The last adults only trip to WDW, Jan 7-15th. Lots of pics! Completed 2/1!

[Iggipolka]

Hi everyone!
I had a Live from AKV trip report going on over at the Live Report board, but now that we're home (boo hiss), it's time to treat Post-Disney Depression by doing a trip report!

Alternative names for this trip report:
A journey into the bathrooms of WDW.
2.5 people go to WDW.
Will we puke or not? (reference to the NoroVirus going around WDW)
Sickie and Preggers go to WDW (more about Sickie later)
Eating my way through WDW (more of a food porn report, than a trip report)

None of the above seemed quite right, so I stuck with something more ordinary. Our trip certainly wasn't ordinary though!

A little about us. We're two women, non-legally married for 8 years, legally married (hopefully) since November, who live in California and have AP's for both WDW and DL. Last year we bought into DVC and since then, have been to WDW 4x and DL twice! We're owned by 4 cats and 1 dog and I'm five months pregnant with our first child.

Me: Late 30's, Total Disney Freak who is constantly on the Dis, planning and dreaming about trips to WDW.

DW: Late 40's, introduced me to Disney 8 years ago and is totally amazed at the Disney Fiend that I've become. She likes Disney, but leaves all of the planning and research to me. She's much more laid back about getting to the parks than I am.

We had planned this trip because DW was going to run in the WDW half-marathon. However, she injured her knee running the Bay to Breakers in San Francisco and then we bought a house that required major remodeling, so she wasn't able devote the time needed to train. I was going to run in her place, but decided not to after I got pregnant. Even though I'm extremely healthy and a gym rat, since I'm of "advanced maternal age", I'm in a higher risk category than younger women, so I'm being quite cautious.

So, even though neither of us ran in the marathon, we decided to go to WDW anyway and have a Babymoon! This would be our last couples-only trip to WDW as the next time we go (February 2010), we'll have a 9-month old baby with us!

Flying from California to Florida is an all day ordeal as we had to get up at 4am (not that I really slept much anyway), flew from San Francisco Airport to Austin Texas (4 hour flight), wandered around the Austin airport for 2.5 hours and then flew 2 hours to MCO. Blech. I really want a teleportation device!

DW had been sick with a cold since Christmas and unfortunately the airplane trip forced the cold into her ears. When we landed at MCO, she was having a lot of ear pain and was pretty congested. I gave her some Sudafed and that seemed to help for a bit.

We got to MCO around 7:30pm and caught ME to AKV. We didn't have that long of a wait for ME, maybe 15 minutes and the bus was nearly completely empty when we pulled out of MCO. I love the video that they play for the ride, not so much for the quality of the video, but because it's the beginning of the Disney immersion! I can leave the real world behind and just start breathing Disney un-reality! We stopped first at Pop and let a couple people off and then we were onto AKV. Yeay!

We checked into AKV around 9pm of January 7th, staying until January 15th and as usual, it's wonderful! I so love this resort. We stayed on DVC points and had a split stay, Jan 7-12 we had a 1-bedroom, 5th floor savanna view (Sunset Savanna) and from the 12 - 15th went upstairs to CL, also a 1-bedroom.

The room was spotless, comfortable and super quiet. The animals were out on the savanna and it was really fun to watch them from the balcony. I had pre-ordered some breakfast items (cereal, milk, OJ, English muffins and peanut butter) and they were in the kitchen and fridge when we got there. Perfect!

I ran through the villa and wiped down every surface, door knob, curtain pull and the entire bathroom with Clorox Germicidal Wipes with Bleach. I'd read on the boards about the horrible NoroVirus going around the country and hitting people hard at WDW, so I wanted to protect us as much as possible. Getting Noro while pregnant would have really sucked, so I had double incentive to stay healthy.

We had a great quick dinner at The Mara (fried shrimp for my DW and the African Stew for me), a lovely relaxing whirlpool bath and now settled off to bed to rest up for a busy day the next day.
Woohoo! We were at WDW!

Just a few pics from this day as we got in so late.

View of Kitchen area of our villa, with a fridge, stove, oven, dishwasher, sink with disposal and all of the plates, silverware and stuff that is in a home kitchen.

View of the hallway from the living room to the bedroom/bathroom area with the in-room washer and dryer.

The bedroom with a huge, super comphy king bed and a Mickey Towel animal waiting for us!

