The Bear and the Bow: Planning a Christmas with the Mouses - Update 12/11

[Stringbean&Wingnut]

I've never eaten at Flame Tree, so I'm not positive as to what kind of BBQ they have, but I have heard great things about the food there!

I love Kouzzina for dinner, the food there is great, and the Boardwalk area is so wonderful. A great place to end a Disney day .

Also, Happy Thanksgiving!!!

 

[Merida]

Okay, so I’m technically supposed to be studying right now (I’m so close to being done with school for the semester but those last few items? The most tedious things of the whole semester. Yuck. Plus there’s a test and I’m just over tests. I’ve been in school for almost eighteen years – I’m about tested out).

Because that’s boring, we’ll move on to Epcot. Working from memory, we head to Epcot bright and early after closing it out (possibly) the night before. Epcot is one of my favorite parks but also one of the ones I’m most frustrated with. Partly because they update old rides very awkwardly and partly because they have an unbalanced earth system theme going on.

(I just really like this Test Track picture.)

We’ll start out in Future World, like the rest of the masses. Bear wants his first ride to be Test Track, so we’ll grab fastpasses for Soarin’ and then head over to Test Track and Mission: Space. After that, it’s fair game (minus Spaceship Earth, which we will go on as much as possible OR whenever we remember it exists. I tend to forget it’s there since they installed my nemesis, Video Screens). I do really like Mission: Space (poor Gary Sinise, will he ever get to space and, well, survive? He did narrate an excellent documentary about the NASA missions, but it’s not quite the same thing, though it probably pays quite a bit more. And Mission to Mars was a terrible movie).

The Land and Sea pavilions are really fun – but why is there no Air pavilion (Mission: Space doesn’t count. Neither does Soarin’)? I’m probably one of the few (i.e., only) people who is bothered by this, but it’s so unbalanced. The biosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere (okay, I might have made up the last word but ‘ocean’ doesn’t work as well) are so interconnected in real life, you can’t just leave one out when making pavilions. In my (totally biased) opinion, an Air pavilion would be the coolest. Take over the old Wonders of Life pavilion, stick in a Hercules-themed planetarium, some Studio Ghibli-themed exhibits on flight, and some other weather-related things to play with (everyone loves tornado demonstrations, etc., etc.). Perfect. Or even have a citizen-science station to record the weather data at Disney (I debated doing a project on the effects of nightly fireworks on Disney and the surrounding area but I couldn’t find any data. “Environmentally-friendly fireworks” my right foot).

Bear is adamant about watching Universe of Energy, so we’ll try and get that out of the way as soon as possible (meaning the night before). He’s tried to watch that movie pretty much every trip to Epcot and it always breaks. Since we probably learned more about the Universe of Energy in five minutes in climatology, it’s more for the principle of things than actual interest in Ellen. (Also Bill Nye came to my undergrad to speak and he was apparently a big jerk to people. Boo Bill Nye. I do love elasmosauruses though).

If we skip Innoventions and assume our Soarin’ fastpasses will be good after lunch, there’s three more rides I’d like to get on before lunch or the night before – Nemo, the Land, and Figment.

The Figment pyramids are probably one of my clearest memories from my Disney trip in third grade. I remember nothing about the ride but I do remember the gift shop in excruciating detail (also Figment). I haven’t been back inside the pyramids since (I somehow couldn’t find them on subsequent trips. Or thought you couldn’t go inside? I don’t know. It was totally confusing and I was starting to think I’d made them up or gotten confused with pictures of the Louvre or something) and I want to. So badly. I don’t care how awful the ride is or if they got rid of the gift shop, I just want to find the pyramids and go inside.

Nemo is one of those rides that we’ll just kind of go on because it’s there. Bear is grumpy that it replaced the old ride (I’d never been on it) and I just want to get to the aquariums at the end. We are going to the Florida Aquarium after leaving Disney so we don’t need to spend hours at the tanks, but I really really want to, especially after sitting through the Nemo ride.

Thinking about it, I really knew nothing about Future World except for the Figment pyramids. I’ve walked through (yuck, a kitten just sneezed on me) all of the countries and done the World Showcase thoroughly, but that’s it. No memories about Future World except some about the old Wonders of Life pavilion (obviously going to be very helpful on this trip. I hated that pavilion. It was boring and Magic School Bus did ‘going inside a body’ way better, as did Futurama. Also biology – minus genetics – is probably my least favorite science. This would be way better as a space/atmosphere themed pavilion).

So the Living with the Land ride is a definite. Another ride I didn’t realize was operational or else I would have been on it many, many times. Hydroponics! Obnoxiously-sized vegetables! The pretty inside of the Land pavilion! Boats! Excellent.

