Queenofthecastle
<font color=red>I may be the Queen, but the Tag Fa
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2003
- Messages
- 698
<b>Thursday, May 22nd 2003</b>
It sure feels strange to have been staying at AKL for a couple nights, yet not having visited Animal Kingdom yet. That all changes today though! We are up at the crack of dawn. Ok, not really, its 9:00am. We bus it over to AK. It feels like its going to be a hot one today!
We arrive at AK and our first stop is guest services because I decide I want a new annual pass booklet that lists all of the discounts. We never got one when we bought our PAPs at the airport. These work so much better than the sleeves that we currently have much easier to remove our card for the FP machines. Were feeling good now! Good thing too because our plan is to take it easy today just stroll around at our own leisure, really! So first stop, a picture in front of The Tree of Life, followed by a side-trip to the bulletin board. We wait for the guy in this picture to move, but he just wont budge! We waste about 3 minutes waiting for him so we can get a nice shot of the entire board for the DIS, but no luck. We walk around the Oasis to get a better view of that awesome Tree. I tell T theres actually a theatre inside that tree. Pretty unbelievable!
Its time to do the safari now. It seems like Ive been waiting for this forever! We see DeVine along the way. Can you spot her? There is no line at all for the safari. Thats the good part. The bad part is that we end up with a drone-like CM for our ride. At least she points out the newborn baby hippo for us! We see lots of giraffes on the ride. I wish they would get closer though. Yes, one is crossing the road right in front of us! I hope it stops in the middle of the road so our ride will last longer! Nope, no such luck. It heads straight for the feeding area. We drive by the lion area (Pride Rock?) and they are sleeping. Funny, I think they were sleeping the last time I saw them 5 years ago too! Its too bad they didnt get rid of the whole Little Red story line. I notice that they dont have a real life CM playing the bit part in the story any more. Downsizing I guess. On our way out we decide to skip the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail. Well get back to it if we have time. I want to try Kali River Rapids!
We head over to Asia when T decides the top of his head is cooking. Its gotten hot in the last hour or so. I suggest we trek back to Island Mercantile so he can get a hat (I had been eyeing this place when we walked by earlier, now theres an excuse to go in!). He says he doesnt like to wear hats. I some how convince him that he really should get a hat, but I cant convince him to trek back to that huge Island Mercantile store, darnit. So we stop by a cart that had a selection of about 4-5 adult hats. After about 15 minutes (yes, 15 minutes) he selects a hat. One of these fisherman-type hats, but with AK pins all over it. I tell him thats an awesome hat, and could I have the pins afterward? What do you mean I have to be nice first? Oh well
Theres a 20 minute wait for Kali too long for us so we FP it. We hike back over to Discovery Island to grab lunch at Pizzafari. Its about 11:30 now and there are no lines. Im happy we beat the lunch crunch. I order a pepperoni pizza and T orders a cheese pizza. Cost: about $14. We grab a seat in the room with the turtles and snails on the ceiling. Wow, this would be a cool decoration to have in the bedroom! T sees someone walk by with a huge club sandwich and says he should have gotten one. They do look tasty. Oh well, next time. The pizza is delicious by the way. By the time we are done eating, the restaurant is pretty crowded. Haha good thing we skipped breakfast this morning so we could have an early lunch!
