Photo Post from our Disney Trip - Part 2

That's right...near midday and what's the wait time for the Jungle Cruise?

Hey, let's head to Pirates of the Caribbean.  WAIT!  Pirate Goofy!

Just for Aunt Mikey...Davy Crockett Donald Duck!

What's the wait for Buzz Lightyear? Yeah, that's 40 minutes.  Thank goodness for magic Fastpasses.

Finally!  Tomorrowland Terrace is actually open and serving!

and I don't like it, but they even have sushi!

and just because I like Christmas and this lamp is just so dang cool...

Photo Post from our Disney Trip - Part 1

I'm going to try and post some photos this week from our trip that was right after Thanksgiving.  I'll try to keep them succinct so that you aren't scrolling all the live long day.

We did a portrait session.  Here's a family shot:

My crazy kids with their Key To The World Cards:

Just getting off the monorail to go to Magic Kingdom. This was around 10:30am the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

It's really not too crowded.

My boys...walking to Adventureland...

On Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse

Hindu Caitlin...in line for the Magic Carpets of Aladdin.

The boys getting ready to fly on a magic carpet.

Bryan realizing that, yet again, Stefan will be driving the carpet toward the spitting camel trying to get his dad wet.

Joy To The Small World

I know, I know...I owe you all pictures.  There's at least one video as well. Everything is in my photobucket account...I just need to get it organized.

Since we're days away from Christmas, and since you are a part of my small world, I thought I'd totally jump on Disney's theme ~ Joy to the Small World ~ and share a couple of things.

First, you need to watch this video of last year's commercial.  I'm pretty sure I posted this last year, but even if I did...it's worth repeating...



Second, this year, you can make this cool video greeting card with the Joy to The Small World theme.  The cool part you can create Small World dolls for each person in your family.  I did one for mine and posted it to Facebook.  If you aren't connected to me on Facebook yet, here's the video greeting card:

If I don't see you or talk to you, in person or in cyberspace, have a Merry Christmas!

Mary

I have Test Track Hair

December 2.

Oops.  I somehow skipped over December 2.  Sorry!

This morning, we had some breakfast in the room before heading to Epcot for the morning.

The kids were hot to trot to get on Test Track so we headed there first.

I have to say that there's nothing like walking through Epcot in the morning, with no one else around, while the Christmas music is playing.  Priceless.

We got the Future World just before the official rope drop.  We got to see the first family to get to ride Test Track get in a Test Track car and ride on over there.

Once the rope dropped we and about 25% of the other people in line headed to Test Track, while the rest of the group headed the other way for Soarin'.  More power to 'em.

The wait time said 20 minutes, which we knew was bogus because it just opened up.  We walked in, through the prep room and seriously, right onto a vehicle.

Let me tell you, it was a little cold on the loop out there.  The kids were all, "woo-hoo" outside and when the vehicle came back in, Stefan said, "Hey. My teeth are cold."

We got off, pondered getting a fast pass, but the CM said it was still like a 5 minute wait.  He was right.  We rode again.  Then we got Fastpasses and headed over to Mission:Space.

Both the green and orange sides were 5 minute waits.  That was pretty much the case.

Seriously, go on the orange side.  It's the closest experience you'll get to real lift-off.  It amazes me every single time.

We got off and headed to do the Mission:Space race.  We ended up being Team Orion and were facing a teenage team as Team Triton.

I was about to blow a gasket because our mission support people were not giving us the correct fixes and we couldn't boost as many times in the first half of the game.

Yeah...I'm a little competitive.

Somehow, in the second half, we caught up, and despite my thinking that we were completely out of it, we ended up winning by 2 percentage points.  Not sure I'm buying it, but it was still fun.

The Mission:Space store was starting to get lots of TRON stuff!  The kids are super excited for it.  We got Stefan the TRON warm-up jacket for his birthday to wear for swim meets. It glows in the dark like the light cycle rider suit.  It's wicked cool.

After an environmental break, we headed over to Test Track to use our Fast Passes and rode for the third time.

Even though my hair is shorter, I totally had Test Track Hair.

The kids headed for Soarin' and Bryan and I decided to shop.  We were on a mission to find a few things that we hadn't found yet.

Cate texted that she and Stefan had detoured to The Sum of All Thrills and were making a custom rollercoaster.  So we headed over there to wait for them.

By the time they got out, I was starving and so was Bryan.  He wanted to eat around the world. We went ahead to World Showcase and the kids caught up just after Bryan had gotten his Rice Cream from Norway.

Then we stopped at China and the kids had orange chicken and fried rice.

Finally, Cate and I got to stop at Karamel Kuche in Germany.  We picked up a chocolate and caramel covered marshmallow skewer (yum!), chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting and caramel drizzle (Cate ate this) and a German Chocolate Caramel, which was a caramel mixed with coconut, coated with milk chocolate and drizzled with dark and white chocolate.

