Trip Report 50 Nifty United States....or at least 5 of them

Disclaimer: I have never done a trip report before. This may not be interesting to anyone. This might be ridiculously long and rambly. This might just be plain old ridiculous. So if you absolutely hate it...why are you still reading??

This trip was a long time in the planning. You don't go overseas for a month without a LOT of planning. At least -I- don't. I made lists. I made more lists. I read blogs. I studied menus. I made more lists. I bought books. I made more lists. Because that's what I do.
The first half of our trip was for me to go "home" to visit family. The 2nd half was to do Disney.
So we drove to my in-laws' house and spent the night there since they would be driving us to the airport in the morning.

We started out early in the morning on July 10th, with the in-laws and 2 cars to take us to the airport. Within 15 minutes, we were at a gas station fixing a flat tire. Good start. But, if that's the worst thing to happen, we're doing well, and we had allowed plenty of time for just such an occurrence. (Didn't I say I was a planner??) Good thing one of said in-laws used to be a mechanic...we weren't stopped long.

So we were off to see the wizard....er...the airport. Not exactly a yellow brick road, but we followed it anyway. We got checked in to our flight (with an upgrade to economy plus because the kids are not old enough to sit by themselves. Thanks, kids...stop growing. I want more of these upgrades.) While we were waiting for our flight, we went to McDonalds for breakfast and let the kids play on the interactive floor.

And this is where it gets boring and rambly because we had several flights, because otherwise we couldn't do both Disney AND home. So...we went Amsterdam to Chicago and Chicago to Orlando, Got a hotel room for a few hours of sleep and headed back to the airport to fly to Denver, then drove about 6 hours from Denver to Gillette, Wyoming where we were staying with friends. Just in case you were wondering (which if you were, I have to wonder about your sanity, because really, how could we NOT be exhausted?) we were SHOT after this and I would not recommend 36 hours of pretty much non-stop traveling by air and THEN have to get in a car. But...we made it. Yay.

 

[Songbird76]

Awe I'm sorry you had such a bad experience with the lifeguards.

Head injuries here in the US maybe handled a bit different than in the Netherlands. You will be hard pressed to find any municipality, city, school, state or sport that doesn't take every single head injury beyond seriously. It isn't all about being sued. Coaching staffs and lifeguards know the risks of head injuries and even more caution is given to minors. While we can all see a bump on the head most are hard pressed to know what is happening within the brain as far as concussion or bleeding. I was dumbfounded when the paramedics were called and came to examine my DS bump to the head at Downtown Disney. I guess I'd rather Disney error on the side of better care than poor care or not caring, and my DS was crying about his bump to his head.

As far as why there is such determination to make sure accidents don't happen/can't prevent everything? I'm not sure how to answer your question. Lifeguards enforce rules about running, roughhousing, diving in shallow water because they want the patrons to be safe I would venture to guess. While at the waterpark I hear constantly WALK on the deck. Years ago I saw a boy knock his teeth out while running hitting a leg of a chair on deck. Or the boy that died at Disney 'cause he dove into shallow water. So no you can't prevent everything but they can try to prevent it in the first place. DD said when they have visitors from other countries the patrons usually provide the number and address where they are staying, friend, relative etc. If a patron winds up later in an ER or Doctor's office they mail procedures for filing an insurance claim with their carrier. The insurance company then takes the info provided by Doc's, accident report from facility and claim form from the patrons. Pretty much how medical claims are handled here when a 3rd party like a pool is involved.

Sure hope your pool experiences at Disney went much better. Am enjoying your trip report, never been to Wyoming.

Well, I wouldn't call it a BAD experience...just baffling. I suppose it DOES make sense to take head injuries really seriously. But by the time he got the ice, he didn't need it anymore. He had already stopped crying long before that, but better to be safe than sorry.
We are CONSTANTLY telling my son not to run. Or to watch where he's walking. He's already got issues with motor skills and he's just as much of a clutz as I am...he doesn't need help by walking backwards, or running. Truth be told he might have walked into the elbow that caused all the drama. No one saw it and my son has a unique way of making everything sound like it was a personal attack. He doesn't really have a grasp on "on accident" and "on purpose" yet.

 

[Songbird76]

Following as long as the with fi holds may have to leycjup when we get home you're off to a great start

Just enjoy the rest of your trip...this will be here when you get back. And it will be longer!!

