"Where's my boarding pass?!" The many adventures of 4 20-somes in the Magical World!

[katt789]

And Hello to all those out there reading this! Our trip was one heck of a crazy adventure, and we cannot wait to go back and do it all over again (in fact, 2 members of this trip will be revisiting the World Sept 13-19th )

So, here are the details: We spent a glorious 7 day, 6 night stay at Disney World, staying at the Pop Century resort. Without Park Hoppers, we spent 1 day in each park, and 1 day over at Islands of Adventure to visit our dear friend Harry.

Now: onto the cast!
First, there's me:

I'm 21 (nearly 22! and celebrated on this trip ) I'd only ever been to Disney once before, but it was Disneyland, back in 1997, which made this trip even more magical. My favourite Disney Character is hands down with in a close second. (When I was little, I actually went around telling people Tigger was my boyfriend, no joke My favourite Princess is definitely Ariel, and, if before this trip I doubted that, I can safely assure you, she wins.

Then we come along to Victoria (or VB, as she will be referenced a lot in here)

She's 20, a friend of mine from work (Dinner Theatre, for those who are interested!) She had been to Disneyworld, a couple of years ago with family, and was super excited to come back w/friends this time. Her favourite character is Stitch, with her favourite Princess being Belle.

We bring in Emily now, who’s VB’s best friend, and who I had gone to the Stampede with last year, and had an awesome time, I hoped Disney would be just as awesome

I’m not actually sure if she had been to WDW before, but if she had, I don’t think it was as recent. Her favourite character is Simba, and Princess is Ariel.

Now, but definitely not last, is Nick

When I asked his favourite character, he only replied with Belle, and that REALLY became apparent on this trip. Love of his life, let me tell you! Haha, definitely a 6 year old trapped in a 24 year old’s body.


He was really the lucky one on this trip, and this bit does take a bit of explaining. SO: first off this trip was originally supposed to be a friend, Sarah & I, then VB kind of invited herself, which we didn’t mind. I then figured that an even number would be better, so I invited Dionne. I then get a call from Sarah saying that during a game of Zombie Survival Laser Tag, she had a tooth knocked out, and thanks to price of a new tooth, couldn’t afford it. VB, going w/the even number idea, invited Emily. THEN, I get a call from Dionne explaining that she’s been having some tough times to deal with, and no longer is able to come, or has the money. At this point, her flight is already booked SO, the search begins, we first started asking other friends around work, many of who couldn’t work it out due to school or not having the money in such short notice. It then got to the point of all 3 of us posting on our facebook statues, and asking basically everyone we knew. Nick ended up being the one confirming and giving me money first, so he got the spot. After one heck of a hassling stressful day on the phone w/American Airlines, we managed to get everything sorted out, paid for, and the stressful part was over (for now).

NOW: lets get going!!

We had quite possibly THE GREATEST week of our lives. ALL of us.
There were ups & downs throughout the week, a lot more ups (thank goodness!!) We managed to all get along the entire time, a couple of little tiffs here & there, calmed down by us splitting up (see…even numbers…work. very. well.) We met our beloved characters, and favourite princesses, (but turned down the 1.5 hour line to meet some fairies ) We attempted to Drink Around the World, but really only stayed in & kept going back to France, had a minor brush with death ate a lot of delicious food, took a mini break to visit Hogwarts, and the 4 pasty Canadians that we are, didn’t even get that sunburnt!!

Join us in our Magical Adventures across many worlds, where we all discovered our inner children, and had the most fun we’ve had in well….ever!!

 

[katt789]

We're here!! It's here!! It's time to go!!
Oh hey, who's going to Disney World today? Oh right?! US?!!
Was very much how Tuesday started off for us.

The night before, Emily & Nick had come down to Calgary from Edmonton and we all headed over to Victoria's house for a massive slumber party of excitement and JOY!! Our flight left at 7:15 am, meaning we had to be up at 4:00 AM! (Which, isn't really quite that bad, but for the 4 of us, who all work in late night resturants/bars/clubs, 4 am is usually what time we're getting to bed!)


However, there's always that anticipation, much like Christmas eve, you know something so thrilling & exciting is coming & soon. Quickly, we were all up, although not so bright eyed and bushy tailed, but there!! VB's mom had offered to drive us to the airport, and off we went!!