Bathroom sink

Nice big, deep, whirlpool bathtub. I'm 5'2" tall and I could lay down completely in the bathtub and my feet didn't touch the end!

Coming up:
Would DW feel better? Would she run the half-marathon with an injured knee? Would we get to a park tomorrow, or just spend our entire day at the Wide World of Sports?
All this and many more pictures in the next installment of this TR!

 

[Donald is #1]

I'm on board!

 

[momatater]

I'm here too!!!

 

[happybratpack]

I really enjoyed your live report and am looking forward to all the details! Love the kitchen in your villa.

 

[Iggipolka]

Thursday January 8th. We had a blissful night sleep in the oh-so-comphy Disney bed. There was some beep beep beep noise of construction at the new DVC resort, Kidani Village around 7:30am, but that stopped by 8:00. I think that there's one guy who just likes driving backwards to make the nifty noise.

There were lots of animals on the Sunset Savannah in the morning. We saw several zebra, cranes (who make the most interesting noise) and antelope type creatures. Oh..and the ostridge who is awesome to watch. Here’s some pictures from our balcony.

The people pen!

Quick breakfast in the room of cereal and OJ then we headed off to the Marathon Expo at the Wide World of Sports with the plan of having dinner at LTT this evening. Even though DW wasn’t running in the race, she still wanted to get her T-shirt and goodies that she registered for.

We were told that the special busses to the Expo would start running at 11:00am.

Well, at 11:15, there was still no bus. I did get this nifty picture of the details on the ALK lodge roof.

I had never noticed the bunnies before.

Finally, at 11:30, the bus arrived and we boarded, along with a couple other people checking in for the marathon. One really nice guy had a stroke in June 2008 and was running both the half and the full marathon! Wow! That’s impressive.

The Marathon Expo was at the World Wide of Sports and I've never been there before, so it was great to see the place. It was really pretty, much more so than I had expected. I’m not so sure why I was surprised, this is Disney after all!

There was a HUGE line of runners waiting to check in and I wondered just how many hours we’d be standing in line!

However, once the doors opened at noon, the line zipped through and we were inside the Milk House within 10 minutes. Woohoo! DW checked in and got her packet.

And then stood in another line and got the special Marathon pins that she pre-ordered. By this time, it was getting really crowded in the Milk House.

We headed over to the other building (can’t remember what it’s called) for the actual Expo and to pick up DW’s t-shirt. Along the way, we stopped and wrote on a big sheet of paper Disney provided to write messages to and from the runners. This is what DW wrote:

The Expo was crowded with vendors and thousands of people. Wow! It was a little overwhelming. They had major companies like Champion and Cliff Bar, as well as smaller companies like The Stick http://www.thestick.com/index.cfm . Disney also sold their Marathon merchandise there as well.

We wandered around for a few hours, shopping and checking out the fitness stuff that was being offered. DW and I also got our skin checked for skin cancer at some insurance company’s booth. You put your face into this magnifying device, which freakily enhanced every single mole, freckle, dry spot and wrinkle on your face. Then the insurance person told you what horrible skin damage you had! Yousa! I’m wearing more sunblock from now on!

After quite a bit of shopping, we were hungry and went to the WWS Café for lunch. We didn’t have high expectations of this meal, but it was surprisingly the best CS we had all week! We were on the basic dining plan, so we got 1 CS, 1 TS and 1 Snack per day. At CS, we could get an entrée, a dessert and a non-alcoholic beverage. I had the Greek Salad with grilled chicken, which was very fresh, with super crisp lettuce, lots of feta cheese, olives, peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes. I got a cup of grapes for dessert, which was also very good.

DW had the Blackened Tilapia sandwich with French fries and a cup of chocolate-chip cookie dough frozen yogurt for dessert. She said that the sandwich was delicious and ate the whole thing.

After a delicious lunch there, we came back to AKL for a bit of a rest before heading off to MK for dinner at LTT. This little guy was waiting outside of our balcony to say hello. At the bus stop, I couldn’t resist taking a picture of the bad shoes heading for MK! Can you imagine tromping through MK in platform sandals? Ouch!

MK is always the first park that we visit and I get so excited when we first enter the park. The sight of the train station just makes me all wiggily inside and when we go through the tunnel and enter Main Street…well, I get a little tear in my eye. I walked really slowly through the tunnel, to the point that DW wanted to know if there was something wrong with me! I just wanted to prolong that moment for as long as I could. I love the smell of the popcorn, the sound of the music on Main Street and the whole anticipation of seeing the castle. It’s just..well, magical!

