I hope I am not boring you with the reports that have turned out a bit longer than I anticipated
.if not read on
..
THURSDAY 14TH NOVEMBER 2002 PART 10
Today we are visiting Animal Kingdom, for a quieter day, and this is our favourite park.
I got up at 7.15 and gave mum a ring back in England. Weather foul with cold winds and heavy rain, just to cheese them off I said its a nice 65 here at the moment with lovely sunshine, reply unprintable Mum and Dads cat is missing me and also not having my cats in the garden next door (M and D moved in next door 2 years ago) thinks she can run riot in my garden. The big softie that I am I also gave the cattery a ring and all is well.
We thought we would have breakfast at the Ponderosa for a change this morning and wished we hadnt, the service was incredibly slow both to pay and to wait for toast and clean plates etc. even though the place was only about half full, no wonder we spent most of our morning at the Golden Corall.
We arrived at AK at 10.30 and got straight in through the checks with no wait at all. We normally head straight over to the safari but had noticed that the Lion King show was due to start so over we headed. When the show started, and all those that have been will know, and the four singers in the middle came out and stood singing for a while we thought we had made a huge mistake coming to watch this show, but within the next few mins it all started to happen and continued on an excellent up until the finale. Well breathtaking is an understatement, YOU MUST see this show at AK even if you dont see anything else, we thought it was the best show we had ever seen in a Disney park. After leaving the show we walked into the pocohontas show, now I dont know if it was because we had just left LK but we both thought this show was very amateurish and a complete waste of time and we noticed a lot of people leaving way before the end of the show. We left here very disappointed.
We then made our way over to the safari and had about a 10 min wait, there were a lot of animals around this time, we hardly saw anything on our trip 4 years ago, we had to wait for a rather large rhino who had come to look at us to move out of the way before we could continue, we also saw lots of tigers, giraffe,elephants etc, this was one of the best times we have ridden the safari and had lots of photo opportunities as well.
After coming off the safari we went shopping in the large shop next to it. I had picked up quite a bit to buy and proceeded to the till. Very unlike Disney staff, these two were have a argument about something and we stood for a few moments until they served us. BIG HUGE embarrassing moment, sorry madam your card has been declined. What I had informed Barclaycard before leaving for USA and had a completely clean account to spend, so I gave her my other visa card which after her pressing a few buttons and uttering some words under her breath finally signed and left. Well I was storming,so we went back to guest services to complain. They offered me use of their telephone so I could phone Barclaycard, got through to the company no problem and according to Barclaycard no transaction had even been atttemped on my account so they had no idea what the woman had done because it was not showing any attempt as usage at all, Good job because I have used Barclays for over 20 years and were about to give them what for. Anyway guest services were appalled to hear that two staff had been arguing in front of customers, took some details, gave us a few goodies with a big apology. Later on in the park I did use the card again just to check everything was okay and just as promised no problems at all.
We then made our way back into the park and went and watched the bird show. These birds fly very low over your head it feels like they are going to crash into you. All in all a very enjoyable and informative show. We had a walk through the convservation area for awhile then moved on to somemore of the rides. Dave went on the primeval whirl a couple of times and said it was not as tame as it looked as he got thrown around a fair bit and he is not a small guy. He then had a go on the Dinosaur ride, I dont think he was too impressed with this as he didnt say a lot. We then walked down to the Kali River rapids. Dave went to go on this while I sat in the shade with an ice cream, be warned I saw a lot of people coming off this ride drenched from head to foot. Luckily Dave must have had a good seat as he was only a bit damp and soon dried out in the sun.
We then headed back to the area with the shops and spent a considerable amount of time and money in there before making the joint decision to leave as we had done and seen all that we had wanted. We drove onto Kmart and Wallmart to get somemore water, beer and some nibbles for the room..and headed back to the hotel. As it was only 4.45pm we had a nice cup of tea and put our weary feet for a while. At 6 I phoned the hot air balloon company as requested to confirm flight details for tomorrow, all systems go from them. We agreed on the Golden Corall for dinner so after having a good fill here and a stroll around the hotel grounds we retired for the night fairly early as we have a very early start in the morning for the balloon trip.
THOUGHTS.
Some of you will have noticed that we have not been doing everything in the parks. Our plan for this holiday as it is our third visit was to do everything we both wanted to at leisure rather than run round like idiots trying to cram everything in. We found this way, that doing the things we choose to do, at a slower pace, that we actually enjoyed our time in the parks more than we had done in the past.
Its a small world again ..at the GC for dinner we bumped into the same two friends we had seen earlier in the week at Epcot.
The weather today was approx 70 with some strong sunshine at times and a nice cooling breeze, a lot better than the unseasonal 98 we had experienced 4 years ago when we visited this park and had practically melted down along with everyone else.
When we visited this park 4 years ago It had only been open a few months and had a lot of teething problems, this time we were very impressed how things have shaped up over the years.
One more point just as I was taking pictures of the tree of life my camera film ran out and for some unknown reason as I always carry spare film, I hadnt got a new film to load. Was just pointing this out to Dave that we would have to go and buy some and nip back to finnish taking some more pictures when an American guy walking by obviously heard what I had said and promptly whipped out a spare film from his case and handed it to me. Thanking him I offered to pay him for it but he profusely refused my money, wished us both a happy vacation and strode off. Well dumbstruck, couldnt see this happening in England, could you.
A very early start tomorrow, its the Hot air balloon ride I paid for Daves 50th birthday.
