"It's a 5 - gimmie more!" - A Food and Wine Trip Report Oct 16-20. (Final Update 2/9/14!)

[TheMaxRebo]

I am not a fan of DHS not being supportive of those of us that want Mickey Bars for breakfast

Congrats to DW on riding RNRC! And to you for getting a new high score (twice!) on TSMM!

Glad you found time for One Man's Dream - I think there are a lot of neat things there and just a good reminder of what lead to Disney World even being able to exist. I love the ride dioramas like the Peter Pan one you posted - just cool to see how they planned out how the ride track wraps around and stuff

 

[skier_pete]

Someday I will rise from Beaverdom on TSMM!

I like that - always getting that darn Beaver!

I tried to focus on high value targets. Like in the army men scene I stayed high where all the 2000/5000 plates are instead of shooting at the easy low value ones down low.

YHEA for DW getting on RnR!!!!

And super cute pic of you guys and the Mickey Bars!!! Def. don't show DD that one- it shows way too much Disney Magic without her around.......

Toy Story- I know I've told you this before- but I just don't get the draw. It's ok.. but my hand hurts after riding it. It's just not worth the fuss/wait (to me). If the waits start dropping, maybe............. I'd rather do Buzz.

I do wonder how DHS will look after the rehab. I'm hoping for good things since this is my least fave park!

So long as they leave my ToT alone!

Rather do Buzz? Ick, Buzz is boring and way too hard to aim. I never know which little beam of light is mine. I do think that TSMM's popularity is outsized for what it is. (See my response to PrincessInOz below for why that is!)

I don't think they'll touch ToT or RnRC, but since no-one really knows exactly what they've got planned, that's just a logical guess!

Have you told DD that you Mickey Bar cheated on her yet?


Glad to see DW got on RnRC with you. I love that ride. You got a lot of the major rides out of the way at DHS early.

We did not tell her we got a Mickey Bar. She really didn't ask much about the trip except for the "what did you get me!"

It still amazes me how few "major rides" there are at DHS. I think that's why TSMM is sooooo popular. There are just 5 rides in the whole park, and at least two of which are not ridden by probably 50% of the people in the park. (ToT and RnRC are no good for those with small children or many adults that don't like "thrill" rides.) Even Star Tours and GMR aren't for everyone, so that leaves TSMM as the ride that EVERYONE enjoys.

I still can't believe people wait 90 minutes+ for ANY ride. I haven't waited more than 30 minutes for a ride since 1997.

I can't believe DW rode RnRC with her eyes closed!! Seems like that would make it even scarier! But I'm glad she decided to ride with you, and she looks very proud of herself outside in front of the big guitar.

Ugh a 30 minute search for a Mickey bar? That's criminal! Been there, done that. Only I had the opposite problem and it was late at night so the carts were all closed for the day with no hope of reopening. At least you got one!

What I think is funny is that ride is almost entirely in the dark, so I don't know what the point of closing her eyes was! But I agree, closing your eyes on Soarin' can help with motion sickness. Closing your eyes on RnRC would make it worse!

What was odd about that Mickey bar is the very first cart we went to WAS open, but then her computer was down and we couldn't pay for it. It definitely would we worse late in the evening when if you wanted one and all the booths were closing!

I am not a fan of DHS not being supportive of those of us that want Mickey Bars for breakfast

Congrats to DW on riding RNRC! And to you for getting a new high score (twice!) on TSMM!

Glad you found time for One Man's Dream - I think there are a lot of neat things there and just a good reminder of what lead to Disney World even being able to exist. I love the ride dioramas like the Peter Pan one you posted - just cool to see how they planned out how the ride track wraps around and stuff

Well, it was like 11:30 AM by the time we got that Mickey Bar, so clearly DHS doesn't want people breakfasting on Mickey Bars! It was more like a "lunch-spoiler" than a breakfast!

