Disney Vacation – Day 5 (last day)
Well, day 5 was our final day at Disney World, and only a half day. We had surprisingly gotten pretty much everything done that we considered “must-dos”, so we took this day pretty slow. Our last day has always been at the Magic Kingdom, because that just is Disney to me, so we headed over there with the intention of possibly hopping on a ride or 2, grabbing lunch, and doing a little shopping. Unfortunately, we did things a little backwards and did the shopping first (well, “unfortunately” may be the wrong word. I love shopping. I love Disney stuff.). Most of it was fairly small, but we also picked up an interactive R2-D2 for Chris’s dad for his birthday, which was really cool, but quite large. So, we decided to skip rides, since we’d already done everything we wanted to anyway and it was already almost noon. We did get offered a set of fast passes for Thunder Mountain from a Dad and son (yay, fairy dust!), but we ended up giving them to another couple once we decided R2 probably wouldn’t fit on the ride with us. For lunch, we went over to El Pirata y El Perico in Adventureland for Mexican. We both got tacos and chocolate cakes.
That was the last of our CS credits, but we still had 6 snack credits we hadn’t used, so we knew exactly where to go to spend those. Goofy’s Candy Co. in Downtown Disney! I’d heard they have amazing customizable snacks that you can get for a credit each, so we knew we wanted to try those. Instead of taking a bus back to our hotel and then waiting for a bus to Downtown Disney (and I wasn’t sure if there were buses straight from MK to DD), we decided this would be a great time to use the express monorail over to the Ticket and Transportation Center! Yay, we got to ride the monorail at last! After our quick ride, we got out at the TTC and started looking for a bus to DD. Apparently there isn’t one. Luckily, we found out that we could make the short walk over to the Polynesian and get a bus there. That gave us a chance to gage the walk between the Polynesian and the TTC for February (if we still go). It wasn’t bad. Quite a nice walk, only about 5 minutes. We just made the bus – it was there as we ran up – and we were finally off to Downtown Disney.
We don’t typically go to Downtown Disney often, since we’re usually busy with the parks and tired at night, not to mention most guys don’t like shopping much. I really like it, though! I hope we get to go again next time. There’s so many shops and restaurants! We were on a mission, but I did manage to stop in the Christmas store and the big World of Disney store to pick up a few things (like a Disney YA fantasy book!! <cheesy grin>) and a few more pressed pennies. Goofy’s Candy Co. was also a great success. We both put in our custom orders (mine a Mickey Crispy Rice Treat dipped in white chocolate and topped with chopped peanuts and milk chocolate drizzle and Chris’s a Mickey Crispy Rice Treat dipped in dark chocolate and topped with chopped pecans) and looked at all the goodies in the glass display counter. We came out of the shop with our custom orders, a set of 3 dipped and topping-ed pretzel rods, a set of 4 dipped and topping-ed marshmallows, a huge toffee brick, and a large chocolate covered smore.<drool> We didn’t get to try any of them till after the trip, but they were amazing and they lasted us a while. I highly recommend saving the snack credits for a huge candy blowout like this for everyone. We didn’t really feel we needed the snacks most days and the Goofy’s candy, particularly the custom orders, are a great deal for the snack credits. You could even go there early in the trip and buy snacks for the duration of your trip (to eat during your daily breaks or something!).
After using up our snack credits, we decided to take the boat back to the hotel, since it was getting kinda late and we still had a long drive home. We had a bit of trouble figuring out where to go to get the boat, but we found a really nice cast member named Nancy who stopped what she was doing just to lead us to the dock. She even gave us a personalized button to give to Chris’s dad for his birthday, with a cute little Mickey head instead of an “o”! We were at the wrong end of Downtown Disney, so we ended up taking the ferry to the other end and then transferring to the boat that goes back to Port Orleans. The boat ride was cute and peaceful, but a bit hot. Lots of green to look at on the way. Once back, we took a few more pictures and then it was time to say goodbye to Disney World.
Downtown Disney from the boat
POFQ from the boat
I always hate leaving. I get really sad. But I knew we’d be back in less than a year (maybe), so it wasn’t too bad. Our trip was great. We had a lot of fun and quite a few romantic moments. A great way to spend our second anniversary!
Also, for anyone who hasn’t already discovered it, the full album is here.
