Daysleeper40
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2007
- Messages
- 526
Prequel & Days 0 - 1 can be found here
Tuesday 10th May 2011 -
Now I'm not going to complain about the fact I woke up at about 4am and couldn't get back to sleep - because that had to mean that it wasn't all a dream and we were indeed in the Four Points by Sheraton on International Drive. HOOOPLA!!!!
It did mean I had a bit of time to kill before I could reasonably wake M up though...
So I did the obvious - lay in bed thinking about the day ahead until 6am when I got too excited about the day ahead and just HAD to get up! I locked myself in the bathroom with my netbook for a while and emailed my mum and sister. Also wrote up a few notes about the travel day (I always start with such good intentions but by day 15 I wasn't quite so good at the note writing!). Finally woke M at 7:10am - an hour before our Disney shuttle was due to pick us up.
We were ready and waiting at the back of the hotel by 8am and the shuttle appeared on time. It also filled up at our hotel which was good - on our last trip on '07 I remember the shuttle having to go to a few hotels and it took much longer. We had no stops en route this time though and it took hardly any time before we arrived at Epcot. Lucky timing also put us on a bus straight to Port Orleans and we were sat down at POFQ waiting for a Typhoon Lagoon bus @ 9am...
On a side note - does anyone know what "DHRS" means on the front of a Disney bus stands for? That is what our bus had written on it but it still dropped us at POFQ.
Anyhooo - apparently TL buses don't start running till about 9:30am so we had a bit of a wait until one appeared at 9:40am and we arrived at TL for opening. This was to be the first park of the holiday and the first park in our 3 Park Disney Day. We like to keep busy
There was a bus helper Cast Member at POFQ who told us many times what time the bus for TL would start running - I think she thought we were getting annoyed waiting but I was quite happy standing there soaking up the sun.
Plan of action for the day was:
Typhoon Lagoon - 3 hours max
Hollywood Studios
Epcot - in time for a bit of food, Illuminations and our shuttle pick up at 9:45pm.
You got to love a water park early in the day - so quite! So obviously we ran around like lunatics to go on all the slides before the hordes of people turned up. We did take a few photo's en route to the locker rental shack - I've noted down that one locker was $13 with an $3 refundable deposit - although I can't quite make out my own writing and that could be an $8 deposit. $3 sounds more likely though...
We also got some mini donuts for breakfast which M made short work of.
Actual rides started on Crush n Gusher in the order of Pinapple, Banana and Cocunut. I think we both prefered Coconut as the faster ride.
We then opted for a snorkle through Shark Reef. My mask strap snapped before I had a chance to get in so I had to head back for a new one. Second mask was more successful and we both REALLY enjoyed this. I had heard that the water is real cold but I didn't think it was bad at all.
The above picture was taken later in the day - we were the only two in their in the morning which was very cool. Loved all of the fish - including the sharks and thought that it was a unique attraction to have .Bonus points for TL!
More slides were in order though so we splashed our way down Humunga Kowabunga, all 3 Storm Slides, Keehall Falls and Mayday Falls. Of the lot I remember that Mayday falls stood out - but I have to be honest and say that in the battle of the water parks Wet n Wild was still winning in terms of rides. Couldn't fault the theming at TL though and I definately prefer it to Blizzard Beach.
By this point a pretty hefty queue had built up for Gang Plank Falls and as it is just a family raft ride we were not too fussed about going on - so we opted out of that and headed for the wave pool instead. I love a wave poll and we stayed in there a good amount of time - but not long enough for one of the HUGE waves to hit us. Which means I have to go back at some point just for that.
Time was ticking on though and we had a lot on so off to the locker we went to get changed and head off to DHS. We had bought a microfibre towel with us which was great for the water parks - compact, light and quick drying. Saved us having to rent towels which was a bonus. We wanted to get some pictures of TL before leaving so we had a wander round with our cameras and came across someone lounging on a bench...
We tried to find a fridge magnet in the gift shop as we like to collect them from places we go - but Disney is actually really bad for not having magnets and we were not too suprised that they didn't have any. Instead we decided that we would press a penny as a keepsake instead and having done so we were ready for the off.
Headed out of TL and over to the bus stop for Pop Century where we would pick up a connecting bus to DHS. We left TL at 12:45 and arrived at DHS at 13:20 which I didn't think was bad going. We were both super excited to be back at DHS as we missed out on Rock n Rollercoaster in '07 as it was in rehab at the time.
It is also M's favourite of the Disney parks...
