Lodge-hopping... from the Pacific Northwest to an African Savannah: A July 2009 TR!

Last week we returned from our summer Disney fix so it’s time again for another monster trip report!! This one is sure to dwarf my previous reports in sheer size alone considering it was a 9 night/10 day stay at WDW and all our past trips have ranged from 3-5 night stays. I must say it’s a bit daunting, but I took detailed notes and am ready to relive our adventures (and possibly bore you with all the details)!!

The cast includes myself, Holly; the birthday boy, Brett; his parents, Kathy and Danny; and brother, Derek. Here’s one of the few pictures I have of us all from our December 2008 trip:

The planning stages of this trip went through many variations. So let’s start at the beginning… ever since the “Celebrate” theme was released I wanted to plan a trip for Brett’s birthday. We started putting it into action sometime in early April and not long after we settled on dates and made reservations, Brett’s parents invited us to join them on their summer trip to the Wilderness Lodge Villas. It just so happened to be close to the dates we were already looking at, so we talked about it and decided if we budgeted right we could do a super trip. Woohoo for super trips :sohappy:.

We changed our dates slightly to line up with theirs, and then I cancelled our ADRs and made some new ones. Since we were on a budget we decided a value resort was a must (and we should forego signature dining)… no ifs, ands or buts about it. Or at least that’s what Brett thought… I, however, had other plans! I got it into my head that it would be so cool to surprise him with a deluxe resort so we wouldn’t, you know, be slumming when we left the WL :lol:. Once I had my mind set I practically took up a vigil waiting for the AP resort rates to be released. And when they were I snagged a pool view room at the Animal Kingdom Lodge for our four night stay! Oh yeah… and we couldn’t possibly celebrate his birthday without some wine and signature dining so I made reservations for Jiko!

To make a long story even longer, Brett called me at work one day and told me his parents had to make a slight change to their dates, which meant we would either have to do the same or lose some days of “our” trip. I was freaking out (and couldn’t tell him) because I just knew the AP rate would no longer be available… and it wasn’t. So I started calling once or twice a day, every day. I can still recite the confirmation number! I was in luck though, because after three weeks of calling the AP rate magically reappeared!!! I guess I’m sharing all this basically to say sometimes it pays to be persistent. Let me just tell you… keeping this secret nearly killed me, but it was totally worth it!

Okay, so now that we've gotten all of that out of the way… let us finally begin.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

Ooooh...another update! It's Christmas in August!

I never thought seriously of trying Jiko but after your review I'm thinking this might get added to our list of must-dos. I looove a good filet and mac-n-cheese is a big comfort food that melts right into my very soul. The wine would be lost on me since I've never been able to enjoy the stuff (which I'm convinced is the absolute confirmation that I'm official white trash.. :lol. But if they had beer...well...look out! LOL!

I haven't been able to imagine that animal-watching from our balcony during our upcoming trip will be a big hit with me personally. I just can't sit still long enough to enjoy that sort of thing. However, I expect watching our youngest, Brian, will be all the entertainment I need. He so totally loves animals. Animal Kingdom has been his favorite park and Kilimanjaro Safari has been his favorite attraction from the first time we took him there. I've been having visions of this kid pulling the covers off his bed so he can camp out on the balcony.

Your TR is getting me so pumped for January! Thank you!!!! :sohappy:

 

[KnK]

I make my own perserved lemons. I love to use them in a variety of ways! Tasty!

 

[njDizFan]

So jealous right now seeing you guys eat my favorite meal at my favorite restaurant with one of my favorite wines. It's been way too long since I had a chance to dine at Jiko's. And that Pinotage is a great wine, its a very underrated grape.

Glad you had a great time and loving the TR.

 

[TakeMeThere81]

Still following along Holly! I'm so intrigued by your title, Four Parks, One Birthday! Can't wait to hear how that will pan out!

 

[HollyBelle]

Loving the update Holl!! Man I really want to go to Jiko now, it was never on my list of places to try b/c I am a picky eater, but I think I would like that Filet and mac n cheese!!!

You absolutely cannot go wrong with that filet and mac n cheese and should try it sometime!

Ooooh...another update! It's Christmas in August!

