~We Are Flying 1000 Miles to Run 13?!?-NEW TRIP REPORT LINK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[jc040404]

I will definitely sit down and watch the movie before our trip! And I'll put in our ADR plans in the next update!

I thought you were in Clearwater for some reason...nevermind! Do you have any beach suggestions? (I think I may have asked you this before, but I'm too lazy to go back and reread my last trip report!!!) I've been reading on Trip Advisor and there are so many options. I know we want to head to the gulf, but I don't want to spend the whole day driving either! I'm sure we'll find something nice, I'll keep researching!

The more the merrier...hahahaaaa! Definitely let us know if you end up having a Disney day while we are there though! We can ride your favorite, Tower of Terror....

Nope, not in Clearwater! I've probably mentioned being there a few times though. I prefer their mall more than what's in St Pete. I'm sure you'll enjoy anything you find. Trip Advisor has some good stuff and actually named St Pete Beach in their top ten beach destinations in America not too long ago. We usually go around that area on our beach days. I know a super cute ice cream place out there! I don't know what the drive would be though. I saw a thread about Clearwater Beach on the "other Orlando.." something or other section on the Dis. You should check it out!

Ummm.. NO ToT for me!!

 

[CAStevens218]

Ummm.. NO ToT for me!!

HAHAHAA!!

 

[CAStevens218]

Good morning everyone! It is a rainy Saturday here, so what better to do than write an update!?!

I think I'll start with a little Honeymoon Pre-trip update of our dining plans! I had a really hard time making a decision about whether we wanted the dining plan and which one we wanted. On our first two trips, we had the regular dining plan. We LOVED it, loved our sit down meals, couldn't possibly imagine doing it another way. Then, our January trip came and we had the quick service dining plan because we were looking for a little more freedom in our planning since my dad and brother were on the trip as well. We LOVED the quick service dining plan as well! We loved deciding what to do the next day every night and not having to get to ADRs. In fact, we had three ADRs that we ended up cancelling because we just couldn't be bothered to go!

So, fastforward to the planning for our honeymoon. Ben really wanted to do the regular dining plan, and I agreed, because there are a ton of restaurants I'm dying to visit. However, we still debate if it is the right decision pretty often, since we want freedom and flexibility on this trip as well. Anyway, in the end, our desire to eat lots of great food won out and I've just tried to make our schedule as flexible as possible.

SO, here are our choices!

Day 1: California Grill (this is where we got engaged, so we want to go back!)

Day 2: Sci-Fi

Day 3: none

Day 4: none

Day 5: Teppan Edo, Wishes Dessert Party

Day 6: none

Day 7: Narcoosee's

Day 8: Coral Reef

Day 9: Via Napoli

Day 10: 'Ohana

Day 11: Crystal Palace breakfast

I'm sure these will continue to evolve. I really want to go to Boma, and I kind of want to try Kouzzina too. We will DEFINITELY pay out of pocket for a Kona breakfast at some point as well!

Mmmmm, all this Disney food talk is making me HUNGRY!

I'm kind of tempted to start a PTR just to have a place to ramble on about all this planning stuff!!!!

We are going to Disney World NEXT MONTH!!! Waahhoooo!!

________________________________________________________________

Anyway, on to the trip report!

When I left off, we were leaving Kennedy Space Center and we had decided to go find the beach! I hadn't done any research because I didn't know we would be heading to the beach, so we found the Cocoa Beach Pier in the GPS and decided that it sounded promising.

We found our way very easily, parked and headed toward the pier in search of food, we were starving! As luck would have it, right on the pier, we found this place:

Marlin's Good Times Bar and Grill. We knew NOTHING about it, it was almost completely deserted, but we decided to take a chance!

We were seated at a table right by the window, and this was our view:

And here is the inside of the restaurant:

It was simple but quirky and exactly what you would want from a restaurant on the beach!

We had a very nice waitress, and quickly had our food. We all ordered burgers and fries, and they were delicious! We had a nice, relaxing meal overlooking the beach.

This place was a pleasant surprise and we really enjoyed our lunch. I would definitely recommend it and we would go back!

After we ate, we walked down to the beach to check it out.