We wasted no time in grabbing a fast pass for Rock n Rollercoaster and then stopped for lunch at Starring Rolls where we split a ham sndwich, chips, Diet Coke and a cupcake for $12.34.
It was all very tasty and definately filled a whole after all our running around at TL.
My favourite thing to do at DHS is the Tower of Terror which is weird because I really don't like drop towers as a general rule. I am scarred for life by being made to ride Hurakan Conor at Port Aventura in Spain last year and even the one at Thorpe Park makes me feel sick. Still - I really enjoy Tower of Terror. I love everything about it so that is where we headed next. No queue, no wait, no time at all before we were bouncing around in the tower. M's hat was sat on his knee one minute and floating in front of his face the next and it was even better than I remembered it!
We also pressed a quarter at Tower of Terror before cashing in our fast passes for Rock n Rollercoaster. It was pretty good - definately the most "thrilling" Disney ride I have encountered but the seats / restraints were a bit brutal on the ears for me. M didnt't have that problem but he is a good bit taller than me. We got the ride photo (another thing we like to collect) and then thought we would try for Toy Story Mania. It was a 55 minute wait time though so we thought we would try again later - in retrospect we should of done this first but never mind. Instead we hopped on the backlot tour with a shortish wait time - enjoyd it but my god was it hot.
We came away from the tour gasping for fluids and just about made it to the drinks stand for a coke & water. We needed a bit of a rest at this point so went for the 4pm showing of Beauty and the Beast. I got quite excited about seeing Lumier and learnt that M has never seen the film despite knowing most of the songs. It was a good show and we enjoyed a sit down in the shade as well. We had agreed that no matter what the wait time said for Toy Story Mania we would had to do it now as we didn't want to miss out. It actually said 60min but it was more like 30min for the wait and to get the ride done. Result!!
Irritatingly "Player 2" won even though I apparently have better accuracy...
booo!!!
M LOVED LOVED LOVED this ride. I also thought it was really innovative and a great addition to DHS.
Unfortunately we followed it with a visit to Narnia... less said the better really.
Looking at the map / schedule we decided to see the Little Mermaid show but that left us enough time to squeeze in another trip on the Tower of Terror. The Little Mermaid show was fantastic - my favourite Disney show to date. Loved all of the puppets - especially Sebastian.
We left DHS at 6:30pm - I believe the park closed at 7:00pm and we wanted to go get some dinner and have a scoot round Epcot before the Illuminations. We arrived by bus at Epcot around 7:00pm and there was much excitement for M in the form of a Lotso Bear topiary...
We originally thought we would try to get test Track ridden but it had a 40 minute wait time so we saved that for our "official" Epcot visit the following day. Instead we chose a trip on Mission Space and somehow I managed to get M in the Orange Route line. He doesn't do so well with simulators and I could see he was a bit reticent but fair play - he went on and managed not to throw up. To be fair I found it pretty intense but really enjoyed it. Wouldn't want it to go on much longer though!
We both needed a bit of recovery time so had a mooch about and then decided to grab some food. It was really busy around World Showcase and we were both flagging a bit at this point. I completely forgot about Sunshine Seasons and we ended up in Electric Umbrella with a mediocre dinner. Meatball sub for me, burger for M with soda and more soda. It cost $24 and was the least inspiring of all the food we had on the holiday. I wouldn't recommend it and neither of us really get on with the Disney counter service thing. I honestly also don't rate the service we have had at Disney - everything seems to take forever. I'm not sure why.
Pictures of the food although I'm sure you all know what a sub & burger look like:
It filled a hole though and I was loving my refillable soda. We watched Illuminations from the bridge and I am glad we stayed late to see it at least once. I'm not sure I would make a special trip back to watch it again though. We hightailed it out of the park after the fireworks to be in time for our shuttle... which there were too many people waiting for...
There was another one on the way but thankfully afer a bit of faffing around we got on the first and were back to the hotel for 10:30. The shuttle service laid on by the hotel did the job for the few days we wanted to use it but it would get annoying very quickly if you were doing it every day for 14 or more days. I found one of the drivers pretty rude and there was a lot of mis-communication and not enough seats for people on the return journeys. I gave the same feedback at the hotel so maybe they will do something about it.
The only thing we were good for at this point was shower, set the alarm for the morning and crashed into bed! Great first full day of the holiday!!
