Thanksgiving AND New Year's?! Whew! - Update 3/12 Pg. 17

[IheartDDuck]

Wow on how empty AK was...there was hardly anyone there! The pictures look great. Can't believe how much you got done within an hour

Yay on riding TSM again - I would have been happy with the score you got (especially getting best in vehicle) but am not as competitive

The green army man imitating Justin Beiber had me

Ha ha, yeah, I just tend to be a little on the competitive side. I'm more competitive with myself more than anything else.

The army men were priceless. So awesome!

 

[IheartDDuck]

I was thoroughly refreshed from my frozen coke break, and I was ready to go. We wandered slowly around and headed over to Sunset Blvd. There were not too many crowds and the wait times weren't too bad yet. We hopped in line for RnRC.

As soon as we hopped in line, there was a delay and everyone hopped out. Silly mortals.

Having worked at Six Flags for ironically six years, I know full well that you should always wait for a while before you decide to bail. It's really amazing to me how impatient people are, because when the announcement was made, so many people bailed out that we got almost all of the way into the building. It was only 10 minutes and the ride was running again.

Interesting thing happened here. When we headed into the room to "see" Aerosmith, the two cast members that were in there were joking around the entire time and talking on the microphone over the pre-show. Not to be boring or anything, but when I was a supervisor at Six Flags in the rides department, this wouldn't have been tolerated. I told my dad if I was their sup, I would have written them up for microphone abuse. I feel even stronger about this though in Disney, because the pre-show is part of the ride experience, especially for people that have never been on the ride before. I think it takes away some of the magic. I wasn't going to complain to someone about it, but I certainly hope that they get talked to about it. I feel very strongly about customer service, and especially the image that Disney represents. I know teenagers can be teenagers, but they have a reputation and a brand to uphold. Sorry, rant over....

When we got into the alleyway, we were assigned to our car. There was another delay here, and for about 10 minutes they were cycling empty trains around the track. Not sure why, but it wasn't for long, and we were on the ride shortly after that.

After the concert, we headed back over to....

The wait time for ToT was posted at 40 minutes, but we'd had good luck so far. The wait time wasn't too bad, until we got into the boiler room. They were completely overloaded and it took us a very long time to get an elevator. I don't know where the delay was, but this time alone pushed our wait time up to about 40 minutes.

I hate it when this stuff happens. My dad and I got separated in the boiler room because people insist on being so pushy and thinking that getting 2 feet in front of their location is going to help them. Again, I totally do not understand why people are so impatient! He waited for me to the side and I caught up.

After that, we slowly started walking over to TSM to use our fastpasses, but still had some time to kill.

We saw some of the street characters. They were too funny! What an awesome job to have. Disney, if you're hiring, I could be obnoxious and funny! Seriously!

We decided to catch Muppetvision to eat up some time.

Still love it! I totally watched the Muppets Take Manhattan the other day, because I love them!

Once the movie was over, it was time for our fastpasses at TSM.

Again, I didn't break 200,000. Shoot!

But I was best in vehicle again.

However, I decided that my arm was done!

By this time, we were really hungry. Dad wanted to head back to the hotel because his stomach was a little upset. We figured that night we would head Downtown. We got back and Dad relaxed briefly and took some tums. Then we headed to lunch at Everything POP. It was late, like 2pm, so I'd consider more like linner I guess.

I had the cheesesteak wrap and worms and dirt

Dad had lo mein and a salad

Everything was good as usual.

They had some great gingerbread houses in Everything POP that were all made by castmembers.

After that, we headed Downtown for some light shopping. Mom had told dad she wanted to get me a Dooney and Bourke, but honestly, I didn't want them to spend the money on it. I like them, but not enough for that.

We decided later that we wanted to go see a movie, and True Grit was playing at 4:55pm. We walked slowly from Marketplace to West Side. On the way we went to TrenD, World of Disney, D-Street, and Miss-Matched. I bought a few things (no pictures, sorry!). Mostly Vinylmation, arm warmers, and some 40th anniversary things. Characters in Flight was closed due to wind speeds (shocker!), so that kind of blew that plan.

We stopped at the Candy Cauldron and got some jellybeans and english toffee. We people watched for a while and had a great conversation with a guy from Australia who was visiting with his family for three weeks. He said they made about four stops on the plane ride over, so they were having a difficult time getting on the time zone. He said it was their second full day, but he was still lagged. I told him I understood, because I experienced the same thing when we went to Paris. It's rough.

