Our trip to WDW and USA

[Terkina]

Chapters​

Our travel day
Day 1 Epcot
Epcot continues
Day 2 Hollywood Studios
Day 3 Animal Kingdom
Geocaching in Animal Kingdom
Animal Kingdom continues
Day 4 Magic Kingdom


Our first day of the road trip 16.February 2013
17.February
18.February
19.February
20.February
21.February
22.February
23.February
24.February and half way
Disneyland Park
26.February
27.February
28.February
1.March
2.March
3.March
4.March
5.March
6.March
7.March
8.March
9.March
10.March


​

 

[Terkina]

Our trip was from 11.february to 16.march in Disney World. After that we went on a road trip for 3 1\2 weeks. We really sucked at taking pictures I really wish we had taken more pictures.


Our trip started from home on the 11.february at 05.00 in the morning. Our plane was scheduled to depart at 06.40. We got to the airport by taxi (we only live like 10 minutes by car from the airport) at 05.30. Flew from Tromsø to Oslo where we had 2 hours until our flight to New York. And then we had 2 hours at Newark before your flight to Orlando. Our flight to Orlando was delayed so we got a long wait in Newark before we got to Orlando.

Immigration at Newark was fast and easy. I have read so much about immigration being a pain in the *** because it has long lines and takes time. We didn't have to wait in any line because I had assistance at the airport so of we went to Magical Express.

Now the time was 08.00PM local time and we had been up for 21 hours and still we weren't at our resort. We found Magical Express without a problem and got threw check in there and got to board a buss right away. If I remeber right there were only 3 families on the buss. The bus had one stop before it stopped at our resort.

We were staying at Port Orleans French Quarter. I tried to take a picture of the WDW sign, but it was dark outside so the picture was all blurry.

We got a room in building 1 first floor.

And the bathroom

We went to the food court to grab something to eat and to get our mugs since we are on the QSDP.

By the time we were ready for bed we had been up for 24 hours.

 

[Luvchefmic]

Hi Terkina

Anxious to read all about your trip Nice start love the pictures

Hopefully someone will come along to help you with the link thingy I finally remembered that I had a photobucket account (after years ) and just remembered how to post pictures from there to here so I would be no help to you at all.....sorry

Ruthie

 

[Terkina]

Day 1 Epcot

I woke up many times during the night because it was too hot in the room. We hadn't turned on the aircondition.

We got up and went to the food court. The only thing I found that sounded like breakfast was oatmeal. So I got in line to get that. When it was my turn in line I was asked if I wanted the snack size or the meal size oatmeal. I got the nice man behind the counter to show me the two sizes. The meal size was huge in my opinion so I went for the snack size. My friend got some fruit. We payed for both our breakfasts OP. We used our mugs to get me some cocoa for me and some coffee or tea for my friend.

We thought it was too noisy at the food court so we took our breakfast back to our room.

After breakfast we got ready and walked to the bus. We didn't have to wait for long until our bus for Epcot came. Since I'm in a wheelchair when we are going long distances I got to board the bus first. There where one other lady in a scooter that was also going to Epcot.

We thought we would wait until our bus came until we go to the spot where the wheelchair should load. But we soon found out that we should have just gone to the spot in the first place. Because the lady in the scooter who was also going to Epcot went strait to the loading spot and waited there for the bus. So she got on first. It was no problem this time since we were only one scooter and one wheelchair that was going on the bus. So it was room for us both. But every time we waited for a bus after this one we went strait for the loading spot and waited there just in case there came more wheelchairs or scooters that wanted to go on a bus.

We got on the bus and we were on our way to Epcot. It was morning EMH at Epcot this day, but we didn't get there until 10.00am So I figured that if we were not going to hit rope drop the rest of the trip I should change our plans and hit parks without morning EMH for the rest of our stay.

At Epcot we headed strait to Soarin' to get FP for later. The standby line was 90 minutes when we arrived.

After getting FP we went to Imagination! and went on Journey Into Imagination With Figment. The song on this ride really sticks in your head so I couldn't get the song out of my head for a long time.

We didn't bother to go and see Captain EO since we had seen it in Disneyland Paris in March 2011.

