Reality has absolutely no place in our world...a colorful TR update 2/27/07

[poppinspal]

So let's kick this trip report up a notch so we're(or rather I'm) not writing it till my next trip.

Brandon and I are huge fans of movies. So are you, you say. Side story about why I first agreed to date him. I had met his friend and gone out a few times with him but we both quickly saw we were more friends then anything. (I consider him like a brother now.) But before we figured that out we were in the get to know you stage. I asked him his favorite movie and he said Slap Shot. Now I being a hockey fan love this movie but to say it's my absolute favorite...never. That was a sign we were not meant to be together. But during this time of discovering that he wasn't for me he introduced me to his friend (Brandon) who I didn't know but was secretly wishing I was single. Eventually when his friend said it was cool Brandon asked if I'd like to go out with him, I was caught completely off guard by that because he used to tease me constantly. (Actually he still does.) He said it was like the part in Love Actually where Keira Knightley's character gets married and the best friend of her husband harbors feelings for her but obviously can't make a movie. Well I love British films and love this movie so that is why I agreed to go on a date with him. (That was a long story just to show how much I love movies, so much for kicking up the pace.)

So the only logical place to go after our magical cinnamon buns was on The Great Movie Ride. I LOVE this ride. Seriously. My boyfriend loved that it was in a replica of Graumann's Chinese Theater. We looked a bit at the foot prints outside but I was rather impatient, I wonder if any of you know whats housed inside that I could be dying to see. None other then one of the carousel horses from Mary Poppins. It is one of my favorite things to see and we were both excited to see fur coats from Narnia which I had recently become hooked on. Our line was essentially a walk on (there was a line but we all got on) so I just got a quick glimpse of the horse. I guess I've seen it enough times. It was good to see Brandon loved this ride as much as I did. I still jump in the Alien scene and get so excited in the Wizard of Oz scene. I also enjoy the end part where you watch scenes from all different movies. They added Nemo and a few other more recent movies but still have some of the greats in there. Corny script for the ride but it's enjoyable to be in some great movies.

So we're back out into the Florida sun realizing that my boyfriend is in desperate need of sunglasses and his broke just before the trip. So we go in search of a store to buy him a pair but he can't find any he likes. (That boy is picky, I don't know why he didn't want the ones with Tink on them!) This is the moment when it hits me, I forgot what time our ADR is for Sci-Fi and I left my ADR list at the hotel room. Well off we go to check out our lunch time, 12:15. Okay we have time, we both love the Muppets so we might as well hit that while we're this way. (Side note I consider Walt Disney and Jim Hensen to be to of the biggest creative minds in the modern times. I could go on about them both all day. I'm a geek.) I kept it a secret and my boyfriend is so excited when Sweetums(one of his favorites) comes off the screen into the theaters. This ride was a hit with him! (As it always is with me.) It's time to meet the muppets on the muppet show tonight. Do do do do... anyway....
So then it was off to ride another geek lovers ride, Star Tours. The Ewok village was the big hit with boyfriend here. He loved all the detailing but again very little line so we didn't have hours of line to stare at it. I mentione for him to listen for them to page Egroeg Sacul (George Lucas in reverse) but we moved to fast to hear it. This again was essentially a walk on and had to just watch a little of the pre-boarding video to see Chewy and friends loading up. Another grand slam hit with my boy on this ride, he loved it. (And loved the gift shop too, it is a Star Wars/Disney fan's dream.) We poke around and I show my boyfriend the area around here (such as what used to be Ellen's book shop, now the Writer's Shop.) We look around New York Street and see some of the Christmas lights that get left up I guess. I explained how crazy the Osborne lights are to see.

Then it was off to Sci-Fi for lunch. I'd never been here, Brandon had been to a place like it so in a way this was new for both of us. We get in the door and there are people all over the place. I give my now slightly worried boyfriend then it's ok I've got it in control look. Really inside I'm thinking... Do all these people have ADRs? How long will we have to wait for ours if they're this backed up? The women at the desk is talking about only the picnic tables being left and my heart sinks. I hope that's just for walk-ins, I had my heart set on a car. (I'm like a kid.) We check in and within a minute or so my worst fears are... put to rest of course. Off we go to our table which is in... none other then a car. Yay! We watch the corny Sci-Fi and Drive-In stuff playing on the screen and I'm loving it. Plus its nice to be out of the Florida sun for awhile. Our waiter was nice but didn't come around often but the place was packed. My beau had the chili and the chicken ceaser salad. (Which I almost got.) I decided to live it up and go with the atmosphere so I got a burger, fries and a chocolate shake.

