Trip report - "Dreams do come true" (video complete - pg 45)

[Mary626]

Yay we were in fantasyland! Philharmagic was pretty much right there as soon as we entered fantasyland, and the wait time was listed as “five minutes”, so we grabbed our 3-d “Opera glasses” and took a seat in the theatre.

Jim in the queue area for Mickey’s Philharmagic

Jim was going to see if his polarized sunglasses worked just as well as the 3-d glasses Disney provided… it didn’t work

The show was pretty cute, I enjoyed listening to the music in the show… I’ve heard other people ask, and I agree.. why don’t they call it “Donald’s Philharmagic” since he’s the bigger star of the show? Poor Donald… I thought the part with Ariel was a little frightening! She looked like she was in Shrek and her face was kind of scary. I liked the parts where they pumped in the smell of blueberry muffin mix or something in the “be our guest!”” part. Jim loved the show! I thought it was good but nothing too new or exciting. We looked around in the gift shop for a while but didn’t buy anything. We really didn’t buy much the entire trip, actually. Every time I thought about buying something I thought “do I really want that?” and would decide against it, I was surprised. I had saved up a lot of money for merchandising, but was doing great so far. Though I knew there would be a few photo frames I might buy later.

Disney & Mickey

it’s on backwards, Jim

now it’s sideways

now you got it!

Me saying “Where’s my camera??” as Jim takes a picture of me with my camera

We left the giftshop and saw that Peter Pan already had a 20 minute wait. If it was already up to 20 minutes that early in the morning, I knew we better jump in line quickly. Jim has been looking forward to this ride for a long time. It’s the movie he’s currently working on restoring at his work, so he has to watch scenes of it every day with no sound for the past month. He told me every time he works on that movie he would picture himself going on the ride at WDW and he couldn’t wait. The one in Disneyland is in terrible need of refurbishment, it is kind of dirty and falling apart. I was taking his picture in front of the ride, and the cast member apologized for getting in our picture. Jim was like “don’t be sorry, in fact let me get a picture of you” or something.

We waited in line for about 20 minutes and then we were on our way through Neverland! Jim asked me how long the mermaid had been changed to look like Ariel. I had never noticed that before! I wasn’t sure if it was something done on purpose or if that’s how she always looked. This ride is a classic must-do-while-in-wdw for me.

Me trying to get jim while flying in our pirate ships

a blurry picture of the ariel look a like

It was about 10:30 when Jim and I got done with Peter Pan. Jim was starving, we had skipped breakfast that morning. I was pretty hungry too but wanted to keep doing rides while the lines were short. I knew that by 11:30 the lines would get pretty bad. But jim was starving, so we went and looked for a place to eat. I mentioned Pinocchio Village Haus as being one of the places I had never been to, but was a DIS favorite. They had an item called “Figaro Fries” that I was curious to try since seeing the picture of it on the DIS restaurant thread filled with pictures of Disney food (affectionately known as “the food porn” thread).

We walked over but saw that it wasn’t open till 11 am. Forgot about that! I knew if they were closed, then most of the other restaurants wouldn’t be open yet either, so are only choice would be from a food stand somewhere or at the main street bakery.

 

[Mary626]

I wanted to show Jim the murals in the foyer of the castle so we headed that way. I got into my “Disney Tour Guide Mary” mode and showed jim the murals and told him how they were made with hundreds of thousands of pieces of Italian glass and portrayed the story of Cinderella. When Cinderella is trying on the glass slipper, one of the step sisters face is ‘red with anger’ and the other is ‘green with envy’…

The ballroom scene

I then took him over to Cinderella’s fountain and showed him how at the right angle it looks like Cinderella is wearing her crown, although for some reason, I didn’t get a picture of it??

She’s kind of wearing her crown in this photo

We walked over to the main street bakery to grab something. The Dis boards had recommended the French toast loaf at the bakery, so at least I would get to try that. We went into the bakery and saw that the line was really long. I looked at the clock and it was about 10 till. We’d probably be waiting in line for at least 20 minutes, so I asked jim what he was more in the mood for, bakery items or cheap theme park chicken tenders or pizza, he said he was more in the mood for the chicken tenders so we headed back over to the pinnochio village haus.

Main street bakery

me in front of the crystal palace

another view of the castle, and the stupid grad night lighting tresses that interfered with my MK photo shoot

 

[Mary626]

We went back over there and they still hadn’t opened their doors yet. About five minutes later they let everyone in, so I looked around while Jim waited in line. I thought it would be nice to sit at the tables that overlook the beginning of the “it’s a small world ride” so I stayed there to save the seats. The inside of the restaurant is really cute and well-themed, especially for a counter service place.

stupid blurry photo of Pinocchio

you can see the beginning of “it’s a small world” from here

It took the restaurant a while before it started to serve food, and then a long line had formed so even though we were there since opening, jim was kind of in the back of the line. So it wasn’t until about 11:15 before we got our food. So we wasted 45 minutes of prime park exploring time, when all the lines are still short.. oh well, even when you’re not on a ride, it’s still fun being at the magic kingdom!

While I was sitting waiting for Jim, there was a 2 year old boy screaming at the top of his lungs in the back of the restaurant. I looked back and saw where the kid was and he was pretty far away from us but it was still pretty loud and the sound echoed really loudly in the cavernous restaurant. Jim brought the food to where I was sitting. We ate for a few minutes but the kid was still screaming. Like I said, it was really echo-y in there, so I thought the family was still far away, so I said to jim “That screaming is kind of getting on my nerves, do you want to move somewhere else?”… or something like that.. and as I’m getting up I look behind me and see the mother and the screaming baby RIGHT THERE….. ugh I felt SO AWFUL!! I didn’t know what to say,, so me and jim just quickly hurried away. I would never have said something like that within earshot…. that lady has every right to think I’m the world’s biggest witch!!

With my face red and me full of guilt, we moved over into another section of the restaurant, the Figaro Room, and continued to eat. Well, it WAS much quieter in there at least! Jim had ordered the pizza and I ordered some chicken tenders and fries,, and we ordered some “Figaro Fries” to try and share. I hadn’t had French fries in over a year – seriously not one.. so I started with the plain French fries first. I was surprised at how much I didn’t enjoy them… before changing my eating lifestyle a year before, I ate French fries ALL the time!! I was so addicted to them. I was worried about eating them again on the trip thinking I might have a really hard time giving them up again after the trip. I was really glad when they tasted way too greasy and kind of soggy. I didn’t even want to finish them. I tried the Figaro fries, these I had really been looking forward to. They were kind of like a plate of nacho’s,, but with fries instead of nachos.. they had cheese, bacon, lettuce and tomato, and I think some mayonnaise sauce or something? I’m not sure but the DIS board always raved about them. Maybe I still wasn’t into fries, but I thought they tasted kind of gross. Maybe I’ve had the aussie cheese fries at Outback Steakhouse too many times, because I compared the Figaro fries to them, and I much prefer the aussie cheese fries. Anyway, the whole meal was way too greasy and gross so we decided to throw most of it away and left.. Me and Jim both decided that we could actually live without fries. It was a good feeling!!

