Trip of New Phases, Friends & 40! Updated 8/31 - As If Goodbye Wasn't Enough! The End

[DisneyJo]

Wow, wow, wow your cake is amazing. I had so much other stuff to say but your cake made me forget it all it really was gorgeous


I'm so sorry about your friend

 

[TyRy]

Wow, wow, wow your cake is amazing. I had so much other stuff to say but your cake made me forget it all it really was gorgeous

I think we must have known it was going to be the star deep down since we forgot to take pictures of everything else at dinner...or we may have been nervous it would be bad!

I'm so sorry about your friend

Thanks Jo - it's still really hard to believe I'm not going to get an email or call from her, but it will get better.

 

[irish dancer]

First, condolences on the loss of your friend.

Second, OMG that cake was AMAZING!!! I would have had a hard time cutting that up!

 

[TyRy]

First, condolences on the loss of your friend.

Thank you - we're all still having a bit of a rough time not being able to pick up the phone and give her a call and tell her about whatever crazy thing is happening. We know it will get better.

Second, OMG that cake was AMAZING!!! I would have had a hard time cutting that up!

The cake was beyond my expectations. I was a tad worried that I had given them too much freedom and it might not look great, but they hit this one out of the park.

 

[TyRy]

Before I jump back in, I just wanted to say, thanks so much for reading and for sticking with me. This TR will get done (and sooner rather than later!!!)

Today was both a happy and sad day…happy as it was our Magic Kingdom day, but also sad as one of the ladies would be departing that afternoon.
We started our day early (and even DH was up) for an 8:15 reservation at CP. I love being some of the only people on Main Street:

And they even had PP peeps out there, so we had to stop!

We checked in and had just a short wait before being seated. The table was all decorated for my birthday:

For some reason we took almost no pictures of the food!! What I do remember is Evil Twin found the French toast sticks/loaf towards the end of breakfast and fell in love with it….as we all did and continued to go and get more.

We also ate what became known as the little balls of love….no idea who makes these and that is probably a good thing as these were the BEST doughnut holes we ever had!!

They also brought us a birthday cupcake which was yummy as well.

Continued in next post....

 

[TyRy]

Of course, one of the reasons I chose CP was I knew the gang would have fun with all the characters…and we did. We never felt rushed and they took pictures with whatever configuration of all of us that we wanted:

Finally Eeyore came around…some of you may remember he was my FAVORITE when I was a little girl…that hasn’t changed!

I also thought I should share him with the others

Piglet was the last to visit…

It was now after 9am when we headed out...hopefully the crowds would not be to bad today!

 

[TyRy]

We headed off towards the dueling mountains…of course we became a bit distracted and DH thought this was a great picture

I think at times he would have liked to have left us there . But don’t worry, we got our revenge.

We grabbed our FP for Splash and headed off to Big Thunder. Now I know it was semi-early, as we got out about 9:15 from CP, but this was crazy….

We walked right on. Told the ladies that this was the emptiest we’d ever seen it. The best part was a CM had given DH the timer card when we entered…hmmm did they think there were a lot of people waiting?

After a quick ride it was back to Splash…but in the five minutes we were at BTM, Splash had broken down, OK – we’ll come back later.
We wandered a bit…headed towards Pirates, where the hat and trying things on continued:

We came upon Aladdin with no line, so we jumped on that as well.

Swiss Family was up next -

It was well after ten now when we decided to stroll over to Fantasyland just to see if we could maybe grab a FP for something. We have no pictures of this because I think we were in shock. We managed to ride Pooh, Pan, Snow White, Dumbo and the Carousel as walk on’s! We never waited for anything except PhilharMagic and that was because we just missed the beginning of a show.

DH and I just kept saying there should have been major lines at that point and we had no idea where all the people were. Did they all know something we didn’t and we shouldn’t be in the park …it was almost eerie how empty it was.

Since we knocked all those rides out in no time, we went into Toon Town. Glad we did that now, since it’ll be gone by the time we get back there and Evil Twin got to see it.