 

[Gabe1]

Well, I wouldn't call it a BAD experience...just baffling. I suppose it DOES make sense to take head injuries really seriously. But by the time he got the ice, he didn't need it anymore. He had already stopped crying long before that, but better to be safe than sorry.
We are CONSTANTLY telling my son not to run. Or to watch where he's walking. He's already got issues with motor skills and he's just as much of a clutz as I am...he doesn't need help by walking backwards, or running. Truth be told he might have walked into the elbow that caused all the drama. No one saw it and my son has a unique way of making everything sound like it was a personal attack. He doesn't really have a grasp on "on accident" and "on purpose" yet.

Awe. I can appreciate that. Ouch is Ouch to him.

 

[Gabe1]

I want again!!! They were so good. I had never heard of using pepperjack instead of Mozz. I'm a convert, for sure!!!

I've never seen them anywhere. I'd love some pepperjack sticks. The only sadness is they were not at WDW. I might get there sooner than Colorado.

 

[Songbird76]

I've never seen them anywhere. I'd love some pepperjack sticks. The only sadness is they were not at WDW. I might get there sooner than Colorado.

Oh these were in Laramie, Wyoming, not Colorado....which unfortunately is probably even more unlikely that you get to, because who ever goes to Wyoming? (besides me. I don't count, because I grew up there) That's the great thing about Laramie...it's a college town, so they have a lot of great restaurants and culture...entertainment, and nature. Most of Wyoming is not that diverse. I really miss Laramie.

 

[Songbird76]

We got on our plane, me with a splitting headache that just would not go away, even after a nice lady in the flight check-in line gave me some excedrine. So I was already a bit grumpy, but also happy to FINALLY be going to Disney. And then, of course, I get seated near the really rude people who don't seem to find any problem with their children shouting, climbing over seats, and just in general being everything you DON'T want while trapped miles above the ground in an enclosed space. The mom was in her own little world, apparently not good at multi-tasking as she couldn't seem to do anything besides chew her gum like a cow and play on her phone, too busy to even spare a second to tell her children not to play with the arm rests. Lift it up, let it fall, lift it up, let it fall, lift it up, let it fall...over, and over, and over. Dad was sitting behind them and apparently felt it wasn't his job to keep them in line because they were sitting with their mom. And then the younger kid is playing a game on some sort of a tablet, not using headphones, but with the sound on, and shouting with every move, and still, the mother says NOTHING. This flight left at 6:00 in the morning...all I wanted was sleep. The cabin crew turned off the lights, asked everyone to draw down the shades...it's OBVIOUS that people want to sleep. I turned several times and looked at them, hoping to convey that they needed to keep it down, but the mother just didn't give a hoot about anyone else on the flight. So I never got any sleep. The plane lands and they tell us to please not remove our seatbelts as we taxi to the gate. What does this family do? Immediately remove the seatbelts, at which point the kids start climbing over the seats again and start playing with the arm rests...again. Mom gives a half-hearted command of "Don't play with those." and then promptly goes back to her gum chewing and her texting, ignoring the fact that the kids gave exactly zero attention to her edict and are still happily lifting them up and letting them fall. Had I been MY mother, I would have reached over, grabbed their little arms and given them the death stare and told them their mother had just told them to stop, but I am NOT my mother and I believe people should be responsible for their OWN monsters, or it's the flight attendants job to come and ask them to please not abuse the plane...and I do not want to get in trouble for disciplining someone else's little demon-spawn. We got off the plane and I was thankful that I would never have to see the little brats ever again.
We were sent to a baggage carousel and got all but one suitcase, for which we waited and waited and waited...just what we need...have they lost our luggage? We were just about to give up when hubby saw it at a different carousel, so we headed to find the Magical Express. We were the last family and they were just waiting for us, so as soon as we were boarded with our luggage, we were off. AND we were the first stop. Woohoo! There was a very nice CM, who shall remain nameless, who broke the rules and gave me ibuprofen for the headache-that-would-not-die. Bless you, dear CM...YOU are a rock star! But our room was not ready yet....I was in desperate need of a shower, but I was also STARVING, breakfast having been served HOURS ago and not having had time to stop for lunch when we landed because the Magical Express was waiting. So it was already 2:30 in the afternoon and we had yet to eat, so we took the opportunity to head to Old Port Royale for some foodage. We hadn't gotten far when we got the message that our room was now ready, so we went and cleaned up and headed to The Grand Floridian's 1900 Park Fare for a Happily Ever After dinner.