Disney Vacation – day 2
The alarm clock went off bright and early around 7:30 am and surprisingly, we weren’t that tired! Imagine that, me up in the am and not tired! Ha! Anyway, we wanted to try to get to Animal Kingdom as close to rope drop (opening) as possible so that we could get on the popular rides first. It’s good to get on those first because Animal Kingdom is always a bit hotter than the other parks thanks to all the humidity and heat being held under the canopy of trees, so it’s pretty icky to be in long lines there. I managed to remember everything for the backpack this day and our bus again was just POFQ so we got to the park right at opening. We followed the herd in and rushed over to Kilimanjaro Safari, the riding safari, to get fast passes (if you wait till later in the day, we’ve seen the wait around 90 minutes!) and then power walked across the park to get on Everest, which only had a 10 minute wait! I love Everest. It’s got the theming of a typical Disney roller coaster plus the excitement of a real thrill ride. It doesn’t go upside down, but there’s a part that sure feels like it. I won’t ruin the surprise for anyone who hasn’t ridden it, but it’s a great ride. After Everest, we walked through the Maharajah Jungle Trek, which has animals like bats, tapirs, and tigers. We named the tapir Bob, since we couldn’t agree how tapir is pronounced (TAPE-ur, right? Not TAPE-ear!). The tigers were sleeping, as usual (though last time we saw one spray a tree, lovely), but they were close to the viewing spot, so that was nice. I like tigers. We also saw a bat licking it’s balls. Not very dignified. After the trail, we decided to take a ride on Kali River Rapids, which is a raft ride that can get you quite wet. Last time we went, Chris and I got soaked and I was wearing jean capris, so it was really icky feeling for the rest of the time at the park. This time, I specifically brought board shorts to wear to this park just in case and of course we barely got splashed. It was still fun, though. Next, we went back to the Kilimanjaro Safari for our fast pass time and had a nice ride and saw lots of animals, some pretty close up, like the elephants and giraffes.
Once we got off, we were right near the entrance of the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail, where we saw some birds and some gorillas. I did my Master’s project on gorillas, so I always like watching them. Most of them were sleeping, some in odd positions, but we saw one that sat up and was looking around, looking deep in thought. Chris tried to narrate what he was thinking – mainly about how the gorilla was worried about the stock market – and then the gorilla threw up. Gross. Everyone simultaneously “eww”ed. And then he ate it. Everyone “eww”ed again. I hate to see that. Back when I was watching the gorillas at the Philly Zoo, I learned that reinjesting vomited food is an abnormal behavior only seen in captivity and is a sign of stress. The enclosures are pretty nice at the park, though (they seem pretty large and natural), so I hope it’s an isolated incident.
By now, it was lunchtime, and despite the gorilla vomit, we were actually pretty hungry, so we found a counter service place to grab some lunch with our CS credits. We each got burgers, fries, a soda, and a milkshake (dessert is included in the CS credits) and sat down in a nice shaded table area near the meet-and-greet spot where kids get to meet Baloo and King Louie from The Jungle Book. It was fun to watch the kids meet the characters and watch the characters act silly with the kids. After lunch, we were pretty much done with Animal Kingdom (we’ve done Dinosaur in the past, but I really don’t like it. It’s loud and shakes you around a lot and the dinosaur at the end always freaks me out. I know it’s not real, obviously, I just don’t really like big, scary things that make loud noises. If our kids one day want to ride it, they can go on with Daddy. I’ll wait patiently in a nearby shop. 
). Next time we go, I would like to try to see either Festival of the Lion King or Finding Nemo – The Musical, since I’ve heard they’re both pretty good. We were on a limited time though this trip, and we really needed a break, so we went back to the hotel for a short while.
Us with the Tree of Life in the background. Also, my new set of ears!
Chris in front of the Rainforest Cafe sign. We didn't eat there, but we thought the gorilla looked like he was making our silly face, so he posed with it.
After a short nap and freshening up, we went back to the Magic Kingdom to finish up the rides, have dinner, see the parade, and watch the fireworks. We first walked over to Thunder Mountain, since it was the main ride we missed the day before, and yet again, it was closed, this time for a bee infestation! They promised to have it back up in an hour or so, so we grabbed fast passes. We decided not to go on Splash Mountain again, so after I grabbed a few pressed pennies from Frontierland, we went back on Haunted Mansion, Pirates, and the Enchanted Tiki Room (which I don’t remember ever seeing – boy, it was dumb. Maybe that’s one of those rides you have to grow up loving so that it becomes a classic must-do later on, like IASW and Carousel of Progress.). We had a bit of time to kill before dinner, but not enough to wait in line for a ride, so we walked through the rose garden in front of the castle and took some pictures. I really liked how some of them came out. I love how you can get shots without too many people in them from the rose garden. It looks like a scene right out of a fairytale.
