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Hello everyone and
to join us on the most magical trip to Walt Disney World yet!! We had pixie dust sprinkled throughout the entire week, from the moment we stepped foot onto Main street, and made sure to spread that pixie dust to others we met along the way. In this "best! week! ever!!" we managed to meet every single character that disney has to offer (minus a few special ones at the Halloween party), rode every headliner more than once, attended a MNSSHP, had some magical experiences with everyone, and managed the do all four parks in one day!!
So, here to join us, is the cast:
First off, me, Katt:
I'm a 22 year old Disney lover from way up here in Canada (Calgary, Alberta for anyone that knows Canada at all). My first trip was this past May, and within 2 days of coming home, Nick & I started to plan this Sept trip, we had had too much fun. I work as a server/"additional cast member" at a dinner theatre up here, and am looking right now for a 2nd job as well. In spare time, I dance/act/all that performing junk, and am currently searching for a Disney audition that would suit me best & is close enough, or at the right time.
My favorite disney character is Tigger, followed closely by Tink (although, I miss the days where Tink was a jealous little "witch", so I lean towards Vidia when it comes to new fairies haha) .
Favorite Princess: Ariel, followed closely by Rapunzel.
Favorite Prince: Eric, followed by either Naveen or Flynn (he counts, right?)
Favorite Villian: Gaston *drool* I dunno what it is, but he's definitely my pick, sure, he's a jerk, but hey, I'll take him!
In terms of Disney World attractions & such, the last time we went, I chickend out of SOOO many rides, I really only did Splash mtn for anything "big", so my favorite things were: Mickey's Phillharmagic or Winnie the Pooh, Beauty & the Beast show, FOTLK. This time, did I conquer my fears? Did I cry on any rides? We'll find out!!
Next, we have Nick:
He's also from around the same Albertan area as I am, just 3 hours North, where I used to live. Originially, I worked at the dinner theatre up there, and that's where we met. On our last trip, we had someone bail out last minute, and accepted whoever got the money in first, and Nick jumped on it. We barely knew each other at that point, and are really glad that he ended up coming, as we now have Disney travel buddies.
His favorite character/Princess is Belle, as you can tell by the immense happiness on his face in the above pic.
His favorite Villian is: Facillier, from Princess and the Frog (did he finially get to meet him?!)
As for attractions, I know he loves the Beauty & the Beast show, and he doesn't do well on thrill rides thanks to motion sickness (will he end up powering through it? Does he throw up while on a coaster? does he dare do mission space?!)
Next, we have Amy:
From the same city as Nick, she works with him at a resturant/bar up there, and he was the one who invited her into Disney World when we began looking for 2 mroe people.
She loves Peter Pan, Tigger, along with character hunting, which worked out great for me. Even after spending a week in Disney with her, I coudn't really tell ya a lot about her haha!! When in Disney, that really becomes the real conversation topic. Hopefully either Nick or Amy herself will jump in with some input!
Finally, we come to Tyler:
(with him in the pic is his adorable nephew Jackson)
He works as a chef in the theatre down here with me, and ended up on this trip by fluke. Something just always seems to go wrong with the person that I bring on the trips to Disney, there's always something that happens that they jump in too fast without consulting their financials, and then have to bail. So, after that happened, Tyler jumped into coming.
He hadn't been to Disney in years, and was really really excited to experience it as an adult, all the thrill rides, even though he doesn't really like them (which ones does he end up doing? Does he love or hate them!?).
He loves the Incredibles, Toy Story & Lion King, and was really hoping to meet some of them on this trip (do we find them??) but aside from that, doesn't really dig the character hunting.
Well, now that we've gotten introductions out of the way, let me brief you all on our itinerary & plans for the week!!
When: Sept 13-19th
With: 5 day park admission & park hoppers
Staying: at Disney's Pop Century.
How: flying down on Delta(is this a good idea? or not?!) & then Magical Express whisks us to our hotel!
Sept 13: check in, relax, maybe we hit up DTD?!
Wed 14th:Magic Kingdom! (do we make ropedrop? Is it so packed we dont get on any rides?)
Thu 15: DHS
Fri 16: Animal Kingdom, followed by MNSSHP
Sat 17: Epcot
Sun 18th: 4 parks, 1 day!! (do we dare?1 )
Mon 19th: relax, check out, fly home. (or do we end up stuck in Minneappolis after a delayed flight?!)
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Well, now that I'm done that, it's nearly time for work, so I'll start with day one at about midnight tonight. I've managed to upload the first 3 days of picks, and resize about 1.5 days of pics, so this will be the only update with crazy large pictures.
Hope you all enjoy, and feel free to ask any questions or put in your own comments throughout the journey!
My day began with finishing up my packing, and making one last run out to superstore to pick up the last few essentials, and making sure everything was ready. Amy & Nick made the 3 hour drive down to Calgary (as flight are close to $150.00 cheaper to fly out from here).
This was the first time Amy had met Tyler & I, and things went over well, we moved their luggage inside, and wandered over to a neighbourhood pub for a drink & some food while we chatted. Heading to bed early, as we had to be up at 5:30am for our 8:20am flight.
Tyler called and booked the cab the night before, and when 5:30 hit we were up at 'em pretty quick, super excited to FINALLY be GOING TO DISNEY WOOORRRLLLDD
We jumped on the first plane...and waited...and waited...and waited...apparently they had forgotten to change/fill the oil in the plane the night before, so they were doing it now. (At least they noticed it, am I right?!) It took about an extra half hour to 45 minutes to actually get up in the air.
So, naturally, we killed the time by taking a few pictures as we waited.
We were a little worried about making our connection in Minneapolis, but it ended up being the gate directly beside where we got off, so we even had time to grab some Mcdonalds before boarding, excited to have only 1 more flight until we landed in the gorgeousness of Orlando!!
I'm pretty sure I'm reading a skymall magazine in that pic, and I don't know how many of you look through it, but it's worth the read! Some of the stuff in there is just downright ridiculous! Not to mention hilarious!
Finally, we landed in Orlando!! I absolutely love the humidity & heat down there, its absolutely amazing, and just feels just like home as soon as we ge off the plane.
Thanks to the last trip we kind of knew where to go after grabbing our bags we headed over! There was basically no line, and no wait before we jumped on a bus!
(This...as you may notice...was the start of Tyler photobombing 90% of the pictures he was in...)
There wasn't a whole lot of people on the bus, probably under 15, mostly families with either really small children (too young for school) or ones with no kids, or (like us!) groups of younger adults.
With a quick stop at Caribbean Beach (I *think* thats the one it was) we were soon dropped off at Pop! Talk about a place that feels like home, I adore that resort, for the price, it's SO worth it, sure, 4 people in 2 double beds is pushin' it by the end of the week, but it's pretty good. I'd love to stay at a deluxe or moderate someday, but that day will come! (The Polynesian....or The Animal Kingdom Lodge w/Savannah View...beautiful).
Check in was quick & simple. Nick linked his credit card to only his card so he could charge stuff to it, and we set off to our room. We were in 1256, building 1 in the 50's. SUPER close to the main building & busses, not to mention, on the opposite side of the resort than Nick & I were last time, a whole new area to explore!!
We had decided earlier while on the way to Orlando that we would head to Down Town Disney, with dinner as our final destination, so we quickly changed, freshened up & walked on over, giddy with excitement!
Our resturant of choice was:
A Prehistoric adventure!! The wait wasn't long, only 10 minutes or so (without an ADR) Amy & I stuck close by in the gift shop while the boys dissappeared to the Lego store & we all checked out the menu.