We had to ride barnstormer…actually had about a two minute wait for that!

Went into the Hall of Fame Tent as we were still searching for Wall-E’s for Red’s little girls. I think DH started to crack under the pressure of reigning the three of us in

Love the people in the background looking at him

Another shot of just the girls…

We wanted to visit Mickey and Minnie’s houses next….I think this was Mickey’s but cannot remember. Wheverever it was, one of them suggested the we reenact the scene from ghost as our ode to Patrick Swayze.

We then made it to Minnie’s where we relaxed

and had tea

Outside we encountered a PP guy, so we had to stop and take pictures.

After the shot above, he came up with a great idea…let’s have a kiss and have the girls make faces..it was classic!

Hey – DH and I wanted to make faces too, so being goofballs, this was the next photo:

I love when we get the fun PP people.

Continued in next post....

 

[TyRy]

We made our way to Tommorrowland next…you guessed it…no lines again. Tried CoP first, but it was broken. OK – we’ll come back. Hit Buzz

And went back to CoP…and it was working…well, at least for a bit. We got in, started the show, and then it got hung up again. They fixed it within about five minutes and we continued on. We hit up, TTA and Monster’s Inc again all with no wait.

At some point we wanted to start watching the time as Red needed to be on her Magical Express bus at 3:00. But since we were walking on everything we were still ok. After one more PP pic,

someone mentioned taking a ride on the Railroad so we walked back to Toontown to catch it. Where we waited, and waited and waited…not due to the line being long, but due to a breakdown. OK - it was becoming evident that everything we wanted to ride would be broken at some point that day!!! After waiting almost a half hour, the train finally made it. Although since this is so much later, I can’t remember where we jumped off, or why we took no pictures! I think we took it to Frontierland to check on Splash again where it was still broken!

I do know we headed over to the HM, rode that, and needed to get some food before Red had to leave. We stopped at CHH and this was the only photo we remembered to take –

As we wandered after we came across this character, not a Disney one, but I think people thought he was…

DH had to take his obligilatory picture of what used to be the Skyway:

And then it was time to head out. A ride on the monorail was in order to finish out Red’s trip:

We got back to AKL and Evil Twin and I went with Red to gather all her things and wait with her for ME. Just like everything else that day, it had a delay, in fact, such a big one that we called to see if they skipped AKL.

They told us it was just running late and would be there soon. It finally did arrive and we all said our goodbyes. I am still so happy and grateful that Red was able to make part of the trip…she helped make it that much more special.

Evil Twin and I went back in as we had a date with a pineapple later that night!

 

[DisneyJo]

We then made it to Minnie’s where we relaxed

I can see you relaxed but ummm what is your hubbie doing?

 

[TyRy]

I can see you relaxed but ummm what is your hubbie doing?

I think trying to keep the three of us in line made him lose his mind just a wee bit.

 

[TyRy]

If anyone is still reading, I’d like to say THANK YOU! Every time I think I get on track, something else happens…this time it’s not really being able to type thanks to the Chicago Blackhawks (yep – happened during game 4!)

It’s not broken, but I’m still in the sling for at least another two weeks. Now on with the show…..

Evil Twin and I then relaxed for a bit, but soon it was time to get ready for dinner…'Ohana and my long awaited Lapu Lapu were on tap for that night!

We made it 'Ohana and checked in…as usual there was a wait. This, CRT and LeCellier seem to be among our places with consistent waits for dinner.
So we waited, and waited, Evil Twin was able to explore a little, and we were finally called to our table. Luckily we were in the main room where all the action was as I wanted Evil Twin to see the races and everything else that goes on.

Here’s where we sat –

When we were here last year, we had Chris who was just a fantastic server. This year, our person was ok, but we were sad it wasn’t Chris. Really great servers really do help enhance the experience.

We started with drinks, DH had a beer

and I had a Lapu Lapu w/ a glow cube. Yes – I had to have my glow cube!

I had a Lapu Lapu last year and remembered it being strong and DH having to help me finish it, but it was tasty. This year – WOW – it was just strong and not so tasty. It was straight something, so the three of us ended up drinking it. I’ll have to try one again this year just to see which year was closer to how they always are .

