Viva Verde! With Pics! UPDATED 5/30!

[LockShockBarrel]

Well I'm finally back to add some more to this. Apparently I'm a little bit of a trip report failure. I was waiting to get some pics from Annie and then I discovered a new facebook game so yeah, this fell to the wayside a little bit.

So boys and girls, I believe I left off with our arrival and ride on ME! Let me just say I love that bus. I love the video, I love being up high in it and looking all over, and after that plane ride it was a luxury. I saw a ton of stuff I never remember seeing before, just touristy things but I don't ever remember passing it, so maybe I was just really out of it on my previous rides. We were the second stop, but I can't remember where the first one was. We were the only people to get off at OKW and literally stood there when we got off the bus and gawked at everything. There were a couple CMs there who pointed us to check in and off we went (ok so it was like 50 steps away, but off we went anyway!)

There was no one else in the check in area at all, so we went right up to the counter. A very very nice CM helped us get all checked in and settled up with money. Annie and I had been paying for different things along the way, I paid for the park tickets, she paid for Discovery Cove, that kind of thing, so we were splitting the balance in a way that made us even. The CM, whose name I forgot to write down, was very patient and even got out a calculator and paper to make sure we had it all correct. We paid a couple different ways too, some went on a gift card, the rest was in cash so this helped with that as well. The only thing we were even paying for then was the dining plan so it wasn't too hard. The CM offered us a room a far distance away from the Hospitality House, so I asked if anything else was available. She checked and offered me 2911 which was much closer than the original room so I took it. We got our keys printed and immediately went to the concierge desk to see if they could put our paper UT tickets onto the KTTW cards. The ladies there said they'd tried it earlier in the day and it didn't work, but they'd try again. Lo and behold....it worked! They seemed pretty stunned actually!

We headed over to the room, which was about a 5 minute, if that, walk away from the main buildings. I stuck my KTTW card in and....nothing. Again...nothing. One more time...nothing. Annie put her's in and it was fine so in we went. I've never stayed anywhere on property except for Pop, so this room was quite a shock to me. We had a 1 bedroom villa and even though I'd seen a bunch of pictures of it, I still was like I cleaned up a bit more in the bathroom and Annie called home to let her husband know we made it in. I had asked at the concierge desk if our order from Garden Grocer had come in yet and they said they'd send it right along. We hung out a bit waiting, but we were both so hungry we gave up and headed back to the HH area. I went in and got my key situation sorted out, somehow when they put the tickets on the card, the system made my key not a key, so if you've ever seen a KTTW key, you may have noticed the arrow on it, pointing how to insert it in the doors and turnstiles. My original card didn't have it, and honestly since I've never had an issue I'd never really noticed that before.

Next, time for lunch!!

 

[LockShockBarrel]

As an aside, I'm going to make a seperate thread on the restaurant reviews board that will be just my food reports, and they'll be exactly the same so if you just want to the check that out, I'll put a link in my signature for that.

Good's Food to Go!

I should say now even though I promised to be a good picture taker...I kind of failed, particularly when it comes to food pictures! I got a lot of pictures, just not of everything. Most of the time I was too distracted or hungry to remember to take pics, at least at the counter service places. I was pretty good at the table services. Annie actually got to the point where she'd go "WAIT!!!" and stick her hand over my plate which got us some interesting looks at the restaurants.

We both had the burger, and key lime pie for dessert. I had coke and fries, while Annie had the fruit salad and Gold Peak iced tea.

We placed our order and were given a buzzy thing, so we staked out a table nearby. Our buzzy thing (I really don't know what else to call it) went off and we got our food. The burgers had the dreaded wheat bun, which I honestly don't mind that much. The fries weren't very good, I think I got a combination of batches because some were hot and some were cold, but all were pretty greasy. The burgers were pretty good, not the best I've ever had but really not bad at all. Annie had the fruit salad, which I believe had a lot of melon in it and mint. She said the mint was a little odd, but not in a bad way. We both really enjoyed the prepacked key lime pies. I had a thing about key lime pie, if it's just limey I'll probably still eat it (I mean who are we kidding?) but it's not key lime pie. A true key lime pie MUST have a strong tartness to it, and these little prepacked guys did, so I was a happy camper!


Next, the great room adventure!

 

[LockShockBarrel]

I'm on a roll so let's keep going!

We snapped a couple pictures from where we sat for lunch and on the bridge so here they are!

So we headed back to the room after lunch and called again for the groceries. Little did we know what a storm of phone calls this would lead to. The groceries were delivered, and I started putting them away. I felt little wet spots on the bottom of my feet, and thought "Oh maybe the milk jug is sweatingn and I just stepped it in". Walked back and forth from the island to the fridge and my feet are feeling more and more wet, so I look down. The refurbed rooms have wooden flooring in the main room now, and I notice as I step down, little beads of water are coming up between the flood boards. It was happening over the space of about 4 boards. I figured it wasn't a huge deal and it'd probably stop so I finished putting the groceries away. As I keep going, the water under the boards is spreading and is now coming up over the space of about 6 or 7 floorboards. I sat down on the couch and called home to check in, and about half an hour passes which brings us to about 4:30. Annie got up for a water and steps what would be 2 floorboards away from the farthest beading and LOTS of beads of water pop up now.

"We can't ignore this, let's call maitenence and see what they say" I said.

Annie called them and told them the issue, to which they replied they would send someone right over. 5pm rolls around and no one has come, so she calls again and speaks to a different lady. This CM says "Its on someone's work order so they'll be around." Now we're at 5:30, and I understand the maitenence workers has other things to do, but we told them both times that the problem was getting worse fast, so I called again and if I were Mr Potato Head, I would have needed my angry eyes! I called this time and told them the problem was still getting worse, we'd waited an hour already and I had ADRs to get to, all in a politely pissed voice and lo and behold, who shows up 5 minutes later! We had a very very nice maitence worker named Robert, who said he thought he knew exactly what the problem was. He pulled the bottom off the dishwasher and found a loose connection in the water hose, which was dripping onto the subflooring and that's what was beading up between the boards. He said it was a pretty good leak. I said, "I'm not staying in this room am I Robert?" He laughed and said "I highly doubt it, I'll call my foreman, he'll call the front desk and they'll call you and let you know what they want to do" Uh huh...sure they will. At this point I'm sick of dealing with people on the phone and just decided to walk down to the HH and see what's up.