DD was getting food when the Stepmother came along, so hubby took her to catch a photo later with his phone...my camera was acting up and freezing, but I got MOST of the pictures. I love the one where the Prince photobombed the step-sister. We had so much fun and it was a great start to our Disney adventure.

 

[Songbird76]

We were pretty beat after a full day of traveling and we decided to go to bed as soon as we got back to our resort, and go to a water park the next day. We chose Blizzard Beach for our first water park day. We got there well before opening and when they let us in, I headed straight for the place where a blog told me it was shady all day and we parked it there. We made sure the kids knew where our chairs were in relation to the rest of the park so they could find it again by themselves, (they are 10 and 8, so I was pretty confident that I didn't need to keep them with me all the time) and everyone went off to do their things. DH and I wanted some time without monkeys, so we headed to Mount Gushmore while the kids went...well, I'm not sure where they went, but it wasn't to Mount Gushmore. It was fun, but I was scared to death that I was going to fly out over the side and it was rather embarrassing trying to get my butt into the tube to go down, so I opted not to go down that one again. Not to mention all the stairs are NOT good for my hip. So I was heading back to our spot and there's DS mad as a wet hen. 'WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?" because we weren't sitting there waiting for him. We had only been gone 10 minutes. We explained that WE wanted to do things too. He said we were supposed to take turns and we said no, we wanted to do things together, and it's not fair for us to have to sit and be bored just in case comes back to the seating...he knew where our spots were, and we'd come back periodically, but it is our vacation too, and we want to enjoy it. If he didn't want to be alone, then he had to come with us. But he wanted to do the summer winter games, so we took him to do that and then I went to do the lazy river.

I came back to find DS in tears again because, again, I was not where he thought I should be. I took him for the next round of Summer Winter games, and he glued himself to me for the rest of the day and hubby disappeared. DD had spent time in the wave pool, but I couldn't find her after that either, and I determined the water parks are NOT a good place to go if you plan to split up. There's not really a way to find each other again if you need to. After waiting for over an hour for hubby and/or DD to come back so we could go eat, I couldn't wait any longer and I took DS to grab some grub. We looked ALL over to find ANYTHING DS would eat..I finally got him to settle for a hot dog, as it was the only thing in the entire park that he might actually eat. Then we set off to look for DH and DD again. Every few minutes we headed back to our spot in case they showed up. Finally they did and apparently they had been having a blast, doing just about every attraction in the park.

DD didn't do summit plummit, though hubby did, but they did pretty much everything else. So then they had to find food. It was already later in the day than I had planned to be in the park, with an ADR for Whispering Canyon to get to, (I had planned a nap in the afternoon) and they still hadn't had anything to eat for lunch. And Oh my goodness does the Lotta Watta lodge take FOREVER. DD had wanted a chicken wrap from the warming hut, but with no tomatoes...and apparently if you want a special order, you have to go to the Lottawatta Lodge...where they did NOT have what hubby wanted, so he settled for a burger...and then they waited 45 minutes for their food. Quick service?? As soon as they finished, we hot-footed it out of there because we needed to change before our ADR. After 1 pm there is no direct bus back to CBR, so we had to bus to AK, then transfer to CBR, rush to get a quick rinse and put on clothes, rush out the door to catch a bus to MK and then take a boat to WL. We made it with about 10 minutes to spare.

 

[Songbird76]

We met up with our friends, who live in Florida, but do not have APs this year. But they didn't need tickets to get to the Whispering Canyon, so they decided to join us for our ADR. (I had added them to all our ADRs, just in case. I did not just show up with 2 extra people and expect to be accommodated) I had been waiting for this ADR because it seemed like it would be soooo much fun and it did not disappoint. Although, I would suggest that, if someone in your party has problems with noise, it may not be the best place. Looking back, I would have done this one without our friends because it was obviously not the best experience for one of them, who also happens to have a service dog in training and they did not handle it very well. I can only imagine the CMs were glad to see the back of us. We had placed our coaster on Green because I was NOT going to miss out on the antics, and at this point I didn't really know how badly my friend was doing healthwise. Last time she had been fine. Hind-sight, right? So first, it rained napkins and straws, which the kids thought was AWESOME...they were totally up for some shenanigans and this was right up their alley. We got our drinks and DH drank his coke really quickly, being a bit dehydrated from BB without much to drink during the day. So the server asked if he'd like a refill...yes please! And she comes back with this:

