Who Knew Choking Each Other Would Earn Us Fastpasses? We were just kidding!

Hello there and welcome to my trip report.

I guess I'll start out with the introductions of the cast and crew.

My name is Lisa (a/k/aTinkerbell as my boss likes to call me) and I am a 44 year old paralegal, wife to John and mother to Hunter and Lacey (who didn't join us on this trip 'cause she's attending missionary college). My husband, John, also 44, owns and operates a cabinet shop which is good because I can always talk his boss into letting him off work to go to Disney.

John acts all nonchalant about going to Disney but when somebody asks him a question, he immediately starts chattering away.

Since I am still uploading pictures and can't seem to find a picture of John and I from this year's trip, I guess I'll just use a picture from last year's trip.

Hunter is our son and he turned 13 just 3 days before we arrived in Disney. We couldn't think of a better way to celebrate becoming a teenager than by partying hard with Mickey and the gang. Hunter is a multi-talented little dude. He can play the acoustic guitar, electric guitar, keyboard and viola. Magical illusions and cup stacking are his newest tricks and he's pretty darn good at both. When he's not playing an instrument or trying to trick you, he's playing football or singing in the honor choir. See....I told you he was multi-talented.

Also along for the ride this year was my Mama, Edna. She's 76 years old and dotes on John and Hunter like they were her little babies. Mama has been to Disney with us once at Thanksgiving, 2000. That was back in the day when we stayed offsite 'cause we didn't know any better.

We were anxious to see how Mama would do with all the walking, heat, humidity, conveyor belts, etc.

Again, I don't have all of my pictures uploaded so I'll just use a picture of Hunter and Mama riding the clamshells into The Seas with Nemo and Friends. Not the best of pictures but a picture nevertheless:

We are a pretty silly fun loving family that always seems to attract.......hum.......let's just say,we always seem to have an "incident" happen during each of our trips. Over the years:

1) We got stuck on Test Track in the cold section and I almost tinkled myself;

2) My tooth (temporary crown) fell out while eating lunch at the Electric Umbrella and I had to super glue it in;

3) John got his toe broken after being run over in a drive-by scooter incident;

4) Hunter boogied with every character we ran into;

5) My wonderful, beautiful, loving family pedaled off on the surrey bike without me when my shoe hit the pedal and flew over my shoulder;

6) Lacey and Hunter jumped for joy in front of the Epcot ball;

7) We laughed so much during the trips that I caught myself saying "stop making me laugh or......" every 30 minutes.

And so forth and so on. We love spending time together and there's no better place than Walt Disney World to act silly and have a good time. Our goofiness paid off during the trip and that same goofiness inspired the title of this report.

This was our 15th trip to Disney in 13 years and our 5th stay at the Caribbean Beach Resort. We spent 9 1/2 glorious days at Walt Disney World and I could have stayed longer had my boss not insisted that I return to "the real world".

I have people ask me all the time why we go to Disney World year after year after year. I've tried to explain it to them but, unless you are a Disney fan like myself, you just can't understand. Remember those old Lay's potato chips commercials? You know, the ones that said something like "Lay's potato chips...so good you can't eat just one!" I liken Disney to a Lay's potato chip....."Walt Disney World is so fun you can't go just once!"

Now that the introductions have been made, I guess I'll get busy working on the next installment.

Oh....I hope that everybody feels free to post replies/comments 'cause I really like chatting.

 

[wishes2013]

Ohh the anticipation!

I think I may be addicted to this report. I check for updates multiple times a day! I can't wait for the rest!

 

[mickeystoontown]

I think I may be addicted to this report. I check for updates multiple times a day! I can't wait for the rest!

What a nice compliment! I like it! It looks like my photobucket account is back up and running so let me see if I can post another installment.

 

[mickeystoontown]

For some reason, I am missing a lot of my Animal Kingdom pictures. I remember that we went to Rafiki's Planet Watch because I took tons of pictures of hidden Mickeys and we talked about what a welcome respite the air conditioned building was.