After Imagination With Figment we went to World Showcase and we started in Canada. We watched the movie in Canada and looked around in Canada before we continued to

United Kingdom

We love to go to London, England and watch musicals. So we visit the UK almost every year in the beginning of December.

Since there were no attractions in the UK at World Showcase we continued to

France.

We visited France in March 2011 and visited Paris where we saw the real Eiffel tower

We also visited Disneyland Paris for a few days. I had been to Disneyland Paris once before, but I wasn't impressed with Disneyland Paris. I wanted to give it another try, but neither my friend or I liked Disneyland Paris much. So I was very anxious to find out what my friend would think about Walt Disney World.

I chose that we would visit Epcot first since my friend likes to learn about things and places.

We wandered around France for a while and saw the Impressions de France.

After the movie we walked over to

Marocco.

Last year when we were in Southern Spain where my parents has an apartment we went on a tourist trip with a guide and everything to Tanger in Morocco. It wasn't a good experience because there was a lot of Moroccan men trying to sell us stuff all the time when we walked in Tanger.

We liked Morocco in World Showcase a lot better. But we didn't dare to go into the shops in fear of being attacked by a seller that wanted to sell us a lot of stuff Deep inside I know that wouldn't be the case in WDW but we still didn't bother to go into the shops.

Now it was time for lunch. We used our QSDP and ate a CS meal in Morocco.

After a lunch I thought was only OK we continued to

Japan

We walked around for a while before we headed over to The American Adventure.

The singers had already started The American Adventure. After the show it was time to head back to The Land to use our FP for Soarin.

 

[Terkina]

Hi Terkina

Anxious to read all about your trip Nice start love the pictures

Hopefully someone will come along to help you with the link thingy I finally remembered that I had a photobucket account (after years ) and just remembered how to post pictures from there to here so I would be no help to you at all.....sorry

Ruthie

Welcome and thank you for joining

 

[Luvchefmic]

Photography is my "thing" and I am really enjoying your pictures feels like I'm right there with you Glad to see the weather looked gorgeous that day



Ruthie

 

[Terkina]

Epcot continues

We headed back to The Land and Soarin and found out that the standby time was now 120 minutes. We went right past the line. When we got to the front of the line some guys in the standby line got really angry because they saw a lot of people just walking on soaring without any wait. I guess they didn't know about FP or they were not early enough in the park to get FP for Soarin. I noticed that we got first row so I was very exited and I told my friend that this was the best row to be in. He said I guess you have read that on the internet. Of course I have I replied

My friend would discover many times during our stay at WDW that I had learned a lot from the internet (DIS that is) where to eat, what to ride first and so on.

Both my friend and I loved Soarin

After Soarin we headed back to World Showcase but this time we started in

Mexico

We walked around in Mexico but didn't go on the Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros.

One thing we had noticed while in World Showcase was that there wasn't many kids around. We didn't see any kids in the attractions we visited in World Showcase earlier this day and not many kids was around now either.

The next country we came to was

My home country Norway

We didn't bother going on Maelstrom because it had a 40 minutes wait. We walked around and talked to some of the people from Norway working in the pavilion.

Hey this looks familiar

it's the piers in Bergen. In Norway known as Bryggene i Bergen

We took this picture in Bergen when we were there on a geocaching event in June 2011. More about geocaching later

The next country we visited in World Showcase was

China

We watched the Reflections of China and we went in at looked at this

We continued to Germany where my friend bought a German beer.

The last country we visited was

Italy

I have been in Italy once before. Some years ago. My friend and I are visit Italy and Rome in November this year

Now it was 06.00pm and time for some dinner. We went to Sunshine Season. While eating I asked my friend if we could stay for Illuminations. He agreed to wait for Illuminations before leaving the park. So we went to Ellen's Energy Adventure, but it was closed for the night.

We continued to Spaceship Earth. That was fun. When constructing our future we chose leisure and that the most important thing for us was that my animals are well taken care of. So in the future a robot will take care of my cats while we are out traveling

Now the time had come to find a spot for Illuminations. We found a wheelchair spot. Not far from the wheelchair spot there were a lot of cheerleaders chanting loudly until the show began. This was the only time we saw and heard them in the parks.