In case you didn't notice in the previous pictures, it was completely deserted!!

It was a cloudy day, but not too cold, so we enjoyed a stroll along the beach and collected some shells.

In this picture, the restaurant is the building on the far left on the pier, that is half cut out. Great location!

You can see there is more pier after the restaurant, but you have to pay to go out there, so we decided to skip it.

We played around under the pier for a while, checking out the scenery.

We had a nice time, and it was a good change of pace for us. I would definitely return to Cocoa Beach, but I'm sure it gets very crowded in the summer! It is a very pretty, HUGE, clean beach, and I'm sure its a great place to spend time. I DID find it pretty similar to what we can find around here for beaches (just bigger), so that's why I really want to try to gulf side this summer!

We probably only spent a couple of hours at Cocoa Beach all togethr between eating and wandering the beach, but it was a nice time.

We hopped back in the rental car and made the easy, quick drive back to WDW.

We have never had a bad day off property, but it always an AMAZING feeling to drive under here:

We were back at Pop before we knew it!

We parked, stopped to fill our mugs, and headed back to the room.

Everyone needed a little time to relax, but I was soon antsy and ready to get back out there. Everyone was pretty comfortable though, so it took some begging, pleading, and probably bribing to get someone to get up and head out with me!

Up Next: I FINALLY convince one of those lazy boys to get moving and we hit a park!

 

[jc040404]

Love the plans! Well, minus the DDP. We don't do well with that thing! All the food talk has me hungry, too! I'm craving so many things right now.

Despite not being a beach kind of girl, your beach day looked nice. I can just imagine the sounds of the waves, the smell of the air.. It's so empty in your pics, too. Perfect way to slow down and relax a bit. Love it!

Oh hey.. There's a thread about visiting Clearwater Beach on the Community Board right now!

 

[CAStevens218]

Love the plans! Well, minus the DDP. We don't do well with that thing! All the food talk has me hungry, too! I'm craving so many things right now.

Despite not being a beach kind of girl, your beach day looked nice. I can just imagine the sounds of the waves, the smell of the air.. It's so empty in your pics, too. Perfect way to slow down and relax a bit. Love it!

Oh hey.. There's a thread about visiting Clearwater Beach on the Community Board right now!

Oh man, yesterday at work I had nothing to do so I was looking at food pictures on here...what a big mistake! I was soooo hungry the whole day, and all I brought for lunch was a silly little fruit salad and one of those personal sized hummus and pretzel to go things...ugh!!

The beach was very nice! It was nice to just take a stroll and relax for the day. I am going to go read that thread right now, thanks!!!!

 

[CAStevens218]

Hi Everyone! Happy Weekend! I just spent the morning rearranging our honeymoon plans (AGAIN!)

Our new ADRs are:
- Narcoosee’s
- Boma
- ‘Ohana
- Via Napoli
- Coral Reef
- Teppan Edo
- Sci-Fi
- Liberty Tree Tavern
- Yak & Yeti

I ***think*** I am happy now! I keep switching it up because I just can’t decide what day to go to Discovery Cove. I would like to go on the Saturday we are there, but the Magic Kingdom has evening EMH on Friday night that I am sad to miss out on, so I keep going back and forth. We will do MK evening EMH on Sunday night, so I am happy for now!

Anyway, on to the trip report! When I left off we had returned to Pop after a fun day out at Kennedy Space Center and Cocoa Beach. Everyone wanted to relax, but I was ready to go have some more fun!! It was still pretty early!

After a lot of begging, I convinced Ben to get up and go somewhere with me. I realllllyyy wanted to watch Wishes again, so we headed off to Magic Kingdom!

We made our way through the entrance and up Main Street. It was surprisingly, wonderfully, gloriously EMPTY!

Seriously, I know it was January, but our past trips had been in January and early December and we had NEVER experienced such light crowds on Main Street for Wishes! It was just fabulous!

We found the perfect spot on Main Street and settled in. A very nice CM walking by saw us trying to take a self-portrait with the castle in the background (unsuccessfully), so she offered to snap this picture for us:

Very soon, The Magic, The Memories and You started. Did I mention last time that we LOVED this show? We can’t wait to see the summer version this year! The night before, when we had watched with my Dad and Brother, had been the last night of the Christmas lights on the castle and of the Christmas version of this show, so we were glad we had seen it the night before as well!

