You've Got a Friend in Me:TINKGURL & XOKTENOX's Adventures in WDW~UPDATE: 6/9 p.74

5:30am.... ARE YOU NUTS??????? :scared1::scared1: LOL

I will never know what it is like to get to a park that early. :headache:

Kristen- Score on getting that AK bus right away!:thumbsup2

Love all the pics of the EE cue... we've been skipping the cue the last few times and have just used the single rider line or the FP line.

We need to get to TH for breakfast.. love those Mickey waffles! Great pics too! :goodvibes
 
I love the picture of you two, Little Guy and Daisy! And I've had the same problem with looking at two different cameras (like in the EE queue) when my B/F and I got to meet up with my DIS BFF and her boyfriend...we were trying to take a group picture and put all the cameras on a ledge to get a picture using the self-timers, so we all kept on trying to look at the ones that had the light flashing the fastest :rotfl2:

I've only heard good things about TH breakfast (and the juice!) I definitely want to eat there on a future trip.
 
5:30am.... ARE YOU NUTS??????? :scared1::scared1: LOL

I will never know what it is like to get to a park that early. :headache:

Kristen- Score on getting that AK bus right away!:thumbsup2

Love all the pics of the EE cue... we've been skipping the cue the last few times and have just used the single rider line or the FP line.

We need to get to TH for breakfast.. love those Mickey waffles! Great pics too! :goodvibes

Yes, I am nuts! But with only 1 bathroom, I decided to get an early start getting ready.

It does make me sad that you miss out on the queue when doing FP or single rider.

Tusker House was SO good!

I love the picture of you two, Little Guy and Daisy! And I've had the same problem with looking at two different cameras (like in the EE queue) when my B/F and I got to meet up with my DIS BFF and her boyfriend...we were trying to take a group picture and put all the cameras on a ledge to get a picture using the self-timers, so we all kept on trying to look at the ones that had the light flashing the fastest :rotfl2:

I've only heard good things about TH breakfast (and the juice!) I definitely want to eat there on a future trip.

We got lots of good pics this trip!

haha, I bet those pics turned out hilarious!

I hope you try TH soon!
 
Sounds like a fantastic AK morning! Your update definitely makes me want to go to TH for breakfast now. I have been pushing for that as an ADR for our next trip, but DH as been a little bit hesitant on it. the little guy is so cute, I love how he is always sitting on FI's shoulders.
 

Sounds like a fantastic AK morning! Your update definitely makes me want to go to TH for breakfast now. I have been pushing for that as an ADR for our next trip, but DH as been a little bit hesitant on it. the little guy is so cute, I love how he is always sitting on FI's shoulders.

Oh my gosh, you guys would love TH! It was so good. The food was good, the juice was good, and the characters were nice.

haha, The second we'd get off the bus or monorail, he'd stand in front of Fiance with his arms up just waiting for him to be put on his shoulders.
 
Don't be sorry! I like helping people out. :) Honestly, I think you would have a better time at the Contemporary. You're close to the MK, great pool, nice rooms, good QS, CHEF MICKEY's, you have 3 choices of transporation (monorail, bus, boat).

Yall have stayed at AKV before right? After showing Jake pictures and letting him look at different videos, I think we're going to rent points and stay there. He's in love with all of the animals and since we're going for his 4th birthday, I figured I should let him have some say in it :)
 
Yall have stayed at AKV before right? After showing Jake pictures and letting him look at different videos, I think we're going to rent points and stay there. He's in love with all of the animals and since we're going for his 4th birthday, I figured I should let him have some say in it :)

My group hasn't, but Kristen and Chris have stayed there. But, we have been there to eat and visit a lot. I think Jake would love it there!
 
So when we last left off, Tink’s family was heading to use their safari FP’s while Chris and I went to walk the Pangani Trail while we waited for ours to be good. I think we walked through this quickly back in December but we had about half an hour to kill now so we weren’t in a rush to get through. Beware; I took a lot of pictures in here lol

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First up were these guys. I know they’re not related to the zebra (they are related to the giraffe) but their name is escaping me right now.

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Continuing on…

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Enormous frog!

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Sooo many fish…

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We were really just enjoying ourselves, taking our time going through the exhibits. Then something scary happened!! My boyfriend almost got eaten alive, right before my eyes!

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Haha CORNY! I know lol

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Then to one of my favorite sections, the meerkats!! It looks to me like photobucket only updated some of the pictures I had of them…not cool. Jackie (Charleston Princess) recently had a really great meerkat update on her TR which mine will not compare to!

