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

[Merida]

This week has been such a sneaky hate spiral sort of week. Nothing too bad happened and there were quite a few good things that happened (see a few paragraphs down) but there were SO MANY little irritation. Our (many) cats all decided that their normal amount of food was no longer enough and that they were all dying of hunger during the day. We’re gone pretty much all day and would then come home to various bags of food gnawed open and pretty much devoured – including a loaf of bread (and we do feed our cats plenty!). There was some odd power struggle going on where all three adult cats would eat the others’ food and no one would get enough. So now there’s a whole rigmarole I go through twice a day to ensure fairness (involving two brands of dry food, two brands of wet food, four dishes, one locked rooms, and around 12 interruptions of cats jumping up on the counter to get their meal early).

We’ve also been practically living at the vet’s since our older cat got a scratch that then got infected with ringworm (fungus?) thing. However, a couple of hundred dollars in vet fees later, it’s not that serious and we don’t have to fog the house and only have to submerge all the cats in a sulfur dip if we feel like it (short answer – no I do not right now).

Either way, this weekend was a ‘treat yo self weekend’ (in the immortal words of Tom Haverford and Donna Meagle).

I did like seven loads of laundry, scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom, and pretty much de-sporified the rest of the house. It feels amazing to know that our house doesn’t have random fungal spores floating around (though the vet said it was unlikely there was much left). Bought some t-shirts and blew off a lot of my work for school to clean or run errands or play with kittens. Yay! So in more Disney related news…

According to my phone, in 36 days we’ll start our drive down (over?) to Florida. It’s about three days of trip/sight-seeing before checking into Disney property so it’s maybe 41 days until Disney. So we just passed our 45 day mark this past week and we celebrated the only way possible…

Getting a new car! It was complete coincidence; Bear has lots of friends at the Kia dealership and they were running behind on sales figures so our 2010 Kia Forte got switched out for a 2012 Kia Forte for something like $50 (additional to the original amount) after the dust settled. I’m not really sure why or how this happened, but I got to go out to brunch on that day (the dealership is next to one of my favorite breakfast places so we stopped there before going over to finish signing papers). I like the color of this car better (light silver compared to dark) and now we have smart keys. I’m sure there are other differences, but that’s what I care about the most.

tl,dr version: Got a new car, almost a month to the trip, going to write more relevant (and picture-filled) post (and do replies!) right now.

 

[Merida]

So we’re done Main Street and the two best (overall) lands in Magic Kingdom are left. While I love individual rides in the other parts of Magic Kingdom, I feel like Fantasy and Tomorrow lands were the best designed. There’s just so much good stuff in the two (if you ignore Stitch’s ride which I do). We may leave these rides for the Christmas party depending on what lands are open when (I should do research on that, but right now it seems like too much effort). But for simplicity’s sake, we’ll just move on to Tomorrowland.

Which, if you have time, Wikipedia has a neat little blurb on the color palette of Tomorrowland. I thought it was interesting!

We have two most definitely need to do multiple times – Buzz Lightyear and Space Mountain.

I love Buzz Lightyear – his Space Ranger movie was adorable and Mira is one of the best ladies in the universe. I’m biased because the tropes associated with Buzz and Mira are some of my favorite. Also, who knew that Woody has a last name? Apparently it’s Pride (maybe I spend too much time on Wikipedia) but that’s kind of irrelevant until MGM day, isn’t it? Bear is preternaturally good at this game and pretty much always beats me. He even managed to find all the weird hidden things WITHOUT looking on the Internet (my strategy of choice). How do people do that? Still, blacklights are awesome and I love dark rides and pretending to be good at things when Bear takes over 3/4ths of the way through to salvage my score. I get distracted easily and there are so many cool things to look at! I’ve been reading up on dark ride photography and definitely want to practice here.

After we fight our way out of the Buzz Lightyear dump shop, we’ll most likely head over to Space Mountain, our second favorite mountain. Maybe the first, depending on how many space documentaries we’ve watched recently (I’ll be stockpiling some Brian Cox on my hard drive for this trip. Nothing more relaxing than a good space show! We’re watching the Stephen Hawking show right now. Benedict Cumberbatch was such a good choice for the voice overs). I want to see the new queue which we missed somehow last year. And the Space Mountain music? AWESOME. Who doesn’t love 70s-era synthesizers?!

The rest of Tomorrowland I haven’t really been on. Except Merchant of Venus, my very favorite gift shop name. Definitely want to stop there. Astro Oribter, Tomorrowland Speedway, and Stitch are off our list – no way ever again on Stitch and maybe if we’re super bored and everything else is jam packed on Astro Orbiter and Tomorrowland Speedway. That leaves: Tomorrowland Transit Authority, Carousel of Progress, Monster’s Inc. Laugh Floor.