The show was just as fabulous, it was just missing the Christmas parts. I honestly don’t get the picture part of this show though. Unless you are right on top of the castle, you can’t really see them. I honestly think that I wouldn’t even have noticed MYSELF up there!!!

I love this part with Walt…

So, check out this picture…the crowd was so strange…

It looks super crowded, right? But see the space between us and the rest of the people? Only from those people and up toward the castle was crowded, the rest was pretty empty, which is where we stayed. We had plenty of personal space, it was great!

We stayed put, and Wishes began! Bear with me for some more fireworks pictures. You know you love them!

Sorry for the onslaught of photos…I just love Wishes so so sooo much!! This time we stood farther back from the castle than we ever have before. We made that decision for two reasons. First, to try something new, as we’ve always stood closer. Second, because of the way the crowd was distributed, as I mentioned before. I enjoyed watching the show from there, but I think I like my pictures better from a bit closer.

We had a nice, relaxing evening watching the fireworks, and then made our way back down Main Street to get a bus back to Pop. Not without taking some photos, of course!

I hope the bakery scrim is down by July!

One more look back…

The train station is so pretty at night!

Let’s face it…EVERYTHING is so pretty at night!!!!!!!

With that, we took a bus back to Pop and called it a night. It had been a great, relaxing evening, and it was nice for Ben and I to get out on our own for a few hours. We knew we needed to call it a night early though, we had a big big day ahead of us….off property!!!!

 

[jc040404]

http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc58/CStevens218/Disney%20World%20Jan%202012/DSC00808.jpg
^Ummm.. I didn't do that right.. The pic with Donald anyway!!

Love that!!

I'm so glad you were able to talk Ben into some more fun at MK. This sounds wonderful. That CM was awesome, too. We usually butt into situations like that and offer to take a pic. It's rough when you don't have an extra photographer around! Cute pic!

I'm with you on those pictures, but I didn't realize there was a summer version of this show! I've only seen it the one time. Hmmm.. I wonder if we'll make it late enough. You've just made me wanna camp out on Main Street.

Excited to see where you go next!

 

[dara00]

I agree about the pictures on the castle being so hard to see! and I was confused since I thought they were supposed to be pictures from the day, but there were pictures of dumbo when I was there and dumbo was closed!

 

[CAStevens218]

http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc58/CStevens218/Disney%20World%20Jan%202012/DSC00808.jpg
^Ummm.. I didn't do that right.. The pic with Donald anyway!!

Love that!!

I'm so glad you were able to talk Ben into some more fun at MK. This sounds wonderful. That CM was awesome, too. We usually butt into situations like that and offer to take a pic. It's rough when you don't have an extra photographer around! Cute pic!

I'm with you on those pictures, but I didn't realize there was a summer version of this show! I've only seen it the one time. Hmmm.. I wonder if we'll make it late enough. You've just made me wanna camp out on Main Street.

Excited to see where you go next!

Ben is always happy to do something once we get there, but it is hard to get him moving!!!! This isn't often the case at Disney World, but I think since my dad and brother were relaxing he was jealous for a minute!

I hope you make it late enough to check out the show! We were all sooo impressed by it!

I'm excited to write the next update! Its somewhere we've been before....but SUPER exciting for us anyway!!!!! I need to get moving on this trip report...my trip is only about 40 days away!!!!!!!!!

I agree about the pictures on the castle being so hard to see! and I was confused since I thought they were supposed to be pictures from the day, but there were pictures of dumbo when I was there and dumbo was closed!

Hmmm, I thought they were supposed to be pictures from that day as well, how strange! Oh well....to me, the show would be just fine without the pictures. The projections are impressive enough on their own!!!!

 

[CAStevens218]

Alright….without further ado….its HARRY POTTER DAY!!!!!!!!

We still had our car rental from our Space Center/Beach trip the day before, so we were up early and in the car to head to Islands of Adventure.

