Two Bunnies Walk into WDW...Now it's time to say goodbye-Completed 10/11-tons of pics

[jwhtewolfd]

Sunday 9/21/08

Well, we tried to sleep. But it was one of those half-dozing, half-waking, not-very-restful sleeps. I was trying to hold out til 4am. Yeah, I was checking the clock every 15 minutes. But Tony surprised me at 3am when he said "neither one of us is sleeping, let's leave now." Hmmm...let me think about this a minute...uh, YEAH! We really had been good the night before and had everything packed and ready by the door, so we just chucked the bags in the back of the car, programmed the garmin and we were on the road by 3:15am. Tony talked NON-STOP. He was hyper-excited.

We were in Florida three hours later. Getting to Florida is easy; getting THROUGH Florida is the hard part. We were getting a little nervous because we had planned on stopping at a Cracker Barrel for lunch (chicken-fried steak...mmmmm) and we weren't sure how many we would pass in Florida. (Turned out there was one right there by Orlando.) At 6:15am we turned into a parking lot of what seemed to be a closed Cracker Barrel to check the hours of operation. They opened at 6am. Score! We were the only ones in there. Tony bought an Indiana Jones looking hat at the country store. No country-fried steak for breakfast, but it filled our tummies and kept us going.

Well, for a little while. Until the insulin coma hit. (You know how you feel fine until you eat, then a little while later you're incredibly tired? That's what I call the insulin coma.) I let Tony drive for about an hour while I took a quick power nap, then we switched again and I was good to go. Breakfast took an hour and we stopped for gas 3 times. I stopped and filled up each time I got down to half a tank - just in case.

The Garmin took us south along some back highways, not sure why. But we ended up riding along with a motorcycle group for a good half hour. We passed lots of motorcycles going through Florida, but these guys looked professional:

For some reason the All Star Resorts didn't register on the Garmin and we ended up in Downtown Disney. When I realized where we were, I told Tony this wasn't right and I needed to try something else. He kept looking around for our hotel and I had to explain to him that he didn't understand. We were NOWHERE NEAR our hotel. I remembered from my research that All Stars were considered to be in the Animal Kingdom area, so I punched Animal Kingdom into the Garmin.

We followed the Garmin until I started to see All Star signs and I just followed the signs from there. At last we made it to All Star Movies! With our minor detour, we were checking in about 2pm. We were in room 2931. Our room was ready. Yay! We were in the Mighty Ducks. Yay! (I didn't even request it, just hoped it.) We were in building #2. Yay! (Closer to Music's bus stops.) We were on the 3rd floor. (Ok, not SO great, but at least it would be quiet.) We were right by the stairs. Yay! (Quicker to get downstairs in the morning. But make no mistake, we took the elevator up at night.) We also stopped at the guest relations desk and picked up our MNSSHP tickets. Yay!

We happened to park crazy close to our room (yay! again). Mickey was waiting to greet us when we found our room :

I'm not sure why, but Tony quickly moved him, because he was gone by the time I took this picture a few minutes later:

We worked up our courage and proceeded to bring all the bags and snacks up to the room. Really it wasn't that much stuff; we travel light. Everything we had fit in the trunk of my Nissan Sentra, except for the small ice chest we kept with us inside the car for the drive. But when you'd been on the road since 3am, didn't hardly sleep before that, and had been up at 7am and worked all day the day before, it seemed pretty daunting.

After the bags were upstairs, we rested briefly while I told Tony our options: Downtown Disney, mini-golf, or rest and sleep. I thought he was going for door number three when he plopped on the bed face down, but after a few minutes of "Top 7 Things to do at Disney World" playing in the background, he couldn't sit still anymore. Tony really surprised me with how excited he was about this whole trip; he had seemed so uninterested in planning.

(But all my planning came in handy later on, on several occassions. Most notably was the answer to this FAQ: What are you glad you brought? MOLESKIN! - and scissors to cut it )

After I called my mom to let her know we were alive and had made it, we decided to head to Downtown Disney. We decided to drive since we had already been there in the car and I wasn't quite ready to test my Disney transportation knowledge. We arrived sometime between 4 and 5 pm. We walked into the marketplace and were greeted with some pretty cool sculptures:

We hadn't eaten since breakfast, so we decided to scope out the food options. I thought I remembered hearing Wolfgang Puck Express was good and took the dining plan, so we trekked to the end of the marketplace. I paid with my KTTW card, but the guy didn't say anything about the dining plan, so it got charged to the room (it's ok, this works out well later on).

I ordered "cripsy chicken," which I thought would be some sort of nice seared something-or-other. No, just plain old dry chicken nuggets with not even a sauce to dip. The garlic mashed potatoes were good though. Tony, being the Italian food fanatic, ordered the spaghetti and meatballs. Sorry, Tony; I should have warned you that this was California cuisine. He said the meatballs tasted like "hamburger with wannabe red-gravy." He didn't finish it. We also ordered a side of four-cheese macaroni, which was pretty decent.

After our not so fabulous introduction to Disney Dining (I told Tony that restaurant wasn't run by Disney, so not to worry - I hoped), we did some souvenir shopping. At Mickey's Pantry we picked up one of those oversized "Mornings Aren't Pretty" coffee mugs and a wine bottle stopper for Tony's mom. Also, the first thing I saw when we walked into the side entrance was the wall of magnets and I was immediately drawn to the picture frame magnet with all the Disney cats on it. I MUST HAVE IT. I justify it by saying it's a souvenir for all the house cats at work.

We do some more meandering throught the shops. I really wanted these from the Pooh shop:

but I really, really didn't want to pay $100 a pop for them! So I settled for a picture.

As we approached Once Upon A Toy, I told Tony he could build a lightsaber in this store. His response: "A real one?!"

Um, yeah...you can really cut off someone's hand. Uh, NO.

So we proceed on to World of Disney. We elected to use this entrance:

Which also had this little gem:

I tried to warn Tony how big it was, but we still had minor issues. He got lost. He got frustrated when we couldn't find the "boys" section. He was frantically pulling me past everything not giving me any time to shop until I finally got him to admit he needed a bathroom. After that need was taken care of and the overwhelming size of it all sunk in, he calmed down and I was able to get down to business.

I picked out some shirts that Tony's Mom had asked us to get for her grandkids. I bought my 10 year old cousin a Tinkerbell notebook and feathery Tinkerbell pen, and I got 2 sets of the character pens to hand out at work. And best of all, I got a Disney Visa discount.

We decided to call it a night at 8:00pm. I couldn't resist stopping along the way back at the Ghirardelli shop and getting a super thick, super rich chocolate shake. Mmmm, heaven.

Back at the hotel, we put on the Emmy's and proceeded to ignore the TV. We called Tony's mom to let her know we had arrived safely and learned that the Saints lost their game. It stunk, but we didn't let it keep us down. We were exhausted and knew we were facing an early morning. I put in a wake-up call for 7:30am, and we were in bed by 10:00pm.

 

[jwhtewolfd]

Monday 9/22/08

Magic Kingdom

Wake up call is set for 7:30am, but we're still just too excited and we're up and about at 7:00am. Good thing, too, because I hadn't realized how long it would take us to prepare for our first day.

The park bag was already packed at home, so we just had to grab that. I did not anticipate how long it would take us to get our bearings in a strange room; our morning routine took twice as long. Then we had to apply sunscreen. Tony only mildly protested once.

The wake up call came at 7:30am, but it was just music. After an extensive checklist, we were out the door at 8:00am. Walking over to Music's bus stop was a snap. During a short wait for the bus, we talked to a family of first-timers: mom, dad and son. We bumped into them again at the turnstiles. We were too close to the turnstiles (and unwilling to give up our position) to SEE the opening show, but we heard it, and had a nice time bouncing to "Good Morning" from Singing in the Rain.

Here we are getting close and feeling the excitement:

And the obligate train station pic before jostling our way to the turnstiles:

And the face of excitement once we were through the turnstiles:

Of course we didn't yet realize there would be another stopping point before Tomorrowland.

After rope drop, we were swept up in the stampede to Space Mountain. I managed to snap a picture of the Tomorrowland sign in the 9:00am sun:

Tony remembered he had liked Space Mountain way back when, but I have never ridden it before. Before I had time to reconsider, we walked right on and were strapped in. It was a little scary not knowing what was coming next. But I lived. And I kinda liked it. Ok, I'm awake now! Woo!

Next up I hurried us off to Buzz Lightyear, as I had heard the lines could get bad later on, and I wanted to try it, but not if there was a long wait. I also wanted to wet our appetite for Toy Story Midway Mania later in the week. So la-te-da, we walk in with no one else in front of us, make our way through the snaking queue and run smack dab into someone telling us he wants us to meet his friend. I didn't even recognize the uniform at first. I was still overwhelmed with just finally just BEING here and my first Space Mountain ride.

Finally, it dawns on me that this fella is wearing blue and white, and that fact should be significant to me. Before I know it, we have DREAM FASTPASSES hanging around our necks! SWEEEET! I think I managed to blurt out a few thank yous before we stepped away. I knew what they were; I tried to explain it to Tony as we hurried into our Buzz vehicle, but we were quickly swept up into the ride. Even with my holding-the-trigger-down trick, Tony still beat me. Dangit!

Here is the prized possession:

And here's Tony. I think he's still not QUITE sure what's it's all about, but I've explained enough and he can see how excited I am, that he's figured out enough to know that he should be happy about it (also, he just beat me at Buzz):

The whole time we were making the journey from the bus to the turnstiles, up Main Street, through Tomorrowland and up to Space Mountain I had felt myself smiling. Just beaming with the joy of it all. After this, I didn't know how we would ever get that smile off my face. My cheeks literally started hurting after a while, but there was nothing I could do about it. And I didn't care.

After Buzz, we took a spin on Stitch. In '01 we had done the ExtraTerrorEstrial Encounter (or whatever it was called) and I remember it had been pretty convincing. But I concur with the masses that this attraction is now boring. Cute enough for one try every couple of years, but definately a let down. I have a pic of the sign, but I didn't resize it, and we all know what it looks like.

After Stitch, we cross over into Adventureland. Tony decides to buy some sunglasses (I had brought my trusty driving sunglasses). I tsk him for buying $18.00 sunglasses in Disney World (we usually buy the $8.00 ones at Walgreens). We head over to FastPass the 20 minute Jungle Cruise line. I originally thought we would wait in line and save the FP for later to come back and ride again when the line was longer. But I had a brief flashback of standing in that line in '01 and it snaking ever so sneakily off to the other side just as you thought you were getting close to the entrance.

Next stop, the tiki tiki tiki tiki tiki room. I last saw this show when I was 10 years old. I don't know if the old show was still going or if it was under new management in '01 because we didn't go then. I kept getting outvoted and we ran out of time. So this was a must this trip. It's a cute show. I'd do it once a trip, especially if it was raining. We had a big spot light right in our eyes, so pics were difficult, but here's my best one of the finale:

During the show I felt my phone vibrating. I checked it once we got outside. It was work. My first thought was that my brother had to bring Louie in for an emergency, so I called back right away. Fat chance. They were calling about something stupid. Amazing how you can answer your own question if you just pull that patient's file, open it, and read the last entry! They called me back again for another lame reason later that day and I made it a point to remind them not so gently that I'm in FLORIDA on VACATION. The vacation is costing me money and I'm not getting paid to work right now. The phone call is costing me money and I'm roaming right now. STOP CALLING ME!

