Tim and Lesley Year of Million Compromises/TONS pics- 8/5 help me pg. 164!!!

[ampc3]

Hi lesley,

I have been following your pre-trip report and your TR last year made me come out of "lurker" and sub! Anyway we moved the beg of June and just moved into our new house and JUST got the computer up and running, have been dying to read your report as we are planning our first family trip next june about the same time at POR.... anyway couldn't have been more perfect to read your report with the travel channel in the background featuring WDW!

You are truly blessed with an amazing family (which I know you know!)can't wait to hear the rest!.... I am planning on doing the BBB with my girls and worried about my DS feeling left out etc, do you know what they do for the cool dude package? and DID you see boys there getting it done just curious?

ps... keep the pace what you are doing, there is nothing worse than reading a TR that people only update once a week! IMO...

Annette

 

[timandlesley]

Day 6 AK morning
So today would be an early morning for us, we had 8:00 reservations for Donald’s Breakfastasaurus at Animal Kingdom. We had a 7:00 wake up call and were to the buses by 7:20 (just love throwing that hair in a ponytail and going in the morning! We shower in the afternoons after we get hot and sweaty in the parks so we are nice and fresh for the parks) We caught the bus right away at 7:25 and unfortunately had to stop at all of the Port Orleans Riverside stops then had to head to Typhoon lagoon.
Lauren and I on the bus:

FINALLY we got to Animal Kingdom around 8:05 and we headed as fast as we could to the restaurant, luckily got seated quickly.
The food here is great so and we headed right to the buffet line with no wait. Filled up our plates with pancakes, sausage, bacon, French toast, yummy potatoes and eggs. There is a cold buffet with cereal, tons of fresh fruit, and krispy crème doughnuts too, gotta love the buffet here, I took a quick shot of two of our plates for ya:

By the time we got back to the table with our plates it was already 8:30, I could tell Tim was anxious because one of the main reasons we get these ressies is to get a jump on the Expedition Everest Crowds and we haven’t even seen a character yet. They finally entered our room around 8:50, Tim saw one character and then fled to EE where we decided we would meet.
Here are some pics of my VERY happy children with the characters:

Wave goodbye from Pluto:

Luke to this day SWEARS that this Donald Duck said to him “put your hands down and just get in the picture!!!” I don’t think he was lying about it and I would have said something to one of the hostess’ but he didn’t mention it until after we had left. His cute innocent self just thinks Donald was being silly, but this does kind of upset me, what are your thoughts here guys? Now that I think of it, Luke’s face does look odd here:

Anyway, we got out of the restaurant about 9:00, I called Tim and told him to go ahead and ride EE while he was over there and just grab some FP’s for us to ride later. He said “NO PROBLEM!” The kids and I headed to Triceretop Spin and had a great time riding with no line:

Heck, there was no line so we got on AGAIN, here is one of my favorite pics of Lauren I took when I rode next to her the second time we rode:

By this time I had a call from Tim who was wondering where the heck we were, I thought we had time to kill since he was riding but I guess I thought wrong. Tim did end up in the front car of EE for the first ride of the day. He said he rode with a CM who said he rides EE a lot the first thing in the morning, nothing like waking up going up Mt. Everest, very cool, he said he sells ice cream at AK, how awesome!
Anyway, Tim was waiting by the entrance to score a parent swap pass (on top of our FP’s) for us to have later but the CM wouldn’t give it to him without me and the kids present. So I HIGH TAILED it over to EE, found Tim, got the parent swap pass and and Luke and I went in to ride. We barely had a line either, what a thrilling ride. I gotta say though, during the backwards part this time I got a little motion sick and that isn’t like me, must have been all I ate at breakfast.
We shopped around a bit in the exit store there, Tim bought a cool Yeti shirt and here he is posing with his friend the Yeti:

By this time our Fast passes were good but I was still feeling a bit motion sick so Tim just used a Fast Pass and rode again by himself. He took these photo’s on his solo ride:
Up the hill:

The view from the top:

