Two girls, taking on the World! A January 2012 Trip Report

Well, here we are again! For those unfamiliar, I’m Ashley and this is probably my 10th trip to WDW. This trip begins with some jealousy from my bff. When I went to WDW last year with my other friend, Christa, Lauren let me know immediately that we would have to plan a trip for ourselves. No problem there! I love to do the planning, so once I got home, I started sketching out plans for January 2012. I put everything together and decided on POFQ for our resort, since I had always wanted to stay there. When August came around, we booked the package with free dining and made all our ADRs.

In a flash, the holidays were over and we were ready to depart! Testing out my new memory card on my sideyard:

Goodbye cold, cold NJ, we were on to Florida!

We were leaving on Monday from a smaller airport that only runs select flights to MCO, so we didn’t have much choice about what time we left. But, I was able to go to work for almost a full day, picked up Miss Lauren and we were at Lehigh Valley International within an hour after leaving home. That’s about the same time it would have taken us to get to Newark, but since Allentown is so small, it’s way faster to get through security and much less harrowing. I’ll take that any day!

We checked our bags, went through security and were at the gate within 10 minutes! Great timing, except for the fact that our flight didn’t leave for almost 2 hours. Oh well, better early than late, right?

Finally, we boarded and took off exactly on time. After our first monorail trip at the airport, we found the DME lines (totally empty!) and hopped on the bus! It was really, really tough not to skip the entire way through the airport to the bus, but I managed to hold it together.

Excited to be on the Magical Express!!!

I'd rather not admit exactly how many pictures we had to take, trying to figure out why the picture was so dark. You know the flash usually works better when your hand ISN'T covering it! Duuuhhhhh! Finally figured that out...

It had been a long day...

We were the second stop and hauled our luggage to the reception desk. Since we got into MCO at about 8:30, we thought we’d just pick up our own bags instead of waiting for them to be delivered. It was super quick and we were both glad to have all of our things with us. We ended up in building 4, which is about as close as we could have gotten to the bus stop and the main building!!! Wooooo!!! I don’t know why, maybe we were just too darn excited, but we didn’t bother to look for the elevator and just dragged our bags up to the second floor. We had the most beautiful room on a corner, overlooking a courtyard with a fountain.

Love it!

The giddiness of actually being in WDW was too much for us to handle, so we decided to explore a bit. We checked out the gift shop, the bar, which was jammed because of the LSU/Alabama game, and the food court. I was a little worried about how many people were milling around, since I purposely book trips during the slow season so that we don’t have to deal with major crowds, but who could worry about that now? WE WERE IN DISNEY WORLD!!!:sohappy::sohappy:

 

[johndoh]

Loving your TR so far! We're going to be in POR in just under 2 mos and can't wait. We're planning on doing rope drop at each of the parks but trying to figure out when to get up so that we'd have enough time for breakfast and have enough time to get to the parks.

How long were the bus rides to the parks from POFQ? Also, what was the longest you had to wait for the bus in the mornings?

 

[HopLow]

Loving your TR so far! We're going to be in POR in just under 2 mos and can't wait. We're planning on doing rope drop at each of the parks but trying to figure out when to get up so that we'd have enough time for breakfast and have enough time to get to the parks.

How long were the bus rides to the parks from POFQ? Also, what was the longest you had to wait for the bus in the mornings?

Thank you! I'm so jealous that your trip is only 2 months away. I would wake up around 7:20-7:30, (showered at night, so that wasn't an issue) get dressed and run down to grab some breakfast to bring back to the room. We would get to the bus stop usually a half hour or so before park opening and get to the park just after rope drop. So if you want to see the show or have a sit-down breakfast, I'd wake up a bit earlier. Of course, it all counts on how long it takes everyone to get ready in the morning. I'm pretty low maintenance, so it's a quick job for me.

We had excellent bus service. Only once or twice did we have to wait about 20 minutes for a bus - every other time it was much faster. And I felt like we were very centrally located. Last year, we stayed at Coronado Springs, and it felt like the bus rides took forever! This year, we blinked and we were there. I loved where we were, plus you could also take the boat to DTD for a little change of pace. Our room was also very close to the bus stop (building 4), so it was literally a minute and a half walk from the room to the bus.

