Who knew choking each other would earn us fastpasses?

[longing2Batdisney]

Lisa, sounds like a fun DTD visit so far! Our next trip I want to plan some extra time for DTD, again. It was so crowded when we went last year.

So, sorry to hear about Lacey's jeep--that is so sad that not only did they have to steal her stuff but to also cut and mess everything up in the process. I am very happy to hear that she has Mr. Rick.

and I AM DEF....ADDING T-REX TO our list of must do's this time!
sounds like I really need to start some serious planning...
Connie

 

[Caretames1]

I now remember what I forgot to say in my last post, One of the reasons we love POR so much, is the lovely, relaxing boat ride to DTD. My DH is waiting for that very thing. It only makes the stop for POFQ. Lots of scenery along the way.

Carey

 

[ronnmel]

I think you made a great decision by choosing to go at Port Orleans. Not only will you get to visit two resorts for the price of one, but you'll have the chance to try the boat ride to DTD. I hope I get the chance to try that too one day.

Good job on scoring such a short wait by doing a walk-up!

 

[natebenma]

Great update!

Sorry to hear about Lacey's jeep. Sounds like she experienced the worst of human nature, and the best, in the same incident.

Fun time so far at DTD. We have never been shoppers. We pop into some of the shops, but the only places we spend significant time are at the Lego Store and T-Rex. So I'm itching to hear the rest of your review!

"I'm surrounded by Idiots!" Everytime I hear it I am so very tempted to get it for my DH, it is SO Mark. But then I'm afraid he will say "You spent $5 on this!?!" and he'll push the button on me.

 

[melnbil]

LOVE the latest updates. I can't wait to go to DTD. We have a ressie at T-Rex and my son wants to do the build-a-dino thing. I hope the buttons are still there in May. My best friend is a paralegal and that would be perfect!! Hope momma gets her voice back, and I am glad Lacey's jeep is being fixed. Can't wait to finish the report.

Melody

 

[mickeystoontown]

I only have a little while before the office starts getting busy for the day. I did write an entire installment last night and photobucket froze up and the only way to fix it was to restart my computer which meant I lost everything I wrote. DARN IT!

I'll be back in just a little bit with an installment.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Hunter walked around the restaurant taking pictures:

While Hunter was gone, our server brought our drink order. Just as Hunter sat down at the table, the meteor shower began and the room started changing colors:

Mama and Hunter:

John and I:

Our server came back around to give us refills and to see if we were readyto order. We gave her our orders and she said she'd try to get it out as quickly as possible. While we were waiting, Hunter and John began to play "slide the salt shaker". Never heard of it? That's 'cause John and Hunter made it up. One person slides the salt shaker across the table and the other is ready to catch it. The goal is to get the shaker as close to the edge of the table as possible without it going over. Hey....whatever it takes to keep 'em occupied.

Hunter decided he needed to take a little drink break:

While John rested his eyes:

Continued in next post

 

[mickeystoontown]

I just realized that one of Hunter's pictures of the octopus has a hidden Mickey on it. Cool!

Before long, our server was bringing out our food. John ordered the ribs, slaw and waffle fries:

Hunter ordered a burger with waffle fries:

Mama ordered the chicken quesadillas from the appetizer menus. The portion they brought out was an entree portion....it was a lot!

I ordered the appetizer sampler which has onion rings, chicken quesadillas, queso dip and chips and bruschetta and toasted bread. They bring it out on this big stand:

The individual plates:

John's rib plate (again):

There was soooo much food and it was all so good. We knew there was no way we could even take a tiny bite of any dessert so we skipped dessert that day.

Had we gone to Planet Hollywood, Mama would have used her $15.00 voucher meaning her meal would have been just about paid for. Since we had decided to skip Planet Hollywood and go with T-Rex, we weren't going to let her pay for her meal. That just wouldn't be right. So, we settled the bill and went to have a look around in the store.

The store was mega-crowded and we only looked for just a few minutes before deciding to just leave:

****Up next: Hunter's heavenly place

 

[Bridora]

I didn't think walking to POFQ was bad at all, and I don't remember anyone else complaining. I think you'd enjoy the walk. And the boat ride to DTD, forgot to mention that earlier! I remember DH thinking it was a bit long, though, but I'm sure John could use it to nap if he felt the same way!