It was a very easy drive, and we parked in the garage with no problem at all. Before long, we were seeing this:

We weren’t 100% positive that we were going to make it to Universal, so we didn’t purchase tickets ahead of time. Our first stop was the ticket window, where we were able to quickly purchase four 1 day, 1 park tickets. We weren’t sure if we would want to visit the other park after Islands of Adventure, but we confirmed with the woman at the window that we could upgrade to a 1 day, 2 park ticket later if we wanted to. She said yes, we could, but we had to do it before leaving the park.

With our questions answered, we were on our way to the gates of Islands of Adventure, and, a few minutes later, the gates opened and we were headed for Hogsmeade!

We literally did not stop to look at anything, we walked straight to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter!

Seriously you guys, walking into Hogsmeade feels like entering my wildest dreams. I grew up reading these books and I truly can’t understand why I never got my acceptance letter to Hogwarts? This place just feels absolutely magical to me. They did an exceptional job designing it.

The details are just amazing!

I could just walk around here looking at the details for hours.

Normally, the best stop to make first here is Ollivander’s wand shop, but Ben and I had done it on our last trip and my dad and brother weren’t really interested, so we skipped it and instead headed straight for the castle to ride Forbidden Journey.

The line for this ride is so unbelievable entertaining, I don’t think I would care how long the wait was!

There are details from the books and movies everywhere!

Anyone want to visit Dumbledore? What’s the password?

Inside the castle, there are gorgeous details everywhere you look. I wish I could photograph every inch of it! Actually, I wish I could live in there, let’s be honest.

This area with the portraits is sooo impressive!

Pensieve!

Harry, Ron and Hermione!

The Fat Lady! If I didn’t mention it before, the paintings all move and talk, and this one is no different!

The Sorting Hat…

The loading area is supposed to be the Great Hall, complete with floating candles. Gorgeous!

This ride is fantastic. Very, very well done. I’m not a big fan of the imax screen portions because they make me a bit queasy, but there is a good balance of “real” scenes and imax scenes, so it works out for me.

Everything about this is exceptional. The line is an attraction itself, and the ride is like an added bonus! If you are a Harry Potter fan, you will not be disappointed. The only thing that would make it better for me would be to be able to explore the rest of the castle aside from what is in the line. But, I respect what they were able to accomplish in the line!!!!

We continued on to tour the rest of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and I’ll tell you all about it next time!

 

[CAStevens218]

Let's continue on through the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, shall we?

After riding Forbidden Journey, we browsed the shop very briefly. I always mean to spend more time in this shop, but it is always sooo overwhelmingly crowded! We decided to head to the locker and grab our stuff so we could escape the crowd.

Haha, so much for that! Hogsmeade was getting crowded...

We headed down past the shops, peeking in windows as we went.

Our next stop was the Dragon Challenge coasters! Dad didn't want to ride these, I think they looked a little too intense for his liking, so he held our stuff and Ben, Dan and I headed up the path!

We took our time checking out the detail on the way....well, actually, let me rephrase. I took my time checking out the detail and telling the boys to wait up!

When we got inside, we chose the red side for our first ride. We barely waited 5 minutes before we were loaded on our dragon! This was a good thing, because my brother was getting nervous! He considered turning back, but I wouldn't allow it.

We had a fabulous ride. These are the kind of coasters that I keep my eyes closed on for most of the ride! I screamed my head off on every twist and turn, but it was a fun scared! About half way through, my brother's foot bumped into mine and I wrapped my ankle around his and held on for dear life. If I fell out of the coaster, our linked ankles would clearly save me, haha! It was a funny moment and we still talk about it!

When we exited, we headed right back up the path to ride the blue side! They really do feel like different rides, which makes it fun to ride both! We got on quickly this time as well. My brother and I didn't hold feet this time, haha, but we survived anyway!

We had a great time riding, but this ride was definitely cooler when they ran both sides at once! You would pass sooo close to the other dragon!!!!! Are they back to doing this? Will they ever? They should, it was awesome.

Two rides on this kind of coaster was enough for me for the moment. Rides like Tower of Terror, Rockin' Roller Coaster, Everest, etc... I could ride over and over and over. But the big boy coasters? I need to limit myself or else I feel a little quesy and get a headache.