DS thought this was HILARIOUS and wanted one, too. So he drank his drink as quickly as he could and asked for a refill, giggling fit to burst, as though she couldn't tell what he was up to. So she brought him this:

And she told him that's all he was getting! He laughed and guzzled it, at which point she came back with a barred window that said "Trouble maker" on it to put him in jail. (he did not appreciate this joke as much) Our food came, and unfortunately, the service dog in training was not a happy camper about something, and lunged at the guy serving our food. He jumped out of the way and was fine, but it rattled us all a little bit and I can't help think we were probably a topic of conversation in the kitchen that night. They handled it EXTREMELY well, but I was mortified.

3 of us got the skillet, pictured above, and DD and my friend both got the steak.

It looked fantastic, but for some reason DD didn't like it, so we sent it home with the friends for the dog. I don't even remember what DS ordered, but probably something resembling chicken nuggets, which he probably didn't eat. Most of the trip, he ate nothing but french fries because even the chicken nuggets they had, which I thought were fantastic, he turned his nose up at and wouldn't eat them. The only thing I can remember him eating was the hotdog at blizzard beach the first day. Wait...not true. He ate a bread roll at Biergarten. Didn't I say my son was the pickiest eater on the planet?
The kids did stick horse races around the joint, which DS had a blast with. He took his racing very seriously and I could NOT get a good picture.

Somewhere around this time, Hubby had finished the uber-coke and asked for a refill, which the server brought along with this:

This was my favorite meal of our Disney trip. The kids were kept entertained, the food was pretty good, and we laughed a lot.
I had gotten fast passes for Soarin' for after dinner because I wanted to use our tier 1 fast passes on Epcot days for Frozen. I was really nervous because I am afraid of heights and I don't particularly like flying, but I REALLY wanted to see the places in the film. So I decided to be brave and I tried it, assured by my friends here that it does not go particularly high, especially if you are in line 3, which we were, and you are belted in, so you can't fall out. And I loved it. I think I ended up doing it 6 times over the course of our trip. I love that they pipe in the scents associated with each place. The one thing I DIDN'T like was the things that startle you....I know it's a transition, but the last thing you need when you are already apprehensive about heights, is something coming at you full speed like it's going to hit you. We came out of Soarin' and headed for The Land, which DD was dying to do for some reason. It was not on my "must do" list, but we were right there, we had plenty of time, and DD wanted to go, so we went. It was better than I remembered it being. I didn't remember it being very exciting, but it was pretty interesting. And then we went to see the Circle of Life film, since it was there and now DS was begging. It was about 9 pm, but I wasn't worried about Illuminations as I had a fastpass for it after our 2nd waterpark day. So we also headed over to Spaceship Earth.

It was evening EMH for Epcot, so we had plenty of time. The ride got stuck briefly, right before the end where they show you your future. When they showed us our futures, it was the generic animated version of the people, and I was pretty sure I remembered that they pasted your pictures on the people in the film...and why else would they have taken our picture at the beginning? So we get out and go to the postcard consoles and sure enough, our pictures were missing. Whatever glitch stopped the ride apparently also lost the pictures. No problem...we'd just do it the next day. We ended up having to do it FIVE times before we finally got our pictures. DD was not amused. We were pretty bushed, so we headed back to the resort to sleep.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Devils tower...wow....what a change. Not the tower itself, because that is exactly the same as it's always been. But when I was a kid, we visited regularly, did a walk around the base, laughed at the prairie dogs....there was really nothing there but the tower and the visitors center, and while I think you paid a fee to get into the park, it wasn't much and it was never busy. So we planned to visit on our way through as we headed from South Dakota down to Laramie, Wyoming, via my home town for lunch. I was taking pictures of the drive, and then we get to Devils tower and there is a line of cars waiting to enter the park and there are all these signs for old west-style photos, and who knows WHAT all that I'm pretty sure never existed before. We didn't have time to hike around the tower and just wanted pictures, so we opted not even to go in. We made a U-turn, took our pictures on the side of the road, and left. Sad, but why pay $20 to take some pictures when we could take them for free? No prairie dog town for us...good thing we saw the ones in Custer State Park!
So...pictures of the drive:
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When we did our road trip out west, we stopped at Devil's Tower. Hubby and I loved the area it was so pretty. We even saw some rock climbers on the tower. It was more impressive close up than we thought it would be and it ended up as one of our favorites on our road trip. We did have a national park pass and if we had to wait in a long line to get in we might have just taken pictures from the road too.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

