Clear Skies, Full Bellies...Can't Lose! A September 2012 Trip Report

mamamouse · Oct 15, 2012

OMg I remember reading your last report oh i'm excited for this one now!!!!

plaz10 · Oct 15, 2012

Ready to roll...

Not before long we were seeing this sight...

We got to Port Orleans French Quarter at about 9:30 AM.

We planned on changing into our park clothes and dumping our bags with bell services and heading to Animal Kingdom. To our surprise – our room was ready! SCORE. Love this place already. Our room was 4229 – the best location ever. A stone’s throw from the food court – a 60 second walk from the pool and the bus stops. FANTASTIC.

We went up to our room to check it out and drop off our stuff.

Welcoming Mardi Gras beads!

View from outside our door...

View to the right...The food court building!

plaz10 · Oct 15, 2012

And then our tummies were rumbling and we decided what better way to start a stay at POFQ than with some delicious beignets. But first a look around the food court...

Mecha Lecha High...Mecha Hiney Ho...

Doesn't that remind you of Jambi from Pee Wee's Playhouse?

Now time for the signature POFQ treat...

They were just as delicious as Disney lore said they would be!

plaz10 · Oct 15, 2012

We decided to look around a little more. We really fell in love with the grounds at POFQ - and the fact that you could explore all the grounds in about 10 minutes!

Am I the only one that things these alligators are a little creepy? I picture him saying "Hellllooooo" in a creepy old man butler voice. If that makes any sense...

Then it was back to the room to change and head out to Animal Kingdom. To get it out of the way! I mean..to start our vacation!

[For those of you who DIDN’T read my last trip report – I am not an Animal Kingdom fan. I’m not really an animal fan so that could be why I don’t particularly enjoy this park. I find about 3 rides worthwhile and I could really take them or leave them. And I had my mind set on leaving them. But my fiancé really wanted to go and said “we’re there for 8 days…we can spare one afternoon for Animal Kingdom.” Yes, dear. An afternoon. NOT a precious Disney morning.]

On the bus heading to Animal Kingdom

This was our first time pre purchasing a Disney photopass so we decided to maul the photographer when we got there.

Pshhh...like we didn't know Stitch was gonna jump out of that box.

plaz10 · Oct 15, 2012

We had the intentions of getting a FP for Kilimanjaro Safari but there was no need since there was no one there so we walked right on! SIMBA ONE...aw I liked that cheesy story.

My attempt at being artsy...

Hey there little buddy...you're getting kinda close, aren't ya?

Rhinos are so fat. It makes them cuter.

plaz10 · Oct 15, 2012

As we got off the Safari and were planning our next move...it started to rain a bit. So what’s a girl to do? Head to the Dawa bar of course! An African margarita was the drink of choice today…

DELICIOUS. And totally distracting me from the drizzling rain on my first day at Disney. Oh well. We donned our rain jackets and headed over to Everest.

It was still raining a little when we got into the queue – we figured it would let up by the time we got on the ride…well it was a walk on. So we rode Everest with a little bit of drizzle.

Woo Everest is great…Everest is fun…then it goes backwards and Jess is done! Blah the backwards part on Everest always makes me sick. I think it was a combo of wearing a jacket in 80 degree weather plus a little alcohol plus going backwards in complete darkness that put me on my @$$ after Everest. You know those “rocks” right outside of the gift shop exit? Well I was laying on them. LAYING ON THEM. No shame. I felt like complete crap. I didn’t think I could make it to a bench. So I sat down and then laid back on my backpack for a pillow. Sprawled out on the rocks. Again I say…no shame. People were coming out of the shop saying “Aw poor girl” and “Aw I know how she feels.” YES it was a display of motion sickness and I had zero shame in staking claim to those rocks. Yikes. Bill was trying to comfort me and instead of saying thank you I said “take some pictures.”

This is what I got.

plaz10 · Oct 15, 2012

So eventually I got the strength to start walking. I figured I needed some food so we headed to Flame Tree BBQ. I had no appetite but I knew I needed something in my belly (that wasn’t alcohol or donuts as that is all I’d eaten)

Flame Tree! I had the BBQ pulled pork sandwich and Bill had the turkey sandwich. Both were very good. I only ate half my sandwich but it was better than no sandwich.

I loved the Halloween cups!

Bill got the key lime dessert. I got a bottle of water for my dessert.

Gorgeous view of the Forbidden Yeti that just kicked my @$$

At this point I’m feeling pretty craptastic. No substantial food + no sleep = grumpy, nauseated Jess. So we nixed Finding Nemo the musical. BUT I couldn’t leave…I had a Disney snack to cross off my list! Even though I had no appetite – I would eat through the pain. Because this was my only time at AK and I must try…the Brownie Paw.

So very rich but very tasty. Could have used a glass of cold milk to wash that baby down! Big thanks to Darolyn for the great reviews of the brownie that put it on my must try list that led to it being in my belly. So thanks to you, dear!

plaz10 · Oct 15, 2012

On our way out we did something else we’ve never done…VINYLMATION TRADING. Now I jumped on this bandwagon at the nudging of Hollybelle because it looked pretty fun. So to prepare I bought 2 vinylmations off Ebay for $5 each (free shipping) and decided we’d trade around until we found something we liked. I don’t have a picture of the first one we traded away but it was the Green Thumb one. And if you trade at all you’ve seen it in the boxes because nobody wants him. We traded him for this dude.

And whenever talking about him I called him Maestro Mickey Mouse (in the Minnie mouse voice from Philharmagic) The other EBay one we had brought was a cruise line one.

Back to the resort for some much needed nap time. When I woke up – I felt fantastic! So we showered and got ready for the vacation to actually start…because now it was time for

EPCOT Center. Oh be still my beating heart. Spaceship Earth you bring a tear to my eye. This is just the first of many SSE photo shoots. I just can’t get enough of that beautiful geosphere.