We met back up with Dad and started toward our next mission...

We headed inside the Hog's Head pub. I love this place. It is in the back of the Three Broomsticks, but never seems to be crowded. It is dark and cool and there are tons of Harry Potter details to check out!

Why were we here? For Butterbear of course!!!!!

I got the frozen version...

...and Ben got the regular.

I'm not sure what Dad and Dan were doing at this point, but they didn't join us!??!

We spent some time inside the Hog's Head enjoying our beverages and looking around. I liked the frozen Butterbeer the best because it wasn't too sweet. The regular is fabulous, but I can't drink too much of it. Definitely try both!!!!

We met back up with Dad and Dan and wandered through the area a bit more. We had done everything we wanted to do as far as rides go, and I knew I wanted to shop, but wanted to save it for later so I wouldn't have to carry all kinds of stuff around.

We exited the Hogsmeade near the castle and headed toward the Jurassic Park area.

We didn't eat here, but I love these little guys! They move back and forth and tug on the pizza!

Our next stop was the river ride in Jurassic Park. The boys weren't too thrilled about the possibility of getting wet, but it was a warm day and I really wanted to check it out. Dad opted out again (he did a lot of waiting around for us on this day, but didn't seem to mind!), and the rest of us jumped in line. We were loaded before we knew it, and the soaking wet seat wasn't a great sign...oh well, we decided to do it anyway!

The ride itself is mediocre...the scenery is cool, but I didn't find the story that interesting or well done. BUT, the drop is AWESOME! I don't know what it is, but it just seemed like a great, intense drop! I have to warn you though...we got SOAKED!!!!! DRENCHED!!! SOPPING WET!!!!! So wet that I considered paying the $5 to go in those huge human dryer things they have!

I still think it was totally worth it though. Yes, it was January so it wasn't super warm, but it was warm enough to be doable and the drop was super fun!

We made our way to Toon Lagoon next. This area is so cute and there is so much to look at! We all had a great time checking everything out and taking pictures!

My dad was psyched to see Popeye and Olive Oil!

We continued on to the Super Hero area next. We didn't really do anything here, but we did get to see the characters ride out!

We meant to do the Spiderman attraction here, but for some reason we never got around to it.

Our next stop was another big coaster...Dan was pretty nervous as we approached it...I'll tell you all about it next time!!!!

 

[jc040404]

All this Harry Potter stuff looks so neat, even if I'm clueless about it all! What exactly is butterbeer?? Is it really beer? What's it taste like? That sounds too odd.

Still lovin the pics. I can really see how much you were enjoying it all! I'm hoping we'll get into this Harry Potter stuff when Andrew's just a little older. It does look awesome!

 

[CAStevens218]

All this Harry Potter stuff looks so neat, even if I'm clueless about it all! What exactly is butterbeer?? Is it really beer? What's it taste like? That sounds too odd.

Still lovin the pics. I can really see how much you were enjoying it all! I'm hoping we'll get into this Harry Potter stuff when Andrew's just a little older. It does look awesome!

Ohhh man, I LOVE Harry Potter (clearly!!!). In the books, all the kids drink butterbeer. I think that, in the books, it is actually very very mildly alcoholic. But, at Universal, it tastes kind of like cream soda with a reallllyyy amazing foam! The frozen is a bit less sweet, which is why I like it more.

I bet Andrew could really get into Harry Potter some day!

 

[CAStevens218]

Woohoo, I’ve been able to update quite a lot lately! I really need to GET MOVING on this because our trip is only about a month away and with the wedding coming up too (I guess the wedding is just as exciting, if not more, than our honeymoon trip! Haha..) my life is about to go crazy! I WILL finish this before our trip though, I am determined!

By the way…I know you readers are out there, I can see the views! Stop and say hi!!!!!!

So, when I left off we were about to ride…

THE INCREDIBLE HULK!

This coaster is truly…well…incredible!

This is the beginning of the coaster:

This tunnel basically shoots you out like a freaking rocket…seriously, so so sooo fast! As we were walking toward it, my brother noticed that part and we had to do some convincing to get him to ride! Actually, I basically said “Shut up, you are riding” and he followed…but he complained the whole way!
Dad waited with our stuff again and we jumped in line. There wasn’t much of a wait, maybe 5 or 10 minutes, and before we could think about it too much, we were getting strapped in!

