Better late than never. Honeymoon Trip Report August 2010

pumpkin7 · Jul 20, 2011

now, i've just been trying to figure out the days, and i don't think the amount of days in the park tallies with the amount of days we were in america. very strange as i thought i took my camera every day. meh. oh well.

anyway, that night, we went to see if we could find the characature lady. she did a characature lady the last time we came in 2008, and wanted her to do another. so we ventured off down I drive to try and find her.
spotting this on the way. chicken and biscuits? bit strange.

we also had an floridian join us for half way through our walk. it was very strange. he was telling us it was his girlfriends birthday and he had just finished his shift at hooters and he was on his way to her party, but his friend had failed to pick her up. very strange.

anway, we got to the crazy golf place, and she was still there! and she did us another fab characature:

and i beat james at mini golf:

next day ( i think) was MGM! ... sorry, 'hollywood' studios.

shame they weren't real bottles.

now, i had gotten wind that the star tours ride had already shut by our trip. obviously, i was gutted! looking at the current park map, it was still on there. so i ahd a moan to james about how they should update their park maps more often. i think it was on the one in the park, but not on the ones that they were handing out for guests.

pumpkin7 · Jul 20, 2011

so, we had decided to meet up with my bridesmaid and her family on this day.
while we were waiting for them, i spotted these! the darth goofy toys were awesome.

i was going to go back and buy one, but never got round to it

still, my friend eventually arrived and we made our way toward their favourite attraction, but one i have never had the pleasure of riding. Hollywood Tower of Terror! we picked up some fp's for r'n'r before heading over to the hotel.

the last time we visited the world, i wasn't tall enough to ride, and when we visited paris, they were still building it, so i'd always just missed it. safe to say, i LOVED it. i love the atmosphere and smell of the ride. it's like you really are in a cursed tower. i was desperately trying to find some hidden mickeys in the hotel foyer, but alas, i couldn't.

here we are, on the back row:

hehe.

unfortunately, when we came off, the heavens did open.

everyone was cowering underneath anything they could find. still, we darted toward aerosmith. i had to drag my friend on this one. she didn't want to go on!

aww, i do like this ride. the preshow was good too. they had people in the room with the video'd band, messing with the props. it was a nice touch.
my friend ended up loving it! i'm totally turning her into a roller coaster junkie.
after that, we got a bite to eat at the little restaurant just outside of aerosmith. it was still raining at this point so we were waiting for it to let up.

this is my friend and her sister. my friend is the one in black.

while we were sat on this fountain, i noticed the notice board that the cm's wrote the wait times for... what was this... star tours had a wait time?!?!?! NO WAY! i asked the CM if it was open, and when they confirmed it, i actually jumped for joy. i was like a kid on christmas morning. so, that was that, straight to star tours!
but not before a manditory hat shot:

pumpkin7 · Jul 20, 2011

i made sure to take a lot of pictures of the queue and outside area. i didn't know whether they were getting rid of the walker outside either so i took a few shots of that:

pumpkin7 · Jul 20, 2011

after an epic ride to the moon of endor, we decided to head toward another one of my favourites, GMR! i had told james all about the alien segment, so he was excited to see that.

we walked straight into the main room with the big screen at the end. we were told to wait, and i was at the front of the queue. after a bit, they opened up the doors next to the queue we were standing in. the cm was still infront of me. the rest of the queue behind us seemed to be annoyed that we weren't going through the doors, so ducked into the next line and went through the doors. was a very strange moment of people being very impatient.
still, we were all crammed into the back of one of the cars and sent on our way.

now, i know the GMR has never been perfect, but by joe does it need some TLC now. there was no water around the dancers at the start. i had told james all about the alien that came from the ceiling and dribbled on you... hmm, no such alien reared it's ugly head this time. and ripley was looking very worn out.
the land of oz was delightful as usual. the wicked witch of the west looked awesome (i had always thought it was a real person up until this visit... she's always looked so realistic). this was the first time i took a proper look at her. she's very good.
and we had the pleasure of seeing both scenes in the gangster/bandit area on 2 different ride throughs.
tarzan needs to be sorted. it looks awful, and you can see where the arm keeps him from swinging when he gets to one side.
it is in real need of some love. the animatronics particularly are looking worn, especially compared to the new ones you see in pirates. eeesh.