We then headed into the movie. We picked up Dad's popcorn, because he definitely can't see a movie without it, and some drinks. We ended up going to the wrong auditorium, because the lady up front sold us tickets for Little Fockers instead. Weird. True Grit, Little Fockers. Does that sound the same? I found the theater though.

The movie was good, for anyone who hasn't seen it. One thing completely shocked me at the theater, and I was so shocked I couldn't even take a picture, also because I thought it was wildly inappropriate. There was a girl there who couldn't have been more then 12. She was wearing a see through lace crop top, a bra (more like a bralet, because let's face it, she wasn't even 12), and black, knee high, stiletto boots. It was so inappropriate. She seriously looked like a little....well, I'm not even going to say it. If a grown person was wearing what she was, I would have thought it a little much FOR THE MOVIES! Add the fact she was young? Just wrong.

After we left, we were discussing eating, but had gotten so filled up on candy and popcorn. We just headed back to the hotel. I felt like we had gotten a lot of things accomplished without running ourselves ragged. No more commando for me!

So, we ended our second day nicely.

Up Next: Magic Kingdom! Finally!

 

[TinkerbellLuvr7]

great updates!!!!!

I can't believe how dead AK was! AM EMH are give and take there depending on what you do. If you do safari and EE you pretty much blow your EMH but your plan of attack was awesome! The park is so big that if you did Safari and EE it would eat up your time! I prolly would have done the same thing and then went to Safari right at 9 when the other guests were being let in!

Your food at POP looked yummy!!!!

 

[IheartDDuck]

great updates!!!!!

I can't believe how dead AK was! AM EMH are give and take there depending on what you do. If you do safari and EE you pretty much blow your EMH but your plan of attack was awesome! The park is so big that if you did Safari and EE it would eat up your time! I prolly would have done the same thing and then went to Safari right at 9 when the other guests were being let in!

Your food at POP looked yummy!!!!

I have absolutely no idea why we didn't do the safari....I think maybe I had TSM on the brain.

I love the food at POP. They have such a great variety. No one else has the philly cheesesteak wrap, but it's definitely one of my favorites.

 

[TanzUnited99]

Those people leaving RnR coaster sure were impatient. on the cast members ruining the Aerosmith pre show - that would have totally spoiled it for all of you but especially those experiencing it for the first time.

Hope you manage to break the 200,000 mark soon.

Love the gingerbread house pics at Pop - have not seen them before. Sounds like you had a great time at DTD, apart from the shock at the pictures!

 

[IheartDDuck]

Those people leaving RnR coaster sure were impatient. on the cast members ruining the Aerosmith pre show - that would have totally spoiled it for all of you but especially those experiencing it for the first time.

Hope you manage to break the 200,000 mark soon.

Love the gingerbread house pics at Pop - have not seen them before. Sounds like you had a great time at DTD, apart from the shock at the pictures!

I loved the gingerbread houses too! I had never seen those before either, so it was a nice surprise, and the castmember's who made them were very talented.

 

[wdwgirl03]

I don't know how I got so far behind!

First of all, that cupcake from Starring Rolls looks amazing! I keep telling my sister about that place and how we have to go there on our trip. I think it'll be hard to stay out now that we keep watching all these cake/cupcake shows on TV. haha!

Woo hoo for AK being so empty. Your Dinosaur ride picture is hilarious.

Nice scores on TSM even if you didn't quite beat 200,000.

 

[IheartDDuck]

I don't know how I got so far behind!

First of all, that cupcake from Starring Rolls looks amazing! I keep telling my sister about that place and how we have to go there on our trip. I think it'll be hard to stay out now that we keep watching all these cake/cupcake shows on TV. haha!

Woo hoo for AK being so empty. Your Dinosaur ride picture is hilarious.

Nice scores on TSM even if you didn't quite beat 200,000.

I totally saw on someone else's TR that Starring Rolls has a Butterfinger cupcake too! I'm totally going to have to get that one the next time around.

 

[Emilyswish]

I just caught up on your New Year's trip! Great report.

Wow, AK was really empty compared to MK where we went on 1/1/11. It wasn't too bad when we got there around 9 though. I wish I would've thought about a little bit more because we had to skip AK and we really could've gone to AK that morning and probably still gotten to MK for our ADR at 11:30. Darn! That's what happens when you're a newbie I guess!

 

[IheartDDuck]

I just caught up on your New Year's trip! Great report.

Wow, AK was really empty compared to MK where we went on 1/1/11. It wasn't too bad when we got there around 9 though. I wish I would've thought about a little bit more because we had to skip AK and we really could've gone to AK that morning and probably still gotten to MK for our ADR at 11:30. Darn! That's what happens when you're a newbie I guess!

