Mom's buying so we're flying TR
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DMA · 08-09-2011, 06:58 PM

Wow! You sure are an early riser! But I know where you're coming from. You can get so much done early in the morning when everyone else is asleep!

Glad to hear your breakfast at TH was a good one and that everything you ate agreed with you.

lauriep · 08-09-2011, 07:03 PM

I've got to admit, I was holding my breath before reading this entry for fear there would be more arguing and a bad start to the day again. Whew! All is well! A peaceful morning (except for your early-morning housework!). Abby did a great job with the camera. I'm not sure why a lot of animals weren't visible on the safari, but I don't think it can have to do with the WAT, as that goes on at different times throughout the day. I doubt they'd sacrifice the experience of people on the regular safari to that extent. Hope the happy moods continue!

omd · 08-09-2011, 07:19 PM

Sounds like a better start today! We have never eaten at TH for breakfast but did very much enjoy lunch. I hope that the rest of your day went as well as breakfast.

saibot0001 · 08-09-2011, 07:44 PM

So happy that your AK day has started off so well! We have never had a breakfast in the park before it opens, but I have always thought it would be neat to do that. Maybe we will try it one day! I remember Abby taking some awesome pictures last year and they are just as great this year! I think she has a talent in photography! Can't wait to read if the rest of your AK day is as great as the start, but I hope it is. You deserve it after the last two days!

buzzspal2 · 08-09-2011, 07:54 PM

What a nice breakfast. Best of all Lenny is in a good mood. I tell my family that this vacation cost too much to be cranky.

B.M. · 08-09-2011, 08:02 PM

Sounds like the day is off to a great start!

phoebec · 08-09-2011, 10:39 PM

So glad this day started off better!! We loved TH as well, just enjoyable all around.
Hope the rest of the day goes great! I hope the grumpies start to diminish. It took us to about day 3 or so and then they began to fade with only a few passing reappearances. Love the pictures!

lsugirlinutah · 08-10-2011, 01:07 AM

Darlene, I give you a TON of credit for getting up so early on YOUR vacation to do laundry. But then, a Mother's work is never done, right?

I'm trying to figure out who Abby looks the most like. In some pictures she favors you a lot; in others, Lenny.

CinderAbby · 08-10-2011, 09:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DMA

Wow! You sure are an early riser! But I know where you're coming from. You can get so much done early in the morning when everyone else is asleep!

Glad to hear your breakfast at TH was a good one and that everything you ate agreed with you.

Thanks. I'm an early riser out of necessity only, not because I wanted to. Like I said, if my wash hasn't been done by 6, the chances of getting a machine drop dramatically. And since we had to be at AK so early, I had to make sure everything was done by 7 at the absolute latest.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lauriep

I've got to admit, I was holding my breath before reading this entry for fear there would be more arguing and a bad start to the day again. Whew! All is well! A peaceful morning (except for your early-morning housework!). Abby did a great job with the camera. I'm not sure why a lot of animals weren't visible on the safari, but I don't think it can have to do with the WAT, as that goes on at different times throughout the day. I doubt they'd sacrifice the experience of people on the regular safari to that extent. Hope the happy moods continue!

I'm sorry part of you was dreading this portion of the TR. I understand why but what happened, happened and as much as I wanted to, I really couldn't see leaving those parts out. We did have a peaceful morning and Abby does a phenominal job with the camera. She keeps telling me she could be a Photopass Photographer at Disney - who knows, anything is possble. And the reason why I mentioned the WAT is because when we got to the White Rhino's they were being fed in a completely different area than normal. It was set back in the trees and you could barely see them and it was off to the right hand side of the ride vehicle. In the past, they've been fed in the wide open spot on the left hand side of the truck.

Quote:

Originally Posted by omd

Sounds like a better start today! We have never eaten at TH for breakfast but did very much enjoy lunch. I hope that the rest of your day went as well as breakfast.

Thanks Olive - it was a better start to the day. Lenny wanted to try a meal another at TH this year - he even wanted me to go back and see if we could get a last minute reservation. Had he mentioned it at breakfast I probably would have tried but he mentioned it when we were on the other side of the park

. If your grandkids like the characters, maybe you should try for breakfast for them - and get into the park early. I think it's worth it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by saibot0001

So happy that your AK day has started off so well! We have never had a breakfast in the park before it opens, but I have always thought it would be neat to do that. Maybe we will try it one day! I remember Abby taking some awesome pictures last year and they are just as great this year! I think she has a talent in photography! Can't wait to read if the rest of your AK day is as great as the start, but I hope it is. You deserve it after the last two days!

