Walking Softly and Carrying a Big Stick: A TR-Approved TR Updated 8/30

[VBsHustla]

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[VBsHustla]

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[VBsHustla]

Woot woot! Luke , Captain Danny , George, and Jean in one day!

One amendment, though: Liz purchased Roo from Luke (I already owned a Roo of course!) and I purchased a bunny! Luke was such a delightful British fellow, by the way. He was so pleased that Roo was being purchased because he felt terrible for that kangaroo because he was all alone!

 

[PEPE THE PRAWN]

Great trip report! You ladies look like you had loads of fun. My feet hurt just reading your report. Thanks for sharing!

 

[VBsHustla]

Great trip report! You ladies look like you had loads of fun. My feet hurt just reading your report. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment! And yes, my feet hurt remembering our trip!

-Jen

 

[Scott MC]

I'm very late catching up, but I've enjoyed your report immensely! We have several things in common you know....

1. We're fans of the Grand (I'll be there in about 8 weeks).
2. We might possibly have the music from Peter Pan's Flight as our ring tone.
3. We're both fans of the Carousel of Progress.
4. We both share a favorite book (Alice...)


I look forward to reading about more of your shenanigans in the future!

 

[VBsHustla]

I'm very late catching up, but I've enjoyed your report immensely! We have several things in common you know....

1. We're fans of the Grand (I'll be there in about 8 weeks).
2. We might possibly have the music from Peter Pan's Flight as our ring tone.
3. We're both fans of the Carousel of Progress.
4. We both share a favorite book (Alice...)


I look forward to reading about more of your shenanigans in the future!

Thanks so much for reading. So pleased to meet a fellow fan of such perfect things! We hope you have an amazing time at the GF. Be sure to look out for Captain Danny. Certainly he'll present you with a lovely plastic ring. And please say hello to John, Sarah, Patty, Jimmy, and our perennial house guest old Uncle Orville for us!

-Laura

 

[VBsHustla]

After our horrid experience at the Plaza, we traveled to an attraction that we knew would cheer us up, the TTA! During our exciting spin around Tomorrowland we got ready for the evening by breaking out our Dollar Tree glow sticks. Literally breaking out, by the way. After Jen had cracked a few glow sticks she felt a sort of slimy film on her hands, which were now streaked hot yellow, and we all smelled an unsavory scent. Was the universe trying to poison us? Oh well, we thought, as we placed the glow sticks that appeared to be intact around our wrists en route to the bathroom so Jen could wash what she could of the poison off of her hands. We also picked up some EMH bracelets after our hand-washing break.

By now it was already time for Wishes so we watched as we made our way to the castle hub via the Tomorrowland bridge. Not ideal to be watching as we walked across the MK, but we were late so we did what we could!

We desired to experience the wildest ride in the wilderness, so we of course trekked right over to the opposite side of the park, walked for an hour behind slowbies to get to a one-minute queue, and then got some crazy looks from the CM waving to us at our departure on account of our squishing the three of us into one seat. Not that we minded the odd look, but we especially felt great about our bizarre pasttime when we weren't jostled like crazy during our ride. Thunder is so great at night! We had a lovely time, but after our ride decided to depart from Frontierland.

We were in the mood for adventure and only had about 15 minutes to kill before Spectro’s second showing, so we skittered over to Adventureland for a ride over Agrabah on Aladdin’s magic carpets. We enjoyed a lovely flight and then scampered over to watch Spectro from our favorite spot near the Confectionary – however, we’d gotten there a bit early, and were able to snag a prime spot that allowed us to sit on the curb in the middle of the street, so we got to see the other side of Spectro for the first time! Spectro was superb!


After Spectro, we were herded back into Adventureland, and stuck there on account of Spectro still progressing though Frontierland, so we decided to embark on an exciting cruise through the jungle. It was here that we became acquainted with our second fav boat driver of the day, Skipper Adam. Skipper Adam finished off every one of his corny jokes with his name (so he could become famous through the proliferation of his name - we are doing our part here- and so we would know the jokes were his own). So, for instance, he would say in a totally deadpan voice with no intonation whatsoever, "Well, folks, I hope you all enjoyed your trip around the jungle. I had such a good time I’m going to go again, and again, and again, and again. Skipper Adam.”

He actually made the Jungle Cruise really hilarious! It's usually good corny fun, but after a few hundred times the jokes and commentaries are no longer funny. But not on this cruise! So, we commend you, Skipper Adam, and hope that you continue to close all of your comments with your name, even though your CP has undoubtedly ended.

