Sunburn, not windburn : WDW and Universal in September

[kaoden39]

We're pretty excited!!

 

[nancy drew]

Hidden Mickeys are everywhere!

I taught my kids about Hidden Mickeys on our summer trip to DLR and now they spot them everywhere. Yesterday we were walking out of the grocery store and DS found one on the wall of the flower shop nearby. He even asked me if it was intentional. I said one day we would go in and ask (it was really cold and I just wanted to go home and not buy flowers, which we would have ended up doing if we had gone inside).

Also, my mom had a candid photo taken where, in the background, there were 2 chairs with round black seat backs. You'd totally know what chairs these are if you saw them, they have metal frames and soft pleather type padded seats and seat backs. Anyway, it looked like she had Mickey ears. She stuck a Post-It note on it that said "I'm going to Disney World!" and tacked it up on the wall.

 

[bumbershoot]

Glad I remembered to check photobucket before moving on to the 25th! Forgot a whole portion of the 24th.


We went back to the room, and Robert was just wiped out. This time he could not be swayed to swim, but Eamon and I wanted to. Instead of visiting the PBR pool again, he and I decided to walk over to Hard Rock Hotel.

So we walked around the harbor...again. On the way, we were stopped by a bridal party having a, you know, party for the bride. They had some rooms on the ground floor, and the french doors opened up onto the plaza (piazza?). They were having LOTS of fun, that's for sure!

Eventually it got too hot to stand there (and they were smoking a whole lot) so we moved along. Walk up the path, go straight instead of left (which would be the official pathway to the parks), cross the street, and walk up to the Hard Rock.

Pool-hopping is encouraged at Universal, so I simply showed our keycards to the *attendant* at the gate, then went on through where I got iced water with lemon slices and a couple big fluffy towels for us. Now THIS is the life!


They have a very shallow pool, but not too shallow that a person can't float face down in a worrying fashion (thankfully the person got back up).

Their pool LOOKS very cool. And they had a band there, which of course is cool.

But you can't really *swim* in it. Most of the pool is incredibly shallow so that, I guess, people can sit and look pretty and drink. It was really frustrating, because I actually wanted to swim! But that's not really what you do at the Hard Rock, I suppose.

They do, however, have a slide that Eamon LOVED. He went down again and again and again. By now, he's a slide expert, and I let him go all the way up without any supervision other than just waiting to the side at the bottom. He had huge amounts of fun, and I was happy for him, but wowie was I bored. Guess I'm just not interested in the whole "hang out in a shallow pool drinkin' booze and sucking in my stomach" thing...


I'm sure it's no surprise to you guys that eventually we started seeing dramatic clouds and feeling the winds change. When that happened, we went back over to our own hotel.


Happy kid.

Happy kid, far away!

According to the website, at the Portofino Bay Hotel in the evening, they have...

Musica della Notte

Come and experience "Musica della Notte" (Music of the Night) at Loews Portofino Bay Hotel. Every evening the hotel’s Harbor Piazza comes alive with a musical celebration that captures the romance and charm of Italy and the allure of Mediterranean hospitality. Musica della Notte showcases a unique blend of classic opera, romantic and festive music, along with 'popera' favorites – the wildly popular musical style that bridges the gap between pop and opera. Three themed shows are offered on a rotating basis: Romantico Night, Classico Night, and Italian Festival Night. The activities begin every night at sunset (weather permitting) with strolling musicians followed by the show.

By the time we got hungry, it was just about time for the night music. We all went down, thinking that maybe we'd just pick up pizza to go again, or maybe we would sit down. But it was busy, and I just wasn't feeling up to sitting in public. So, of course, the pizza and salad to go took AGES, which meant I was sitting in public though I didn't want to. I could have gone back to the room, but it was just so pleasant with the music (opera guy on a balcony) and the evening and the courtyard. And the occasional loud booms of thunder from somewhere...

We finally got the food, went back to the room, got comfy, and ate the tasty goodness!

Goodnight to the 24th.

 

[bumbershoot]

September 25th


This was our last day at Universal. Waaaah!


I have to back up a bit.

Our original trip was to end on the 25th. But then Robert found out that he needed to work on the east coast by the 27th, and it just seemed ridiculous for him to go all the way back home and then back east. So we looked into things, found a decent rate on a Value, found that E and I could easily rebook our flights made with miles, and decided to do it.

With that decided, we thought "hey, maybe this is the ONE opportunity to surprise DS"! He really likes helping to plan our trips, and I don't want to deny him the fun of it. But this seemed like a good time to see if that was fun.