Jim’s pepperoni pizza

My chicken tenders and fries, and our shared order of “Figaro Fries”

The eponym for the fries (I just wanted an excuse to use that word)

We left the Pinnochio Village Haus with a little bit of a stomach ache. I looked around at the wait-times around Fantasy-land and they all had ridiculously long lines. Our window for short rides was now closed. We decided to leave Fantasyland and head to Frontierland/Liberty Square.

 

[Mary626]

While leaving Fantasyland, jim pointed out the old entrance to the SkyWay they used to have over the magic kingdom.. I don’t remember the name, I asked Jim what they were called and he says he used to call them “sky buckets”.. not very helpful!

The crowd level was much better over here!We walked by the Haunted Mansion and saw they only had a ten minute wait so we got in line.

We were reading the graveyards in the queue area, and jim pointed out Madam Leota’s grave marker and that it said “in regions beyond now,, but having a ball”… and I was like “that’s funny, like what she says… send me a message from REGIONS BEYOND!!” and Jim was like “doesn’t she say SOMEWHERE BEYOND?” And I was like “no, she says regions beyond, I’m positive she says regions beyond!”… He disagreed with me so we decided to wait and see during the ride..

Madam Leota’s Gravemarker

We went into the stretching-room and I asked jim to guess if the ceiling went up or if the floor went down. I told him it was one way in California and a different way in Florida. He guessed that the floor went down… Nope, ceiling goes up I told him. I think they changed it because Florida has such a high water table. I told him how they built the utilidors and tunnels first and then built the magic kingdom on top of it. I then asked him if I was being an annoying know-it-all and if all my pointless trivia was getting on his nerves. He said no, so I continued .

Our “ghost host” talked to us as we looked at the photos of the people in their corruptible, mortal state.. I actually got to enjoy the spiel this time… In Disneyland, every single time I go on the ride, everyone in the room says the speech along with the ghost host.. since pretty much every single resident of the state of California has annual passes, most of the visitors to DisneyLand are local residents, and they can get a little annoying some times.. anyway I got to hear the spiel so I was happy! I noticed the guy next to me was confused about why some people screamed at the end of the stretching-room part and his wife was like “you didn’t see the guy hanging from the ceiling?”

We get in our Doom Buggy which takes us on a tour of the mansion that happened to be haunted.. we go through the attic and I see the wedding dress with the beating heart.. I’ve been joking for the past year about getting my wedding dress preserved, finding a red beating heart in a Halloween store somewhere, and putting it in our future attic just the way it’s displayed on the ride. If I ever have a house with an attic, I’m totally going to do that!

Our tour continued forward, as Madam Leoto tries to conjure up lost spirits, she said aloud “Send us a message from SOMEWHERE BEYOND!” .. darnit Jim was right.. He looked very smug about it, darn him.

We sat back and enjoyed the ride. I’ve been on this ride a million times and always seem to notice something new each time I ride it, it never ceases to amaze me.

We survive our jaunt through the haunted mansion. I wonder if they will ever find their 1,000th happy haunt.

 

[Mary626]

We leave the haunted mansion and Jim’s cell phone rings. It was matt, even though he was leaving for California later that day, he decided to spend the morning at the Magic kingdom. We decide to meet him by the Pirates ride. Since Matt was still in Tomorrowland and we were in Liberty Square, I figured it would take him longer to get there then for us, so me and jim meandered a round a bit before going to pirates. I took some pictures around Liberty Square. I asked jim if he wanted our picture taken in the “stocks”, and he said “maybe later”. I said “every time someone says ‘maybe later’ that always turns into ‘never’”. And sure enough we never went back to get our picture taken there, no big deal though.

The liberty Tree, with 13 lanterns, one for each of the original colonies (I think that’s what it is)

We went over to adventureland and Jim wanted to stop at aloha isle for a pineapple dole whip float.. Oh yeah we hadn’t gotten one of those yet!! I always loved these things and for the last year each time we went to Disneyland I would walk past Aloha Isle and say “one day, pineapple dole whip, you will be mine!” or something like that… I can’t believe we had been in WDW for over a week and had yet to have a pineapple dole whip float!!

We called Matt, who was actually at the Pirates of the Caribbean by that time, and he said he’d come meet us by the dole whip stand and asked us to order him a soft service pineapple dole whip, not the float. Egads, how could he not want the float! He said the pineapple juice took away from the icecream…. I could see his point, but I dunno, I love me a pineapple dole whip float! Matt came over and we found some seats and Jim brought us over our pineapple dole whip goodies, and we sat and blissfully enjoyed our pineapple dole whip floats.

Jim ordering our pineapple goodies

Matt’s soft serve pineapple dole whip

our pineapple dole whip floats (ice cream and pineapple juice)

cheers!

It was about 12:15 at this time. Done with the pineapple goodness, we walked over to Pirates. I was speed walking without realizing it until Jim asked me to slow down. I apologized and Matt was like “we haven’t been training for Walt Disney World like you have!” .. Which is true lol.. I have been on the treadmill at least 5 times a week for the past year trying to build up my stamina. I was up to five miles a day before we left, I was very proud of myself! We got to the pirates and saw that the line was about 25 minutes long. We got in line and Jim and Matt talked to each other about different video games and nerdy things that I didn’t know about.

Stupid blurry photos, I need a new camera!

Both Matt and Jim kind of have a beef with the Pirates ride at WDW. They both say they cut out way too much, such as the treasure room, and there is only one drop instead of two drops compared to the one in Disneyland. I always say “cry me a friggin river… WDW has 3 other major theme parks, who cares about the shortened version of pirates”.. it is an ongoing point of conflict for me and jim .

