Trip Report May 29 - June 5

Ok. Im back. Been a few days but been getting back in the swing of things and getting all my pictures in order.

We got on the road around 6:45 am and had a 7 hour drive in front of us. Nothing special on the drive down to Orlando except for our scheduled stop at the Florida Welcome Center for our picnic.

Here we are enjoying a sample of Florida Orange Juice.

Here is my step-son reminding me where we need to go.

Once we got on the Turnpike and at the toll plaza it was pouring down rain. I mean a huge down pour. The closer we got it stopped and before long we were there!!!!

Seems the rain we ran into at the Toll Plaza followed us too.

After we got our room and unpacked we were out the door and caught a bus for Epcot.

Yes any pictures with my kids they will more than likely have some sort of stupid look on their faces.
We still seem to be out running the rain at this point but it will catch up with us.

Finally we arrive at Epcot. Its so awesome to see Spaceship Earth when you first get there.

Notice the rain really catching up to us. hahaha.

Then we were off to Mission Space. You can see from this picture the rain finally caught up with us. I didnt think it was ever going to stop.

After that we went to see O Canada and hung out in the UK until our ADR for the Rose and Crown at 7:50 to see Illuminations.

Below is the tread I created Here on the rest of our visit to Epcot that day.

My ADR was for 7:50. About 6:30 I decided to just stop by and ask about my chances for getting on the veranda. I was told pretty much that they would put down my request but there was no guarantee that I could get those seats. However, they would see what they could do and they asked me to come back about 15 minutes before my reservation.

About 30 minutes before my reservation the rain stopped. I went back to get my place in line at the R&C and got my name in. Finally we were called and low and behold we were seated on the lower veranda right in the middle. We were the first to be seated out there after the rain had stopped!

I was impressed along with my wife and kids. We enjoyed our food and I loved loved loved the Strongbow! Illuminations was amazing from this area. I cant see how anyone can not enjoy the show from this vantage point. Below are some pictures. Just ignore my silly kids and how they like to show off for the camera.

Front of the R&C. The rain had just stopped and we were waiting to be called after I put our names in.

Forgive my poor pictures. I hate my camera. Wife and I have decided to purchase a new one soon. You can see here the main barge in the back ground.

Mmmmmmmmmmmm. Harp and Strongbow were my favorites.


All and all this was a very awesome experience! This is now one of our must do's while we are at Epcot.

We ordered Fish and Chips, Bangers and Mash, and Chicken and Mushroom Pie. All dishes were great in our opinion.

Our first night was AWESOME!!!

More to come once I get pictures and all uploaded.

 

[erstwo]

Well, I'm excited and LOVING it so far!!! :wave:

Can't wait for the rest!

 

[nngrendel]

Day two I was able to snap a few quick shots of Pop where we were staying in the 90's.

Although I like Pop I found the 90's theme very nice but much further away from Classic Hall than I would have liked. We have stayed in the 50's before and even though it is as far away as you can get from Classic Hall on the opposite side as the 90's I felt the walk was much shorter. We also found the quickest way from where our room's were to the bus stops or Classic Hall was through the parking lot. Would much rather walk the side walks than thorough the parking lot. Other than that the large laptop computers and stack of floppy disk next to the pools was cool to see as I work in the IT dept at my job.

To start our day we had ADR's for Chef Mickey at 9:30am. This left us plenty of time to ride the bus to MK and catch the Opening Ceremony before we hopped on the Monorail to the Contemporary. So thats just what we did. Here are a few pictures from that morning.

After that we head over to Chef Mickey...

I have more pics of our visit to Chef Mickey and will post them later....

One cool think that I did do while there that I learned from being here at WDWMagic was collect trading cards from the Transportation areas. Here are my kids getting some Monorail cards when we were leaving to head back to the MK.

After we get back to the MK we head straight for Philharmagic!
Here is my wife and I sporting the awesome 3d Glasses...

Then the carousal

Then everyone had there chance and trying to remove the sword from the stone. None of them were successful.

Then off to Its a Small World because there was only a 10 minute wait.

Will finish up the day in another post.

 

[tiaragirl]

We stayed in the 90s on our trip as well, and we took the shortcut through the parking lot frequently.. the regular walk was really nice, too (as I'm sure you noticed), but when you're tired it's must easier to go the fast route! Hahaha.

 

[sleepybear]

Forgive my poor pictures. I hate my camera. Wife and I have decided to purchase a new one soon. You can see here the main barge in the back ground.

Mmmmmmmmmmmm. Harp and Strongbow were my favorites.

Were those glasses really as big as they look in this picture? That is A LOT of beer!

 

[corey154]

I can't wait for the rest, I love the kids making silly faces in all your pics...lol!!

 

[nngrendel]

Were those glasses really as big as they look in this picture? That is A LOT of beer!

