Trip Report Oh, the Places We go, The People We See

Welcome to my newest Trip Report. For those who don’t know me, I am Jen.

That’s my Daughter Claire with me.



We just got back from an amazing vacation with several family members.

We traveled Nov. 1st thru the 15th, 2012. We rested our headed at 6 different places on this trip, and though it wasn’t always easy to keep moving from place to place, I am happy to have tried some new resorts out and stayed at some familiar ones as well.



This trip came about over a year ago. My Mom’s cousin Vicki wanted to take a trip with her and my Aunt Mary. Her Daughter Katie also wanted to come along.

After some talking and planning it became a group of 16 traveling. I was elected ring leader since I have quite a bit of Disney experience.

Plans were made, some were changed, and some were a little slower at making decisions than others.

My husband Skip is what is known in the Disney groups as a resistor and he decided NOT to come along. He was not so happy about the amount of time I was going to be gone.



The dates for the cruise were set first, Nov 4 through the 8th on the Disney Dream. We all planned to arrive a day early and stay at the Residence Inn near the port. Soon I decided that I must add a few Disney days, and so did everyone else eventually. I thin decide…heck lets add some more, and Claire and I ended up staying 3 more days after the rest left.

Then after doing some research and with a heads up from my good Dis-friend Carey, I was alerted to the fact that the last Halloween party was on Nov. 2nd. How could I pass that chance up? So Claire and I decided to fly in a day earlier than everyone else to hit that party. Claire and I also decided to fly out of Columbus. My family lives near the Toledo, OH area, and the best direct flights are out of Detroit. My youngest sister, who was not going on the cruise, lives in Columbus, and I was able to get a decent priced direct flight from there, so Claire and I drove down Nov. 1 and spent the night before our early flight.



Plans were finally all set in stone and we just had to wait for our time to arrive. Not an easy task, but we all managed.



Let me introduce you to the crew. This is a picture of a picture. My sister has the CD with the actual digital copy, but hasn’t yet loaded it to the computer, so I had to go with this for now till I can get a copy.

In the back row, left to right, we have my parents, Joe and Paula, next to them is my Uncle Geoff. Next to Geoff is cousin Vicki and her son in law Thad. Next to Thad is Pete, Vicki’s husband and then me. Aunt Mary is on the end, she is married to Uncle Geoff and my Mother’s sister.

Down towards the front, left to right, is my nieces Alexis and Abby with their parents Rob and Gail. Gail is my sister. Front and center is Claire. Behind Claire are Jude, and Katie. Katie is married to Thad and is Pete and Vicki’s Daughter. And then we have baby Luke in the stroller. He is only about 9 months old and what a cutie he is.



This trip had the usual ups and downs that most every family will have, but I have to admit things went much smoother than I planned. We never felt the need to kill each other for the most part. LOL

We had several cruise newbies and several Disney World newbies as well.



Please join me in reliving a very magical trip with all the places we traveled and all the people we met along the way!

 

[jenseib]

Claire wanted to take another ride on EE.

The standby line wasn’t too long either and moved fairly fast.








Soon it was our turn. I forgot to change the settings on the camera and took this picture. It was very weird looking and over exposed. But as I darkened it a bit it came out kind of neat looking.

 

[jenseib]

We had another fun and exciting ride.

We had a late breakfast ADR at Tusker house today, so we slowly made our way back over in that direction.

 

[jenseib]

We did a little bit of browsing.


The line to check into Tusker House was SUPER long. It was unreal. So a little after 10 we got in line for our 10:30 ADR.

It took quite a while to get through. They had a couple people checking people in, but they seemed clueless. Let’s just say this process annoyed me so much that I doubt I’ll ever go back there.
Once we got checked in they told me to go back and wait for Donald. I told them I didn’t want to wait for Donald, we just wanted to eat, so they told me to take my ticket inside and give it to someone.
So that is what I did. Only the people inside told me I wasn’t called yet, I had to see Donald first to get another ticket. I don’t want to see Donald, we want to eat. By the Way Donald’s line was at least another 20 minute wait. We weren’t going to get the picture, so I wasn’t wasting the time and Claire didn’t want to wait in it either.
Finally someone points me to a podium and tells me to check with them. So I go there and tell them I am supposed to hand my ticket in so we can be on the list to be seated. They tell me, you need to see Donald first. UGH! I don’t want to see FREAKING Donald….we want to eat!
This guy was confused too but finally was able to make a ticket switch and get us on the list to get called in. Once that happened, it wasn’t too long. And as we went in, I saw the people who were in front of me in the original check in line….STILL in line for Donald and they had a ways to go.

We were taken to the back room.

We quickly went up to get some food as it was going to be a few minutes before any characters made their way to us.



We went for pretty normal items. The African food just wasn’t our thing and the few things I did end up trying I did not care for.
A little bit of dancing around.

 

[jenseib]

And then Daisy made her way to our table.



Mickey wasn’t too far behind.



We went up to the buffet a couple of times, but for us, we really weren’t impressed with the selection. Like I said, the African selections just weren’t something we cared for, so we were sticking to the basics and that limited us a bit.
We were ready to go and had paid, and I let the waitress know that we still hadn’t seen Goofy, but we wanted to leave and wondered if there would be a way to see him shortly and she said yes. She pointed out a Cast Member and told me to talk to him, so I did. He told me where to stand and that he would direct Goofy over to us. Within a few minutes we got to visit with Goofy as well.

