Chunkymonkey & Chunky Sisters B-day Celebration 2011!! Completed TR!

[chunkymonkey]

Hi everyone, sorry I have been MIA! Work has been crazy and in between trying to plan 2 trips (WWOHP and Taiwan/Hawaii) I have just been exhausted. However, hopefully it's back to the TR now!

Tuesday Part 3

After a quick spin again on TT, we went to Innoventions to get our Disney Visa picture. Think this is the best one so far!

After that we ended up at the the Character Spot finally, and we decided to wait the 45 or so minutes it took. It wasn'’t too bad because we were pretty tired from walking and it was a nice respite from the heat. Thank goodness it wasn'’t raining that day! Here are our pictures!

Like the little border on this one? Thought it was appropriate

From CT2’s camera:

Here’s more Photopass when we were outside

Here’s us on Test Track!

Here’s one of us on the ride. We were all in the same car this time! My sisters did what I did last time which was to fall asleep. Tooo predictable...I had to take a call. CT2 who was next to me, didn'’t get the memo though.

One last Photopass!

We headed to DTD to do some shopping (shopping post to come)

That night, we had our 2nd Ohana dinner! IT was just as good as the first if not better. Sorry no pics of it as we were just tired and hungry, however my sister did manage to get the recipe from a book from Epcot before we left. So here it is!

Does it taste as good as it looks? You betcha!

Coming up...our last full day at the park and we head to MK!!

 

[natebenma]

Thanks for the update! Great pictures as always. The character spot pictures are adorable. I love the one with you and Minnie- don't tell her, but your shoes are way cuter.

I'm so excited to hear you are going to WWoHP and the Universal parks. We were there in mid July and it was a nice change of pace for us. Can't wait to see your photos from there!!!

Staying on site was so worth it. The early access to Harry Potterland and the Front of the Line access were great. We had to deal with the timed access entry tickets once during our trip.

I am working on a Top Ten Tips list for the Universal parks, but I don't think I will get to it in my TR before you go, so I will PM it to you.

 

[chunkymonkey]

Mini TR - Disney's Aulani

I'm not sure I have anyone still reading this TR - I have been completely bad about updating, in between our 2 vacations in the fall, work, and also I had spent 3 weeks off the computer because I developed radial tunnel (like carpel tunnel but more painful.) But now that I am getting better, I'd still like to share some pics from our trip to Aulani in Hawaii. We spent 2 nights there at the end of our trip. I rented points via a DVC member and got a great deal although our 1 bedroom suite was l pretty pricey, hence the only 2 night stay.

As you will see the resort is fantastic. It is amazingly beautiful and no detailed was spared in the decor, grounds, and features. The infinity jacuzzi had 2 levels! There were a bunch of hidden Mickeys, mostly in the rooms.

My only gripe with this resort was the food. It just wasn't up to par with the rest of Disney resorts, and especially in Hawaii, where there is so much great food for cheap, there isn't any excuse for the overpriced food we had. I mean it was all ok to good, but nothing great and nothing to write home about. I did like a few things in the buffets they served and I was also happy to see Mickey waffles!

So here are some pics of the grounds:

Here are some pics of the suite:

And here's us at the character breakfast!

Oh and at the gift store, they had special Aulani Dooney and Bourke bags. So cute!

coming up...I'd like to share some pics from our trip to WWOHP back in Sept. including an inpromtu Dismeet!!

 

[annmarieda]

It is funny because I just wondered if you finished this report and I missed it. I am glad you posted!!!

I love the pictures of Aulani. I wish it were more affordable. I have kinda promised dh our next trip will be to Hawaii (if we actually go on another trip together) and while I have agreed no "Disney" I secretly wish we could stay at Aulani

 

[tankgirl427]

I'm here too! Too funny Ann and I were wondering where you disappeared to this week. I'm glad you had a great time in Hawaii!

 

[wdwgirl03]

Hi there! I noticed the "Aulani pics" in your title and had to stop in. All I can say is WOW! What a gorgeous resort! I am so jealous that you got to go there, even if it was for just a couple of nights. Thanks for sharing the pictures!

 

[chunkymonkey]

It is funny because I just wondered if you finished this report and I missed it. I am glad you posted!!!

I love the pictures of Aulani. I wish it were more affordable. I have kinda promised dh our next trip will be to Hawaii (if we actually go on another trip together) and while I have agreed no "Disney" I secretly wish we could stay at Aulani

Hi Ann! I am so happy you are still following! You trip is coming up so soon. It's literally right around the corner! You all must be so excited.

Yup Hawaii can be super pricey. For us it's mainly the airfare. From the east coast it gets really expensive. We try and budget ourselves when we are there though, so we can make it there more often than not. For me, I'd rather be in Hawaii multiple times and stay in a shack, rather than do one trip and stay in a luxe hotel. The Aulani though, was definitely worth it!