I get down there and find a nice CM named Donna, who checked with someone in the back and said that yes indeed, they wanted us to move. Donna told me that the room directly above us was free and moved us to that one and printed out new keys. I had her make sure everything was still on them, as far as the dining plan and the park tickets. Since building 29 is one without elevators, I asked her if she could send someone to help us move everything because at this point we had 4 bags of groceries (with 3 2 liters of pop, a gallon of milk, and a case of water) and in the time I'd walked down to the HH, our luggage had been delivered. Donna said "No problem!"...and I realized I should have asked for someone to go back with me. It's now 6:45 and we had 7:45 ADRs at Cape May Cafe. I'm exhausted from all this back and forth, the plane ride from hell and not sleeping the night before, and I'd never been to the Beach Club before so I knew we should leave soon. I went back to the room, and finally got to put on fresh clothes, and we decided to just schlep the stuff upstairs by ourselves. 15 sweaty minutes later we finally head out to go over to the Beach Club. As we left, Bell Services pulled up. We said it was too late and we had to go, the guy just kind of shrugged and left.

Now let me say that I went to the Transportation board and asked what the best way to get over to BC was, and who knows why I didn't listen to them. I was told to take the bus to HS, and then the boat to BC. I actually think now that I thought there wouldn't be a bus that late going to the park, so we took the little boat from OKW to DTD, intending on catching the bus there. We got off at the Pleasure Island dock, and somehow we missed the Pleasure Island bus stop and ended up hauling fanny all the way over to the Marketplace stop. We finally get to the bus stop and a bus pulls up at our stop, but the banner says "Rapunzel". We asked the driver what it meant and he said it was just a code between drivers, but he was going to BC. We hopped on and THOUGHT we were on our way to BC. Nope...little did we know this bus was servicing BC...and YC, and Swan and Dolphin and Boardwalk!!!! The driver never told us, so we assumed we had just lucked out and it was a BC bus, if not a BC and YC bus. I'd never seen a bus that went to 5 resorts before! We drove over to the Pleasure Island stop (which I really don't know how we missed it) and now we find out it's a shift change! Our driver hops off the bus and the new one does what has to the be the most detailed inspection of the bus ever. I understand they have to before they sign over the shift, but he took 10 minutes to do it! We had shift changes on a couple other buses but none of those drivers was that detailed.

At this point I'm so frustrated I kind of zone out and don't even look at the Swan and Dolphin as we drive through them, and Annie had to poke me to get me back to reality that we were finally at the BC. We virtually ran off the bus and into the lobby, and Annie grabs me and points because she can see Cape May Cafe. We must have looked pretty dramatic but maybe we gave the other guests a little thrill. So our ADR time? 7:45...what time did we actually get there? 8:17. I was so afraid we'd have to wait but luckily the restaurant wasn't busy at all and girl at the podium said it'd be just a minute. It was the first time all day I felt like I could relax!!

Next, Clams and Mussels and Crab legs, OH MY!

 

[LockShockBarrel]

Cape May Cafe


WOOHOO! Now we're finally sitting down and it's really the first time I feel like I can relax. I have on fresh clothes, I'm about to get my buffet on. Life is good.

We got a little "tour" by the guy that seated us. Basically "Here's our dessert bars, and our famous oreo bon bon, and here's the main buffet". We sat down and our server took our order and we hit the buffet right away. I'd never been to Cape May Cafe before because I am not a seafood fan. Annie is a seafood freak, so during the planning stage when I was haunting around Allears menus twice a day, I found some sea food places that had landlubber entrees that I would eat. I thought the restaurant was so cute, airy without being huge, nice decorations without the kind of cliche seafood restaurant things.

It wasn't busy at all, probably 15 tables were being used but like I said, it was pretty late at this point. Annie went right for the crab legs, and I poked around the whole buffet first deciding where to start. I went for some chicken, steamed red potatoes, cornbread and the basil mashed potatoes (I carbs) Annie loved the crab legs, and ended up eating 3 racks of them. The chicken was...odd. The seasoning had a funky flavor to it, almost like someone made body odor into a spice and sprinkled it on my chicken. Then the more you chewed it, the drier it seemed to get. The steamed potatoes were great, just done enough, and even better when I dipped them in the drawn butter. Cornbread and rolls were good, I know I had seconds of the cornbread. Annie had another plate of seafood, and she said the mahimahi was dry, the clams and mussels were good, and the fried shrimp were great and very crispy. We were starving by the time we sat down, so we mowed through the dinner options and realized "Oh crap, we're gonna feel full really soon, we need desserts before that happens!" We both had the key lime tart, some kind of berry cheesecake, and the oreo bon bon, and I had a chocolate chip cookie and she had a brownie. We both liked the cheesecake, but we couldn't figure out exactly what berry was it in. The key lime tart was ok...but it was just limey, not tart (and I already told you my issues with that), the cookie was good and the brownie was so dense it was almost unpleasent, more like baked fudge. Then....the oreo bonbon Those things are amazing. Neither of us could really identify what was soooo good about it, just that it was soooo good.

Crab legs.

Assorted seafood items.

Chicken, potatoes of various types, and my beloved carbohydrates.

Berry cheesecake, oreo bonbon, chocolate chip cookie, and keylime tart.

Verde with his cookie and some salt water taffy!

Next, Will I sleep?