Nonetheless we all enjoyed our travels through the carribean sea-side town that happens to be being plundered by some pirates who look like they’re having a jolly ol’ time as the buildings burn and they chase around the women. I always think, this ride would NEVER be made nowadays, but it’s such a loved classic, I think it’s so funny how politically incorrect it is. I’m a little sad that they’re changing the ride to include Captain Jack Sparrow and changing the voice of the captain to that of Geoffrey Rush, but not the worst thing in the world… we noticed they already changed the color of the dog to match the one in the movie.. was that really necessary?

Jim told me that someone we both used to know, someone who takes these things VERY seriously, went to Disneyland with some of his friends, all dressed in black, and gave “a funeral” for Pirates of the Caribbean on the day before it was scheduled to be closed for refurbishment. Now THAT in my mind is taking things way too seriously..

So while I don’t like the changes all that much, I decided not to be that upset about it! Our children will be used to the new ride, and in their mind, that will be the pirates ride that THEY grow to love..


We got out of the ride and looked around the gift shop somemore, but didn’t buy anything. Jim was thinking about buying this light up toy thing. Since we hadn’t bought any merchandise, I didn’t care if he wanted it, but I did ask “are you sure you really want that and not a t-shirt?” he thought about it and decided not to get it. I felt kind of bad, I didn’t mean to talk him out of getting it, if he wanted it he should buy it, but he said no it was okay.. well I took a picture of it so he could at least remember it!

Ooo shiny lights

Matt said he had to go back to the hotel and check out and head to the airport, so we said our goodbyes to Matt, thanked him for coming and for being a part of the wedding, and Jim and I talked about what to do next.

Saying goodbye to matt

The magic kingdom was getting pretty crowded, it was around one pm, so it was a bad time to be there. We had accomplished a lot that morning, I thought, at the MK,, so Jim and I decided to head to the animal kingdom. Ooo we could take the monorail to the TTC to transfer to a bus, I hadn’t been on the monorail in years, I was excited!

 

[Mary626]

We walked towards the exit slowly, us both still in the “honeymoon phase” , just holding hands and swinging our arms around as we left, and me saying “hi husband” repeatedly.

We left the magic kingdom and walked to the monorail ramp. I was confused about which way to go, but Jim pointed out the correct ramp and we headed up to the monorail. I was going to ask to sit in the front. I had heard you can only ask to sit in the front when starting out from a resort, but I figured I would give it a try anyways. But as the monorail came into the station, I noticed a family of five were already being escorted into the front of the monorail. Oh well, maybe next time, though I was kind of disappointed because I thought Jim would think it was really cool.

We got into the monorail and jim and I both said the spiel the same time the Voice said it “please stay clear of the doors..”

The monorail took us into the contemporary. It was the first time I’d seen the contemporary in 14 years, my family and I had stayed there when I was 12. It brought back a lot of memories! Jim asked me how many stops until we got to the Ticket and Transportation Center (TTC), I said “I’m not sure.. I think we might stop at the grand Floridian and the Polynesian first and then the TTC, but I don’t remember”. Jim got out the video camera, turned it on,, and said “wait a second.. say that again mary..” I was like , say what again? “the part where you said you didn’t know!” .. I was like “oh geez Jim.. I never said I knew EVERYTHING about walt disney world, I just said I know a heck of a lot about disney world!” Jim continued to tease me about it so I stuck my tongue out at him.

It turned out I was wrong anyways, the monorail stopped first at the contemporary and then at the TTC. Before we got there, we could see the Wedding Pavillion from far away. I can’t remember if I’d seen it before or not, but it was beautiful. I can see why so many brides choose to get married there, pictures don’t do the place justice, even from far away. I imagine the inside of it is just as beautiful. If I hadn’t always dreamed of having an outside wedding, I could have seen myself getting married there.

I think the entire ride on the monorail lasted maybe 8 minutes. We exited the monorail at the TTC, and followed the signs towards the buses and then went to the bus stop for the Animal Kingdom.

the bus area at the ttc

waiting for the bus at the ttc.. you can see me in jim’s sunglasses

our bus arrives to take us to the animal kingdom

We got on the bus and twenty minutes later we were at the Animal Kingdom again yay!

We walked towards the entrance and saw Friar Tuck out signing autographs. Jim said he wanted my picture with him, I was like “I don’t really like friar tuck he was mean to me once”. I told him the story of how when I was like 14 my sister lisa told me to go get my picture with friar tuck, and she kept telling me, mary just go next to him and take your picture with him!” and so I asked friar tuck if he could take his picture with me, but then another little girl ran up to him the same time I had gone up to him.., so friar tuck said to me, even though they’re not even supposed to talk, he was like “just a second!!” to me and went to the little girl. So I just forgot about Friar Tuck and walked away without my picture...

The story kind of made Jim mad, and he almost didn’t’ want his picture with him anymore.. But me being almost 26 years old and, for the most part, a rational adult, I knew it wasn’t the same person in the costume and that was just a one-time thing, so I told Jim I wanted his picture with the Friar..

Jim goes up to the Friar and gets his picture with him. Then the Friar sees Jim’s “magical wishes” button and points to it and mimes a “congratulations” to us, Jim thanked him.. but the Friar wouldn’t let him leave, and went over to me, took me by the arm and insisted we all take a picture together, and congratulated us again.. it was very sweet!

So as we walked away, Jim and I both agreed that this Friar made up for the previous Friar’s rudeness. Yay friar tuck!

welcome … to the animal kingdom

Jim and I head towards the tip board. The Kilimanjaro Safari is high on Jim’s priority list, while I really want to go on Dinosaur. I also really wanted to see the Festival of the Lion King. It was about 2 pm at that point, and the Animal Kingdom only stayed open until 5 that day. 3 hours wasn’t much time! We got to the tip board and the wait time for the safari ride was close to an hour, eek! The dinosaur ride was about a half an hour. I quickly “strategerized” in my head and calculated that it would be most prudent to get the fastpass for the safari ride and then run over to the dinosaur ride and wait in line for that. I asked the cast member at the tip board if they were still giving out fast passes for the safari, and he said they were, but I better hurry because they were going to be gone soon... I thanked him and went over to where Jim was, and the cast member said to me “the safari ride is in the direction” and pointed towards Africa.. I thanked him but said I was going to get my fiancé.. In my head I laughed at myself for the mistake.. husband, mary.. he’s your husband now!! That was going to take some getting used to..