Food was brought out…Bread

Salad – I LOVE this salad, don’t know why

Wings

Noodles

Poststickers – which Evil Twin and DH must have refilled about five times!

Trio of sauces

Veggies

The main meal wasn’t bad…wasn’t fantastic, but was good. For some reason we only have a shot of DH’s plate:

Finally dessert was brought out. I think DH eats at 'Ohana just so he can have this dessert..

I was also brought a birthday cupcake, so Evil Twin and I had part of that as we were super full from dinner.

Continued in next post....

 

[TyRy]

DH got this shot when we started to leave…I swear we didn’t practice this

I also think we were a tad slap happy from the Lapu Lapu, and had some fun with some of the tiki’s at the entrance to 'Ohana

We wandered out to the Poly beach afterwards so Evil Twin could see the grounds of the Poly and the pool…

AND since I knew it was coming up…we got to see the EWP…I LOVE that show and never get tired of it. Evil Twin got a kick out of it, but agreed with DH that it was pretty bad and she didn’t need to see it again.

About that time, I noticed my nose was a bit stuffy…I didn’t think much of it, as I blamed the Lapu Lapu for it

 

[TyRy]

For once we had nothing really planned today….which turned out to be a good thing, as my Lapu Lapu sniffles, suddenly were more than sniffles. I don’t know if I mentioned it, but as soon as we ended up in the same room as last year, DH blocked the floor vent, and turned the big vent on the wall upside down to prevent the air from blowing on us and one of us getting sick. I was still blaming the kid who coughed all over me waiting for the Astro Orbiter for giving me strep last year…well, looks like that theory was shot down now.

We had breakfast reservations at Boma and I was still hungry, so I wanted to eat. I promised DH I would take myself to Urgent Care the next day (or later that day) if my throat started to hurt, or if I felt like I had a fever. I was not about to repeat last year!

Down to Boma we went, and waited about ten minutes to be seated. The waiting area was, of course, a madhouse and I was glad we were seated so quickly. I’m not a big fan of Boma for dinner (since I am so picky) but LOVE it for breakfast.

DH order the press pot coffee which he now says is the best coffee and will order it wherever it is offered:

DH’s plate:

My plate – and you can see the birthday card I had gotten in the background:

In the photo above you can also see my bottle of hand sanitizer which I was always using this trip to prevent a sickness like last year. I was also the only one who used it constantly, and the only one to now have a cold!!!

We also received a birthday dessert…was really nice.

We had planned on relaxing and maybe heading to Welcome Home Wednesdays since we had never been. I decided it would be better if I just relaxed all day and tried to fight off whatever was coming on. DH stayed back with me and Evil Twin headed off to the Studios. We would all meet up back at the hotel later as we had dinner at Citricos that night.

The one thing we did do, was a Walgreen’s run for some cold medicine. While I was able to get my chewable Zicam (which I was gobbling to fend off my cold) without any problems, we did have a problem buying cold medicine.

They had Tylenol cold with the real ingredients in it - the Pfexpehenblahblahblah - which means we had to show a drivers license to buy it. Problem is in Illinois if you have a good driving record, you are sent a little sticker to put on the back of your license moving the expiration date. We have no problem buying things like that at home, but for some odd reason, in Florida, they kept saying our DL’s were expired and were not valid to use to buy stuff like that. I am not kidding when I say it took at least thirty minutes for them to figure it all out. I was on a rant after that about all the meth addicts who were causing me problems just to buy cold medicine!!!

We decided to skip Welcome Home Wednesday in my effort to make this cold not happen or turn into something worse...and I was still a little ticked about our whole Walgreens experience. DH finally got me calmed down by the time we were getting ready for Citricos, which we had to go to as I had another small surprise planned.

 

[DisneyJo]

Can't believe you're getting ill again, I hope it doesn't come to anything and WTH did you do to your arm???