Once we disembarked from our Skipper Adam-led cruise, we were in a fantastical sort of mood so we fluttered over to Fantasyland. Only to discover that it was absolutely packed! And the wait times for rides were absurd. It was still early on in the Extra Magic Hours and we knew the crowd would thin out if we waited, but we were tired and didn't feel like killing two hours just so we could ride Peter and Dumbo repeatedly, so we headed out of the MK.


We dropped off our “great service fanatic” cards to commend the wonderful CMs we had met so far, and then rode the boat back to the GF.


This ride was much less intense than the ride through the maelstrom we had experienced the previous night, thank goodness. When we got back to our room, Jen gave Laura and Liz their personalized Disney PJ sets, and we fell into our beds exhausted, but excited for our next day, as usual.

 

[VBsHustla]

September 1, 2008

Finally the time had come for Jen's first MGM morning! Remember, Liz and Laura had gone a few days earlier and continued to rave about TSM, so Jen was very excited to have a go at it! Jen was also excited to have something to run to that she actually wanted to experience at rope drop. Not what you would consider a fan of the Tower and an apathetic observer of the Rock’n Rollercoaster, Jen would probably head straight for the Voyage of the Little Mermaid at rope drop if left to her own devices. Not to worry though, Jen really does love MGM, just for the Voyage, Beauty and the Beast, the muppets, and Star Tours, rather than the big rides. MGM will probably always hold a special place in our hearts since we were youngins when it opened in the 90s and it was the hip new park. Anyone else remember that sweet Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show at the Streets of America? The Power Rangers have nothing on the Turtles.

Anyway, we took a bus over to MGM on this morning and arrived well before rope drop and before they were even letting guests through the turnstiles. Boring! When we were finally let through we skittered down the street and secured a spot right at the front of the rope. Too bad MGM's opening show is an atrocity. Could they not just have Mickey and pals out chatting about Hollywood and screaming lights, camera, action? They are bigger celebs than the amalgamation of stars being portrayed by each street actor. We would also appreciate an opening show starring some Playhouse Disney stars, even though we don't know who they are aside from Charlie and Lola (who are brilliant ). Anyway, we played the cards we were dealt and watched the current terrible opening show, then darted straight for TSM.


Navigating around the strollers and little ones was a bit difficult but as we were at the front of the pack, we made it to the FP machines in good time.


Of course the queues of about three people were already taking ages, and the FP machines were all breaking down, so it probably took about five minutes to get our FPs, which had a return time of about 11 am. We then proceeded to the standby line, where CMs were warning people that if they entered without their entire parties, they would not be able to meet up with their missing companions once they entered. The entrance area was quite hectic and scary. But once we entered we were delighted by the adorable queue theming and of course took millions of pics.

The wait time posted was 50 minutes, but we boarded our cars in about 25 minutes. Laura and Jen rode together and Liz went solo. Laura and Liz were old pros at this point, but it was Jen's first ride and she completely loved it! She is an expert at Buzz, but found TSM quite challenging, especially the first time.

 

[VBsHustla]

After an exciting ride on TSM, we went over to the Rock'n Rollercoaster, which had a posted wait time of only 5 minutes!

If Jen was going to ride this in her adult life, she figured now was the time, so we all walked right into the screening room in no time. Laura and Liz gave Jen some quick tips on how to avoid whiplash as we zoomed through to the loading area, and it wasn't long before we were zooming through Hollywood! The tips for avoiding whiplash worked and Jen deemed it a pretty good ride. Not a must-do but also not one to be avoided completely. Now if DW decided to refurb the ride with a Jonification, Jen would be sure to ride as often as possible, as we are confident all other guests would do.

Next up was the Tower, which also had quite a short wait. It was however approaching 200 degrees at this point in the day, so what little time we spent outside seemed unbearable. Jen pretty much hates the Tower because she is truly scared by the creepy décor and especially by the film in the library room. Thank goodness the Tower CMs no longer act nearly as creepy as they used to. Once through the harrowing theming, all parties, including Jen, had a nice time plunging down in our doomed elevator.

To prevent any future nightmares, we made our way over to one of our fav DW attractions, the muppets!

Upon entering the holding area to enjoy the 40-minute preshow starting Sam Eagle, chickens, and rats (what a combo!), we were presented with dream fast passes!!


These were our first dream FPs during the two trips we had taken during the YOAMD, and we were very excited to receive them!