 

[LockShockBarrel]

After we finished dinner, we putzed around the lobby of the Beach Club for a few minutes then headed down to the buses. Thank Mickey that we didn't have such terrible luck with the buses on the way back because we were exhausted. We took the bus to DTD, then back to OKW, and only waited 5 minutes at BC, when we pulled up to DTD the bus we needed was just pulling up for OKW so we lucked out, which turned out to be a recurring theme for us.

We made it back to the room and I started fretting over whether or not I'd sleep. As you may have read in a couple of my previous posts, I have terrible insomnia, and the past 2 times I've been to the World I was up from Sunday afternoon to Tuesday night. Even being physically as tired as I was, from past experience I knew that didn't necessarily mean sleep would come easily. I decided that the jacuzzi tub needed to be christened, and that maybe it'd help me relax. I had a couple bath bombs from Basin left from my last trip and had thrown one in my suitcase knowing we weren't hitting DTD to shop til mid trip. I tossed that in the tub and waited 30 min!!! for that sucker to fill up. I urge anyone who reads this to remember, and if you end up in a villa with these tubs and you know you want to sit in it, turn it on EARLY!

I have to rewind a bit here to talk about the sleeping arrangements. I'm an active sleeper, in that I roll around and kick, so sleeping together even in that giant bed wasn't really an option. We agreed that we'd split the bed, she'd have it the first half of the stay and I'd have it the second half because I knew I'd be up later than her at least the first few days. While we were waiting for the tub to fill, we tried to make up the couch pull out bed, but there was something up with the linens and they just wouldn't fit! We ended up giving up on them and I said that I'd just use the sleeper chair. Then I realized that I couldn't really see the tv if I was going to lay there, so we switched around the furniture! If you look at a pic of the 1 bedroom villa at OKW, you can see how it's set up. We moved the couch to where the chair was and put the table in front of it, then the chair where the couch was and the ottoman between the arms of the chair and the couch. We were almost afraid we'd come back to the room to find it moved around again but they left it, and we moved it all back when we left.

So anyway, I got in the jacuzzi and Annie was in the bedroom watching the news so we could hear what the weather was going to be the next day. I couldn't really hear the tv over the jets, and when I got out she told me they were expecting hail and tornados the next day! She was worried about it and we considered just staying in the next day and using what we'd planned as our off/hopped day later in the trip as our MK day. I said "Well let's see what it looks like in the morning and we'll go from there." I went into the living room and snuggled into the sleeper chair and read for about 20 minutes and completely conked out. I couldn't believe I fell asleep as easily as I did! It was great because that never happens at home. It was off to sleepy land for me....

Next, Welcome to the Magic Kingdom!

 

[PirateFish989]

Your report is cracking me up! I'm just joining in and can't wait to read/laugh more!

 

[LockShockBarrel]

We'd planned on being out of the room around 10:30 am to get over the MK, but we both woke up early. Since we had our groceries, we had breakfast in the room, showered and headed up by 9:45.

We took the bus over and I bounced in my seat like Tigger on crack, I was so excited. The past 2 times I'd go to Disney, I had meals at the restaurants on the monorail loop and this time we didn't. I hadn't even realized we were down there and I went "....but the monorail...I NEED TO HEAR THE WORDS!!!" Annie was fine with just taking a ride around the loop so she could see the resorts anyway, so before we even went into the park, we walked up the hill to the monorail and did the loop. I got in the monorail car and sniffed deep for that stale slightly goaty smell and then....I heard it. Some of my favorite words spoken in all of Disney "Please stand clear of the doors...Por favor mantengase alejado de las puertas." I was home.

We did the loop, then headed into the park. Just walking around I could tell there wasn't a ton of people in the park, but it wasn't until we started going to rides that we realized quite how few people there were. We walked on to EVERYTHING. The only times we waited were for things that had preshows, like Haunted Mansion and Monsters Inc Laugh Floor, and even then it was like 5 minutes. I've never seen it like that before and it was GREAT!

We didn't go in with much of a game plan, and started in Adventureland. We got on everything super quickly, did Jungle Cruise and Pirates first. The skipper on Jungle Cruise was very much on script and only mildly entertaining. We went over to Pirates and got in line there. I have to say now that I tried reaaaaaaaaaally hard to keep an open mind, knowing that the South American folk would be there, and I'm going to try very hard in this report not to comment on them more than necessary but there were just some things that bear telling. We got in line and behind us came a mother and small son, about 6. This line was moving fast, but apparently not fast enough for this kid, because he stepped on the backs of my ankles twice, and then decided he needed to hurry me along by putting his hand square on my rump and pushing. I turned around and told the mom "Make him stop, I don't want him touching me" but all I got was "Sorry..no English!" He did it twice more, so I finally reached behind me and pushed his hands off my butt. He finally stopped then. We got down to the loading area and were sent to a row, then my new "friends" were sent to the same row, and the mom suddenly could speak to the CM, claiming there'd be no room in the row. She gave up her fight quickly when the only option she was offered was to wait for the next boat. The boarded into the boat with us and the mother gibbered through the first half, but not too loud so we just kind of dealt with it. I can't believe I forgot to add this part. We had the first our of list of must have snacks! Dole Whip Floats!!

Annie enjoying her first experience with the heaven that is Dole Whip.

After Adventureland, we headed over to Frontierland and hit Big Thunder Mountain, then over to Liberty Square for Haunted Mansion and Hall of Presidents. I'll never understand why people go into places like Hall of Presidents, then sit and text through the whole thing. The theater was pretty empty so they didn't ask us to move down the row, and the lady in front of us who sat by herself sat and clicked away on her phone the entire time. Never once did she look up. It wasn't enough to ruin anything for us, but the whole thing just boggles me.

After HOP, we decided it was time for lunch. At this point the sky was getting a bit cloudy and the breeze was pretty cool, but nothing terrible....yet. We both wanted things from different counter service places and since we were getting onto everything so quickly it wasn't a problem at all to eat at one place, then head to the other.