I need a pick-me-up. Let's head to pirates. I LOVE the Davy Jones mist curtain they added. Maybe there was a mist curtain there before, but I don't remember it. I just really like this detail. Try as I might, I couldn't get any halfway decent pictures inside, though the boat in front of us was merrily flashing away, so I could have just turned on my flash, but that wouldn't be very Disney of me.

We were making good time thanks to our handy-dandy DREAM FASTPASSES, so we lingered in the pirates shop a bit. I got a tan colored PotC shirt to wear for MNSSHP tomorrow. I wanted Tony to get the pirate Mickey ears, but he suddenly decided he wanted to collect hats. I found him a red skull-and-crossbones bandana and was able to talk him out of buying the dreadful fake dreadlocks hat and convinced him instead to buy the much more tasteful, simple 3-pointed brown pirate hat to go over the bandana.

It's 11:30am and we are hungry. What's nearby? I don't know, but I do know where Columbia Harbor House is, and that there are bathrooms nearby and that it's close to Haunted Mansion. Ok, let's go. I get the chicken/fish combo and Tony gets the chicken. The chicken is actually pretty good, certainly better than the nuggets from Puck last night. The fish is decent, nothing to rave about.

Onward to the Haunted Mansion:

I always like this invisible horse and carriage, but wouldn't it be more cool if the carriage was invisible and you could see the horse? No? I guess it wouldn't have quite the same effect.

We had the taller top-hat hitchhiker riding with us. We saw the hidden mickey on the dining room table; it was all the way on the left side.

Oh, hey, look. The Liberty Bell paddle boat. We have time; want to ride? Sure why not. I've never ridden it before, because well, we have the real thing in New Orleans.

We see our first-timer friends from the bus stop this morning come up behind us in line. They look hot and tired. I told them we were doing really well and asked them how they were enjoying their first day. They said they should have followed our plan. I left it at that. No sense in making them relive what seemed to be a bad morning. Let them get some rest and breeze on the boat. Of course I didn't get any pictures of the boat itself, but here's Thunder Mountain from the top deck of the boat:

Well, that was nice. Look, here's the Hall of Presidents. You said you wanted to do the educational stuff too, right? Ok, let's go. When we walked in, the entrance hall was maybe 1/8 full. All the seats were taken, so to kill time until the show, I began walking around the perimeter and looking at the pictures and artifacts. When we completed the perimeter I started to meander back to the closed theater doors, when Tony pipes up "They left a few people out. That's it?" Hehe. Poor Tony. He didn't realize there was a theater and a show.

I believe he enjoyed the show about as much as you can enjoy Hall of Presidents, but that was quickly eclipsed by the fact that as we walked out the theater his brand-new, less-than-6-hours-old sunglasses were gone. Not in the theater. Not turned in to lost and found. Cue the temper tantrum. I had to remind him he can't use those words in Disney around the little kids.

Now I realize this is extremely frustrating, especially when you just bought the sunglasses after being told not to. But this is so typical Tony I was chuckling inside. Though I was also mad that he can't keep track of his things like an adult.

We headed over to the smoking section by Thunder Mountain since he hadn't smoked since before we got to the park that morning and he was mid-tantrum over the glasses. I used MissCammie's approach and told him I understand that it sucks, but he had until he finished smoking to lose the attitude and get over it or I would go finish this park on my own because his tantrum is not on my vacation itenerary. What do you know, it worked.

We fastpassed Thunder Mountain and had a rootin' tootin' time. We were right there, so he convinced me to fastpass Splash Mountain too. Ok fine, but only since we have the DREAM FASTPASSES. But I wore the bag and the poncho. It was not hot enough to get soaked. Nor do I like drops. He doesn't like sharp turns. I like Thunder better, and he likes Splash better. Sigh. Time to get out of this part of the park.

The rail road was just pulling into the Frontierland train station, so we hopped on and rode it through ToonTown and on to Main Street. Here we are on the train. Notice the pirate hat he had to have and the lack of sunglasses:

Here, on our second trip down Main Street, now that we aren't being whisked along by the rope drop rush, we have time to pause and look at the scenery:

It's getting to be about that hot part of the day and even though we brought gatorade with us and had replenished the bottles with ice water, I was fiending for a cold diet-coke and a place to sit. Originally, we got in line for ice cream, but I realized I wasn't feeling the ice cream and what I really needed was my caffine fix. We found a couple of abandoned chairs in front of the bakery on Main Street that I held down while Tony went in search of the diet coke.

The 3:00 parade was going to be passing soon, so we stayed put and watched from our seats behind the crowd. You remember what I said in the pre-trip itenerary about seeing parades. I managed to snap a few halfway decent pics:

During the parade it began to drizzle lightly. After the parade we headed toward Fantasyland for the one attraction we needed to see in Fantasyland today: Mickey's PhilharMagic. This is the view heading to Fantasyland:

Notice that slight sliver of light behind the clouds? Yeah, that's the last we saw of that.

Anyway, onward to PhilharMagic. I'd done the other 3-D movies in '01 (Tough to be a Bug, Honey I Shrunk the Audience and Muppet Vision), so I went into this thinking I knew what was what. We used the fastpass line to get into the next show since people were starting to crowd in from the drizzles. WOW! This show is Excellent! So immersive. Defiantely my favorite 3-D show, hands-down, no-contest. Tony was really blown away too.

When we came out, we couldn't really move. The crowds were stopped under the overhang, afraid of melting in the rain. The poor CMs were doing their best to keep people moving. Since we had the dream fastpasses, we popped on our ponchos and hopped next door to Peter Pan. I've never ridden it, at least not that I remember. It was cute, but I wouldn't wait in line for it.

Now the rain is really coming down steady and it looks like it's not going to let up. So much for the 20 minute Florida showers. The good news is that between the rain and the DREAM FASTPASSES we didn't stand in any lines at all, all day. We are way ahead of schedule, so we decide to see what else we can do in Tomorrowland. We make a pit stop at Winnie the Pooh since we had the DREAM FASTPASSES (am I rubbing that in enough?) and it is on our way. Another really cute ride. Had a good time bouncing with Tigger, and I would definately ride again, but I wouldn't wait in line for it. It's just too short.

We head over to try our luck at Buzz again, and it's a walkon. Tony beat me again. As we're walking out, I spot the Carousel of Progress. Hey, it's out of the rain and I haven't seen it in 10 years. As we're walking up, here comes Buzz Lightyear to start his meet and greet. Tony told him we just finished defeating Zurg for him and he seemed excited about that. He saw our anniversary button, gave us a thumbs up for 5 years, and made us kiss. After a good little interaction I got his autograph stamp and his pic with Tony:

DIG the big blue poncho.

After CoP, we took a spin on the Tomorrowland Transit Authority. Then we hit up the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor. I thought the trick was to sit in a row that didn't have lamps to not get picked, but I saw people sitting in non-lamp rows getting on screen, so I was a little nervous. But we made it through without getting picked on. Tony got a kick out of "That Guy." I hadn't nailed down how they were picking audience members by the time the show was over, so I promised myself we wouldn't go back in there until I knew how to be safe.

We decided to give Space Mountain one more go. We used our fastpasses, though they really weren't necessary. Then we head over to Cosmic Ray's for dinner, where we both have the double bacon cheeseburgers and order a side of chili-cheese fries. The burgers were decent enough, but the chili on the chili-cheese fries was icky. We rested in Cosmic Ray's for a bit and then went off to locate a spot for Spectro. We finally settled on a planter behind a large group by Hall of Presidents. I was going to sit on the edge of the planter, but when I saw CMs walking by and NOT telling the others to not stand on it, I stood up on it too. I was still trying to get the hang of my camera, so here are a few pics I manged to get:

I wanted a better spot for Wishes, so I tried to direct us to the green area found on Robo's map. Tony just kept-a walkin'. Uh, hello? Where are you going? After a little squabble of me trying to remind him that I'M the one who knows what we're doing and where we need to go, I convinced him to stop walking closer to the train station, but I couldn't convince him to try to get any closer. I wanted to find a trash can to steady my camera on for the fireworks, but the nearest one was occupied by a child. We talked to the family a bit, while mom sat in stroller and son sat on garbage can with dad holding him. Dad has the same camera as me. But mine was free. Here's what my camera captured. The castle is blurry in most of the shots, but I think it captured the fireworks pretty well:

After Wishes, we high-tail it to the monorail to TTC, then hop the bus to Hollywood Studios. We arrived just before 10:00pm.

The music was pumping; it felt like a big party, but not too many people. And I was psyching myself up for our big thrill rides. I chose Tower of Terror first because it had a shorter line. We waited about 20 minutes. I was over-playing the role of nervous in the line a little bit. We ended up joking with the group next to us - a young couple and what seemed to be the girl's younger sister? The little girl was acting all brave, though she had never been on the ride either. The other guy and I told her we would make her sit between us so we could both barf on her. She got a kick out of it. Whatever.

So we get on our elevator and I'm holding on for dear life. And wouldn't you know when I think it's safe to relax because this can't be it yet, we drop. And lift. And drop. And drop. And drop. Ug. Not again. The worst part was going back up and not pausing before suddenly dropping again. I really hated that sensation. Overall, it wasn't as bad as I imagined, but I did a dramatic drop-to-my-knees for effect in the exiting lobby and proclaimed "Never Again!" I could probably go on it again in a few years if I had to, but it won't be on my must-do list any time soon. Oh yeah, Tony bought the $20.00 picture. Why?

So we trot over to Rock n' Rollercoaster and jump into the 30 minute line. Aerosmith is blaring; I'm pumped. About 3 minutes into the wait, Tony is freaking out. He hears the announcement about the pregnant women, siezures, bad back, etc. and starts babbling about my bad back (I get spasms when I'm SLEEPING). Going on and on. I ask him what's his problem and apparently falling in an elevator is suddenly some big fear he's always had (that's he's conviently never told me about) and he's all shaken from Tower of Terror and he's chickening out on RnR! I ask him "You really don't want to ride this?" "NO!" Fine. We snake our way out of line. I tell the line attendant he chickened out and storm off ahead of him. I'm ticked. This is the whole point of coming here tonight.

So now what to do? I storm through the Villains in Vogue shop, disgusted that everything is Nightmare Before Christmas with not a single Scar or Sher Khan shirt, much less other merchandise, to be found. Without discussion, I make a bee line for Star Tours. I know it will be walk on and it was my favorite ride at the park. We walk all the way straight up to simulator and only pause long enought to wait for the next flight. I casually toss out "oh, by this way, this is just like a roller coaster" as we're boarding. Hey, I was mad. We sat in the front row. Dangit. I forgot the back was bumpier.

We made it to Endor and I calmed down enough to discuss our next move with Tony. We settled on the Great Movie Ride and had to wait a few minutes for the next car, or maybe they only had one car running at a time. By the time we got going, we had almost a full car. By the time we finished, it was just after midnight and time to head to the front gate. We bussed back to Music, walked back to Movies and it wasn't long before we were both passed out.

No pictures from Hollywood this night. Between being nervous, being mad and being late, the camera stayed in my purse.

 

[jwhtewolfd]

Tuesday 9/23/08

Animal Kingdom

Stitch and Mickey wake us up at 7:00am. We are a little more organized this morning and as we headed out to Music's bus stop I was very excited, though very sore. I should not have done that dancing around when we first got to Hollywood last night. My shins and calves are paying for it today. We were reasonably close to the turnstiles waiting for the park to open when we began discussing the plan.