(Pause we're going to have a lesson on regional sayings. In New England a shake is milk and flavorings. In the rest of the country it's made of milk, ice cream and flavoring. Vanilla or chocolate is the traditional flavors. Maybe strawberry some places. In New England we call that a Frappe. You want a seriously good frappe/non-new england shake... vanilla ice cream with chocolate flavoring. You can make it at home... throw vanilla ice cream, milk and nesquik in a blender, blend till it's a shake! Very popular here. That's your lesson for today kiddies.)

So on with the Sci-Fi review. The food was good, filling and nothing bad about it. A gourmet meal it wasn't but for the food type it was, it was good. As Brandon said a big part of this place was the atmosphere and it had plenty of it. We completely enjoyed it. I wonder if I'm the only one who sits there and thinks of the scene in Grease when they go to the drive in? Probably not.

But before we knew it we were tossed out into the sun to make way for the next family. And would you lookie here... time for my fast pass. Let's go! Full speed ahead. Only not. I need a bathroom bad or I'm going to look like a little girl who has just got her first pair of big girl undies. Why do I never go when I'm at the restaurant? I will from now on, I promise you. Eventually I work it out and I'm handing my fast pass in while my boyfriend waits by the huge guitar with Boston's own Steven Tyler looking down on him. I don't look back as I'm ready to take on this ride. Wait, you want to say, don't go on this ride right after you ate. HA I may have a small bladder and this may be too much info but I don't lose my stomach very easily. So off I go on my favorite ride and am reminded how great the people that design these rides are. From the pre-show to the unloading area I love it all. Maybe it's Aerosmith that does it, maybe it's the loops you can't see coming but I love this ride. But it's always over too fast.

So I meet up with Brandon and we decide to stroll around and take in some stores. We poke here and there just seeing what Disney has this month to make us spend way more money then we should. We check out lots of Villan's stuff for him, pretty much everything under the sun for me and Sid Cahuenga's One of a Kind store for both of us. If we ever came into serious money we'd probably buy half this stuff. We already like to collect on a low-budget level so imagine with money...it'd be scary. But we're both tired for the first day and could use the break. Time to head back to the hotel, bus comes like it knew we were heading out, right as we walk up. We plunk ourselves down and can't believe that while we're frying here it's about 60 degrees in Boston. We get back to the hotel and....

(sorry about the image quality...almost all my pictures I've scanned in myself. although I'll play around with them on photoshop to make them less blury and smaller)
Yes, it's our one and only towel animal from the trip. But we loved that thing. Each day we'd put it in a new location in our room to watch over everything. Yell at me if you want but we took it home. (I've seen the thread on doing this.) We plan on taking him on all our vacations so we can take pictures of him living it up with us. He's a special reminder of our first trip togethers. So we had thought about swimming but decided to just take a nap and shower so we could be rested for our night. Plus we still weren't sure our colds were gone for good. (They were thank goodness.)

Part 8: If you look grumpy can you avoid being pulled on stage at Hoop Dee Doo Review? (with plenty of pictures!!)

 

[poppinspal]

Yeah....but we are the cool guys.


& in regards to waiting.....

My readers are the coolest of cool. The John Waynes of trip report readers.

You'll probably get two updates from me as work is VERY slow today.

NewOrleansLady and Blueriver-Hope you like the newest addition. Thanks for reading!!!

 

[blue_river]

aww cute towel animal - I won't flame you for taking it home (we did the same - heheh) but I'm giving away secrets from my own tr now.

Can't wait to hear about your experience at HDDR. We loved it.

 

[poppinspal]

I've got my lunch and now I'll give you a little more trip report.

My plan was we'd take a nap and then head off to Magic Kingdom for some quality time at the original before heading off to our 9pm dinner at Hoop-Dee-Doo. My boyfriend had other ideas, mostly sleeping. Now in retrospect I should have understood this. Our first day touring, he had been sick and it was a major weather change for us. But in my head I can hear the sounds of Brer Rabbit, the laughing place song and all the other sounds that say Magic Kingdom to me so I was really set on going. But it was not to be and sleep for my grumpy man won out. After awhile of watching tv and not being able to sleep I got up to shower. This time I managed not to wake him up! Yay me! I was I think almost ready by the time I finally woke him up. Thats the great problem I have with the cosmic powers that be, it takes me 20 minutes on a good day to get ready and him five. That's just not fair!!! The extremely fortunate part of me getting ready so far before him was that all of a sudden he was feeling sick to his stomach, off I go to the hotel store in search of something to help him. Tums had to due for the time because that's all they had left. Their medicine section was cleaned out almost and they said they only had what was there. He popped a few of those and we were off.

