Shhh! Our secret weekend quickie

[DisMomme]

I had originally planned on doing a 'where in the world' post with pictures but since I couldn't upload anything I'll just post my obscure pictures now.

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This was taken just outside the eating area of Flametree

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Greater Kudu

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Wildebeest

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4 Giraffes. Can you see the baby laying down in the bottom right?

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2 fuzzy elephants. One boy and one teenage girl.

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Zebras

 

[DisMomme]

The lions were not being too cooperative. I got the lioness' ear...

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My phone was low on power so the rest of my safari photos are waiting for Pat to upload them.

We had an incredible driver. She stopped or slowed way down whenever possible. We had lots of animals very close to us. She also gave us lots of information that I had never heard before.

A group of hippos is called a BLOAT
Flamingos = FLAMBOYANCE
Rhinos = CRASH

 

[DisMomme]

I can't wait to read more! We are staying at BWV for the first time in January

You are going to love BWV! I have some pictures of the room coming up. We loved how close it was to Epcot and DHS. We took evening strolls to Epcot F&G every night.

 

[DisMomme]

Pat met a Marlins fan in line and enjoyed talking baseball while we waited to go on Safari. Pat was wearing his Red Sox hat and got a few shout-outs from cast members, including our driver. The Marlins fan wanted to know if everyone there was from Boston.

After the Safari we walked around for a while, grabbed a drink and went into Flights of Wonder.

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The woman chosen to hold the $! was right in front of us. It is amazing what they can train those birds to do!

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This bird (a hawk I think) flew right over our heads.
I love the quote at the end of the show "We did not inherit this Earth from our parents. We are only borrowing it from our children."
Next up...

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My favorite ride

We walked around the gift shop for a few minutes. I couldn't go on the ride right after a drink

We played around with FP+ while we were there. Our second ride was supposed to be Kali but we decided we did not want to get wet. We changed to an earlier time for EE and changed Kali for Dinosaur. No worries

We walked around for a little while and caught these guys jamming

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We hung around and danced a bit before heading to

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My cousin worked on some of the signs in this area of the park. She is an artist and lives in Orlando. Hi Tina if you're reading

We didn't get a text that our room was ready but we decided to go back to Boardwalk to try our luck.

 

[DisMomme]

We must have been sprinkled with some Pixie Dust because our room was ready when we checked. 4th Floor Pool View Studio.

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Towel Friend

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Our View

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We did not want to use another dining credit for dinner so we hung out on the boardwalk and got a pizza. We had heard how good the pizza there was.
Yummy

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Pat with our yummy pizza. He was not too happy about me taking his picture.

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I love the relaxed atmosphere of this area. This is the boardwalk side of the resort. All weekend there were kids on the lawn playing soccer, frisbee and lacrosse.

 

[DisMomme]

The lobby of Boardwalk is beautiful and fun as well. Here are some more of my where in the world are we pictures:
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After dinner we decided to stroll on over to Epcot to check out F & G

 

[DisMomme]

Pretty View

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This guy was fun to watch

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Arrr Matey!

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"All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust"

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“When you see someone putting on his Big Boots, you can be pretty sure that an Adventure is going to happen.”

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En garde, you... you overgrown pocket watch!

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Lady and the Tramp

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Miss Piggy and Kermie

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It is getting dark in these pictures but I think this one fits:

“The great Kings of the past look down on us from those stars.”

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And another "where are we?"

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The boardwalk is even more beautiful at night

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[ftballfan7]

We thought it would be interesting to post both of our perspectives on our quickie trip. I wouldn't count on any pics from me, because... well, I'm a guy and don't generally take pictures unless I am told to.

We finally got on the road Friday after work and drove to Manchester, NH. We swung by a store and picked up some snacks for the trip and then checked into our hotel. We had dinner at the Hotel and a couple of drinks and then back to the room. We had an early morning ahead of us, set a wake up call for 4:30 AM (I also set the alarm on my phone, because I never trust those wake up calls). 4:30 came early (I guess it generally does), we got ready quickly and were at the airport by 5:00. The security line was longer than anticipated. One of the reasons we love flying out of MHT is the security line is always so short, not so this time. We just made it in time for our early boarding on Southwest. We lucked out and had our side of the row to ourselves, Nice! Kim slept most of the flight and I read (I'm on book 4 of Stephen King's "The Dark Tower Series"). We arrived around 9:00 AM.