I know that we saw It's Tough to Be a Bug because I took a bunch of pictures of the Tree of Life.

I know we ate at Pizzafari and that I took pictures of the pepperoni pizzas Mama and Hunter ordered, the Italian stack sandwich that John ordered and the chicken caesar salad that I ordered.

Where are the pictures? Somewhere on a CD that I burned and I put in a safe place. A safe place that is so safe that I don't remember where it is.

This is where I should point out that having two cameras is sometimes a bad thing. Why? Because I now have multiple memory cards and I am too darned lazy to organize my pictures before burning them to CDs. Thus, the missing pictures.

Since I don't have my pictures, I don't remember when we did certain things. At some point, we wandered over to Asia to see how long the wait was for Kali River Rapids. I didn't really feel like getting soaking wet but we told Hunter we would ride if the wait wasn't too terribly long. Well, you guess it, it was long. 75 minutes long! No way Jose'!

Hunter wanted to go on the Maharajah Jungle Trek but Mama and John were getting tired and they were hot and decided to sit it out. They told Hunter and I to go ahead and go and they'd just wait on us. It was so stinking hot that day so they found a nice shady spot to sit and people watch.

We entered the trek trail and this I have pictures of. Well, I have some pictures. The others are on the hidden CD.

I took pictures of Hunter standing underneath the prayer flag tree and in front of the hidden Mickey (our annual picture). The tigers were all lying in the shade since it was so hot. We were able to spot them through the windows but, again, there were window hogs and we weren't able to look too long.

Once we finished the trail, I called John to see where he and Mama were sitting since they hadn't found a place to sit prior to us starting our jungle trek. He told us where to find him and, after a little looking, we saw that they had found a nice little shaded area near one of the carts.

 

[mickeystoontown]

The hidden pictures have been found! You can imagine my surprise when I opened my desk drawer this morning and there was the CD. I had put it there so I'd remember to upload the pictures to Photobucket before writing more on my Animal Kingdom day.

Oh well, I have them uploaded now so I'll go back and add them to my report.

As I said before, I knew that we had done quite a bit at the Animal Kingdom but I couldn't remember in what sequence until I looked back at my pictures.

I found more safari pictures:

 

[mickeystoontown]

As you can tell and as you already know, I am a picture taking fool. I just can't seem to help myself because there are so many things to take pictures of.

 

[mickeystoontown]

I'm having trouble finding my pictures on Photobucket so bear with me as I try to remember what we did and when we did it. I may have to backtrack at some point if I find the other pictures.

The next picture that I see on Photobucket is this one:

which was on our way to see Festival of the Lion King. This would be the last thing we did this day because we had an ADR for the Spirit of Aloha dinner show that evening.

I took a couple of pictures while walking over:

A mother duck and her babies were also seeking shelter from the blazing sun:

And, a few more pictures:

We were all kind of lagging because it had been so hot that day but Mama especially so. I think this is the only time (so far) that she felt like she had overdone it. The misting fans were spraying down on the guests waiting in the line. When I say spraying, I mean spraying! Almost too much. Remember when I said I didn't want to get soaked on Kali River Rapids? Well, these misting fans were blasting so much water that I felt like I had gone on the rapids. While we welcomed the cool mist, we didn't really care for getting soaked. I know....I know...we should have been thankful that they were at least misting (we've been in the lines before and they wouldn't even be turned on) but I think this would come back to haunt Mama later on.

 

[mickeystoontown]

After the safari, we figured now was as good a time as any to take the train over to Rafiki's Planet Watch. If I am remembering correctly, it was sprinkling a little so we were walking a little faster than normal.

The first thing we did when we got into the Planet Watch building was to start looking for hidden Mickeys in the murals. Some of these pics have Mickeys in them and some do not:

 

[mickeystoontown]

We have taken a picture of Hunter doing this every year. It's neat to see how much he has grown from year to year:

***Continued in next post

 

[mickeystoontown]

We finally called an end to our search for hidden Mickeys and continued on to the windows to see the animals on display. We also wanted to see if they were performing any kind of surgery or check-ups on any of the Animal Kingdom animals. In a little back room and off to the side, the veterinarians were taking x-rays of some type of hooved animal with twisted horns (I hate to keep saying deer so I'm saying hooved animal 'cause it sounds like I am all smart and stuff.