This ride is seriously so much fun! Of course, I screamed my head off and closed my eyes a lot, but it was soooo much fun! Dan loved it too, and was glad he went on. Ben, who had ridden it (rode it??) with me on the last trip loved it once again!

Just like with the Dragon Challenge, once is enough for me on this one. When we got off, we met up with Dad and stood on the bridge under the coaster for a few minutes to watch people fly by!

We began to make our way back around the park through Seuss Landing at this point. We were headed back to Hogsmeade, but we took our time to take in the scenery as we went.

I think Seuss Landing is a little disappointing, only because I find it to be a bit run down. If they would give it a good scrubbing it could be truly fantastic!

Yum…

We walked through the Lost Continent area next.

I love it here and I love the stories it represents. Unfortunately, we didn’t spend much time here today. We checked the wait time at the ride/show thing, which Ben and I had seen last time and loved. However, it seemed like one had just started and we didn’t want to wait. We were all getting a bit tired…it had been a busy trip!

Oh…this must be the name of the show? I think…I’m too lazy to look it up!

http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc58/CStevens218
/Disney%20World%20Jan%202012/DSC00959.jpg

Aaannnndd, we made it to our destination! This place seriously feels like home…I could totally live here. I spent so many hours reading the books, watching the movies, and talking about them as a kid, teenager and yes, now as an adult, that it feels so real to me!

It was crowded, but not unbearable at this point.

My family found a comfortable seat and I was able to do some browsing in the shops. I just love it here, did I mention that!!!??! I DO wish the shops were bigger though. I know they were trying to make it realistic, but it would be have been cool to maybe have the shops be small and realistic on the front and then open up into a more maneuverable area in the back.
These are Pygmy Puffs. In the books and movies, they are tiny, like, the size of a cotton ball. I’m not sure why they made them so huge here, but I bought a purple one for me and a pink one for my cousin anyway! Yes, I’m a child…

I love seeing all the merchandise!

I love how you can see the kid checking out the stuff through the window in this shot!

Candyyy!!

I have to control myself when I am in this area of the park. I bought the Pygmy Puffs, and I limited myself in the candy store to this Cauldron Cake.

These are seriously delicious! They have chocolate mousse in the middle, then chocolate cake, and the outside is covered in a thin layer of crispy chocolate. Yum!!

...Continued in next post...

 

[CAStevens218]

I enjoyed my snack and continued on browsing…

The Monster Book on Monsters!

Ben showed up to help me pick gifts for my two Harry Potter loving friends. He’s silly.

There is so much merch to choose from and I could seriously buy everything in the store. I limited myself to getting each of my friends a key chain and postcard, which you can have stamped with a Hogsmeade post mark!

Here’s Ben getting them stamped for me…

At this point, we were tired and ready to head out.

I had my brother take a picture of Ben and I. I love how my dad is creeping up in the background of this one!

The guy in this picture makes me laugh….I wasn’t taking a picture of you buddy, don’t worry!

We made our way out past the castle again.

And through Jurassic Park!

I kept snapping pictures all the way through the park.

This sign made me laugh. Fire Brigade Moving Closer to Water.

And, then we were exiting…

When we arrived that morning, we had considered upgrading our tickets to 2 parks , 1 day so we could go over to the other park and ride Rip Ride Rockit and the Mummy, but we were just too exhausted at this point.

Both Universal parks are really well done in my opinion. Of course, I am partial to Harry Potter, so that helps! We have decided to skip Universal on this trip in favor of having a more relaxing vacation with pool time and sleeping in time, and to fit in Discovery Cove. If the tickets were cheaper, I would go for a few hours just for Harry Potter, but that’s not really an option.
Anyway, we made the easy drive back to Disney World and drove back to Pop. When we got back to the hotel, we wandered back to the room for a few minutes to regroup and refresh.