A view of the Yeti, one scary fella, he’s cut off but you can see his fangs in the top left:

While Tim was riding EE the kids and I headed to grab Safari Fast Passes and Tim was to meet us over there. We got the Fast Passes and stopped at the drum/fan area. Lauren made herself comfortable making a mask at the craft table:

When Tim arrived he lifted Luke on his shoulders to enjoy the misters:

We then decided to head to the Lion King show, I was excited to see it as we had skipped it last year and I remember what a great show it was, I knew the kids would love it.
We spotted Flik on the way there:

 

[timandlesley]

We got EXCELLENT seats for the Lion King in the second row.
Here area few (not so good) pics I took of the show (sorry it is DARK in there):

Here is Lauren enjoying the show:

Laurens big wish granted for the day was she was chosen to be in the show. I couldn’t believe she did it, here is our baby having the time of her life in the show, so cool!!!!

HI MOMMY!!!

After the show was over I headed over to get Kali Fast Passes for us, Tim and the kids grabbed a watermelon snack and we met up in front of the safari. We rode the safari and got a couple cute pics:

Baby giraffes (6months and 10 months old, soooo cute):

Mama giraffe:

Elephants decided to appear this year:

Few Zebras:

After the safari of course we let the kids play in another shower/mister station:

By this time we were starving so we headed to Tusker House. It was packed, as usual (I always got the food the entire trip- Tim just put me in charge of that because he didn’t want to mess up the credits and he likes being served, JUST KIDDING) I headed to get our food and Tim and the kids searched for a table. I got our food, it was pretty good. The entire meal there were families just starring at us waiting for us to finish so they could get our table. We kept laughing and whispering to eachother “they are WAITING and WATCHING, WATCHING and WAITING” , sorry, a bit of an inside joke, but we were cracking up, it really was getting to the point of over the top. Well, we gave up our table to a family who was “watching and waiting” us for about 20 minutes and we headed to ride Kali.
We were all very excited about trying this ride, we had never ridden it before and Lauren could ride with us- YEAH! It was a GREAT ride. We all had an awesome time, love the theming. Lauren and I got DRENCHED, the boys stayed dry the entire time. Here are Lauren and I soaked after the ride:

By this point we were very tired (especially Lauren) and I knew that staying for Nemo would be pushing it since tonight was the big night out for Lauren and I with the Princesses at Akershus at Epcot and I wanted her well rested for that so we COMPROMISED and didn’t do the Nemo show this year, and we ran to the buses (the only way I could get a VERY whiny and tired Lauren to the buses every afternoon was to tell her to run and spank daddy on the bottom, I know, a little demented, but boy did that girl run and the tears and whining stopped QUICK. . .here she goes:

You can tell how tired Lauren was, she begged for a poncho so she could lay down and wait for the bus on:

As we walked back to the hotel I snapped a photo of our new building #2:

And I turned around and this is how close we were to the playground:

Then we went to the room and took a long nap.

 

[timandlesley]

After we awoke from our wonderful slumber we all jumped into showers to get ready for our nights out apart from one another. The girls were headed to dine with the Princesses and the goal for the guys was to forgo the Whispering Canyon Café reservation due to the amount of time it would take to get there and Tim wanted to his the ESPN club. They headed to take the DTD bus and Lauren and I headed to Epcot. As soon as the boys left the hotel room Lauren said “mommy, I don’t think I’m going to miss them much tonight” that cracked me up!
Lauren and I got on the bus no problem, the entire way there she kept saying “Mommy this is going to be THE BEST DINNER EVER!!!” she was soooo excited. She kept clapping her hands, smiling and saying “ I CAN’T WAIT!!!!”
We made it to Epcot within 15 minutes of our reservation time. By the time we got off the bus it was POURING down rain, luckily I looked outside at the clouds and grabbed ponchos on the way out the door, so we threw on our poncho’s and headed to dinner. I realized when I got to the stroller rental that I had brought YESTERDAYS rental coupon, I tried to talk to the lady but she wasn’t budging, I was in a bit of a panic, what was I going to do, it was pouring, I needed a stroller, I spotted this guy towards Spaceship Earth taking his two sleeping children out of his rental, I approached him and SCORE, we now had a stroller. YES! We headed to Norway and checked in at the podium and Lauren was sooo excited. As we stood huddled under the awning waiting for our tables with a bunch of others my cell rang, it was a frustrated Tim who basically said the ride to DTD took forever and by the time they got there they were starving and decided not to take the bus all the way over to the boardwalk area and wait in line for ESPN when they saw the Planet Hollywood Sign, I guess Luke said “this is crazy, let’s get out of here” and they exited the bus and hit Planet Hollywood. Tim said they were at the bar, he had a beer and Luke had a bottled root beer and thought he was really cool sitting at the bar with dad. I got off the phone because our table was called.
Here is Lauren in the lobby:

We walked into the lobby and we were greeted by Lauren’s hero Belle in her ball gown:

We were seated, I immediately thought this restaurant was LOVELY. Our waitress was very nice and was going on and on about how pretty Lauren looked which of course Lauren ate up. Here is Lauren checking out her window view from the restaurant:

We immediately got up and helped ourselves to the cold bar, they really had good stuff on it, lots of meats and cheeses, breads and butter, fresh fruit, salad, peel and eat shrimp, etc.

We ordered our dinner as we ate our cold stuff. Lauren saw the princesses in the distance and was awe struck!
I ordered the Kjottkaker which the waitress explained to me was similar to our American meatloaf, sounded good to me. Here is a pic of it, it really was pretty tasty:

Lauren ordered ravioli. I pictured normal ravioli, it came out like this which I was fine with, no red sauce on the dress, and Lauren ate it (well as much as any girl would eat when their hero’s were in the next room : )

As we ate behind me I was talking to another couple who had a daughter all dressed up like Belle SOUND asleep. The princesses were approaching and I asked the mom if she thought she’d wake up. The parents were just heartbroken, turns out the girl was so excited the night before she couldn’t sleep, they had driven the entire day to get there and she fell asleep in the car as they pulled into Epcot, it was their first day there. I felt so badly for this family. (later as the princesses came in each princess tried to wake her, they were so sweet, calling her by name, she did finally wake up but was SCREAMING bloody murder so the mom took her to the bathroom- bummer for that family)
Anyway, back to our wonderful experience. All of our dream princesses were there.
First came Princess Aurora:

Lauren was very cute and asked for each princess to sign Luke’s autograph book and she told each princess that her brother couldn’t come because he doesn’t like princesses, which was hysterical.
BIG hugs for Aurora:

Then came Snow White who taught Lauren to pose like a

Big hugs for Snow White

Then came Ariel, here she is signing Luke’s book and Lauren is giving her the whole “my brother couldn’t come because he doesn’t like princesses : )” talk

Ariel was awesome she said “well how about mermaids, does he like mermaids” and Lauren said “we don’t know any mermaids silly!” to which she replied “Lauren, I am a mermaid” and Lauren laughed and said “why do you have legs tonight?” HALARIOUS, she said “remember, I fell in love with Prince Eric so I needed legs” and Lauren just giggled. It was very cute interaction.

BIG hugs for Ariel:

Then Cinderella came (I’m tellin’ ya, we had all the heavy hitters this night!!!):

Then as we were finishing up with the princesses our desert came,

all I can say is YUM!!! In fact Lauren and I fought over the chocolate thing, she said “MOMMY YOU ARE HOGGIN’ THE CHOCOLATE CAKE” and she’s right, I was, it was G-O-O-D!!! The Lingonberry Cheesecake was OUT OF THIS WORLD, I couldn’t get enough of it, we didn’t try the rice cream.

Here is a thumbs up from Lauren and I for a GREAT girls meal out:

As the meal was winding down and I was settling the bill the phone rang. Originally we had planned to meet at MK for WISHES after dinner but it was still a downpour and Tim said he didn’t want to do MK in the rain, so we met up back at the hotel. I decided it was a perfect night to jump into the hot tub in the rain. We got changed into our suits and headed down to the pool.