There really are no good pictures of the Transit Authority, are there? It makes sense because it’s the one ride that I can’t picture in my head – no signs, no entrance, no anything and I’ve spent a lot of time in Tomorrowland. I want to hold off on this until night. Nighttime in the parks with all the lights is my favorite time and this seems the best way to see the lights/Christmas things/etc (I really don’t know what the view but I’m going to assume it’s decent of Tomorrowland. We’ll go on Dumbo or something too if we feel it’s necessary).

Monsters, Inc is one of attractions I could give or take but the queue and theming seem adorable in pictures I’ve seen. The comedy club angle doesn’t interest me that much (especially the interactivity part!) but I do love the movie… This one’s rather low on our priority list and I’m not sure I’d give up a spin on Buzz Lightyear or Space Mountain, you know? And leaving some things unexplored is the perfect reason for more trips back.

In contrast, I’m very interested in seeing Carousel of Progress. In high school, my physics teacher was not the best and, as a result, would show tons of videos on every possible topic. They were all fairly old and full of animatronic reenactments of everything under the sun. I’m pretty sure there was a CoP knock off in one episode! And I love animatronics. That dog! Adorable. And history, Walt’s favorite, etc., etc.

Most of all, I love the theming of Tomorrowland and want to wander around, drinking a smoothie from Auntie Gravity’s. I’ve probably spent the most time in Tomorrowland out of any place in Disney (thank you, Space Mountain queue!) and it just feels the most Disneyish to me. My favorite resort is the Contemporary and my favorite ride is the monorail, so Tomorrowland fits in with that vibe. I’ve read a lot of criticism of the theming being cold or off-putting or “un-Disney” (which is SO unfair) but I’ve never felt that way. I love the Space Age and these places represent that time of great passionate about furthering our capabilities to go further, go faster, to push the limits. The Space Age itself is dreaming made possible – after all, we went to the Moon. We walked in space! What is more fantastical than that? It is kind of mind-boggling to me that someone could look at this aesthetic interpretation of the Space Age and not see the dreaming and love and wonder that so permeated that time period.

I just have lots of feelings about Sputnik, the Mars Spirit rover, and Wall-E.

(flickr, flickr, flickr, flickr, flickr)

 

[Merida]

16 hours in MK?! I can't wait to hear all about that! Maybe you'll get to see talking Mickey when you go to the meet and greet? I love all of your kitties! They're adorable! I've got three cats now, all full grown and I miss the kitten stage terribly. Sometimes I go to the SPCA here and just play with the kittens.

I think talking Mickey would be kind of creepy?? I mean, does his mouth move? Is it a recording or more like Stephen Hawking sort of talking by the cast member? All of the non-face characters are kind of creepy to me, though - like Jafar or Frollo or Jessie/Woody? Why can't they have real faces?? Stitch is okay, though, since he's basically a walking stuffed animal!

Ha, I used to want to do that ALL THE TIME, only our SPCA is really far away from the house so Bear sloooowly gave in - first Darren, then six months later our hedgehog Nelson, then two months after that Robin, and then finally this fall we started fostering. Kittens are so much fun! These guys have finally figured out climbing so I'll wake up and there'll be a little kitten snuggled up next to me. And they're trying to figure out how to purr which is hilarious because they start purring and then their "voice" will "crack" and they can only whine, not purr.

 

[Stringbean&Wingnut]

WOW that sounds like a pretty epic MK day!!! I agree, Tomorrowland is very much classic Disney, I love it!

 

[archdandy]

I think talking Mickey would be kind of creepy?? I mean, does his mouth move? Is it a recording or more like Stephen Hawking sort of talking by the cast member? All of the non-face characters are kind of creepy to me, though - like Jafar or Frollo or Jessie/Woody? Why can't they have real faces?? Stitch is okay, though, since he's basically a walking stuffed animal!

Ha, I used to want to do that ALL THE TIME, only our SPCA is really far away from the house so Bear sloooowly gave in - first Darren, then six months later our hedgehog Nelson, then two months after that Robin, and then finally this fall we started fostering. Kittens are so much fun! These guys have finally figured out climbing so I'll wake up and there'll be a little kitten snuggled up next to me. And they're trying to figure out how to purr which is hilarious because they start purring and then their "voice" will "crack" and they can only whine, not purr.

I always found the characters with the heads creepy too! It just looks so awkward when they walk. I'm not sure how the talking Mickey works. I'll see if I can find a video of him. Errr, okay. I found some videos from Disney Land but they were too far away to see his mouth.