Having finished a rapid-fire tour of Future World (sorry Innoventions, maybe you should try harder to be cooler) we’ll head back out to the Boardwalk for a nice lunch at Captain’s Grille. I tried to convince Bear to try the Yachtsman, but we ultimately decided on something less fancy but still very yacht-y.

I have kittens licking my laptop, so clearly a sign to get back to work!

(flickr, flickr, flickr, flickr, flickr, flickr, flickr, flickr, flickr)

 

[Merida]

I’ve finished about half of my rest-of-semester work and I’m so ready for vacation! The past week has been jam-packed with getting stuff done – schoolwork, trip errands, taking back the kittens. We’ve finally settled down with the cinematic classic, A Muppet’s Christmas Carol (aka the only palatable form of Charles Dickens outside of Oliver and Company).

We sat down and revised our plans for the first few days. Bear lived in Florida for most of his life and apparently, as more people find out we’ll be down there, lots of visits need to be shoved into our vacation. It’s not a bad thing, most of them will come over at one time when we’ve left Orlando and headed down to the cabin. But one of his friends from undergrad is from out of state and wants to hang out with us at the beginning of our vacation. He’ll come down with us to Universal and we’ll take him to the airport the next day. This was the day we were going to Crystal Palace for a pre-park breakfast; Disney changed the schedule so it wasn’t really a priority anymore. I fiddled with the reservations site and got us a new Grand Floridian reservation for three. It’s earlier than the Crystal Palace breakfast, at 7:00AMish.

I will then be an excellent girlfriend and head off to Magic Kingdom on my lonesome to give Bear + friend alone time on the way to the airport. I’ll grab some fastpasses and pictures while I wait and maybe some rides. It feels weird to do things with Bear not there since we’ve planned out so much that we wanted to do together. I’ll most definitely do a spin on Buzz Lightyear on my own for dark ride photography practice; there’s no way I’d be able to ride that with Bear and NOT be competitive (I can never beat him but I can try).

I kind of like this plan more than the original because GFC is one of our favorites and I like going there first thing on our vacation. Plus, we’d had a GFC reservation for later in our vacation that got cancelled in favor of Boma! Pancakes with animal faces! Lots and lots of carbs! Animals! (I actually have no idea what’s near Boma but I’m assuming that animals can be seen from some part of the path to Boma. SOMEWHERE).

But Boma isn’t until later.

Why not a random picture of Norway?

Instead, we’ll have finished up lunch at the Captain’s Grille and headed back into Epcot for the World Showcase. I go back and forth about the World Showcase; I like the idea and I like looking but there’s not really enough. Needs more plaques. I’m not really interested in shopping and the movies are old now… I just need more information Disney! There are so many ways to enhance the World Showcase that I feel aren’t really explored enough; however, most people don’t really want to walk through a museum during their Disney vacation so I’m sure it will never happen. And the holiday storytellers will be out, so that might make up for the lack of plaques (unless I’ve forgotten them and World Showcase is actually covered in fun historical anecdotes).

We’ll probably see the Voices of Liberty and maybe stop in the American Adventure once to see if it features anyone other than white males (having gone to Hall of Presidents earlier, I think that’s enough white male animatronics for one trip. Neither of us are particularly patriotic and I will have also reached my Pilgrims quota by rereading Sarah Vowell’s Wordy Shipmates on the drive down. I’m going to assume that Pilgrims will be featured because they always are. I hope it’s slightly more imaginative than the list of generic important American history events. Buuuut I can probably guess the highlights of the show and be 90% accurate, which is kind of.. sad? Disappointing?). After leaving Negative Nancy behind in the America pavilion, we’ll definitely hit up the Gran Fiesta Tour and the Maelstrom.

Bear wants to see the Canada movie (I’m not sure why…?) but we probably won’t stay around for most of them. Not when there are real live storytellers to listen to! We’ll probably skip the music groups as well (okay, so we’ll probably be on Gran Fiesta Tour instead of staying to listen. I just don’t like standing still to listen to music. I need to be doing something else, especially if it’s a band I’m not familiar with. It’s just not a high priority).


Around 5, we’ll head back over to Mexico for our Candlelight Processional dinner at San Angel Inn. This was Bear’s pick and I hope it’ll be fun, watching the boats and the volcano (we like discussing volcanology. Or the effects of volcanic eruptions on global climate. The volcano was a huge part in the decision to eat here) and trying Mexican food (it’s not very popular in my corner of Pennsylvania, so I haven’t tried very much). We have entrance to the latest Candlelight Processional show (thanks random phone cast member!) so I’m thinking we’ll hit the Mexico à America leg of the World Showcase then (again possibly, or redo the things we missed in the mad dash to Maelstrom).