Next...a double food review?! Can it be?

 

[LockShockBarrel]

Yay I have another reader!!!! Glad you're enjoying it!

 

[LockShockBarrel]

Casey's Corner

Ever since I read the fateful words "corndog nuggets", I knew I had to have them. There's something about really anything dipped in batter and fried that calls to me. Casey's was my pick, so we headed over there for my lunch. I used a counter service credit and got the corndog nuggets, fries, my drink and Cracker Jack for dessert so that I could take it with me. The was barely a line and it seemed like they were making everything fresh because everything I got was rocket hot. There isn't a ton of seating, and all the tables were taken inside, so we sat on the bleachers that were on the right side of the restaurant. The fries were good and crispy, the corn dog nuggets were also nice and crispy but like I said, rocket hot. I ended up breaking them all in half so they would cool down enough that I could eat them.

It was really at this point we realized that all the counter service places gave you the bladder buster size drink. At first we were like..whoa...this is way too much but it really probably worked out for us because we weren't drinking throughout the day, just with meals and occasionally snacks. The bladder busters probably kept us from really getting dehydrated.

Lunching Pad

When we had been looking through the menus on Allears, Annie discovered the epic creation that is the taco dog. We headed to the Lunching Pad after Casey's for her lunch. She used a counter service credit and got the taco dog, chips, bladder buster and a cookie. The Taco Dog is huge, it comes on something more like a small sub bun rather than a hot dog roll and made a good size meal for her. She loved it and it ended up on the list of things we needed to do again. She saved the cookie because Lunching Pad also had one of the must have snacks, the sweet cream cheese pretzel. I'd only discovered that a few weeks before we left but it sounded great. In reality..meh. The filling to pretzel ratio was off for us, just not enough filling. We both ended up tearing open the pretzel and licking the filling from it while just nibbling on the dough. It had its merits but I probably wouldn't get it again, and I'm glad I tried it. It would have haunted me otherwise.

 

[LockShockBarrel]

Since we were in Tomorrowland at this point, we decided to hit everything we wanted there. We were smart enough not to go on Space Mountain right away, so we did the TTA (which I still love), Monsters Inc Laugh Floor and Buzz Lightyear. We both recently discovered a love of lasertag and whenever we talk about it, it ends in us both making laser noises like "PEW PEW!!!" We made those noises ALL through Buzz. Luckily it's pretty loud in there, otherwise we would have been pretty annoying . We did Carousel of Progress, and we got stuck on it! We had to sit through the 40's scene twice. When we finally got out of there, we found this little guy with no line!

I love Stitch, he's one of my favorites.

We got slurpy kisses from him, and I got a thumbs up when I said "aloha!" as we walked up.

Space Mountain...believe it or not...had a 5 minute posted wait. I was almost just a LITTLE sad because it was the first time I'd seen everything since the refurb, and kind of wanted to play the little video game thing that's in the queue. I was in the front of the front, and man I don't know how anyone that's tall does that ride. I'm 5'3" if I stand up straight and I was ok in the front, but I knew the other seats had less room. Once we finished up Tomorrowland we doubled back into Fantasyland and hit it's a small world and Mickey's Philharmagic. Again, no waits. I think it kind of spoiled us for the rest of the trip. Because we weren't waiting anywhere we finished up everything we really wanted to do early. We passed 2 CMs standing by the large wall where all the construction is with a large grid of wooden plaques with characters on them. They asked if we wanted to play a game and we said sure. It was going to be like a giant game of Memory, but the male CM said he had heard of a new way to play it and we agreed to try his way. He asked us to turn around and we could hear him moving the tiles around, then he gave us 5 seconds to look at the "board" and then we had to turn back around while he flipped the tiles face side down. We then had to see if we could remember where any of the pairs were and just flip them over rather than doing 2 at a time and taking turns. I managed to remember 3 pairs and Annie got 1, which they seem really impressed with which makes me think they're used to playing with the little ones. They gave us some of the Mickey stickers for "winning". We started just kind of walking around aimlessly and ended up back in Frontierland and found Davey Crockett Donald!

If you look in my hand, you can see a lime green envelope. It's for a birthday card we were having the characters sign for my friend who rented me the DVC points, as it was her birthday while we were there. Donald pointed to Stitch's signature and gave a thumbs down! He was sad he wasn't first, so we told him we wouldn't tell anyone else that Stitch signed before him and to make sure we would, he signed it "Donald Duck, #1 always!!"

We walked back through Adventureland and it started raining, this was about 4:30. We hunkered down and honestly I'm not sure where it was. There was a few tables and 2 merchandise carts with jewelry and crystal stuff under a large square archway. We sat at a table and waited a few minutes, and the rain stopped but the sky stayed pretty cloudy and the breeze was a bit stronger. We had a 6pm ADR for Crystal Palace so we started back that way. By the time we got to the porch, the heavens opened up. We had to ask people to move repeatedly so we could get into the actual line to check in. The porch got more and more crowded as the rain got harder and harder, and people were trying for walk up seats. We checked in about 5:40, which was early, but we weren't seated until 6:10. Anyone who gave up and decided to leave the park were quickly replaced on the porch and we heard a lot of "Well, we're standing here, let's just eat here!" and 3 groups tried to just walk into the restaurant only to be asked for their buzzer. They couldn't understand making reservations for a buffet. Finally we were buzzing and managed to swim through the sea of humanity to the front doors.

Next, Is there heffalumps and woozles on the buffet?

 

[LockShockBarrel]

Crystal Palace

So we finally make it into the restaurant and were seated. The first thing I noticed was that for as full of people as it was, it wasn't super loud. I don't know if I just lucked out with soft spoken people or what but I was expecting a cacophany of noise, so it was a pleasant surprise.