(I should break in the story here to mention this. I may have mentioned my brother has a stomach disease called Chrons that we found out about just before our last trip. And sadly is getting worse at this point so he's sadly in the hospital two times a week for tests and IVs of medicine. So last trip it was important to us to try to raise his spirits and have him enjoy this. He really wanted to do the Luau because he had been dying to go to Hawaii. Side note: he went three months later and said he thinks he won't be moving there. But we couldn't do HDDR and the Luau, too many table credits. So my sister and I give up the meal in favor of the Luau. The Luau was awesome but we missed HDDR so much. So it was one thing on the trip I couldn't wait to do so you can understand these stomach problems had me worried.)

So they tell you to get to Pioneer Hall a half an hour early so we left our hotel about an hour and half before our show, I think. Now we're both people who like to meet people. We'll go into a bar and I'll leave my boyfriend for two seconds to go to the bathroom and when I come back he's met five people who he is just dying to tell me about. I can be the say way. So we're on the bus and we get seats right at the front. A mother tries to get her little girl to sit in the seat next to me but you can see she's a little nevous about me. I think she was wearing a princess pin or something so I started talking to her about the princesses and asking had she met any of them. Before you know it we're chatting away about everything. She told me how she got to miss school (pre-school or day care it seemed) to come to Disney. I asked her if they drove and that took some thought but she said they were from Florida. I told her we flew and that it was already very cold there. She said that we must be from Ohio. I explained that we were from Boston and that it was just as cold in Boston as in Ohio. (Her mom said they have family in Ohio.) We talked about if Mickey would let me move into his house and she explained maybe but Goofy and Donald had made a mess out of it. (She must have been to Mickey's house in Toon Town.) She was adorable and we chatted the whole ride to MK. Her mom thanked me when we were getting off the bus and my boyfriend thanked me for ignoring him the whole ride. (He was teasing me.) So that was my first happy meeting of people, I wondered if they were DIS board people but thought it might be odd to ask. Our boat ride from MK to Fort Wilderness was less exciting all we had was a cranky family where the kids were out of control and the parents ignored them. (I know that sometimes as parents you pick your battles but I would think your young child hanging over the side of the boat would be a battle to pick!)

So we arrive at Pioneer Hall and check in, luckily the crazy bus family was sent to the other side of the Pioneer Hall porch. (They give you sides to enter on, right or left.) I dragged my bf to get our picture taken at the little place they have set up to take your pictures before your meal. My bf protested but I begged and won! Yay!!!! Then we checked the Fort Wilderness store for stomach stuff but they didn't even have Tums!!! I tried to find the lawnmower that the tree is growing around but it wasn't there. Maybe it was too dark to see or maybe it's not there any more but I had really wanted to show Brandon. It was one of my favorite things about staying there when I was younger. (Well that and having River Country water park right there. But that's another thread.) Oh well. So we went to stand in line for them to let us in. Finally we were heading in and so many memories came rushing back. That was till I noticed that most of the people they were taking from our side were going up to the balcony. Okay now you may say spoiled girl what does it matter where you sit? It doesn't, I've always been seated on the floor so at this point a seat for the show is a seat for the show. BUT it's my boyfriends first time so I wanted the floor so badly. Well we get up to the door and the girl marks something down and has us follow her. She brings us to a two person table.... right in front of the piano player!! We're close enough that I can see the stage so perfectly clear and we have this cozy two person table. This is where in a made up story I'd do something like swoon, but I didn't, I just smiled away.

Our waiter was so nice, really the sweetest person ever. He was older and I think his name was like Wayne. I don't know it's hard to remember now. He brought out the salad and the corn bread for us took our drink orders with a few jabs at my boyfriend tossed in there. The salad, awesome. Now I'm a big corn bread fan and if there was a job out there for a corn bread expert I'd be the girl for the job, I will say the corn bread there is awesome! My boyfriend would agree. The guy brought our picture around to look at and I didn't know about getting it. I asked for a few minutes to look at it. Well Mr. I don't want to take this picture so I'm going to put up a stink turns to me the minute the guy walked away and say... it's a pretty good picture, I'll buy it for you. What? Good salad and good corn bread has wiped the non-disney pout out of your system? Magic, I want this salad and bread to go please. Imagine if I could take that food with me and have the magic continue to work on him? But wait... now he's got to go to the bathroom. Now, I say. Yup, now. I probably had a look of panic on my face as I explained to him where to go. I knew that they show was about to start and he'd never seen it so I didn't want him to miss one minute.