After arriving at the airport, we checked in seamlessly, everyone's luggaage was under the max weight! and just as we pass that corner where they need to check your passport & boarding pass to get through, is when the first little trouble hit. Emily, VB & I all got through, turned to meet Nick, when we heard this "Katt! Do you have my boarding pass?!" To which I replied calmly "No. I just gave them both to you before we filled out the customs forms. Check that counter, and your pockets." After a minor freak out of checking pockets & backpack & the counter, Nick disappeared to have it reprinted. Directly after passing through, he reached into his pocket, and off course found his boarding passes

Thus: "Katt!! Do you have my _____" became a trade mark phrase of the entire trip.
We got through security & grabbed some Harvey's breakfast sandwiches while we waited for the plane to board. (For the record, Harvey has delicious breakfast sandwiches)

Nick.

Nick & I plopped ourselves down in the window facing chairs for a bit to watch the planes, before getting bored and attempting to see if the airport had wireless (yes!)

As the time hit, we boarded onto the plane, now, American Airlines, although the cheapest, we now know why! (not because of the plane or flight itself, just the simple HASSLES we had w/them trying to book & rebook & such )
Thanks to us booking whenever we had the money to book, I had booked Emily in a couple of weeks after I had booked the other 3 of us seats, so each 1 of us got 1 "reject seat" at some point to or from Orlando. Which honestly, isn't much of a problem for me, I'm just going to sleep & listen to music anyway, right? While we took off and headed to Chicago for our stopover, Nick snapped a couple of pics.

Those sunglasses remained to live on Emily's face for the remainder of the trip!

I clearly need to brush up on my HP knowledge before heading off to actually GO to Hogwarts, right?

The flight was fine, nothing to special, it was a smaller plane, flying on those always makes me a little nervous (the ones with only 2 seats on each side of the aisle). Emily & I both ended up sitting on our own on that flight, which was ok. I attempted to sleep, but really just couldn't! It was eyes closed w/music in, but nothing. The space was SUPER cramped, I couldn't even stretch out that much, but soon enough we were landed in Chicago for a 2 or so hour lay over!

We found our new gate to board the new plane to ORLANDO and then found a place to get some food into us.
The resturant was called something along the lines of "Macaroni Grill" I'm not really sure haha, but it had the words Macaroni and grill in it. Good food, good price, and for a first meal in the states, really decent.
Nick & VB decided this was a good time to have a romantic moment

(for the record, completely posed, no, they're not together haha)

I had a garden salad & bruscetta, the salad was GROSS, soaked in dressing, but the bruscetta was amazing!

Em & Vb shared a cheese pizza

I did my best to get food pictures, but sometimes, you just get too distracted!! I have honestly no clue what Nick ate, but I'm sure it was good.
What was better, was getting onto the next plane & arriving in Orlando!!

 

[katt789]

We did get the Magical Express pick up, but knowing that luggage could take up to 3 hours to get to the hotel, we decided to get it ourselves. However, it took what felt like FOREVER!

We were not appreciative

But then around the carosel it came! Mine came at about 5 minutes after everyone else's, and I was terrified for those minutes that it had gotten lost, especially since I was the planner, and the one who was originally planning on just carrying on everything (i didn't have much originally, and didn't want to pay the extra $25 when I could just carryon).

My friends are awesome: just sayin! They got me a Disney Princess card with stickers to say thanks for going through the process of booking everything (and more! Which they later learned, all the backdoor secrets I have discovered in the process)
We headed over to the Magical Express & got in line for POP, we didn't have long to wait, and were SUPER excited to be heading into Disney World...FOR REAL

"We're going to Disney World!!!!"

I did my best to get a picture of the sign, but we were far to near the back of the bus, and nothing turned out at all.

Pop Century was our first stop, it was about 8pm by the time we finally arrived, I had already done online check-in, so everything was seamless, we ended up with a 3rd floor room in the 90's building. The front desk & map directed us the long way through the resort to the bld, (we later discovered the bus stops are really only a quick walk across the parking lots! Thank goodness)

After moving in(&destroying) the room rather quickly (and Emily doing a bed bug check) We changed, and headed out to Downtown Disney for some dinner!

Uh-oh! Were we fighting already!?!

