Ellester
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2003
- Messages
- 1,671
Cast of Characters:
Ellen (34) Me!, Disney Veteran, 20+trips since 1973, also 7 months pregnant
John (37) Devoted husband, father, and son-in-law. 6th time to WDW
Anabelle (5 ½ ) Our daughter, Princess, first class. 4th time to WDW
Rebecca (2) Our daughter, Princess-in-Training, 2nd time to WDW
Dad (62) My dad, Disney Veteran, has lived in Florida 30 years
Mom (60) My stepmother, Disney Veteran, the rare Florida native
Laura (33) My stepsister, Disney Veteran, mom to Cassie and Marcus
Ted (47) Lauras husband, Disney Veteran, dad to Cassie and Marcus
Cassie (5) niece, 4th time to WDW
Marcus (3) nephew, 1st time to WDW
Lee (30) My stepbrother, Disney Veteran, another rare Florida native
Saturday, January 2nd.
We all decided to get a little more sleep and try to meet for breakfast at the Food & Fun center at 9. We were mostly on time and made it to the bus stop by 10. We had a 45 minute wait for an AK bus, very frustrating. We were the first ones at the stop (we must have just missed a bus) and by the time the AK bus came, two MGM busses and three Downtown Disney busses had come and gone. Thankfully, we got on the bus although by then the busstop was packed with people waiting to go to AK. I asked the driver how often they came and he said whenever they were told to, about every 15 minutes. Yeah, right! We finally got to AK at 11:00am and got through security after a quick stop for sunglasses for the kids. Each of our girls had $20 to spend and still had it all as of this morning. The glasses were the first big purchase! Anabelle chose a very cute Minnie pair that flips open while Rebecca chose the nonflipping Mickey pair. We headed over for the 11:45 FOTLK show. Everyone really enjoyed it. I wanted to get us Fastpasses for the safari next, but overrode my commando tendencies as everyone else voted for lunch. So, off to Pizzafari. It was not crowded at all and pretty tasty. We eventually made it over to the safari for Fastpasses, which were only 45 minutes away. We walked the Pangani trail and then had about a 15 minute wait for the safari. Quite a few animals were out and the kids really enjoyed it. Anabelle was a bit concerned about the bridge, but we convinced her nothing in Disney was really designed to kill the guests!
Anabelle really wanted to see Tarzan Rocks! So we headed over to Dinoland. We caught the 3:45 show with minutes to spare. I think Tarzan may work out on his days off, but Im not sure. We spent the rest of the day in Dinoland. The grownups (except me), Anabelle and Cassie rode Dinosaur. Anabelle gave it a very poor review. Although according to John, all she saw of it was his lap! We took all the kids on Triceratops spin, whoo whee! They liked it though, and thats what counts! When we got to Dinoland all the Fastpasses for Primeval Whirl were gone and the standby was listed at 70 minutes. By the time we finished with Dinosaur and T. Spin they had opened the other side and the wait was down to 30 minutes. Anabelle was just tall enough, Cassie missed it by about ¼ inch. The CM manning the measuring stick was tough! John and Anabelle went ahead and rode (only about 15 minute wait actually) while Cassie spent the whole time crying about the injustice of life when you are 47 ¾ inches tall. I felt for her. We went over to the boneyard and Cassie decided to get over it once Anabelle was there to play with her. John led the girls around for the last 45 minutes before the park closed. Marcus had fallen asleep hard, so missed all that fun. Cassie had been given a lanyard by a family friend and had used some of her Disney Dollars for an Ariel pin. Thats all it took for Anabelle to be bitten by the pin bug. I was hoping to put it off a while longer, but Oh well. She used the rest of her money on a lanyard. We told her we would buy her one pin and she could use her allowance on one more. She chose an Aurora and a Jasmine pin and was happy as can be. We havent explained trading yet, plenty of time for that! Rebecca, of course, had to have a lanyard too. She had a bit more money left, having picked cheaper sunglasses. She picked a very cute Boo pin.
