The Big 3-0: A Birthday Cruise (Feb 2nd-9th) and a trip to the World!

[conny264]

Great report
I just wanted to tell you that we had sort of the same problem with BA in 2006.After our return i wrote to BA customer service a "nice "letter with the invoice for the extra night and transfer costs and told them to transfer this money to my bank account---and they did without further question.
Maybe you should do that too.It wasn´t your fault.
Same Problem this year,this time with Lufthansa.We have to fly one day earlier and they agreed in advance to pay the extra night.
Can´t wait to hear more of your report.
Take care
Conny

 

[WDBRDWLK]

Hi Perdie-
Our grandaughter was born on Wed. Feb 13th. She weighed 9 lbs, 11 oz and was 21.5 inches long. She is just beautiful!
Glad to here that your vacations was wonderful.
Did you go to the DVC meeting Thurdsay on board...if so we were sitting in the front row and after Roland and Linda were done talking they gave the mike to my husband and said a few words about DVC...we absolutely love it! You will be glad you joined! The travel is endless, something that we could not do out of pocket.

 

[Perdie]

Great report
I just wanted to tell you that we had sort of the same problem with BA in 2006.After our return i wrote to BA customer service a "nice "letter with the invoice for the extra night and transfer costs and told them to transfer this money to my bank account---and they did without further question.
Maybe you should do that too.It wasn´t your fault.
Same Problem this year,this time with Lufthansa.We have to fly one day earlier and they agreed in advance to pay the extra night.
Can´t wait to hear more of your report.
Take care
Conny

That's a great idea! We called and my husband asked for the money and they basically laughed at us because they gave us 4 weeks notice and are allowed to change the flight with that much notice-according to the one BA person he spoke to! But maybe a nice letter-strongly worded-would suffice! After all was said and done-we were not too angry to be "forced" to spend an extra day at Disneyworld though!!! (But BA doesn't have to know that!!)

 

[Perdie]

Hi Perdie-
Our grandaughter was born on Wed. Feb 13th. She weighed 9 lbs, 11 oz and was 21.5 inches long. She is just beautiful!
Glad to here that your vacations was wonderful.
Did you go to the DVC meeting Thurdsay on board...if so we were sitting in the front row and after Roland and Linda were done talking they gave the mike to my husband and said a few words about DVC...we absolutely love it! You will be glad you joined! The travel is endless, something that we could not do out of pocket.

Congratulations! How fun! My sister is due at the end of April with a girl and we can't wait! I bought her a Princess in Training onesie from the disney store with Minnie on it It's so much fun to dress up girls!

We were in the DVC meeting on Thursday-I remember your husband talking-we were in the second or third row on the other side of you guys!
I have to say about that meeting though-Roland said they were offering a $500 on board credit but neglected to mention you have to close by 4.30 on Friday or you won't get it....and we closed at 6PM...so we ended up getting an additional $500 off the price but it didn't feel the same as an onboard credit...so we were a little disappointed with that. But other than that we are pretty pleased to have joined the DVC crew!

If I recall you and your husband have a lot of points....and didn't you get a grand villa for your whole family? I am trying to recall the story he told....it's all a blur that day-we were not expecting to buy. IN fact we walked out, grabbed the book and didn't even take a time slot and as we were walking-we were casually talking about our vacation in NOvember and the incentives on board and we looked at each other and said "Let's go back and see if there are any sign up times left" and there was ONE!

And here we are!!

 

[WDBRDWLK]

Hi Perdie-So your going to be an Auntie! How nice. Are they in the States? I agree shopping for girls is so much easier but you spend alot more money on them too!

I had looked around the room at the DVC meeting and I probably saw you at one time or another. We had gone to both DVC member meetings and the DVC public meeting and I don't remember Roland mentioning that closing had to take place by a certain time. Glad you purchased! You won't regret it. Your so young that you will really enjoy it.


We purchased 210 points at Boardwalk back in 1999. We started to keep a spreadsheet and log our virtual costs for each trip that we took using our points. Over the years we bought 75 points at Hilton Head, SC, 100 points at Beachclub, 100 points at Saratoga and most recently when our daughter was in the college program in 2005 we got to use her cast member discount and bought another 100 points at Saratoga. We have 585 points.

We try and do a Grand-Villa every other year and invite friends and family who would not be able to afford to stay on property. Our first GV was at HH at the millenium. There were 10 of us including toddler triplets! It was a blast. Then in 2002 we stayed in the GV at BW
again with our friends with the triplets and another couple. In 2004 our son graduated from college, our daughter from high school so we were at BW and took his finace' with us. It was her first visit to WDW. In 2005 our son was married in June and they went to Williamsburg for their honeymoon. In 2006 we renewed our vows on the Wonder and the night before we sailed we all stayed at OKW in the GV. (That one night was over $1800 if out of pocket) We have also done Christmas week and you know how expense that is if out of pocket. Its so beautiful during the holidays that I would recommend it highly...

So to make a long story short over the years the virtual cost of just the lodging at WDW, DL, and DCL is over $60k. We could not have afforded that out of pocket.

Back in 99' we spent 3 months talking about it and we decided that if we gave up eating out one weekend a month that it could be our monthly payment. Its the best decision we ever made. I could go on and on.

If you have any questions please email me. I'll be happy to share with you the spreadsheet format we use or anything else you need.

 

[Perdie]

It's amazing everytime someone tells me about their DVC points they say we'll never regret it. Everyone talks about it so positively so I am very excited and I think we made a good choice! We are so excited to start spending the points now!!

I'm going to PM you for that spreadsheet-sounds like something we could really use.

Do you have a hard time keeping track of use year/banking times etc? Makng sure you're not losing any points and making sure you bank in time and use in time and all that? I fear we'll get confused and miss out on points or something!

Thanks again!

 

[AZDisneyDan]

Greetings all, I have been back to London now for a week while my other half is home in Arizona visiting with family. I'm sure either my wife or I will follow-up with a nice trip report once we get over our depression that the trip is over. Overall, we had a wonderful time at both Disney World and the cruise. The weather was great the whole time and the cast members were very friendly and warm. It was a birthday trip to remember for the both of us. Here are a couple of pictures to give you a quick glimpse of our trip.

 

[Perdie]

It's so nice to see the pictures from our trip!!! I miss you!!!!

 

[Perdie]

Well, since I am sitting at my parents house, 8000 miles away from my husband, I thought I would reminisce about our trip and start the TR....sorry pictures won't be included unless my husband posts them after I write this because he has all the pictures right now! (He's in London and I am currently in AZ at the end of my trip)

Sooooo......
Wednesday January 29th, we wake up and get ready to go to Gatwick Airport. We have three large suitcases and two large carry one bags. We are overloaded and we need to WALK to the tube to take us to the train to get to the airport. Thankfully we leave before rush hour begins and after lugging more than 50lbs of luggage per person we make it to Gatwick with plenty of time. There are no lines anywhere at this airport! We end up sitting for two hours doing nothing but waiting and anticipating our journey!

I get nervous before any flight and while I do truly try to enjoy myself, the more time we have to sit and wait, the more nervous I get. So while I enjoy being stress free about making the plane, I don't enjoy all the thoughts that go through my head about all the things that can go wrong on the plane.

This is my very first transatlantic British Airways flight. I have only flown BA throughout Europe, so I was expecting about the same-good service, and a pretty nice sized plane. But it exceeded expectations! On American Airlines, the airline we flew to Eusope back in 2006 when we moved to London, the seats were small, we didn't have free alcohol on an overseas flight and the food was bland and boring. Overall, AA did not deliver. On the other hand, BA was over the top with amenities! We were given a little kit like they give you in first class, with socks, eye covers, headphones, a pillow and a blanket! The seats were really big, and free liquor for the whole flight! (I had wine with lunch and that was it really).

Dan (hubby) picked our seats the night before, picking a window and an aisle, hoping no one would choose the middle and we would have the whole row to ourselves. We watched as every person walked by and prayed they wouldn't stop-and they didn't! We ended up with the row to ourselves! I started to get excited once the plane started to take off. Since the plane felt so big and luxurious, I didn't feel nervous. I started thinking about the fact that in 9 hours I would be landing in America for the first time since I moved away 18 months ago.....

I started off the flight by watching Atonement. I don't recommend this-it's very slow moving. If you want a movie that makes time go by, don't pick a sad WWII era flick that has some very very slow parts to it. I think the movie is overrated.

Lunch came during the movie and I had beef with vegetables. It was ok, but we did get served pie (which Goofy loved) and a kitkat bar. (If possible-a note to Dan if he is reading this-post the picture of Goofy sitting in his seat on the plane!)

I had wine with lunch-not just a little glass-they give you a mini bottle! I drank it all and when my next movie began-December Boys-I promptly fell asleep for the first half of the movie! The movie has Harry Potter in it and I ended up picking it up and watching the second half. I missed some key elements to the movie-but the half that I saw was really really good!

After the second movie, (Dan had watched 3:10 to Yuma), he decided to listen to some Disney podcasts to get him more excited about the trip (if that was really possible) and I decided to watch a third movie-hoping time would fly at this point! It took them about 45 minutes to start the third movie and I chose 3:10 to Yuma as Dan said it was excellent. The parts of the movie I saw were really action packed and I enjoyed it. Until about the last 20 minutes when the pilot announced we were 45 minutes from landing and the flight attendants decided to shut down the entertainment! So even though there was enough time to finish the movie-I was left hanging at the most intense part!! Dan told me how it finished but I was still annoyed about it.

Oh well, it didn't matter at this point because after nine hours we were just about ready to land in America! And more importantly-in Orlando!!!!