I also laughed in my head about the cast member telling me which way africa was.. like I didn’t have the layout of the theme park completely memorized.... foolish cast member you do not know who you are dealing with here!! Muahahaha. Anyway… I went over to Jim and got his annual pass from him and told him to wait there,I was going to go get fast passes for us! This is what I’ve been in training for for the past year, time for all that time on the treadmill to pay off! I sped walked as fast as I could to the safari ride and went to the fast pass kiosks.. I put both our tickets in and got 2 fast passes with return times of about “between 4 and 5”.. this really was their last batch of fast passes of the day, phew, got there just in time!

An African drum troup playing nearby the tusker house as I walked back to Jim

I walked back to where I told Jim to wait for me and gave him back his ticket. I saw he had gotten a rice krispy treat and a souvenir mug with a gorilla top on it filled with diet soda, and a water for me. Always so thoughtful, thanks jim I helped myself to the last few bites of his rice krispy treat.. mmmm it was nice and fresh and almost tasted home made, delicious! He finished up his drink and I asked him if he wanted me to put it in my bag, and he was like “naah that’s okay..”.. I was like “you just spent 9 dollars on a soda and you’re going to throw the mug away now?” and laughed.. he was like “it said it was a refillable mug, but I didn’t think about the fact that we would only be here for a few hours”.. I was like “well I’ll at least take the gorilla part home” and put it in my purse.. incidentally, on the last day of packing up before heading home, I didn’t have any room to fit the gorillas and they had to be thrown away , which means that really was a nine dollar soda! Oh well, we were on our honeymoon, no big deal, I just think it is pretty funny

The almost completely eaten delicious rice krispy treat

Jim’s nine dollar soda

We walked towards the Dinosaur ride and stopped to use the bathroom on the way. Jim came out and said he noticed he spilled some diet coke on his shirt, so he tried to get the stain out but made it look worse. For some reason he was embarrassed about it and thought it looked stupid, but I was like “who cares?” and before he could stop me I poured some of my water on his shirt.. and smiled and said “there, your wife just spilled water on your shirt, oh well!”… and then I was like “hey it kind of looks like a hidden mickey!” I don’t remember if Jim was amused or not, but I was, and isn’t that the important thing .

 

[Mary626]

We head towards the dinosaur ride (is it still called Countdown to Extinction or is it called Dinosaur now?)

We got in line for Dinosaur, and I noticed the wait was up to about 40 minutes by then. Oh well I really really wanted to go on this ride, I love it and wanted Jim to experience it! We got in line and I enjoyed reading the tidbits of information about the animals of the cretaceous period as we wended our way around the queue. We got into the room with the skeleton of the big dinosaur – was it a t. rex or an albertosaurus or something? I can’t remember.. Anyway, we hear Bill Nye’s voice come on and he asks us some various dinosaur trivia.. the group of teenagers behind us keep announcing the answers before we had a chance to think about it,.. okay obviously they’ve been on the ride a billion times, thanks for ruining it.. oh well..

looking at the fossils

We watch the pre-show movie and Mrs. Cosby explains what we’re about to do, and then that guy hacks the signal and tells us our REAL mission.. me and Jim both wonder why we should help this guy out.. I mean we’re risking our lives for him and he never gives us a good explanation as to why we should help him.. I hope Mrs. Cosby fires him after the ride!

We get to the loading area for the ride, and right before we’re about to board, a cast member sees our pins and tells us congratulations. We thank her, and she asks when we got married, I told her on Monday in epcot. This really surprised her and she thought it sounded like the coolest thing ever and was asking us more about it. The car comes and we get in as she continues to talk to us. It was kind of funny,, it was like “I’d love to keep talking about my wedding but I really need to buckle up..” she continued to talk to us while the car was in motion lol.

Our “CTX Time Rover” moves forward and we are transported back into time.. I haven’t been on this ride in about 5 years,, the past few years I’ve been going to Disneyland in California, and there’s a ride called the “Indiana Jones Adventure” there which I also love… I never thought about or noticed until someone pointed it out to me on the DIS boards that the track is EXACTLY the same on both rides.. same vehicle and same track, just the decorations and audio track that are different. I still love the ride but it was kind of interesting to see that it was true, the track is exactly the same.. at the end of the Indiana jones ride the giant rolling ball is coming towards you and looks like it will hit you.. in “dinosaur” it’s a giant carnatosaurus coming towards us. Even knowing they are exactly the same, I still love both of the rides. I always feel like I have to hang on for dear life, this ride is very bumpy and wild!

Our Time Rover returns from its trip into the last few seconds of the cretaceous period, and pulls forward to de-board. The same cast member that was asking us about our wedding was there and before anyone could get out she says “everyone say congratulations to the couple in the back here, they just got married in epcot on Monday!” and a few people said congratulations to us, it was very sweet again. I thanked them and thanked the cast member and we headed out.

Jim asked if we actually rescued the hadrasaur at the end, and I pointed to the tv’s in the hallway with the “security feed” showing the black and white video of a bunch of people chasing after the hadrasaur that was loose in the hallway of the museum. Jim said he hopes that guy gets fired, endangering our lives like that.

We go over to look at our picture. I always want to buy the picture but I always think it’s overpriced so I never do. What I do instead though, is record the picture on my camcorder. Sometimes it comes out and sometimes it doesn’t. But at least that way, if I ever think “hey I really want to see how Jim and I looked when the giant carnatasaurus was chasing us” I can pull out the video tape and watch it.

I noticed I was almost out of tape on my camcorder, so I bought some more blank DV tapes in the giftshop. It was about 3:10 now, we still had 50 minutes until we could use our safari fast passes. I was happy we had some extra time, I thought we could explore some of the hidden trails filled with plants and animals that abound in the animal kingdom. I knew there was a “Cretaceous Trail” in dinoland USA, but I thought I wasn’t sure what animals or plants were in it, I thought it might be just some lizards here and there.. I told Jim that the trail around the Tree of Life had lemurs and some kangaroos so we decided to head over there.

Exiting dinoland usa

On the way out of Dinoland, USA, I sat down on a bench to open the new DV tape and put it in my camcorder. I’m sitting there for a few minutes and then look over to the side a little, and right there in the water is a HUGE crocodile! They really make it look like you could just put your hand right in and pet the thing, although I wonder who would be crazy enough to do that? Although I’m sure there are at least some people crazy enough to do that, anyway.. this thing was scary!! I was like “these things look like they should have been extinct millions of years ago, they just don’t look like they belong in this day and age!” We just sat there watching this crocodile, this guy was huge and mean looking.. I said “he must be from like Africa or the amazon or something” but we looked at the information sign about the crocodile and it said he was present in the lower parts of florida as well as some central American countries. Egads, I would never go swimming in the lakes around florida knowing that one of those things could be in it!