This is a case when we were just too hungry to take pictures of the food so I'm sorry that this will be what really is a pretty crappy review. I was keeping a notebook of everything during the whole trip so I'm really going off what's in there. I apparently thought that the beef and turkey were tender and juicy and that the chicken was good but messy looking. I do remember the messy chicken... I think a lot of the messiness came from the tongs but the meat just looked kind of beat up and I remember being a little hesitant over it, but the taste was just fine. The potatoes were good too, and I know Annie liked the food because she said "This kicks the butt of Old Country Buffet at home!"

For dessert there was tiramisu, passion fruit tartlets, chocolate trifle, keylime pie and apple cobblers (at least that's what I had). The tiramisu was good, I'm not a huge coffee flavor person but this wasn't too strong. I tasted the apple cobbler next which was a mistake because I could still taste the tiramisu and coffee and apple? Not good bedfellows. The passionfruit tartlet was good, not great but not bad, just not memorable. The key lime pie was "correct", in that it was tart but again, not great but not bad.

All of the characters here were nice, and all seemed pretty excited to sign the card. I always try to provoke some kind of reaction from the characters, so I told Piglet to be careful because it was pretty blustery outside, and told Pooh he was a hunny for signing the card. Piglet clapped his hands to his mouth and looked towards a window, and Pooh clapped and pretend to be shy. Then came Tigger, he didn't seem too interested in any of the tables that were all adults...he saw the camera on the table and pointed to it and gave a thumbs up, then just kneeled down next to me without us saying anything. I don't know if he was trying to be like "Hey take my picture!" or just "Yeah yeah...let's get this over with." Anyway, he kneeled down by me and I put my arm around his back....and apparently Tigger has been working with a trainer or something because he was BUFF. I must have had a weird look on my face after he walked away because Annie asked me what was wrong. I said "Not a thing...but Tigger was ripped!" We kind of kept an eye on him the rest of the time and pondered what buff Tigger really looked like. Then he got interesting. There was a wall of mirrors not too far away from us, and Tigger was at a table there. He was playing with the kids, then caught a glimpse of himself out of the corner of his eye...he slowly turned and put his paw up to the mirror, and slowly moved around like he wasn't sure what was going on. Then he pretended to lick his paw and brushed the top of his head like he was a fine styling Tigger. It was hysterical to watch. He started strutting back and forth watching himself.

Annie with Eeyore

Me and buff Tigger.

 

[LockShockBarrel]

We headed out of Crystal Palace and it was still raining like crazy. If you ever have the chance to watch lightning over the castle, I highly suggest you do. It's quite beautiful. By this time the porch had mostly cleared out and there was barely anyone around. We were smart kids that morning and thought to throw our flipflops into Annie's bag so we sat on the porch for a minute and watced the lightning while we rolled up our pant legs and changed out sneakers for flipflops. She had an umbrella and I had a light rain jacket so we got those out too. Neither of us got too wet this way and we headed out of the park. There were CMs pointing the way, and I think they were trying to encourage people to clear out because obviously there wasn't going to be a parade or fireworks that night. This ended up being a little kink in my plan because I'd planned on this being the night for fireworks. We figured maybe we could catch them later in the trip as this was only our first day in the parks so we weren't too worried, and we finished our night at MK by taking a quick meander through the shops then headed back to OKW.

We got in and just settled in for the night, basically only staying awake so we could see the news for the weather the next day. This is when we found out just how bad this storm was. We didn't have it bad at all apparently, because all around central Florida was tons of damage, and even reports of tornados! We had no idea it ever got that bad because at the park and even back at OKW the rain was hard but it was just coming down straight, there wasn't any wind or anything. We couldn't believe what they showed on the news! As luck would have it, it was a pretty fast moving storm and the forecast for the next day was just fine, and the few remaining clouds were welcome because we were heading to AK!

Next, get a room kids!

 

[LockShockBarrel]

Here we arrive at Wednesday, and we tried to sleep in at least a little but really didn't, another half an hour at most. This would be a recurrring theme for us. Today was both one of my most and least anticipated days. Annie wasn't terribly excited about AK and I pretty much knew what to expect so we went into it as kinda this "Well we're here and we're not going to NOT go" mood.

We headed right over to Festival of the Lion King as this and Finding Nemo were must do's for us. We managed to be there right on time and were in the elephant section. They packed everyone into 3 sections and left the top half of the 4th section empty which was a little odd to me but whatever. The show was good as always but I was a little...a tad...a smidge...disappointed with the older male host who sings Be Prepared. I LOVE this song and I remember seeing FOTLK and this performer had a great deep James Earl Jones-esque voice. The guy this time? Not so much. He was good, don't get me wrong, and I'm not how many people they have that do this show in the host roles, but the voice just wasn't the same. Still good, just not the same.

After the show, we headed back towards Africa because I knew at this point Kilminjaro Safari's line would start filling up and filling up fast. We got in line with a posted wait of 20 minutes but definitely waited closer to 40. The bridge was definitely functioning at this point and the crocodiles were back. I'm not going to bother posting the pics we took because you can find similar ones everywhere, they were nothing extraordinary. I did, however, learn that apparently elephants can loose their tusks as they age, and we saw 2 elephants, both with only one tusk (or maybe the same one twice but if so it moved pretty darn fast!) We finished up there and headed back to the Tree of Life and Its Tough to Be a Bug. I still can't believe the parents that take their little ones into that show, particularly the 2 families where the kids were crying before it even started. To any parents that read this, I implore you, I know you want to see the show but please PLEASE take your shrieking child out of the theater, they're terrified and kind of ruining it for me .