One Man's Dream was pretty neat, I am not sure how we have gone so long without seeing it. Doing the BSM tour and reading Disney biographies there wasn't really any new information, but a lot of the displays were really cool. Though some were funny to look at "Oh, here's a display of how they did the multiplane camera...remember when we saw the actual camera at the archives?"

I like seeing the models of the other Disneylands around the world. I don't know that we are every going to get to any of the others (maybe DLP someday) so I definitely like seeing them!

 

[franandaj]

Pete,

I hope you and your family are OK with all these snowstorms that are hitting your area.

Hope you're not having all the problems we're seeing on TV with excessive snow.

 

[skier_pete]

Pete,

I hope you and your family are OK with all these snowstorms that are hitting your area.

Hope you're not having all the problems we're seeing on TV with excessive snow.

Alison - thanks for thinking of us. We were spared the storm. We luckily (or wisely) live in the "Northtowns" of Buffalo (closer to Niagara Falls) and so we are usually spared the worst of the lake affect snow-bands. In this case, because they mostly stayed on the south side of the city, we were completely spared. One day we got about 2-3 inches, which we don't even flinch at. However, my workplace was right on the edge of the snow - so their was a driving ban there and it was closed for 4 days. I am not sure how much snow they got, but I don't think they got the full brunt. Luckily I didn't get stuck at work as it all started Monday night, and so was able to stay home and work on some projects that needed to get done. I am happy to have been able to avoid all the problems of the snow, and we have been able to go on with our lives as normal.

However, we have plenty of friends that have been stranded in their homes for 4-5 days under 6-7 feet (!!!!!) of snow. That's actually pretty close to our typical annual total. (We average around 100 inches per winter.) They've now had a full day to dig out, and the main streets are returning to normal, but a lot of side roads are not. The problem when you get THAT much snow is that it very hard to find somewhere to put it. It's Hard to pile 7 feet of snow onto another 7 feet without a payloader. The pictures of the plowed streets show piles on the side of the road that are 8-10 feet tall. So, it'll take a few days for everyone to dig out. The big concern right now is a warm-up coming tomorrow and Monday which could result in excessive melting/flooding. (7 feet of snow turns into 7" of rain)

Anyways, thanks for thinking of us. The Buffalo tourism board didn't get much of a boost this week I think!!

 

[PrincessInOz]

Alison - thanks for thinking of us. We were spared the storm. We luckily (or wisely) live in the "Northtowns" of Buffalo (closer to Niagara Falls) and so we are usually spared the worst of the lake affect snow-bands. In this case, because they mostly stayed on the south side of the city, we were completely spared. One day we got about 2-3 inches, which we don't even flinch at. However, my workplace was right on the edge of the snow - so their was a driving ban there and it was closed for 4 days. I am not sure how much snow they got, but I don't think they got the full brunt. Luckily I didn't get stuck at work as it all started Monday night, and so was able to stay home and work on some projects that needed to get done. I am happy to have been able to avoid all the problems of the snow, and we have been able to go on with our lives as normal.

However, we have plenty of friends that have been stranded in their homes for 4-5 days under 6-7 feet (!!!!!) of snow. That's actually pretty close to our typical annual total. (We average around 100 inches per winter.) They've now had a full day to dig out, and the main streets are returning to normal, but a lot of side roads are not. The problem when you get THAT much snow is that it very hard to find somewhere to put it. It's Hard to pile 7 feet of snow onto another 7 feet without a payloader. The pictures of the plowed streets show piles on the side of the road that are 8-10 feet tall. So, it'll take a few days for everyone to dig out. The big concern right now is a warm-up coming tomorrow and Monday which could result in excessive melting/flooding. (7 feet of snow turns into 7" of rain)

Anyways, thanks for thinking of us. The Buffalo tourism board didn't get much of a boost this week I think!!

Glad you and the family are okay. I hope that the snow melts slowly so that there isn't any flooding.

