Carrieberry
<font color=9999CC>Has to post on the right thread
- Joined
- Nov 30, 1999
- Messages
- 2,071
DAY 2~
Well since we went to bed so early the night before, we woke up at 5am fully rested and ready to head out! The plan for the first part of our day was to go to Animal Kingdom and we had a PS time of 10am for Donald's Breakfastasaurus! We had not planned on making it to early entry, but since we were up so early we decided to try it out! We had never done it before since we like to sleep in a little when on vacation, so we had no idea what to expect as far as crowds. We watched T.V (the Disney Info channels of course!) and took our time getting ready before heading down to the bus at about 7:30. There were quite a few people waiting for the bus and it was FREEZING outside!! I was comfortable in jeans, a long sleeve shirt and a sweatshirt, with my mittens on and Mike said he was also ok in his jeans, and long sleeve shirt with his mittens so we hopped on the bus after a 10 minute wait. GOOD START!!
We got to AK a short ride later and headed to join the masses at the gate. We were going to buy a couple of hot chocolates, but at $3.75 a cup we decided against it. The lines to get in were long, but not nearly as long as I thought they would be considering how large the park is and how many resorts there are. They played nice AK music and we were getting so excited! Mike was obviously freezing as his lips had turned a faint bluish color. I asked him if he wanted to buy a sweatshirt when we got into the park, and to my surprise he actually said yes! Now this is someone who HATES to buy things in the parks that we have sitting back in the room. We are also the type who has been to WDW a few times and come prepared just so we don't have to drop a ton of cash on things we didn't bring or don't really want. We like to buy one or two expensive souvenirs each and then stuff for the kids, so he must have really been freezing to say he wanted to go drop $40 on a sweatshirt when he had a perfectly good Disney one back in the room.
Finally a few minutes later at exactly 8am they opened the gates and in we went. We stopped at the first little shop we came to and bought Mike a sweatshirt (which has now become mine) with a cute American flag style Mickey Head on it. Feeling much warmer now, we headed straight for the safaris but took our time walking back to Africa, stopping in all the little shops along the way. We also stopped and got a couple of Danishes from the little coffee place inside Tusker House and were happy to see that inside the park, hot chocolate was only about $1.50! After our light snack we headed for the Safari and walked right on! WHOOO ¡VHOOOOO. We skipped it two years ago because the Fast pass machine was broken and the line was very long, so we were happy to be able to get right on! After seeing all the wonderful animals and saving "Little Red" we had just enough time to head over to Dinoland and try out Primeval Whirl before eating our large breakfast at Donald's. We waited about 15 minutes for this ride which in our opinions was not worth the wait! We laughed, sure, it was sort of fun, but it was one of those rides that you go on when the lines to everything else are too long, not the kind of ride you wait in line for. Do you know what I mean?? Still, it kept with the concept of Chester and Hester and the carnival theme. After we rode it Mike and I played the carnival game with the squirt guns and since it was just the two of us we were guaranteed a win. I have to tell you that Mike has never lost at this game, no matter how many other people are playing, so I knew I was going to lose for sure! A few minutes later, sure enough, he won and I had a new yellow dinosaur to take home which I named Burt. Off to Donald's for Breakfast finally!!
We checked in about 10 minutes before our scheduled seating time and expected to have to wait about 10 minutes, but it was surprisingly empty. They whisked us off to take our picture (complete with Burt in it) and then they called out name while we were getting it taken! We ran to the door and followed the hostess to our seats, which was a tiny table for two in between two other larger tables. We sat down next to another friendly couple without children and then we headed for the food! We loaded up on eggs, potatoes, biscuits and gravy, bacon, sausage, donuts and everything else you cam imagine and I swear my arteries were hardening while I ate, but it was the best darn breakfast ever!! YUMMY! A short while after we started eating they brought our picture around, and since we haven't had a picture of just the two of us done in a long time, we decided to purchase the package of 1 5x7, 2 key chains and some wallets for $23 and some change. Yes, it is expensive, but now whenever we look at the pic hanging on our wall, it just makes it all worthwhile!
After breakfast we rode Dinosaur which I hate every single time I go on it and this time was no exception. AHHH! I just hate it! After that we headed back over to Africa to to the Exploration Trail which was amazing. I just love the gorillas, they are my favorite! It warmed up considerably by then and we decided that before leaving Africa, we would stop my the little bar next to Tusker House and get a couple of drinks. So we sat and sipped on strawberry daiquiris (no straws of course!) for awhile and enjoyed the scenery before heading to the front of the park to get a locker for our sweatshirts and our new pictures from breakfast. It was very relaxing and nice to sit and look at the Tree of Life while sipping on a frozen cocktail!