We didn’t stay for long though, we were starving! We decided that, since it was early, we would make our way to another resort to try their food court. I had heard about the create your own pasta at Port Orleans Riverside and we wanted to try it. First, we had to drop off our rental car though. We drove to the Car Care Center to drop off our rental. They really do make it very easy. We dropped the key off at the counter and a van was ready to drive us back to our hotel the second we walked outside. It literally took 5 minutes.

We asked the driver to take us to Port Orleans Riverside, and he dropped as right at the front door.

We made our way in to the food court and made a beeline for the pasta station! Did I mention we were starving? We had really only picked and snacked our way around Universal, so we were ready for a meal!
Here is what the pasta station looks like.

You go up and choose your pasta, sauce and veggies. You can also choose to add chicken (or shrimp if I’m not mistaken).

Then, as you wait, the chef puts everything together and cooks it over the stove right in front of you. He then puts it all in those cardboard containers you see in the next photo.

Let me tell you…the portions are HUGE. We are big eaters, and we could have shared this between two people. Everything was really yummy, but we didn’t enjoy the chicken. I got some bad, chewy pieces and I can’t stand that, so it kind of ruined all the chicken for me. The pasta, sauce and veggies were great though, so I’ll just stick with that next time.

The desserts here were great also. We got huge pieces of cheesecake, a huge brownie, and something else I can’t remember. We had them packed up and enjoyed them back in the room later.

When we were done eating, we wandered outside briefly to look at the hotel. It is really is gorgeous and I can’t wait to stay there next month!
When we headed our front, an EPCOT bus was pulling up, so we decided that would be a great choice to make our way back to Pop. At EPCOT, we had to wait a little while for a bus, but it was okay because we were treated to a fireworks show!

Before long, we were back in our hotel room at Pop, watching tv and eating our desserts. I’m pretty sure this was the night I fell asleep in my clothes, contacts in, lights on with everyone else up and moving around. They woke me up to change and get comfortable before they went to bed.
Phew, were we tired!!!!!!

Up next: Our last full day…which park are we going to?!?

 

[jc040404]

Yummy! That Cauldron Cake sounds good. It's cute, too. The Monster book was a little creepy, but I guess that's another Harry Potter thing I just don't understand! I've got to read those books!

Sound like you had a nice time at Universal!

Dinner at POR sounds nice, too! Too bad the chicken was icky though. I love that resort anyway. We had one of the royal rooms for the birthday trip. You're going to love it!!

 

[CAStevens218]

Yummy! That Cauldron Cake sounds good. It's cute, too. The Monster book was a little creepy, but I guess that's another Harry Potter thing I just don't understand! I've got to read those books!

Sound like you had a nice time at Universal!

Dinner at POR sounds nice, too! Too bad the chicken was icky though. I love that resort anyway. We had one of the royal rooms for the birthday trip. You're going to love it!!

Haha, definitely read the books some day!!!!

The chicken just didn't seem very fresh...more like that fake chicken stuff, if that makes any sense, LOL. I can't wait to see the royal room in person! I'm glad you guys loved it, can't wait to read about your trip!!!

 

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Let’s get moving through the rest of this report, shall we? Our wedding and honeymoon are less than a month away and my life is about to go crazy with getting everything ready!!

We are on our last full day now…and our park of the day was…

Animal Kingdom! This was the only park we hadn’t visited yet, and it has one of our favorite rides…

We just LOVE Expedition Everest! The view as you go up the hill, the “broken” track, the backwards drop…everything about this ride is perfect! Except the broken Yeti of course…but I can look past that!!
I love photographing this area as well. The whole park really, if I’m being honest!

As you can see, the wait time was nonexistent this morning! It says 10 minutes, but we walked right on!

I snapped some pictures as we made our way through the line, but everyone was pretty excited to get going, so I hurried along to keep up. I have a feeling they would have left me if I took too long!!!!!

I did manage to get Ben to stop briefly to snap a picture!

Soon enough, we were starting our journey through the mountains!

Things went a little crazy at this point…our relaxing journey turned into a wild race to escape the Yeti! So I put the camera away!!!!!

Thankfully, we made it off the mountain and made our way toward Africa to take a two week safari!

On the way, everyone needed a pit stop, so I snapped some photos.

http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc58/CStevens218
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With just a few more detours…

(Check out this crazy guy!)