M's feet had survived our first full park day in his Zig trainers - but the real test would be day 3 and a full on visit to the the park I've heard is actually called:
Every
Person
Comes
Out
Tired
Tuesday 10th May 2011 -
Now I'm not going to complain about the fact I woke up at about 4am and couldn't get back to sleep - because that had to mean that it wasn't all a dream and we were indeed in the Four Points by Sheraton on International Drive. HOOOPLA!!!!
It did mean I had a bit of time to kill before I could reasonably wake M up though...
So I did the obvious - lay in bed thinking about the day ahead until 6am when I got too excited about the day ahead and just HAD to get up! I locked myself in the bathroom with my netbook for a while and emailed my mum and sister. Also wrote up a few notes about the travel day (I always start with such good intentions but by day 15 I wasn't quite so good at the note writing!). Finally woke M at 7:10am - an hour before our Disney shuttle was due to pick us up.
We were ready and waiting at the back of the hotel by 8am and the shuttle appeared on time. It also filled up at our hotel which was good - on our last trip on '07 I remember the shuttle having to go to a few hotels and it took much longer. We had no stops en route this time though and it took hardly any time before we arrived at Epcot. Lucky timing also put us on a bus straight to Port Orleans and we were sat down at POFQ waiting for a Typhoon Lagoon bus @ 9am...
On a side note - does anyone know what "DHRS" means on the front of a Disney bus stands for? That is what our bus had written on it but it still dropped us at POFQ.
Anyhooo - apparently TL buses don't start running till about 9:30am so we had a bit of a wait until one appeared at 9:40am and we arrived at TL for opening. This was to be the first park of the holiday and the first park in our 3 Park Disney Day. We like to keep busy
There was a bus helper Cast Member at POFQ who told us many times what time the bus for TL would start running - I think she thought we were getting annoyed waiting but I was quite happy standing there soaking up the sun.
Plan of action for the day was:
Typhoon Lagoon - 3 hours max
Hollywood Studios
Epcot - in time for a bit of food, Illuminations and our shuttle pick up at 9:45pm.
You got to love a water park early in the day - so quite! So obviously we ran around like lunatics to go on all the slides before the hordes of people turned up. We did take a few photo's en route to the locker rental shack - I've noted down that one locker was $13 with an $3 refundable deposit - although I can't quite make out my own writing and that could be an $8 deposit. $3 sounds more likely though...
We also got some mini donuts for breakfast which M made short work of.
Actual rides started on Crush n Gusher in the order of Pinapple, Banana and Cocunut. I think we both prefered Coconut as the faster ride.
We then opted for a snorkle through Shark Reef. My mask strap snapped before I had a chance to get in so I had to head back for a new one. Second mask was more successful and we both REALLY enjoyed this. I had heard that the water is real cold but I didn't think it was bad at all.
The above picture was taken later in the day - we were the only two in their in the morning which was very cool. Loved all of the fish - including the sharks and thought that it was a unique attraction to have .Bonus points for TL!
More slides were in order though so we splashed our way down Humunga Kowabunga, all 3 Storm Slides, Keehall Falls and Mayday Falls. Of the lot I remember that Mayday falls stood out - but I have to be honest and say that in the battle of the water parks Wet n Wild was still winning in terms of rides. Couldn't fault the theming at TL though and I definately prefer it to Blizzard Beach.
By this point a pretty hefty queue had built up for Gang Plank Falls and as it is just a family raft ride we were not too fussed about going on - so we opted out of that and headed for the wave pool instead. I love a wave poll and we stayed in there a good amount of time - but not long enough for one of the HUGE waves to hit us. Which means I have to go back at some point just for that.
Time was ticking on though and we had a lot on so off to the locker we went to get changed and head off to DHS. We had bought a microfibre towel with us which was great for the water parks - compact, light and quick drying. Saved us having to rent towels which was a bonus. We wanted to get some pictures of TL before leaving so we had a wander round with our cameras and came across someone lounging on a bench...
We tried to find a fridge magnet in the gift shop as we like to collect them from places we go - but Disney is actually really bad for not having magnets and we were not too suprised that they didn't have any. Instead we decided that we would press a penny as a keepsake instead and having done so we were ready for the off.
Headed out of TL and over to the bus stop for Pop Century where we would pick up a connecting bus to DHS. We left TL at 12:45 and arrived at DHS at 13:20 which I didn't think was bad going. We were both super excited to be back at DHS as we missed out on Rock n Rollercoaster in '07 as it was in rehab at the time.
It is also M's favourite of the Disney parks...
We wasted no time in grabbing a fast pass for Rock n Rollercoaster and then stopped for lunch at Starring Rolls where we split a ham sndwich, chips, Diet Coke and a cupcake for $12.34.