Have a wonderful time! :wave:

 

[HopLow]

When we got back to our room, Lauren screamed. I mean, who wouldn’t be scared of him? :ROFLOL::ROFLOL::ROFLOL:

After I stopped laughing with (at?) her, I called my parents. We were lucky enough to have a bounceback flier left in our room, and I knew my parents wanted to visit WDW again, so I wanted to convince them to let me book a Christmas trip with the discount. We argued a bit about the hotels. My dad, for whatever reason, really wanted to stay at the Grand Floridian. Now, nothing against it, but it’s really not my style. I wanted to try staying at the Wilderness Lodge, especially because I had never been there before. Plus, I don’t think a stop on the monorail really justifies what they charge for the rooms at the GF. I also offered POFQ as an option, but they were set on a monorail hotel. I don’t get it. I think they don’t remember that you can spend just as much time waiting for a monorail as you could waiting for a bus. My dad has had some health issues in the past few years, so he was concerned about walking a long distance from the room to transportation (how he plans on walking around the parks all day, I’m still not sure about). I told him I would make a video of us walking from our room to the bus stop to show him just how close we were and how quickly the bus came. This argument would be continued…

After a few minutes relaxing, Lauren and I became restless and felt like we had to get to a park. Why else were we in WDW??? Not to sit in the room all day, that’s for sure. So around 3pm we left the room. Then we turned around and went right back in. Deluge. There was no point in getting soaked to get to the bus. So we tried again at 3:15 with more success.

We walked over to the boat dock to go to DTD. We thought we’d browse a bit so that we could make a better plan when deciding what/when to buy our souveniers.

Unfortunately, we saw mostly the same things we saw everywhere else. At least we could buy everything all in one place later in the week then!

Love the lego sculptures!

Ready for takeoff!

 

[HopLow]

At 4:30, we made our way to the bus stop to take the bus to the Boardwalk. It seemed that we always had to wait longer at bus stops at DTD. We definitely saw all the All Star buses before ours came. So that was not too fun, plus the other people at the bus stop were having a “colorful,” non-Disney kind of conversation. If you know what I mean. It was gross. :hurl:

FINALLY, the bus came and we ran onto it. Thankfully, our bus stop friends didn’t join us! Even though we had to wait, we got the Boardwalk early for our ADRs.

The lobby of the Boardwalk was so beautiful! A wonderfully friendly CM chatted with us a bit and offered to take our picture.

Since they were doing construction, she told us how to get out of the hotel to the boardwalk (which was actually a little tricky) and the Flying Fish was right in front of us! We were still early, so we checked in and took our buzzer. Down a little ways, we stopped to play the “whack the lobster” game. I have lots of memories of this game – my dad would always play (with frogs, not lobsters) when we went down the shore in the summer. My turn! La paid for both of us and we each got a lobster in a pot!!

We were buzzed, and headed back to the restaurant. I had a Boardwalk Bay Breeze, which tasted deceptively non-alcoholic, and was delicious! We were served an amuse bouche of potato leek soup with rock shrimp. Oh. My. Goodness. I could have downed a vat of it. It was perfect!!! :slurp: I was stuck between the Mahi Mahi and the Red Snapper, so Lauren ordered the Red Snapper and allowed me to try some. My Mahi Mahi was superb. It was served over spaghetti squash, with a butter, sea urchin sauce (of course, AllEars doesn’t have it on their menu, so I can’t tell you exactly what it was, but it was close to that). Delicious and light. The Red Snapper was also good, but a little heavy for me. Lauren loved it though. The portions were huge!! Sorry, no pics. Somehow, we made room for dessert and I had the pear upside down cake, which was pretty good, and Lauren had the assorted sorbets, which she also loved. All in all, it was a fantastic dinner and a good match for our tastes.

One thing that has plagued me on this trip and others before, is pain in my lower back. After two days of walking on hard pavement, I was not a happy camper. Even though I hate to take pills (I’m more of a “leave it alone, it’ll be fine” kind of person), I downed a couple of Advil. The painkillers along with the drinks at dinner made me feel absolutely perfect! I guess that’s the secret combination?