What with Tony chickening out last night, I was not about to waste precious rope-drop time and fastpass time on a roller coaster we wouldn't ride, so we vetoed Expedition Everest and elected instead to bee line for Kilamanjaro Safari. I was extremely dismayed to find that the times I had looked up the week before on Steve Soares website had changed ever-so-slightly, but just enough to throw a wrench in my meticulously constructed plans. I'd have to wing it.

We watched the somewhat lame opening show and as we stampeded to the Safari, my mind raced trying to figure out how we would fit this all in. Before I knew it, our safari jeep was on the move. Here's the obligate Tree of Life with morning crowd pic:

I have to say that I was rather disappointed in the safari. For starters, it moves entirely too fast for anyone wishing to capture anything on film - ironic, considering they specifically mention a PHOTO safari in the announcements when starting the ride. Secondly, we were there very early (remember we are there for rope drop and this is our first attraction) and we hardly saw any animals.

The guide kept telling us "here's one, but there are more we might see," "it's ok if you don't see them, they're camouflaged," "they're hard to see, they sleep alot," "we don't see them much, they're shy." Enough! If you're going to design a ride that is supposed to let us see animals, how about letting us see some animals? I know the animals need a certain amount of space and such, I worked at a zoo...but can't we make it so that the enclosure they are in makes them easily visible to visitors? Wouldn't it be possible to rotate them in and out of the exhibit area throughout the day so one animal doesn't have all the stress of being on stage all the time? Surely there must be a happy-medium here.

And my biggest complaint - yes, I know it's a theme park, and I know it's a ride, but I think they focused far too much on the ride and not nearly enough on seeing the animals. I'm not interested in chasing poachers and saving an ANIMATRONIC baby elephant. If you had a real baby ANYTHING at least that would be interesting, even if you did have to change it up a bit depending on what type of young animal is available. Here are a few decent shots I got:

Notice that 2 of my 4 good pictures are of INANIMATE OBJECTS! Perhaps I would not have been so disappointed if I had not been trying to take pictures and if we had ridden later in the day and I wasn't expecting to see too many animals. After the safari Tony bought a safari hat and donated a dollar to the conservation effort and received a pin.

I decided we should walk the Pangani Trail since we were right there and get this part of the park done. Besides, it might cheer me up to get some good animal pics. Alas, this was the gorilla trail, and of all animals, primates are my least favorite. Too much like people - ick. So I was not cheered and I was starting to feel disheartened that my favorite park was letting me down...and my legs really hurt. Here a couple of pics of Pangani Trail I managed to take through my grumpies:

It's now about 9:45am and I wanted to make Flights of Wonder at 10:30am, but I didn't want to sit around doing nothing for 30 minutes waiting for the show. So we went the long way around Discovery Island and found the It's Tough to be a Bug entrance. We got stuck behind some non-english speaking people that were just mesmerized by the Tree of Life roots (which I admit are cool, but we are on a time frame here!) and kept stopping to take pictures in the middle of the queue! Come on, people! I know it's cool, but if you're going to stop in the narrow queue to take pictures, let the other people behind you by!

As I said, they didn't speak english, or they were just ignoring us, so finally we stopped trying to be polite and just pushed by. But our rudeness was for naught, as we sprinted up just as they were closing the theater doors - with almost no one inside! Grr! So we had to wait for the next showing. By now I'm throwing a hissy fit inside my head. My schedule is so screwed up! How dare those slow pokes make us miss this show by a few seconds!

When finally the doors opened for us, I really wasn't in the mood to ENJOY the show. I held my breath during the stink bug and I sat forward when I knew the stinger was coming. I had remembered the stinger from '01. Me, my mom and my brother all thought it was excessively forceful and hurt our backs. I think Tony liked it alright, but really, whether I was in a good mood or not, it still doesn't compare to PhilharMagic.

Now we're sprinting to Flights of Wonder and just barely make it before the show starts. The next two events make me decide to lighten up, let go, enjoy my day and just take what comes. Hakuna Matata, right? That's iiiit.

1. Flights of Wonder is a good little show: lots of beautiful birds and cool audience fly-overs, good conservation message and also mildly entertaining humor. The raven, Poe, performed the trick where he flies into the audience, takes a dollar from someone and flies back to the trainer and puts it in her pocket. On his flight back to her, one of his feathers dropped right at Tony's feet. He scooped it up and held on to it. After the show I helped him pin it to his safari hat. A regular yankee-doodle! He claimed it was the only free souvenir he was going to get. Some good news according to the show: the bald eagle has been removed from the engangered species list! Hooray!

The eagle didn't do any fly-overs. Too valuable to allow that is my guess.
And here's Tony's spiffy new hat, complete with raven feather:

2. By the time we hoofed it from Flights of Wonder ending at 11:00am, we just barely made it to Festival of the Lion King at 11:30am. They directed us to a section, which turned out to be the LION section! Yay!

This show was even more than I imagined. It is so great. The music, the performers, the production - everything is just wonderful, festive and completely turned my mood around. Tony really enjoyed the tumble monkeys and got really into our "roaring" part. Even though pictures don't do this show any justice at all, here a few I managed to get:

After the show we know we need to eat soon since we have early dinner ADRs, so we stop in at the nearby Pizzafari. This is the best counter service so far. I order the pepperoni pizza, which is pretty tasty. Tony goes for the chicken parm sandwich and it is delicious. Lightly fried, lots of cheese, tasty sauce. Chicken is tender and juicy. Yum.

We head back to Camp Minnie-Mickey for the Pocahontas training session. I saw a video of the regular show and thought it was maybe a little too kiddy for us, but since it is ending after this week and we want to at least make an appearance, I thought maybe the training session might prove interesting. It was kinda cute. First they had two turkeys run to a mark on stage, then run back. They were perfect on the first take.

Next there was a raccoon that was supposed to walk out with a scroll, hand it to the trainer, and run off stage. It took her a few tries, but she finally got it! I don't know why I don't have pictures of this, because I think raccoons are crazy cute. I don't remember if they told us no pictures so as not to distract the animals, or if I was just too stuffed from lunch to remember to break out the camera.

A second raccoon came out and practiced waving good-bye a few times. He still needed his trainer to come out and give him a visual cue, but he did very well the last time and was just adorable.

After Pocahontas, we walked over to Finding Nemo to find what I thought was a very short line for us arriving so close to show time. Turned out it seemed like we were the hold overs that they weren't sure would fit in the theater. When they let us in to a packed theater, I realized we were lucky. We managed to find some seats toward the front, but way off to the right.

I was very sleepy during this show, so that may have swayed my opinion of it a bit, but I wasn't overly impressed. Sure, the costumes and puppets were amazing, but the music is just so-so. And I had the hardest time watching the puppets instead of the puppeteers. What made it harder was when the puppeteers would interact with the other puppet, or even worse, with each other. My brain was so confused. Like I said, maybe I was just tired, but I wasn't as impressed as I was with Festival of the Lion King. I was too tired to try to take flashless pictures - those are alot of work - so I didn't take any.

We sleepily meander over to Dinosaur. Tony's a little nervous about what it does, but I asure him he'll like it and it's no big deal thrill-wise. I think he still doesn't quite trust me about ride intensity since last night. Afterward, Tony admitted he had fun, but thought it was too dark and we couldn't see enough.

Primeval Whirl is down for refurbishment and we have a little more time until dinner, so we make our way out of Dinoland and into Asia, where we walk the Maharajah Trek. Tapirs, bats and tigers are more my speed of animal. A few pics:

It never really got hot enough to ride Kali River Rapids, and I certainly didn't want to get soaked right before going into an A/C restaurant. We back-tracked to Yak and Yeti and were seated in a not-very-crowded patio-esque room that happened to have a slight view of the parade as it passed. Neat. One more thing I had been hoping for. Couldn't really see much of the parade at all, but colorful float tops count when you are tired and enjoying a good meal.

We started with the pork egg rolls, and they were so good we got a second order. I ordered the crispy mahi mahi, which was pretty good. Tony got the baby back ribs. He said the flavor was good, but they were tough. I had the fried wonton dessert and it was good. The cream cheese was a little awkward for me, but the rest tasted like pastry. Tony had the raspberry, lemon and mango sorbet. He really like the mango, I thought the lemon was very tasty and they were all very refreshing. By the time dinner was done, the park was closing and we are heading out to MNSSHP in Magic Kingdom! Here's a parting shot of the Tree of Life:

On our way out the gate I finally found a 2008 AK shirt in my size and we picked up a keychain for a friend. Hop a bus to TTC, take Tony on his first monrail ride and arrive at destination: Magic Kingdom.

Next up: Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party!

 

[Loriann70]

Great report! Keep it coming!

 

[Philadisney]

i'm all caught up on your report so far! And I bought that exact same kitty magnet I have to get a picture to put in it though!
I remember having a similar experience at Wolfgang Puck's - it was underwhelming.
YAY Dream Fastpasses! They are really a great thing to win - the gift of time at WDW is a big deal!
I hate having to deal with work on vacation. I didn't get many calls but I was required to check my email once a day and at one point the work stuff was frustrating me so much I burst into tears - not how I want to be spending my vacation! I don't like It's Tough to be a Bug either - we always skip it now. It definitely pales next to Philharmagic!

 

[jwhtewolfd]

We arrive at the Magic Kingdom right on time at 6:00pm. We enter the turnstiles with our party tickets and proceed to be ignored by not one, but two wristband-holding CMs. We wait a few seconds to be acknowledged. I walk up to one of them (with party ticket in hand) and ask for our wristbands. She seems completely confused. I then hold up my ticket and ask for the wristbands again. She starts babbling something about needing party tickets.

Hello?! Do you not see THESE TICKETS? RIGHT HERE? IN MY HAND? Do you not see us already through the turnstiles? Can I please just have my wristbands?

A few confused minutes later, finally wristbanded, we traipse into the Magic Kingdom wondering what in the World to do. We covered way more ground yesterday than I thought possible, so my plan was out the window again. Hakuna Matata.

This is supposed to be our magical fun night, and what place is more magical and fun than Fantasyland?! As we wander about aimlessly, I guess it's the lack of a line that possesses me to suggest It's a Small World. It can't be SO bad. Right?

It's not SO bad. But I wouldn't wait in line for it and I would make sure it's not the last ride of the night. Luckily we still have lots of Halloween music to come to get stuck in our heads instead.

"What next?" Tony asks. He almost gets smacked later on for continuing to say this. He must have said "what next" three times for every picture I took on this trip. And I racked up about 1,200 pictures. At one point during the party I handed him the party map and said, "This is what's open. YOU pick something." Even worse, everytime I would suggest something, it wasn't good enough. I finally learned to stop consulting Tony on what to do next. I started just walking to whichever attraction I wanted to do next and he would follow. Then the only questions I got were "What's this?" and "What's it do?"

Anyway, next is Haunted Mansion. "This is Halloween," afterall. This time we found the hidden Mickey by the Grim Reaper. The line had grown by the time we came out, so it was time to leave the area.

"What next?" Let's check out ToonTown since we only rode by it on the rail road yesterday. Look, the kiddy rollercoaster Goofy's Barnstormer! Think you can handle it, Tony? We looked like complete fools amidst the two-foot-tall children, especially when they tried to seat both of us (pooh size people) in one car, but we rode the Barnstormer. Step one in rollercoaster conquerization complete!