I didn't get any good pictures of Illuminations

After Illuminations we headed towards the exit of the park and to the buses to get back to our resort.

When we got to our bus stop there was already a bus there, but we didn't think we could get on it. So we waited for the next bus. It was'nt a long wait.

When we got back to the resort. I changed our plans for which park on which day we would visit because I understood that we would never make rope drop anyway. Since we're not going for rope drop we should visit a park that doesn't have early EMH.

 

[Iamthequeen]

Subbing

It will be interesting to see WDW through your eyes!

Terry

 

[Terkina]

Day 2 Hollywood Studios


We started our day at the food court. We found out that I could get my Oatmeal snack breakfast with a SC and my friend would buy the fruit OP. And we got our mugs filled with coco and coffee. Once again we found the food court too noisy. So we took our breakfast back to our room.

We used our mugs quite a lot during our stay. We used the mugs in the morning for breakfast and we always went to the food court when we came back from the parks to fill the mugs up. Sometimes we even stayed at the food court for a while in the evenings to drink one mug empty before filling it up again and taking two full mugs back to our room.

Today we got out of our room for the buses at 09.00am. We got to Hollywood Studios (or MGM as I have written in my notes from the trip. In my head it will always be MGM studios. That was the name of the park the last time I was there). We got to the parks at 10.00am. We went strait to TSM. When we got there the standby line was 60 minutes. We got FP with the return time at 04.30pm.

We then went to One mans dream. My friend enjoyed reading about Walt Disney and learning more about Walt and his projects.

After One mans dream we went to The magic of Disney Animation. We saw the movie and then we took the drawing class. We got to draw Goofy. It was interesting to learn how they draw characters so that they will end up in the same size and shape each time they are drawn.

Now it was already time for lunch. So I can't remember the name of the place where we had lunch. But it was a QS and when we got our food we was suprised how much food it was and how big our soda was. So we had to take a picture of the soda

This is my friend studying the soda size

After lunch we went on Star Tour. The ride was way to jerky for my liking. When we got out of Star Tours the parade was passing by. We were stuck right outside Star Tours. So we watched the parade.

We went to see Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular. We didn't bother to see Lights Motors, Action since we had seen that show in Disneyland Paris 2 years ago.

We went on the Backlot Tour. I can't understand why they call it backstage because I'm convinced that all you see is things that they want you to see and so it's on stage not backstage.

When we got of the Backlot Tour it looked like it was going to rain. So we decided to go back to our resort.

Back at the resort I was too restless to stay at the resort. So we decided to go to DTD and eat at Wolfgang Pucket.

We wanted to take the boat from POFQ to DTD but the boats wasn't running because of the rain. So we went to take the bus. We had to wait a short while for the bus but it wasn't to bad of a wait.

I really wanted a bathrobe and most preferably with Eeyore on it. I could'nt find a bathrobe for sale in all of WDW. I also wanted a toiletry bag with Eeyore on it. But I couldn't find that either. The only thing I ended up buying was a souvenir book from WDW.

We got back to our room at 10.00pm. I planned our next day and then it was off to bed.

 

[Terkina]

Subbing

It will be interesting to see WDW through your eyes!

Terry

Welcome

 

[Terkina]

Day 3 Animal Kingdom


This day we got out of our room towards the buses at 08.30 after having our regular breakfast in our room.

We got to Animal Kingdom and headed strait for the Kilimanjaro Safaris. I took a lot of pictures on the ride but not all of the came out well.

We will see how many of the animals I know the English name of

This was the only photo that wasn't blurry of the giraffe I got.

I have no clue what these birds are called in either Norwegian or English

PUMBA or warthogs if you like

And we saw some rhinos

This was the only picture that was not blurry of the lions. I didn't get any good pictures of the male lion that we saw

I have no clue if this is alligators or crocodiles

We saw a few elephants so I got a few changes of getting a good picture of one

After the Safari we went over to Pangani Forest Exploration Trail. Where we saw

TIMON or Meerkat if you like.