We stopped for some Photopass pics (which didn’t turn out so great), and talked to the CM at the Kim Possible kiosk. I had wanted to try this on my last trip with Christa, but we never got around to it. What better way to experience KP, than a little bit tipsy? We were told to go to Italy to pick up our Kimmunicator, but our CM there was all business. I mean, we weren’t that obnoxious, just enough to be silly. Oh well. We grabbed 2 proseccos and headed off to Japan for our mission. We had so much fun! I love how this game is designed!! I can see how it would be a killjoy to be playing with others around you looking for the same clues, but since no one else was playing at that time, we had so much fun! We signed up for a second mission, this time in Norway (in honor of Lauren’s maternal Norwegian heritage) and wandered over there… stopping for more prosecco on the way.

Norway’s mission was not as much fun as Japan. Or the novelty was wearing off. Or we were sobering up. But we finished and decided to go on Maelstrom, since we were there. Afterwards, it was around 8:30, so we walked toward future world, to put ourselves in a closer position to catch the bus after Illuminations. Of course, the show was incredible, and we zigzagged through the crowds to get to the bus stop before it got crazy. Even though there were tons of people, we were able to make it on a bus and got back to POFQ around 9:30. It was an exhausting, but amazing day!

 

[HopLow]

I was up early again the next day. Shocker. So I got ready and let Lauren sleep in a little, then ran down and pick up some Mickey waffles for us both for breakfast. When we were all set to go, I got ready to take a video from the door of our room to the bus stop. When I called my dad, lo and behold, he had already called and booked reservations at the Poly for after Thanksgiving! So much for talking it over. But he told the CM that I was there and they offered the same discount as the bounceback. He was also able to get a room in Niue, which I remembered as being pretty close to the GCH. Later in the trip, we went to the Poly and the entrance to Niue is 18 steps from the GCH! Pretty good location!

Anyway, this morning’s agenda included the Animal Kingdom. We arrived at DAK at about 9:15, but not before a few stops at POR. We were really spoiled on our other bus rides, because POFQ was the only resort on the bus. Oh well, it wasn’t terrible, but it added unnecessary minutes to our ride…

Of course, we stopped for some Photopass pics at the entrance and in front of the Tree of Life. We went to Africa (left) to go on safari. I was hoping the animals would be a little more active since it was still morning, but it was about the same as usual.

(not a great pic, but you can kind of see the baby behind the rock!)

One of these days, I hope I can actually see a lion!! You know, other than a patch of fur sleeping on the top of a rock.

 

[HopLow]

We walked the Pagnani Trail, but they were doing construction, so once we got to a certain point, we had to turn around and come back the way we came in. It made for a rather congested nature walk.

We thought she was a statue. She stood totally still and was so shiny and perfect looking, but eventually we saw her flick her ear.

 

[HopLow]

Then, it was Asia.

Lauren is a big tea drinker, so we stopped to get a cup. She said it was the best tea she’s ever had! They all sounded so good, but I am allergic to hot tea (go figure), so I took her word for it.

Then, we hit the Maharajah Jungle Trek.

Somebody's sweepy :snore::snore:

Both Lauren and I love the tigers. They are more active than the African cats and they’re just so funny. I swear, I’ve seen the exact same expressions on our barn cats.

Expedition Everest was next. One of my favorites!!!! Last year, we walked straight onto the ride, which was actually a little disappointing because we didn’t get to appreciate all the details in the queue. This time, the wait was about 20 minutes, so it was cool to examine all the intricacies the Imagineers worked into the attraction.

The ride was awesome – Lauren screamed her head off. And the only indication of a yeti was a flash of white fur. So sad.

Afterward, we headed over to Dinoland and debated playing some games. We are really competitive when it comes to games, but we managed to avoid sinking any money into them, and went over to Primeval Whirl. I felt so bad for the other two in our car. Lauren has this piercing, bloody-murder scream, and they might have been deaf by the end of the ride.