"What next?" Let's meet some characters. Hmmm, no; not princesses. Let's blow this joint. Oh wait! It's Mickey's house! We HAVE to meet Mickey. There's a little line, but we have time...and it's MICKEY. I forgot to mention in the last update that earlier in Animal Kingdom we got in line to meet Pooh, Piglet, Tigger and Eeyore. But just as we were second in line, they all left. The CMs said they'd be "right back." I don't mind this when a change-over is close by, but in AK they have to go all the way back to the gate way over by Camp Minnie-Mickey before their replacements can come out. Even though I was Hakuna Matata, we had shows to see and dinner ressies to make, so we left.

So we hop in line and Tony immediately makes friends with the young family in front of us. I had to remind him and the dad that it is uncouth to discuss costume logistics in front of the kids. (It's ok to discuss it on the DIS because we KNOW the characters are real, we just PRETEND they are costumes in case any of the kids are scared.)

After a lightning fast potty break Mickey is back and we finally get to meet the Mouse in all his Willy Wonka glory:

Ok, enough of this kid stuff. Let's go have some real adult fun in...Fantasyland!

We decide Mickey's PhilharMagic is worth another spin. SUCH a good show.

Then on to some classic fun on Cinderella's Carousel. I promised my boss, who loves carousel horses, that I would take lots of pictures for her. So I did. LOTS. Here are just a select few:

We found out later that this handsome guy is Prince Charming's horse:

Walking around the carousel, we discover this:

Now put some effort into it!

Alas, Tony is not destined to rule Camelot. ...

Ok, we've goofed off enough. What can we do now? Let's go see Mickey's PhilharMagic again! Oh yeah. This time we slow down enough to notice the gift shop:

This is where we encounter our first really cool CM. The cashier struck up a conversation with us while ringing up Tony's Chip-and-Dale-taunting-Donald shirt. She sounds really excited about the party and told us not to miss the beginning of the parade.

Time to go get seats for the Boo to You Parade. I hold down the curbside real estate while Tony goes for funnel cake. While waiting, we watch the Villains Mix and Mingle show several times from afar, but we never get close enough to actually mingle.

Eventually the Headless Horseman comes tearing around the bend! Totally blew that photo op. But here are a few other pics of the parade:

After the parade I stand in a ridiculous line for a diet coke. The CM behind the cart had absolutely no sense of huge-line-put-a-move-on.

Back to the prime real estate to wait for HalloWishes. VERY cool fireworks display. Now I'll polish off the 25-pictures-per-post limit with some Happy Hallowishes:

A little more souvenir shopping in the Emporium and they're kicking us out. Not really, but it is midnight and we're very tired and very achy.

So brilliant tired genius that I am, I put us on the monorail to TTC. Nope. The All Star buses are back at Magic Kingdom. DOH! This wouldn't be such a problem except for our lack of sleep and aching legs and feet. Sorry, Tony. For real this time. Back to the monorail. Back to the Magic Kingdom. We did pass through the resorts, which would have been cool to see had we the energy to focus our eyes.

Wearily we trek to the bus stops. Deserted by now. Yikes. I stand between the ropes looking helplessly toward the parked buses a thousand miles away. Miraculously, a bus pulls up to the Music stop and the driver asks us where we're going. Uh, Music. But I'm too tired for sarcasm. This bus driver is my savior. Another lagging couple joins us and we finally make it back to Music, across the parking lot to Movies, up the elevator to our room and into a hot bath to soak the protesting muscles.

I somehow remember to set the wake up call and pass out.

Next up: Ep-a-cot! (as my brother called it on his first trip when he was 5 and I was 10)

 

[jwhtewolfd]

Wednesday 9/24/08 - Epcot

Stitch and Mickey wake us up. Well, they wake me up. Tony, not so much. He needed some prodding. "Come ON, Bunny, wake up. It's EPCOT!"

We finally make it. Look!

I'm not very picture-happy this morning, partly because I'm very tired from last night and very little sleep, partly because my legs are very sore from two days of 9am - midnight, and partly because I'm enjoying just walking around, seeing things and talking with Tony.

We end up pretty close to the rope, one or two people back and after the drop we somehow manage to be on the heels of the CMs. I like how the CMs lead you right to the big rides. I like that they don't let newbies get lost while all the pros know the shortest route. Since I had been studying the maps, I know vaguely where to head, but since we were following the CMs we were on easy street. Except that the hike to Soarin' ain't so easy.

But we make it and we are on the first run of the day for Soarin'. Front row! This is so cool. I really like it, but Tony really, really likes it. He can't stop raving. We decide to grab a Fastpass on the way out because we just have to ride this again.

Now we head on over to Test Track. By the time we saunter over from the Land, it's 9:20 am. The wait is only 20 minutes, so we hop in line. We're enjoying looking around as we make our way through the queue to catch up to the line. Uh oh. Look there. There's a car stuck on the outside track. Right in front of the window above the entrance. Then starts the announcement. You know the one: technical difficulties, resume in a few moments, blah, blah, blah. Ok. We'll wait a few moments. Meanwhile we're watching a mechanic? ride operator? walk out onto the practically vertical track where those poor people are stuck sitting sideways. He lifts the hood and rummages around a bit. Nope. They're walking those folks off the ride. So obviously this is gonna take a while. Let's get out of here.

Continuing in our counterclockwise path, next up is Mission: Space. As we approach the beginning of the queue, the CM asks us which intensity we'd like. I say "the non-vomit version, please." He smiles and hands us green cards. There's hardly anyone in line. We end up in a pre-show with our team of four (me, Tony and two slightly older ladies) and one other team.

During the pre-show one of the ladies in our team starts to really panic. "I can't do it, I can't do it!" Ok. Don't do it. But stop yelling.

The door opens for us to walk to our respective numbers. Our capsule is right by the door. Tony and I take our places on our numbers like good little astronauts. Meanwhile our teammembers are still hunkered down in the pre-show room, "I can't do it! I can't do it!" The CM tells her ok, just come to the exit. "I can't do it! I can't do it!" Ok, you don't have to. But come to the exit. "I can't do it! I can't do it!" Well, you have to come out of that room. "I can't do it!" Well you can't stay in there all day. We can hear her friend trying to explain that there must be an exit. "I can't do it!" Are you going to stay in there all day? "What?" Finally the poor CM, who by this point was pretty frustrated with the woman having a panic attack about going through a door, convinces the woman to step through the door and out to the exit. So Tony and I are about to face our first Mission: Space two members short of a flight crew. Yikes.

Now I've done enough reading to know that the buttons don't really mean anything, but we were seeing this mission through. We sat in the two middle seats. I worked the right side, Tony worked the left side, and we hit all those buttons right on cue. We made it! I'm a little underwhelmed about the whole thing. What's the big deal about? It's a happy little ride and we enjoyed it. It's almost Fantasyland-ish. Well, the green side anyway.

Let's backtrack a bit to Test Track. Nope. Still broken. Our fastpass window is open again, so we grab Test Track Fastpasses (yay, I didn't interchange the words). Moving on to Ellen's Universe of Energy. Hmm, the only pic of the sign I got has a CMs rear in the air as she's weeding the garden. I think I'll forgo smearing that across the internet. The dinosaur pics were extremely blurry too.

We like Ellen well enough. Who doesn't? The show was cute. I liked the part when she scolded the people arriving late. The dinosaurs were nice enough, but really the whole thing is much too long. I think this ride would be much more popular if it didn't eat up almost a whole hour of park time. Though it's a nice rest for the aching legs.

We make a bathroom/smoke stop and pass on to Spaceship Earth. I'm ready to ride, but the deceptive length of the line spooks Tony. I try to explain to him that it's a fast loading ride, but he doesn't want to stand in any line. So at 11:10am we head over to the Seas for our 11:30am Coral Reef ADR:

Much good it does us. They don't open until 11:30, and when they say 11:30, they mean 11:30. They didn't even send someone up to man the check in desk until 11:30. So we checked in AT 11:30. It's anyone's guess when we were actually seated. A word of advice: make your ADRs for 11:30am. If they're already behind at 11:40, I'd hate to see how behind they are come dinner time.

But it's really a nice place, almost swanky. My obligate pic of the pretty booths facing the aquarium:

Our table is right by the aquarium. Here's a few blurry shots:

Tony wanted to order the Land and Sea appetizer. The shrimp have a good grilled flavor and the beef is very tender, but the portion is TINY.

I'm considering the Mahi Mahi, but I just had Mahi Mahi yesterday. We both order the New York Strip. DE-LISH-US. This was probably the best steak I had all week. The vinegar dip for the bread was also very tasty.

I suddenly remember we have to try the famous lobster bisque. Oh, waiter! Mmmm, it's excellent. Thick, rich and creamy.

Dessert is to die for. I'm trying the chocolate wave, and wow. Warm and rich, this would be the PERFECT dessert for cuddling up in a warm fuzzy blanket on a cold night. And seriously high octane cherries.

Tony tries the Baileys and Jack Daniels Mousse, which is also very good. Probably more suited for the weather we're in, but not quite as good as the chocolate wave.

I leave a nice tip for our waiter who so quickly brought us our lovely bisque, and we waddle the short distance to the Seas:

The ride is short and sweet. I'm tempted to go see Crush, but I'm just too full to deal with a room full of kids right now. Seriously? Is that possible? Oh yeah. 1. You can always be too full to do something and 2. Any excuse is a good enough excuse to avoid dealing with a room full of kids.

We walk the aquarium exhibits instead. Some punky-spikey fish:

Nemo!

Dorie! or is it Dorey? I don't know, I've only seen the movie once.

Flotsam! or is it Jetsam? I think it's their spotted cousin, Lagan. (Look it up - what can I say, my dad likes to fish.)

Though they're graceful when they're swimming, it's hard to believe sailors thought they were women:

We cracked up when we heard that song. We stayed a little longer just to hear it again.

The dolphins are frolicking in full force:

He's laughing!:

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the legendaray, the infamous Davy Jones!...er, cuttlefish:

Can't you just hear this little guy sneering "I AM the sea!"

Potty break. More so to sit down than to actually potty. And onward to the Land. Since it's the first attraction as you walk in, we head into the Circle of Life movie. It's a little in your face, but now we can say we've seen it. Living With the Land is next. Ah, a nice relaxing boatri...HOLY COW that sun is BRIGHT! Good thing I'm not in vampire mode today. The greenhouse takes me a little by surprise, but is interesting none-the-less. Ok, enough fooling around. Ready to go Soarin' again! Front row seats again! Score!

Next we make our way to the Imagination Pavillion. I just love those jumping fountains. Is it just me, or is everyone else fascinated by fountains too? I can sit and watch fountains all day. Well, not in Disney World though. We've got bigger, better things to do. We Journey into Imagination with Figment. I remember him being cuter than this. Oh well.

Honey, I Shrunk the Audience is still cute, but again, pales in comparison to PhilharMagic. Though of the three "lesser" 3-D shows, I think this is my favorite. What can I say? I like snakes and dogs. Walking out of the Imagination Pavillion, I had to stop Tony to help him wipe some dog snot off his face. Hehe. I crack myself up.

