Sunday, August 21, 2011

Trip Report - Walt Disney World - 07/18/2011

So today is the second day of our trip. Today we have Animal Kingdom, All Star Movies and Downtown Disney planned. We also have dinner plans at Chef Mickey's at the Contemporary Resort.

Today we got up early so that we can make it to Animal Kingdom as soon as it opened. I'm not looking forward to visiting Animal Kingdom this day. On most days, Animal Kingdom can be pretty warm and stuffy because of all the foliage and the people. Today is another hot day, so the park is going to be much, much warmer. We get to the park shortly after opening, around 9:15am. We make a bee-line to the Kilimanjaro Safari. The wait time is 15 minutes. So we get on right away. I love the Safari. Today we get to see a lot of animals out and about. One of the better tours I have been on.


After the safari, we headed to Expedition Everest. I figure it might be best to ride this before we have breakfast. There is a posted time of 25 minutes, but it seemed more like 20. I wasn't sure how my nephew would handle roller coasters. I would soon find out that he LOVES them. We had a blast. We decide to ride Everest a second time. Its always better the second time!

Now that we are fully awake, we are hungry. So we head to Pizzafari in Discovery Island. We get a Breakfast Pizza, Egg & Sausage, apple juice and a large coke. We use our dining plan to pay for this. I'm loving the dining plan more and more every day. Now that we ate, we tour Animal Kingdom some more.


After breakfast, I ask my nephew what show would he like to see: Festival of the Lion King or Finding Nemo. Nemo wins. So we have time before the next show. We go to DinoLand USA and see what we can ride. I see that Primeval Whirl is still closed down from the terrible accident that took place. Hopefully Disney will make this ride safer for the workers and riders. Then I see that Triceratop Spin has a 15 minute wait. So we get on. Yes I know its a Dino version of Dumbo, but its still a cute ride. My nephew enjoys the attraction. And that's what counts.




After Triceratop, we head towards Finding Nemo. Its almost full, but we find seats towards the front, left side of stage. It's a good view. Not too close that we can't see everything. While not my favorite show, my nephew enjoys the show. He has seen the Finding Nemo movie many times but has not seen The Lion King movie. What is wrong with this kid? LOL! Well, Uncle Johnny will change that when The Lion King 3D hits the movie screens later this year.


After Finding Nemo, I decide we have one more attraction to see before we leave. That will be Its Tough to be a Bug, the 3D film. One of the things I love about this show is that its an in-door attraction with AC. Yes, its another HOT day at Disney World. We go in and get our 3D glasses and take our seats. This is a funny, but sometimes scary show for young kids.So I told my nephew not to get scared by anything that happens while we watch the film. And for the most part he is fine. Until the end of the film. You know what happens at the end of the film. My nephew got a 'sting' from one of the insects from the film. He jumped off his seat so fast, it made me laugh!


I think we have seen enough of Animal Kingdom, so its time to move on. I want to take my nephew to the All Star Movies resort so that he can see the Toy Story section of the resort. We jump onto a bus and make our way to All Stars.

After a very quick ride, we are at All Stars Movie resort. We go thru the main lobby and head out to the Toy Story section. Why? Because my nephew LOVES anything that has to do with Toy Story. So I show him all the over-sized statues of the various Toy Story characters. There's a jumbo Buzz Lightyear, a Woody statue, Little Bo Peep, RC and Rex. We take various pics and look around the resort. I really like the All Stars resort. I've stayed at the Movies and Music sections. I really love the Three Caballeros pool at the Music section.  After our tour, its time for lunch at Downtown Disney.


As we ride over to Downtown Disney, I am loving the intense cold on the bus. Its such a relief from the heat of the day. However, I will regret the cold buses in a couple of days. More on this later.

We get to the Market Place section of Downtown Disney. So we need to get some lunch. And a huge drink. Near Cap'n Jack's Oyster Bar, there is a snack stand that had hot dogs. So we get a lunch meal of hot dogs, bag of chips and drinks. We find some tables and chairs along Village Lake and enjoy our lunch. Has anyone else had these bagged chips that Disney is now selling? They are AMAZING! They have regular and BBQ flavor chips that I know of. They are so tasty and addictive!!!


After lunch, we head to the Mega Lego Store to see what statues that have that are built with Legos. We go inside and guess what we see? We see statues of Buzz Lightyear

While at Downtown Disney, I was updating my social media status. I was on Gowalla, Twitter and Facebook. While updating my Facebook profile, I saw that my cousin's wife sent me a message saying that she was at Downtown Disney. My cousin and his family live near Orlando. I immediately replied and hoped that I had not missed her. It would be nice to see her since I didn't have any spare time on this trip to visit my cousin and his family. I then got a response that she had already left because was too hot to do any shopping. Now that's a first!! Too hot to do any shopping!!! LOL! I thought women loved shopping under ANY situation. I guess there are limits. Now it was time to head back to Pop Century and swim for a bit before dinner at Chef Mickey's.


Back at Pop Century, we went swimming for about two hours. While swimming, I realize that I forgot to use sun tan lotion. I will pay for this too in a couple of days. All I can say is OUCH!!!

After our swim, we rest a bit in our hotel room. We watch some more Phineas & Ferb. We watched the ending of Wall-E. Then we got ready and headed to the Contemporary Resort. I'm was looking forward to dinner at Chef Mickey. Plus its been awhile since I've visited this resort.

As you know, there are no buses that go from resort to resort. So we took a bus to the Magic Kingdom. From there, we took the pathway that leads to the Contemporary Resort. As you walk along this path, you get to see the Space Mountain building.


So we make our way to the 4th level of the Contemporary Resort. There you will find the Outer Rim food lounge, the quick service Contempo Cafe eatery and Che Mickey's Buffet. We check in and we have our picture taken with a Chef Mickey statue. About 15 minutes later, we are seated for dinner.


Chef Mickey's is a great place to eat. Plus you get meet Minnie, Donald, Goofy, Pluto and Mickey Mouse. We are told by our waiter that everyone will come to over table for pics and autographs shortly. So we to the buffet and get some food. I love the buffets at Disney, the food is always good and there is something for everyone to enjoy.


As we eat, music starts playing and the characters start dancing around. All the customers start twirling their napkins. It turns into a party!!! It was so much fun. We enjoy our dinner and we get lots of pictures taken with the characters. All in all, a great time at Chef Mickey's. I also buy the photo package of the picture we took when we arrived for dinner.


After dinner, we walk around the resort for bit. We see that a pirate party is taking place. We see Mr. Smee and Captain Hook lead pirate children thru the lobby. It was so cute to see.



After touring the resort, we decided to do a night-time ride on the monorail. I figure we could just ride the monorail for one loop and see the other resorts along the monorail  loop. It was nice to just relax after dinner and go on this 'mini ride'. We also got to see parts of the Electrical Water Pageant. It was so cute. After we returned back to the Contemporary, it was time to head back to Pop Century.


Well if you read all of this, you realized what a LONG day we had at Disney World. We grab late-night snacks and head to our room. We watch a little TV and we're soon fast asleep. Tomorrow is an early day for us. I want to be at the Disney Hollywood Studios by 8am, an hour before they open. Why? Because I want to ride Toy Story Mania when the park opens and I want to get Fast Passes for this ride so that we can at least ride it two times. My nephew is really looking forward to this ride. So hopefully my plan will work. Until then, Magical Dreams!


John

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