We went to ride Dinosaur next. Now, I had mentioned to Lauren about my last trip, when Christa and I had seen hot dads all over the place. This year they weren’t as prevalent, but as we were walking through the game area, she goes, “Hot dad, hot dad!” So I looked over and there was indeed a hot dad pushing a stroller not too far away from us. What surprised me, was that as soon as he saw me looking, he smiled and veered straight toward us, like he was waiting for an invite! He was very friendly, and might have laid some lines down, which was kind of inappropriate, since he was pushing his 6 year old princess along, but he seemed like a nice guy and I thought it was hilarious that one of the hot dads actually came over! Oh, you hot dads, you make me laugh. :animwink:

Anyway, we went on Dinosaur and I really wish I had bought the picture, because (if I say so myself) I had a prize-winning expression. True horror. It was awesome. But I guess you’ll have to take my word for it. Oh, Photopass, why can’t you scan ALL of the on-ride shots? I would definitely buy more!

We were starving, so we went to Pizzafari next. I had a pepperoni pizza with Caesar salad and a strawberry parfait. Lauren had the veggie pizza with chocolate mousse. It was VERY chocolatey. Too much so for me. But I like going there for pizza, since I don’t order it anywhere else.

We were pretty much done with AK at this point, but I wanted to do ITTBAB. Lauren did NOT enjoy this one! She is terrified of bugs, especially spiders, and the effects were a bit too much for her. I thought it was hysterical.

Lauren’s mother collects giraffe items, so we browsed a couple of shops and Lauren did some damage, but found a few items perfect for her mom. We went back to the hotel for a bit to relax and got back to the room around 2pm.

 

[fractal]

Enjoying your trip report! Flying Fish was our favorite on our last trip.
That's funny about ITBAB. Looking forward to the rest!

 

[mamamouse]

Such a fun report luv it

 

[Herky]

Love the safari pics -- I typically have one to three kids hanging on me during the safari making it difficult to take good pics.

I've only been fortunate enough to see the lions one time -- when we went on the safari first thing in the morning.

I look forward to seeing more of your TR!

 

[HopLow]

Enjoying your trip report! Flying Fish was our favorite on our last trip.
That's funny about ITBAB. Looking forward to the rest!

Thanks! Flying Fish was right up our alley. It will definitely be on the ADR list for future trips.

Such a fun report luv it

Thank you!

Love the safari pics -- I typically have one to three kids hanging on me during the safari making it difficult to take good pics.

I've only been fortunate enough to see the lions one time -- when we went on the safari first thing in the morning.

I look forward to seeing more of your TR!

I am going to keep crossing my fingers that one of these days those lazy kitties will be up and about. I try to hit the safari first thing in the morning, but no luck so far.

 

[ksr99]

great safari pics, I was down there probably like a week after you and the lions were having a great old time playing on the rock area! Dumb luck I guess:shrug:

 

[HopLow]

great safari pics, I was down there probably like a week after you and the lions were having a great old time playing on the rock area! Dumb luck I guess:shrug:

I am going to cross my fingers for next time then!! :shrug: At least someone's seen them moving around!

 

[HopLow]

Since it was such a gorgeous day out (high 70s and sunny!), I didn’t want to relax in the room. So Lauren and I grabbed our mugs, stopped to refill them and went to sit down by the pool. They were having games with the kids on the other side, but with the microphones and music, it wasn’t very relaxing. It was still nice to soak up some sun. When they started to do trivia, we started playing along amongst ourselves. I loooove random trivia! A lady sitting a few chairs down joined in with us, but some of those questions were hard!! Those kids must be have brushed up on their WDW statistics before their vacation.

Mousekeeping's animal scene for the day:

We started to get the “back to the park” itch and were on our way to the MK around 4.

Obviously, Photopass was the first stop. Some of those photographers were hysterical. So we had some fun with a couple of them and went to get some FPs for Splash.

Crowded!

Standby was 65 minutes!!! Um, no thanks. What happened to the "slow season????" Plus, the area outside Splash and BTMRR seemed to be the unofficial hang out spot for everyone. There were people sitting on the ground, leaning on the fences, not doing anything. :fork: I don’t know. We grabbed our passes and got the heck out of there.