 

[skier_pete]

Leading up to the trip, we had planned to go to the Hollywood Brown Derby for a Cobb Salad, but when our friends suggested lunch just a few days earlier, we were unable to get a larger group into HBD. We just missed a ADR at Mama Melrose (which we’ve never tried) but instead we ended up at 50’s Prime Time, which can be a lot of fun.

For those that haven’t eaten there before, it is themed to be almost like a ‘50s family sitcom, with the wait staff treating you like “family” – as in “you better eat your vegetables if you want dessert!” Our waiter was a little bit of a card, but not hugely funny. We were also off in a corner room which wasn’t the nicest spot, but it was a really fun dinner catching up with Lisa and Kathy. These were two friends (along with their husbands, who weren’t available today) that we met on our ABD trip last year. They’ve become really close friends it seems since they all live down here close to Disney. (And apparently now in the same neighborhood.)



The menu is solid comfort food, but with plans to go to Yachtsman later that night, I didn’t want something really heavy, so I went with the Chicken Caesar salad.



DW I think had the special, which was shrimp with grits or something like that (sorry it’s blurry and I can’t remember!)


For dessert, we shared a milkshake. They had a red velvet cupcake milkshake, and it was pretty clear that they’d thrown an actual cupcake in there! It wasn’t quite as good as the Orea Milkshake at the Sci-Fi, but it was pretty darn good!



After lunch, Lisa and Kathy were able to hang out with us for the afternoon. There was only really two things that we still wanted to do in the park. DW really loves doing the art of animation drawing session, so we suggested we head there. We were able to get in, but were stuck in the front. Kathy had never been to this, so it’s always fun taking a local to see something “new”! The ladies showing off their Pooh drawings. No judging please!



The other thing we wanted to see was the Beauty and the Beast show, which didn’t go on for a while yet, so we ended up going back to Walt Disney: One Man’s Dream, since we didn’t get much time in there. We sat through the movie that plays as well, which while again nothing I didn’t already know was kind of neat in that it was all in “Walt’s own words”. After that we made it over to the Beauty and the Beast show.

After that, the last of our group joined in. Kim met us outside the theater, and then Kathy’s husband, who works for DVC, met us for a few minutes there as well. We did a “selfie” of the group.



We didn’t have much longer before we had to go back to the room to get ready for dinner, so we all (Except Keith) walked over by Echo Lake and got a drink from the stand and sat and talked for a bit, but not before posing for a photo in front of the hat.





Sort of weird thinking this will be the last picture we’ll ever take in front of the hat. Not that I mind terribly it’s departure, but just a little bit strange to think that that photo op is soon to be no more.

Our time was gone too soon. We were sorry we couldn’t spend more time with our friends (especially Kim, who we barely spent an hour with) but we had a dinner ADR, and we really needed to go back to the room and wash up and change. Kim walked with us out to the bus, and we got really good bus karma as a bus pulled up within minutes of us arriving at the stop.
Back to our hotel, our afternoon with our friends had kind of throw off our plans, so we didn’t really have very long to change and get back out. Our dinner reservation was for 7:40 PM, so we knew we wanted to be heading out before 7 PM.

Part of the reason we were looking to try SSR is the “back-door” method of getting to the Yacht Club/Boardwalk. When we left the room, we went down the stairs by the lake. This is the view of DTD if we didn’t have a big tree on our balcony.





We walked along the water and crossed the bridge to the DTD bus stop. It was probably less than a5-minute walk from our room to the bus stop. Unfortunately, I think when they re-do DTD they are moving to only one central bus-stop, which will knock the utility of this down a notch.
Anyways, the bus was quick to arrive, but the drive around DTD is slow, and then the bus had to stop at the Swan and the Dolphin first, and of course we got stuck behind some other busses offloading wheelchairs, so we walked up to our dinner ADR about 10 minutes late. Unfortunately there was also a backlog, so we actually ended up waiting another almost 25 minutes before we got our table.

But Yachtsman is so worth it!



The meat choices! Not the place for a vegan to eat!