We had a family discussion about dinner. We originally planned dinner at Boma, but werent ready to leave the park for our 5pm PSs. Plus, dad didn't seem real exicited about Boma and since he is the one paying I gave him extra weight in the decision. We decided to try the Rainforest Café right outside AK. I wasnt real hopeful wed get a quick table for 10 at 6pm, but we were seated by 6:30. We had a great, relaxing dinner with a view of the Titans/Ravens playoff game (exciting ending, even though I didnt care who won). John and I decided to take the girls back to MK after giving Anabelle the option of that or going back to the hotel to swim. Rebecca had fallen asleep at 6 and slept right through dinner so she was good to go. By now, it was 8pm and the busstop at AK was a ghosttown. The CM assured us a bus would come, and one finally did after two busses to Epcot came and went. We all had to go to the TTC, since MK and Contemporary busses had stopped running at 7:30. We split off from the rest of the group at the TTC and rode the ferry over to the MK. We were almost alone on the ferry again. Not many people heading to MK at 9pm. I thought we would see Wishes from the ferry which would have been cool. However, they must have been having technical difficulties since it didnt start until about 9:15. My one request of the trip was to see the Christmas show at the Country Bears Jamboree. So we headed to Frontierland via the Emporium. Much less crowded than Main Street at Wishes time! We tried to get Rebecca a hot dog at Caseys for dinner, but she wasnt interested. She just wanted pretzels. OK, whatever kiddo. We were down to one diaper, so I ran into the Babycare Center while John and the girls saw Wishes from yet another vantage point. This time they got to see the part the castle plays, very cool. I purchased 10 diapers for $9. Gee, thats only about 4.5 times what I pay at home! Well, at least Rebecca would have a nice dry tushie.
We continued our trek to Frontierland. A Country Bears show had just started, so we browsed around the Prairie Outpost and then sat down to wait. I really enjoyed the show. The Country Bears is one of my sentimental favorites dating from my first visit to WDW in 1973. It was fun seeing a new show. The girls really liked it. We stopped for a churro to share, although neither of the kids liked it. More for me and John! We wanted to ride Pooh and John wanted to take the girls on the Indy Speedway, so we headed over that way. We bought some popcorn to supplement Rebeccas pretzel dinner (hey, were on vacation!). We got Fastpasses for Pooh with a return time of 11:05-midnite. We waited about 20 minutes for Indy. The girls seemed to enjoy it. Rebecca and my car was faster than John and Anabelles. John and Anabelles also died at the end so the CM had to come out and restart them. We still had time before Pooh, Anabelle and Rebecca wanted to ride Goofys Barnstormer again. We headed back over to Toontown and John took the girls on Goofy three times in a row. Toontown was dead. I knew I was getting tired, since I walked into the restroom and thought gee, I dont remember urinals in the womens restroom the other day. Thankfully, the mens room was empty and I made a hasty retreat to the womens room. Our Pooh time was approaching, so we meandered back to Fantasyland. We hopped in our honeypot after a 5-minute wait due to a wheelchair being loaded. The ride stopped when we were floating along in the flood. It was interesting to see the effects with the lights on. After 5-10 minutes and a few false starts, we finished up Pooh. After the restart, the music and effects were a bit out of synch. As we were exiting, we heard them announce that they had to cycle the ride through once with all the honeypots empty to reset it. Im glad we got on before that! We still had ½ hour or so until closing so we made one last go round on the TTA. I think its an entirely different ride at night. Anabelle was very leery of Buzz, but we talked her into it. We have a very similar Scooby Doo ride at our local park (Paramounts Carowinds) that is one of her favorites, so we were sure she could handle Zurg and Co. She did end up enjoying it. We began walking out of the park at midnight. I was explaining to Anabelle that it was now tomorrow and very early in the morning. She was very excited, I cant believe its so early in the morning and Ive been up all day and Im not even a little bit sleepy!. The things that make us happy when we are five! We walked back to our room and tucked the girls into bed. Anabelle decided she was indeed sleepy and they were both out in minutes. We decided that a 9am breakfast meeting wasnt going to happen for us, especially since we had a 10+ hour drive ahead of us. We set the alarm for 9 and hit the sack.
