The Chipmunks Might Be Cute But The Squirrels Are Nuts!

[Applemomma]

Wandering around, killing time for your fast pass window means you find the most interesting spots! Having recovered sufficiently from our experience with the rabid squirrel we head off to look at the fountain by “Honey I Shrunk the Audience”. What a cool series of fountains! We spent a long time watching the water jump from spot to spot and trying to catch it. This is one of those good places to sit if you like to people watch because it’s hilarious to watch unsuspecting people walk between the fountains and get startled when the water suddenly leaps over their heads.

After this we deicded to sit inside the building and wait for time to tic away.

Here’s some funny photos L took of us .... please don't count my chins....it was a bad angle

And one of Felix guarding our fast passes.

Pretty quickly it’s time to go. My gosh! Has anyone ever measured how long the corridor is for this place? It’s huge! And this is for the Fast pass! I can’t imagine waiting in the rumored 120 minute long lines…..ugh. I love the themeing for this ride, I love the announcements and I love buddy from Seinfeld doing to intro! What is his name again? And he’s everywhere! You can’t seem to get away from this guy because he pops up in every second movie or tv show I see. I told hubby that this is one star I’d love to have for dinner…he must be a hoot.

Anyway, Soarin blew me away and surpassed all expectations. No motion sickness from any of us and yes, we spotted not one but TWO hidden mickeys! L declared that the ride was “TOTALLY AWESOME” (yes, it was definitely a capital letter statement) and told the CM at the exit that she should try it …..pretty sure she’s been on it a time or two dear….

My memory is getting fuzzy but it seems to me we rode it twice this day…..not sure how we fit it in though I know we did it twice alone and twice with Daddy….oh well….maybe it will come to me.

Next it was off to “Finding Nemo” over at The Seas. But first the sight of the talking seagulls (Mine! Mine! Mine!) triggers the need to find a restroom for some reason and the CM standing at the enterance to the Nemo ride directs us to go in the Exit and use the one at the gift shop. As we enter we are pretty fixated on finding facilities but take note of the escalator and wonder what it leads to. Knowing we’ll get dumped off the ride here I say we’ll explore it when we are done Nemo. Business done we whip back around to the very quiet queue line and spead our way around the fake wooden (or maybe they are supposed to be seaweed) railings that keep people packed in like sardines when it is busy. Once again the ride waiting time post lies and it’s a walk on…..of course we first must take note of the giant “butt”….wish I’d gotten a picture but we were whipping right along.

This was a neat attraction. My two favorite….no make that three….were how they did the jellyfish,how they integrated the cartoon with the real fish and especially the starfish (what was her name) at the end….she cracked me up. We rode this three times in all I think over the week and each time she had a different line, including one that was really appropriate for park closing since it was shutting down for the night that time we rode it but dang is I can remember now what it was. This time though it was a comment on how “…it’s a lovely song but they never stop singing it! They just go on and on and on…..”.

Pop quiz for anyone that knows (and I don’t): How many people a day do the CM’s have to help off the ground when people step off the moving tram onto the moving floor! That takes talent, people!

Okay….time to explore that escalator…because you know that all escalators lead to good things (insert mental imagine of mall shopping here on L’s behalf).

Oh but wait! The nice CM standing there at the end of Nemo tells us that Turtle Talk with Crush is about to start and this is DEFINITLY on our to-do list! So in we go.

Now if you haven’t experienced this one yet it’s a must do on your next trip, people! Don’t think that it’s just for kids! They get the kids to all sit on the floor in front of the screen and parents can sit on the benches in the back…which is what we do. Crush takes to the kids, asks them questions, he makes fun of the parents and everyone hoots.

Bad pic but....

I would love to go behind the scenes on this one and see how it is done. I read somewhere, don’t know that it is true, that when this attraction first opened the fellow doing Crush was so good that they would have to close it down on his days off because noone could get it as bang on as he did. Well the guy this day had it down pat! He was hilarious! The animation can’t even be call animation! It was fantastic.

Now my children have inherited many things from me….some good and some bad. One of the things my youngest ha inherited is the wonderful ability to embarrass her sister. And it isn’t long before Crush calls on the little girl with the “blonde fur on her noggin” and L has quite the chat with him. She basically challenges him to swim faster then she can and the race is on….Crush gets the kids to count how fast it takes him to swim around the screen and then makes hilarious facial movements when they keep counting once he arrives back “You dudes do know I’m back right?” Too soon it’s over and with a word from Crush to “Find your parental units and keep your orbital lobes to the front” we exit and head for the escalator.