Great T-Rex pictures! And your food pictures were so good, too! I'm hungry now. But how do you take all those pictures and not feel like a complete dork with everyone staring at you like you're crazy? Do you just not look? I embarrassed my kids last year by taking food pictures and I noticed lots of people (non-DISers, surely) staring!

Oh! And you must tell me more about this Mickey Mart. I've never seen it!

 

[mickeystoontown]

I didn't think walking to POFQ was bad at all, and I don't remember anyone else complaining. I think you'd enjoy the walk. And the boat ride to DTD, forgot to mention that earlier! I remember DH thinking it was a bit long, though, but I'm sure John could use it to nap if he felt the same way!

Great T-Rex pictures! And your food pictures were so good, too! I'm hungry now. But how do you take all those pictures and not feel like a complete dork with everyone staring at you like you're crazy? Do you just not look? I embarrassed my kids last year by taking food pictures and I noticed lots of people (non-DISers, surely) staring!

Oh! And you must tell me more about this Mickey Mart. I've never seen it!

I think we'll be okay walking from Riverside to Port Orleans. As a matter of fact, when we were looking at the value resorts vs. the moderate resorts, everybody said they wanted a nice resort with lots of paths to walk on.

Oh yeah, you can be sure John won't have a problem taking a little nap on the boat to DTD.

I don't really pay attention to whether or not people are looking at me taking pictures of my food. I am sure I've gotten some funny looks but I wasn't aware of htem.

Mickey Mart is wonderful! It's nestled in between Goofy's Candy and the little Winnie the Pooh store. You know where the photo taking op is kinda behind Goofy's? It's right by that. Everything is under $10 and, while most of the items can be found in the theme parks, there's some stuff that's marked down quite a bit. The last few times we have shopped there, they've had 4 for $10 sales.

Thanks for the insight of going in May, Lisa! Still unsure about it all though! We are even thinking of April. I don't know. This is a total last minute thing! Things have been crazy around here anymore & we just want to get away. Haven't been on a vacation since our Honeymoon in 2008! We really need it & don't want to wait till the Fall like we were going to. It just seems so far away. But we have to crunch some numbers & all that good stuff to see what we can do! I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but also not trying to get my hopes up too much!

Glad to hear you decided on Port Orleans Riverside! On our honeymoon, DH and I did a carriage ride throughout Riverside and it was so pretty! I always say I want to try it one time, but you know how it is trying to part with CBR! Maybe one day!

I understand the uncertainty on when to travel to Disney with a baby. I don't know how it is in April....whether ir rains a lot or if it gets cool during the evenings.

Did you go look at the new promos that Disney has out right now? There are quite a few deals out there.

I am excited to be trying a new resort even if it is for just 2 days. But, if I were to book it for an entire trip, I'd be nervous about changing resorts.

I don't have a ticker yet. I just finally talked DH into going.

We are going to splurge and stay at CR since the deal we made was that if we went this September, we wouldn't go in 2012.

Girl! Get that ticker posted! Woohoo for staying at CR. We've been there to eat before and John just wasn't impressed at all. I don't know why but he made a comment "I wouldn't ever want to stay here.". I wouldn't mind it if only for the convenience of walking to the MK and hopping on the monorail to Epcot.

I as a few updates behind - I really enjoyed all your pictures of the luau. The food looks really tasty and your description has me putting that on our To Do list!

I sure hope Mama continues to feel alright and her voice comes back!

Wonderful, wonderful pictures of the resort!!! Soooooo pretty. I think that will have to be on the "resort hopping" list, we've never been there other than in a bus to drop off on ME. I want to see all the beauty myself!

Can you believe I've never been in Mickey Mart? I always forget about it! I gotta check it out next time.

Looking forward to hearing all about T-Rex!

The luau is fun...it gets a little corny at times but once they start doing the traditional dancing, it's fantastic. The food is pretty yummy too.

I would love to resort hop around and see other resorts but John would rather lay back in a hammock and do nothing. I may just have to recruit Lacey to go with me one day.

What? You've never been in Mickey Mart? Girl, you've gotta go!

Lisa, sounds like a fun DTD visit so far! Our next trip I want to plan some extra time for DTD, again. It was so crowded when we went last year.

