Part One: Magic in the Magic Kingdom
Part Two: Animal Kingdom: I LOVE TODAY
Part Three: Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow

Hollywood Studios isn’t my favorite out of the parks, but I do enjoy it. They have Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster starring Aerosmith, after all, and well, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster is awesome.

We started off that day with our bus luck back to not being so good. While waiting for the Hollywood Studios bus, approximately 42,000 Magic Kingdom buses came. And if I’m not mistaken, we had to take another trip through Port Orleans Riverside before finally heading toward the park. Fortunately, we weren’t trying to ride Toy Story Midway Mania, so it wasn’t that big of a deal not to get to the park right at opening.[1. Don’t get me wrong, we love TSMM, but we don’t always have to ride it, and I don’t always feel like the hassle to get a Fast Pass for it is worth our time.]

But anyway, we headed over to Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror. Here is a somewhat embarrassing confession. Tower of Terror? It really does terrify me. I can only ride it every few years or so. The set up is so freaking scary. And the ride itself is different every time. So sometimes I get on and love it, other times I hate it like burning. Adam grabbed himself a Fast Pass for Tower of Terror, then we hit Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster first thing. THAT’S how you start off a morning, let me tell you. The cast member there kept making the funniest quips and comments. And of course, the ride was awesome.

Adam and I spent a lot of time just walking around Hollywood Studios and looking at stuff. We did ride Star Tours, and it was completely different this time. We usually end up going through the Death Star, but not this time![2. Star Tours is programmed so it’s almost impossible to get the same ride twice. It’s really cool and not scary like Tower of Terror!] We also did the Backlot Tour (but there were no actors for the beginning part so it wasn’t as fun–I don’t think they use actors in the winter, which is smart. I’ve gotten to “star” in that part twice).

I think my favorite part of the Backlot Tour is the big room with all the old props. It has a much cooler name but it’s eluding me now. It’s SO cool to see those things that have been in actual Disney movies. And I also love the museum at the end with more props:

these are from the movie Titanic

We also rode the Great Movie Ride, which I love, in all its cheesy glory.

We ate lunch at the ABC Commissary. THAT was a mess and a half. I usually like it there, but there were some *difficulties* and the shrimp was actually pretty gross. But this lemon meringue cupcake made things kinda worth it:

We made our way to the Magic of Disney Animation building a couple of times. I like it in there. It has character meetings, pretty art work, and exhibits and displays from their latest films and some classic films. There’s also a great art store.

I have a zillion photos of that sign but I just adore it. It never gets old for me.

We ran into some adorable movie characters:

Venellope liked my ponytail. I like my tee-shirt. This is the awesome one I got when I was at Epcot. It’s my favorite.

I like to do the Animation Academy if we get a chance, and we did this time. I got to draw Agent P from Phineas & Ferb:

I don’t think I did too badly. What do you think? It really is cool how simple they make it. And you have to follow directions because the pencils don’t have erasers!

I hope to take Aidan in there when we go in June. I also REALLY hope Ralph and Venellope are there when we go in June because that would make Aidan’s trip!

We FINALLY went through One Man’s Dream after walking past it for years and years, and it was really cool. It’s a museum full of really awesome Disneyana, and then we get to watch a movie about Walt Disney.

{ While we were in Hollywood Studios, Adam got a call from his agent to give him the good news that a YA novel he’d submitted was going to be acquired by Simon & Schuster. AWESOME right? Considering we’d had this tradition of him getting BAD book news at Disney World. What a way to break that curse, huh? 🙂 }

After Animation Academy, we were about ready to go. But then the Disney Channel Rocks show rolled right up and well, why not? I still think the High School Musical show was better, but that’s probably because I’m more familiar with that than a lot of the Disney Channel stuff they have now.

those leggings, though

Then they did the big mistake of asking people to join them. OF COURSE I DID.

I was the only adult who went up there. Did I feel silly? Yes. Would I do it again?