He looked much bigger in person!

scary!!

It’s funny how a crowd draws a crowd. Nobody had even noticed the crocodile/alligator (I can never remember the difference) before we were there.. but of course you see somebody staring at something and then someone else comes along to see.. and then you see a few people staring at something so even more people come to see, and so on lol. We left so people would have more room to look.

 

[Mary626]

We walked towards the tree of life so we could explore the trail. On the way there, I was telling Jim how cool the queue area for the “It’s Tough to be a Bug” attraction was. We didn’t think we’d do the show, since they have it here in California now and we’ve seen it many times here, but I was telling Jim that I love how they put it beneath the Tree of Life and how as you walk around,, the tree roots get bigger and bigger so you feel like you’re being shrunk down to the size of a bug… As I’m talking I realize that I really want to see the show and I want Jim to see what I’m talking about, so we decide to just do the ride. There was no wait listed so we go to enter the queue area and the cast member says “happy birthday guys!” .. I figured he saw our buttons and thought we were wearing the “congratulations it’s your birthday” buttons that they also have available at guest relations, so I say “oh it’s our honeymoon, thank you though” and he says “happy birthday!” oh okay he was joking lol.. he says “hang on a second” and makes us stop as a few people came up behind us to get into the line, and he says to everyone behind us “everyone say CONGRATULATIONS to this couple here who are here on their honeymoon!”, so everyone tells me and jim congratulations, and we thank them,, and thank the cast member. It always made me so happy when someone would go out of their way for us like that. As we walked away I was saying to Jim “I’m so glad we came to Disney world for our honeymoon.. I mean where else will they do things like that?”.. he agreed.

We walked slowly around the queue area looking at the different carved animals in the roots of the tree, letting everyone behind us get ahead of us.. I really like the queue area for this ride, it is so full of detail. By the time we got to the inside, we were sufficiently shrunk down to the size of a bug, so we grabbed our “bug eyes” and looked around at the different posters and the giant ball of dung.

I love looking at all the animals carved into the tree

I look crazy again in this picture

it’s tough to be a bug!

Jim about to eat a piece of the dung ball

hello, dung lovers!

Jim listening to the rendition of “beauty and the bees”

that’s a good look for me

jim gets transformed into the HIDEOUS BUG BOY

One thing that bothers me about queuing up for a show is that the people who get their first always have to slide ALL THE WAY DOWN to the end, which means your seats really suck. I know there’s no good way to go around that without it being really disorganized, but it always annoys me anyways. They open the doors and sure enough we have to slide all the way down to the very very end, where the effects are never as good. I kind of complained about that to jim, and then the lady next to me says that there are empty seats in the row behind us in the middle if I wanted to move. I thanked her but said it was okay, I just liked to complain. I was kind of embarrassed that someone overheard me complaining, I must have sounded like I was just a crank or something.

Even though I’ve seen this show quite a few times, it’s still really cute and fun to me. If you haven’t seen it, it is a must-do! I won’t divulge anything that happens as it’s much more fun to be surprised, but I will say that at one point the lady in the seat next to me actually literally JUMPED out of her chair and looked behind her LMAO. You know it’s a good ride based on the volume of noise in the room towards the end – half the people are screaming and half are laughing, with the occasional child screaming bloody murder. It’s a great show!

By the time we got out of the show, it was about 3:50 and our fastpasses for the safari ride were in ten minutes, so we walked over to Africa and got in the fastpass line and got right on.

I knew the last show for the festival of the lion king was at 4:30. I wasn’t sure how long we would be on the safari ride for, but I hoped we’d be able to make it to the show.

We get in our safari cars and the guide was actually really good this time. I always feel bad for the cast members on this ride, they have to drive the vehicle, spot the animals, and say their spiel. And I’m sure they have to memorize a lot of facts about the animals in case anyone has questions,, all this for something close to minimum wage I bet. But then again, they might enjoy it, who knows.

Since Jim sat on the right side of the vehicle he really wanted to be seated on the left side of the vehicle this time. Luck was on our side and we didn’t even have to ask, Jim got the left window seat . This was the first time while on this ride that I caught on to the fact that “Nelson” and “Mrs. Thompson” were actually in a helicopter above the wildlife preserve. I always wondered why they weren’t out there trying to save big and little red from the poachers! This time we saw a few giraffes, but there still weren’t as many as there used to be a few years back. There were a bunch of vultures with their wings wide open just staring at us, it was a little scary.. Everyone saw the cheetah but me again, darnit! We got a good view of the lions and some of the rhino’s and the momma and baby elephant were still out, awww.

hippo’s looking like a jar of pickled eggs again. I don’t think hippo’s lead very active lives

nile crocodiles.. scary!!

“Ms. Thompson.. Noone around here calls them tompson gazelle’s.. they are tommy’s.. TOMMY’S!”

those sure are some reticulated giraffes

elephants

the momma and her baby

I think the island that the flamingoes are on is a hidden mickey, if I remember correctly

cute white rhinos

lions, oh my

pumbaa

I had never timed the ride before so I never realized that it actually lasts 20 minutes before. We were off the ride a little past 4:20, cool that gave us ten minutes to get to the Festival of the Lion King show! As we were getting out of the car though, Jim’s eye started to bother him and he needed to put in his refresh tears. That’s one thing about having gotten the laser eye surgery a few weeks before, he needed to put in the artificial tears in his eyes a few times a day so they wouldn’t dry out. Sometimes they would dry out all of a sudden and he would need to put them in right away. His eyes were always fine afterwards though, as long as we remembered to bring the tear drops with us. So we sat on a bench and I waited for his eyes to get better and tried not to worry about the festival of the lion king. We could come back, I told myself.

 

[Mary626]

Jim announced he was fine so we double-timed it over to Camp Minnie-Mickey. We got there at about 4:28 and went to the back of the line, and we were seated right as the show began. Not bad timing!

We got pretty good seats, especially considering that we arrived their 2 minutes prior. This was the first time I’ve seen the show since they put it in an air-conditioned building. The air-conditioning was nice but for some reason I think the show was just a little bit more festive when it was open-aired but shaded. I might be being stupid there though, who knows!

