Did we bring enough lime-green mickey heads? It would appear so....*FINISHED! 9/29 **

[meeko_33785]

Nice report so far. Looking forward to more.

[PalmettoPrincess]

Originally Posted by BigEeyore

where did you get the "do you Dis?" sign

I wanna know too! I want one for my trip!!!

[mmtska]

Originally Posted by BigEeyore

Hi there! Please do post some pics and review of Narcoosee's - I've been wanting to try that place!
Two questions for you - where did you get the "do you Dis?" sign, and HOW did you get 2 5 day tickets for $136????

Originally Posted by PalmettoPrincess

I wanna know too! I want one for my trip!!!

Well the tickets were the military deal. Since DH is Navy, he got a free 5 day with park hopper and water park & more. He got 5 companion tickets (only needed one) that were $99 each plus tax. You could also get the PH and WP&M added on for $25 each. So 1 ticket with PH added +tax equaled $136. His was free so therefore....yeah

As for the Do you Dis sign: I found window cling transfers at a craft store. I made the sign with Microsoft Word. I just made 3 circles-lime greenish in color and outlined in black and made the Mickey head. Then I made 2 more circles-still lime green, but no outline-and put them on top of where the circles intersected. I'm sure there's an easier way, but that's how I did it. The font I downloaded off of the internet, and I don't remember the site, but it's a Walt Disney font. I think someone on the Creative DISigns board gave me a link, and I'm sure you could search for it. I just used that font in WordArt and in a text box for the Mickey head. Then I just printed onto the window cling. No mess on the window!

Originally Posted by meeko_33785

Nice report so far. Looking forward to more.

Thank you! I may post slowly, but it'll all get on here lol!

[mmtska]

All right-my first dining review!! I feel so special

Ok so this was supposed to be our special dinner for our anniversary. I wasn't really sure what to expect. I mean, the last table service meal I remember in WDW was when I was 7. And I think it was at the Polynesian, and Pluto was there with a lei......Band trips are full of fast food, not good food! Well it was definitely a memorable first meal.

I don't know why I thought they opened at 5, but being the genius I apparently am not, we got there about 515. Why 25 minutes early? No clue. Granted there were already a good 5 other groups ahead of us so whatever. We were seated around 530 (you know, when they actually opened) and given our personalized menus! OK so the 2nd had a random 0 in it but it's the thought that counts Plus they gave us an envelope to put them in, so I can use them in our scrapbook. YAY

Our waitress was super nice. She answered any questions we had and everything. Turns out her husband is in the military too, but he's deployed. I feel that.

Anyway, we ordered our drinks first. DH got a boring Yuengling, but I got this drink called a Sunken Treasure (Parrot Bay rum, Midori 2 things we always have at home hehe....) It was amazing! So yummy and I could barely taste the alcohol

One of the best parts of the meal was the bread. I failed at getting a picture of the actual bread, but it was warm and really good. Nothing overly special, but the best part was the butter. Lately, I've been convinced that the butter (or dipping oil) really makes the bread or rolls at restaurants. Yes, sometimes it doesn't matter-the bread is really good or really not-so-good. Sometimes, the 'topping' just makes the bread. Last night-we had rolls with honey butter. Yeah the rolls were good, but the butter made them delicious. Texas Roadhouse? Look-they may make the rolls every 5 minutes, but the butter is the best part Moving on-the butter at Narcoosee's was really good. They bring out a square of butter with sea salt ground on top A lot of butter for 2 people, but who cares-it was good!


We ordered the calamari for an appetizer. I love calamari, but I wasn't to sure about how it was served. I read the description and figured we'd at least try it. When it came out DH didn't look so thrilled and I was a little skeptical. I think it was the banana peppers..... I tried it first. It was decent calamari. I'm still not sure I loved everything else with it-and by the time we were done, most of that was still on the plate. The olive oil in the bottom worked well with the calamari. Usually, when we've gone out, there is some sort of sauce-even in Japan. But this was just sitting in the olive oil-I'm sure there was spices involved, because it wasn't just oily. It sounds like (and looks like) it would be greasy, but it wasn't. The olive oil gave it a little more flavor, but it wasn't drenched in the oil. It ended up tasting much better than it looked.

At this point, dinner has been great. Not rushed, not too slow, but moving at a good pace-I had read how a lot of the restaurants rush you, but we didn't experience that at all. Our entrees came next, and I had been looking forward to mine since we had begun looking at restaurants.