All in all, we had a pretty low key day at Hollywood Studios. It’s not a park full of “must-dos” for us, so we just go with the flow. Good times. 🙂

There’s only one day left of my trip report, and I’ll talk about our last day at Magic Kingdom, when we had some very special folks spend the day with us!

Till next time!

Part One: Magic in the Magic Kingdom
Part Two: Animal Kingdom: I LOVE TODAY

Day three of our Disney trip took us to Epcot. We got to the bus stop just in time to see the Epcot bus sitting there, so we hopped right on. Finally! Good bus luck! Of course, the bus took us all the way through the OTHER Port Orleans resort as well, but we still got to Epcot at 9am. But then I picked the worst line ever to stand in. It was so slow but the people we were behind–a dad and his two boys–I swear to you that they were George Bluth with young Michael and Gob. “Michael” and “Gob” just kept beating up on each other. “Gob” would not leave “Michael” alone and they were roughhousing pretty good until “George” finally caught them and made them stop. Entertaining. But not enough for me to stay in the horrid line. We moved over and were in the park within three minutes.

As always, the first pavilion we headed toward was The Land so we could get Fast Passes for Soarin’. But because we’d gotten there so early, Soarin’ only had a ten minute posted wait time. (For that ride, the wait is ALWAYS longer than the posted wait time, by the way.) We got in line behind a French family. Adam enjoyed listening to them talk in French.

Soarin’ was GREAT. It’s one of my favorite rides in the park and I cannot wait to take my mom on it. It’s so relaxing and pretty and the music is lovely as well. I can’t even describe it–it’s definitely something you’ll have to experience for yourself if you get to Disneyland or Disney World.

After Soarin’, we got on Living With The Land. It’s not an exciting ride, but I love going through the greenhouses and seeing all the food they have growing. A lot of it they use in the restaurants right on property!

By then, it was time for Soarin’ again; our Fast Pass window had opened up. We were next to an older lady who was terrified of heights and her commentary throughout the entire ride was almost better than the attraction! “Oh my goodness, oh my, why would anyone ever… oh my goodness.” Her hands were literally dripping with sweat. When I asked her if she liked it, she said she loved it. People are so interesting.

We headed over to the more thrilling rides. Adam and I did single rider on Test Track and both of us got on within five minutes or so. I like single rider because of the fast lines, and most of the people I end up with are nice. But this time I was with a family who clearly didn’t want anyone joining them and it was kind of awkward. I liked the ride anyway. Not as much as I liked the old version, though. I do like the quieter queues but the actual ride re-imaging is not as cool as the original was. I am not sure how Aidan will feel about the changes when we go in June.

Adam didn’t want to do Mission Space (green, always green for me), so I got on single rider for that. This time I got to stand in line by a mom and her daughter from Canada and they were super nice. I rode with I think a three generation group–a mom, a daughter, and a grandma, and the little girl kept yelling out “I’m the NAVIGATOR!”

Maybe one day I’ll be brave enough to do orange again, but I did it in 2005 before you had a choice, and well…. let me tell you. It is HARD CORE. Just don’t eat anything before you go on. Or you’ll be tasting it for the rest of the day.

Sadly, Captain EO was closed, so I didn’t get to see any of Hooter’s antics this time. Maybe in June.

They were starting to decorate for the Flower and Garden Festival, and we got to see some sneak peeks!

Then we headed out into the “wild”… OK, just to World Showcase. Adam was hungry and I was curious about the Fish & Chips. Which were expensive but FREAKING DELICIOUS. So good that the birds hanging around the seating area were pretty loud with their begging.

We walked around World Showcase, and did some shopping in the UK, where I got the most awesome Yellow Submarine shirt (you’ll see it in the Hollywood Studios post) and a Doctor Who shirt. Because DISNEY SELLS DOCTOR WHO SHIRTS HOW FREAKING AWESOME IS THAT I LOVE WHEN MY FANDOMS COLLIDE. Anyway, yeah. We made our way through World Showcase, going from UK to Mexico.