Well as time slowly creeps past and he hasn't come back I'm starting to panic for real. In my mind it was like hours but in reality it was probably about minutes. But he got back to the table just as... the Hoop-Dee-Doo players pulled up and burst into the hall. Phew that was close. So it was time for the opening number.

I love the music in this and almost always end up leaving singing the songs from it. For almost half the week I was humming at least one of those songs. I wish they'd put that music on cd, although that might be difficult. I don't know. During the course of the night more food rolls out and tons of music, dancing and laughing happens. My boyfriend knew that you could get pulled up on stage and this is the one thing he didn't want. He was fine if they asked where he was from but not the stage part. Me, I was born for Hollywood, I should have been a star. Seriously I think I crave the spotlight. No, I hate being center of attention but if there's a stage... look out now. But alas like Ellen Pompeo (of Grey's Anatomy) says if you're from this area being an actress is just not considered. But neither of us got more then a wave and a hug from the players. Maybe my cousins trick(that she passed on to my bf) about looking grumpy worked. One guy from Massachusetts was asked where he was from and they made a funny joke using our states name but sadly I can't remember it. (No matter how hard I try.) But we both loved, loved, loved the show. We had a ball and the two person table was so great. It felt like we were having this romantic dinner even though we were in a hall filled with people.

I also will say this place has some eye candy. For the ladies:

Doesn't look great scanned in but our purple guy was a cutie. The girls are all so beautiful too but I didn't scan a picture of them!

But we had a ball as I said and my boyfriend got into it. Here's some pictures from the end of the night.
the beau

me

I'm wearing purple, I would have been the perfect partner for the purple guy. (Whose show name escapes me.) Notice I must be trying a new closed mouth smile. But we both look happy (and full?) My family always did this show to start our trip and now I remember why. I'd been there for my birthday, my brother had been called up on stage once and this time I had a truely special time with a guy who means the world to me. This place is special.

So we get out of Pioneer Hall and head to the buses to find... and All Star Sports bus right there waiting for us. Sweet We loaded up, made few stops in adition to all stars and then were back at the all stars. Home sweet home. We made our plans for the next day and I went to bed praying that we'd hit more then one park every or the schedule would be all out of wack. So our first full day in the world was flawed but special, just the way things should be.

Up next: Part 9:Animal Kingdom is definitely not a zoo and how the newbie became the tour guide.

 

[poppinspal]

aww cute towel animal - I won't flame you for taking it home (we did the same - heheh) but I'm giving away secrets from my own tr now.

Can't wait to hear about your experience at HDDR. We loved it.

They are just too cute. Your secret is in the vault!

I love it, I've been a number of times and have always loved it! I'll be interested to see how your daughter liked it. As a girl who did her teenage stage can I say sorry for your daughter? By the time we realize the devils we were we're too old to take back the grey hair we caused our parents.

 

[kimwim8]

Thanks for 2 more awesome installments!! And I love the addition of the pics!

Keep em' coming!!

 

[mikelan6]

Great report. More please!

 

[daisy_77]

I loved HDD!! The date stamp on your pics say 9/30...I was there that night, too! I was at the 7:15pm dinner. It was a blast! The purple vest guy was cute!

I am glad to hear that your BF liked the show!

 

[kathymc]

enjoying your reports - thanks for sharing

 

[blue_river]

Poppinspal - I loved your last installment. HDDR is so much fun eh?

I'm sorry to hear about your brother. That is definately not something I'd want to have.

Quote:"Me, I was born for Hollywood, I should have been a star. "

I giggled when I read that part - there was no way any of us wanted to attract ANY attention at HDDR. We would have died.

Hope your getting ready with your next installment.

 

[poppinspal]

kimwim8, mikelan6, kathymc-thank you so much for reading! It's nice to know I have an auidence out there!

daisy77-That's so weird we probably passed right by eachother and didn't know it. Oddly enough I had thought about the 7:30 show that night but went with the 9 to get a little more time out of the day.

blueriver-HDDR is so much fun. It gets a lot of bad reviews here on the boards but I never have figured out why. Maybe it's just people who aren't into that type of show. My quote about being a star... whats funnier is it's true. Here's a litle story for you. The guy who played Greg Brady on the Brady bunch(his name escapes me) was at my school's basketball game for the 70s night thing that had going on. After the game he was signing autographs. They were trying to keep all the people entertained while they were waiting and so they were trying to get people to sing songs onto the mic on center court. They asked me and I was like... of course I'll sing. My mom looks at me like I'm crazy because we both know I have a horrible voice. So I get up at center court and sing Sugar Sugar in front of the whole crowd bad voice and all with dance moves to go along with it. I said to my grandmother I would be a great musician if it weren't for the fact I can't sing! ha ha

You know the funny part about my brother being sick, the biggest part that upset him at first was the limit on eating ice cream!! That's actually him with me in the picture I posted in my first post. (Us at Downtown Disney) He's sadly lost weight since then but the doctors are kicking it into over drive to make him feel better.