I never thought seriously of trying Jiko but after your review I'm thinking this might get added to our list of must-dos. I looove a good filet and mac-n-cheese is a big comfort food that melts right into my very soul. The wine would be lost on me since I've never been able to enjoy the stuff (which I'm convinced is the absolute confirmation that I'm official white trash.. :lol. But if they had beer...well...look out! LOL!

I haven't been able to imagine that animal-watching from our balcony during our upcoming trip will be a big hit with me personally. I just can't sit still long enough to enjoy that sort of thing. However, I expect watching our youngest, Brian, will be all the entertainment I need. He so totally loves animals. Animal Kingdom has been his favorite park and Kilimanjaro Safari has been his favorite attraction from the first time we took him there. I've been having visions of this kid pulling the covers off his bed so he can camp out on the balcony.

Your TR is getting me so pumped for January! Thank you!!!! :sohappy:

They have beer, so even though you're self-proclaimed white trash I'm sure they'll still accept you! :lol: You should definitely put it on the must-not-miss list! It would make for a great date night for you and the hubby, especially if you have the grandparents there to do something fun with the boys.

I remember your youngest's love for the Animal Kingdom... he's going to be in heaven. The image of him dragging the covers off the bed to camp out on the balcony makes me smile. Because that's what it's all about of course!!

I make my own perserved lemons. I love to use them in a variety of ways! Tasty!

Ooooh... you wanna ship me some?! They're delicious.

So jealous right now seeing you guys eat my favorite meal at my favorite restaurant with one of my favorite wines. It's been way too long since I had a chance to dine at Jiko's. And that Pinotage is a great wine, its a very underrated grape.

Glad you had a great time and loving the TR.

Thanks, njDizFan. I LOVED the pinotage... I hope I can find a decent one at the local Total Wine. Though somehow I don't think it'll be the same without the Jiko ambience and filet!

Still following along Holly! I'm so intrigued by your title, Four Parks, One Birthday! Can't wait to hear how that will pan out!

It's nothing too exciting.... however, we did manage to accomplish our goal! I hope to have the whole day posted soon enough.

 

[HollyBelle]

Day 9, Sunday, July 19: “Four Parks, One Birthday” Day!!!

Birthday day just so happened to be the last full day we had at Disney World. I knew Brett would want to spend the morning at Epcot, seeing as how it’s his favorite park, so I planned Cape May for breakfast that day. At some point, while we were at Epcot we decided it would be fun to visit all four parks for his birthday… this way I could do a scrapbook page playing off of the “Four Parks, One World” theme. Fun! Is it a sign that you have a real problem when you start making decisions based on how the scrapbook will look?!? No wait, don’t answer that.

Anyway, the morning started bright and early when we arrived at the Beach Club for our 7:30 am Cape May reservations. I love early character breakfasts; not only is the food fresher (or at least it is in my mind), but the characters seem to spend more time at the table. I knew they had changed the characters a while back, and took out Chip and Dale to include Donald, but I am a little disappointed they didn’t throw in someone else, too, just because I think there needs to be at least four characters at each of these things.

Donald Duck actually brought Brett a breakfast cupcake and birthday card which was signed by all three characters! He then proceeded to lead us all (myself, a character attendant and a few servers) in a rousing rendition of the Happy Birthday song. As you can see in the scrapbook page below, he was really getting into his role as a conductor (and I’ll give him credit because he was much more successful here than in Philharmagic)! And look at that ooey gooey chocolate cupcake! While it was good, it couldn’t compare to the cupcake at the Plaza.

After such a great start to the morning, we drove over to the front entrance of Epcot and skipped on up to Will Call! “One Birthday Fun Card, please!” :sohappy:

After five short minutes, with birthday fun card in hand, we strolled through the gates and headed for a journey on the miraculous Spaceship Earth. Love it! After SSE we stopped by the Land for Soarin fastpasses, and then headed over to Innoventions to check out the new “Great Piggy Bank Adventure” game. This is officially my favorite thing in Innoventions now. I loved it. And the cast members working the area were fabulous. We got our piggy bank, picked a dream vacation to save for, and off we went. Not only are the games fun, but the fact that you get to carry your piggy around makes it even better.

