My Feet Are Killing Me and I Want a Lollipop 6/17-6/24 (Complete 7/24)

[Mrs. Sojourner]

Enjoying your TR so far; can't wait to read more!

 

[jecskc]

Enjoying your TR so far; can't wait to read more!

Thanks for reading !! Congrats on your new addition !! I hope you are well !!

 

[jecskc]

So pretty quickly the characters show up. I like the characters. They make me happy.
Mickey

DH jumping in on the action again.

Daisy

Next up was Goofy. Here is DS’s impression of Goofy. The tater tots are his teeth.

So the characters were fun, but we will be trying out Chef Mickey’s or Cape May. Or going back to Crystal Palace again. Also, the restaurant is LOUD, so if you think you will have a nice quiet breakfast buffet … you won’t.
So near the end of breakfast, our fast pass time became open. So DH and DS hoofed it over to Expedition Everest to get another set of FP’s while me and DD settled up with the bill. I took some more pictures after we left the restaurant.

I thought this sign was funny

Some more signs and photos

I was so glad we had an early reservation for Tusker House. As we were leaving, there was this HUGE line to check in. There were people everywhere. They were just coming to breakfast as we were heading out into the park with two sets of fast passes. Boo Yah !!!

We agreed to meet DH in the gift shop right outside the Safari.

After managing to avoid spending any money in the gift shop, we headed to the safari.

 

[mimiecp]

OMG, Code Brown is one of my favorite phrases. (please don't judge...) DS made that his catch phrase on our last tDisney trip in 2009. It was just DS, my sister and me on that trip and even though we tried not to laugh everytime he said it, we just couldn't help it. We are just silly like that. Okay, now that you know that about me, great pictures of the safari. I can't wait to go on that again. I love all the animals and I'm sure having a great bus driver would really make it great.

 

[jecskc]

OMG, Code Brown is one of my favorite phrases. (please don't judge...) DS made that his catch phrase on our last tDisney trip in 2009. It was just DS, my sister and me on that trip and even though we tried not to laugh everytime he said it, we just couldn't help it. We are just silly like that. Okay, now that you know that about me, great pictures of the safari. I can't wait to go on that again. I love all the animals and I'm sure having a great bus driver would really make it great.

We used that phrase during this past trip and ever since we have been home. The phrase, delivered at just the right moment, can provide a great deal of hilarity. We have a lot of fun with it.

 

[jecskc]

Day Four – Part Three
The Safari

Oh my word … she completely cracks me up !! Seriously, I laugh every day because of her. She’s so funny !! I just love her to pieces !! To the moon and back !! …. Well, you get the idea.

Safari Photos.

They have this new tour. The Wild Africa Trek and these people we part of it. They all had these belts on and they were attached to this line around them presumably to keep them safe. There were all of these narrow rope bridges around and it looked really neat. Maybe we will try it sometime.

More safari photos

Is it me or do these gators look the exact same every time ?? Just checkin’ ….

Some more safari photos …

I love giraffes. They are my favorite.

Code brown !!!

DH took TONS of photos of this elephant pooping. For realz ?? I dunno why this was so awesome. But it was perfectly fine for me to take 123 giraffe photos, right ??

So we saved the baby elephant from the poachers – YAY !!

OH !! I have to tell you !! We had the best safari driver EVER !! He was sooo funny !! We laughed the entire time. He told all of these jokes and told us funny stories about the animals. After the ride was over. Everyone on our truck stood up and clapped. He was fully awesome (as Rhino always says) !! I wish I had caught his name. DH went over to tell him how much we enjoyed him. It was a great start to the day !!

Photos on the way out.

Am I wrong or does the safari not have a dump shop that you empty into ?? I thought every ride emptied you into a dump shop ….. hmmmm.

 

[jecskc]

Day Four – Part Four
Tree of Life

We saw Divine along the way

She was cool …

Silly DD

We got some photopass pics on the way

And then DS and I rode Expedition Everest.

DH four FP’s for this, so we had two FP’s left for this. DH and DD won’t ride EE. We try to tell them that it isn’t that scary. But we haven’t been able to convince them. Oh well.

While we were riding, DH and DD get in line for Nemo … which starts in an hour. I call when we are done with our ride and he says meet us there. This line is direct sunlight. Which on a sunny day in the middle of June in Florida is ROASTING hot. I told him that there is NO WAY we are waiting an hour for this show. I said that people on the DIS say you don’t have to wait that long and …Umno .. we aren’t doing it.