New Year's is kind of like uncharted territory for everyone. I had a feeling that it would be empty that morning, but I wasn't entirely sure how it was going to turn out.

 

[Nermel9]

Great updates! Can't believe how empty AK was! I love EE, I could ride that over and over! Dinosaur though? I can't be bothered! I suppose I should give it another try, since everyone loves it, but I went on it once and that was enough for me!

I can't believe you score so high on TSM! Wait til you see my scores on the last day of my trip!

 

[IheartDDuck]

Great updates! Can't believe how empty AK was! I love EE, I could ride that over and over! Dinosaur though? I can't be bothered! I suppose I should give it another try, since everyone loves it, but I went on it once and that was enough for me!

I can't believe you score so high on TSM! Wait til you see my scores on the last day of my trip!

The only reason that my scores end up that high is at the expense of my arm......I pretty much have no feeling in it at all when I leave the ride.

 

[IheartDDuck]

So this day starts out earlier then I anticipated.

We were asleep, and I got a text message at about midnight. It was my mom telling me that my grandma had told her there was a fire at Disney World. Right after that, she sent me another one saying that she had checked it online and that the fire was at Universal Studios at Dudley Do Right's Ripsaw Falls. She said it was destroyed. We all know that's not true, but that's the funny part of getting news too early. I tried surfing the internet, but for some reason, my phone gets jacked up service inside POP.

Well, I figured I would wait until morning, but then Dad woke up because he had gotten scared when the phone beeped. I explained the story to him about Dudley Do Right. Then I said:

"The ironic part is that it's a water ride."

Seriously, we must have been really tired and punchy because the two of us starting laughing for about 5 straight minutes before we stopped. Like it was the funniest thing we had ever heard.

When I got up in the morning I turned on the news right away and was able to find out that the ride was damaged but not destroyed and that no one was hurt.

This was our Magic Kingdom day. I woke up at 7am and got myself ready. Then I got Dad up and we were ready to go by 7:45am. We headed into the food court for breakfast. I was really hungry, because not having any dinner the night before had kind of caught up.

We went into Everything POP.

I ordered:

Dad got the bounty platter........again:

The new dining plan had begun because it was 2011, so we were no longer able to get two drinks with breakfast. That's okay with me, because normally it was too much anyway. Breakfast was good and we were done and out the door by 8:30am.

The bus stop for the Magic Kingdom was a little bit on the full side, but not too bad. A bus came shortly after we arrived and we all loaded on. Here is another of my mini rants. Every time there is standing room only, why are people over the age of 60 and children standing, and perfectly young, healthy and capable men are sitting? I grew up with a father who always gave and still gives his seat up. Why aren't men like this today? This particular bus ride really got to me. Dad and I were standing, and that was fine with me. But there were lots of little children standing and they had to, because no 30 something guys gave up their seats. Seriously, man up. Or are you too big of a pansy that your legs can't possibly hold you upright for a 10 minute bus ride. Maybe people don't agree with me on this, but seriously when a 3 year old kid is standing, and a 35 year old man is sitting, I see this as fundamentally wrong.....

So other than having a lot of pansy guys on our bus, the ride was pretty uneventful. We got to the park at about 8:45am, and I was super excited, because I have never seen the welcome ceremony for the Magic Kingdom. I know, how many years have I been going to Disney World and I've never seen this. There is something wrong here....

Once the welcome ceremony was done, the crowds headed in. I find it funny that they have an announcement that goes over the speaker, reminding people to walk to their destination calmly. We really are a society that needs to be reminded of this, aren't we?

Dad and I had a plan today. We were going to take our normal afternoon break and come back at night, so we had things we wanted to do specifically this morning. First things first, we headed to.....

We opted to wait in line rather then get fastpasses, and since it was our first ride, our wait wasn't long. 10 minutes, if anything. It was fun as always. I got the last seat, and this is the one that always makes me laugh because it's the one where the turns seem to get you the most.

After that, Dad wanted to ride Buzz.

He was on a mission

And he told me I was going down......

For the first time ever, we had technical difficulties with our car. Every time you would touch the joystick, the car would spin and spin. There was no way to regulate it. Needless to say, this made our ride more difficult then it would normally be. I still got a pretty good score, but dad didn't.

My score.

I couldn't get dad's score in time. He told me that was fine, because he was really irritated at the spinning car!

When we got off, I told a cast member about the car, so they could take care of it.

So, instead, we hop on the ride again. We got a normal car this time. And everything was allllll good....

My score

Dad's score

Redneck ride photo. Look how focused dad is!

Continued in next post..