One of the games we played:

Piggy on a Safe:

After each of the games our piggy bank was safely returned to us… with more money tucked away, of course (oh if only it were this easy). Look, there he is... fat and happy:

Like the Build-A-City game in Project Tomorrow, the Great Piggy Bank Adventure is likely to be one of those games we play at least once during each visit! I definitely recommend you all try it. Silly me, I expected it to be more about saving money, but instead it’s a series of video-style games with some touch screens. It’s a fun little thing to do, and it gets you out of the heat for at least a little while.

 

[HollyBelle]

After saving up all our money :lol:, we decided to get a ticket for another KP adventure as we were on our way out of Innoventions. Next we hit up the Test Track single rider line. Love this ride!

Back across Future World we went to use our fastpasses at Soarin before heading off to World Showcase to find out which country we’d be helping Kim save next. On our way we ran into Marie again. Of course we just had to stop, especially considering she was hiding out in the corner with no line:

Turns out Kim needed our help in Norway! This one was a lot of fun. I think girls will especially love it because the villain, Camille Leon, is rather chic and trendy!

"Shhhh…. I think Camille Leon’s just around the corner and we can’t risk giving up our location":

After we turned in our kimmunicator, we took off for the Universe of Energy. While for us it’s not the top attraction at Epcot, we do enjoy it. Mostly this has to do with my love/hate relationship with Alex Trebek… all one sided of course. You see, Brett gets the biggest kick out of my distaste for the way Trebek treats the contestants on Jeopardy and it’s become somewhat of a joke between us. I’m not an avid fan of the show but every once in a while we’ll catch an episode and my “hate” stems from the fact that I always find Trebek to be so condescending and patronizing towards the contestants, and in so many different ways… the obvious being when he corrects a wrong answer. But on the flip side, his personality is what makes the show entertaining for me. I end up laughing my head off because his pompous and holier-than-thou attitude is hilarious, albeit rather demeaning! So anyway… pair that with some dinosaurs and Stupid Judy and you’ve got a winner!

We were starting to get a little hungry for Beaches & Cream so we headed out to the car and back over to the Beach Club for lunch. We were seated at the bar as always; the only time we’ve ever ended up at a table was when we were with Brett’s family. We like the bar though and always get our usual burgers with fries; it’s another one of those Disney lunches we’ve grown quite accustomed to… dare I say it’s becoming tradition! However, this was the first of many trips to the soda shop where we didn’t receive stellar service. While we usually recognize most of the servers, I think this one was fairly new and she just wasn’t very friendly, or all that attentive. No birthday love for Brett, either. We did have front row seats to witness a busser training session that wasn’t going so well for the newbie. But he wasn’t the one I was feeling sorry for. The poor guy who had to train him had an abundance of patience. For us, it started to get quite comical after awhile, although it was clear that wasn’t the case for either party involved. The kid was a mess. And I don’t expect that we'll see him on our next trip. :lol:

I sure must have been hungry because I didn’t take any pictures while we were there. Oops. Please forgive me.

 

[HollyBelle]

One thing I’ve decided I don’t like about split stays (this was our first true split stay), is that we didn’t seem to have the opportunity to really soak up either resort in full. Had we been staying at values or even moderates I don’t think this would have bugged me that much, but both lodges have so much to offer that I felt we were robbing ourselves of time at the resorts. I mean, it was our last full day and we hadn’t even spent time at Uzima Springs; something I had envisioned us doing a lot of when I was in the planning stages for this trip. So, just to add one more element to our already packed birthday day…. we took off for the lodge to get in some pool time.

"Hey look, there's our room. No, not that one... the one behind the really big tree!" :lol::

Ack! There’s a monkey on my back!

The Uzima Springs slide has nothing on the one at Samawati Springs:

The Animal Kingdom Lodge is crawling with hidden mickeys:

While we were in the pool the clouds rolled in and it got dark… time again for an afternoon shower. I swear, it was like clockwork; a little bit of rain every afternoon or early evening and then clear as could be. As we were heading back to our room via the stairwell at the edge of the Uzima Savannah we saw one of the cast members feeding the vultures. Holy smokes they tore those chicken bones apart… fair warning that you might want to stay on your side of the fence. :lookaroun

 

[HollyBelle]

We didn’t have a lot of time to knock out park # 2 on our list: the Animal Kingdom. I’m betting you can guess what we were headed there for… Mickey’s Jammin Jungle parade! I just had to get those pictures! Brett dropped me off at the guest drop off area so I could hurry in and get a decent spot up near the ropes for my pictures. I found a great location right in front of the Tree of Life and Brett got there almost immediately. We passed the time by watching the CMs play Pictionary with the kids. Cheap entertainment. When the parade finally got to us all the people to our left stayed seated (it was mostly a huge tour group). This was great because I then had an unobstructed view of everyone and everything as they came our way. Even better… because there was hardly anyone standing, when the characters came towards the crowd to greet people they almost always hugged us, kissed me and/or high fived Brett…. Woohoo character love!