We were called in & sat over near the bar/giant jellyfish. Wow, that resturant is HUGE, I can't imagine how much work/money goes into it (I have these thoughts a lot at disney). Tyler, of course, being a chef, asked our server how big the kitchen was, and he replied there were 2-3 lines of service, 1 for just appitizers! Amazing.
We ordered some drinks & started to decide on entrees. Our server was Angel, he was awesome! It seemed to be an ongoing trend of cm's happy to have a group of young, childless adults. Not that there's ANYTHING wrong with kids, but it's cool to have someone your own age that you can just 'hang out' with in your section while you work.
I ordered the "5" drink, I can't remember what it was called, but it had a 5 in it haha. Amy had a mango mojito, which prompted me to have a regular mojito!
I'm not sure what Nick had, though I know he ended the night with a martini, while Tyler drank a couple of Bud's.
I had the ribs, with a side of onion rings & mashed potatoes. Delicious! I could kind of tell the ribs had been under a heat lamp for a bit, they were a little dry, but still quite good!
Amy had a pulled pork sandwich, with the potato chips on the side, which she also liked.
Tyler had some form of chicken/turkey sandwich, which he said was amazing & obviously really really liked!
While Nick had the roast chicken & half rack of ribs combo with waffle fries & veggies on the side. He devoured it, so I'm assuming he liked it.
All in all, T-Rex is a great place to eat, I love the atmosphere, but it's not too hectic & loud as it is over at Rainforest cafe. They do dim the lights for a "meteor shower" every little bit, but I don't find it over powering, whereas at Rainforest cafe, the elephants made so much noise what felt like every 5 minutes, I just couldn't enjoy myself.
We all shared bits & pieces of our food across the table, which, ended up in this:
If you can't really see it, there's a piece of chicken that Nick had dropped in his martini! Somehow, Amy & I both noticed it, but he didn't, continuing to drink it until he finally did. Apparently, gin infused chicken, doesn't taste so good! Who knew?!
Amy & I had been eyeing the chocolate explosion dessert, and had been planning on sharing it with the whole table, but the boys weren't up for it after their entrees, so we decided to pass, figuring that the two of us would end up wasting too much of it. So, we cleared up our bill with Angel & headed out.
Downtown Disney is just SUCH a fun place to be, we wandered through all the stores, starting mainly with the World of Disney, trying on some crazy hats as we went!
Ok, maybe those ones aren't too crazy!
We stopped at the little chocolate store on the corner (I can't for the life of me remember the name) I honestly was drawn in by the smell, it just smells too good. They were giving out free chocolate caramel squares, and that ended up being just the amount of dessert we needed.
After wandering the shops, we made sure to drool through Goofy's Candy Co without buying anything, and then I wanted to stop in the Art of Disney to see if they had any Lady & The Tramp stills. THEY DID!! I had looked for it last time, and couldn't find it, thankfully I went back to check again!
It was probably around 9:30 at this point, so we headed back to the hotel to sit by the pool & digest while Nick went for a quick swim.
I was playing around with my camera's settings to try and figure them all out. I had gotten a new camera right before our last trip, that was then stolen from work, and had JUST gotten the claim back to get a new one. They didn't have the same one I had previously owned, just the "next step up" (I put that in quotations because I honestly loved the older one better).
In that one you can *just* see the top of Nick's head, lookin' like a creeper while he swam. Then comes some more love to Lady & the Tramp
I wanted to wander around the resort a little, explore it all, and Amy & Tyler agreed, we headed out, crossing the Classic Hall & around the entire pathway where they have all the signs, along with the bridge going over to what I'm pretty sure is Art of Animation Resort (?) Where I got some shots looking back at Pop.
Along the way around the back paths of the resort, we came across a few things: a bunny!!
(exciting, I know? It's like we come from a place where they don't exist or something...fyi...they're everywhere in Alberta. We had one that lived in our yard for years, made it fun for our dog!)
And some statues to take pictures with!!
After we had come full circle of the resort, we stopped in the food court to use some snack credits for breakfast the next morning, and to pick up our mugs. I was sad that they appeared to have no pink ones left (I'm such a little girl sometimes) so I settled for teal, as did Nick, Amy & Tyler got black ones. (And let me tell you, these mugs ended up going on some adventures along the course of this week!)
After figuring out our plan for the next morning, we were off to bed early, as we were going to rope drop at Magic Kingdom, and this, was something I did NOT want to miss!!
----------------------------------- Highlights of the day: getting a good room at the resort!
-getting into Orlando earlier than expected
-Awesome service & experience at T-Rex
Downs of the day:-Being delayed in Calgary!
Food Ratings:T-Rex: awesome! Would I return, heck yes! It's great for drinks & great for meat & potato meals. One thing to watch for: if you order one of their specialty cocktails, ask for it in a regular class, or you'll end up paying $15.00 for a souvineir cup!
Today was our first full day in Florida & our first day in the parks! And let me tell you, we were as excited, if not more, than 6 year olds. It's a for sure that we were the most excited people as we boarded the bus that morning.
I know some people & guidbooks & such say to go to Magic Kingdom last, so that it doesn't hype you up, and then the rest of the parks aren't as good, but I can't handle going without my dose of the castle for that long.
We were up early at the hotel, Amy & I had grabbed food from the foodcourt the day before, so we ate in the room while we got ready & Tyler & Nick ran down to the foodcourt.
I had a V8 & some watermelon (used 2 snack credits the previous night) and then we were making sure everyone had on some sunscreen, and we were off!!
Amy was the only one of us to have actually seen the opening ceremony at MK, as we had breakfast before the park opened at Crystal Palace last trip. I was thrilled that we'd finally get to see it, though a little nervous, I won't lie, for the number of people who say they tear up in it, and I'm the biggest sap when it comes to Disney!!
We got through the bag check & the turnstiles quickly & hassle free and staked out a spot on the right hand side of the train station to watch & then get goin' into the parks and let those memories begin!
It was an exciting time for all of us! Despite the early rising, and it only being about, 6:45am back home, we were REEEEAAADDDYYY for the best day ever!!
Now, this next pic has a little bit of a story behind it, a friend of Nick & I's, seems to always have the same pose in so many of her pictures. Last trip, we took one with all of us doing it in Epcot and she loved it, following it up with an entire album of the pose on facebook. Naturally, it was going to come out a couple of times this trip as well!
And the ceremony began!!
I hope you can tell how exciting this was!!
Nick managed to catch some amazing reaction shots of us while everything was going on. Now, if you're ever considering whether or not to do a rope drop at Magic Kingdom; DO IT!! Some people say that "it's a cute show, it's nice, I like it". For those of us Disney at heart, it's as incredible as those amazing night-time firework shows. I adored it, completely & totally, it has such a warming feeling, they really are welcoming you into a completely different world!
It's totally awesome, to say the least, and if my convincing thus far doesn't convince you into dragging the little ones out of bed at 7 in time to make it, take this next picture, and just imagine that look on their faces, 'cause believe me, it'll happen. This world is purely magical
Speaking of things that are magical, this little sign is another one, I saw it in another trip report, and remembered to look up & snag a picture on my way through, and I'm glad I did. All over the parks, they've got little quotes from Walt displayed, especially up on all the construction walls, and I think they're awesome, they're good quotes, with lots of meaning & love & imagination behind them.
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Continued in next update!!
The show was over and the rope was dropped, and things went CRAZY!! Okay, so, not really. We didn't see anyone running like a cheetah, or barreling over anyone to make sure they were the first people on Space Mtn or dumbo, but it was still the morning madness. (I personally didn't think it was too bad at all!)
While we were waiting for the opening show to begin, we started to discuss what everyone wanted to accomplish.
Tyler wanted to ride everything!
