The October Anniversary/Birthday/DVC try out!!! Pre-Trip Report TRIP REPORT UNDER WAY!! *DAY TWO (part one) COMPLETE*

I'm back! Whew what an amazing, fantastic, super awesome trip.. I have to catch up with a bunch of stuff with school and work, ugh what is this real life crap?? But the trip report will be coming soon!

One good thing!! We decided next year we're going to visit during early December so we can see all the Christmas decorations and possibly stay at Grand Floridian (pending DVC rental points being available ) Yayyy! So before I let any Disney depression set in, I can start planning that trip!

Okay I've been home for one sad un-Disney week and finally got all of mine and Bill's pictures uploaded onto the computer, so its time to start this trip report

Day One

Well since I am a crazy person I got us a 7am flight out of Philadelphia on the first day of our trip. After a crazy night before of work, class, and visiting Bill's mom because it was his birthday we woke up wayyy too early at 4:45am. We were groggy but who cared it was DISNEY DAY!! We jumped out of bed, got dressed and everything ready and I texted my dad to make sure he was awake and ready to take us to the airport. I do have to say we are super lucky because 1. I have a wonderful father who will drive me to the airport at 5:30 in the morning and we only live 12 minutes from PHL International. So after saying a tearful goodbye to this face...

We were off! We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare. Gotta love those early morning flights for that... We breezed right through security and settled down to wait for our flight.

And I admired my new nails I got specifically for the trip

After an uneventful flight where I enjoyed the inflight tv that Southwest now offers, we were soon touching down at MCO. We power walked to the tram and were soon approaching our first taste of Disney.. The Magical Express This was our first test of the Magicbands and they worked perfectly. We were on the bus in record time.

At first we were the only ones on the bus and I started to wonder where everyone was. It slowly started to fill up and in about 20 minutes we were on our way just a little after 10am.. At this point I was really thanking past me for booking that early flight because we now had a full Disney day in front of us...

*And now photobucket seems to have crashed as soon as I finally got all my photos uploaded for this so I'll have to leave this as to be continued at the moment...

*edit. Nevermind its back!!*

So we were a little concerned because it was raining when we boarded the Magical Express

However by the time we stopped at Art of Animation and Pop Century, where most of the bus unloaded, there were clear skies! We finally got over to Animal Kingdom Lodge Jambo House where the rest of the bus got off and then a very confused bus driver got on and asked us where we were headed. We said Kidani Village and he seemed so relieved, guess he thought he had another stop he didn't know about.

We finally arrived at the hotel and were greeted with that Disney magic when the second we stepped off the bus we were greeted by an excellent concierge saying "Ms. Ford?" I was amazed and had to ask her if she was psychic We got our room pretty quickly, I asked if they had any partial savannah views available but unfortunately they were booked. That was okay because our room was on the 3rd floor really close to the lobby so it ended up working out great for us when walking back from a long day at the parks.

We quickly took in the Savannah...

and were off to check out the room. I sent Pat a text to tell him we'd arrived and he said he was actually on his way to Hollywood Studios to put in his schedule requests and it just so happened that our fastpasses were for Hollywood Studios that day

I took my first ear hat picture of the trip...

We walked down to the pool bar just to get a lay of the land and met a great bartender who's name I can't remember but was from New Jersey so we chatted a little about what brought him down to Florida. I ordered a margarita (a trend for this trip) and Bill got a Long Island and after a peek around we walked up to the bus stop.

We didn't wait long for a bus, where Bill tried to answer some work emails and drink at the same time. While I very calmly reminded him we were on vacation!! This picture still makes me laugh though...

to be continued...

Day One.. Continued

I texted Pat to let him know that we were on our way.. I was nervous about the buses since I had heard over and over again that the one downside to Animal Kingdom Lodge was the bus trips, but really we were at Hollywood Studios in no time! Both Bill and Pat were starving and I wanted to try and save my meals for food and wine booths later so we stopped at Pizza Planet so they could get something quick and easy

Bill's pizza came with a salad so I ate that, and had a couple bites of his pizza. I know its cheap and overpriced but there is something about that pizza that I really like. I think it reminds me of Chuck E Cheese or something else from my childhood, but I guess I was hungrier than I thought because I ended up eating a whole slice.

After lunch we were close to our Fastpass time for Toy Story Mania!!

We took the Streets of America over and saw that they were already setting up for the Osbourne Lights.