This show, in my opinion, is worth the price of the animal kingdom admission ticket just by itself! There is so much going on in this one half hour show, it is amazing! I LOVE the music and as it’s sung by live performers and they have a great sound system, you really FEEL the music and the energy of the show. The costumes are amazing, and like I said, there is just so much going on.. gymnasts, guys on stilts, dancers, singers, acrobatics, fire-breathers, and Disney characters! It is so vibrant filled with energy, you can’t help but sing along and get really in to the show. This show is another must-see for me! They started singing the “Can you feel the love tonight” song and I got really choked up again, darn that song! We sat in the giraffe section and made the giraffe noise when prompted. I love the sing-along at the end to the “the lion sleeps tonight” song… our section did the “ooh-weem-bo-way” part of the song.. though I would have preffered singing the high-pitched part of the song

timon is getting annoyed by the tumbler monkeys

b e prepaaaaaaared

can you feel the love tonite…

it’s the circle of life and it moves us allll

The show ended and Jim agreed that it was a really good show. The Animal Kingdom was now officially closed and we had to leave, darn. There was still so much left to do in the Animal Kingdom! We didn’t get to go over to Rafiki’s Planet watch (aka conservation station), and didn’t get to see anything in Camp Minnie Mickey, the chester & hester dino-rama area, and many of the trails went unexplored. I hoped we’d have an opportunity to return once in the next few days, but we didn’t have the opportunity to return. Oh well, hopefully there will be a next time!

As we walked out over the bridge from camp Minnie mickey, I pointed out the cave by the river when you’re facing towards Africa. I told him there used to be a fire-breathing dragon in there, you could hear it roar and see a ton of fire come out of the cave. I think it was a part of the old river cruise they used to have, I never had a chance to do the river cruise but I always thought the dragon was really cool. Not sure why they got rid of the cruise or the dragon. Though I’d imagine cost of use might be one factor for getting rid of the fire-breathing dragon.. but still I missed it.

We stopped to watch a Caribbean band play near the oasis as we exited.

Jim went to use the bathroom and I told him I would meet him at the giftshop near the bus stops. I wanted to buy him a t-shirt without him knowing. I went to the gift shop, they didn’t have the greatest selection but I found one I thought was cute. Although it didn’t say “Animal Kingdom” on it like I wanted it to, but nonetheless it was cute. Jim met up with me and I gave him his t-shirt and he said he loved it and would wear it the next day.


I had reservations for BOMA at the Animal Kingdom Lodge for 6 pm that day. It was 5:15 then, so that was perfect timing to get on the bus to take us to the animal kingdom lodge, look around the lobby and savannah, and then go eat. I was excited for Jim to see the hotel, I had stayed there with my friend Jo, on my last trip to WDW when my sister jenny was getting married, and had had an amazing time.

 

[Mary626]

We got on the bus for “Animal Kingdom Lodge” and took a seat near the front. It was a really short distance from the park to the hotel. This little girl in front of us, probably about 7 years old, asked if we were on our honeymoon. I smiled and told her yes. She was like “I thought so because you’re wearing those pins!.. Mom, Dad, they’re on their honeymoon!” She was really excited for us, it was so cute! The bus stopped at the hotel and the door opened.. the little girl said “everyone wait, let them go first their on their honeymoon!” and made sure everyone stayed seated while Jim and I got out first. It was really cute, kind of embarrassing that she made everyone wait for us, but it was funny and sweet. What a cute little girl!

We got out of the bus and walked to the front entrance and went into the lobby. I recorded Jim’s expression while we walked in, and once again he was like “wow…. Why aren’t we staying here??” I laughed, he had said that about every hotel we had visited, it was funny.

We had about twenty minutes before I had to go check in for our reservation at Boma. I took Jim outside to go look at the animals on the Savannah view. He was really impressed with the hotel. He was like “so every room has a view of the animals?” Well almost, but no.. I told him when I stayed there with Jo we had a pool-view, because we were poor! But my family had all stayed in a savannah room and they loved waking up to the animals every morning. Jim decided he’d really like to stay at this hotel the next time we came, if we could afford it.

We took some time to watch the animals around the savannah area and listen to the cast member on duty answering other people’s questions about the animals. I was having fun watching the giraffes.. they’re like furry dinosaurs or something, they’re just so weird looking!

jim taking a picture of the animals

We then walked back towards the lobby.

As we passed the big fireplace, we saw two older people sound asleep on the rocking chairs. I thought it was pretty funny. I told jim I thought they did “storyteller” sessions by the fireplace each night, though I never had the chance to attend one.

We went over to Boma and the line to check in for reservations was really long.. We waited at least ten minutes before getting to the podium. I think most of the people in line were “walk-ups” and most of them were turned away. I was glad I had my ADR’s planned three months before hand! I told the cast member our name and the reservation time. She couldn’t find it.. I told her I had the confirmation number if she needed it (yep, I had all my confirmation numbers on my color coded itinerary that I always had in my purse)… but she found it and didn’t need the number, she said the ADR time was actually for 6:15, not 6.. I didn’t argue with her, but I knew I was right and that they must have made a mistake when I made the reservation.. I was very meticulous and careful about details like that. I was glad the mistake wasn’t bigger, like for an hour later or something. I was really hungry at that point! She gave us a pager and said it would be about a half an hour, and Jim and I went and sat by the cocktail lounge as we waited.

Boma was one of the restaurants I was really looking forward to the most. I ate there once before, back when I was there with Jo for Jenny’s wedding. It was November 2001, and we were sitting in the lounge on the tier above the restaurant. I was there with Jo, my parents, Jenny & Kevin, my brother and his wife, and lisa and her now ex-husband… At this time me and Jim had been friends for a year but had just recently begun talking to each other a lot over the phone. It was obvious to both of us that we really liked each other, but since we had yet to actually meet in person, we kept it at a ‘just friends’ level and it was an unspoken agreement that we would wait and see what happened when we met in person. Anyway, I had kind of mentioned Jim to my mother a few times in the previous weeks, but had pretended that Jim was someone I worked with in the lab I worked in at my university. Even though I was over 21 years old I knew my mom would be really upset if I was “talking to some guy over the internet that lived in California”, but both of my sisters knew about it. So anyway, there we were back in 2001 at the same cocktail lounge above Boma Jim and I were at now. I don’t remember how it played out, I might have been jokingly teasing Lisa about something, or my mom asked me something about Jim… either way, the end result was that loud mouth lisa said something like “well at least I didn’t meet my husband over the internet”, and my mom was like “what?” and lisa said “oh you didn’t know that? Mary met Jim over the internet and he lives in California….” My mom looked crestfallen, like she was about to cry…. She just looked do crushed… If looks could kill, the one I was giving lisa at that particular time would have done the job… My mom starts trying to convince me that since he lives in california I should just forget about him, there are plenty of guys right there in michigan I could meet.. she asked me if I had even met him in “real life” and I lied and said I had, which prompted more arguments since that was stupid and unsafe and blah blah blah… It was a complete waste of a 26 dollar buffet meal back then, because I was silently seething the entire time and didn’t eat a thing. I could have killed my sister..