Loved the day’s grand marshals… these ladies were definitely having the most fun of all the families we saw in the parade. Some members of families even looked like someone had to twist there arm to get them to do it. No wonder they thought Brett and I were a little over the top with excitement the day before:

The coolest thing about the parade was that the CM who picked us the day before was actually in it. I didn’t realize the entertainment CMs trade off with each other when it comes to finding families to participate. I guess this mainly threw me off because both times he picked us he was dressed in the yellow/white shirts the character attendants wear. It never crossed my mind that CMs would switch back and forth between these two roles. He even recognized us; we could tell because he was looking around and waving and then all of a sudden we saw that look of recognition and got a genuine smile and hello. I got a great picture of him when the lightbulb went off. He’s our guy! After all he did pick us twice for the parade:

If anybody out there knows this CM, please pass along the picture!

After the parade, which I think is now a must-see for all our trips; we took Brett’s obligatory Four Parks, One Birthday picture in front of the Tree of Life and then took off for the Studios.

 

[HollyBelle]

Our dinner reservations were at 7 pm so we didn’t really have a lot of time at the Studios and none of the things we wanted to do (like TSMM, RNR or ToT) could be accomplished in the allotted time frame so we took off for the Magic of Disney Animation building because it was just after 5 pm. Who knows… maybe there’ll be some different characters over there.

For the most part the sets were all the same, with a few minor differences. For example, Stitch and Friar Tuck were missing and the Sheriff of Nottingham was switching out with Ratcliffe. We got to witness some great Ratcliffe moments, including his freak out when a teen girl asked the CM “Who’s that?” and pointed at him when he was only two feet away. He puffed out his chest even more so and walked around acting as if the girl had committed treason. Also, he was standing over near the door in the corner that says “Cast Member’s Only,” just hanging out, when someone actually tried to exit through it. He stopped the guy and clearly explained to him, in no uncertain terms, that he wasn’t special enough to go back there. His way of explaining things without actually talking was downright hilarious.

Ol Bushel Britches was collecting taxes:

We got in line to meet Goofy and Max again and they were trying to get the 4 year old in front of us to dance because it was his birthday. The kid wasn’t having it, but when it was our turn, Brett was willing to oblige as it was his birthday, too. It was great. They had a little dance off… old school style, where each participant hops in the middle of the circle to show his skills. In my opinion, Max won when he started moonwalking:

After the competition, they came together to do a little “wax on, wax off”:

I had to get in there for some fun so we started playing that game where everyone constantly tries to make sure his/her hand is on top of the pile; Look at Goofy sneaking his hand out of the pile for the win:

Brett’s turn to get some chipmunk love… boys will be boys:

 

[HollyBelle]

When we left the Studios we stopped back by the resort quickly enough to change clothes... we had decided we weren’t quite dressed right for dinner. Then we took off for the Contemporary where we checked in at The Wave. This was our first time having dinner here and I thoroughly enjoyed it; I really love the organic theme and whole farm-to-table approach they take. Our meals were absolutely delicious and the service was exceptional. Again, the restaurant wasn’t packed out so I’m worried about its staying power. We loved it though.

At some point in our trip, Brett had been reading the complimentary DVC “Dreams” magazine that was in our room and there was a whole article in it on wine and how Disney has become a wine-lover’s haven. They mentioned five restaurants by name. The two obvious ones were the Napa Rose (at Disneyland) and the California Grill, which put Disney on the wine map. The others they included were Jiko for its abundance of South African varieties, Artist Point for doing the same for wineries from the Pacific Northwest… and The Wave. The last one really surprised me. Apparently, because the approach at The Wave is modern American with Southern hemisphere tastes, they’ve decided to buck tradition and serve only wines that come in screw-cap bottles, which is kind of crazy when you think about it, because the popular public opinion on screw caps is that they're for cheap wine only. Plus, I think there are a lot of uppity wine folks that turn their noses up at the idea of screw caps. While I don’t have a problem with them, I do like the ritual of uncorking a bottle of wine, which is kind of taken away from you when you buy wines with screw caps. However, it’s a nice trade off, especially if you’ve ever tasted cork-tainted wine. Ick.