The crowds were kind of dictating where we were going, and we doubled back and forth a lot because of this. Speaking of crowds, it was this day that we started running to the large groups of South Americans (the flag people) and tons of Jewish people. I don't mean to sound religion-ist, but there was yarmulkes as far as the eye could see. They were no problem whatsoever, I've just never seen so many in one place. We decided before lunch to hit up Expedition Everest. The wait time was 30 minutes, and we just decided to suck it up and get in line because neither of us wanted to ride after lunch. We hopped in line about 2 groups behind a group of about 15 Brazilian kids. They weren't terrible, mostly kids being kids, but there were 2 couples and OMG these kids were all over each other! Hands all over, groping and kissing and sucking....for the entire 30 minutes we waited. I understand being young, and I understand the thrill of not having an adult around but for crying out loud, keep it in your pants Junior! I've never ever ever seen a public display of affection quite like this, and it was both couples. I don't consider myself a prude by any stretch of the imagination but I've seen newlyweds less physical than these kids, they were just mauling each other. I was expecting to hear the "bow chicka wowow" music start somewhere in the backround! Most everyone else in line around them were pretty amazed/embarrassed/uncomfy with the whole situation but soon enough we were on the ride. We saw the group after the ride and they were with one of the tour groups, and there was a group of at least 25 kids to 1 adult which I think it ridiculous for any group of kids. Too easy to lose control but I digress.

After that we went over to Finding Nemo, and our little groping friends joined us. The small group that were in line ended up right behind us in the theater but luckily the smoochers were a couple rows back. The girls behind us were just chatty, but after 2 very clear "SHH"s, they quieted down. I don't mind a little talking during a show, like "Hey look at that costume" hushed conversation, but full volume "I'm not really into this so I'm going to yammer to my friends the whole time" grinds my gears. I'm very thankful the "shh"s worked.

We headed down to Dinoland USA and Restaurantosaurus for lunch and it was so lackluster I'm not even going to make it a seperate review post. We both had chicken nuggets and fries, she had chocolate mousse and I had the cheesecake. The chicken nuggets were fine, the fries were way oversalted and the desserts were terrible. The cheesecake had some kind of funky glaze on it that was vaguely citrusy but really looked more like whoever made it had a cold. The mousse was more edible and would have been good, except there was like a 1/4inch of chocolate syrup on top of it. It was really off putting. Bleh..

After "lunch", we doubled back to Africa and headed up to Rafiki's Planet Watch, and well...it kind of sucked. I've been back there before and I can't figure out what's changed but it wasn't for the better. We went out to the petting area and I seem to remember all the animals except for a couple being free roaming, but this time they were all roped off. We gave up and headed back out, and if anything it was worth going back there so Annie could see the animal night houses and the train ride was kind of nice. We putzed around the shops a bit letting "lunch" (really I just can't dignify what we ate as anything but "lunch") settle before we headed to Dinosaur. By this point EMH's were in effect and we noticed the crowds really thinned out. We got through the queue for Dinosaur in about 10 minutes and slowly meandered back to the front of the park figuring we'd just start heading over to....ARTIST POINT! It's probably my favorite restaurant ever and this is was where my good anticipation came in.


Next, is it wrong to eat buffalo after going to AK? No, it's just a fitting tribute.

 

[LockShockBarrel]

Artist Point

Oh man...I'm a little sad about this one, purely because it makes me miss Disney and the food BIG TIME. This is my favorite restaurant in Disney and it was a must do for me. I adore buffalo meat and had turned Annie onto it about a year ago, so we both knew that's what we were getting before we even made the ADR.

Anyway, we got to WL a little early and walked up the front of the building to go in the main entrance rather than the path from the buses. I distinctly remember there being little animal footprints in the cement of the walk a couple years ago, did they replace the pavers? I didn't see them this time! We walked in and walked around the lobby a little, and settled by the fireplace. We hung out for around 20 minutes then headed back to the restaurant. We checked in and were given a buzzer, even though there was only one other couple waiting. Even more surprising once we got into the restaurant because it wasn't busy at all! But whatever, we only waited around 10 minutes, I was just surprised we waited at all.

We buzzed and were seated, about 2 tables away from the entrance by the windows that look down into the hallway next to the restaurant, I think it leads outside. Our server came over and greeted us, she was quite the perky one too. She made very sure to go over the dining plan with us, "You gals know this is 2 credits on your plan right?" "Yup" "OK, well this is what's covered on your plan, its JUST the non alcoholic drink, entree and dessert, if you want anything else we'll add it to your bill and you'll need another way to pay for it" "Yeah we understand" "Ok so just to recap, it's going to be 2 table service credits and this is what you can get". At this point it was like "Lady come on...I get that we're 2 twenty somethings and maybe not your typical customers, but we're not going to dine and dash you so chill out". I'm sure it's happened before but I felt the recap was a bit much.

We started out with our "non alcohlic drinks", I had coke and Annie had iced tea, and the server, who at this point must have sensed I was a bit peeved, redeemed herself a bit only because she brought that wonderful bread they serve. I didn't get a pic of it because we pretty much inhaled it. So dense, so chewy... We both ordered the buffalo, but I wasn't a fan of the sides that came with it so I asked if I could have the potatoes that came with the salmon. The server asked if I wanted "the whole set", which I wasn't entirely sure what she meant and I just said yes. For me this turned out to be one of the best things I ever agreed to.