We quickly made our way to Magical Express, gotta love not having to deal with your checked bags. I was really looking forward to trying out BWV. Pre-DVC we had stayed at All-Star Movies and All-Star Sports, post DVC we have stayed at AKV (Home), SSR, and OKW. The All-Star resorts were great theming when the kids were really young, but I don't miss the rooms & noise. Anyway, back on track. The ride to BWV was reasonably quick. Being so early, we weren't surprised that our room wasn't ready. We changed into shorts and checked our carryons with bell services. Then off to AKL we went.

 

[ftballfan7]

we arrived at AKL and by now we were both pretty hungry. We had lunch at Flame Tree Barbecue, one of my favorites. After lunch it was time to get to our safari FP. We traded out our Kali River FPs for Dinosaur ones and moved up the times on our EE ones. There are some things that I don't like about the new FP+, but other things that I like alot. My Disney Experience worked well for us. In the middle of all this I enjoyed a cold beer and Kim had a frozen drink while we watched Birds of Flight.

When we headed out of AKV, it was still fairly early. We decided to check to see if our room was ready even though we hadn't received a text that it was. Turns out it was ready. This happened last trip at AKV as well, I'm not sure how well their system that texts when your room is ready works (apparently not very well). This being our first stay at BWV I was looking forward to seeing how I liked it. I did like the resort pretty well. The rooms are bright and the boardwalk is cool. We have visited the boardwalk before, but having it right there was nice. I like the resort of AKV better, but love the location of Boardwalk. Being able to walk to Epcot and DHS was great!

We changed into our bathing suits and hit the pool for a while. Kim fell asleep and I read (Are we sensing a pattern here?). I also went for a swim, there was quite a temperature swing leaving New Hamshire that morning and now sitting in the Florida sun. We also had a couple of cold beverages pool-side. We started getting hungry so we hit the boardwalk for dinner. We had a pizza sitting right out on the boardwalk, looking across to BCV and watching the people coming and going on our side. There were a lot of young couples all dressed up, some lucky kids got to have their prom at Epcot and the boardwalk was ground zero for picture taking. After dinner we decided to head back to the room, get changed, and walk over to Epcot.

The best thing about Boardwalk is the quick (and enjoyable) walk to Epcot. Before we knew it, we were in The World Showcase. We didn't bother with any rides tonight. We checked out the topiaries and other F&G offerings, had one of those delicious Grande Mariner drinks from the Kiosk in France and listened to the music coming from England. We saw the kids going into their prom, I wonder how much their tickets cost. We closed Epcot and headed back to our room. It had been a long day and we were both pretty wiped.

 

[JAMIESMITH]

The view from your room is pretty awesome! You're getting me excited for our stay!

The ending of The Dark Tower series will seriously tick you off! I read them a few years ago.

 

[DisMomme]

I forgot about the prom. Lucky kids! I'd love to have had my prom at WDW.

Sunday was our day for lunch at BOG. I thought we'd sleep in a little but who can sleep in when you are at Disney and there is a park open? We got to MK a couple hours before our reservation so we wandered around a little. We rode Pirates of the Caribbean. No need for a fast pass there. The lines we moving very quickly. We still had some time to kill and there were some HS bands marching so we stopped to watch.

This was going to be another 'Where in the world are we' photos

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This is a nice place to rest and watch a parade

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Hello

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Pat is a firefighter so you know I HAD to get pictures of the fire engine

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And I had to get a picture with him in it too. Doesn't he look happy? HeHe

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I love all the little details Disney puts into everything, even the horse bridle

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The cranes are still up and the moat is still drained at the castle

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[DisMomme]

Lunch! The FP+ for lunch is the absolute best thing in the world! We had an early lunch ressie and the lines for standby were already down the walkway and around the corner. We walked up the the gate, gave our names and walked right in to lunch.