I apologize for the tangent… I went through all of that basically to say that I just had to have a glass of wine here! So I had it narrowed down to two and just couldn’t decide. Usually when this happens I take the advice of our server. Well, in this case she just offered to bring them both out for me to sample, that way I could make my own decision. Smart girl… her tip just went up! So I picked out a delicious Shiraz and Brett ordered a yummy organic pale ale draft. For dinner I had the day’s sustainable fish with edamame, corn and cilantro chutney. It was a perfect piece of salmon:

Brett had the cinnamon rubbed pork with honey roasted veggies. He loved it. I will say though, I found it a bit odd that it was served already cut into a couple pieces:

After dinner our server brought out the dessert menu, but it was all for naught because rather than coming back to see if we’d like to order anything she came back with one of the “sweet temptations” desserts and a birthday card. From left we have a chocolate passion fruit mousse, passion fruit coconut panna cotta, and a cheesecake with raspberry coulis:

Let me just say, I don’t usually like coconut, but that panna cotta was so freaking delish!

Okay, so recall my talking about Brett’s Jiko card being really detailed… I’ve got an even better one for you. But we’re going to play a little game with this one; the one where someone says something and you say the first thing that pops into your mind?!


Ready?


Here we go.


Quick... what’s the first thing you think of when you look at this card?

Yeah… me too! :ROFLOL:

King Triton’s castle was mild compared to this; his castle only had one such spire… this one is littered with them! We got to laughing so hard as we were talking about it; we’re thinking it had to be somewhat intentional and the servers must get a big laugh out of it because they have to draw up and sign so many of these each night. They really do go all out with these cards!

So, overall, I was super impressed with The Wave. It felt like we received the same level of service (and taste) we’ve come to expect at signature dining restaurants, but didn’t have to cough up quite as much dough to pay for it. Sweet.

 

[HollyBelle]

By the time we got into park # 4, the Magic Kingdom, it was already about 8:30 pm. We took our last “Four Parks, One Birthday” picture in front of the castle (hopefully I’ll have the scrapbook page and others up on the scrapbook forum sometime soon now that my free time won’t be consumed with writing this report)!

We headed off to Frontierland in the hopes that we could grab a fastpass for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. We were in luck… they still had some left. Then we hopped on some of the Adventureland rides and spent some time enjoying the land in general before heading over to the Country Bear Jamboree. There were all of about 12 people waiting for the show to begin. Sad. The CM was great, though. After he let us into the theatre, he came in and made us all stand up, roar like bears and give bear hugs to the ones we were with just to get us in the right frame of mind!

We hurriedly took off for BTMRR to use our fastpasses. I was super excited because I had yet to ride it all trip and it didn’t disappoint! We were lucky enough to be seated in the very last row… my favorite! And in my opinion the ride is way better at night so it was perfect! From there we headed to the Haunted Mansion. After getting through the turnstiles we could see that the second showing of Spectro was over and a mob of people were rushing towards the line. Luckily they let us (and two or three other families) into the mansion and closed the doors before the masses arrived. Why does the Haunted Mansion seem better at night? Is anyone with me on this one? I mean, it doesn’t really make sense because once inside, the ride is the same either way… but even knowing that, I still enjoy it more at night. When we exited, the line was stretching back towards the Hall of Presidents. Good timing for us. We hit up Fantasyland next to ride a few things and watch PhilharMagic.

Then we decided to head out... after all, we had to pack up because our super trip was finally coming to an end.


I hope to have the last part up sometime tomorrow!

 

[Pluto Princess]

Wow that sounds like quite a way to spent a B-day! It looks like you guys had an awsome time. I'm sad that your report is almost to an end though!