Obviously I'm in the mood to write today so you'll get more tr later!

 

[Sabrina90744]

What a great report! Can't wait for another installment

 

[poppinspal]

So we woke up the next day still full from our dinner at HDDR. (It was a big meal and we went to the late one.) But there was no fumbling around for the phone this morning... I was fumbling around with zip loc baggies!!! I had decided to try the method of using those to pack to see if it went better then my roll the clothes method. My boyfriend rolls over and is like what the heck is going on. I show him and all he can do is shake his head. BUT... it's fairly early and we're both up. Yay!!! <---- that's us being all up. Well actually it's more like... me: dbf: ha ha

But it didn't take long and we were headed out to Animal Kingdom. Now I'm going to be honest here and hope the DIS gods don't come down and kill me. I knew that AK was more then a zoo but had never LOVED it. Brandon is an animal person(so am I but not like him) he is just so interested in them. It's kind of a cute little boy quality I like about him. That sounds kind of weird but its like the part of his childhood that he didn't out grow. (Well all have a part of childhood we can't or don't want to shake. Come on, what's yours?) So we headed to AK despite MK still calling to me. The moment we got off the bus I was hot and that would be the theme for the day. We headed off to tackle the sights. We got in the gate and I grabbed a map, oh I haven't told you the map duty. When I went on my trip with my family in december I was map girl because despite our numerous trips there are still things I don't know how to find. Of course AK is the hardest for me to navigate so I really needed a map there. But when we went in December the one day we were looking for something I pull out my map only to realize... it was in Dutch I think. It was in no language I took in HS that's for sure. Well I'd become map girl on this trip too so my ever helpful boy reminded me we speak english. (He had heard the story.)

So off we go with our map in english and we look at the two paths leading into the main part of AK. Well thats when we, we took the road less traveled. (Yes I just maimed Robert Frost's most famous line. Whoops, bad english major.) So we're off down the right side for no other reason then the maps were on that side. We make our way along and stop to look at the animals as we go. I wish I could be a good trip report tour guide and tell you what we saw but... I can't. All I know is Brandon is already impressed. We're taking our time so he can stop and look at every little thing. I know EE is waiting for me to tackle it but I can wait...for now. (Foreshadowing... you betcha!) Now comes what will be Brandon's biggest choice of the day... live animals first or Bugs Life first. He wants to see the tigers bad but he's heard so much about Bugs Life he doesn't know if he can wait. Wait Bugs Life? Yes, we need to call It's Tough to be a Bug, Bugs Life or Brandon will look at me with a puzzled look. He decides on animals first. Okay animals it is!

First up is the Maharajah Jungle Trek. (Yes I'm consulting my maps for spelling here.) I make silly jokes about this one episode of the Three Stooges that we love where they repeated use this like...
"The maha-..."
"Aha! Lazpanya se chekini fuchi... "

It makes no sense out of context really and it would take forever to explain but if you're interested the episode is the Pirate or something like that. But Maharajah reminds me of the maha so I'm off on that for a good five minutes. But wait there's a map just for the trail... no more jokes I've got a new map! (I'm a dork!) We hit the Komodo Dragons and people all stop to watch. They're cool to see but I don't love them because I've seen them in action on animal shows and these ones are tame compared to that. We then see those weird zebra/horse looking things... Malayan Tapirs. (Related to the horse and rhino not the zebra. Weird.) Then we hit the bats where we're more impressed. (We sound like exotic animal snobs! ) Now we have bats here and I think those are cool enough to start with. But these bats.... whoa mama. Fruit bats or not they would intimidate me. Next up are the tigers and we hit the higgher viewing spot first and there was nothing. I'm getting that worried feeling I get when I know my bf is keyed up for something and it falls through. But when we hit the lower ones there they are laying around in the shade. I've never done this with my family, the holiday season touring we do is much more commando. With the lines we hit its hard to do all we want. So to see these guys and to see them up close... I'm amazed. Those are some serious beasts. We look for awhile fighting for viewing space with kids. Beat it little kids I'm only a foot taller then you but I'm scary! We head into the bird area and it was like a race to the exit. We're no bird fans. But we did look around along our way at the designing, I have always liked the details of Animal Kingdom. I think because most of the stuff is nothing I've ever seen before.

