We rested most of the weekend. There were a few things that did get done. A small repair to the RV, laundry, and refilling the pantry. Recharged for the week to come at Disney.
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We arrived early in the afternoon and our main goal was to see the Fantasmic! Show. We went back to the Star Tours ride and I found out that there are 300 variations on the show. There are 5 major variations and smaller changes from there. This time we had a completely different ride than we had seen before. We saw the Frozen sing along a combination live performance plus special effects, Star Wars Path of the Jedi, and The Great Movie Ride. The Frozen sing along was great and included both the show’s characters on stage live but also a special effects and portions of the cartoon projected to a huge screen. It was very good. Maybe sometime in the future I will be able to get the songs out of my head but I have my doubts. We had dinner at the ABC commissary. It will be our “go to” place to eat when we are back in Hollywood Studios. The Fantasmic show is a huge fireworks and special effects show. There is stadium seating for the audience and the show is in a waterway in front of the seating and on mountain shaped stage beyond. They spray water in a fan up 100 feet out that a projection is displayed. It is just before the park closes so we decided to leave for home as soon as it was over. We have the weekend to recover. It has been a busy week. We need to go get some groceries, do laundry, and a few other things. Only 7,139 steps today.
We arrived just after noon today with the intention of staying until the closing fireworks.
We rode a lot. Big Thunder Mountain, Mickey's Philharmagic (a really good 4D production – basically great 3D plus fans and spraying water like it’s a bugs life), Mad Tea Party, Prince Charming Regal Carrousel (yep we rode it too), Under the Sea: Journey of the Little Mermaid, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Dumbo the Flying Elephant (yes we did) … At the end of the day we found a good spot to watch the ending shows on the castle. The first was Once Upon A Time. It is a projection on the castle with fireworks. It was very good. Maybe I will be able to post some of it on the blog later. Next was the Wishes Nighttime Spectacular. This is the current ending fireworks show. As always Disney does the best fireworks. It was fantastic. Crowds of people piled on main street to leave so we just stayed where we were. This did let us see the Kiss Goodnight. A very short light show with music and then a quick thank you for coming to WDW. It is Disney’s very nice way of saying please go home now. Todays count was 10960 steps Shawna/Mom road SOARIN' today. It is one of those rides that has a posted strong warning before you enter to not ride the if you are afraid of heights or get motion sickness. I don’t think we will be riding it again. At least together. We enjoyed the day. Walking around the World Showcase, re-riding some of the rides. At this point the only ride at Epcot we have not ridden on this trip is Test Track. We had dinner overlooking the lake and watching the sunset. The fireworks at closing were great.
I am going to try to upload some of the videos and more pictures as soon as I can get better WiFi. Today we walked 13,597 steps.
First day in Hollywood Studios this trip. We started late in the day because the plan was to stay till closing and see the Star Wars projection/fireworks show. It was great and well worth the wait.
We were able to ride to several new rides and some old favorites. The storm troopers marched down the main street to the stage in front of the Great movie ride. Most of the Star Wars characters presented in a stage show at the same location. It was really, really good. The Galactic spectacular was the ending event and was great. The projection was fantastic with coordinated lasers and fireworks. Very Loud! Almost everything is really loud now. The shows and rides have the volume turned up. I guess it is because most people have blown their ears. It certainly is not that our ears have gotten better as we have aged. 8,031 steps today.
Back to Epcot today. We started by walking around the world showcase and stopping in several of the countries. We rode the ride in Mexico, watched the 360 China and Canada, Frozen ever after (it’s a really nice ride with a surprise drop). The surprise ride was Mission Space. We got there and there are two choices Green and Orange. Orange has warnings about being more intense. Shawna/Mom said sure let’s try it. Really!?! She keeps surprising me.
We stopped at the Coke pavilion where you can taste coke as it is served in other countries. Italy was the worst but all were pretty bad. We had lunch in Mexico and dinner in France. Both were very nice meals. Tomorrow we are going to Hollywood Studios. The first time on the trip. It should be fun. We have a some Fastpasses setup. BTW, if we did not have a Fastpass the wait for Frozen would have been 90 minutes instead we were in line for two minutes. Today were racked up 15,832 steps.