More Flower and Garden stuff:

And then a pretty princess:

And then some pretty scenes:

And SHOPPING! I got CDs and incense and a lucky kitty cat and Super Mario Bros. socks and and and …..

Then I got a front row seat to see the Chinese Acrobats, which I’ve never been lucky enough to do in the past!

After that, we walked through the countries, stopping at the America Pavilion because AMERICA WAS HAPPENING. I also had some work to do, so we hung out at the Pavilion while I did that. At some point, I tried on a Viking hat and sword and bought a little white polar bear too. Probably after I got off of Maelstrom. That ride is always fun, especially when I’m on with people who have never ridden it before. Their reactions are always so funny. I remember one year, a college-aged girl went “What’s it even about?” after it was over. Truly, I don’t know. But it’s a neat ride anyway.

We made our way back to The Land for dinner, but on the way ended up in the new Oz section that had games and cute things.

While hanging out in the Oz garden, we ended up chatting with two girls who I decided I liked immediately: Lindsey and Harley. They were so fun. I hope I get to see them again when I go in June.

After hanging with them for a while, Adam headed to our favorite restaurant at Disney World: The Garden Grill. Good, good food, awesome characters, and the server remembered us from last year! Her name’s Lisa and she is from CT–I hope she’s there in June and that we get her again. ANYWAY, we had a BLAST there!

After eating, we walked around a bit more. But the sun had gone down and it was getting chilly. We didn’t stick around for the fireworks because we’d seen them a million times. We did ride Spaceship Earth because that’s what you do when you go to Epcot.

See ya next time, Epcot! The next post will be about our fun day at Hollywood Studios, where I got to dance (again), we drew Agent P, and we got to meet some folks from the movie Wreck-It Ralph!! 🙂

After my first trip to Disney World in 2001, Epcot was my favorite park. After going in 2005, it was Magic Kingdom. Now, I think it might be Animal Kingdom. I realize that I take the most photos in Animal Kingdom, and I really enjoy the lush beauty of the park. Lots of plants, birds, animals, and gorgeous scenery. Even when the skies are grey, like they were when we went on February 26.

Welcome to Part 2 of my February 2013 Disney Trip Report. You can read Part 1 here! 🙂

{I have to laugh because the buses are rarely in our favor. On our first day, we waited and waited for a Magic Kingdom bus while 99,000 Hollywood Studios buses went by. On our second day, we waited a while for an Animal Kingdom bus while 99,000 Magic Kingdom buses (and a random “Jasmine” bus) showed up. Yea, it was that kind of week for Disney transportation.}

Despite the best efforts of Disney transportation, we made it to Animal Kingdom before 10am. We grabbed a Fast Pass for the Safari (because going on in the morning is the best, just so you know). I’d woken up with a strong craving for ice cream for breakfast for some reason, but none of the ice cream carts were open yet! We walked some of the trails and looked at animals while waiting for our Fast Pass window to open, which really wasn’t that long at all. Then it was time for the Safari, which was different from what we were used to. The poacher storyline has been removed so it’s more like a straight safari. I liked it.

We made our way over the Expedition Everest, where the posted wait was 10 minutes. (It was actually much shorter than that). When it was our turn, the rain started, hard and cold. IT WAS AWESOME. And the yeti at the end was working again. I’d never seen it before and it scared me! By the time we got off, the posted wait time was five minutes, so we walked right back on. By this time, the rain had stopped. We ended up going right around and riding it AGAIN. After three times in a row, we were done for a while, so we got our picture taken in front of the coaster.

Then we had lunch at Flame Tree BBQ. Yum.

After lunch, we made our way over to Rafiki’s Planet Watch. You have to board a train and they take you over, and you get a behind-the-scenes look at some of the going-ons of Animal Kingdom. You get to see where the animals sleep at night, for example. I didn’t take pictures because it’s hard to do so on a moving vehicle. It was also beginning to rain again. In fact, by the time we made it off the train, there was a hard core downpour!