We make our way back over to Asia to ride Kali. We use our FPs and are a bit disappointed that we still have a 10 minute wait. I hope it is worth it. While in line we stuff our Pal Mickey, camera, sunglasses, and wallet in a large ziplock bag. We grab a seat on the raft, noticing that all of the seats are really damp. Great. I love the feeling of wearing a soggy diaper before the ride even starts. We dont really get wet the first couple of dips. The burning rainforest looks really cool. Theres a lot of detail on this ride so well have to ride several more times is what I am thinking. Oh no, we see the big drop up ahead. The raft is rotating and bumping along the sides I wonder who is going to end up with their backs toward the drop and get soaked! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh splooooooooooooosh! Its T and I. The back of my shirt and my shorts are completely drenched. Good thing I leaned forward, otherwise the front of my shirt would have been drenched too! Ts shirt is totally soaked though. Guess he didnt think quick enough, ha! Yes, we complain about being soaked to the bone when we leave the ride, but what do we do next? We grab another FP to ride again of course! We skip the Jungle Trek thinking we may have time to get to this later. Instead we head over to Discovery Island to get in line for Its Tough to be a Bug. But since there is no line, we only wait a few minutes for the next show to begin. I am freezing my buns off in the theatre. The cold air conditioning does not feel good when your clothes are wet! This show is okay. T teases me about the giant spiders. I hate spiders. I much prefer Honey I Shrunk the Audience. We decide to stroll around a bit more while waiting for our Kali FP time to come up. When it does, we ride it again. This time T tries to choose a seat that is drier, but what do you know, we sit on the side that gets completely soaked again. Why didnt I wait to dry off before I rode again? Well, no time to dry off now. We have to make our way over to Dinosaur!
Again, this ride is freezing cold, but at least there are no lines. Note to self: do all air conditioned rides before Kali next time. We head over to Primeval Whirl. It looks kinda dinky. The line is pretty long, like 30 minutes with FP. Do we want to wait? Sure, why not, we need to dry off anyway. This is the longest wait so far on our trip so it had better be good. The ride is okay. Im glad I did it, but wouldnt wait more than 10 minutes next time. I want to see Festival of the Lion King so we head over to Camp Minnie-Mickey. We wait about 10 minutes for the next showing. Ts trying to point out something to me. He keeps pointing at this tree about 10 yards away. I have no idea what hes pointing at. Is there a monkey in the tree? Some sort of cool bird? DeVine again? I dont see anything! T says dont you see that huge spider? Um, no. I thought it was something interesting, and hes pointing to a stupid spider! Anyway we head on into the theatre. This show is really cool. Its very creative and colorful. I cant believe they do this every hour or so. That is insane!
Now I think I am going insane. Its past 4:00 and we miss the parade, but what about Tarzan Rocks? I kind of want to see that, but were also tired and hungry. We decide to save that for another day and we head back to our hotel. We wait forever for a bus back to AKL because we just miss one.
Back at AKL we decide to just grab some grub at the Mara. I feel bad wasting a dinner on fast food, but oh well. T gets a hotdog and fries, I get chicken strips with mac & cheese. We split a bowl of assorted fruit. Cost: $21.87.
We rest up a bit before heading out to Disneyquest tonight. T makes some phone calls, I check my email, its all good.
Its 7:30pm now so we make our way to the bus shelter. The wait for a Downtown Disney bus is a long one. At least 20 minutes. The bus ride itself felt long too. We finally arrive and I want to get off at the Marketplace stop. I secretly want to do some shopping, but T wasnt about to be tricked. He says we should stay on and get off at the Westside stop since its closer to DQ. Thats it, hes not allowed to read any more maps. We walk towards DQ, and were getting pretty excited. T gets even more excited when he finds out that he doesnt have to pay for a ticket its included in our PAPs!
We enter the elevator and I want to do Astroblaster. We stop by Mighty Ducks Pinball Slam on the way. This game is quite an exercise! I actually have to catch my breath when this game is over. Now its time for Astroblaster! But what do you know, T spots some classic arcade games and he wants to play these first. Ah! We can play these games anywhere! I can feel the line for Astroblaster getting longer as precious minutes are wasted. I play one game of pinball and tell T Im going to go stand in line for Astroblaster. I love this game, its a blast! We play twice in a row as the lines arent bad at all.
