New House, New Disney Trip TR - COMPLETE 5/13!! About This Page:

[lazanya]

Great updates! The murphy bed is cool!

[JKnott17]

Great day at MK!

[Luv2laff]

Day 4- Epcot!
I couldn’t believe it- we were up and at ‘em this morning and made it to Epcot for rope drop! This was a theme throughout our week and we were happy that we finally made it happen. We have never been able to do that before! Although it did mean that we didn’t stay for the late evening shows, but we’ve seen them all before and were OK with that.
We headed straight for Soarin’ after we got through the turnstiles. I went on ahead to get FP’s, and the rest of the family made their way over slowly. We ended up riding it standby first, and came back later to use our FPs.
Then we headed to Character Connection, where we started our signature tote bag. We only waited about 20 minutes and got all the fab five, which was excellent.




At this point our Soarin’ FPs were ripe, so we headed there to do that. Then we headed over to Test Track, which the kids absolutely love, and we got FPs for later as well. Then we went on to Mission:Space, which was a new one for Natalie. She was a little bit nervous at first but ended up loving this as well. She decided that she was going to try something new every day this vacation. I love her spirit!
At this point we were all hungry, but Richard and I wanted fish and chips. The kids wanted no part of that, so we went to the Electric Umbrella for them for lunch. This is where Natalie had her meltdown of the day. It seems she had at least one a day, not bad, but just crying about something. She doesn’t ever throw a tantrum, but can get very sensitive about things and just burst into tears. I am not looking forward to that child’s teenage years!
We then headed over to World Showcase. We walked through Canada on our way to Yorkshire County Fish Shop. On our way, the World Showcase Players were just starting Cyranose De Bergerac. These guys are absolutely hysterical. The kids hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time.



Then, finally, Richard and I got to eat! We ended up sitting with four other people from all over the US who were vacationing together. They were super nice, and we had great conversation. It’s so nice to meet other people who are as talkative as we are!
We then got pictures with Alice, and took in the amazing topiaries and flowers starting to go up for the F&GF. We also signed Natalie up to play Kim Possible, as Ethan wasn’t interested. We got a ticket to pick up a phone in Norway at 2:30. We stopped in Japan for Natalie to get a rainbow kaki gori, and we saw Matsuriza coming out, so we watched their set. They are so much fun. Ethan plays percussion in the school band, so he was really interested in them.



We headed over to The American Adventure and saw the Voices of Liberty. I had never seen them perform before. They are absolutely amazing. It’s hard enough to sing with music, so it was doubly impressive to hear them sing a cappella.
Next we hit Italy and caught the Ziti Sisters show. They were quite amusing with the men in the audience, lol. We walked through Germany and checked out the train layout there, which is always fun. At the Outpost, Ethan had fun with the Bongos and Natalie bought a pair of earrings made with the paper Magic beads. So cool! We walked through China and then headed into Norway to pick up Natalie’s kimmunicator. The country we had to head to was Mexico, so we boogied right over there and she played the game. It was very cute! She didn’t want to do it again afterward, and we were running out of time anyway as we had a 5:00 ADR. We rode the Three Caballeros ride while we were in Mexico.



At this point we did something else we had never done- we took the Friendship boat across World Showcase. We really slowed down this trip, which was nice. Richard has a bad leg from an old injury that bothers him quite a bit, so we sat when we could. It was a nice way to get off of our feet.
We headed over to Japan and checked in for our ADR at Teppan Edo. We didn’t wait long to be seated. Unfortunately, our tablemates weren’t as friendly as the ones we had earlier in the day. They kept to themselves the entire time, barely even interacting with the chef. We didn’t let it bother us though, and we had a great time joking with our chef. When he made the volcano, Natalie beat him to the punch when he announced what it was, (we have been here before obviously), and he made her blush when he got after her for that. It was cute and the food was spectacular. Richard had the scallops and he said they were great. My filet mignon absolutely melted in my mouth and both kids ate with their modified chopsticks.



After dinner we headed downstairs to the store. We spent quite a bit of time here. Natalie wanted to do pick-a-pearl, so she spent some of her money there and got a beautiful 7 ¼ mm pearl. She bought a little jar to keep it in. I picked up a t-shirt to give to Richard’s uncle, who plowed our driveway while we were gone.


You can see Natalie’s earrings that she bought in this picture.
We walked back through world showcase to future world, where we used our Test Track FPs. It was so much more fun riding in the dark! We were all tired, so we decided to skip Illuminations and head back, but we wanted to do Spaceship Earth on our way out. There was no line, so we got right on. Right about the time that we got to the scene with the guy making papyrus, the ride stopped. This has happened to us before, so we didn’t think anything of it. Then someone came on the intercom and said that the ride could not continue and to wait for a CM. We waited about 15 minutes and then the lights came on. We waited another 10 or so until a CM reached us (with a crowd of people behind her) and opened our car to let us out. We walked down the steps and out of the ride. We actually thought it was kind of cool, but I figured we would at least get FPs for something since we couldn’t finish the ride. Oh well, we knew we were coming back Friday, so we figured we would try again then.
We headed back to POR and our beds!
Up Next: Will she ride Expedition Everest?

[chezp]

What a great day at Epcot!

