Day Five - Thursday, October 26, 2006, continued
By the time our meal ended, we were both so full we gave one of our desserts away to the table next to us. We barely ate off the other one. We went through the PassPorter and decided to ride Pirates of the Caribbean since it was so close.
I was pretty excited for this ride-hearing so much about it. And never seeing either movie

eek: ), it wasn't all that thrilling for me, but the people behind us in the boat were obviously Disney and Pirates regulars, they kept commenting about how much the ride had changed and how cool it was. Overall, not too exciting, but still pretty neat.
After Pirates we got in line for Splash Mountain. The line wasn't too long-but one of the longest we'd had on our trip. About 10 minutes into it, we found out the ride had broken. We asked the obviously Disney-savvy people in front of us how long it usually takes to fix, and they said they have waited just a few minutes on a broken ride and up to an hour. We opted to wait for a few minutes, then changed our mind and headed out of line. We grabbed a Fast Pass for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad-a ride I have been waiting since the age of 6 to ride on, seeing it on EVERY Disney commercial as a child...
Then we walked a bit and ended up in Fantasyland. I dragged Joe onto It's a Small World-we sang along and agreed it was totally cheesy, but just something you had to do as a Disney Newbie.
We walked toward the Castle again, just to see it up close again,
and noticed huge crowds gathering for the parade. Neither one of us cared much to watch the parade and wandered around through the crowd, back into Frontierland, our Fast Pass time for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was coming up. We decided to stop for a snack at a stand near the Castle-just into Liberty Square-"Sleepy Hollow". They have CAPPUCCINO FLOATS.

Oh yes, this was a winner! We got up to the window and the woman working the cash register noticed our "Just Married!" buttons and instantly asked all the typical questions of where, when, etc. followed by a "2 Cappuccino Floats? Is that all? Hey everyone, these two just got married 2 Cappuccino Floats on the house!" Everyone behind the counter cheered and wished us a Congratulations and we were promptly served two delicious floats. We thanked them and went on our way, commenting about how amazing each day of our trip has been.
We walked on the little path along the river in Frontierland while the parade went on, dodging people, enjoying our floats, headed for Big Thunder. Despite having Fast Passes, the line was fairly long and they allowed many non-Fast Pass people in before they moved the Fast Pass line, didn't understand that, but I wasn't going to let it bother me, I was close to riding THE ride I had been waiting for!! We finally reached the front and away we went!
We both loved this ride and hoped we could ride again later. We grabbed a FastPass for Splash Mountain, and then took out the PassPorter book, looking for a quick route back to Tomorrowland to burn up our time, knowing we didn't go on a couple rides we wanted to hit. Up walked a CM, who gave us a hint-to take the WDW Railroad to Toontown and then take a path that is directly to the left when getting off the train into Tomorrowland. So, we headed to the train, one pulled up within a couple minutes and off we went. The path trick worked great, there was NO one on the path except one worker, who appeared to be carrying his lunch bag and taking off on his break.
We arrived back in Tomorrowland and rode Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin. We got such a kick out of this ride and Joe KICKED my butt score-wise. He hit some Zurg that gave him 100,000 points instantly! I wish I had taken a picture of the picture it snaps of you because I was so into it and concentrated I was biting on my lip and Joe looked incredibly serious, both of us were leaning forward in the car zapping Zurg!
We are Space Rangers!
While over in Tomorrowland we also rode Stitch's Great Escape, which I didn't think was anything spectacular, especially in comparison to everything else we had seen already. We also went on the Carousel of Progress. And just the other day, over two months later, I heard Joe singing "There's a great big beautiful tomorrow...." We both thought it was a pretty cool ride, very interesting and entertaining.
Our FastPass time for Splash Mountain was arriving, so we got back on the WDW Railroad and went back the way we came. We went through the line fairly quickly. At the very end of the ride our boat ran into the one in front of us, and there we floated for about five minutes. We figured something must have gotten stuck further down the line. I took the opportunity to snap a picture...
We both liked Splash Mountain and were VERY relieved we didn't get soaked.
By this time, we had hit most of the rides we wanted to over in this area, but we wanted to check out Tom Sawyer Island. So, onto the raft we went. We hit the trails, wandered through the caves and realized there really isn't a whole lot on the island to do. We didn't really think it was anything thrilling, but thought it might be pretty cool for a kid to "explore" the caves and such. It was also about this time, I realized that we had made EARLY dinner reservations for that day. Neither one of us were hungry, and we weren't ready to leave quite yet, so we opted to cancel them and schedule them for later.
After Tom Sawyer Island we wandered back to Fantasyland. I INSISTED we ride the Teacups.
Then of course, I INSISTED we ride Dumbo!
The Castle from Dumbo:
The Dumbo behind us:
We walked past the Castle again, and noticed a HUGE show going on-looked like all the Princesses were up on stage. I don't know much about the shows, and we were mainly there to do rides-not really into the characters, so we kept on truckin.
We headed back to Tomorrowland (AGAIN) because I wanted to ride Tomorrowland Transit Authority. By this time we noticed MANY people in costumes and then I recalled Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. I thought it was kinda fun, and we saw some very clever costumes. But, when we reached the TTA, we were denied access because we didn't have the
MNSSHP bracelets! I had NO clue you had to buy bracelets for it being a Disney Newbie (guess I didn't read the DIS boards too closely on that one!