Next up... Pangani Forest Exploration Trail, you thought I was going to ride Everst now didn't you? Nope, my bf has started to lead me around the park. My boyfriend who had never been to that park was bringing me around places. He's rushing me along but wait...let's stop here and see if they have good sunglasses. So he stops and I sit on a bench to rest while he finally finds a good pair of glasses. So now we're really good to go. We liked this trail just as much and while there are less big attraction animals I thought there were so many things to see. The hut with all the little creatures and bones was neat to poke around. (And seemed to be a favorite of the kids there.) Then there were the smaller Africian animals including the meerkats. Brandon's mom loves Meerkat Manor(we hate that show) so I tried getting a picture for her but the women explained the look out meerkats were changing up so it'd be a little before one came up again. Oh well. As we headed towards the gorillas the first viewing station was empty as you couldn't see the gorillas from there. The cm was giving his speech even though no one was stopping. I felt bad so I looked at the diagram of a gorillas body and listened a little so he didn't feel bad. (This is how I am about things, it's odd I know.) So finally I get pulled away and go to see the gorillas. Cool animals that were feeling anti-social that day. Oh well I got pics from a distance. (Nothing worth posting) Oh note I ran past the birds again here, too bad, soo sad... don't like these guys. Then I got marching orders to sit while dbf went off. In my head I'm hearing... "danger Will Robinson, newbie alone in AK." But off he went and returned a little while later with an over priced Disney misting fan. I cringed... our hard earned money went to buying that thing? Men! But spritz spirtz and we're off on our own safari tour!

(I'm sure you all have this picture, I have a handful. But that's where the journey starts.)

So we go along with the usual skit and at least our driver was into it. I'm explaining to my bf that the ride is great but has a kind of cheesy plot but he's seeing these animals up close so he's happy. For example these guys that were so close to our jeep that I couldn't zoom out enough to get a good picture.

and these guys were moving around a lot

The lions weren't really moving around alot which was too bad. There were a couple of women in the flamingo area taking notes on them and checking things in the water. I took a pictures and forgot to scan it. I never take flamingo pictures because I've seen them a number of times but I thought was cool.

This is the only good picture of my bf on this ride...

(It's hard to get good shots as you bump along.)

So now we come to the part where the bridge seems like it's going to collapse and the driver pretends to panic. Well as I mention our driver was into it and well Brandon didn't know about this... so at first he thought it was really happening. Silly boy, it was cute. So the ride ends the traditional way, we didn't save Big Red. Oh I'm kidding. We saved him. Yay us. We get off and utilize the mister more. We decide to head over to DinoLand to take on the Dinosaur. But on our way we pass lots of things I thought were camera worthy.

I loved these guys. This is before the show really gets going but they're great. Every time we were in Africa I'd slow down to catch a glimpse. We also saw.....

Devine. My boyfriend wouldn't get close to her, he found her creepy and I think that's what prompted me to take pictures of her.

We stop to take a picture with the Tree of Life as a back drop and some nice person agreed to take it for us.

(My scanning abilites are awesome aren't they? I'll hopefully do better with the rest! Note the mister and map in hand. I have no clue where my bright red bag is in the picture. )

So now it's full speed ahead for Dinosaur or as it should be called.... Count down to extinction, Dinosaur was a flop. But there are plenty of distractions along the way...

Stay tuned for... Part 10:Can we go on Bugs Life NOW?

 

[blue_river]

That was a great detailed description of AK. Heh...liked the part about Brandon believing the bridge was going to collapse. The driver almost had me fooled too...for a minute..or two

but i won't admit to anything

You are a brave girl to get up and sing in front of all those ppl - especially when you say you can't sing. ACK - what were you thinking??

What does the ice cream do? Is it the dairy that causes problems?

 

[poppinspal]

That was a great detailed description of AK. Heh...liked the part about Brandon believing the bridge was going to collapse. The driver almost had me fooled too...for a minute..or two

but i won't admit to anything

You are a brave girl to get up and sing in front of all those ppl - especially when you say you can't sing. ACK - what were you thinking??

What does the ice cream do? Is it the dairy that causes problems?