When we got our first cat he was really young. I'm not sure how young because of the way we got him but the girl who gave him to us (and who found him outside with no mama) said he had just opened his eyes a a little while before giving him to us. Anyways, his voice was croaky and and he couldn't really cry very well because I guess he had cried so much when he was by himself that he blew his voice It was so cute to hear him croaking!

Are you going to be doing a TR when you get back?! Please say yes!

 

[Merida]

So I’ve been trying to edit this super long post on Fantasyland but then I got lazy and decided to stop. Also, I graduated from Penn State about 18 months ago and I’m sure everyone’s heard what’s happening there. It’s been a rough week or so, especially because everyone with whom I went to school is being so stupid about the whole thing and then I need to rant to Bear for ages about how stupid they are and how awful the whole thing is. He appreciates it a whole lot, obviously, so I’m instead writing up this massively sentimental piece about my feelings on Fantasyland (this is actually edited as well, as there was a long section on monks when I was first brainstorming).

We pretty much knew going into this trip that we will be doing almost everything in Fantasyland minus Dumbo. No offense to Dumbo fans, but pretty much everything else in Fantasyland is my favorite thing. I just never warmed to Dumbo (the movie) or the Dumbo type of ride. Sorry Dumbo!

If we’re coming in from Tomorrowland, we hit the Tea Cups first. Truthfully, we don’t need to go on the Tea Cups if we’re short for time or the line’s really long. I do, however, love carnivals and carnival rides. My family would go to the local fireman’s carnival every August and I loved it. We would go around dusk so we could see all of the lights (very important) and it was pretty much the closest I would get to going to an exposition (I love the World’s Fairs and expos and the whole nine yards. I know that fairs aren’t the same thing but – superficially, at least – the entertainment is similar and there’s no way a Great White City was coming to my hometown). Carnival rides are basically the best ever and I like having them in Disney too (why yes I love Chester and Hester as well. Haters to the left).

I do wish there was a better ride for the Alice story though (also a better movie adaptation. I like the Disney version but it doesn’t quite capture the tone of the original novel). I’ve seen, read, or played pretty much every version of Alice out there (who else remembers that 90s show on Disney channel where she’d go through the mirror and learn Important Life Lessons while wearing denim vests and flower printed denim? Seriously – every iteration) and something more substantial (with blacklights) would be better than a spinning ride.

I do love spinning, don’t get me wrong – there’s a reason my parents dropped me in ballet classes as soon I was old enough. But there are so many good parts of Alice (six impossible things before breakfast, etc.) that could be used to make an awesome ride that makes the teacups slightly underwhelming.

Next we’d come to Winnie the Pooh. Like pretty much every story represented in Fantasyland, I grew up reading the original A.A. Milne stories (though Paddington was my favorite bear). I loved the books and the original drawings (is the line of classic Pooh characters still around? I loved them!). I did wish there were more girls, since Kanga wasn’t all the exciting (which is why I didn’t understand the uproar over switching out Christopher Robin and making it less boy-friendly. Every other character except for Kanga is a boy! There are boys everywhere in the Hundred Acre Wood. You can let a girl play with the toys too! Boys can watch stories about girls!! And despite his excellent name, Christopher Robin is kind of boring).

Still the ride is sweet and I love Heffalumps and Woozles. And the narrator! The narrator is the best part. The ride does remain on the ‘fun to do’ part of our list with the tea cups.

The last ‘fun to do’ is Snow White’s Scary Adventures. I never liked Snow White all the much; she is nice and sweet, yes, but also kind of lacking a personality which made her seem shallow and flat. She never made any decisions on her own, except to eat the apple which good job, Snow White! The dwarves or the animals or the huntsman or the Evil Queen all directed her life for her. I wish they had added more depth to the character besides ‘likes animals’ and ‘enjoys cleaning.’ I’m pretty sure that if she wasn’t the first princess, Snow White wouldn’t be on most of the princess merchandise (you know, where they have Snow White (the first princess), Sleeping Beauty (Disneyland castle), Cinderella (Disney World castle), and Jasmine (~ethnic~)? They shove her in the way back anyway).

But since the ride’s leaving Fantasyland and I have a weakness for dark rides and rides with a distinct narrative, I’ll be dragging Bear on there (multiple times depending on how my pictures turn out).

Also her prince was kind of weird too. Like, why would you kiss some dead girl you never met? I mean, how did they fall in love without ever talking? I bet they had a pretty boring marriage where they were just nice to everyone all the time and never had a different opinion or anything. Or interests or stuff like that.

