Disney World: Day Three

Despite being exhausted from an incredibly full day, we got an early start to the day with a trip to Magic Kingdom after spending some time checking out the animals. Once again, wait times were non-existent and we got everything done we wanted to and more.

Not one, but two giraffes right outside our window!

We took the Walt Disney World Railroad from the main entrance to Toontown where we made quick stops at Mickey and Minnie's Country Homes.

The train arrives.

Mickey has his stockings hung.

Halley in Minnie's house.

While Tomorrowland was not our favorite at Disneyland, it was pretty amazing here. We got in line for Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor first as it was sure to be packed. Wrong again. We were inside in minutes. This show was incredible. How far technology has come completely blows my mind. Before you enter the theater, you are able to text jokes to Mike and if you're lucky, they're read during the show. We entered the theater and were greeted by an array of Monsters, Inc. characters on screen. Each took a turn at some stand-up and there were several shots of audience members. We thought they were audience clips filmed at some other point until this woman behind us was on screen. The cartoons and the audience were actually interacting and it was just mind-boggling. For Halley at least. She can't speak for Sarah. But this means that every show you go to is completely unique. How cool?!

Not a surprise, Mike Wazowski was voted funniest several months out of the year.

After Halley collected her jaw off the floor, we made our way to the Tomorrowland Transit Authority People Mover. Just our kind of ride.

Realizing that Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin was not an indoor scrambler and instead a ride similar to the Toy Story one we were on our first night, we decided to brave the line. Which meant we walked right on. Not as cool as Toy Story but still really fun.

Buzz Lightyear to the rescue!

We were ahead of schedule so figured a trip on Walt Disney's Carousal of Progress could be fun. And boy was it ever. It's a moving theater that talks about progress through a family in four different decards. "There's a great big beautiful tomorrow, shining at the end of every day. There's a great big beautiful tomorrow, just a dream away!"

It was time for another trip on It's a Small World to take pictures for Sarah's mom. She loves that ride. A lot.

So there are 65 pictures of this ride because Sarah kept saying, "Get That! Get That! And That! And That And That And That!"

At about 10 o'clock, you'll see that there are no passengers in that seat. Awk-ward.

Across the way was Peter Pan's Flight which we tried thanks to Rachel's suggestion. You fly. It's pretty sweet. We had great time and caught Mickey's PhilharMagic show just as the next one was starting. Pretty sweet. Onward to the Jungle Cruise, one of our favorites. Our tour guide had an incredibly dry sense of humor and we were cracking up the whole time on jokes such as, "I like to point our this sandstone over here as most people take it for granite."

Of course we made a stop at the Country Bear Jamboree.

The animatronics definitely seemed cooler at age seven...

And then one last ride on the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (again). Did we mention that you're in a honeypot and get to bounce with Tigger? Yeah. Awesome.

There were these screens with "honey" on them and you could move it. It wasn't until a little kid was playing with the screens that we realized that there was a picture hidden underneath. Oops...

At this point the park was closed and you could only stay if you had a blue bracelet on for the holiday show thingy. As this was extra dollars, we decided not to purchase although we're sure it would have been fun. Since a large amount of people were exiting, things got a little on the anxious side for both of us but in the midst of the mania we had an amazing picture taken of us! A special thank you to the man crouching in the bushes.

We then got to ride the MONORAIL to Epcot. This was one of our favorite methods of transportation, second only the tram from the parking lot we got to use the next day. We were pretty exhausted and were very thankful that we were able to secure seats on the second train we needed to take.

Sarah was pretty excited for the Monorail to arrive. There are actually several photos in this series thanks to the "sports" setting.

Our journey took us to Epcot for dinner at Tutto Italia Ristorante in Italy. This was pretty much one of the best meals we've had during the trip. You could tell the ingredients were very fresh and the portions were not huge, meaning we did not walk away with the fullest of bellies, always a good thing.

Sarah's dessert!

We caught the end of the fireworks show before heading back to check on the animals and pass out.

Disney World: Day Two

After taking in the view from our room for several minutes, we boarded the bus to Animal Kingdom. There was so much to see we weren't sure where to run to first! We finally decided that the Kilimanjaro Safari was the way to go as it would most likely be packed. We saw a million different birds on our way there.

How long did we wait for the signature ride? Zero minutes. We just walked on.