I'm here too! Too funny Ann and I were wondering where you disappeared to this week. I'm glad you had a great time in Hawaii!

Yay!! I'm so glad you're still following. I promise t update more and finish my TR. LOL. I notice you have another trip coming up!! So lucky!! Plus you just did an October trip! Boy this is a good year!

Hi there! I noticed the "Aulani pics" in your title and had to stop in. All I can say is WOW! What a gorgeous resort! I am so jealous that you got to go there, even if it was for just a couple of nights. Thanks for sharing the pictures!

Hi!! Thanks for visiting my TR! Yup we had a great time at Aulani, despite the short time there. Hopefully I can make it back one day!

 

[mbvisitor]

I'm here reading your TR! Just found it this morning! My family and I were there the same week for our very first visit to WDW. It's great to read someone else's perspective of the same days we were there. In fact we were at EP on that same rainy Monday...unfortunately since it was our first visit, I didn't quite realize most or all of the rides were inside, so we wasted most of the morning at Mouse Gears and Innoventions

Your Aulani pics look incredible! Maybe one day for us....

Hope you keep writing about your trip!
Btw you and your sisters are gorgeous!

Hazel

 

[AMVmom]

Hello, I was lurking through trip reports to get my Disney fix and found yours; just wanted to say that you have a beautiful family and I absolutely love all of your pictures! Hawaii looks gorgeous, I wish I can go soon, just have to convince my husband. Will you be posting pics of Taiwan? My DH is from there and we've always talked about going one day. I would love to see what it's like there, he always talks about what it was like when he was a little boy, etc. I hope to read more, thanks!

 

[chunkymonkey]

I'm here reading your TR! Just found it this morning! My family and I were there the same week for our very first visit to WDW. It's great to read someone else's perspective of the same days we were there. In fact we were at EP on that same rainy Monday...unfortunately since it was our first visit, I didn't quite realize most or all of the rides were inside, so we wasted most of the morning at Mouse Gears and Innoventions

Your Aulani pics look incredible! Maybe one day for us....

Hope you keep writing about your trip!
Btw you and your sisters are gorgeous!

Hazel

Hi Hazel. thanks for visiting! Wow that's really cool you and your family were there over the same days! Yeah the weather was pretty brutal that day, wasn't it?

Thank you and Thank you! You are too kind!

Hello, I was lurking through trip reports to get my Disney fix and found yours; just wanted to say that you have a beautiful family and I absolutely love all of your pictures! Hawaii looks gorgeous, I wish I can go soon, just have to convince my husband. Will you be posting pics of Taiwan? My DH is from there and we've always talked about going one day. I would love to see what it's like there, he always talks about what it was like when he was a little boy, etc. I hope to read more, thanks!

Hi!! Thanks for visiting! Thank you! Hawaii is pretty amazing. I will share a few Taiwan pics on the TR...I don't really speak chinese so getting around was pretty hard. Had to rely a lot on my in-laws and family so half the time I had no idea what we were doing or seeing. It was really cool though, and the food was wonderful. I hope to finish my TR shortly!

 

[chunkymonkey]

Mini TR - Universal and WWOHP

Just before I continue on my TR for Disney, I just wanted to post a bit about a special trip I took last year. We went to WWOHP over labor day weekend. It was a lot of fun, and although we didn'’t go to Disney, we did end up dining at Kona Café and watching the fireworks from the beach at the Poly. It really made me want to go purchase a 1 day park hopper the next day, but unfortunately since we already prepaid for our Universal tickets, we couldn'’t’ really do both parks at once.

We stayed at the Royal Pacific resort at Universal Orlando. It was a beautiful resort, and the service was wonderful. They always had some sort of freebie each day, like Italian ice, or popsicles which they handed out poolside. We purchased a package over expedia for airfare and room and I used amex points to get 3 day hopper tickets to Universal and IoA. However, when we arrived at the resort, I completely forgot that I had left them at home… back in NYC. OMG. So needless to say I was panicky that first night. Tried to call Amex to see if they can do anything but they really could not. So we ended up purchasing a new set of park tickets for $$$, sigh. Fortunately we were able to sell the first pair on ebay for close to what we paid for the second pair, so it worked out in the end. But I really wanted to hit myself in the head because it was such an important part of our trip and of course I had to forget them…

The parks themselves were great. They weren’'t Disney, of course, but they had their own charm. WWOHP was definitely my favorite area but it was pretty packed even in September, although from what I heard, less crowded than peak times. Although the main ride, The Forbidden Journey, still had hefty wait times. The early admission into the park for staying at the resort did come in handy, as well as the express pass. They alone made the cost of staying on site well worth it IMO.

Some pics of our trip:

Our night at the Poly:

Even though we were full from Kona Café, we couldn’t resist a Dole Whip before the fireworks.

