*Wish*Upon*A*Star*
Mommy of an Angel
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2001
- Messages
- 490
Friday, April 2nd.
WHAT WE PLANNED ON HAPPENING:
We'd set our wake up call for 7:00am, we'd wake up, shower, and get dressed. We'd hop on the Animal Kingdom bus by 7:45am, and we would arrive at the Animal Kingdom with enough time to do a quick Kilomanjaro Safari before our 8:30am breakfast PS. We'd check in for breakfast, on time, enjoy a nice meal, and then head over to do the rest of the Animal Kingdom. A little before 12:30pm, we'd head over to the Rainforest Cafe to check in for our lunch PS at 12:30pm. We'd be hungry after all of the walking in the Animal Kingdom, so we'd order a big lunch, and then when we were done eating, we'd head to the bus stop and catch a bus to Epcot Center. Once at Epcot, Alex would do Mission: Space, we would both do Ellen's Energy Adventure, Alex would do Test Track, and we'd both do the Living Seas. After that, we'd check out Innoventions and the World Showcase before our 7:30pm PS at the Rose & Crown Pub, where we'd ask politely for patio seating and when they seat us, we'll have a nice view of the lagoon. After dinner and Illuminations, we'd head back to Pop Century and take a quick dip in the pool before bedtime.
WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED:
We did set our wake up call for 7:00am. Alex, however, answered it and then proceeded to fall back asleep without waking me up! LOL I woke up at 7:45am and quickly woke Alex up, as well. We quickly got dressed and headed down to the bus stop, where we waited a good fifteen minutes for the Animal Kingdom bus to pull up.
We arrived at the Animal Kingdom at 8:15am, so it was a no go for an early Kilomanjaro Safari. Oh, well. We went through the turnstiles and made our way over to the safari to get a fastpass and then we headed over to Donald's Breakfastosaurus. When we got there, there was quite a long line of people waiting to check in! Yikes! It actually didn't take too long to make our way to the front of the line - maybe five minutes or so. Once we checked in, we waited in line to have our picture taken, but our pager went off before we were ready for our picture! Oh, well, we just skipped that one. No big deal. The hostess led us to our table, inside one of the rooms of the restaurant - what a neat place!
As soon as we were inside, we saw Donald, Goofy, Pluto, and Mickey, all dressed up in their Dino gear! LOL How cute! Our waitress came by and took our drink orders - Alex had chocolate milk and I had orange juice. She also explained what was on each buffet line and that we could go and help ourselves whenever we wanted to. We looked around and saw that all of the characters were on the other side of the restaurant, so we thought we were pretty safe in grabbing our breakfast. There was plenty of food! Anything and everything you could imagine - and it was tasty, too!
We had fun playing around with Goofy - he insisted that we take his picture! LOL What a ham! LOL
After breakfast, we headed back over to Kilomanjaro safaris and hopped in the fastpass line. We were lucky to get one of the wheelchair accessible trucks because I've heard they are not as bumpy and if a pregnant woman is going to ride the safari, she should request one of the wheelchair accessible trucks. Since we've ridden this numerous times before, we didn't really focus on taking too many pictures - we just enjoyed the scenery. We were even lucky enough to see both the male and female lions! We hadn't seen them before, so this was exciting! LOL
When we were done with the safari, I asked Alex if he would rather do the Maharajah Jungle Trek or the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail and he said that he wanted to do the Maharajah Jungle Trek, so we made our way over to Asia and took our time enjoying all of the animals on the trek. Alex really liked the kimodo dragon - he was cool. My favorite, of course, were the tigers. They are such beautiful creatures! In one of the areas where the tigers are, there was one that was right up against the window. He was beautiful! I wanted to reach out and pet him! LOL We also enjoyed watching the bats. They are so gross looking, but it was neat to watch them open their wings! Their wingspan is huge! I couldn't believe it!
After our jungle trek, we headed over to Kali River Rapids. I know that they say pregnant women shouldn't ride this one either, but I don't understand why... it's not all that bumpy and there's no sudden drops. I decided that I'd risk this one... Anyway, we hopped in line and waited about three minutes before we were on a boat! We couldn't believe the difference in crowds between today and yesterday... amazing! Anyway, we were on a boat with two other couples - one couple had ponchos on, the other couple didn't. It was everyone but our first time on this ride. Well, don't the two of us end up getting completely soaked!?!? How funny! We both had a ball, and we dried off rather quickly because the sun was beating down on us. It was another perfect day - weather wise.