THURSDAY 14TH NOVEMBER 2002 PART 10
Today we are visiting Animal Kingdom, for a quieter day, and this is our favourite park.
I got up at 7.15 and gave mum a ring back in England. Weather foul with cold winds and heavy rain, just to cheese them off I said its a nice 65 here at the moment with lovely sunshine, reply unprintable Mum and Dads cat is missing me and also not having my cats in the garden next door (M and D moved in next door 2 years ago) thinks she can run riot in my garden. The big softie that I am I also gave the cattery a ring and all is well.
We thought we would have breakfast at the Ponderosa for a change this morning and wished we hadnt, the service was incredibly slow both to pay and to wait for toast and clean plates etc. even though the place was only about half full, no wonder we spent most of our morning at the Golden Corall.
We arrived at AK at 10.30 and got straight in through the checks with no wait at all. We normally head straight over to the safari but had noticed that the Lion King show was due to start so over we headed. When the show started, and all those that have been will know, and the four singers in the middle came out and stood singing for a while we thought we had made a huge mistake coming to watch this show, but within the next few mins it all started to happen and continued on an excellent up until the finale. Well breathtaking is an understatement, YOU MUST see this show at AK even if you dont see anything else, we thought it was the best show we had ever seen in a Disney park. After leaving the show we walked into the pocohontas show, now I dont know if it was because we had just left LK but we both thought this show was very amateurish and a complete waste of time and we noticed a lot of people leaving way before the end of the show. We left here very disappointed.
We then made our way over to the safari and had about a 10 min wait, there were a lot of animals around this time, we hardly saw anything on our trip 4 years ago, we had to wait for a rather large rhino who had come to look at us to move out of the way before we could continue, we also saw lots of tigers, giraffe,elephants etc, this was one of the best times we have ridden the safari and had lots of photo opportunities as well.
After coming off the safari we went shopping in the large shop next to it. I had picked up quite a bit to buy and proceeded to the till. Very unlike Disney staff, these two were have a argument about something and we stood for a few moments until they served us. BIG HUGE embarrassing moment, sorry madam your card has been declined. What I had informed Barclaycard before leaving for USA and had a completely clean account to spend, so I gave her my other visa card which after her pressing a few buttons and uttering some words under her breath finally signed and left. Well I was storming,so we went back to guest services to complain. They offered me use of their telephone so I could phone Barclaycard, got through to the company no problem and according to Barclaycard no transaction had even been atttemped on my account so they had no idea what the woman had done because it was not showing any attempt as usage at all, Good job because I have used Barclays for over 20 years and were about to give them what for. Anyway guest services were appalled to hear that two staff had been arguing in front of customers, took some details, gave us a few goodies with a big apology. Later on in the park I did use the card again just to check everything was okay and just as promised no problems at all.
We then made our way back into the park and went and watched the bird show. These birds fly very low over your head it feels like they are going to crash into you. All in all a very enjoyable and informative show. We had a walk through the convservation area for awhile then moved on to somemore of the rides. Dave went on the primeval whirl a couple of times and said it was not as tame as it looked as he got thrown around a fair bit and he is not a small guy. He then had a go on the Dinosaur ride, I dont think he was too impressed with this as he didnt say a lot. We then walked down to the Kali River rapids. Dave went to go on this while I sat in the shade with an ice cream, be warned I saw a lot of people coming off this ride drenched from head to foot. Luckily Dave must have had a good seat as he was only a bit damp and soon dried out in the sun.
We then headed back to the area with the shops and spent a considerable amount of time and money in there before making the joint decision to leave as we had done and seen all that we had wanted. We drove onto Kmart and Wallmart to get somemore water, beer and some nibbles for the room..and headed back to the hotel. As it was only 4.45pm we had a nice cup of tea and put our weary feet for a while. At 6 I phoned the hot air balloon company as requested to confirm flight details for tomorrow, all systems go from them. We agreed on the Golden Corall for dinner so after having a good fill here and a stroll around the hotel grounds we retired for the night fairly early as we have a very early start in the morning for the balloon trip.
THOUGHTS.
Some of you will have noticed that we have not been doing everything in the parks. Our plan for this holiday as it is our third visit was to do everything we both wanted to at leisure rather than run round like idiots trying to cram everything in. We found this way, that doing the things we choose to do, at a slower pace, that we actually enjoyed our time in the parks more than we had done in the past.
Its a small world again ..at the GC for dinner we bumped into the same two friends we had seen earlier in the week at Epcot.
The weather today was approx 70 with some strong sunshine at times and a nice cooling breeze, a lot better than the unseasonal 98 we had experienced 4 years ago when we visited this park and had practically melted down along with everyone else.
When we visited this park 4 years ago It had only been open a few months and had a lot of teething problems, this time we were very impressed how things have shaped up over the years.
One more point just as I was taking pictures of the tree of life my camera film ran out and for some unknown reason as I always carry spare film, I hadnt got a new film to load. Was just pointing this out to Dave that we would have to go and buy some and nip back to finnish taking some more pictures when an American guy walking by obviously heard what I had said and promptly whipped out a spare film from his case and handed it to me. Thanking him I offered to pay him for it but he profusely refused my money, wished us both a happy vacation and strode off. Well dumbstruck, couldnt see this happening in England, could you.
A very early start tomorrow, its the Hot air balloon ride I paid for Daves 50th birthday.
Looking forwad to the Balloon ride 