) There was a castmember who had a microphone and she was telling everybody what they were doing. We asked how long it would be before they'd be out in the examination/surgery room and she kept saying "soon". Well, after about 15 minutes, we decided to move on and see what else we could find.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Mama gets physically ill when she sees snakes so we told her not to come to the next section because there were all sorts of snakes and lizards in the enclosures. She and John sat off to the side while Hunter and I looked. I know that I took pictures but they aren't on the "safely hidden" CD nor on my photobucket account so you'll just have to pretend that you are looking at pictures of snakes and lizards.

I did find this pictures which was of specimen cases in the shape of Mickey:

We all walked over to the section where there they show what types of foods the animals are fed. There was a castmember there preparing foods for some of the animals. Hunter and several other children were trying to ask questions but the castmember wasn't very talkative and didn't answer the questions in much detail...mostly just yes and no and I don't know answers.

We left the building and we stopped to look at the merchandise right outside the door. There wasn't a whole lot of things to look at but I wanted to look anyway. We ended up buying a package of mixed nuts and that was it.

We made our way back down the path to wait for the train to take us back to the main part of the park:

***Continued in next post

 

[mickeystoontown]

We made it back to Harambe:

and, instead of walking down the streets of Harambe, we cut through the store to see what they had that we just couldn't live without. We saw these drums stacked into the most interesting shape:

There were several t-shirts in the store that I wanted but they were pretty expensive, even by Disney standards, so I didn't buy any of them.

We were all getting hungry and, since it was hot, we wanted to sit somewhere that had air conditioning. Pizzafari sounded like just the place...it has decent food and air conditioning! I took pictures of the Tree of Life while walking over:

The pictures definitely weren't the best I have taken because this time I was doing it while walking since we were on a mission to get out of the energy-sapping heat.

Once we made it to Pizzafari, John and Hunter told me what they wanted to eat. They would go find a table and wait on us. Mama wanted to order a darned kids' meal again. I swear the woman is scared to death that her "counts" (referring to her blood tests results for her fatty liver) are going to go over by .0000002 so she's always watching what and how much she eats. I told her we were on vacation and she did not need to eat some little bitty meal. Just about that time, somebody walked by carrying a kids' meal and she saw how little it was and decided that it was too small for an adult.

We got to the counter and ordered our food. Hunter came in and told me where he and his dad were sitting so that we could find them. Mama and I waited for our food which came out pretty quickly. We walked to the back room where John and Hunter were and rested our tired tootsies.

Mama and Hunter ordered pizza. John ordered the italian sandwich and I ordered the chicken caesar salad. For desserts, we had two chocolate something-or-others and two strawberry something-or-others. The chocolate was a little too chocolately and the strawberry had a little bit of a twang to it but they were okay.

 

[mickeystoontown]

While eating, we spotted a couple of hidden Mickeys on the wall but I guess I only took a picture of one of them:

We lingered a while over our meal because the air conditioned restaurant felt so good and there were lots of empty tables. Normally, when it's a busy time of the day, we won't linger over our meals simply so that others can have our table when we are done. But, that day, there were plenty of tables available for the other guests.

It was decided that the next attraction we would see would be It's Tough To Be A Bug! We all love that show and Mama didn't remember much about it other than Flik being the host. We were happy to see that the line was virtually non-existent for It's Tough To Be A Bug and the wait time said just 5 minutes. Call me crazy but I like having a little bit of a line because I can take more pictures. But, this time, I was snapping while walking and none of them turned out well.

