Not ready yet???!!! A February trip report! Update 10/25 Day 9

[dizneeat]

Really enjoying your African trek pictures. I did the trek last month and it was such a great experience. Really memorable!

Thank you! Quick question ...... you did the Trek last month, was it VERY hot? We are thinking about doing it again in September (need to try that breakfast) but the heat really has me worried, as I thought it was hot enough in February.

 

[Disneyfreak616]

What a great day! That lunch looks fabulous! I just LOVE jungle juice!

 

[cbg1027]

That food from the Trek looks really yummy!

 

[dizneeat]

What a great day! That lunch looks fabulous! I just LOVE jungle juice!

It was a wonderful day. You should really consider doing the trek, it's so much fun! And the lunch is devine!

That food from the Trek looks really yummy!

It was VERY yummy, Abby! You should really try it for yourself some time!

 

[dizneeat]

Day 4, February 22

Megan and Meghan take us to Wild Africa! - Part 8


Meghan took some more photos

and then there was still time to take a look of the most beautiful restrooms in the whole of Africa.

And yes, they were beautiful and HUGE!

After about half an hour we boarded our safari truck again and off we went along the Safari route, but making several stops to have a look at the animals.

There were even binoculars provided in the vehicle.

We could not believe that our Wild Africa Trek came to an end when we approached the unloading dock of the regular safari vehicles.

We all got off the truck, waved goodbye to our driver and then walked over to the area behind Tusker House to walk back to the beginning of the tour and remove all the items we had put in the locker. When we were back we were told that we got to keep our waterbottles and that all the photos Meghan had taken of us and all the animals would be available to us via Photopass. Our guides explained how to use Photopass and how to redeem our photos with the Photopass card we were given. And then we were handed vouchers with a code on them, so we would be able to redeem the CD for free. One last photo of all of us and then we were off.

It was past 3pm by then and our Fastpass for Expedition Everest was long past its time, we were tired and so we just left the park to go back to the resort to chill for a while. We arrived back at the resort at around 3.45 and guess what, our room was not made up yet!

No, not ready yet!

We dumped our stuff in the room and left again to do some grocery shopping at Publix.
While we were shopping we talked about this evenings ADR and after some thinking about it, decided to cancel it and have some dinner in our room instead.
So we picked up lunch meats, bread, some spreads, some salads and finally made it back to the resort around 5.30.

Oh what a surprise, mousekeeping had finally made it to our room and it was clean again.

We set up the nightstand as our dining table, with the drawer in the nightstand half open, so we could put some things in it and had a wonderful yummy dinner while lying on our beds.

By 8 o’clock we went out one more time, those yummy doughnuts were calling our name again, so we drove over to the Krispy Kreme shop, making a few stops in those tourist trap souvenir shops. At Krispy Kreme we got half a dozen doughnuts

and some doughnut holes

which were the “doughnut” of the day.
We had some there and then at the shop, watching the doughnuts being produced and after some time we drove back to the resort, watched some TV and munched some more Krispy Kremes before we called it an early night.

 

[annmarieda]

Why do your pictures always make me want to eat? Seriously, I was sitting thinkin... just how long would it take me to get ready and head to a near by town to buy some doughnut at KK. Seriously, I haven't had a doughnut there in FOREVER. Would it be worth the 45 minute drive...

Your tour looked so awesome and the fact that you got your pp cd for free made it that much better! That isn't something that comes with every tour, right?

Hmm... now to see if dh wants to go for a drive...

 

[pinkxray]

I love your pictures of the trek. I hope it is still offered when we go back in a few years, b/c you have convinced me to sign up. DD will be able to do it by that time and she really wants to do the walk over the hippos and crocs.

 

[dizneeat]

Why do your pictures always make me want to eat? Seriously, I was sitting thinkin... just how long would it take me to get ready and head to a near by town to buy some doughnut at KK. Seriously, I haven't had a doughnut there in FOREVER. Would it be worth the 45 minute drive...

Your tour looked so awesome and the fact that you got your pp cd for free made it that much better! That isn't something that comes with every tour, right?

Hmm... now to see if dh wants to go for a drive...

Hm, the mystery of my photos making everyone hungry? I wonder WHY?

The trek is an awesome tour! I was shocked when I first read how much it was, but looking back it was so worth it. You get to keep your waterbottle, the strap for the glasses, several hooks, they feed you, lunch and the photopass CD for free. ALL my photos were on it and we ended up with about 1000 photos for free!! They even paid for postage!

Have fun on your 45 minute drive to pick up some doughnuts!

I love your pictures of the trek. I hope it is still offered when we go back in a few years, b/c you have convinced me to sign up. DD will be able to do it by that time and she really wants to do the walk over the hippos and crocs.

I really hope they keep the tour too! We definitely want to take it a second time, especially now that they have expanded the Boma outlook, so you can even see the cheetahs.
I am sure your sweet princess would love to walk over the hippos and crocs!

 

[tinkmom2]

That excursion looks like a lot of fun. The first time we ever rode the safari it began to rain about half way through. I though it was Disney magic but alas, it really was raining! We had seen the Little Mermaid the day before and thought it was just part of the ride

 

[MAGICFOR2]

Looks like a nice ending to an amazing day! I was wondering, is it customary to tip your guides for that type of excursion in Disney?