But anyway, fast forward to a few years later, and there I was MARRIED to Jim and sitting in the same lounge that that conversation had taken place…. we had made it work despite the distance and despite everything, and it was a very validating moment for me.

my makeup was a little messed up

Our pager went off and we went to the counter to check in. Our host takes us to our table and tells us a little bit about the restaurant and recommends a few things, such as the “zebra domes”… here was another cast member who had no idea who she was dealing with, I have been looking forward to the zebra domes for over a year and couldn’t wait to try them! Our waitress comes by and takes our drink orders.. as I’ve done at every meal, I let her know a head of time that I have the Disney Dining Experience discount card, and she says that’s no problem. Then she tells us to enjoy the buffet and to help ourselves.

 

[Mary626]

Walking to our table

This meal was EVERYTHING it was hyped up to be!!! Oh my god, there was so much to choose from and everything was to die for!! I made sure to get a zebradome on my first trip, who says you can’t have dessert first while on vacation??

The zebradome was one of the few things that lived up to its hype on the DIS restaurant forum. It was half the texture and the size, and half the taste.. but I could have just popped those things in my mouth one after another like popcorn! They were scrumptious!! I tried to have at least one with every plate of food I got up for, those were the kind of things I knew I’d be craving back at home but would never be able to find a good subsitute for.. only genuine walt disney world zebra domes will do the trick! I wasn’t shy about trying a little bit of everything.. that’s the good thing about buffets, you can try a bunch of new stuff you would never try, and if you didn’t like it, you could just push aside your plate and go get something else.

I tried pretty much everything. About half of the things were delicious, some things were kind of gross, and some things were just okay.

They had a delicious cut of prime rib with three different dipping sauces and some spicy salmon. That kind of made me mad lol. I had paid 30 dollars for some salmon at the Artist’s Point the day before, and I actually liked Boma’s salmon better.. and the cost of the buffet was 26 dollars, cheaper then the salmon at artist point! Anyway, everything was delicious. When I felt myself start go get full I was like “noooo! Still so much to try!!” . This was the first time at Walt Disney World that I ate so much I felt like I couldn’t breath at the end of the meal lol. If you’ve eaten there, you’d understand though! It is worth the price of the buffet for even their desserts alone… This was, hands down, me and Jim’s favorite meal during the trip, and we will definitely be returning.

Took Jim a little while to get adventurous - so he starts with mac & cheese and chicken strips! at least he tried a zebra dome and an "expedition everest" dessert

I believe this was the watermelon Rind salad - but could very easily be mistaken. With a few pieces of "african bread" thrown on the side

I believe this was the "ham, cucumber, and grand salad" but might have gotten those mixed up, I can't remember! The orange stuff behind it was a little bit of a "sweet salad" that had some raisins in it, that was good, wish I could remember the names! Also the zebra-domes, an expedition everest dessert (it was okay, but I saved room for more zebra-domes!), and a DELICIOUS thing in the middle that was like a mix between a cannoli and cheese-cake, no idea what the name was

Some spicy chicken, some "Fries with afritude" (a little too spicy for me), and pot roast with three different kinds of sauces - one that was like horseradish, one that was like bbq sauce, and one that was like honey mustard. The pot roast was really really good!

We get down to business on the dessert now!
Banana bread pudding with vanilla sauce - DELICIOUS! More zebra-domes, love the texture and the taste of those, I could have eaten them one after another like popcorn!, and a kiwi-fruit tart - good but only had one

in the "12 o'clock position" - moroccan cous-cous (was pretty good). The "3 o'clock position" - a falafel - was okay. The "6 o'clock position" - Peanut Rice - was good but kind of tasted like "peanut butter captain crunch" cereal!... in the "9 o'clock position" - Pap, it was okay but all the other foods were much better I thought

Seafood gumbo - not very good, i've had better soup out of the can

The white stuff I think was coconut pudding, more zebra domes, a kiwi tart (for jim), more banana bread pudding

African flatbread with three different types of hummus to try (white bean hummus, plain hummus, and sundried tomato hummus), 2 chocolate chip cookies that we saved for later, and one big cannoli thing we saved for later In the bowl - more african breads

Okay.. room for one more plate of desserts to share.. a few more zebra domes and some more banana bread pudding

before the meal…

after the meal

We were quite content, happy, and tired by the time we were done with the meal. I gave the waitress my DDE discount card and she said, politely, “just to give you a tip the next time you’re at a restaurant, if you let the waitress know ahead of time you have the discount card, she’ll be able to process the card, but don’t worry it’s not a problem or anything” (she actually said it politely even though it might sound like it was a bit terse when reading it..).. but I said “I did tell you ahead of time…” and she was like “oh yeah you did! Nevermind, my mistake, sorry!” and rushed off to get the bill. It was about 8 o’clock. We were so full and tired that we decided to just take a taxi home despite yesterday’s ordeal, and luckily had no problems with this driver. He took no wrong turns and didn’t have a problem with credit cards and was actually kind of nice. For some reason Jim decided to sit up front so I was by myself in the back lol.


a cool tower of terror sign while heading back to the hotel

We got back to the hotel and went to the giftshop to buy some bottled water for the room and some deoderant for Jim since he was running low. While in line I was kind of vegging and was poking jim in the arm, which I do sometimes when I’m bored. The lady behind me starts laughing and said “it’s like… I’m not touching you!” and pokes jim in the arm too.. poor jim

We got to the room and get in our pajamas, but then we realized we had forgotten to check at the front desk if Stan had dropped off the DVD of the ceremony like he said he would do that day. Jim calls the front desk and they tell him they have a package for us. Woohoo! I put on my red sweat pants outfit and my sandals, with my glasses on, yeah I was looking great, and went to the front desk and asked for the package. The lady went back and found it and wished me congratulations. I thanked her and went back to the room.. Woohoo we were going to watch a little bit of our ceremony! I hadn’t really had the chance to watch it while at the reception. The only thing I had available to look at were the photos Kevin took at our wedding. I was so anxious to see some video footage!!!