Excalibur behind the castle. Do they still do the "who can pull it out" thing?
- Just us in front of the castle, more magic on my head
Dinner was pretty early (5:15 pm) that day at the Plaza Restaurant on Main Street. I had a tuna salad sandwich with fries and Chris had a grilled chicken sandwich with fries. We shared a banana split since most of the desserts looked pretty big (we also got some cookies to go since one dessert each is included in the TS credit). The restaurant was pretty, and we were off in a cute little octagonal room with lots of windows, but it was a bit warm and the bathroom was outside, which was kind of a pain. I also think it would be a great place for lunch with all the sandwich choices, but a bit light for dinner. I’d go back, but only for lunch. There’s so many great restaurants at Disney World, so I’m sure I can find a better choice to try for dinner.
Chris in the Plaza Restaurant
We got in one last viewing of The Laugh Floor (Chris wanted to submit a joke via text message for the show, but I thought it was slightly too macabre, so he decided not to, and then we heard a joke that was really similar and he pouted, lol) before deciding to find a place to watch the parade and fireworks. It was a bit late (7:45 with the parade at 9 – sad that that’s late to find a spot), but we found a great spot in the circle in front of the castle just behind some British kids who ended up buying half the glowing spinny things off the nearby cart. The parade was cute, as usual. I think they changed the creepy dudes that start the parade off, though. They used to wear full fake heads and now they seem to only have makeup and wigs. I’m not sure which is worse:
Old version of creepy dudes. (Picture from www.laugingplace.com)
New creepy dude
Wishes was wonderful also, as always. I love the fireworks at the Magic Kingdom. I’ve never seen Phantasmic at Disney’s Hollywood Studios (it’s MGM, dammit), but I definitely prefer Wishes over Illuminations at EPCOT. Illuminations is nice, but it’s a bit slow at times and a bit too Kumbaya for me. Wishes is just cute.
After the fireworks, we finally had time to go use our Thunder Mountain fast passes before the park closed (even though we were past the return time – they’ll typically still take them as long as it’s the same day), so off we went back to Frontierland. I don’t think I’ve ever ridden it at night and I thought it was actually a bit more exciting. I guess the darkness makes it feel like you’re going faster. I’ll definitely remember that in the future. As it was getting close to closing time, we headed back towards the entrance of the park to go home. We were originally planning on taking a quick round-trip on the monorail (to hear the “Por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas” of course!), but the line was gimungous, so we decided we could do without it this time. When we got to the bus station, the line for Port Orleans was shared between POR and POFQ and really, really long. We waited a while, watched one bus fill up and go, and we got on the second one that came around just after the first left. It was pretty crowded. So, mental note: the buses around closing time can take a while to get onto and get home (I dunno though, like I’d leave early just to avoid this? Maybe we could just stick around longer and hope that the bus lines die down a bit? And what if you’ve got kids? Are you outta there early anyway or do you just carry them out sleeping/cranky/crying?). Luckily POFQ was the first stop, so we only had our usual ride home before we were able to get home and into bed. Next up, day 3: Disney’s Hollywood Studios and EPCOT!
Disney Vacation – day 1
After checking in, we made sure our bag had everything in it that we needed (I later realized I’d forgotten about 4 things, but oh well), put on our silly hats, anniversary pins, and some sunblock, and headed off to the bus stop to wait for the bus to the Magic Kingdom. It was a bit weird not arriving via monorail, but soon we were there, walking through the gates! As it was the middle of the day (around 3:30 pm), we didn’t need to rush to any rides to beat lines, so we strolled in leisurely (I love that first sight of the castle!) and decided to use our daily snack credit since we were hungry. I’d heard great things about Dole Whips and Dole Whip Floats, so we each got a Dole Whip Float (mine was pineapple, Chris’s was orange, both are soft serve with pineapple juice) from the stand in Adventureland. MMMM. They were really good and quite refreshing. Definitely lived up to the hype.
Dole Whip Floats!
We walked over to the Haunted Mansion, one of my favorite rides, while eating/drinking our Dole Whip Floats. All before dinner, we managed to hit most of the rest of our favorites: Pirates, Buzz Lightyear (I beat Chris’s score! haha!), Carousel of Progress (I know most people think this is dumb, but I love it), It’s a Small World (much to Chris’s chagrin), the Laugh Floor (for the first time), Jungle Cruise, and Mickey’s Philharmagic. For some reason, the park looked fairly packed, yet all the lines were pretty short. The longest line we waited in was the 20 minute Jungle Cruise line. Everything else was 15 or less, which was great!