After Kali River Rapids, we headed over to It's Tough To Be A Bug. We stopped at a sidewalk vendor and grabbed a powerade to share. While we were sitting and drinking our powerade, this HUGE bird came right up to us! Probably looking for food, but he scared me! His beak was probably 8 to 10 inches long and it looked SHARP! LOL
When we were done with our little break, we headed into It's Tough To Be A Bug. Did they change this a little bit in the past two years? Alex and I both noticed some new scenes in this movie. It was great! I even took a picture of Alex with his honorary bug glasses on - adorable! LOL
After the movie, it was about time for lunch, so we just made our way over to the Rainforest Cafe. We had a 12:30pm PS for lunch, and we checked in with the cast member at 12:20pm. A little early, but they were able to seat us right away. Now, I don't know if you remember this or not, but we were on the Dream Maker Silver Plan, and we were planning on using our "wishes" for this lunch. Unfortunately, we were still pretty full from breakfast this morning! I think we disappointed the waitress when we ordered what we did - I ordered the mozzarella sticks for an appetizer, and a pepperoni pizza for lunch; Alex ordered buffalo wings for an appetizer and a pepperoni pizza for lunch. By the time it came for us to order dessert, we both thought we would blow up! So, what we did was ask the waitress if we could "give away" our dessert. At the table right next to us, there were two women with two children. We figured they might want a chocolate volcano, so the waitress went over and asked them if they wanted to order one (for "free"). They said yes, so we "gave" them our dessert. At least someone ate it! LOL
When we were done with our lunch, we rolled ourselves out of there. We had two pizza boxes filled with our leftovers, so instead of taking a bus directly to Epcot, like we had planned, we took a bus back to Pop Century to drop off our pizza, and then we took another bus to Epcot. We got to Epcot around 2:30pm, so we thought we had plenty of time to do what we wanted. Our first stop, however, was the leave a legacy area. I know a lot of people think this is hideous, but we really think it will be neat to bring our children back here and show them our picture! So, we filled out all of the paperwork and had our picture taken.
After we did the Leave a Legacy, we headed over to Mission: Space. We had figured the wait times would be crazy over there... well, when we got there, we found that the wait times were - standby - 90 minutes, and singles line - 45 minutes. So, we grabbed a fastpass for Alex and then headed over to Ellen's Energy Adventure. This is one of Alex's favorite rides. To me - it's just okay. By the end of the ride, I was finding it hard to keep my eyes open. Yikes! I pulled out some cinnamon gum, and that woke me right up.
When we were done learning about energy with Ellen and Bill Nye, we headed over to the Living Seas. Neither Alex nor I have ever done this one, so I was pretty excited about it. We watched the movie about the sea, and then we made our way over to the elevators and made our way to Sea Base Alpha. Our favorite part about this attraction was the Finding Nemo area. There were lots of Nemos and Dory's!! LOL
After exploring the Living Seas, we decided to head back to Mission: Space so that Alex could ride it. I think he was a little nervous about it (his stomach sometimes doesn't handle "thrill" rides very well). Anyway, I found a spot out in the warm sun and waited while he hopped in the fastpass line and got ready for his mission to mars. About half an hour later, since he hadn't come out yet, I decided to see if I could find the ride exit and meet him there. I was getting worried that he was sick and I wanted to make sure that he was okay. Well, eventually, I found the ride exit (go through the store and into the "fun" area). He came out about five minutes after I found it. Good timing! And, he wasn't sick! I guess the queue even for fastpass holders was pretty long. He really enjoyed the ride, but he said it wasn't exactly what he was expecting. Next time, I'll get to try it! Now, Alex is really looking forward to trying Expedition Everest when it opens! LOL Anyway, after Alex came off of the ride, we decided to send both sets of parents a video e-mail. Well, my parents said that they never got it, and his parents couldn't open the e-mail! Oh, well, it was fun to make.