We also saw the gorillas. I didn't get any good pictures of the Gorilla baby

When we were done in Africa we went over to Rafiki's Planet Watch. We Went to all the attractions at Rafiki's Planet Watch.

I even got to pet a snake (something I have never done before.) Since I'm not a big fan of snakes. I really don't like them. I had to get a picture of me touching a snake just so I can prove that i really did it

After Rafiki's Planet Watch it was time for lunch. I can't remeber where we had lunch. But once again it was a lot of food and I got so full

I have now gone beyond the limit of 25 images that is allowed in one post. So more from Animal Kingdom in my next post.

 

[Terkina]

Animal Kingdom continues


If you are not interested in reading about geocaching and what that is you can skip this post and continue reading my next post where we will continue our tour around Animal Kingdom


Now it was time to find a geocache. This was the first geocache we had to find on our trip. I say we have to because we have a project going on that is to find at least one geocache on each day in the calendar. Today was the first day of our trip that we need a geocache so we could finish our project when 2013 is over.

A geocache is like a treasure hunt with a GPS. You log on to geocaching.com on the internet and find the coordinates to the geocache or geocaches you want to find. You can find as many or as few as you like. You then put the coordinates into a GPS or a App on your smartphone and then you can start searching for the geocache.

A geocache is most often a box that is hidden outside. It can be hidden anywhere. If you like to walk in the woods you can find geocaches there or you can find urban geocaches in the middle of a city.

When you find the box you open it and you'll find a logbook. You have to sign the logbook with the nick you have chosen to use on the website and the date that you found the box. When you come home from your geocaching adventure you log on to the internet again and write a log on the geocache webpage. In this log you write what you have experienced on your journey to find the geocache.

In WDW they don't want any physical box hidden. So the only geocaches you can find in WDW are virtual geocaches. These are geocaches that don't have a physical box and a logbook for you to sign. Instead you will get a task you have to do in order to claim the geocache as found.

In Animal Kingdom you have to find 6 specific animals carvings on the Tree of Life.

We found the animals and could log the geocache as found. Now we could carry on our tour around Animal Kingdom

 

[Terkina]

Animal Kingdom continues



The next thing we wanted to do was Flights of Wonder. It's a great show. It's amazing what they get the birds to do

After the show it started to rain. So we decided to take cover in It's Though to be a Bug! During the show there was some children that got so scared that their parents had to walk them out of the show.

We went back to Asia and took the Maharajah Jungle Trek and saw this guy

before we left the parks at 15.30. It was still raining.

We got back to our room and then it really started to rain. We waited in our room in hope that the rain would stop. At 06.00pm we got ready to go to DTD to eat dinner there. We didn't think the food court at POFQ had many options for dinner so we preferred to go to DTD and eat at Wolfgang Pucket Express. When we opend the door and looked out it rained even more than before. So we decided to wait for still awhile to see if the weather would get any better.

One hour later it was still raining but it wasn't raining that hard anymore. So we decided to take the boat to DTD. Today the boats were running even if it was a little rain in the air. It was a nice boat trip.

At Wolfgang Pucket Express we met a couple from Canada that we talked with while eating. They thought they had traveled far to get to WDW, but when we told them where we were from they said that they hadn't traveled that far after all.

When we got out of Wolfgang Pucket it had stopped raining. We walked around DTD for a while. Still not finding anything I wanted to buy. We took the boat just before 09.00pm so we got to see some of Illumination from the boat on our way back to our resort.

Even if we got back to our room a little early the time flew buy and we didn't get into bed until midnight.

 

[DMGeurts]

WOW Lillian - you just started this TR yesterday, and already I feel like I am behind! LOL YOu've done so much!

I loved your view of Epcot - especially the comparison between the real countries you have visited and Epcot's versions. Loved your real pictures too... Really cool idea.

Interesting about no kids being in WS... That's something I've never encountered.

LOL about the back lot tour in DHS... I often think the same thing. Often times, when I am on rides in WDW - you'll see me peeking around behind me to see the things I am not "supposed to see". LOL I do this a lot in Splash Mountain and Haunted Mansion... HM is really hard because of the ride vehicles - they are designed so that you can't see behind you - so, I often peek around the side. Shame on me.