This is my first time riding TSM despite many trips to WDW. This is because I never make rope drops and missed fastpasses in the past and refuse to wait more than 30 minutes for a ride... so it always got skipped. But now I know what I was missing! It was so much fun! The fastpass got us right in and we a blast!! We started out with me kicking Bills butt but he caught up about halfway through and ended up beating me...

When we were walking to TSM we had passed the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground and Bill and Pat said they both had never done it before (Pat works in Hollywood Studios and still has never made time for it). So we vowed that we would hit it before leaving that area. We stopped at the bar at Studio Catering Company for some drinks and then realized immediately that we wouldn't be able to take them into Honey I Shrunk the kids. So we decided to check out Wandering Oakens. I know this wasn't as big as it was during Frozen Summer Fun but it was kinda cool to see the little snow area. They were actually cleaning the snow while we were there and the line to play in it was crazy so we took a pass.

We checked out the little gift shop and suffered a little bit of Frozen overload. Here's Pat with our pal Olaf..

At that point we were done our drinks so we walked over to Honey I Shrunk the Kids. I don't know why the guys wanted to do it so badly but I indulged.. It was cute, not much to do for adults but we climbed around a little. Oh and rode a big ant!

After our insect experience, I got hit with a serious sweet tooth so Pat and I hit The Writers Shop.. I got a brownie that was covered in chocolate and shaped like Mickey. My god talk about rich!! But it was definitely delicious.

We were getting close to our fastpass for Tower of Terror so we made our way back around. On the way we passed Star Tours where Pat is a coordinator so he got us right on with no wait. We saw our favorite robot who is voiced by Patrick Warburton.

I wanted so badly to be the rebel spy but it didn't happen unfortunately..

We finally got to Sunset Blvd and were on our way to Tower of Terror which is Bill's favorite ride.

I love that ride so much. I could ride it over and over again. The theming is great and I just love the cast members attention to detail. Our host in the beginning was super creepy. After Tower of Terror we were going to try and hit Rock n Roller Coaster single rider but the line was all the way out to the front for some reason so we figured we'd catch it next time.

At this point that 4:45am wake up was starting to get to us so Bill and I decided to head back "home" to rest and change before hitting up Epcot. It was one of Pats only days off so he had some errands to take care of so we decided we'd meet up again the next evening when he got off.

We stopped in the gift shop in the lobby for a bottle of gin so we didn't keep spending money at the bar and enjoying some drinks in our room before changing. Bill snuck away while I was on the balcony and came back with some bandits!

I really fell in love with those little trinkets

We decided to make the walk to Jambo House to see how bad it would be and it was really very reasonable. We briefly checked out the lobby and explored a little before catching a bus to Epcot!

Bill managed to snap this wonderful picture of me blinking

.. and we were on our way! First stop we wanted to see if any fast passes were left and we wandered around looking for a kiosk. After asking several people and wandering through Innoventions we finally gave up and decided to check out the Festival Center. We each got some Food and Wine wristbands and checked out the Ghirardelli chocolate sculptures which were pretty neat..

On our way over to World Showcase we happened to pass the FP+ kiosks that apparently we were blind to the first time around since they WERE RIGHT THERE outside of Innoventions. We checked but there was only Turtle Talk with Crush left and since we weren't very interested in that we passed. We made a pit stop at this place...

... which is one of Bill's faves.

I personally am a weirdo who only like Beverly out of all the options there. The others are just too sweet for me. I was talking to an older guy there and when I told him I liked it because it reminded me of gin and tonics he asked me how I could know that since I was obviously only 17 I informed him I was 25 but thanks...?

Finally it was time for Food and Wine booths!!

Just as a sidenote I totally failed at food pictures this trip... Sorry

I hit Hawaii first for the tuna poke, my favorite! Bill had to have the steak in Canada so we hit that next. I wanted the soup but it was just too hot for all that so I made my way to Ireland while he waited for his steak. I got the Fisherman's Pie which I have heard nothing but great things about... but I was not impressed. I thought the flavors were really weird and I didn't like the big chunks of carrots? peppers? what was that? mixed in. At that point I wanted to get that bad taste out of my mouth so we traveled on to France.

The sky was magnificent over the lake. This picture really doesn't do it justice. I was going to try the escargot minus the bacon but opted to go for a glass of cabernet instead to cleanse my palette. Bill got the beef, his absolute favorite of the trip.
After France we just took our time and meandered around World Showcase. We also hit Morrocco where Bill got the Beef in a pita pocket that he said was just okay and I got the spicy shrimp roll that was really good! We next decided to check out Singapore for my beloved Singapore Sling! Bill also got the mahi mahi which is amazing so I had to steal a bite or two.