We swing by Mouse Gear. I need a new pair of sunglasses. My trusty driving glasses are not use to this much abuse. And they live in the hot car. The plastic on the nose rests has given up. It's cracking and peeling and falling off at an alarming rate. And it's hurting my nose. I stop to look at shirts and pick out a patriotic Mickey-Donald-Goofy sillhouettes against an American flag for my mom and a "Life's good when you're the big cheese" shirt for my brother.

Picking out sunglasses has always been tough for me because apparently I have a small face and most of the frames are too big. Of the two frames I could find that would fit, one had writing on the lens, which I hate, and one was $20.00! I bit the bullet and went for the $20.00 sunglasses. I could normally buy two or three pairs of sunglasses for that much. Tony's jealous of my new shades and has to get a pair of his own. I look at him skeptically. I don't say anything, but the look says it all: "Fine. Blow your money. But I will NOT listen to any tantrums when you lose them. AGAIN."

After another cashier that has nothing to do, like say, oh, check people out in a time-efficient manner, we are out of Mouse Gear and on to Test Track. Finally working! Yay! Tony really likes it, which I told him he would, but he's still a little nervous that I'll put him on some rollercoaster without telling him what it is. As if! Well...maybe.

Test Track finished, it's time to see the world. That's "world" with a "w," not "World" with a "W." We've been in the World this whole time. This world is in the World. Get it? Got it? Um, moving on.

Sometimes I don't crack me up so much.

The original plan was to work our way around Future World counter-clockwise and likewise for World Showcase, starting in Canada. Since Test Track was being tempermental and we're on the Mexico side now, we'll just start in Mexico and be ordinary and go clockwise. Well, we don't actually start in Mexico; we sort of skip right over Mexico and head strait for Norway.

I lead Tony to Maelstrom. He still doesn't quite trust me. Get on the bleepin' boat. The ride is not as dark as I remembered. I thought there was more "beware" and such, but that's probably just what stood out to me as a child. In the gift shop I find a troll that's almost an exact replica of the one my Grandma used to have in her house. But that one was a little bigger. And it was from the real Norway. And it drowned in Katrina. She never found it in the rubble. So I buy the cute little troll peeking out from under a cute little hat. Today it's cute. When I was little it was terrifying. I wouldn't go in the room that she kept it in. Luckily she had a big house and we never went in that room anyway.

Right about now it's time to start slowly making our way to Italy for dinner. Our waiter's name at Tutto Italia is Giovanni. How perfect. The bread and olive oil is classic Italian. Quite a few things look pretty good; I think I'll go with...the Sirloin Steak. Oh yeah. That's right. Steak for lunch. Steak for dinner. Can anyone say "heaven?"

Ok, so I'm not so adventurous in my Disney Dining, but dang it, I'm getting good value out of my dining plan ordering the most expensive streak on the menu at every resturaunt. Giovanni some how knew I wanted it medium-rare. Oh, he's getting a good tip. The steak is pretty good, though not quite as good as the strip at Coral Reef, IMHO.

Tony orders a glass of red wine. Then he tries the lasagna and can't stop raving. I give it a taste. Usually I'm pretty suspicious of unfamiliar lasagna, what with the funny cheeses and things people think they should put in them. This one is very simple, very classic, very tasty. Nothing fancy or silly about it. Just a nice hearty Italian lasagna.

For dessert, Tony went straight for the pistacio ice cream. I've never tried it and always thought it sounded gross. Who wants to eat booger-colored ice cream anyway? Tony made me try it, and guess what? It's gross! But he liked it.

I didn't see anything on the dessert menu that looked familiar or tasty. The "signature" dessert included a description that mentioned a chocolate sauce, so I thought I could at least scrape the sauce off and eat that if it turned out to be gross, so I muscled up my courage, stretched my culinary wings, and ordered "Bugie" (which I believe Giovanni pronounces "boo-gee," but I could be wrong - that's what 3 semesters of Italian in college will get ya - what do you want, I only passed my last semester with a D-, and that's only because my professor felt bad for me).

I wish, wish, wish I had remembered to take pictures of the food. Giovanni sets before me this massive towering plate of fried thin pastry strips sprinkled with powdered sugar, with chocolate and apricot dipping sauces. SO good. And SO huge. And SO good. Keep in mind I live in New Orleans. Home of the beignet. If anyone has tasted some real Cafe DuMonde beignets, you know what kind of heaven I'm talking about. I couldn't finish it all, though I really, really wanted to.

After dinner, I snapped what I thought would be a great picture of Spaceship Earth from Italy, but the proportions turned out really wrong:

Here's a slightly better Spaceship Earth from across the World Showcase lagoon:

And a little play on perspective:

We back tracked to Germany so Tony could get his bach beer. I THINK this is Germany, otherwise it's Norway. How cultured of me, eh?:

We didn't get to explore China enough for Tony, so we headed back counter-clockwise some more and got there just in time to catch a gymnastics show. Not completely polished, but loads of potential and still very impressive.

We press on and try to make our way around, but I spot a small bench in Japan near the Tori and I suddenly run out of gas. I barely made it to the bench. At 7:40pm I sat down and didn't move from that spot until Illuminations was over and we had to leave. My feet enjoyed a nice break from my shoes. As the sun set it actually started getting pretty cool. I eventually followed the good example of the family next to me and put on my rain poncho. It insulated a little bit of my own body heat and served as a wind breaker too.

While waiting for Illuminations, we saw a little bit of the Fantasmic! fireworks behind the Canada area. I heard a few people saying "Wishes!" but we all know better.

Illuminations was a little obscured by the Tori, but we got the idea. The globe was out center stage - er, lagoon. I think I remember the globe having been sort of pixelized the last time I saw it way back in '01. I know it just had a refurb though. The pictures were nice and clear, but I think it would be more effective to have the whole globe in use, rather than just the land masses. The earth is covered by a majority of water, afterall. Lovely fireworks, as usual.

We wearily start the long trek back to the front of Furture World. My legs are still protesting, but I shut them up long enough to catch a few pics of Spaceship Earth in it's nighttime splendor:

Here's esentially the same shot, but I caught Tony in it. See how he's saying to himself "What the h*** is the matter with her? Put the camera down already. Let's go! MY FEET HURT!"

And the nighttime colors:

Tomorrow: Hollywood Studios and Happy 5th Anniversary!

 

[jwhtewolfd]

9/25/08 Thursday - Hollywood Studios

Stitch shreaks around the room at 7:00 am. Then I doze off for another half hour. We don't make it to the turnstiles until about 5 minutes before rope drop. We are behind throngs of people and barely catch any of the opening show.

The cattle drive to Toy Story Midway Mania begins. By the time we get to the courtyard, the wait time is 20 minutes. By the time we get to the line, it's jumped to 40 minutes. Forget that. We get in line and get some fastpasses to return at 11:00am.

We've done Tower of Terror, and we don't plan on doing THAT ever again. We are still too achy and sore (and CHICKEN, TONY) to do Rockin' Rollercoaster. We've done the Great Movie Ride and Star Tours. So what do we want to do now that we've scored our Toy Story FPs? Let's do something totally new and unique. Something we've never done before. Let's get breakfast!

I study the guidemap and find that there are two breakfast options. ABC Commissary is supposed to have real breakfast. We head there and give the menu a glance. Tony could eat a couple things, but nothing looks good to me. Starring Rolls Cafe is supposed to have pastries and such, so we cross back over. Yeah, this is my kind of breakfast. Between the two of us we have a giant chocolate muffin, a croissant, an apple turnover, chocolate milk, orange juice and white milk. We finally made use of some of our snack credits.

We rest, digest and decide what to do next. I thought I remember the Magic of Disney Animation taking us past real animators. Either I remembered wrong, or they changed it, but the Mushu talk on how characters are developed and come to life was interesting anyway. Exiting the theater, we try our luck at finding out what Disney characters we are most like. I am Maleficent and Tony is Hades. Hey, this thing is pretty accurate!

Then I saw Sorcerer Mickey. We HAVE to get a picture. Tony whines that we already have a picture with Mickey. But that was Halloween Mickey. This is SORCERER Mickey. He reluctantly agrees after I pull the anniversary card on him. Oh yeah. Today's our 5 year anniversary. Yay us!

We almost left the building, but the sketches on the wall caught my attention and we stumbled upon my new favorite attraction: ANIMATION CLASS! We drew a classic, forward facing Donald Duck. Mine turned out pretty good. Tony's...not so much. I held on to them for dear life, but somehow they went missing sometime after Catastrophe Canyon. Very sad.

We head out of the animation studio and make our way toward Toy Story. On the way, we walk through One Man's Dream and read all the exhibits. We didn't catch the movie. No real reason. Just sort of kept walking. I'll be sure to catch it next year. Then we catch the Journey to Narnia: Prince Caspian. I knew not to expect much, but it was still pretty underwhelming. For such epic movies, the attraction is, well, not.

Finally it's time to try the much-hyped Toy Story Midway Mania. It was very cool. Tony likes it and thinks it's entertaining. We both think it's better than Buzz. Tony beat me with his score, but I have better accuracy. We both win bunnies! We grab some 7:15 pm return fastpasses.

Next we amble over to the Studio Backlot Tour. Tony just HAD to smoke first and the CM closed the chain when we were halfway up the ramp. Can't you fit just two more? (There was no one behind us yet.) No, the attraction is at capacity. I start to make a big deal about it to Tony right in front of the CM: "You just HAD to stop and smoke, didn't you? I told you I wasn't going to wait around for you while you smoke." I went on for a few seconds and I don't know if it was embarassment, sympathy or pity, but the CM let us through the chain. I don't really care which it was; it got us through the chain.

They're just starting the water special effects demo as we join the rest of the group. I thought I remembered a second indoor guest-participation demo, with kids riding the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids bee, but we went straight to the trolley/ride/jeep thing. I have heard tale that this attraction has been severely cut back, so maybe I'm not mis-remembering. Here's my not very well composed earful tower/matching topiary shot:

The plane used for ConAir! Love me some Nicholas Cage:

And the scooters from Indiana Jones! Also love me some Harrison Ford and Sean Connery:

I graciously had let Tony take the end seat this time since I had been hogging the end seats because I have the camera. Silly Tony. You should know better. I'm never gracious. Here's Catastrophe Canyon, with Tony on the wet side:

Next comes the must-see attraction (because it's the only exit!) of the AFI showcase: Villains You Love to Hate. We spend a good amount of time in here. What can I say, we're villain people.

The Darth Family:

Narnia's White Witch and her battle chariot:

Captain Barbossa (note that glass and flash don't mix well):

The Flying Dutchman's crew:

Davy Jones' pipe organ:

There's also a neat little video on how they created Davy Jones for the screen.

The giftshop yields a cute Darth Vader Goofy and Darth Mahl Donald shirt for Tony.

Time to head over to Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular. Which, while I love me some Harrison Ford, even for me, who's only seen it 4 or 5 times in 25 years, it's getting a bit not-so-spectacular. I don't think they've changed a single thing about it since the first time I saw it when I was five. It's still cool though, with some funny moments. Like when the stunt double tells us that the boulder is so dangerous and heavy:

We're getting a bit hungry, so we hit up Pizza Planet for some pepperoni slices. It's decent, but the rice crispy treat is stale. Blech.

I can't help myself and we head back to the animation class. This time we draw the Mouse himself. I think mine's fairly decent. Nothing spectacular, but not too shabby:

Tony's...well, not so much:

But it IS better than his Donald.