We already had sets of FPs for TSM, the Tower, and the Coaster, but we would later give our extras to our late-arriving parents, who were often the beneficiaries of our FP collecting skills throughout the week.

Anyway, delighted with our newly acquired lanyards and our purple glasses we enjoyed a delightful showing of the muppets and then trekked over for our second ride on TSM. As we were loading into our cars, each CM who saw us remarked about us being back for a second ride! We did have tiaras on, but are not quite sure why we were so memorable! Maybe it was really rare over the summer for people to be able to both ride TSM at RD and get fast passes with a decent return time? Also as we were boarding we saw our parents disembarking from one of the cars, so that was amusing. We showed our parents our dream FPs and promised all the CMs who kept saying they remembered us that we'd be back later for another ride thanks to our dream FPs. We had another great ride and all of our scores improved a bit.


It was now 11:30 so we walked over to Starting Rolls so we could be among the first lunch patrons of the day. We all had delicious meals and did not have to battle any crowds, so a highly successful lunch!


Next was another trip down Sunset Boulevard to the Tower, which we rode with our dream FPs while mom and dad rode with some we had acquired earlier.


We also got some new FPs so mom and dad could ride more later in the day. Again, an exhilerating ride with a terrifying lead-up.

After the Tower we went over to the Coaster, only to be told that it had been shut down indefinitely and to see that people already in line were being removed from the queue. This evacuation disturbed us, and we were okay with the fact that we wouldn't be able to ride again. Before we made our way out of MGM, we stopped back at TSM for one more ride using our dream FPs, and again had a most lovely time.



It was the salmon monorail, so we were of course not surprised that our ride back to the GF was not a smooth one! An announcement came on that the monorail was being tested, so we made a few abrupt stops and sat on the track for quite a while. To pass the time, we of course enjoyed a super-loud Jonas sing-along! We hoped there were people in the cars surrounding ours enjoying our performance.

 

[VBsHustla]

Safely back at the GF we did some souvenir shopping at the princess shop on the second floor, where Jen picked up some mugs for her bosses and an unattended little girl vigorously popped the bubble wrap that a CM was using to pop Jen's mugs! Jen didn't say anything, but the CM gave her a horrified look and moved the mug-wrapping over to an area inaccessible to the child. Jen also picked up this cute lime green Mickey head, which she affixed to her bag.

We also enjoyed the GF’s lobby for a bit and then strolled around the beach for a few minutes.

Next we relaxed in our room for a bit, with Laura and Liz enjoying some Disney Channel offerings and Jen enjoying sampling some H2O Spa products, which we are now obsessed with. We all changed into our Polynesian outfits (oh yes, we did, you shall see the proof soon enough), and strolled over to the GF's lobby to enjoy the orchestra for a bit before departing for our 'Ohana ADR (even though it was quite difficult for Laura and Liz to extricate themselves from a rousing ep of Wizards of Waverly Place).

We had a lovely time enjoying the lobby and even had a great visit with our fav concierge CM Robin, who said she saw three princesses sitting there and just had to come say hello! She was delightful and wished us a great meal at 'Ohana with the ADR she had secured for us the night before. We heart kindly CMs like Robin! After enjoying some tunes we paid a quick visit to the Mary Poppins topiary in front of the GF. Liz was delighted!

We then traveled to the Poly via boat launch (which took about five minutes, whereas the monorail would have taken at least 20 since it travels in the wrong direction when going from the GF to the Poly).

 

[VBsHustla]

We arrived at the Poly and enjoyed the grounds, and then were seated almost immediately upon checking in to 'Ohana, which was the first of many things we enjoyed about our ADR during the first dinner seating available. We had never been to 'Ohana and thought it was cute that our "cousin" showed us the kitchen and grilling area and presented us our friendship bread to bring to the table.

We really loved ‘Ohana! We thought the food was fantastic, and we had wonderful servers. We particularly adored the salad, noodles, and broccoli. We had seconds of all of these dishes, and our servers said we were nuts! Guess they’re more used to brining seconds of the meat options.


Because Laura has a nut allergy, one of the ‘Ohana chefs came out to talk to her before our meal. It turned out that everything was safe for her to eat except for the peanut sauce that came with the appetizers (which we told them to just not bring out), and the bread and bread pudding, which could have come into contact with nuts. Well, come dessert time, the chef came out with this amazing special dessert for Laura! He was so nice and adorably enthusiastic! And Laura found the dessert – a high tower of lightly fried dough and banana, with ice cream – to be fantastic!