​

Cinderella’s (I’m sorry, Prince Charming’s) Carrousel is something that I would like to go on but it will take a miracle to drag Bear on. I love horses and growing up in suburban Pennsylvania there weren’t a lot of real horses. But there were plenty of carousels! And they were the old wooden ones, too, with the beautiful painted designs. We used to visit Dutch Wonderland frequently and they had a superb merry-go-round. Carousels and theme parks (like spinny rides and theme parks) just go together, with the lights and the music and the whole atmosphere. Sorry Bear!

Having finally exhausted the ‘they’re fun and cute’ rides, the Big Three are left: it’s a small world (which I usually capitalize in a fit of rebellion), Peter Pan, and Mickey’s Philharmagic (sorry again Dumbo!)

I never expected to like Philharmagic (3D gives me a headache and I already have glasses so it’s awkward to wear 3D glasses on top) but I fell in love the moment I saw the theming. The fake concert posters? Genius! And funny. I love parody posters like them.

The show was actually fun as well, but poor Donald. Finally the star of something and it’s named after Mickey! But I love orchestral hijinks (who wore out their Fantasia video?) and it’s so fun to go through other famous Disney movies (that campaign for Lilo and Stitch was the best thing Disney has ever done). Bear likes this one too, so we’ll definitely sit through it a couple times.

I love Peter Pan. We don’t watch it very much anymore since Bear is half Cherokee and the Native scene is awkward, to say the least, but it’s such a part of my childhood. I was obsessed with the novel when I was younger (it’s still one of my favorites), and like with Alice, I’ve consumed every version out there (including the prequels which don’t quite fit in the story. They’re cute stories but they aren’t Peter Pan, you know?). I wish they would have Tiger Lily doing meet and greets with Peter and Wendy (or more Peter and Wendy in general!) since she was always my favorite. I did (and still do) wonder how she got her name - her tribe (I’m guessing) was based off of Plains Indians who wouldn’t have seen tigers ever. There is a tiger lily (Lilium superbum) that is native to the east coast/Midwest parts of North America that was used as a food source for Native peoples, but I highly doubt they called it the ‘tiger lily.’ (Fun fact: the common name for the lilium superbum is the Turk’s cap lily because the petals – surprise, surprise – form a shape similar to a hat worn by the Turkish people.)

I think the Peter Pan ride is one of the best planned dark rides as well – there’s something a little more magical about being in a flying ship with actual altitude “changes” versus being in a car. It’s a more organic experience, in my opinion, compared to Snow White or Pooh (though I haven’t been on them in a few years, so I may change my mind after this trip). I wish this one was easier to photograph (why yes I’ve been researching dark ride photography extensively, why do you ask)? The pictures that do turn out are AMAZING. Mine will not be, so they will never see the light of day most likely.

And we’re – finally – almost done Fantasyland. I know, a majority of people find It’s a Small World unctuously cheerful and cute but I love it so much. I learned to read using an It’s a Small World (and various other Disney) audio books (even though I always thought Bobby, the main character, wasn’t all the bright. He was an orphan who decided that, in order to figure out where he belonged, he would ride It’s a Small World. In the end, because of the ride, he deduced that he had friends all over the world. No you don’t, Bobby, those are animatronics. Sorry. Also, next time you want to learn about other countries there is an excellent place to do so – it is called the LIBRARY). But the pictures were sweet and colorful and reminiscent of Mary Blair’s art so Little Kid Me would ignore silly Bobby and just look at the pictures.
Additionally, my grandparents took my sister and me to Disney when I was about eight. The way my memory works, I’ve retained more information about my make up homework (a packet on Little House on the Prairie) than the actual trip. My two clearest memories are of a meltdown outside Plant Hollywood and going on It’s a Small World because it was my grandfather’s favorite (I do have a few other memories, but they’re not relevant currently. I’ll bring them up in Epcot). I never would have guessed that this ride, out of all the rides at Disney, would have been my very Pennsylvania Dutch grandfather’s favorite, but it has always been more special to me because of that (my grandfather is also much smarter than Bobby as an fyi).

I love bright, happy, rainbow-y colors and I love Mary Blair and I love cartoonish animals and big happy clocks, so it was pretty much predetermined that I would love It’s a Small World. And because everyone else hates it, I will go on as many times as physically possible and take all of the pictures. And then show them to my grandfather who will enjoy them with me.

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

 

[Merida]

WOW that sounds like a pretty epic MK day!!! I agree, Tomorrowland is very much classic Disney, I love it!

It's funny because Magic Kingdom is the only park both of us are really knowledgable about. Like, Bear grew up in Florida and went all the time as a kid, but it's changed so much since either of us have gone! So we have, like, the ultimate Magic Kingdom plan and then it's all 'oh yeah... the other parks... hmmm... I guess we should go there too?'