It was about 6:00pm by now, and we had a 7:30pm PS at the Rose & Crown Pub, so we decided to make our way over to World Showcase. We started in Canada, and we made our way all the way over to China before we decided to turn around and head back to the UK pavilion. We stopped and did some window shopping in the Mitsukoshi (is that how you spell it?) store in Japan. There were some people picking oysters and the cast members would open them up and pick out the pearls. It was neat to watch.
Finally, around 7:15pm, we walked up to the hostess station at the Rose & Crown and put our name in. We asked if we could please have patio seating and they said that they couldn't guarantee it, but they would do their best. We found a bench and sat and waited for our pager to go off. While we were waiting, there was a cast member on a Segway. I had tried to explain the Segways to Alex before our trip, because I thought he might have liked the Segway tour, but he didn't quite understand what it was. So, I finally got to show him. He thought it was neat, but he said he didn't think he'd want to take the tour.
Our pager went off at 7:35pm, and we walked up to the podium, keeping our fingers crossed for patio seating. The hostess walked us past the side patio seating, so we were looking good! Then, she brought us to a tiny, tiny, table smack dab in front of a HUGE column. We wouldn't have been able to see any of Illuminations. Alex and I look at each other... you could see the wheels in our heads turning! LOL We both really weren't in the mood for prime rib (the only thing on the menu that we'd both like), so we decided we'd just order a quick appetizer and then go. We could find a spot for Illuminations somewhere else. The waitress came over shortly after we were seated and we explained what we would like to do. Well, she told us that they have quite a few people waiting for seating and if we were going to just order an appetizer, then we would need to do that at the bar. So, we got up and left. I know, we were being selfish - but I couldn't see forcing ourselves to eat something we really didn't want, and then probably not getting a spot for Illuminations afterwards.
So, we left the restaurant. I was in the mood for a hot dog, and Alex wanted to try a Turkey Leg, so we headed back over to the American pavilion. On our way over, we came upon the cast member on the Segway. She was selling all of those light-up toys and things. Alex wanted to buy me one of those pink hairbands that have the light-up Mickey heads on them. It is so cute! LOL After our purchase (and I put them on right away!), we found the Turkey Leg cart and Alex made his purchase. Man, those things are HUGE! I even took a picture of him eating the Turkey Leg! LOL After he got his "dinner," I headed inside to the counter service restaurant (I'm sorry - I don't know the name of it) and I got a hot dog meal. It came with fries and a drink. That was sooo good! We found a spot on the bridge between the UK and France and we sat down (on the ground) and ate our "dinner." By the time we were done eating, it was 8:15pm, and Alex made a suggestion. He said instead of staying and watching Illuminations (we've seen it a few times before), why don't we head over to the Boardwalk and check it out? So, I agreed, and we went out the International Gateway and hopped on a boat headed for the Boardwalk Resort.
Once we were dropped off, we just hung out for a little while. I wanted to rent a surrey bike, but Alex said that we would do it later. We never actually did do it. Something we can look forward to for next time! LOL We browsed in the shops a little bit and we peeked our heads in JellyRolls. It wasn't too busy in there, so we couldn't see paying a $14 cover charge for the two of us, if it wasn't too lively in there. The bouncer told us that it starts to pick up after Illuminations, when everyone is out of the park. Oh, well. That's another for us to do next time.
We also walked around the resort itself. The pool looked like a lot of fun, with it's waterslide. We also peeked in the gym. Very nice. When we finally made our way over to the ESPN Club, we decided we'd stop in and have a "real" dinner. LOL So, we waited in line (there was still a line at 10:30pm!!) and we were seated shortly. Since we were using our Dream Maker Silver Plan, I ordered boneless buffalo wings for an appetizer, a cheeseburger for an entree, and a hockey puck for dessert. Alex ordered nachos for an appetizer, a tuna pita sandwich for an entree, and apple brown betty for dessert. We asked the waitress if she could "wrap up" our desserts "to go" and she did. We ended up taking them back to Pop Century.
When we were done with dinner, we were both exhausted. We made our way out to the Boardwalk bus stop (which was a challenge, trying to figure out where it was! LOL) and we waited for the Downtown Disney bus to come by. Once we were dropped off at Downtown Disney, we caught the Pop Century bus back to Pop Century and we hit the bed.