[lauriep]

Epcot is such a great park for slowing down a bit. Wonderful family photos. Natalie looks very happy with her pick-a-pearl!

[Colexis Mom]

Great day at Epcot!

[JKnott17]

You had a fun day at Epcot! I didn't realize they sold earrings at the bead stand in the Outpost, I thought it was just bracelets and necklaces. Those are definitely on my list of things to check out on our next trip!

[OCEANGRLLG]

Great Epcot day!!! Beautiful pearl!

[MayraLR]

Great day at Epcot! Glad you enjoyed your dinner at Teppan Edo! I'm looking foward to eating there this summer and I know my kids will enjoy the show.

[Luv2laff]

You had a fun day at Epcot! I didn't realize they sold earrings at the bead stand in the Outpost, I thought it was just bracelets and necklaces. Those are definitely on my list of things to check out on our next trip!

They were really reasonably priced, too- only $7 a pair.

[Cam22]

Congrats on making rope drop! Awesome day at Epcot! We love Test Track at night!

[Luv2laff]

Day 5- Animal Kingdom!
We were up on time this morning but ended up waiting around 30 minutes for a bus. We must have seen 2 of every other bus before an AK one finally arrived. No big deal- we still ended up getting there right after 9 am. We took our time walking through discovery island, and then I hustled over to get FPs for Everest. We thought we might do the same as yesterday and get a standby ride in as well, but the ride was down when we got over there. We still got our FPs though. Natalie got really nervous when she saw that the cars were stopped on the hill going up! I told her that hopefully that wouldn’t happen to us and then crossed my fingers that she would still agree to ride when our time came.
We got a couple photopass pictures taken and then headed over to the safari.



This was the first time I had gone on the safari with a decent camera, so I was excited to try it out. We saw quite a few things, and I got some great pics of Mr. Lion, and also one of the warthog, which we have never been able to see before.



After the safari, we walked the Pangani trail. There was only one Gorilla out in the glassed-in section, and he wasn’t showing his face, lol.



We headed over to the train and went to Rafiki’s planet watch. We saw Rafiki, Natalie touched a baby alligator and we all got to touch a snake. We also saw shell surgery on a turtle, which was pretty cool. Apparently they thought that he had been hit by a car, and were cutting away an infected area on his shell. I though that was great that they take care of other animals, not just the ones that live there. We headed out to the petting zoo area, but most of the animals were resting. We did get to pet some interesting looking pigs, though!


We were getting hungry by then, and the kids wanted pizza, so they headed to Pizzafari, while I headed to Yak and Yeti for sweet and sour chicken! I waited in line so long that the kids were done with their food before I had gotten mine and Richard’s! After that, we were ready to head to Everest!
Natalie was super nervous when we got in line, and doubly nervous when she realized we were in the front row! I asked her if she wanted to move, but the girl that would be sitting next to Richard (Ethan wouldn’t go ) convinced her that the front was the best. Natalie asked if she had been before, and she said “Oh yeah, lots of times, it’s awesome!” Well, after the ride, the girl confessed that it was her first time too! So funny! Natalie said she liked the ride, but once was enough. Richard took our last FP and took a solo spin.
After that, we took the trail to see the Tigers and bats. They were great, as always. The kids got and Richard got a snack after that, and I partook of my very first Yak Attack! It was delish!! We headed over to do Kali River Rapids, which we wore ponchos for. It was a good thing too, as all four of us were pretty soaked at the end. We passed on our ponchos to other people in line as well, and they were very pleased to get them!
We headed on over to catch the parade, and got a great seat! It was a cute parade, and we had never seen it before so it was nice. It was something on my to-do list for this trip.


We then headed over to try to find the kangaroos, which I read about on passporter! We did find them, and they were super cute! We had an ADR for Rainforest Café at Downtown Disney at 6:30, but earlier in the day I had scored us a 7:30 ADR at the one in AK and canceled the other. So we had time to walk around more, and headed over to the 5pm showing of Festival of the Lion King. This was Richard’s request, and I am glad he did. I had forgotten what a great show it was. After the show, Natalie announced that she wants to be a tumble monkey when she grows up!




We did Bug’s Life after that, checked out the Tree of Life some more and then slowly made our way toward dinner. I realized that I had left my sunglasses on EE earlier in the day, so we stopped at guest services to see if they were there. Nope, but they were pretty cheap sunglasses so I didn’t worry too much about it.
We headed in to the restaurant and took some pictures outside and in:



The food here was OK, but we were so tired by the time we ate, and I was little worried about catching a bus back to POR, that we took our desert to go. It definitely was not the highlight of our trip, we probably won’t go back there again. We didn’t completely write it off though, as we thought maybe it was the exhaustion that made us not thrilled. The service seemed slow as well.
We headed out and were able to catch a bus back to our resort, where we fell into bed!
Up next: Can I go on Star Tours again?

[chezp]

Great day at Animal Kingdom!

[lauriep]

What a fun time at AK! I'm glad to see that they've let the new Kune Kune pigs into the petting enclosure. They're so cute. I think being a tumble monkey is a great ambition. They look like they're having so much fun.

[disneydeva]

Loving your trip report. Couple of questions how much was your quick silver transfer? Did you take dme back to the airport? Also where are the kangaroos? I have been to AK many times and have never seen them.