We met up with our friends, who live in Florida, but do not have APs this year. But they didn't need tickets to get to the Whispering Canyon, so they decided to join us for our ADR. (I had added them to all our ADRs, just in case. I did not just show up with 2 extra people and expect to be accommodated) I had been waiting for this ADR because it seemed like it would be soooo much fun and it did not disappoint. Although, I would suggest that, if someone in your party has problems with noise, it may not be the best place. Looking back, I would have done this one without our friends because it was obviously not the best experience for one of them, who also happens to have a service dog in training and they did not handle it very well. I can only imagine the CMs were glad to see the back of us. We had placed our coaster on Green because I was NOT going to miss out on the antics, and at this point I didn't really know how badly my friend was doing healthwise. Last time she had been fine. Hind-sight, right? So first, it rained napkins and straws, which the kids thought was AWESOME...they were totally up for some shenanigans and this was right up their alley. We got our drinks and DH drank his coke really quickly, being a bit dehydrated from BB without much to drink during the day. So the server asked if he'd like a refill...yes please! And she comes back with this:
View attachment 156719

DS thought this was HILARIOUS and wanted one, too. So he drank his drink as quickly as he could and asked for a refill, giggling fit to burst, as though she couldn't tell what he was up to. So she brought him this:
View attachment 156720

And she told him that's all he was getting! He laughed and guzzled it, at which point she came back with a barred window that said "Trouble maker" on it to put him in jail. (he did not appreciate this joke as much) Our food came, and unfortunately, the service dog in training was not a happy camper about something, and lunged at the guy serving our food. He jumped out of the way and was fine, but it rattled us all a little bit and I can't help think we were probably a topic of conversation in the kitchen that night. They handled it EXTREMELY well, but I was mortified.
View attachment 156722

3 of us got the skillet, pictured above, and DD and my friend both got the steak.
View attachment 156723
It looked fantastic, but for some reason DD didn't like it, so we sent it home with the friends for the dog. I don't even remember what DS ordered, but probably something resembling chicken nuggets, which he probably didn't eat. Most of the trip, he ate nothing but french fries because even the chicken nuggets they had, which I thought were fantastic, he turned his nose up at and wouldn't eat them. The only thing I can remember him eating was the hotdog at blizzard beach the first day. Wait...not true. He ate a bread roll at Biergarten. Didn't I say my son was the pickiest eater on the planet?
The kids did stick horse races around the joint, which DS had a blast with. He took his racing very seriously and I could NOT get a good picture.
View attachment 156724

Somewhere around this time, Hubby had finished the uber-coke and asked for a refill, which the server brought along with this:
View attachment 156725

This was my favorite meal of our Disney trip. The kids were kept entertained, the food was pretty good, and we laughed a lot.
I had gotten fast passes for Soarin' for after dinner because I wanted to use our tier 1 fast passes on Epcot days for Frozen. I was really nervous because I am afraid of heights and I don't particularly like flying, but I REALLY wanted to see the places in the film. So I decided to be brave and I tried it, assured by my friends here that it does not go particularly high, especially if you are in line 3, which we were, and you are belted in, so you can't fall out. And I loved it. I think I ended up doing it 6 times over the course of our trip. I love that they pipe in the scents associated with each place. The one thing I DIDN'T like was the things that startle you....I know it's a transition, but the last thing you need when you are already apprehensive about heights, is something coming at you full speed like it's going to hit you. We came out of Soarin' and headed for The Land, which DD was dying to do for some reason. It was not on my "must do" list, but we were right there, we had plenty of time, and DD wanted to go, so we went. It was better than I remembered it being. I didn't remember it being very exciting, but it was pretty interesting. And then we went to see the Circle of Life film, since it was there and now DS was begging. It was about 9 pm, but I wasn't worried about Illuminations as I had a fastpass for it after our 2nd waterpark day. So we also headed over to Spaceship Earth.
View attachment 156727
It was evening EMH for Epcot, so we had plenty of time. The ride got stuck briefly, right before the end where they show you your future. When they showed us our futures, it was the generic animated version of the people, and I was pretty sure I remembered that they pasted your pictures on the people in the film...and why else would they have taken our picture at the beginning? So we get out and go to the postcard consoles and sure enough, our pictures were missing. Whatever glitch stopped the ride apparently also lost the pictures. No problem...we'd just do it the next day. We ended up having to do it FIVE times before we finally got our pictures. DD was not amused. We were pretty bushed, so we headed back to the resort to sleep.