Beauty and the Beast is next. I held off on pictures, as I wanted to actually see the show. It's a nice production. I enjoyed it, but I know musicals aren't Tony's thing. He liked it well enough, but wouldn't watch it again the next day. Then on to Muppet Vision 3-D. It's ok, for how old it is. But of course it can't compare to PhilharMagic. Not even close. And I think that little blue creature is weird, in a queasy sort of way.

Tony needs a smoke break and I need me an animation class. While Tony torches his lungs, I head off to draw angry Donald:

Not too bad, though he could stand to look a little angrier.

6:00 pm. Time for dinner at the Sci-Fi Dine In. Of course the atmosphere is unique and interesting. We got the front row of a car, but had strangers behind us. A little uncomfortable. I ordered a chocolate milk shake. I never got a refill, and the waiter never asked me if I wanted another drink. We ordered some onion rings, which were just ok. We both order the Butcher Steak. It's also just ok. Not very tender, and very strange to eat without being able to see what I'm eating.

The food took so long that it's getting on to 7:00 pm. We still need to ride Toy Story and try to get somewhat reasonable seating for Fantasmic! so we decide to skip dessert. The waiter would not substitute one appetizer for two desserts on our dining plan. I guess they're not supposed to, but I've read about it being done. I think he just didn't want to. To top that off he didn't bring out our food himself, he didn't check on us until we were almost finished with our meal, and we didn't get any drink refills. Even Tony, who just ordered ice tea. The food was unimpressive and the service even more-so. I left him an 8% tip. Now don't jump all over me. I've worked as a waitress in a 24 hour diner. I know what it's like. That's why I didn't leave 0%. But I thought 8% was more than generous.

Moving on to Toy Story again. I win this time around, but Tony CLAIMS his shooter wasn't working properly. Even still, my accuracy was better again. I think I won a beaver, and Tony got another bunny.

Time to hike over to Fantasmic! We spot some real estate in the Scar section, two or three rows from the top. Not the best seats ever, but good enough. I got a few pictures, none of them very good, but here's the whole crew celebrating Mickey's victory:

I remembered that I really liked this show, but I had forgotten just how excellent it really is. We decide we must come see it again tomorrow night. On the way back to the entrance, who do we run into again but our first-timer family friends from the Magic Kingdom bus line on Monday. They are having a great time and really loved the show, too. We chat a little and part ways so we can hit up the Villains in Vogue shop now that I'm not peeved at Tony and can properly assess merchandise.

I want the giant Si and Am statures on top of the merchandise case for my dining room! Stupid me liked it so much that I forgot to take a picture. Tony bought a Chernabog shirt and the hat that says "Disney" in pirate motif. I bought a 2008 Hollywood Studios shirt and a "Best of the Worst" villains shirt with Cruella, Ursula, Maleficent and the Wicked Queen. It's sweet.

The bus stop is a zoo. Sports and Music are combined into one line that stetches on for miles. Luckily Movies is on its own and not quite as long. So we take the Movies bus for the first time.

And can I just say I don't think it's fair that just because a bus can hold an ECV that it should take one if the EVC just rolled up while everyone else has been standing in line. (I can be a little handicapped predjudiced, my future mom-in-law is paralyzed and is permantly wheelchair bound.) The person using the EVC is still comfortably seated. Let their party get in line while they wait off to the side. When their party reaches the front of the line, they can then load the EVC onto that bus. But the EVC just came rolling up at the last second, and not only do we lose seats because the EVC is strapped in, then we lose another seat because the EVC user has to get off the EVC and take a bus seat, then the whole EVC user's party gets on the bus first and fills in all the seats before any of the people who've been standing in line even have a chance to set foot on the bus. But you can't say anything, because you'd be offending a handicapped person. Being PC never stopped me before! I state my opinion to the family in front of us, and guess what, they agree. I'm not denying you use of the bus. But you shouldn't get on before anyone else who was waiting before you. And if you do, you don't need your whole party of 10 with you. One person to assist you is more than enough. Ok, done ranting.

While on the bus, we discuss the need to stay for one more park day. We quickly decide to add a park day to our tickets as soon as we reach the resort. Well, first we stop in at the Movies gift shop. It's the first time we've been to the main building since check-in. I guess it was fate that forced us to take our own hotel's bus tonight.

In the giftshop I decide that I MUST have a plushie Eeyore. I couldn't pass it up. I'm looking at the different sizes. No, $80 is too much for that nice big one. What's this little one? $20? That's not much plushie for $20. What's this medium one? $25?! That's twice the size of the little one for only five more dollars. This is the best plushie value I've seen all week. Welcome to the family, Eeyore. I also pick up a plushie Eeyore keychain for my boss, a Bambi pin for our office manager (whose name is Bambi), and a nice shirt with the classic Mickey, Donald and Goofy on it with the year 1971 for my dad.

I leave Tony to check out and head to the check-in desk to see where I stand with my room charges and add on a park day for Saturday. This CM is super nice. I just love it when you find those people that you can tell just really love their jobs.

We finally get to walk through the resort a little bit and have our first encounter with 3-story-tall Pongo and Perdy:

The puppy looked lonely, so I stopped to watch some TV with him:

And this is the front of our building, which we are also seeing for the first time:

I did want to explore the All Star resorts more. I even had slight hopes of finding our way to Port Orleans to check them out for a possible 2009 stay, but there was just too much to do, and resort hopping was way down at the bottom of the impossibly long list.

Next up: our first character dining and a Fantasmic! repeat

 

[jwhtewolfd]

Friday 9/26/08 Epcot AM, Hollywood Studios PM

That Stitch is getting pretty annoying by now, but at least I didn't fall back asleep this morning. We are AT the rope for rope drop and actually get to see the characters this time:

Note the tree? Yeah, Dale ran into the tree. Oops. But it sure was funny when he got mad at the tree. Also make note of the crew in blue. They lead us right to Soarin'! This time we grab the FP first, then ride. We're third row this time. Not quite as immersive when you can see everyone else's feet, but cool to be in the third row when you get close to the water.

Test Track is actually working today. Hooray! Then time to brave Mission: Space. We want the vomit-version, please! It's really cool. And really no big deal. I don't see why so many people have issues with it. The g-forces aren't insane, but it makes for a really nice ride. The green side is really pitiful in comparison.

We finally find our way onto Spaceship Earth. The touchscreen was malfunctioning and put us somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean? The world of the future is amusing, but we need to move on to bigger better things. Like Soarin' again!

Third row again, but it's still a terrifically great ride. We'd get more fastpasses if we weren't leaving Epcot soon.

After Soarin', we check into Garden Grill for our 11:00am lunch ADR. We're a little early, so we grab a bench. Next to us is a guy yelling on his cell phone about where some file was while his wife and kid sat on the bench looking sad. Jeez, dude, you're on VACATION. Hang up the phone. They'll find the file without you screaming. Pay attention to your family. This is the only real sad family moment we saw all week, so it's not too bad, but come on.

Our buzzer goes off just after theirs. As we are walking to our table, the kid is throwing a fit. Total meltdown in front of all the characters. We didn't even have to time to sit down before they gave up on the screaming kid and all four characters came to our table for a group pic!

I told Chip he was my favorite Rescue Ranger. Dale was a little upset, but Tony calmed him down. They both loved his shirt that showed the two of them tormenting Donald. Pluto gave me a nice big slurp on the cheek. When we met Mickey at the Halloween party, I told him he looked very dashing in his party outfit. I'm not very big on overalls, so I didn't say too much to Mickey at this point in time. After the picture they went their separate ways to start making the rounds. They each came around to us at least three more times. They all signed my trip book and posed for pictures.

Chip gave me a kiss and Mickey thought my choice of chocolate milk was excellent. We offered all of them some lunch, but Pluto and Mickey all ready ate, and Chip only wanted acorns. He went to the rail of the resteraunt and looked longingly as we rotated away from a tree. The interaction was great; the characters really made two slightly out of place adults feel welcome.

Hey, I managed to get a pic of my tripbook, too:

Lunch was great. I figured we were paying for the characters and we'd pick at the food, but we ended up stuffing ourselves silly. The flank steak was cooked perfectly; the turkey was ever so slightly dry, but the cranberry sauce really helped. The fried catfish was surprisingly good, and I consider myself a bit of a fried-fish snob. I'm used to my dad catching it Saturday morning and my mom frying it Saturday night. Even the mashed potatoes and stuffing were good. Our waiter brought us a whole second plate (which we almost cleaned) and kept the chocolate milk flowing. Did I mention Mickey was jealous of my chocolate milk?

Tony was disappointed that we hadn't made it through World Showcase, so we head off to Canada to give it a proper go. On the bridge between Future and Showcase, a CM notices his shirt and stops us to tell us why Donald is so grumpy. She tells us that Daisy is rare in the parks because she's always off shopping. Then Donald gets the credit card bill, and that's why he's always grumpy. We laugh to humor her lame joke, but as we walk off, we comment how it's nice to see people who enjoy their jobs so much.

Our World Showcase travels take us past Canada and into the UK, which looks like a college campus:

France has the fleur de lis garden, which is special to us because GEAUX SAINTS!

France also has this nice fountain. This is when I realized I should just give up on trying to get Tony centered properly in my pictures. "Sit in front of the fountain, Tony." Plop. Sigh. I guess that will do:

Passing through Morocco, we spot this:

Score! Our first non-attraction hidden Mickey. Next trip I'm going to work harder at finding these, but this time there's just too much to do. This, also, is Morroco (notice the inconsistant spelling? Don't know, don't care. How cultured of me, eh?), but not half as exciting as the hidden Mickey:

We get our first daytime glimpse of Japan:

And my good friend, the Tori, that provided a limited, yet seated view of Illuminations:

Tony's standing by the bench that saved my feet Wednesday night.

The Food and Wine Festival starts today, so the kiosks are out in full force. Just to much to do this trip to really partake, but I must stop for this:

New Orleans gets its very own kiosk? Sweet. Does any other city have its very own kiosk? Maybe, but not that I saw. From what I saw, whole countries were crammed into single kiosks. New Orleans gets to kick its feet up, stretch out and soak up the love of a whole kiosk unto itself.

We pass through Italy and I can't help but entertain the thought of stopping in for some Bugie. But we have more to tackle today, and Bugie is not on our hit list. We make it to Germany and up until now we've done nothing but literally walk past the countries. We haven't even peeked in any shops. But Tony feels fulfilled, so we jump on the Friendship boat to Mexico and start to make our way to the exit:

I like that picture because it looks like Spaceship Earth has its very own little cartoon storm cloud.

But wait! We've missed an important Epcot tradition. That of which the informed punish the unknowing for not listening to them babble on and on for the past six months about all the great things they've learned about WDW while squeezing every waking second into the ultimate Disney touring plan.

That's right. We stop at CLUB COOL. "Look, Tony. Something called "Club Cool." I think I read about it online. I think they have different Cokes from around the world. It might be cool. And anyway, it's inside and it's hot. Let's go see."

"Oh look, Tony. Coke from Italy. Cool. We're Italian, try that one first." My voice inflection is SO obvious, I don't know what possessed him to listen to me, especially as I pulled out my camera to take a picture of him sipping Coke.

But he did.

I give you Tony's first (and only) taste of Beverly:

I missed the even better reaction a split second later when the aftertaste hit and he literally pushed the cup away from himself. To be fair, I did taste it too afterwards. It is pretty bitter. Nasty. What is wrong with those crazy Italians?