We figured that we would return the car on the 25th, just way later than originally planned. Then we would say "hey, let's just go catch that Magical Express bus and go on back for a couple nights!" And it would be tremendous fun.

So that was the plan.


On the Best Buy errand day (to get the modem because Robert's had tanked, along with my computer (which is mysteriously continuing to run wonderfully again)), as we were driving off of Disney property, it hit us that it was going to be SAD to leave WDW for Universal, with Eamon thinking that we weren't coming back on that trip. I realized that we have little traditions when leaving Disney (land or world), and we would need to DO those traditions, and we would be sad.

Too sad, in fact, to be evened out, or made up for, by the joy of going back at the end of the trip.


In a rare moment of understanding-without-hashing-it-out-for-way-too-long, we realized we had to let Eamon in on the surprise. As I'm always telling people who get stressed out about "keeping the secret", it's going to be a surprise *no matter when they find out*.

And it was! He was VERY excited that we would have a little more time at WDW, after Universal.


Because we didn't need to surprise him, we realized that the plan of going back to the airport, magical express, etc was completely unnecessary.

We called National, and they were happy to continue our excellent rate on the car. The complicating factor? The fact that we'd lost the credit card, and by then had canceled it. The only way to seamlessly continue the rental was if we had the same card. We had to bring it in. To some rental agency, not necessarily the airport.



OK so now our day had become Best Of Universal, get to a rental car agency, go to a store for a few things, check in to WDW, and maybe run over to a park that night.

And that's the background stuff.

**************************************************

Now I know that our days at Universal had not been grueling. This is mainly due to the heat, and the fact that we just weren't that into doing EVERYTHING. I'm afraid of the big coasters, Robert can't go on them yet, and the one E is interested in AND can ride (Rip Ride Rockit) I am not ready to let him go on.


We were having a grand time, being somewhat relaxed and having the swims...our enjoyment of Universal is just really different than at Disney. At Disney I want to go go go and I have a certain level of disappointment if I haven't checked off a certain number of attractions per day. Very different. We were very content.


At some point in the previous days, we had been in contact with the cousins, and it was agreed that we would meet up for an Epcot visit at some point after 4 (when they could get in).

So now we had to add *that* to the list. And instead of it being merely *possible* to go to a park, it became an absolute. Eek.


And with all of that said, I just looked at the clock. We've been semi-watching the long-DVRd season premiere of Castle, but now it's done and I can't write any longer.

See ya tomorrow!

 

[kaoden39]

I have heard that the roller coasters are not friendly sized. Too bad for Robert, but he's headed in the right direction for that.


I am usually Go go go at Disney but my last trip I took it slow and had a ball!! I will do it that way again. There is no race it is about the fun for us, but that being said my kids when they are off to the races and that's good for them.

 

[bumbershoot]

Yep, Universal's a bit more difficult than Disney is.

 

[kaoden39]

I heard Disney is doing away with their turnstiles, have you heard this?

 

[bumbershoot]

Yeah, I saw those pictures of the RFID scan spots. Pretty weird!

 

[kaoden39]

Yeah it is and I being a skeptic wonder how well it will actually work.

 

[bumbershoot]

Okey dokey!

So there we were, on the 25th, with a BIG day ahead of us. Got up, got ready (or finished getting ready), Robert checked our bags with bell services (while I made TWO cups of coffee in the Keurig for myself), got OUT.

We again took advantage of Early Entrance to Wizarding World, to ride Forbidden Journey and Hippogriff. I believe E rode Hippogriff again and again and again (11 times). He even picked up a friend for a few rides; another boy being allowed some independence. Fun for him.

While he was on Hippgriff, I bought E a new wand...Ron's wand. I also sneakily bought Robert Sirius's wand, as he was drooling over it. Man, those boys!

At 9:16am, this was our beverage of choice:

(hello Mickey!)

[I'm going to tell you about my bizarre nail polish situation in the next post]

After that, we moved along.

The entrance, not marked because it's not open, to Triceratops Discovery Trail:

I actually wanted to ride this time, but was for some reason outvoted.

Not sure how much longer Eamon will be able to even ride the Pteranodon Flyers, since it's for kids 36-56" tall. If you are taller than that, you must have a child between those heights with you. Well, hopefully I'll be able to ride once in my life!



We hit Spiderman again, just for fun, then explored the giftshop. Robert REALLY wanted some sort of mug for coffee at work, and had been scouring the giftshops, but never found something perfect. They sure have lots of different kids of mugs, though!