So, we hung out in a covered area and I did my work. 🙂 Easy peasy. Once the rain let up a bit, we made our way to Conservation Station and I learned a lot of neat stuff and saw a few neat animals, like this guy:

We watched them change a bandage on a poor little turtle who’d gotten caught in some construction netting. He was a frisky little bugger, waving his arms and legs around. His cut was really deep. He was a wild turtle, endangered even. Disney will take care of any animal that wanders onto the property, which I think is neat. The poor little turtle won’t be able to go back into the wild for months because it takes reptiles such a long time to heal.

After we were done there, we headed back to the “mainland” and headed over to Dino Land. Dino Land is kind of sad because the dinosaurs make all sorts of jokes about their impending demise. It’s kind of macabre. But oh well. I grabbed a carton of Edy’s Dibs because I was still craving ice cream and especially Nestle Crunch ice cream and that’s what they had. Perfect. As we made our way to Dino Land, we talked about how there were some rides we’d never tried because we either didn’t know they were there or the lines were way too long. We got to try out Primeval Whirl (one of those “wild mouse” coasters), and we rode Dinosaur, which was SCARY but fun. The waits for all the rides were 10 minutes or less by this time. Actually, it was pretty much like that all day except for early morning with the Safari, where the wait was 20 minutes. I wonder if the rain scared a lot of people away. As you can see, it takes more than some hard rain to drive Adam and me from a Disney park! 🙂

After Dinosaur, we made our way over to Pizzafari so I could do some more work. And then it was time for the Jammin’ Jungle Parade, for which we were not selected to be in this year. Hee hee.

I had so much fun, dancing (and remember how I’m obsessed with this parade? I may or may not have memorized some of the dance steps. The cast members seemed to get a real kick out of seeing me do the steps with them and a few of them came over and gave me high-5s!) and taking pictures and just really enjoying the parade that when it left our section, I went to another section in the park to watch it again. Told you I was obsessed!

After the parade finally ended, we headed back toward Expedition Everest. I was distracted by the Bhangra DJ Dance Party and well, I had to dance some more.

That was awesome. Then we finally made it to Expedition Everest where the posted wait time was again, five minutes but was really more like zero minutes (we think they must account for the time spent walking through the queue to get to the loading station even though by this time they’d closed the regular queue and had everyone go through the Fast Pass queue). We rode it, and then we rode it AGAIN. While I was in line, a lady told me that I was a really good dancer! 🙂

By this time, the park was closing. Wah wahhh. We made our way to the front, taking photos and enjoying the scenery.

I do love flamingos. They’re pink and they stand on one leg. What’s not to like?

pretty black swan

After our awesome day at Animal Kingdom (seriously, Expedition Everest FIVE TIMES, yo!), we made our way to Beach Club resort for dinner at Cape May Cafe. We met up with our friend Joe and had a delicious dinner and an even more delicious dessert. I sampled all of them.

Words really can’t express how much fun I had that day in Animal Kingdom. Short wait times, ice cream, seeing the parade twice, dancing, animals, and loveliness. I can’t wait to go back in June! 🙂

We ended the night with a dip in the hot tub, and early to bed because Epcot was the next day and well, Epcot rules. We got to try out the new Test Track, experience Soarin’, and see some previews for the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival. (I got to go in 2005 and it was beautiful. Sure would love to go again someday….)

Til next time! 🙂

These February Disney trips were a stroke of genius, an idea devised by Adam during the fall of 2011. He knows how depressed I get with too much cold and snow (although I have to admit this winter hasn’t been that bad) and he knows Disney World is the happiest place ever for me. So, off we go, every year, to enjoy a piece of summer in the winter months.

I’ve decided to break the trip report into parts because it will just be too long for me to do all of the days in one post. So, without further ado, let’s start with Part One: Magic In the Magic Kingdom.

Please note: Adam and I are the worst tourists ever. We don’t tour the park in sections; we criss cross back and forth several times throughout the day. I like to get the exercise, and we do most stuff on whims. So those of you who have been and are wondering WTF, that’s why our day is all over the place.

