My better late than never TR

[sunny_stace]

I knew those happy vibes were coming from you

welcome back (although I'm sure it's happier for me than for you) will we get to read about your trip?

May 2009? Do tell!

Well I'm hoping for May 2009! I really want to go to the Pirate and Princess party and the flower and garden festival....and just go on a slow-paced solo trip....however, if I wind up in a job change it may not happen...I probably wont be able to afford it if I take a pay cut...

I'm glad you got my good vibes! We got on lots of rides so there was a lot of vibing happening! Did you also get them when I had my three grey goose slushies on Dec.6th (hehehe...they were just going down too easy! )

sunnystace Glad your trip went well. Are you going to share some pics? Share some souvenier pics?...please.

I promise I will do a trip report eventually! It may also be "better late than never" Things are just awful since the dreaded return but don't worry! I took over a thousand pictures! MANY shopping ones too! And since I spent about $600 on souvies...

 

[kschafer]

Hi fellow Marcette!

LOVE the TR and the Disney On Ice pix esp. I'm dying to go to that!!!

Great time in Chat tonight- have a great Tuesday!

Did you get much snow in IL? We got quite a bit of freezing rain ahead of our snow Mon night so we had no school on Tues. Now I keep thinking its Monday

Definitely go to Dis on Ice if you get the chance!

The pics of Disney on Ice were great, you captured everything so well. That's the same show we will see in March. I'm so glad it has so much variety with the characters. I loved the souvenier pic for MeMom. I'm looking forward to the show even more now.

Your cheesecake dessert looks soo Yummy!!

The pics of your boys infront of the tree are too cute. I see Winnie the Pooh on your tree... anyone else?

Enjoy the show, I was really happy with the characters

The cheesecake was DELICIOUS

Yep, Pooh and the gang can be found all over my tree actually

if I wind up in a job change it may not happen...I probably wont be able to afford it if I take a pay cut...

I'm glad you got my good vibes! We got on lots of rides so there was a lot of vibing happening! Did you also get them when I had my three grey goose slushies on Dec.6th (hehehe...they were just going down too easy! )

3 grey goose slushies Thanks for all the good vibes!

How did the job situation turn out today?

 

[MeMom]

Well I'm hoping for May 2009! I really want to go to the Pirate and Princess party and the flower and garden festival....and just go on a slow-paced solo trip....however, if I wind up in a job change it may not happen...I probably wont be able to afford it if I take a pay cut...


MANY shopping ones too! And since I spent about $600 on souvies...

Flower and Garden Festival would be starting in March, which is when we're supposed to go, if we get to. That's one thing that keeps me hanging on to hopes of going. Also, I looked at the concert schedule, and Davy Jones is there that weekend. I was never a huge fan, not like Marcia Brady or anything, but it would be kind of cool to see him in person.


So between those two things, I really keep up my hopes that we can make the March trip. We're hanging by a thread. but at least we're still hanging.

Shopping pictures. I totally have my cart ready!

kschafer - Your little men are cute in front of the tree showing off their treats!

 

[sunny_stace]

3 grey goose slushies Thanks for all the good vibes!

How did the job situation turn out today?

Chickened out....I was so upset and anxious and worried that I wound up making myself sick so I called in...sick. I've never called in sick before at this job after about a year so I'm calling now! I guess we'll see how it goes after tomorrow morning when I give my resignation....and now my stupid camera wont connect to the PC properly so I have to get my booty down to Walmart and put them on discs that way....I could certainly use those grey goose slushies tonight!

But I have all these lovely Dissers that make me feel a little better. You guys are truly fabulous

 

[kschafer]

ETA: sorry about the picture size, I obviously mixed up the upload settings in photobucket but I am too lazy to go back and redo them. They also are a bit blurry, I'm going to blame the rum! Wink wink (reached my image limit, HA!)

Hey gang! I have been so caught up on other things lately I have been terribly neglectful of keeping up on my TR so here goes!

Day 10 – Wednesday, June 18 Continued

Now this is the point in the trip where I wish I knew I was going to write a TR because my memory of this evening is quite fuzzy as to what we did but my main feeling is we had a wonderful evening. Even the pictures don’t jog too many memories because we seem to be lacking somewhat in them. But I’ll give it a go anyways.

Last I left you (WAAAAYYYYY back when) we had left MK for an afternoon rest. The entire family napped in the cool quietness of OKW and woke up ready for our evening.

We drove to the MK parking lot, took the monorail to the Polynesian Resort and checked in for our ADR. We wandered around the gift shops and sat in the waiting area where we listened to the musician for awhile then our table was ready. I knew what I was ordering based on the menus and food porn thread. First up, Lapu Lapu and bread with macadamia nut butter (what a way to start a meal!!)

Patrick posed with me

But Daniel was too busy to pose for pictures

Our food soon came. My tuna Oscar (rare seared tuna on top of fried green tomatoes with asparagus, tempura crab and wasabi hollandaise sauce….WOW, amazing!)

Greg had the shrimp and scallops

For dessert, I choose the Kilauea torte (choc cake with a molten center) I thought the cake was a bit dry so I just ate the inside part which was more than enough food at that point!

I took this picture with all of my teacher friends in mind

We hopped back on the monorail and headed back into MK. Pirates was scheduled to finish its refurb in a day or two so we headed back that way to see if by chance it had opened early, it hadn’t. About this time, it started to rain so we took shelter in the eating area of the (also closed) taco CS place near PoC. Daniel had a great time playing “in” the rain.

We must have just wandered a bit more because I don’t remember actually doing anything else and I have no pics of anything until close to parade time. We eventually made our way toward Main st. We found a spot around the hub and parked ourselves. We enjoyed the changing lights on the castle

Got out the glow jewelry

And Patrick did some hula-hooping

Then Spectromagic started. (Again, no pics. Greg took video and I just soaked in the moment with the boys). Warning, venting coming up! We got our spot about 45 minutes before the parade was to start. A few minutes before it began, a family came up behind us and started pushing their kids through. I had to ask one of them more than once not to stand in front of our view (the boys and I were sitting down on the inside curve of the hub). Greg later told me that the adults behind him were saying very loudly things like “used to be adults would let kids stand in front of them so they could see” . I know different people have different opinions on this but I’m sorry, if you want a good view, don’t show up 10 minutes before the parade starts. We had been hanging out on that little square of cement while you were off riding or whatever, we are keeping that spot for our entire family to watch the parade together!

Spectromagic was awesome! We then moved out into the road a bit to wait for wishes. Now, I haven’t been to this before so this may be normal but I was surprised the entire crowd sat down on the ground. It actually was quite nice. Sitting in front of the castle in the coolness of the evening with my kids on my lap and surrounded by the excitement and joy of the crowd. It was a really nice moment.

After wishes, I had planned on heading out but Greg surprised me by suggesting we head over to fantasy land. I can’t remember what all we did but the pictures indicate that we at least rode the carousel.

And took a few more pics coming through the castle

We decided to sneak out during the second parade so we headed back down main street.

Now there are 2 things I always wanted when we visited Disney as a kid (and I never got). First, I wanted a Mickey Mouse balloon so I promised myself I would buy one at MK on this trip. So we stopped and got me one!! Here’s Daniel carrying it “home” that night

Secondly, I wanted MM ears. I had read about the make-your-own ears at Le Chappeau so we stopped and the entire family designed their own ears. We left them there to be monogrammed and sent to our hotel gift shop.

We walked under the train station just as the parade was finishing and I figured we were ahead of the crowd still and this is when Patrick decided to have a MAJOR meltdown (over a minor detail of course!) and we were not going to get on the monorail with a screaming kid so we sat for probably close to ½ hour waiting for him to compose himself. I tried to take a picture while we were waiting but it turned out a bit wonky (stole that word from Philadisney)

With the later than expected evening and kids getting progressively cranky, we decided it would be best to sleep in the next morning and get to AK when we got there.

Thanks for hanging in there with me on this LONG journey!

 

[sunny_stace]

Well it sounds like you had a mostly magical night! Too bad about the meltdown but I tend to have them when leaving the magic kingdom too!
The photos of your family on the carousel are nice. I think it looks especially pretty at night don't you?

 

[Happy Elf]

Your dinner looks amazing!!! Yummy! It's making me a bit hungry!

Great castle and carousel pictures!

 

[MeMom]

I've liked your picture of your guys on the Carrousel, but now that I know that it was your husband's surprise suggestion to go and get a little more magic out of that night, it just makes it even sweeter. He was having a good time!

The food does look good. I just had a pimento cheese sandwich for supper. It was accompanied by a Fruit Breezer cough drop for dessert.
Pales in comparison to those plates of yours I just saw.

 

[sunny_stace]

I've liked your picture of your guys on the Carrousel, but now that I know that it was your husband's surprise suggestion to go and get a little more magic out of that night, it just makes it even sweeter. He was having a good time!

The food does look good. I just had a pimento cheese sandwich for supper. It was accompanied by a Fruit Breezer cough drop for dessert.
Pales in comparison to those plates of yours I just saw.

I'm with you MeMom - I had tomato soup with some goldfish crackers in it. No dessert....the fridge died while I was away so all the ice cream went melty and I haven't done groceries since...I could really go for a molten cake now! Maybe I'll see if I have some hot chocolate....

And Katie, I hope I get a hubby like yours someday! You're a lucky lady

 

[ILuvCrush]

Great update Karen!!

Love the castle pics and the carousel too

I don't get what's up with people showing up that late for a parade and then trying to make you ...who's been waiting a while, feel guilty about their kids not being up front!! I'd have been tempted to let them, then stand up and totally block the parents view.... not very Disney-like huh???

Paula

 

[kschafer]

Well it sounds like you had a mostly magical night! Too bad about the meltdown but I tend to have them when leaving the magic kingdom too!
The photos of your family on the carousel are nice. I think it looks especially pretty at night don't you?

I had told Patrick that riding it at night with all the lights on was one of the things on my wish list for the trip. It was great

Your dinner looks amazing!!! Yummy! It's making me a bit hungry!

Great castle and carousel pictures!

Thanks, the dinner was awesome, probably the best I had on this trip. If I could go to WDW frequently (ahem..MeMom..ahem), this would be on my frequent eating list!

I've liked your picture of your guys on the Carrousel, but now that I know that it was your husband's surprise suggestion to go and get a little more magic out of that night, it just makes it even sweeter. He was having a good time!

It was a pretty nice surprise He's not so bad sometimes

And Katie, I hope I get a hubby like yours someday! You're a lucky lady

I wish he understood my dis addictions a bit more but overall, yes, I am lucky. I hope your prince comes along soon Stacy, you deserve it!

Love the castle pics and the carousel too

I don't get what's up with people showing up that late for a parade and then trying to make you ...who's been waiting a while, feel guilty about their kids not being up front!! I'd have been tempted to let them, then stand up and totally block the parents view.... not very Disney-like huh???

Paula

Thanks, yeah, Greg just stood their blocking the view and kept his mouth shut. The other thing that got to me that night was that as the ENTIRE crowd sitting around the hub was focused on the fireworks, there were a half-dozen people who decided to walk through at that moment

 

[kschafer]

OK, christmas break has begun and it's time for an UPDATE!!

Day 11 – Thursday, June 19

OK, so I left you as we were leaving Magic Kingdom after enjoying the evening festivities. Disney is so nice in the evening in June…Days are hot humid and thunderstormy but the evenings are wonderful!

So after our late night, I knew there was no way we would be getting up for rope drop at AK so we set no alarms and let ourselves sleep in. You may recall that I missed the first AK day due to the yucks so I was a little bummed about the late start but hey, this is vacation and I need to sleep! I don’t know what time we got up but we took our time getting ready and by late morning, we were ready to head out. The original plan was to get there early, stay through the parade and make our ADR at whispering canyon café. The late start meant we cancelled our ADR because we didn’t want to be rushed.

We made it to AK sometime around noon. We took some photopass pics. The photographer tried to get Patrick to do the Simba pose but he didn’t want to…

Greg got some pics of the tree of life…

Then we headed to EE to grab FP’s for DH and I. Some more photopass pics….

We stopped and had lunch at Flame Tree BBQ since we weren’t having WCC for dinner anymore. It was really good. We had a lunchtime friend.

Next we headed to Africa

We grabbed fastpasses for the safari for Daniel and I. Patrick didn’t want to ride again because he was scared of the collapsing bridge. I tried convincing him it was only Disney magic but he was insistent that he wouldn’t do it .

We headed to Camp Minnie-Mickey

It was about ½ hour before the next presentation of FOTLK so we joined the line. We were in the lion section, right on the end of the row where the performers come out and the kids got lots of extra attention because they walked right by us. It was a great show that the whole family enjoyed!

Daniel was getting a bit tired so we put him in the stroller and headed to the character spots. Patrick enjoyed this but is really funny about the characters. We asked if he wanted to see Mickey and he said no because he had already met him at DHS. We got lots of pics, here’s a few

More coming right up!

 

[kschafer]

Day 11 – Thursday, June 19 continued

We knew that the parade started in Africa at 3:00 and thanks to the Dis, we knew that it also came back around and ended there so we saw the end of the parade pass the entrance to Camp Minnie-Mickey and we hightailed it to Harambe. Just as we arrived, a CM was directing traffic “this way to get to the safari, step up to the white line for the parade” and that’s just what we did! Our timing was perfect! We had a great view just on the outside of the turn and the CM stayed and chatted with us. I forget her name but she is a teacher in Oregon who spends her summers working for Disney! Sorry no pics, just enjoying the moment.

After the parade, Daniel and I rode Kilimanjaro Safari. Nothing terribly unusual except the CM did say he had never seen a hippo out of the water before. Still, it was very enjoyable. Some random pics

We wandered a bit through gift shops and went back to Camp Minnie-Mickey because DH had fallen in love with the music they had been playing and was hoping to get a CD of it, no luck! We stopped for a few snacks

Then made our way to dinoland. More photopass

I was going to take the boys to play in the boneyard while Greg went to use his FP for EE. It was beginning to sprinkle so we decided while we still could, we would ride triceratop spin.

It started to rain for real, complete with thunder and lightning, so we took shelter in the gift shop. Greg quickly found us because EE had closed down because of the weather. The park had begun to empty out before the rain started but there was still a little crowd of people with the same idea as us so it was a bit crowded in the gift shop. The boys and I picked out potato head parts and while we were filling our box, a CM came over and asked kids to make a potato for the potatohead parade.

This was a really cute way to occupy kids while we all waited for the rain to stop. Patrick even got a magical moments certificate.

Here's our loot:

It was nearing closing time so when the rain began to die down, we headed out for the night. It had been another fun and relaxing day but again I felt like we didn’t get a lot accomplished. I was disappointed about not getting to ride EE, we didn’t get to see Nemo, no KRR and I knew the boys would never do ITTBAB. The kids had done Conservation Station before and I was OK that I didn’t get to that. More reasons to return!

In had penciled into our calendar that maybe we would go to Ft. Wilderness for the movie on this night but it seemed like nobody was really up for it so we headed back to OKW. We picked up dinner at the CS there, complete with Mickey Rice Krispie Treats

I did a few loads of laundry while the boys hit the sack early. Tomorrow, DTD and another Epcot Day

I have really slowed down on this TR, thanks for hanging in there with me!

 

[punkin413]

really great picture of the rhino! i've never seen one that close to the safari jeep before. cool!

it seems like there's not a lot to do at AK but you can never do all of it! like you said - another reason to return! that's what i kept telling anna while we were there last week!

 

[julezdisney]

Oh I love the update and all the pictures! And now I'm hungry for a dipped banana!

 

[tinkgurl]

Day 11 – Thursday, June 19

I started my TR so you'll have to come over and join so you can see if you're in any of the pictures! On June 19th, we were at MGM and then ate at the Poly for dinner.

Disney is so nice in the evening in June…Days are hot humid and thunderstormy but the evenings are wonderful!

You are so right! WDW in June is SO nice! We usually go in July and June was completely different! Yes the days were hot, but they weren't as hot as July. And the nights were great! I even had a long sleeve shirt on some nights it was chilly!

 

[CanadianWDWfan]

Fun day at AK despite the rain.

The Potato Head parade sounds like a really neat thing for your boys. My DD has never wanted to make a Mr. Potatoe Head. She did the My Little Pony box instead. She had a blast picking out all the different pieces. Most of them were Princess costumes, very cute. We stuffed that box as full as we could...

Hope you are enjoying your time off.

 

[sunny_stace]

What a fun update! Sounds like you guys had a nice time just hanging out and being a family! Isn't it nice not to worry about having to get everything done and just saunter around doing what you feel like?

As for the weather, I remember the first time we went was in August when I was 10, and I would have a little freak out at every afternoon thunderstorm, thinking it was a new hurricane blowing through! But that's my storm phobia....I still have it now ...at least you know it will come to a fairly quick stop!

I'm glad you're enjoying your holiday break!

 

[Happy Elf]

Great update! Love the potato heads! We have filled boxes on our last 2 trips. I like to play with them as much as DD.

 

[MeMom]

Fun day at AK despite the rain.

The Potato Head parade sounds like a really neat thing for your boys. My DD has never wanted to make a Mr. Potatoe Head. She did the My Little Pony box instead. She had a blast picking out all the different pieces. Most of them were Princess costumes, very cute. We stuffed that box as full as we could...

Hope you are enjoying your time off.

So many good pictures!

I've often thought about working summers at Disney World, but I wonder where I'd live? Did the CM happen to say?

Brooklynn got a box of Potato Head parts this summer, but next summer, I'm thinking she'll be wanting My Little Pony parts. Both are very cute. Lots of parts to strew all over the house, though, so we'll see.

What is it doing to your mind to have snow and cold outside while you're writing about warm summer days?

It makes me want to go back right now!

I love Daniel's look of anticipation on the safari. You can just see the 'what's ahead?' look on his face.