The food here is so good. We both ordered Strip Steaks with sides to share. No appetizer, but they did bring out rolls.



Our steaks:





The sides:



Our happy smiling faces after this great meal:


The reason I was a little bugged by the lateness of dinner is we had made plans to meet DISer “Teetah” and her husband at Jellyroll’s at 9 PM. Well, dinner ran a little longer, but we were still able to go over there with our full bellies about 9:20 PM. It was already pretty full, but our friends had saved us two seats at there table.

Jellyrolls’ is a dueling piano bar, and is as much fun as you can have on Disney property for a night out now that the Adventurer’s Club is closed. The tunes are non-stop and being a Friday it was a pretty rowdy crowd. There were birthday celebrations and even a marriage proposal on stage.




I tried to shoot a little video, but they shot me down almost right away, so though I got about 15 seconds, I will not post it, because I guess we are not supposed to do that.

Teetah and her DH stayed until about 11 PM while we stayed until just after midnight. We headed out to the Boardwalk and took the bus back to our hotel. We rolled into bed about 1 AM, which for us is pretty late.

But hey, there’s plenty of time to sleep when we’re dead. Next up is our day at Magic Kingdom.

 

[PrincessInOz]

What a great afternoon and night.
Lunch at 50's PT looks delicious. Glad you got in a DisMeet with the ABD friends.
The Pooh bear drawings are all fantastic. Everyone did so well!
I'm drooling over your steaks at Yachtsman. I really need to schedule a dinner there. But then, with a vegetarian in the family, it hasn't ranked high on the list.
You made it to JellyRolls!! YAY!

 

[PrincessInOz]

Happy Thanksgiving to you and the family, Pete.

 

[khertz]

How great that you were able to catch up with some ABD friends while you were there! I sure hope we are able to do the same in the parks someday. Your meals at 50's and Yachtsman look truly delicious. A red velvet milkshake sounds like something I need in my life!

Happy Thanksgiving to you & yours!

 

[skier_pete]

What a great afternoon and night.
Lunch at 50's PT looks delicious. Glad you got in a DisMeet with the ABD friends.
The Pooh bear drawings are all fantastic. Everyone did so well!
I'm drooling over your steaks at Yachtsman. I really need to schedule a dinner there. But then, with a vegetarian in the family, it hasn't ranked high on the list.
You made it to JellyRolls!! YAY!

Those steaks are so good, you can't even imagine! You definitely should find a way to get there next time.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and the family, Pete.

Thank you. I would say same to you, but it seems unlikely that you have a food and football holiday down under.

How great that you were able to catch up with some ABD friends while you were there! I sure hope we are able to do the same in the parks someday. Your meals at 50's and Yachtsman look truly delicious. A red velvet milkshake sounds like something I need in my life!

Happy Thanksgiving to you & yours!

Don't know how many of your fellow bad travelers were locals. That's who we get to dismember with. Not the podcast crew though we did see Pete &Dustin in the park last year.

The red velvet milkshake was really good. We've tried 50s prime time twice now and no complaints about the food.

Hope you guys had a great Thanksgiving too.

 

[franandaj]

Sounds like a great day. That's so fun you got to meet up with folks from your ABD trip! I've never eaten at 50's Prime Time, but I supposed some day I'll have to put it on the list.

I never realize how parents are limited with the activities they can do because their kids won't sit still through show or exhibits like One Man's Dream. I enjoy things like that mixed in with the thrill rides. Nice that you got to tour that way.

Nice dinner at Yachtsman. Though I'm not a fan of the strip steak it's differences like that which make the world a better place.

PIO - they do serve salmon and other fish there, plus I'm sure there are vegetarian choices. Disney is good like that. I know you love your filet, your DH should let you indulge for next time!

 

[khertz]

Don't know how many of your fellow bad travelers were locals. That's who we get to dismember with. Not the podcast crew though we did see Pete &Dustin in the park last year.