As planned, we headed to the front of the park to check out the lockers. Once we got there, the CM told us that we should head over to their photo shop and they would send the pics to our hotel for free, probably overhearing Mike's amazement at the, I think it was $7 locker charge (with a $1 refundable deposit). We decided to hang onto our sweatshirts and do that instead. Mike made a brief pit stop at the restrooms while I waited outside and that was when I got my first (of many to come in the following week) of Santa! He was an older man with a white beard and he wore red shorts, red knee socks, a red t-shirt with a red AK sweatshirt tied around his shoulder. To top off the out fit he had a pot belly and a black belt with a GIANT silver belt buckle with an "S" on it. He WAS Santa!! I tried to get a picture but he walked off to fast, with many people staring at him open mouthed. Did anyone else see him??
Mike came out of the restroom and I told him about my sighting and he just laughed like he thought I was crazy!! Anywhoo, off we went to the pic shop and after handing over our photos, we headed to Asia where we walked along the Jungle Trek and saw the Tigers, our other favorite. A short while later we left AK and headed back to Beach Club Villas where we planned to eat lunch even though we were still full from breakfast!
After waiting for the bus for about 10 minutes, and riding for another 10, we got off over at the Yacht Club and walked back to the hotel. We dropped our stuff off and decided to head over to Epcot for awhile and check out Future World before it closed. We walked through the International Gateway entrance and took our time through the UK, and Canada before we got to Future World. We rode Test Track and walked through both sets of Innovations before heading to The Sea. What a disappointment. It just isn't the same since the ride portion is gone. We were bored and only stayed about 10 minutes. We decided to go over to Journey Into Your imagination, but to our disappointment (we have never once gotten to see this ride with Figment) we were told it was closed. So we went to see Honey I Shrunk the Audience and that was fun. It was starting to get cold again so we put our sweatshirts back on and decided to head over to World Showcase where we meandered past Mexico and Norway. We stopped and rode Maelstrom which we had never been on, and that was a cute ride. We continued on until we got to Japan where we grabbed a quick and yummy meal from Yakitori House. We had PS for Alfredo's but decided to skip it since we were hungry and the seating wasn't until 2 hours later. We just continued to shop and look around the different countries before heading back to BCV to relax and enjoy the hotel.
At about 9:30 pm we stood on the bridge by the International Gateway and watched Illuminations before making a quick exit. We hurried to Beaches and Cream and Mike got a Root Beer Float and I got a Milky Way Sundae. Needless to say, we finished every last drop/bite of both of them!( Of course Mike ate quite a lot of my sundae!!)
TOMORROW~ MGM/Studios!!
Well since we went to bed so early the night before, we woke up at 5am fully rested and ready to head out! The plan for the first part of our day was to go to Animal Kingdom and we had a PS time of 10am for Donald's Breakfastasaurus! We had not planned on making it to early entry, but since we were up so early we decided to try it out! We had never done it before since we like to sleep in a little when on vacation, so we had no idea what to expect as far as crowds. We watched T.V (the Disney Info channels of course!) and took our time getting ready before heading down to the bus at about 7:30. There were quite a few people waiting for the bus and it was FREEZING outside!! I was comfortable in jeans, a long sleeve shirt and a sweatshirt, with my mittens on and Mike said he was also ok in his jeans, and long sleeve shirt with his mittens so we hopped on the bus after a 10 minute wait. GOOD START!!
We got to AK a short ride later and headed to join the masses at the gate. We were going to buy a couple of hot chocolates, but at $3.75 a cup we decided against it. The lines to get in were long, but not nearly as long as I thought they would be considering how large the park is and how many resorts there are. They played nice AK music and we were getting so excited! Mike was obviously freezing as his lips had turned a faint bluish color. I asked him if he wanted to buy a sweatshirt when we got into the park, and to my surprise he actually said yes! Now this is someone who HATES to buy things in the parks that we have sitting back in the room. We are also the type who has been to WDW a few times and come prepared just so we don't have to drop a ton of cash on things we didn't bring or don't really want. We like to buy one or two expensive souvenirs each and then stuff for the kids, so he must have really been freezing to say he wanted to go drop $40 on a sweatshirt when he had a perfectly good Disney one back in the room.
Finally a few minutes later at exactly 8am they opened the gates and in we went. We stopped at the first little shop we came to and bought Mike a sweatshirt (which has now become mine) with a cute American flag style Mickey Head on it. Feeling much warmer now, we headed straight for the safaris but took our time walking back to Africa, stopping in all the little shops along the way. We also stopped and got a couple of Danishes from the little coffee place inside Tusker House and were happy to see that inside the park, hot chocolate was only about $1.50! After our light snack we headed for the Safari and walked right on! WHOOO ¡VHOOOOO. We skipped it two years ago because the Fast pass machine was broken and the line was very long, so we were happy to be able to get right on! After seeing all the wonderful animals and saving "Little Red" we had just enough time to head over to Dinoland and try out Primeval Whirl before eating our large breakfast at Donald's. We waited about 15 minutes for this ride which in our opinions was not worth the wait! We laughed, sure, it was sort of fun, but it was one of those rides that you go on when the lines to everything else are too long, not the kind of ride you wait in line for. Do you know what I mean?? Still, it kept with the concept of Chester and Hester and the carnival theme. After we rode it Mike and I played the carnival game with the squirt guns and since it was just the two of us we were guaranteed a win. I have to tell you that Mike has never lost at this game, no matter how many other people are playing, so I knew I was going to lose for sure! A few minutes later, sure enough, he won and I had a new yellow dinosaur to take home which I named Burt. Off to Donald's for Breakfast finally!!