I’m pretty sure we have seats for the 8:00 show, so after Candlelight Processional we’ll watch Illuminations (from special seating? Our current seats? Somewhere!) and then slowly wander out. This day is supposed to be more relaxing after the madcap adventures of the previous few and in preparation of our late night on Monday. (Also I’m really tired and have been working on this for days and I’m bored with it. Muppets Christmas Carol is like three million times more interesting, so go watch that instead!)

(flickr, flickr, all ears, flickr, flickr)

 

[Merida]

Thanks! I hope you had an excellent Thanksgiving.. week. We run a little late around here!

I've never eaten at Flame Tree, so I'm not positive as to what kind of BBQ they have, but I have heard great things about the food there!

I love Kouzzina for dinner, the food there is great, and the Boardwalk area is so wonderful. A great place to end a Disney day .

Also, Happy Thanksgiving!!!

So did I, which is why I suggested it, not being up on different types of barbecue. Ah well, it's not really something I worried about, since it's not a reservation. There's plenty of other places to go.

So excited for Kouzzina! It looks like so much fun and there's so many delicious desserts.

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving to you too I love having Thanksgiving over, it seems so short until trip-time!

 

[Merida]

It’s been a few days and I’m awfully behind on things on here, partly because DIS is being terribly slow and partly from end-of-year work. I’ve finished pretty much all my exams (HURRAH) and presentations (Powerpoint presentations seem like a good idea for the first five minutes of putting it together – the time you choose the theme, title, number of slides - and then becomes a pain and the worst idea ever. I’m totally sick of phytoplankton now but my project was killer). I only have one more problem set and a lecture to go to and then I’m done and travel preparations can begin!

Which is the part I’m really looking forward to! But right now, I’m tucked up in bed, getting ready for a nap before tackling one final proof for my numerical modeling class (a welcome change in my homework compared to the past few weeks), and thinking about all the fun things to come in the next week. Like divvying up cat food into plastic baggies for the kennel. Can’t wait!!

So we’ve finished up another night of our trip, snuggled in bed after a midnight snack of beignets. The day after Epcot is probably going to be the best day ever – and it starts with the most perfect place imaginable…

A breakfast buffet. Delicious. And it’s Boma, to boot, so we will go to pretty much every deluxe resort to eat (Kouzzina and Captain Grille totally cover the 3 Boardwalk deluxes. We’ll walk through them all at some point anyway). I’m hoping we’ll see some animals (obviously we won’t have seen enough on our Animal Kingdom day) and, more importantly, animal-stamped pancakes. I may cry if they don’t still have these. At least there will be cinnamon rolls, French toasts, other carb-y deliciousness, and breakfast ham to cheer me up (seriously. I love breakfast ham SO MUCH. I miss the weekend brunches in my undergrad dining hall more than you can imagine).

Our reservation at Boma is slightly earlier than our previous reservation at the Grand Floridian Café, so we may just make it to rope drop at MGM but I really, really, really don’t want to do that. Crowds like the Toy Story dash make me really anxious and overwhelmed and that’s not how I want to follow up our lovely breakfast (obvi, if breakfast sucks it’s a no-holds-barred participation in the Dash). I don’t really care how many times or when we ride Toy Story Midway Mania, we’re not really shows people so we may even – gasp – go through standby.

Tower of Terror, Disney World by Nick J 27, on Flickr​

But we’ll still show up a few minutes after rope drop, pick the shorter line, and then move on. MGM in general makes me kind of nervous because I feel like everyone is so intense about having to do certain rides. More than any other park, I feel like there’s a ‘YOU MUST DO THESE OR ELSE YOUR VACATION WILL BE TERRIBLE’ vibe going on. Toy Story, Rock’n’Roller Coaster, Tower of Terror and that’s it. Everything else is awful or boring or whatever. I know this isn’t true but MGM has changed so much since the last time I’ve been there (hint: we had to wait for Sounds Dangerous) and I was with non-thrill ride people. We rode Star Tours all day (true fact. Loved that ride). So we’ll probably grab a fastpass for Rock’n’Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror and try and hit up the big four – those three plus Star Tours before lunch.