We both had the braised pork. Yummy!

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I got mine but for Pat they brought out the Croque Monsieur, which was our order from the last time we ate there. It didn't take long to get it fixed though. I guess those dishes do like to play games with the servers

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Beautiful touches there too

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For those wondering, the tarps and some of the walls are still up around the Seven Dwarf's Mine Train

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Looks like they are adding some railings.

On our way out I saw a beautiful young woman in a dress and heals. I had to get a picture of the heals because I just cannot imagine walking around in these all day...

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Next stop...DHS

 

[DisMomme]

DHS

The Earful Tower

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Epcot isn't the only place for topiaries this Spring
Sorcerer Mickey

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We had some time before our first FP so we headed into my favorite place in DHS

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We did Art of Animation twice in a row. We drew Eeyore and Rapunzel. I had never drawn either before so it was all good.

Soon it was time for

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Can you see the stand-by wait time? 70 minutes!???

Theming

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We were stuffed from lunch but it was time for a drink. We walked over to High Octane Refreshments and then moseyed on over to a table to people watch for a while

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Flowers in bloom! So nice to see when we still have snow on the ground here

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Rock n Roller Coaster

3 -2- 1...

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Tower of Terror Next
'You are traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, the Twilight Zone!'

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Who wants to stay there some night? Maybe Disney could have a room there like they do in the castle.

After our rides we decided to walk back to the hotel. We saw some bunnies along the way. They were always out at the All Stars but you never see them at AKL so I was very happy to see them today.

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We thought we'd stay in for the night and hang out by the pool. We got changed and tried out the quiet pool. There were BBQs there and a fire pit. I took another little nap then went in for a swim. The water was perfect! When we got out there were some CMs roasting marshmallows in the fire pit. We asked if big kids could join too and they said of course! Yay! We shared a bag of marshmallows and then went back to get changed. We hadn't eaten dinner and we didn't know what we wanted to do. We walked along the boardwalk then decided to go over to Epcot. We had a nice dinner at Sunshine Seasons. On our way out we got to catch some of Illuminations

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Not a great shot

I told Pat I had to get a picture of the ESPN sign. It is his favorite TV station. I joked that I was going to enlarge the picture and make a mural for his 'man cave'. Da-da-da Da-da-da

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I cannot believe we went to 3 parks today.

 

[DisMomme]

It was such a quick trip. It is hard to believe it is Monday already! Today we have plans to go to Epcot, in the daylight for a change. We saved a QS credit for lunch and 2 snack credits to use at the outdoor kitchens. I had heard so much about the Piggylicious Cupcake and I was dying to try one and Pat was looking for some pulled pork. We'll get to that later, I have pictures, of course, and our own unprofessional reviews.

So we packed up Saturday night when we got in. It was so bitter-sweet. We had a great time and still had a day to enjoy but now we had to face going home

One last balcony view picture

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The Epcot entrance from Boardwalk/BCV

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We were there early so I got a few pictures of the horticulturists trimming up the topiaries

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France with no tourists

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England, also sans tourists

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Tick Tock Tick Tock

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He'll crow. He'll fight. He'll fly. And then... he'll die.

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To die would be a grand adventure!

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Bears

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We saw a lot of people placing baseball caps and other things on the sand sculptures. It caused a lot of divots and crushing of the sculptures.

Floating flowers

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[DisMomme]

We had walked around World Showcase every night and ventured as far as The Land for dinner but we hadn't yet explored Future World. We had fastpasses to get to and I wasn't leaving Epcot until I got to see the butterfly habitat. When we got to Epcot we had about an hour before our Test Track FP+ so we wandered about and I took pictures (of course )

No Goal!

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I am such a good goal tender

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I had heard that earlier in the F&G there was no little fence up in front of Goofy. People were walking over to Goofy & Donald and taking pics with them. The day we were there, there was an attendant and a rope line to get a picture.

Mater! My kids at school would love this picture! They are obsessed with Cars. I'm pretty sure Mater is the favorite.

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Runner up among 4-5 year olds (or maybe it's a tie)

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Love the details they can create with the different greenery and flowers.

