Stitch and Crystal do WDW - FINALLY finished~!

[Minniespal]

Expedition Everest looks huge!

 

[WDW Poly Princess]

Day 7

Whew! So, here is my challenge: I have days 7, 8, 9, and 10 (the day I went home) still left to write. I leave for WDW again on the 18th, so that means I have just four days left to finish! This is going to be interesting!

That said, lets get started!

Today was another sleep in kind of day. I had plans to meet Katie at Epcot later that afternoon, so I decided to walk on over, find some breakfast, and hang out in the park for a while until she got there.

The walk over to Epcot is so pretty! I could do this every day.

I took this photo in a mirrored window on the Boardwalk. Handy!

Check out the name on the window- huge croissant!! Hee!

On the walk over, I started thinking about how much healthier we (or at least I) tend to be on vacation. I know it sounds silly, but if you think about it, you’re walking about 10 miles a day, probably sitting down for real meals instead of just eating cookies at your desk for lunch, you’re less stressed, laughing more- all good for you! I bet that if we all just lived in WDW, we’d be very healthy people!

So, now that I’ve said my bit about healthier living on vacation, let’s get back to the story! Today I had peanut butter cups for breakfast. Oh, come on, that is totally healthy!!!

I had actually planned to pick up something breakfasty from the Fountainview Café, but the line was HUGE. Serioulsy, this place should have Fastpass during breakfast! Every other counter service place seemed busy, too, so I went to Mouse Gears to see if I could find something to eat, and ended up with a package of peanut butter cups. Don’t judge me! I found a spot in the butterfly garden near Mouse Gears to sit and eat my Breakfast of Champions, and relax a little before hitting the park.

A quick picture of Imagination as I passed by-

I went over to Soarin to check out the wait time- It wasn’t too bad since it was still early, but I wanted to wait for Katie so we could ride together, so I hopped in the standby line for The Land, which was around 20 minutes. I bet this ride has been a lot more crowded since Soarin opened, since it is an easy to hop in line here while you’re waiting for your FP time for Soarin.

A few photos from the greenhouse:

They place the Mickey-shaped containers around the pumpkins as they are growing, so that they will conform to the shape. Neat!

Wait a second, they grow coffee AND chocolate here? I may never leave!

Katie said she would be there in about half an hour, and I was near Universe of Energy, so that worked out perfectly, since that ride is pretty long. Ellen complimented my hair, and we were off on our journey into energy. I ended up with a whole row to myself, so I sat at the far left side of the car for a good view.

I think everyone’s favorite part of this ride is the dinosaurs, right? How cool are they? Now, however, I am enemies with one of the dinosaurs. I don’t know what kind he was, but he was over on the right side of the ride, and he SPIT at me! He was on the right, and I was ALL the way at the left of the row, but he hit me right in the eye! I doubt he could have had that good of aim again if you tried a million times! I started thinking about the DIS’s WDW Water Drinking Association from days of yore, and wondered if I had just been promoted to some kind of super-member, for “appreciating” WDW ride water on a whole new level! I spent the rest of the morning waiting for my eyeball to fall out of my head, since there’s no way that water can be good for you! At least I left with a good story, though. How many of YOU have been personally attacked by an audioanimatronic? Should we start a support group?

Just as I left the ride (still in possession of both eyes) Katie called to tell me that she had just parked over at the swan, and was on her way into the park. We agreed to meet in Canada by the totem poles, and I got this picture to get her back for the one she snapped of me at MK:

 

[agnes!]

WDWPolyPrincess -

From your photo caption(Post #111, 02/08/2006)...
"The Tree of Life and Everest! (And what the heck is that other really tall tree?)"
I think that is a disguised cell phone/communications tower.

agnes!

 

[WDW Poly Princess]

We decided to hit the World Showcase again, starting out in the UK:

These “Holiday Cheer” booths were all over WS. We naturally thought that “Holiday Cheer”= alcohol, but this one was selling barbecue or something. Weird!