Thanks. I like getting into the park early - it really is a different way to see the parks. And we've been lucky enough with TH that we're done pretty much right at park opening so the lines don't have too much of a chance to build up on us (just those early morning sprinters who HAVE to be the first in line for something

). Abby certainly does have a talent in photography. It makes me wonder if she'll ever do anything with it because it does seem to make her happy.

CinderAbby · 08-10-2011, 09:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by buzzspal2

What a nice breakfast. Best of all Lenny is in a good mood. I tell my family that this vacation cost too much to be cranky.

Thanks - yes he was in a good mood this morning - and I myself have said the same thing

Quote:

Originally Posted by B.M.

Sounds like the day is off to a great start!

Thanks, it was.

Quote:

Originally Posted by phoebec

So glad this day started off better!! We loved TH as well, just enjoyable all around.
Hope the rest of the day goes great! I hope the grumpies start to diminish. It took us to about day 3 or so and then they began to fade with only a few passing reappearances. Love the pictures!

Thanks - now that you mention it yeah, I remember it was a couple of days and then you guys kind of found your groove for vacation

Quote:

Originally Posted by lsugirlinutah

Darlene, I give you a TON of credit for getting up so early on YOUR vacation to do laundry. But then, a Mother's work is never done, right?

I'm trying to figure out who Abby looks the most like. In some pictures she favors you a lot; in others, Lenny.

No, a mothers work is never done. I even say that to Lenny, he and Abby might be on vacation but I'm still a mother which means no vacation for me. He always asks what I mean

and I acutally have to spell it out "Dear, I may not be cooking but I still have to do laundry and pick up after you guys and make sure you're up, get us places on time, make sure you're fed, etc. Those are all things I have to do at home and until I can stop doing those here, it's never truly a vacation for me."

People who know both of us say the same thing - they see both of us in her. People who know just me say she's the spitting image of me. And it's really funny because sometimes when I show her photos of me at Disney at her age, she'll look at the picture then ask "mom, when did we do this, I don't remember it?" So even Abby thinks we look alike

CinderAbby · 08-10-2011, 09:36 AM

Saturday July 23 Part 2

After we finished the walking trail Abby wanted to go to Dinoland. I didn’t really have a problem with that but Abby did. I told Abby we could go there, but we weren’t going to rush, we were going to do things along the way. And the first thing I wanted to do was see if DiVine was performing that day. It was a little after 10 and I knew if she was, she’d be over by the Tamu Tamu restaurant / African drums section of Africa. And she was there that day

. I had my camera ready and I took some photos and after a minute or two I said "Good morning DiVine." It was kind of funny because after I did, she smiled and lifted one of her stilts up and over my head and it actually hit my hat (not hard though), then she moved off down the path. We followed her and I got a few more pictures - and one with Lenny and Abby despite her protests. For whatever reason, Abby did not want to get anywhere near her even though I told her it’s just a person dressed up and using stilts.

After DiVine, Abby once again said she wanted Dinoland and once again I told her we’d eventually go there - that I wanted to do the Maharajah Jungle Trek first. Abby wasn’t happy

with that and probably would have gone into meltdown mode but I pointed out we were on a family vacation and we all got to choose things to do. At that point in time, it was my choice and I wanted to see the tigers

. After a little bit more discussion (I don’t remember what I said to Abby) Abby was fine with doing the trails because she realized we would get to Dinoland and have fun once we got there. We finally found where the trail started as it was in a section of park we’ve never been in before and walked along it. We didn’t really linger long in any one section but it still took us probably half an hour to walk it. And actually walking isn’t what we did, we more strolled along the path because it was just so unbearably hot and muggy that day that we took our time and didn’t rush anywhere.

When we were done with that walking trail, I half jokingly said that we should do KRR that day because of the heat and Abby said (as usual) "No way."

I let it drop and we continued on our way to Dinoland. And getting here meant going through the most crowded and hottest (IMO) part of the park - by EE.