 

[jenseib]

With that meet and greet done, we grabbed our things and headed out. I did take a few pictures before we left.






I think you know my thoughts on Tusker House by now. It was way too much of a hassle to actually get checked in and seated. The food was good, but not enough variety for us who don’t want to get crazy with the African food. And the price is just too high to go for just the basics. I will really have to think long and hard before going back again….and if I do, it will be an early ADR, which will hopefully eliminate the long check in wait.

 

[jenseib]

When we exited Tusker House we took a few pictures out back before heading off.

















We had picked up fastpasses for the safari before heading into Tusker House and the time to use them had arrived.





It wasn’t long and we were boarded in our truck.





We saw lots of animals out and about, but I had major issues with pictures. The people in front of me pretty much were in my view at all times. I don’t know if I had a bad angle or what, but I constantly had an arm, elbow, head, camera lens,….you name it…it was in my shot. I have tried to crop most of my pictures to get them out of the shots as much as possible, but at times I just couldn’t get them all out.





It looks like the birds are hungry for some Hippo …..





Seriously? Why are all these birds here?

 

[jenseib]

We saw a lot of giraffes again on this trip.








Stretch just a little bit further and you’ll reach it.





I think he got a neck cramp.














This would’ve been a better shot, but I had to crop out a lot of the picture.

 

[jenseib]

This guy is kind of camouflaged. It’s hard to see his head looking over the top of the branch. I thought it was pretty cool though.








Of course it’s not a safari without a little bit of giraffe butt.





Ah the elephants. I could’ve gotten some great shots of them…..if I didn’t have people in the row in front of me!








I had taken one right before this next one that would’ve been AWESOME…except the picture has major blockage and came out with a big blur in the middle of it. That blur would be my traveling companion’s camera lens.





How cute is this? They were pushing the baby up.

 

[jenseib]

2 little guys playing.





Another shot that could’ve been awesome….but you can see even with cropping I couldn’t get all of the other person out of it.





The Lioness. This picture actually isn’t too bad looking. If you saw the original you would be amazed I got this. I had Claire’s head and my neighbors head in about 2/3’s of the picture and I cropped it way down and hoped it would be something worth saving, and it actually looks decent.





The ostriches had to check out the truck.





Just lazing around….taking a rest.





What you looking at?











After the safari we ran into a photopass photographer on the exit out. We stopped and got a few fun shots.

 

[jenseib]

We are supposed to be pointing and looking at a wild animal in the distance. Do we look convincing?





And another wild animal.




Now it was time to head to the front of the park. We had to make time for swimming today for Claire.








We stopped off for a few more photopass pics.








I like this one of us.








I think this is so dumb. Why the heck do they tell you to put your hand on your chin. I look like a dork.





They did take a couple with my camera too.

 

[jenseib]

And off we go.








Goodbye Christmas tree.

















TTFN

 

[jenseib]

We headed back to AoA for a little swim time.











We made our way back to our room and Claire changed her clothes and I grabbed my mug to bring along.





I had given her the choice of which pool she wanted to swim in and she chose Big Blue.





Of course we had to circle the area first and check it out.





I can’t help but see McDonalds French fries every time I look at this.

 

[jenseib]

I was given instructions on where to sit and Claire got in. She is sporting her new swimsuit she got on the cruise.





I still kept taking pictures though.











Would you like fries with that?








Is this ping pong?

 

[jenseib]

I told Claire I was going to walk up to the bar and fill my mug. The nice thing they did here was add a refillable station right by the pool.





The bad thing….it’s a MAJOR bee magnet. Bees were all over and the area was very sticky. I hope they figure a way to keep this clean and the bees away.







I then went back to my chair and pulled out the kindle for a while.





OK…I did still take random pictures.











Time flew by and after a short swim it was time to head back to the room to get changed and ready for our ADR.


This is so sad. So much of the greenery was turning brown.








I wonder if it came back to life or if they had to replant the whole area?


Hmmmm….Rafaki was getting some butt surgery.





Claire thought this was hilarious…..I might have snickered a bit too.

 

[jenseib]

More brown leaves.





Claire had to take a run through the cave.











I don’t know if there is any hope for these plants.





Once back to the room we cleaned up and got dressed and our bag packed for the evening. Big happenings tonight baby!!!!

 

[jenseib]

And then we headed off to the bus stop once again.

















Come on you dang bus!!!!!

 

[jenseib]

Over the last two days, I've read this whole thing. Claire is so cute with her cousin!

And yeah, those plants are goners.

Thanks for reading. We had such a fun time. I was out with my mom tonight and she is having the cruising urge...so maybe, ....just maybe we'll go again before the end of the year!

 

[jenseib]

That dang bus finally came and we were off to the Magic Kingdom!



As we entered, the parade was going by, so we stopped and watched a bit of it.



We decided to slip in and see which princesses were meeting. Claire was hoping for Rapunzel, but she was not meeting at the time, but the line was short, so we went in anyways.







You can never see Cinderella too many times.







And the photopass photographer got a cheesy smile from me.

 

[jenseib]

I love you Cindy!








Aurora was waiting next.























I am not sure why she is making this face. They must’ve been talking about something funny.

 

[jenseib]

Claire is all about hugging.








And they were the only 2 meeting right now, so we headed out.

After we met the Princesses, we noticed that Mickey’s line was not very long at all either. Well we have never met him her in his special room, so we got in line there as well.