I want to do Aladdins Magic Carpet Ride next so we head down to the 2nd floor. We wait a good 10 minutes to do this. My favorite part is looking at the other Abus next to me its too funny! T says this ride has made him feel sick. His VR goggles were blurry in one eye. I know what will make him feel better Ill make him a nice gentle rollercoaster to ride on at CyberSpace Mountain! I suggest this and he immediately shoots this idea down. What, I really would have made a nice kiddie coaster for him, I swear! Well have to catch the coaster ride next time.
We head back down to the 1st floor because I want to try Pirates of the Caribbean. T sees Treasures of the Incas and wants to try it. Precious minutes are ticking away, and the line for Pirates is getting longer. T has a lot of fun with this, but I think its boring. Half the cars are stuck or broken anyway. Finally we get in a 10 minute line for Pirates. We are the only ones on our ship and we have a blast running back and forth between the 6 different cannons. This ride is good exercise too!
We end up playing a few more regular arcade games until we notice its almost 10:30pm. The shops in the Marketplace are closing in a half hour and I want to go to The World of Disney! But weve hardly scratched the surface of DQ too. What a dilemma. I decide on the store, thinking that we can come back to DQ another evening. We still have 3 full days left of vacation anyway.
We fast-walk towards the Marketplace and Ive got a little less than 15 minutes to buy souvenirs. First stop, the room with the plush toys. I grab a small-sized Pluto. Yes, he wants to go home with me. No, the large-sized Pluto wants to go home with me. No, I settle on the medium-sized Pluto. I race to the next room as T follows. Im looking for the Self-portrait sculpture of Mickey. I dont see it so I ask a CM who says The Art of Disney may have it. Shoot, Im running out of time! I need a T-shirt too! I cant decide with only 10 minutes left. I need to find a picture frame. T stops me and asks why I have to buy all this stuff now when weve seen a lot of the same merchandise at other stores. I tell him its because of the PAP discount. He gets it so he helps me pick out a frame a 2003 The Magical Place to Be frame. Then I see the cutest snowglobe of WDW with all the characters and a moving monorail circling the snowglobe. I have to have it, but its $80. T talks me out of it we dont have room, its expensive, dont I want to see what else is in this store? Fine. I pick out some odds and ends for non-Disney caring family members: Post-it note cubes, mints, etc. T decides he wants to get something for his baby nephew so we head to the baby room and pick out a baby Mickey and baby Pluto. Very cute! Oh no, the store is closing already, time to check out. Im hardly done! Ugh! Cost: $81.00 with PAP discount.
On our way out I remember the scrapbooking store. Oh no, Im going to miss it! Im bummed with my 15 minute shopping spree and my snowglobe-lacking purchase. I tell T we have to come back tomorrow night.
We wait for a bus from the Marketplace for about 15 minutes while I am eaten alive by mosquitoes. Im too tired to fight them. Im not in a good mood and I just want to get back to the hotel. Of course the bus makes what seems like a dozen stops: Pleasure Island, and 3 stops at Coronado Springs. Good thing Blizzard Beach is closed, otherwise Im sure we would stop there too!
We get back to AKL and Im still thinking about that snowglobe. Why didnt I just get it? How am I supposed to sleep knowing its sitting there in the store, homeless, calling out my name? I need that snowglobe! That snowglobe will be mine!
Tomorrow: We move to AKL concierge and a deluxe savannah view room.
0. The Making of a Disneyholic - Pre-Trip Report
1. The Making of a Disneyholic - Day 1 - "I have a bad feeling about this..."
2. The Making of a Disneyholic - Day 2 - "Oh my, is Chip really proposing?!" - Photos
3. The Making of a Disneyholic - Day 3 - "OMG, it's 1:45pm, we have to GET UP!" - Photos
4. The Making of a Disneyholic - Day 4 - "T disses Michael Jackson." - Photos
5. The Making of a Disneyholic - Day 5 - "Dolphins and Discovery Cove." - Photos
6. The Making of a Disneyholic - Day 6 - "Did I mention that I hate ToT?" - Photos
7. The Making of a Disneyholic - Day 7 - "That snowglobe will be mine!"(AK & DQ) - Photos
It sure feels strange to have been staying at AKL for a couple nights, yet not having visited Animal Kingdom yet. That all changes today though! We are up at the crack of dawn. Ok, not really, its 9:00am. We bus it over to AK. It feels like its going to be a hot one today!