 

[TyRy]

Can't believe you're getting ill again, I hope it doesn't come to anything and WTH did you do to your arm???

I hurt my arm being a dork during game 4 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. I was really crabby and stomping around the house. Went out to check mail, got my foot caught on the screen door, yanked it, but my foot stayed while my arm/elbow slammed into the door frame.

My parents and Mark's dad were over and wanted to go to the hospital to have it looked at. I wanted to watch the end of the game I also had no desire to visit and ER on a Friday night.

I'm finally 90% out of the sling and hope to be a 100% out by next week.

Update coming in just a minute....

 

[TyRy]

With all the meds I was now taking, I was still managing to hold my cold or whatever it was at bay, and wanted to go to dinner at Citricos. It was soooooo good last year, and I had a small surprise planned for everybody.

We were seated almost immediately, and this was another restaurant where we had over the top fantastic service last year, and while it was not like last year, it was still pretty good. Evil Twin and DH stared with a glass of wine, and I started with tea…

The bread and butter here is really good

I was feeling pretty good, so ordered the Romaine Salad as my appetizer.

DH and Evil Twin were both torn between the same two things. Here’s where Citricos did score a few points - Our waiter heard us trying to figure out the appetizers and offered to split the two appetizers for them so they could have both.

So Evil Twin and DH shared the Arancini

and the soup (which I cannot remember what kind it was and my notes say Soup De Jour.)

What I was most disappointed in was that they no longer had the BIG ribeye on the menu. I only had a couple bites last year since I started feeling icky again during dinner, but what I had was AMAZING. That has been taken off the menu, so I almost didn’t make a ressie here. But it was good all around which is why we went back.

So I settled for the short ribs:

DH had the Veal Shannk –

Evil Twin had the Filet Sicilian

All were good, it just wasn’t the out of this world ribeye!

Thankfully, as the DH and Evil Twin started looking at the dessert menu - which DH ordered the press pot coffee right away –

and my surprise was brought out.

I had ordered one in chocolate and one in vanilla. The cost was the same as a whole buttercream cake, but I really wanted those little castles !

The cakes were good and just the right size, and other then not being able to spell my name even after I spelled it for them (which is why there is a big smudge on one plate – we took out the “e”) they were just what I wanted.

We headed back to AKL all full and I was very happy I had finally gotten my castle cakes. Now if only my cold will hold off!

 

[Flossbolna]

How funny that you got two cakes! Seeing two castles next to each other looks jsut so wrong in some way....
I am glad that you could enjoy Citricos so much better than last year, but I hope that one day you will be able to eat there without anything in your system.

 

[brookelizabeth]

I'm back and caught up. Your Minnie's house pictures are HILARIOUS! Loved all the little videos in Epcot too. I like the idea of a picture in each country...I might have to do that with Henry this coming trip!

The Castle cakes are so cute - I have been tempted to buy one in the past as well!

 

[TyRy]

How funny that you got two cakes! Seeing two castles next to each other looks jsut so wrong in some way....
I am glad that you could enjoy Citricos so much better than last year, but I hope that one day you will be able to eat there without anything in your system.

I never made that connection Flossbolna - I'm not eating there this year, so maybe that means I won't get sick???

I'm back and caught up. Your Minnie's house pictures are HILARIOUS! Loved all the little videos in Epcot too. I like the idea of a picture in each country...I might have to do that with Henry this coming trip!

Nice to see you back on the Disboards.

I think it was Evil Twin's idea and I wish we had been doing that for years. It's one that I'll definitely try and remember.

The Castle cakes are so cute - I have been tempted to buy one in the past as well!

I swear I did it just so I could have those little castles. And they reappeared at my birthday party, and who knows - they might again.

I was really hoping to finish the next couple of days and get at least one update over the weekend, but then my sister had to go and have this a few days early

Yep - meet my newest niece and future Disney fan. We were with her all weekend. She is really really sweet.

Still hoping to have an update for the trippie up tomorrow or Thursday

 

[Flossbolna]

What a cute niece!! Of course she is much more important than your TR! Take your time and enjoy your new family member!