We started off by waking up at Disney O’Clock (3:15am) for a trip to Midway Airport. The cab was picking us up at 3:45am. By the time we got through security, we both had time to scarf down a hash brown before it was time to board! (Surprisingly, I hadn’t been already up from the night before! I actually tried to get a decent night’s sleep so I wouldn’t be half out of my mind at Magic Kingdom like I typically am on the first day of my Disney trips.)

I slept most of the flight, but I do remember waking up and eating some of Adam’s cinnamon roll graham crackers because well, I had to. I also remember having to pee constantly and being really cold. I was SO looking forward to that 80F waiting for me in Orlando!

After a freezing cold ride on the Magical Express to our resort Port Orleans French Quarter, and a wait behind some slow pokes in the check-in line, we dropped off our carry-on bags with luggage storage, I did a bit of freelance work, and we were in Magic Kingdom by noon. Of course Adam was already hungry! So we had lunch at Columbia Harbour House, stopping to take pix along the way, and to listen to the band.

After lunch, we headed to the new Fantasyland to see what we could see. And this is what we saw!

He told me to put my arms around him and try not to faint. I heard him ask the girl behind me if she liked his teeth. My what a guy, that Gaston.

Fantasyland was super crowded, so we looked around a bit and headed to Tomorrowland. Had to do Carousel of Progress, because they have this awesome kitchen scene:

I want that kitchen.

We puttered around Tomorrowland before popping into some gift shops. I love taking pictures of merchandise and snacks.

I think this popcorn is so pretty. We saw three people spill their popcorn during our vacation. I’m sure the gulls were happy about that.

These Mickey Butt mugs crack me up.

We headed back to Liberty Square for Haunted Mansion and Hall of Presidents and random wildlife.

HAD to do it’s a small world. Had to.

It was in here that Adam and I wondered what it’s like when they turn on these massive attractions. Does it start off all slow and warped like a record on a record player, or do things just instantly light up and they’re good to go? And none of those puppets were dusty. That means there are people TO DUST ALL THE PUPPETS in those rides. HOLY CRAP.

After it’s a small world, we headed to Be Our Guest for dinner. OH MAN. They really do it up, you guys. They escort parties in one by one. And they open these big doors. IT’S JUST LIKE WALKING INTO THE MOVIE. It’s beautiful!!

We ate in the West Wing.

It was dark and a thunderstorm roared through every few minutes. Torn tapestries and paintings were everywhere. It was definitely amazing.

On top of all that, the Beast pops in the bow to his guests. And the food was super yummy. I had steak with pommes frites and truffle mayonaise. Yummy! 🙂 For dessert, they roll a cart to the table with all of the selections right in front of you. I had a lemon meringue cupcake. Delicious. We also got to try The Grey Stuff.

The Grey Stuff really IS delicious. But only for people who are having celebrations. And maybe for people who ask nicely but probably not usually. We were lucky. Personally, I think everyone should get to try it, but it’s not my restaurant so….

We met our host after dinner.

These guys were talking but I have no clue what they were saying. One of them was sleeping and snoring pretty loudly.

I feel VERY lucky that we got a chance to experience Be Our Guest. The place is booked for a solid six months, and the lunch line usually runs at least 45 minutes during peak times. I am not sure when we’ll get there again, but I’m glad we got to do it once.

All in all, a very lovely day at the Magic Kingdom. The weather was hot and muggy and I loved it. I was wearing shorts and a tee-shirt. Even though I had to do some work, it was nice to sit on a bench in the Magic Kingdom rather than a freezing cold office. It was way more crowded than I’d like, so most of the rides we love had lines that were way too long, but as we were going to Magic Kingdom later in the week, I didn’t fret about it.

Tune in next time when I talk about our AWESOME DAY at Animal Kingdom, where we got to see a baby elephant poop and pee, we got to watch an injured turtle get a bandage change, and we got to ride Expedition Everest FIVE TIMES.

See ya! 🙂