The Finished at Last Trip Report. Day 3, You can tell we’re married.

[Poohshoney]

The Cast:
Roland (37, German) – World’s best husband.
Carol (42, British) – Trying to live up to him.

Tuesday, 2 December – Day 3, You can tell we’re married.

We did quite well for sleeping again. I woke up first, which is normal. I snuck into the bathroom with my book as I didn’t want the light to wake Roland up. It was a bit chilly after a while so I snuck back out for my sweatshirt and socks. Only I heard this faint `hellooo´ so that was the end of my reading! Roland groaned at how awake I already was, which is also what normally happens in our house. But by the time I'd had my shower, he’d managed to prise his eyes open enough to get up. Roland had been keen on the idea of having breakfast at Boatwright’s some time so I suggested today. It got the thumbs down though, as he didn’t feel hungry enough. We never did have breakfast there as he never was hungry enough. And it got very busy the next week, anyway. What we did do was buy provisions at Fulton’s and eat in our room most days. Roland had the brilliant idea of `borrowing´some plastic knives and serviettes from the food court (I'm really sure that was ok) and we had bagels and drinks in our room after that. Roland would toddle over to the food court and come back with pink lemonade for me and coffee for him. And we bought milk at Fulton’s, too. I can’t live in the mornings if I haven’t had my milk. You know how people complain of caffeine deprivation? It’s all in the mind. It must be, because I get exactly the same symptoms without my morning milk. But as soon as the calcium hits my gums, I'm a civilised woman. So Roland made sure we never ran out of milk!

We got away a bit later today, it was all of 9:40 before we tumbled out of the door. But it was ok, we had sooo many days left! Roland made me laugh when we got to the bus stop. “Ok, what’s the plan?” he said. He was SO shocked when I said there wasn’t one. I knew he hadn’t believed me! So I asked him what he felt like doing, which resulted in more shock. He’d never had a choice before. And having only just had his caffeine, he was obviously not in a position to cope. I took pity on him and suggested we went to Animal Kingdom, even though it was a bit late, and he perked up considerably. The Disney Gods obviously agreed with my choice as the AK bus was the next one along. Again, it was fairly empty and again, I muttered nasty things about air-conditioned buses in the Antarctic. Brrrr!

The AK Christmas tree was certainly different. You don't see many covered in giant African animal heads! But we both liked it. It was surrounded by people taking photos so we decided to do ours a bit later. Read that as I could hear the safari calling our names!

I only have one plan of action in AK – get to the safari as quickly as poss and persuade Roland to ride it as often as I can! This is never as often as I'd like but always more than he’d like. Life’s a compromise! On our first day last year, I'd dragged Roland (who’s a foot taller but not as nifty as me!) all the way there. As I was determined that this was going to be a relaxed, carefree holiday (which it was), I didn’t drag this time. Good wifey! Coming after the `no plan´ shock, I think Roland was beginning to think I really had been replaced by an alien.

We slowed down for two things, the first being DeVine. If you haven’t heard of her, she’s a woman that looks like a vine – I love her name! She’s on stilts and covered in ivy and if she stands still, she’s a very convincing plant. There were quite a few people gathered round her – their staring, smiling and pointing being the clue that there was `something´ there. Surprisingly, Roland was the one tugging to move on, so we did. If anyone’s very familiar with the lady, in the nicest possible sense, does she show more of her face than she used to? I know I'd never seen her before but I was surprised by seeing her face more than I thought I would from pictures I've seen, if you’re with me.

The other stop was my usual one. Instead of taking more photos, Roland stood and listened to some musicians opposite. A new tradition is born?! When I came out, he wanted to go in a courtyard he said was very pretty and look at some more musicians and take photos. Unfortunately, I thought this was a bad idea and convinced him we’d do it later. Which we never did as they were never there again and the courtyard was closed. Can you tell I still feel bad about it?

My fears about the safari proved unfounded – it was a walk on. We didn’t realise at that point just how quiet AK was that day – we were amazed when it dawned on us. Absolutely averything we did was a walk on, we had no problems with crowds anywhere, any time. Pure bliss!

The safari was as wonderful as ever. I do like it, I'd do it all day if I could get away with it. Ok, the spiel is a bit cheesy and those darned elephants still haven’t learned to stay away from poachers, but I love it to bits anyway! I took so many animal photos last year, I told Roland I wasn’t going to this time. Yeah, right. So just how did ALL those elephant pictures get onto the digital camera?

The other good thing about AK was that our day here was the warmest I was all holiday. I think I actually said I needn’t have brought my fleece. Roland looked faint. I never found out if it was at my remark or possible heatstroke. Guess which one of us doesn’t feel the cold.

We had a pleasant surprise when we came off the safari – the gorillas were out! We saw just one single gorilla last year. From a distance, up a tree. Him, not us. And he hardly ever showed his face. I adore gorillas, I think they’re amazing animals, so I was in seventh heaven at seeing so many, face on. They’re so wonderful. Now if anyone could arrange a one-to-one encounter for me, I could get to tenth heaven! There was a man on the telly when I was little called Johnny Morris. He did animal impressions and animal encounters. He once visited a lady gorilla who fell for him hook line and sinker. She sat on him and stroked his hair. Only time in my life I've ever been jealous of someone with broken ribs!

Roland said the magic words again – what do you want to do next? Welll… I wanted to do Conservation Station as we hadn’t done it last year. I wanted to try and do everything we hadn’t done before. But we hadn’t done it last year because we thought it might be boring. Would Roland agree? Yep! Good man, that man.

We managed to just miss a train but it wasn't that long a wait till the next. The CMs there were ever so sweet so we watched them being nice to people. We both thought the journey was incredibly booooorrrring. And didn’t appreciate seeing all the bits that had about as much magic in them as an old sock. But it got us there. And when we got off there was a lovely CM by a monkey (I think, I can’t quite remember – they looked like tiny monkeys) exhibit that was ever so interesting. Now, dear reader, please open your ears as wide as you can and listen. Can you hear it? A very faint thud? Yep, that’s the echo of my jaw hitting the floor. Nice monkey-lady had explained to everyone listening that the monkey tails weren’t used for gripping things, as people thought. No, they were actually there for balance not gripping. Now why should that make my jaw hit the floor? Well, it didn’t, not directly. It was the couple in front of us that did that. They’d been next to us during the entire talk.

“The monkeys use their tails for balancing then,” she said, very meekly.
“No,” he said. “They use them for gripping things when they climb.”
Now, dear reader, being a very nice person, as all trip-report-addicts are, you probably read that in a nice tone of voice. Wrong. Try re-reading it, injecting as much loathsome scathing into each syllable as you can, then you might have an approximation of that nasty little man. And she never said a word back. She let him talk to her like she hadn’t a cell to her brain. Hence my jaw hitting the floor. Practically speechless, I squeezed Roland’s hand, glad of my lovely man. Not that I'd have ever married the other bloke – I'd have murdered him first and WDW is SO much nicer than prison!

Now if there was one place I was determined to go here – whether I needed to or not – it was the loos. I'd heard all about the interesting doors. And they were right! You really do get the scoop on poop. I wish all loo doors were that interesting. Maybe that’s a new manufacturing idea – interesting loo doors! Mind you, there’s interesting and there’s interesting. I saw some on the telly a few weeks ago in a bar somewhere in Scandanavia. The cubicles were all glass – and they were unisex. I ain’t NEVER going there!

CS was smaller than I thought it would be. But it was better than we’d thought it would be. The other highlight was the man holding a very large snake that I was allowed to stroke. More bliss! We had an awkward moment when he wanted to spray something on my hands afterwards. “What is it?” I asked, suspiciously. I have to be careful, I'm allergic to so much stuff. Well, he did tell me – looking at me as if I was completely nuts – but I was still none the wiser. I decided it would be rude to say no, so let him spray me. Good news, still don't know what it was but I wasn’t allergic to it!

There followed a quick walk around, then we headed back for the station. The shop had some wonderful stuff – if you were three. Which I'm not. I had the same problem at Seaworld and in the Lake District (UK) this year – I want what the littlies get!

After an equally boring journey back, we emerged into an area that had me getting the camera out again. My MIL gave us a lovely blue-flowering plant last year – AK had a whole huge wall of the stuff. Well I HAD to get her a photo of it for her, didn’t I?! We’d passed huge bushes of the stuff on the train but this wall, behind a bridge and a stream was just gorgeous. Sadly, our plant looks pretty sickly this year. I'm not sure if I should show it my photo or not. It might motivate it, remind it of the good old days. On the other hand, it might just die of depression.

We thought we’d head for Asia next. Funny thing about Africa was that it had two musical groups, one dancing, diagonally opposite each other in the same area. Did that mean you couldn’t hear one lot properly for the other lot? You bet it did! But they were both ever so good, particularly the dancers who were very graceful. I love African music but I stopped at just tapping my toes with a slight sway. Don’t want throwing out of the park, do we, or Roland dying of embarrassment.

It was about then that we decided we might just be a bit peckish. Now remember, the only bit of planning we’ve done is to look at menues. So we knew that the only place we’d considered eating was the Flame Tree Barbecue. No problem, we were headed that way anyway. Only when we got there, we decided we didn’t like it. I wasn’t sure if I fancied the food and Roland didn’t fancy sitting outside. So, (you’ve probably guessed), we trailed back to Tusker House. Which is where we’d started from. The musicians were still belting it out and still looked a darn sight fresher than we did.

We finally decided on rotisserie chicken for me (I loved the green beans!) and a turkey wrap with soup for Roland. We both enjoyed it as much as we had the food last year. It wasn’t as quiet this time, though. Even though the park was quieter. The receipt says we ate at 11:54, maybe we were later last year. The cleaning was better last time, too. The man and woman sauntering round this year were much more interested in having a good old chin-wag than cleaning. They looked disappointed every time someone stood up and they had to stop chatting. I eavesdropped very hard but I was thoroughly thwarted and didn’t understand a word!

Back we sauntered to Asia. We’d chickened out of Kali River Rapids last year, would we this? Yup! We just didn’t fancy risking being soaked. Maybe next time…

We did catch sight of the new ride, Everest, being built. Couldn’t really miss it. Great big building site opposite the bridge. Ok, so building’s normal in Asia too, so technically they weren’t really losing the magic. But it sure felt like the magic was missing! I looked carefully but I couldn’t see any bamboo scaffolding that would make it like some real Asian building I've seen on the telly – shame, that would have been interesting to see. They could have an exhibit and plucky visitors could test it. Fun!

Now the other two attractions in Asia – the Maharajah Trek and Flights of Wonder - are right up our street. We did MT first – it was wonderful! Everything was asleep last year, not this. We have THE most spectacular pictures of the tigers. We couldn’t have got better ones. We got one that posed right in front of us at the first bit. I thought I'd got the full tiger-stare but when we looked at Roland’s photos, he had. As we found out later that they were all ladies, I guess that makes sense. A tigeress with taste! We took a lot of photos of her and her sister and then when we got round to the next bit, where you see them through plexiglass, we couldn’t believe our luck. Yet more perfectly posing tigers. Toooo gorgeous!

My other favourite bit in there was the lady with the bad shoes in the batty bit. High-heeled wooden mules wedges with plastic straps. Dead comfy, I bet! Roland wanted to know why I was following her round looking suspiciously guilty. I explained about the Bad Shoe website. I think my plans to be a secret agent might not work out…

We were there at the wrong time for Flights of Wonder but that was ok. We didn’t want to do everything on our first day. We’d be coming back!

Having been in Africa twice today already, we did the logical thing and went back a third time. Our logic was that as all the animals in MT had been so great, it might be a good idea to check out the Pangani (which I still can’t stop callin Paganini) Forest Exploration Trail. We were SO glad we did – we had another trip highlight. Not that all the animals aren’t highlights, bless their little hearts. But there was this blue bird… I can’t remember its name, I just remember the tears running down my face.

It was building a nest. Nests require lots of little bits of twigs and things and the bird was on the prowl. Apparently CM shoelaces count as bits of twig and birdies get angry when they won’t let themselves be picked up! At least watching we all realised it was a good idea to keep out of range of that pointy beak. Ouch! Someone asked if the pecking hurt. Yes, we were told, but if you put up with it long enough, they stop doing it eventually! I'm not sure I could do that… Brave CM got a couple of pecks to the leg but most were at his boots. As the birdie prowled up and down the pathway, looking for likely material, the crowd moved with him. If we’d thought his shoelace antics were funny, we were convulsed by his twiggy tries. He couldn’t get the hang of picking things up so they were balanced. He’d try just at one end, then couldn’t get up properly. Then he’d tell the bit of twig off in no uncertain terms for being uncooperative – he wrecked a fair few that way. And if, by sheer chance, he did manage to get up, he was all over the place trying to keep his balance and fly. I wish I'd had a video camera, he was priceless!

Having wandered happily round the exhibits (naked mole rats!!) (Meerkats!!!) we thought we’d call it a day in AK. There was one more thing we wanted to do – look at the shops! But we weren’t just browsing, we were looking for something in particular; Harmony Kingdom boxes. We’d seen some in John Lewis in London and thought they were lovely, if a bit expensive, and someone had told me they were available at AK. I'd looked on the internet and seen quite a few I thought my MIL mght like as a pressie. And they were cheaper in the US, because that’s where they’re from. As it’s really difficult to think of things for his mum, even Roland was happy with the idea of looking round all the shops if it meant finding her something. We looked in every shop we passed between Pangani and the exit and eventually found some in a shop at the Oasis, I think. We weren’t as impressed as we’d been in London. I think it was partly the presentation and partly the choice. I wasn’t sure there was anything there for Marianne, so we decided we’d check out Downtown Disney and any shop that looked likely in the other parks.

We thought we’d go back to the room next. I can’t remember why – I had my fleece, so it wasn’t that! Whatever, there was a lovely surprise waiting for us in our room – the mousekeeper’d been playing with our stuffies! Now I know most of the world loves towel animals, and so do I, but not nearly as much as playing with the stuffies. We’d had some great fun with Judy G. at Riverside last year, I was quite disappointed that we hadn’t got her again.

I've already mentioned `the boys´ – Mickey and Moose – but we’d brought along two more this year, to keep them company. The first is Little Twinnie, aka Little Jennifer. Jennifer has Little Twinnie, aka Little Carol. They’re dolls with hair just like ours and little knitted sweaters we made them. Yep, Jennifer’s mad like me, too! (Sorry Jennifer, our secret’s out!) And the other one is Ghostie. He was a present from Jennifer. Moose likes him around to scare people. (Please remember, I admit all charges of insanity). We left the four of them sitting on the bed, eagerly awaiting our return and tales of our exploits. When we returned, they completely ignored us – they were too busy watching the cartoon channel! Hooray, we’d got a Mousekeeper that plays with stuffies, yey!!!!!

I can’t remember how we decided that we ought to go back to MK. I have a sneaking suspicion I might just have had a part in the decision making… We timed it well, arriving just before the parade was due to start. We were surprised to find ourselves completely surrounded by Brits. One family seemed to have six children to just two adults, amazing. I'd love to take a littlie to WDW, I'd spend all day watching their reactions. But I can tell it can be quite hard work. My hats off to someone who can take six, with all the differing ages, and make it work as well as that family seemed to be doing. Nice one!

We’d seen the parade from up on the station last year. Great view but you missed the spinning and most of the dancing. We saw it from Main St this time, so we saw more of what happened, though there was no spinning/confetti. What happened to that? There was a little mutiny in the ranks at first: one man kept going into the road to take photos of the oncoming floats, effectively blocking people’s views and getting in their photos. It took a while for the CMs to spot him. But when they did, they descended on him en-masse, skirts a swirling, nearly losing their hats. I thought that was almost as much fun as the parade! They should build it in.

Once the parade was over, Main St errupted as most people there decided to leave. So we popped into the shops. You could spend a lot of money in those shops; we didn’t. We had a bit of a browse, but that was all. But by the time we emerged at the other end, the crowds had thinned. We thought we’d do Toontown next. It’s Roland’s least favourite bit of Disney so we didn’t exactly spend a lot of time there. We did Mickey and Minie’s houses, which were not too busy so we could look at them in greater detail than we’d managed last year. I took pity on Roland, we didn’t go get our photo taken with Mickey this year. He hates it and was very pleased with me. Little did he realise, I had a cunning plan… (for all Blackadder fans) What I really wanted was a piccy with Sorceror Mickey in MGM – I was saving my pleading for then!

We strolled round Fantasyland for a while. We got a FP for Pooh. By the time I'd looked in the shop and not bought anything, it was time to go on it. We both love Pooh! Then we headed for Tomorrowland. Buzz first, with only a 10 min. wait. Again, Roland won. And again, my photo was of grim determination. If only looks could kill!

Well we couldn’t be where we were and NOT go on CofP again, could we?! I absolutely adored it again. I was a bit upset to see how few people were on it, I really don't want them to ever close it again.

We glanced across at Alien Encounter when we came out. Now there’s a ride we didn’t miss! Not that we didn’t think it was good, we did. But if you’ve been scared by a monster in the dark once, why would you want to do it again? That’s what we thought, anyway. It’s different if there’s things to see, but there wasn’t. We wouldn’t have done it again, even if it had been open. We definitely thought we’d got the best deal!

It was beginning to get dark now. We decided tonight would be the night we did a little resort hopping. But what should we do about eating? Tusker House seemed a long time ago by then. Hmmm… How about Boatwright’s? That was on both our lists and Roland fancied a proper meal, only having had a snack-type lunch. Boatwright’s it was!

We were a bit confused when we got there. There were three women checking people into an empty restaurant and we had to wait. Very strange. We never did figure that out but we watched everyone else go through the same routine. We were eventually taken to our table, right at the top, by a young man. We were the only ones at the top at first, with two tables at the bottom. Another couple were soon put up there with us though, so it stopped feeling like we were being segregated!

The young man was very southern gentleman, bless him. He pulled my seat out for me and was so courteous. Roland started sitting down opposite me, so I said, “Are you going to sit there?” “Well, I was. Where do you want me to sit?” “Well I just thought you might like to sit here.” I pointed at the seat next to me. So of course, being a loving husband, he did. I looked at the waiter and said, “You can tell we’re married, can’t you?” He broke out in a huge grin, “Yes Ma’am!”

We both had the jambalaya and Roland had a salad with a strawberry dressing – it was even scrummier than the LTT one! We were disappointed with the jambalayas. We’ve had it quite a few times and always enjoyed it, I like the one Roland makes himself best. But I'm sure none of those were authentic and this one probably was. However, we didn’t like the strong sausage much and I was disappointed at how little chicken there was. We didn’t finish them. And we didn’t care much for Boatwright’s. We found it very bare and echoy, we thought that was because it was so empty. But when we saw it packed for breakfast the next week, it seemed even worse.

Feeling full of spicy sausage, we toddled out to the bus stop. Our plan was to catch the first bus that came, then catch one on to Coronado Springs. I was quite anxious to see CRS. I'd wanted to last year but we’d not managed it so I was determined this time. The plan worked well, though took longer than I'd thought it would. We went via Epcot, which I thought a good plan. It was sompletely dark when we arrived – perfect! It meant we got to see the pool all lit up. It really is a stunning pool. And so many people left their lights on and their curtains open that I was able to get a good look at the rooms. Our verdict was – we liked CRS far more than we thought we would, but we’d rather just stroll around it than actually stay there. We’d miss the double sinks. We prefer blinds to net curtains (they looked so shabby in that light) and, most importantly, we would miss the gentle strolls round the resort that we’d enjoyed so much at POR and CBR. And that we’d missed at AKL. But still, if we HAD to stay at CRS, it wouldn’t be too much of a hardship. So if anyone wants to offer us a free stay there… No? I thought not!

Getting back to Riverside was quite arduous. But very entertaining! We had a fairly long wait for the bus but Beth, our driver, was wonderful. We were the only passengers and had a lovely chat with her. I can't remember what state she was from, but it was in New England. She had maple syrup deprivation symptoms. She was very excited because previous passengers had promised to send her some of the REAL stuff!!!

Beth dropped us off at MK, where MVMCP was in full swing. We were the only ones at the bus stop, everyone else was arriving, not leaving! We got some strange looks. By the time we got back to our room, we were dead on our feet. I think tonight was the night where I watched Seventh Heaven – well I had to hear what the original voices were like, didn’t I?! Lucy is SO much mature in her own voice, believe it or not. And so is Mary. The parents have very similar voices. Simon’s awful! He’s so wooden. I tried to stay awake long enough to hear everyone but I missed out on the youngest girl (I can’t remember her name) I'd like to have heard her – she’s SUCH an irritating little madam in German! But Morpheus won. I drifted off into dreamworld, wondering what we’d do tomorrow – I didn’t know, there was no plan!

 

[roberrl187]

Great report. Looking forward to the next one.

 

[Miffy2003]

Wow, your reports have some much detail! Excellent.

Karen

 

[Poohshoney]

Thankyou Rebecca and Karen! I'm glad you're enjoying them!

 

[KayleeUK]

Another great day

 

[WDWfan uk]

We also have a <i>very</i> soft spot for COP - even our sons do. I just hope they can keep this ride going and perhaps try to generate more interest in it.

I think AK is really at it's best in the cooler months - and we still go on Kali (and any other water rides) whatever the weather! I noticed they'd locked the boxes on the bridge where you can usually squirt people on Kali with the elephant trunks!!