So we get out of line and we head towards Dinoland. Our time for another fast pass is almost open, so we hang around this area and take some photos.

We got some ice cream and DD saw Pluto and Goofy and wanted to get in line. So DS and I enjoyed our ice cream while DH and DD got pictures with the dogs.

DH said they were really crazy and funny. DH took DD to the Boneyard to play a little while DS and I scored us some Dinosaur FP’s.

 

[joand452]

Really enjoying your trip report -- I can't believe there's no page six -- yet!

DH and I tend to go alone now (kids are grown; have been a couple of times with them and grandkids), and our last trip was in December 2010.

We planned to skip this year because we're going in Dec. 2012 before youngest DGS starts school. With free dining and all, we decided to go again in September!

Can't wait!!

Looking forward to the rest of your report.

 

[DisneyDoc5]

I am really enjoying your trip report and pictures - thank you! I would love to hear about your experience renting points for OKW (I have always wanted to do this, but have been afraid too and don't really know where to start). Looking forward to more!
Erin

 

[Mrs. Sojourner]

Code brown...hilarious! Giraffes are my favorite too! The Photopass pictures turned out great. We really like the Nemo show too.

 

[tink too]

All caught up again - wow you've been busy!

Sunshine is adorable - I bet it's easy to forgive her naughtiness when she looks so darn cute!

We really want to try Jedi Academy next trip - before our DD is too old to take part. We've never seen the Nemo musical yet either - so hoping to see that next Spring - glad you enjoyed it!

 

[jecskc]

Really enjoying your trip report -- I can't believe there's no page six -- yet!

DH and I tend to go alone now (kids are grown; have been a couple of times with them and grandkids), and our last trip was in December 2010.

We planned to skip this year because we're going in Dec. 2012 before youngest DGS starts school. With free dining and all, we decided to go again in September!

Can't wait!!

Looking forward to the rest of your report.

Thanks !! I have always wondered what a trip with just adults would be like. I would love to do that someday. But our kids are so into it right now that I think it would be less fun to go without them. We have been in September twice and it was nice because the crowds aren't so bad.

I am really enjoying your trip report and pictures - thank you! I would love to hear about your experience renting points for OKW (I have always wanted to do this, but have been afraid too and don't really know where to start). Looking forward to more!
Erin

We love OKW and renting was just the easiest thing ever. We used David's Vacation Club rentals and there were never any problems. You do have to pay the whole thing up front. And we were able to upgrade to a 1 bedroom and then add the dining plan on later. I would so do it again. Go to the DVC section of the forum and there is all the info you need to rent points over there.

Code brown...hilarious! Giraffes are my favorite too! The Photopass pictures turned out great. We really like the Nemo show too.

Thanks !! We will definitely see the Lion King show next trip. Really looking forward to that. I love that there is so much to do at Disney that you can go for practically a lifetime and still not do everything.

All caught up again - wow you've been busy!

Sunshine is adorable - I bet it's easy to forgive her naughtiness when she looks so darn cute!

We really want to try Jedi Academy next trip - before our DD is too old to take part. We've never seen the Nemo musical yet either - so hoping to see that next Spring - glad you enjoyed it!

I have a lot of this trip report already typed out in Word. It has something like 63 pages. I learned my lesson after I had typed up a whole section twice and my internet bailed on me and I had to start over. We have a new modem now, but typing it first in Word is just smarter.

Sunshine is soooo bad. She really is a beautiful dog, which helps when she is bad. It's the chewing thing. It is like a bizarre compulsion for her, she just can't NOT do it. Just HAS to be destroying something all of the time. She's a mess !!

I would recommend the Jedi Academy. I think my kids are just on the edge of being too old for it, but they seemed to enjoy it very much. Remember, get there at rope drop so you can sign up early. Split up your party - one runs for TSM FP's and the other goes to sign up the kids for Jedi Academy. I am not sure, but I think the kids need to be with you when you sign them up. At 10 AM that day, they were taking kids for the late afternoon shows already, so it fills up fast. Definitely give it a try !!

 

[burly]

This is a great trip report, jumping on board.
KIM

 

[jecskc]

This is a great trip report, jumping on board.
KIM

Thanks for reading. It's fun to relive the trip.

 

[jecskc]

Boneyard Photos

Our new FP window opened up a lot sooner than we thought it would, so we headed over towards Kali to get FP’s for that. While DH got FP’s for Kali, I chatted up the DVC guy and made an appointment for a tour the next morning at 9:00 AM at Saratoga Springs. He promised us fast passes and NOT the $100 gift card that everyone was telling us we would get. We well still interested in the tour, though. More on that later.

