Sleepy and Grumpy visit Tatooine–A SWW TR! - The End - All done and Link to new TR

[Pinkocto]

I've really been slacking on the Dis this week, sorry I missed this.

I'm glad you're home with some potential down time hopefully you get some rest and aren't unpacking most of the time.




Of course I loved this update! That was so nice to spend the evenibg with you and Fran. I'll have a look at my photos at home and post any that are worthy. Those character pics are too cute!

That was really a delicious meal, wow. I did try the scallop, it was quite tasty. And Fran had some beets, I think she liked them. I didn't like the cheese that came with them though. That pretzel bread is awesome. I found some at Trader Joes that really compares.

Your earlier evening looked like great fun! I really like LWTL. The Behind the Seeds tour is great. I've done that twice, once solo and then took mom.

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

2 months without traveling? Are you going through withdrawal?

So we meandered toward Germany, we stopped in the German shop and happened upon some kids working on an Agent P mission. These beer steins began to sing as part of the mission.

One of my favorite gags in that game!

I was eager to test my returning photography skills on the challenges of this ride. Dark light, bright greenhouse light, dark then light again.

Yeah, that's a tough one. You really have to decide ahead of time where and when to switch settings.

Bright Light! Bright Light!

Gremlins.

Wait a minute! I don’t remember crocodile being on the menu at Garden Grill! And besides I didn’t see any of those!

That's for the shoes in the gift shop.

Fran let me go in the picture first, and then Pam would join me and finally Fran would come into the picture and have the PP photographer take our picture. It was fun and worked out great! Plus we have evidence of our DISmeet! Pam feel free to post any of your pictures in case you got better ones!

for DISmeets!

We started out with their bread service. Everyone loved the pretzel bread.

Sooo good...especially with the soup.

I know that Fran and I split this Cheddar Cheese Soup because there is no way that I would let her have it all to herself!

Man, now I'm really getting hungry...

Then came our entrees. Fran and I split the Rib-Eye steak. That’s the only reason that Le Cellier went back on the table for us, when they upgraded to a Signature restaurant they added a Rib Eye to their menu (something that was seriously lacking).

Hard to go wrong with a rib-eye. I'm still annoyed that it's a signature place, though.

I definitely need some more work on this, but at least it’s a start.

I think the Spaceship Earth shots came out well!

 

[cj9200]

It wasn’t as if we were attempting to “drink our way around the world...”

First the wine shop, where I tried on these beauties.



Then we ordered up a couple of these. Fran got the sweeter one and I got the less sweet one.



...Oh look, it’s the margarita stand at Mexico. Two please!

Love the glasses. Seriously, I need to party with you two. Start with breakfast at your place to carb load and then drinking around the world. That or doing the monorail drinking game. First round is on me.

 

[ACDSNY]

Lovely pics from your DISmeet and dinner, I was drooling over all the yummy food.

 

[Paula Sedley-Burke]

You got some nice trips planned there. Nothing better than having some cruises on the horizon! Plus a nice break at VGC. That does look like a smashing resort.

Crocodile? Cool. I have actually tried this! When I worked for Microsoft they liked to put different offerings on the menu and I enjoyed trying. I liked it but could not decide if I thought it was more like fish or meat. An interesting protein. Would have again!

I am yet to try this cronut. It would have to do some serious partying in my mouth to best a good ole fashioned glazed donut. My goto cake/pastry of choice.

Your dinner sounds nice. I am pleased to read that Disney is open to sharing an entree and ordering more sides. Good idea! That rib eye sounds the bomb. Glad Pam found items to eat. The presentation looks fabulous.

Nice that the new system allowed for FP+ across multiple parks. I hope they enhance that soon so you can do that in advance and not just on the day. Be cool

Thanks for the update I love those wine shades lol and the photos are so cute of you all.

 

[bangzoom6877]

Sadly, no California for us next summer...my mom is too nervous to fly. So the 11 of us are taking a cruise to Bermuda instead, which leaves right from NYC.

 

[franandaj]

Fun update.

Looks like you had a great time with Pam. Food looks great at Le Cellier.
It seems funny to type this out but......I like your coconu....er....papayas better.

There's a shop selling cronuts in LB? I might just have to go check it out.

We had so much fun with Pam! That steak was just wonderful as was the rest of the meal.

I'll have to check out that cronut shop that I found on Yelp yesterday before you get here and make sure they are good enough to eat!

Thank you for the tip of eating at the UVA Bar and Cafe at DTD. It was way better than I have thought and I might eat there again in the near future.

That would be good, I like that place!

Hope you are able to find your tablet.

We found the tablet and then lost it again! But Fran has her own computer back so that's good!

My DAF and I are looking forward to the October trip as well.

After having all those trips these last few months and all of a sudden you will be on the road again.

I still have over a month and a half before I get on the road again, it will be a very welcome trip I think. While we are getting settled nicely into the house, putting things away and cleaning every day is beginning to get tedious.

I always enjoy riding Living with the Land at EPCOT. Very nice pictures of the plants during your ride.

The food at Le Cellier looks so amazing. This is one of the restaurants that I will want to do every time I am at EPCOT. The only problem is that it is hard to make a reservation when you are not a on-site guests and it fills up very quickly. This is one thing I don't like staying off-site is that you can't get the reservation at Le Cellier (unless you get lucky and it isn't that busy on the date you want).

I hope to take the Behind the Seeds tour in April, so that would be even more fun. I don't know when we'll eat at Le Cellier again, but it is definitely back on the list.

Looks like fun! You must really like Palo.

Yes, actually we do! On our last cruise we ate brunch there on both of the Sea Days and had dinner. Brunch and dinner are so wildly different that I just have to experience both.

But if it happens...

That's usually how it is, just kind of happens.

Way more classy than the beer goggles.

What's funny is in all this putting away and packing, I just found a pack of "mini beer goggles" that Fran bought on our Las Vegas trip, you put them on your beer bottle and they all different colors of the rainbow. That way you know "The pink beer is mine!"

Was that followed up by "Hey, Fran! What do you want?"

I love Living with the Land. I really want to do that tour sometime.

Hopefully in April we'll get to it.

Hmmm... now that you mention it, they don't show us where they raise their cattle in that greenhouse.

The Dismeet/dinner both look great. I'm glad everything worked out so that you could all see the characters together.

Living relatively near cattle country and having stayed near a cattle raising region, I don't think they would want that smell anywhere near WDW! But people tell me you get used to it, right Alicia?

 

[franandaj]

This ended up quite a busy day. I have to admit that Fran's choice of wine in Germany was what I would have gone for as well.

We did the Living with the Land tour in 2008 or 2009 and loved it. It was so interesting and really good value. I love the character photos and dinner looked delicious.

Corinna

Even though the morning was very relaxing, we did end up getting quite a bit accomplished. I would certainly not mind repeating that day anytime soon!

Alison i'm SHOCKED! I really thought you had been on tons of meets before ours. I'm honored!

I was actually pretty wary at first. We were visiting Tulare a lot back then, and the first time when you told me that was the town you lived in, I was kind of like.....ummmmm. I also had the same trepidation with PIO. She visited Long Beach in 2010, but I wasn't going to push a meet up. I decided I'd read enough of your TRs and you couldn't be that different in person. We had so much fun drinking margaritas and chatting, next time PIO came to the US, I was more than eager to meet up with her as well!

Now many DISmeets later, I can't say that there is anyone I have met that I regret meeting. Pretty much everyone has been fabulous and we've had a wonderful time.

Yay for your break from vacations...and another yay for your upcoming vacations!

It's been nice being at home for the last three weeks. We have got a lot organized and the house is starting to look like a house and something a tornado ripped through. However, that Chicken Parmesan at Palo is totally calling my name. I'm reading Wonder TRs and getting all excited!

I"m DETEREMINED to get on Living with the Land in January. So many interruptions and distractions the last 2 times.

Perhaps Calvin will cooperate a little more this time!

Aw fun meet and greet with Pam! Oh and those other characters too

It was a good time and easy way to document our DISmeet!

I also need to try a cronut. So many things I need to do!

My first time trying creamed spinach was at Yachtsman (could have tried it a looong time ago had we made that ADR to Yachtsman in 2010!) and it's sooooo delicious. It really should be illegal.

I haven't found a cronut that is all that yet, but supposedly they are out there.

I don't know how long I've been loving creamed spinach, it's been a staple for years! I love spinach, in salads, spanakopita, crepes, I even put it in lasagna once, but Fran poo pooed that idea ever again.

I've really been slacking on the Dis this week, sorry I missed this.

I'm glad you're home with some potential down time hopefully you get some rest and aren't unpacking most of the time.

I've been slacking on the DIS too. Mostly only time to read from my phone when I wake up in the morning. But we are slowly digging out of our mess. Hopefully we get there in time for my parents visit in a week from tomorrow. The worst is our common living space, a forest of TV trays covered in mail, computers, empty soda cans and gift cards. That's an odd mix!

Of course I loved this update! That was so nice to spend the evenibg with you and Fran. I'll have a look at my photos at home and post any that are worthy. Those character pics are too cute!

That was really a delicious meal, wow. I did try the scallop, it was quite tasty. And Fran had some beets, I think she liked them. I didn't like the cheese that came with them though. That pretzel bread is awesome. I found some at Trader Joes that really compares.

Your earlier evening looked like great fun! I really like LWTL. The Behind the Seeds tour is great. I've done that twice, once solo and then took mom.

It was great to spend that time with you. I'm glad we shared more of the food than I remember. Funny you finding awesome vegetarian food at a steakhouse!

2 months without traveling? Are you going through withdrawal?

I know right?

One of my favorite gags in that game!

I never even knew about it until I saw it go off this time!

Yeah, that's a tough one. You really have to decide ahead of time where and when to switch settings.

I just knew when the light was coming to change it and when the dark was coming change it back. Probably why so many were overexposed. Next time.

Gremlins.

+1 (Even though I don't know enough movies to play that game over here)

That's for the shoes in the gift shop. :

for DISmeets!

Sooo good...especially with the soup.

Man, now I'm really getting hungry...

Hard to go wrong with a rib-eye. I'm still annoyed that it's a signature place, though. :

Me too, I need to make that soup. I saw somewhere else that it's your favorite cut, mine and Fran's too! I don't mind that it's a signature place because now we can actually get a reservation there!

I think the Spaceship Earth shots came out well!

Thanks!

Love the glasses. Seriously, I need to party with you two. Start with breakfast at your place to carb load and then drinking around the world. That or doing the monorail drinking game. First round is on me.

That would be fun, I've always liked your style on traveling, especially the afternoon breaks for a cocktail or two! I've never heard of the monorail drinking game, but I have a good idea of what it is. I'll start with a Lapu Lapu!

Lovely pics from your DISmeet and dinner, I was drooling over all the yummy food.

I'd sure like to repeat that one again!

You got some nice trips planned there. Nothing better than having some cruises on the horizon! Plus a nice break at VGC. That does look like a smashing resort.

You've got a nice one coming up straightaway don't you? Looking forward to the funny hats and such!

Crocodile? Cool. I have actually tried this! When I worked for Microsoft they liked to put different offerings on the menu and I enjoyed trying. I liked it but could not decide if I thought it was more like fish or meat. An interesting protein. Would have again!

I've had Alligator, I don't remember if I liked it much or not, but the price was too much for me to get hooked on it.

I am yet to try this cronut. It would have to do some serious partying in my mouth to best a good ole fashioned glazed donut. My goto cake/pastry of choice.

Well you can try one in just a couple weeks!

Your dinner sounds nice. I am pleased to read that Disney is open to sharing an entree and ordering more sides. Good idea! That rib eye sounds the bomb. Glad Pam found items to eat. The presentation looks fabulous.

We almost always share a meal at Disney, actually we do it at most places. American restaurants just don't serve reasonable portions. Hence why so many of us are overweight!

Nice that the new system allowed for FP+ across multiple parks. I hope they enhance that soon so you can do that in advance and not just on the day. Be cool

Thanks for the update I love those wine shades lol and the photos are so cute of you all.

I don't think they will encourage park hopping. The longer they keep you in one place, the idea is the more that you spend. I think it was only guest pressure that caused them to give the little that they had last spring.

 

[franandaj]

Sadly, no California for us next summer...my mom is too nervous to fly. So the 11 of us are taking a cruise to Bermuda instead, which leaves right from NYC.

I'm sorry to hear that. I find it amusing that your mother feels safe on a cruise ship, but fearful of flying. But whatever, she's your mom, so go with the flow. California will always be here. At least until the *BIG ONE* hits and we all fall off into the ocean!

 

[franandaj]

The next morning we wanted to get an early start. On our visit to WDW in October 2013 we never made it to the Animal Kingdom. There was way too much Food and Wine (and Tequila and Grand Marnier) being consumed at Epcot to find time to talk to the animals. This trip we wanted to make sure we got some of that in. It’s not like we didn’t get our fill on our January 2013 trip when we stayed at the AKV, but it had been a while and we were interested to revisit that park.

The danger of shooting on Manual is that if you don’t check your photos carefully, sometimes you forget that the camera is not properly set for your lighting conditions. No amount of Photoshop, Microsoft photo editor or any other product can fix this. I prepared for our AK visit by preparing sandwiches (chicken salad) and some chips. I also grabbed us a couple yogurts to eat on the way to the park. Unfortunately my kitchen was much lighter than Epcot at night. Even using photo editing software this is the most that I could repair this photo.



Today we had FP+ for the Safari from 9:10 to 10:10, Expedition Everest from 10:10 to 11:10 and Dinosaur from 11:30 to 12:30. We left the room by 8:30AM and were all set at the bus stop as we saw the Animal Kingdom bus drive away. Buses come every 20 minutes right. There should easily be another by 9AM to get us there.

The WDW bus system has become even more sophisticated and they can even tell you the arrival time of the next bus. Or so they want you to believe. We watched the arrival times of all the buses go from 9:05 back a couple minutes, eventually to 9:12, to 9:24…etc… I don’t think one bus pulled into that bus stop for over half an hour. By the time an AK bus came there were so many people wanting to go to the AK that the “scheduler” asked us if it would be OK, for us not to ride the bus that was coming first because there was going to be another bus right behind it.

Had those people that he crammed on the bus known there would be another bus in moments they would have been pretty pissed off I think, but they all herded onto that bus like cattle. Sure enough another bus pulled right up and we practically had the bus to ourselves. The problem? Our FP+ were ticking away.

I learned a very important thing about FP+ that day. Don’t book them back to back hour to hour. By the time our ride on the safari got out, we were hustling to use our EE FP+. But let’s get back to now. Everything worked out fine, they let us into the FP+ queue and we were on our way to riding. They sent us off to the special handicapped loading area and we waited for a bus to pull up and unload. Then they seated us on the bus and we waited for enough people to fill it up.

I know that you all have seen many pictures of the safari ride, so I will try to keep the pictures to a minimum, really, we have hundreds (we put the cameras on sports shooting so each picture has three images.) If you've seen enough safari pictures to last the rest of your life, just skip to the next post.



When our bus was finally full we were off!







The Okapi



Rhino in action





The Hippo Pool



And of course the crocodiles





Then we head out onto the Savannah

























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[Continued in Next Post]

 

[franandaj]

[Continued from Previous Post]

And then we were done. By this time my FP+ for EE was ticking away and almost at the end of the period, so we high tailed it over there, only to find that the ride was down. So we headed over to our next FP+ which was



I rode and used my FP+ and Fran waited while she read her book, I think that this is where we decided to eat our chicken salad sandwiches too. I wanted to see more animals. Now mind you with the MDE app, you can constantly check wait times and other on property facts. All day, I kept checking the status of Expedition Everest and it was down almost all of the day. So instead we decided to go see some animals. Right around the front of the tree of life are some animal displays that many people don’t even seem to know about. I just found these on my trip in 2010 and I hadn’t been back to this part of the park for a while.







At this point we were near the entrance to the park and EE was still down, so we decided to head out and go over to the AKL to look at the gift shop.





I know we found things to purchase and then we headed to our next destination. On our way from Jambo House to Kidani, we started to play the lizard game. We have lizards in California, but with the number of cats we own, they don’t tend to frequent our house. We started counting them and I think we were up to one hundred twenty something when we finally quit the game.



We probably didn’t need it, but we had a reservation for 2:30 anyways.



We had a nice view of the savannah



Neither of us was terribly hungry, but we were interested in eating so we went the appetizer route. We got the bread service. I believe we got the mango chutney, tamarind chutney and raita.



I ordered a mojito and I have no idea what drink this is that Fran ordered.



We split an order of lamb sliders



And I think we also split this bowl of soup.



This was plenty of food for us, and in fact we had to take one of the sliders home it was so much food! I have never seen these turtles in my times of staying here, they were so cute!



Bellies full and tired from our early start, we headed back to the room. Which from lack of pictorial evidence tells me that we both took a nap and didn’t leave again until the next morning! So as a consolation, I will give you another lizard shot.

 

[jedijill]

The buses are crazy. Glad they had another bus coming right away for you. I love AK but it really is a half day park for me. Too bad Dinsoaur was down. Lunch looks delicious! I still haven't made it to Sanaa...I keep intending to eat there.

Jill in CO

 

[franandaj]

The buses are crazy. Glad they had another bus coming right away for you. I love AK but it really is a half day park for me. Too bad Dinsoaur was down. Lunch looks delicious! I still haven't made it to Sanaa...I keep intending to eat there.

Jill in CO

It was Everest that was down, and now I'm really bummed. I definitely have to go on it in April!

You need to go to Sanaa! It's one of my favorite restaurants on property!

 

[jedijill]

It was Everest that was down, and now I'm really bummed. I definitely have to go on it in April!

You need to go to Sanaa! It's one of my favorite restaurants on property!

Oops, apparently my reading comprehension is as bad as my football team today. I would reallyl be bummed if Everest was down too. I hate Dinosaur!

It's on my To Do list! AKV is my favorite property so I have no excuse for not eating there!

Jill in CO

 

[franandaj]

Oops, apparently my reading comprehension is as bad as my football team today.

Not being a sports fan, I wouldn't even know what game or who was winning/losing!

I would reallyl be bummed if Everest was down too. I hate Dinosaur!

It's on my To Do list! AKV is my favorite property so I have no excuse for not eating there!

Jill in CO

I hadn't been on Dinosaur in a long time. I didn't remember it being as jarring as it was.

I'm a big fan of Indian food, so Sanaa is definitely up there on the list. I'm just sad that I don't have the eating capacity that I did when I was swimming competitively.

 

[rentayenta]

Yay! Caught up. Sorry about the bus headache. Was it because of the scooters the driver asked you to take the next bus? Either way, you're super nice for saying yes.

You can never have too many safari pics!

Lunch sounds perfect! I think it was you who turned us on to the bread service. It's delicious and a steal. We love lamb- we'll have to try the sliders next go.

Did you ever get to ride EE? You know I hate suspense.

 

[franandaj]

Yay! Caught up. Sorry about the bus headache. Was it because of the scooters the driver asked you to take the next bus? Either way, you're super nice for saying yes.

You can never have too many safari pics!

Lunch sounds perfect! I think it was you who turned us on to the bread service. It's delicious and a steal. We love lamb- we'll have to try the sliders next go.

Did you ever get to ride EE? You know I hate suspense.

If you saw my comments to Jill, I can't wait to finally get on it in April. Unfortunately did not get on it this trip.

It was because of the scooters that they asked us to go on the next bus. They could pack a whole bus with SRO, and then have an empty bus for us to take up half the seats on the lower level. We kind of don't have a choice because all the people would storm the bus and we couldn't get on, but nicer than having to get stared at the whole trip.

I thought I would be disappointed with the sliders since I liked the kefta so much the last time, but they were very good and filling.

 

[dolphingirl47]

What a shame about the mess with the buses. You got some fantastic animal photos. I am more than a little jealous of the great Okapi photo. They are one of my favourite African animals and somehow I always end up with blurry photos of the Okapi.

I think Fran's drink may have been the Malawi Mango Margarita and if it was, it would have been extremely delicious. I am normally a purist when it comes to my Margaritas, but I love this one.

Corinna

 

[franandaj]

What a shame about the mess with the buses. You got some fantastic animal photos. I am more than a little jealous of the great Okapi photo. They are one of my favourite African animals and somehow I always end up with blurry photos of the Okapi.

I think Fran's drink may have been the Malawi Mango Margarita and if it was, it would have been extremely delicious. I am normally a purist when it comes to my Margaritas, but I love this one.

Corinna

That was the one time when we really needed the buses to be on time and of course they weren't.

Thanks! I really like our DSLR cameras especially since I've learned to operate them properly again!

That's what it was! She is a Margarita kind of gal, so that would have been right up her alley!

 

[Dis_Yoda]

Animal Kingdom is the park that gets the least attention from us as well - there is usually too much at EPCOT to keep us busy! We skipped it in May, July, and we will be skipping it in both of our upcoming trips as a couple. My mother wants to go during her trip with me so I'll get my fill for a bit.

Sounds like a lovely morning there!