The Semi-Magical Express Bus Arrived and whisked us away to Orlando International Airport. Flying from Dallas to Ontario there was a bad weather area that we had to fly around, about 300 miles out of our way, which meant that our plane arrived 1 hr later @ 11pm, which was 2am EST and that means that we arrived back in Lake Arrowhead @ 3am EST!
We found the pricing interesting. Originally, knowing that our kids were water bugs, we thought we would save money and only buy passes to the parks for 4 days instead of 7, but the difference between the two for us was only $24 for the whole family, so we bought the whole 7 day package. Here's a good tip. We bought our tickets in advance and they were mailed to our house. We didn't have to wait in line at the park AND from the time we bought them to the time we arrived Disney had raised the prices $30 (That's also why my math doesn't add up, pictured are the updated prices).
Had to show you Club Cool. In here you got to sample sodas from around the world for free anytime you wanted. It's hard for me to believe that Disney would allow this to hurt their lucrative sodas sales in the park, but if you're like me, and I know I am, this was the place to head when you were thirsty for something other than water. There can be up to 8 different sodas, but during our stay there was only 4. Vegita Beta from Japan was made with veggies, MezzoMix from Germany was like Coke with orange, Isreal had a lemon-lime soda, and I can't remember the other country but it was Ginger Ale. We all like the MezzoMix from Germany.
Here's a picture of each of the 11 countries represented in the World Showcase at Epcot. Yes, I've heard from you that these collages are hard to see, but the alternative is 11 blog entries! Anyway, can you find:
The last day started with Disney's Not So Magical Express. We were supposed to check our luggage in at the resort instead of the airport, but Disney ran out of American Airlines tags, so we would have to take our luggage to the airport ourselves. Also, we had to wait a while to get to the front desk, so instead of leaving for a park at 8am in my plan, we were set at 11am. Just as the bus pulled up, Laura asked the kids if they would rather go swimming instead of just two hours at Epcot - and they both said yes! I still needed to get some more pictures of some countries in the World Showcase and I wanted to see if they found my tripod, so this is the view from the bus with just me on it as it pulled away.
This was taken of the boat parade. To get the shot even this clear, I rested the camera on the dock. This parade started when WDW first opened in 1971 and was the precursor to the Main Street Electrical Parade (Now at Disney's California Adventure)
A boat took us to Downtown Disney as we pass by our condo. We were in the lower veranda. If we lived there, you would see our kayaks by water's edge, but I guess the Disney folks frown on kayaks. We actually never saw any neighbors in our complex. But what we did see (and mostly heard) on this trip were a whole lot of New Yorkers in the parks. They were everywhere and all of the women sounded like George Castanza's mom. At the fireworks display later this night you could hear "Oh honey isn't this beautiful, oh honey look at that, oh honey take a picture, take a picture!" It was also funny to think about how those pictures would turn out, taken at night, on a moving boat, with a flash!
Back at the resort for a quick change, we were ready for some pool hopping. A quick rain shower cooled us off
After a rapid river ride and some more photos we were done by lunch time.
Reading behind the scenes, Disney is a master at creating a setting for the animals to feel at home without cages and pens. Usually when we visit a zoo the exciting animals are sleeping somewhere just out of view of the visitors. What Disney did was to figure out small rewards for animals to stay in view. So they planted delicious trees close to the tour roads, made sure the watering holes were in sight and even gave the big animals air conditioned rocks on which to rest.
A quick return to the Animal Kingdom was the choice of the kids for day seven. Laura headed to Asia to pick up Expedition Everest fast passes and as the kids and me went strainght to the Safari in Africa were we secured a safari guide and met up with Laura. This was a planned half day at the park, followed by some downtown Disney shopping and some pool hopping.
Epcot at night does not have the crowds like the day. Actually, we only had to deal with a large crowd on our first day in the parks on a Sunday. Florida is already in school and it turns out that the last week in August is the best time to go in the Summer to avoid the masses, but we couldn't avoid the 90 degree temps, occasional rain showers (actually, they were cooling) and high humidity, but life is full of little trade-offs.
Yes. It was Epcot. This is one of my favorite pictures of the trip. I lifted the kids on a wall, took the picture, and got them off before the Disney police were on to us.
Nothing like a Monorail ride to get you out of the rain. As you can see, Keegan has his dad's gift of fashion!
Good News/Bad News Department (Mostly good news) After swimming we got a chance to do something that I've always wanted to do, we rented two small boats and dashed around the Seven Seas Lagoon, (That's Laura's and Katie's boat in front of the Grand Floridian Resort) the body of water directly in front of the Magic Kingdom. Right after we got out on the water (10 minutes) the sky grew dark and it started to pour and a patrol boat told us to return to dock. Our whole trip lasted just 19 minutes, and the rental fee for the boats was $22 per half hour each boat, but when we arrived back at the dock the rental guy said "No charge." With the rain starting to come down a little hard, this was the only picture I was able to take.
That's Katie and Keegan at the top of the Volcano Slide - Look's like a great day...
The Character Breakfast was located at the Polynesian Resort. We started with the All-You-Care-To-Eat meal...
We got to sleep in a little this morning before the Charater Breakfast featuring Lilo & Stitch. When you visit another resort, you must first take transportation to a theme park then take transportation to the resort. So today we took a bus to the Magic Kingdom, then the Monorail to the Character Breakfast. We were lucky enough to sit with the driver and the kids got official Monorail Licenses!
This guy's job is to keep birds away from the strollers. It seems that the local birds have figured out that there's easy pickings to be had in these strollers. They know to head for the bags and find snacks. So just remember, when you are having a bad day at work, your job could be worse. You could be a paid scarecrow.(I asked him to demonstrate his bird scaring method for the photo)
All of my hard work creating our custom touring plan was thrown out of the window when we were chosen to be the first ride in the park at the Buzzlightyear Ride. We arrived at the park before it opened and were some of the first people waiting for them to open Tomorrowland. Our plan called for us to head to Space Mountain right away. About 5 minutes before they dropped the rope a cast member called Keegan, or the little boy in the blue shirt, to the front. She said the he and his family would be the first quests of the day to ride Buzz Lightyear. I kind of wanted to tell her no thanks, but I went with the flow... and it's a good thing I did. They gave us two free pictures of us on the ride, an official Certificate and Fast Passes for 7 rides at anytime!!! No more careful planning and criscrossing the park to beat the crowds, we just went on any ride we wanted, when we wanted!!! We are mid-way through the day as I write this, if we end up with extra passes it might be fun to see if I can sell them on eBay!!! : ) We came home for a break and plan on heading back to the park, but in just 3 or 4 hours we have enjoyed: Buzz, Indy Cars (Autopia), Space Mountain, TTA (People Movers), Stitches Great Escape. Peter Pan, It's A Small World, the Haunted Mansion, and Splash Mountain. With no pressure we spent an hour on Tom Sawyer's Island, took in the Country Bear Jamboree, and here we are recharging to head back to the park after dark!
Some time between Epcot and swimming, Keegan decided it was a good idea to play with my nifty new tri-pod, and leave it somewhere, so that's why I'm not in the Surrey photo. It's a good thing too, because I wasn't too happy when I discovered my tri-pod missing.
A quick tour around the world featured Mexico, Norway, China, France, Germany and Italy. We are going to try and fool our local paper into printing a picture of us at one of these 'exoctic' locals in the paper, we'll let them in on it later. Shhhhh! By reading this blog you are sworn to privacy.