We were super disappointed on our slings though, I don't know if it was just a bad batch or if they caught on that they used to be so strong because the ones we got were wayyyy too sweet and kind of just gave me a stomachache. Oh well! We were in Disney, who had time to complain?! Next stop was Belgium for waffles. Yummmmm We both got the chocolate ganache and my god those things are amazing!

After our waffles, feeling thoroughly stuffed we decided to call it a night and save some energy for the next day. BUT on the way out we checked out Test Track and saw only a 10 minute wait for single rider so we jumped on it. We ended up in the same car and I really liked this ride at night. Definitely a different experience.

After our high speed adventure it was off to catch a bus and rest up for Day 2!

Day Two

Animal Kingdom today! We woke up and basically got dressed and made our way to the bus for Animal Kingdom right away. No time for breakfast, the park was calling our names! I loved the short bus ride to Animal Kingdom and we were walking in in no time. We must have gotten there just after rope drop because it was the longest wait I've experienced to get into a park (like 5 minutes of a heavy crowd), but once we were in everyone dispersed and it was smooth sailing. We were a little thrown off by the walls everywhere..

But oh well, it was off to safari for our first fastpass of the day. When we got the posted wait time only said 10 minutes so we got in standby and figured I could change our fastpass to something else. Well once we got into the queue it was obvious that that wait time had not been updated because we were pretty far back. So we ducked into the fastpass line and went back to the front to scan our bands and then went back through. The weird thing about safari is that they don't rescan your bands at the end of the fastpass line so I guess we technically could have hopped over and gone right through, but it makes me wonder how they stop people from doing that who don't have fastpasses?

The safari early in the morning was great! We saw tons of animals including lions! I have never actually caught the lions in the past so I was soooo excited.

Elephant

Cheetah from far away

Lions!!

After our trek to Africa Bill was getting hungry so we thought we'd check out Pizzafari's breakfast offerings but by the time we got over there they had stopped serving. We didn't want to eat that same pizza again so we decided to just hold out a little longer and I would try and get an early ADR at Yak and Yeti.. We couldn't leave Pizzafari without a picture with this kitty though!

Nothing was available on the app for Yak and Yeti but since our next fastpass was for Everest we stopped in on our way over and they said they had availability for noon so I made a reservation and told the hostess we'd be back. We stopped at the little drink cart and I got a margarita while we just took in the feeling of Animal Kingdom before our next fastpass.

Next it was time for Everest! One of my favorite rides! Even with disco yeti. We ended up getting stuck right at the top before you go backwards for like 5 minutes and it was kind of cool. We could see Hollywood Studios and then finally we were back on our way. Turns out the reason we were stalled was because someone got really sick and puked all over. Lucky for me I couldn't see it, but Bill could see the kid throwing up still when we got to the unloading platform and the poor cast members were frantically trying to clean it up before we got out of our car.

Once we left Everest we hopped back into single rider and rode again! I was next to a guy who had never been on it before and I had so much fun experiencing it through his eyes. He was yelling and screaming and laughing the whole time!

After Everest we were officially starving so we went on our way back to Yak and Yeti! I'd been there once before 4 years ago but Bill had never been so we were excited. We sat down and Bill ordered a Yak Attack

And I got sake. I got it cold but almost immediately wished I had gotten it hot.. but it was still really good. I'm just a sucker for hot sake

Bill orderd the Kobe beef burger as his meal and I got the firecracker shrimp and a side of stir-fried veggies. Everything was delicious and we were sooooo full afterwards.

Next we still had some time to kill before our Dinosaur fastpass so we decided to go say hi to the tigers on the Maharajah Jungle Trek. The trek was pretty crowded so we skipped the bats and went straight for the big kitties!

After our excursion with our striped friends, we were entertained by the monkeys on the way to Its Tough to be a Bug.

I don't know about you guys but I LOVE Its Tough to be a Bug. It never gets old! I love peoples reactions to the interactive parts.

After the show we walked over to DINOSAUR. Another ride that I really love! The fastpass got us on in no time. At this point I was really enjoying the benefits of fastpass+. After DINOSAUR we were still feeling exceptionally full from our lunch so we decided to make our way out of the park. We stopped in a gift shop were I got a little hippo figurine for my dad, who loves hippos and we caught a bus back to the hotel to relax a little. The plan was to stay there until going to Epcot later for dinner at the Food and Wine booths, but I was getting antsy about the fact that we were into Day two and I still hadn't seen Cinderella's Castle.. so after a quick pit stop and a little bit of relaxing we were on our way to catch a bus to MK!!

to be continued...