We made it through there and because it was about 11, I asked Abby if she wanted to see the 11:30 Nemo

show instead of trying to get back later in the day. She wanted to and we got in line and while we waited, I told Abby that because of the heat that day, we really, really should go on KRR to cool down. I also told her it was so hot out that we wouldn’t stay wet for very long, that our clothes would dry and being wet would really, really help us to feel more comfortable and not so hot. And much to my surprise, Abby actually agreed that she would give it a try

. I was still in shock when the line started moving into the theater. We probably had about a 20 minute wait for the show, but who can’t wait that long when you’re someplace dark and cool? The show was just as enjoyable as usual and despite my attempts at getting some flash free photos of the show, none of them came out well. Oh well

When we left the theater, it was still hot so just for the heck of it, I used my phone to see what the Weather Channel said. According to them (at 12:12 PM) it was only 88 degrees out but it felt like 102. Because of all the pavement I wouldn’t be surprised if both of those numbers were actually higher because it certainly felt hotter. And despite being midday and so hot, it was at this point in time that we headed to the Boneyard for Abby.

We spent close to an hour and a half here for Abby - with most of it being up in the Dig site. Abby sat down in the pretend sand (which I know stays nice and cool) to dig and I sat on the rocks in front of one of the fans. Because I remembered it was Saturday and not a work day for my mother, I took the opportunity to call home

while Abby played. Lenny sat on his scooter for a while (I don’t know why) then he finally came over and sat on the rocks with me.

Just as Abby was all done playing at the Dig Site, I finally noticed the pins on the CM that was standing near me. She had 2 pins that looked like they went with the 2 we had traded for at the MK the night before. I told Abby to come over and look - that the 2 looked like they went - and decide whether she’d like to trade or not. Abby of course did want to trade, but one of the two was one we already had so she traded for the one we didn’t have and a different pin.

The CM was really nice and told us to look for her coworker down in the other section of the Boneyard because he had lots and lots of pins on his lanyard. I told her we would look for him and thanked her for her time. As I was holding the wheelchair gate for Lenny to exit the Boneyard, that’s when I saw the other CM with all the pins. He was standing there talking to another CM and I was afraid he was going to leave so I told Abby to hurry around and start looking at the pins before he could move away. We got over to him and started looking at his pins and he had two more of the pins that appeared to go in a set. Abby saw the pins and liked them so as we traded for the two pins, we talked to the CM.

He told us they were indeed a set but he wasn’t sure off hand how many total were in the set

. We figured it had to be a set of 6 since with all our trades including to him we had 5 and the CM said he knew there was a Mickey pin too but we didn’t have that one. I stood there thinking - figures, we’ll probably never find it and have to buy the set

. Knowing how much some of the sets went for, I wasn’t overly happy but if I had to buy one, I had to buy one and it would serve a pricey

but dual purpose - it would complete Abby’s set and give her more to trade with. I didn’t worry too much about it then because somehow we lost the back to one of the pins. Abby got a little upset but I told her not to worry, that’s why we were keeping the pins in a bag instead of on a lanyard it was only the back of a pin, not the pin itself, that we lost and I could buy packages of the backs at any gift store so then she was fine. And I also thought that if I have to go buy the backs, I’ll check out the cost of the pin set too.

However, a gift shop, the missing pin back and the "missing" pin from the set wasn’t on Abby’s mind. KRR was. She never changed her mind about going on it and that’s where we headed to. She did say she’d ride it while wearing a poncho and I said that was fine, if she really wanted to she could. I just reminded her that if she did get wet, it wouldn’t take long to dry and even wearing a poncho, it was still possible to get wet. Nothing else was mentioned about the poncho so we went to KRR. It was a little congested in that area of the park so we had a little bit of trouble finding where the actual line was because there were so many people trying to get FP’s for it. We finally found our way to the line and I have to admit, out of all the queues for Disney, I’d like to know what was up with this one