So DH gets back with Kali FP’s…I think it is important to note that at this time we have FP’s for EE, Dinosaur and Kali and it is about 11:15 AM. Se we head back towards Nemo and get back in line for the 11:30 AM show. We wait about 5-10 minutes and they let us in. The theater is full and it seems that all they have are seats in the back. Which is fine with me, really. That spells easy exit to me. But the ushers were ushers near the front were asking for two and two. Basically they had two different spaces where they could fit two people on the end of a row. So we went for it and were lonely a couple of rows away from each other. DH tried to get some photos, but they didn’t really turn out that great.

In a BIG blue woooorld …….

We loved the Nemo show. We had never seen it before and we are really glad that we took the time to see it. It was over at noon and my plan was to have lunch at Flame Tree BBQ, but we were still too full from breakfast so we decided to wait.

We had fast passes to burn, so we went to ride Dinosaur

We pass through Dinoland on our way back to Everest

Me and DH rode Everest again – we got front row this time. It was awesome. By this time, AK is PACKED. You cannot got in a straight line any more. It is stop and go traffic through Asia. We were thirsty so we stopped and got some frozen cokes.

DS got a blue raspberry one

DH found us this cool little hut to sit down and enjoy our drinks.

I have to say, on a hot day, there is nothing like these frozen slushie drinks. They are so refreshing and yummy. And they are a snack credit.

 

[ADisneyQueen]

I'm enjoying your trip report b/c we are thinking about going in June next year and have never been in the summer. Was the heat really bad? We're from PA so I'm sure we'll think it's worse than people from the southern states. You all do not look overheated in your photos.

 

[jecskc]

I'm enjoying your trip report b/c we are thinking about going in June next year and have never been in the summer. Was the heat really bad? We're from PA so I'm sure we'll think it's worse than people from the southern states. You all do not look overheated in your photos.

I read a lot of June/July trip reports before we booked a summer trip as well. I want to give you a good answer and what I have to say is this. It is always awesome to go to Disney, no matter how hot or cold it is. I live in South Carolina and the week before we left, we had temps here in the low 100's where Orlando was in the low 90's. I was joking to everyone that I needed to take a trip to Florida just to cool off. So we were really acclimated once we got there.

The thing about Disney is that there is always a place close by that has AC or a shady place to stand, so we never really felt that the heat was overwhelming. We had mister fans that were nice to have. It was hot, but it never really bothered us because we expected it. We planned for it ahead of time and just went with it. Most of the attractions are inside anyway. And we always went back to the resort after lunch to swim or rest. Early mornings were pretty nice and it didn't really get super hot until after lunch.

In my opinion, the hottest part of the parks was World Showcase in Epcot. There just isn't a lot of shade in that area. That was when we really felt the heat. This was our best trip ever because it was planned out so well, so regardless of when you go, if you have a good pan and stick to it, any trip will be fantastic. And remember to stay hydrated, or course. Also, I think what is very important is that you wear comfortable clothing. Don't wear a black shirt during the day. Always wear light weight cotton or a dry fit material. Wear a visor instead of a hat. If you wear a hat, make sure it has good ventilation. Also ... shoes. Make sure they provide good support and good ventilation. We wore crocs or tennis/walking shoes. Our shoes had a mesh like top instead of being solid leather.

I hope those tips help. We really enjoyed our trip and the heat, although present, didn't stop us from having a good time. It also helped to have our own car there. We did have to walk out to the hot parking lot, but we were always in control of when we left and didn't have to wait around on a bus in the heat.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy your trip !!


*********************************

Day Four - Part Six

After our refreshing slushie drinks, we went to ride Kali. And this was the longest wait we had all day. 15 minutes … in the fast pass line. We rode, we got soaked ….. not a dry stitch on me. I had to borrow a small dry corner of DH’s shirt to dry my glasses off. It was fun and we always ride it right before we are getting ready to leave the park, so if we get soaked we don't have to walk around in wet clothes all day. We rode with a fun group of people who had never ridden Kali before and they all wanted to get soaked. Especially the lady next to me. DH said that if she was sitting next to me, she would definitely get soaked because I always get soaked on this ride. She turns to me and says "cool". And we both got soaked. After that we were done and reading to slosh our way back to the car. And it was 2:00 PM. We had accomplished everything we wanted to do at AK (except the Lion King show) and we had most of the day ahead of us.