There was a couple on our trip who live in Florida, plus one of our guides works in the parks when he is not on an ABD. It would be great to meet up with any or all. And Pete did say he would like to get together with DH next time we were in Disney for some nighttime photography in the parks, but I don't know if DH is going to take him up on that or not. I think he should!!

 

[PrincessInOz]

Thank you. I would say same to you, but it seems unlikely that you have a food and football holiday down under.

We don't celebrate Thanksgiving downunder; but I appreciate the sentiment.

PIO - they do serve salmon and other fish there, plus I'm sure there are vegetarian choices. Disney is good like that. I know you love your filet, your DH should let you indulge for next time!

YAY! Thanks for letting me know. I think I really will try to get there next trip.

 

[skier_pete]

Sounds like a great day. That's so fun you got to meet up with folks from your ABD trip! I've never eaten at 50's Prime Time, but I supposed some day I'll have to put it on the list.

I never realize how parents are limited with the activities they can do because their kids won't sit still through show or exhibits like One Man's Dream. I enjoy things like that mixed in with the thrill rides. Nice that you got to tour that way.

Nice dinner at Yachtsman. Though I'm not a fan of the strip steak it's differences like that which make the world a better place.

PIO - they do serve salmon and other fish there, plus I'm sure there are vegetarian choices. Disney is good like that. I know you love your filet, your DH should let you indulge for next time!

I think our daughter would probably actually like parts of One Man's Dream, but not really have the patience to watch the entire thing. She's pretty good about understanding that some things we do at Disney because "mom and dad want to". That doesn't stop the eventual whining though!

Wait, they have fish at Yachtsman?

There was a couple on our trip who live in Florida, plus one of our guides works in the parks when he is not on an ABD. It would be great to meet up with any or all. And Pete did say he would like to get together with DH next time we were in Disney for some nighttime photography in the parks, but I don't know if DH is going to take him up on that or not. I think he should!!

Both our ABD guides were from California. They were nice, but I wouldn't ever think to bother them were we to visit the parks. (To me, they were being nice because it was "business", not making friends.) As you may recall, outside of Pete and Dustin, the podcast crew on our trip were a bit standoffish, so I don't think I would go out of my way for them.

However, there are many folks from our trip we keep in touch with VIA facebook, and would certainly get together with if we were around at the same time.

We don't celebrate Thanksgiving downunder; but I appreciate the sentiment.

It is a quintessentially American holiday: Eat like a glutton, watch TV, and then go out that night or the next day and SPEND SPEND SPEND!

 

[skier_pete]

I may be in my mid-forties, but I am still a sucker for Magic Kingdom, to me the “original” and the park that brings me back to my childhood like the others can’t. So, I can’t possibly go on a trip to Disney World and not spend a day at MK.

We wanted to be there for rope drop, but we got some bad morning bus karma where we waited a good 20 minutes for the bus – which is weird because every other day there were MK busses galore. We had a plan laid out for the day. DW and I had done something similar where we went through a list of all the attractions and noted if it was a “must-do” and “maybe” or a “skip”. I then ranked them out, and anything that either of us put as a “must-do” were the priorities. There were only THIRTEEN rides we deemed worthy of the “must-do” list, and I thought we could realistically do them all before we went back to the hotel for a break. Because tonight the park was open until 2 AM and we were ready to get some late night touring in!

So, we arrived at the gates probably about 2 minutes after the rope drop occurred. (We didn’t realize it had already happened, because they didn’t do the morning Welcome show because the trains are down.) Fortunately, with most of the crowds headed for the new Mine Train attraction, we found our wait at our first stop very short. Yes, attraction #1: Peter Pan’s Flight!





Next up, we headed over to Frontierland to get two of the big three mountains without a FP. There was virtually no wait on either ride, so first we hit (#2) Splash Mountain.





Splash Mountain SELFIE!



Splash Mountain Redneck Ride photo.





#3 was Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, but unfortunately my picture of the ride entrance didn’t come out.