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Then I closed my eyes and pointed my camera at these scaryyyyy fellows

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In case you don’t know, I’m super scared of birds! There were fans in this area of the trail and some benches in the little hut so we sat down here for a minute and just relaxed. I think it was here that I realized what a different trip this was for Chris and I. The past 2 trips we’ve taken together have been so rush-rush. This trip we were really taking it slowly and just doing what we could get done and not worrying about hitting EVERYTHING as fast as possible. Even if we didn’t want to tour this way, we had to because of the heat! But we both enjoyed it so much that…well, you’ll have to wait to find out!

The ceiling where we were sitting

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On we went…

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Next was one of everyone’s favorites…the gorillas! They were posing up a storm for us!

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And my gorilla…
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Hahaha then we compared our hand sizes…
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Chris’ was almost the same size as the 6 yr old gorilla
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continued in next post...
 
After we finished walking through Pangani we still had a few minutes before our FP was ready so we walked into one of the stores over there, I think it was Johari Treasures. We just wandered around the store checking out all the things we’d LIKE to buy but didn’t.

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Sorry this is turned sideways but I liked this shirt
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And then my pretty girl…
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Hahahahaha it makes it funnier because he has a big head. It’s ok, I can say that because 1) I love him anyway and 2) I have a big head too lol

Finally it was our safari time! There were definitely some Brazilian tour groups on line for the safari so I was EXTRA happy that we were able to bypass all that mess. Now, time for a two week African safari!

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Here’s something we got SUPER excited about…
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A lion that WASN’T sleeping!! That’s a first for us and it made us veryyy happy!
Luckily, the baby elephant was saved but unfortunately, the safari was cut short. When we were done with that we checked the times guide and noticed Festival of the Lion King was starting at 11. We were hoping if we booked it across the park we’d make it there in time to still get a seat. So, off we went! We got there with a few minutes to spare and greeted the A/C with open arms. Jogging across AK had made us sweaty to say the least! But, FotLK was TOTALLY worth it, as usual. While waiting for the show to start, I texted Tink to see where they were and turned out, they were in the show with us. We located each other across the way and waved! I don’t know what is wrong with me but I can’t remember what section we were in…I want to say Lion. I do remember it was a section we’d never been in before. I got a new camera for Christmas and was already noticing how much better it was than my old camera so I was excited that I was able to get a few decent pictures of the show. Enjoy!

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Tumble monkeys!!
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I think I just sat back and watched the show after that. FotLK is a must do for us every time we’re at AK. It’s by far my favorite show in WDW and I’m pretty sure Chris would agree. I’m mesmerized every time I watch it and it gives me goose bumps! Also, the end brings a tear to my eye. Just amazing. When the show was over, we herded out with all the others. Outside we ran into Tink’s family who I think decided to go over to see Nemo at this point. Chris and I weren’t really interested in watching that show so we parted ways again with plans to meet up later in the day. Chris and I really needed some water so we walked over to one of the little food booths and got one. It was VERY hot this day!! Chris was just walking around with a napkin in his pocket at all times to wipe his head. Over in the area where the Pocahontas show used to be there was a show going on with Thumper’s girlfriend (don’t know her name!) and Chip and Dale I think. They had blow up guitars, saxophones, etc and a DJ was playing music and kids were having an awesome time over there dancing and rocking out with the characters. It looked like so much fun!

We then decided we still wanted to ride Dinosaur and Kali River Rapids so our next destination was the front of the park to check the times board. We would FP one ride and stand-by the other. So, we dragged ourselves to the front of the park to check!

UP NEXT: The rest of our AK day and an MK night!
 
Whew! Thank goodness Chris was able to escape the hippo! :lmao: Great pictures of the gorillas, and I can't believe you actually saw the lion awake!!! Lucky girl! :goodvibes
 
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THIS IS MY FAVORITE PICTURE OF CHRIS! :rotfl: Tell him he needs to make this his facebook default. Bahahaha.

The gorillas on the trail are definitely awesome. I love how they always pose for pictures & eat up the attention they get.

How cool that you & Tink ended up in the same Lion King show without planning it! Great minds think alike huh? :thumbsup2
 
July 21, 2010 *continued*

My group left off saying bye to “Kris and Chris” at Tusker House and heading to use our KS FP’s for 9:27 am – 10:27 am. This was our first time ever using the stroller parking for this attraction. Even though the theming is fun in this queue, it does take quite a bit of walking/winding to get to the loading area. We hoped both Little Guy and the grandparents wouldn’t get too tired, but they did alright! Of course, you know who ended up in Fiancé’s shoulders:

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As we got closer to the loading area, I started explaining what the ride was going to be like to him. He kept asking if the animals were going to be real, like the ones we saw at the zoo. I told him, “Yes these animals are real! We might even have to stop the car if an animal gets too close. We don’t want to hurt them.”

It was so nice using FP’s for this one because the line was getting hot! But before we knew it, we were in the loading area figuring out who was sitting where. Grandma, Grandpa, Sis, and Uncle were in one row, and the rest of us were in the other.