We arrive at AK and our first stop is guest services because I decide I want a new annual pass booklet that lists all of the discounts. We never got one when we bought our PAPs at the airport. These work so much better than the sleeves that we currently have much easier to remove our card for the FP machines. Were feeling good now! Good thing too because our plan is to take it easy today just stroll around at our own leisure, really! So first stop, a picture in front of The Tree of Life, followed by a side-trip to the bulletin board. We wait for the guy in this picture to move, but he just wont budge! We waste about 3 minutes waiting for him so we can get a nice shot of the entire board for the DIS, but no luck. We walk around the Oasis to get a better view of that awesome Tree. I tell T theres actually a theatre inside that tree. Pretty unbelievable!
Its time to do the safari now. It seems like Ive been waiting for this forever! We see DeVine along the way. Can you spot her? There is no line at all for the safari. Thats the good part. The bad part is that we end up with a drone-like CM for our ride. At least she points out the newborn baby hippo for us! We see lots of giraffes on the ride. I wish they would get closer though. Yes, one is crossing the road right in front of us! I hope it stops in the middle of the road so our ride will last longer! Nope, no such luck. It heads straight for the feeding area. We drive by the lion area (Pride Rock?) and they are sleeping. Funny, I think they were sleeping the last time I saw them 5 years ago too! Its too bad they didnt get rid of the whole Little Red story line. I notice that they dont have a real life CM playing the bit part in the story any more. Downsizing I guess. On our way out we decide to skip the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail. Well get back to it if we have time. I want to try Kali River Rapids!
We head over to Asia when T decides the top of his head is cooking. Its gotten hot in the last hour or so. I suggest we trek back to Island Mercantile so he can get a hat (I had been eyeing this place when we walked by earlier, now theres an excuse to go in!). He says he doesnt like to wear hats. I some how convince him that he really should get a hat, but I cant convince him to trek back to that huge Island Mercantile store, darnit. So we stop by a cart that had a selection of about 4-5 adult hats. After about 15 minutes (yes, 15 minutes) he selects a hat. One of these fisherman-type hats, but with AK pins all over it. I tell him thats an awesome hat, and could I have the pins afterward? What do you mean I have to be nice first? Oh well
Theres a 20 minute wait for Kali too long for us so we FP it. We hike back over to Discovery Island to grab lunch at Pizzafari. Its about 11:30 now and there are no lines. Im happy we beat the lunch crunch. I order a pepperoni pizza and T orders a cheese pizza. Cost: about $14. We grab a seat in the room with the turtles and snails on the ceiling. Wow, this would be a cool decoration to have in the bedroom! T sees someone walk by with a huge club sandwich and says he should have gotten one. They do look tasty. Oh well, next time. The pizza is delicious by the way. By the time we are done eating, the restaurant is pretty crowded. Haha good thing we skipped breakfast this morning so we could have an early lunch!