Proof of my winning Buzz Lightyear score!
Proof of Chris's losing Buzz Lightyear score!
As we knew beforehand, Space Mountain and the Tomorrowland Transit Authority were closed for renovations, so neither of them for us this time. They also ended up closing down Thunder Mountain for a while due to technical difficulties, so we didn’t get on it that day, but we knew we were coming back the next day, so it wasn’t a problem. We did grab fast passes for it, since they said it shouldn’t be down too long, but once we got to the front of the line to get fast passes, the time had changed so much (due to the huge amount of people getting turned away from the broken down ride), that our return time would be our dinner reservation time, so we just gave them to another couple. Splash Mountain’s line was actually pretty long (I think at least an hour), so we just skipped that. We should have saved the fast pass for this, but oh well. Anyway, all the rides we got on were fun as always. Chris hates IASW, but he was a trooper and rode it for me. It was weird though, lots of buildings were under renovation, so there were a lot of those paper facades up, which kind of tarnishes the magic a bit, but I understand they need to do the work (I guess I just think they should probably pick a less busy time of year to impact as few people as possible). IASW was actually one of them, so Chris had a glimmer of hope that it was closed, but we just had to find the makeshift entrance off to the side.
Chris thinks IASW is closed. Nope. Just a fake facade while they renovate. It's open! (If you look down the road a bit, Pinocchio's also has a fake facade up.
Photo on IASW - notice the grumpy gus. (It's ok, he's just acting, the next pic he smiled for.)
On the upside, Chris really liked the Laugh Floor, so that was a plus for him. It was pretty cute. It’s animated and somewhat interactive (I think someone who can hear the audience does the character voices backstage, I just don’t know how the animation is always appropriate to what needs to be said and as we later found out, different for different shows, perhaps depending on people’s answers?). Anyway, it was pretty cool.
I got a bit of a headache midday (and Advil was one of the things I forgot to put in the backpack), but we found some in a store and then found out that you can ask for ice water at any CS restaurant and it’s free, so we at least got free water. And now you know you can get free ice water! Finally, something free at Disney World!
After all the rides, we were off to our late dinner (8:25 pm – general closing time was 9 that night, but there was extra magic hours for resort guests) at Tony’s Town Square Restaurant, which is Italian food. I had spaghetti and meatballs and creme brulee, and Chris had chicken parmesan and an ice cream bomb. We also shared bruschetta for an appetizer (which wasn’t included in our dining plan, so we just had to pay for that out of pocket. Everything else was included and everything was very yummy. Their meatballs were fantastic (very dense, I love dense meatballs). Though we were starving when we got there, the food really filled us up quickly and by the end of dinner, we were beyond stuffed. There was no parade this night, so we didn’t get to see that, but we had it slotted in for the next day, so no worries. We heard, but didn’t get to see Wishes, the fireworks, but again, we knew we’d be back the next night with an early dinner, so that was ok. Plus, I love the music for Wishes, so it was nice even to just hear it anyway.
Dinner at Tony's Town Square Restaurant. Notice the "magic" on the table! Also, it looks early in this shot, but it got dark pretty quickly.
After dinner, the MK was open for EMH until 1 am, so we decided to just walk around a bit and take some pictures. It was so romantic to just stroll around the paths around the castle holding hands, just enjoying the scenery and each other. It actually might have been my favorite part of the trip. You’re typically racing around in an effort to get to all your favorite rides, so it’s nice to just take your time and enjoy the atmosphere sometimes.
I love this shot of the castle, with the still water giving a perfect reflection. I just wish I could somehow back up further and get the full reflection without getting the bridge I'm standing on, too.
A Cinderella fountain in Fantasyland. I also have a flash shot of this, but I thought this one was prettier.
Silly picture of us. We were trying to get the castle in the background (you can kind of see a little of it...), but with only the 2 of us, there's only so far an arm can go. Yes, that's magic on my head and yes, I knew it was there.
After we were both feeling a little less full and done taking pictures, we decided to call it a night and head home, so we went back to the bus stops and got on a bus fairly quickly. After the long drive down to Florida and the excitement of the first day of parks, we were exhausted, but happy, and fell asleep really quickly. Next up: Animal Kingdom/MK again!
