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Politzania · 12-20-2004, 10:55 AM

Day 6 - Monday, 6 Dec 2004
Today's Event: Donald's Breakfastosaurus

Wasn't quite thinking when I made a PS for Donald's Breakfastosaurus for 8:00a the morning after MVMCP...

Woke up quite early & were on the bus by 7:10. Forecast high of 82 and it was already 60 degrees when we left the room, so we were both wearing shorts & t-shirts & I had a denim long-sleeve shirt as a jacket.

It was EMH for Animal Kingdom that morning, so the lines were building already; we found the queue for the character breakfast & got checked in fairly quickly once we got let into the park. We ended up in the section that was the first to be greeted by the characters (and first to get the food!) Donald, Goofy & Pluto came out to visit, but Mickey was apparently running a little behind; we joked with our server that he must have been out late at his party the night before!

We looked around a bit in Dino-Land and for some unexplainable reason (there was no wait?), decided to go on Primeval Whirl. We'd ridden it once before & this time it spun a LOT more. Not the smartest thing to do on a full tummy, but we were mostly OK. We walked back to Asia via the "back route" and took some pix of Everest - quite a bit of progress since we saw it in May. There's one rather steep drop that looks like it goes underground.... not sure if I'll be riding this once it opens or not! We watched the monkeys cavorting around then ambled over to Africa. There was a relatively long line for the Safari (20 min or so) but it was worth it. Saw quite a few of the elephants and got a good view of the male lion.

Speaking of lions, we wanted to make sure to see the Festival of the Lion King on this trip, so we caught the second show of the day. I was somewhat surprised to see that one of the hosts (the older man) was missing; however, the other hosts did a great job of covering his role. I wanted to see what Animal Kingdom Lodge looked like dressed for the holiday, so we took the bus over after the show.

This was probably the poorest planning of the trip - while the tree and decorations were quite lovely, and we spotted an eland from the observation platform... I didn't realize how SLOW the bus service was! We originally planned to go back to AK and catch a bus back to the hotel, as the night before and the trip in general was starting to catch up with us .... but after at least 20 min, we were ready to hop the next bus, regardless of destination! It was getting hot & we were both getting a bit cranky.

We ended up on our way to MGM - our main goals for that park were the parade and the Osbourne Lights, and we weren't sure we'd have time to go back to the hotel between them, so we put off going back; possibly a mistake. We ate lunch at the ABC Commissary & just hung out there for about a half-hour. I tried the taboulleh wrap, since I never did make it back to Morocco for a meal. It was pretty good!

We meandered around for a bit, then scouted out a spot for the Hollywood Holly-days Parade at 3:30. We were down by Star Tours, trying to find a spot of shade (quite a change from earlier in the trip!). We found a railing spot and Scott was able to get some neat pix of the Motorcars decked out for the season! The rest of the afternoon was a bit of a blur... we did visit the Muppet Labs and rode Star Tours again (this time in the back row - whee!) and got our pictures taken with Mike & Sulley. Shame they can't figure out how to let them do autographs. We also visited Sorcerer Mickey for another photo opportunity and enjoyed the cool & dark of The Voyage of the Little Mermaid.

We just made it onto the last Backstage Tour (in May, I got to be the captain in the Harbour Attack scene!) and got some good looks at Lights, Motors, Action! We had a little time before the lighting ceremony on Streets of America, so we got a green screen photo taken, where we're helping Mickey & Pals decorate their Christmas tree. We were down at the far end of New York street (near where the Backstage tour lets out) so we didn't get to hear the little presentation before they turned on the lights. On the other hand, we got a GREAT view of the whole main street when they came on!

We'd seen the Osbourne Spectacle of Lights in 2001, when they were still on Residential Row; however, I think they look even more magnificent on the Big City set (tho not as attractive during the day). Not surprisingly, the area was *packed* with people! They'd set up "two-way traffic" management & were funneling people out of the area at each end of the street; however you could go around the other way if you liked fairly easily. We were feeling pretty worn out by this time, so decided to forgo Fantasmic! for this trip (sorry Mickey!) and headed back to the hotel, as we had packages to pick up & packing to do for tomorrow.