We headed over for our 6:05 dinner at LTT and were amazed at the lack of crowds. This would be a theme all week, as the crowd levels were super low. We checked into LTT and were seated less than 10 minutes later. We’ve eaten lunch at LTT before, but never dinner. We probably won’t eat dinner there again. The food was just average and kinda boring and the place was so fricken loud! We had a small table off in the corner behind the station where they get the place settings ready for the bussers to pick up. We were right next to, two tables of 10, so we felt like we’d crashed someone else’s party!

Our server was very good, even though she was quite busy with the larger tables. We started with the salad, which was ok, but could have used more dressing.

For some reason, I don’t have pictures of the main course! I guess we were hungry! The turkey was very moist and hot, but the pork and beef were both cold. DW asked for seconds on the beef and this portion was steaming hot and fresh. Go figure. I liked the mashed potatoes and didn't care for the mac-n-cheese, but my DW really liked the mac-n-cheese because it was hot and very creamy, so tastes vary. The gravy was very thick and somewhat congealed so didn't pour well. Our potions had obviously been sitting for a while before they got to us.

The best part of the meal was the apple cobbler. It was warm and gooey with delicious apples. DW and I had a hard time sharing this one!

We usually eat at LTT for lunch and love the lunch options, dinner was ...meh.

After dinner, we stepped outside of LTT and right into the middle of Spectro Magic! WOOHOO! Perfect timing. The parade goes right by LTT, so we just stood on the steps and watched.

We then went to our favorite ride, the Jungle Cruise! Yes, it’s hokey and silly, but it’s also fun. We had an excellent CM, Mike, for the Jungle Cruise. He was awesome and certainly went off script several times! DW and I have ridden the Jungle Cruise so many times that we know the whole talk by heart and we play along with the skippers. It was great to have a skipper that had some personality and seemed to really enjoy what he was doing.

Wishes was at 8:00 that night, so after our cruise, we headed to the hub to watch the fireworks. It was so uncrowded that we got there 5 minutes before Wishes and got a prime spot just off the side of the hub. DW was feeling pretty tired and congested, but she hung in there for Wishes. I tried to control my sniffling when the little girl sings, damn pregnancy hormones. I convinced DW to stay for the Kiss Goodnight, but it didn’t happen! I thought that the Kiss was 30 minutes after the park closes? Maybe it’s 60 minutes, in any case, DW was really cold and wanted to go back to AKV, so we left.
One thing that was odd was that immediately after Wishes, 20 cleaning people with their LOUD gas powered vacuums came through the hub and sucked up all of the dropped popcorn and whatever. I’ve never seen them do that prior to people have left the park! That kinda spoiled the mood of Wishes.

Before we left, DW took a couple pictures of the castle and me in front of the castle.

The only bad part of the day..was the 30 minute wait to get on a bus to get back to AKV! Wow, I've never had to wait that long. Apparently the bus stop is where all the crowds were at!
Great day though and leaving MK always makes me a little sad b/c I know it's one day less for our Disney trip.

Now, what will our next day bring? Will DW be feeling better? What will the crowds be like at the Animal Kingdom? Stay tuned!

 

[duncansnickers]

I love it! The pics of the castle w/ you in front of it looks so awesome!
I seriously can't wait to get there--is it the 27th yet?
I feel the same way about entering the park for the first time, I love to savor the smells and the sounds...it is magical. And I've only ever been to Disneyland (where H and I got engaged, during the fireworks!) this is our first trip to the World. EEK!!

 

[Iggipolka]

Friday January 9th.
Another wonderful day at AKL and WDW! Being from California, we always have a hard time adjusting to Florida time, so we are never rope drop people. Usually, I'm up earlier than DW and anxious to get to the parks. So, this morning when the baby in my belly woke me up at 8am and my DW was snoring, I wasn't too surprised.

The construction noise was minimal this morning, just a few beeps from the trucks across the savannah. With the balcony doors closed, you can hardly even hear the trucks. The animals are off of the savannah and in the barn to get fed and weighed from about 8-10am. When they get let back out, they are so cute as we've seen a herd of wilderbeasts running across the grass, bucking and jumping. They seem quite happy.