We landed and it was a little cloudy out. We grabbed our bags and we tried heading upstairs and we got stopped and were told to put our baggage through more security. We were confused and they told us we needed to drop them off atb this check point and pick them up at regular baggage claim! So we had to wait twice for our bags!

It took us an hour to get out of Orlando Int'l airport, but we had our bags and we had rented from Budget and we were ready to roll-Dan was all set to drive back on the right side of the road! He said his brain really did just flip back into America mode. Although the super wide roads and huge SUV's on the road were a big change we did notice!

We were so excited driving down the highway towards WDW, we could hardly wait! It was only 4 in the afternoon (or 9PM London time) and we weren't jetlagged just yet. We were hungry and ready to see our resort! (Port Orleans French Quarter)

We arrived at the resort and headed in-this was my first time there-so I was taking it all in. The Mardi Gras theming and all the little Disney touches I love. When we got to the desk we were of course hoping for an upgrade or a King Bed and our TA was supposed to have called in and asked for it a few days in advance. They had not, and sadly there was nothing available (we were hoping since they knew it was our birthdays we might get something special). But we didn't and it really didn't matter-our room was still really great and fun! Although we were on the first floor-but we had a courtyard view and not a parking lot view-so that was a bonus.

I really loved the rooms-although the last Disney hotels I stayed at were Grand Floridian and Animal Kingdom Lodge (hard to beat those!)....but POFQ is a great moderate resort. I especially had fun with the towel animals left in the room and discovering all the hidden Mickeys in the room (most are on the comforter!).

We dropped our bags and took some pictures of the room and then we headed off to Shades of Green to get our annual passes (by the end of this trip we would be returning them as we became members of DVC and would get an even bigger AP discount...but that comes later).

Neither one of us had ever been to Shades of Green and we both really liked it. It was quite similar in feel to a wilderness lodge although the look was different-but it had the same quality-combined with a nice Westin.

We picked up our tickets, took a quick look around and then realized we were still starving so we headed to Downtown Disney to grab some food.

Now we had been debating about where to eat our first American meal in 18 months. This was a very important decision! We had finally decided on Wolfgang's because we had heard some really good things.

We walked out of the car and walked in to DTD near the AMC movie theatre. This proved to be a fatal error! We both got a whiff of freshly popped movie theatre popcorn and our mouths dropped open and the drool began to fall. You see, Dan and I are addicted to movie theatre popcorn. In London you do not get fresh popcorn. You get popcorn made at a factory weeks before and shoved in a giant glass container with no butter. It's rather disgusting. The closest we have come to American style popcorn was in Denmark in December-but even that was not the same.

We caucused about what to do...a big meal? Or a small meal and a movie so we could get some popcorn. I would be in the states for longer than Dan and I would be able to have popcorn at a later date, but we just didn't see how Dan would be able to get any until he came home again in December 2008. There just wouldn't be time unless we did it now.

We did the math. If we saw the 9PM movie, it would get out around 11PM and it would be 4AM London time. We would be a mess! Was it worth it???
We decided to skip Wolfgang's and get Earl of Sandwich instead. This way, we could eat a quick sandwich and make the decision after dinner.

So our very first meal was Earl of Sandwich-a British themed sandwich shop! Oh the irony of it all!!

I had the All American with turkey, cranberry and mayo and Dan had a meatball sub. I couldn't wait to get my hand on iced tea with sweet and low! (They do not have the freshly brewed iced tea in England-home of tea!)
I enjoyed every bite and every sip, savoring the flavors. American food had been desperately missed by us both.

But the BA meals combined with the Earl of Sandich was not agreeing with me and what would become a common theme in the first week of being in America where food portions are larger and everything is caked in sugar and preservatives-one of us would get a little (or a lot) sick to our stomachs!

But I was a trooper! I was not about to give up on the night!! We had popcorn to decide on and Goofy's candy company around the corner!!!
So we headed to Goofy's where Dan got a slushie and I got a marshmellow covered in white chocolate and reese peanut butter cup. (I didn't eat it-I saved it for the next day and actually it took me about 3 days to finish it!)

So we were wandering DTD and it was getting closer and closer to 9PM....should we or shouldn't we? We headed into the Art of Disney store and talked with an animator for awhile (he left us with a bad feeling-he had a very big ego-but he did at least "get it" when it came to disney theme parks)

Anyway, so we finally gave into the madness and decided we just couldn't live without the popcorn. We got tickets to see Juno and headed in. The popcorn was disgustingly glorious! We couldn't even finish our one large bag (a terrible defeat on our part). But we enjoyed every second of our jetlagged stuffed selves eating popcorn at an american movie theatre!

We were so tired and disgusted with ourselves once the movie was over...we headed back to the hotel. We called our parents for the first time in the states, watched about 5 minutes of american tv and fell promptly to sleep...not waking up until Mickey (and sadly Stitch) woke us the next morning to tell us that BIg Doins' were going on in the park that we better be ready for!!!!

Well, that's all for now-we had a big first day!
Coming up next: Our first day at the parks-he head to Hollywood Studios first and Magic Kingdom that night! Stay Tuned!!!

 

[LisaSp]

...We were on your cruise, so I look forward to your TR. I don't think I will have time or energy to write one of my own LOL.

 

[AZDisneyDan]

I have added a few pictures in the appropriate places below. I'm enjoying reliving our memorable trip with your report. Keep it up and I can't wait to see you again in 3 days.

Well, since I am sitting at my parents house, 8000 miles away from my husband, I thought I would reminisce about our trip and start the TR....sorry pictures won't be included unless my husband posts them after I write this because he has all the pictures right now! (He's in London and I am currently in AZ at the end of my trip)

Sooooo......
Wednesday January 29th, we wake up and get ready to go to Gatwick Airport. We have three large suitcases and two large carry one bags. We are overloaded and we need to WALK to the tube to take us to the train to get to the airport. Thankfully we leave before rush hour begins and after lugging more than 50lbs of luggage per person we make it to Gatwick with plenty of time. There are no lines anywhere at this airport! We end up sitting for two hours doing nothing but waiting and anticipating our journey!

I get nervous before any flight and while I do truly try to enjoy myself, the more time we have to sit and wait, the more nervous I get. So while I enjoy being stress free about making the plane, I don't enjoy all the thoughts that go through my head about all the things that can go wrong on the plane.

This is my very first transatlantic British Airways flight. I have only flown BA throughout Europe, so I was expecting about the same-good service, and a pretty nice sized plane. But it exceeded expectations! On American Airlines, the airline we flew to Eusope back in 2006 when we moved to London, the seats were small, we didn't have free alcohol on an overseas flight and the food was bland and boring. Overall, AA did not deliver. On the other hand, BA was over the top with amenities! We were given a little kit like they give you in first class, with socks, eye covers, headphones, a pillow and a blanket! The seats were really big, and free liquor for the whole flight! (I had wine with lunch and that was it really).

Dan (hubby) picked our seats the night before, picking a window and an aisle, hoping no one would choose the middle and we would have the whole row to ourselves. We watched as every person walked by and prayed they wouldn't stop-and they didn't! We ended up with the row to ourselves! I started to get excited once the plane started to take off. Since the plane felt so big and luxurious, I didn't feel nervous. I started thinking about the fact that in 9 hours I would be landing in America for the first time since I moved away 18 months ago.....

I started off the flight by watching Atonement. I don't recommend this-it's very slow moving. If you want a movie that makes time go by, don't pick a sad WWII era flick that has some very very slow parts to it. I think the movie is overrated.

Lunch came during the movie and I had beef with vegetables. It was ok, but we did get served pie (which Goofy loved) and a kitkat bar. (If possible-a note to Dan if he is reading this-post the picture of Goofy sitting in his seat on the plane!)

I had wine with lunch-not just a little glass-they give you a mini bottle! I drank it all and when my next movie began-December Boys-I promptly fell asleep for the first half of the movie! The movie has Harry Potter in it and I ended up picking it up and watching the second half. I missed some key elements to the movie-but the half that I saw was really really good!

After the second movie, (Dan had watched 3:10 to Yuma), he decided to listen to some Disney podcasts to get him more excited about the trip (if that was really possible) and I decided to watch a third movie-hoping time would fly at this point! It took them about 45 minutes to start the third movie and I chose 3:10 to Yuma as Dan said it was excellent. The parts of the movie I saw were really action packed and I enjoyed it. Until about the last 20 minutes when the pilot announced we were 45 minutes from landing and the flight attendants decided to shut down the entertainment! So even though there was enough time to finish the movie-I was left hanging at the most intense part!! Dan told me how it finished but I was still annoyed about it.

Oh well, it didn't matter at this point because after nine hours we were just about ready to land in America! And more importantly-in Orlando!!!!

We landed and it was a little cloudy out. We grabbed our bags and we tried heading upstairs and we got stopped and were told to put our baggage through more security. We were confused and they told us we needed to drop them off atb this check point and pick them up at regular baggage claim! So we had to wait twice for our bags!

It took us an hour to get out of Orlando Int'l airport, but we had our bags and we had rented from Budget and we were ready to roll-Dan was all set to drive back on the right side of the road! He said his brain really did just flip back into America mode. Although the super wide roads and huge SUV's on the road were a big change we did notice!