…we were entering Harambe!

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We had a great safari on this morning!! Sit back, relax, and enjoy!

I had never seen a hippo out of water like this before! They are so funny looking!

I love giraffes! Gorgeous…

These elephants were play fighting, and our driver stopped and let us watch for quite a while!

Seriously, I just want to hug this baby elephant! Sooo adorable!!!

Out for a stroll…

We got a great view of the female lion! We didn’t see the male though…some day I hope to see him up and moving around!

We all really enjoyed ourselves on the safari. Dad and Dan were very impressed (I knew they would be!).

Our next stop was to check out some animals.

I could watch the gorillas allllll day!

Aren’t these frogs gross? Ugh…I don’t do frogs!

Side note…I’m not sure if I have ever written about this before, but I’m going to do it anyway! I hate frogs. They are gross! One time, at the Natural History Museum in New York City, I saw a display with a model of a huge frog like the one in the picture above, and it showed how it carries its egg sacks nestled into the skin of its back. Ick! It gives me the willies just to picture it.

Second side note…we have tree frogs in our pool. Loud, disgusting, slimy tree frogs! Last weekend, we found two floating belly up. We think they jumped in right when we put chlorine and algaecide in and just couldn’t take it! Hooray, Christin – 2, Frogs – 0! Well, we got our hopes up too quickly! It was quiet out there for about a week and now we hear two more frogs at night! I am on a mission to get rid of them!
Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled trip report!

Helloooo, Mr. Hippo!

And now for more gorillas. Check out this guy. Just chillin’, taking a nap, doesn’t even care that 50 people are staring at him and taking his picture while he does it!

This guy is thinking really hard about something…

After we were finished checking out the gorillas, we headed back out into Africa.

There is so much to look at here! Disney did a truly fabulous job with the scenery at this park!

We took another pit stop at the bathrooms, and when I came out, I couldn’t find Ben! I finally spotted Dad and Dan watching the African dancers, so I joined them. When I got there, I saw this…

Yup, Ben was part of the show! He really had a great time doing this! When he was done, I asked him how it happened and he said he was standing there watching and the guy pulled him in! He loved it! Better him than me…I wouldn’t know what to do with myself in that situation!!
As we started to move away to head to our next stop, we were greeted by this wonderful treat!

We watched for a few minutes, and then decided it was time to brave the Yeti again!

I would totally stay here…

Thankfully, we all survived the Yeti again and we made our way over to Dinosaur next!

I think this ride is a lot of fun! It reminds me of that show Land of the Lost from when I was a kid!

Up next is a traditional picture for us…

Of course, I have to beg Ben to take it at this point, but he eventually complies…

The story here is that on our first trip together, he posed like this with the dinosaur. He said he was trying to make it look like he was in its pouch…like a kangaroo. Yup, that’s my fiancé. Anyway, when my cousin saw the picture, she said it looked like he was doing something else that would normally involve a toilet, and my whole family made fun of him! Now I make him pose like that every year and I post it on Facebook and tag my cousin!

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Moving on, we wanted to get some character photos, so we headed over to Camp Minnie Mickey!

Dan and Ben immediately spotted Rafiki and they both wanted a photo!

Chip and Dale were next! We love them!

I really wanted a picture with Thumper and Ms. Bunny next, but just as we got in line they switched out for Brer Rabbit.

I was pretty excited to see him too, so we got a picture!

Of course, now, I’ve read that Thumper isn’t appearing regularly at Animal Kingdom anymore, so I’m bummed that I never got that picture! Thumper was one of my favorites as a kid, I loved Bambi!!

We wanted to go check out the other animal trail next, the one with the tigers, so we headed that way. As we walked, we spotted Baloo heading toward his greeting spot, so we followed and were the first (and only) ones in line!

Since we were the only ones there, we all got individual shots plus a group shot!

We continued along our way and pretty soon we were checking out these gorgeous creatures!

I love everything about the tiger area. The themeing is amazing!

I thought this was really pretty…

Doesn’t this look like a painting?

There is so much to look at!

What a life!

I think I could watch them for hours!

Ben just loves to pose in this postion…

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