We never stop being amused by the books in the UK:

I literally collapsed into a fit of giggles trying to get this picture.

And then we admired the botany some more.

We’ve been joking for ages about giving up on finding good men to date and just becoming nuns, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere in the report, and have amused ourselves sending back and forth “nuns and botany” pictures for a while, so we thought this little place would be the perfect place to build our convent! All of you jaded single girls are welcome to join. We wear fishnets under our habits.

A question- does anyone know the significance of the 11 in the circle? I just noticed it as I was editing photos, and wondered what it meant.

I remembered reading that there was a garden back behind the fish & chips in UK, so we went to explore. Oh, my goodness, the bird issue back here is CRAZY! I guess because of the fries from the fish & chips, but there were more birds swarming around this area than I’ve seen almost anywhere else in WDW! We were really paranoid that one of the birds was going to have an “accident” on one of us, but we stuck around long enough to snap the obligatory World Showcase pictures:

I don’t remember Epcot being all that crowded today, but France looks swamped here!

We call this guy “The guy who arranges furniture”.

Over to Morocco…

Please take a moment to appreciate these next two pictures, because they were almost impossible to get! The person taking the picture had to stand way back from the archway to fit everything in frame, which meant that eight zillion people walked through the photo before we could get a shot!

Note the leg arting out of the archway in my photo.

Don’t worry, we didn’t forget about Stitch!!

How CUTE is that costume? I want to have a daughter just to dress her in that.

 

[WDW Poly Princess]

WDWPolyPrincess -
I think that is a disguised cell phone/communications tower.

Ooh, that makes sense! I couldn't remember any other really tall thing around AK!

 

[WDW Poly Princess]

Up next, Japan!

How fun are these hats? I ridiculed Katie for not “totally commiting to the hat”- you gotta take your other hat off first, or you just don’t get that “a cartoon creature is eating my head!” effect.

We were getting hungry (amazing after my huge nutritious breakfast, I know!), so we set off in search of food.

Guess what Katie got.

No, seriously.

Yup.

Seriously.

We decided we needed another piece of the amazing strawberry cheesecake from Norway, so we reversed our World Showcase direction, and headed over to Kringala Bakery. The line was a little long, so Katie went to find a table, and I amused myself taking pictures of the floor:

The couple behind me cracked me up- they ordered three beers, two glasses of wine, three desserts, and four food items. I assumed they must have someone else with them, but when we all got to the seating area, it was just them! They totally got the spirit of eating their way around the world, I guess!

We dug into the cheesecake, and although she denies it, Katie totally stole the little white chocolate decoration off the top, which is a huge violation of the Cheesecake Sharing Rules, Chapter Five, Section 6, which specifically advises against saying “I get the chocolate thing!” and popping it in your mouth. The Cheesecake Sharing Authorities are on the case, though, so don’t worry too much.

So, about halfway through the cheesecake, it happens.

I look down at the cheesecake, aiming my fork to grab a bite, and there it is.

There is a hair in our cheesecake- a long, blonde hair.

We both have brown hair.

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

So, what do we do? The line for the bakery is huge, and we don’t want to embarrass the people working there by telling them what we found in front of a big crowd, but we’re a little squicked out by the whole thing. After a good minute and a half of debate, we make an executive decision. We use a knife to dissect out the part of the cheesecake that had the hair, and we eat the rest.

Yes, we are ashamed. But it was really, really good cheesecake, and we couldn’t just throw it away!
If you knew how good this cheesecake was, you would have eaten it, too.

Please don’t let me end up with some kind of “eats hairy cheesecake!” tag!

Katie took this picture of me examining the remaining cheesecake suspiciously before devouring it.

I look awful in that photo, but then again I had just suffered a severe loss (about three square inches of cheesecake!)