Out of those four rides, the only two I’m legitimately excited for are Star Tours and Toy Story. We’re doing the other two because Bear wants to; I’m not quite as big a fan of thrill-y rides (also I saw that truly horrible made-for-TV movie for Tower of Terror. Truly scarring. Did they have any sort of a budget for that thing? Stupid ending and stupid plotline (Sister-Jealous-of-Other-Sister is on my list of least favorite narrative tropes because it’s usually handled so poorly. Except for Jacob Have I Loved, which is flawless in pretty much everything it chooses to be. Sara Louise for queen of everything. There are others as well, but nothing comes to mind as quickly as Jacob.)

Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Guitar by goenhome, on Flickr[/center}

But I do love Aerosmith and Bear likes cars. And I have read the synopsis of every single Twilight Zone episode on Wikipedia (I read faster than I watch TV and it was just easier to read Wikipedia. Plus there’s all the fun trivia about the episodes) and I like elevators (they’re very safe modes of transportation! Useful narrative devices!) so I’ll go on that one too, if only to ensure repeat rides on Star Tours.

The order we go on these four won’t really matter; what does matter is ending up as close to lunch as possible (these are my priorities). We’re going to split lunches, someone grabbing a sandwich+cupcake from Starring Rolls and the other getting a Pizza Planet pizza because I just couldn’t choose which one was better. Pizza Planet is also much closer to the most amazing place in the world: Muppetland, U.S.A. (pssh, Streets of America. No one cares. The things back there have little to do with the streets – minus cars, maybe – so let’s just all admit the best thing back there. The original plans for the Muppets area were so cool. You should do that, Disney!)

(disney value guide, flickr, flickr, flickr, disney tourist blog)​

 

[Stringbean&Wingnut]

I LOVE BOMA BREAKFAST!!!! It's one of my favorites!! I'm not positive if the animal-stamped pancakes are on the regular buffet line, they had been made special for me on our most recent trip because of allergy concerns. They are cute though! Hopefully they'll be there.

I vote for Starring Rolls, because my vote will always be with an epic cupcake.

 

[Merida]

We’re leaving in the morning! To start on 30 hours of driving, roughly, but still! The past couple days have been really rough, putting together all of my paperwork and trying to secure a TA position for next semester (got the one I want! Extra money!!) and getting everything ready. It turns out that being this close to the trip and then reading things like the Theme Park boards turns me into a raging ball of anxiety that everything will go wrong and my entire family will fall into comas (I don’t even know) and ALL of the parks will be packed ALL of the time, so I’ve been staying away. But now we’re packed (even the cats +hedgehog) and just waiting around for tomorrow morning, watching Law and Order: SVU (aka: the BEST TV EVER. Like, who can flip past an SVU marathon on USA? It’s the crackiest, most awesome show in the history of ever. Also giving me a law education, a la Leslie Knope. But seriously, USA, even frequent SVU marathons can’t make up for the whaaaat factor of Annie and Auggie hooking up on Covert Affairs. Sendhil Ramamurthy is on that show!! Does she have eyes).

So we’ve almost completed our stay in Disney: there’s about half a day at MGM and then our Last Day left. The end of MGM won’t be quite as exciting as the first, unless I cajole Bear into watching the Muppets over again. We’re each picking a show we want to watch, but Bear picked two (Lights, Motor, Action and Indiana Jones and I haven’t picked anything so we’ll probably see his and I’ll pick the Muppets.

Christmas Tree at Wilderness Lodge by PhotoNut2010, on Flickr



Whispering Canyon Cafe by BestofWDW, on Flickr​

I’ve decided that we’ll skip the opening show of the Osbourne Lights (I’m not a big fan of shows like that) and instead head over to the Wilderness Lodge for dinner at the Whispering Canyon Café. I’m really excited for this one (unlike all my other meal reservations, of which I’m only lukewarm about ) and this day will be AWESOME for food. Unlimited food everywhere we go! Hurrah!

Disney's Hollywood Studios - The Osborne Family Spectale of Lights by Matt Pasant, on Flickr​

We’ll then head back to MGM and catch the end of the Osbourne Lights. Possibly some other attractions depending on the crowd level and just how enthralling we find the lights (very, but I’m not really sure how long you can really look at them? I mean, obviously long enough to see them dance, but other than that I’m not sure).