They are around 4 or 5oz glasses if I had to take a guess. Just enough to give you a good taste of all the beers they had there. For 11 bucks it was well worth it.
Matter of fact if you look at that picture again and just to the left of the Bass you will see a regular pint glass that my Step Daughter had her drink in.

 

[sleepybear]

Whew! I was thrown off at first. I would love to do the beer sampler there at some point, but thought there was no way I'd be able to drink all that. The size you describe sounds much more reasonable for a lightweight like me.

 

[nngrendel]

After visiting the HM..........

which had a techinical problem right when we arrived at the door to go in we decided to go back to the hotel to grab a nap and relax as the MK stayed open until 3am and we wanted to take total advantage of this....

Once we took our naps we came back and first thing we did was hit The Swiss Family Tree House. You know as many times as I have been I have never been on this until my step son wanted to go. There are a lot of picture opertunities when you get to the top. I will go back to this for sure when I have a new camera. I hate the one I have now.
This is taken from up top the tree house.

And before the sun went down we hit the Jungle Cruise..

After that we visited PoTC , and BTMRR visited some characters and caught Spectro at the bridge at Splash Mountain (2nd parade) and watched Wishes from the Rose Garden. We also caught Snow White and Peter Pan and lastly we rode was Space Mountain at 2 am and had a 50 minute wait. I was shocked! We ended up leaving a little after 3am and we were beat! I really enjoyed being there very late at night.

Here are a couple pictures of that evening. I would have had more but my camera sucks so........

Wife loves Goofy!

While me and a few of the kids went on Space Mountain my wife took a few cool pics from around Cinderella's castle.

Then one last photo before we left at 3am...

We slept late on Monday and went to the Animal Kingdom. Will post that day later.

 

[nngrendel]

Later ended up being about a week for me. The day after we came back from our trip I ended up coming down with a horrible head cold. Glad it happened when I came back but hate to come back from a busy vacation and then have to hit work sick. Hasn't been fun but I am slowly getting better.

If anyone was concerned. hahaha. I think this trip report has been more for me than anyone else. Its fun to relive the trip through posting. Anyway.............

Day 3 Animal Kingdom.
We woke up late as we didn't get to bed until after 4 am. So we just slept in and go up when we felt like it. Think we hit the park around 3 or 4pm that day.

Was wicked hot that day and wanted to do the Kilimanjaro Safari before it got too late. So we went and grabbed a FP which was for around 6:30 or so if I can remember right.

After that we visited Rafiki's planet watch and I was supprised to finally see Jiminy Cricket.

First time I have ever seen him. The girls had a great time visiting Pocahontas and Rafiki while there. We also enjoyed watching the goats play...

After that we let some of the kids ride EE and the rest of us went to Dino Land were I enjoyed a few rides of Primeval Whirl. I have seen this ride several times but never rode it and I did enjoy it. So much so me and step son rode it twice. hahaha.

After that we headed back to catch our FP for the Safari and took a few pictures on the way..

I really enjoy the Safari and from the looks of it so do my kids...

We created a traffic jam of Safari trucks out in the Savannah because of Rhino's blocking traffic.

After this was getting pretty late in the afternoon so we just made a short day and on our way headed out we seen Its Tough to be a Bug only had a 5 minute wait so we went to catch that. Always enjoy the bugs....

After having such a busy day the day before and being hot and having our bug eyes on waiting to go into the theater my wife and I were showing signs of fatigue or either our kids are rubbing off on us...

Back to Pop for R and R.

Next day Epcot!! I so love Epcot!

 

[fbp]

You're not only posting for yourself. I think lots of us out here love your trip report! Keep it up.

And thanks for the Rose & Crown Illuminations report. I think we're going to stick with our reservation there

 

[Tiggerish]

Great report!

I am enjoying it while wondering what is my excuse for not getting mine done (May 14-19 )

 

[blackthidot]

What the heck are those goats doing over the bridge?

 

[Tiggerish]

What the heck are those goats doing over the bridge?

Exercising their masculinity, I believe. :lol: :wave:

(it looks to me like they are about to butt heads or chests in order to determine who is top goat)

 

[sweetpee_1993]

I don't know why I haven't visited your report yet. I will say, however, sometimes being late to the party isn't a bad thing because then ya don't have to wait for updates. LOL! Love the report. Keep it coming! Now I want to eat at Rose & Crown just to do the beer sampling. Mmmm... I love beer... but I'm a lightweight nowadays. The smaller portions might be doable for me!

BTW, I love that the kiddos make silly faces whenever you snap a picture. It just goes to show that they have a sense of humor and are having fun with the awkwardness of a camera pointed at them. My boys do the same. Heck, look at my report from January. I do that, too! :wave:

The pics from the treehouse are great. Your camera did just fine on those. We've watched fireworks from up there before. It's an interesting perspective!