Ellen (34) Me!, Disney Veteran, 20+trips since 1973, also 7 months pregnant
John (37) Devoted husband, father, and son-in-law. 6th time to WDW
Anabelle (5 ½ ) Our daughter, Princess, first class. 4th time to WDW
Rebecca (2) Our daughter, Princess-in-Training, 2nd time to WDW
Dad (62) My dad, Disney Veteran, has lived in Florida 30 years
Mom (60) My stepmother, Disney Veteran, the rare Florida native
Laura (33) My stepsister, Disney Veteran, mom to Cassie and Marcus
Ted (47) Lauras husband, Disney Veteran, dad to Cassie and Marcus
Cassie (5) niece, 4th time to WDW
Marcus (3) nephew, 1st time to WDW
Lee (30) My stepbrother, Disney Veteran, another rare Florida native
Saturday, January 2nd.
We all decided to get a little more sleep and try to meet for breakfast at the Food & Fun center at 9. We were mostly on time and made it to the bus stop by 10. We had a 45 minute wait for an AK bus, very frustrating. We were the first ones at the stop (we must have just missed a bus) and by the time the AK bus came, two MGM busses and three Downtown Disney busses had come and gone. Thankfully, we got on the bus although by then the busstop was packed with people waiting to go to AK. I asked the driver how often they came and he said whenever they were told to, about every 15 minutes. Yeah, right! We finally got to AK at 11:00am and got through security after a quick stop for sunglasses for the kids. Each of our girls had $20 to spend and still had it all as of this morning. The glasses were the first big purchase! Anabelle chose a very cute Minnie pair that flips open while Rebecca chose the nonflipping Mickey pair. We headed over for the 11:45 FOTLK show. Everyone really enjoyed it. I wanted to get us Fastpasses for the safari next, but overrode my commando tendencies as everyone else voted for lunch. So, off to Pizzafari. It was not crowded at all and pretty tasty. We eventually made it over to the safari for Fastpasses, which were only 45 minutes away. We walked the Pangani trail and then had about a 15 minute wait for the safari. Quite a few animals were out and the kids really enjoyed it. Anabelle was a bit concerned about the bridge, but we convinced her nothing in Disney was really designed to kill the guests!
Anabelle really wanted to see Tarzan Rocks! So we headed over to Dinoland. We caught the 3:45 show with minutes to spare. I think Tarzan may work out on his days off, but Im not sure. We spent the rest of the day in Dinoland. The grownups (except me), Anabelle and Cassie rode Dinosaur. Anabelle gave it a very poor review. Although according to John, all she saw of it was his lap! We took all the kids on Triceratops spin, whoo whee! They liked it though, and thats what counts! When we got to Dinoland all the Fastpasses for Primeval Whirl were gone and the standby was listed at 70 minutes. By the time we finished with Dinosaur and T. Spin they had opened the other side and the wait was down to 30 minutes. Anabelle was just tall enough, Cassie missed it by about ¼ inch. The CM manning the measuring stick was tough! John and Anabelle went ahead and rode (only about 15 minute wait actually) while Cassie spent the whole time crying about the injustice of life when you are 47 ¾ inches tall. I felt for her. We went over to the boneyard and Cassie decided to get over it once Anabelle was there to play with her. John led the girls around for the last 45 minutes before the park closed. Marcus had fallen asleep hard, so missed all that fun. Cassie had been given a lanyard by a family friend and had used some of her Disney Dollars for an Ariel pin. Thats all it took for Anabelle to be bitten by the pin bug. I was hoping to put it off a while longer, but Oh well. She used the rest of her money on a lanyard. We told her we would buy her one pin and she could use her allowance on one more. She chose an Aurora and a Jasmine pin and was happy as can be. We havent explained trading yet, plenty of time for that! Rebecca, of course, had to have a lanyard too. She had a bit more money left, having picked cheaper sunglasses. She picked a very cute Boo pin.