I love AK - it is one of our favorite parks... And I can't wait to hear more about your geocacheing... I'll bet is was an awesome adventure!

Hopefully I can stay caught up now.

D~

 

[Terkina]

Thanks for stopping by D~ I really appreciate it

I'm glad you liked my Epcot view. When I started to look at the picture I had taken in Epcot I remembered that we took a picture of Bergen so I thought it would be fun to show you have Bergen looks like for real.

Then I remembered that I have visited some of the other countries that are in Epcot as well so I tried to find pictures from my trips there as well. It was quiet fun to do.


I took some pictures of different geocaches we found after we had left WDW just so I could show you how a geocache may look like

 

[Iamthequeen]

I love POFQ, but you are right about the food court being noisy in the morning. My DH and I usually take our morning coffee and breakfast out to the pool area to eat and relax before heading off to the parks. We;ve never made rope drop, but given the fact that we usually go in the "off" season, its never been an issue.

My nephew and his wife like to geocache, so I'm familiar with it. Maybe its something my dh would like to do!

 

[wiigirl]

Great TR!

 

[Terkina]

Day 4 Magic Kingdom



Our day started as usual. Go and pick up breakfast at the food court and take it back to our room.

When we got to the Magic Kingdom we headed to Fantasyland. I got a picture of the Castle on our way

Bell had a 60 minutes wait so we skipped it.

This is the only picture I took in Fantasyland.

We went to ride The Little Mermaid. After The Little Mermaid we headed over to Tomorrowland. We started with the People Mover. We also did Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress (we think they should update it so you go into the 21 Century. We thought the progress had stopped in the 1980's in that show)

We did Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin twice. I couldn't figure out how I could see where I aimed so I did really bad on this ride both times.

We did the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor. It was really funny
We spent a lot of time in Tomorrowland.

We had to find a geocache today as well and there was one Virtual geocache right outside the Cinderella Castle. When we got to the Castle they had roped it off because there was going to be a show there soon. We looked at the time table and found out that there was a slot open there between two show and maybe the Castle would be open again. For this cache we had to get a picture of me at the given coordinates and post the picture along with the log on the internet to be able to claim the geocache as found.

I can't remember which land we went to next.

When we came back to the Castle and hour or so later the Castle was open and we could get our picture. At first the GPS told us that ground zero was at this spot

But after we had taken the picture the GPS jumped around and told us we were 30 meters (around 98 feet) We wandered around in circles for a while until the GPS made up its mind and found out that ground zero was in this spot

It was this last picture that ended up in our found it log on the internet.



We watched Liberty Square Riverboat for quite a while. And got this picture.

We also got to see the parade.

My friend wanted to go over to Tom Sawyer Island since we had read so much about Tom Sawyer when he was younger. So we decided to head on over. When we got to where the boat to the island went from I was asked if I really wanted to go over there since it wasn't really wheelchair accessible. I said that I know it's not accessible but I wanted to go anyway. So we took the boat over.

When we got to the Island we started to walk around on the island. I few steps is no obstacle for us. I can walk and my wheelchair only weighs 8 kg (around 17 pounds) so my friend can take the wheelchair up a few steps without any problems. So we went up and down some steps

After a while we felt that we were done with the Island so we took the boat back.

When we got back from the island it was about an hour or so until the Electrical Parade. So we decided to find a spot to watch the parade from.

The same picture as the picture above my parents has in their photalbum. I'm not sure if their picture is from our trip in 1986 or 1990.

After the Electrical Parade it was time for the fireworks. I didn't get any pictures of the fireworks.

When the fireworks was done we went back to our resort and did some laundry. While we waited for the washer to finish we had dinner at the food court.

Since this was our last full day at Disney we packed and started to get ready for tomorrow when we was going to pickup our rental car at the Dolphin Hotel.

 

[Terkina]

My nephew and his wife like to geocache, so I'm familiar with it. Maybe its something my dh would like to do!

You should try it some time. You don't need a GPS now a days since you can get an app for your smartphone.

 

[Terkina]

Great TR!

Welcome Thanks