.

We'd gone ahead and done the 5 for $5 deal at Pleasure Island (buy one night's admission and for $5 more, get 5 subsequent night's admission) earlier in the week & really didn't want it to go to waste. We'd also heard that the Adventurer's Club has a holiday radio broadcast around 10:00, so after dinner, a bit of rest and packing, we got back on the boat (the warmest trip yet!). Unfortunately, the Pop Warner kids were starting to arrive and obnoxious teens were a feature of both the boat trip over and the bus trip back.

We got over to PI a little after nine; Scott got another Leisure Suit and we made our way over to the Adventurer's Club. Sugar Snap was wandering around, looking for animals for the nativity... squirrels in particular. (Yes, squirrels!) She got into a discussion with Babylonia about that, then the Goddess and Pamela had a nice chat. She found two new bodyguards (I think Scott narrowly avoided that!), then, as people were leaving from the Library, Miss Perkins tried to arrange them into a Christmas parade, with mixed results. Then it was into the Library for the Holiday Broadcast - starring Miss Perkins (of course!) Sugar Snap, Hathaway and Emil. Otis threw a fit because Pamela took charge AGAIN, but was lured back at the end of the show with everyone singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas". I was particularly tickled to hear two of my new favorite oddball Christmas tunes - "The Pretty Little Dolly" (performed by Pamela) and "Dominic, the Italian Christmas Donkey" (Emil's contribution).

Hathaway did an international version of "Home for the Holidays" and to noone's surprise, Sugar Snap belted out "Santa Baby".

We got back to the hotel about 11:00, after being subjected once again to Wound Up Teens - flash photography should be prohibited on the busses too, don't you think?

I admit we were already tired & cranky, but I doubt we would have appreciated their "high spirits" even if we'd been well rested. Two long days in a row... 19,888 steps = 8.14 miles.