I'm glad you liked it. He was so funny and me being the nice girlfriend made sure to laugh about it. (He did too eventually.) Glad to know he's not the only one who got fooled.

Even funnier I've gotten up on stage at a bar and danced. But I swear if you told me ahead of time I was going to do this I would freak out.

Essentially whats wrong with him is that his digestive track isn't working the way it should so any food he eats goes right out of him. (Not to be graphic but essentially he'll eat dinner and then be right in the bathroom.) He also has ulcers on his stomach from this. So some foods like dairy are harder to digest for anyone but more so for him. Ice cream in moderation with lactose pills is okay, alcohol is okay in severe moderation...that's kind of how his diet works. He's in getting his iv of medicine today so keep your fingers crossed for us that this helps.

 

[poppinspal]

So now our goal is Dinosaur but there are many distractions in getting there. First we spot people with pretzles that look like they are to die for. So we decide despite the heat that a hot pretzle would hit the spot. We take it to a near by bench and sit down to relax. We start talking to two other groups enjoying a break near by and Expedition Everest. The man and women sitting on the other end of the bench are telling the other family that it's a pretty great ride. They're going into detail about it so I jump in asking my questions. How is the part in the dark? Did they do a good job with the Yeti? Then comes the words I praying they'd avoid saying, there's a great drop on it. Well my boyfriend looks at me and I know what he's telling me, I'll be doing that one alone. I'm a thrill ride widow, or is he a thrill ride widower? Well it's one or the other. So off we go to DinoLand not to the beast they call Everest.

Oh but wait, there's Bugs Life and there's almost no wait, let's go! I'm hesitating I really am. We've been her this long and I haven't hit any big thrillers but Brandon is looking at me like this is the one thing in the world he wants at that moment so... Bug's Life it is. Well as you can imagine I've been there and done that... I block my nose when I know it's going to get stinky and I never sit back because I don't like the part with the bees. (Although this will come back to haunt me later in the week!) But it's still a fun show. I love the guy who uses poison to kill his enemies, that's a favorite part of mine. Brandon he loves it, LOVES IT! I mean he loves it so much that's one of the first things he tells people about when we get home. And contrary to reports my show isn't filled with kids screaming.

So now we're finally on the way to DinoLand and I get to try my hand at time travel. There are two tracks here I believe. Last trip I seemed to get one track the entire trip, not so this time. We're bumping along avoiding low flying dinos and meteors. Cute leaf eaters one place and large eating machines the next. Brandon is laughing next to me which is a good sign! The comes time for the dino to jump out and scare you, it get's me every tim. So we go out to look at our picture and... I'm looking the opposite way of everyone. I'm not sure if there are two tracks or if I mixed up which side the dino comes from but I was looking the opposite way of everyone. It was great.

We leave the ride and head into DinoLand and who do we see but my boys.

I was a little let down by them because in the past I've always had great interactions with them but these two were really just standing and posing for pictures. Oh well I'm a big kid now, what did I expect? So Brandon decides to sit it out while I go on the Primeval Whirl. I wish I had given my camera to Brandon to snap a pic of me on this ride, although I couldn't have known what was going to happen. I'm waiting by myself in line when they call for a single rider... hey that's me! They pull me on up and I'm like sweet. So I get into a car with two people who are Pooh sized. Now please don't think I'm being mean, I'm not, but they never should have put me on with these women. They made Brandon look small and this ride is not built to allow for size differences. Add to that the women split up so I was sitting with the smaller of the two. (In reality I never would have fit on with the other women.) So I squeeze in next to the women and she pulls the bar down over us, it's not even close to touching me, oh no! So off we go on this ride I've never been on and I'm praying I don't fly out of it. So the women next to me is saying now we'll go this way and then that, narrating the whole ride. At one point my hands hit the bar and it get's tighter, at least that's what she told me. It's still not touching me! Finally it ends and I bolt from the car to find Brandon. I'm explaining to him what happened and when I see the two women and am about to point them out I notice the women who had narrated the ride was using a walking cane. She was blind. My boyfriend laughs at me and I say I think I'll skip that ride for the rest of the week.