Nick wanted to do the Hall of Presidents & meet Belle.
Amy wanted to meet Peter Pan
And I wanted to meet Ariel & Tinkerbelle.
Along with go on as many rides & experience as much of the magic that we could. Thanks to my knowledge of what everyone else does/is expected to do, and the fact that it was HOT already! (c'mon, we're Canadians, anything about 15 degrees celcius and we're in shorts...ok...I may be overexaggerating the sterotype there...) we knew we wanted to Splash & Big Thunder. SO, we decided to go the opposite way of all the crowds, and head to Frontierland first, then swing through Adventureland, cross the hub into Tomorrowland, and circle through Fantasy around nap time of all the little ones & hope to be able to hit up all the rides.
Were we planning on leaving the park midday?! Heck no!! Was my response, I was going to stay, well, did everyone stay with me? We'll find out!
Along the way, of course, comes the money shot!
When you see that, the biggest sigh of happiness goes through you & you feel like you've really left the real world behind. Next, comes some of the biggest pixie dust of the trip. We were walking along Main street just a few feet away from Chip! Nick ran up & tapped his shoulder to grab a pic of them:
And Chip handed him to fastpasses for later in the morning for SPLASH!! Woo hoo!! Magic moment #1!!
We neared the front of the castle, and it appeared, everyone had veered off one of the spurs of the "wheel", so I was going to get a nice group shot of everyone else, when who else but the Dapper Dans! Appear and ask if I want to get in one too! The magical moment continued when it looks like there's no one else in the park! (Yeah, no biggie, we just rented out Magic Kingdom for a day...wow..as if...how much would THAT cost!) Magical moment #2!
I of course had to grab one with them in it as well!
We next headed right under the castle, wow is it incredible to walk right through that majestic beauty. (too much?)
We walked past Cinderella's Royal Table, where, perhaps, we would be dining with some royalty later, and exited at the back of the castle. Looking around to take in the sights, and see someone worth stopping for!! Excited for our first character meet of the trip (if you don't count Chip), we definitely stopped to say hi!
(I'd like to take this oppertunity to point out Tyler photobombing in the back of the pic...again....he wasn't doing these on purpose..it just kept happening. We started to joke that he wasn't actually on vacation with us, he was just this weird guy who followed us around)
Now, who was this character we were about to meet??
That's right ladies & gents! The Fairy Godmother! The one & only!! She was awesome! While we were schticking & posing for pics, she made sure to ask each & every one of us who we were looking most forward to meet, and then made sure that we did, in fact, know where to find them! Yay!! Magical moment #3
After sending well wishes to the Godmother, we were once again on our way over to brave the wildest ride in the west! But we couldn't help stopping for some pics on the way. Amy, of course, loving the Peter Pan!
And, boys will be boys...we were hoping they wouldn't get into too much trouble this trip...hopefully they wouldn't end up in these:
Annnddd....gymnasts will be gymnasts...hey...sometime you get so excited to just want to do cartwheels, who was I to hold back?! (so if you saw a girl doing cartwheels in Frontierland on Sept 14th...yup..that would have been me!)
We finally reached our destination!! We chose BTMR to do first, deciding that getting wet could wait 2 minutes. And yes, I mean two minutes. There was no line for Big Thunder, we quite literally walked on!!
We grabbed a couple of pics, and then went off!! Now, I don't really think this ride lives up to his "wildest" repuation. I don't know if it's always like that, or if something was going on this morning, but the train kept slowing down all the time, and it wasn't huugeely fun for any of us. AND! I braved my first Disney coaster!! (I had done Splash last time, that was it) *high fives all around*
Luckily, we had our fun on Splash next!
This is probably my favorite ride in Magic Kingdom, there's so much to it, so much "attraction" paired with the "thrill" of the drops that go with it. It's always one of the rides that makes me think "holy crap this ride is huge" like, how much space it takes up inside, WHERE DOES IT GO?!?! Who knows... mind. blown. Something Amy taught me as well (which works for all coasters) if you look straight forward on the drop, instead of down, it makes it way more intense!
We were supposed to be in the 3rd & 4th row, but the family in the first 2 didn't want to get soaked, so Amy & Nick were in front, with Tyler & I in the back. Let me tell you, that family made the right choice! Amy & Nick came out soaked!!
(And yes, you'll be seeing lots of those "redneck" photos of the ride photos in this TR)
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Now, I will have to leave you there for tonight (just imagine being stuck right before the drop on splash while you wait!) for it is time for some sleep before a long double shift at work tomorrow. Hopefully I can update before then!
Hope you're enjoying so far, and all you lurkers!! Come out & say hi! Let's hear what you have to say/think!? (Also, Nick, Tyler & Amy, if you're out there, feel free to pop in & put in some input for what's been told up to this point, and yes, I've re-arrange the order in a couple of places, but that's fine. No book ever made it perfectly accurate into a movie, right? heehee)
WOW!! SO I just need to let you all in on a little fact. I was typing up this update on my computer, when it decided that I didnt have enough battery power after spending 2 hours uploading & resizing photos. I attempted to update from my Iphone, thought it was working, but couldnt copy & paste the photo links, and thought I had lost the update for once & all. Low & behold, I turn on my computer, and the updates still here! Just waiting for me to finish it! HECK! YES!
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Where I left off, we had just ridden Splash & Big Thunder Mountains, and walked on each. At this point, I'm pretty sure that we walked on Splash again, and rode in the front rows, again, let me tell you, going straight to Frontierland & beating the crowds & lines was the best idea!
After finishing Frontierland (we decided that if we wanted to do Country Bears, we'd come back later) we headed over to Adventureland, stopping first to cruise through the seas & battle some Pirates!!
I love this ride. I love pirates, I love the movies, I dunno, some weird obsession (and honestly, it has little to nothing to do with Johnny Depp's level of attraction) it's the whole idea of pirates & the awesomeness of them that lures me in. Theyre so bad! Haha
After braving the 7 seas & facing off against some fearsome lads in desperate need of a shower & some vitamin C, we headed into Agrabah! As our touring plans for this trip planned on doing absolutely everything, we jumped into line for what I believe most think is a little kid ride.
I can only assume that such an experience would be much more thrilling at night, while Aladdin convinces you to love him through song. *swoon*
However, it was still fun! The boys were in the front, and had control of how high we were going, but Amy & I spent the majority of the ride trying to figure out what the heck the button in the back of the carpet does?! We thought maybe it made the camel spit, but were sure thats not it anyone know?? We concluded that it was put there to make the lil ones who get stuck sitting in the back that theyre contributing something cool too!
We stepped off of our carpets & poked our head into the Jungle beside us, seeing that the wait time was a little too long for our liking, we continued onward, with tasty treats on our horizon! Can you guess what we had??
DOLE WHIPS! Thats right!! Now, at this point, it was only about 11:00, maybe even only 10:30, but hey! When on vacation, you can have ice cream for breakfast right?! (At least...us who didnt come our parents can!) Delicious! Amy had the orange ice cream, which was actually reeeeally good too! I think I prefer the pineapple vanilla swirl over the float, its just a bit too much pineapple for me, I dunno, Im an odd duck.
As we were devouring our ice creams (they were melting extremely fast!) Nick pointed out the Disney Fairies This Way sign, and I had to stop! Thinking that the veranda was where they were, we moved that way, only to notice a certain Prince & Princess in that direction, and I was QUITE alright with stopping.
As you may have been told, Ariel is my favourite princess, hands down. WHO, that grew up in the 90s, didnt swim around swimming pools with their legs together pretending they were a mermaid? Who didnt sing her ah-ah-ah song (the one while Ursala takes her voice) Well, not only was she there, but she was with Prince Eric! (dreamboat!!)
