Trip Report 1/27-2/4 (No photos. Only pictures. Photo heavy)

[almandot]

January 27th, 2009

So I took off from LA and headed to Orlando with a quick stop in Kansas City where it was snowing! hurray! I love the snow. And since we arrived early we had to get off the plane and hang around in the terminal for 20 minutes or so and enjoy staring at the snow. I almost wanted to run outside and play.

And then I had to listen to all the flight attendants making quips about how we get to leave this cruddy weather and go to orlando where it's nice, except they kept telling it to the group that had already been on the plane, as in we came from LA, as in don't worry we're used to it not being below freezing. Wouldn't you know though, it had been 58 when I left LA and 80 in Orlando...And by the end of the trip when I came back it was 58 in Orlando and 80 in LA. And promptly after returning to LA we've gotten this cold spell again. Cold weather seems to be following me. Unfortunately for it, I like cold weather so it's doing me a favor ;P

We arrived at nighttime but I already had plans for the evening. As quickly as we could we go onto a bus to the Magic Kingdom and then jumped onto the ferry boat to take us to the Polynesian resort(even though we weren't staying there. Shhh).


We picked up a nice little dinner at Captain Cooks, my first experience using the meal plan and I have to say that as long as I'm getting it at a discount price and it's actually worth the money, I'm a fan, it works very nicely. We then took our food and dessert to the stretching vista next to the Hawaii beach and walked down the side of the grassy hill to have a small picnic.


From here we got a nice view of Wishes reflecting off of the Seven Seas Lagoon.

Kaboom, what a show.

We spent the rest of our evening exploring the Polynesian, including the gift shops.

It's a very pleasant setting there. As luck would have it we ended up going back on our last day to relax before our flight out. More on that later.

Coming Up Next: A walk around our hotel and Animal Kingdom

[almandot]

January 28th, 2009

Our first full day here and we started off by using the excuse of trying to find a soda machine to explore our hotel. We stayed at the Pop Century Resort, where each building is themed to a decade. Presenting the last 50 years of the 20th century in the way you want to remember it, with Hanson songs, disco, and rubix cubes!

And then there's the generation gap bridge to nowhere

It really is a graveyard demolition site over there.


Do they still actually tell people that they're building more over there
and that's a future site to come back and visit next time?:P

You turn around and see finished buildings and turn
back around and see an unfinished junkyard.



The pool looked fun but since it dropped to 29 degrees at night
and rained twice or so we didn't really get a chance to go in it...
but we made up for it later.

And now onto Animal Kingdom

[almandot]

We headed off to the Animal Kingdom
for the first park destination of our trip

The Tree of Life, home of a photopass line that you have to stealthily avoid
to get your own picture directly in front of the tree.



We got fast passes for Kilimanjaro Safaris before heading back to lunch at Flame Tree Barbecue. I liked the food here last time and for the prices thought it was probably the best value for a quick service location in the entire resort. Fortunately for the accountants, disney raised food prices resort-wide just prior to us arrived for this trip and the price had gone up to what I expected for Disney food. Although it's still a few dollars cheaper than it'd be at Disneyland. WDW's food is cheaper, Disneyland's merchandise is cheaper. Who knows their logistics.


At least the ducks are friendly here.

And after lunch it was already time for our Kilimanjaro Safari.


Gator golf, what could be greater than playing a game of golf with a gator!

Can you spot the grass amongst this herd of animals?

Baby giraffe! Awwlookatthelittleguy. Nearby, other giraffes do grownup things.



So cuuuuute

...and a monkey. Everyone loves a little monkey

Here's the antitree of life.

Rhinos graze right next to the road. One of them should've charged us. That would've been fun.

In the land of africa within animal kingdom on kilimanjaro safaris
after the savannah portion, the mighty land of africa within animal kingdom
on kilimanjaro safaris after the savannah portion, the lion sleeps tonight

and the lady.. Probably dreaming of dinner

The local swinger club



And then of course there's Magic Mountain.

After trying to grab another fastpass it was time for the Jammin Jungle Parade

[almandot]

Baloo and Louie seem to wander a little aimlessly down the street
back and forth because there's no underlining music to this parade
it's all from the floats, so until that first float gets to you and
you can hear it it's funny to watch them.

Something makes me wanna shout SPICE POWER!!!

and then there was the Y-M-C-A!

Catgirl. Meow.

On each of the main floats there's a group of guests chosen to ride along with the parade.
These girls were living it up. If I had to guess off the top of my head
I'd make the stereotypic assumption that they've been to Tokyo Disneyland
once or twice in their life and have that Disney enthusiasm to them.

Rafiki starts off the parade raisin up and praisin Mufasa

"And there you have a giraffe"

At this point in the parade the stiltwalker screamed "CHIP YOU'RE BLOCKING THE CAMERA. MOVE!!!" (it was Dale, but we won't tell him that.)

Minnie with her Donald Ducky

Peacock and a monkey



I said a monkey!!

I'm required to once again say "What a croc"

Stilt walker and a rabbit from a movie I forget the name of..
Hmm surely I can go find it in one of the local Disney stores...

and then there's Goofy. He's jungle jammin all right



There's lots of puppetry animals in this parade.. Probably inspired by the Tapestry of Nations that came just a year and a half or so before it.

Turk and Timon and is that a duck?...

It is, whatdyaknow!

Hi Donald

Pluto might be playing air guitar here

Mufasaaaa.... OoOOoOo.. doit again!