Anyway, I laid in our comphy bed for awhile, until I couldn't stand it anymore and woke DW up. She had a cold prior to our leaving for WDW and felt worse this morning. So, after a quick breakfast in our villa (Love DVC), I headed off to AK and let her rest.

I love touring WDW by myself. It's fun to share the experience with someone, but sometimes I love to have the freedom to do what I want, when I want it, without worrying that someone else is bored or whatever. The bus to AK took forever to arrive at AKL and by time it got to the stop, it was standing room only. I was very surprised that it was so crowded! AK was very busy today.

Obligatory Tree shot.

They also still had some Christmas decorations up! The big tree was still up and in random places in the park, were decorations around the stores. They are very pretty, but mid-January is probably time to take the Christmas stuff down!

Being 5 months pregnant, the fun rides are off limits to me, so I concentrated on the animal trails and the shows. Flights of Wonder is my favorite bird show ever, although, I'm ready for the tour guide bit to end.

After the show, I got a jalapeno cheese pretzel (heartburn be dammed) and watched the monkeys on the temple for awhile. One of the advantages of coming in January is that it’s cool enough for the animals to be active. The monkeys were bouncing around and swinging all over the temple. It was great!

I then wandered off to Asia to check out the tigers and huge fruit bats. Those bats are freaky! I can't believe that there is no glass or anything separating us from them. It was really cool out, so the tigers were quite active, playing on the rocks and bouncing on logs. They are awesome!

 

[Iggipolka]

After I got through the trail, my DW called and said she'd meet me by the front of the park. She was feeling a bit better after resting in the morning. We had a 1pm reservation at Tusker House, and it was only noon, so we had time to see the huge gorillas before lunch. The meercats are also a favorite and several of them were wrestling around in the sand, too cute!

While we were wandering around, we noticed a bunch of people staring straight up to the sky. There was a plane making a smiley face!

He also wrote a religious message, but I liked the smiley face.

We also saw a giant komodo dragon. Did you know that one bite from a komodo dragon is fatal? It’s not because their teeth are so sharp, but because they have nasty bacteria in their mouth that there is no treatment for! Yikes!

The last time we ate at Tusker House, it was a counter service, so this was a new experience. We will absolutely be back. We love Boma and Tusker House is a close second now. We had a great server (Joe) and loved the food selections. I could have just eaten the curry vegetable samosas and been completely happy. I don’t take buffet food pictures, so picture the yummy goodness in your head. One thing that Joe told me was that Target actually carries a brand of curry vegetable samosas that taste almost exactly like the ones that are served at Tusker House! I am so going to get some!

After lunch, my DW was feeling tired again, so she headed back to AK to rest and I went the Nemo show. LOVE the Nemo show. I had priority seating to it because we had a 1pm reservation at Tusker House, so I got my pick of seats in the theater. Perfect!

After the excellent show, I was ready to head back, but wandered into the parade instead! Woohoo! I had never seen the parade at AK and it is soo good! It's completely different from any other parade at WDW and I highly recommend it. The way they construct the animal floats is incredible.

After the parade, I followed the crush of people out to the buses and waited a good 30 minutes for a AKV bus. What is up with the slow bus service back to the closest resort?

I got back around 5:30 and headed to The Mara for dinner. Their pita sandwich is very tasty and they are quite accommodating with special requests. I asked for extra yogurt sauce and fresh hot fries, I got it with a smile. I got a piece of carrot cake, which I saved for later. My DW requested some jello, so I got that for her as a snack credit.

Once I got back to the room, my DW was up and hungry, so we headed back down to the Mara and got her a pita sandwich, fries and a tasty raspberry smoothie. The very nice cashier gave us a sample of the pina colada smoothie too. Mmmmm...almost as good as the real thing.

Since my DW still wasn’t feeling all that great, so it was a quiet night at "home". I'm took a lovely bath and ate my carrot cake afterward. I was tempted to eat it in the bathtub, but I figured that could get way too messy. My DW watched the flat screen TV in the bedroom and since we have another one in the living room, there's no arguing over what show to watch!

Tomorrow, I was hoping to get up earlier, but our plans depended on how DW was feeling.
Will DW feel up to going to DHS to play TSMM? Will I have another day of touring the parks solo? Shouldn’t there be a magic germ shield to prevent people being sick
WDW?

 

[MissMichelle]

Im IN! So sorry you are back and from what I am reading DW got sick...Hopefully the flu is gone from WDW since I will be there next week. Congrats on the baby!