Then I told him I set him up. He took it rather well. We are in Disney, afterall. And if you can't purposely deceive your finacee into drinking horribly bitter foreign soda in Disney, well where can you?

We wash our nasty Italian Coke down with some slightly better fruit flavored something or other and make our exit from Epcot. But not without one last parting picture of everybody's favorite Spaceship:

Onward, to Hollywood Studios!

 

[jwhtewolfd]

We arrive at Hollywood Studios at 2:30 pm. All the fastpasses for Toy Story Midway Mania are gone already. So much for that idea. Tony is finally feeling a little bit of bravery eeking it's way back to him, so we go get some Rock n' Rollercoaster fastpasses.

I need an animation class fix and Tony needs a nicotine fix, so we split up. I have to take two classes because in the first one we draw Donald, AGAIN. I didn't do a great job because, frankly, I'm tired of drawing Donald. I don't even like Donald very much. His beak is too short, but here he is anyway:

The second time around we're drawing Pluto. Much better. I like Pluto better and I drew him much better:

The ears made me a little nervous, but I think they ended up ok for a first try.

Time for the moment of truth. Our fastpass window is open for Rock n' Rollercoaster. As we make our way through the fastpass queue, I ask Tony if he's ready. "Yes." Are you sure? "Yes." I really wanted to taunt him more, but I didn't want to freak him out again, and I really didn't want to ride by myself, so I left it at that. There's really no time to be nervous once you're on the ride. You round a corner in the loading area, then, BOOM, you disappear full throttle into the dark. I think there's a loop very close to the beginning, but by the time I realized we were upside down, we were right side up again. No point in crying about it now. I could feel the corkscrew a little more, but it was pretty cool and did not give me any sort of stomach-in-throat issues.

Overall the ride is a success. We both like it more than we thought. I'd ride it again except that it's a little rough with my head banging against the shoulder restraints and me being so prone to headaches. Next time I know to take the Advil BEFORE riding. We'll definately ride this one again next year, probably more than once.

Tony felt the need to commemorate the occassion by purchasing this ridiculousness:

Here's a few obligatory pics from the RnR courtyard:

It's a nice courtyard to sit in and jam to some Aerosmith while taking a little break. As long as you don't mind your Aerosmith interspersed with Tower of Terror screams of death.

After a leisurely stop for a beer, a "milkshake" (which we now know is soft serve ice cream) and some people watching, we check out the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular show again. It's cool, but I think it's time to upgrade to an Indy ride, or at least update the show.

We head over for one more spin to the Endor moon on Star Tours. We just now notice that this guy randomly sprays mist from the guns:

How refreshing. I like that big Coke bottle over by the Backlot Tour, too.

It's 6:20 pm. A little early to head to Fantasmic!, so we meander a bit. Tony actually posed himself for this pic:

Maybe he's catching on afterall! Or he just finally sees the humor in pointing like a dumbfounded tourist.

We happen to pass Toy Story, which has a wait of 50 minutes. It won't give us a great seat for Fantasmic!, but why the heck not. We hop into our only truly significant line of the week. And it takes 50 minutes. On the dot. On the plus side, it IS the only queue we've really gotten to see and enjoy all week. Mr. Potatohead gets a little annoying after a while. No pics of that spud-for-brains. Mostly I'm trying to stay upbeat, as it took a little convincing to make Tony agree to stand in a line. We've been so spoiled all week. I win again! Tony claims his shooter is broken, so I don't rub it in too much. But hey, 40% accuracy isn't too bad either.

We finally settle in for Fantasmic! This time we're still pretty high up in the nose bleed section and a little further to the left in Pocahontas section. A large group in front of us desparately tries to get a wave going in the 8,000 person theater. They get a decent response, but can't quite convince either end to send it back their way, so it just keeps fizzling out. The night before someone actually had a good one going back and forth for a good while.

Since I broke today into two chapters and I have lots of room left for pics, I'll share lots of Fantasmic! pics...even the not-so-great ones:

A classic-tux Mickey conducting the waves:

Mickey malfuntions a little:

Beauty and the Beast. A play on the literal meaning of "float:"

See how sssnakelike I can be?

Watch out for the dragon, Mickey!

Phew, Mickey saves the day! Was there really any doubt?

Let's all celebrate!

Tony thinks all of Mickey's friends are cowards. They didn't come help do all the hard work fighting the bad guys, but they sure have no problem joining in the celebration once the battle is won. Grow up, Tony. It's DISNEY!

We were prepared tonight, but I have to admit that the night before when we first saw Sorcerer Mickey appear on the top of the mountain, we both pointed and shouted "Sorcerer Mickey!" like little children. But come on! Sorcerer Mickey was conducting the fireworks! How COOL is that? What can I say? It's DISNEY!

Some imaginatin, huh?

After another soul-stirring viewing of Fantasmic! we boarded the bus to Movies. Yes, that's right. We've now ridden our own bus not once, but TWO times. Hollywood Studios has nil for counterservice, so we decided after stuffing ourselves silly at Garden Grill that we would eat late at the resort food court. This is our first foray into the food court and I'm pleasantly surprised.

The variety is amazing. I see several things I could be happy with, but I'm most drawn to the Carved London Broil plate. Add on some Mac and Cheese and Mashed Potatoes and I've got another nice beefy meal. It's quite tasty and filling. Tony is just a kid at heart and can't resist a double bacon cheeseburger. We're so stuffed again, we skip out on ice cream dessert.

Besides, we have to get back to the room to pack and figure out our bounceback dates. I defer most of the packing and car-loading to Tony. I sit down to choose our 2009 dates based on several scientific parameters. Late in September means all the big hurricanes should have already passed. Now, which dates? Ok, I want 8 park days, and I want a three day weekend to recover when I get home before going back to work. That means we need to leave Disney on a Saturday so I have Sunday, Monday and Tuesday to recoperate. Count backwards 8 park days and one driving day. That puts us leaving for Disney on a Thursday. A little odd, but what the hey. It's DISNEY!

I set the wake up call for 6:45 am so I can start dialing the reservations extension promptly at 7:00 am.

 

[jwhtewolfd]

Saturday 9/27/08

We're up early at 6:45 am. Our last little bit of stuff is chucked into the bags. I send Tony down to finish packing the car while I furiously and repeatedly dial the reservations line to book our 2009 bounceback trip.

6:50 am - "our offices open at 7:00am" click.

6:55 am - "our offices open at 7" click.

6:58 am - "our offices open at" click.

6:59:00 am - "our offices ope" click.

6:59:45 am - "our offices" click.

7:00 am - "Thanks for calling Disney Reservations. All of our representatives are currently assisting other customers. Please hold until a representative is available." What!? already? Jeeze.

I think I'm holding for about five or ten minutes. Hate to see what it's like trying to book Cinderella's Castle for breakfast at 180 days.

A few minutes on the phone and we are booked! Sept. 24, 2009 - Oct. 3, 2009. Pop Centrury Resort (request for a king-size bed). 8 day park hopper passes. Free dining. $200 less than this trip!

What a way to start the day.

We make a final sweep of the room and hop into the car. We're on our way to Animal Kingdom. Not having to wait for a bus got us there even earlier than I anticipated. Early as it is, I have enough wits about me to snap a very important picture of the sign telling us we have parked in the Unicorn section. Now we won't have any trouble when we head back to the car. Riiight. We're pretty close, and I don't spot any trams right away, so we walk to the entrance. We are FIRST in line at the turnstiles! Too bad today is the only day we're not rushing to a headliner attraction. Today is soak-in-the-bonus-magic day.

Here's the obligatory pic:

And the rope drop show:

The rope drops and you're almost pulled forward by the vacuumous force of the crowd surging forward. But we manage to escape the vortex, and linger a bit over some early morning mallard preening:

Now I'll share this phenomenon:

See it? A wide shot with no one in it! No me. No Tony. No CMs. No guests. No tourists. No strangers. No someone else's kids. No one! Everyone is riding Expedition Everest, on Kilamanjaro Safari, or still in bed.

So with no one around, we stroll on over to Camp Minnie-Mickey. Here's some happy campers:

The Festival of the Lion King starts at 9:30am. We have our heading. As we approach, I notice the characters on their picture trails with maybe 4 people there to see them. That's a 1:1 character to guest ratio. Not too shabby. Ranger Donald is first:

We skip over Goofy and Minnie. Sorry, guys, but I'm being a character snob. I'm heading straight to the Big Cheese himself. "Another Mickey picture?" groans Tony. But it's SAFARI MICKEY! He should have worn his safari hat. They could have been twins:

Or not. The characters really have a thing about holding my hand or my arm for pictures. I don't get it.

We head in to the theater and find some excellent seats in the Lion section. Pictures still don't do this show any justice, but of course I'll share them anyway:

After the show Tony is feeling ultra-brave and decides that since we conquered Rock n' Rollercoaster, surely we can conquer Expedition Everest. We start to make our way to Asia to collect some fastpasses when we discover none other than DiVine:

Do you see her? Here she is:

We approach the area cautiously. Suddenly looming over us, the beast known as Expedition Everest:

That came out of nowhere!

No, really we were paying attention to the Siamangs, who were exceptionally talkative this morning. Anyone who knows anything about Siamangs knows that they have a very loud, resounding call (that can be heard up to 2 miles away in the wild!). The more moronic guests this morning were convincing themselves and others that Disney must have microphones up there. Surely nothing in nature could possibly be louder than your screaming child, eh?

I think it's a real treat to hear them singing this morning. The Siamang at our local Audubon Zoo lost his mate several years ago, and since then doesn't do much talking.

To pass time for our fastpasses to open up, we catch the Flights of Wonder show again. Still no free-flying bald eagle.

Don't macaws always look better in pairs?

Time to conquer Everest! I had intended on trying Everest all along, so I'm not too concerned, but I played up the nervousness for the fun of it. As we are being pulled up the big hill I scream, "Is it too late to get off?!" The lady in front of me yelled back "I'm with you!" This is actually a great roller coaster for people who don't like roller coasters. The backwards part is cool, and there are no drops of which to speak. None that impressed me, anyway. It's very Thunder Mountain-ish, but not as jerky. And with a giant Yeti. Who did not jump out at us. We barely saw him at the end. I wanted to get a shirt, but none of them really grabbed me. Tony got an "I conquered Expedition Everest" hat that has Yeti claw marks on the bill.

It isn't really hot enough, but Tony keeps going on about riding Kali River Rapids. Fine, fine. Let's just RUIN my Z-coils, why don't we? I like raft/rapids rides. I just don't like getting all my clothes soaked through. My shoes make it through unscathed. I had my back to the giant splash at the drop, so I got pretty well drenched, though not completely wretched. Idiot that Tony is, he missed the first little splash of the ride and mid sentence, "Guess I'm not gonna get..." yeah, you guessed it. He got drenched too.

Time for lunch at Pizzafari. We both get those lovely chicken parm sandwiches. The only stipulation I have is that we must eat outside. Go figure, the one time you DON'T want shaded seating at Disney World, and that's all you can find. At least we're not in the A/C (how many times can you say THAT at WDW??).

We park ourselves on a very sunny, very hot bench to eat our Minute Maid frozen lemonades. After a little people watching and behind drying, hot-bench-seat style, it's time to start to make our way to the exit. We meander through the Discovery Island Trails as we slowly make our way out.