In the shops in Norway, we were checking out the chocolate selection (okay, totally forget everything I said at the beginning of today about being healthy!), when Katie made a great discovery.

Daim!

You have to use some sort of accent when you talk about it,

“You want some daim chocolate? It’s daim good! I don’t give a daim if we eat it all!”

Katie bought a bar for everyone she knew.

It was time for Photos with the Troll:

I am cracking up because the troll is “cupping my bottom.”

Notice that guy walking in the doorway behind Katie? Well, he didn’t notice that there was a rope up across the doorway, and ran right into it. I was trying not to crack up, because we all know it is not nice to laugh at other people, but I couldn’t help it.

That went a little like this:

Me: “That was really funny.”
Random passerby guy: “It was really funny.”
Katie “What happened?”

Random Passerby Guy and I filled Katie in on what she missed while her back was to the door, and then Katie and I laughed about some random person jumping in to the conversation out of nowhere.

I wanted a picture with a Viking hat, but my hair wouldn’t fit underneath! (I had it up in two buns again, “mouse ears”). However, I found a hat that was missing one horn, and just stuck one of my buns through the hole made for the horn! Perfect!

We hit China next because, um, it was next to Norway.

 

[WDW Poly Princess]

The store in China is one of our favorites. TONS of stuff, and mostly really affordable!

“Want Want”! Love it!

WOW! Three Party Buddhas for the price of one! I really need to buy this on my next trip!

Here I am with the Chinese Hugh Hefner.

We started to walk from China over to Germany, but we got to the bridge right as they were bringing through the Illuminations barges!

Apparently, having to wait made Katie very sad.

Or maybe she is still just mourning the cheesecake incident.

I noticed that they had a bunch of drums set up in the Outpost area, and I just couldn’t resist. I played for a few minutes, and gave Katie an impromptu drumming lesson with some Arabic rhythms.

We went into the German shops to do some browsing (for cute German CMs in leiderhosen.)

You may think this is a picture of Katie and a beer stein, but that isn’t what the picture is of.

Katie decided this picture of the German clock would look way better with her arm in it.

“Hey! Take a picture of me with the chicken!”

“I could fly that plane!” (Katie takes flying lessons, and any planes we came across in WDW had to be examined closely to decide if she was capable of flying it or not.)

Neuschwanstein, the castle that Walt patterned the Disney castles after!

We aren’t really sure why they sell Smurfs, since Smurfs are actually Belgian, but we had fun arranging them anyway.

Each dinosaur toy came with a little person. Why? Why??? The best we could guess was that it was for size comparison?

It looks like this guy had a little too much German beer!

Germany leads right into Italy…

“Wow, that would make a good picture,” I said to Katie, who was standing in a pretty doorway.

“Um, do you want to take one?”

“Nah, I’ll just take a mental picture.” Yup, the end of the vacation was nearing.

 

[WDW Poly Princess]

Around 5:30 we started our walk back to the Swan for a break before Illuminations. At the World Traveler store right outside of the International Gateway, we saw Santa’s list of good girls, and noticed that our names were nowhere on the list.

As we walked along the boardwalk, we were treated to one of the greatest things I have ever seen at WDW. There was a family coming towards us on one of those family surry bikes, and the little boy in the front seat was ringing the bell with such joy and enthusiasm that we had to impersonate him the rest of the trip. His arm was swinging back and forth with the bell rope wildly, and his whole body got into the act.

Come on, try it yourself! Stick your arm in the air, ring an imaginary bell, and let your head fly back and forth with glee. Fun, isn’t it?
The boat to Epcot was pulling up to the Dolphin as we left, so we decided to hop on. Yes, the boat is way slower, but our feet needed a break! The boat was really crowded, so we ended up standing.

“I have Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow stuck in my head,” I informed Katie, who was standing a few rows in front of me.

“You, too?” asked a new Random Comment Guy. I guess everyone at WDW has one song or another stuck in their head!