Grandma and Grandpa were definitely excited to be back on this ride:

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Fiancé sat on the outside and then Little Guy sat between us, mainly sitting on my leg and Fiancé’s leg. Of course, being the over-protective “mother” that I am, I had a good hold of him the whole time since it can get kind-of bumpy out there! He loved the whole ride. Sometimes he’d notice animals before the driver would point them out. Then, he’d say hi to them the whole time we were going by them. Since we spent most of the ride pointing things out to Little Guy and just enjoying the ride, we didn’t take as many pics as we usually do..

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I kept preparing Little Guy for the “broken” bridge that we were going to go over, but when we got to it, our driver didn’t do it! Darn it! Does anyone know if they stopped doing this?

When we started speeding up fast and whipping it around corners to chase the poachers and save the baby elephant, Little Guy was laughing so hard. Then, when we saw that the baby elephant was safe in the back of the truck, we all clapped and he said “Hi, baby elephant!” and the family in front of us laughed.

As we headed over to the stroller parking to find ours, I looked at the times guide and saw that we could head over to FOTLK for the next show at 11! I asked Little Guy if that sounded like a good idea and he said, “YEAH!” So, to FOTLK we headed.

I was so excited for Little Guy to see this show. I had been talking about it to him ever since he first watched the Lion King movie before our trip. I was also excited because Lion King was one of Fiancé’s favorite Disney movies growing up. We still had a bit, so we took our time walking over to the theater. When we got there, they were just starting to let people get in line outside the doors. We made sure to get a spot in front of one of those huge mister fans that they have going. There was also a big rock where we were standing, so Grandma leaned on that. To pass the time, I had Little Guy be in charge of letting us know when the doors open since he was up on Fiancé’s shoulders and could see over everyone. The second they opened, he yelled “We can go now!”

We walked in and across the theater to the section directly across from the doors. Once we found a row and everyone got seated, we had to take a pic:

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I texted Kristen and asked where they were and they were walking into the show! I spotted them right away as they walked in. When they got to their seats, I explained to her where we were and waved to each other. I wish we would’ve planned that better because then we could’ve all sat together!

While we were waiting for the show to start, I had Little Guy stand up so we could get a good pic of his whole outfit. I took a pic every day so we could remember exactly what we wore since planning that was half the fun for me before our trip. He was getting annoyed with me always taking this pic, so he gave me this face:

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HAHA! He is a riot. I thanked him for letting me take the pic and then he sat back on Fiancé’s lap. Maybe a minute later, we heard the starting music! The CM’s came out and had one person from each section make their section’s animal noise. We were the elephants! Little Guy loved it when it was our whole section’s turn to lift up our arms and make the elephant noise. As everything else came out, Little Guy’s eyes got bigger and bigger.

We had to say hi to our elephant:

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Simba was near us!:

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Little Guy thought these guys were hilarious:

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He was very into the show one minute:

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Then, the next minute I look back at him and he’s asleep!:

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And the most hilarious part of the whole thing? As the finale was going, he woke right up to clap at the end. haha

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He must’ve needed a little power nap! As we slowly followed the herd back out into the heat, we met up with “Kris and Chris” to figure out what everyone was doing next. Grandma and Grandpa were heading back to the Contemporary to take a nap. I looked at the times guide and saw that there was a Nemo show coming up, so we were going there. Kristen and Chris decided to pass on Nemo, so we decided to keep in touch the rest of the day and maybe meet up later.

Since it was so stinkin’ hot that day and we still had some time before we could get in line for Nemo, we decided to head to Pizzafari and finally introduce Little Guy to a Mickey chocolate bar. He asked me what was in it and I said, “Ice cream!” and that won him over. haha. Little Guy and I found us a table while everyone else ordered our food and drinks. I think we all had cheese pizzas!

I love the beautiful colors and art in each room. We found two empty tables right next to the polar bears:

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The other wall we were looking at:

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We were by a doorway, so I could see when everyone was coming with our trays. As soon as I saw Fiancé coming with his Mickey bar, Little Guy and I started getting excited. I don’t think I could’ve ripped it open fast enough for him! haha We made sure to hurry and take a pic before Mickey was unidentifiable anymore:

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In-between bites, he says with a mouthful, “Mmmm! This is good!” We all laughed. He was getting messy, but we just let him have at it. He was in WDW…having a yummy treat! I wish we would’ve taken a before and after pic because he had chocolate all over his face. We had brought a ton of baby wipes, so they definitely came in handy! By the time he was done eating, we were all done with our pizzas as well. We picked everything up and then headed over to get in line for Nemo.

