AKV CL PTR/TR - taking practically first timers -TR starts on P. 17 (completed)

[Pinkocto]

When you meet people who enjoy doing the same things you do, it is lots of fun. We call them MOM and DAD, I am the age of their children. So it is kinda fun.

That sounds lovely

 

[Pinkocto]

Share Share and Share

Thank you, I will

 

[tiggrbaby]

Oh, we ate at Y&Y in '09 with our parents - those wontons were to die for! We got a table upstairs so we could watch the afternoon parade.

I think they probably don't take TiW because they are actually part of the Landry chain.

 

[Pinkocto]

Oh, we ate at Y&Y in '09 with our parents - those wontons were to die for! We got a table upstairs so we could watch the afternoon parade.

I think they probably don't take TiW because they are actually part of the Landry chain.

I think that's what the waitress said. I just assumed all the sit downs took it, it was my fault I didn't do any investigating.

We went back in December and got the wontons again. Just scrumptious!

 

[Pinkocto]

Time seemed to fly by and when we headed out to the Jungle Trek it was 5:30. The park closed at 6:00 that night so when we walked up to the Trek’s entrance we asked the CM if we had time to go through. She said we had plenty of time, and we pretty much had the place to ourselves.

I love watching the bats and was now super irritated with myself for not bringing the zoom camera. If anything one should always bring the camera to AK, I missed so many perfect opportunities.

I just love the look of the area in here.

How very kind of them to reassure us.

Look at those paws!

This is inside the bird area.

We starting heading out of the park at 5:56. It was a perfectly splendid afternoon. As we were heading out R texted that he and M had just gotten to DTD so we headed off to meet them. We didn’t rush out though, but walked through one of the shops and enjoyed the animals in the Oasis before leaving. We took the bus to Kidani and then caught the DTD bus that magically drove up only a few minutes later. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

At DTD we found R & M in front of the World of Disney and then went shopping.

I can’t remember seeing this before and thought it was so pretty.

I love this photo of R.

I can’t remember seeing the Genie either; I’ve been missing all kinds of cute things.

Pooh is looking plumper than usual.

And the Cheshire a little creepier…

I love this!

And I so wanted to buy this

But I was not in the mood to spend $145.

Nothing in the jewelry section caught my eye which was just as well. I only left with a mini Lotso and a 2012 magnet.

R & M had gone ahead of us to find a bathroom. We were to meet at EoS but found them in TrenD which is on the way. There were so many cute clothes in there that I wanted but I restrained myself. We ended up parting ways with R & M at that point. M wanted to stay and shop and we were ready to call it a night. Ended up she really would have liked to have spent more time at DTD. Well, I did try to get everyone there earlier in the trip for dinner but they were all too tired…. I knew they would love it. This was our first trip to EoS and we got our sandwiches to go. As we were walking to the bus stop we saw our bus driving up. We ran! Ended up we didn’t need to since there were two guests on scooters that needed to be loaded. It was still good to know I could run in a pinch. It’s been a while

We got back home about 9:30. We still had Dumbo to watch so we didn’t stop for a movie but went straight to the CL for some desserts. They had pumpkin cheesecake and raspberry mousse.

The pumpkin cheesecake was fabulous! I don’t care for fruit and chocolate so didn’t go for the mousse but mom loved it. Too bad there weren’t more cheesecakes or I would have nabbed them.

I also had one of these which was pretty good.

Since we had missed the prior evenings’ offerings mom asked if they happened to have had that delicious lemon dessert we had on the first night and would you believe they did! We were so sad we missed it.

We watched Dumbo while eating our sandwiches and oh my goodness they were heaven on a plate! I can’t believe we hadn’t tried EoS before. We would be back that’s for certain. Mom had a veggie and I had a caprese. We couldn’t make it past 10:30 so I turned off the movie. It was a splendid day.

 

[franandaj]

Sounds like a pretty good day and it's good that R&M finally learned to navigate their way around. I've only been to EoS once, and really enjoyed it. I would like to go back sometime, but it never seems to work out. Even at Disneyland!

And I so wanted to buy this

But I was not in the mood to spend $145.

Check eBay, or better yet would you like me to have Fran do it for you? She loves to be a personal shopper!

 

[Pinkocto]

Sounds like a pretty good day and it's good that R&M finally learned to navigate their way around. I've only been to EoS once, and really enjoyed it. I would like to go back sometime, but it never seems to work out. Even at Disneyland!

I was so glad they finally figured it out. It was really nice not having to stop for smoke breaks. Just a go with the flow kind of day.

Oh my, you must get back. Needless to say we went three times in December.

Check eBay, or better yet would you like me to have Fran do it for you? She loves to be a personal shopper!

I hadn't even thought of eBay, what a good idea! I just went over and checked and there are a few but they are posted for $199 or $250. There are some other beauties that I've never seen before. eBay is dangerous! How it usually works is that if I'm still thinking about something and see it again I get it. If it slips my mind then I'm not worried. I had forgotten about this until seeing the picture again so I'm ok. It's my fail-safe from spending too much.