The wait was basically zero (maybe 5 mintes) and we were already 3 rides into the park at about 9:40 AM.

Before ride # 4, we had some nuts!



Here’s a hint, DON’T get the sugar-coated Pecans first thing in the day. They were cold and hard.

#4 on my plan was the last ride that usually had early morning line issues, Jungle Cruise! Unfortunately, that proved to still be true, and the posted wait was 20 minutes. Oh well, we went with it.



We were loaded on the back of the boat, and had something happen that we’ve never had happen before. The speaker in the back of the boat was not working properly, so basically as long as the engine was running (which was 90% of the time) you couldn’t hear ANYTHING the skipper said. For those that don’t like the corniness of JC, this may be considered a good thing, but for us who love the ride, it was so disappointing. At one point I turned to the other family at the back of the boat and said “Can you hear any of this?” And the mom said “They’re talking?” Obviously not a frequent visitor.

By the time we got to the end, I was (a) going to say something about the speaker and (b) going to try and go round again. I offered the other family to get them another ride as well, but they declined (savages!!). So, I got off the boat and told the first CM that we couldn’t hear anything on the boat. They sort of shrugged, so we saw some leads standing off to the sides and talked to them. I guess this boat had had problems before, so they took the boat out of service and then offered us another go round. We were loaded on the next boat and sent on our merry way. The second skipper we had was excellent and we were right up front, so it was well worth the second ride.
Unfortunately, this had eaten a good 45 minutes of prime park time, but what could be done. It was off to ride #5, Pirates of the Caribbean. A good late-morning ride as the lines are usually still manageable.



As expected the wait was less than 5 minutes, and so we got right on and rode through – until ALMOST the end. Yup, the 2nd worst thing that could happen on a ride – BREAKDOWN. We were even within view of the off-loading dock, stuck right at this spot:



UNHAPPY PIRATES!!!



After sitting there for probably 15-20 minutes, they turned on the lights and they had to do an off-load. Unfortunately, though they got all the boats in front of us off, they had to push us BACK to the town scene to off-load us. So we were actually the second to last boat to off-load! They took us back through the backstage area, which was kind of neat to see, but we weren’t allowed to take pictures. Then, they handed us a pair of these.



Nice, bonus Fast Passes! Not that I would rather have my morning time back, but this made up a little for the loss of close to an hour on Pirates.
We were both quite hungry now, so we decided that we would try a meal we’ve wanted to try for a while. The waffles sandwhiches at Sleepy Hollow snacks. The two we ordered with the Ham/Prosciutto waffle, and the nuttella and fruit waffle. These were definitely a FIVE on our yummy scale!



We also took a picture of these guys, who were trying to swipe food. The conversation the day before was whether the birds at MK were Ibis or Egrets. The correct answer: Ibis!



To be continued at a later date...

 

[TheMaxRebo]

you were off to a great start - until the Jungle Cruise problem. Not cool of that first CM to just shrug at you ... do something magical, dangit! I am an absolute sucker for the corny jokes so I would have definitely gone for the second ride

and then a breakdown! At least you got to see behind the scenes a bit and got the bonus FP- so that is cool

We got a waffle sandwich for the first time last trip as well. We got the spicy chicken one which tasted really good but was a bit challenging to eat. Your Nutella and fruit one looks really good!

 

[franandaj]

You had some great momentum going until it stopped! At least you got something out of the pirates breakdown. I love when you get to go through backstage areas! Too bad you had to kick it up a level on JC to make it right.

I'm not sure about the waffle sandwiches. I love Chicken and Waffles, but not a fan of Nutella and not sure about the Ham and Cheese Waffle. We should give it a try, maybe next trip....

 

[Tinker326]

Look at you surrounded by all those ladies in MGM!

Looks like a great, fun meet up!!! I have mixed feelings about Prime Time. When you get a good server, it's GREAT. When you don't- nothing special. And there seems to be more duds than awesome severs!