"The whole set" apparently meant I got everything that usually came with the salmon, not just the potatoes. That meant I got my potatoes (roasted marble potatoes, think little fingerlings), a leek, and.........the best sauce I've ever had. I'm typically a pretty plain eater, I don't like condiments and sauces or anything like that but this changed me. 4 heavenly words, Pinot Noir beurre rogue. Translated? Red wine and butter sauce. Holy crap...I dipped my meat in it, my potatoes in it, Annie tried it and was like "Holy crap!". I asked for more bread just so I didn't leave a drop of it on the plate. I would have asked for a to go bucket. I would have poured it over ice cream....it was just that good The buffalo itself was awesome too. I asked for medium rare and got it, and it was so tender and beefy. The leek was, well, a leek, and I didn't eat it. Annie got the sides that were listed on the menu with the buffalo, which were Black Diamond cheddar mac and cheese, and apple cider glazed brussels sprouts. She was surprised I didn't go for the mac and cheese, because I've had Black Diamond cheddar a million times, being a cheesemonger I'm around it a lot and usually have to cut 10 lbs of it at a time. I'm a very picky mac and cheese fan, and I just wasn't sure about this. She loved it, I wasn't so much of a fan. There was a lot of bacon in it and that's really all I could taste, it overwhelmed the cheese for me so I was happy that I went the other way. She tells me the brussels sprouts were also really yummy, and she even dipped them in my beloved beurre rogue. I had offered to let her taste it, so the first dip she took was fine...but the 2nd and 3rd time my deep caveman brain was telling me "She's stealing the precious sauce...stab her with your fork!" I resisted, but only just.

Annie's plate, medium rare buffalo striploin, apple cider glazed brussels sprouts and Black Diamond cheddar mac and cheese

My plate, medium rare buffalo striploin, leek, roasted marble potatoes and Pinot Noir beurre rogue (aka heaven on earth)

Then came the big decision with dessert. I had gone in intending to get the berry cobbler because nothing else on the menu I'd seen online appealed to me. When I went a couple years ago they has this double chocolate cheesecake with raspberry coulis and Grand Marnier whipped cream and that nearly put me into a food coma, and I was so sad that it was gone.When the dessert menus were brought over, I was pleasantly surprised that it'd been updated, no cheesecake but I saw there was an apple carmel torte that looked intriguing. I ended up getting that and Annie got the cobbler, so I knew I'd at least get a bite. The cobbler was really yummy, the apples were tart which was nice with the sweetness of the carmel, and the housemade vanilla ice cream was awesome. The only fault I had with it was that the torte wasn't warm. That would have made it all come together and it would have been great. Annie had the cobbler which came out nice and warm, with housemade blackberry ice cream. We traded bites and both enjoyed each others desserts, but ice cream we were both kind of geeking out over. It was sooo creamy and rich and flavorful! We both said we would have been happy with just a scoop of each for dessert.

Verde and the berry cobbler.

Caramel Apple Torte

By the time we finished, it was very near the point of unbuttoning the jeans and asking for a pillow. I've never run into the "bad" food and service that other people have talked about here, but granted this was only my second time. I wouldn't consider the server's obvious doubt that we'd be able to pay "bad", just obnoxious. Still my favorite place!

 

[LockShockBarrel]

We waddled down to the buses and headed back to OKW and I immediately turned on the jacuzzi tub, now knowing how long it takes to fill that sucker up. I think Annie called her husband while I stewed in the jacuzzi and we both headed to bed, very much looking forward to the next day...EPCOT! It's my favorite park and I always split it into 2 days, Futureworld one day, and World Showcase and anything we want to redo in FW the second day. I feel totally at home at Epcot and couldn't wait to get there!

Next... she doesn't know what the heck is wrong with your plant, stop asking questions.

 

[LockShockBarrel]

EPCOTEPCOTEPCOTEPCOTEPCOTEPCOT!!!!!!!!!!!

I was excited, can you tell?

For the little bit Annie remembered from her only childhood trip, she remembered liking Epcot the most so she was excited too. We had long since planned on taking the Behind the Seeds tour because we're both into plants and whatnot, she was looking forward to Soarin and I was just happy to be there.

We headed out early and again, I was bouncing around like an idiot with glee. I knew we needed FPs for Soarin, and we figured we'd just do everything we wanted in that building at once so we trucked off to the Land. We hit the FP machines first an got a return time of 1:30 (or something around there). We signed up for the BTS tour next, and we were put on the noon tour. At this point it was only like 10:45 so we did Living with the Land, which as lame as it sounds is one of my favorite things. There's always been something about it that called to me and I always get a little thrill from me. After that we headed back upstairs and saw the Lion King themed conservation movie, the name totally escapes me right now. We headed back downstairs and just hung out until it was time for the tour, and people watched by the bathrooms. More and more people were hanging out by us, all with the tour name tags which surprised me because the first time I took the tour there was only 6 people including myself, this group was much larger. I definitely noticed there was more advertisement about the tour this time around so maybe that's why there was more people.

Our tour guide came back and got us and took us over to that first room, we all had to introduce ourselves and say if there was a reason we were there. There was Annie and I, 2 older men, 2 women with kids (seperate families), another girl maybe a bit older than me, and another older guy, which added up to 12 with the kiddies. We went through the group and there were lots of gardeners, the other youngish girl apparently was doing some kind of plant research and the single older man says "I'm interested in soil". I couldn't help thinking "Well sir you're going to be really bored on this tour because they don't really use soil." We went through the integrated pest lab and the CM told us this was primarily where she worked as she was studying enty..entomo..bugs. The kids were given the vials of ladybugs to release and we headed outside then through another set of doors into the greenhouses. At this point, the son of Lady 1 has had it, and starts getting antsy. We were asked not to touch anything but he does anyway, because Mommy is too busy videoing to pay attention to him. Lady B can't seem bothered to listen to the tour guide, and asks her questions about things she'd already gone over.

It went a little like, "So the plants you see here have their roots exposed, and as they travel through this tunnel they're sprayed with a nutrient rich solution that provides everything they need. By growing them in these vertical structures we can put several plants in a small space, and therefore grow many more plants using less room."
"So what's that getting sprayed on the plants"
"That's a nutrient solution ma'am"
"And what are those things hanging down?"
"The plants' roots"
"So why are they in this vertical thingy?"
"We can grow more plants in less space this way"
"And what's the stuff they're spraying on the plants again?"