I always found the characters with the heads creepy too! It just looks so awkward when they walk. I'm not sure how the talking Mickey works. I'll see if I can find a video of him. Errr, okay. I found some videos from Disney Land but they were too far away to see his mouth.

When we got our first cat he was really young. I'm not sure how young because of the way we got him but the girl who gave him to us (and who found him outside with no mama) said he had just opened his eyes a a little while before giving him to us. Anyways, his voice was croaky and and he couldn't really cry very well because I guess he had cried so much when he was by himself that he blew his voice It was so cute to hear him croaking!

Are you going to be doing a TR when you get back?! Please say yes!

Yeah, and the faces are such hard plastic! It must be so claustrophobic inside them.

Kittens are the best! He sounds like he was about the same age as these guys (1.5-2 weeks-ish). Kittens make such adorable noises all the time; ours are finally figuring out purring. We just got out our big winter down comforter and they are obsessed with it! They love hiding and pouncing on things (me, our cats, me). Their mother just went back to get adopted and they've adopted two new surrogate mothers - me and our older cat Darren. Right now I have one kitten next to me, one pouncing on my hand, and one trying to get on my face (they love watching typing so it's a fight for the best view ) Really adorable, really annoying! Oh kittens!

I'll probably do one when I get back; the kittens are going back to the shelter to get adopted right before we leave and I'll be on school break still (with my research group at a conference) so I'll have so much free time, I won't know what to do with myself!

 

[Merida]

I had meant to get this done earlier, but I had the brilliant idea of getting a beef stew together for tomorrow and had to peel the potatoes (my favorite job! I always feel like Molly Grue).

So we’ve finally finished up with Magic Kingdom, except for our MVMCP. I want to read a few more reports before finalizing our plans. I think I want to do the Rapunzel/Flynn and Tiana/Naveen meets but that’s pretty much as far as I’ve gotten. Instead let’s fast forward to the next morning, bright and early (Bear has independently come up with the idea of getting up early to hit the parks. On the days we’re driving we’ll be leaving each morning by 7AM according to Bear’s schedule so my Disney schedule is lax in comparison).

So our day will start off with a delicious breakfast at The Wave. I’m incredibly excited to try this place out (also that our ADR is 7:45AM). Bear will probably do the buffet and I’ll probably order a dish and it’s more than likely that we will both be eating sweet potato pancakes.

After we’ll head out for a mix of Animal Kingdom and EPCOT (depending on how long Animal Kingdom takes us. Dinner will be on the Boardwalk so it’ll be a quick walk over to EPCOT after).

I’ve been to Animal Kingdom once, I think, for my senior class trip. It was supposed to be a half day and, really, how productive are four teenage girls on vacation? We hit Dinosaur and It’s Tough to Be a Bug and then wandered around. So I’m pretty much an Animal Kingdom newbie; Bear is also, I’m not sure he’s even been there before!

Looking at the map, there really is no good way to get around Animal Kingdom, is there? I like the idea of the layout and with all things being equal we’d start in Dinoland and work our way around but how would we get Everest fastpasses in time? And I want to make sure to have plenty of time for the safari and animal trails so I’d like to go through Africa as early as possible. So the current working plan is to head to Everest, grab our Fastpasses, and then wander over to Africa with the rest of the crowds.

Two part Africa plan: Hop on one of these

And keep an eye out for elephants and giraffes and lions.

Then head over here

And look for meerkats and gorillas.

Really, this is pretty boring as we’re going to do the normal thing of gawking over the animals and what I really wanted to talk about is this.

HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS GAME.

It combines several of my favorite thing – scavenger hunts, collecting things, binoculars, Up, stickers. I highly doubt it’ll be around in December because a) I haven’t read about it before and b) all of the Internet news is from September. I’ve read some griping about how this detracts from passive entertainment and ~personal discovery~ but whatevs. I could be collecting stickers and becoming a Wilderness Explorer (the next best club after the Pawnee Goddesses, let’s be real).

Bring it back, Disney!!
(flicr, flickr, flickr, flickr, da mouse

 

[IheartDDuck]

Okay, I used to watch Adventures in Wonderland too! Actually, they used to film it at MGM Studios, and on the Backlot Tour, they used to take you through there when it was actually filming. Got to see that one time. Pretty cool. It's not cool like that anymore.

Love all of your discussion about Fantasyland. It's one of my favorite lands in the Magic Kingdom too. I can just wander around there endlessly.

 

[Stringbean&Wingnut]

I've never been to The Wave, but the Sweet Potato Pancakes do sound like a great way to start the day!