 

[Iggipolka]

Thanks! Just a clarification though, DW didn't get sick at Disney. She had a cold prior to getting to Disney that just got worse over time. Thankfully, neither of us got that nasty GI flu that is so prevalent this time of year.

 

[Lucille1963]

I am really enjoying your trip report.

DH and I babymooned in DL in September of 2007 and it is bringing back wonderful memories. I am amazed at what you fit into a day, most of our trip involved napping. (I think I was even exhausted by eating breakfast a couple of times!)

I can't wait to read more!

 

[happybratpack]

Your AK pics are making me so excited for this weekend. I miss being there when it's cool enough to actually ENJOY AK for all its wonders and not die from the heat.

Looking forward to reading more!

PS I just wanted to say thanks for the live report you posted, I loved following along each day.

 

[Iggipolka]

So, I'm getting kinda bummed about the lack of people reading this. Should I continue?? Let me know.

Saturday January 10th.

I woke DW up at 8am, happy and bouncy and ready to get going. Weellllll....we left AKL at 10:00. Oh well, at least she felt good enough to come with me for awhile. We headed over to DHS (I still call it MGM in my head) to play our favorite game, TSMM! Woohoo! We had studied the cheat videos and were all prepared for how to max our score. We would have done really well, except my DW was zonked out on Sudafed and was pretty fuzzy headed. It's hard to concentrate and aim when drugged. Ahh well, we had fun anyway. The standby line was about 20 minutes long, which is great for TSMM. I haven't seen it that low ever. We rode twice and did better the second time around. That's still my favorite ride/game and we're planning on heading back to DHS later this week.

After TSMM, we were going to go and see the Indiana Jones Stunt Show, but it was at 12:40 and we had lunch reservations at SciFi at 1:00. DW was also starting to drag quite a bit. So, we went and did the Great Movie Ride instead. Has anyone ever gotten the cowboy as the live CM? I have yet to have that happen, we always get the Mobster. Still a fun ride. I think it's time to update the film clips at the end though.

I keep forgetting to mention the weather. Today was absolutely spectacular and really has been the first day since we got here where I would feel comfortable going swimming. It was beautiful, sunny and around 80 degrees. Totally lovely.

We checked in a bit early for our SciFi reservation and were seated just before our ADR time. While waiting, I scoped out the new American Idol attraction just across from the entrance. They were testing it on CM's today, so every one in awhile, we'd hear some screeching..er..singing coming from behind the wall. It officially opens Feb 14th. What a nice way to surprise your sweetie on Valentines Day, by singing him/her a love song at the American Idol Experience.

I know that SciFi has gotten some pretty cruddy reviews, but we've always been happy with the food. Now, the frigid temperature of the building and the extremely long wait time for your food, is pretty annoying. I can overlook that though because they have new movie clips! Woohoo! The Zombie Woman attacks the Men from Mars! I got a Lilo Milk which was milk in a sippy cup with a glow cube in it! Too fun to have green, then red, then blue milk. *giggle* I can be such a 6 year old at WDW sometimes.

For my meal I had a cheeseburger with cheddar cheese, grilled onions and mushrooms (Sorry Brenda) and a side of onion rings instead of fries. The burger was cooked exactly as I wanted and the onion rings were super crispy and very hot.

My DW got the Steak-n-Blue salad, which is her favorite there. It's grilled steak over a wedge of lettuce with blue cheese and blue cheese dressing. She also got a chocolate shake to drink.

For dessert I had a hot fudge sundae and she got the chocolate peanut butter cake. While I loved my hot fudge sundae (how can that be anything but good?), she wasn't thrilled with her dessert. She likes really creamy peanut butter and said it was pretty dry.

After lunch, my DW headed back to ALK to rest and I took the ferry over to the Boardwalk and then walked to Epcot.

The slide at the Beach Club is under renovation. I love that slide and had a great time sliding down it during our October Trip.

--Cont next post

 

[Iggipolka]

Saturday Jan 11th, Cont


The Beach Club shows movies on the beach at night, something we’re going to do next trip.

I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering through the countries. I love being able to meander through each country, visiting the shops and watching the shows. I take my time and absorb the atmosphere and the different feeling that each country evokes. There are so many interesting little details to notice, if you slow down.

I started in France and got to see the "Comic Chef" show, with the guy who balances chairs on wine bottles. Wow..he was really high up there, 5 or 6 chairs high and then standing on his head! Impressive!