 

[mickeystoontown]

We reached the entrance to the waiting area and got our glasses. While waiting for the show to start, I took more pictures:

And Hunter took one of Mama and I:

One last picture before the show:

***Continued in next post

 

[mickeystoontown]

As always, the show was cute and we loved every loud minute of it! Instead of shuffling along with the rest of the crowd down the path out of the theater, we moved to the side and let everybody pass us by. I hate that "herding the cows" feeling that you get when you come out of theaters. I'd much rather let some of the other people go ahead of us.

Ya'll know me, I took pictures while waiting:

Okay, so now the story pics back up from where I was before. We were walking over to see how long the wait was for Kali River Rapids....the wait was too long....Hunter wanted to go on the Maharajah Jungle Trek....Mama and John wanted to just wait on us....yada, yada, yada.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Here are more pictures taken on the jungle trek. I have no idea why these pictures turned out so crappy. Normally, I take my time and try to focus in on what I am taking a picture of. But, I didn't really want to make Mama and John wait any longer than necessary (even though they told us to take our time) so I was just pretty much snapping pictures and continuing on. I didn't even get a good picture of the bats like I normally do.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Again, I know that some of my pictures are still missing in action because I took the annual picture of Hunter in front of the hidden Mickey right outside the tiger enclosures. I also took a picture of Hunter under the prayer flag tree saying his prayers. I also took a hidden Mickey picture on one of the painted murals. I guess if I find them later, I'll post them.

The only picture I took of the tigers because nobody would move out of the way and let us take a turn:

Hunter took this picture of me taking a picture:

You can see how big that bovine (didn't want to just say "cow" and wanted to sound like a smarty again

) in Hunter's picture and these pictures:

I was able to snap a picture of this pretty bird in the aviary portion of the walk:

 

[mickeystoontown]

I'm having trouble finding my pictures on Photobucket so bear with me as I try to remember what we did and when we did it. I may have to backtrack at some point if I find the other pictures.

The next picture that I see on Photobucket is this one:

which was on our way to see Festival of the Lion King. This would be the last thing we did this day because we had an ADR for the Spirit of Aloha dinner show that evening.
I took a couple of pictures while walking over:

A mother duck and her babies were also seeking shelter from the blazing sun:

And, a few more pictures:

We were all kind of lagging because it had been so hot that day but Mama especially so. I think this is the only time (so far) that she felt like she had overdone it. The misting fans were spraying down on the guests waiting in the line. When I say spraying, I mean spraying! Almost too much. Remember when I said I didn't want to get soaked on Kali River Rapids? Well, these misting fans were blasting so much water that I felt like I had gone on the rapids. While we welcomed the cool mist, we didn't really care for getting soaked. I know....I know...we should have been thankful that they were at least misting (we've been in the lines before and they wouldn't even be turned on) but I think this would come back to haunt Mama later on.

 

[mickeystoontown]

Hope the multiple installments will make up for the time waiting on the Photobucket bandwidth issues to fix themselves.

 

[mickeystoontown]

I don't remember how long we stood in the line....maybe 15...20 minutes. By the time they opened up the doors to the theater, our hair and shoulders were damp. It was almost as if we had been standing in a drizzling/foggy rain for a while. We shuffled along with the rest of the folks into the theater and were directed to the opposite side which is the elephant side. We found seats about four or five rows up. We learned our lesson from the year before that you do not want a lower seat unless it's the very front row which is normally reserved for handicapped guests. Why? Because you can't see a darned thing except for the back of the heads of the people in front of you.

Streams of people continued to flow into the theater and everybody was told to "slide down and fill in all available space". We slid down until there was no available space at all. Had I gotten any closer to my neighbor, I would have felt violated. Or vice versa.

Soon, the music started and you could feel the excitement starting to build until BOOM BAMM....out come the performers. I started snapping pictures with both cameras which means these pictures are soooooo out of order:

It's the tumble monkeys! I love the tumble monkeys!

 

[mickeystoontown]

Then the fire twirling guy came out and this is the only decent picture I was able to capture:

Next, these two performed:

Pictures I took while the singers sang some amazing songs:

***Continued in next post