Haha, definitely not, this was somehow EPICALLY posed for while we waiting for the bus

We hit Downtown Disney, and managed to get to the first resturant we found, the Rainforest Cafe

I have NO clue what I ate that night, or anyone else, I think it was a burger & fries kind of night. We also spent that night, discovering that when you order a double in Floridia, it's much more than 2 ounces!! We ordered a bottle of wine with dinner, each of us can hold our alcohol, don't get worried, but something about the giddiness about Disney, some booze, and travelling all day, well,we look AWESOME in the pics from tha tnight

We attempted to wander through the rest of DTD, but it was all closing up, so we headed back to the busses, and which point, VB came running after me shouting "THAAANNNNKK YOOOUUU KATT" and bear hugged me Emily admitted that she too was exilhirated and loving it, but not at the hugging stage of drunk haha
This picture clearly explains that it was bed time!

Back to POP around midnight, for a quick 6.5 hours of sleep, as we were off to Magic Kingdom for an early breakfast with Winnie the Pooh (and don't forget my boyfriend!!) We had a fantastic first day!

Highlight: arriving at the most magical place on earth
Lowlight: cramped airplanes & lost boarding passes (though laughable later!)

Food reviews: Rainforest cafe was good, the server was friendly. Food was pretty basic, I'd even say a little over priced for the quality. And as awesome as the environment was, it got REEEEAAALLLLYYY annoying to have super loud elephants & animals roaring & such every 5 minutes.

*********************************
That's it for now! I'm off to bed, and have to work from noon to midnight tmr, so I may squeeze in another update somewhere in there.
Stay tuned!!

 

[katt789]

Good Morning!!!!

There were no late sleep ins today! We actually all woke up before our alarm/wake up call was set for, again, the anticipation was all too much for our 21 year old bodies!
After getting ready, slapping on (a lot of) sunscreen and rushed out to the bus stop at nearly 7:20am!

Absolutely everything today was SUUUUPPPEEEERRR exciting!! We were alive, in the most magical place on earth, the sun was shining, the humidity was fantastic (I live for heat & humidity, being from Canada, it's a rare thing for very long ) and we were on our way to see the Castle & have breakfast with some of our (or at least my) favorite characters! It was a GRAND day!

Even being ON A BUS (egads!) was thrilling. haha.
The bus ride was ok, exciting because we were there, and having a good time, it definitely doesn't feel like its a half hour ride from POP to Magic Kingdom, but it sure is. I did my best to get a picture of the sign on our way in, didn't turn out too good. What can I say, our group likes to sit at the back of the bus! haha.

After quickly finding the ADR entrance, we breezed through security & were in the park! It wasn't too busy, as it was before the park actually opened, but it seemed like a few people had the same idea of early ressies to get into the park earlier.

I'm not 100% sure of what's going on in my head/what I was saying in this picture, but it was probably "THIS IS AMAZING!!" Honestly, that first walk into Magic Kingdom is the most incredible moment of my life at this point, the music, the shops, the character, its just such an amazing environment. Then again, you guys all know this!
We stopped to get a few shots of the castle (photopass to come!!) and meandered over to the Crystal Palace!

If you're wondering, yes, that is 24 year old Nick running through WDW waving his arms around like a crazy excited 4 year old.

And what would a trip be without a picture of the first photopass photographer of our trip!? (He was awesome, super friendly too!)

That last shot, I have to take credit for, it's a really good picture! (At least, i think so!)

********************
It's off to another half of a shift now, stay tuned for our Many Adventures w/Winnie the Pooh & Friends!!

 

[wdwnomad]

Sounds like a fun time was had by all. Can't wait to see more!

 

[katt789]

Alright!! So when I left off, we were just headed over the The Crystal Palace for breakfast.

We had an early ressie of 8:05am, (which although early, was awesome) so we were there just as the resturant was opening. After checking in, and getting our buzzer we didn't wait long before heading in & getting the speel explained to us of how everything worked. We headed up to the buffet & grabbed food & took some pictures as we waited for the characters to come around.

My plate:

I definitely loved the food here, it was all fresh, anything that needed to be hot was, I really really liked Crystal Palace, the character interaction was fantastic, they went through quickly, but not too fast (although I only got a signature from Tigger, which may have been my bad haha). I would definitely recommend Crystal Palace to anyone who's thinking about it.

That one's VB's plate.