 

[IheartDDuck]

After that, we decided to head into Fantasyland. I called mom as we were heading over there to ask her if she had seen anything else on Universal. She said she hadn't, so I filled her in on the details that I had learned that morning. She said it was funny when Grandma told her it was at Disney, because she was trying to get information from her and she couldn't remember anything. I guess Grandma just assumes that all theme parks in Orlando are Disney.

Anyway, it was a little after 10am, and I wanted to check our Peter Pan. It was a posted 40 minute wait, but the line didn't look that long. It wasn't and we made it through and off the ride by 10:30am.

Dad said that this ride makes him laugh, because he likes it, but doesn't understand why people wait so long for it. Two minutes and it's over.

Some Fantasyland pictures.

Can't wait until this is open and the expansion is done!

After some exploring, we headed over to the Haunted Mansion to check it out. We wanted to eat at 11ish to avoid crowds, and we didn't want to do something that we would wait too long for.

Still my favorite ride, and yes I am that person that recites the ghost host's line in the stretching room.

After this, we headed into Tomorrowland for our lunch destination.

Dad had said he really wanted fried chicken, but I wasn't sure of a location in Magic Kingdom that served fried chicken. I think what happened is the last night, he saw the fried chicken at POP, but didn't get it because he wasn't hungry enough. He said that Cosmic Ray's would be fine, because he could get the rotisserie chicken.

Yum!

I got chicken breast nuggets

We had a good view of Sunny Eclipse

For dessert, dad got a brownie and I got carrot cake.

The Yeti was very comfy

We took our time with lunch and everything was very satisfying. After that, we headed over to Frontierland to check our Thunder Mountain. The wait time was listed again at 40 minutes, but we waited. Our motto was "what else are we going to do?"

We did see Dream Along With Mickey briefly..

The wait was more like 30 minutes, and in no time we were on the wildest ride in the wilderness.

After this we contemplated

The wait time was 60 minutes, and neither one of us felt like getting wet, so we decided to forgo the ride.

After this, we headed over to

The wait time was 20 minutes. This is the first time in years that I've waited in line for Pirates. Normally, it's a walk on. After our ride to Tortuga, we decided that we would head back to relax and then return in the evening to do the rest.

Up Next: Shopping and our evening

 

[Nermel9]

What a great morning at MK! I love the opening ceremony, it's so adorable!

I don't think I've ever eaten at Cosmic Ray's, but that rotisserie chicken looks yummy!

 

[IheartDDuck]

What a great morning at MK! I love the opening ceremony, it's so adorable!

I don't think I've ever eaten at Cosmic Ray's, but that rotisserie chicken looks yummy!

I know, opening ceremony is great!

Welcome, welcome, welcome.....

I recommend Cosmic Ray's. They have a lot to choose from and it's all really good.

 

[TinkerbellLuvr7]

great update! Your dad seems like a blast! I wish my dad were like that. He goes to WDW but is super OCD in everything where as your dad seems like the type that will stop and smell the roses where as mine is go go go!!!! I guess he still has a little kid within him otherwise he would refuse to go. I guess he can blame the family obsession on the fact that they went to WDW for their Disneymoon and has gone back countless times since!

I would so vacation with you..I do the ride lines too! ToT is by far my fav. We would ride that on our days off over and over again, eventually made friends with some bell hops, and they'd back door us HM is a fav too!

 

[IheartDDuck]

great update! Your dad seems like a blast! I wish my dad were like that. He goes to WDW but is super OCD in everything where as your dad seems like the type that will stop and smell the roses where as mine is go go go!!!! I guess he still has a little kid within him otherwise he would refuse to go. I guess he can blame the family obsession on the fact that they went to WDW for their Disneymoon and has gone back countless times since!

I would so vacation with you..I do the ride lines too! ToT is by far my fav. We would ride that on our days off over and over again, eventually made friends with some bell hops, and they'd back door us HM is a fav too!

My dad is the best, truly. He used to be go go go, but I think now that's he's taken his time, he's realized that you can have a good time and relax at the same time.

I love lines! I think it's a great way to interact with your party too, you know? You get to talk and just have fun. You're on vacation, where else are you going to go.

I'm thinking DIS meet in the future?

 

[TanzUnited99]

Love that you got to see the MK opening ceremony after all this time!

Laughed at that picture of your dad telling you that you were going to go down! He sure was on a mission!

 

[IheartDDuck]

Love that you got to see the MK opening ceremony after all this time!

Laughed at that picture of your dad telling you that you were going to go down! He sure was on a mission!

Oh, he's always on a mission.....he just rarely succeeds!