This was my attempt to show the long stand-by lines at Test Track

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Don't they look so happy? It is a false sense of how long the lines are though. When we entered with our FP+ we noticed that the stand-by queue was almost empty as well. I'm not sure why they think it is a good idea to hold people outside the air conditioning and makes the lines look so long.

Butterfly Garden!! I think Pat was wishing he had said we would visit this after Soarin'. He kept telling me we had to get to The Land as I paused to take yet another picture of a butterfly.

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Thought I could use this information with our butterfly habitat at school.

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I didn't even post all the pictures! I was just amazed by how close you could get to the butterflies before they would fly off.
There were also some adorable Fairy Houses in the garden. We may have to try to make some of these with the kids at school.

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Tink! "When the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies."

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More "butterflies"

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So you can see why Pat was concerned we would be late for our Soarin' FP. We made it in plenty of time though and had a wonderful flight as usual. The man and son next to us had never been on before so it was nice to get caught up in their excitement! The little boy ducked when the golf ball came flying in and then had an infectious giggle that made us all smile. He was so excited to see DL and Tink at the end too! He clapped at the end like I remember doing when Soarin was new to us.

We rode Living with the Land before heading out to find some lunch. I love that ride. Last year we took the Behind the Seeds tour and I highly recommend it. It was fascinating!

 

[DisMomme]

We headed back over to World Showcase for lunch.

Norway Gnome. Can you see his belly button? I think it is a star

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I grabbed a table by the water and Pat went off to find food. I grabbed some Tacos de Pollo along with some coke and Churros. The tacos were ice cold, not sure if that is how they are meant to be served but the meat was fully cooked and I had walked a few countries over to find a table so I ate them cold. The Churros were delicious though. Pat went to America to get the famed turkey leg.

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After we sufficiently stuffed ourselves we waked around World Showcase again.
Timon has a friend on his belly. That salamander better watch out or he'll be lunch for Pumba and Timon!

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Beautiful Snow White

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Kermit and Miss Piggy in the daylight

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Lady and the Tramp. Pat says Lady looks p!ssed at Tramp

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Japan - the Bonsai trees were beautiful! I so wish I had a green thumb.

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I can't remember where these interesting things were...

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France - street performers

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Mrs. Potts

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Beast!

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and Beauty

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Together

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Cinderella & Prince Charming

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Aurora and Prince Phillip

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These guys are so cute! I always loved Flower

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Ever wonder how those sand sculptures get made??

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Lots of sand, water and forms

 

[DisMomme]

I had to get pictures of the Monsters play area. It was very cool! I wish they'd make an area like that for us big kids...

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I had heard that you could get all the special F & G items at the Festival Center so we hiked on over there too. I really wanted some of the perfume from France. It was only for the F&G. I had sprayed it on the first night and fell in love with it. The man in the store warned me that that was the last 3 bottles and I wouldn't be able to get it if it sold out. I chose not to believe him, I mean the F&G goes on until May 18th how could they sell out?? Well they did by Monday. Now I assume they will get more in before May 18th but I will not be back until August so I guess I'm outta luck. It saved me about $100 at least.

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We saw these guys on our way over

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Pluto! My favorite! He's been my favorite since I was a little kid.

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We took a detour out by the front entrance

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More pretty decorations

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On our way back through to go to the festival center I made Pat take yet another detour. I was thirsty!

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Mezzo Mix from Germany is missing...
I can't remember which one Pat liked, it was a fruit flavored one. The kids next to us were trying them all and making faces like on the commercials. They must have tried the Beverly 5 or 6 times to get their expressions right. Yuck! My favorite Krest Ginger Ale isn't there any more either.

Pretty impatients in a tower. I tried to get the birds flying in and out of this one. They are hard to see. This display reminded me of my grandfather. These were his favorite annuals to plant. He had a garden in Reading MA that he did up every year with impatients in towers, in barrels, in strawberry planters, etc. It was always a beautiful sight.

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These ladies came along to brighten things up.

