Trip Report A Very Dapper, Not So Scary, Sept-Oct Trip Report

Welcome, first off, thank you for deciding to read my trip report. This is my second ever trip report, I hope it turns out better than my first one! If you would like to read that, there is a link in my signature. I also invite you to check out my pre-trip report here.

Cast- Myself, and my wife, Cara. We are both 31 year old New Yorkers. This is our 3rd trip to Disney together, since we started dating in 2007, but the 2nd this year.

When- We left New York, Saturday, September 27th at 7:00 am, and left Orlando, Saturday, October 4th, at 8:00 pm.

Why- Ever since our trip in January, we had been talking about going during, Epcot Food and Wine Festival. We also found out about this event called Dapper Day, and wanted to visit during Halloween season. All three of these happened during this week, so it was like the perfect storm. 30% off the room helped, as did wanting to go back with a group of 2, instead of 7.

Where- For the first time (in forever) we stayed at the Boardwalk Inn. After our last visit, we knew we wanted to try something besides AKL, which we liked, but it was too far from the action. We love Epcot, and knew we want to stay at an Epcot resort. BWI was the cheapest of the the three (by far) this week, so there you have it.

 

[PMC0849]

Day 3 - Disco Yetis, Tigers, and Pooh Bears, oh my! - Part 3

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Wow! that was a lot of animal pictures. The one word I would use to describe our safari driver is sassy. He was not going to put up with any nonsense. Before we began the tour, he sat there for a few minutes repeating that there will be no standing up. Of course, at some point during the rise someone stood up, which prompted him to stop the car, call out the person, and berate them about standing up. It was quite amusing. Now, didn't there used to be an element of this ride where you were chasing poachers? All the animals were very sleepy this time, maybe the heat and humidity was getting to them. I noticed that there was only one maybe two crocodiles out this time, which was a lot less than I have ever seen before. In January, the rhinos were never out, but the white rhinos were today, I just couldn't get a good picture of them. I will say, the Wild Africa Trek, which we did on our winter trip was amazing, and kind of steals a lot of the thunder from Kilimanjaro Safaris. Not that we don't enjoy it steal, just the more in-depth tour was so amazing, I can't recommend it enough.

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It was time for a quick snack. It was hot, and I have a weakness for ice cream sandwiches, so we shared a Mickey shaped one. I know most people seem to prefer the ice cream bars, but I am an ice cream sandwich guy. After we finished this we went to the FP+ kiosk to add another FP. We got another FP for Everest for a little later. Before we encountered the yeti again, we decided to stop by It's Tough to be a Bug.

Dr. Zaius?!?

Uh oh, we ended up on the awful Planet of the Apes, wait a minute, statue of liberty, that was our planet!!
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I enjoy It's Tough to be a Bug, and the audience this time really reacted to all the effects well. A lot of screams followed by laughter. Flick's eye was all funky, I had never seen this happen before, but I have read people talking about his lazy eye before. I wonder if they will give him the video screen face in the future. We went from here back to Everest for our FP.

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After Everest Cara asked if there was anything else to do here, there was, but I said we could head to another park if she would like. I did forget to mention earlier, there was a woman who had a table set up about tamarin monkeys. Cara and I love emperor tamarins. This women talked to us for over 10 minutes about the endangered status of these adorable monkeys, and how Disney was taking steps to help protect them. We both thought this was cool, and if hadn't started raining I think she would have kept talking to us. Anyway, we never do AK right, we have never done festival of the Lion King, Finding Nemo the Musical, Flights of Wonder, or Kali River Rapids. KRR had over an hour wait all day, and no FPs so we skipped that, we kept missing the shows, and being the impatient people we are never want to sit around waiting. Next time I am determined to experience these shows! We did one last thing before we got to the exit though.

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Yeah, the last thing we did at AK was one of the stupid carnival games. So, Pachycephalosaurus is my favorite dinosaur, I even have a tattoo of one. When I saw this earlier, while we were on primeval whirl, I said we have to play this at least once before we leave. You have to pay to play these games, of course, just like any amusement park, but you can't just pay with cash, you have to buy tickets. The more tickets you bought, they better deal they were per ticket. We were just playing the one game out of some kind of nostalgic need; we only got two tickets. The game is whack a mole, you have several competitors and the first person to get to 150 points wins, and you get a stuffed chameleon, no it is not Paschal. It was Cara, me, a few kids, and maybe one parent. Well I will have you know I kicked those children's butts!! I lifetime of playing video games has some uses. After this we talked about what park we wanted to go to, our first thought was to just go to the first bus that showed up, but we decided to go to DHS. We said good bye to AK, and even though we said we would be back before we left, we never made it back here. The bus to DHS was there as we walked up, so we got lucky with that, and off we went.

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As soon as we got into the park we saw a group of people standing around laughing. It was a few of the citizens of hollywood, doing their thing. We stopped and watched for awhile, these guys were kind of a less violent version of the three stooges. After they had finished up, we headed to a FP kiosk and got a couple FPs for Rocking Roller Coaster.

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Oh Rocking Roller coaster, you are so fun, but too short! I wish there was a little more to the ride, I like it, but it feels like the shortest Disney roller coaster by far. DHS was dead today, I have never seen so few crowds walking around, they must have all been at TSMM, because they were no FPs for that, and the wait was alwasy 80+ minutes. We grabbed another FP for ToT, which started like 5 minutes after we got it.

One of my favorite sights at WDW

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We saw a few more citizens of hollywood after ToT, we also got another FP for GMR. These citizens were doing some joke contest, they were coming up with a joke about 99 somethings going into a bar. That something had to do with what an audience member said. It was a bit corny, so we went into one of the gift shops to look around.

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Our first time on GMR we got the gangster version, this time, the cowboys. From what I have read here, the cowboy version is a rare occurrence these days. Here is the funny thing, we got each version both times we rode, but, the cowboy and gangster were played by the same CM. He did a better gangster accent than cowboy. The Alien section was different too, the alien was coming from next to us instead of above. I didn't know he could be anywhere but above. We were getting hungry, so we stopped in Pizza Planet, and got a pizza to share. It was getting pretty rainy this evening, so the camera got put away for a little while. I can't remember if we did Muppetvision 3d today, or later, but I think it was later. We did try to see the Indiana Jones stunt show, but because of the weather they only did the opening scene. I enjoy this show, I love the Indiana Jones movies, well at least the first 3, and the 2nd one is one of my favorite movies. I was disappointed that the show was abridged today, but understood. Back in the day, when MGM was brand new, I remember a few things. One was the Indiana Jones stunt show, the other the GRM, and finally I remember some animation studio tour, involving Robin Williams (I think) and a sequel to Peter Pan, either way they were animating a new lost boy. Okay, stay tuned for what I think will be the last installment of day 3. The rest of our day at DHS, our failed attempt to go to DTD, dinner at boatwrights, and a cancelled carriage ride.

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[PMC0849]

Day 3 - Disco Yetis, Tigers, and Pooh Bears, oh my! - Part 4
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There were 2 things at DHS I really wanted to do during our winter trip, and we just never had time. I found managing a group of 7 people incredibly difficult. I wanted to meet Wreck-it Ralph, and take the drawing class. Now, of the 4 parks, DHS is the one I always have the most difficulty navigating, so I never even found where these were located last time, this time I made sure we found them, and lucky me, they were in the same place. We walked around a little bit and took everything in, it was raining so we had no reason to leave this area anytime soon. The line for Ralph and Vanellope was rather short so it was an easy choice to hop on.

Watch out! Cybug!!

HAHAHAHA!! I am such a nerd.

Vanellope looks evil here.
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So, if Vanellope was a princess in the movie, how come she isn't part of the princess line? Apparently I offended Vanellope, because when she tried to hug me I didn't notice, I was too busy asking Ralph about his friend Zangief. These 2 were a lot of fun, and interacted with us for a good while. From what I understand they will be disappearing soon, to make way for the Big Hero 6 characters. I had a feeling this may be happening, and this may have been our last chance to meet Ralph. I feel like "Wreck-it Ralph" is popular among kids who grew up when arcades still existed, and most the cameos came from games from my youth. I know I love this movie, I seem to watch it on airplanes frequently, Mulan too for somereason, lol. We played around with a few of the little interactive things in this area before we got in line for the drawing class. We were told we might not get in, a couple girls in front of us said we should, we just won't get a table. We were the last 2 people to get in. As we were entering the class was voting on who they would like to draw, I think Eeyore, Mickey, and Pooh were in the running, by the time we got seated Pooh bear had been selected. Now, I was hoping to draw Ariel if we are being honest, but I had never done this before and wasn't sure what characters were draw. Has anyone done this and drawn Ariel (or Megara). The latter one of those is highly unlikely lol.

This was my Winnie the Pooh

Cara's Winnie the Pooh
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We both thought the other person did a better job, but neither of us are artists. After this we decided to head to Downtown Disney. We had ADR at Boatwrights at PORS, followed by a carriage ride. We did not realize there is no bus from DHS to DTD, anyone know why this is. A bus driver told us we needed to take the bus to Caribbean Beach Resort and transfer. It took forever for a CRB bus to come, we were starting to doubt the bus driver was right about this. I really don't know how we could have done this better, besides taking a taxi. Luckily the first bus to pick us up from CRB was to DTD, but it was by no means a short bus ride to DTD. We got to DTD with about 45 minutes before our ADR, we decided to just go wait for the boat to PO. We made the right choice, as soon as we got to the boat stop it started pouring, luckily we were under cover. About 10 minutes later a boat arrived. They told us the ride to Riverside was 30 minutes, which would get us there right on time for our ADR. It was very nice boat ride, and we got to see somethings we had never seen at WDW. I wish I would have taken some pictures, but the rain and dark, made me lazy. I really want to know what those treehouse rooms we passed were, I assume they are DVC but for where? They looked really cool. Now, this boat moved about 100 times faster than the friendships, which I am pretty sure I walk faster than. The ride only took about 25 minutes, so we checked into Boatwrights about 5 minutes early, however, it was packed. I think the rain discouraged some people from heading back out, so every PO guest was trying to eat here. We kept seeing walk-ins come up and be told 2 hours, and they would wait. Of course the same people kept coming back up to complain about that wait even though they were told 2 hours. While we were waiting I got a call to inform us our carriage ride had been cancelled, due to the rain . We kind of assumed this might happen, we were both disappointed, I know Cara was really looking forward to this. They asked if we wanted to reschedule, but we kind of had a full schedule the rest of the nights. We were seated about 15 minutes after our ADR time, I am sure this was because of the large amount of unexpected walk-ins.

Hurricane (I think)

Sazerac

Corn Bread

Pimetto Cheese Fritters

Crawfish Etouffe

Pork chop (ugh the only picture I took came out awful, I swear I took another)

Mushrooms and Collard Greens

Pecan Pie
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The drinks were both great, and just what we needed after a long wet day. The corn bread was really tasty, I could of just eaten several baskets of that. The fritters we ordered because Cara loves pimento cheese. They were good, maybe a little bland, but still very good. My pork chop was cooked perfectly; I hate when I get overcooked pork, more than anything (food wise). The crawfish Cara had was really tasty, but it was huge. If you find yourself at boatwrights and want this dish, I suggest ordering an extra appetizer and sharing the etouffe. The pecan pie was also good, it's hard to make bad pecan pie. It was fairly late by the time we were done, I told Cara we could take a taxi back to the BWI if she liked, we would use our carriage ride for a taxi instead . Partly, we knew getting from one resort to another can be a real pain, and we could have gone and checked out DTD for a bit, but we both agreed we would rather get to bed, so we could be well rested for our day at the MK. Sadly we never made it to DTD this trip, except to catch the boat to PORS. We have thought about staying at PORS in the past, and it looked very nice, and boatwrights was very good, but, we fell in love with the BWI, and I can't imagine not trying to stay at BWI again. Maybe PO enters the conversation if we can't get a good rate or if BWI is sold out during our next trip. We were both sad we didn't get to take our carriage ride, but it was nice to be back in our rooms. Our shoes from the previous day were still wet! We managed to avoid the rain pretty well today, but the previous night our shoes got drenched. I took them down to the laundry room and threw them in the dryer. By the sound of it several other people had their shoes in the dryers lol. We went to bed with dreams of the Magic Kingdom, and our first rides ever on the mine train, and splash mountain. Getting on splash mountain was quite the adventure, and is my favorite story to tell from this trip, so stay tuned, I have a feeling you will be amused by this one.

 

[PMC0849]

Day 4 - One Does Not Simply Walk on to Splash Mountain
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Today was going to be a whole day at the Magic Kingdom! Which, even though Epcot is our favorite, is the most exciting day. There is nothing quite like walking through those gates, being on Main Street and seeing Cinderella's Castle. We decided, instead of taking the bus to MK we would walk through Epcot, ride Spaceship Earth, and take the monorail. We knew this would take longer, but was the more scenic route.

I love these videos, but my head is always missing chunks.
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Cara and I, have an inside joke where we are going to move into Spaceship Earth. Instead of living one night, we just jump off the ride and hide there, and it becomes our new home. I am certain this is a fool proof plan. SE always is busiest right at park open, it wasn't too bad here, and since the cars constantly move, the line just keeps moving. After taking a trip in our future home, we hopped on the monorail, had to transfer a TTA, and before you knew it we were there! We were a little hungry when we arrived at MK, so we wanted to get a snack. We decided to head to Gaston's Tavern to have one of these big cinnamon rolls. I don't think we rode anything on the way there, if we did it was Haunted Mansion.

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Cara noticed all these statues as we got close to Cinderella's Castle, and how they were now Halloween statues. Which we thought were really cool. I wish had taken the pictures of all of them. I get too excited when I am here, and sometimes forget to take pictures, or take really bad pictures that are too blurry in my excitement.

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We shared the cinnamon roll and a Lefou's Brew. They were both decent, it was a big cinnamon roll, which was good to share, and the Lefou's Brew was nice on a hot day. The CMs here looked miserable, like Disney imported them from the worst McDonalds in the country. They weren't rude, but they weren't very friendly, which I found odd for WDW. Our first FPs were for Space Mountain, but even before we left Epcot I got an E-mail informing me the ride was down, so we got a wild card FP. Our 2nd FP was for The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train!!!!

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Now, my thoughts on the Mine Train. We had heard mostly mediocre things about this ride, coming in, so our expectations had lowered a bit. I did hear it is much better when you ride in the back, we were in the 2nd or 3rd to last row. Overall I enjoyed the ride, it will not go down as an all time classic, it is not the most thrilling roller coaster, but it is fun. The animatronics are awesome! The ride is beautiful, it is fun. It is too short, it feels like it didn't know if it wanted to be a roller coaster, or just a normal dark ride. I would not wait more than 30 minutes for this ride. I was disappointed this was the only chance we got to ride it this trip. Since we had our wild card FP we decided to use it on Splash Mountain, even though we had a FP for it later that day. We may have rode Big Thunder first, I know we rode it stand by once this day, I can't remember. Worst trip repot writer ever.

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While we were waiting I changed out FP for Splash, to big thunder, timing it where we could get right on BT as soon as we got off Splash. We were next to get on the ride, then we heard the announcement that Brer Fox and Brer Bear were up to no good, slowing down the ride. Several minutes later a CM announced that the ride was down for awhile. Shortly after the announcement the CMs starting running and disappeared. A little while later a couple CMs came by, and escorted us out of the ride, handing us paper FPs for use on anything but the 7DMT. We rode BT after this, walked by splash, and saw it was still down. We walked went to ride Pirates, but it was down too! . When we walked up to one of the CMs looked at us, and said "Argh, you got the redhead! How much did you pay for her?" this was amusing, I didn't have a witty reply at the time, but a little bit later I told Cara, I should have said "a few gold doubloons, and my finest bottle of rum matey". So on we went, and headed over to Jungle Cruise, it started pouring when while we were in line for JC, they didn't close the ride down, but they did say, if you decide to stay, you will get wet. Luckily, it stopped raining when we got on the ride. I will say this was one of our worst Jungle Cruise rides, and it wasn't because of the CM, it was the audio on the boat. It kept breaking up, and you could only hear about 25% of what the CM said. At the end of the ride, she asked if we had trouble hearing her, everyone said they barely heard anything. She acknowledged that this boat had been having audio issues for a week or 2. This is what annoyed me, if you are aware of the the audio issues, why is this boat in rotation? Sadly this was the only time we got on JC too. After JC we headed back over to Splash to see if it was open, also to see if Pirates was still closed, which it was. We also wanted to see if golden oaks was open, they have these fries on their menu Cara wanted to try, but it was closed all week. Splash was still down, so we decided to get lunch. We walked by Be Our Guest, it was at capacity, our backup plan was Columbia Harbor House, which was a QS recommendation I got from these boards, so thank you! I got the fried shrimp with broccoli, and Cara had the fried fish with broccoli. I had put away my camera during the rain, and since it looked like it may be on and off all day, I kept it in my backpack for most of this day. We also shared the clam chowder. We joked about a bit about nothing like a hot bowl of soup. You may be wondering, broccoli? why not get fries. I didn't want fried food with a side of fried food, so I got broccoli, I think Cara probably wanted fries, but felt bad getting them if I got the broccoli, lol. We enjoyed this lunch, it was one of the better QS meal I have had at WDW. We went back to Splash after this and it was open, the sun had come back up, and we looked good to go! We handed in our paper FPs and were back on the ride.

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Now, you may be thinking we actually got to ride Splash Mountain for the first time ever based on this picture. If you are thinking that, you are wrong. Yes, we got to ride about 10% of the ride. Right after the singing birdhouses, there was a backup of boats, not unusual. Ours happened to stop under the only bit of cover in this section by the way. The announcement came that the ride was down, and they would be coming to get us out of the ride. Several minutes went by and a CM said a few more minutes and they would get us out of the ride. She walked away, and the heavens opened up, and a monsoon came. We quickly got our raincoats out, even though we were under cover. It only took a couple of minutes before people in the boats behind, and in front of us took matters into their own hands, and started getting out of the boots to get undercover. The CMs came back just in time to see this, and started screaming you can't do that. Screams ignored those boats emptied out and headed to cover, I think the CM backed down a little because she was going to be thrown in to the water if she wasn't careful. I can't say I blame those folks, and the CM could probably get in trouble for that. It was a no win situation. We were escorted down through the back of the ride, with very little cover. Once we got to the ground level we were told to wait there. We all backed into a garage to avoid the rain, and were yelled at by a CM who told us we can't stay there. Nobody listened and he gave up, clearly frustrated. We got new paper FPs and hung out in the Splash gift shop for awhile. Our shoes were done for the day, so we got ourselves new pairs of Disney flip-flops! These would be our shoes for the rain the rest of the rip, wet feet I can deal with, wet shoes no chance. POTC was still down, so we went to Tomorrowland. We got new FPs for Space Mountain, which is always fantastic. We got a lot done in Tomorrowland, it really never stopped raining during this time, but it had lightened up. We did Carousel of Progress, which has become a favorite of ours, I can't stop singing the song after this ride.

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We had never rode the peoplemover before, we enjoyed it. A very nice relaxing ride, that shows you a different view of everything. We also got on, Buzz, Monsters inc laugh floor, and Stitch. Buzz seems like it has had some work done since we were here last. The Buzz animatronic in the line wasn't working in January, but was up and going today, and I never remember him having a video face before, is this new? We also had a couple rides last time where a gun was working, or the joystick didn't work. We rode this 3 or 4 times this trip and everything worked fine. Monsters inc also changed a bit, they didn't recap the movie Monsters Inc. Is the show shorter now? or did they just change some of the acts up. This show cracked me up, I love it. There was a couple, about the same age as us that got up and left during the first act. Either they didn't like it, or didn't speak English well enough to understand it. One of the many mysteries we shall never know the answer to. We headed back up to Adventureland, POTC was running!!! So we rode that, we may have gotten a FP for it, I don't remember. To anybody reading this, if you see me post a pre-trip report in the future, remind me to take notes of what we did, lol. We headed to SM after Pirates. Now when we rode Pirates the first night, the Blackbeard effect was not working, in fact the fog waterfall effect was missing. This time the fog waterfall was there, but no Blackbeard. Anyway, it was time to tempt fate, Splash Mountain!!!

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WE MADE IT!!! I forgot to mention, after we got evacuated off the ride the people who were in the row behind us gave us their paper FPs. They had to go to the airport, and couldn't stay. Unfortunately, they had to go in their soaking clothes, since they had already given their bags to the DME. So, we took those FPs and went right back on Splash Mountain. We both loved this ride, it was way longer than I thought it would be, the animatronics all worked well, the music was catchy, the drops were fun, the anticipation on whether you get wet or not is great. The first ride, we didn't get wet, the second time, we got pretty wet. It was getting ready to rain again, so we decided to head back to the hotel, and change/freshen up for our ADR at California Grill. Our reservation was at 9:45, and we wanted to try to catch wishes before dinner. Find out how we like California Grill, and whether we made it to wished or not next time!

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[SharonD]

Exciting day on Splash.

I think you were talking about the Treehouse Villas that you saw on your boat ride to dinner. They are part of Saratoga Springs DVC.

 

[PMC0849]

For everyone who was interested in Dapper Day, the dates for 2015 are:
Spring - Saturday, March 14th
Fall - Saturday, October 3d

 

[PMC0849]

Exciting day on Splash.

I think you were talking about the Treehouse Villas that you saw on your boat ride to dinner. They are part of Saratoga Springs DVC.

Ah, thank you. They looked neat. We actually thought we were cursed to never ride Splash.

 

[PMC0849]

Day 4 - One Does Not Simply Walk on to Splash Mountain - Part 2
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We got back to the BWI and changed, and cleaned up a bit from the rainy day. We decided we would take the stroll through Epcot again to catch the monorail.

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Of course, we decided to share a small cheese plate from the Ireland Marketplace as we walked. It was all very good cheese, but they were way too similar, how about a blue cheese to go with the chedder? Anyway the cheese was the perfect pre-dinner snack. We were hoping to watch wishes from the observation deck at the Contemporary, when we got to the MK stop on the monorail, I said we should probably get off here and watch from just inside the MK entrance. Cara seemed luke warm on doing this, fearing the crowd after would be a nightmare. I agreed with her that it would, and thought we still had time. The monorail was delayed after leaving MK, of course, Murphy's Law right. When we got to the Contemporary Wishes had already started, we saw a few blasts from inside the train, but not a great view. We had never been to the Contemporary before, so we were a little lost, and once we got to the elevator, we were told we had to go downstairs before we could go upstairs, D'OH!!! We did make it to California Grill, at the exact moment Wishes ended. . On the plus side, we were now 30 minutes early for our reservation! So, we were early for our reservation, which is rare for us, but late for the event we wanted to get there for... Anyway, we each got a drink from the bar, I had a Manhattan, I can't remember what Cara had. We decided to enjoy our cocktails out on the observation deck.

Oh Space Mountain, I hope we are reunited soon.
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We started talking to a family about Bay Lake Tower. They were not DVC owners, but that's where they were staying. Apparently they rented the points, or whatever, from an owner on a website called Mousesavers. They said they got a great deal doing this. Please, if you have done this before, get in touch with me, I would like to find out more. We were seated pretty much right at our reservation time, but the observation deck really made time fly. What a view! I know it was a rainy day, but it had turned into a rather nice night. We got to see the light show on the lake too, sadly none of my pictures of that turned out. We were seated right next to the window, with a great view of the castle.

Are these seats for walk-ins only?

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To start we shared the shared the sushimi, followed by an heirloom tomato, watermelon, and I believe goat cheese salad. Both were very good, I thought the sushimi was rather excellent. For our entrees I had the bison tenderloin, which was also really tasty, and cooked perfectly for me, I also enjoy those brussels sprouts. They had some fun desserts here, so we got two, which is not normal since we usually share one dessert. I wanted the sundae trio, and Cara wanted the fritters. Both were a lot of fun, and very good. Overall we had an excellent time at California Grill, and I hope we make a return visit next time we come to WDW. Two interesting things happened at the tables behind us, and we couldn't help but listen in a little. One table had a very long discussion with their waiter about the dining plan, and the two credits this would cost. we could only hear the waiter, so we missed a lot of this one, but eventually this whole group just got up and left. I never use the dining plan, but it seems like they do a good job of letting you know which places require two credits, am I wrong? The second table was a couple of Japanese girls, they were already seated with menus when we sat down. After we had ordered, and were eating our appetizers, we heard the same waiter inform them that they had to order now, because the kitchen was about to close. Apparently they had been there for awhile and could not decide what they wanted. What really struck me as strange was, I have never heard a waiter do this before, not at a restaurant like this. maybe at a sports bar, that stops serving food around 10 or 11. I of course have no idea how long these women were sitting here, it could have been over an hour. I know, I know, we shouldn't be eavesdropping, but I couldn't help it. Now the Contemporary, to me, this place didn't wow on the inside. I am sure the rooms are lovely, but it seems to lack Disney magic. I also realize I have never stayed here, I don't know all it has to offer. Anyway, we got back to the BWI, I threw our shoes in the dryer, we watched TV, and dreamt of our next day. A full day at Epcot, including some EMH in the evening, and we finally saw some fireworks!!

 

[PMC0849]

Jeez, nothing like Splash giving you the runaround. Glad you finally got on.

Renting points is available all over - there are some great links in the DVC forum. You can get some great deals.

And yes, those seats are for walkups, but they go fast. It's like a race to get a bar seat.

Haha, we were laughing about our bad luck with Splash, all day. I am glad we finally got on, it is such a great ride. Easily a top 5 ride for me.

Thank you, this is the first I have heard of renting points, I will have to check it out. I am sure there are Pros and Cons.

 

[PMC0849]

Day 5 - Mmmm... More Food & Wine
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For those of you who liked the Food & Wine day best, so far, you are in luck. We were spending the entire day at Epcot! There were even evening EMH at Epcot tonight, leaving our favorite park open until 11 pm. Unfortunately, the F&W marketplaces closed at 9 pm. D'oh!

I kind of broke it getting it out of the box
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The night before we bought this cupcake from the Boardwalk Bakery, with the intention of having it for breakfast the next morning. I cannot remember 100% what it was, but I believe it was an apple cider cupcake, with an apple filling, and caramel frosting. It was very good, and moist, perfect way to start out day.

These chairs at the BWI are pretty creepy

I think I overheard someone saying there was a hidden Mickey on this carousel. I did not find one.
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Cara, had forgotten something back in the room. So I hung out in the lobby taking the above pictures while I waited for her. A few minutes later and we were off to Epcot! Entering through the international gateway is great. It is so quiet, it is also fun to see the World Showcase while it is almost completely empty. We had our first FP that day for Mission Space.

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When we were here last time, we did the more intense version once, and the less intense version a couple of times. This was because there was at least one member of our family who did not want to do the more intense version. In my opinion, at least for me, it is not worth doing the less intense version. The more intense version is so much better! Yes, I do step out of the machine a little wobbly, yes, I would not want to ride it with a full stomach. But it is just so much more! I can't ride this without thinking of the episode of "The Simpsons" "Deep Space Homer" where he goes to space, so I always get a few laughs in after this ride.

​

We saw this group playing the kitchen drums, I don't know what else to call it, so we stopped and listed for awhile. It was a fun little show. After this we took a stop into the festival center again.

Bring more "Ratatouille" to the parks!!!

Hidden Mickey?!?

This building needs some work.

Yes, that is beer made by Hanson.
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We explored the Festival Center a little, checking out the shops, getting some free chocolate, and we watched a short film about the growing of wine grapes, which was pretty interesting. The discovery of Mmmhops, a beer made by Hanson cracked me up. At first I thought it was just a silly name, but Cara pointed out it was actually made by the band. Part of me wanted to try one, I knew they were serving it in the America Pavilion, but I never got around to getting one. So the question of the day to you is, did you ever try Mmmhops beer? and if so how was it? Now, Remy merchandise was rather easy to fine here, and in the France Pavilion, but why is there almost no "Ratatouille" presence in the park? Especially during F&W, Remy seems like a perfect "host" for this event. Besides Megara, and Launchpad, Remy might be on the top of my list of characters I would like to meet. Another pixar movie that has surprisingly little park presence is "Wall-E". My final thought on the festival center, it needs some renovation. As you can see above the ceiling was falling apart, the bathrooms here were the only ones on property I found that didn't have the automated sinks and toilets. Clearly this build needs some TLC. Our next FP was for Soarin, but we had some time before it started. As we began to make our over to the Land area it began to rain. Luckily for us we were able to duck into one of our favorite places in Epcot.

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Most of these are too sweet for me, and Beverly is too bitter. I think I like either the Inca Kola, or Fanta melon flavor best. We just looked around Club Cool for a bit while we waited for the rain to stop. Once the rain stopped we went and rode Soarin. This was only our second time on this ride, and we do enjoy it, the video needs an update, which I hear it might be getting soon. Still a fun ride. After this we went on one of Cara's favorites, Living With the Land. I enjoy LWtL too, but she just thinks it's a neat ride. One of these days we will have to do the behind the scenes tour. As we heading back outside it started to rain again, luckily it stopped raining fairly quick and we were able to head into the WS.

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Our first stop was the Puerto Rico Marketplace, where we shared the Ensalada de carrucho — Caribbean conch salad with onion, tomato and cilantro, and a glass of the sangria. This was pretty good, nice and refreshing. As you can see the humidity had fogged up my camera lens a bit.

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[PMC0849]

Day 5 - Mmmm... More Food & Wine - Part 2

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Next we shared the tuna poke from Hawaii, this may have been my favorite thing I had at F&W. There were plenty of other things I wanted to try that I didn't get this trip, including the pork slider in Hawaii. I think the thing to do next time is make the F&W marketplace food your lunch and dinner for a day, and just eat them all day non-stop!! Sounds like a pretty fantastic plan to me.

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After Hawaii we went to Mexico, where we shared the shrimp taco, and a strawberry mango margarita. Both also were really good.

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Our last FP for the day was for Maelstrom, which we knew was closing shortly after we left. Maelstrom is like a cult classic, not many people will be talking about the backlot tour, but Maelstrom, there is going to be a vocal minority that loved this ride, and will always remember it fondly. Back, Back, over the falls! become kind of a rally cry for us during this trip. There were a lot of people we heard talking through out Epcot, about how disappointed they were with the closing of this ride. Luckily we rode Maelstrom a few more times this trip.

Heard this stuff is great, but I do not like coconut
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We had upcoming ADRs at Via Napoli, so we slowed down on the eating for little after Mexico. We just kind of slowly walked through WS to get to Italy. Stay tuned for our lunch at Via Napoli, plus more F&W adventures!

 

[PMC0849]

Day 5 - Mmmm... More Food & Wine - Part 3

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As you can see from above, we had lunch at Via Napoli. I do not remember if we made ADRs, or just walked in. I think we may have just walked in. We shared the arrancini for our appetizer, and had a mushroom and pepperoni pizza. Cara had a glass of prosecco while I had an Italian beer flight, the three beers were, Amber Shock, Birra Moretti la Rossa, and Birra Moretti, my favorite was the Birra Moretti la Rossa. The food was very good, the pizza was surprisingly good, we ate all but two pieces, which ended up being left behind in our room fridge, oops. Cara has made it well known she would like to return to Via Napoli. As soon as we were ready to head out, it began to rain. We decided to put on our gear and make a move for the gift shops in the Italian pavilion. It rained for awhile, which was enough time for Cara to be convinced she needed to buy some perfume. I can't remember the order of this, but we either went to the American Adventure show next, or stopped by the Belgium marketplace. Either way those are the next two things we did.

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We got the savory waffle, which was a potato and leek waffle, with a beer braised beef topping. This was pretty great, I didn't know what to expect, but the waffle was actually potato, I don't know why I was expecting a normal waffle with just potato and leeks in it. While we were waiting for our waffle, a women behind was very adamant that the sweet waffles here, were the best she had ever had. We knew we had to come back another time to get a sweet waffle. Now, the American Adventure, for those of you following along, you will remember I had to leave the theater early in the show earlier in the trip. So I made Cara go back with me this day. Luckily it had started to rain again as we entered the building, and the show was just about to start. I enjoyed the show, it was a nice 20 minute break to sit down, and get a brief recap of American history. It even mentioned, a few, of our not greatest moments as a country, but overall it was very "Go America!" We both thought it may be time to take Lance Armstrong out of the montage at the end, or they can add Barry Bonds too! After this we decided to take a brief pit stop back to our room, to drop off a few things, and just refresh a bit.

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Before we left, Cara had said if she finds a stuffed Oswald she is getting it. I, half joking half serious, said if I find a stuffed Rocket Raccoon I would get it. On one of our first days at DHS we found the Oswald. While at AK I won that brightly colored chameleon. Rocket was a little more difficult to find. We found a couple places selling Gaurdians of the Galaxy stuff, but no stuffed Rocket Raccoon. We ended up finding Rocket in Tomorrowland, after we moved the People Mover. One day I hope to meet Rocket Raccoon, and maybe other Marvel characters at WDW, stupid Universal... I would love to see a GotG attraction too, stupid Universal...

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We got back to Epcot and explored the United Kingdom a bit, and met this curious lady. There weren't too many people waiting to meet Alice, so she chatted with us for a bit, I know we talked about it being all of our unbirthdays, and tea. What was weird is there was no CM with her, he was there when she first came out, and then he disappeared, luckily everyone in line was more than willing to take the pictures in his place.

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We took a stop by refreshment port so I could get a Pineapple Dole Whip Soft-serve with crème de cacao white, which was good, but I would need to have 100 to get tipsy, lol. It was very refreshing and really hit the spot. It was much smaller than the dole whips at MK, at least I thought it was. We headed over to Test Track, and decided to get in the single rider line.

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Despite being in the single rider line, we got to ride together. What had happened was, the guy next to us had FP so they put two single riders next to him. When we sat down he asked us how long we waited, which was 10-15 minutes. He waited 45 minutes, with his FP, and was very angry, and used several obscenities to express that, apparently his wife and him were going to take turns riding, while the other watched their kid, but due to the excessive FP wait time, his wife's window to ride had been missed. I told him she could just ride single rider and it would be faster, but I think his anger was not letting him think clearly, and he just wanted to complain about the FP. I should be clear, he was not mad at us, just mad that he waited so long despite have a FP. I have never experienced too long of a wait on FP ever, so I don't know what caused such a long delay this time. Anyway, after TT we headed over to Nemo, and the aquarium.

Lil' Joe is the best name a Manatee can have.

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More to come, including several more aquarium pictures, like the amazing cuddlefish! Our dinner at Flying Fish, Illuminations!, and EMH at Epcot. Enjoy!

 

[PMC0849]

Day 5 - Mmmm... More Food & Wine - Part 4
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So we really enjoyed the aquarium; it is so peaceful. I am sure there are times it gets busy, and has plenty of screaming children, but it was pretty empty at this time.

Nemos

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The cuddlefish were amazing, you can't see this from the pictures, but the coloring on their bodies was fluid, and would move! It was amazing. At one point a couple was trying to figure out what they were, and I jumped at the chance to describe them a little. For a second I felt like at CM at AK, just not nearly as good, or well informed as them. After the aquarium it was time for dinner, so we moseyed over to the Boardwalk for our ADRs at Flying Fish Cafe.

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My appetizer was the tuna tartare, with crispy vegetable tempura sushi roll, which was great. Cara, had a crab cake which she said was really good too. My entree was the salmon, which came with vegetables from the Land! This was the first time I have eaten anything that grew in the land that I am aware of. Cara had the red snapper, I believe. Which she said was good, I also enjoyed my salmon. We had an ice cream sundae for desert, which was forgettable. We got out with plenty of time before illuminations, we took a quick detour into the candy shop next to Flying Fish.

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On the way back we saw this fairly entertaining Boardwalk Performer, he was bouncing these big blue balls back and forth with this kid from the crowd, making a lot of fun of this kid, it was pretty funny. Cara and I were distracted because we could not tell if the performer had an entire sleeve of tattoos, or was wearing a sleeve that made it look like he had tattoos. I get the feeling Disney frowns on it's CMs having visible tattoos, am I right? and maybe this guy was covering his up with a shirt that made it look like he had them? I don't know, it is not important, he was funny. After the show was over we headed back to Epcot to find a spot to watch the fireworks.

I got much better pictures of the Hallowishes fireworks.

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We watched Illuminations from France, right where we met Belle a few days earlier (she wasn't there to watch with us). Nobody does fireworks like Disney. After Illuminations we headed over to Maelstrom, knowing every ride could be our last on this cult favorite of ours. Next up we decided to head over to Test Track, since the F&W marketplaces were closed for EMH, there wasn't much we needed to see in the WS this evening. The line was still pretty long despite the EMHs. We rode single rider again, and got on almost instantly.

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Is it true they may build a Cars ride at DHS, which is essentially the same as TT? This is a terrible idea if true, it just does not make any sense to me. I hope it is just a rumor. Anyway, we went and rode Nemo again, I think we should have done Turtle Talk, I get the feeling it may have been a private show if we had, we just wandered around the aquarium, again. We decided to ride Imagination next. We skipped this ride in January, it is so corny. I vaguely remember it from when I was a child, but not very well. Figment is actually pretty annoying. I think the CMs running this ride were surprised to see us, there were a total of 5 people on our train, or car, whatever they are for this ride. We decided after Imagination to head back to the Boardwalk, and check out Jellyrolls. Now, when we first arrived at Jellyrolls, I was unaware of the cover charge, I believe it was $12 dollars a person. I hate cover charges, and generally refuse to go anywhere that charges them. However, this was WDW, so it wasn't like there was a comparable place near by. I am glad we came by here, it was a lot of fun. The pianists were all very good, I especially enjoyed when they mumbled the parts of songs that may have been inappropriate, but the crowd would just yell out those words anyway. We had a lot of fun here, and I believe we got our moneys worth. If you are staying at an Epcot resort, and are looking for some late night fun, where there are no children, Jellyrolls might be for you. We didn't go to the Atlantic Dance hall, so I don't know what that was like. We even got them to play one of the songs we requested, "Werewolves of London" I also requested "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys, I wanted see if that was possible, but it was getting late, and we had another big day ahead of us, so we went to bed. If they played "Sabotage" I will never know, but it will be the first song I request next time, I find myself in this dueling piano bar. Day 6, this was originally going to be an all MK day, with morning EMHs, but since we were out late, we decided to change things, and do Epcot in morning, for more F&W, before heading to MK in the evening. Stay tuned!!

 

[gsrjedi]

That tuna tartare looked good. Are those Kit-Kats on the sundae?

 

[38053WDW]

Haha, we were laughing about our bad luck with Splash, all day. I am glad we finally got on, it is such a great ride. Easily a top 5 ride for me.

Thank you, this is the first I have heard of renting points, I will have to check it out. I am sure there are Pros and Cons.

Pros - Cheaper then going through WDW reservations / Cons - you give a total stranger all your money with them in total charge of your reservation. DVC will NOT talk to anyone but the owner of the DVC.

We just did this through David's DVC Rental .. all went well and I'm not in saying there are scammers out there. (yea, who am I kidding). I was about to go through a DVC owner on Mouseowners but once I started with David's I could not back out. (they found me my rental ) Go out to MouseOwners and you will see a lot of great trips by people renting points. Look for some with references and a lot of posting on renting points. This is the route I'll probably do next time myself. I was just really nervous giving $$$ to just anyone .. David's is a Broker (middleman) but they have been doing this for years! Not pushing David's .. it's just who I used.

 

[Magenta Panther]

This was our first time there, we really had fun. I think it will be our go to lunch spot at MGM, er... DHS.

The first time I went there - about 7 years ago - the food was soooooooooooooooo terrible. I got the ribs, which tasted like rubber. AWFUL! But I've heard the menu has improved greatly of late.

 

[PMC0849]

That tuna tartare looked good. Are those Kit-Kats on the sundae?

It was really good! I love raw tuna. They were not Kit-Kats, they were not normal chocolate bars either, I can't remember exactly what they were though.

Pros - Cheaper then going through WDW reservations / Cons - you give a total stranger all your money with them in total charge of your reservation. DVC will NOT talk to anyone but the owner of the DVC.

We just did this through David's DVC Rental .. all went well and I'm not in saying there are scammers out there. (yea, who am I kidding). I was about to go through a DVC owner on Mouseowners but once I started with David's I could not back out. (they found me my rental ) Go out to MouseOwners and you will see a lot of great trips by people renting points. Look for some with references and a lot of posting on renting points. This is the route I'll probably do next time myself. I was just really nervous giving $$$ to just anyone .. David's is a Broker (middleman) but they have been doing this for years! Not pushing David's .. it's just who I used.

Thank you, that is a lot to consider. I have also heard if you end up needing to cancel you are pretty much SoL.

The first time I went there - about 7 years ago - the food was soooooooooooooooo terrible. I got the ribs, which tasted like rubber. AWFUL! But I've heard the menu has improved greatly of late.

Don't get me wrong, this in no Michelin starred restaurant, the food was fine, we just liked the atmosphere, and the food was like I said was fine

 

[melmel89]

great trip report, your food pics are making me really hungry!

 

[Tiggerish]

I'm so glad I found this trip report! Great photos and commentary. Loved your dapper suit!!

 

[PMC0849]

great trip report, your food pics are making me really hungry!

Thank you! they are making me hungry too. I can't write an installment of this without telling Cara, I want to go back to Disney World.

I'm so glad I found this trip report! Great photos and commentary. Loved your dapper suit!!

I'm glad you found it too. Thank you, I rarely get a chance to wear that suit, this seemed like the perfect excuse.

 

[PMC0849]

Day 6 - Can't Swim Clown Will Eat Me
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As I mentioned in our last post, we had originally planned to head to MK for the morning EMHs, Cara, however convinced me that we should go back to Epcot in the morning. Way back when I first booked everything, I set up another late breakfast/brunch, at Kona Cafe, not long before our trip though, we got a call saying the restaurant would be closed that day. The Kona Cafe manager arranged for reservations at Grand Floridian Cafe instead. We both wanted the excuse to go inside GF, it would be our dream to stay there sometime, but It is just too expensive. We cancelled our GFC reservations, and our MK FPs, and decided to start the day at Epcot. I think I just changed out MK FPs to later in the day, and didn't bother making Epcot ones, I don't entirely remember. We actually slept in this day, so WS was open by the time we got there, and we didn't waste anytime getting some food.

Um... we may have started eating this one...
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We got the fired potato pancake, with smoked salmon, and herb sour cream, which was good, but not one of the more memorable things we had. Scotland had a lot I wanted to try too, the scallops and vegetarian haggis both sounded good. I was disappointed they didn't have real haggis, I have had it a couple times while in Scotland, and it is is really good! I imagine they think people probably wouldn't buy real haggis in this country, but I think you would get a lot of brave souls giving it a chance. I know I would have ordered it.

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Next up, Mexico, again. We both enjoy Mexican food, especially Cara. Since we had already tried the shrimp taco earlier, we decided to go for the ribeye taco, I also just went ahead and ordered the sweet corn cheesecake too. Both we good, I preferred the Shrimp Tacos, but I was surprised how much I liked the sweet corn cheesecake, looking at that picture makes me want to head right back down there to order some more.

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After our delicious Mexican snake, we went inside to take the Grand Fiesta Tour, which was a walk on. I like this ride, it is silly, but I enjoy it, it makes me laugh. I also like the history behind "The Three Caballeros".

I liked this silly mens room sign

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Now, I write a very sad part of the trip, it was time for us to go, back, back, over da falls, for the last time. I filmed the whole ride this time, so I can alway relive the greatness that was Maelstrom. Cara, pointed out, we probably won't even get to ride the "Frozen" ride for awhile after it is built, since it is "Frozen" and will have a 5 hour wait. She may be right... My favorite comment I heard in line about Maelstrom was, "I am going to miss hte burly oil rig worker, with the come hither eyes", we will all miss his "come hither eye" mysterious lady. Now, please, a moment of silence for "Maelstrom" gone, but never, ever forgotten.

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Next up was the Africa Marketplace, where we got the beef tenderloin tip, berbere-style, with okra, jalapenos, tomato, and pap. It was kind of like a beef stew with grits, would be very good on cold winters night. It's funny to me, there are all these countries in Africa, and yes Morocco gets it's own Pavilion, and Marketplace during F&W, but the rest of Africa really gets the short end of the stick. Maybe in the future we will see more specific African country marketplaces.

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After Africa, we hit up several marketplaces, I got a beer flight from the brewers collection. Cara went to singapore and got the lemongrass chicken curry, this was very good, just like almost everything else we had, apparently we like everything. After we finished the curry, I went and got us a bratwurst from Germany, um... guess what? We loved it. After this we went to Poland to get some pierogi. There were 2 different pierogis here, one with kielbasa, onions and sourcream, which is what wet got, the other was with sauerkraut and pork goulish, which is actually the one we ordered. We didn't realize we got the wrong until we had pretty much finished, it wasn't a big deal, the choice was essentially a coin flip for us. This was also quite good. After this we walked around Morocco a little bit, but it was getting hot so we didn't stick around too long.

Hidden Mickey!?!?! I get excited finding these, I am not too good at finding them.

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We decided to head back to the hotel and go swimming, it was really hot this day, and we needed to cool off a little, I was also getting antsy to go to MK. Before this though, we decided to get something sweet, so we got the waffle with the berry compote from belgium. Now, if you have been following along you may remember a lady previously telling us this was the best waffle she had ever had. I have had many waffles in my life, and I think I can honestly say I have never had a waffle that lead me to exclaim it is the best I have ever had. I have had many very good waffles, but being able to say one is the best ever, no, that has not happened. I can honestly say, this waffle was very good, but I cannot give it the exclusive, and prestigious title of best waffle I have ever had. We went back to our room and changed into our swimsuits.

I didn't take this picture, just stole it from the internet.
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Okay, I was determined to go down this slide at least once before we left. It reminds me of the clown bed Homer builds for Bart. Maybe not quite as creepy. We went straight for the slide after setting our towels down on chair. The first time I went down, I kept coming close to stopping, I guess I didn't have enough momentum. I learned my lesson though, and got some good starts after this and flew down the slide. I was glad to see there were other adults using the slide, otherwise it was two 31 years olds and several 4-6 year olds. We swam for awhile, going down the slide several times, watching to see what games the kids CMs were having kids play poolside. On our last trip, we over heard a game of name that tune, TV edition, and I was really hoping that would happen at this pool, no such luck. I would have been really good at that, I was raised by TV, and recognized the "Northern Exposure" theme in January. I am going to go out on a limb and assume very few people under the age of 30 recognize the "Northern Exposure", "Night Court" and other themes from that era of television. Anyway after swimming for awhile, it was time to head to MK. But, to hear that part of the trip you will have to wait a little bit, stay tuned, MK, Artist Point, and a bunch of people in costumes hanging out in the lobby of Wilderness Lodge.