We went back to the resort and DH took DD to the pool while DS and I decided to stay back at the villa and rest. I ran a load of laundry and DS took a nap. I watched some tennis (Wimbledon had just started and in addition to being huge South Carolina Gamecock fans, we are huge tennis fans as well) and even I got a few winks in. DH and DD came back and we all cleaned up and had a few pretzels and some cheese to tide us over.

Our plans for dinner were to eat at Wolfgang Puck’s Express. We debated taking the boat to Downtown Disney but since there always seemed to be a stray thunderstorm and Disney not only closes the pool every time they hear a rumble, they stop running the boats as well. So since we had a car … we just drove. And I was surprised to see just how close this resort is to DTD.

Not far at all.

Before we went to dinner, DH went to the LaNouba box office to get our tickets for the following evening. If you have an annual pass, you get 30% off the tickets. Last October, DH was able to take his older daughter to see it at 50% for Category 2 seating. So I think the discount depends upon the season and whether it is busy or not.

We found WPE

And ordered. The cashier was not friendly at all. So not good for business.

I got DD a kid’s cheese pizza and a cookie

She isn’t pouting because of the pizza. Her new look was the pouty face. She ate it all. Every last bit.

DS ordered a Margherita pizza and a brownie

He picked off the basil and tomatoes, but he liked it.

DH and I shared the Pepperoni and Mushroom Pizza and Key Lime pie.

This was really good. We ate what was left of DH’s pizza as well. I loved the food here. The pizzas have a lot of flavor and I love the crispy thin crust that they have. So even though the service leaves much to be desired, we would definitely try this again.

The kids were wanting to shop so off we went.

We checked out the Ridemakerz store, but DS was holding out for a Lego set, so we continued on.

DH stopped at the Sosa cigar store and got this:

While he was supporting his filthy habit, the kids and I went into the Magnetron store. This store was so packed, we had to wait a little just to get in the place. And I so don’t know why it was so busy. This stuff was just junk.

We left and went into the D-Street store. The kids got to color their own Vinylmation picture while I looked around. I admit that some of these little figures are interesting, but this isn’t something I would spend my money on. My first thought is that the dog would get a hold of it and chew it to smithereens. Since we got her two years ago, this is always my first thought. Otherwise, I am not sure I “get” the Vinylmation craze. And I’m OK with that, since I spend my money on other silly stuff at Disney. Like Pins.

After that we headed towards the Marketplace

Hahahaha !! He bites ?? Ya think ??

 

[jecskc]

DS LOVES the Lego Store

Who doesn’t love Legos ??? Legos are awesome. Unless they get stuck in your vacuum cleaner … or the dog’s mouth. Then they are kind of a pain. The new store is much bigger and even though it is still complete chaos in there, they definitely have it more organized and there are more cashiers, so you don’t spend an hour waiting in line just to buy something. I encourage everyone to at least take a look inside. It really is amazing.
DD and I went into the World of Disney store. This store was mobbed as well, but I have certainly seen it busier, so it wasn’t too bad. DD bought a Rapunzel Doll that she had her eye on.

And I got some scrapbooking stuff

I can’t wait to dig into this stuff. DD and I are going to start a scrapbook this weekend. And DS scored this huge Lego set.

Note to self … DH is a pushover when it comes to the kids.
After this, we called it a day and headed back to the resort to wind down.

It was about 8 PM.

I put another load of laundry in and DH and I had a glass of wine and watched the College World Series. This is college baseball to the generally clueless. Our team, the SC Gamecocks, weren’t playing, but it was still interesting to watch.

My pedometer read 11,482 steps and 5.4 miles for the day.

 

[DisneyDoc5]

Great updates!!! Thanks for sharing that you used David's vacation rentals, I have looked at that and it seems pretty safe as compared to renting from a stranger. We have 3 kids, but I think we can still do a 1 bedroom at OKW. Happy 4th!

 

[jecskc]

Great updates!!! Thanks for sharing that you used David's vacation rentals, I have looked at that and it seems pretty safe as compared to renting from a stranger. We have 3 kids, but I think we can still do a 1 bedroom at OKW. Happy 4th!

David's Vacation Rentals was great. Everything worked like a charm. I printed out all of our receipts just in case, but we never needed them because it was all there in Disney's trusty computer. I would book as early as possible, though. And keep in mind that you have to pay everything in advance. It is still waaayyyy cheaper than paying rack rates through Disney. 3 kids in a one bedroom would be fine. The sofa folds out into a queen size bed and they also have a chair that folds out into a twin bed. So plenty of room for 3 kids. Do it !!! You will not regret it !! Happy 4th to you and your family as well.