12-20-2004, 10:55 AM	#21 (permalink)
Politzania Community Rank: Traveler Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: central Indiana Posts: 450	Re: Disney in December (12/1-12/7) - Day 6 Added 12/20 Day 6 - Monday, 6 Dec 2004 Today's Event: Donald's Breakfastosaurus Wasn't quite thinking when I made a PS for Donald's Breakfastosaurus for 8:00a the morning after MVMCP... Woke up quite early & were on the bus by 7:10. Forecast high of 82 and it was already 60 degrees when we left the room, so we were both wearing shorts & t-shirts & I had a denim long-sleeve shirt as a jacket. It was EMH for Animal Kingdom that morning, so the lines were building already; we found the queue for the character breakfast & got checked in fairly quickly once we got let into the park. We ended up in the section that was the first to be greeted by the characters (and first to get the food!) Donald, Goofy & Pluto came out to visit, but Mickey was apparently running a little behind; we joked with our server that he must have been out late at his party the night before! We looked around a bit in Dino-Land and for some unexplainable reason (there was no wait?), decided to go on Primeval Whirl. We'd ridden it once before & this time it spun a LOT more. Not the smartest thing to do on a full tummy, but we were mostly OK. We walked back to Asia via the "back route" and took some pix of Everest - quite a bit of progress since we saw it in May. There's one rather steep drop that looks like it goes underground.... not sure if I'll be riding this once it opens or not! We watched the monkeys cavorting around then ambled over to Africa. There was a relatively long line for the Safari (20 min or so) but it was worth it. Saw quite a few of the elephants and got a good view of the male lion. Speaking of lions, we wanted to make sure to see the Festival of the Lion King on this trip, so we caught the second show of the day. I was somewhat surprised to see that one of the hosts (the older man) was missing; however, the other hosts did a great job of covering his role. I wanted to see what Animal Kingdom Lodge looked like dressed for the holiday, so we took the bus over after the show. This was probably the poorest planning of the trip - while the tree and decorations were quite lovely, and we spotted an eland from the observation platform... I didn't realize how SLOW the bus service was! We originally planned to go back to AK and catch a bus back to the hotel, as the night before and the trip in general was starting to catch up with us .... but after at least 20 min, we were ready to hop the next bus, regardless of destination! It was getting hot & we were both getting a bit cranky. We ended up on our way to MGM - our main goals for that park were the parade and the Osbourne Lights, and we weren't sure we'd have time to go back to the hotel between them, so we put off going back; possibly a mistake. We ate lunch at the ABC Commissary & just hung out there for about a half-hour. I tried the taboulleh wrap, since I never did make it back to Morocco for a meal. It was pretty good! We meandered around for a bit, then scouted out a spot for the Hollywood Holly-days Parade at 3:30. We were down by Star Tours, trying to find a spot of shade (quite a change from earlier in the trip!). We found a railing spot and Scott was able to get some neat pix of the Motorcars decked out for the season! The rest of the afternoon was a bit of a blur... we did visit the Muppet Labs and rode Star Tours again (this time in the back row - whee!) and got our pictures taken with Mike & Sulley. Shame they can't figure out how to let them do autographs. We also visited Sorcerer Mickey for another photo opportunity and enjoyed the cool & dark of The Voyage of the Little Mermaid. We just made it onto the last Backstage Tour (in May, I got to be the captain in the Harbour Attack scene!) and got some good looks at Lights, Motors, Action! We had a little time before the lighting ceremony on Streets of America, so we got a green screen photo taken, where we're helping Mickey & Pals decorate their Christmas tree. We were down at the far end of New York street (near where the Backstage tour lets out) so we didn't get to hear the little presentation before they turned on the lights. On the other hand, we got a GREAT view of the whole main street when they came on! We'd seen the Osbourne Spectacle of Lights in 2001, when they were still on Residential Row; however, I think they look even more magnificent on the Big City set (tho not as attractive during the day). Not surprisingly, the area was packed with people! They'd set up "two-way traffic" management & were funneling people out of the area at each end of the street; however you could go around the other way if you liked fairly easily. We were feeling pretty worn out by this time, so decided to forgo Fantasmic! for this trip (sorry Mickey!) and headed back to the hotel, as we had packages to pick up & packing to do for tomorrow. . We'd gone ahead and done the 5 for $5 deal at Pleasure Island (buy one night's admission and for $5 more, get 5 subsequent night's admission) earlier in the week & really didn't want it to go to waste. We'd also heard that the Adventurer's Club has a holiday radio broadcast around 10:00, so after dinner, a bit of rest and packing, we got back on the boat (the warmest trip yet!). Unfortunately, the Pop Warner kids were starting to arrive and obnoxious teens were a feature of both the boat trip over and the bus trip back. We got over to PI a little after nine; Scott got another Leisure Suit and we made our way over to the Adventurer's Club. Sugar Snap was wandering around, looking for animals for the nativity... squirrels in particular. (Yes, squirrels!) She got into a discussion with Babylonia about that, then the Goddess and Pamela had a nice chat. She found two new bodyguards (I think Scott narrowly avoided that!), then, as people were leaving from the Library, Miss Perkins tried to arrange them into a Christmas parade, with mixed results. Then it was into the Library for the Holiday Broadcast - starring Miss Perkins (of course!) Sugar Snap, Hathaway and Emil. Otis threw a fit because Pamela took charge AGAIN, but was lured back at the end of the show with everyone singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas". I was particularly tickled to hear two of my new favorite oddball Christmas tunes - "The Pretty Little Dolly" (performed by Pamela) and "Dominic, the Italian Christmas Donkey" (Emil's contribution). Hathaway did an international version of "Home for the Holidays" and to noone's surprise, Sugar Snap belted out "Santa Baby". We got back to the hotel about 11:00, after being subjected once again to Wound Up Teens - flash photography should be prohibited on the busses too, don't you think? I admit we were already tired & cranky, but I doubt we would have appreciated their "high spirits" even if we'd been well rested. Two long days in a row... 19,888 steps = 8.14 miles.