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How cool is that ride? I'd love to take that over to Fort Wilderness.
They reminded me of the performers at DHS. It was nice to see their cheery faces.

Well, we made it to the Festival Center finally and they had no perfume. It's all good, like I said saved myself about $100. So now we can go hunt down some snacks before we head out of the park.

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The pulled pork sandwich was delicious and only a snack credit. I wish I had gotten that for lunch. The cupcake, Pat & I decided was just okay. The frosting was good, very light. I usually don't like maple but I did enjoy the frosting. There was something about the hard bacon in the cold cupcake that just didn't seem right. It was a texture thing. The Frozen Red Stag Lemonade didn't help us to enjoy the cupcake. The flavor of the cupcake was good but the textures were off in my opinion.

Woody There's a snake in my boot!

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I took that last picture because of the themeing again. They even remembered Woody's pull string! Love Disney!

We went to all 4 parks in 3 days, rode what we wanted to ride, rested (a little), got a tan and even visited Epcot every day of our trip (a first for us). We enjoyed a new resort and fell in love with the location and the views. We packed a lot into our 3 day trip. Thanks for coming along to enjoy (I hope) the pictures and commentary.

 

[FANOFDSNY]

This is my first attempt at a TR. I have always wanted to do one and have enjoyed reading about everyone else's adventures but I was always afraid it would take too much time and I wouldn't finish. This time though, we have a secret get-away planned and I am dying to tell someone about it!!

The cast:

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DH (Pat) with his buddy! He is my best friend and we always have fun together. He is a Firefighter and the wonderful dad to our 2 boys. Pat had never been to Disney before we went together in 2000. I was worried he wouldn't like it but he fell in love with the magic and we have been going as often as possible since then.

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Me. I am a Teacher's Assistant and I work with 4 & 5 year olds. I truly am a child at heart. I love all things Disney and have been visiting the World since 1974.

This trip began because after we planned our summer trip and rented out some of our left over points we had a few points left over. Not enough to rent and we couldn't bank them. Pat jokingly asked if we wanted to be weekend jet-setters and go for 2 nights. I immediately said yes (he didn't even finish saying it)! We decided it would be our Christmas gift to each other but only if we could do it on a budget, and we wouldn't tell our family or coworkers we were going since we had just been there in November for our Anniversary.

We each had a $50 SWA credit that was about to expire and I had enough air points to cover a 1 way flight. We found great non-stop flights - early morning down to MCO and late night back home. We could stretch our time to the fullest! Our 2 RT flights cost us $330. Good on budget so far.

Our family knows about our Disney addiction and lucky for us they help enable us. Each year we get $100 in GC for Christmas so we used those to help pay for QS dining for 2 nights. I had Target rewards to use so we bought more GC to cover the rest. Dining = 158.56 - GC = total OOP $41.81

We decided to be adventurous and stay somewhere new this time so we are staying at Boardwalk Villas.

Coming Up Next: FP+ selections and daily plans

It looks like you are doing a wine tasting in the photo??? I'd love to do something like that... was this photo taken on your trip, if so would you mind sharing where this photo was taken?

Thanks...
FANOFDSNY

 

[DisMomme]

It looks like you are doing a wine tasting in the photo??? I'd love to do something like that... was this photo taken on your trip, if so would you mind sharing where this photo was taken?

Thanks...
FANOFDSNY

Sorry, this was last summer in Portland Maine. We went on a local brewery tour. This picture was taken at the Allagash Brewery. My favorite beer was the Allagash Curieux Bourbon Barrel Aged Tripel. No wine, sorry. I have heard that there is wine tasting at Jiko and during the Food & Wine festival at Epcot in the fall.

 

[FANOFDSNY]

Sorry, this was last summer in Portland Maine. We went on a local brewery tour. This picture was taken at the Allagash Brewery. My favorite beer was the Allagash Curieux Bourbon Barrel Aged Tripel. No wine, sorry. I have heard that there is wine tasting at Jiko and during the Food & Wine festival at Epcot in the fall.

Small world.... we're from Central Maine! Beer and wine, either is fine with me... We'll have to plan to do the tour on one of our weekend trips to Portland this summer.