Unfortunately, all of these photos are on the photopass (and there are some great ones!) But I have to say, this was one of the best character interactions of the trip! The characters can either really live up to their roles, or just not be that great, and this was an example of the first.
I jumped up like a little girl to finally meet them! After Ariel signed my book, I asked for a hug, we attempted, and Prince Eric jumped in to save the day (naturally), saying hed take the book so we could get a real hug! (Which theres an awesome photo of!).
While we talked, Ariel said something about me being Canadian, to which Eric & I were both confused, Eric asked does she just *look* Canadian to which Ariel said of course! She was great!! We took some pics just the 3 of us, before the rest of the group jumped in. They were great at instigating conversation & schtick & such. Ariel noticed we had a total of 3 guys & 3 girls, and made sure we got a picture of the boys looking heroic & the girls swooning over them..
Ill post the pics as soon as I can! It was definitely a blast of an experience!! I later realized that the bag I carry in the parks is a Roots bag, which is a big brand up here in Canada, and realized that Ariel must have a rather good Canadian friend that would have noticed such a thing & made a connection. It made it just *that* much more magical that she just appeared to know where I was from, it was fantastic! Magical Moment #4.
On our way out of the veranda, we saw that the wait time was short for fairies, and I said I was going to jump in it, whether everyone else was or not, so we did! When we were last there in May, and I longed to meet Tink (though honestly, as I said earlier, I prefer the Peter Pan Tink to the new movies Tink,) but I still love her & her fairy friends. Vidia has the feisty-ness that I like, and I love Rosetta partly because shes voiced by Kristen Chenoweth, and partially because before the movies came out, I played a fairy at work, Teensie-Bell, Tinks little sister, who was a red-head (back when I was) and had a pink outfit, then I saw Rosetta! Who knew!?
Our group was the only one above the age of 18 without a small child with us, embarrassing? Never! (as there were many points that that was the trend on this trip ) There were a couple of little ones dressed up like Tink, and one was JUST ADORABLE, her dress was amazing too, almost better than the real Tink. We made sure to show our excitement!
Or lack there of in some cases soon enough, we were shrunk down to size & let into Pixie Hollow, where, who should we find, but two of my favourites!!
I obviously knew Tink would be in there, but didnt know which one of her friends would be, and was happy to see Rosetta in with her. Rosetta was great, not overly schticky, but I didnt really know what to say to any of the fairies, its a little different than Princesses who I grew up knowing. But she was talkative, made sure to be super nice & friendly, talk about flowers, etc. I liked her!
We grabbed a group shot, and moved over to Tink.
This was the point that I became a little disappointed (though thanks to the Ariel interaction, it wasnt nearly as bad as it could have been!) I was so pumped to meet Tink, and this one just wasnt that great. this time, Tink just didnt do it for me.
Nick could tell I wasnt really feelin it either, as he brought it up on the way out, but whatevs, sometimes things are hits, sometimes theyre misses, its all good!
As you can probably tell, as I'm 5 updates in, and it's not even noon on the first day, there was A LOT of picture taking, and we did absolutely as much as we could!!
After finishing up with the fairies, we crossed the bridge into the main hub, and saw what we thought was a parade coming, so, the boys, being boys, ran across to the little island, trying to get across into Tomorrowland. We figured we could just cut across after the parade was past that spot...and then noticed...that it wasn't a parade...it was that little dance party thing that they do a bunch of times a day, and we were trapped!!! EGADS! Okay, okay, so it wasn't that bad, we joined right in! ...kind of...we took a lot of pictures of the party itself, and some of the things around us while we waited.
This is one of the best things about Disney, just being able to sit back, relax, and enjoy your surroundings, the place can be sooo much better if you just immerse yourself into it, let everything soak in & be amazing.
Mad Hatter!! Would we ever get to meet him!??
Amy & I had fun running around to all the boxes trying to guess who was going to pop up next, and where they would be, while Nick enjoyed watching this guy bust a move!
I give SUCH props to these performers. Obviously, everything at Disney requires so much work & effort, but I honestly think the ones in the parades get most of my appreciation. They're out there, in the beating hot sun, giving it their all, doing the same moves over & over again, and just ROCKIN IT!! (Not to mention, their make up & hair seems to stay perfect!)
Mr Incredible!! Tyler's a happy boy if we get to meet him sometime..here's hopin we do!
Nick's favorite dancer for one last pic before they take off back down Main St & through those magical doors that no one ever seems to see behind!
With our pathway cleared, we crossed the street, and headed over into a land of the future, where space rangers, aliens, monsters & mountains were waiting, just for us to experience them like they were made for!
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Aaaaannnd here is where I leave you for tonight! It's been a long day, and 2 updates should be enough for now. I'm off to check out the Lion King in 3D tomorrow! YAY!! I'll make sure to keep ya updated!
We had braved a lot of lands & rides thus far, but we headed for a tamer one to start off our adventure in the future. Tyler's a big pixar fan, especially Toy Story & Buzz, so where were we off to first?!
To battle the evil emporer Zurg of course!! As you may notice is a continuing theme, there was little to no line for this ride, we walked right on, but made sure to grab some pics in the cue as well.
This. Is what I love about Disney, how absolutely everything is so themed & done so well. And it did kind of suck to be walking on all these rides, as we didn't really get to carefully look at everything while waiting to board, but it was still a blessing, I would hate to have to wait in lines over 30 mins. (And that's when the wait's actually 30 mins, not, however long it takes you to walk through the cue & get on! haha)
Tyler was definitely the star of this ride, obviously, why wouldn't you want to join Buzz Lightyear in the mission to save Earth!?
I had never been on this ride before, thankfully, Amy had, so she knew when to spin, and where to shoot, obviously, she beat me, by a lot! At the beginning of the ride I actually asked "are we just supposed to shoot everything?" After being told where to shoot, we were off, and deeply involved in our games!
After finishing up our battle with Zurg (and defeating thanks to people like Amy! ) we got right in line to see no less than the hero himself!! Buzz! I'm pretty sure Amy & I saw him first, and knowing Tyler would want to meet him, jumped in to make sure they wouldn't close the line before us. Tyler was excited, even if it didn't show!
(At least he looks more excited than while we waited for fairies!)
All the pics are on the photopass (of course!) and we did get some great ones. Tyler went in first, and got some great interaction & pics. He had his sunglasses on his shirt, Buzz motioned for him to put them on, they took a couple of pics, then Buzz walked up to Amy, and motioned for her to let Tyler borrow her sunglasses for some pics, so that he would look more like a Space Ranger himself! So awesome. We grabbed a couple of group shots & then headed across Tomorrowland to conquer our next mountain! However, we were stopped by these guys on the way over:
I always find Chip & Dale to have GREAT interactions, they're fantastic, I love how they always try to walk away with girls, and shamelessly flirt (a lot of characters do that too!). When we jumped up for a pic, one of them went to shake Nick's hand, and did this whole elaborate hand shake before posing for the pic. The greatest thing was that after we had looped the park again, and saw them heading backstage for an acorn break, the chipmunk ran up to Nick, and did the same handshake as before! Magical Moment #5 (I think we're on 5?)
Chip & Dale sent us on our merry way, and Amy & Tyler hopped in line for Space Mtn. This ride is one I have yet to do thanks to having some problems with flashing lights. (I had a pretty bad head injury last Christmas, and the next day at work, couldn't be out in the room during the stobe light bit of the show, and looking at flashing lights, especially in the dark, gives me almost instant headache & dizziness. Even those flashy tinkerbell wings are a bit too much!) So, I sat this one out, as did Nick. We waited in the dump..I mean gift...shop for our braver friends, I shopped a bit (bought one of the birth stone Mickey rings & a Tink bag. I'll post pics of all the souvineers at the end!) while Nick enjoyed the massage chairs!