There was a family sitting beside us, with a couple of small kids, and the little boy was fine with all the characters, except for Eeyore! He didn't want to hug him because Eeyore looked sad! It was definitely adorable.

Now, here's where my little story (that's already kinda been explained) comes in. Back when I was a small, small child, I LOOOVVVEEED everything & anything Winnie The Pooh, and for some reason, loved Tigger, and actually called him my boyfriend. Wehn I met him in DL in 97, I told him he was my favorite, I don't think I told him anything this time, but you can see the sheer love between us! Haha, yes, I'm joking, but really, it's hilarious!

And this, is where another little story comes in, our friend Emily, actually has a crippiling fear of mascots (which I actually didn't find out until after the trip was over!!) but she managed to power through for the rest of our trip, (although she did duck out of the character palooza later that week) but hey! She's a trooper!!

We finished up with our food after meeting everyone, paid the bill, and headed out into the parks. We had managed to get out of breakfast just as the park was opening, and joined in on the mad dash to Space Mountain! Holy!! This is seriously the gong show that they talk about on the board! I didn't really quite realize the extremes that people went to, while we were headed to Space, we saw a dad running with his kid (we're guessing toward Dumbo) he was carrying him, holding him up on his shoulder just BOOKING it, we were kinda scared for the kids life! What if he fell! Wow, I tell ya!

Emily & Nick ended up being at the VERY front of the line when we got up to Space Mtn, VB & I were way further back, which proved a problem later as she pointed to the sign, and said "Don't you have problems with stobe lights?" UGH! I had completely forgotten that that would be effecting this trip. Back in November, I had just come back home from school in Vancouver & was out for a friends birthday, when (at some point, I honestly have no clue) I smacked my head, woke up with a giant goose-egg & a cut, and had problems with the stobe lights at the theatre I work at (I never had any seizures, but got suuuper dizzy & didn't feel good after.) ANYHOW
They rode Space while I wandered around Tomorrowland and ran into this guy! (with no line!!)

I of course brought him over to meet my friends when they got off the ride as well!

 

[katt789]

Clearly...we took a lot of pictures on the first day..ok...every day (but! on the plus side! I've gone through & resized them! So they're no longer HUGE ones haha )

*****************************
Where we left off we had just left our friend Stitch in tomorrowland, and realized that 11 am was closely approaching. Why was this a concern? You may ask, well, we were meeting up with a friend! (not a dismeet though) VB & I both work at a dinner theatre, and in the last show, one of girls, who I was actually understudying for, & I were talking, discovered we had the same birthday, and then discovered that we were actually both going to be in WDW at the same time!! So we decided that we were going to meet up & ride the Winnie the Pooh ride before her & her family drove back to Miami.

Thus, I intoduce Shana: (along with another friend we met along the way)

We really didn't want to wait in the killer long line for Dumbo, so we settled for pics in the grounded one! Then headed over to Winnie the Pooh. Now, let me tell you, most of the rides we went on had between a 5 and 15 minute wait, but that wait was really just moving through the cue, whether slowly or quickly, but I don't think we were ever really *stuck* waiting for something. Although, there were always time for pictures!

It was an adorable ride! I really enjoyed it, I also enjoy in this last picture, that I managed to catch everyone going "LOOK! It's Winnie the Pooh!" and pointing
Victoria really wanted to get to Haunted Mansion, it's her MUST DO of the park, so we strolled over there next, Shana had already spent a full day at the parks, so she advised us to stay to the right (not go through the graveyard, less scenery, but quicker to the ride). And then took off as time was running quickly and she had to get back to AKL (LUCKY!). As we were just getting into the cue for this, we managed to somehow end up sandwiched in the middle of a youth/school group, who many kept pushing & shoving to get ahead with their friends, VB got a bit angry, but Nick managed to calm her down once he pointed out the large (and I mean tall & big, not overweight) and intimidating man that seemed to be in charge of the group.

Next we headed over to Frontierland, where I was to brave my first thrill ride! I've always had problems with rides, I dunno, the little caterpiller rollercoaster they have at Kdays, yeah, even that's too much. But hey! We're in Disney World! And I was going to try as much as I could (yeah, I ended up whimping out of a lot. I generally judged by the amount of small children going in, and if there were lots, I figured I could do it too haha)
ANyway! Onto: Splash Mtn (I did it!)
Big Thunder Mountain!