So, sorry to hear about Lacey's jeep--that is so sad that not only did they have to steal her stuff but to also cut and mess everything up in the process. I am very happy to hear that she has Mr. Rick.

and I AM DEF....ADDING T-REX TO our list of must do's this time!
sounds like I really need to start some serious planning...
Connie

I have never been to DTD that it wasn't pretty busy. So, I guess we are just used to it.

Thank God for Mr. Rick! If it hadn't been for him, she would have been without a vehicle for a while.

Add T-Rex to your ADR list for sure. The portions are huge and it would be easy to split an entree.

I now remember what I forgot to say in my last post, One of the reasons we love POR so much, is the lovely, relaxing boat ride to DTD. My DH is waiting for that very thing. It only makes the stop for POFQ. Lots of scenery along the way.

Carey

The boat ride is what did it for us. Since we are going to be relaxing and going to DTD, we figured we might as well stay at Port Orleans.

I think you made a great decision by choosing to go at Port Orleans. Not only will you get to visit two resorts for the price of one, but you'll have the chance to try the boat ride to DTD. I hope I get the chance to try that too one day.

Good job on scoring such a short wait by doing a walk-up!

That's exactly what we were thinking!

Great update!

Sorry to hear about Lacey's jeep. Sounds like she experienced the worst of human nature, and the best, in the same incident.

Fun time so far at DTD. We have never been shoppers. We pop into some of the shops, but the only places we spend significant time are at the Lego Store and T-Rex. So I'm itching to hear the rest of your review!

"I'm surrounded by Idiots!" Everytime I hear it I am so very tempted to get it for my DH, it is SO Mark. But then I'm afraid he will say "You spent $5 on this!?!" and he'll push the button on me.

I couldn't believe that someone would vandalize a car like that. The police said they figured the thieves were afraid to touch any of the other cars there and were hurrying to get away before getting caught. Unfortunately, Lacey's was the one that they started with.

It took us, probably 8, 9, maybe 10 trips to Disney before going to DTD. Once we did, we knew it was a great place to visit. Fortunately for me, my kids and husband have no problems shopping (while at Disney) so they hardly ever complain.

The buttons were too cute to pass up.

LOVE the latest updates. I can't wait to go to DTD. We have a ressie at T-Rex and my son wants to do the build-a-dino thing. I hope the buttons are still there in May. My best friend is a paralegal and that would be perfect!! Hope momma gets her voice back, and I am glad Lacey's jeep is being fixed. Can't wait to finish the report.

Melody

DTD is a fun place to visit. It can get a little busy but not too terribly bad. I hope that you enjoy T-Rex as much as we did. The food is great and the portions are huge!

Mr. Rick was able to put Lacey's Jeep back together again in about 2 days. I love Mr. Rick!

 

[mickeystoontown]

If anybody wants more information about the buttons, send me a pm. I bought a few extra when we went.

 

[Lifelong_Dreamer]

The food looked great! I can't wait to eat there!

 

[mickeystoontown]

The food looked great! I can't wait to eat there!

The food was very good and the portions are large enough to share.

 

[mickeystoontown]

All year long, Hunter had regretted not buying something in the magic shop at DTD. We promised him that we'd go there on this trip. So, we started walking that way.

And, I know you're not going to believe this but John got a phone call. Hey, this was his first call of the day so I couldn't fuss about it too much:

Once John hung up and Mama and Hunter were ahead of us, I filled John in on Lacey's Jeep situation. He had the same reaction as I did.....tell Mr. Rick we'll send money. Then, I told him that Mr. Rick wouldn't accept any money because Lacey had already asked. John said he would try and call Mr. Rick that evening to thank him for what he was doing for us.

Here's Mama and Hunter up ahead:

Soon, we were at the magic shop. If you've never been in the magic shop, let me tell you....it's a very small shop. There were quite a few people standing around watching the castmembers demonstrate the tricks. Hunter and John stayed in the store while Mama and I walked across the street to sit down under an umbrella table.

Why....looky here....John had another phone call:

If it had been up to Hunter, he would have stayed in the magic shop for hours. Since John was on the phone, I told Mama I was going to go over and see if Hunter had decided on anything yet. (This was about 20 minutes after we had sat down.) I went into the store and Hunter had two different things he wanted to buy. One was a set of magic cards and I can't remember what the other was. I think it may have been a levitating ball. I do remember that they were both really expensive (in my book).