Amy & Tyler came out of their Space mission alive, and loving the experience! At this point, we had ridden all 3 mountains, and accomplished all of the park but Fantasy Land, and it was just noon!! Thanks to the early morning & heavy activities, we decided it was time for lunch. Last year we had eaten at Cosmic Rays, and decided to jump over there, as it was right there!!
I love this place for counter service, they've got *such* a great selection, and I love how all the sandwiches are grouped together, all the burgers, etc, I find it makes it easier. One thing though, that I didn't notice last time, is that there is a "toppings bar" over on the Fantasyland side. I ate my chicken burger just chicken & bun, and was all disappointed there was no veggies on it!
This time, Nick & Tyler got burgers, Amy & I got the Turkey Sandwich, with carrot cake, and water. This was our first time ordering food with the dining plan, and I was a little confused at first, having forgotten about getting dessert. Every time, youll think to yourself wow! This is WAY too much food but by the end of the week, that sugar rush is saving you midday!
The sandwich was incredible! And the carrot cake was a favourite dessert for me! The cheesecakes they have a good, Im not big on the chocolate one, this ones my favourite. And the fries are really yummy too!! Lunch was a hit!
After a quick restroom stop, we picked up where we left off in Tomorrowland (Im pretty sure Tyler wanted to ride Space Mtn again, but the line was too long) but we saw our favourite, adorable little alien friend was out, so we jumped in his line. And then he left!! His handler said he was going for some pineapple juice & would be back at 1:30 so we decided to wait. All the families infront of us decided the wait was too long, so we were first in line! Well, Stitch must have been trying to drink all of Hawaii out of pineapple juice, because 1:30 came and went, and he wasnt back! Amy & I decided that coming back was a good idea, so we jumped onto the People Mover! A nice ride to take while digesting lunch!
This rides great! I like that it takes you inside a bunch of the rides, I didnt know that! You also get a great view of the park, and some opportunities to snag great pics, and its a nice slow ride that takes a break from the busy-ness bustling below you. As we boarded, Nick & Tyler kept joking around that Stitch was going to show up once we got on the ride, and kept going LOOK! STITCH! to fool us, which ended up being true. As we were whisked around Tomorrowland, we watched Stitch meet & greet with other people
One of the coolest things about the People Mover: going inside Space Mtn! It was a cool way to see parts of it without actually going on the coaster, it was awesome! And of course Paging Mr Morrow, Mr Tom Morrow as soon as I heard it I smiled, and thought of the numerous trip reports I had read that love it, and instantly loved it as well. The people mover became a fave ride that day!
Luckily, the ride didnt take too long, and we were able to jump in line for Stitch as soon as we got off!
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I'm going to at least start a continued update, but it might not be up til later, I'm leaving for Lion King in approx 20 minutes (and Circle of Life just came on my Ipod, how while timed! ) So we'll see how fast I can type!!
I absolutely adore Stitch, I love Lilo & Stitch, and definitely watched the TV show when it was on! I also love that Kevin McDonald from Kids in the Hall is in it (Pleakly!) Kids in the Hall is a Canadian sketch comedy tv show, and if you havent heard of it, or ever bothered watching it, I highly recommend. Its definitely meant for an of age audience, but I find it hilarious!!
Our adorable little alien friend was as excited to meet us as we were him!!
I love that even if you try to just run in & grab a group photo, some of the character will insist on taking the time for everyone to have their interaction. We had a lot of luck with fantastic characters this time. Sometimes I do feel bad in line when theres a giant amount of kids around, and I dont want to take up time that they could use to meet characters, so I try to just let them have as much as possible, but I found on this trip, everyone was very no, no, youre a kid too! which, especially at Disney, is very, very true!
I also love the amount of attention & love & flirting they give you! We got kisses from everyone! Nick walked up and asked Stitch Whats up? to which, Stitch replied with:
Of course Nick! The sky! (and the People Mover Track.. ) He had some good interaction, then they posed like Back Street Boys!
Then with my turn, of course, I was smitten, and it appears so was Stitch a little bit. (Love at first sight?! Naw, theres a love for Stitch, but as we all know, Tiggers my fave! Sorry Stitch!) He does take a close place in my top 5 though!
It was getting HOT out, and, us being accustomed to plus 20 Celsius, plus 25 at the most, the above 30 degree heat was getting to us. Our next big destination? Why, back at Splash of course! Having entered Tomorrowland from the Hub, we decided now would be a good time to loop through Fantasyland, plus we figured most of the kiddies would be heading down for naps, and we might get to catch some of the rides on the way.
As it turned out, most of the rides still had an above 20 min wait, so we decided the evening would be better, and wed check on our next loop of the park, we definitely took lots of pictures on our way past though (never saw that one comin, did ya?)
Amy does sure love her some Alice, so we had to stop and grab those ones. On our adventure, we saw someone from the 100 Acre Wood who caused Amy & I to get VERY excited, as he was a character we thought wed NEVER see, one thats supposedly never out. Im guessing thanks to the new movie he comes out every once in a while, but we never managed to find the 100 Acre Wood Gang in Fantasy Land, we saw them going in & out, but never managed to find their destination, so we settled for a distant pic. Are you ready to find out who we saw?!
SHOCKED?!? I KNOW, RIGHT?! I literally jumped up & down. Him & Pooh were on their way back inside though, and we couldnt see a line up waiting for the next set, so we continued through, stopping to check out some of the info for the construction, and, of course, Nick had to stop for a pic with his Princess!
(Anyone else find it highly amusing that shes a good head taller than him? Haha!)
(Here he is trying to prove that hes just as good, if not better than the Beast?)
I dont know about you all, but I am suuuuper excited to come & see all the new stuff when its done! Im thinking that maybe even Nick, Amy & I (&maybe Tyler) would want to go back together when its all open? We traveled really well together (in my opinion at least) so I think it would be a good idea. Although I am planning a surprise trip with my mom next Sept, and it says itll be opening in 2012. Im wondering if itll increase crowds way too much, and if theyll all be centered there, so itll be nice to experience everything else, or if itll end up being just way too crowded? Anyone else have thoughts?
I dont know how many of you have seen the video on the 7 Dwarfs coaster, but you should definitely check it out! It looks wicked awesome, the carts themselves rock back & forth while youre going on down the track!
Thanks to Fantasyland being kinda crowded, we opted for Mickeys Phillharmagic, as its a show, and can fit so many people at once, it seemed like the feasible option for the moment.
Those glasses sure look super hot on everyone, dont they? Haha! Phillharmagic is another one of those magical, magical things at Disney, and its one of the ones that I love the 4-D stuff, sometimes its a little too much, or the wet portions are just too wet, but this one balances very nicely, especially during Be Our Guest, with the smells, LOVE! During this trip I also grew fonder & fonder of Donald, hes slowly becoming a favorite character, definitely my favorite out of the Fab 5! Hes just so cute! Haha.
Upon exiting the gift shop (without buying anything, yay!) we continued on our wanderings back towards Frontierland!
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Just to pause for a real life upate while I'm here, I just got back from Lion King in theatres! We didn't go for the 3D one, but WOW was it majestic!! Amazing! There's a reason it was my favorite as a kid! Nearly cried so many times!
We had just left Fantasyland behind us, as most of the rides had 20 or more minute waits, and we figured we would come back later to take advantage of the non existant lines. We also knew we'd be coming back to Magic Kingdom later on the trip, and weren't too worried about hitting up everything in the first day.