We stopped by Woody & Jesse, but didn't stop to get autographs (although it seems like a better idea to do it here than DHS!) And continued through to Adventure land to ride Pirates! On the way over, I (being the mom of the group...) instigated a water break, everyone needed to buy water & drink it ALL. Which is where Nick saw this litle guy:

When we first went up to Pirates, it appeared to be not working! They told us to come back in 5-10 minutes, so we ventured deeper into Adventure land, meandered past Jasmine & Aladdin's greeting area (where the line was already formed even though they weren't going to be out for an hour!) So we vetoed that and headed over the Jungle Cruise. Wow, I tell ya what wow! This is where one of our most quoted quotes of the trips comes into play. There was a woman looking for her husband (we assume) in the cue, yelling "HAL!! H-A-L!" searching for her key, or something of the sort & he couldn't hear her, so she kept going, poor couple. However, it did give us a very easy way to find each other if anyone ever got lost on the remainder of the trip, we would just repeat it, and it worked like a charm every time!!
Now, Jungle Cruise, our tour guide was clearly having an off day, with no enthusiasm at all, he guided us through the jungle, which I think made it even more hilarious & awesome for us.

As we were getting hot & tired, we decided that it was time to head back to the hotel for a nap/swim, but not before I got a Dole Whip Float (I actually only got the vanilla pineapple swirl, but it was delicious!!) and we stopped to see the princesses, specifically Belle, who is Nick's love!

As you can tell...he's quite excited!

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And this is where I'm going to leave off for this update, as I feel like it has taken FOREVER to get through this! I apologise if I ramble too much!!

 

[katt789]

We had just headed back to Pop where some swam, some napped, and others simply wandered around the resort (that being me, sleep!? Bah! Never! haha). This would have been the time that I tried my first tye-dye cheesecake! Good, not as cheesecake-y as I would have liked, but good. Since we didn't have park hoppers, we headed back to the Magic Kingdom to finish up our day, with riding rides, meeting some more royalty & watching parades, fireworks & enjoying the magic.

We started with Snow White's ride, it was good, cute, I enjoyed it, but definitely not as much as Mickey's Phillimagic! HOLY!! It was incredible! It was the first of that style of attraction that we had done in the parks, so it deemed to be the best! Totally awesome! On our way to find some dinner, we passed by It's A Small World, which had no wait time, so we popped in for a little boat ride, before ending up in Tomorrowland once again.

(I totally JUST remembered that earlier in the day we road Stitch's Great Escape. Now, let me just say, I was not a fan. I think it would've been a lot better had everyone not been restrained! I don't do great in haunted house like settings, and when things get dark, I just automatically thing things are going to jump out at me, and I kinda felt like I was in a horror movie being in this one with the restraints & dark..anyway!)

We found some cover from the rain that had decided to storm down on us, and Nick & VB found food (taco hot dogs...ughhh)

Emily & I bowed out of trying one of them, and the four of us headed out for dinner (I can't remember where it was, the counter service place with the singing alien in it). I had some kind of grilled chicken burger, which was good, but I didn't realize I had to order the vegetables to get them on it...fail..I ate chicken & bread...yum.. I think Emily had chicken fingers, couldn't tell ya.

We then wandered around the park & waited for the parade, but not before stopping in to meet Tiana & Naveen!

(this is the best photo we got, photopass coming soon!!)
This, we all voted, as the best meet & greet of the day & top 5 of the trip. Why, you may ask? Well, they were both SOOO much exactly what you would want from the characters, and they were much more accepting to a group of adults than the rest of the princesses were earlier that day. Naveen must also have a best friend who's Canadian/used to be as after finding out where we were from asked "You just had an election, how's your Prime Minister, is hey any good?" To which all of us, in complete unison, replied with "No!" (if you happen to not share the same politcal views, that's your choice, please no hating!). He then stated that in Maldonia they follow Canadian politics very closely. They were just super awesome, haha, thats really all I can say.
We ducked back into the Liberty are for the parade! (more pics were taken, but none really turned out great)

After the parade ended, we split up, VB & Nick going to ride Haunted Mansion again, and Emily & I to find a spot for fireworks. We agreed on a meeting place, but, as you guessed, we never found each other. Apparently Nick & VB stayed for the Magical Memories show (is that the right name?) and then headed for the busses, and let me tell you, they had the right idea, as Em & I stayed for everything!