This bird was conducting a choir of comrades.

Hippos.

Pretty trees.

Gorgeous view.

Watusi Cattle.

Wildebeest.

Little baby giraffe.

The baby was looking toward his mom in the background.

Elephant.

Bird in front, lioness in back.

We then took a train ride to the Conservation Station.

On the back of the bathroom door. Couldn't help myself.

The Conservation Station had a building where they exhibited how they take care of all the animals when they get sick or hurt. I think these guys had a cold.

This little dude was doing laps around the tank.

An incredible view of the Tree of Life stopped us our way to Asia.

We spent a long time walking through the Maharajah Jungle Trek before taking on the Kali River Rapids. Again, wait time was zero and we had our own raft. We got wet. Very, very wet.

Tiger.

"Please, get my good side."

Halley absolutely had to see "It's Tough to be a Bug" so we made our way there, only to be blocked by a parade.

We thought there was a line for a ride. We were wrong.

Mickey!

The 3D show was great but neither of us liked the "bee sting" or the bugs that "ran out" under our bums.

Sarah with her bug eyes.

Halley with her bug eyes.

A few more pictures before dinner at the Animal Kingdom Lodge's Jiko, the Cooking Place.

One last view of the Tree of Life.

There was a different tree at each park.

Halley's shoes blended in with the carpet at the hotel.

And then the real fun began. We went to the Magic Kingdom for the after hours portion of the day. Didn't get there until after 10pm and we only had until midnight. We made the best of it, making it onto Tomorrowland Speedway, Mad Hatter's Tea Cups (twice), It's a Small World, the Haunted Mansion and the Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. The longest wait we had? Ten minutes for the Haunted Mansion. Everything else was zero. Can we say best time to go?!

Sarah on Tomorrowland Speedway. Believe it or not, Halley did not bring her camera and so there are only a few poor quality camera phone photos.

Disney World: Day One

We woke in Gainesville, Florida with tremendous excitement as today we were on our way to Disney World!

There was literally no one on the road for awhile and we were beginning to think that there was a tornado or something and we were too caught up in the book to notice.

We checked into our room at the Disney World Animal Kingdom Lodge, Jamba House only to be more than slightly disappointed with where we were. Plus the room smelled like hot dogs. We were just going to suck it up, since we are in the most magical place on Earth after all, when a woman came by to pick up luggage that belonged to someone else that had been left in our room. She told us that we should really just call the front desk as the people before us didn't want to stay there either.

The Lodge!

View from first room.

So we checked into our real room and it was amazing! We had a Savannah Room, meaning we got to look at the animals from our little deck. We saw zebras and GIRAFFES and Watusi cattle and ostriches and lots of birds and other animals and it was great.

Not wanting to waste time, we went straight to Disney's Hollywood Studios (formally Disney's MGM Studios). One of the first things we saw was the Osbourne Family Light...show?... A large section of the park was covered in lights. It was pretty crazy so we just kept walking.

That's a lot of lights.

Where are we going Sarah??

Halley wore her Coke t-shirt for just this moment.

No visit is complete without a visit to the Muppet 3D show. So we did that first.

Next was a 70 minute wait for the new Toy Story ride. It was 70 minutes on the dot when we climbed into our car and zoomed off to defeat Emperor Zurg. We had toy canons that we had to shoot balls and darts from in order to gain points. Sarah kicked Halley's butt by an embarrassing amount.

At least the wait was in a room full of toys, plenty of things to take pictures of.

Honestly, there wasn't anything to do except take pictures and try to avoid being hit by the kids in front of and behind us.

Mr. Potato Head!

Ta-dah!

We've been there, and there, and there, and there...

We then had reservations for dinner at the 50's Prime Time Cafe. We thought we were having food at a sit-down place that played television shows from the 50's. That was only have true. It was a true 50's dining experience where we had few options and a snappy waiter who told us to sit up straight and eat our vegetables. He also sang S'Mores really loud so one of us had to try it.

There were Christmas trees at all the parks and hotels and they were all decorated differently.

Even though the park was open late this night, there wasn't anything open that we wanted to do so back to Jamba House where we decided at midnight that going to the pool would be a good idea, as it is open 24 hours. Um, best decision ever. No one was there and the pool is ginormous. The hot tub is also huge but it was actually too hot so we made due with the 80-degree pool.