Also I am glad to hear how much you enjoyed the Great Piggy Bank Adventure. I too really enjoyed it when we were there last week it was really fun. The funniest part though was during the first game when our pig got stuck in the machine and then ended up coming out backwards!
At first we just thought it was a little funny, but then to see the expression on the CM's face as she watched it and told us in a really shocked voice that she had never seen anything like that before was pretty funny.

Great report Holly! :sohappy:

 

[sleepybear]

Quick... what’s the first thing you think of when you look at this card?

Yeah… me too! :ROFLOL:

King Triton’s castle was mild compared to this; his castle only had one such spire… this one is littered with them! We got to laughing so hard as we were talking about it; we’re thinking it had to be somewhat intentional and the servers must get a big laugh out of it because they have to draw up and sign so many of these each night. They really do go all out with these cards!

OK, funniest thing I've seen all day. Quite possibly the week.

 

[KnK]

Ooooh... you wanna ship me some?! They're delicious.

I'd be happy to. Just remember they take a month to cure, but last over a year once they have cured!.

 

[disneygirl1]

Loving the update!!! So excited to try cape May cafe for the 1st time this trip!!! Oh... And the birthday card, too freaking hilarious!!! :ROFLOL:

 

[meeskamickey]

Great trip report! I love all of the pictures! Your trip reports are always great...and let me say you give out great info! Thanks for the awesome report!

 

[HollyBelle]

Wow that sounds like quite a way to spent a B-day! It looks like you guys had an awsome time. I'm sad that your report is almost to an end though!

Also I am glad to hear how much you enjoyed the Great Piggy Bank Adventure. I too really enjoyed it when we were there last week it was really fun. The funniest part though was during the first game when our pig got stuck in the machine and then ended up coming out backwards!
At first we just thought it was a little funny, but then to see the expression on the CM's face as she watched it and told us in a really shocked voice that she had never seen anything like that before was pretty funny.

Great report Holly! :sohappy:

Yep... loved the Great Piggy Bank Adventure. I really like that they give you an actual piggy bank to carry around, adding a tactile sense to the game... too funny that yours got stuck! Thank you, Pluto Princess... I hope to see your trip report pop up here soon.

OK, funniest thing I've seen all day. Quite possibly the week.

Yeah, we thought so too! The server had just left our table and Brett was already laughing when he showed it to me... it took me all of two seconds to figure out why. :ROFLOL:

I'd be happy to. Just remember they take a month to cure, but last over a year once they have cured!.

I appreciate the offer KnK, but I wouldn't do them justice once I had them anyway!

Loving the update!!! So excited to try cape May cafe for the 1st time this trip!!! Oh... And the birthday card, too freaking hilarious!!! :ROFLOL:

In my opinion, Cape May has a better buffet than some of the others... well, Chef Mickey's is the only one that comes to mind (not a big fan of it). And it seems that because Cape May isn't as popular, you get a little more time with the characters.

Great trip report! I love all of the pictures! Your trip reports are always great...and let me say you give out great info! Thanks for the awesome report!

Thank you, meeskamickey. I'm glad to hear that they're informative as well as self-indulgent.

 

[HollyBelle]

Day 10, Monday, July 20: Check-out/Studios/MK

After we got up and ready for the day, we packed up the last minute things and called bell services to hold our luggage until later in the afternoon when we would come back for it. It was the only dreary and rainy morning of our whole trip, which seems fitting since it was departure day and all.

Our plan was to go to the Studios so we could hit up the thrill rides and then see where the day took us from there. It was just after 8 am, so we took our sweet time checking out, thinking we would have plenty of time to get to DHS before opening. For whatever reason, I had it in my head that a different park had morning EMH. Nope. It was the Studios. Brett realized my mistake when he picked up a times guide to peruse.

Basically, what this means is we missed out on Toy Story Midway Mania. By the time we got to the park (8:30 or so), fastpass distribution was already close to lunchtime. Drat. No TSMM for us. Oh well. We headed down Sunset Boulevard and got in line for the Tower of Terror. We were standing in the interior queue (after the library) and overheard a conversation taking place between a mother and son behind us. I’d guess the kid was probably in middle school. He was going on and on about how Islands of Adventure was more fun and exciting than pixie dust; mom wasn’t saying much though. They ended up sitting right behind us on the elevator and it was so funny because as soon as the elevator doors opened to the first scene, I heard the kid gasp “Cool… this is like a ride and a movie!” Mom’s very matter-of-fact response, “Yeah, this is Disney… you’ll learn someday!” Awesome.