After everything ended, Em & I hung back by the bridge to Fantasyland to see if we could find our friends, but no luck, so we headed to the bus stops. There was a CM who asked us where we were going, we said Pop, and he directed us all the way down to the end, then there would be a line, he said. However, unbeknowst to him, us, or anyone else he was directign to Pop, the MASSIVE line of not moving people beside him, yeah, it was going to Pop. Never in my life have I experienced that many angry people, more than once we thought fights were going to break out over "people budding" even though they had been directed down there. (I wish I'd managed to grab a picture of the mob...afterthought...) After nearly 45 minutes of waiting in line we made it back to the hotel & quickly passed out in hopes that tomorrow would bring less of a gong show at the end of the night!!

 

[jane2073]

I am really enjoying your trip report! I love all of the enthusiasm!

I live in Florida and I do find it amusing that you were enjoying the humidity! Yuck!

 

[katt789]

I am really enjoying your trip report! I love all of the enthusiasm!

I live in Florida and I do find it amusing that you were enjoying the humidity! Yuck!

Haha! thanks!!
And I loooovvve the humidty! Haha, it's odd, I know, I mean, I'm not big on waking up feeling the humidity & stickyness, but it is awesome!

 

[CAStevens218]

I just found your trip report and I'm really enjoying it!

I love that you guys stopped for all the characters! My fiance and I love getting pictures with characters!!!

Can't wait to read more!

 

[katt789]

I just found your trip report and I'm really enjoying it!

I love that you guys stopped for all the characters! My fiance and I love getting pictures with characters!!!

Can't wait to read more!

Thanks!! And I'm a BIG character nut, I met as many as I could, was kinda heartbroken that the lines for the fairies were always herotious (sp?) I adore Tink & Rosetta haha.

 

[katt789]

We began our 2nd full day surrounded by Disney, once again, rather earlier, I had booked in for Tusker House breakfast at 8:30. We slathered outselves with sunscreen, jumped on a bus, and headed in through Animal Kingdom's gates and over to Africa.

The line was SUUUPER long, I'm not a huge fan that you have to wait in line to take a picture w/Donald on the way in, we were starved by the time we got to the table. (I def forgot to take food pics today)

My review of Tusker House: AWESOME I was really glad that it wasn't just the classic breakfast food that was at basically every buffet style place. I absolutely loved the rice they had, I could have eaten it all day (I do believe Emily & I wanted it for both lunch & dinner) they also had some sugary flavored oatmeal looking thing that I decided to try, and it was also incredible! The character interaction was good, we were sitting at one of the tables that was one of the first that they stopped at, so we were in & out of there pretty quick, with pictures & autographs!

Thanks to the earlier ressie, we were quickly headed over the the Safari next, which is where I will pick up after some sleeeeepppp!!! Its been a LONG day!!

 

[mimiloveswdw]

Good trip report! Love all the updates! You guys look like you had LOTS of fun! I'll be reading along

 

[katt789]

Well, we finished up our delicious breakfast at Tusker House, and because we were already in Africa, we jumped over to the Safari and got on one of the first busses. We took a BUNCH more photos than this, but I apparently only uploaded the two, guess I didn't want anyone to get bored of animal photos?

The safari was pretty good! We saw lots of animals, and at the point we passed the Wildebeast, VB shouted out "They killed Mufasa!" and we managed to crack the driver. This seemed to be a continuous theme of the trip, cracking cm's. A lot of it not intentionally, but still really cool.

Baby elephant!! Sooo cute!!
Now, when we were talking about Animal Kingdom, I was talking about the magic shots the photopass people can take, including one where you can be seen holding a baby simba. Well, Emily went nuts about getting to hold a baby lion (jokingly...ish) and we joked that it wasn't actually a real lion, but when we disembarked from Safari-ing, we stopped at a stuffed animal stand, and had to take the obligatory baby lion picture.

And then Nick decided to pull a Lion King, although he chose Tigger...

We wandered through a couple of wildlife trails while heading through the park. Possibly the cutest thing that we've ever seen, the baby gorilla was running around chasing ducks, adorbable! VB spotted an okapi, which she LOVES, (she went a bit crazy, haha)

This last one was when VB couldn't find an Okapi at the gift shop, so she showed how to make one!