Alright.. the semester is done. I have one maybe two Disney trips in the works for next year so my blues are subsiding. Guess its time to get finish up this trip report. I'll try not to bail out on it this time

So after making a quick pit stop at the hotel we grabbed a bus over to MK to swing in before meeting up with Patrick in Epcot for dinner at the F&W booths. I have to say I love that bus service at Kidani. We never waited long at all. At this point it was around 3:30 or 4 so people were starting to head to MK for the early entry to MNSSHP. The kids costumes were so cute!

We entered to the castle and I saw what I was waiting that whole time to see..

sigh...

and one of my fave angles for castle pics...

We walked up to New Fantasyland to take a peek at it with all the walls down and it really did look great! Now I guess because it was past 4 and people were getting early entry for the Halloween party, but it was soooo busy in MK. I know I'm spoiled because we always go at low crowd times of year but I was really shocked by how crowded it was. After pushing our way through Fantasyland and making a quick stop in Corona..

..we decided to check out Memento Mori. There was even a line to get in there! Once we were in we could see why, that shop is tiny! It really is cool though.

Upon exiting we checked the wait for Haunted Mansion.. 45 minutes. Eh not worth it. So we decided to walk over to Adventureland via Frontierland. We popped into the Enchanted Tiki Room which I love and Bill had never done then decided since we were coming back to MK tomorrow to just call it a day and monorail to Epcot.

The monorail came right away so that was a short trip and we were back in Epcot.

Whew look at that sky. Makes me wish I was there now. At this point we were still stuffed from our lunch at Yak and Yeti (talk about a good value) so we just snuck into Mexico for some margaritas while we waited for Patrick to get off work. And wow what an experience we had there!

So we got seated pretty easily in one of the small two top tables. I got the San Angel Inn margarita and Bill got the Classic. Shortly after we sat down we noticed a really drunk guy, probably in his 50's come stumbling in and plopping into the table next to us that was a four top and hadn't even been cleaned off yet. The hostess came up to him and told him that there is a wait for the seated tables and they actually had a party waiting for that table. He got SO belligerent it was amazing. He started saying he would not get up no matter what. His daughter came in and said that their mom couldn't really walk so they wanted to make sure she had a table. The hostess said she understood but they would have to put their name in. The older guy refused to even look at the hostess and just sat there saying he wanted a manager. The manager Alejandro came out and let me say... he handled the situation wonderfully. He did not give in to these rude people even after they verbally assaulted him and caused a huge scene. He was so pleasant and tried to get them another table but they flat out refused. They just yelled and yelled and finally stormed off. Alejandro apologized to us and we told him that we were so impressed with the way he handled that. I made a note to leave a comment with guest relations at some point on our trip.

Anyway.. after all that excitement it was time to meet Patrick. He was coming in from the International Gateway so we hoofed it over there. He needed caffeine so me and him ducked into France while Bill got in line for the F&W booth for the beef and a slush.

Patrick got a cappuccino and I got an espresso at Les Halles. I have to say I was impressed with the quality of the espresso from there. We stopped at Italy where Bill and Patrick both got the ravioli and Singapore where I got the mahi mahi. We lucked into a table and stood by the water and ate. Both were really good.. Bill ran over to Poland for the kielbasa and peirogies again. We stopped into Germany where I got a pickle ornament for our tree. Then it was more exploring of WS. Bill stopped at the Africa Outpost and got one of the paper bead bracelets for himself and one for our friend who was pet/house sitting for us. We made it all the way to China before deciding we had to have some of those Belgian waffles, so we turned around and each of us got one with the nutella (so yummy!) After this it was getting late so we meandered back to Future World where Bill did some shopping in Mouse Gears while Patrick and I hit the Starbucks for another pick me up for him.

We caught a little of Illuminations but then decided to beat the crowds and started to make our way to the buses. Patrick had to fight the crowds going the opposite direction to get back to the International Gateway and he said it was like swimming up a waterfall

After getting back home (Kidani) I grabbed a bottle of cabernet from the gift shop and Bill got some Tangueray so we could have drinks on the balcony before resting up for Day 3 and Magic Kingdom!