We went back to Adventureland to POTC, which had a long line, but the sign said standby was only 20 minutes, so we took the chance. Now, I was unaware of this kind of Fastpass method, but there was one guy who just walked around everyone and went up to the front. Um, no. My Jersey attitude started to bubble up and Lauren started cracking up at the look on my face. Dude, you try that crap with a New Jersey/New Yorker and you’re bound to start trouble. But instead of opening my mouth, we joined up with some girls in line in front of us to block the guy off so when he veered off to look in the windows, we lined up so he couldn’t go around us. Although that held him off a little bit, he also wasn’t happy about it and was infringing on our personal space and standing as close to us as possible – practically breathing on our necks. Why do people have to be like that??? We’ve all paid our money, we’re all waiting in line, you’re going to get there eventually, just relax!!!!

Lucky us, he and his wife/girlfriend ended up in our row on the boat.

While I enjoy the enhanced cannonfire/water splashing effect, I did not enjoy the deluge of water that soaked my jeans and went in my eye. Ew, ew, ew. The water didn’t sting either, which was really concerning because I want that water CHLORINATED!!! So for the rest of the ride I might have been freaking out that I was going to get some eye fungus from the nasty water and then go blind. From here on out, I made sure to put my glasses on before the ride, even though I didn’t really need them.

Lauren collects rubber ducks, so on our way out through the gift shop, she had to stop to buy this guy:

We wanted to try Tortuga Tavern, but every time we went there, they were closed!

 

[HopLow]

Next was HM. The posted wait time was 15 minutes, but we were in the stretching room in 5. Nice!!

Then we went to Fantasyland to watch Philharmagic (which Lauren loved) and did some browsing in Sir Mickey’s. We stopped for dinner at CHH, which was our favorite CS of the trip. I tried to be healthy and had steamed broccoli with my chicken and fish, and it was actually really good! However, the apple crisp that I was so looking forward to was still frozen. We were totally full afterward, so we decided to digest on the Peoplemover. It actually worked out really well because we could see MSEP from it, which made the ride a little different.

We wanted to see MMY and Wishes, so we fought against foot traffic to find a spot close-ish to the front of the castle. I had never been so close, so MMY was a totally different experience. You could see the pictures and details better (obviously), but some of the effects weren’t quite as impressive.

Originally, the park was supposed to close at 8. So after Wishes, most of the crowd turned to leave. However, I happened to pop onto WDW Magic during our afternoon break and saw the headline that the park would be open for an additional hour that night. I guess they all missed the memo!! Thanks WDW Magic! :sohappy::sohappy:

So much for our FPs, both lines were walk on for Splash. No matter. The CM ushered us into the front row. Ugh. I do not like getting soaked on rides. So there was a family behind us and we asked the boy if he and his dad wanted to sit in the front instead. The boy happily traded, the dad might not have been as happy. It was a hysterical ride – I think Lauren and I hit the tired wall and were just getting stupid. We made friends with a little girl riding alone behind us and we sang the songs and were ridiculously loud. It was so much fun. Then, when we got back to the loading area, no one was waiting to get on. The CM told us we could ride again if we wanted to!!! That poor dad in the front – he was getting soaked twice. But it was the best ride we’ve ever had on Splash. The ambiance was totally different at night and we had a blast.

I wanted to walk through the castle on the way out, so we took the scenic detour. Unfortunately, a CM stopped us and said we couldn’t go through Fantasyland because the park was closed! Man, it was 9:05!!! Give us a break! So we had to walk out through Liberty Square.

The stores were still open and Lauren and I had talked about getting ears to wear, so we went to La Chapeau. La got pink, sequined, leopard print ears with a feather sticking out the top. Very her. I got the more traditional Minnie ears that were totally sequined. I remembered Sweetpee had mentioned the phone in the shop, so we listed to it for a few minutes. Hilarious!!! We were quoting those lines for the rest of the trip. Finally, we dragged ourselves out to the buses to head back home.

 

[mamamouse]

awe I love the ducky it's cute!!!

 

[HopLow]

The first note in my notebook for this says “Wandering Day.” That pretty much sums it up! It was nice not to have a place “to be.” We had hit all the parks, done all the must-do attractions, so we wandered. I did need my Tonga Toast fix, so we took the bus to the MK, then the monorail to get to Captain Cook’s for breakfast. Holy crow, that place was a madhouse. Had I known, we would have just gone to Kona and paid extra. As it turned out, my Tonga Toast was not as good as Kona’s, and since we had to stand around and wait for a table to clear, I wasn’t thrilled. It was cold that day, so sitting outside wasn’t an option for us (although others did). We also wore our ears that day and flirted with a boy at breakfast. He was about 1. Adorable.