Pre-Trip Planning/Information
Day One
Day Two
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six
Day Seven
WHAT WE PLANNED ON HAPPENING:
We'd set our wake up call for 7:00am, we'd wake up, shower, and get dressed. We'd hop on the Animal Kingdom bus by 7:45am, and we would arrive at the Animal Kingdom with enough time to do a quick Kilomanjaro Safari before our 8:30am breakfast PS. We'd check in for breakfast, on time, enjoy a nice meal, and then head over to do the rest of the Animal Kingdom. A little before 12:30pm, we'd head over to the Rainforest Cafe to check in for our lunch PS at 12:30pm. We'd be hungry after all of the walking in the Animal Kingdom, so we'd order a big lunch, and then when we were done eating, we'd head to the bus stop and catch a bus to Epcot Center. Once at Epcot, Alex would do Mission: Space, we would both do Ellen's Energy Adventure, Alex would do Test Track, and we'd both do the Living Seas. After that, we'd check out Innoventions and the World Showcase before our 7:30pm PS at the Rose & Crown Pub, where we'd ask politely for patio seating and when they seat us, we'll have a nice view of the lagoon. After dinner and Illuminations, we'd head back to Pop Century and take a quick dip in the pool before bedtime.
WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED:
We did set our wake up call for 7:00am. Alex, however, answered it and then proceeded to fall back asleep without waking me up! LOL I woke up at 7:45am and quickly woke Alex up, as well. We quickly got dressed and headed down to the bus stop, where we waited a good fifteen minutes for the Animal Kingdom bus to pull up.
We arrived at the Animal Kingdom at 8:15am, so it was a no go for an early Kilomanjaro Safari. Oh, well. We went through the turnstiles and made our way over to the safari to get a fastpass and then we headed over to Donald's Breakfastosaurus. When we got there, there was quite a long line of people waiting to check in! Yikes! It actually didn't take too long to make our way to the front of the line - maybe five minutes or so. Once we checked in, we waited in line to have our picture taken, but our pager went off before we were ready for our picture! Oh, well, we just skipped that one. No big deal. The hostess led us to our table, inside one of the rooms of the restaurant - what a neat place!
As soon as we were inside, we saw Donald, Goofy, Pluto, and Mickey, all dressed up in their Dino gear! LOL How cute! Our waitress came by and took our drink orders - Alex had chocolate milk and I had orange juice. She also explained what was on each buffet line and that we could go and help ourselves whenever we wanted to. We looked around and saw that all of the characters were on the other side of the restaurant, so we thought we were pretty safe in grabbing our breakfast. There was plenty of food! Anything and everything you could imagine - and it was tasty, too!
We had fun playing around with Goofy - he insisted that we take his picture! LOL What a ham! LOL
After breakfast, we headed back over to Kilomanjaro safaris and hopped in the fastpass line. We were lucky to get one of the wheelchair accessible trucks because I've heard they are not as bumpy and if a pregnant woman is going to ride the safari, she should request one of the wheelchair accessible trucks. Since we've ridden this numerous times before, we didn't really focus on taking too many pictures - we just enjoyed the scenery. We were even lucky enough to see both the male and female lions! We hadn't seen them before, so this was exciting! LOL
When we were done with the safari, I asked Alex if he would rather do the Maharajah Jungle Trek or the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail and he said that he wanted to do the Maharajah Jungle Trek, so we made our way over to Asia and took our time enjoying all of the animals on the trek. Alex really liked the kimodo dragon - he was cool. My favorite, of course, were the tigers. They are such beautiful creatures! In one of the areas where the tigers are, there was one that was right up against the window. He was beautiful! I wanted to reach out and pet him! LOL We also enjoyed watching the bats. They are so gross looking, but it was neat to watch them open their wings! Their wingspan is huge! I couldn't believe it!
After our jungle trek, we headed over to Kali River Rapids. I know that they say pregnant women shouldn't ride this one either, but I don't understand why... it's not all that bumpy and there's no sudden drops. I decided that I'd risk this one... Anyway, we hopped in line and waited about three minutes before we were on a boat! We couldn't believe the difference in crowds between today and yesterday... amazing! Anyway, we were on a boat with two other couples - one couple had ponchos on, the other couple didn't. It was everyone but our first time on this ride. Well, don't the two of us end up getting completely soaked!?!? How funny! We both had a ball, and we dried off rather quickly because the sun was beating down on us. It was another perfect day - weather wise.