It was all very tasty and definately filled a whole after all our running around at TL.
My favourite thing to do at DHS is the Tower of Terror which is weird because I really don't like drop towers as a general rule. I am scarred for life by being made to ride Hurakan Conor at Port Aventura in Spain last year and even the one at Thorpe Park makes me feel sick. Still - I really enjoy Tower of Terror. I love everything about it so that is where we headed next. No queue, no wait, no time at all before we were bouncing around in the tower. M's hat was sat on his knee one minute and floating in front of his face the next and it was even better than I remembered it!
We also pressed a quarter at Tower of Terror before cashing in our fast passes for Rock n Rollercoaster. It was pretty good - definately the most "thrilling" Disney ride I have encountered but the seats / restraints were a bit brutal on the ears for me. M didnt't have that problem but he is a good bit taller than me. We got the ride photo (another thing we like to collect) and then thought we would try for Toy Story Mania. It was a 55 minute wait time though so we thought we would try again later - in retrospect we should of done this first but never mind. Instead we hopped on the backlot tour with a shortish wait time - enjoyd it but my god was it hot.
We came away from the tour gasping for fluids and just about made it to the drinks stand for a coke & water. We needed a bit of a rest at this point so went for the 4pm showing of Beauty and the Beast. I got quite excited about seeing Lumier and learnt that M has never seen the film despite knowing most of the songs. It was a good show and we enjoyed a sit down in the shade as well. We had agreed that no matter what the wait time said for Toy Story Mania we would had to do it now as we didn't want to miss out. It actually said 60min but it was more like 30min for the wait and to get the ride done. Result!!
Irritatingly "Player 2" won even though I apparently have better accuracy...
booo!!!
M LOVED LOVED LOVED this ride. I also thought it was really innovative and a great addition to DHS.
Unfortunately we followed it with a visit to Narnia... less said the better really.
Looking at the map / schedule we decided to see the Little Mermaid show but that left us enough time to squeeze in another trip on the Tower of Terror. The Little Mermaid show was fantastic - my favourite Disney show to date. Loved all of the puppets - especially Sebastian.
We left DHS at 6:30pm - I believe the park closed at 7:00pm and we wanted to go get some dinner and have a scoot round Epcot before the Illuminations. We arrived by bus at Epcot around 7:00pm and there was much excitement for M in the form of a Lotso Bear topiary...
We originally thought we would try to get test Track ridden but it had a 40 minute wait time so we saved that for our "official" Epcot visit the following day. Instead we chose a trip on Mission Space and somehow I managed to get M in the Orange Route line. He doesn't do so well with simulators and I could see he was a bit reticent but fair play - he went on and managed not to throw up. To be fair I found it pretty intense but really enjoyed it. Wouldn't want it to go on much longer though!
We both needed a bit of recovery time so had a mooch about and then decided to grab some food. It was really busy around World Showcase and we were both flagging a bit at this point. I completely forgot about Sunshine Seasons and we ended up in Electric Umbrella with a mediocre dinner. Meatball sub for me, burger for M with soda and more soda. It cost $24 and was the least inspiring of all the food we had on the holiday. I wouldn't recommend it and neither of us really get on with the Disney counter service thing. I honestly also don't rate the service we have had at Disney - everything seems to take forever. I'm not sure why.
Pictures of the food although I'm sure you all know what a sub & burger look like:
It filled a hole though and I was loving my refillable soda. We watched Illuminations from the bridge and I am glad we stayed late to see it at least once. I'm not sure I would make a special trip back to watch it again though. We hightailed it out of the park after the fireworks to be in time for our shuttle... which there were too many people waiting for...
There was another one on the way but thankfully afer a bit of faffing around we got on the first and were back to the hotel for 10:30. The shuttle service laid on by the hotel did the job for the few days we wanted to use it but it would get annoying very quickly if you were doing it every day for 14 or more days. I found one of the drivers pretty rude and there was a lot of mis-communication and not enough seats for people on the return journeys. I gave the same feedback at the hotel so maybe they will do something about it.
The only thing we were good for at this point was shower, set the alarm for the morning and crashed into bed! Great first full day of the holiday!!
M's feet had survived our first full park day in his Zig trainers - but the real test would be day 3 and a full on visit to the the park I've heard is actually called:
Every
Person
Comes
Out
Tired
i much prefer TL to BB as well.
Love your pics, especially the Epcot ones (we loved the Flower & Garden Festival this year) 