Animal Kingdom was a very lesuirely walk of a park for us, we kinda just followed the trails about (our destination right now was Everest, but we stopped for some characters on the way!!)

(Pocahontas was all the way out at Rafiki's planet watch, now, really not worth the trip, the wait for the train was a little unbearable, and we rode out, met her, and then left again)

 

[DisneyDreamerMN]

Subscribing! Great TR so far

I am not a big AK fan, but I kind of want to go on Everest. Looking forward to what you thought of it.

I am leaving in 7 days and I will also be slapping on the sunblock (Minnesota girl here).

 

[flounderfan12]

loving the trip report cant wait to read the rest!

 

[katt789]

After we had our fun meeting some characters, (although, Pocahontas wasn't until a little later in the day, I just jumbled the pics together ) We headed over to Asia to ride Expedition Everest (15 min wait). Emily had been talking about this for the entirity of the trip, thanks to the Josh Gates footprint in the ride, and was soooo excited when she finally saw it.
Now, thanks to me not liking coasters, I vetoed out of this one while Nick Vb & Emily rode. I think I'll try it in Sept when I go, but I'm not sure yet. They all thought it was totally awesome & loved it. (I'm not sure if this is actually their pic or not, but it's all good)

Next we headed onto Dinoland, as dinosaur's are one of Vb's most favourite things! We stopped in every gift shop on the way, and I found a hat that I WISH had been made for adults....and not 5 year old boys....

It's totally awesome, if it had even remotely fit, I definitely would have bought it!. We weren't huge fans of Dinoland, as it was really all set up as "fair", like the stampede/k-days, and you had to pay extra to play the games. Didn't I already pay enough to be here? We stopped for some pictures before heading over to Dinosoar

We managed to just get into the cue in time to jump on the next ride, it was an entertaining waiting area, and (sadly) just as we were moving into the 2nd room, a new narration came over the speakers saying "Hi there! I'm Bill Nye" To which the 4 of us screamed and yelled "BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY"....and were really the only excited people in the room. The ride was pretty cool, I was glad I had done research on some of the rides so I knew that this one was going to be in the dark, and obviously had dinosaurs jumping out at you, it was pretty jerky in parts, but overall, a good ride!
VB wanted a shot of all of us doing our best "dinosaur", I was the only one who co-operated haha.

In actual time that day, this would be the time that we headed over to Rafiki's Planet watch, simply to leave again, so that we could get into the Lion King show. Now, thanks to dis, and one of my friends, I knew to go past the FOTLK entrance and head into the character trails while the show was on, but they were super croweded, and we'd met mostly everyone in there already, so we jumped into FOTLK instead.

Wow. I tell you what. WOW. This show is BY FAR the BEST part of Animal Kingdom. I've heard RAVE reviews about it, and just WOW. I could have cried. Of course, I grew up in the 90's, (THANK GOD, that was the peak of Disney movies) and Lion King was by far one of my favorites (along with everyone elses too), and this show, was SOOOOO GOOOD. On the way out I bought the cd, and I listen to Be Prepared at least once a day. The vocals were so incredible (especially Scar, wow). In the pics above, the dancer in blue, wow, also so talented (obviously haha), she was amazing! I think she honestly has the best extention that I've ever seen (there goes the dancer in me: extention meaning whenever her leg was up/out/back, it was amazingly long, lean, and everything from hip to toe was in such perfect lines, beautiful). I cannot rave about this show enough! It's a MUST for everyone.

We checked the schedule after that and saw that the Finding Nemo show was about to start, so we hopped over to that theatre to watch!

Now....this show...yeah...not up to par. I wasn't really impressed, I'm sure it'd be good for kids. Don't get me wrong, the idea is great, and I do love Finding Nemo, but, as the 4 of us said, "we've seen better shows at dinner theatre..." (we all work at dinner theatre, some of it...pretty rough). Nick fell asleep, Em & I nearly did, it wasn't a great time. Not that I don't recommend it, I say, everyone should try everything once, right? We just weren't huge fans.

Thanks to half our group nearly falling asleep, and us being done Animal Kingdom, we decided that it was nap time, so we headed back to the hotel & made some plans to head back to DTD afterwards as we didn't have park hoppers.