We thought we would miss the White Faced Duck, but he finally made an appearance:

These guys made a pretty picture:

In '01 we saw a lot of lemur activity at one point, so I'm disappointed that there doesn't appear to be any lemurs on display today. Oh, hold it. Tony found it. I don't know how. But this is the extent of our lemur viewing this trip:

If you squint really hard you can see that the whitest part is his head. Lazy lemur, sleeping inside the log.

These guys also made for a nice nature pic:

The gaint anteater was amiable to having his picture taken today, but he didn't do any fancy posing. I have great pics from our last trip to Audubon of the Giant Anteater cleaning her toes.

A scarlet macaw is looking very handsome today:

But the military macaws think they look even better, because they are in a pair:

As we exit the oasis, one last shot of how beautiful and peaceful the World can be:

As we exit the gates, the skywriter above Animal Kingdom reminds us to "trust jesus". I didn't waste the space on the memory card.

So remember how I was all prepared and took that picture of the parking sign so we wouldn't forget where we parked when we got on the tram?

Well, we parked close enough to walk from the car TO the park, so we make a not-so-valiant effort to walk FROM the park to the car. A sharp left turn leads us off track a good ways until we give up and head back to the parking lot tram loading area. A tram comes along just a few seconds later and deposits us right next to our car in Unicorn section. Lesson learned. Take the trams.

I drive us to the TTC parking lot. We take the tram from the Goofy section. I ask Tony if he wants to take the monorail or the ferry boat. He doesn't care. Monorail it is.

Next up: our bonus night in the Magic Kingdom

 

[jwhtewolfd]

We arrive in the Magic Kingdom. One final magical evening before we bid Disney World goodbye.

We start our evening with the classic favorite Pirates of the Carribbean, where again I fail to take any in-focus pictures. As we round the bend from Adventureland to Frontierland, people are starting to line up for the 3:00pm parade. We snag a bench that gives us a perfect view of the back of every float as it rolls onto the parade route. Guess there won't be any fabulous day-time parade pics this trip. Oh well. I'll get to try again next year.

While I hold down the bench, Tony runs to grab Thunder Mountain fastpasses. Good ol' Tony. Here's a new perspective on the "Dreams Come True Parade" - the back side:

After a quick jaunt on Thunder Mountain, I notice that it's 3:45 pm. Time to start trying to get into a restaurant for dinner sans ADR. A quick scan of the guidemap shows four table service options (well, five, if you count Cinderella's Castle, but I'm not counting it because it's not gonna happen, not even gonna try).

Crystal Palace is my top choice, but they are booked solid and not accepting any walk-ups. I figured as much, but it was worth a shot. My second choice is Tony's Italian Restaurant. They are closed when we approach, but the CM says they will start taking names for walk-ups at 4:30pm and we'll probably have to sit outside. It's a little warmer today than it has been all week, but a chance to use our last table service credits at a nice place is worth it. We pull up a curb on the shady side of the building in the smoking section and rest our aching feet until 4:15. I head inside to put our name on the walk-up list.

Now we're allowed into the lobby, where they are playing Lady and the Tramp on tv. More importantly, there are nice plush chairs to wait in. We take turns dozing until they start calling parties to be seated. We are third to be seated for dinner, AND we get to sit inside. I, of course, order the New York Strip, which is, of course, very good. Tony's still a little timid about Disney World spaghetti after the Wolfgang Puck fiasco, but this IS the Lady and the Tramp Italian Restaurant. This spaghetti is MUCH better than our first attempt at Disney dining. Tony says it's not the best spaghetti ever, but it's still pretty good.

For dessert, I order the Tiramasu. I prefer slightly crunchier lady fingers, but the chocolate shavings are huge, and it's pretty tasty overall. Tony tries the Ice Cream Bomb and finishes the whole thing.

Obviously Lady and the Tramp is right up my alley as far as Disney movies go. I just love the decor:

And up on the mantle, I spot this tasty classic hidden Mickey:

After dinner, we decide to see Mickey's PhilharMagic again. We take our time making our way up Main Street by browsing the up-scale shops. PRICEY. By the time we get to the castle to head back to Fantasyland, the walkway is roped off for the "Dream Along with Mickey" show in front of the castle. We've seen it in progress from a distance several times. It's scheduled to start in 5 minutes, so we decide to stick around to see the whole thing. It's cute; very Disney.

After the show, who do we run into again but our first-timer friends from Monday. Mom says they've been trying to meet up with friends all week, but they've run into us more by chance.

I must have gotten my parade times confused, because I start staking out real estate an hour early. Oh well, better spots for us. And an extra hour off my feet never hurts either.

As Disney slowly dims the lights...uh, I mean as the sun sets, the crowds start pressing in. It so happens that a few off-duty CMs sit next to us. Tony strikes up a conversation and makes us some new friends.

I start playing with the camera to kill time until the parade. I try to take discrete pictures of people holding hands. Because holding hands is happy and Disney. Then I realize that most parents are holding their kids' hands. So I start to look for couples holding hands. I see a few, but not as many as you would think, considering I'm sitting in front of the most magical place on earth: Cinderella's Castle in Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom.

A romantic castle background pic:

Tony and his new best friend, JC:

Finally, here comes SpectroMagic.

After SpectroMagic we try to head into Fantasyland again, but the castle is still roped off as they prepare for Wishes. Our own personal VIP tourguide CMs sit us right in front of the castle for the fireworks. We can literally lay down and look up at the castle to watch them. It's not the best view if you've never seen the show, but it's a unique perspective and has high romantic potential. Here's Wishes, up close:

We finally find our way back to Fantasyland. Our VIP CMs want to know what we want to do. Well, I didn't get to ride Dumbo. So we dash off (yes, dash...JC is the epitome of hyper-active) to all ride Dumbo the Flying Elephant together for my first flight ever! I'm finally riding DUMBO!

JC wants to give us a pass to get to the front of any line, but nothing in Fantasyland has a line right now. Instead, he gives us a Magical Moment certificate for being awesome guest escorts! Keeping in the spirit of Fantasyland, we all pile aboard Cinderella's Carousel for a nighttime romp. We finally locate the elusive Cinderella's horse:

And riding by her side, the handsome Prince Charming's horse:

At last, we end the night with a final viewing of Mickey's PhilharMagic. JC insists on taking our picture with the PhilharMagic sign in the background since we love the attraction so much:

Finally, it's midnight; Magic Kingdom is closing and it IS time to say goodbye. To our newfound friends and to our Magical EscapeLand, aka Disney World.

We monorail to TTC, tram to Goofy lot, hop in the car and start driving.

I'm not sad to be leaving. I'm happy we had our bonus day. I'm happy we ended the day with simple Fantasyland pleasures. I'm happy we had a great trip. And I'm happy to get home to my cats.

We sleep in shifts and pull over a couple of times for 30 minute power naps at rest stops. The drive is tough considering we started at midnight and had been up since 6:45 am and did a full park day, with a park hop. I'm too tired to even stop at Cracker Barrel on the way home.

We finally hit the door at 10:30 am. MY JEZZIE! MY LOUIE! MY BED!

I wake up two hours later and finish watching the Saints game. We win!

What a great vacation.

And I still have two and a half days to recover before going back to work.

First task: organize the 1,200 pictures I took.

M-I-C

See you next year

K-E-Y

Why? because we have bounceback with free dining.

M-O-U-S-E.

 

[My sister's princess]

What a great report! I really enjoyed reading your experiences

 

[Philadisney]

Ah I am so behind! I came here to check up and saw that you are done already! I have started catching up - I love Mickey's halloween costume he really looks like Willy Wonka! How did you find out about Prince Charming's horse? I had no idea he had a horse - I knew there was one for Cinderella - but it makes sense as that horse you took a picture of has a sword! Neato.
I love the Barnstormer too, I haven't been on it in years though because it always seems like there's a huge line. I think you may have convinced me to try the green version of Mission Space now, I have only done orange a couple of times and I don't really have an interest in doing it again.
it's my bedtime but I'm going to catch up on the rest asap!

 

[jwhtewolfd]

I am glad you enjoyed it. I hope I wasn't too detailed/boring.

 

[jwhtewolfd]

Ah I am so behind! I came here to check up and saw that you are done already! I have started catching up - I love Mickey's halloween costume he really looks like Willy Wonka! How did you find out about Prince Charming's horse? I had no idea he had a horse - I knew there was one for Cinderella - but it makes sense as that horse you took a picture of has a sword! Neato.
I love the Barnstormer too, I haven't been on it in years though because it always seems like there's a huge line. I think you may have convinced me to try the green version of Mission Space now, I have only done orange a couple of times and I don't really have an interest in doing it again.
it's my bedtime but I'm going to catch up on the rest asap!

Heh, yeah, I have no life. I work 75%, sleep 15% and rot in front the computer 10% of the time. Finding time to write a trip report is pretty easy with that schedule.

As you will find out in the last chapter, Tony made us new best friends with some off-duty CMs. They did Fantasyland with us on our last night, and JC knew the CM running the carousel. She pointed out Cinderella's horse and told us about Prince Charming's horse. I didn't realize it was his when I first took the MNSSHP pictures; I was just getting as many of the horses as I could, because my boss LOVES carousel horses.

I never had any intention of riding the Barnstormer, but since Tony had chickened out of RnR the night before, I thought I'd tease him a bit and make him ride it. I think we waited five or ten minutes. We had to wait a little longer b/c the CM lined us up for the same seat...together...riiiiiight. We were like "um, both our butts won't fit in that seat." But, you know, nicer language in front the kids. But, now I can say I've ridden EVERY roller coaster in WDW. And come to find out, Tony LIKES RnR. THE DAY BEFORE WE LEAVE. Not Monday, when we have all week to ride. No. That would make too much sense.

Like I said, I think green side of Mission: Space belongs in Fantasyland. I was underwhelmed. But, I can see where the tight space might bug some people. Orange side didn't give me any problems at all motion-sickness-wise, and I thought it was really cool. Amazing how Mars looks just like Epcot, eh?

Next year I'm going to try to do better with the pictures. I want to get food pics, souvie pics, and more details and insides of rides. Yeah, that's what I want - pictures of ride entrails!

 

[Philadisney]

Now that I've battled my way through Halloween, election day, and the pandemonium here surrounding the World Series....I am finally catching up on my DISing. And I finished your report! It was really neat to see all your Animal Kingdom pictures and have commentary from someone who actually knows something about animals. My AK pictures are, unfortunately, all usually accompanied by text that reads something like "HERE'S A STRIPEY THING WITH HORNS!" or "THESE EGGS CAME FROM SOME ANIMAL."
So great that you are going back next September....I have not even though about when we'll be returning yet because it's too depressing! At least I'll have another report from you and all the others on the DISBoards to live vicariously through Don't forget the pictures of ride entrails next time!

 

[jwhtewolfd]

I just finished your last update - we are both Maleficent - figures.

Not to worry, I'd much rather see someone write "some stripey thing with horns" than try to make something up and mis-inform the masses.

I can't wait for September. I was actually THIS CLOSE to booking the buy 4, get 3 free for mid January. My birthday is Jan 12 and there is a big vet convention in Orlando Jan 17-21. I could have even taken advantage of the birthday celebration offer. My boss was totally down with flying me to Orlando early so I could do 7 days in Disney before the convention. I was SO excited, but I had to decline. Too many cons vs. pros. And I can't be away from the cats for 2 whole weeks!