....through the entire tour. Seriously lady? She said it already, all you have to do is listen. The son of Lady 1 starts moving farther ahead of the group, and she's still happily videoing. At this point the 2 men start asking the CM these ridiculously complicated questions and the CM could only keep saying "I'm sorry I'm not sure, I don't study plants that deeply". The other girl and the single older man are kind of lagging behind while this girl apparently is conducting her own tour for them. We haven't even made it out of the first green house and we've already been on the tour for 45 minutes. We finally make it into the next greenhouse and the CM announces we're going to take a little break! The kids of Lady 1 and 2 are running back and forth down this straight away by the wall and the 2 men are still quizzing the CM. I'm kind of watching the kids and watch the little boy disappear behind this little blockade wall. I look at Annie, and we just sat back for a minute to see if anyone else would notice him missing. 1 minute goes by...2 minutes go by, I finally say "Hey I think we're missing someone....!" Lady 1 FINALLY looks around and has a minor conniption, turns out he was hiding around that wall and thought it was o so funny. We finish up with the "break" and continued down the way, but up comes the video camera again and Lady 1 ignores the kid for the rest of the tour. At the point of getting into the aquapontics lab where the fish and the gators are, we're at an hour and 45 minutes. The CM says "Well we're over the time we should have been out so if anyone needs to go, I'll call another CM to take you out" The younger girl leaves, then 5 minutes later the older single man decides he needs to go as well. I swear something was going on between them at this point and they'd arranged some kind of "meeting", but they definitely weren't together before that tour! We finally get into the last greenhouse and the little boy is still touching stuff, Lady 2 is still asking stuff that's already been covered, and the 2 men are still quizzing the CM. Annie and I were at the point of "can we just be done with this now?" The tour is advertised as 45-60 minutes long, and I understand it can go longer if people are into it and asking questions but this was just ridiculous. We finally started walking out and I asked the CM if this was normal. She goes "Not at all...I should have stopped asking if there were more questions". I had to agree...she was a nice enough girl but she really didn't have control of the group and I'd have to imagine if she had a little more experience she would have been able to move things along a little better. I really think they should offer seperate tours for families with and without kids. Like every other tour is more kid oriented or more technical because the mix of people was just too hard to please it seems.

After the tour we were STARVING and since we'd planned on eating at Sunshine Seasons we headed there.

Next..I get that much food?

 

[LockShockBarrel]

Sunshine Seasons

Here's another instance of me being a picture taking failure because I didn't remember to take pictures here. We perused our selections and when we ordered we couldn't get over the size of the portions! They were the size of some of the table service meals I've had if not bigger. I had the rotisserie chicken, mashed potatoes and it came with some kind of bean salad. The chicken was yummy and the mashed potatoes were some of the best I had all trip. Annie had the porkchop and mashed potatoes, and it came with some kind of apple and other dried fruit chutney. Again, HUGE portions, we had gotten dessert from the bakery part of SS and of course had to save room so we only at probably half of the meals which was by and far enough. I had gotten the key lime pie (does anyone sense a trend yet?) and Annie got strawberry shortcake, having been inspired by the strawberries inside the greenhouses. I tasted it and it was really good, my key lime pie? Not so much. It was odd...almost like the whipped Jello brand version of key lime. It was creamy but it barely tasted limey. I wasn't impressed but not enough to go back and complain. I'd definitely go again, but I'd obviously pick a different dessert.

 

[Baloo]

Enjoying reading your TR...Verde is cute!

 

[LockShockBarrel]

So we finish up lunch and finally get to head over to Soarin!! We got right into the fast pass line and hiked up the line and waited probably 15 minutes total including the preshow. It was the first time I'd ever rode in the middle row, any other time I'd been in the top and I have to say I like the top better. The feet hanging down from the top throw me a bit, still love the ride and would ride it all day in any seat, I just like the top better. We were pretty cranky with the Land before we rode so this finally lifted our spirits....get it?

We finally headed out of the Land and hit up the Living Seas (yes I know its the Seas with Nemo and friends now, but it will always be the Living Seas to me) There was no wait for the ride so we did that, that darn angler fish startles me every time. We poked around the aquariums a bit and decided to see Turtle Talk with Crush. In the little waiting area we found this little guy, and I named him Mr Puffy.

Turtle Talk was cute, there was a very funny little boy who could just not get his question out and just kind of babbled at Crush. He'd stop talking for a second a keep going, all the adults were just giggling because this little boy had Crush's attention and wasn't giving it up.

We left the Seas and went to Imagination, which I have such fond memories of and am never willing to pass up, but I always come out disappointed. No wait to get on the ride and a lot of the computers in the Imageworks portion were out of order. Neither of us are Michael Jackson fans so we didn't bother with Captain EO. After that we went over to the other side of FutureWorld. Annie was worried about Mission Space, and I didn't really want to go on alone and it wasn't a must do for me, so I said since we were coming back later in the trip we could go on then if she wanted. We went to Test Track instead, it had a posted wait of 30 minutes but we really only waited 15. When we were in the loading area after the preshow the cars were all stopped and they didn't load anyone for a few minutes, so I guess there was some kind of glitch but it was quickly resolved. We drooled over the cars in the showroom for a few minutes and then checked the time. We had ADRs at Coral Reef at 6:10 and it was about 5 at this point, and I was a bit afraid of trying Universe of Energy and getting out in time so we headed over anyway to see how long it would be. The preshow movie was almost over so we had enough time to ride. We boarded and several announcements were made that "This is a 37 minute ride and movie experience, if for any reason you think you cannot stay for the full 37 minutes, please signal a CM and we will assist you". This was said about 5 times, some of the messages also adding "if you feel you cannot SIT for 37 minutes..." which makes me think they must have had a lot of problems with people wanting to leave midride. 37 minutes and a short doze later, we go off the ride and headed over to Coral Reef.

Next... 60% of your desserts have booze in them? I'm there!

 

[LockShockBarrel]

Yay another reader! I wish more people would reply *hint hint* I'd like to know how I'm doing!