[LSUtigerfan]

Day 3, Disney/MGM Studios, dinner at Whispering Canyon Cafe, & Hercules sighting!!!

We decided to sleep in this morning...no wake up call from Mickey. We woke up around 9 am, but could have slept til noon. We slowly got dressed and ate muffins, etc. in the room that dh picked up this morning from the Pepper Market. He likes his walk to El Centro to get the USA Today. So we all decide to go to MGM/Disney Studios since this will be a short day. One last check of the weather reveals a 40% chance of rain for today... yikes! Don't forget those ponchos!

We hop on our bus and I hear a couple near the back of the bus say something about my Passholder pouch. Well who else would notice this from afar but another fellow PassPorter? So, I ask if they are on the boards, and they reply yes, and that their username is MickeyNme (hope I spelled it right!). [img]graemlins/wavin.gif[/img] Hello, again if you are reading this TR! Hope y'all had a great trip too.

We approach the entrance to the park and dh is filming us ( and not paying attention to where he is walking ) and Boom! He runs into a concrete planter or something. It was funny when we watched it on the video, but his poor knee still has a nice brush burn on it. Got a B-day pin at guest svcs. and it's the same one as MK has. Hollywood Blvd. seems crowded today (Sunday), but we make our way through the sea of people very easily. We were trying to decide where to eat lunch before the 12:00 rush when I spotted a crowd near the Echo Lake area...There was Hercules! Princess Face quickly grabbed her autograph book & pen and got in line. Hercules sure did put a twinkle in her eye [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img] . He told her she had the prettiest blue eyes and she just giggled. He stood in his flexed muscle stance for pictures, and seemed to be quite a "ham." He was very "good looking" but I thought his wig didn't look right, either (maybe he and Aurora have the same costume designer).

We have a quick bite at the ABC Commissary. The food was ok. Dh placed the order while I grabbed FP's for Voyage of the Little Mermaid (stand-by= 35 min wait). I rush back to eat my Cuban sandwich which would have tasted much better if they would've left the pickles off. I love pickles, but these were terrible, and the juice soaked into the bread. FIL & I both had the Cuban, and both disliked the pickles. Dh & MIL had burgers (she finally fulfilled that craving!) and loved them. Princess Face had chicken nuggets (if my memory serves me corectly) with fries...thank goodness I brought a small can of green beans with me because that is all Grumpette wanted to eat for lunch. I put some cans of green beans (with a pop top lid)in my UPS package to myself, Grumpette loves cold green beans! ABC Commissary earned a 7.5 out of 10 rating from the LSU Tiger Fans. The restroom here was very clean too!

Voyage of the Little Mermaid was next (FP'S!) and we all loved this show. Although, Ariel didn't have the "give you the chills" voice that I remember from prior visits. Neverless, my dd's loved her. Upon exiting the show, Princess Face spent some of her birthday money on an Ariel figurine playset and Ariel necklace. She actually agreed to sending the pkg. to our resort! Well wonders never cease...but she did wear the necklace.

We met up with our friends again today (love those cell phones!) We joined them in the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground. I decided today that I do not like this playground. They let entirely too many people in at one time, which makes it unbearably hot and actually quite dangerous. It would have been alot better if it was less crowded. I felt like I was always searching frantically for my dd. But the children love it and we could barely pry them away. We were all very hot and ready for something cold, so we got ice cream and smoothies. They were all very good, especially the strawberry smoothie that I had! Yummy!!! I ended up finishing Princess Faces ice cream cone for her but I didn't mind.

Next, we all wanted to try Millionaire. We saw Pluto on our way, so we stopped for a picture & autograph. Forgot to mention we had FP's for Millionaire and a **word of caution: When I was getting the FP's it was very windy outside and one of them blew out of the plastic dispensing area. I yelled to my dh, but it was gone. The CM's did not have a problem letting all of us in the FP line, thanks again to such great CM's! Grumpette fell asleep in the Baby Bjorn carrier during the long preshow/queue area. This made the fast finger thing very hard for me to do. This has to be the reason why I didn't get into the top 10! [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img] I kept answering all of the questions correctly and quickly, but apparently not quick enough. Oh well, I'll buy my own pin lanyard! We all had a great time and I can see how I could spend an entire day repeating this attraction over and over. I love trivia.