We enjoyed some swimming and hot tub time, then we wrapped ourselves in our towels and went into the foodcourt and sat down there and ate some snacks and drank some hot chocolate. We headed back to the room after another wonderful day! We were sound asleep by 10:30, big Magic Kingdom day tomorrow, can’t wait!!!!
Stay tuned. . .. .Tim gets TWO more dreams tomorrow, oh yes, two more!!!
And a FABULOUS meal and review w/ pics of LeCellier YUM DOUBLE YUM!!!!

 

[sharonW]

The pics are fab lesley, lauren is so adorable!
I think maybe you need to report the donald duck
incident. I have heard of this kind of stuff before.
Certaintly uncalled for!!! Keep this trippie coming!!

 

[IluvXU]

WOW! I think you hit the best of the best with the princesses! Snow White, Ariel, Sleeping Beauty and Belle! In fact I don;t think Cinderella or Ariel are there very often! Hope we have the same luck. Glad you liked the dinner.... we will have to try it sometime.

That is the bummer about Donald's and the characters coming out so late.... is that what you experienced before? I think I will send dh out to Everest the same you did! Thanks for another great report... sad there are not too many days left.

 

[smwf71]

Sounds great! My daughter who is three also wants to play with Lauren!

 

[Disney_Dreaming]

Hi Lauren! I've been a long time lurker of your trip reports and have enjoyed them very much! Your family is beautiful! Lauren looks so happy with her princesses! Poor Luke - Donald wasn't nice!

My family and I are planning a trip next year to Disney so I can't wait. You have given me a lot of tips! Thank you!

Looking forward to the next update!

 

[shannon47142]

How great for you and Lauren ( not so good for the guys) on your dinner!
I loved the idea of "compromising" and splitting up!!
great reports!

 

[IluvXU]

It looks like you saw lots of animals on your safari, I always fear as the day gets hotter less animals are out. About when did you get to the safari?

Glad too that Lauren loved the rapid ride! Boy you two were wet!

Fun fun fun.... I really love reading all your upbeat reporting, even when the kids are tired

 

[timandlesley]

The pics are fab lesley, lauren is so adorable!
I think maybe you need to report the donald duck
incident. I have heard of this kind of stuff before.
Certaintly uncalled for!!! Keep this trippie coming!!

Thanks, it was fun. I'm considering an email to Disney about Donald just so they are aware of it and since I have the date/time of our visit.
Lesley

WOW! I think you hit the best of the best with the princesses! Snow White, Ariel, Sleeping Beauty and Belle! In fact I don;t think Cinderella or Ariel are there very often! Hope we have the same luck. Glad you liked the dinner.... we will have to try it sometime.

That is the bummer about Donald's and the characters coming out so late.... is that what you experienced before? I think I will send dh out to Everest the same you did! Thanks for another great report... sad there are not too many days left.

I know, I was sooooo thrilled they were all there, much better than spending 2 credits at the castle, we saw them ALL!!! We had seen characters sooner before but we were never this late to our ADR either.
Lesley

Sounds great! My daughter who is three also wants to play with Lauren!

Hey, Lauren can use some more girl friends!
Lesley

Hi Lauren! I've been a long time lurker of your trip reports and have enjoyed them very much! Your family is beautiful! Lauren looks so happy with her princesses! Poor Luke - Donald wasn't nice!

My family and I are planning a trip next year to Disney so I can't wait. You have given me a lot of tips! Thank you!

Looking forward to the next update!

So glad you posted, you are welcome for the tips!
Lesley

How great for you and Lauren ( not so good for the guys) on your dinner!
I loved the idea of "compromising" and splitting up!!
great reports!

It was fun splitting up, we really had a great time!
Lesley

It looks like you saw lots of animals on your safari, I always fear as the day gets hotter less animals are out. About when did you get to the safari?

Glad too that Lauren loved the rapid ride! Boy you two were wet!