Aurora was in the garden, so I got my picture taken with her. A tour group from some warm country much south from here (ahem) tried to butt in front of me with 6 young kids. I tried to tell them that I was in line, but I don't think they expected an adult to be alone in line to get her picture taken with a Princess. So, I scooted out of line and then got back in front of them. This caused quite a bit of conversation among them and I don't think that they fully understood my explanation. Thankfully the CM had noticed and took my hand and lead me to Aurora. Phew! Aurora couldn't have been more gracious and very respectful of an adult wanting a picture with her. She was very sweet and took some time to give me parenting advice: smile at your child every day, teach her/him to be polite and kind to others and always believe in magic. Rather sweet.

So, after France was Morocco which is my favorite pavilion. I'm a belly dancer, so I always have to poke through the store in Morocco to see if there's any new belly dance stuff.
This is me in a pre-pregnancy belly dance picture taken at a show in June 2008. I can’t wait to get my belly back!

I also like to watch the dancer there, although the last few times I've seen her, she seems bored. I think some new material may help. It does get old dancing to the same music all the time. Anyway, there's a new museum in Morocco that I highly recommend. It showcases the jewelry that people in Morocco wear and is so beautiful. The building is lovely too, check out the ceiling!

When we were at WDW in October, I did a pick-a-pearl in Japan and wanted to bring it back with me to get it put in a setting. Well, I forgot my pearl, so I had to pick another one! Just as it got to be my turn, I started feeling really dizzy and saw sparks of light in my eyes. I knew I was going to faint! I've never fainted before, so this was a bit freaky. I wanted to sit down, but the only place to do so was the floor and I didn't want to cause a scene, so I stepped outside. As soon as I hit the cooler air, I felt better. I think I just got over heated. I have a little oven in my belly anyway and it was warm in the store. I went to the bathroom, splashed a little water on my face and felt fine again. Phew! That was a little scary. I did go back to the store in Japan and got a small, but quite pretty 6.25mm pink pearl that I had put into a silver cage pendent. I'm happy with it.

I skipped the American Adventure because I know that my DW wants to see the show there. We haven't seen it yet! Amazing in the number of times we've been to WDW that we haven't seen the show, but we haven't. That's the nice thing about WDW, there's always something new to experience.

I headed over to Germany and got a big pretzel (snack credit!) and ate about 1/2. I just wanted to get something in my stomach in case that was part of the fainting problems. The pretzels you get in Germany have a buttery taste that isn't there in the pretzels you can get at the other pretzel stands. Kinda interesting and reminds me of the pretzel bread in Canada.

While I was munching, the clock in Germany opened up and the two mechanical kids rang the bell. Well, they tried to ring the bell! I think that the hammers have been removed from the kids because there was no sound! It was pretty funny.

I think Norway is next. I can't do the ride there right now, but it was fun watching the boat peek out of the tunnel. I did stop in the bakery to visit the goodies there. They don't have School Bread out on display anymore! What's up with that? I said hello to the Sweet Pretzels and promised to visit them again later in the week. The CM behind the counter was quite amused.

I also saw where the ship in Norway used to be! I miss the ship, now there's a big empty garden spot and it just looks like something should be there.

I walked through Africa, I never stop here and I'm not sure why. It just seems to be less of a pavilion and more of a place to walk through to get to the next country. Maybe that's just me.

In China, I caught the middle of the acrobat show. I've never seen them before and was quite impressed! Their flexibility is absolutely freaky!

I also saw the China Movie, again, a new one for me. It is very well done and makes me want to visit China, so I guess it worked! There is also an exhibit of the tombs that have been excavated, which was completely awe inspiring. I would like to go back and spend some more time there.

Mexico! Woohoo! I arrived in time to hear the band and then take the Mexico Small World ride. It's cheesy and silly, but I still like it. I liked it better before they added Donald to it, but it's still good. I wandered around the shops for a bit, but since I live in California, we can get the same stuff back home.

No Flash

Flash!

By this time it was around 5pm and I knew I had to leave Epcot by 6 in order to get back to AKL for our Boma ADR at 7:15, so I headed over to Future World. Nemo was calling me with zero wait time, so I swam under the ocean and now have "It's a BIIIIIG Blue World..." stuck in my head for the rest of eternity.

I visited with Crush, who seemed to be having a bad day and was amusingly sarcastic with a couple of adults who asked questions. He was good with the kids though. I'm not sure how much longer that Crush will be working at Epcot. *giggle* It was fun though. I wanted to ride Soarin', but my DW called to find out where I was, so I just stopped at MouseGear on the way out and got a CD of park music, before heading to the bus.

I know that people have complained that AKL is so far away from the parks. Well, I got on the bus at 6:26 and was at AKL at 6:36! Woo! A 10 minute bus ride is certainly welcome anywhere!

DW was feeling much better this evening. yeay! We headed down to Boma and had a scrumptious dinner. We were seated a bit early and happily munched through soups, salads and other tasty goodies. No Zebra Domes for me, due to the alcohol content. However, the banana bread pudding with vanilla sauce was soooo tasty. DW started feeling more crummy again after dinner, so she headed back up to the room.

I went out to the Savannah in the middle of the resort and saw the funniest thing ever! A tiny antelope like critter was herding about 5 Zebra away from a pile of hay! He circled around the zebra until they all got into a bunch and then slowly advanced towards them until, as a group, they moved away from the hay. Once they were away from the hay, the antelope started to eat it! At that point, the zebra seemed to catch on to what was happening and they moved back towards the hay. However, the antelope wasn't having any of that, and circled around them and moved them away in the other direction! OMG, I was laughing so hard. Normally those tiny antelope are so timid and here this one had developed a semi-predator identity and the zebra were letting him get away with it!

We had an early night because the next day we hadto get up at 6am to catch a 7:15am bus to the TTC in order to get to MK. Due to the marathon, there are no direct buses to MK and they stop running buses to the TTC at 8am! We had reservations for the Keys to the Kingdom tour that starts at 8:45. So, we were quite early. Ahh well, better than late.
Tour review coming up next!

Thanks again for reading and questions are more than welcome!

 

[momatater]

Love the pics!! It's got me SO excited for our trip on Friday!! The pic of you in front of the castle is great, as is your belly dancin' shot. Don't worry, you're young and you'll get that belly back!

Can't wait to read and see more!

 

[william4192]

Subbing. Great start.

 

[Iggipolka]

Love the pics!! It's got me SO excited for our trip on Friday!! The pic of you in front of the castle is great, as is your belly dancin' shot. Don't worry, you're young and you'll get that belly back!

Can't wait to read and see more!

Thanks! I hope that you have a fantastic trip. Those last few days before leaving are soooo exciting. I love that anticipation.

 

[PigletFairy]

im in!

i do have a question... and this is probably a dumb one i've only been to DHS once (when it was still MGM) and i dont know what TSMM?? i know i should probably google it but i think i rather ask you!

 

[MovienutNiffer]

Subscribing! Me and my sister just LOVE Animal Kingdom Lodge and we are slowly saving to join DVC and we have decided our first trip with DVC we are DEFINITELY staying at a villa there!

Great pics! Our nephew by our youngest sister loved the animal pictures! He's 3 and ever since I started showing him pictures of WDW he says every day "I want to go there!"

 

[Iggipolka]

im in!

i do have a question... and this is probably a dumb one i've only been to DHS once (when it was still MGM) and i dont know what TSMM?? i know i should probably google it but i think i rather ask you!

Totally NOT a dumb question! TSMM is Toy Story Midway Mania...i.e. the most fun game/ride ever! You ride in little cars and get to shoot a variety of objects, balloons, plates, ring toss the little green aliens and darts at a shooting gallery. It's in 4D, so you wear 3D glasses and they blow air and squirt water at you. It's completely addictive and a blast. Think Buzz Lightyear on steroids.

Subscribing! Me and my sister just LOVE Animal Kingdom Lodge and we are slowly saving to join DVC and we have decided our first trip with DVC we are DEFINITELY staying at a villa there!

Great pics! Our nephew by our youngest sister loved the animal pictures! He's 3 and ever since I started showing him pictures of WDW he says every day "I want to go there!"

We thought long and hard about joining DVC and debated for at least two years before we went for it. I am so glad that we became DVC members. It has been nothing but positive. We love the expansive room of the villas (which cash are over $1000 a night!) and we get to stay in Deluxe resorts, which we never could have afforded prior to DVC.

Animal Kingdom Lodge is our favorite place to stay. I'm like your 3 year old nephew, I can't get enough of watching the animals from our balcony!