 

[dgbg100106]

We ate at Y&Y last time we were there and LOVED the dumplings and dim sum.

 

[dgbg100106]

I have never been to EoS, I know I am bad.

About your camera... I am not sure which one you got but I carry a Nikon D7000, and I use a sling strap. It is awesome, and makes taking pictures at Disney much easier.

I have been using it for 4 years now, with a previous camera also.

I use my bag when I go on something wet, but mostly just use the strap for walking around and dry rides.

I have the womens and sport version

http://www.blackrapid.com/products

 

[Pinkocto]

Day 8 – Last Day

Leaving day is always sad and today was no exception. Mom had woken up at 7:45, packed most of her stuff and went down to the pool. I woke up around 8:40 started packing, took a shower, and sat down to watch the rest of Dumbo. I definitely did not remember the strange champagne elephant scene that seemed to last for ages. I really enjoyed it though, and I think I cried when Dumbo saw his mom locked up. I’m a total sap for touchy feely moments.

At some point mom texted or called and said she’d be up around 10:20 to go grab breakfast with me. Well breakfast closes at 10:30 and she still had stuff to pack and a shower to take and we had to be out of the room at 11:00. Needless to say she was stressing me out. We were already planning to enjoy the pool for the afternoon why did she need to push the envelope at check out time… At 9:30 a CM knocked on the door to clean. ‘I am in here milking all the time I have left, why are you bothering me’ I said to myself, not her. It was a different CM from the rest of the week and she said she’d be back later. Ugh. Around 10:20 mom did finally show up and we went to grab some breakfast. I will admit I was irritable. I was feeling overwhelmed and a bit sad that it was our last day.

We did make it out of the room by 11:00. We decided to give our tip envelope to Elaine to give to Elsy when she saw her next. I’m still unsure about tips and didn’t want this new CM to get Elsy’s hard earned money. Does anyone have insight on tipping? Should we have left some every day and not waited until the end of the trip?

We chatted with Elaine for a bit before leaving and gave her a hug. She has really made our CL trips even more special than they already are. She greets us by name every time she sees us and makes sure we have everything we want/need. She is an angel. I happened to ask if we could come up later that day since DME didn’t pick us up until 4:00. They said absolutely, our cards still worked until closing that night. Excellent, no need to say good bye just yet.

We headed down to do airline check-in. I just love this service, it makes the day so much easier. In no time we were bag-less and had a good 4 ½ hours to enjoy. R & M still had a park day on their tickets and wanted to head to AK. Well before this trip I swore I wouldn’t let them out of my sight on the last day since they have a bad habit of being late for things. I was still nervous about letting them go, but I really didn’t want to go with them since we had just done AK yesterday. I told them that wherever they were at 2:00 to start heading back to the resort. Our DME was coming at 4:05 so I figured that would give them plenty of time to get back. So they headed off and we headed down to the pool.

I really didn’t want to sit by the pool for the whole afternoon and found myself getting grouchy. I tried to control it but couldn’t stop. Mom quickly caught on to my mood and asked what I’d like to do. We acquiesced and decided to stay at the pool for an hour and then head to HS. It was another scorcher. I caught up in the journal and then went for a swim. The water was just right. We headed out to HS around 12:30 but left our bags with bell services.

We headed straight to RnRC and ToT. They both had a posted wait of 20 minutes but RnRC was really only a 5 minute wait and ToT was a walk on. So perfect. There was a family in front of us at ToT and one of the younger boys absolutely refused to go on. He was probably 8 or 9. Nothing could convince him to go on. I was impressed by his determination. Hopefully one day he’ll get to enjoy it.

Then we headed to Star Tours since mom hadn’t gotten a second ride the other day. We stopped for a Mickey bar along the way. Mom just adores those Mickey bars. It was a five minute wait for Star Tours which was great. I think I’m understanding how they shuffle the story lines around. It’s been fun to see the different scenarios but I don’t think I’d go if mom didn’t want to. It always makes me feel a little queasy.

After that we headed back to the resort. I stopped for some popcorn along the way though. Usually I always get a souvenir popcorn bucket but not on this trip. All the ones I saw I have already. The little stand actually had air conditioning which I thought was so nice for the CM. They’d probably have people passing out in there if there wasn’t at least a fan. R called at some point asking where we were. They were back at the resort and looking for us. Oops. I felt a little guilty for not going with them so I said we headed to HS so mom could ride Star Tours. Mom let the cat out of the bag later on in the day. They were going to grab a last lunch at the Mara and we’d find them when we got there.

We left HS around 2:50 and there happened to be a bus waiting at the bus stop. They were switching drivers which was great luck. Back at the resort we stopped in the Zawadi Marketplace and got mom a Halloween reusable bag she’d been eyeing and another mini Donald for me. It was a different color than the one I had, I needed it!