When we hit the top of that escalator I knew the Disney magic was upon us and that our “fly by the seat of pants” approve was definitely the right way to go because we had no sooner gotten to the top and we heard the magical words “The dolphin demonstration is about to begin if all the kids want to come sit up front”. I hadn’t even clicked in the were were walking up to the aquarium! How dumb am I?! So of course we made a bee-line!

This was really neat. The girls learned a lot about dolphins and the instructor was great with both the kids and the dolphins.

Here’s a pic …I didn’t downsize it too much because it would have been harder to see any smaller….they are doing a smile and wave at the end of their show.

Then we explored the rest of the area and the girls added it to the growing “must show Daddy after his conference list”. I pointed out to the girls that across the other side of the tank (and man are they huge!) you can see the lights of the restaurant we’re going to eat in Thursday night…..cool mom!

Here’s the real Crush…..again sorry about the picture size.

Amazing how time flies when you’re having fun but it was time to hit the monorail and head to the Magic Kingdom for the only planned thing of the day…..Spectromagic.

 

[winkers]

I love turtle talk with crush! My youngest ds was picked to talk to crush and it was the high light of his trip!

 

[Ricky's Girl]

I'm back! (Did you miss me?)
Loved all the updates! Awe, the poor little psycho squirrel only wanted some ice cream. I would have run too!

Thanks for all the pics. I haven't done Turtle Talk with Crush yet, I'll have to make sure I see it on my next trip. I did see the Nemo show and loved it - especially riding the current.

Can't wait for more.

 

[DL55]

So glad you recovered from the squirrel.
We love the jumping fountain too. Can't wait to see Nemo.

 

[Applemomma]

I love turtle talk with crush! My youngest ds was picked to talk to crush and it was the high light of his trip!

There's still a lot of "Duuuuuuuuudes!" being said around here too

I'm back! (Did you miss me?)
Loved all the updates! Awe, the poor little psycho squirrel only wanted some ice cream. I would have run too!

Thanks for all the pics. I haven't done Turtle Talk with Crush yet, I'll have to make sure I see it on my next trip. I did see the Nemo show and loved it - especially riding the current.

Can't wait for more.

Yes! Where were you! . Ohhh I forgot about the current....make that four things I liked.....

So glad you recovered from the squirrel.

Not sure we're fully recovered.....still looking suspiciously over shoulders when holding big colored sticks of ice

 

[Applemomma]

“Gather your belongings, stand clear of the doors and TAKE SMALL CHILDREN BY THE HAND”….got to love riding the monorail. We always chanted along with the “voice” and continue to use the last line at home on occasion. Never did get the Spanish version memorized though; something to strive for next trip!

Okay….time to stick a few things in that may be not in the proper sequence of events in our trip, since as you will understand, this trip was in SEPTEMBER and it’s is now JANUARY so my memory is getting a little fuzzy. Funny how when you are in the moment you think “I will never ever forget a single second of this trip!”. Yah right…..

I have two “other people’s parents” moments from our trip to share, one negative and one positive, and since both occurred either in the Magic Kingdom or on the way home from the Magic Kingdom I’ll insert them here while we are mentally traveling on the monorail to get to Spectromagic.

First the negative……and keep in mind that this was thankfully the only negative experience we had all week.

At some point we decided to ride Winnie The Pooh and ended up standing behind two women, approximately early 20's, who each had a toddler with them. The little girls were about 2-2.5 years old, maybe older but I'm going by the fact that they were talking quite clearly but still in diapers.

It was a hot and sticky day and one of the moms clearly was not having a good day and was expecting her toddler to stand still without moving a muscle. Ever tried to get a toddler to do that? Well the little girls were dancing a little, climbing the railing a little...nothing that would even raise an eyebrow but this lady was getting more and more outraged and was jerking her little girl by the arm, smacking her bottom and whipped her into a full blown hysteria. The other lady with her was trying to distract the child but her own mom kept raging at her every time she moved. The little one was sobbing and clearly afraid of her mother. Mom finally had her over her shoulder, the kid is crying so hard her nose is running which mom is wiping so roughly that I was afraid that she was going to physically hurt her.

I wanted so badly to say something to this woman, to please not treat her daughter like that in front of my kids (who were looking at her with the same kind of fascination you would give to a train wreck) but I truly was afraid she would haul off and punch me. You would have thought the fact that EVERYONE in the winding line was staring at her would have clued her in (her friend was certainly noticing that but never said a word to her) but nope.