Lauren, waiting for the monorail:

I wanted to check out where Niue was, so we went over to take a video to show how close it was to the GCH. We hurried back inside quickly – too cold!!

I was excited to see that there was a little bit of Poly merchandise in Boutiki, so I bought a cute t shirt with an old-school hula Minnie on it. Staying inside seemed like a good idea, so we hopped on the monorail and browsed through the Grand Floridian. No buying anything here, although there was definitely some cute stuff. But just too expensive!!

Mirror shot!

We felt confidently warm at this point and since it was a bit later, we braved the chill to do a few things in the MK. Of course, we Photopassed with the ears. Then, we grabbed FPs for Space and waited in a 15 minute line for Buzz. Someone tell me, how are you supposed to know where your laser goes?!?!? I swear, I hit way more targets than it gave me credit for.

Mine:

Lauren's: :ROFLOL:

The parade was traveling through the hub, but we negotiated a path around and hit the Jungle Cruise. I’ve yet to experience this ride with a great skipper. I’ve heard of them, but never had one. Our skipper was ok, but pretty much just mailed it in.

Afterward was Pirates. Wearing glasses this time to avoid any more splash in my eye. By the time we were out, our FPs were ready, so we walked back over to Tomorrowland. I guess it’s our old age, but we were feeling a bit woozy afterwards. So sad. Nowadays, I can only do a rollercoaster with a break afterward.

 

[HopLow]

As I mentioned, it was cold. And the park was crowded, so we decided to head somewhere warmer. I had always wanted to see Wilderness Lodge, so we hopped on the boat to check it out. We had a trainee captain (?) on our boat. We tried so hard not to laugh, but he was so excited about his new job, he forgot everything. He tied up the boat and went to let us on, but forgot to let the people still on the boat off first. Then, (after we were onboard, thankfully) he started to untie before all the doors/areas were secured. Poor guy kept getting yelled at by his supervisor. But it was cute how enthusiastic he was about his new job.

Walking from the dock to the resort:

How beautiful is the WL??? It’s styling is totally right up my alley. I love, love the theming and ambiance of the resort. Of course, as we were walking up to the main building, we went up the stone stairs and I thought to myself, “These look a little dangerous.” No sooner did the though leave my mind, than my sneaker caught on my jeans and I banged my camera into the stairs. Smooth. :lol:

 

[HopLow]

We walked through the shop and then decided we were starving. Not a good move on our part, since it was about 1:30 and we had ADRs at Citrico’s at 5:30. But when we went to Roaring Fork, everything looked so good!! I had the ham and cheese panini with cucumber salad, which was delicious. Lauren had a cheesesteak flatbread that she enjoyed.

It all looks so good!!! :slurp:

We walked over to the bus stop to catch a ride to DTD and waited quite a while for a bus to show up. Actually, not many buses seemed to be running to the resort, which might make for a negative. (the only one, in my mind) Has anyone stayed here and found poor bus service? Anyway, the bus eventually got there, but we had to stop at the GF, which seemed ridiculously out of the way before making our way to DTD. We were on a schedule, people!!

I don't know what this is.

We had our lists from the week, so we knew exactly what we wanted to buy. We split up at the World of Disney to purchase everything. We had the slowest check out lady EVER, so after I was done, I went over to the Christmas store to get some ornaments for my mom. I was at the check out by the time Lauren caught up with me, rolling her eyes. We hightailed it over to the bus stop, only to sit and wait for the bus again. What was going on??? We had such great luck the buses all week, and now that we were running late, there were none to be found. At last a bus showed up, but made all the stops at POR first, before dropping us at our FQ stop. We didn’t have enough time to sit and relax, so we changed for dinner and were on our way again.

