We were planning on heading to Typhoon Lagoon today. Since it did not open until 10AM we had some time in the morning to take it a little slower. This was a good thing since I had to finish up that cursed assignment for my job and shoot it out in the AM. While I was working my wife awoke and had some news to tell me. We apparently had a glitch in our plans. I am not sure how to say this properly or if I even should because it is probably TMI but what the heck, we are all friends here right. My wife uses an expression that "her friend is visiting" at a certain time each month. Well her "friend" came for a visit earlier than expected this month. Apparently her "friend" was excited to spend some time in Disney as well and could not wait to visit. My wife won't go in pools at these times. I don't ask. I don't need to know any more details about it. It's just the way it is. Ok, I suppose we can move past this and we won't bring it up again. Suffice it to say, we decided that we would shelve our plans for Typhoon Lagoon and we will possibly go at the tail end of the trip. So, what to do? I offered a suggestion that we head to Downtown Disney. We could browse a little, eat lunch there and then perhaps hit Disney Quest afterwards. We had never been to Disney Quest before so why not give it a look. My SIL's family wanted to stay put today at Pop so we are on our own.
We got to DTD and wandered around the stores for a bit. I am not overly excited about shopping which makes me seem pretty darned foolish for suggesting it in the first place doesn't it? There is no need to answer that. My lack of excitement probably stems from the fact that I don't have a desire to part with more of my money on things that we don't really need when we already have a house full of junk. Sorry, not to imply that Disney merchandise is junk. My house is an equal opportunity junk storage facility with plenty of non-Disney junk to clutter it. Anyway, at least DTD has some interesting stores so browsing is not all that painful for me.
Here are a few pics I took along the way of our travels on this morning.
My kids can't pass this up without getting in the line of fire.
Of course we can't get out of there without me giving some money to the mouse. The big pin store for one thing is evil but unavoidable. I am not getting past that store without having to have some money sucked out of me to get the wife and kids some more pins which they eventually end up trading away anyway.
Once lunch time rolled around we decided to eat at Wolfgang Puck Express. This is one of the best CS establishments on Disney property in my opinion. The food as usual was great. Since I don't have a heck of a lot to talk about in this shopping excursion I will give you my opinion of the best CS restaurants on Property:
1. MK - Cosmic Rays - The chicken and ribs combo is a winner, a good fixin's bar for burgers and of course an added bonus of Sonny Eclipse to entertain you. Honorable mention to Columbia Harbor House and my new friend the Anchors Aweigh sandwich.
2. EPCOT - Sunshine Seasons - This has to be the best overall pick in EPCOT with good entree choices and great desserts. There are many great places in the world showcase too though.
3. AK - Flame tree. Of course. nuf said
4. DS - Tough one since nothing stands out but since you asked, I guess I will have to go with Studio Catering Co since the Chicken with rice and black beans was very good.
5. DTD - Wolfgang Pucks Express - great selections and all that we have tried are good. Though we did try Earl of Sandwich and that was very good as well. You can't go wrong with either.
6. Resorts - I can't say we eat CS as the resorts very often besides breakfasts which all seem pretty much the same. We have gone to Pepper Market for lunch/dinner which gets good marks for the food but I am not so keen on the set up of the place.
As we were eating we talked about what to do next. It turns out that one seemed overly excited about Disney Quest so we decided we would hit a park. After finishing lunch we headed to the bus stops but could not find a stop for any of the parks. I asked the driver of first bus that pulled in and he clued me in that there were no direct routes from DTD to any parks not even the Ticket and Transportation Center. I am not really sure why but I am guessing to prevent people from avoiding parking fees at the parks? If that is the case then I wonder, would a lot of people really want to go through all that hassle of taking a bus from DTD to a Park just to save a parking fee? If they are willing to go through all pain then wouldn't they also be willing to just to bus to a resort and then over to a park? Perhaps I have it wrong and it is just a low demand thing. Anyway, Since we were going to have a take a bus to a resort and then transfer to a park bus from there we figured that this bus was as good as any so we hopped on and were en route to POR. When we got to POR we still hadn't decided what our ultimate destination was going to be. It was 1:30 PM at this point and we had to be back at Pop later to make our way to Ohana with my SIL's family for a 6:30 Dinner reservation so I figured we would have only a few hours max. So we decided to leave our park choice to chance and take the first bus that came along. Well, the first bus happened to be for Disney Hollywood Studios. Ugh, we are going there tomorrow and it is my least favorite park. There is TSMM to get excited about trying for the first time but that is not going to happen at this time in the afternoon. So we change the rules and decide we will take the second bus that comes along or more appropriately the next park bus that comes along that is not going to DHS. The next bus rolls in and it is headed to AK. OK, well we were there yesterday but what the heck. We didn't see ITTBB yesterday and we are always up to see the Lion King again so we hop on.
When we got to AK there were some characters outside. We weren't itching to see any of these particular characters but there was hardly anyone there and it would have been rude of us to just walk by without saying hello.
We made it inside and I told my wife this place is for the birds.
OK, that "for the birds" comment was uncalled for. I profusely apologize. The truly sad part is that I actually said it to my wife.
We made our way over to the Tree of Life to see ITTBB.
I snapped a couple pics of the Tree of life on the way in
I like this close up of the tree.
We got into the theater grabbed our glasses and waited for the show. There are some great posters in the waiting area that you should check out if you go in there and have some time to kill before the show. They are posters of old movies reworked with bug themes. They were a hoot. I wish I took pictures of some of them but I was not thinking. Eventually we were corralled in and we sat and enjoyed the show. It is not in the same league as Philharmagic but it is entertaining nonetheless.
After the show there was a CM outside handling large spiders. The kids want to go over to look. Ok, but didn't we see these spiders last night at our not-so-Grand Gathering Safari Dinner? The kids still wanted to look and we still had time to kill before Lion King so we let them head over.
I did my usual and took a pic or two while waiting.
We eventually made our way over to Camp Minnie Mickey. One great thing about walking around the parks is that I always see new things when I am not rushing and I take the time to look around at the outstanding theming that Disney incorporates into these parks. It truly is unparalleled to any other theme park I have visited. Here is an example of something I saw on the way over a bridge to Camp Minnie Mickey that I had never picked up before. Nothing tremendously exciting but I never noticed it before. Just look around and you will see so much.
FOLK is coming up in a bit...
I guess you can find anything on the internet. 
I can't recall whether you said but are your pics taken without a flash inside the attractions?