). Both Joe and I were very disappointed, but we figured we were about done anyway, so we slowly turned and started our trek back to the front gates.
We stopped and got another picture done in front of the Castle, because it looked so different with the colored lights on it. And then we stopped again in a shop near the front gates where we could look at our PhotoPass pictures. We spent just a bit of time in there, and then headed out of the Magic Kingdom.
Since we weren't quite done with our rides yet, and our dinner time hadn't arrived, we opted to ride the Monorail and check out some other resorts.
We stopped at the Grand Floridian, I told Joe it was the fancy-schmancy hotel and probably just a bit much for my taste. We wandered around and thought it was very pretty (but we like the AKL pool WAY better!).
We waited at the GF bus-stop for a Downtown Disney bus since we were headed to Cap'n Jacks for dinner. A bus arrived almost instantly, we hopped on and soon arrived in Downtown Disney.
Earlier in the year, when I had told a friend Joe and I were planning on WDW for our honeymoon she told me her Grandma worked in Downtown Disney at the big mall in the "Villan"/jewelery room. I had NO clue what this all meant, but Joe and I were determined to not only find this mall, but to find the Villan room. It proved easy enough to find the giant Disney mall, but there were, I swear, 40,000 people in there, running around and shopping. Turns out, they were having some sort of game, right there in the store! Pretty funny...
Eventually we were pointed in the right direction, we found the Villan room. I approached the counter and asked for Fernetta. She was in a meeting, but the CM was so incredibly kind she found out when the meeting ended and encouraged us to come back. She told us she worked until 2:00 AM! I couldn't believe it, we had PLENTY of time.
So off to Cap'n Jacks we went, we were a bit early for our reservations, but we didn't mind waiting. When we arrived at the restaurant we were informed their menus had recently changed-they no longer had steak or a couple of the other items we were both interested in having. Most items were now fish, which neither of us are a fan of. We were slightly disappointed, but we did see one non-fish entree, so we opted to stay. We were given a GREAT table, right on the lake, very quickly-at least 10 minutes before our actual reservation time.
Our server was fantastic, she was funny and suggested different menu items, you could tell she was a pro-waitress. She also loved that we were on the Magic Your Way Dining Plan, she thought it was one of the greatest things Disney ever came up with and it really allowed the guests to get WHATEVER they wanted, which I agreed to, we loved it.
Joe and I both had a beef meal with mashed potatoes and green beans, I cannot remember exactly what it was, it was alright-though Joe's was very fatty. I cannot remember what our appetizers were either, and didn't take a picture of them! However, one thing on the dining plan was that you could add a lobster tail to any meal for no additional cost-our waitress encouraged us to take advantage of it-after all, it was a free add-on! Joe didn't dare try, so I took his too. I didn't really care for them, so I only ate a few bites of one of them.
Then dessert time came and we both chose the Berried Treasure Smoothie-which technically isn't a "dessert", but she allowed us to use it as our dessert since none of the others really interested us.
Overall, we liked the atmosphere of Cap'n Jacks, right on the water-it was very pretty. And our waitress was awesome, but the food was only okay, and selection was not good for a non-fish eater. Out of all the places we ate on the trip, this was my least favorite.
After dinner, we walked back to the mall to find Fernetta. We got back to the Villan room, and then found out from another CM that she was actually working in a different department that night. The CM went to find her for us, she was gone for about 5 to 10 minutes before returning with Fernetta. I thought it was very very nice of the CM to go hunt her down for us, the LAST thing I wanted to do in that crazy mall was to try and find a woman that I had never met...!
Fernetta was incredible, just like her Granddaughter! We had a great time chatting with her. She was so amazed we made such an effort to meet her.
After saying good-bye to Fernetta, we walked around Downtown Disney a bit, commented on how we have to try the Earl of Sandwich next time, it looked AWESOME. We boarded the bus and arrived back at AKL.
When we got back to our room we found TOWEL ANIMALS! Very cute little bunnies!
We wandered around the AKL, really checking out the entire hotel that night, and also took a nice quick trip the hot tub. Soon though, we found ourselves exhausted and back to the room we went...once again, no alarm set for our next, and last full day at MGM.
[MGM coming soon!]