The part that really broke my heart was when she was reaching over her mother's shoulders to ME saying "I WANT YOU!" when I was trying to make faces at her to distract her. I started to get emotional, which of course concerned my girls even more. It still makes me tear up...

Finally, she put her down and my dd's, having had enough, went into full play-with-her mode and my youngest asked her name and what rides she had been on....I was pretty proud of her. By then we were to the beginning of the line and they put that little group in a car all by themselves and away they went. Never saw them again but I hope they went right back to their room for the nap they all seemed to desperately need.

When they finally got on the ride the entire line started talking about it and the ladies behind me assured me that I had done the right thing by not confronting her because they thought the same thing...that she would have belted me as soon as looked at me. I thought it would bother the kids and it might have because after we got off the ride I had hugs and kisses and a "thank goodness she's not our mother!"....yes they actually said it.

It’s hard to describe in words on page how disturbing the whole thing was but suffice to say I’m still worrying about that kid and I’m hoping there’s someone in “real life” looking out for that family.

Okay….bad one over with ….now for the good, which actually at first I thought was going to be bad!

It was one of those rare bus rides when we got on and actually managed to go all the way to the back of the bus AND get a seat (along the side)! As the bus filled up, a man sat beside me with his toddler on his lap (approx 2year old boy….pretty much the same age as the little girl in the above story) and his wife sat beside him with their approximately one year old daughter. We no sooner got on the road and dad starts blowing bubbles and popping them, which his son is fascinated by, but as you can well imagine I’m thinking “hmmmmm….bubbles being popped in my ear….this could be a long ride”.

Pretty quickly though, his son gets in on the action and starts popping daddy’s bubble himself and finding it hugely entertaining. Baby sister gets in on the action too and is smacking daddy’s face pretty good. L is totally engrossed in this and announces at one bubble popping that “it’s all over your face!”. Oh great….my kid is in on it now too.

But wait…as I look around every kid on the bloody bus is watching in absolute fascination as the bubble grows and grows and grows and then BAM, son nails it. Every kid from the mid point of the bus back, and a few up front, is watching.

Then I realize that every ADULT is watching too! And not only are we watching we are actually CHEERING when the big bubble gets whammed by the little kid! How this man didn’t end up with two black eyes I don’t know …… but then again maybe he did ….explain that one to your coworkers the Monday after vacation.

And to top off the fun this dad actually is letting some of the other kids pop the bubbles too …..what’s a few germs between bus mates.

When we finally reached our destination the bubble fun reluctantly wrapped up, we thanked Bubble-Dad for the entertainment and carried on to where we were spending big bucks for some hi-tech entertainment. Just think….we could have all saved our money and watched wheelchairs loading on buses and popped some bubbles with a friend instead.

Okay….the mental monorail has reached our destination. Next up we’re back in the Magic Kingdom and getting ready for Spectromagic!!

 

[DL55]

Gee I don't know what to say. Maybe that woman was just having a REALLY bad mommy moment.
Who says you have to spend a lot of money to have fun? I agree you could have saved money and just watched that guy on the bus.

 

[MinnieMommy]

Another great segment Applemomma!

Other people's parents...

Bubble Blowing Daddy...

 

[Applemomma]

Gee I don't know what to say. Maybe that woman was just having a REALLY bad mommy moment.
Who says you have to spend a lot of money to have fun? I agree you could have saved money and just watched that guy on the bus.

Another great segment Applemomma!

Other people's parents...

Bubble Blowing Daddy...

Thanks for sticking with me! Never fear....we meet some more parents that tip the scales in favor of the "good parents" in the next segment

 

[Applemomma]

Once back in the Magic Kingdom we decide to grab some supper-to-go and stake out a place for watching Spectromagic. Unfortunately it seemed that half the park had thought about doing the same thing and we’d all filed into Casey’s Corner for hotdogs at the same time. In hinde sight I realize that if there isn’t a long line in a restaurant IT AIN'T MEALTIME! So take a lesson from me folks and eat at off times…start training your kids weeks before your trip to eat breakfast at 6:00 , lunch at 2:00 and supper at 9:30….you’ll thank me for it later.

Regardless of the lineups, and the requisite rude person ahead of us in line (there’s always one…got to love the patience of some of the CM’s), we managed to get out of there with a couple of hotdogs and fries to share and snagged prime sidewalk spots near Liberty Square to wait for the parade. Now I’ve got to say that I really, really did not like the hotdogs but that might be because I’m spoiled by our version of wieners here in Nova Scotia (GO LARSENS!) but I found then extra greasy and just ….ugh. Maybe if they were barbequed? BUT the cheese sauce…… oh the cheese sauce for the fries. My kids are spoiled now; they had never thought of dipping their fries in anything but ketchup until I handed it to them. We’ve been looking for it here and Wendy’s restaurant comes close to having the same kind but not quite….anyone know what make it is? Can I get it anywhere? YUM! The hotdogs must have looked good to some people because I was asked twice sitting on the ground where we had gotten them.

Now here’s an invention that must be created….before my next trip. There’s got to be SOMETHING that a grownup can sit on, on the pavement that will prevent the grownup body from completely seizing up. How is it that we get all those extra pounds to cushion everything else but those bones in your butt make direct contact with the stone hard ground? Maybe something like the "thinking pads" we had way back in Girl Guides…..that’s what they were called wasn’t it? Those stacks of newspaper wrapped in plastic we used to use for sitting on around the fake campfire?

But I digress….

Way back in the dark ages when I last visited Walt Disney World they had the Electric Light Parade and I was excited to see what the new ramped up version was like. And is it my imagination but are some of the floating parts of the water parade they have on the Seven Seas Lagoon leftovers from the old Electric Light Parade? We actually got to watch that while waiting in the “Great Pop Century Bus Lineup of Sunday Night” and that whale looked suspiciously familiar!
While the parade did not disappoint my picture taking skills did. I can’t seem to take night shots (or action shots for that matter) to save my life, but here’s a few from that night.

At this point I gave up taking pictures and just watched.

The girls loved it and added it to the “Do With Daddy” list. Sadly Daddy will have to wait until next trip because we sacrificed this parade later in the week in favor of going on Soarin one more time (okay make that two more times).

We decided to stick around for Wishes again and this time watched them from the bridge over beside Crystal Palace. Still had trees in our way, R still found it too loud, despite trying earplugs this time, and we still couldn’t hear the soundtrack as well. BUT we did meet a really wonderful family. The parents stood with us for awhile and they had several children ranging from babe-in-arms to teen age and explained that they had just adopted their…..get this….EIGHTH child! Dad said each time they added to the family they came to the “Happiest Place on Earth”, for a day, to celebrate as a family. The list of things they had done that day was exhausting ….no pool break mid afternoon like we did! They went from opening to closing and had a blast. There didn’t seem to be a cranky one in the bunch either.

With both of my girls a little more awake then the night before, and the memory of the long bus lineup fresh in my head, we took our time leaving after Wishes by wandering around. I think R thought we were breaking the rules by not leaving right away but I told her I had it on good authority (thanks DIS!) that we could hang out for an hour or more with no problem even though it wasn’t an Extra Magic Hour night. So we wandered through the castle again and got this shot, which turned out kind of spooky, if you ask me, looked through shops, listened to the Kiss Goodnight and watched the lights go out on the castle.

Had to take this window shot of the girls while we were wandering too....

And my plan worked! Next to no lineup for the bus AND we all got a seat and enjoyed a pleasant, uncrowded ride back to Pop Century, thus ending our second full day in the World.

Tomorrow it’s Chef Mickey’s, more Magic Kingdom and Downtown Disney!

 

[VandyFan10]

this squirrel was definitely NUTS!

Sub'd

Enjoying your pics....your girls are precious

And I'll agree with you....squirrel's are NUTS!!

 

[Backstage_Gal]

Loving the report and subbing, just discovered it tonigh.t But it's 1 am now, So later!

 

[DL55]

Loved the picture of the castle.
I remember making those pads in Girl Scouts. Kept your bottom from getting dirty.

 

[daly7o9]

Apple - are you there? Hope all is well.

 

[Applemomma]

I'm here .... Just been rather lazy lately. I promise to put one up soon...writing is on my todo list today!

 

[KimAshton]

I just read your whole TR. Love it.

 

[daly7o9]

I'm here .... Just been rather lazy lately. I promise to put one up soon...writing is on my todo list today!

Hope I didn't make you feel pressured. I just was missin' my Apple fix

Heck, I've never even attempted a trip report so I shouldn't be all impatient an' stuff.

 

[Applemomma]

I just read your whole TR. Love it.

Hope I didn't make you feel pressured. I just was missin' my Apple fix

Heck, I've never even attempted a trip report so I shouldn't be all impatient an' stuff.

oh sucks....you guys are making me blush ....new installment up in a sec!