The only thing we didn’t love about ‘Ohana was the entertainment. We probably would have adored it had the singer woman not performed directly in front of our table every time, but as it was, we always had tons of kids leaning right on our table! We found it to be pretty hilarious, and were not really bothered by the children who were joining us for our meal, but it was just really absurd that as a table of only adults, we were seated right in front of the main kids’ entertainment area. We’d like to enjoy the festivities from a bit of a distance next time!

After our dinner, it was only about 5:30, so we had loads of time to spend at the MK! We scuttled over via boat launch and got some Photopass pics taken in front of a nice crane-free castle.

Then we headed back to Fantasyland in hopes of securing a Peter FP, but were thrilled to find that Fantasyland was virtually empty!


We'd never seen Fantasyland like this aside from rope drop! So Laura and Liz hopped in the surprisingly short queue for Dumbo (Jen had to change her camera's memory card and battery so she sat on a nearby bench to do that) and enjoyed a lovely flight.


Jen wandered around Fantasyland a bit.

 

[VBsHustla]

When we were reunited, we strolled over to the teacups, immediately entered our cup of choice and began taking an absurd number of pics in hopes of capturing a perfect in-action spinny one.
All spun-out, we decided to make ourselves more nauseated by embarking upon a jerky journey to Space. We basically ran through the Space queue without stopping and got to enter our preferred less-jerky left side. We then decided to see if the rest of the park was as wonderfully empty as Fantasyland and Tomorrowland, and took a leisurely train ride over to Frontierland from Toontown, rather than our usual frantic run across the park.

It turned out that Frontierland was as empty as Tomorrowland and Fantasyland, and we were able to complete the mountain trifecta, riding Thunder and Splash mountains in almost no time (at about 6:30 pm)! We were loving this evening.


Next we wandered back over to Fantasyland and used the Peter FPs that we had collected when we entered the MK, then enjoyed a showing of Philharmagic. After enjoying some of our fav attractions, we were delighted to find that it was time for Spectro (sorry, no pics from this night)!

 

[VBsHustla]

We had a grand old time watching and dancing along to our fav nighttime spectacular in our fav spot in front of the Confectionary. We then followed Spectro up Main Street and made our way back to Toontown, because why not visit each and every land in the few hours that we were in the MK? Really we wanted to see if the line for Minnie and Mickey would be acceptably short enough for us to wait in, but alas it was the only crowded spot in the MK so we skipped out of the judge's tent. As we were walking through and out of Toontown, we spotted Suzy doing a meet and greet outside of the main Toontown tent! We love Suzy, and all Cinderella mice! There were two little girls with Suzy when we walked up and no other line, so it was not long before we had what was probably our best character meeting ever! Suzy was just so pleased to meet us and was jumping up and down in delight pointing at our tiaras and then repeatedly hugging us. We're not really sure why she loved us so much (we might have mentioned that Jen is obsessed with the Cinderella mice, but we imagine characters are told these sorts of things all the time), but we loved that she did!


Following our animated meet and greet, we proceeded out of Toontown and took a spin on Pooh (with no line at all). Laura and Liz said this was the first time they had ridden without experiencing a heffalumps and woozles malfunction. Jen doesn't remember experiencing a breakdown in the heffalump room on each and every ride through (certainly on occasion though), but if you were a betting person you'd probably want to bet on Laura for recollections of most factual events.

After our smooth ride through the Hundred Acre Woods we made our way to the hub a few minutes before Wishes. Since we had eaten our dinner and desserts so early, we were ready to enjoy a second dessert of Premiums! The only open Premium emporium was the hut at the end of the hub so we had to wait in a rather large line, but it was of course worth it! We also got the brilliant idea of having a Photopass guy snap a pic of us enjoying our fav treats in front of the castle, so after another rather long wait we whipped out our slightly melted premiums and posed away, much to the delight of the large crowd surrounding us.


They thought we were just the weirdest things! We were glad to have provided entertainment before the main event. If only we could have been as grand as our fav opening act Four for a Dollar. We've all got to have dreams.

Following our premium photos and our subsequently getting extremely chocolately whilst consuming our fast-melting Premiums, we still had a few entertainment-less minutes to kill before Wishes. So what did we do? Began a loud Jonas Brothers sing-along, obviously!

While we were singing our hearts out, a small boy came up, slapped Liz's bottom, and then wandered off. We assume he was showing his appreciation for our performance?

Wishes was wonderful (holy moley, alliteration!) as always.