Eamon had been yearning to go into an arcade on this trip. I had meant to make that happen, but it had sort of gotten lost along the way.

Well there's an arcade near Spidey. There's also an airbrush tattoo person outside the arcade. Eamon was staring at the tattoo person, but Robert thought he was staring at the arcade and mentioned it. OK, then, in we went! We toured the games, E decided which games he wanted to play, and we bought tokens that would be enough for the games. It was a brief arcade visit, and he certainly would have liked to have spent far more time on it, but he seemed to focus on what he was getting, and that made me happy.

After that, E rode Storm Force. Alone because he wanted to. And neither of us wanted to ride badly enough to go in a separate cup thingie.

By this time, and I know it might not be coming across considering how little we did, we were so madly in love with Universal, Robert and I were having a quick conversation about whether we could create a trip inside of the year that my AP (bought for hotel discount) was good for. We came up with a few scenarios. This is what E was up to while we were having our whispered discussions.

After fist-bumping on the decision (we are goobers!), we went and got in line to upgrade their tickets. OH YEAH.

The line wasn't *long*, but the people in front of us were long-winded. Both of the TMs were dealing with People With Issues. One had a valid complaint but wasn't all that happy with the mummy dust (Universal's pixie dust, considering their Mummy ride, ha ha, no I did not come up with that) being blown in their direction. The other people didn't have much of a valid complaint, IMO, but hey, maybe I just didn't hear the whole story.

But I tell you this because either TM we were going to get was being given a very hard time before us! So when we went up there, we made sure to smile big and tell them that we loved it so much we needed to upgrade! That brought a smile to the TMs. The process was quick. Made quicker by something we didn't realize happened until weeks later. Instead of going by their normal protocol (same at Disneyland, where you lose your discount when upgrading), she credited us with the *gate* price for their tickets, instead of the discount tickets we had. Now WE got mummy dust! (but don't expect that, because it's not their normal thing...she might have just made a mistake, not sure if it was on purpose or not)



We were SO excited while leaving.

(just looked it up...a Lustrum refers to a 5 year period of time)


We were just heading over to Universal, which meant we walked out, turned left, and walked until we got to the Universal gates, but it was HOT. E tried to take some shelter for a moment.

Before starting Best of Universal Studios Park, we needed lunch. Each of the adults ordered the "Health Sandwich". Eamon got something else. Robert liked his sandwich, but I was NOT impressed. I really dislike bad food!

While sitting there, we saw some characters outside. Thanks to the camera zoom....

Takes a minute, but you'll figure it out soon:

We finally had remembered we had those towel things that supposedly cool you off! They worked, to a certain extent, but not to the extent that we needed. The little handheld fans also worked.

After lunch, we went on Shrek again. Love that ride! This is a laminated newspaper that is a poster in the queue.

For the Disneyland folk...the Express Pass for Shrek is a lot like FP for Autopia...you'll be ahead of some people, but you still have a wait in front of you. At the same time, there's a show going on, and there's a scripted pre-show going on in the waiting area outside the theater. And at the SAME time there's a line outside the waiting area. So even if you're in the Express entrance before anyone else hits the regular line, you're still waiting for the pre-show/show to let out, and then you're watching the pre-show before the show. Shrek is NOT a quick thing.


From there, it was Simpsons again, then Men In Black. Eamon needed to ride Woody again, then ET. On the way out of that section...

And after that, we had to go!

 

[bumbershoot]

I'd started the trip with BRIGHT pink nail polish. I brought it with me, along with a top coat, and a sort of silver glitter polish as well.

On my toenails, the big ones, I'd painted Mickey heads. The toenails kept their polish very well.

My fingernails, however, didn't fare so well. It chipped a little bit, but one day of our trip (still at WDW) I noticed my fingernails were getting this weird dingy grey. When I really looked, I noticed that parts of my *hands* were also changing colors! Scary! It almost looked like bruising across my hands.

I cannot remember what I thought it was. I did come up with some sort of conclusion, though. It washed off my hands, with a bit of scrubbing, but wouldn't come off of my fingernails. It turned the bright pink into a weird dingy reddish purple that just wasn't attractive. I'm not opposed to dark colors on my nails, I've done green and blue before (in the 90s, of course, but I'd do it again if I felt like buying the polishes), but this was UGLY.

I tried to pretty it up with the silver glitter. And that's what you see on my thumbnail in the Butterbeer picture. My sad attempt to make my fingernails cute again.



