Hi everyone,
Well, I'm not sure anyone is still interested
, but I thought since I am writing this down for myself anyway I might as well post the rest of it here too. I am sorry it has taken so long, real life just caught up with me.
Before I start, I want to thank everyone for their wonderful comments, it is just so nice to be able to share my trip with people I know will appreciate it! Thanks for the welcome!
Oh and orangefan , sorry I didn't answer your question the glasses and 3D sooner. I actually don't wear my glasses often, I used to have a lazy eye, meaning one eye doesn't work as hard as the other does. It was really a problem when I was younger but it is barely noticeble anymore. It still affects my ability to see 3D though, which I was unaware of, so I didn't even think to bring my glasses. I definately will next time though,
cause I want to see everything!!
Day 3: Night
After Ice Station Cool and way too much soda, it was time for the world showcase. Unfortunately it was also about 5:00 and out dinner PS was for 6:30. Ahh!!
We had entered panic mode by this time so there was no real plan to our action, we just dove right in. Canada... right... pretty gardens, picture in the silly totem pole thing... next country. England.... ohhh, more pretty gardens, neat buildings, wish we had time to stop.... and so on, and so on. This pretty much describes our adventures in the WS.
We did have fun though. In France we got to see one of the living statues. There was a huge crowd around the statue but no one was brave enough to go up to her. Oh well, I guess we'll have to make our own fun. I handed my digital camera to some very nice lady in the audience and up we went.
We were just going to have our picture taken as we were not feeling very creative in our panicked mood, but the statue had ideas of her own. I had my hair up on top of my head, just perfect for grabbing on to. So there I stand, the audience is laughing, and after a moment of shock, I am laughing, and the poor woman with my camera can't figure out how to take a picture (actually she was taking a whole bunch, she just didn't know it).
I decide to take pity on her and explain how to use the camera but suddenly the statues hand is over my mouth. It was hysterical!
A cast member decided to help out too and grabbed the camera, so there are some really funny pictures of this. I swear CM must be trained in the use of a diverse array of cameras. Perhaps if I am brave enough I will post the pictures, they are really horrible pictures of me, but really funny.
After escaping the statue it was on to Morocco where my friend was desperate to see the characters from her favorite Disney movie, Aladdin. We just missed Aladdin himself, but we got to meet the Genie which was fun and made my friend very happy. Once we got out of Morocco it was 6:15 and time to run to Mexico, stopping along the way, of course, for pictures. Finally we reach Mexico. I had not been there for fifteen years but I had always remembered eating inside the court yard, beside the river so I was really excited about this dinner.
I was not disappointed! The inside of the pyramid was as wonderful as I remembered, with the temple and the volcano. The plaza inside the pyramid with the hanging lanterns is so real, I felt like I was really in a small village somewhere in Mexico. Our dinner was fantastic too. I had a delicious, spicy mahi-mahi, a fabulous margarita, and a yummy chocolate filled desert, with a great name I can't remember right now.
Our waiters were fabulous as well, they kept trying to get me to use my limited Spanish vocabulary and it was so much fun to try. They were very patient, and the younger one, who was training was really cute! It was a great dinner and I will definitely eat there again on my next trip.
The only problem was that we took a really, really long time at dinner and I had not been watching the clock, so by the time we finished I noticed that the Rio de Tiempo ride was closed. Curious, I though. Then I heard several loud bangs and I looked at my watch, it was 9:10 and we had pretty much missed Illuminations.
We ran outside and flew down the stairs, but we were really too late. We did get to see the finale though, which made me want to see the rest of it even more because it was fabulous. I had brought my tripod with me as well because I had wanted to take pictures but I barely had time to get out my camera.
I was sad, but I am the eternal optimist so I immediately began rearranging our schedule in my mind to see if I could come up with another night we could stop by. It was later decided that it would just be too crazy to try and fit it in elsewhere, so now I already have something I have to do on my next trip!
Since I had my tripod though, and we were at the back of the crowd, I used my time to take some great pictures of Epcot at night, so all was not lost!
We decided to compensate for our loss by taking a ride on the monorail, as I had not been on it in 15 years and my friend never had. Unfortunately I did not realize that there wasn't a bus to our hotel from the T&T Center, or even a bus to Downtown Disney. We were a little stranded. Looking back now however, I realize we could have just gone to any resort and taken a bus to DD (or walked over to the Polynesian and taken a bus) but at the time I was not thinking straight.
I was actually starting to feel really sick, I had sore throat at dinner but I'd just ignored it, hoping it would go away. Now however, with no way to get home, I started to feel really yucky. My friend can be a bit prone to panic sometimes as well, so I wasn't sure how much I should tell her about our situation. Luckily although it was late, there was someone at the bus info window. I told him our situation and he suggested we talk to the driver of the Animal Kingdom bus.
We ran over and explained to the driver and he didn't just say he would drop us off on his way back, but he actually told us he would take us straight to CS right away. I know he probably had been waiting for awhile and no one for AKL had come, so he didn't have anything better to do, but I still thought this was a really nice gesture. We had the bus to ourselves and he brought us right to our stop. Things like this are why I love Disney so much and why I can't wait to go back the second that I can!
Now it was time for bed because I was really not feeling well and I did not want to get sick with two days left and, unfortunately, we had 8:00 PS for the Kona Cafe.
Day 4 coming soon....
