Mickey, Harry Potter, and Shamu Walk Into a Bar

Welcome, y’all, to my trip report. Now some of you may be disappointed in the (somewhat distasteful) name that I chose for this particular trip report, while others may be upset in the lack of actual bars in the trip report. However, you will not be disappointed in the amount of photos, fun, and new adventures that my family went on during our 10 day stay from May 5- 15. I won’t waste too much time on the introductions because I plan on getting into more detail as the report continues.

The cast again, in case you forgot, included: myself (Rachel); husband, Jordan; mom, Disneybird; pops; grandmother; sister, Amanda; brother-in-law, John; nephew, Victor; niece, Julia. Yep, that’s a big ‘ole party to travel with.

Now on with the show.

May 5, 2012

I’m including this day for one very special reason: my husband graduated from college on this day! Three years after returning to school I was very proud to watch my husband walk across the stage to receive his Bachelor’s in Bible and Theology. Many people often ask if I am older than my husband considering that I have my Master’s. He is actually three years older than me, but he lived a much cooler life than I did before he went back to school. He backpacked through Scotland, traveled the country playing music, and traveled to different parts of the world doing missions work. On the other hand, I went to school…fun.

Still, I was very proud to see him receive his diploma, and this entire trip was planned to celebrate his graduation, as well as his new position at the church where we attend. He worked very hard leading right up to graduation. Trust me, writing exegetical papers, memorizing hundreds of years of history from the Nicean Councils, and debating Calvinism vs. Arminianism made for a very exhausting last semester. So, I was excited to spend a relaxing 10 days with a stress free husband.

We were hoping to have an additional reason to celebrate while we were in WDW, as well. Last July I received my Masters of Arts in Teaching. I am certified to teach History 7-12, with an add-on in Language Arts. For the past year I have worked at the high school where I did my year long internship in the testing department and as a tutor in English and U.S. History. Unfortunately, the school did not have a teaching position for me, but I was blessed to have a job regardless. Honestly, the best way to get a job in a school is to stay in the school. Rumors started circulating about three months ago that a position would be opening in the Social Studies Department. The department rallied behind me to be the person to fill the position in case it came open. I even had several meetings with members of the administration to discuss job opportunities. However, as it got closer and closer to our trip it seemed less and less likely that there would be a position open. The week before we left for vacation two different people on two different occasions approached me and suggested that I start looking at other schools for jobs. They were both looking out for my best interests and wanted to make sure that I could find employment. While I appreciated it talk about a devastating blow. On top of it all this came during my busiest week of the year, the week of End of Course testing (I was able to take off the entire next week because my job is based on hours, which I built up enough of during the week of testing.). So, I was so ready to just get out of town and away from the craziness for awhile. I planned on using these 10 days not having to or wanting to think about jobs.

The day and a half leading up to Jordan’s graduation were very hectic in our little household as Jordan’s mother and brother came down from Maryland to stay with us. Packing and resting beforehand became a little rushed. Still, Saturday morning I was ready to pop out of bed and get going with everything. Fortunately, Jordan’s graduation was early in the morning because we had a very long drive ahead of us.

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Blurry but this was the best I could do.

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All smiles afterwards

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Once graduation was over, my parents met us over at our place for lunch before hitting the road. We hit the road around 1:30 for a long journey ahead. The ride down was uneventful, and traffic wasn’t bad at all. We stayed off-site for the night at a Comfort Suites. My mom was nice enough to get Jordan and me our own room for the night. Once we got there we were so excited to be starting our vacation that we literally jumped up and down on the bed.
 

popsicletrees

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
So sorry folks for the lack of updates recently. I was out of town for a week, so I wasn't able to update here, but I did finish writing my report. What I don't finish posting tonight I will put up tomorrow.

After dinner it was absolutely gorgeous outside. We suffered some hot days during our trip, but the evenings and nights were wonderful.

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We meandered back over to WS only this time going through Canada. We watched O’Canada for the first time. We really enjoyed it.



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Yumm!

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popsicletrees

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
No idea what these were but the Japanese have a very interesting way of advertising.

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Mmm, dried out, packaged seafood. Jordan tried to do the stereotypical Japanese tourist pose. It didn’t work out too well.



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We skipped dessert at Coral Reef to get something at the bakery in Norway.

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popsicletrees

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We stopped near Mexico to watch Illuminations. It is still such an amazing show, but for me it took third place to Wishes and Fantasmic during the trip. Afterwards we took the long way out of the park to call it a night.

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popsicletrees

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
May 13, 2012

Today was Sunday and for the first time on vacation to WDW we slept in! No alarm clock today just pure catching up on much needed sleep.

By the time we got up and out it was around 11 when we walked into Animal Kingdom. It was Mother’s Day, so CMs were standing near the entrance handing out carnations to all the moms that came through. Jordan started rubbing my stomach as we were walking by. Not funny.

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Otters!



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Okapi!



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We went through the African Jungle Trek first after our arrival.

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popsicletrees

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Followed by a tour on Kilimanjaro Safari

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We had the pleasure during this ride to see an adorable interaction between a baby elephant and its mother. The driver said that the mother will often show the baby certain things and the baby will be expected to mimic the behavior. So the mother decided to give a little lesson on laying down for the baby.

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Well, as you can see the baby did mimic the behavior by first sitting on the mother’s head. The mother struggled to get out from under the baby. It was quite the site to see. The whole vehicle was roaring with laughter.