The end of the hands-turning-black story came in the late afternoon of the 25th. On that day, I wanted to be comfy AND ready for waterrides, if I chose to do them, and/or rain. I was tired of shorts and tired of cotton unders. So...I wore a loose, black, cotton dress (in any other color it could be a sundress, but in black it looked fancier than it was, but I didn't care) over my new Land's End, fuschia, one-piece bathing suit.

The problem I noticed first off was....NEVER wear a one-piece under something if you think you'll have to use the restroom! Especially not one with "shaping" or support in it. Oh the arguments I had with that thing in restrooms...way too difficult.

And then I noticed my hands turning black again. I noticed the pattern of it, and paid attention to how I was walking. Noticed it in my inner arms as well. And I started to notice the already dark color of my nail polish getting even darker as the day went on.

Ohhhh. Black cotton dress that I very rarely wear, that could almost be considered new if you took how often I have worn it into account. The dye wasn't set, and was coming off on me.

Much later, when I changed, I realized that I had not only dyed my skin, but my bathing suit as well.

And then I did something massively stupid. I put the thing back on, but this time over a two piece I'd also bought, in bright yellow and orange...and I ended up dying that suit, too.

I'm going to try that Rit product to pull colors out, but who knows if it will work on bathing suit fabric....


So that's the story of how I dyed. (to paraphrase from Tangled, LOL)

 

[kaoden39]

Gosh was that Marilyn?


Oh that is not cool about the black dress. Not cool at all.

 

[bumbershoot]

What followed then was a Way Too Complicated trip to get to a rental car agency (GPS can't always be trusted!). We finally just ended up at WDW's Car Care Center, where it was taken care of relatively painlessly. Then we went to Goodings, a grocery store, for just a bit more water, a few more vitamin waters, a cheap styrofoam cooler for the food we still had, and a few little munchies.

And at last ended up at All Star Sports. Family was in town by then, but they were wandering around All Star Movies (I hadn't realized how close together the hotels were until later!)

So we were texting back and forth, as we checked in and found out our room number, got the car, went over there, and started unpacking. There was a strangely long period of time after a funny text "ooh nice car" (indicating that they saw us) and when they finally came over. We were just unpacking the last of the stuff from the car, and taking it up to our second floor room, when they showed up.

The room was actually quite nice! The entertainment center was really big and useful, with shelves and cubbies. They are following the current concept of one big "headboard" attached to the wall, going across the span of both beds. I really like this new trend. Just brings the level of "ooh nice room" up.

We were in the Surf's Up building, which was really close to the pool, and across the pool area was the main building with the food court (and through the food court was the arcade and checkin, the knowledge of which would have been MOST helpful earlier!).


I was so so so so so so broiling it wasn't even funny. So even though the room was small and packed with family, and it felt incredibly rude to do, I shut myself in the bathroom and took a cool shower to try to make myself human again. It worked to a certain extent. My hair never dried that evening, though!

My aunt had stayed home, not wanting to be part of a "commando" afternoon/evening. So we all headed over to Epcot!


I know we rode Spaceship Earth, and some rode Test Track and Mission Space...I think I rode Mission Space, actually, with E and R and cousin's hubby, while cousin stayed back with her kids (though I might be remembering from earlier in our stay).

But then we headed over to the Showcase, because...we NEEDED the Norwegian bakery again. The cousins seemed to like their treats, and I know we enjoyed ours again. Some people don't like the Schoolbread, but we do. "They" say it's different than it used to be, but this is the only version we know of, and it's good enough for us.


After that, we mainly wandered and visited with each other. It was really nice, just having it be cousin-time.


Eventually, however, the lack of food caught up BIG time. Poor Robert was trying to keep it together, and he did so well. He's always had trouble figuring out when he is going to get hungry; he goes from feeling full to feeling desperately hungry, and once he started reacting strongly to blood sugar swings, it got harder. But he was so sweet, and came up to me, telling me quietly that he really needed my help to get some dinner.

The first wish was said by cousin's hubby, he wanted to eat pizza at Via Napoli. So we went up there, looked at the menu, deemed it good for everyone, and then asked about a walk-in. They refused to give us an estimate, which was most UNhelpful of them. Some of our group didn't want to wait, having no faith that the diners inside would, eventually, finish eating and leave.

