The Pursuit of Disney Magic (June 7-14, 2008) ~ UPDATED 9/30 pg. 191

[willwriteforears]

Lovely face painting! I used to love having it done when I was a kid, only it didn't happen for me very often because my mom would say something like "It's not worth the money when it'll just wash off later." I should send her a link to your update with a note saying, "See! Now you are denied similar cute photos of your only daughter!"

 

[winkers]

the face painting turned out great! I love Chelsie's mask! so cute!

My younger boys wanted to do the star wars ones at studios, but I just kept imaging the mess if it melted or rubbed off.

 

[IluvXU]

Guess who suddenly became a cheetah after looking in the mirror?

I so love these two pictures! I think they really capture your kids great... how long do they look like that--- do they stay fresh for a while or are they messy right away?

 

[Charleston Princess]

Great updates. I am doing my weekly "catch up" on the Dis. Love all the pics. Enjoying your tr.

Thank you so much!

Those are really great face paintings! They look awesome!

Allyson

Thank you! The kids had a lot of fun getting them done!

I never really think to go shopping in AK. That's going to have to change in October! Love the face paintings -- they look so cute!!

Thank you!!! I just love shopping at AK -- Epcot is my other favorite for shopping.

Oooo, I love face painting! Sounds like it was a good time, a little painting, a little shopping. I can't wait to hear about your dinner!

Thank you! We did have a great time -- the drama starts in the next installment!

The face painting looks so good!

I love how Connor suddenly became a cat!

Thank you! Connor definitely believes in acting the part. He was a cat the rest of the day! I will miss it when he is an adolescent and too cool for that kind of thing!

I love the face painting! I am putting that on our list for our next trip. Too cool!

-Becca-

Thank you! It was definitely worth the money we paid for it -- the kids loved it!

Did you or Connor pick out his shirt for AK day? I love that it matches the color in his face paint.

Oh, I picked out his shirt -- I don't trust him to choose his own clothes yet! I didn't even think about the face painting when I did it -- just that it had a rhino on it for AK day!

 

[Charleston Princess]

Their face paintings turned our fantastic. I didn't even see where the face painting place was when we were there. Connor's cat picture is great!

Thank you! The face painting was near the safari -- I had read about it in one of the guidebooks or we might have just walked right by it.

beautiful face painting- we may have to do that next time!

Chelsea's is gorgeous and Connors is very realistic looking

Enjoying the tease..ahemm.. umm, the TR!

Lori

Thank you! I really thought they were fantastic! We would definitely do it again!

The face painting came out GREAT!!!!!!!

Your "subtle" power of suggestion worked out great.

It sounds like you had great line MOJO working for you!!!!!

Thanks! We definitely had line MOJO all week (well, except for our first night at DHS, and we should have known better since it was Star Wars Weekends) -- I am not sure how we got so lucky!

Those face painting picture are really nice. Your kids are to cute. Hope you are having a great 4th.

Thank you! We did have a nice 4th! Hope you did too!

SUBBING!!

Welcome! I hope you enjoy it!

Lovely face painting! I used to love having it done when I was a kid, only it didn't happen for me very often because my mom would say something like "It's not worth the money when it'll just wash off later." I should send her a link to your update with a note saying, "See! Now you are denied similar cute photos of your only daughter!"

You know, I don't know if I ever got my face painted -- I can totally see my mom saying the same thing -- or making me choose: souvenir or face painting -- I am sure I would have gone for the souvenirs.

the face painting turned out great! I love Chelsie's mask! so cute!

My younger boys wanted to do the star wars ones at studios, but I just kept imaging the mess if it melted or rubbed off.

Just wait until you see what happens to it later in the evening!

I so love these two pictures! I think they really capture your kids great... how long do they look like that--- do they stay fresh for a while or are they messy right away?

Thank you so much! Those are some of my favorite pictures from the trip! They stayed looking exactly like that until...well, you remember what happened that Tuesday evening, don't you? When the kids had their faces painted at Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party, they stayed like that until the next day so whatever they use really tends to last.