Can you say sugar buzz?

I only at the marshmallow thing at that time because I still hadn't eaten a real lunch.

I decided I wanted the shawarma platter at Morocco.  Yum.  Chicken - good.  Hummus - good.  Moroccan bread - good.  Couscous salad - good.

The boys had meandered off, but they caught up to us at Morocco.

We headed to France.  The boys stopped to get a chocolate crepe.  I wanted to see if anything in the Boulangerie Patisserie tempted me.

Nothing did. So we headed home.

We had a relaxing afternoon. I tried to register for a conference.  (Didn't get in.)

We had dinner in and some extra pool time.  All in all...a nice day.

My Brush With Fame & Our Last Full Day

Friday, December 3.

Well, we'd made it to the last full day of the week.  Usually, we plan on using that last day to be a catch-up day. It's the opportunity to do any attractions we had missed during the week or to catch our favorites one last time.

I sent Bryan and the kids off to Animal Kingdom - they wanted to hit Kilimanjaro Safaris.

I was on my own this morning and this was a good thing.  I finally had worked out a time to meet with Lou Mongello of WDW Radio.

If you haven't caught Lou's show, you need to boogie on over to WDW Radio and listen.  He does a weekly show and it's pretty darn good. You'll see...lots of awards, lots of followers and lots of fun.

Lou had a meet at Epcot at 9am so we decided to connect for coffee afterward.

He texted, "Let's meet on the Epcot side of the fountain."

I texted back, "Can do.  For reference, I've got a periwinkle jacket on."

I got a little grief from him..."Periwinkle?  Guys don't know what color periwinkle is."

We found a bench, in the sun (as it was cool that morning), under the monorail and had a nice business chat.

The bonus:  Lou only had two fans stop by during our chat.  Seriously, I'm surprised it was only two times. Hence, my brush with fame.

I'm bummed that I missed out on attending the 200th show shindig that's happening today, December 5.  It sounds like a lot of fun and it's a live show at Ariel's at the Beach Club to boot!  Attending (or hosting) an event there is on my bucket list.

Why was I meeting with Lou?  Well, send me an email.  I'm not ready to put this out in open forum.

Stefan had texted me and asked where I was...there was on their way back from AK.  It was almost lunch time so we decided to head to Pollo Campero and Fresh A-Peel at Downtown Disney for lunch.  I met them at the front of the Beach Club and we headed out.

Pollo Campero and Fresh A-Peel are in the building that formerly was McDonald's at DTD.  Pollo Campero has some pretty famous chicken and different side dishes.  Fresh A-Peel makes fresh salads, wraps, burgers and hot dogs.

Caitlin and Stefan each got the 2 piece meal from Pollo Campero.  Cate got the white meat and Stefan got the dark meat.  It came with your choice of side. Stefan ordered french fries and Cate ordered black beans and rice. Bryan chose the 1/4 Citrus Grilled Chicken and got the Sweet Baked Plantains as his side dish.

I went over to Fresh A-Peel originally thinking burger, but I changed my mind and ordered the Citrus Grilled Chicken Chopped Salad as a wrap.  It came with chopped lettuce, roasted corn, black beans and a pineapple vinaigrette. I passed on the red peppers. It was also freakin' huge.  Think 6" Subway-sized.

My grade:  Yumatrocious!  Fabulous flavor.  Definitely a must-do again for me.

While I didn't get specific reviews from the rest of the family, the "ums" , "yums" and quickly emptied plates are indications that their Pollo Campero food was more than passable.

Stefan wanted to hit the Lego store so we went through there on the way to World of Disney.

I have to say I was a little surprised at how busy it was on a Friday at noon.  Maybe because it was a Friday is why it was so busy.  But it sure felt like a Saturday or something with all the people there.

After we browsed through World of Disney, we went over to Basin so Cate could get her annual tube of bath bombs.  As she was looking around, I tried out the salt scrub samples.  Big mistake.  That stuff made my hands so smooth...now I really want some.  But even though it was a huge jar, I was not ready to pay $30 for it.  We'll have to leave that one on the wish list.

After Basin, we decided to head home for one last swim. The kids and Bryan headed down to the pool while I foolishly allowed myself to get distracted with all the Disney Social Media Moms Conference chatter.  The short summary is they didn't accept me as an attendee.  If you want the long story, email me.

I headed down to the pool and swam a few laps in the "doughnut" - the lazy river part of Stormalong Bay.  Against the current. Which was hard, by the way. But I was trying to work some of my frustrations out.

You know how sometimes you just know that chocolate will make you feel a little better?  I was hoping swimming my butt off, against the current, would get rid of some of that lingering adrenaline that was coursing through my veins.