I put it in our laptop (so glad we had our laptop on the trip!) and pressed play. It was only five minutes long but it was so beautiful! I was so happy! That was just a few days ago, wow. The quality of the video was sooo crisp and clear, I was amazed!! So glad we upgraded to HD!! The video was pretty basic, some establishing shots, us saying our vows, putting the rings on our finger, the rose petal toss, and the shot of us kissing with the epcot ball behind us… It was beautifully edited. I thought if that’s just a five minute edit I can’t wait to see what the longer edit looks like!! I watched it a few times over and over again.. I made fun of jim for “broadcasting” his vows, and I made fun of myself for almost tripping over the bridge.. It was so nice of Stan to do that for us and to drop it off. I made sure to email him and thanked him for the dvd.

We stayed in the room the rest of the night, I watched some tv while Jim looked around on the internet.. they had posted some new stills from the new superman movie and he was really excited about them and kept text messaging his friends talking to them about it. Occasionally Captain Loudy Pants, the really loud guy that was somewhere in our building, would be shouting something to someone and it was really getting on our nerves. Towards the end of the night Jim said something about being nervous about the hot-air balloon ride we had scheduled for the following Saturday over Napa Valley in California. I had been really really looking forward to the hot air balloon ride for the past few months.. but I told jim I was just so happy to be married and be there in Disney world with him, that if he wanted to cancel the hot air balloon ride I wouldn’t be mad or anything. He said he didn’t want to dissapoint me, but I told him I already felt like the luckiest woman in the world, that there was no way a silly hot air balloon ride would make me feel disappointed or anything. I told him to remind me in the morning and we would cancel our reservation so they wouldn’t charge us, and he seemed really grateful about it.

The plans for the next morning were to head to MGM and maybe Epcot again, and then see what we wanted to do from there. It was going to be Grad night on Friday and Saturday, and all the guide book tips I had read had told me to stay out of the Magic Kingdom on grad night, so I thought MGM would be a good alternative. I hoped it wouldn’t be too crowded filled with graduating teenagers. I set the wake up call and fell asleep.

 

[mindystar]

Oh no, you've posted more and I leave for work in five mins Oh well, that's what I get for jumping on here real quick before I left. But it gives me something to look forward to when I get home
Thanks again Mary for what I'm sure is another awesome installment!

 

[karentan]

cant wait for more!!!!
did your sister get married at disney too?

 

[wasabi girl]

Thanks for the further installments! I've just gotta know...how did you "meet" Jim online?

 

[BeckWhy]

Mary you should totally compile everything into a fully illustrated book and sell it. You would make MILLIONS I tell you!

 

[jackdis]

Thanks again for sharing, Mary. Is that a Mickey necklace? Cute! Even after a long day at the park, you still look so nice! I'm wishing I was at a Disney buffet right now!

 

[honeybun7677]

Hi Mary - I LOVE your trip report! I've gotten so many great ideas and tips from it for my upcoming DFTW trip that I can't wait to use! I had a question about your video...what is the song at the end of your video and who sings it? I LOVE that song and want to incorporate it into my wedding.

 

[nkkilala]

Mary it sounds like your honeymoon was lots of fun! I hope you have a good trip to MI (where does your family live again?) Maybe if you have a bit of free time we could meet up!
Ok so comments about your animal kingdom day

It is called Dinasour (I prefer count down to extenxion thoug)
I think the dino is still in the river they just don't use him. The Boat trip was ok. I went on it when they were doing guest previews for Disney Hotel guests. It was basically kinda of like the jungle cruise as it was partially scripted but it was also a bit lame.... You went around in a cricle and got a good overview of the park however it lacked a bit of a wow factor.... Some people might disagree with me but I was younger when I went on it and that is what I remember.

I am also always the one who misses the Cheeta..everyone else sees it and I have just started pretending that I see it. The first time I went on it with Ryan he was so fustrated that I couldn't see it no matter how hard her tried to point it out.....now I just pretend!

Hope your having a great time!

 

[Mary626]

mindystar - sorry about the bad timing, hope you enjoy the installment when you get home!

Karentan - my sister Jenny got married at the Swan & Dolphin (specifically, the "swan") It was such a beautiful wedding!! I had always wanted a disney wedding, but for a few years I thought I would get married somewhere else because Jenny had gotten married by WDW, and I didn't want to take away from her wedding memories at all. But she told me that that was stupid and if I wanted a disney wedding I should go for it, so I finally decided she was right I should upload some of her wedding photos, they really were beautiful!!


wasabigirl - Thank you! If you want to read more about how i met Jim, I put up a "pre-trip report" before I left with some pictures and introductions...
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?p=12347457#post12347457

but basically we knew each other through a star wars messageboard that we both used to post at, and we had known each other online for over a year, the summer of 2001 we started talking on the phone a lot and "net-meeting" and all of that stuff, and then we decided to meet on a "just friends" basis December 12, 2001 (which we consider to be our other anniversary).. obviously we hit it off! In the following summer, in between semesters, I moved to california for a few months to give the relationship a try, and at the end of the summer he proposed to me


Beckwhy - that is too funny, if only that were true!!

jackdis - Thank you!! I should have mentioned in the trip report, the mickey necklace was the one that Jenny & Kevin had gotten for me and Jim. It was actually a "dog tag" that they got in downtown disney at the "pet store", and on the back they engraved "Mary & Jim 4-24-06".. they gave one to jim too but he never wore his!

honeybun - I'm glad you are enjoying the trip report and I'm glad I could give you some ideas! You'll have to tell me what ideas you're thinking of though, I'm really curious!! I think it is so funny that everyone seems to like that song.. I have to admit when I first heard it I thought it was way too cheesy and actually asked Stan to change it, but now that I've listened to it a few times I'm starting to like it! I had never heard it before, but I googled the lyrics and you'll never guess who sings it..... Wayne Brady!!! It is called "Beautiful" and is written by Jim Brickman.. I know it's available on the itunes music store if you want to take a look.


Nikki - I just PM'ed you, I hope we can meet up while I'm in town! My family's from harrison township, right next to mt. clemens, both of which I'm sure you've never heard of! ... too bad they axed the boat ride instead of changing it to make it better!! That is too funny that you pretend to see the cheetah! I used to do that all the time for those "magic eyes" things - I could never see them and people would be like "it's an airplane.. why can't you see it??" and finallly I was like "oh yeah.. I see it" ..

 

[DizneyDogs]

before the meal…

after the meal

Wow those people in the background sure must walk slow and in reverse motion as well, talk about super powers LOL.

Love reading your trip report Mary!!!