After Kali River Rapids, we headed over to It's Tough To Be A Bug. We stopped at a sidewalk vendor and grabbed a powerade to share. While we were sitting and drinking our powerade, this HUGE bird came right up to us! Probably looking for food, but he scared me! His beak was probably 8 to 10 inches long and it looked SHARP! LOL
When we were done with our little break, we headed into It's Tough To Be A Bug. Did they change this a little bit in the past two years? Alex and I both noticed some new scenes in this movie. It was great! I even took a picture of Alex with his honorary bug glasses on - adorable! LOL
After the movie, it was about time for lunch, so we just made our way over to the Rainforest Cafe. We had a 12:30pm PS for lunch, and we checked in with the cast member at 12:20pm. A little early, but they were able to seat us right away. Now, I don't know if you remember this or not, but we were on the Dream Maker Silver Plan, and we were planning on using our "wishes" for this lunch. Unfortunately, we were still pretty full from breakfast this morning! I think we disappointed the waitress when we ordered what we did - I ordered the mozzarella sticks for an appetizer, and a pepperoni pizza for lunch; Alex ordered buffalo wings for an appetizer and a pepperoni pizza for lunch. By the time it came for us to order dessert, we both thought we would blow up! So, what we did was ask the waitress if we could "give away" our dessert. At the table right next to us, there were two women with two children. We figured they might want a chocolate volcano, so the waitress went over and asked them if they wanted to order one (for "free"). They said yes, so we "gave" them our dessert. At least someone ate it! LOL
When we were done with our lunch, we rolled ourselves out of there. We had two pizza boxes filled with our leftovers, so instead of taking a bus directly to Epcot, like we had planned, we took a bus back to Pop Century to drop off our pizza, and then we took another bus to Epcot. We got to Epcot around 2:30pm, so we thought we had plenty of time to do what we wanted. Our first stop, however, was the leave a legacy area. I know a lot of people think this is hideous, but we really think it will be neat to bring our children back here and show them our picture! So, we filled out all of the paperwork and had our picture taken.
After we did the Leave a Legacy, we headed over to Mission: Space. We had figured the wait times would be crazy over there... well, when we got there, we found that the wait times were - standby - 90 minutes, and singles line - 45 minutes. So, we grabbed a fastpass for Alex and then headed over to Ellen's Energy Adventure. This is one of Alex's favorite rides. To me - it's just okay. By the end of the ride, I was finding it hard to keep my eyes open. Yikes! I pulled out some cinnamon gum, and that woke me right up.
When we were done learning about energy with Ellen and Bill Nye, we headed over to the Living Seas. Neither Alex nor I have ever done this one, so I was pretty excited about it. We watched the movie about the sea, and then we made our way over to the elevators and made our way to Sea Base Alpha. Our favorite part about this attraction was the Finding Nemo area. There were lots of Nemos and Dory's!! LOL
After exploring the Living Seas, we decided to head back to Mission: Space so that Alex could ride it. I think he was a little nervous about it (his stomach sometimes doesn't handle "thrill" rides very well). Anyway, I found a spot out in the warm sun and waited while he hopped in the fastpass line and got ready for his mission to mars. About half an hour later, since he hadn't come out yet, I decided to see if I could find the ride exit and meet him there. I was getting worried that he was sick and I wanted to make sure that he was okay. Well, eventually, I found the ride exit (go through the store and into the "fun" area). He came out about five minutes after I found it. Good timing! And, he wasn't sick! I guess the queue even for fastpass holders was pretty long. He really enjoyed the ride, but he said it wasn't exactly what he was expecting. Next time, I'll get to try it! Now, Alex is really looking forward to trying Expedition Everest when it opens! LOL Anyway, after Alex came off of the ride, we decided to send both sets of parents a video e-mail. Well, my parents said that they never got it, and his parents couldn't open the e-mail! Oh, well, it was fun to make.