Now, little tid bit of information: I had/have been keeping track of where/when Disney was doing auditions for character look alikes/parade performers. Sometimes they have those 2 auditions in one, and I found that they had one, on this day, at the "Animal Kingdom Rehearsal & Wardrobe Facility" I had a choice to make, I was eligible to audition, but in the end, ended up choosing not to, thanks to long days in the parks, and my arthritis acting up thanks to all the walking. I'm planning on extending my Sept trip by a day if I find out they have them when we're down there. So, if anyone knows if a cab would be able to get into the Ak Rehearsal bld, let me know!!

 

[katt789]

I'm going to finish this up quickly before starting a shift at work, so it may not be too detailed, but we didn't do whole lot.

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We left off back at the hotel napping, we got up, and headed over to DTD to eat & shop, as we had been there so late the other night, that we didn't get to look in any shops.

We ate a T-Rex, which is basically the same as Rainforest cafe, but awesome! We all agreed that it was WAY better, less noise, but still a good atmosphere. We were sitting in the ice cave! That's right, we ate dinner in an ice cave, no biggie. I had an appetizer platter for dinner, onion rings, quesidilla, bruscetta (notice a theme in my food yet, so much bruscetta!), and a nacho & cheese (which I didn't end up eating)

At Rainforest Cafe, Emily had a very tall glass of beer that only cost $6.50, so she ordered the same thing this time, and this is what ended up coming out. A GOBLET of beer. Hilarious!

T-Rex: fantastic! I would definitely recommend it to anyone, especially kids, it would be totally cool to eat there.
We next walked around, shopped & window shopped, so I'm just going to throw up the rest of the pictures. For the next one, there's a little story, Emily, is terrified of dolphins, so we were saying that the magnet was making fun of her.

After all of this, we still decided that it was time to swim, so we took off to the pool after we got back to Pop, took some random photos, and then booked the cab for the next morning, because, we were GOING TO HOGWARTS

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That's that for today, it might end up being a while before I update again, a friend of ours is taking us on a surprise adventure tomorrow, (not to mention DWTS finale tmr night) and Tuesday will be the day we go out to see Pirates!! (I'm not impressed that Norrington is gone for good though, I love Jack Davenport)

 

[katt789]

Just wanted to start off with saying that I just got home from Pirates 4, it was pretty good, had a lot of funny moments, the first one will always be my favourite though. Also, DWTS finale is currently happening, I'm hoping Hines & Kym!!

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Now! Onto our 4th day of adventures. Originally, when Sarah & I were the ones going on this trip, it was because we had heard that The Wizarding World of Harry Potter was going to be opening in Feb, so that was the main reason for the trip. So, naturally, we were taking a day to head over to HP.

The night before, when we had been down in the food court/pool area, I had stated, and stated again, "Buy food now, so that we don't have to come and waste time eating here tomrrow, buy something to eat in the room while we're getting ready." Of course, as we're leaving the hotel room, Nick pipes up "Where are we eating?" (Can you tell I was the mom of the group? haha) and Emily shoots back "She told us like, 10 times to buy something last night!!" It was a good start to a morning In all honest, it was totally fine haha.

We jumped in a cab, and headed over to Universal, I think it was about $30 in total each way. Now, here is where a flaw came into my planning, I had planned us to get there right around 8:45, 9:00am, so we would get into HP land right as it was opening, and beat the crowds! Well, apparently I hadn't paid enough attention to the Universal side of the planning, as they had opened at 8 that morning!! I felt horrible! However, no one really seemed to care, we were on our way to Hogwarts ("Gotta get back to Hogwarts!! I gotta get back to school!!" 10 points to whoever gets that reference!)

We wandered through taking in the sites & pictures as we made our way over to the Forbidden Journey!!

OH.MY.GOD. The Forbidden Journey is quite possible the greatest ride I have ever been on!! I was kinda nervous about it (there were warnings about strobe lights, but I SO didn't care this time) Nothing was stopping me. The cue is incredible! I wish we had a bit more time to really take in the sights & take pictures. I don't even think it can be described, (I haven't been on Soarin, but they say its quite like that) They strap you into a top hanging car, and you soar around, some animatronic things are all around you, and some things are projected on screens & you soar around after them. It. Is. Amazing. Although, if you have nausea problems with coasters, as Nick will tell you, you might want to be careful on it.

Emily & VB however, can do & love coasters, so they continued on to Flight of the Hippogriff while Nick & I took some pictures & shopped a little bit.