Narcoosee's seems to be well known for it's lobster. I love lobster. I've been to Maine several times, and am pretty much an expert at demolishing a whole steamed lobster, so of course that's what I ordered! I do have to mention that it is listed as coming with asparagus, but I do not like that, so they subbed broccolini for me. I ate it, it looks like broccoli to me, but it's not.....whatever. I was a little bummed when it came out though. The lobster comes out already taken apart, you don't even need claw crackers and yes, I wanted to take it apart myself, but I'm sure that makes a lot of people happy! Btw, his name is Bart, and yes his head was on the plate for what reason I'm still not sure. Either way you put it, he was GOOD Bart was pretty easy to eat after all the work was taken out (and now that you mention it, yes it's odd to name your dinner), and he was served with potato gratin. Those were very good as well. Not too cheesy, just enough to give the potatoes some flavor. I would definitely recommend it for anyone on the dining plan. Definitely worth it-even without the DDP I would go for it!

DH got the best of both worlds-surf and turf. He said that he really enjoyed his meal as well. The steak was done just the way he liked it-medium rare and the lobster tail tasted fresh and not watery like some seafood restaurants. He agreed about the potatoes, and coming from someone who doesn't like cheese-high praise

Then came dessert. I had planned on ordering a special cake, but forgot about it until the day before, and by then it was too late. So we ended up getting our included desserts. DH got the chocolate cake and I ordered the gelato sampler It was so cute how they brought it out too I loved the way that they had 'Happy Anniversary' on there. We think it was some sort of chocolate, but still not sure how they did it.

DH loved the cake, and I ended up eating most of the whipped cream that was on the plate. It was so good that I kept stealing it. The gelato sampler was really good too. I wasn't sure how I'd react to the pistachio, so our server brought me 2 scoops of chocolate instead-yay. Gelato is very yummy, and creamier than ice cream and it's usually served in smaller quantities so you eat less-good for my diet!

We had a great experience at Narcoosee's. Not only that, my view from the table was pretty darn cool itself! Space Mountain in front of me and the castle a little towards the right!
I'm so glad we chose this as our anniversary dinner-just something extra special!

[mmtska]

I just found out friends are going to AKL. I'm so jealous. Plus my dad left for Orlando for a conference today. BLAH

[mmtska]

I figured since I had some pretty awesome PhotoPass shots from the first day, I'd add them I'm so excited that they showed up so quickly! Off to order from Shutterfly now lol!

While I'm here, I figured I'd do a little review of PhotoPass itself. I preordered with a discount code I got off of the Theme Park community board. That made the CD only $84.95. MUCH cheaper than the $149.95 that you have to pay now if you don't prepay. I highly recommend PhotoPass. It's really hard to get pictures of a whole family without asking someone to take the picture. Then you have to find a person to take it, and hope they aren't going to run away with your camera (and yes this happened to someone I know...it was just weird).

It is so easy to work with!. We showed up to the MK the first day and got our picture in front of the flower Mickey. That photog gave us a little card that the other photogs scanned after they would take a picture. I heard a good tip also that helped me out: take a picture on your own camera of the number on the back of the card. That way, if you lose that card, you can get a new one, and still get the pictures off of the lost card. I didn't lose my card, but I wanted to play with the pictures and left the card at home while we were in Philly. I opened the pic I took and got all the pictures!

I had a blast playing with the pictures when we got home too. I started with around 80 pictures, and with borders and cropping, I now have 241. Plus, I noticed that the borders change depending on pictures. Now THAT was really cool!

Onto the pictures!

This one is pretty much my favorite from all that we took


Celebration Balloons!


In front of the castle


Tinkerbell!! Excuse Dh's strange look.....

[MrsSpratt]

More! More! Please, more!

[KatMark]

AWESOME! Great pictures...can't wait for more pics and more reviews.

[EmmasGrammy]

Great trip report so far. I was reading along and not until I got down to the pix did I realize that I know who you are. I'm not sure you'd recognize me from my sig but I know that you know me quite well. You have stayed over night at our home and I babysat your goldfish for you. We are finally going back to "the world" this Sept. It will be our first trip back since we visited with Emma one month before the fire. This trip we are staying at the Contemporary and we are going with Shelley and her DH and our new little Isabella.

Keep up the trip report I am truly enjoying it and I love your pix.

Lynda

[mmtska]

Originally Posted by MrsSpratt

More! More! Please, more!

Originally Posted by KatMark

AWESOME! Great pictures...can't wait for more pics and more reviews.

Coming soon! I had like 10 minutes to jump on lol! I'll write more tonight!

Originally Posted by EmmasGrammy

Great trip report so far. I was reading along and not until I got down to the pix did I realize that I know who you are. I'm not sure you'd recognize me from my sig but I know that you know me quite well. You have stayed over night at our home and I babysat your goldfish for you. We are finally going back to "the world" this Sept. It will be our first trip back since we visited with Emma one month before the fire. This trip we are staying at the Contemporary and we are going with Shelley and her DH and our new little Isabella.

Keep up the trip report I am truly enjoying it and I love your pix.

Lynda

*hugs* Yeah I think I've met you once or twice-or practically lived at your house for like 6 years I'm so excited to hear more about your trip! And I'm totally jealous of the Contemporary. I want to get the monorail in my hotel.