We make our way back over to Asia to ride Kali. We use our FPs and are a bit disappointed that we still have a 10 minute wait. I hope it is worth it. While in line we stuff our Pal Mickey, camera, sunglasses, and wallet in a large ziplock bag. We grab a seat on the raft, noticing that all of the seats are really damp. Great. I love the feeling of wearing a soggy diaper before the ride even starts. We dont really get wet the first couple of dips. The burning rainforest looks really cool. Theres a lot of detail on this ride so well have to ride several more times is what I am thinking. Oh no, we see the big drop up ahead. The raft is rotating and bumping along the sides I wonder who is going to end up with their backs toward the drop and get soaked! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh splooooooooooooosh! Its T and I. The back of my shirt and my shorts are completely drenched. Good thing I leaned forward, otherwise the front of my shirt would have been drenched too! Ts shirt is totally soaked though. Guess he didnt think quick enough, ha! Yes, we complain about being soaked to the bone when we leave the ride, but what do we do next? We grab another FP to ride again of course! We skip the Jungle Trek thinking we may have time to get to this later. Instead we head over to Discovery Island to get in line for Its Tough to be a Bug. But since there is no line, we only wait a few minutes for the next show to begin. I am freezing my buns off in the theatre. The cold air conditioning does not feel good when your clothes are wet! This show is okay. T teases me about the giant spiders. I hate spiders. I much prefer Honey I Shrunk the Audience. We decide to stroll around a bit more while waiting for our Kali FP time to come up. When it does, we ride it again. This time T tries to choose a seat that is drier, but what do you know, we sit on the side that gets completely soaked again. Why didnt I wait to dry off before I rode again? Well, no time to dry off now. We have to make our way over to Dinosaur!
Again, this ride is freezing cold, but at least there are no lines. Note to self: do all air conditioned rides before Kali next time. We head over to Primeval Whirl. It looks kinda dinky. The line is pretty long, like 30 minutes with FP. Do we want to wait? Sure, why not, we need to dry off anyway. This is the longest wait so far on our trip so it had better be good. The ride is okay. Im glad I did it, but wouldnt wait more than 10 minutes next time. I want to see Festival of the Lion King so we head over to Camp Minnie-Mickey. We wait about 10 minutes for the next showing. Ts trying to point out something to me. He keeps pointing at this tree about 10 yards away. I have no idea what hes pointing at. Is there a monkey in the tree? Some sort of cool bird? DeVine again? I dont see anything! T says dont you see that huge spider? Um, no. I thought it was something interesting, and hes pointing to a stupid spider! Anyway we head on into the theatre. This show is really cool. Its very creative and colorful. I cant believe they do this every hour or so. That is insane!
Now I think I am going insane. Its past 4:00 and we miss the parade, but what about Tarzan Rocks? I kind of want to see that, but were also tired and hungry. We decide to save that for another day and we head back to our hotel. We wait forever for a bus back to AKL because we just miss one.
Back at AKL we decide to just grab some grub at the Mara. I feel bad wasting a dinner on fast food, but oh well. T gets a hotdog and fries, I get chicken strips with mac & cheese. We split a bowl of assorted fruit. Cost: $21.87.
We rest up a bit before heading out to Disneyquest tonight. T makes some phone calls, I check my email, its all good.
Its 7:30pm now so we make our way to the bus shelter. The wait for a Downtown Disney bus is a long one. At least 20 minutes. The bus ride itself felt long too. We finally arrive and I want to get off at the Marketplace stop. I secretly want to do some shopping, but T wasnt about to be tricked. He says we should stay on and get off at the Westside stop since its closer to DQ. Thats it, hes not allowed to read any more maps. We walk towards DQ, and were getting pretty excited. T gets even more excited when he finds out that he doesnt have to pay for a ticket its included in our PAPs!
We enter the elevator and I want to do Astroblaster. We stop by Mighty Ducks Pinball Slam on the way. This game is quite an exercise! I actually have to catch my breath when this game is over. Now its time for Astroblaster! But what do you know, T spots some classic arcade games and he wants to play these first. Ah! We can play these games anywhere! I can feel the line for Astroblaster getting longer as precious minutes are wasted. I play one game of pinball and tell T Im going to go stand in line for Astroblaster. I love this game, its a blast! We play twice in a row as the lines arent bad at all.
I want to do Aladdins Magic Carpet Ride next so we head down to the 2nd floor. We wait a good 10 minutes to do this. My favorite part is looking at the other Abus next to me its too funny! T says this ride has made him feel sick. His VR goggles were blurry in one eye. I know what will make him feel better Ill make him a nice gentle rollercoaster to ride on at CyberSpace Mountain! I suggest this and he immediately shoots this idea down. What, I really would have made a nice kiddie coaster for him, I swear! Well have to catch the coaster ride next time.