John came back in and I let him help Hunter decide what to buy. Eventually, he decided on the deck of magic/levitating cards. He looked out the store front and waved for us to come over. By the time we got there, he had bought the cards and the two magicians were showing him how they worked.

$29.50 poorer, we were back on our way to explore more of Downtown Disney.

Some of the sights we saw on our way back to the bus stop:

There was a street performer in between two of the buildings so we stopped to watch him. John and Hunter love love love this kind of stuff:

The guy was really good. He would juggle, toss things in the air and catch them and all sorts of other things. We watched him the entire time. The only thing about the performance that I didn't like was the fact that he had some whistle thing hidden in his mouth and, instead of talking, he made this high pitched squeaking noise that got irritating after a while.

We could hear it thundering a bit and figured we better move on. No trip to DTD is complete without stopping at Basin to have a "sniff" around.

It was starting to thunder more and more so we continued on until we reached the bus stop. The bus stops at DTD confuse me so much. The stops are numbered according to your resort name but you don't know if you are supposed to be on the left or the right. Maybe it's just me but I am always confused.

John croutched down so that others could sit on the bench and this is what Hunter did:

We did have a little bit of a wait for the bus....I'm thinking it was about 15 minutes or so. Then, we had to stop at the Pleasure Island bus stop (don't know why I didn't think about us just getting on the bus there). Once we left DTD, we had to make the loop through Typhoon Lagoon to pick up guests. There was no one waiting to get on so the driver just sat there a minute or two and left.

***Continued in next post

 

[Bridora]

"That's my boat"

Love it! I did not even know that was there. You are giving me a big DTD to-do list, girlie! I'm also adding Basin!

 

[mickeystoontown]

Hunter said he wanted to go swimming. It was already dark out and Mama was ready to sit and rest a while. She decided to just stay in her room and get to bed early.

I didn't really feel like swimming and neither did John but we told Hunter we'd walk him to the main pool and watch him swim.

I needed to tinkle and went into the bathroom/shower room near the pool. Being the good Diser that I am, I took pictures:

I went back out and took one more picture before there was a loud clap of thunder:

Which meant the pool was closed. Bummer! Hunter might have swam 45 minutes before it closed. As a consolation, we went in to play a few arcade games:

Hunter said he was about to starve to death. Poor thing...we never feed him. We asked what he wanted and weren't surprised when he said pizza! Now that John and I thought about it, we were a little hungry too. I don't know how since we packed away so much food at T-Rex but we were.

Hunter ordered his pizza. I ordered baked ziti and John ordered a burger. The only pictures I have of food is my baked ziti:

But Hunter did take a picture of his dad and I goofying off:

***Up next: Our second day at Epcot

 

[mickeystoontown]

"That's my boat"

Love it! I did not even know that was there. You are giving me a big DTD to-do list, girlie! I'm also adding Basin!

Why.....it sure is!

There's lots to see and do at DTD and I can't believe I didn't take more pictures. I forgot to add in that we stopped at Ghiradelli's and got our free chocolate sample. Don't forget to put that on your list as well.

 

[johnsonmatt3]

I remeber when I made my lightsaber the actual saber part was clear and they had little disks that you put in the base and thats what made the color. I prefer mine because you can get the ones like what Hunter made from walmart or other store. How were the prices at t-rex? we went to go see in '10 and they didn't have prices on the menu outside.

 

[MissLiz]

Lisa--that is exactly what we used to say about CR!! And then, we stayed there one night in Sept before moving over to Poly to be with my MIL and GMIL and we fell in love with the rooms. We have decided that, unbeknownst to us (sorry, just had to use unbeknownst....I don't think I've ever typed that before), we like a little bit of modern in interior design.

Crazy!!!


Great pics of DTD and the CBR pool! We have skipped DTD the past few trips. It always just seems to take so long to get there and get back and then it's so busy when we go. We just do our shopping at the parks and are done with it. I'm sure we are missing some good stuff, but that's probably a good thing for my wallet.

 

[racefanof88]

Ok you brought me back to my senses......lol. I have a LOT to catch up with everybody and some posting to do. The pictures of the ribs at T-Rex made me REALLY want to eat there. I love bbq ribs!!! Ok got to get busy with my reading and posting .