You know-we were talking about the fish the other day. And how we took it from BF to EC so it would stay with you, but my dad couldn't figure out how we'd move it when we moved there so he flushed it. Lame.

[mickeystoontown]

Thanks for the dining review of Narcoosse's. The food looks super good and what a great place to celebrate your anniversary.

Love the photopass pictures.

[mmtska]

Our first full day!! Here's what we had planned:

Show up for Rope Drop around 730-am EMH hours
Use Ridemax to the best of our ability
Eat wherever for lunch
Use free time from Ridemax to do whatever
Eat at Crystal Palace
Finish Ridemax Plan.

And here's what ACTUALLY happened (and why I love Ridemax)

So I was WIDE awake at 630 trying to wake (unsuccessfully I might add) DH up so he could get ready. Apparently my memory wasn't working because I forgot how long he takes to get ready in the morning. So running behind already. We get to the bus stop around 715.

The nice thing about the CSR are how close the bus stops are-at least IMO. Ours was maybe a 2 minute walk away, and right in the middle. The chances of us not getting seats to the parks were pretty slim. Another plus to the Ranchos.

We got to MK about 15-20 minutes before the Park opened, got through the turnstiles and lined up. I don't know how many people were ahead of us under the train station or whatever, but there weren't a HUGE amount standing outside. Ok, when people say go to the left LISTEN!!! DH figured since we were going to be heading to the right when we got in the park we should line up over there. I told him we should go to the left. And here's why that was a good idea.

Here's the line on the right-right before you enter under the train station.

Here's where we were-on the left
We actually ended standing by the guy in the backpack before we went in so we were a little further up. Plus there weren't that many people behind us!!

The day was really gloomy. It had rained and everything was still wet. The sun was still hiding so it looked to be a really blah day. A couple minutes after we got there, the sun bursts out of hiding and the music for the opening starts. I kid you not-it was PERFECT timing! Everyone around us was like WHOA!! The guy in the backpack goes-man, Disney really knows how to make an 'entrance'. Even has the sun under its control! It was so cool and then Mary Poppins and Alice and a bunch of other characters came out with the family of the day and Mickey at the end of course!

I didn't get a really good picture because we were right under them

Then into the park!! It was like the running of the bulls-but with fast walking.

However, when we got to this part of the park-you can see how busy it....wasn't. I can't really tell where that was, but I was just amused that it was that dead!

We headed over to Winnie the Pooh and ended up being the 2nd group in line! I have to say that I was spoiled by going to Tokyo Disney first. There, you have no track that you can see. They send 3 or 4 'hunny pots' in at a time, and they travel along to each scene. Then you move randomly around so you're in a different position in each scene. When Tigger comes out you really bounce up and down! The heffalumps and woozles in Pooh's dream are a lot more interesting too


After we got off of there, we headed off to Snow White and did that, BTMR and Splash all in about 45 minutes. At this point we're ahead of the Ridemax schedule and PotC was listed next-well Adventureland didn't even open for 45 minutes. So off we went to the HM. We figured if there wasn't a long line we could ride it. I'm pretty sure 5 minutes was doable I love that ride-the stretching room makes me giggle.


Off to PotC! This is my favorite Disney ride-since I was 3 so nothing can touch it. I remember it being less PC-and I think it was better that way, but Capt. Jack and Barbossa being added is pretty cool. We counted-they say Dead men tell no tales' at least 7 times that you can hear by the time you cross under Davy Jones. Slightly repetitive

After that we hit Jungle Cruise-the longest wait of the day. Still, 30 minutes isn't bad at all! This I liked better than Tokyo-for the entire reason that I could understand what was going on. Very helpful heh.

When JC was done, Ridemax had us with free time. HA! So we decided to see what we could ride without too much wait time. We managed to hit every other ride that was on our list! Well minus the carousel, but that's ok. Even the tea cups didn't have a long wait. While we were there, we saw Alice ride with a little girl. The girl was so happy! We got to meet Alice afterwards.

We ended up just walking around after that. Luckily we went around the castle and lo and behold, Lady Tremaine and the Stepsisters were there! Now this is where I felt bad. I made an autograph book with character pictures in it. I hadn't read of these ladies being anywhere but 1900 PF, and we weren't going there.....so I didn't put their pictures in the book. So they made me draw them a page! Then of course I took too long so they started being all rude and everything (and I'm laughing too hard) and Anastasia drew their pictures instead. I look stupid in the picture but here it is. Drucsilla was killing me though! I have to say, this was my absolute favorite character interaction. Hysterical!!

Ok more later. I had to rewrite the 2nd half of the report so I'm typed out!

[meeko_33785]

Great update. The Stepfamily is awesome. You should post the pictures that you and Anastasia drew.

[BigEeyore]

Sorry I am so clueless - but what is Ridemax????

[tinkgurl]

Whoa, that lobster looks yummy! What a great view of the Castle too!