We head back down to the 1st floor because I want to try Pirates of the Caribbean. T sees Treasures of the Incas and wants to try it. Precious minutes are ticking away, and the line for Pirates is getting longer. T has a lot of fun with this, but I think its boring. Half the cars are stuck or broken anyway. Finally we get in a 10 minute line for Pirates. We are the only ones on our ship and we have a blast running back and forth between the 6 different cannons. This ride is good exercise too!
We end up playing a few more regular arcade games until we notice its almost 10:30pm. The shops in the Marketplace are closing in a half hour and I want to go to The World of Disney! But weve hardly scratched the surface of DQ too. What a dilemma. I decide on the store, thinking that we can come back to DQ another evening. We still have 3 full days left of vacation anyway.
We fast-walk towards the Marketplace and Ive got a little less than 15 minutes to buy souvenirs. First stop, the room with the plush toys. I grab a small-sized Pluto. Yes, he wants to go home with me. No, the large-sized Pluto wants to go home with me. No, I settle on the medium-sized Pluto. I race to the next room as T follows. Im looking for the Self-portrait sculpture of Mickey. I dont see it so I ask a CM who says The Art of Disney may have it. Shoot, Im running out of time! I need a T-shirt too! I cant decide with only 10 minutes left. I need to find a picture frame. T stops me and asks why I have to buy all this stuff now when weve seen a lot of the same merchandise at other stores. I tell him its because of the PAP discount. He gets it so he helps me pick out a frame a 2003 The Magical Place to Be frame. Then I see the cutest snowglobe of WDW with all the characters and a moving monorail circling the snowglobe. I have to have it, but its $80. T talks me out of it we dont have room, its expensive, dont I want to see what else is in this store? Fine. I pick out some odds and ends for non-Disney caring family members: Post-it note cubes, mints, etc. T decides he wants to get something for his baby nephew so we head to the baby room and pick out a baby Mickey and baby Pluto. Very cute! Oh no, the store is closing already, time to check out. Im hardly done! Ugh! Cost: $81.00 with PAP discount.
On our way out I remember the scrapbooking store. Oh no, Im going to miss it! Im bummed with my 15 minute shopping spree and my snowglobe-lacking purchase. I tell T we have to come back tomorrow night.
We wait for a bus from the Marketplace for about 15 minutes while I am eaten alive by mosquitoes. Im too tired to fight them. Im not in a good mood and I just want to get back to the hotel. Of course the bus makes what seems like a dozen stops: Pleasure Island, and 3 stops at Coronado Springs. Good thing Blizzard Beach is closed, otherwise Im sure we would stop there too!
We get back to AKL and Im still thinking about that snowglobe. Why didnt I just get it? How am I supposed to sleep knowing its sitting there in the store, homeless, calling out my name? I need that snowglobe! That snowglobe will be mine!
Tomorrow: We move to AKL concierge and a deluxe savannah view room.
0. The Making of a Disneyholic - Pre-Trip Report
1. The Making of a Disneyholic - Day 1 - "I have a bad feeling about this..."
2. The Making of a Disneyholic - Day 2 - "Oh my, is Chip really proposing?!" - Photos
3. The Making of a Disneyholic - Day 3 - "OMG, it's 1:45pm, we have to GET UP!" - Photos
4. The Making of a Disneyholic - Day 4 - "T disses Michael Jackson." - Photos
5. The Making of a Disneyholic - Day 5 - "Dolphins and Discovery Cove." - Photos
6. The Making of a Disneyholic - Day 6 - "Did I mention that I hate ToT?" - Photos
7. The Making of a Disneyholic - Day 7 - "That snowglobe will be mine!"(AK & DQ) - Photos