We had better luck this time (because POFQ is an awesome resort, obviously) and caught a bus to the MK in no time. We took the monorail to the GF and were actually a few minutes early for our ADR! This was the meal I was most looking forward to. I had eaten here in 2008 with my family and it was out of this world. I chose the short ribs which were good, but not fantastic. I liked my dinner at Flying Fish better. Lauren had swordfish with a red sauce over pasta (sorry for the undetailed description, but that’s all I have written down) and she loved it. Dessert was far and away, a spectacular event. I had the warm chocolate banana torte, which was glorious, and Lauren had lemon cheesecake. Paired with the best mojito ever, this ended up being a wonderful meal.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm:slurp::slurp::slurp:

We rolled ourselves out of there and headed to Epcot for the evening. I am so annoyed because we got all dressed up this night and I didn’t get any pictures of us whatsoever. So I apologize in advance, because there are no pics from this evening.

We took the monorail from the TTC to Epcot and it was invaded by cheerleaders. W. T. H. Their only saving grace was that they didn’t break out into cheers during the ride. It was pretty cold that night too, and those girls were all in shorts!!! Craziness. We ran away from them as soon as possible and headed to World Showcase. I so wanted to try some churros from Mexico, but I was just way too full from dinner to have anything else. Lauren got her new favorite, a prosecco from Italy (plus a bottle to bring home) and then we stopped in France for a chardonnay for her and a Grand Marnier slushie for me. What was I thinking?? Not only was I already freezing, but it was too sweet and cough syrupy for me.

On our lists, we wanted to get scarves that we had seen in the UK pavilion. We went back to the shop and I saw on the label that the scarves were made in Korea!! What false advertising. We didn’t buy them on principle. Sure, they were cute, but when you shop in the country’s pavilion, you kind of assume that the merchandise was made there. Oh well. I have too many scarves anyway.

I wanted to use my snack credits on caramel squares in Germany, so we stopped to buy some deliciousness. Illuminations had started as we left Germany, but it was too cold to stand and watch, so we continued walking. Lauren wanted one more ride on Test Track, so we went to get in line. I thought we were being smart, since Illuminations had just ended and now it was EMH, but the line was about 35 minutes long. Plus, I don’t know if anyone else noticed this, but at the end, you go around a track. Outside. Making you even colder than you had been before. All in all, this was the dumbest decision we made all trip. Plus, the ride stopped for about 10 minutes, but thankfully, we were still inside. At this point, we were freezing, exhausted, and annoyed by all the cheerleaders. It was time to go.

 

[HopLow]

Last day!! We woke up at the crack of dawn to finish packing and get our bags down to airline check in at the front desk. We were up especially early because we had talked about what our final “must-dos” would be for the day and we agreed that we would like to take another spin on TSMM. That day also happened to be EMH at DHS, so we had to get there as early as possible. So, not an entirely relaxing way to finish our vacation. My alarm went off at 6:45 and we were off and running. We stowed our check in bags with Bell Services and hopped on a bus to DHS. Since it was a Saturday and there were EMH’s, the bus was crowded! But we managed to squeeze on.

It was freezing that day (well, 50s, which isn’t terrible, but not a picnic either) and we wanted to get some food and hot coffee/tea, but the line was out the door at Starring Rolls, so we went straight to TSMM. We opted for stand-by only because the FP time wasn’t until 1-ish and we knew we didn’t want to stick around that long. So, we had a crazy fun last ride, and I got my highest score to date!!

My score on the right, with the kitty prize!!:sohappy:

After we were done, we went back to Starring Rolls and found a much shorter line. I ordered a hazelnut latte and a cheese Danish, which was good, but not as good as Sunshine Seasons. Lauren had a bagel and tea. She’s just not into the sweets as much as I am.

Against my better judgment, we wandered over to Star Tours to see how long of a wait it was. Only 10 minutes, so we went for it. I really enjoy the refurb, but again, I had to close my eyes for a little part of it. I’m such an old lady. And riding immediately after breakfast was not the wisest decision. But it was obviously awesome and I wasn’t the rebel spy! One of these days…

I love how polite everything is. "Waste please" Classy.

The Citizens were out in front of the hat doing a little skit thing. They weren’t as funny as the last time I saw them, but still pretty good. Improv amazes me. It’s really a gift to think that quickly and creatively on your feet. We were too cold to hang out for too long, so we went to catch whatever monorail line bus we found first.