The boat was slow and crowded, so we hopped off at YBC to hoof it the rest of the way.

We walked along the YBC beach, snapping photos of the Boardwalk, and learning that the big ship thing was a slide! (Katie was the brave one who went to investigate).

I can’t remember where we watched Illuminations from this time, but our torch worked!

On the walk back to the hotel, I stopped in the Boardwalk Bakery for something sweet, and got a piece of the best cake ever! I carried it back to enjoy in the room. Katie and I made plans for tomorrow, and she drove home, while I took my cake upstairs for dessert!

Wineglasses must be used for your milk when the cake is $5/slice! (Milk from Tubbi’s at the Dolphin, where I made a quick stop on my way back to the Swan. This is one of the handiest places to get food on property!)

Coming up in Day 8- Filming the Christmas Parade at MK, and Osbourne Lights at MGM, plus one more viewing of Illuminations, complete with video!

 

[lucky978]

I'm sad your trip is coming to an end, but glad you are returning soon!

I really enjoy your posts. I can just picture my friends and having the same reaction to the cheesecake incident...and doing the same thing you two did!



Keep up the good work!

 

[roberrl187]

Thanks for posting. I now have "It's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" stuck in my head too.

I look forward to the next installment.

 

[imLissy]

my friend and I paused in adventure land once to figure out what we were going to do next when suddenly water comes down upon us! is it raining??? no! like the silly people we are, we happened to have stopped under the spitting, what are they, camels? 'least I think there's more than one, though I think just one spits... but yes anyway, we were mad, those watching were amused.

 

[WDW Poly Princess]

Day 8!

I got up much earlier today, because I wanted to get to MK as early as possible- they were filming the Christmas parade today! I had considered signing up for the super early before the parks are open viewing, but I knew there was no way I’d get up for it, so I just tried to arrive as early as possible instead. They were filming the Festival of the Lion King part of the parade when I got there- YAY! This is my FAVORITE thing on property! I didn’t care how many takes they had to do, I could watch it over and over! I found a spot where a lot of people were standing towards the end of the street, but after about thirty seconds, a CM came up and told me you have to move.

“You can’t stand here.” Um, there were about 20 other people standing there, too!

“I can’t stand here?”

“You have to keep moving”

“I can’t watch the parade?”

"You have to be in the roped off area to watch"

"Can I just go in the area, then?"

“You have to keep moving.”

By now I was getting frustrated.

“To WHERE?”

“To the end of the street”

“Is there a place to watch from there?”

“Yeah, just keep going down to the end.”

So I walked down Main Street, and guess what- nowhere to watch from! I tried to get some info on how the whole watching the parade thing worked, and if there was anywhere to watch from, but the rest of the CM’s were as helpful and friendly as the first one. I had nothing but great CMs otherwise on this trip, but I guess they must have been stressed from the whole parade thing, because this sucked! I was getting really frustrated that I’d been looking forward to this day, and now I couldn’t even get any info from anyone! I decided I needed a heavy dose of the Magic, so I went over to Philharmagic. It was a great miracle cure! I was in a much better mood by the time I got out of there, partly because of the cute little boy next to me who tried to grab everything that came out of the screen!

I went over to Fantasyland to check out the new Pooh kids area. It is nice to have a place for little kids to run around and just be kids, but I’m surprised that’s all that came out of the old 20,000 leagues area!

I never remember to go to Toontown, so I went over to run through Mickey and Minnie’s houses. They were both surprisingly crowded!

Mickey’s kitchen looks just like mine!

And of course, Mickey’s garden!

And then Minnie’s house

And of course, and homage to the Corn People:

I walked over to Tomorrowland along the quiet path that runs between there and Toon Town, just for the sake of taking the path. It offered a much different view of Space Mountain than I’m used to seeing:

Ready for an embarrassing story? While I was in the Stitch store, the doors to the Stitch attraction opened, and I was walking while craning my neck to try to see in, and in the process, I ran into a display shelf, whacking myself in the forehead. It hurt!