We were so excited driving down the highway towards WDW, we could hardly wait! It was only 4 in the afternoon (or 9PM London time) and we weren't jetlagged just yet. We were hungry and ready to see our resort! (Port Orleans French Quarter)

We arrived at the resort and headed in-this was my first time there-so I was taking it all in. The Mardi Gras theming and all the little Disney touches I love. When we got to the desk we were of course hoping for an upgrade or a King Bed and our TA was supposed to have called in and asked for it a few days in advance. They had not, and sadly there was nothing available (we were hoping since they knew it was our birthdays we might get something special). But we didn't and it really didn't matter-our room was still really great and fun! Although we were on the first floor-but we had a courtyard view and not a parking lot view-so that was a bonus.

I really loved the rooms-although the last Disney hotels I stayed at were Grand Floridian and Animal Kingdom Lodge (hard to beat those!)....but POFQ is a great moderate resort. I especially had fun with the towel animals left in the room and discovering all the hidden Mickeys in the room (most are on the comforter!).

We dropped our bags and took some pictures of the room and then we headed off to Shades of Green to get our annual passes (by the end of this trip we would be returning them as we became members of DVC and would get an even bigger AP discount...but that comes later).

Neither one of us had ever been to Shades of Green and we both really liked it. It was quite similar in feel to a wilderness lodge although the look was different-but it had the same quality-combined with a nice Westin.

We picked up our tickets, took a quick look around and then realized we were still starving so we headed to Downtown Disney to grab some food.

Now we had been debating about where to eat our first American meal in 18 months. This was a very important decision! We had finally decided on Wolfgang's because we had heard some really good things.

We walked out of the car and walked in to DTD near the AMC movie theatre. This proved to be a fatal error! We both got a whiff of freshly popped movie theatre popcorn and our mouths dropped open and the drool began to fall. You see, Dan and I are addicted to movie theatre popcorn. In London you do not get fresh popcorn. You get popcorn made at a factory weeks before and shoved in a giant glass container with no butter. It's rather disgusting. The closest we have come to American style popcorn was in Denmark in December-but even that was not the same.

We caucused about what to do...a big meal? Or a small meal and a movie so we could get some popcorn. I would be in the states for longer than Dan and I would be able to have popcorn at a later date, but we just didn't see how Dan would be able to get any until he came home again in December 2008. There just wouldn't be time unless we did it now.

We did the math. If we saw the 9PM movie, it would get out around 11PM and it would be 4AM London time. We would be a mess! Was it worth it???
We decided to skip Wolfgang's and get Earl of Sandwich instead. This way, we could eat a quick sandwich and make the decision after dinner.

So our very first meal was Earl of Sandwich-a British themed sandwich shop! Oh the irony of it all!!

I had the All American with turkey, cranberry and mayo and Dan had a meatball sub. I couldn't wait to get my hand on iced tea with sweet and low! (They do not have the freshly brewed iced tea in England-home of tea!)
I enjoyed every bite and every sip, savoring the flavors. American food had been desperately missed by us both.

But the BA meals combined with the Earl of Sandich was not agreeing with me and what would become a common theme in the first week of being in America where food portions are larger and everything is caked in sugar and preservatives-one of us would get a little (or a lot) sick to our stomachs!

But I was a trooper! I was not about to give up on the night!! We had popcorn to decide on and Goofy's candy company around the corner!!!
So we headed to Goofy's where Dan got a slushie and I got a marshmellow covered in white chocolate and reese peanut butter cup. (I didn't eat it-I saved it for the next day and actually it took me about 3 days to finish it!)

So we were wandering DTD and it was getting closer and closer to 9PM....should we or shouldn't we? We headed into the Art of Disney store and talked with an animator for awhile (he left us with a bad feeling-he had a very big ego-but he did at least "get it" when it came to disney theme parks)

Anyway, so we finally gave into the madness and decided we just couldn't live without the popcorn. We got tickets to see Juno and headed in. The popcorn was disgustingly glorious! We couldn't even finish our one large bag (a terrible defeat on our part). But we enjoyed every second of our jetlagged stuffed selves eating popcorn at an american movie theatre!

We were so tired and disgusted with ourselves once the movie was over...we headed back to the hotel. We called our parents for the first time in the states, watched about 5 minutes of american tv and fell promptly to sleep...not waking up until Mickey (and sadly Stitch) woke us the next morning to tell us that BIg Doins' were going on in the park that we better be ready for!!!!

Well, that's all for now-we had a big first day!
Coming up next: Our first day at the parks-he head to Hollywood Studios first and Magic Kingdom that night! Stay Tuned!!!

 

[LJH77]

Just subscribing as I'm really enjoying your report! Good idea about the flight by the way, booking the isle and window seats - just aswell the flight wasn't full!! I'll have to remember that tip in future!

Re the popcorn and the iced-tea - yeah the popcorn at some cinemas in the UK can be rubbish (although I personally don't like the whole butter and salted thing, my husband really likes it though - I prefer sugar! yummy!) but don't even get me started on the price of food - what is that all about?!

Tea is a funny thing -you just don't get iced tea here, it's a real American thing. Although I know alot of people who love getting it when on holiday in the US. I'm not keen - on a trip to WDW a few years ago I asked at breakfast for an apple juice.....yep you've guessed it.... The server came back with my drink which looked very much like apple juice but once I took a big gulp.....tasted distinctly like iced-tea!! Bluechh! It gave me such a fright...I wasn't expecting that at all!

Anyway, I'm looking forward to reading more of your trip and I hope you had a lovely time on your trip home.

Laura

 

[kalel29]

I like it when husbands and wifes team up for a TR. Especialy when you get the different perspectives of the same experience. I'm definitely diggin this report so far. Subscribing... Can't wait for more pics

 

[Perdie]

I am back from the States (and recovering from jetlag by working!) so hopefully my TR will come a little faster now! I am at a temp job....so in my downtime I write my TR-is that wrong???

Here goes:

Thursday morning we wake up to the sound of Mickey and Stitch-inviting us to come and play at their playground. We are surprisingly not that jetlagged! Of course with the promise of a day at the parks ahead of us, we eagerly awaken and jump in the shower and turn on MSNBC-how exciting for us! We have American TV at our fingertips! This is a huge bonus for us, as the only access in London we have to American TV is Fox News and random sporadic TV shows (and a million reruns of Friends). (Not to mention reruns of Dallas, Knight Rider, and I think the Love Boat. Seriously, London TV has the oldest reruns ever. But we do get new shows as well…but I’m missing my own point here…we are sitting in a hotel where we have unlimited access to American shows and commercials…ok those aren’t a bonus…but local news…ok, not that great either…but MSNBC! Yeah! I love watching Joe in the morning! And SoapNet-I haven’t seen a soap opera in years! Ok, I am getting a little weird about American TV at this point and Dan reminds me we really need to get moving if we want to get to Hollywood Studios by park opening.

So off we go to have our first American breakfast at Port Orleans French Quarter (POFQ). We are both drooling at the Cinnabon-type breakfast, after 6 weeks of daily eggs-we both get a Mickey waffle and American bacon (very exciting for us) and we share a cinnabon. This is one sugary overloaded breakfast….just the beginning of what will turn out to be the most sugar I may have ever had in my entire life in one day. (Yes we did go overboard and Dan paid the price that night at 2 AM…more on that later!)

After we ingest our brekkie (british term for breakfast), we head over to the Cruise desk to pick up our luggage tags we never received in the mail. Then we head into the shop and look for band-aids for my newly blistered heel (not sure what happened here as I was not wearing new shoes!) And then we finally head over to Hollywood Studios at quarter to nine.

This is our first time renting a car and I am finding it much more convenient than waiting at a bus stop for the free ride. I feel more in control (even though it turns out we still have to wait for a tram to take us from the parking lot to the park-it doesn’t feel as annoying).
We try to get in with our vouchers and realize we need to get our Annual Passes and head back to the ladies in the booths. The lady that helped us was extremely friendly and noticed on our drivers license that not only did we share a very close birthday, (one day apart), but that said birthdays were next week! So she handed us 2 Birthday pins which we quickly wrote our names on and off we went, AP’s in hand!

The last studio-themed park I was at was in December in Paris at the Walt Disney Studios. While I love parts of this park, it pales in comparison to walking into Hollywood Studios. You immediately feel the atmosphere of this park, there are streetmosphere characters wandering around-one guy calling us twins as he noticed from afar our twin birthday pins! You just feel immersed in it-right away. And it feels good!

So we headed towards our favourite part of the park, Rock and Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror. Which to do first? We decided on ToT first and then RnRC. There was hardly a wait for either at this early part of the day. The last time we rode Tower of Terror was at the opening of the new ToT in Paris in December-so we were very excited to see the differences! We noticed that the size of the ride from the outside was smaller than in Paris (because the Paris ride is identical to the California version). They made those two versions larger to include a larger capacity to hold people, but in doing so they had to take out the fifth dimension-which in my opinion is the best part of the ride! So we were very much looking forward to this part of the ride!

Sadly, this would be our only opportunity to ride Tower of Terror for the whole trip! DisneyWorld was really just a bonus added onto our Cruise for my birthday trip. Originally we were just going to go on the cruise and not even step foot into the parks but after Dan surprised me with the trip, I talked him into staying a few days prior and after-afterall, why fly all that way and not go to Disney World??? So all of this was bonus for us! Besides, we knew we were coming back in November…..only 275 days until that trip! (But really, who’s counting?)

So after ToT we headed over to RnRC, picked up some Fast passes that we never used and got in line. This would be the one and only time we would see the Dream Team at work. We were walking into the ride and two curious people in light blue shirts were staring at a clock and speaking to us-although we didn’t realize it because they weren’t looking at us. They were wishing us a Happy Birthday…and literally as soon as we looked back to see who had spoken to us, they were busy giving the people behind us a Dream FastPass! The whole family got the fastpass and had their magical moment. I have to say, being one person in front of the winner is annoying. You really think-if only I had walked a little slower! Thankfully they only won some fastpasses-if they had won a night in the Castle or free lifetime DVC I think I would have walked off a bridge! (Ok, I am exaggerating a bit).

Again the last Rockin Roller Coaster we rode was in Paris so we noted all the differences. We both agreed that the ride itself was better in Paris-more rockin-but the theme of the ride in Orlando was better. The Paris ride is just a bunch of lights and I can’t really explain the story to you. Whereas in Orlando, you are in a limo (a super stretch) trying to get to an Aerosmith concert. Much easier storyline!

We left this part of the park and headed over to the Great Movie Ride which had a fairly short wait. We of course loved it! After that we headed over to Muppets-after all we were walking around with Beaker and he insisted we get to this ride ASAP! : )

My memory is a little fuzzy at this point (it’s been 3 weeks since then and I am working off no notes!) but I think we headed over to Sci Fi Diner to make a reservation for 12.30. At this point we went to see the Little Mermaid Blacklight show, we noted how it needs an upgrade-as we just saw a blacklight show in Paris (Animagique) and while the storyline is similar to Mickey’s Philharmagic, its blacklight effects are a bigger and better version of the Little Mermaid’s. So I was a little underwhelmed in that respect, but I still think it’s a great show!

We headed off to our lunch at Sci Fi at this point. We had heard mixed reviews and we weren’t sure about the food-but we thought it was worth the risk as it looked like it had amazing theming and atmosphere.

The room is huge. It’s like a huge drive in movie theatre, and your booth is a car. You sit side by side, as you would in a car and you stare at a huge movie screen playing old sci-fi clips and previews. Our waitress had a 50’s style outfit on, and I half expected her to be wearing roller skates! We were seated in a car with another family of four-so they had the 2 rows in front of us. I scanned the menu the words MILKSHAKE were calling to me…sugar was the order of the day! I also had a corned beef sandwich on rye that was really good and greasy…with great American French fries. Dan had an all American burger. Can you see the theme of the day here? All fried, American and sugary! We were in indulgent mode for sure!

After lunch we decided to leave the Studios and head over to the Magic Kingdom. On our way out, the streetmosphere guy stopped us and remembered our matching birthday pins from before! He took a picture with us and gave us his “card” since he was in the business (Hollywood that is) (he was a director apparently!). He was really funny and we had a good laugh with him!

We made a quick stop at the hotel (the beauty of having your own car), and after a look at MSNBC and SoapNet (I’m an addict!!!) we were off to my favourite park…the Magic Kingdom!

We headed right for Space Mountain to grab a fastpass-as it was late in the day and we were unsure of what rides we would get on, especially since we had ressies at California Grill at 7.30 so we needed to leave the parks early.

We grabbed our fastpasses and noticed that Space Mountain was down, so we jumped on the TTA so we could see the inside of Space Mountain and we thought the lights might be on. We were in luck and the lights were on! Seeing Space Mountain with all the lights on is a surreal experience. After the TTA, we went onto Carousel of Progress and the Monsters Inc and Buzz Lightyear. This was our first time on Monsters Inc and we weren’t all that impressed. It was ok, but Turtle Talk with Crush is way funnier. Space Mountain was up and running again so we headed for it- a waste of a FP as there was no line!

We finally left Tomorrowland and headed over to get a fastpass for Big Thunder-stopping to get a Dole Whip on the way. Disneyland Paris does not have Dole Whips. We had not had a dole whip since July 2006 and we were more than a little excited to get one. For those who have never had one before, it is a refreshing pineapple soft serve ice cream that will leave you wanting more…and more….and more!

We grabbed our fastpasses (which were set for 6.40 this will become important later in the story). I am not sure if we headed for Haunted Mansion or Pirates first but I know we hit both rides that afternoon. We also decided to see Mickey’s Philharmagic before heading back to Big Thunder.

We had dinner reservations at 7.30 for California Grill. This restaurant is located at the top of the Contemporary which overlooks the Magic Kingdom (and a great view of the Castle and fireworks.) We had a 7.30 reservation because the firework show was at 8.00PM and we thought it would be spectacular to see the show from the restaurant-and they pipe the music in! We knew we could not be late for dinner because we wanted to get seated and positioned for the show. But we had these fastpasses for 6.40 and we figured, fastpassing Big Thunder would have us leaving the park around 7PM giving us 30 minutes to get to the restaurant. Plenty of time, we had our change of clothes in our bag and we would change in the hotel bathroom…..

But what we didn’t know was that the wait for Big Thunder was all in the Fast pass line. Had we known this, we would have skipped it and gone into the regular line (of which there was virtually no wait). After 8 minutes in line, Dan jumped the bar to walk through the regular line to see how far down it went until he ran into anyone,,,he didn’t run into a person until almost where fastpass and the regular line meet up! We were worried they would hold us up in the regular line if we jumped over in order to clear the fast pass line. So we waited and waited. The minutes were crawling by! We finally got to the end of the line and got on the ride. The ride ended and it was about 10 after 7. We started running through the park….and guess what we ran into? Spectromagic! Of course the night parade was going on and was going on in Main Street-the one place we had to be-the exit to the Magic Kingdom!

We waited patiently until there was a break in floats and we could run for it (legally, they opened the rope for everyone). And we ran to the monorail and the lady had just closed the gates-we were out of breath begging to be let on and she had enough sympathy to open up the gate again (while telling us in a very gruff voice to hurry up and get on.) Out of breath and sweaty we made it to the hotel and changed into our nicer clothing in the bathroom and headed for the reservation desk at exactly 7.30. As we arrived, we heard the lady behind the desk telling a customer that they would probably not get seated until after the fireworks-45 minutes away. We knew what time our reservations were for, so we figured we would be ok. We asked when we would get sat and she said 20 minutes. That brought us to 10 to 8. I started worrying that we would either not get seated in time, or get seated away from the show or worse, get seated in the middle of the show! They handed us a buzzer and sent us upstairs to the restaurant. We decided to hang outside on the roof in the viewing area. Turns out that was the best place to be! We got front row views of Wishes-the fireworks show!

As 20 minutes turned into 30 and we were still waiting to be seated, the show started and now I was hoping they wouldn’t seat us until after the show. The show from above was amazing-although it’s funny because you can see the fireworks over Space Mountain instead of over the Castle. It’s all about your perspective I guess! As the show ended all the people were in silent awe (except for the annoying people getting to know each other behind us-constantly chatting through the entire show). Not to mention once the man stopped talking to the random stranger he started yapping at his kid about clap for the show Mikey! Clap for the show! Well, little Mikey didn’t feel like clapping but the dad was unrelenting! He may have yelled in my ear about the clapping 25 times in a row until he got the point that Mikey didn’t like it.

It was 8.15 at this point and we still had not heard anything so we went up to the front of the restaurant to ask and sure enough they claimed they had rung our buzzer. So either we had a bunk pager or they lied! Either way we got sat by the window-on the other side-with a view of Epcot and the Grand Floridian.

We had a fantastic dinner that night. Dan started off with flatbread and I had the sushi. I then had the ravioli which was not as good as I had hoped but it was decent. Dan had the filet in BBQ sauce and he said it was excellent. We both had wine and then we were stuffed. I remembered my marshmallow delight back in the room from Goofy’s Candy Co and had every intention of eating that for dessert. But the waitress knew it was our birthday and brought us an uber-chocolate cake. I mean this cake was killer. I have never seen so much chocolate!!!

So we ate some more sugar. This may have been the last straw for poor Dan’s body.
Let me go back a little here….we are living in England currently (temporarily), where the food is a bit different. I am not saying they don’t have sugar-they do-but they also have food with a lot less preservatives. Also, Dan and I had been on a strict diet for 5 weeks prior to this trip. We had not eaten any sugar or carbs (or limited quantities of it) in 5 weeks. Our bodies were just not used to this kind of sugary abuse.

We paid our bill and left. This is where it got tricky for Dan. He started to feel ill on the monorail. And for some reason we were sitting on the monorail for a full 5 minutes before we left. This may not seem like a long time, but when you start to feel sick, 5 minutes can be huge! Dan almost got off the monorail.

We made it to the car and back to the room where Dan was not feeling all that great. I was fine, just tired. I fell asleep and before I knew it, I was woken up to the sound of Dan brushing his teeth. It was 3 AM and there is only one reason for someone to brush their teeth at 3 AM: Vomit. Yup. Poor Dan’s body succumbed to the pressure of an overload of sugar. Or he was struck with the quickest bout of food poisoning I have ever seen! He went to sleep and by the next morning he was fine! As he tells it, he was lying on the bathroom floor with the cold chills, wanting to die, wondering how in the world we were going to get on a cruise in 48 hours. He thought our time in the parks was finished for sure and thought we would have to cancel the cruise-who lets a person vomiting on a cruise ship?? I was clueless to all of this-as I was still jetlagged and when I awoke to the sound of him brushing his teeth, I could barely figure out what was going on, I was a very bad wife. I fell back asleep in 3 minutes, after asking him if he was ok. I was so out of it I couldn’t even help him!

By the next morning he was ready to face the parks again! After all today we were heading off to Animal Kingdom and Epcot! I had this special powder I bought in London after a bad bout of salmonella last summer that kills all that bad bacteria and replenishes your body with the good bacteria. We both took some the next morning at breakfast and neither one of us would get sick again for the rest of the trip! (Well not sick like that anyway, we were still eating way too much sugar for normal human consumption.)

That’s it for Thursday! Coming up next: Spaceship Earth-a close call to missing it completely and checking out Nemo and Friends for the first time. Stay Tuned!

 

[Perdie]

Friday morning began with 2 nervous stomachs. We were unsure of how we were feeling and unsure of how the day would go. Would Dan get sick again? Would we make it through the day? We had plans to go to Animal Kingdom in the morning and Epcot that evening….we were feeling alright that morning and both downed our stomach powder at breakfast for safety!

We decided against the cinnabons and went for omelettes and potatoes for brekkie, hoping this would give our bodies some much needed respite from our sugar hangovers. After we ate, we set out for the Animal Kingdom. It was there that we encountered our first problems with our annual passes. Disneyworld has decided to give out paper tickets that are supposed to last you a full year, instead of a nice plastic credit card-like tickets. Of course, these flimsy paper tickets are bound to have issues, one of them being sensitivity to magnets! Both our tickets were desensitized and we had to go to guest relations for new tickets. Luckily, we both had our id’s on us; otherwise we would have not been let in! So make sure to always bring your license in case you annual passes don’t work! After an annoying start, we were finally on our way into the park.

The first thing we did was get a fast pass for Kilimanjaro Safari. We then trekked all the way across the park to see the new Nemo show, it was wonderful. When I think of the show, I think of the color blue. Everything in the theatre was bright and blue. You really felt like you were underwater. One of the most amazing scenes was when they showed the fish tank, it seriously looked like a huge fish tank on stage! My other favourite part was the Seagull. A tremendously large Seagull on the side of the stage talking to the fish tank-it just looked amazing! I loved the designs and the songs and the actors were fantastic!

After the show, we checked to see how long the line was for Everest and it said 30 minutes but we decided to go for a fast pass instead. Since our Kilimanjaro fast passes were up-we headed over back across the park to get on the ride. Fast pass went by quickly until we got to the front of the line when they inexplicably had no jeeps for about 5 minutes and when they did-they would just pass us by-one by one! We finally got on the ride and we were off! I had heard that they changed the Simba One storyline-and it seemed like they made very minor changes. But they were so minor that I barely noticed and I still am not a huge fan of the story. I do love seeing all the animals and being so close, but I can’t help but be disappointed every time we go by the lions. They are always asleep and far away-hard to see! (They are my favourite next to the elephants after all!) I got my animal fix for the day and then we headed back to Everest. On the way to Everest I spotted a churro, and even though I had vowed to have less sugar, I could not resist! You can’t get churros in England! So I took a gamble on my belly and ate the most delicious fried dough I’ve ever had.

The last time we rode Everest was in February 2006 when it was in soft opening. The only difference we saw was that they added the part where they take your picture during the ride. Other than that it was the same-and still breathtaking! The Yeti was working and still gave me chills-what an amazing creature they built!!

We left Everest and headed over to Dinosaur, on our way we saw Goofy and Pluto hanging out and taking pictures with guests. There was a long line, so much to our Goofy’s dismay, we didn’t stop. Dinosaur was as I remembered it-an amazing ride, an exciting ride much like the Indiana Jones ride, with obvious different theming. We left Dinosaur and noticed Goofy was leaving his post and going backstage. There is a bench across from the door and we sat down and waited for Goofy to come back. He came back about 5 minutes later, and we got a quick shot of him walking by before cast members stopped to take pictures of us with our camera.

At this point we were ready to tackle lunch. We wanted to try the new Yak and Yeti café. We didn’t have reservations, so instead of the sit down restaurant we went for the walk up café instead. The honey chicken with veg and rice looked promising so both Dan and I got an order of it and went to find a table. The walk up café has only outdoor tables and with our good fortune, this is when the heavens opened up and it started to rain. We sat down and it was cloudy, we started to eat and it was drizzling a bit. Both our chicken dishes had barely any honey, so I went up to get more and by the time I came back it was pouring. There were no tables left with umbrellas over them and our ponchos were happily sitting in our room, untouched and buried in our suitcases. So after a few minutes, we grabbed our food and ran over to the bathrooms. We stood underneath the canopy by the toilets with about 8 other people. But our food was burdening us. It wasn’t that good to begin with and now it was soggy and cold. We ended up dumping our entire 8 dollar honey chicken, having barely eaten any of it. Two wasted meals!

As the rain subsided, we began to walk towards the exit, stopping for some retail therapy along the way. Dan found a great Goofy hat and we purchased a new plush Goofy-safari themed with a hat and a camera around his waist-very cute indeed! I was very disappointed that I found an amazing beaker shirt but they only came in junior sizes. It was a retro orange shirt with Beaker’s face and I fell in love with it (one of my favourite characters besides Goofy) so I was quite unhappy with the sizing choices! Why are they selling Beaker shirts at Animal Kingdom and not at the Studios in the shop next to the Muppets ride?? Who knows.

We left Animal Kingdom and headed over to Epcot for the rest of our evening. We had high hopes that Spaceship Earth would be doing soft openings after a lengthy shut down and rehab. When we arrived, we headed straight for it and the gates were sadly closed. With our heads hanging, we headed over to guest relations to ask about our dinner ressies that night (we couldn’t remember the time for San Angel Inn).

At Guest Relations we asked about Spaceship Earth and they said it was down for the day and they were not sure if it would re open, but it had been open the day before! (We were leaving for the ship the following day so we thought we had definitely missed out). We asked about the following week (we would be back for 2 days after the cruise) and we were told it would be closed up again before the big re opening on the 17th of Feb. Once again, with our heads down we left. As we were walking towards Test Track to get fast passes, we ran into a cast member at the Tip board who told us that in fact the ride had been running regularly and is not even considered a soft opening, it was just open. Up until today when the escape elevators were not working properly. They had been waiting all day for the repair men to come and fix the thing, so they would open the ride up. Last he heard they were on their way!! There was hope yet!

So with a little more jump in our step we headed over to get our fast passes. We left there and began to head over to Nemo and Friends when I made us stop again at the tip board. It said Spaceship earth had a 25 minute wait!!! It was open!!! We started running towards the ride. We got there and it was about a 10 minute wait, and before we knew it-we were on the ride!

The ride looked amazing! There were brand new animatronics and new scenes. Judy Dench as the new narrator, I liked her but Dan missed Jeremy Irons. The end is a little controversial and I don’t want to ruin it for anyone. Let’s just say as a first time rider we laughed and really enjoyed it but the second time we rode the ride, we weren’t as excited about it. It lost a little of that first time surprise…so repeatability may be a factor on the new ending.

After Spaceship Earth we headed over to ride Nemo and Friends-a new ride! I really liked this ride-the seashell carriages, the songs, the scenery, and mixing in real fish with Nemo’s buddies was a very cool effect. The starfish at the end was the funniest part-she said something different both times we rode it…both hysterically funny.

Since we were already in the pavilion once the ride was over we headed over to Turtle Talk with Crush. We sat in the front row and Dan got picked on by Crush, it was pretty funny. The first time Crush asked him if he liked to chill out when he swims or did he like to compete-Dan said he likes to chill out, and Crush floated on his back, arms behind his head and said “Look familiar?” And the second time, Crush asked everyone to close their eyes, so I covered Dan’s eyes with my hand as a joke. Crush noticed this and called out “No peaking Dan!” It was hilarious!

As we left Crush, we were shopping for the Mine Mine Mine t-shirt when a cast member noticed my birthday button and called me over to her. She said I had a phone call. It was Goofy wishing me a Happy Birthday!!!! How fun! After the call she asked us to play a game of memory with some cards with characters on it. I lost big time to Dan! The cast member then gave us a magical moment certificate and we left feeling warm and fuzzy!

As we were walking, another cast member stopped us and told us that the ice cream lady at the next kiosk was giving out free Mickey Bars for anyone’s birthday-all we had to do was ask for our magical moment. We felt really funny about it-but figured it was worth a shot. So we walked over to the lady and told her what the cast member said and pointed to him and she rolled her eyes and said, sorry I’ve given out all I can give today. He really shouldn’t be telling you that! We ended up feeling stupid and sheepish. After all, we felt weird in the first place but the guy assured us it was ok. The whole experience was bizarre-who asks for a magical moment?!

Dan decided he wanted to brave Mission Space at this point. I was a little nervous but agreed to do the non spinning version with him, until we got there. I asked the cast member if it was like Star Tours (which I get motion sickness from) and he said it would give a similar feeling, so I passed and waited for Dan. He really enjoyed it and I’m glad I passed on it. I got some great people watching in while I waited!

Still craving a snack at this point, we got some much needed freshly popped Disney world popcorn-it was delightful!! Hot and buttery-unlike UK popcorn!! We then headed over to test track-a ride we really don’t love all that much, It’s kind of underwhelming but we had only ridden it a few times so we thought we’d give it another shot. It didn’t disappoint in its disappointment! It was still just ok for me (a little pitchy!) We did pick up another Goofy though-a test track themed Goofy-dressed and ready to drive for the Daytona 500! He has a uniform and a hat and sponsors all over his outfit-including Goofy’s Candy Company as a major sponsor of course!

I think we wandered and shopped at this point before heading over to the Norway ride. It’s such a short ride and we ended up waiting for as long as the ride was after the ride was over to see the short film about Norway-that is in need of a makeover! Waiting after a ride is brutal-the movie should be first! It was about time for our reservation at this point so we headed over to Mexico and checked in. But first we spotted another themed Goofy!! This was the trip for Goofy’s that is for sure! I think we may be so used to Disneyland Paris where they rarely even sell a regular Goofy, let alone a themed one that we were going a little Goofy crazy. The Mexican Goofy was so cute, he had a big poncho hat and a huge sombrero with hidden Mickeys on it and he was carrying a Mexican flag! So we bought him, of course!

We only waited about 15 minutes before we were seated. Dan was still a bit nervous about his stomach so he ordered a plain chicken dish with some sort of creamy pepper side dish (that he didn’t really eat). I was craving Mexican food like they serve in Arizona, so I got a big plate of nachos and tortilla soup as my entire dinner! The nachos were really good as was the soup-but for 6 dollars, they give you a tiny cup of soup! Our service was quick and the sweet ice tea was amazing. Overall, I had a pretty good experience, while Dan’s chicken was a little dry and he thought the creamy pepper thing was just repetitive, in other words-too many peppers!

We skipped dessert and headed out to scope out a spot for Illuminations. We got a spot right behind another couple next to the Mexico pavilion. There was a lot of space available and there was about 20 minutes until the show. Everyone around us was seated, including the people directly in front of us. We thought if everyone stayed seated, we would all benefit from really good seats. We had a great view of the lagoon!

At this point the weather had made a drastic change and we had once again left our proper attire in the hotel room! It was colder after the sun set and here we were in shorts and a t-shirt, about to sit outside for the next 45 minutes! (Sometimes we plan really well at home but we don’t benefit from forward thinking while at the parks.) I almost bought a cute poncho from the Mexican pavilion but decided it would be way too heavy to carry around for the next 3 weeks!

As we shivered on the cold concrete, brimming with excitement for our favourite night time show, the couple in front of us stood up. The show wasn’t set to start for a bit so we hoped they were just stretching their legs. Everyone was sitting but them. As it came closer and closer, we began to think they were going to stand for the whole show. Just our luck!

What exactly is the proper etiquette for this anyway? If everyone around you is standing, it’s ok to stand? And if everyone is sitting, shouldn’t you sit too? I don’t know. All I know is they stood right in front of me, so I politely asked if they wouldn’t mind sitting. I got a grumpy response of “That’s the whole point!” And they kneeled for the rest of the show-I guess that was their compromise! I think they meant, the whole point of getting there early and getting front row? But if you are in the front row-you don’t need to stand, you can see perfectly from where you are sitting-there are no obstructions! So in my opinion, it’s just out of respect and politeness for the people behind you. Am I wrong?

Well, I didn’t let it spoil the show. I got shivers and tears from it! I love that show and could watch it everyday and I don’t think I would get sick of it!

Once the show was over, we thought about heading into World Showcase but extra magic hours had started, meaning World Showcase was closed and only Future World was open. So we headed over to Soarin-the only ride without any fast pass availability so we figured if we wanted to ride it, we better stand in the line!

The line was long and mostly boring; except for the newly added section in which you play video games along with everyone else that is motion sensored. The games change and I don’t know how many there are, but in our game, we were looking at these huge screens and we have to use our bodies and jump to move and catch these boulder or snowballs-depending on the scene in front of us. It was fun and we got to move a little while in line! It made the line move a little faster too! We got lucky on the ride too-we got the top middle section-best place to be for the best views!

It was downright freezing once we left Soarin and with no source of warmth we ran to Spaceship Earth for our second and final ride (of the night and of SE for this trip). Like I said, the ending this time wasn’t as exciting since it lost its surprise appeal, making me think it will just get worse in its appeal as time goes on!!

We practically ran to our car after that, seeking warmth! We made it back to the hotel and couldn’t believe our first part of the trip was already over! We would be leaving Disney World in the morning and heading over to Port Canaveral and onto the Disney Magic! We couldn’t wait for it!

The night before our Med Cruise we were so excited we hardly slept and we were awake by 7 AM (which never ever happens!) This time we were so exhausted I think we fell asleep rather quickly! (We did need the alarm as we were not up and at ‘em by 7AM this time but once the alarm went off-we woke up feeling pretty excited to start the next part of our Disney Experience!!

Coming Up Next: Hopefully I have time to add pictures! Our first day on the Magic-the Veranda and another great Birthday Surprise! Let the Festivities Begin!!!

 

[kalel29]

Nice TR so far. Can't wait to see some of the pics to go with your report...

 

[Perdie]

Nice TR so far. Can't wait to see some of the pics to go with your report...

Thanks! I have been so bad-I have been writing my TR while at work so I don't have access to my pictures and every night I think I will do it...but I always forget! Hopefully this weekend I will some good ones posted!
(Tonight we are off to see The Lion King in the West End-I can't wait!!)

 

[Perdie]

You could feel the anticipation in the air as Dan and I got ready Saturday morning to drive to Port Canaveral. We finished our packing and said goodbye to Port Orleans French Quarter. We took our rental and drove towards Port Canaveral, and I think it took us about an hour.
We crossed over the Banana Bridge and there she was: the Magic. She looked as beautiful as I remembered her! The last time I saw her, I was flying over her Sail Away party in Barcelona on my easyjet flight from Barcelona to London on a sad day in August after a wonderful 11 night Med cruise.

She was a wonderful sight to behold! The skies were in our favour today as there was not a cloud to be had and the temperature was at least 75 degrees! We dropped our bags off first and then headed over to Budget to drop off our car. We met our first Disney cruiser on the shuttle ride back-he would be a common theme over the next 7 days-it seemed we spent all our time in the same places! Funny how sometimes you start to see someone on a trip and then you keep noticing them over and over again!

This was our first time at the Port so we tried to soak it all in. We walked in and got in the Castaway Cay Members only line (very exciting for us!) and the first piece of paper they put in front of us was “Have you been sick in the last 72 hours?” We both said a resounding no. Dan’s one bout of vomiting at 2 AM 2 nights prior we determined was surely due to too much sugar after 6 weeks of dieting. He had been fine afterwards and had not been sick since. Nothing was going to stop us from getting on that boat!

They gave us our key cards and we were very excited to learn that Goofy would be our companion on the card for the whole week! He was drinking a coconut drink with beachwear on-yes we notice these details-because basically anything Goofy-related we take note of! After we checked in we got in the line to meet Captain Mickey! We’re like kids when it comes to meeting the characters, but instead of taking out our autograph books, we take out our plush Goofy’s to see the reaction we get! Sometimes we get nothing and sometimes we get a magical moment that is priceless! Usually those moments come from Goofy, so we don’t really expect it from Mickey. He gave me a kiss and we took our photo and went on our way.

The building was filled with little gems of hidden and not so hidden Mickeys. My favourite is the entrance to get onto the cruise. It reminds me of a football game, when the players run out underneath the giant helmet with the team logo on it. A huge set of Mickey ears is the entrance to the ship and I couldn’t wait to get on it! We waited for what felt like an eternity before our Group number 7 was called and off we went!

We entered the ship at a different location on this cruise than on the Med. On the Med they took you through the ground level and took you up on the elevator up to Deck 9 where the castmembers clapped for you and announced your name and your picture was put on the giant aerial screen. This time (and I think the norm for all cruises leaving Port Canaveral) we entered through the main atrium. We had no video on a giant screen of us entering but we did have some seriously excited cast members greeting us! I got a huge bear hug from one very cute cast member-whose name escapes me! He immediately took us over to Guest Services as all we were interested in at that point was making sure we got on the galley tour and the wine tasting! (We missed just about every on board activity on the Med Cruise as I think we were star struck…there was so much to do we just couldn’t decide!) So this time we wanted to book a couple of things.

After we got all set up, we headed to Topsiders for lunch. Strangely, this would end up being our one and only lunch there! Just like the last cruise, I was highly anticipating the first topsider meal! I loved the mac and cheese, the ranch dressing and the Hi C fruit punch (I think most of my excitement is due to the fact that I am an American living in London and I don’t get these treats very often!) But sadly, the mac and cheese was awful and there was no salad with ranch dressing! But I did get my hi c fruit punch-so not all was lost! (I know-the important things in life, right?)

At this point, we just wanted to get in the pool! The benefit of renting a car is that you get to the ship as early as you want. You can get there before all the Disney buses! This gave us a good embarkation number and therefore, we were able to eat lunch pretty quickly and get on with our relaxing! So we quickly changed our clothes and jumped in the adult pool-there were only two other people there!

Jay and Michelle were the other two people in the pool-two adults in their 30’s with no kids-just like us! This was their first cruise and they were Disney fans like we were-so we bonded with them quickly. They are DVC members….and so started our first of many chats about DVC that would eventually lead to us buying in. (But that’s another story!)

I don’t remember this about the pool on the Med Cruise but when I got out of the pool, my knee was blue and so were my feet. They weren’t blue like I was cold, they were blue like I had stepped into wet paint. I thought maybe they had repainted and it wasn’t dry yet. Jay had a little blue on him too, but Dan and Michelle didn’t. It turns out this is a common thing. Throughout the week I saw many people with blue feet and I turned blue everytime I got in the pool! I’m only 5’4 and when I get in the pool, I hang onto the side and rest my feet on the side of the pool since my feet really don’t reach the ground. This side of the pool is the blue culprit, and every time a body part touches it, it turns blue. There has to be something Disney can do about this-but I don’t know what. When I got my on board pedicure later in the week, the girl told me she sees people with blue feet all the time.

Anyway, after chatting in the pool and having our first pina colada of the trip, we realized it was after 1.30PM and we could go see our room! So we quickly dried off and headed for our Veranda room!

I didn’t know this at the time, but Dan had planned a surprise in the room for me. He had me open the door, and I had no idea he was making sure I walked in the room first. When I walked in, I immediately saw that the room was all decked out in birthday decorations! There was a huge banner hanging that said Happy Birthday with a picture of the Fab 5 on it. There were a couple of hanging birthday signs with Fab 5-ers all over the place as well. On the table was a cake that said Happy Birthday Becca! It was all too much and I loved every part of it! We were both so excited we forgot about our Castaway Cay goodies laying on the bed. We finally noticed them and they gave us a very useful canvas bag, 2 water bottles and a weird plastic toy that was supposed to be the Ship’s Stack. We went picture crazy here and decided we didn’t want the moment to end! We knew time would just fly once the cruise started and this was the best moment so far.

We sat out on our veranda and watched all the frenzied activity. We had a great view of all the worker bees getting everything on board. We just soaked it all in and enjoyed the moment, hoping it would last forever.

We basically hung out in the room until the Muster Drill, where once again we were in Animator’s! A very painless process that was over within minutes. Afterwards we headed up to the deck party to celebrate the festivities!

We had a great time on Deck 10, dancing and having some more fruity drinks. We watched the Cast members wave goodbye with their huge white Mickey gloves as the horn blared and off we went on the adventure of a lifetime!

The deck party was pretty crowded and we thought it would be fun to get to our room and enjoy our veranda, and sit outside and watch the land leave us. There were tons of people as we sailed by, watching the ship and waving goodbye to us. The pilot that follows the ship out was right below our room and we watched him for awhile, we were particularly interested in the part in which he hit the boat! Oops!

The Welcome Aboard show was about to begin, so off we went to see how this one would be different from the Med one. It was only slightly different, and of course the acts on board were different, so we met our entertainment for the week. While I liked the fact that they have different acts, so you aren’t always seeing the same magicians etc, I think the acts this week were not nearly as good as the ones on the Med! (Except for one guy whose name I can’t remember-he gets points for bringing Dan on stage to embarrass him-and he was actually funny!) But we got a taste of the acts and met our Captain (Thord). Last time we had Captain Tom, so we were excited about having a new Captain and a new Cruise Director. Last time we had Brent, but this time we had Christian. He seemed a little more laid back than Brent, but not as polished on the speeches. I think in the end they were both pretty good cruise directors.

We had some time to kill in between the show and dinner at Lumiere’s and I honestly can’t remember what we did. But I do remember dinner! (I always remember food) We were nervous about who our servers would be because on the Med Cruise we had an awkward experience with a server who was not all that great. We had issues with both her, the assistant and the Head waiter. So we weren’t sure what to expect and we were parying for a rotation that didn’t include the Head Waiter we had last time. We were in luck as John (A funny Scot) was to be our Head server. Sebastian from France was our Server and our Assistant Server was from Australia….and I am having a moment here-I can’t recall her name! (Isn’t that awful?!) I know she wasn’t at our first dinner because of a bad back and she told me later she was going to be medically discharged later that month. The assistant we had that night was really slow, so we were very grateful to learn he would not be staying with us! Sebastian learned our names immediately, something our last server didn’t do in 11 nights!

Our tablemates were two couples, Judy & Eric and Steve and Barb (all 4 DVC members-which again probably played into our buying in!!!) We had many discussions over dinner about the benefits of DVC over the next 7 days. Dinner in the Med was often lukewarm and we were always served last, dinner always went from 8-10.30/11. It was very very long. This time we had an 8.30 seating, so we were a bit worried about it. But not to worry! We had a great team working for us and dinner was over most nights by 10. I wrote down what we ate that night (otherwise I may not recall as I need my memory jogged often!!) I had the scallops and potatoes which I remember being really delicious, as they were scallops in a whipped potato bake. I also recall the shrimp medley appetizer-and I love the ice cold fresh shrimp combined with the cocktail sauce. We also had soup which I don’t remember but Dan reminded me before I wrote this that it was hot! (A pleasant surprise for us after the last cruise!!) Sadly, I didn’t write down my dessert-but I think I had crème brulee and an apple tart that night. I know I had that one night and I really loved both dishes…I just don’t know if it was the first night.

After dinner, Dan and I decided this was going to be a much more pleasurable dining experience, we had high hopes and we weren’t disappointed by week’s end!

We had heard that Match Your Mate was hilarious, so we headed over to Rockin’ Bar D to watch it (and no, we did not participate nor did we want to!!). Match Your Mate is a very funny quiz show in which three couples are called on stage. One newlywed, one couple who had been married 10-20 years and one couple who had been married 25 plus years. They send out the males and ask the females questions and then they bring back in the males, and they have to answer what they think their spouse answered, and then they swap. It ends up being very funny and in our show, the couple that had been married for 40 years won! They knew the most about each other. It was really fun!

I think we hung out at Rockin Bar C for a bit after the show and then we slowly wandered back to our room to end our first night.

When we got back to our room, Clifford had arranged our plush Goofy’s in a very funny towel animal-a theme that would last throughout the week. Clifford was very good at including our Goofy’s into the towel decorations!

Well, a calm night on the sea, we sat on our balcony for awhile and enjoyed the fresh ocean air and then off to bed we went….our first sea day and Superbowl Sunday awaits us in the morning!

 

[AZDisneyDan]

Hey everyone.....here are some pictures from day 2, enjoy!! BTW, we really miss this trip, how depressing is it to come home after a cruise and WDW??

I am back from the States (and recovering from jetlag by working!) so hopefully my TR will come a little faster now! I am at a temp job....so in my downtime I write my TR-is that wrong???

Here goes:

Thursday morning we wake up to the sound of Mickey and Stitch-inviting us to come and play at their playground. We are surprisingly not that jetlagged! Of course with the promise of a day at the parks ahead of us, we eagerly awaken and jump in the shower and turn on MSNBC-how exciting for us! We have American TV at our fingertips! This is a huge bonus for us, as the only access in London we have to American TV is Fox News and random sporadic TV shows (and a million reruns of Friends). (Not to mention reruns of Dallas, Knight Rider, and I think the Love Boat. Seriously, London TV has the oldest reruns ever. But we do get new shows as well…but I’m missing my own point here…we are sitting in a hotel where we have unlimited access to American shows and commercials…ok those aren’t a bonus…but local news…ok, not that great either…but MSNBC! Yeah! I love watching Joe in the morning! And SoapNet-I haven’t seen a soap opera in years! Ok, I am getting a little weird about American TV at this point and Dan reminds me we really need to get moving if we want to get to Hollywood Studios by park opening.

So off we go to have our first American breakfast at Port Orleans French Quarter (POFQ). We are both drooling at the Cinnabon-type breakfast, after 6 weeks of daily eggs-we both get a Mickey waffle and American bacon (very exciting for us) and we share a cinnabon. This is one sugary overloaded breakfast….just the beginning of what will turn out to be the most sugar I may have ever had in my entire life in one day. (Yes we did go overboard and Dan paid the price that night at 2 AM…more on that later!)

After we ingest our brekkie (british term for breakfast), we head over to the Cruise desk to pick up our luggage tags we never received in the mail. Then we head into the shop and look for band-aids for my newly blistered heel (not sure what happened here as I was not wearing new shoes!) And then we finally head over to Hollywood Studios at quarter to nine.

This is our first time renting a car and I am finding it much more convenient than waiting at a bus stop for the free ride. I feel more in control (even though it turns out we still have to wait for a tram to take us from the parking lot to the park-it doesn’t feel as annoying).
We try to get in with our vouchers and realize we need to get our Annual Passes and head back to the ladies in the booths. The lady that helped us was extremely friendly and noticed on our drivers license that not only did we share a very close birthday, (one day apart), but that said birthdays were next week! So she handed us 2 Birthday pins which we quickly wrote our names on and off we went, AP’s in hand!

The last studio-themed park I was at was in December in Paris at the Walt Disney Studios. While I love parts of this park, it pales in comparison to walking into Hollywood Studios. You immediately feel the atmosphere of this park, there are streetmosphere characters wandering around-one guy calling us twins as he noticed from afar our twin birthday pins! You just feel immersed in it-right away. And it feels good!

So we headed towards our favourite part of the park, Rock and Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror. Which to do first? We decided on ToT first and then RnRC. There was hardly a wait for either at this early part of the day. The last time we rode Tower of Terror was at the opening of the new ToT in Paris in December-so we were very excited to see the differences! We noticed that the size of the ride from the outside was smaller than in Paris (because the Paris ride is identical to the California version). They made those two versions larger to include a larger capacity to hold people, but in doing so they had to take out the fifth dimension-which in my opinion is the best part of the ride! So we were very much looking forward to this part of the ride!

Sadly, this would be our only opportunity to ride Tower of Terror for the whole trip! DisneyWorld was really just a bonus added onto our Cruise for my birthday trip. Originally we were just going to go on the cruise and not even step foot into the parks but after Dan surprised me with the trip, I talked him into staying a few days prior and after-afterall, why fly all that way and not go to Disney World??? So all of this was bonus for us! Besides, we knew we were coming back in November…..only 275 days until that trip! (But really, who’s counting?)

So after ToT we headed over to RnRC, picked up some Fast passes that we never used and got in line. This would be the one and only time we would see the Dream Team at work. We were walking into the ride and two curious people in light blue shirts were staring at a clock and speaking to us-although we didn’t realize it because they weren’t looking at us. They were wishing us a Happy Birthday…and literally as soon as we looked back to see who had spoken to us, they were busy giving the people behind us a Dream FastPass! The whole family got the fastpass and had their magical moment. I have to say, being one person in front of the winner is annoying. You really think-if only I had walked a little slower! Thankfully they only won some fastpasses-if they had won a night in the Castle or free lifetime DVC I think I would have walked off a bridge! (Ok, I am exaggerating a bit).