Our friends entered the park early this morning, so they had seen all of the shows before 12:00! They really wanted to ride ToT with us and we were really dying to ride it! We grabbed FP's for this while I rode Rock'n'Roller Coaster all by myself. Everyone else waited for me, it only took about 15-20 minutes. I loved it! In the picture, I had a huge smile on my face. When I came out of the ride the skies looked alot darker.

We headed back to ToT for our FP time. MIL, FIL & I rode first, while dh & our friends stayed in the gift shop to watch the 4 kids. I loved this ride even more! I giggled and laughed the whole time, it was wonderful. In the preshow area the CM was excellent...he stood right behind me & stared down the back of my neck! It was so creepy [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] ! We exited the ride and then dh, our friends & I rode next, while MIL & FIL watched the 4 girls. My dh's best friend didn't lower the bar all the way down so we caught alot of air time! My dh loved this ride too. The drop sequence on my 2nd ride was much better than the 1st. On the 2nd ride, we had fewer but much longer drops, during one drop it was hard to tell if we were going up or down! While we were on this ride it began to pour outside...we didn't know it until we went up to the top and the doors opened, that was a strange sight! The pic at the end didn't even come out because it was covered in rain drops. We exited the ride to find that a sweet CM [img]graemlins/love.gif[/img] , Maria (I think) had been showing our dd's alot of attention. She gave each of them lanyard pins and personalized Magical Moments certificates. We thanked her graciously then put our ponchos on and braved the rain. We were all hungry and it didn't look like the rain was going to stop anytime soon (it was lightening too) so I suggested we try to eat at Whispering Canyon Cafe. Our friends were staying at the Wilderness Lodge and we really wanted to check it out! We called the WCC and tried to get in but they didn't have an opening for another 2 1/2 hrs.! So we hopped on a bus for WL, all 10 of us.

The WL was beautiful. The lobby & its huge totem poles and tepees that were hanging from the ceiling were really awesome. I was disappointed that the fireplace didn't put out any heat, but I guess that would be alot of trouble for Disney if it were a real wood-burning fireplace. Come to think of it, it would be rather silly to have a wood-burning fireplace in balmy Florida year round! (Sorry for the blonde moment [img]graemlins/blush.gif[/img] ) The men sweet talk their way into being seated within 15 mins. of our arrival. I can't say enough about this restaurant. We had the best time here. I think it was my 2nd favorite meal of the trip. We all ordered the all you can eat skillets, with the exception of my dh. He completely shocked me by ordering a pasta dish, which he said was wonderful. The meat was delicious, smoked perfectly and very, very tender. Now, I am extremely picky about the meat that I eat. If it has fat in it, I will not eat it. I ate my entire $21.99 worth of brisket and sausage. The first set of ribs were very good--no fat at all. The 2nd set were tough & had too much fat for my taste, but everything else was yummy! With the skillets we received: cornbread (sweet), fluffy biscuits, baked beans, chicken, sausage, ribs, & brisket. The BBQ sauce was on the side, and was very good. The girls ate PB&J sandwiches and chicken nuggets. There were stick horse races for the kids, and we did ask for ketchup which was hilarious! Our waiter was super...his name was El Bachir (sp?) he was very loud & animated, which was a great match for our table. After one of the stick horse races he brought me the stack of certificates to pass out to the kids. He stuck the microphone in my face and asked my name...of course my mouth was very full of food! Then, it seemed as though hundreds of kids were standing at my table with their hands out for their certificate. It was so much fun, we all laughed so hard! When we exited the WCC, he had our table stop and lead the whole restaurant in the Hokey Pokey! We then checked out their room...more on that later! I have to go pick up my dd from school! [img]graemlins/wavin.gif[/img]