So then we came up with the idea of the Rose and Crown in England. So we made our way over there, and perused the menu outside. Alas, it was all deemed not perfect. They did have an expensive menu! Robert was going to sneak over to the fish and chips place, which would have involved me taking Eamon ahead (since he's being raised vegetarian, he has a REAL problem with the idea that his dad sometimes eats fish, and while he accepts it to a certain degree, he doesn't like seeing his dad eat it). BUT the line was massively long.

It was getting later and later, and Robert was getting hungrier and hungrier, and so were we, and decisions were getting harder and harder!

Finally I just said that Sunshine Seasons was always good, it was cheaper than the other places that had been suggested (wasn't really our concern, having had 9 months to budget, but we certainly understand budget difficulties!), and it was probably open.

So we headed on over to the building. Thankfully the restaurant was still open.....

Got hardboiled eggs for immediate protein, mac and cheese, and two tofu noodle bowls. Robert requested extra tofu for his, which they were happy to do! Our meal was tasty goodness. And was MUCH appreciated by our tummies and pancreases, LOL.

After that we did a bit of shopping, which was fun. We didn't buy anything, but it's fun to watch other people spend their money, ha ha.

By this time, the cousins had realized that we had already done IOA and Universal that day, and that there was a reason we were moving so slowly! No one really wanted to walk all the way back anywhere for Illuminations, so we decided to ignore it, and just head on out of the park.

Whenever we all caravanned together, Eamon would ride with them or their son would ride with us. It made them very happy to do that. So it was allowed one more time, and then the goodbyes had to be said again.

Eventually it was all said and tears were wiped and hugs were had...and they went on home and we went to sleep exhaustedly.

 

[bumbershoot]

Gosh was that Marilyn?


Oh that is not cool about the black dress. Not cool at all.

Yep. And poor Marilyn, she was being ignored!

I was so upset about the black dye...still am.


I'm hoping to do more report tonight, but we're having a late weekend movie evening, and Eamon must be put to bed now.

Today he had gymnastics today, which he FINALLY got into again, and Robert and I worked out, FINALLY, again. We upgraded our Y membership so that Robert can use the one up near his work. Poor guy got to take a new passport picture the other day (having run his 2 year old passport through the washer and dryer which DESTROYED it), and he was not happy at all with the picture, so he's motivated like heck right now. Motivated is GOOD!

 

[bumbershoot]

September 26th!

I woke up very very early, because we had laundry to do. The laundry room was next door to the foodcourt building, across the pool area. As much as I do not like being up early in the morning, it was quite lovely.

This is the laundry room.

I sat there for a couple hours, doing the laundry, reading, talking with my aunt on the phone. We had been thinking about her coming out, but we decided that it was best for her to focus on the big move they were making, and on relaxing at home.

The pool looked wonderful that early. I wished that I had put my suit on so I could take a dip. I called DH's cell to try to wake them up and have them come down to swim, but they were too asleep.


After doing the laundry I took it back, then we went to get breakfast since they were up by then. Since we didn't have coffee anymore, but I still had a caffeine addiction, I decided to buy a refillable mug, because it would be a souvenir AND I could get a few coffees that I would get anyway.

They were (are? not sure) doing the big RFID chip testing in the mugs at THAT resort, but the CM didn't ask me how long I was staying. So how could a chip have been set for my stay, I wonder? (and no I wasn't using my KTTW, I just showed my TIW card for the discount, and my visa card to pay) I'm kinda sorta thinkin' that they weren't really *setting* anything, but just having the chips good for a generic amount of time.

Moot anyway, as the chip isn't valid for the coffee machine anyway! I considered getting a soda just to check, but wasn't interested in drinking it, and wasn't interested in wasting a soda.


The food is decent there. It's kind of neat to be at a big food court like that; nice and impersonal and you can just be with your family and not get bothered every 5 minutes by a server... I'm sure that's not the normal view of food courts, but I'm not a normal person.


We had an ADR for Tusker House for lunch, which meant we would be going to Animal Kingdom. But we saw that pool and just had to play in it. So, without waiting any time after eating, we just got our suits on and went to swim! It was very very nice. Didn't have the Boardwalk slide, but it was nice for swimming because at that time of day (high noon, pretty much) there weren't many people in there. OK...there weren't that many people *swimming* in there, but there were a couple couples that were just way too close to each other...yuck. We had a great time for an hour or so, then had to get ready for AK.

We got there a bit late for our ADR. And we needed to wait. But that was good, because it gave us a chance to get a bit hungry! Nothing like going to lunch at a delicious buffet when it hasn't been that long since breakfast, right?