Those Pooh's look great! Very impressive!

Woo hoo on Jellyrolls! Love that place so much!! And you had some of my favorite players! I am introducing a bunch of runners to it in Feb after the 1/2!! Can't WAIT!!!

Good start at MK! Even with the Jungle Cruise mishap. I never ever get good Jungle Cruise karma- the lines are always atrocious for me! But I still love that ride!

And good job with the selfies!

Fun times!

Did I tell you that Rebecca is BEGGING non-stop to go back. She is SO mad I'm heading there in Feb and she is not. The ONLY thing she has asked for for Christmas is a trip to Disney. And she also said she would take it as a Christmas AND 13th birthday present- forgoing her 13th Birthday party (and we LOVE parties in our household!!!). Kurt will kill me if I entertain this idea. I have till May (her birthday) till come up with a plan and hope for a good code!

 

[skier_pete]

you were off to a great start - until the Jungle Cruise problem. Not cool of that first CM to just shrug at you ... do something magical, dangit! I am an absolute sucker for the corny jokes so I would have definitely gone for the second ride

and then a breakdown! At least you got to see behind the scenes a bit and got the bonus FP- so that is cool

We got a waffle sandwich for the first time last trip as well. We got the spicy chicken one which tasted really good but was a bit challenging to eat. Your Nutella and fruit one looks really good!

Well, that first CM was off-loading the boat, so I will give him a break, they were pretty good about sending us around again without waiting in line. I find most CM aim to please as long as you aren't a jerk about your request. It was kind of funny that we got them to take a boat out of service.

The waffle sandwiches weren't the best thing I've ever had, but did enjoy them. I might try the spicy chicken one next time!

You had some great momentum going until it stopped! At least you got something out of the pirates breakdown. I love when you get to go through backstage areas! Too bad you had to kick it up a level on JC to make it right.

I'm not sure about the waffle sandwiches. I love Chicken and Waffles, but not a fan of Nutella and not sure about the Ham and Cheese Waffle. We should give it a try, maybe next trip....

As I said to MaxRebo, those waffle sandwiches weren't great or anything. DW complained that they were "too carby", basically too much dough for the content of the sandwich, and I thought she'd love the nutella one.

It was near going through the backstage area, we sort of went throught the PotC "shop floor" where it looked like they service the boats, but after that, it was mostly just walkways and bland building exteriors. And a few dozen CMs making sure we didn't wander off.

Look at you surrounded by all those ladies in MGM!

Yeah, I was a bit of a fifth wheel at one point I thought I should go off on my own and let the women chat!

Woo hoo on Jellyrolls! Love that place so much!! And you had some of my favorite players! I am introducing a bunch of runners to it in Feb after the 1/2!! Can't WAIT!!!

It is really fun, I was a little nervous about doing it twice on one trip, but even though some of the same songs went through it was definitely different the second time. Make sure to request "All about the bass"!

Did I tell you that Rebecca is BEGGING non-stop to go back. She is SO mad I'm heading there in Feb and she is not. The ONLY thing she has asked for for Christmas is a trip to Disney. And she also said she would take it as a Christmas AND 13th birthday present- forgoing her 13th Birthday party (and we LOVE parties in our household!!!). Kurt will kill me if I entertain this idea. I have till May (her birthday) till come up with a plan and hope for a good code!

This is why you do NOT tell your kids about adults only trips. I think DD is acting the same way about a cruise. The problem being her parents (us) really don't want to go all that quickly.

I'd say you could send Becca along with us in August/September but I'm pretty sure you're kids have already gone back to school by the time we are going, so that's probably a no-go. Well, that and the whole you live 900 miles away and all, it might be hard to pick her up.

Probably a better bet is to tell her she has to start bugging dad. He seems like the hard one to convince!

 

[PrincessInOz]

Catching up.

WOW! Nice target to get 13 must-do rides in.
Rocky start. Glad you got a second ride on the JC but it seems like you had a lot of down time so far.