*Continued in next post*
 
*Continued from previous*

As we were getting closer to Dinoland, I noticed that the band was getting ready to start playing. I asked if we could stop a few minutes, so we took Little Guy’s stroller over to the side so he could have a front row view. I sat down on the ground next to him so I could tell him what was going on. He thought the drums looked neat:

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As soon as they started playing, I could see Little Guy grooving to the music. He was loving it!

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Then, this guy came out:

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And they started playing another song:

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They finished that number and we all clapped:
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We had to wave them bye after that song so we could make it to Nemo on time. Little Guy was a little sad, but quickly forgot about it when I reminded him where we were headed.

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We found a spot to park the stroller and saw that the line was already headed into the theater.

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They had cute little signs like this along the way:

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The theater was already filling up, so we headed all the way to the other side and saw that there were many empty rows down in front! We managed to get in the 5th row!

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I was so excited because we were right by the bubbles…You know the ones where Nemo swims by before the show and all the kids start yelling “NEMO!” I explained to Little Guy why they were yelling Nemo, so he and I were busy watching for him and yelling along every time we saw him:

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Then, he started getting antsy, so Fiancé got out his Lightning McQueen car and they were driving him all over the bench in-between Fiancé and I. Thankfully, the show started a minute or two later because I don’t know if Little Guy would’ve waited much longer!

Since you can’t use flash photography, Sis tried to get some good pics with the flash off. She actually got some great ones!:

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The huge pelican was Little Guy’s favorite part:

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His other favorite part was when Squirt was swimming and flipping around. He said, “I wanna do that!”

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While this show is so great and fun, it is pretty long. By the last scene, Little Guy was asking me every minute if it was done yet. I think he was starting to fall asleep again and was trying to keep awake!

When the show finished, we waited as the huge crowd herded out of the theater. I notice that I use the word ‘herd’ a lot. But, it’s true! It’s like you’re in a herd being led somewhere. You don’t dare stop or turn around because then you’re just going to get ran over! So, we let the crowd thin out and decided what to do next…

~Up next: More of our AK day
 
Great update! I haven't seen Nemo in quite a while. Mom and Brooklynn saw it this past summer, but Bella is still not old enough to sit through it. We will probably try it next summer.
 
Great update! I haven't seen Nemo in quite a while. Mom and Brooklynn saw it this past summer, but Bella is still not old enough to sit through it. We will probably try it next summer.

Thanks Jill! Yeah, Nemo is quite a long show..I'm sure she'll be enjoying it soon!!
 
Great Updates Tink and Kristen! I love that you ended up in FoTLK together :) That was DS's favorite his first trip @14 months. He was in awe throughout the whole show. At some points, he was jumping and grunting with delight. When we were there in 09 however, he had a major meltdown. He was a nightmare and I swear he was EXHAUSTED. I'm looking forward to taking him to see it again because he'll almost be 5.

Looking forward to more :)
 
Great updates, girls!

Kristen - that was an okapi. Awesome that you got to see the lion up and walking around. It is always exciting to see him standing.

Your Pangani pictures were great! :thumbsup2


tinkgurl - Sweet pictures of Little Guy all caught up in the show and then out like a light. That happens to our girls, too. It's just easy to give it up quickly whenever you sit down in Disney World after going and going and going!


Keep all those Animal Kingdom pictures coming! :dance3:
 
That's awesome that the Little Guy loved the safari so much. It seems like he did great for most of FOTLK and Finding Nemo-- those shows can get a little long for the little ones!
 
Great Updates Tink and Kristen! I love that you ended up in FoTLK together :) That was DS's favorite his first trip @14 months. He was in awe throughout the whole show. At some points, he was jumping and grunting with delight. When we were there in 09 however, he had a major meltdown. He was a nightmare and I swear he was EXHAUSTED. I'm looking forward to taking him to see it again because he'll almost be 5.

Looking forward to more :)

Thanks! I think it's so funny that we ended up at the same show! Aw..hopefully he will enjoy it next time!

Great updates, girls!

Kristen - that was an okapi. Awesome that you got to see the lion up and walking around. It is always exciting to see him standing.

Your Pangani pictures were great! :thumbsup2


tinkgurl - Sweet pictures of Little Guy all caught up in the show and then out like a light. That happens to our girls, too. It's just easy to give it up quickly whenever you sit down in Disney World after going and going and going!


Keep all those Animal Kingdom pictures coming! :dance3:

Thanks MeMom! It was so funny...how fast he fell asleep! You are right, it is easy to get so caught up in having fun and then it hits you like a ton of bricks and you're super tired!

That's awesome that the Little Guy loved the safari so much. It seems like he did great for most of FOTLK and Finding Nemo-- those shows can get a little long for the little ones!

e was getting antsy by the end of Nemo, but I think he did good for sitting through two shows in one day!
 












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