Since I didn't have chocolate, and I was so not in the mood to make spaghetti, I asked Bryan to see if he could find out if there was any prayer of getting into Cape May for dinner.

This was at 4:30pm and Cape May opens at 5pm.

Bryan came back and there were no ressies available, but he was going to stand in the check-in line and see if he could get us a walk-up ressie.  I ushered the kids out of the pool and back to the room to get changed, just in case.

Stefan changed first and headed to the lobby with Bryan's clothes so he could change.  Cate and I arrived shortly thereafter to find that Bryan had gotten us in and we already had a beeper-thingie.

A few minutes after 5pm, our beeper-thingie went off and we were seated.

Seriously, folks, if you've never been to Cape May Cafe for dinner, give it a try.  Not only do they have all you can eat crab legs, but the rest of their buffet offerings are just yummy.

Here's just a few of the things I had myself:

Baby Red Potatoes
Mashed Potatoes
Corn on the Cob
Steamed Cabbage
Beef Tips in a spicy sauce
Multi-Grain Rolls and butter
Roast Beef
Pork Tenderloin
Tomato and Mozzarella Salad - I had to visit this one twice
Citrus Chicken Orzo Salad - I had to visit this one twice AND I'm searching out the recipe.  Freakin' good!
Fresh fruit

The kids, my teenagers, love the fact that you get crayons and can draw on the paper that's on your table.  Hey, whatever makes you happy, kiddo.

There happens to be a lot of choices for dessert here.  I had an Oreo BonBon and a Key Lime Tart. But there were also mini cheesecakes, caramel flan, brownies, cookies, mini cupcakes and more.

For someone staying at the Beach Club, this is uber-convenient.  It's also a pretty popular place.  I don't like it.  I shouldn't be telling you how good it is because then it will be even harder for us to get into!

We were thinking of heading to MGM to take in the Osbourne Family Lights, but alas, the full-tummy-sleepies were kicking in and I hadn't even started packing yet.

So we headed back to the room and watched The Polar Express.

After the kids went to bed, Bryan and I started packing up.

Bad news:  We did too much shopping.  So much so that we couldn't fit everything in the bags we had brought with us.

After researching the options, it was most cost-effective to hit the UPS Store on the way to the airport and ship the rest of the stuff home.

We had one really large Disney bag full of stuff and a medium sized bag of stuff to ship home.  I didn't ask Bryan how much it weighed at the end, but I'm guessing we shipped home 20lbs or so of stuff.

Good gravy train.

Well, that's all for the text version of this report for now.  I'll do a series of photo posts so you can put pictures with the stories you've already read.

Dec 1 - Dining with an Imagineer

Yep, that's right we had lunch with a real Imagineer!!!!!!

I'm on a break right now so I'm getting caught up from yesterday.

I had scoped out dining with an Imagineer a while back.  They don't have these opportunities very often.  As we found out during our lunch, it really depends on the availability of the Imagineers.  They try to have it once a week for lunch at the Hollywood Brown Derby at MGM.  They also have a dinner at Flying Fish on the Boardwalk, but that's really hit or miss.  It's maybe once or twice a month.  I would have loved to have done the Flying Fish thing because we've never eaten there, but hey, any opportunity was great.

We headed to MGM for the morning, thinking we'd take in the park for a couple of hours before lunch.  We got up, drove that super long drive to MGM (like 2 minutes), parked in the front row and walked to the park entrance.

We and hundreds of our new closest friends waiting to make the fast walk to Toy Story Midway Mania at rope drop...only to find that the ride was down for "technical difficulties" and no one had any idea when it would be back up.

They weren't even going to start a queue.  We waited for 10 minutes and decided to move onward.  Bryan wanted to do the Animation Academy.  Stefan had zero interest in doing that so he headed to Rockin' Roller Coaster and was going to ride that until we showed up there.

Bryan, Cate and I walked over to the Animation Academy area and got in the holding area to wait for the first class at 9:30am.  Meanwhile, Stefan texted me to say that RNR was down with "technical difficulties."  I felt bad for the people who didn't have Park Hoppers.  Toy Story down.  RNR down.  Star Tours under refurb. That's three main attractions out of commission.

Anywho...we got in to the class and the animator was so nice...she let the class pick which character we'd like. We were in a class with a lot of repeat classmates so trying to find a character that everyone hadn't drawn was a challenge for our animator.  We ended up drawing Dale.

After the class, we texted Stefan to find out where he was. It turns out RNR was running again, but he was stuck on it.  More technical difficulties.

Cate joined up with Stefan while Bryan and I shopped a bit.  Then we decided to check and see if Toy Story was up yet.  It was and it had a 50 minute wait.  No thanks.  We decided to go see Voyage of the Little Mermaid since we hadn't done that for a real long time.  Very enjoyable show.