We walked through Liberty Square, and noticed that the Liberty Boat (is that what it's called?) was about to depart, so we figured, why not?! And jumped on for the ride.
A nice view of the haunted mansion, which, I know we did, possibly more than once in the first day, but I'm not sure when. It may have been right before this, who knows?
Around this point, we realized that if Tyler wasn't on the edge of the group while taking photos, he didn't look like such a photobomber! Yay!
The boat ride was nice, a relaxing cruise around the waters, showing you all the stuff around there. I will admit that it was HOT if you were standing out in the sun, against the railings, but I found a nice place in the shade for some of the ride!
That was NOT the crowd level for the day, this was right around parade time, so that's just everyone condensing in one place at one time. The crowds were amazing while we were there!
It was somewhere around this point that I began messing around with the settings on my camera, to try and take some fancy shots, and somehow missed up the ratio of height & width of the pictures I was taking, so ALL of them from here until halfway through the next day are 4:3 instead of like, 6:10. Booooooo
I liked how much you can see from the boat while it goes around, lots of really good ride picture oppertunities, and everyone waves at you! haha
The boat docked again, we said goodbye to it, and continued around the corner into Frontierland, bypassing Country Bears again (would we ever go visit them?) and made our way over to Splash. At this point, the line up was 20 or more minutes to stand by, and Nick still had those fast passes from Chip this morning. He asked the cast member at the gate if he could use them, and then the four of us began having a "no-you go!" conversation. We only had 2 fast passes, and Amy & I said we would be fine waiting in the big line, or waiting until later, we knew the boys wanted to ride. But the boys felt bad just leaving us, and wanted us to take the passes and go. The amazing cast member who Nick had checked with earlier overheard us telling the other people "no it's fine, really, you go" and dissappeared for a second, then came back with one of the "good for any ride, any time, any amount of people" fast passes, and said "you all go!". I guess it was just a nice break from people *arguing* over who gets to go, as in, "NO! I WANNA GO".
Magical moment #6!! So, we were off! I seem to remember as we sped by everyone in the stand-by line, feeling a little bad, and disscussing how amazing this whole fast pass thing was. Seriously!! Amazing thing it is!
Guh. Favorite ride. I just love it! (Also I just have to jump in here & say that last night at work, someone was going through a bunch of bed tracks-the song track without the words in them- and they started playing Zip A Dee Do Da, and all I could think was "It's Splash Mtn!")
I think it was on this ride as well that Tyler noticed the sign saying that we were going into "The Laughing Place", and realized "OH! I was wondering why the heck everyone was laughing!" From the first ride. Amy also noticed the possoms (opossoms?) hanging from the roof. I can't remember where in the ride they are anymore though!
Now that we were nicely refreshed after a meeting with our favorite little rabbit, we were sure to grab some fast passes for later & we made a plan to head to Town Square Theater & meet up with some Princesses. Starting through Adventureland, we decided to stop for some Royalty we saw there!
These guys were great (though, we definitely encountered some obnoxious line cutters behind us, the cm did a great job controlling everything), of course though, all the pics are on the photopass! As we were all saying hi and getting pictures, Aladdin (maybe it was Jasmine?) noticed Nick's tatoo, which is of the Zelda hearts, and asked what it meant. Nick said it was from Zelda, to which they replied with "a what?"
Nick: "It's a video game"
Aladdin: "I HAVE A VIDEO GAME! Have you ever played it??"
Turns out, Nick had, and was actually playing it a couple of days before we had left! They talked about how hard it was, and how Abu constantly played it, and was far better than Jasmine or Aladdin. We said goodbye to our Arabian friends and continued on. The wait for the Princesses was only around 15 minutes, so we jumped right in line.
It's always exciting to meet characters (except for Tyler..haha) and hey, you gotta look good, so hair touch ups are always needed!
Tyler became photographer for this little set, and Nick only cared about Belle (of course) so it was a girls only photoshoot. Aurora asked if I had come in contact with her fairies, as it looked like they had been fighting over a pink or blue shirt for me, and it had come out purple. She said that would be a really good comprimise for her dress. She said something similar about Amy's stripes, though I'm pretty sure she said it wouldn't look as good on a dress.
This next set of pictures just really makes me laugh, the first time we saw it, the group was histarical. I'm not really sure what was going on at all, but Belle was really good with interaction. I'm sure it must be kinda weird to have men come up, wanting a picture of just them, and you can tell some of them get weirded out (or even just with a group of adults). But this Belle was great, talking back, joking around it was good!
She commented on my twist/braid in my hair, and said I must have been hanging out with Rapunzel, and that I should try to convince her to do something like that, as her hair just gets everywhere!
Cinderella was kind of bland, I don't really remember her interacting at all. Probably the usual "are these your Princes?" to which Amy & I laugh and say no, and the Princess mentions something about them keeping us safe & not to get eaten by dragons, etc. Same old, same old. One thing I noticed this time around, which was actually kind of creepy, was that Aurora & Cinderella both had blue contacts in. (which obviously made sense, they have blue eyes in the movies, and need to be accurate) However, they were BRIGHT blue, gawdy blue, Amy & I didn't really get over the shock, and couldn't stop staring at them. Weird. Disney needs to find some more natural looking contacts.
Now that we were done with the Princesses, we decided it was time to meet none other than the Mouse himself! His wait was only about 5 minutes, so there was no not going!
I like the set up they have in there, super cute. Mickey & Minnie were good, nothing to really write home about. They both gave us hugs & kisses, Nick flirted with Minnie, which did not please Mickey, but they came to terms with things. There was also an "oh god" moment for me at least, while taking pictures, Tyler went to put his arm around Minnie, and whacked her, hard right in the face. He felt so bad! I'm hoping she wasn't hurt at all
With our meet & greets finished up, we exited Town Hall, and came right into an encounter with.....an Ice Cream Cart! Well, on hot days, ice cream just hits the spot just right, so Amy & I grabbed some Mickey Bars while the boys just got water.
After we had paid (with the dining plan credits, of course!) we were off, with a plan to head to Tomorrowland again, when the cm from the cart came RUNNING after us. Tyler had forgotten his card at the cart, and she had ditched the cart to make sure it got returned to him! Amazing people I tell ya!
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With this, I leave you to try & guess what we did next! Is it dinner time yet? Where would we eat?! What else would we manage to do? I'm off to work, and hope you're all enjoying, as we haven't even reached 5pm on Day 1!! There's LOTS more to come!!
So we had just finished up with some meet & greets, and were walking down Main St munching on some ice cream (something I could do allllll day!), and those fast passes for Splash were burning a hole in our pockets. So we redirected left when we got to the hub, and made a visit to our favorite Briar patch. (You think we might have liked Splash? Meh..it was ok. Haha)
You may notice, again, that we are in the front row. Heck. Yes. Next up on the schedule: I wanted to try & see if Tiana & Naveen were out. We were right next to the gazebo, and last trip we had such great interaction with them (they had clearly had some *very* good friends who were Canadian, and even talked politics & about the recent election with us, just great!) We found their handler over at the gazebo, by herself, and asked when they would be out next. Her response, Tiana wasn't going to be out at all today, but Naveen was wandering around the area somewhere.
Scavenger hunt time it was! We poked our heads around Liberty Square until we saw him, and this was clearly what everyone else was doing, a group was forming right as we arrived, and thanks to him just wandering, and not having his handler with him, it was a litle chaotic, so he redirected eveyone over to the regular meeting spot, and we jumped in line.