after our journey into the hollywood of past, jennie (my friend) had told us all about TTSM! it sounded cool so we headed toward that area to get either FPs or to join the queue.
GUTTED AGAIN!! it was shut! NOOOO. asked a cm: not reopening until after we left. NOOO FAIL FAIL. oh well. pixar place itself was pretty cool. we saw woody and buzz doing meet and greets, but the queue was 45 minutes so we decided to leave it.

we ALSO found out during this time that one mans dream was shut. ahh, never seen it, and really wanted to see all the walt merch that disney has. oh well, at least these are new experiences for next time.

we decided to head toward the backlot tour, which i always remembered being epic. but we found a giant coke bottle so cooled off under that first, much to the amusement of the little child in pink:

we joined the queue and watched the very outdated pre movie, and the water bit at the start.
i'd read all about the 20k ride and it's demise, and the locations of some of the remaining subs. unfortunately the one that used to reside in this water tank had been taken out, although i do remember it during our last trip.

here's my cheeky friend and her dad laughing at me and mocking me! lol.

and all aboard!

unhappy to see that they had done away with the cm commentary, in place a pretty dull recorded spiel. still, it was nice to see they hadn't got rid of all the props, and still had some nice gems. i was particularly interested in the old disney scout plane , although i didn't get chance to get a good picture.
we did get to see the earful tower though.

pumpkin7 · Jul 20, 2011

even catastrophe canyon had suffered a setback, taking away the feel that you were on a live set and in danger, to 'this is how they would do it in the movies' ... another FAIL. boooo.

but again, the props at the end of the ride were cool.

so, by this time, my friend and her family wanted to take a load off and have a wonder on their own, so we also went for a wonder.

FINALLY i found a hidden mickey (or a few) on my own! yay

and then i found this evil fire hydrant. every time i got close to it, it would stop spraying water. give me the water, i want the water!!

we had a wonder into the honey i shrunk the kids play area, for no other fact than it.is.cool. it's like you're a real life ant! one of the cm's noticed our badge and told us of his 45 year marriage and wished us all the best. and took our photo:

after a while we met up with jennie and her family again, and headed once agian over to RnR.

now, after this ride, we went over to look at the photos from the ride. we were laughing at ours because it looked awesome. the cm behind the desk noticed our badges, and said that we could have a photo on the house! we were like :O for real?? those things are like, $18! but yes, she let us have one completely for free! and wished us well and congratuations. i do love disney.

and james tried a new hair do:

after a few more rides on the ToT (the wait time was only 13 minutes muahaha) my friend and her family had had enough and decided to call it a day. we decided to stay a little longer, so we headed over to the art of animation to watch that awesome show about mulan.
while we were waiting, i asked the cm if he knew where i could find push the bin. i didn't think he would know, but he said 'wow, not many people knwo about him: you've done your homework!'. i'd stumbled across a video of him on youtube and so wanted to meet him. i was on a mission. he said we might be able to find him in tomorrowland, so we decided that we would have a look another day.

pumpkin7 · Jul 20, 2011

after the art of animation, and a wonder through the galleries, the sky looked like this:

and i wanted to buy this but it was like $199 :S

we decided to call it a day. we were going to return anyway because we wanted to see all the shows and other bits and bobs, so we headed back, in the pouring rain!

more tomorrow!

LilSuzy · Jul 20, 2011

I have enjoyed your trip report to Disney, I too was reading it with my english accent...lovely report indeed.

Alison1975 · Jul 20, 2011

love it! And yes.. totally using my best accent to read it..lol...

pumpkin7 · Jul 20, 2011

well, as long as you didn't sound like mr van (it won't let me post his first name haha) trying to do a cockney accent, then i don't mind. haha.
i still have quite a few photos to post, so i will finish tomorrow i hope. glad you are all enjoying it. my memory is a bit sketchy and i'm sure there are lots of details i've missed out, but still. it's fun doing trip reports! it's like you lots actually care aswell because we are all bought together by our love of disney

SleepingMonk · Jul 21, 2011

pumpkin7 said:
well, as long as you didn't sound like mr van (it won't let me post his first name haha) trying to do a cockney accent, then i don't mind. haha...

I'm using my best Mrs.Slocombe of Are You Being Served.

pumpkin7 · Jul 21, 2011

SleepingMonk said:
I'm using my best Mrs.Slocombe of Are You Being Served.

as if you've seen are you being served! and i hope i don't sound like her but still :ROFLOL:

SleepingMonk · Jul 21, 2011

pumpkin7 said:
as if you've seen are you being served! and i hope i don't sound like her but still :ROFLOL:

Gotta love BBC America...and I am unanimous in that!

PineapplePrincess · Jul 21, 2011

Of course we've seen "Are You Being Served"! They used to show it on Public television here in the States. I would watch it with my grandmother all the time! I believe I even bought the video with the "Sexy Knickers" episode on it!

pumpkin7 · Jul 31, 2011

that night we decided to go to 'chilli's' on i drive. james loves this place. it does amazing cheesecake, and the beer is 2 for 1! so, thumbs up in our books.

the following day we decided to have a pool day. but by the time we got down to the pool, the heavens had opened.

so we went to get some supplies and came back and enjoyed a thunderstorm from the bacony.,

i had to buy a brolly! couldn't believe it. bad america! we leave the rain behind in the uk! lol

not sure what we did the rest of the day but i don't think we went very far. i think we probably went down i drive and had a gander.

the following day, the weather had improved so it was round the pool again!

when the weather decided to cloud over again, james wanted to take a walk down to the guitar shop on i drive.

i was happy because there was this outside:

awesome!

aand james was happy because there were all these inside:

pumpkin7 · Jul 31, 2011

that night, we had arranged to meet up with my bridesmaid and her family. her dad kindly decided to pick us up because getting to DTD is difficult when your shuttle bus only runs at 7am and 6.30pm. we had previously tried to get the bus back from typhoon lagoon and it tooks us almost 3 hours to get back to the hotel, so we weren't going to rely on the bus service again.

her family treated us to a meal at planet hollywood. we had never been to DTD before, let alone planet hollywood. i did enjoy all the movie memorabelia around, and the food was pretty good too, and not too expensive either!

we were going to go to disney quest, but unfortunately it was shut by the time we got to it. nevermind. we had a blast looking around the shops. the magnet store was cool.

the next day, we decided to try animal kingdom. our one and only trip to the animal kingdom. i think it was probably the rain that ruined it and the fact that we had to buy ponchos! still, the day started out quite bright and we were looking forward to it.

we decided to go for kali river rapids first. as soon as we got on the boat, the heavens opened. we were drenched not only from the rain, but from going on the rapids first! how silly of us. that set us up for the day really. we were wet and miserable.

we thought it would just be a light shower but the rain just carried on. we went around one of the trails, and by the time we had finished, we were soaked, and a bit chilly. so we had to relent and buy ponchos (which we only ended up wearing this day!!)

we went on everest, which was awesome. i think we went on it a few times actually. brilliant ride. i'm not sure what mode the yeti was in because i didn't know the yeti was broken. we did see him though, and i think he was in b mode, but he still scared the crap out of me and hubby lol.

we went on the safari, which was good. very clever how they put that together. most of the animals were out and about, but our guide seemed a bit bored. he kind of ruined some of the experience.

we then made our way over to rafikis planet watch. we thought there would be more over there, but there were lots of characters. the only one that didn't have a queue though was jiminy cricket!

pumpkin7 · Jul 31, 2011

james almost fell asleep in one of those listening booths...