Well we made it to the Magic Kingdom early BUT I had not realized that Friday was an early open day for Resort guests only. We missed the last Welcome. We decided to go visit Epcot.
We had a good day. Visiting the Seas with Nemo and Friends, Disney & Pixar Short Film Festival, Imagination with Figment, The Land, Universe of Energy, and the American Experience. We had lunch in Morocco at the sidewalk café. The food was excellent. We enjoyed a walk around World Showcase. We have two days to rest and recover before our passes start working again Monday. That’s ok because it is supposed to be cold and raining this weekend. We walked 11,545 steps today.
We got up early to see “The Welcome ceremony” at Magic Kingdom. This is the last week they will have the ceremony as it has been since the park opened. We on park property at 8. One hour before opening. Arrrgg!!! We missed it by 10 minutes. The monorail was AGAIN not working so everyone was using the Ferry boats. This meant that we missed the boat (literally) that would have gotten us to the park in time. We are going to try again in the morning. Now it is a matter of determination more than anything else.
After a bit of angst on my part, we had a nice day and rode a lot of rides. We were able to go to Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, Tomorrowland People Mover, Splash Mountain, Peter Pan's Flight, Jungle Cruise, Enchanted Tiki Room, it's a small world, a lot of walking along with people watching, and just for fun we rode the train full circle around the park again. Yes Shawna/Mom rode Splash Mountain. I know what you are thinking, “Is this the same person I know?!”. Well she says that after riding in the mountains the rides don’t seem to be nearly as scary. After watching the big afternoon parade, which as always has big floats and pageantry, we left for Disney Springs. After walking around for a while we decided to go to the Rainforest Café. It was great. The inside is sort of jungle/tropical/Aquarium. The ceiling looks like a tree canopy or, as in the area we were seated, a view of stars. It was supposed to be a gap in the canopy. Around us were mechanical elephants and gorillas which “came to life” every 10 minutes or so. It was unique and the food was great. It was our most expensive meal in a while but well worth the cost. Then we walked out to the lake and watched the “Starbright Holidays - An Intel Collaboration” drone show. It was great! The show is 300 drones that fly over the lake and have bright lights that change color in programmed patterns. Huge 3D Christmas tree that turns. A giant dove that must have been 300 feet across. All with a nice narration and music. It was well worth the time and effort to see the show. 13,180 steps today. Today was a day at the Magic Kingdom. We arrived about 10am. Our first ride was the Train. It will be closed for refurbishment and maintenance for the several months. It was nice and like we had both remembered.
We also know that the Hall of Presidents and the WDW Railroad will be closed for renovations soon so we visited both today. We also went to The Haunted Mansion, Swiss Family Treehouse, Pirates of the Caribbean, Carousel of Progress, Watched the Muppets history, Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor which was Great! We now know why Shawna/Mom is not stressed at WDW. She is not having to keep track of where all the children are and if there are any problems. After just walking around and enjoying the park we decided to head home before sunset. My phone shows we end the day with 9459 steps.
Today we start our trips into the regular WDW parks. Looking at the crowd lists this week is the busiest time this month and Animal Kingdom is supposed to be the least busy of the parks. We have our Fast passes setup for today.
We started by going around to the DinoLand. As we came to the rollercoaster Primeval Whirl Shawna said “Lets ride it”. My jaw dropped open. “Are you sure?” “Sure, why not?!” So, we did. She had her eyes closed and a tight hold on my arm but she did it. Next I guess I need to talk to her about the rollercoaster Everest. Today we were able to see a lot of the park, go on several rides, and watched a show. Finding Nemo, the musical was very nice. We saw It’s tough to be a bug which was fun. The Dinosaur ride was just as I remembered it. We especially liked to Safari ride. A lot of the animals were very close to the ride and the driver was great. After several other rides we ended the night by watching the Tree of life projection. They project on the side of the tree an animation. It was great. Steps for today were huge. 12,799 !! |
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