After Wishes, we exited and hopped on a boat launch that luckily drove very close to the electrical water pageant, so we couldn't help but perform the tunes along with it! We had a grand old time on our little launch -- much better than the previous night's maelstrom--and were soon back home at the GF.

For reasons unbeknown to us nine months after our trip, we went to the GF's lobby (even though our room in Boca Chica was much closer to the boat launch than to the lobby). But thank goodness we made this strange detour because we were treated to one of the greatest musical performances of all time on the children's cartoon TVs- Stand By Me by three perfect singing frogs, which features Timon and Pumba! Laura and our brother Kevy discovered this gem on YouTube a few summers ago whilst working at our dad's office and watched it millions of times. We've since learned that the song is part of one of the straight-to-video Lion Kings sequels that we've never seen. The tune is hilarious and we're pretty much obsessed with it, so being able to sing and dance along to it in the GF lobby at midnight was the best!

With this last bit of excitement cementing the night as one of our greatest DW evenings ever, we went back to our lovely room and promptly went to sleep.

Up next: Our last day in DW.

 

[Trinity524]

Subbing,

I see that you are about to go back! Are you staying at the Grand Floridian again?

I would also like to know where Liz got her sunglasses. I too am a red head and I find it hard to find sunglasses that go with my skin type and hair color!

TIA!

 

[VBsHustla]

Subbing,

I see that you are about to go back! Are you staying at the Grand Floridian again?

I would also like to know where Liz got her sunglasses. I too am a red head and I find it hard to find sunglasses that go with my skin type and hair color!

TIA!

Thanks for reading! We're staying at the Poly this time, so maybe we'll see you there! The next trip is getting so close, and I've decided that I WILL finish this TR before we leave for the next trip!

I'll ask Liz about her sunglasses and get back to you, but I have an inkling they were probably Target originals, as that's where we all do a lot of sunglasses shopping!

-Jen

 

[VBsHustla]

Subbing,

I see that you are about to go back! Are you staying at the Grand Floridian again?

I would also like to know where Liz got her sunglasses. I too am a red head and I find it hard to find sunglasses that go with my skin type and hair color!

TIA!

Jen was right! My eyewear was more than likely from Target!

I have gotten a few pairs I really liked from Anthropologie by a company called AJ Morgan, but I hesitate to bring anything but Target-originals to DW as sunglasses have a strange tendency to spontaneously melt in DW!

Target usually has a few brown pairs that should do the job. I've got some aviators to try out on our upcoming trip.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Scott MC]

Yippee!
You're updating!
I so enjoy your trip report.

 

[Trinity524]

Jen was right! My eyewear was more than likely from Target!

I have gotten a few pairs I really liked from Anthropologie by a company called AJ Morgan, but I hesitate to bring anything but Target-originals to DW as sunglasses have a strange tendency to spontaneously melt in DW!

Target usually has a few brown pairs that should do the job. I've got some aviators to try out on our upcoming trip.

Thanks for reading!

Sweet! Thanks! Hope to see you girls there...

 

[VBsHustla]

September 2, 2008 - our last day!

Today would be our last day in DW, which saddened us terribly. With heavy hearts we dragged our heavy suitcases out of our room, through the main building, and out to the Magical Express area. Once we had deposited our luggage, we hopped on the monorail and arrived at the MK for our 8:05 am Crystal Palace breakfast! Looking back on this we wonder if anyone else is crazy enough to book a before-park-open breakfast on their last day (after late night packing and early morning last-minute packing). We also wonder how on earth we got to this ADR on time.

Anyway, we were indeed in the MK by 8 am and took a few empty Main Street pics. Unfortunately our little Canon PowerShots do not prefer the humidity, and refuse to take proper pics for about their first 15 minutes of use during each steamy DW morning. So all of our empty Main Street pics are terrible, like this one:


Once we'd had our fill of condensation-ruined photos, we checked into the CP and were immediately seated. We had never been here, but had read great things about it on the DIS. We were not disappointed! The restaurant is lovely looking, it wasn't crowded or loud at all when we were there, the characters arrived at a nice pace and interaction was great, and the food was fantastic!

The food was standard breakfast fare, which was all fresh and great, plus puffed French toast that was superb! It was pretty much a zeppole with granulated instead of powdered sugar, which, as it turns out, is an excellent recipe.

Here are a few pics of our food and many pics of us (our fav, in case you haven't noticed) with some of our best pals from the Hundred Acre Woods.