What the heck are those goats doing over the bridge?

Looks like a game of 'King of the Mountain'. In our younger years when we were broke, childless, & bored with waaaay more energy hubby & I could do a full Saturday of movies, naps, and flinging each other off the sofa to be proclaimed 'King'. Same game. Much fun!

 

[nngrendel]

Exercising their masculinity, I believe. :lol: :wave:

(it looks to me like they are about to butt heads or chests in order to determine who is top goat)

That is exactly what they are doing. CM's were telling us all the males there do it and they do this for hours. The ONLY thing that stopped them from doing this was meal time. Me and several others were taking pictures of them. Was quite the show. When the CM brought out food for them they all most mowed him down to get to the food.

The pics from the treehouse are great. Your camera did just fine on those. We've watched fireworks from up there before. It's an interesting perspective!

Thanks for telling me those pics were fine. I didnt not upload tons of the pics I took because our camera is horrible unless you are doing pictures outside. I have been looking at new SLR camera's since our trip. Want it to be a new hobby of mine.

I like finding new places to view Wishes even though the Rose Garden IMHO is the greatest place to see them from. But then again my opinion is bias since I proposed to my wife from there....

 

[nngrendel]

You're not only posting for yourself. I think lots of us out here love your trip report! Keep it up.

And thanks for the Rose & Crown Illuminations report. I think we're going to stick with our reservation there

Since I did provide you with what I like to think a pretty detailed report of my experience at the Rose and Crown. I am really interested to find out the luck you have there too. I really hope you guys have a great time there! Take lots of pictures and let me know.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

How sweet is that?! You're bias is well-earned! We did some of our family portraits with Disney's Professional Photography in the Rose Garden in December of '07. It really is a beautiful often missed spot. :animwink:

 

[harveyt0206]

Loving the trip report. Can't wait for your next Epcot day as Epcot is very close to becoming my favorite park, which is hard for me to admit due to my undying love for all things MK. Even admitting that feels like the equivalent of cheating on my husband. Total blasphemy! But I can't deny that Epcot rules.

 

[nngrendel]

Epcot is very close to becoming my favorite park,

Epcot is by far my most favorite park. Although I have made very fond memories between my wife and I from the MK and one of my earliest childhood memories back from the 70's was riding the boat and seeing the Castle for the first time. Although I was a child I do remember seeing that Castle and being amazed by it.

Then visiting Epcot back in the 80's. I was just blown away on how much fun I had. I just love the feeling I get when walking into Epcot. Its hard to put into words. However with great places like the Rose and Crown and the Biergarten how can you not love Epcot?!?!?!

June 1 2010 Day 4 Epcot

Epcot had their EMH until 12am so I wanted and planned on staying for the duration. We didnt get up in time to get there at opening but enough time to put us there before 10am. Not bad as World Showcase doesnt open until 11 anyhow. So we are off and on our way through the Pop Century parking lot from the 90's I took a few pictures.

Yes thats the number to Pop Century if you need it.

I am a PC tech and being on vacation and having to stare at this everyday was entertaining. Honestly all I could think of when seeing this was glad I dont have to work on it.

Oldest step-son holding up the Rubik Cube.

Then we arrive at Epcot on a beautiful day.
All Hail Spaceship Earth.

When we first walked in we found Daisy and daughters had to get her autograph.

While waiting on them to go through the line I saw a few CM's holding tablet pc's and looked like they were looking for people to take a survey. Being nosy like I always am I talked to one of them.
To make a long story short they were finding people who wanted to try out and test the Verizon Mobile Magic application on a phone they would lend us. Of course I said yes as I wanted to get the app anyhow but I have a Blackberry phone and the app isnt supported on it.
They gave us a phone showed us how to use it and then were off!!

We head off to Test Track to grab us a FP

Then since the Universe of Energy only showed a 5 minute wait on our Mobile Magic phone we head out that way.

Once we had our fill from Ellen we head over the Innovations to check some things out there.
One thing that is new that I wanted to see was Sum of all Thrills. So I did.

I have to say I am not sure what happened but all of my loops were taken out of my ride when it went through the final steps of the design. I tested them before I made them and they all passed so not sure really what happen. Although my ride was nice it wasnt as thrilling as I had wanted. Needless to say the Sum of my thrills wasnt that much. However I have been there and done that now...

We do a few more things there. Wife and a few other of the kids made a video game. We have enjoyed playing it when we got back home. Their victory dance was pretty funny.

After this it was about time for our FP for Test Track. We head over there and catch our test ride.
Since we had already been on Mission Space earlier that week and the kids were dying of thirst by this time we head over to the Cool Spot before we venture out into the World Showcase.

We had tons of fun at the Cool Spot. Kids really enjoyed tasting all the diffrent flavors. Here are a few pics...

Mezo Mix was awesome!

More later!!!