So we looked around DinoLand more and decided to play some games. I explained to him how this was my mom's least favorite thing in all of Disney World. She says that Disney has never been about this type of thing, how the games you play for just don't fit. Maybe she's right but I'm addicted to these games! We play the game where you toss a ball into muffin tin looking things to win a prize. I'm so bad at this game so we split the balls. Neither of us gets one. We then go over and play the game where you roll the balls up to make your guy move to the finish line. I love this game, its my favorite and I come in second. Darn, no prizes award for second here. I wanted to play the game where you squirt the water at the target, another favorite, but Brandon can see there are too many people and our chances of winning aren't good. So we decide to call it a morning and head back to the hotel for a swim. But earlier when we bought our pretzle we'd bought one of those drink bottles with the animal on top that you can refill for $1 so we decided to go get that refilled. Well we're kind of just wandering and end up... right in front of Expedition Everest. Quick sweet stand right there, perfect photo op! But then some nice guy comes up and offers to take the picture for me so we can both be in it.

I love this picture, it's one of my favorites from our trip. I can't believe Disney doesn't have Photo Pass people here yet but I'm kind of glad they don't. So I decide to take a look at the line which is... 40 minutes!!! I'm not going to wait 40 minutes for a ride I want to ride and he doesn't. Well let's just go look in the gift shop at least. So we're looking around and they have some fun stuff as we're heading out we see... the single rider line!!!! Hoooray!!! I'm so excited I don't even think and I hand off my bag to him and head into the line. I'm waiting in line thinking this is the best thing ever as I'm only like four people from the front. The girl and guy in front of me are swatting at a love bug, it lands on me and I have no choice but to swat it and kill it. The guy kind of laughs and says something like that takes care of him. I laugh and tell him they come out to mate and that you'll find them dead all over. He laughs and says he can think of worse ways to go. We laugh but the girl I think was still a little bothered I killed it. And normally I wouldn't but they were swarming heavily right there and it was starting to be annoying.

But before I knew it they were loaded in then I was and I found out the women I was with was at the park alone. She was there for a confrence and decided to do AK. I explained to her she shouldn't have fass passed but used the single rider line, hopefully it helped her out. So I don't want to write anything that might ruin this for those who haven't done it. The ride was awesome! I loved it, loved it. The Yeti looked so cool. I got off of this ride and I was on cloud nine. I literally was the happiest girl on earth. (Which fits because the happiest celebration on earth had just ended.) Brandon laughed as I told him how great it was and decided it definitely wasn't for him. He told me he made friends with another guy waiting at the bottom and they had watched me come down. I guess they can see you just as you hit the top and Brandon was like look here comes my girlfriend. Aw, cute. That was awesome. So with that done we went to get our drink and then we hit up a gift shop. Brandon wanted one of those tee shirts with Pooh look at a tiger saying "Tigger is that you?" So we poked around the gift shop and he picked up his tee-shirt on sale. When we got out to the bus stop he gave me a stuffed nemo squishy pillow! It was so cute and it has a place of honor with my pillows on my bed. It's funny we have always given eachother little gifts randomly. We will go some place and while the other is distracted we'll buy them something small. We definitely had fun with this on our trip. But the Nemo pillow is small fries compared to whats to come. (oooooh major foreshadowing!!!)

Coming soon to a TR to you: Part 11: A swim and prayers for a trip to MK.

 

[kimwim8]

I am SO glad things are slow at work for you! That way the trip report keeps on comin!

And I agree with you...I don't think that they should put people of obviously different sizes on Primevil Whirl. That ride is crazy, and I'd be scared if the lapbar didn't come down far enough!!

 

[Hound 109]

PoppinsPal, those are great pics in the AK.

But wait there's a map just for the trail...

whew...that's a relief. I was worried for a second, MapGirl.

Beat it little kids I'm only a foot taller then you but I'm scary!

That's it MapGirl...way to spread the around.

I have always liked the details of Animal Kingdom.

Me too.

So now it's full speed ahead for Dinosaur or as it should be called.... Count down to extinction, Dinosaur was a flop.

No Way MapGirl....Dinosaur rocks!!


You are quite the prolific trippie writer. Great stuff, keep em' coming!

hound

 

[fizz13]

Just wanted to say how much I'm loving your report, you guys are so sweet, for the record I would have taken the towel animal home too , sending for your DBF, I suffer with stomach problems too and know how frustarting and disruptive it can be, keep it coming

 

[poppinspal]

I am SO glad things are slow at work for you! That way the trip report keeps on comin!

And I agree with you...I don't think that they should put people of obviously different sizes on Primevil Whirl. That ride is crazy, and I'd be scared if the lapbar didn't come down far enough!!

I just got back from lunch and have to finish up some web editing but then I'll be back for more.

And in this case it was people who didn't know eachother! I don't think they were happy about it either. I'm normally not bothered by rides like that but when you have a lap bar in front of you it makes you nervous that it's not reaching you, I held onto that thing like it was my life.