But we rallied, and we took our time, and relaxed, and didn't take up stomach space with alcohol like we did in December...and it was good.

And on that note, I must go to sleep.

 

[kaoden39]

Oh wow you had a crazy time finding dinner didn't you?


That resort looks so cute! I think the value resort are really cute in the way they are themed.

 

[kaoden39]

I wanted to share a picture of Scotty from his race today. I like to call his costume Richard Simmons on a bender.

It was so rainy he had to wear his jacket and all that. At least he wore it underneath. And he didn't take his long pants of for the picture either.

 

[bumbershoot]

After Tusker House, we decided to check out the Safari ride.

In December, we were barely in line with our group of 11 (other cousins came too) when CMs asked if we wanted to join up with a group with a wheelchair, so they could send out a full vehicle. Of course we said yes.

So here we were, mid-day with no fastpasses, and little likelihood of being asked to join another group. But what else was there to do? We wanted to ride it, so off we went. We were happily surprised to find very little line.

Turns out they were doing some work in the theming around the queue, which cracked me up because this actually looks, to me, like an elephant.

I'm not going to bore you with 8000 animal pictures, but I do have a couple.

Once again, yay for the zoom feature on my camera, because these guys were well inside the trees. (has anyone else seen The Wild? because I have, and whenever I see a wildebeest I think of it and start wanting to dance)

We actually got to see this dude walk over to the mud and choose to wallow in it.

Meow.

Big Meow.

While we were on the ride the weather (what a surprise!) started to change, and by the time we got off the ride it was a serious deluge. We ran (why did we keep leaving our ponchos?) to a sheltered area in the line, and stood there for awhile. But finally that got annoying. It's just water. And we had to use the facilities. By the time we came to this decision the rain was nearly over, though, so we didn't get totally soaked.


Once it was down to somewhere between a drizzle and a trickle, we noticed that we were near the Rafiki's Planet Watch area. I really really wanted to see this, and I managed to win out over requests for Expedition Everest again. To get there, you get on a little train. From the train, you can see some of the backstage elements of AK, like the really sad and boring shelters for the animals.

There's actually a rhino in this picture. You can see his legs sticking down from the horizontal lines of the inner pen.

Once at the train stop, you walk into the area. There were some conservation-info-giving CMs there, and E did the activity while I chatted with them. Finally we moved along.

R&E went into a pen to see goats. I didn't have much interest in that, so I stayed out and got to meet a big snake carried by a CM. Despite having a horrible phobia against things with 8 legs (I actually woke up crying the other night because I had a dream of our holiday-time tree having some awful-looking 8-legged creatures in it). The goat area got closed really fast because someone sent the word that there was lightning in the area.

So we went inside. I'd never gotten much of a sense of what this place was. It's a big, open, nice area, with things to see and do. There are some booths with either movies or audio things in it, which we didn't do. We came upon a meet and greet with Pocahontas and Jiminy Cricket (odd combo), which we didn't take part in (and now I hear they are being moved from that spot). They had lots of glassed-in areas where I suppose CMs work during more worktime hours. They were empty when we were there, though.

I tried to take pictures of most of the place, starting from the far wall to the left as we walked in, and continuing in a counter-clockwise direction. I have skipped the part with arachnids, however, as I was thankfully steered nicely away from it (Robert not wanting to deal with me waking up with nightmares).


If you are phobic about snake-like creatures, beware! There's a close-up picture of a skink's face (a weird snake/lizard creature...snake with legs, basically) in this group of pictures!!!!!!

A skink.

Iguana-dude.

It was definitely time to go, as the day was getting late and it was still threatening rain.

Since AK closes earlier than the other parks, and we still had not seen Wishes (Hallowishes, sure, but not Wishes) AND I wanted a chance of them seeing the light parade, we had decided to head over to Magic Kingdom for the evening.

On the way out, of course, I took pictures.

I want this color scheme for a door in a house whenever we have a house.

So finally we got out, managed to get on a tram at the last minute before it left, and went on our way.

 

[bumbershoot]

Hi Michele, didn't see you there! Isn't that a FUN outfit? The hair is great.


Yes, dinner was a chore. The bright side was that when he asked for more tofu, they made up some new stir fry right there for him. With that, we realized that the tofu noodle bowl is just stir fry with broth. And with that, we realized that if one day we aren't in the mood for a soup, we could just ask for the stir fry.

 

[kaoden39]

I would love to go on that safari!! That is a great picture of the skink and the iguana.