We had a family discussion about dinner. We originally planned dinner at Boma, but werent ready to leave the park for our 5pm PSs. Plus, dad didn't seem real exicited about Boma and since he is the one paying I gave him extra weight in the decision. We decided to try the Rainforest Café right outside AK. I wasnt real hopeful wed get a quick table for 10 at 6pm, but we were seated by 6:30. We had a great, relaxing dinner with a view of the Titans/Ravens playoff game (exciting ending, even though I didnt care who won). John and I decided to take the girls back to MK after giving Anabelle the option of that or going back to the hotel to swim. Rebecca had fallen asleep at 6 and slept right through dinner so she was good to go. By now, it was 8pm and the busstop at AK was a ghosttown. The CM assured us a bus would come, and one finally did after two busses to Epcot came and went. We all had to go to the TTC, since MK and Contemporary busses had stopped running at 7:30. We split off from the rest of the group at the TTC and rode the ferry over to the MK. We were almost alone on the ferry again. Not many people heading to MK at 9pm. I thought we would see Wishes from the ferry which would have been cool. However, they must have been having technical difficulties since it didnt start until about 9:15. My one request of the trip was to see the Christmas show at the Country Bears Jamboree. So we headed to Frontierland via the Emporium. Much less crowded than Main Street at Wishes time! We tried to get Rebecca a hot dog at Caseys for dinner, but she wasnt interested. She just wanted pretzels. OK, whatever kiddo. We were down to one diaper, so I ran into the Babycare Center while John and the girls saw Wishes from yet another vantage point. This time they got to see the part the castle plays, very cool. I purchased 10 diapers for $9. Gee, thats only about 4.5 times what I pay at home! Well, at least Rebecca would have a nice dry tushie.
We continued our trek to Frontierland. A Country Bears show had just started, so we browsed around the Prairie Outpost and then sat down to wait. I really enjoyed the show. The Country Bears is one of my sentimental favorites dating from my first visit to WDW in 1973. It was fun seeing a new show. The girls really liked it. We stopped for a churro to share, although neither of the kids liked it. More for me and John! We wanted to ride Pooh and John wanted to take the girls on the Indy Speedway, so we headed over that way. We bought some popcorn to supplement Rebeccas pretzel dinner (hey, were on vacation!). We got Fastpasses for Pooh with a return time of 11:05-midnite. We waited about 20 minutes for Indy. The girls seemed to enjoy it. Rebecca and my car was faster than John and Anabelles. John and Anabelles also died at the end so the CM had to come out and restart them. We still had time before Pooh, Anabelle and Rebecca wanted to ride Goofys Barnstormer again. We headed back over to Toontown and John took the girls on Goofy three times in a row. Toontown was dead. I knew I was getting tired, since I walked into the restroom and thought gee, I dont remember urinals in the womens restroom the other day. Thankfully, the mens room was empty and I made a hasty retreat to the womens room. Our Pooh time was approaching, so we meandered back to Fantasyland. We hopped in our honeypot after a 5-minute wait due to a wheelchair being loaded. The ride stopped when we were floating along in the flood. It was interesting to see the effects with the lights on. After 5-10 minutes and a few false starts, we finished up Pooh. After the restart, the music and effects were a bit out of synch. As we were exiting, we heard them announce that they had to cycle the ride through once with all the honeypots empty to reset it. Im glad we got on before that! We still had ½ hour or so until closing so we made one last go round on the TTA. I think its an entirely different ride at night. Anabelle was very leery of Buzz, but we talked her into it. We have a very similar Scooby Doo ride at our local park (Paramounts Carowinds) that is one of her favorites, so we were sure she could handle Zurg and Co. She did end up enjoying it. We began walking out of the park at midnight. I was explaining to Anabelle that it was now tomorrow and very early in the morning. She was very excited, I cant believe its so early in the morning and Ive been up all day and Im not even a little bit sleepy!. The things that make us happy when we are five! We walked back to our room and tucked the girls into bed. Anabelle decided she was indeed sleepy and they were both out in minutes. We decided that a 9am breakfast meeting wasnt going to happen for us, especially since we had a 10+ hour drive ahead of us. We set the alarm for 9 and hit the sack.