Mickey finishes it up. Clearly the bravest of the safari,
sending his girl all the way towards the front of the group
and sticking around in the back.

And that's the end of my show.. DONK

But we're not done with Animal Kingdom yet...

[almandot]

The nicest spots to see the tree always involve water of some kind

Is there a section of this park that doesn't have monkeys?
Not that it's a bad thing. It's funner to watch them swing around
than it is to see them standing and walking around on the safari.

This time we were actually going to ride Everest

Just because people with heart conditions, other health risks, or pregnancies
shouldn't ride this fast paced roller coaster type ride doesn't mean it's
not a great place to be holding an expensive camera taking pictures on!

As close to Soarin' over Florida as you need to get,
and probably more scenic than the rest of the state

The sun was set and at this point the park is essentially done for the day,
but thanks to extra magic hours it can be experienced at night to a certain degree.
Walking around the Tree of Life gardens at night is always peaceful and pretty.

Gotta take a typical everest shot from the bridge :P

They always have a Festival of the Lion King performance for extra magic hours
so we usually make it that one that we go see(I think almost everyone else in
the park at that point does too). So we headed over to Camp Minnie-Mickey.

I'm gonna be a miiiiiighty king



Hey it worked, he is!

Timon has an articulated head so that's fun. But he's still no match for the tumble monkeys.

Ta da!

Coming soon: The next day's pictures featuring some Grand Floridian, Magic Kingdom and a little Fantasmic thrown in.

[josh_kslow]

great trip report with great photos. thank you for sharing.

[almandot]

January 29th, 2009

We started out again by heading to the Magic Kingdom
only to sidetrack our way to one of the resorts.
This time it was for breakfast at the Grand Floridian.

We had to have tea with a few of our Disney friends. It was absolutely empty.
The poor characters were bored stiff. And the buffet itself... meh. I had gone
there excited because according to their ads it had full sized Mickey waffles
which I haven't seen in forever since Goofy's kitchen switched to the mini-sized
waffles. I got there and the first thing I saw was they did have only mini-sized
waffles, their picture was just outdated to make it look better. It set the tone.


Poppins and Hatter were a treat. Tigger kept making threatening
motions to me behind my back apparently. Does he WANT me to make
a "Please don't punch me!" reference?

It was then onto the Magic Kingdom. We saw the castle by land, by sea,



and by air.

We got a fastpass for Splash Mountain but we didn't end up
going on it today because of the return time.

But we did go on another flume ride.. just as good, promise!

This scene is outdated doesn't properly relate to the child in me
unless they focus all of my attention to a Pinocchio figurine nearby.

Tigers and penguins, a dangerous combination. For the tigers...

I wonder if the umbrellas cost the small world figurines 8-10 bucks a pop too.

And a finale. Much bluer than ours it seems, but they do have a black backdrop that brings it out.

And then it was time for the parade...but raining it sure was!

[Coheteboy]

I'm jealous you guys have Brer Rabbit walkin around.

[aimster]

I love the penguins in our Small World.

[danyoung]

Very enjoyable trip report. I'm still trying to figger out what "No photos. Only pictures." means, though . . . . .

[tasman]

Originally Posted by danyoung

Very enjoyable trip report. I'm still trying to figger out what "No photos. Only pictures." means, though . . . . .

The real mystery is what "no photos...photo heavy" means

Nice TR, thanks!

[almandot]

It was time for the parade, but it was raining. Then the rain went away.
And then it came back. But then it went away, so on with the parade! But then
it came back. I watched from Frontierland and then since we were leaving the
park afterwards watched from Town Square on our way out.

Here's a random ribbon twirler before the banner announcing the parade.
On a later viewing we found out she's supposed to be a lone dancer in front
of the Grand Marshall but here she's just a lone dancer in front of the parade.

Taxi!

Mickey Minnie

Some enjoyed being in the rain more than others

Everybody was in their disco best throughout the entire parade

Mickey took the rain in stride

Jiminy gets to use his umbrella. It's nice to see them taking advantage
of something associated with the character to handle the.. HEY is
Snow White holding an umbrella back there?? CHEATER!

Checking to see if it's still raining... yep.

I got no strings just a pole up my


By the time the parade got to Town Square the rain
had gone and the umbrellas came down.

Hey wait Genie is a genie he can just magically make the rain go away!

Yee-haw

Pooh was getting all sorts of ideas from the little black rainclouds overhead.

Oh well what can they do it's not like they could somehow
keep me out of the rai..hey wait didn't I used to be in a bubble?

And what would a parade be without a random villain
float thrown in with them whining for no apparent reason

How about them apples?

Always the liveliest of the bunch

Caw.. caw I say.

While they jump for joy, I submit this query...
Does it matter if one's late if you're in neverland and never grow older?

Taxi!


So it should be explained that I constantly mocked the former DDCT parade
because during "second star to the right and you'll find" just about every
former did an authoritative point to the right and dramatic arm fade down,
and then in this parade they managed to fit it into a couple of the units
anyways during "when you close your eyes then you realize."

Mad Hatter and stuff

Jazz hands out for the grand finale!

The princess float was cut due to the rain so they commandeered the castle float.

And finally the true party animals



With the parade checked off our list we headed to Hollywood Studios for dinner and to hopefully catch Fantasmic.

[jagass]

Nice pics and nice experience too huh...lol

[Skawt]

Execellent, I wish I could get my posts formatted as nicely as you ahve. Makes for a very easy to read reports.

[Micoofy Duck]

Amazing trip report. Thanks!