Fun fun fun.... I really love reading all your upbeat reporting, even when the kids are tired

You know, we ate lunch that day around 11:50, so everything I wrote before lunch we did before then, I want to say the safari was around 11:20 or so, not too late at all.
Lesley

 

[dddisrunner]

Great Update Lesley! We were out all day at a barbeque and just got home about 10:45 and I was hoping you posted a new installment! So sorry to hear about the hacker problems! Seems like you guys had another great day! The Princess Aurora that was at your dinner was the same one that I finally got Eric to pose with she was soooooo sweet! Sorry to hear about rude Donald how rude to make a kid feel nervous or upset! Loved that you swam in the rain, i thought we were the only crazies that did that! Can't wait for more!

 

[Lovemy3babes]

It made me sad to read what Donald might have possibly said. I hope that it was just misunderstood or something. Poor Luke.

Lauren's princess photos are wonderful! You can really tell what good ones you had. They are so genuine! I love how they chatted with her!

 

[scottny]

great report.
Can you tell Tim to meet me at the MK gate next friday morning at 7:50 (have ressie at Crystal palace early) then I can get all the dreams that he has been getting. LOL..

 

[GoingtoWDW2007]

Sorry guys,it's been another crazy day here. They hacked into my email AGAIN TWO TIMES today . I changed the password this morning and now again adn they hacked it again so I started up a new email account and am going with that for now as we report them to the police and get new programs installed on the computer to prevent it from happening again.
It's been a long day.
I did win a HUGE raffle basket from the 4th of July festival we went to last night though, they called this morning, valued at 425.00!!! That made my day!
Gotta run, gotta finish emailing everyone with my new email acct. Hopefully I'll have time to update later, thanks for understanding!
Lesley

Lesley,
I'm so sorry you're going through that - when it happened to me I felt violated - like someone is getting to know things about you that are so very personal.
I hope you get it fixed!
And I hope you and your family had a fun 4th! Very cool about the basket, I hope there was fun stuff in it
Eleonora

 

[daisy_77]

I am so sorry that you are having issues with your email being messed with. I hope that you can get it resolved soon.
I can't believe Donald Duck was so rude to Luke at breakfast! I think you should email Disney and let them know. That is messed up!
Lauren looked sooo cute at dinner with the Princesses. She makes a beautiful princess herself! I love that little tiara!
It sounds like you all had a wonderful vacation! I really appreciate you sharing your trip!

 

[SmallWorld71]

Still loving your report! The princess meal looked great.
The whole Donald thing is pretty horrifying though. He is not supposed to talk! My DS8 is pretty shy and I have a picture of him hugging Donald at the MK last year. It is the only character he has ever hugged! What if that Donald had told him to put his hands down.He would have been crushed. I am so glad that Luke thought he was being silly. But, that never should have happened.
Can't wait to hear more.

 

[tinkgurl]

Aw Lauren made it out at FOTLK! How cute! Ariel-never seen her in that outfit before! Was it a dress? And poor Luke at breakfast! At least he didn't let that ruin his day!

 

[MRNsMommy]

Wow! You really hit the mother-load w/ all the princesses! Lauren looked absolutely precious in her Belle dress...and, of course, the BBB crown! Sorry to hear that you're still having email hacking issues...hope you get it all figured out soon!

 

[katiesmomluvsdizne]

WOW!!! I haven't been on DIS for about 6 months, so I have just found your TR. I only made it to pg 24. But wanted to comment on a few things. As you already know, since I PMd you, we too are from Cincy area. Loved Tim's songs, Wish week, and countdown calendar. My husband loves WDW too but hasn't taken his love to that level, I will have to lead him to read your TR (maybe he will feel the pressure )
Next I hope you loved POFQ, I am sure you have reported on it but since I have only made it to pg 24, I don't know yet. We loved it, but I have to admit a small part of me missed the "constant fun" of Pop when we were at POFQ, but still loved it!!
Glad to hear that Tim returned home, hopefully everything is good.
It is 1:20 am here in Cincy, so I am off to bed and will finish your wonderful TR tomorrow.