Wishes!

And here’s a very special Dis Meet that happened by coincidence. On our very last day there, me and DH were checked out of the Royal Pacific, and were wheeling our suitcases out of the lobby…. I was stopped by a very lovely girl, who asked me hesitantly, "…”Are you Chunkymonkey …on the Dis Boards?"” My whole face lit up. “Yes!” I replied! Turns out, the lovely lady is none other than QuirkyButterfly who was visiting all the way from Australia with her BF. They were sooo sweet and nice. We chatted for a bit before we had to run out to catch our flight back to New York. I was so stunned to be recognized by someone else on the Dis!! It was such a priceless and awesome moment! We HAD to take a picture together…

QuirkyButterfly, it was so wonderful meeting you and your BF! I hope you had a fabulous time at Universal and Disney, and hope we cross paths again!

 

[annmarieda]

Oh.. that so sucks that you forgot the tickets... but it looks like you had a wonderful time (once you got new tickets). I love the pictures! Although That roller coaster looks very scary!!! How cool on the dismeet!

 

[natebenma]

OK, I was WAAAYYYYYY behind on your report! You posted the Aulani stuff the week Ben was in a a production of Robin Hood and I was helping to chair a mother-son dance. And I guess I never got back to see your fabulous pictures.

Aulani looks AMAZING!!! The suite is beautiful. I wanna go!

Now, off to read about WWoHP and get blown away by your pictures.

 

[natebenma]

Fantastic pictures from your Universal/WWoHP trip!

I can't believe you left the tickets behind! I'm glad you were able to get around it, though.

We found the parks to be a nice change- my teenager prefers the Dark Side, but the rest of us still rate Disney as #1.

Too funny- we ate at Kona too, on the day we surprised the boys with a day at the Magic Kingdom.

That is so cool that another DISer recognized you.

Looking forward to reading about the rest of your trip with your sisters!

Dee

 

[tinacaplan]

Hello! How cool that you snuck in a trip to the other side. I haven't even considered it yet. Seems like Max is too young to enjoy most of it. WWoHP looks incredible, for sure.

You took some amazing pictures, as usual. And how cool that you had a random Dismeet??? I saw some folks on my first adult trip back in February 2010, but I was too shy to introduce myself.

Love the Poly pictures, especially. We're staying there in about two weeks and I cannot wait.

Hope you're well.

 

[chunkymonkey]

Oh.. that so sucks that you forgot the tickets... but it looks like you had a wonderful time (once you got new tickets). I love the pictures! Although That roller coaster looks very scary!!! How cool on the dismeet!

Hi Ann! The roller coaster was probably the scariest and coolest ride ever. It took me until the last day to work up the courage to do it, and I only did it *** DH wanted to do it. It's called Rip Ride Rockit, and the cool part is that you can customize the music you want playing when you ride. every rider gets to do it. I think I played "Hella Good" by No Doubt. Funniest thing, is that they take video of you while you ride, not pictures, so after the ride, we watched our video, and basically you pretty much see me cursing up a storm and yelling "What am I doing!!?!" all throughout the ride. The first 30 seconds are the worse though. I'm glad I did it once but may possibly not do it again.

OK, I was WAAAYYYYYY behind on your report! You posted the Aulani stuff the week Ben was in a a production of Robin Hood and I was helping to chair a mother-son dance. And I guess I never got back to see your fabulous pictures.

Aulani looks AMAZING!!! The suite is beautiful. I wanna go!

Now, off to read about WWoHP and get blown away by your pictures

Fantastic pictures from your Universal/WWoHP trip!

I can't believe you left the tickets behind! I'm glad you were able to get around it, though.

We found the parks to be a nice change- my teenager prefers the Dark Side, but the rest of us still rate Disney as #1.

Too funny- we ate at Kona too, on the day we surprised the boys with a day at the Magic Kingdom.

That is so cool that another DISer recognized you.

Looking forward to reading about the rest of your trip with your sisters!

Dee

Aww hi Dee! Great to see you here. I have a ton of TR and PTRs to catch up on and yours are some of them!! Hope Robin Hood was great!

Aulani was pretty amazing. I wish they had better food though.

That's pretty cool you guys went to Kona Cafe too! I really wanted Ohana but there was absolutely no availability so we went with the next best thing

Hello! How cool that you snuck in a trip to the other side. I haven't even considered it yet. Seems like Max is too young to enjoy most of it. WWoHP looks incredible, for sure.

You took some amazing pictures, as usual. And how cool that you had a random Dismeet??? I saw some folks on my first adult trip back in February 2010, but I was too shy to introduce myself.

Love the Poly pictures, especially. We're staying there in about two weeks and I cannot wait.

Hope you're well.