We still had a little time before lunch so we checked out Pin Central.

Then Chip & Dale came out and Bryan thought it would be cool if Dale signed his picture.  So we got in line for that.  By the time we were done, it was time to check in at the Brown Derby.

There were a total of 10 of us at this dining experience.  We were seated in the exclusive Bamboo Room inside the Brown Derby.  It was a beautiful room off the side of the restaurant. There we met our Imagineer, Dan Flynn.

Dan was a great Imagineer to have for this event.  He was very engaging and willing to talk about details (that were public knowledge, of course.) which was completely fun.

Our lunch started with the manager taking a group photo, like she always does for all diners in the Bamboo Room.

Our server handed out our personalized menus and took our drink orders.

We all had the same Lobster & Mussel Soup and the famous Brown Derby Cobb Salad.

For the main dish, we had the choice of an Oak Grilled Filet of Beef, Thai Chicken Noodle Bowl or Blackened Grouper.

For dessert, we could choose from the famous Grapefruit Cake or Chocolate Creme Brulee.

Bryan, Stefan and I chose the filet. Caitlin had the noodle bowl, which was gigantic, by the way!
Cate & I had the Grapefruit Cake.  We both thought it was a good blend of sweet and puckery.
Bryan & Stefan had the creme brulee.  I didn't really ask them about it, but both dishes were scraped pretty clean so I'm pretty sure it was yummy!

Back to our Imagineer...Dan is in show development.  That means if it's not a ride vehicle or the building the vehicle houses, he's involved.  I got the impression that it involves all those thematic pieces that gives us the Disney "magic."

Right now, he's working on the new resort in Hawaii, Aulani.  He was telling us about this one effect that's in the lobby that they were currently constructing that is a series of bowls in the stream.  Each bowl has a fountain.  Inside each fountain is an LED light.  But it's been designed so that at night, it doesn't just light up, it looks like the bowls are on fire. How wicked cool is that?

He also told us about how they've taken great pains to make this resort reflect the Hawaiian culture.  That Hawaiian comes before Disney.

I asked him about what he thought was a cool aspect of the resort that he's been involved in.  He told us about the "Hawaiian Adventure" game that they are constructing around the resort.  He described it as a next generation Kim Possible game.  Woo-hoo!  Love that game!

Anyway, they are going to use wireless technology for it.  Dan said, "Think iPad, but smaller" in terms of the handset you'll use to play the game.  And it's going to be smart tech.  Your game will be tied to your room key so you'll never play the same elements twice.  So if you are in room 123, and you check-in to the game with that room number, you'll always have new stuff to find.

I also asked Dan about the Star Tours refurb and what he knew about it.  Since he's not on that project right now, he didn't have anything new to say.  But what he did have to say rocked my world.

At one point, he was part of that project.  He was out in LA and got to experience a "draft" of the ride in one of their simulators. I say "draft" because Dan said he only got to experience the visuals.  There was no audio whatsoever - that's how early in the process this was.  Keep in mind that this is going to be 3D.

Dan said that he was blown away by what he experienced...WITH NO SOUND.  He knew the programmer and asked if the guy would set him up once more.

Here's another juicy tidbit...the programmer said that that was the first draft ILM (Industrial Light & Magic) sent over and that they were embarrassed by it.  Embarrassed by it!

Oh my gosh...if that was ILM's draft, and they were embarrassed by it, and the Imagineer said he was blown away by the draft with no sound...

Can you freakin' imagine how cool Star Tours 2.0 is going to be?  I get a sugar rush thinking about it.

I commented that I had read that there were something like 53 different permutations one could experience on the new Star Tours.  Dan replied, "Something like that."  

Stefan asked him if there was a Tron ride coming to Magic Kingdom.  Dan replied, "I don't know." in a pretty monotone tone of voice.  Hmmmm...was he messing with us? Who knows?

At the end of the meal, we were each presented with a commemorative plate that Dan had signed and dated for each of us.  Way cool!

I loved this experience.  My only thoughts on improvement would be to make it even smaller.  A group of 10 was really too many.  We were at a long table and it felt awkward making conversation.  It also was rather lengthy.  Our ADR was for 11:30am and we didn't leave until shortly after 2pm.

We had to scoot because I had made Photopass portrait reservations for 2:30pm at the Beach Club.  We still needed to change and get there on time!

Thankfully, we made it.  Our photographer was a peach to work with and very accommodating with the shots I asked for.  We got the DVC discount and just got everything put on CD.  I'll share some pics later.

We had a relaxing rest of the afternoon.  After dinner, we headed over to Fantasia Gardens for some mini golf.  The sun had gone down and it was a little brisk, but we had a good time.

Coming up:  December 2!