Awwww "Our" fountain where Bill proposed...

O-M-G we love Spaceship Earth so much! Haha!

Thanks Lady who saw us s-t-ruggling and decided to help us out.

So naturally it would be our first ride. And yes – I cried. I couldn’t believe I was back after more than a year of waiting. At this wonderful place, on this wonderful ride with my wonderful fiancé in tow…it was just magical.

Then we walked over to The Land...Dinner tonight was at Garden Grill

We wanted to ride Living with the Land so when we rotated through each scene we could be like HEY we were just there.

And then we checked in at Garden Grill. Told about 10 minutes.

plaz10 · Oct 15, 2012

So we took our buzzer downstairs and took some food photos at Sunshine Seasons.

A few minutes later and it was time to eat! This was our first time eating at Garden Grill. It was one of Bill’s choices for dinners (he gets 2 choices…from a list that is pre-approved by yours truly!) We were prepared to ask for seating on the lower tier but we got it anyway so we didn’t have to ask. Yay. First up were Chip n Dale.

Then the Big Cheese himself

Then his trusty pup Pluto

plaz10 · Oct 15, 2012

All before the food came. This I like! So we had some bread with maple butter (REALLY GOOD)

Salad

Fish, Turkey and Beef

And for dessert was berry cobbler with ice cream

Dessert was just OK but the food itself was surprisingly good! And the character interaction was great as well. But the service was mighty slow. That’s OK we have all WEEK to explore the rest of EPCOT

We took a few more photos and then we were outta there.

It was Extra Magic hours until midnight that night. We started off by walking on Journey into Imagination.

We walked directly onto the ride and had our pick of seats. The CM even said “oh sorry about the wait.” We were the only ones in our car as you see (Yep – I used my flash. There was no one around I promise!)

mamamouse · Oct 15, 2012

Oh My DAROLYN"s grounded lol she never told me about this yummy treat

plaz10 · Oct 15, 2012

We were heading over to Nemo when we checked our Line wait App to see that Soarin’s wait time was 15 minutes? Hello! We’re there. 15 minute wait it was not…

MORE LIKE ZERO MINUTE WAIT! We walked right on the ride. Got off and walked right on again. By this time Illuminations was over and more people were filtering in but yes 2 walk on rides of Soarin on the first night! WOOOOO!

Then to the Seas with Nemo. (Walk on as per usual) {Angler fish was not working.}

Look Hol, no kids!

Rest assured I had to wait until kids got off to take the photo...and some jumped up shortly after...

Then to Mission:Space.

I really enjoy this ride. We had the capsule to ourselves as we would for every other Mission to Mars during our stay.

As we headed out of the park…we had to ride SSE one last time (ride #2) because it’s the best. Then we headed back to POFQ. We were in bed at 11:45pm.

Fantastic first (second half of the) day! No lines in EPCOT and a fantastic meal! Loved it! Off to bed for we had an early dinner in EPCOT the next morning! I fell asleep as visions of Figment and Donald Duck and Trolls and Unknown Egyptians danced in my head…

plaz10 · Oct 15, 2012

mamamouse said:
OMg I remember reading your last report oh i'm excited for this one now!!!!

mamamouse said:
Oh My DAROLYN"s grounded lol she never told me about this yummy treat

Thanks! I hope I don't disappoint you! Oh Darolyn definitely steered me towards the right direction on that one. It's at the Kusafiri Bakery. Totally worth the stop!

SDisney90 · Oct 15, 2012

Wonderful TR, great pictures. How was pre ordering the Photopass CD? Was it worth it?

DisneyDebNJ · Oct 16, 2012

Loving your TR!! Looking forward to updates

Ariel484 · Oct 16, 2012

Hi Jess! Love the report so far!

Geez, it seems like everyone is staying at French Quarter lately. I'm definitely going to need to check it out, it looks so pretty in pictures. I'm with you on the creepy gators though...and aren't there, like, creepy jesters around too? Hmm, I think I remember why I haven't visited French Quarter yet.

That Brownie Paw looks amazing!...NOM.

plaz10 · Oct 16, 2012

SDisney90 said:
Wonderful TR, great pictures. How was pre ordering the Photopass CD? Was it worth it?

It's probably not something we will use again until we have kids...but our main purpose for using it was that we plan to use photos of us in Disney for our 'Save the Dates' for the wedding. There are a lot of photopass CMs at the normal picture spots so you get a lot of photos. But I wouldn't get it every trip.

DisneyDebNJ said:
Loving your TR!! Looking forward to updates

Thank you so much for reading!

Ariel484 said:
Hi Jess! Love the report so far!

Geez, it seems like everyone is staying at French Quarter lately. I'm definitely going to need to check it out, it looks so pretty in pictures. I'm with you on the creepy gators though...and aren't there, like, creepy jesters around too? Hmm, I think I remember why I haven't visited French Quarter yet.

That Brownie Paw looks amazing!...NOM.

Shannon! Yeah French Quarter...it's where the cool kids go. hahaha! But not only is it pretty but SMALL. In a good way! Not a lot of walking or dealing with lots of people. But yeah...CREEPY GATORS for sure.

And the Brownie Paw is really good. But definitely had to share it with Bill...so rich!

Blueskyze · Oct 16, 2012

Loving your TR so far! What a great tradition of going to see a musical on your birthdays, that's awesome. I'm glad to hear that you liked Garden Grill. I made an ADR for our next trip, but I was considering changing it. I love POFQ, too! And yay for Vinylmation trading - I'm addicted to them. Can't wait to read more!

wiigirl · Oct 16, 2012

Love your pics!

Clear Skies, Full Bellies...Can't Lose! A September 2012 Trip Report

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