I was getting hungry, so I started out of the park, but as I got to Main Street, I noticed there was now a lot of space in the roped-off areas, and people were just ducking under the ropes. Apparently, I could have just done this all along! I found a spot, and spent about an hour watching. They were filming at the other end of the street, but I got to see everyone as they were preparing to go on, and the camera guy was going around shooting spots of people clapping (to imaginary music) and acting excited, and he even came to me once!

There was a LOT of waiting- they would shoot for 5 minutes, and then there would be a 20 minute wait while nothing happened. Still fun, just for the experience, though! I’m amazed that some people spend ALL day there for the filming- a couple of hours was more than enough for me. I cracked up at the family next to me- they were one of the groups that took the filming thing very seriously! They had been there since like 6am, they were all dressed in Christmas sweatshirts (it was like 80*, but wintery scarves and hats and other Christmas-looking stuff was common!) and I heard the dad say that after this next scene, they could go do lunch. I hope they at least ended up on TV for all their efforts!

At one point a group of girls came down the street, and a lot of people started screaming. I had no idea who they were, and some asking around told me that they were the Cheetah Girls from the Disney Channel movie. They signed a few autographs, and then went to their float. All I remember is that they were really short, and one was wearing huge heels!

I started to leave for lunch, but I found a great spot to watch from further down the street, so I stuck around for a few minutes longer. Every now and then it would feel like you were just at the regular parade, but then you’d look up and see reminders of the filming everywhere.

After 20 minutes or so, I started to leave again, but couldn’t resist going up to the train station to get an overhead view of things.

Apparently Regis & Kelly were there somewhere, but I never saw them!

 

[WDW Poly Princess]

Okay, up next is some kind of freaky Disney phenomenom.

The dancers from the Cheetah Girls float were coming around the corner, so I snapped a couple of pictures (because I had no idea who they were, and wanted to find out when I got home- heh!)

Okay, two pictures:

Did you catch it? Check out the back guy on the float.

Freaky, huh?

Oh! There were 5 of them!

You can’t really see here, but the blonde girl in grey had HUGE high heels on. The heels had to have been at least 6 inches high! Crazy! She was so tiny cup close, probably less than 5 feet, and that was with the heels! If only I had a good picture of them for badshoe.com!

I was finally ready to leave, so I went out to the WL boat dock to wait for the boat. (Yes, I really wish I’d been staying at WL this trip! I spent so much time at the resort anyway!) From the boat dock, I could see the huge crowd that was now coming into the park:

It was 12:30 now- I would hate to see what the crowds looked like by later in the day!

It was a kind of long wait for the boat, which resulted in a lot of monorail pictures!

The boat finally came, and I got a shot of Space from the water

I noticed this tree over by where River Country used to be- it was full of shoes! Does anyone know the story behind this?

I grabbed a pizza from Roaring Forks and went back up to the balcony to eat.

I only took ONE picture at WL! Aren’t you proud??

Katie called and said she was on her way, so we agreed to meet up back at the Swan. (Yes, I do occasionally visit my own resort!) We got there at about the same time, and took advantage of the cool view from the windows!

MGM was our Park of the Day, so we set off, stopping only for a quick photo or two of the cool gingerbread house in the Swan lobby:

And I have to throw in this awesome picture Katie took as she was walking in from the parking lot!

I don’t really remember much of what happened at MGM, so I think we’re doing photos with commentary again! (Sorry!)

This dog kind of reminded us of the one Joey had on Friends

This sign somehow totally confused us. We were trying to find the Backlot Tour, but we couldn’t figure out which way the sign was pointing! I know it looks obvious here, but we were confused! We had to literally stand under the sign and face the direction of the arrow- the street sign version of putting the map on the ground and standing on it!

On our way there, we couldn’t believe what we saw!

Someone had an identical Stitch, and had abandoned him on their stroller while they were in a show! Poor lonely Stitch!

 

[WDW Poly Princess]

We did the whole Backlot Tour thing, and especially enjoyed the Villains display at the end! The best part of the whole tour though was that there was a little boy about 6 or 7 on the tram in front of us with his face painted like Darth Maul- and he was flirting! Every now and then he would turn around and wink at us, or do the little point with his finger. SO cute!!

I loves me some Vader!

Can you feel the love?

But I love Maul more!

Um, Katie, you appear to be in mortal danger!

Katie takes a cell phone call…in hell???

Of course, fun was also had in the shop after the ride-

Stitch and I, we are like one.

We were walking down New York Street, taking New Yorkish photos, when we came upon Mulch, Sweat, and Shears playing Christmas music over by Youse Guys Moichendice (they were great! Wish I’d had my video camera).

Just after they finished, there was an announcement that the Osbourne Family Spectacle of Lights would be starting in like 10 minutes, so we decided to stick around. We found a spot on the curb to sit, and before we knew it, they were counting down to the start of the lights.

Three…two…one… the music started, and Katie screamed.

Not just screamed, but hands in the air, jumping three feet of the ground, total freak out scream.

The music scared her.

Even though they had just counted down to it from 10.

Eight hours later, when I picked myself off the ground from laughing, I made her recreate the moment for a picture:

Classic!

The “snow” started drifting down, and it became apparent which one of us lives in Florida, and who lives in a part of the country that has evil winters. Katie was all “Ooh, snow, pretty!” while I was a little less friendly with the snow. Snow and I are not good friends.

Our comfy waiting spot, before Katie’s music trauma

“Snow, I will tolerate you for about three minutes. Don’t try to get friendly!”

“There is stuff falling from the sky!”

Apparently, Stitch is big here!

 

[WDW Poly Princess]

I shall now present you with the funnies photo of the whole trip. While I was taking pictures, Katie called to get me to turn around so she could take a candid photo. She was aiming to get something like this:

Instead, she got this

It’s okay. I know you’re laughing *with* me.

You can stop laughing now.

Seriously!

Please?

Fine.

My photos kept ending up all blurry, since taking pictures of lights at night is totally not a skill I have mastered, so I finally just shook my camera all around while I took pictures, which resulted in very pretty things like this:

Over at the Singin in the Rain (my favorite classic movie!) umbrella, we started to pose for pictures, but neither one of us could remember how we were supposed to stand! This is the best we could come up with:

The Great Movie Ride was starting to sound good, because sitting down is fun! Along the way there, we came across this billboard for Grey’s Anatomy. We’re both big fans (*cough* of McDreamy *cough*), so we had to get a picture!

Anyway, yeah, Great Movie Ride!

While we were waiting in line, a little girl came up behind me and handed me something. It was Stitch!!! I’d had my backpack partly unzipped with his head peeking out, since we kept getting him out for photos so often, it was easier to keep him easy access. Well, I guess it had come unzipped- I had almost LOST Stitch! I am so lucky that girl found him! How embarrassing would it be if I had to title this “Stitch and Crystal do WDW…until she loses him in an incedent of blatant alien neglect!” Thanks, nice little girl!!

Believe it or not, despite being a Star Wars fan, I had NEVER ridden Star Tours! We decided that we had to resolve that situation, and lucky for us, the line was only about 10 minutes. Yay for short lines!

“Cool, Star Wars!” Katie said, making a V with her fingers as we waited for the ride to start.

“Um, Katie? That’s Star Trek.”

“There’s a difference?”

Hee!

I love Christopher Lee!

“Captain’s Log, 1203, I am about to slay an entire villiage of Ewoks with this green…light…stick…thing!”

We had plans to watch Illuminations from the Swan tonight (I had discovered that watching them from the window in the 6th floor hallway was REALLY cool!), so we went to catch the boat back to the Swan. In Katie’s defense, she wanted to just walk back, especially since there was a huge line for the boat, but I was worn out, and a big wimp, so we waited.

There were three little boys in line who had a lightsaber that they must have bought at Star Tours, and I swear that must have been the best money their parents ever spent, because they played with it the entire 20+ minute boat wait! Katie and I (and some other random people) were amused by watching the ducks- they were doing this thing where they landed on the water and then skimmed along, making it look like they were waterskiing. Very cute!

We had a fun boat driver who let people come up to tell jokes. Katie told me a few from our seats- I can’t remember the first one, but the second was:

Did you know Helen Keller had a pony?

Neither did she.

(groan!)

So, when we got back to the hotel, we were walking to the Dolphin to pick up a grilled cheese to share, we were telling stupid jokes, and I tried to repeat Katie’s back to her, but it came out like this:

“Did Helen Keller know she… Oh no! I ruined the goat already! (pause) Joke! I ruined the joke! Not the goat!”

Only I can ruin a goat.

We got the yummy grilled cheese, and I picked up two of the bottled Frappuccinos that keep me alive. I hadn’t been paying attention to the price, since I always bought other stuff at the same time, but I had probably drank about a zillion in the time I had been staying at the Swan. Tonight, however, I paid for them separately, and it came to over $8 for the two!

“Wait a second, these are $4 each???” I had to ask the register guy just to make sure. Yup, they were! OH MY! At home I buy them for about $5 for a 4-pack! I had assumed they would be $2.50 or so since this was WDW, but $4! Yeesh! Caffeine addictions are pricey!

(Dave from Passporter was at Tubbi’s at the same time as us the night before, by the way, but I didn’t say anything to him. I never know what to say to internet people when I recognize them! I had planned to go to the Mega Mouse Meet today, too, but then with the parade stuff and everything else, I never made it. Oops! Next year for sure!)

We ate our yummy sandwich back up in the room, and then went to the window at the end of the hallway to watch Illuminations.

I brought my video camera to tape it from this cool vantage point, because it is a totally different perspective of the fireworks, and I thought it would be neat on film.

The video, however, turned out much different than we expected.

I don’t know if it was 8 days of vacation, or the fact that we had seen Illuminations like 7987 times by now, or of Tubbi’s puts something in their grilled cheese, but we were very, very easily entertained by Illuminations. We thought it was funny that we had no idea what part of the show we were at without the music. “Is it over?” was said about eight hundred times. Before the show even started, I was dancing in the hallway, and whacked my hand against the ceiling light, causing a big THUD. We felt really bad because we were right outside some guest rooms, but we are just not people who are capable of being quiet. I really hope nobody was trying to sleep in there!

So, we asked if the show was over a lot, we did the evil “Just blow everything up!” routine, and we watched a van drive along the road below, where it looked like it was going to collide with some people. And we laughed. A lot.

I guess you had to be there?

Fine, you can!

Thanks to the beauty of youtube.com (they let you upload videos for free, so you don’t have to waste your precious bandwidth and make your hosting company mad at you, like I keep doing!), here’s a short clip of our Illuminations viewing experience!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhd7lDzYSz0

(pardon my voice sounding freaky, 8 days into this trip I was looking and sounding awful! But you’ll hear more about why on day 10) Yeah, about halfway through the video, I did literally crawl into the window for a better view. And yeah, there are a lot of Strong Bad refrences in there. We’re really cool like that. (Oh man, we are so nerdy!)

Fireworks behind us, it was time for some Kungalooshing! We went down to the bus stop to wait for the bus. (Katie totally did not believe me that this was really the bus stop, since we saw no busses for at least 10 minutes.)

Katie was a little upset that the machine had no diet coke.

Bad Katie!

Eventually a bus DID come, proving to Katie that I wasn't making us stand in the middle of nowhere for no apparent reason. Yay!