 

[jordanyosh]

Never question good mojo...

 

[Charleston Princess]

Never question good mojo...

We certainly didn't at the time!

 

[punkin413]

i can't believe i'm just now finding your TR! i'm totally caught up on your june trip and ready for more! you have a beautiful family. can't wait to read the rest!

 

[jordanyosh]

We certainly didn't at the time!

That's good!!!

 

[Charleston Princess]

i can't believe i'm just now finding your TR! i'm totally caught up on your june trip and ready for more! you have a beautiful family. can't wait to read the rest!

Dawn, ! Thanks for coming over and for all the compliments! I am glad you have enjoyed it so far!

That's good!!!

Hey, I know the line MOJO rules!

 

[NotSoEvilStepmother]

I just love your TR. It was the first one I encountered on these boards and I've been reading ever since. But I JUST got an account. I'm definately subscribing. Your TR is just making me even more excited for my soon to come trip.

And your DD and I share the same name

 

[Charleston Princess]

I just love your TR. It was the first one I encountered on these boards and I've been reading ever since. But I JUST got an account. I'm definately subscribing. Your TR is just making me even more excited for my soon to come trip.

And your DD and I share the same name

Welcome! Thanks for reading and enjoying! I saw on Jordan's TR that you are leaving next week for the World! How exciting!

Chelsea is a great name!

 

[scottny]

great update and pics.

their faces look great. you should have done it.

I love Dinosaur.

 

[Lady Lallie]

I am caught up! Woo Hoo!!

I love love love the picture of Connor being the cheetah, absolutely adorable.

 

[Charleston Princess]

great update and pics.

their faces look great. you should have done it.

I love Dinosaur.

Thanks! I should have done it, but I was afraid that as hot as it was, it would start melting, and I would look like something from a horror movie!

I am caught up! Woo Hoo!!

I love love love the picture of Connor being the cheetah, absolutely adorable.

Welcome home!!! Thanks -- that's one of my favorite pics of Connor! You're all caught up just in time for another update later this evening!

 

[Whipperwhirl]

What do you mean Ive come to the end so far - I just finished reading all 127 pages of you PTR / TR and I cant wait for more. Thanks so much - Subscribing! Whip

 

[javamom]

Beautiful face paintings!

 

[Charleston Princess]

What do you mean Ive come to the end so far - I just finished reading all 127 pages of you PTR / TR and I cant wait for more. Thanks so much - Subscribing! Whip

Welcome!!! I can't believe you read all of it!!! More coming soon!

Beautiful face paintings!

Thank you -- the kids had a lot of fun getting them done!

 

[Charleston Princess]

About 4:00, rested and cooled down, we made our way back to Animal Kingdom. As we were on the bus, I saw one doozy of a storm brewing. Some of you know how I feel about storms, for those that don't: I HATE them. This one didn't look like a typical rain shower -- big, black, twisting clouds were amassed in the distance. Now, because of my fear of storms, I can pretty well figure out storm tracks in North Georgia. However, being out of my element down in Florida, I could not figure out which way the storm was headed. I hoped it was not towards Animal Kingdom.

Alas, by the time we reached the bus stop, it was quite clear that the storm was on top of Animal Kingdom. It looked like a hurricane approaching! The wind was blowing, the trees were bent sideways, and there was the beginning of lots of thunder and lightning -- deafening thunder, I might add. I kept wondering out loud if we should just head back to the hotel -- after all, it looked like thousands of people were exiting AK. Charles said we should just make a run for it -- we had a reservation for Yak and Yeti, and really, there was no point in turning back. Okay, fine -- I was really looking forward to trying Yak and Yeti, and we were in central Florida and while it might be a thunderstorm, there was almost no chance there were tornadoes in the storm.

(Aside: two days later while we were at DHS, I heard a woman on a cell phone saying that there had been tornado warnings in the area Tuesday! So much for my theory.)