We utilized the single rider line on Rock ‘n’ Rollercoaster before going to the Writer’s Stop to grab a quick breakfast.

There was a tray of chocolate disks you could pop on desserts to sweeten any celebration and they were so cute. We of course couldn’t do chocolate for breakfast and instead ordered a big ol’ sugar cookie and dessert style muffin to share. :lol: Isn’t it fun how a cupcake can become a muffin just by switching the name and coating the top in sugar granules instead of icing?! A clever way to pass itself off as breakfast food!!!

From the Writer’s Stop we headed over to MuppetVision 3D. We had an important purchase to pick up at the Muppet Stuff store!

We don’t buy a lot of “souvenir” type stuff at the World. Brett will buy t-shirts every now and then when he finds one he likes, and we pick up 2-4 pins on each trip (usually they have some type of meaning with regards to the trip), but that’s really the extent of it. However, there’s one big exception. Obviously, as you all know, we love the characters. I also happen to be a huge fan of plush, always have been. And over time, from trip to trip, Brett has bought me all the classic characters and one comes down off the bookshelves to accompany us on each trip… as you’re all already aware, this trip it was Chip and Dale (a package deal).

Once we’d come to the realization that we didn’t need any more we started collecting the small plush ($10-14 range). They get showcased once a year at Christmastime; they’re the “ornaments” on our all Disney plush Christmas tree. The little guys sit back on the branches amid the lights perfectly. It’s really cool, because it’s kind of like opening up boxes of regular ornaments… where you reminisce about how they came about.

So each trip we purchase four Tree Friends, as they’re now affectionately known. Anytime we can, we pick out ones that are “connected” to the individual trip somehow. For example, on our marathon trip, Runner Mickey was an obvious choice. We’re also trying to complete “collections” of characters, buying one on each trip. We’re about to wrap up the 100 Acre Wood collection (Pooh, Eeyore, Tigger, Rabbit, Owl, Kanga & Roo, and Piglet) and decided the next collection we’re going to get would be the Muppets! LOVE the Muppets.

First up from the Muppet collection… the Swedish Chef! “Bork! Bork! Bork!”

Of course, they each have to have a purchase portrait!

 

[HollyBelle]

There wasn’t a lot else we wanted to do at the Studios so we left and headed over to the Magic Kingdom for a little while. As soon as we got there we ended up caught up in the “Move It! Shake It! Celebrate It!” party. When I first heard about this idea, I was quite against it, and thought it would be an eye sore in the park. But after walking by it a couple times on this trip and seeing how many people get to “participate” I’m starting to think it’s not so bad.

Dale on our dreary departure day:

We took off towards Fantasyland where I asked a CM if the White Rabbit was rumored to make an appearance anytime soon; we’d seen him earlier on the trip and didn’t have a chance to stop. Sure enough he was. So we waited around a bit for him.

“I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date. No time to say ‘Hello.’ Goodbye. I’m late, I’m late, I’m late!”

Time certainly wasn’t on our side anymore… and it was ticking by all too quickly. So we wandered over to Tomorrowland to see if we could hop on Buzz Lightyear. The wait was crazy long so we got in Stitch’s line instead. The CM just happened to take the picture as we were all preparing ourselves to look lovely:

Soon enough we found ourselves on Main Street. Even though we were walking at the slowest pace we’ve ever walked, we eventually found ourselves at the Confectionary, picking out some last minute goodies to take home with us. Brett loves Minnie’s Bakeshop cookies and I’m a big fan of the small tins of mints. Unfortunately, it looks like they’re doing away with the small tins. All I could find were the bigger, character shaped mints.

Minnie’s Bakeshop display:

Buh-bye Magic Kingdom… looks like you’ll have to find a way to continue celebrating without us:

We headed over to the Polynesian for one of our favorite lunches at the Kona Café! Here we are waiting in the lobby to be seated. For once we were hoping they'd take their time before calling our names, as we were in no hurry to get this show on the road:

Of course we drug lunch out as long as we possibly could. We even ordered dessert… after Brett’s whirlwind birthday weekend it was weird actually paying for it! We love the white chocolate cheesecake they serve there. It’s usually one of the few desserts we ever order: