missed was the pretzels and make your own statoin, but we did get a make your own slushy drink it was good, candi loved it

Make your own slushi?! Where was THAT at? It's probably better you skipped the make your own. I ended up going back and getting 3 more pretzels, extra sugar I didn't need of course

 

[disneydusted]

YAY!! You did read it! Yes, there is something about Edward.... I am hoping that Stephenie Meyer finishes Midnight Sun.
Ok, you want to hear something so ridiculous? I just saw on your signature that your refer to your DBF as Disney Boyfriend... all of this time when I saw DH, DW, DD, or DS etc. I have thought that the D meant "dear" or "darling".... glad to be finally clued in! You would think with it being the DISboards that I would have clued into the Disney sooner! Good Grief!!!

 

[Roxychica7]

YAY!! You did read it! Yes, there is something about Edward.... I am hoping that Stephenie Meyer finishes Midnight Sun.
Ok, you want to hear something so ridiculous? I just saw on your signature that your refer to your DBF as Disney Boyfriend... all of this time when I saw DH, DW, DD, or DS etc. I have thought that the D meant "dear" or "darling".... glad to be finally clued in! You would think with it being the DISboards that I would have clued into the Disney sooner! Good Grief!!!

I did I did! And I want MORE! And of course it doesn't hurt either that Rob Pattinson is freakin HOT playing Edward in the movie too Yes, Dbf...I guess most DIS'er don't have a "Bf" on here, but a Husband. His name is Blake though, but knowing me I wouldn't have put two and two together either

 

[Roxychica7]

Hey everyone! Guess who's back at work? ME!
Know what that means? TR update!

Ok...so Day 2, we went to......Animal Kingdom!

I tried my hardest to make shirts for us for the week, but I'm not sure if I just didn't get a good enough quality shirt transfers or what, but I only ended up getting one pair of shirts successfully finished (in my opinion). The others just didn't look right. Oh well! At least we got to wear one each and the shirts were cheap.

Don't mind the sleepiness look. We woke up about 9:15 this morning, got showers and headed to get some yummy breakfast.
Here's a close up of my shirt (they're both Lion King background)

This was our "on breakfast" day. Every other day we decided to do cereal, since I had bought one of those variety packs of cereals on sale at Giant for $1.50. And all we had to buy was 1 soy milk and 1 orange juice, saved a bunch on the breakfast cost.
But today...today, was Mickey Waffle day for me!

I'm usually a bigger French Toast fan, but there's something about Belgian waffles. Dbf got the Adult breakfast platter and we split an OJ

Breakfast came to $14 and some change (I don't have my paper with me at work) and we had already filled up my water bottle with Dasani water with Green Tea packet.

We were on the bus and next stop..AK!

This time last year (Dec 2007) in front of this sign, it looked like this:

THANK GOD for 81 degree weeks.

And my favorite tree of them all, the AK tree

Here's Dbf with his ticket in hand

And our first view of the tree

We just wanted to take in the sights, so here's just a few pics of our walk to our first ride

First stop? Africa! We wanted to grab Fastpasses for the safari and then double backed to hit Dinosaur

First light of the day for LL

Heading into Dinoland USA

Does anyone know what the original name of this ride was? Any guesses?

Here's my redneck photo of the ride. Although, this is the only ride that I've ever purchased since Dbf and I started going. We have one from 2005 and one from 2007. We always do the 2 5x7's and split it with whoever we're with, that way the pic is roughly $10 instead of $20

 

[FauntleroyFAN07]

Make your own slushi?! Where was THAT at? It's probably better you skipped the make your own. I ended up going back and getting 3 more pretzels, extra sugar I didn't need of course

it was in goofys candy shop, othe rside as the make your own treats, they have 4 of the characters you can pick between

i will have a picture someone at the end of my report.

i am going to do the make your own shirts things when we go back in 2 years

 

[Roxychica7]

it was in goofys candy shop, othe rside as the make your own treats, they have 4 of the characters you can pick between

i will have a picture someone at the end of my report.

i am going to do the make your own shirts things when we go back in 2 years

I did see the other side, but thought I only saw that sour candy stuff, guess I wasn't paying attention very well. Wow, that sounds really interesting. I'm looking forward to the pics!

 

[disneydusted]

Looking at your photos it seems like it wasn't too crowded. The tall Christmas tree really is pretty, very natural looking with those decorations.
Your shirts turned out well! They look good!

 

[Lady Lallie]

Sounds like a wonderful morning at AK. I can't believe the difference in the weather from one year to the next!

 

[Roxychica7]

Looking at your photos it seems like it wasn't too crowded. The tall Christmas tree really is pretty, very natural looking with those decorations.
Your shirts turned out well! They look good!

It really wasn't. I mean normally it's very uncrowded in December, but I noticed it was even less crowded than usual. And thanks for the shirts! You should have seen me, I was so angry at the first batch and discarded them quickly Oh by the way, I'm reading Eclipse again...

Sounds like a wonderful morning at AK. I can't believe the difference in the weather from one year to the next!

Oh it was, I love being there in the morning when all of the animals are waking up. I couldn't either, it was SO unbelievably cold. Last year all we drank was hot chocolate, so it was nice to have some nice iced coffee this year

 

[Roxychica7]

Did anyone have a guess of what Dinosaur used to be called?
It was called Countdown to Extinction before the movie Dinosaur came out!
Enjoy your trivia for the day

Ok, where were we...

On our way to our next ride, we caught a light. This has been posted before, but it was prettier like this don't you think?

We always love a Bugs Life movie, so that was next

We especially love walking underneath the Tree of Life and seeing some of the carvings you don't see from the outside

This one we call "The Traditional Stop at the Monkey pic" (before you enter the theatre)
I need to find the rest of the pics over the years, but I noticed Dbf has almost the same outfit on every year. Here's the one from this year

And in front of the "Beauty and the Bees" movie poster with our bug glasses on

I always lean up at the end, I hate the little creepy crawlers!
By the time the show ended, our fastpasses were ready to be used for the safari

On the ride

I love this bumper sticker in the vehicle!

And some animal pics (rhino, elephant, flamingo, wildebeast, lion in no particular order of course) from the ride:

I don't know if you can see it, but the male lion is on his back, feet in the air soaking up the sun

And one of my favs

Next up, we stopped by to see Louie

Then I wanted to find my yummy Tea place and get something to drink. I got a caramel iced coffee with soy milk

Dbf decided that he had never riden the rapids at AK before, and normally I would say no because I hate walking around wet the rest of the day, but I figured it was 81, the sun was out and I'd dry fairly quickly. I just had to remember to keep my feet up so that my socks wouldn't get soaked, I HATE that!

The wait was only 5 mins (weird I know) and that was mostly due to walking through the maze to get to the ride, I sipped on my iced coffee until we got to the end.
And the end product

Not too bad! Although, I did forget to hold my feet up on the last hill and the side of one of my feet got it pretty good. Could have been a lot worse! With that, we decided to take a lunch break.

Where did we stop? What was our last ride before the close of the park?