We reached Yak and Yeti completely soaked and the kids' face paint running in streams down their faces (remember the end scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark when the bad guys' faces melt? Yep, Chelsea and Connor's faces looked similar). Apparently everyone that did not leave Animal Kingdom prior to the storm had decided to find refuge in the waiting area of Yak and Yeti. I managed to squeeze through the crowd to check in. I overheard one lady ahead of me being told it was an hour wait for walk-ins, so I made a point of stressing to the hostess that we had a reservation. She checked our name on a print-out, and then wrote down our name on a slip of paper that she added to a stack of other slips. I had a sense of foreboding when I saw this terribly inefficient method of slips of paper. Where was the computer and little beepers that the other Disney restaurants had???

We waited and waited and waited and waited and waited. More people squeezed into Yak and Yeti. Charles took Connor to the bathroom to wash his face paint off. When they came back, I took Chelsea to the bathroom to wash her paint off. We waited some more.

I was cold. I was soaking wet. I was tired. I was stressed out from running through the storm. I was hungry. I was packed tighter than a sardine in a noisy, crowded waiting area that felt no bigger than my hotel room (I do not like being squished in a bunch of people or anything remotely unorganized and chaotic).

I watched a family of four who had arrived after us be seated. At that point, I lost it.

With my voice louder than I intended and fighting back tears (I tend to cry when I am furious), I asked the hostess what was going on. She looked at me and reiterated that it was an hour wait for walk-ins. Seething I said, "We are not walk-ins. We had a 5:00 reservation!" She had coded us as walk-ins which meant on the little slip of paper that she had filled out and shuffled in with the rest, she had not put a little star in the corner!!! So inefficient in my opinion! I was beyond furious! In her defense, once she realized her error, we were quickly seated.

Charles was so embarrassed by my outburst, but I will say that as we were being led to a table, I heard another woman checking her reservation -- she had also been coded as a walk-in. So, my diva temper tantrum helped others, too!

We had a great window table on the second floor overlooking the path from Asia to Africa -- the one I had walked four times earlier in the day. I tried to take a picture, but it didn't turn out that great because of the glare.

After the ordeal of getting seated, I felt we deserved drinks so Charles and I ordered Everest Avalanches -- strawberry-banana with rum frozen drinks. They were very tasty, and I did actually have to say, "Avalanche!" a couple of times!

The upside of Yak and Yeti: the food is good -- Charles ordered the beef with broccoli; Chelsea and I ordered the steak and shrimp; Connor had chicken of some sort. We all had the mango pie for dessert. Our waitress was very friendly, but service was very slow and it seemed forever for our check to come -- I am going to assume it was because the restaurant was packed due to the rain. I would like to give this restaurant another chance, even though I would say this was our worst dining experience of the trip -- but there were extenuating circumstances.

The rain had stopped by the time we had finished dinner, but Everest had not started running yet. Charles stomach was acting up, so he found a bathroom near the Maharajah Jungle Trek. We spent a LONG time waiting on him, so we pretended we were bats. You will notice that Chelsea and Connor look a little jaundiced since we weren't able to do that great a job on cleaning off the face paint in the restroom.

As I was taking this picture, Connor said, "Turn the camera upside down so it looks like we are hanging." Sadly, I had to tell him it didn't work that way.

I had to join in the fun, too.

While we were waiting, a CM came up and amused the kids with various animal noises. Connor was so impressed -- he loves noises and sound effects.

I took some more pictures of signage:

When Charles finally reappeared, it was clear that he was done for the night -- so much for finishing up Animal Kingdom after dinner.

Back at the hotel, Chelsea wanted to spend some of her souvie money on getting one of the caricatures done in the lobby. The artist was super sweet and did a wonderful job -- Chelsea was so excited, and I think it was one of the highlights of her trip. I will take a pic of the caricature for a later post.

UP NEXT: In Which Our Intrepid Adventurers Have a Relaxing Morning!

 

[IcePrincess467]

loving your tr so far..can't wait to read more.