I love Whispering Canyon, and it sounds like you had some good antics happen. I thought the bathroom fast pass was funny. That is a really nice picture of you and your family in front of Spaceship Earth, it also looks like there is a ghost person there too! Ha!

 

[Songbird76]

When we did our road trip out west, we stopped at Devil's Tower. Hubby and I loved the area it was so pretty. We even saw some rock climbers on the tower. It was more impressive close up than we thought it would be and it ended up as one of our favorites on our road trip. We did have a national park pass and if we had to wait in a long line to get in we might have just taken pictures from the road too.

Oh, I didn't know you had been to Wyoming! We don't have much in the way of claims to fame, but Yellowstone and Devil's Tower are both fantastic.
Not surprising that you saw some climbers...there are a lot of people who climb there. When I was in elementary school, one of the boys in my class lost his brother climbing it. His brother was an avid climber and had been there many times, I think. No one knows if he fell or jumped...sooooo sad.

 

[Songbird76]

I love Whispering Canyon, and it sounds like you had some good antics happen. I thought the bathroom fast pass was funny. That is a really nice picture of you and your family in front of Spaceship Earth, it also looks like there is a ghost person there too! Ha!

The fast pass cracked me up. I asked the server as we were leaving if that happens often...that people ask for a refill of the giant glass. She said never. She said ocassionally one will finish the whole thing, but only about once a year. I guess hubby is gifted. That picture with the fastpass was taken with the refill...I don't know where he put it.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

Oh, I didn't know you had been to Wyoming! We don't have much in the way of claims to fame, but Yellowstone and Devil's Tower are both fantastic.
Not surprising that you saw some climbers...there are a lot of people who climb there. When I was in elementary school, one of the boys in my class lost his brother climbing it. His brother was an avid climber and had been there many times, I think. No one knows if he fell or jumped...sooooo sad.

It was our first time to Wyoming, although we do have family out there. We didn't see them often growing up for various reasons. My cousin lives in Gillette and my uncle lives in Sheridan, and I think my cousin was a little peeved that we didn't stop in to say hello. We do plan to go to Yellowstone again so we will probably stop then.

When we were walking the trails we saw a lady sitting on the bench watching the climbers. That is actually when we noticed them. It turned out that the lady was related to them. It was her 14 year old daughter and husband doing the climb, we had a nice chat with her. I was surprised that the girl was so young, but I guess they go climbing all the time. What a sad story about the boy you described though.

 

[Songbird76]

Alright...had to take a break there because real life got the better of me. The kids started school, I went back to work, DS went back to soccer, I went back to choir...so much to do so little time.
The next day we went back to Epcot. I had used our tier one fastpass for Frozen, so we started at Test track at rope drop.
I did not enjoy this ride. My knees kept smashing against the back of the seat in front of me and it HURT. And I didn't know it was like a coaster, and I am not a coaster person. I think my face says it all. But it won't upload the picture...we'll come back to that.
We headed to Turtle Talk with crush, which I also had a fastpass for, but it wasn't busy so we didn't need it and the guy told us to save it and maybe change it for something else. We did Turtle talk twice in a row because the kids loved it so much and wanted to ask questions. Crush taught DS to talk like a turtle. A pretty good feat considering English isn't DS's first language. Then we made a fastpass for the shorts film festival...I didn't know what it was and it wasn't what I was expecting, and I was glad they only showed 3 because we had a fastpass for Spaceship Earth, hoping to get the picture to work this time. And it did...except the film festival had taken so long that we hit the tail end of our Spaceship Earth fastpass, which meant we had to rush to get to our Akershus ADR on time, so we didn't actually have time to stop and get our pictures. Oh well...one more time wouldn't kill us. So we practically ran to Akershus and got there right at our ADR time...whew. I was amazed by how many people apparently don't do any research for their trips...these people were all upset when we were taken in ahead of them when they were in line before us. No, it really is not because they don't have a table yet to accommodate your EVC...ECV? Whatever it's called....it's because we made a reservation, just like at any other restaurant in the world...if someone else has a reservation and you don't, they will get in first. Even if they show up after you.
So we were seated and I was surprised. I had read in several places that the appetizers are brought to your table rather than buffet style, but apparently they changed it back to buffet, which I like a whole lot better. I'm wondering how much uneaten food was thrown away when they brought it to the table. DD and I both ordered the ravioli, which was a mistake.