That Wilderness Explorers game does look adorable! So wait, it isn't there anymore? Or it's just a temporary program? I hope they keep it, it looks fun!

 

[ZehnJahren]

Wow, that's a lot of writing! Great pictures in the Fantasyland post; that's a nice story about your Grandpa too. I went with my grandparents when I was really really little, along with other family members - but I just don't remember them being there. I remember the trip, but not them.

But I thought the Pooh ride was just about the nuttiest thing I'd ever been on. Part of it was cool with random special effects that I'd never seen before (like the rain - wow!), but then some of it was like a poorly executed traveling carnival dark ride. I wasn't a fan at all.

 

[Merida]

A totally necessary interruption:

Everyone needs to go watch the new Bear and Bow (whatevs, Pixar, Brave is the worst and The Bear and The Bow is the best title ever): trailer right now if they somehow have missed it!!

Because it is amazing and perfect and my precious perfect princess is wonderful (and her hair!! Merida's hair >>> Rapunzel's hair).

Definitely worth waiting the extra day or two for.


(how can you not love that face??)

 

[archdandy]

A totally necessary interruption:

Everyone needs to go watch the new Bear and Bow (whatevs, Pixar, Brave is the worst and The Bear and The Bow is the best title ever): trailer right now if they somehow have missed it!!

Because it is amazing and perfect and my precious perfect princess is wonderful (and her hair!! Merida's hair >>> Rapunzel's hair).

Definitely worth waiting the extra day or two for.


(how can you not love that face??)

I just watched the trailer and it looks GOOD! It's too bad we have to wait all the way until June to watch it. Her hair makes Rapunzels hair look drab and normal. Its just so bouncy!

And woohoo for sweet potato pancakes!

 

[Stringbean&Wingnut]

That trailer looks so good! I especially love that hair! (And not just because I totally relate to those untameable curls hahaha)

 

[Merida]

Okay, I used to watch Adventures in Wonderland too! Actually, they used to film it at MGM Studios, and on the Backlot Tour, they used to take you through there when it was actually filming. Got to see that one time. Pretty cool. It's not cool like that anymore.

Love all of your discussion about Fantasyland. It's one of my favorite lands in the Magic Kingdom too. I can just wander around there endlessly.

Adventures in Wonderland was pretty much my favorite thing while it was on TV; pretty much the only thing I remember anymore is the Mad Hatter's second cousin twice removed (? something like that) who was ~evil~ and caused shenanigans (liked pretty much everyone's relatives on that show, ). And it taught me what a white elephant was!

You can tell that they definitely spent more time on the conception and implementation of Fantasyland compared to, like, MGM/DHS because it's all so seamless and nothing is wasted there. And the Cinderella fountain is so sweet.

I've never been to The Wave, but the Sweet Potato Pancakes do sound like a great way to start the day!

That Wilderness Explorers game does look adorable! So wait, it isn't there anymore? Or it's just a temporary program? I hope they keep it, it looks fun!

Pancakes are pretty much the perfect way to start a day, next to waffles. I go back and forth on which is my favorite!

I think they're going to put in eventually? Since they're doing Sorcerer Mickey in Magic Kingdom, it seems like they're going to put an interactive game in all the parks. I hope it's some sort of cool film noir (they could even do it with Phineas and Ferb, since they had a film noir episode! Or Agent Perry!). Or else something to do with the film industry (making a movie? idk, I'm really attached to the film noir idea).

Wow, that's a lot of writing! Great pictures in the Fantasyland post; that's a nice story about your Grandpa too. I went with my grandparents when I was really really little, along with other family members - but I just don't remember them being there. I remember the trip, but not them.

But I thought the Pooh ride was just about the nuttiest thing I'd ever been on. Part of it was cool with random special effects that I'd never seen before (like the rain - wow!), but then some of it was like a poorly executed traveling carnival dark ride. I wasn't a fan at all.

Aha, I type a LOT. I am the worst person to e-mail ever (partly because I'm bad at answering them) because I will use four paragraphs (or more) when a four line response would suffice! Thus the importance of editing! I had an excellent typing education and have a pretty fast wpm, so sometimes my fingers get carried away and just keep going.

I'm really bad at recalling memories on my own, but if someone starts talking about something then I know things, which is why I know more a-yut Little House on the Prairie than old vacations! It just seems to come up more frequently.

Nutty things can be fun, and I'm a sucker for carnival rides, so I think Pooh'n'I will get on pretty well I don't think I'd ride it more than once because I don't have a connection with the Disney version of Pooh; I prefer the tone and feeling (less.. acid trip-y?) of the original books.