(I just have to jump in here and say that while waiting, Tyler, the photobomber, got photobombed amazingly by some small child that was behind us in line, she's just giving him the biggest death glare, and at the same time, giving the camera the same look. However, thanks to the fact that she is someone's child, I'm not going to post the picture, I don't want to invade someones privacy rights or anything like that)
He was pretty awesome, we always have great interactions with these guys, and this one was no different. I felt soooo sorry for the dude though, as he was sweating BUCKETS. It must be swealtering to have to wear all that velvet-ey material in plus 30 heat & in that humidity. I don't know how he does it!
With out friendly frog out of the way, and it was nearing the later afternoon, we figured that Fantasyland would probably be a little less crowded. We were right! Our first stop was my personal favorite ride (and queue area!) Winne the Pooh!!
We definitely took the time to jump out of line to play around a bit, hey, if there's anywhere you can be a kid & not be judged in the slightest, it's gonna be at Disney World!
If you knock at Piglet's door, you can hear him talking!!
And of course, the obligatory (sp?) shot of the new constuction!! I'm super excited for the movies of my childhood to get their new areas, looove it!!
Such a cute ride. I love the story aspect of it, and that it tells that classic Pooh story, just so cute! My favorite of Fantasyland, that's for sure. I just love Winnie the Pooh, it was always part of my life growing up, toys, tv shows, movies, books, stuffed animals, always. The 3 stuffed animals that I have now are Tigger, Pooh & Lumpy (the Heffalump from the Heffalump movie. Which was actually a great movie, I've definitely cried in it though haha!!) And for those of you who are wondering, why yes, I did go see the new movie in theatres, and it was adorable!! Left the theatre smiling for an hour after that one. I highly reccommend it!
We jumped out of our Honey Pot, I did my absolute best not to buy anything in the gift shop, and we were off to check out the rest of Fantasyland. Most things still had a 20 min or so wait, (Peter Pan was more, I know that), and we had an adr to get to, so we bypassed anything that had a decent wait time. Of course, there's always one thing in FantasyLand that has a walk on wait...and we all know what that one is. It's A Small World! We decided to take a trip around the world, as it's a classic, you can't go to Disney and not do it at least once.
Clearly, it's the most thrilling ride in all of Disney, as both boys looked like this a few minutes in:
With still a little bit of time left before dinner, we decided to hit up a couple more attractions before heading over for our reservation. The ride we chose first? TeaCups!!
Hoooollyyy, let me tell you, there is not a lot of space in those teacups!! It's a good thing that Nick didn't want to come, we would have had to split up into 2 teacups, they're tiny!! Tyler quickly took control of the spinning wheel, and we were off! He kept it going as fast as it could go for the remainder of the ride. One other inconveincing thing about the ride? It stops so suddenly, BAM, it's done, no slowly slowing down or anything, just DONE. Getting off was going to prove to be interesting, haha. Not too bad, just a little dizzy when you first stood up, funny to watch I'm betting!
We had JUST enough time left for Tyler to run back and hit up his favorite ride one last time (and surprisingly, it wasn't Splash!) We were back over to Tomrorowland for this one, and the wait wasn't long at all, and this time, Nick decided to join them. I found a bench outside the gift shop and looked through the photos I had gotten while I waited for them.
Now that they had ventured into Space one last time, it was time for us to venture over to our dinner reservation. Anyone have any idea where we were going?!
Why, Cinderella's Royal Table of course!! I had wanted to eat here last time, just for the aspect of eating in the castle, and meeting some princesses. Naturally, when Nick brought it up while we were planning the trip, I brought up the price, and he said he had no problem with it, so I booked the reservation.
We arrived 20 minutes or so before our reservation time (8:25pm), were checked in, grabbed our picture with Cinderella, and then began our wait. This wait....seemed like it was FOREVER. I'm pretty sure in actuality it was only about 10-15 minutes, I don't think we waited much past our reservation time.
Gus Gus& Jaq! This next one, Nick took because it reminded him of Gryffindor. I'd like to take this time and remind you that Gryffindor's colours are red & gold, and that black & yellow are actually Hufflepuff's colors!
Finally!! Our party was called, and we were taken upstairs. Our waitress came around pretty quickly, took a drink order for us (2 cokes, and 2 apple juices) and we starting checking out the menu. This is also the time I'll tell you some sad news, Nick had actually really wanted this dinner to be able to watch the fireworks from the castle (lucky I booked a late dinner, and not one at 5 or 6, hey?) but we were seated on the upper little level, right around the corner, and had no view of the window whatsoever!!
This is definitely a meal that you get your money's worth, the drinks are included in the price you pay, and they are refilled for free, along with buns on the table that get refilled any time you'd like as well (hot fresh ones too!).
We were all a little to hungry to remember to take pictures of the appetizers, but Nick had ran to the bathroom, so I managed to get his salad un-touched!
Amy had the same, while Tyler & I had the cheese plate. Wow, it was amazing, I love my cheese, and this was really tasty!! While we waited, some of our Princess friends came around to visit.
I can't say that any of them were outstanding, but I'm sure half of it was us as well, we were seated so awkwardly in that corner, it was hard to get up for pictures every time, and the boys were pictured out by this point, so they just wanted to eat. Ariel & Belle (coming up soon) of course stood out above the others, but not by much, we were tired and more there for the food by that point, so it's all good. I don't remember really what any of them talked with us about, but it was more of a "hello princesess & princes, how are you, where are you from?" etc, then grab a picture, then move on to the next table. I'm sure they spend a lot of time with kids (which, judging by watching around us, they did).
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And now, in the middle of dinner, I'm going to have to make you wait for the main course (much like real life! ) As I am taking off to begin my day at work, luckily, Aladdin will be watched while working
I left off right before dinner, we had our appetizers, our drinks were steadily flowing, as were the buns! We had met some princesses, and were ready for our entrees.
Nick had the Braised Cobia
Tyler had the Pork Three Ways
While Amy & I both had the Roasted Beef Tenderloin (this is ordered rare)
Dinner was amazing. Seriously, everyone was raving about how good everything was (I'm not 100% sure that I got the boys entree's right, I'm looking at the menu on my app, and those sound & look right, but I could be wrong ) The only thing I didn't like about mine was the potatos, I'm all for whipped & mashed potatos, but I don't like the duchess ones, they're crispy on the outside, in that shape, and I like my fluffy & creamy. The beef was incredible though, so good, nice & tender, I really did like it. Next up, we had some more visitors
And then we were finished with them. Our waitress cleaned off our table, and came up with a little surprise! They give out swords/princess wands to all the kids at CRT, and she offered them to us, we said HECK YES! Again, we're all 6 at Disney. Then, came dessert! The boys both had the cheesecake, which I've got no pictures of.
Amy had the chocolate mousse
And I had the trio dessert platter
It was a shot glass of the chocolate mousse, a small piece of the cheesecake & a fruit tart. Amazing. It was just right, as I'm the person who just wants one of everything a lot of the time, but I only want a bite. (One time Tyler came home with a bag of munchies and I satisfied my cravings by having 1 bite of like, 3 different chocolate bars, and then I was good). The mousse was great, nice & light, not too heavy like some I've had, and the cheesecake was to die for, if I was going to have one big dessert, that would have been it.
We were sure to tip well, and then departed the castle, having finished our feast, and after it was all done, I would recommend it to anyone. There's soooo much food, it's definitely worth the money, plus, you're IN THE CASTLE, and there's princesses, and if you're lucky, you can see the fireworks. The meal is spread out over enough time that you really have time to digest everything, so you don't feel super bloated & food baby-ey by the time you leave.
We were directed out of the castle towards Fantasyland (the aisle that Rapunzel's huge line is always in haha) and I noticed the wishing well that's off to the right side on the way down, it reminded me of the pensieve from Harry Potter...yes..I'm that kind of nerd... On the way out, the park was relatively empty, it was probably 9:45 ish by this time, so all the park crowds were gone, and now were all the people leaving from late dinners. We made sure to take advantage of this to take some pictures. They boys also couldn't resist the urge to play with the swords they had gotten at dinner.