It was about 6:00pm by now, and we had a 7:30pm PS at the Rose & Crown Pub, so we decided to make our way over to World Showcase. We started in Canada, and we made our way all the way over to China before we decided to turn around and head back to the UK pavilion. We stopped and did some window shopping in the Mitsukoshi (is that how you spell it?) store in Japan. There were some people picking oysters and the cast members would open them up and pick out the pearls. It was neat to watch.
Finally, around 7:15pm, we walked up to the hostess station at the Rose & Crown and put our name in. We asked if we could please have patio seating and they said that they couldn't guarantee it, but they would do their best. We found a bench and sat and waited for our pager to go off. While we were waiting, there was a cast member on a Segway. I had tried to explain the Segways to Alex before our trip, because I thought he might have liked the Segway tour, but he didn't quite understand what it was. So, I finally got to show him. He thought it was neat, but he said he didn't think he'd want to take the tour.
Our pager went off at 7:35pm, and we walked up to the podium, keeping our fingers crossed for patio seating. The hostess walked us past the side patio seating, so we were looking good! Then, she brought us to a tiny, tiny, table smack dab in front of a HUGE column. We wouldn't have been able to see any of Illuminations. Alex and I look at each other... you could see the wheels in our heads turning! LOL We both really weren't in the mood for prime rib (the only thing on the menu that we'd both like), so we decided we'd just order a quick appetizer and then go. We could find a spot for Illuminations somewhere else. The waitress came over shortly after we were seated and we explained what we would like to do. Well, she told us that they have quite a few people waiting for seating and if we were going to just order an appetizer, then we would need to do that at the bar. So, we got up and left. I know, we were being selfish - but I couldn't see forcing ourselves to eat something we really didn't want, and then probably not getting a spot for Illuminations afterwards.
So, we left the restaurant. I was in the mood for a hot dog, and Alex wanted to try a Turkey Leg, so we headed back over to the American pavilion. On our way over, we came upon the cast member on the Segway. She was selling all of those light-up toys and things. Alex wanted to buy me one of those pink hairbands that have the light-up Mickey heads on them. It is so cute! LOL After our purchase (and I put them on right away!), we found the Turkey Leg cart and Alex made his purchase. Man, those things are HUGE! I even took a picture of him eating the Turkey Leg! LOL After he got his "dinner," I headed inside to the counter service restaurant (I'm sorry - I don't know the name of it) and I got a hot dog meal. It came with fries and a drink. That was sooo good! We found a spot on the bridge between the UK and France and we sat down (on the ground) and ate our "dinner." By the time we were done eating, it was 8:15pm, and Alex made a suggestion. He said instead of staying and watching Illuminations (we've seen it a few times before), why don't we head over to the Boardwalk and check it out? So, I agreed, and we went out the International Gateway and hopped on a boat headed for the Boardwalk Resort.
Once we were dropped off, we just hung out for a little while. I wanted to rent a surrey bike, but Alex said that we would do it later. We never actually did do it. Something we can look forward to for next time! LOL We browsed in the shops a little bit and we peeked our heads in JellyRolls. It wasn't too busy in there, so we couldn't see paying a $14 cover charge for the two of us, if it wasn't too lively in there. The bouncer told us that it starts to pick up after Illuminations, when everyone is out of the park. Oh, well. That's another for us to do next time.
We also walked around the resort itself. The pool looked like a lot of fun, with it's waterslide. We also peeked in the gym. Very nice. When we finally made our way over to the ESPN Club, we decided we'd stop in and have a "real" dinner. LOL So, we waited in line (there was still a line at 10:30pm!!) and we were seated shortly. Since we were using our Dream Maker Silver Plan, I ordered boneless buffalo wings for an appetizer, a cheeseburger for an entree, and a hockey puck for dessert. Alex ordered nachos for an appetizer, a tuna pita sandwich for an entree, and apple brown betty for dessert. We asked the waitress if she could "wrap up" our desserts "to go" and she did. We ended up taking them back to Pop Century.
When we were done with dinner, we were both exhausted. We made our way out to the Boardwalk bus stop (which was a challenge, trying to figure out where it was! LOL) and we waited for the Downtown Disney bus to come by. Once we were dropped off at Downtown Disney, we caught the Pop Century bus back to Pop Century and we hit the bed.
Pre-Trip Planning/Information
Day One
Day Two
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six
Day Seven