I just watched the trailer and it looks GOOD! It's too bad we have to wait all the way until June to watch it. Her hair makes Rapunzels hair look drab and normal. Its just so bouncy!

And woohoo for sweet potato pancakes!

That trailer looks so good! I especially love that hair! (And not just because I totally relate to those untameable curls hahaha)

I knooow. I feel her on not being able to find a good hair salon; no one understands that I have masses of curly hair and they always wreck it (my first real haircut was in the seventh grade). I hope it's not quite the final cut (if you look at the scene with the will-o'-the-whisp, the lighting on her face isn't quite right) but it's way better than I had hoped!

 

[Merida]

Somehow I have FREE TIME in the middle of the day. This means I have: no pressing homework (turned in my modeling homework in class and not at the very end of the day after spending all day in my advisor’s office, where he patiently explains what I’m missing) and I’m caught up on research (by this I mean I have nothing to do until I meet with my advisor this afternoon and get the okay to apply t-tests to pretty much all of my data because precipitation records are horrible quality). And it’s the Friday before Thanksgiving “break” (I’m still going to be coming into the office over the week) so I’ve made the executive decision to do only fun things until lunch.

When I last left off, Bear and I were wandering aimlessly through the jungle, probably bickering about the most logical way to get through Animal Kingdom with the least amount of backtracking (we’re currently at a stalemate after a breakthrough of ignoring Camp Minnie-Mickey minus the Lion King show to focus on the good stuff). Given that we’ll be passing right next toa train and I can never pass up a good train ride, we’ll head to Rafiki’s Planet Watch next.

We probably won’t do much in here because, well, we both probably know more about conservation than is presented here (thanks climate professor!) but I feel a compulsion to read all the signs in there anyway. Bear can’t turn off a space show even though we’ve seen the same basic idea with different presenters (and still no atmospheric scientists) fifty million times and I can’t go through museums without reading all the information. That’s the reason that Bear refuses to go to art museums with me, since he has a much more aggressive method of touring while I look and look and look. Museums are some of my favorite places in the world.

Also – there’s a petting zoo. I love petting zoos. We’ll also be about a week out from having contact with our cats so I’ll probably be needing to snuggle some sort of little adorable animal. Bear will watch from a safe distance because I’m a very popular petting zoo visitor because I will buy ALL of the food and feed everybody.

Once Bear drags me away from the goats (there is precedence for this needing to be done, sadly), we’ll head on through to Asia. Bear will keep dragging me until we finally make it through the Everest queue and hit up a real ride. I’m ridiculously excited for this ride as well, but more because the queue pictures are absolutely gorgeous. I’m sure it’s exciting and thrilling etc.,etc., but how about those prayer flags??.

There’s also Flights of Wonder (in middle school I watched The Birds and consequently had a brief period of being absolutely petrified of large flocks of birds, but besides that I’ve always loved birds. It used to be my mother’s pet name for me) to go to and another animal trail. You can’t see it (given that this is the internet) but Bear is already kind of dreading Animal Kingdom while I am hyperventilating with excitement. ANIMALS EVERYWHERE. Best place ever!! I’m sure he’ll change his mind once we actually get there but right now it’s a bit up in the air.

And then finally we come to DinoLand, U.S.A., a place pretty much perfect for me. Dinosaurs! Cheesy tourist trap theming! Bad carnival rides! A+++++

I love DinoLand because it doesn’t try at all to be more than it is. I will be that person who goes on Primeval Whirl (and maybe Triceratop Spin) just because they’re fun and there. It’s pretty much opposite my expectations for the rest of Disney where I want lavish queues and extravagant theming; this is more my childhood of going to summer carnivals and having one last experience before school starting.

And dinosaurs! My dinosaur shirts are already prepped and waiting for this day (yes, I have multiple and I can’t pick between them). I like the two different and distinct parts of DinoLand – the actual DinoLand and Dino-rama.

There’s also Dinosaur: the Ride. I actually went and saw the movie as well (though only once, because anthropomorphized dinosaur movies make me sad since the inevitable ending is that they all die. We actually just talked about the comet/killing off the dinosaurs in my atmos. chemistry class and how acid rain was probably also created and killed off all the dinosaur food) This was one of my first thrill rides ever. On my senior class trip, I got wheedled into going onto Jurassic Park at Islands of Adventure and Dinosaur by my friends (you really do need even numbers to make riding fun). I was unsure at first but ended up loving both of ‘em (there was a “traumatic” roller coaster experience in my past that made me hesitant) and now Dinosaur’s a must-do.