(If anyone's really good at photoshopping, I would love you forever if you could work your magic on this one! Amy Tyler & I are the middle 3 walking down the dead centre of the street, if anyone has the skill to remove the family beside us, that would be amazing & be such an awesome pic!!)
As we reached the front of Main St, we decided to jump up to the top of the train station to try & get some final pics of the night from up there. In the second one, find Tyler, yup..that's him being a creeper in the back there (sorry Tyler, but it's so true) we're not sure why he was trying to get in the pic back there, as there's clearly enough room beside me...
And of course we would see the Magic Kingdom real soon! We would be back later that week, how many times? Only time could tell. We started the long meandering walk back to Pop's bus stop, and found the line to not be that bad, considering the park had been closed for probably an hour already. While we waited we started chatting up a couple from Indiana that the guy had worked at Disney a while back, we hung out with them around the pool & had a drink, talked about stuff, and made plans to meet up at the Halloween Party later that week before we hit the hay.
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Highlights of the day:-Managing to walk on nearly every ride we wanted
-For me, meeting Ariel
-All the Magical Moments
-All the splash mtn rides!
-Just simply being in the Magic Kingdom
Lowlights of the day:-Nothing really, at least not that I can remember, maybe the long wait for dinner, Tiana not being out?
Food Reviews: Cosmic Rays:-Incredible, 5/5. A little crowded of a resturant, but the sandwiches are fresh, tasty, huge portions. Cinderella's Royal Table:-Also awesome, 4/5.
I give it 4/5 simply because we were around that dinky little corner & unable to see any fireworks, the noises just teasing us on what we were missing & the interaction wasn't the greatest.
-Food wise, yes, it was great, & I'd recommend to anyone, especially those with small princesses.
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And here, I leave you. I have managed to catch up to myself, and haven't really resized any more photos, so I'll probably spend tomorrow doing that, and then start updating again on Tues. In the meantime, I will again suggest you lurkers come out & say hello!! (TYLER! I KNOW YOU'RE OUT THERE! along with Nick...and possibly Amy...)
Alright! Ladies & gents! We are finally onto DAY 2!! Thats right, we have finally moved onto something different: MORE MAGIC KINGDOM!! just jokes, we would return to that magical sight of the castle again on our trip, but for now, we were off to spend a day in the world of Hollywood!
Up early at Pop Century, we grabbed a quick breakfast in the food court (using a meal credit Im pretty sure) I couldnt tell ya what anyone ate, and this is where the food court breakfasts disappoint a little bit (though Im sure theres a way around it, whether that requires paying out of pocket, or on the dining plan) but Id much prefer to get a side of eggs, a side of fruit & a carb item for my breakfast, instead of some greasy meat & hash-browns. Maybe thats just me?
We were on the bus pretty quickly, again, never really waited for anything, and we were off to Disneys Hollywood Studios. Rope drop was missed, it seemed this was now a continuing theme on the trip, but at least we did Magic Kingdoms, and hey, less waiting around, am I right?! Our game plan involved splitting up right off the bat, I said I would take all the cards, and do the mad dash to Toy Story Mania while the others rode Rock N Rollercoaster, as I would be sitting that out, but Nick decided that it was too early to rock & roll, so he came with me. Down Hollywood Boulevard we went!
I was too focused on getting those fast-passes to take any more pictures after we said See ya later! to our fellow travelers, so this part is rather non-exciting. The mania wasnt the mania I was expecting, and our fast passes ended up being for before noon! Awesome! With that done, we headed back towards Sunset Boulevard to join Amy & Tyler, who had already ridden RnR & were waiting for us at the end of the street.
Now, here was another big moment for me, in case you hadnt noticed, I used to be not a rides person, this trip seems to have changed things. I had 2 main goals this trip, and to do as many rides as I possibly could (not chicken out that is) was one of them. So, we were off to The Twilight Zone!! (Every time I hear The Twilight Zone, I think of the song Twilight Zone by Golden Earring, in a show I did, and of course this epic quote: Did you ever see that "Twilight Zone" where the guy signed a contract and they cut out his tongue and put it in a jar and it wouldn't die, it just grew and pulsated and gave birth to baby tongues? Pretty cool, huh? 10 points to whoever gets it without google-ing!)
ANYWAY
The line was barely any wait at all, I find with these rides its more waiting for the previous pre-show to be done, than actually waiting for the ride. I was definitely *really* nervous, I hate riding in elevators, and I have a fear of getting trapped in one, and it falling, so it was a question: would I be totally petrified? Would this be too much motion for Nick? How would our ride enthusiast Tyler do on this one?
HOLY POOP! I loved it, seriously, another favorite to add to the list! Nick, also did fine (I love how it looks like were holding a conversation in this pic) and Tyler..well you can tell by the picture he didnt really like it. I realized on this trip that it is the drops that I love best on the coasters, so it made sense that I loved this ride. Everything before the drop had me absolutely terrified, but in the end I loved it.
After experiencing a ride that wasnt too much to his liking, Tyler opted to go back on one of his faves, so we jumped over there! Amy went with him again while Nick & I checked out the gift shop (also, if youre ever waiting for someone on this ride, I suggest taking a spot by the tvs that show all the pictures, some of them are HILARIOUS)
With out thrill rides ridden, multiple times I may add, and it only being around 10:00am, we checked out the show guide we had picked up before venturing into the park, and decided it was time to check out my favorite mermaid. On our way over, Nick found a poster, and had to take a picture with it, and I must say, its an exciting thing!
Yup, Lion King, incredible, I highly recommend seeing it in theatres to EVERYONE, and then you should probably buy it, and search for the sequel, its actually pretty decent, I loved it.
We got let into the holding room before the show, and that was right over the door, staring down at us, kind of creepy. I liked having a little time to check out all the décor in the room, all the stuff on the walls & ceiling, so much thought put into it!!
The doors opened, and we walked on in, all the way across the row, dont you worry! And waited for the show to begin.
I looove the shot I managed to catch of Ariel! And I do really like this show, we as a group, also love the fact that 90% of the movie is skipped, but hey, true love still prevails, right? So were all good!
15 more months?! I can't imagine having to wait that long, the suspense would kill me There being 11 months until my next trip & I'm already trying to figure out a way to get back there (or to DL) before then!
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I absolutely love the humidity & heat down there, its absolutely amazing, and just feels just like home as soon as we ge off the plane.
) I honestly was drawn in by the smell, it just smells too good. They were giving out free chocolate caramel squares, and that ended up being just the amount of dessert we needed.
I had looked for it last time, and couldn't find it, thankfully I went back to check again!
(and honestly, it has little to nothing to do with Johnny Depp's level of attraction) it's the whole idea of pirates & the awesomeness of them that lures me in. Theyre so
bad! Haha
) There were a couple of little ones dressed up like Tink, and one was JUST ADORABLE, her dress was amazing too, almost better than the real Tink. We made sure to show our excitement!
) So we'll see how fast I can type!!
My favorite of Fantasyland, that's for sure. I just love Winnie the Pooh, it was always part of my life growing up, toys, tv shows, movies, books, stuffed animals, always. The 3 stuffed animals that I have now are Tigger, Pooh & Lumpy (the Heffalump from the Heffalump movie. Which was actually a great movie, I've definitely cried in it though haha!!) And for those of you who are wondering, why yes, I did go see the new movie in theatres, and it was adorable!! Left the theatre smiling for an hour after that one. I highly reccommend it!