I think we are just going to have to book that one for sure - I told Jim we are going a day early to do that next time. I am hoping for a DVC discount - they have some tours discounted.

 

[dizneeat]

That excursion looks like a lot of fun. The first time we ever rode the safari it began to rain about half way through. I though it was Disney magic but alas, it really was raining! We had seen the Little Mermaid the day before and thought it was just part of the ride

It was a really wonderful tour. Fun, exciting and lots of information - our guides were very knowledgeable and if they weren't able to answer a question they called in to the animal specialists!

I love your little story about the rain during the safari! Seems like something only DISNEY would be able to do!

Looks like a nice ending to an amazing day! I was wondering, is it customary to tip your guides for that type of excursion in Disney?

I think we are just going to have to book that one for sure - I told Jim we are going a day early to do that next time. I am hoping for a DVC discount - they have some tours discounted.

It was a wonderful and fun day!
As for tipping the guides - when we started doing tours we tried tipping them, but they would never accept any money. So what we usually do, is, we bring some nice Disneyland Paris pins (they can always sell those on ebay! ) and make sure that we take down their names to write to guest services and let THEM know about an outstanding performance!

I am sure you are going to LOVE the Wild Africa Trek, Tammie! It was one of those tours where we said that we wanted to do it again before we even got off the tour!
It IS very expensive, but so worth it!

 

[jenseib]

Is it one cd per family or per person? I wondered if you and Tom each got one. Or of you booked seperately would you? Just curious.

 

[Wicket's Mom]

That safari was pretty cool, I wouldn't mind doing that myself.
You really get a lot for the money. The lunch looked awfully tasty.

 

[dizneeat]

Is it one cd per family or per person? I wondered if you and Tom each got one. Or of you booked seperately would you? Just curious.

It was one CD per "group". Maybe if we had booked seperately we would have gotten two.
There were several larger groups and they only got one CD as well.

Fun fact: I had already pre-purchased our photopass CD. So when we got the Trek voucher and card we put everything into Tom's account, registered the previously taken photos in his account as well and we still have the discounted CD for our summer trip.
I asked if the pre-purchase CD would expire, but they said it would not - so we are all set for the summer too!

That safari was pretty cool, I wouldn't mind doing that myself.
You really get a lot for the money. The lunch looked awfully tasty.

I am sure you would LOVE the Trek! It was so much fun! Tom and I are really looking forward to doing it again. We are just not sure if it will be happening in September. Having three cabanas booked for our cruises will bite into our budget, so maybe another trek next year!

 

[Queenofallthings]

What a great day! I hate when we get back to our room and it's not made up! We usuallly head back around noon so we just quickly change into our bathing suits and off to the pool we go! Those donuts look so delicious!

 

[dizneeat]

What a great day! I hate when we get back to our room and it's not made up! We usuallly head back around noon so we just quickly change into our bathing suits and off to the pool we go! Those donuts look so delicious!

Coming back to the room and not having a clean room became the motto of this vacation!
We kind of got used to it and just rolled our eyes, or joked about not getting the room done!

The trek was wonderful though! Everything was just perfect!
And the doughnuts were the icing on the cake!

 

[dizneeat]

Day 5, February 23

A peek at the Flower and Garden Festival with a visit to „The Ditch“ and some caramel - Part 1

Another day we did not make it for rope drop.

Instead we had some breakfast in the room, there was plenty of yummy food in the fridge and there were still some Krispy Kreme left, which “needed” to be eaten.

When we finally left it was nice and warm outside and so we decided to head over to the Yacht and Beach Club

and have some ice-cream. So we drove over, parked the car and headed towards Beaches and Cream. Bummer, still closed.

We were thinking about what to do and decided to try and hit Epcot. So we walked over from the resort and entered through the International Gateway.

The countries were all still closed

but we were heading toward Futureland. When we got to the bridge we saw that they had actually started to put up the topiaries for the Flower and Garden Festival, so we stopped and took lots of photos of them and all the new plant designs that were around.

We walked towards The Land to take our chance on Soarin, but Fast Passes were for the early afternoon and standby line was already 90 minutes, thanks, but no thanks.
Nemo and Crush didn’t draw us in, so we went over to Mission Space to try our luck there. Standby line was 45 minutes, so we picked up a Fastpass instead.

But we noticed our first Flower and Garden photo option – a Stitch topiary.

There was a long line for Test Track, so we just headed to the exit of the ride to check out which new cars they had in the exhibition. We had a good luck around and a good laugh when we found out that the 2011 Chevy Cruize was 19 % Austrian.

After spending quite some time in the exhibition we decided to have a look into Mousegear.

 

[MEK]

Day 5, February 23
COLOR="DarkGreen"]A peek at the Flower and Garden Festival with a visit to „The Ditch“ and some caramel - Part 1


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Love this picture! It's so cool. All your pix are good, but this is my favorite! What a fun morning in Epcot so far. I also love the YC/BC so a quick stop there sounds like a marvelous idea.

 

[tinacaplan]

Thanks for the pictures of the Beach Club! I'm so excited! Can you tell?

Your Flower and Garden shots are beautiful. One of the neat things about going when we do in February is that they're already getting those topiaries up, so we get a sneak peek!

Funny that the car's engine was made in Germany...cool!

 

[IheartDDuck]

Um, don't all Krispy Kreme's always "need" to be eaten?

Too bad Beaches and Cream wasn't open yet. Love that place!