We collected our bags from bell services and went up to the CL for some last snacks. We went up with some CMs who were changing the door locks to the swipe locks. We had gotten three messages that week saying it would happen while we were there but it never did. I asked the guys how long the resort would take to do and they said about a month. That’s one big undertaking.

R & M were still eating their lunch by the pool and just decided to stay down there. Elaine had gone home for the day so I’m glad we had said good bye earlier. We had about 20 minutes to enjoy the CL and they went by much too quickly. I changed into jeans before leaving because I am always cold on the plane and then we headed out.

The flower arrangement in the CL was so pretty

We met R & M out front and caught up with them. They had a great time at AK. They did the Festival of the Lion King again, the Safari, and one of the trails. I think the Pangani would make more sense since its right by the safari but I can’t remember. Last night at DTD M found a couple shirts she fell in love with and R got a 2012 baseball cap that was on clearance for $13. The DME came right on time and we were off to pick up a few people at the AoA and then Pop Century.

At the airport we were presented with the harsh reality of not being in Disney anymore. The bathrooms were horrible. Disney just does such a great job of keeping everything so clean. We stopped in the Disney and Universal stores before going through security. I’ve never been to Universal which one of these years I’d really like to do. I just can’t seem to drag myself away from WDW.

We had about an hour before our flight so just relaxed and chatted for a bit. The flight was uneventful. It wasn’t full which was great so we had two rows to ourselves. When we got to BWI we had to wait on the runway for a good twenty minutes since there was a plane in our way. M’s mom was picking us all up and circled for quite a while before finding the cell phone lot. I was dropped off first and I went straight to get Conner from my dad and stepmom’s. I was very happy to see him. He seemed surprised to see me. Thankfully he didn’t shun me like he usually does when I get back.

All in all it was a great trip with some important quality time spent with family. Time has already healed a lot of my negative feelings. R & M had a wonderful time which I’m so glad about and mom loved being with all her ‘kids’.

Thanks to everyone for following along and sharing my adventure.

 

[Pinkocto]

I have never been to EoS, I know I am bad.

About your camera... I am not sure which one you got but I carry a Nikon D7000, and I use a sling strap. It is awesome, and makes taking pictures at Disney much easier.

I have been using it for 4 years now, with a previous camera also.

I use my bag when I go on something wet, but mostly just use the strap for walking around and dry rides.

I have the womens and sport version

http://www.blackrapid.com/products

Thanks so much for the info. I found a Crumpler which is a smallish sling bag and gives me great accessilbilty. I had seen one at REI before the trip but it was $70 so I didn't get it. When I got back I looked on ebay and was able to find one for $30. I did see a bunch of people with sling straps and will probably get one as well. I'm just nervous about hitting the camera on stuff.


Oh you must try EoS, it is so delicious!

 

[tiggrbaby]

Thanks for sharing your trip with us!

 

[dgbg100106]

Thanks for sharing your trip! I really enjoyed it!

 

[Pinkocto]

Thanks for sharing your trip with us!

Thanks so much for following along

 

[franandaj]

Thanks for a great TR! Your honesty and thorough reporting was very refreshing.

You showed me quite a few things I didn't know about.

 

[Pinkocto]

Thanks for sharing your trip! I really enjoyed it!

I'm so glad! Thanks so much for following along

 

[Pinkocto]

Thanks for a great TR! Your honesty and thorough reporting was very refreshing.

You showed me quite a few things I didn't know about.

Thanks so much for following along! At times I thought 'should I include this', 'is this too much info?' I figured I'd just put it all in and hopefully not bore anybody.

I love that there's always something new to discover regarding Disney.

 

[Leshaface]

Ew, bugs in the rooms? I understand that this is AKV, but that's going too far! Gross though, seriously.

I really wish we could have done some of the trails at AK. I think my mom would have liked them, now knowing she likes anything to do with animals, which I did not know at the time.

Aw, your TR is over Thank you so much for doing it. I love the way you write and how you remember to include little facts. Sometimes I forget to do that with my TR's.

 

[Pinkocto]

Ew, bugs in the rooms? I understand that this is AKV, but that's going too far! Gross though, seriously.

I really wish we could have done some of the trails at AK. I think my mom would have liked them, now knowing she likes anything to do with animals, which I did not know at the time.

Aw, your TR is over Thank you so much for doing it. I love the way you write and how you remember to include little facts. Sometimes I forget to do that with my TR's.

Oh my goodness, that bug was humongous! As big as my thumb and horribly fast. I was so proud of myself for thinking to catch it with the cup. It was like I was victorious in battle

An excellent excuse to go back. Do you think your mom would ever do the plane ride again?

Thanks so much for following along. Thank you for the compliment! The only way I remember anything is by writing the journals. I used to read whenever there was down time, now I write in the journal.

 

[dolphingirl47]

That bug would have freaked me out. You have me rethinking a future trip at AKL

I never knew that there were kangaroos at AK either. I love that Stitch Big Fig. This would look gorgeous in my living room. And yes, I did check Ebay.

I am glad that you had a chance to do your favourite rides again. Thanks for sharing your trip with us.

Corinna