Remember the pictures of the Adv Club from Day 1? Well, now everyone was decorated in their holiday best! Santa hats for everyone!
Santa Hat on the Colonel?

Check!

Santa hat on God with a Rod? Check!

Santa hat on the Yakoose? Check!

Santa hat on Babylonia? Check!

Smart adventurers practice safe flying.

We were a little sad that we didn’t recognize any of the cast tonight- I’d read on the boards that a lot of the old favorites had been moved to different jobs, but I was hoping that at least our favorite Hathaway would be there! The new people were good, but it didn’t feel like they had really settled into their roles yet- it still felt like they were acting instead of being able to believe that they really *were* that character. Still, even mediocre AC is fun! The main joke about the night seemed to be about “hoochies!”. As some women walked across the room to the bathroom during the induction ceremony, Otis announced “The hoochies are going to the bathroom!” and when they returned, “The hoochies have returned from the bathroom!”. And a note for the “should I take my kids to a bar?” debate- when a girl about 12 or 13 went, it was “There goes a hoochie in training!” We were amused, but the girl’s parents may not have been. Of course, we have now adapted it as a term of endearment.

I don’t know if we are just getting old (mid twenties, ancient!), or if it was because the new cast just wasn’t as fun, but we were totally exhausted by midnight, and decided to just call it a night even though all we had seen was the show in the Mask room and the new member induction. We made plans to come back tomorrow night and actually do it right, since Katie was planning to just stay in my hotel then. There’s always tomorrow! (Um, well, for now! After tonight, my vacation has no more tomorrows! How sad!)

At the bus stop for the Swan, a bus finally pulled up after we had waited about 10 minutes, and we started to get on, but he told us that he was only dropping people off. Um, okay, weird! So we waited about 5 minutes more before another bus came- he was doing the same thing! What the heck? About four busses did this before one finally stopped and kept the doors open.

“Can we really get on? Really?”

We had started to feel really rejected!

Back at the hotel after I said goodbye to Katie, I was ready to just fall into bed and sleep, but there was a small reminder that I still had some packing left to do.

No sleep tonight!

Just one real day left to write! How crazy is that? On Day 9 we say goodbye to the Swan, hello again to OKW, end up on a crazy car ride, and Stitch gets to meet his hero!

 

[Velsignet]

I read this before work, mug of tea in hand. Wasn't a problem until I got to various lines that nearly caused me to spray tea out my nose at the screen! OMG, am I a nerd. And yes, people, I'm really like that in real life. But at least I didn't almost lose Stitch on his grand Disney vacation!

Katie

PS- I believe shortly after seeing the little bellringer kid was when I quite suddenly launched into the "it's peanut butter jelly time" song. Which Crystal had never heard and so required explanation.

 

[Thumper's Tara]

While we were waiting in line, a little girl came up behind me and handed me something. It was Stitch!!! I’d had my backpack partly unzipped with his head peeking out, since we kept getting him out for photos so often, it was easier to keep him easy access. Well, I guess it had come unzipped- I had almost LOST Stitch! I am so lucky that girl found him! How embarrassing would it be if I had to title this “Stitch and Crystal do WDW…until she loses him in an incedent of blatant alien neglect!” Thanks, nice little girl!!

Oh, thank GOD! I am not the only one who almost lost her mascot. Phew. I am glad Stitch wasn't permenantly lost...that would have been too horrible!

 

[YCFAN]

I just read this entire thread and I absolutely love your reports! And just think....it's almost time to go again!! Lucky girl.

 

[WDW Poly Princess]

PS- I believe shortly after seeing the little bellringer kid was when I quite suddenly launched into the "it's peanut butter jelly time" song. Which Crystal had never heard and so required explanation.

Hey, some of us don't know the PBJ song, (which will now live in my mind with JP jokes.), others just don't know where Morocco is (ahem!). It takes all kinds!

 

[VanniGirl]

Looking forward to reading the rest - and to your next trip report