Hopefully we’ll end up back at Camp Minnie-Mickey in time for a Festival of the Lion King show (or we’ll do it at lunch, which I’ll cover in my next post). I saw the Lion King show in London and loved it and can’t wait to show Bear. It’s also pretty much impossible to find one good representative picture (there’s just so many!) so I apologize for my indecision in picking one out. I figured that there was enough in this update to let it slip. ☺

And it’s lunch time!

(flickr, flickr, flickr, flickr, flickr, only wdworld, flickr, flickr)

 

[archdandy]

A lot of people don't seem to like Animal Kingdom but I love it! I like going through the trails and looking at the animals (I could spend all day there), I like the DinoLand (even though DH hates going there), I like the food (Yak & Yeti was one of my favorite restaurants last trip), and I like the overall atmosphere. The only thing I don't like is that there are ridiculous amounts of people all trying to look at the animals on the trails so you can't stay for very long without being rude and it just gets stuffy being crowded. I'm hoping it will be different in January because we went in June last trip.

 

[Merida]

Wow! A lot has changed in the past… four days? I’m currently reworking a lot of my notes because:

1. One of my best friends from undergrad is doing a Christmas trip as well! Her trip is with her parents and, while I really want to spend time with her, I keep having to remind myself to be respectful of that. So we’ve been chatting about some possibilities.
2. Partly with one, but Disney changed their hours! Yay! I was looking for more things to organize No more pre-rope drop Crystal Palace on the 16th but we get a 3AM Magic Kingdom closing during our trip. This was one thing that I was really, really hoping would happen. I’m currently trying to convince my friend to join us on this night.
3. Not much else, except trying to straighten out the situation for the two cats + hedgehog that will still be ours when we leave. We do have friends that could watch various animals at various points but coordinating everything is turning into a massive headache. So we’re looking into kenneling for the whole trip, it’s just difficult to find a hedgehog kennel. I’m all for just sticking him in a cat carrier; he’s small and sleeps enough, no one will notice! (Kidding, mostly; we’re asking our vet. The hedgehog just needs a warm place to sleep or he’ll go into hibernation and die. But that’s all!)

So because of 1 and 2 (less so 3, our cats could care less about what we do, just when we get back!) I’ve been fussing with our plans a bit.

I’m considering spending most of the morning and early afternoon at Animal Kingdom, grabbing a lunch somewhere like Flametree. I go back and forth about recommending this one – Bear is a fan of sauce-style barbecue, not rub-style (I don’t know, I grew up eating German or Mennonite food. For us, barbecue was hot dogs and hamburgers which I’m told is very, very wrong). I think Flametree has rub-style. If we can’t find a lunch we want, we’ll have a snack (hellllllllo bear paw!) and wait until we hop over to:

The Boardwalk!

(I know that lighthouse isn’t real, but I still love it. BWI and Yacht Club duel it out as my top Boardwalk resort, sorry Beach Club)

We have dinner reservations at Kouzzina at 6 or so (5:30, says my notes). I’d like to spend the time after Animal Kingdom (we have some more time at the end of the trip if there’s something that gets left out or the animals aren’t very cooperative) exploring the Boardwalk resorts and walking around Epcot. The Boardwalk resorts are some of my favorite and since I’ve never actually been there (perfect vacation includes a stay at the garden cottages. They’re just too cute!) and have slowly been acclimating Bear to the idea. We should have a couple hours after dinner to wander through Epcot and maybe ride a few things (or see a few shows. I do want to see Voices of Liberty at some point and Bear is less enthused so extra Epcot time is exactly what I need. Also – a times guide).

(flickr, flickr, orlando attractions, flickr)

 

[Merida]

A lot of people don't seem to like Animal Kingdom but I love it! I like going through the trails and looking at the animals (I could spend all day there), I like the DinoLand (even though DH hates going there), I like the food (Yak & Yeti was one of my favorite restaurants last trip), and I like the overall atmosphere. The only thing I don't like is that there are ridiculous amounts of people all trying to look at the animals on the trails so you can't stay for very long without being rude and it just gets stuffy being crowded. I'm hoping it will be different in January because we went in June last trip.

Yeah, with all that space you would think there would be plenty of room! I kind of want to do a Christmas to New Year's trip if only because Animal Kingdom is DEAD on New Year's Eve, given that the other parks have cool things.

Heh, I just stand there anyway. Except if there's something REALLY fascinating going on (which I'll see if there're shorter people behind me, buuuut that doesn't usually happen). In most places I'm very deferential to other people but not in museums or zoos (especially when I give up my awesome red panda viewing spot to someone who calls it a fox. Read the plaques! Plaques are fun and informative! I, too, am fun and informative but people are much less likely to ask me about red pandas than read plaques even).

 

[lilpixiebabe101]