We checked in about 10 minutes before our scheduled seating time and expected to have to wait about 10 minutes, but it was surprisingly empty. They whisked us off to take our picture (complete with Burt in it) and then they called out name while we were getting it taken! We ran to the door and followed the hostess to our seats, which was a tiny table for two in between two other larger tables. We sat down next to another friendly couple without children and then we headed for the food! We loaded up on eggs, potatoes, biscuits and gravy, bacon, sausage, donuts and everything else you cam imagine and I swear my arteries were hardening while I ate, but it was the best darn breakfast ever!! YUMMY! A short while after we started eating they brought our picture around, and since we haven't had a picture of just the two of us done in a long time, we decided to purchase the package of 1 5x7, 2 key chains and some wallets for $23 and some change. Yes, it is expensive, but now whenever we look at the pic hanging on our wall, it just makes it all worthwhile!
After breakfast we rode Dinosaur which I hate every single time I go on it and this time was no exception. AHHH! I just hate it! After that we headed back over to Africa to to the Exploration Trail which was amazing. I just love the gorillas, they are my favorite! It warmed up considerably by then and we decided that before leaving Africa, we would stop my the little bar next to Tusker House and get a couple of drinks. So we sat and sipped on strawberry daiquiris (no straws of course!) for awhile and enjoyed the scenery before heading to the front of the park to get a locker for our sweatshirts and our new pictures from breakfast. It was very relaxing and nice to sit and look at the Tree of Life while sipping on a frozen cocktail!
As planned, we headed to the front of the park to check out the lockers. Once we got there, the CM told us that we should head over to their photo shop and they would send the pics to our hotel for free, probably overhearing Mike's amazement at the, I think it was $7 locker charge (with a $1 refundable deposit). We decided to hang onto our sweatshirts and do that instead. Mike made a brief pit stop at the restrooms while I waited outside and that was when I got my first (of many to come in the following week) of Santa! He was an older man with a white beard and he wore red shorts, red knee socks, a red t-shirt with a red AK sweatshirt tied around his shoulder. To top off the out fit he had a pot belly and a black belt with a GIANT silver belt buckle with an "S" on it. He WAS Santa!! I tried to get a picture but he walked off to fast, with many people staring at him open mouthed. Did anyone else see him??
Mike came out of the restroom and I told him about my sighting and he just laughed like he thought I was crazy!! Anywhoo, off we went to the pic shop and after handing over our photos, we headed to Asia where we walked along the Jungle Trek and saw the Tigers, our other favorite. A short while later we left AK and headed back to Beach Club Villas where we planned to eat lunch even though we were still full from breakfast!
After waiting for the bus for about 10 minutes, and riding for another 10, we got off over at the Yacht Club and walked back to the hotel. We dropped our stuff off and decided to head over to Epcot for awhile and check out Future World before it closed. We walked through the International Gateway entrance and took our time through the UK, and Canada before we got to Future World. We rode Test Track and walked through both sets of Innovations before heading to The Sea. What a disappointment. It just isn't the same since the ride portion is gone. We were bored and only stayed about 10 minutes. We decided to go over to Journey Into Your imagination, but to our disappointment (we have never once gotten to see this ride with Figment) we were told it was closed. So we went to see Honey I Shrunk the Audience and that was fun. It was starting to get cold again so we put our sweatshirts back on and decided to head over to World Showcase where we meandered past Mexico and Norway. We stopped and rode Maelstrom which we had never been on, and that was a cute ride. We continued on until we got to Japan where we grabbed a quick and yummy meal from Yakitori House. We had PS for Alfredo's but decided to skip it since we were hungry and the seating wasn't until 2 hours later. We just continued to shop and look around the different countries before heading back to BCV to relax and enjoy the hotel.
At about 9:30 pm we stood on the bridge by the International Gateway and watched Illuminations before making a quick exit. We hurried to Beaches and Cream and Mike got a Root Beer Float and I got a Milky Way Sundae. Needless to say, we finished every last drop/bite of both of them!( Of course Mike ate quite a lot of my sundae!!)
TOMORROW~ MGM/Studios!!