Cinderella's Castle - Dream Lights by Matt Pasant, on Flickr​

Then the fun really begins. Magic Kingdom closes at 3AM. MGM, around 9. We may make a detour to ride the monorails or stop into Epcot for a quick spin on Test Track and then it’s Magic Kingdom ALL NIGHT. Hopefully my friend from home will be able to join us for this. We’ll hit everything we missed on our first Magic Kingdom day (okay, probably not that much, but just in case) and then do everything all over again. And maybe a late night stop at the Main Street Bakery for cinnamon rolls and cupcakes will be in order. Or shopping. Or something. It’s probably the lowest we’ll see crowd levels ever and the thought of that much personal space in the parks is kind of intoxicating. Definitely a nighttime ride of Big Thunder, and hopefully one of Jungle Cruise, but other than that – no plans. Doing whatever we want. (Guess how many castle pictures I’ll be taking. Now multiply that by like 5000. I will be taking ALL THE PICTURES. The orange castle is my favorite – I love orange/navy/white as a palette).

Our last day is pretty much just relaxing after our late night. A nice Downtown Disney brunch, maybe hopping over to Animal Kingdom in the afternoon and ending up at Kona for an early dinner. Everything is pretty much up in the air, whatever we feel awake enough for! We’re driving down to Bear’s family’s cabin after dinner and we’ll be there until after Christmas. We get to go to the Florida aquarium! Do a dolphin watch! Eat really awesome food! Delay writing up a trip report and editing photos! A+++++ vacation.

Okay, this is kind of boring and the picture content is kind of lacking, but seriously – SVU marathon. Even though I’ve seen all of them before, it’s so hypnotic. Perfect way to unwind before a long drive and after a long week. I love playing ‘Who’s this guest star?’ – Bear doesn’t play anymore because I always win. I really love trivia. I’m also reading internet gossip. Reading about bathroom baby lady keeps me from bouncing off the walls and going absolutely stir crazy. Everything is packed (it took me like twenty minutes too. So anti-climactic!) for me to do on the road and I have nothing. All I can do is watch Law & Order and read about some lady who has her kid live in a bathroom (I don’t think she’ll be increasing crowd levels at Disney anytime soon. I feel like this is a commentary on my life, but I’m too wound up right now. BD Wong just got involved, my favorite part of any SVU episode, an indication that things just got serious.)

​

Have a great week everyone!

 

[Merida]

I LOVE BOMA BREAKFAST!!!! It's one of my favorites!! I'm not positive if the animal-stamped pancakes are on the regular buffet line, they had been made special for me on our most recent trip because of allergy concerns. They are cute though! Hopefully they'll be there.

I vote for Starring Rolls, because my vote will always be with an epic cupcake.

I've found other pictures of them (Bear thought I had lost it when I was pushing an animal-themed buffet) with no mention of special diets but I would totally go gluten-free/dairy-free whatever for a face pancake. They're just too precious!

Ah ha, I know! I was like, hm, what's the best thing representative of Starring Rolls? Cupcakes. I just don't want to battle the epic lines there (so obviously we will go to the not-at-all-popular-eatery, Pizza Planet, to grab another lunch and find a table. Great planning skills!!)

 

[ZehnJahren]

Wow, you're leaving tomorrow already? Where is the time going? Now you get to see whether all the planning ends up falling into place once you get there ! I thought my mom and I would be more on my plan that we ended up being; I barely even got to set foot in Epcot!

I hope you guys really enjoy your trip! Don't worry about crowds at Disney - you NEVER know what you're gonna get.

 

[Stringbean&Wingnut]

Have a great trip!!!!!

 

[archdandy]

I can't believe I missed the day you left! I got so caught up in school work that I haven't even been on the DIS at all. I hope you have a magnificent trip (yup, magnificent!) and I can't wait to hear all about it when you get back! Have fun!

 

[Merida]

Thanks everyone! Our disney part of the trip is over and we're relaxing at Bear's family's lakeside cabin (it was handbuilt by someone's grandfather as a wedding present for the grandmother. The bar has been raised!) and eating leftover brownie paws (best use of snack credits ever) while watching Burn Notice. I'm sifting through pictures (~1500, but about half is some combination of: crooked, includes a floating head, is a picture of pigeons. Not all of these will be seeing the light of day).

I'm going to try and catch up with everyone else's things before starting (and probably until we get home again)!

 

[archdandy]

Thanks everyone! Our disney part of the trip is over and we're relaxing at Bear's family's lakeside cabin (it was handbuilt by someone's grandfather as a wedding present for the grandmother. The bar has been raised!) and eating leftover brownie paws (best use of snack credits ever) while watching Burn Notice. I'm sifting through pictures (~1500, but about half is some combination of: crooked, includes a floating head, is a picture of pigeons. Not all of these will be seeing the light of day).

I'm going to try and catch up with everyone else's things before starting (and probably until we get home again)!

I hope you had a great trip, can't wait to hear all about it!

 

[Merida]

Hey look what I finally managed to put up! Granted we only got back home two days ago, but I have a thread! Good first step, right?