She didn't like it at all and I ate mine, but it definitely was not my favorite. There was something crunchy, like celery, but tangy that I really didn't like. I should have gone for the meat balls.
Hubby had the salmon, which he enjoyed.

And DS had the pizza, which he wouldn't touch. Again. But, mommy to the rescue...I had a bag of chips left in my bag from lunch at BB the day before.

I won't bore you with all the pictures of the princesses, but Sleeping Beauty was not doing a very good job...she was a bit snobby. Maybe she was having a bad day. I certainly got a fantastic picture of her with my kids. <insert sarcasm here>

I think actually, my favorite part of this meal was the people next to us who apparently didn't know this was a character meal. Their daughter got SOOOOO excited when Snow White came out. I'm sure she was older even than my daughter, but it was pure joy, and the mom was gobsmacked...that was so sweet to see. (but again with the research, people. Am I the only one who makes lists?)
After the meal, it was pretty perfect timing...our fast pass window was just beginning and we were right there. I have no decent pictures of it, because I hadn't figured out the setting on my camera for dark (I should seriously take some photography classes!), so everything is blurry. It was cute, but it's not Maelstrom. And I didn't know they take your picture....so I have a lovely grimace going.:

There was only a 5 minute wait to meet Elsa and Anna, so we did that too.
And that's where I'll leave you for now, because I have to get up early in the morning for work.

 

[Songbird76]

There we go...it wouldn't load the photopass file, but screen caps are my friends.

 

[Sans Souci]

I am jealous of your Test Track photo. I separated from my husband and my son for the day and did the single rider line. I have a photo of car that doesn't contain myself in it--just car full of randos.

 

[Songbird76]

I am jealous of your Test Track photo. I separated from my husband and my son for the day and did the single rider line. I have a photo of car that doesn't contain myself in it--just car full of randos.

Yeah, I have a few of those too because we didn't understand the system and no one explains it to you. So we thought we had to scan our bands to see OUR photo and didn't realize we were supposed to wait until our photo appeared and then scan our bands on that screen. We kept scanning and scanning and it wasn't showing us our photo...then ours popped up on a different TV and we were like "OOOOOH! That's how it works." What's really dumb is that there was a CM standing right there, but didn't help at all...just stood there and watched. Why post a CM there if they are not there to explain how to get your picture?

 

[Sans Souci]

Yeah, I have a few of those too because we didn't understand the system and no one explains it to you. So we thought we had to scan our bands to see OUR photo and didn't realize we were supposed to wait until our photo appeared and then scan our bands on that screen. We kept scanning and scanning and it wasn't showing us our photo...then ours popped up on a different TV and we were like "OOOOOH! That's how it works." What's really dumb is that there was a CM standing right there, but didn't help at all...just stood there and watched. Why post a CM there if they are not there to explain how to get your picture?

Oh, wow. I had no idea. I thought it was automatic. I have an AP, so I get unlimited downloads of photos. I just assumed there was some sort of facial recognition, because my husband and my son went on rides like ToT and E:E and their photos would show up in the app. I know they did nothing to scan, because my husband hates having his photo taken. He would never actively seek out a ride photo.

 

[PineapplePrincess]

I, too am surprised to find that people don't plan ahead. While we were waiting for our ADR at Sci Fi back in July, there was a man complaining loudly about how his party was going to have to sit at an umbrella table and not in a car just because he didn't make a reservation. I wanted to tell him that he was lucky to get a table at all, but I refrained. By the way, your daughter's smile is so adorable!

 

[MomofPrincessGrace]

And DS had the pizza, which he wouldn't touch. Again. But, mommy to the rescue...I had a bag of chips left in my bag from lunch at BB the day before.

Sounds exactly like my DD. I thought mine was the only one that ate like a bird. If it isnt "delivery type" pizza she wont eat it, and if it is, she doesnt like it with cheese . I am pretty sure she lived on french fries and pretzels the WHOLE time we were in WDW. Parents of picky eaters unite!