Again the last Rockin Roller Coaster we rode was in Paris so we noted all the differences. We both agreed that the ride itself was better in Paris-more rockin-but the theme of the ride in Orlando was better. The Paris ride is just a bunch of lights and I can’t really explain the story to you. Whereas in Orlando, you are in a limo (a super stretch) trying to get to an Aerosmith concert. Much easier storyline!

We left this part of the park and headed over to the Great Movie Ride which had a fairly short wait. We of course loved it! After that we headed over to Muppets-after all we were walking around with Beaker and he insisted we get to this ride ASAP! : )

My memory is a little fuzzy at this point (it’s been 3 weeks since then and I am working off no notes!) but I think we headed over to Sci Fi Diner to make a reservation for 12.30. At this point we went to see the Little Mermaid Blacklight show, we noted how it needs an upgrade-as we just saw a blacklight show in Paris (Animagique) and while the storyline is similar to Mickey’s Philharmagic, its blacklight effects are a bigger and better version of the Little Mermaid’s. So I was a little underwhelmed in that respect, but I still think it’s a great show!

We headed off to our lunch at Sci Fi at this point. We had heard mixed reviews and we weren’t sure about the food-but we thought it was worth the risk as it looked like it had amazing theming and atmosphere.

The room is huge. It’s like a huge drive in movie theatre, and your booth is a car. You sit side by side, as you would in a car and you stare at a huge movie screen playing old sci-fi clips and previews. Our waitress had a 50’s style outfit on, and I half expected her to be wearing roller skates! We were seated in a car with another family of four-so they had the 2 rows in front of us. I scanned the menu the words MILKSHAKE were calling to me…sugar was the order of the day! I also had a corned beef sandwich on rye that was really good and greasy…with great American French fries. Dan had an all American burger. Can you see the theme of the day here? All fried, American and sugary! We were in indulgent mode for sure!

After lunch we decided to leave the Studios and head over to the Magic Kingdom. On our way out, the streetmosphere guy stopped us and remembered our matching birthday pins from before! He took a picture with us and gave us his “card” since he was in the business (Hollywood that is) (he was a director apparently!). He was really funny and we had a good laugh with him!

We made a quick stop at the hotel (the beauty of having your own car), and after a look at MSNBC and SoapNet (I’m an addict!!!) we were off to my favourite park…the Magic Kingdom!

Becca forgot to tell you that we got to ride in the front of the monorail and it was her first time.....very exciting. We loved it!!!

We headed right for Space Mountain to grab a fastpass-as it was late in the day and we were unsure of what rides we would get on, especially since we had ressies at California Grill at 7.30 so we needed to leave the parks early.

We grabbed our fastpasses and noticed that Space Mountain was down, so we jumped on the TTA so we could see the inside of Space Mountain and we thought the lights might be on. We were in luck and the lights were on! Seeing Space Mountain with all the lights on is a surreal experience. After the TTA, we went onto Carousel of Progress and the Monsters Inc and Buzz Lightyear. This was our first time on Monsters Inc and we weren’t all that impressed. It was ok, but Turtle Talk with Crush is way funnier. Space Mountain was up and running again so we headed for it- a waste of a FP as there was no line!

We finally left Tomorrowland and headed over to get a fastpass for Big Thunder-stopping to get a Dole Whip on the way. Disneyland Paris does not have Dole Whips. We had not had a dole whip since July 2006 and we were more than a little excited to get one. For those who have never had one before, it is a refreshing pineapple soft serve ice cream that will leave you wanting more…and more….and more!

We grabbed our fastpasses (which were set for 6.40 this will become important later in the story). I am not sure if we headed for Haunted Mansion or Pirates first but I know we hit both rides that afternoon. We also decided to see Mickey’s Philharmagic before heading back to Big Thunder.

We had dinner reservations at 7.30 for California Grill. This restaurant is located at the top of the Contemporary which overlooks the Magic Kingdom (and a great view of the Castle and fireworks.) We had a 7.30 reservation because the firework show was at 8.00PM and we thought it would be spectacular to see the show from the restaurant-and they pipe the music in! We knew we could not be late for dinner because we wanted to get seated and positioned for the show. But we had these fastpasses for 6.40 and we figured, fastpassing Big Thunder would have us leaving the park around 7PM giving us 30 minutes to get to the restaurant. Plenty of time, we had our change of clothes in our bag and we would change in the hotel bathroom…..

But what we didn’t know was that the wait for Big Thunder was all in the Fast pass line. Had we known this, we would have skipped it and gone into the regular line (of which there was virtually no wait). After 8 minutes in line, Dan jumped the bar to walk through the regular line to see how far down it went until he ran into anyone,,,he didn’t run into a person until almost where fastpass and the regular line meet up! We were worried they would hold us up in the regular line if we jumped over in order to clear the fast pass line. So we waited and waited. The minutes were crawling by! We finally got to the end of the line and got on the ride. The ride ended and it was about 10 after 7. We started running through the park….and guess what we ran into? Spectromagic! Of course the night parade was going on and was going on in Main Street-the one place we had to be-the exit to the Magic Kingdom!

We waited patiently until there was a break in floats and we could run for it (legally, they opened the rope for everyone). And we ran to the monorail and the lady had just closed the gates-we were out of breath begging to be let on and she had enough sympathy to open up the gate again (while telling us in a very gruff voice to hurry up and get on.) Out of breath and sweaty we made it to the hotel and changed into our nicer clothing in the bathroom and headed for the reservation desk at exactly 7.30. As we arrived, we heard the lady behind the desk telling a customer that they would probably not get seated until after the fireworks-45 minutes away. We knew what time our reservations were for, so we figured we would be ok. We asked when we would get sat and she said 20 minutes. That brought us to 10 to 8. I started worrying that we would either not get seated in time, or get seated away from the show or worse, get seated in the middle of the show! They handed us a buzzer and sent us upstairs to the restaurant. We decided to hang outside on the roof in the viewing area. Turns out that was the best place to be! We got front row views of Wishes-the fireworks show!

As 20 minutes turned into 30 and we were still waiting to be seated, the show started and now I was hoping they wouldn’t seat us until after the show. The show from above was amazing-although it’s funny because you can see the fireworks over Space Mountain instead of over the Castle. It’s all about your perspective I guess! As the show ended all the people were in silent awe (except for the annoying people getting to know each other behind us-constantly chatting through the entire show). Not to mention once the man stopped talking to the random stranger he started yapping at his kid about clap for the show Mikey! Clap for the show! Well, little Mikey didn’t feel like clapping but the dad was unrelenting! He may have yelled in my ear about the clapping 25 times in a row until he got the point that Mikey didn’t like it.

It was 8.15 at this point and we still had not heard anything so we went up to the front of the restaurant to ask and sure enough they claimed they had rung our buzzer. So either we had a bunk pager or they lied! Either way we got sat by the window-on the other side-with a view of Epcot and the Grand Floridian.

We had a fantastic dinner that night. Dan started off with flatbread and I had the sushi. I then had the ravioli which was not as good as I had hoped but it was decent. Dan had the filet in BBQ sauce and he said it was excellent. We both had wine and then we were stuffed. I remembered my marshmallow delight back in the room from Goofy’s Candy Co and had every intention of eating that for dessert. But the waitress knew it was our birthday and brought us an uber-chocolate cake. I mean this cake was killer. I have never seen so much chocolate!!!

So we ate some more sugar. This may have been the last straw for poor Dan’s body.
Let me go back a little here….we are living in England currently (temporarily), where the food is a bit different. I am not saying they don’t have sugar-they do-but they also have food with a lot less preservatives. Also, Dan and I had been on a strict diet for 5 weeks prior to this trip. We had not eaten any sugar or carbs (or limited quantities of it) in 5 weeks. Our bodies were just not used to this kind of sugary abuse.

We paid our bill and left. This is where it got tricky for Dan. He started to feel ill on the monorail. And for some reason we were sitting on the monorail for a full 5 minutes before we left. This may not seem like a long time, but when you start to feel sick, 5 minutes can be huge! Dan almost got off the monorail.

We made it to the car and back to the room where Dan was not feeling all that great. I was fine, just tired. I fell asleep and before I knew it, I was woken up to the sound of Dan brushing his teeth. It was 3 AM and there is only one reason for someone to brush their teeth at 3 AM: Vomit. Yup. Poor Dan’s body succumbed to the pressure of an overload of sugar. Or he was struck with the quickest bout of food poisoning I have ever seen! He went to sleep and by the next morning he was fine! As he tells it, he was lying on the bathroom floor with the cold chills, wanting to die, wondering how in the world we were going to get on a cruise in 48 hours. He thought our time in the parks was finished for sure and thought we would have to cancel the cruise-who lets a person vomiting on a cruise ship?? I was clueless to all of this-as I was still jetlagged and when I awoke to the sound of him brushing his teeth, I could barely figure out what was going on, I was a very bad wife. I fell back asleep in 3 minutes, after asking him if he was ok. I was so out of it I couldn’t even help him!

By the next morning he was ready to face the parks again! After all today we were heading off to Animal Kingdom and Epcot! I had this special powder I bought in London after a bad bout of salmonella last summer that kills all that bad bacteria and replenishes your body with the good bacteria. We both took some the next morning at breakfast and neither one of us would get sick again for the rest of the trip! (Well not sick like that anyway, we were still eating way too much sugar for normal human consumption.)

That’s it for Thursday! Coming up next: Spaceship Earth-a close call to missing it completely and checking out Nemo and Friends for the first time. Stay Tuned!

 

[The LK 4]

Sebastien was our server for our Thanksgiving '07 cruise. He is such a sweetheart!