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popsicletrees

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
You have some very beautiful pictures! Such wonderful memories! Congratulations by the way!:D
Great pictures! Nice ones of Darth Vader! We had a girl last year, and somehow the experience just wasn't the same.
Beautiful EPCOT pictures and night ones of Fantasmic/DHS.:D
FABULOUS Trip report!:D

Thank you so much for all of your sweet compliments! Yeah, I can see how a girl at Jedi Training would lead to a different experience.
 

popsicletrees

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
After the safari I went to go get fastpasses to Everest and grab lunch for Jordan and me at Yak and Yeti Counter Service.

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He grabbed us a table at an area directly across from Flights of Wonder. We had never seen this show, and we wanted to catch the last show of the day, which was cutting our time to enjoy lunch pretty short.



For lunch I ordered the Beef Lo Mein and loaded it down with some wonderful sirachi. It was absolutely delicious! It was one of my favorite meals of the entire trip. Although I’m not sure if that was because it was that good or at the time I was just that hungry. Both are good possibilities. It was a large portion and since we didn’t have a lot of time to eat I was literally shoveling what I could into my mouth. I even looked at Jordan at one point and told him that he may just need to go on without me. I was not willing to give this thing up. Yeah, I was probably just that hungry, but this will be a go-to for Animal Kingdom food from now on.

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Jordan ordered the Honey Chicken. I was too engorged in mine to even bother with trying his. He ate it all so I ‘m sure it was good.

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After lunch we took a seat for Flights of Wonder. We didn’t take our camera out for much of the show out of fear that we would miss something. My favorite bird was definitely the one who would catch grapes in his beak.



The owl was not cooperating at all, which was sad because apparently this was a big part of the audience participation in this show. She perched in the window for several minutes and would not fly out.

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Finally she did fly but only to fly into the next window, which supposedly was a big no-no as the trainer commented.

The rest of the show was great though, and I am really surprised that this was my first time seeing it. Although I will say that I am glad that I do not have a fear of birds or that show would have been absolute terror to have to sit through as some of those birds flew super close to our heads.
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The bald eagle came out towards the very end of the show and was so stunning to see. However, it did decide to projectile use the bathroom on the stage, and I was very glad that the bird did not fly over our heads during the show.

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popsicletrees

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
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After the trek Jordan and I went back to POR to rest for about an hour before heading out again. EMH were at the Magic Kingdom tonight, so we made dinner reservations at Kona before spending the rest of the night in the Magic Kingdom.

For dinner that night I ordered the Tuna Oscar. I really wish that this came with more of the wasabi hollandaise. The hollandaise added such a nice flavor to the tuna that was otherwise overpowered by the dry rub on the tuna. In reality I’m probably really just butchering this dish by wanting more sauce added to it, but that is the only thing that it seemed to be lacking as far as I’m concerned. The asparagus was just right though.

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To accompany dinner I also ordered the Island Sunset. It was a very girly, fruity frozen beverage, and I loved it! It was a great addition to my meal, and if it wasn’t $8.50 I would have ordered another.

Jordan ordered the Teriyaki-style New York Strip. This one I did take a bit of, and it was as delicious as I remember it from other trips.
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We left with our bellies full and satisfied and entered the Magic Kingdom near 8:00. This was our last time at Magic Kingdom for the trip, and we had 5 hours to make up for some much needed ride time.

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Once we got there we entered into Tomorrowland. Our first choice was Space Mountain, but since the lines were still long because the park was still open, we settled on Monsters Inc.

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I absolutely love this attraction. I’ve never had a “bad” experience here. Jordan was even picked to be the churro guy.
 

popsicletrees

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
After having our laughter harvested for energy, we took a ride on TTA.

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This was followed by another devastating loss on Buzz Lightyear.

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We finished our trip to Tomorrowland with the first of many rides on Space Mountain for the night. At this point I decided to start taking pictures of our on-ride photos. You will see our reel of stupidity peppered throughout the evening’s photos.
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popsicletrees

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
The teacups were next.

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This is blurry but I love his smile in it.

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At this point it was time for Wishes, so Jordan and I grabbed some ice cream and parked it in Fantasyland near Snow White’s Scary Adventure.

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It was great watching the show from this perspective. Once we were cleared to move around we decided to take one last ride on Snow White’s Scary Adventure.

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popsicletrees

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Since we had so many more things to ride and things that I would rather do, Snow White was it for our Fantasyland excursion. I think Jordan wanted to ride Peter Pan’s Flight because he kept asking me if I wanted to do it and if I was sure that I didn’t want to do it, but really the line was so unbelievably long the entire night that it just wasn’t worth the time. Instead we had to ride Haunted Mansion.

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Jordan and I headed to Splash next. I was actually wondering if he would want to ride this again. He didn’t seem to think that the ride was anything other than ‘okay’ when we rode it the other day. However, he was the one who even suggested it and wanted to do it. Fine with me.

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When we got off of the ride we were treated to quite the couple walking ahead of us. I really didn’t know that people still rocked punk looks, but I guess it isn’t lost on some people. Still I was surprised to see these people considering that it was EMH and CMs were checking for room keys. I guess I just wouldn’t consider this to be vacation attire. Now I know that some people have problems with people taking pictures of others and posting them. However, I’m not doing it to make fun but to just point out the bizarre attire and to say that I guess Disney transcends all angst.

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Really blurry but you get the idea.

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CinderMama

Active Member
Beautiful World Showcase photos! Although not so sure about those Japanese snacks! Looks like you had a great time, thanks for sharing.
 

epcotisbest

Well-Known Member
This may be the best trip report I have ever read on here. I shoot with a Nikon D80 and never get photos like this. It may have already been asked, but what camera are you using?
 

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