there was plenty to do though. we saw a baby uhm... i can't remember what it was, but they had something hatching out of an egg which was good, and we went into the goat pen.

thankfully the rain had started to let up. james was hungry, but we decided to go over to the carnival section first. we went on the one ride that was in the carnival section. that section was a bit of a suprise. we didn't think disney would have anything like that, because it's so carnival and a money spinner. that's more UK theme parks than disney...
still, we went on dinosaur, which was also good. only one track was open though.

and i think i got a genuine scared look in the photo (top left)

james had seen a lot of people wandering around with chicken legs so we got him one:

it was quite tasty and our only meal of the day. lol.

we then made our way over to the tree of life to catch it's a bugs life.

i took lots of pictures of the carved animals. i think it was really clever how they made the tree. the animals are really cool too.

the show was pretty cool! lots of screams when the spiders appeared, but the hopper animatronic has to be the best animatronic i've ever seen! it's a shame he isn't working at the moment.

anyway, it was about 2pm and we had had enough of animal kingdom, so we decided to make our way over to the magic kingdom.

we did SRS

which i won on, james got some ice cream from the ice cream shop (yum!)

and i took a picture of an ugly skrim

we then made our way back to the hotel and went on this:

which was pretty scary!

pumpkin7 · Jul 31, 2011

next day, with the sky looking like this:

we for some reason decided it would be a good idea to go here:

i didn't take any pictures while we were here, simply because it was raining all day. when it was raining at it's worse, i'm sure we were the only ones in the park. we could pretty much walk onto everything.

we then went to the magic kingdom again the following day (i think, but i think my photos are our of order because i have no more for epcot but we definately went more than once to epcot...)

sunshine! for the first time in 3 days! yay.

we went on most of our favourites, and that night we decided to go the titanic exhibition on i drive. it used to be in the maccardo centre which was recently demolished, and i really enjoyed it so we decided to go to this one.

we were all given identities:

we were led around by an eccentric camp fellow. i can't remember his name but he was very into his role. he made it a lot of fun. there were lots of items from the titanic and it was very informative.

pumpkin7 · Jul 31, 2011

after that, it was back to chillis for dinner and 2 for 1 beer. and i had a cocktail!

next day, back to the magic kingdom! (see what i mean, i don't think we spent so much time in the magic kingdom but oh well)

we were heading over to space mountain and we saw chip and dale! they had just come out and didn't have a queue.

i was wearing my just married badge, and they started fighting over me. one was trying to drag me off in one direction, and the other one wanted a kiss lol..

and then dale was trying to run off with james, and chip tried to leave with me, they were fantastic. the best character interaction i think i've ever had!

we then went on space mountain and got an awesome in ride photo:

we were queuing up to see donald, and these guys came over and started playing the bridal march!

i was dancing and this woman kept trying to invade my personal space:

pumpkin7 · Jul 31, 2011

we then spotted goofy without a queue. for some reason i shook his hand after this photo... it was a weird moment.

and on pirates again (love this ride, and love the new jack sparrow AA's even more!):

and then james decided he was hot, and wanted to cool down. i like this photo. it makes him look a bit strange being surrounded by kids. he's a big kid really.:

we then went up the family robinson tree, which was a first time. not much to say about it really. appart from people keep stopping and taking up the entire gangway so no one could get past.:

and went on the flying carpets. i showed these pictures to one of my mates and she said 'you went all that way to disney world to go on the flying carpets?'... well, yeah, i've never done them before so yeah! :

we then went on jungle cruise, and saw the back side of water. i didn't realise all the skippers had the same jokes... oh well.

and went to have a break and watch dream along with mickey with all the characters on the castle stage. i LOVE the 'new' moving heads. they are so awesome. they're the first thing i told my mom about when we got home lol

just a bit more coming soon.. i promise! lol

Alexx · Jul 31, 2011

Loving the TR so far, it's awesome that you're also from the UK.

Looks like you were having a good time except for the rain