 

[Applemomma]

All right….time to get off my duff and get some more written on this thing!

Today is a HUGE day so it won’t be taken care of in one fell swoop….so, be forewarned….multiple posts coming!

Since Daddy wasn’t going to be touring with us on this first part of our vacation I wanted to save some of our table service meals for later in the week, when he could enjoy them. Character breakfasts were all ours though! So today is our first one and what a way to start……Chef Mickey’s!

Going on Dis Board advice I had booked a late ADR (10:50) so we could pretend it was lunch. And because I’m so concerned about being late for everything we left Pop Century in lots of time to head over to the Magic Kingdom to catch the monorail to the Contemporary, which meant we had a little bit of time to kill so we headed down Main Street to look around a bit.

And look who we found!

Clarabelle was a hoot and was totally in character. She danced with the girls and was thrilled that they had worn pink, her favorite color. Of course the girls don’t know too many “old school” characters but they thought she was great.

As we moved down Main Street L made a new friend…… she loves to shop that one!

We realized that we hadn’t yet explored Tomorrowland but wandered over there to take a peek. First, though we had to take a few castle shots with our friend Felix who was joining us this morning.

Here’s a shot of Tomorrowland and notice how well I managed to get my kids in someone else’s picture. Ain’t I talented!

So then it was off to the monorail. The kids thought it was extremely cool when the monorail actually went inside the building and even cooler when they spotted all the birds in the restaurant that had found the opening too! We saw a few little sparrows flitting about eating crumbs off the floor….suppose any of them ever land on your table while you’re eating and help clean up? How very “Snow White” of them!

There was quite a line of people ahead of us checking in and I fully expected to have to wait awhile since I was 15 minutes early. We gave our name, were handed a pager and directed towards the giant plate and cutlery for our Chef Mickey picture. Now please note that you will NOT see that picture here because when they brought the packages around to the tables I nearly choked on my breakfast when they told me the price! Ack! I can’t recall the exact price but I think it was right around $35 for two pictures! Now those folks matching up the photos to the people eating are definitely in need of sympathy….what a job. I’m sure they get tired of the rejection.

Low and behold as we were getting our picture-that-we-wouldn’t-end-up-buying taken the pager started going off and we were led to our table. Having never been here before I just loved how they walked slowly and asked if we had ever been before and explained in detail how the character visits worked and how the buffet tables worked. It was great. Our server was there right away and got us coffee and juice (yes, regretfully, I made the mistake of ordering coffee ….don’t do it people…learn from me) but told us not to head to the buffet just yet because the characters were about to come around and as she put it “you aren’t really here for the food anyway!”.

I’m not sure why I didn’t get a picture of Goofy posing with the girls but perhaps he was burning something in the kitchen and had to run….entirely possible with Goofy!

The little girl in this shot in the purple dress beside Minnie was incredibly scared of all the characters, to the point of near tears. Turned out though, that it was her birthday,so Minnie had us all get our napkins twirling and singing to her and she decided that Minnie was the real deal and warmed right up to her. My girls got a kick out of watching her interact with Minnie.

Because we had an ADR so late in the morning and they weren’t serving lunch that day, the restaurant was pretty much clearing out by the time we got done. With fewer people around we had Mickey all to ourselves for awhile! He sat down with us to take a load off and we had a great one-sided conversation about how we were going to his house next and how busy he must be running everything in the Park AND cooking for us all. He was so in character that I swear in my head I can actually hear Mickey talking to me! It really is so easy to become a kid here.

Here’s a couple of “food porn” shots for you. L loved the breakfast pizza and I managed to make it here at home with a recipe from off the Boards and it turned out pretty close!

All in all we loved Chef Mickey’s and it will definitely be on our to-do list the next time we come.

On leaving the restaurant we headed into the gift shop because I wanted to find a hat with a particular logo on it. Never did find it. I knew that the Contemporary was going through some renovations but I didn’t know until I came back that the gift shop was one of them. Thank goodness because I couldn’t figure out why a deluxe hotel would have such a mediocre gift shop! Apparently it’s much nicer now but when we were there the new shop was basically enclosed in that Disney-“please excuse our mess” bubble.

We did get a shot of the mural though, and a window picture.

Then it was back to ….where else….the Magic Kingdom….where a band was announcing our arrival!

Next up Mickey’s house and we meet some cousins!

 

[winkers]

How fun to have a band playing for your arrival! Chef Mickey's looks like fun.