Hi Tina! I'm sure when Max is old enough and has read all the books he'll be dying to go! It definitely is more for teens and adults because a lot of the rides have height restrictions. But the overall ambiance of Hogwarts/Hogsmeade was right on! We loved the frozen butterbeer and would get it like twice a day LOL.

I would totally be too shy to introduce myself as well, unless they were people I "knew" from my TR and the TRs I read...LOL. If I saw you or you saw me I'd hope we'd say hi!!

Jealous of your upcoming stay at the Poly. Wow you have taken so many trips, it sounds amazing! I'm off to read your PTR now...

 

[natebenma]

Hi Ann! The roller coaster was probably the scariest and coolest ride ever. It took me until the last day to work up the courage to do it, and I only did it *** DH wanted to do it. It's called Rip Ride Rockit, and the cool part is that you can customize the music you want playing when you ride. every rider gets to do it. I think I played "Hella Good" by No Doubt. Funniest thing, is that they take video of you while you ride, not pictures, so after the ride, we watched our video, and basically you pretty much see me cursing up a storm and yelling "What am I doing!!?!" all throughout the ride. The first 30 seconds are the worse though. I'm glad I did it once but may possibly not do it again.

Thanks for sharing that about Rip Ride Rocket. We did not ride it on our summer trip. There was no way Ben was getting on that thing. Mark had no interest. I would have gone with Nate, but he didn't work up a nerve until the last day. Since there is no express line for this, we didn't dare get in line before leaving.

I read that the "secret track" or "mystery song" is Rainbow Connection. How cool is that?

 

[chunkymonkey]

Thanks for sharing that about Rip Ride Rocket. We did not ride it on our summer trip. There was no way Ben was getting on that thing. Mark had no interest. I would have gone with Nate, but he didn't work up a nerve until the last day. Since there is no express line for this, we didn't dare get in line before leaving.

I read that the "secret track" or "mystery song" is Rainbow Connection. How cool is that?

That's pretty cool about Rainbow Connection! lol. I don't even know how you get there. There are a lot of song choices divided into categories like Country, Hip Hop, Rock, Pop etc. I think I only checked out pop before we started moving...definitely a scary ride to the top!!

 

[chunkymonkey]

The end of our trip
Sorry but this conclusion was a long time coming…I’ve pretty much been out of commission but slowly catching up on everyone’s TR and PTR. The reason was, I recently got surgery on my left arm for radial tunnel (like carpel tunnel but on the upper elbow area), so typing was out of the question. Here was my arm about 4 weeks ago:

Yes it was quite painful, and recovery is pretty grueling, but I’m happy to say that after 3 weeks of therapy, I’m beginning to feel better and am able to type with one finger on my left hand. Still have some work to do though, I can’t lift my middle finger up (which could be a good or bad thing) and bending my wrist is painful, but it’s a vast improvement since the surgery. I also have a pretty big scar on my left forearm.

Anyways, on with the end of the TR!!

These pictures are from our last full park day. We headed to MK to finish everything we didn’t do on our EMH night, and to also take a load of PP pics. The skies opened up in the afternoon but luckily we took most of our pictures earlier in the day before we boarded the monorail to Epcot.

We had a special evening planned too, we celebrated CS’s bday at Akershus with the princesses! We all had an awesome time. I didn’t think the food was the best of the trip, but it was fine. We had more fun taking pictures and celebrating our last night.

After our dinner, we caught Illuminations again in our semi-secret spot behind one of the shop kiosks when you first enter WS. The rain held up enough for us to watch enough fireworks and then it was back to POFQ! But first, we stopped at Mousegears for shopping!

The next day was a complete washout! Pouring pouring rain ALL DAY. We had planned to go to AK but no one wanted to go. We decided to just grab lunch at WPE using one of our last CS credits, and then later on we still had a few CS credits left so we got sandwiches at POFQ before boarding ME back to the airport. So sad our last day was the wettest of the week, but it didn’t dampen our spirits overall. CS still talks about going back to Disney every chance we get!

Here are pics from the remainder of the trip:

Here’s some pics of CS’s scrapbook which she made after we got home. She got the book from WoD but added her own artistic embellishments and other pictures which made it even nicer!

Sooo, that’s the end of the Chunkysisters Birthday trip to WDW!! My next trip with DH is for free dining and F&W in Sept/Oct and we’re staying at AoA!! Soo excited! I may or may not do a PTR due to my arm condition (radial tunnel, which is in both arms).

Hope to do some DIS meets with some familiar faces (Hi Ann, Hi Amy!) whom I know are planning trips during the same time!

Until next time...

THE END

 

[natebenma]

i loved your awesome report! Spectacular pictures. The pp pix of you and your sisters on the final full day are incredible. What a great bunch of memories for your family. Great photo album too.

Sorry to hear about your arm(s). I hope the surgery improves the situation.

Look forward to reading more after your next trip.

Dee