. There was a FP line and a standby queue side by side and it started off as being separated by a rope. However, there were many sections where the rope disappeared completely. I thought it was really strange that it did that. We lucked out in that in some early sections in the line where the rope disappeared completely, there was no standby line and in the later sections when it happened and there was a standby line, people actually stayed to the right of the path and let the FP people by. It makes me wonder what happens when the standby line is huge - do FP people end up having to merge and wait in the line until the next roped off section or is everyone considerate the whole time and just stay to the right? Anyway, it’s strange IMO but it didn’t take us long to get up to the wheelchair entrance. Lenny was asked if he wanted to get on a stationary raft or not and I told him it might be better to go that route so that’s what we did and we waited over in that line. While waiting in it though, Lenny mentioned something was wrong with the scooter - the key moved too much and the scooter just wasn’t responding right. He said he wanted to look at if once we got off the ride and call Walker Mobility if he had to. I didn’t have a problem with that as the scooter is important for us to have and without it, it wouldn’t be a very good vacation

. We didn’t wait too long for our turn and Abby didn’t once mention wearing a poncho so I didn’t say a word about it. Lenny was thinking about the scooter and I just busied myself putting my bag and our camera bag into a plastic trash bag. I knew there was a center waterproof section of the raft to put things in but I didn’t want to take the chance of even a little bit of water getting into our stuff so I erred on the side of caution. Lenny however held onto his waterproof camera to try and take some pictures

.

We got on the raft and that’s when Lenny remembered his cell phone

that he wears on a lanyard around his neck. He took it off and we rolled it into the corner of our trash bag that was already in the center of the raft and hoped it would stay dry. Soon after, we were off and going up the hill. The ride wasn’t as rough as we thought it would be and in the section where I had heard there was suppose to be a fire, there was nothing that day. Just all the "burned" logs. And then there was the drop. I’m not sure if it was luck or not but none of the 3 of us went down first - it was two other people on the raft. We did get a little bit wet from the ride but nothing like I thought would happen but we all got off the ride saying we liked it and Abby even asked to go on it again!

Both Lenny and I were game so we got off and Lenny got back on the scooter. But nothing really happened

. We’re not entirely sure what happened but Lenny thinks something broke because before we got on the raft, the controller sounded like something snapped when he pressed on it.

So there he was sitting on the scooter and it was barely moving. It was moving but extemely slowly. I gave him as much of a push as I could and we eventually got out of the exit line and over the bridge at the exit. He parked over on the right out of the way to take a look at it and because he knew it was going to take a few minutes he told Abby and I to go back on Kali without him. Abby would have preferred it to be the 3 of us but she realized we needed to get the scooter either fixed or replaced. So with that as the plan, I left my bags and the cameras with Lenny

and took Abby back in line. It didn’t take overly long for us to get through the line and get on the ride again but as luck would have it, without Lenny there to witness it and laugh

, Abby and I are the ones who went backwards this time and got completely drenched. We got off and went to find Lenny, dripping the entire way I think and he let us know there was nothing he could do with the scooter so he had to call Walker Mobility. They let him know that someone would be at AK within the hour to replace it for us. At that time, it was about 2:30 (I know this because of the date and time stamp on some pictures I had taken) so we decided to head someplace for lunch and wait. Lenny originally wanted to try for TH but I told him with the time Walker gave us, we’d be better off heading to Discovery Island and eating at Flame Tree BBQ or Pizzafari. Basically somewhere closer to the front of the park and easier to get to instead of at the back corner where the parade both starts and ends because CM’s were already starting to do all their tape and ropes for the parade He saw things my way and that’s where we were headed when I heard someone say my name. It was SophieRushMom from here on the boards. We talked for just a couple of minutes and she asked us what kind of luck we were having with the tour groups. I said ours wasn’t too bad and asked about hers. She said they were running into them every park they went to so if we saw them again, there would be a group somewhere nearby

. Soon after that we said goodbye

to each other as they were off to someplace (I forget what she said) and with a slow moving scooter, I didn’t really want to stay long in one place for fear of the scooter not working at all and getting stuck.

This is the end of Part 2

Ceara's mawmaw · 08-10-2011, 09:45 AM

Great day at AK!! And I agree there is nothing like an early ADR before the park opens ......I try and do it at every bfast we do a park.....MK at CP walking down main street with no people around is priceless.....Ak at TH when it is the coolest part of the day.....epcot for the princess bfast....are the ones we must do each year before park open.....

Loving your TR......Abby really seemed to get into the boneyard dig....my grand kiddos do too....and it is a lil relax and people watch time for me....lol

Katie · 08-10-2011, 10:50 AM

Sounds like your day was going much smoother, until the scooter. Glad you got to go on Kali, and Abby did really well. I hope everything goes well with the scooter exchange.

saibot0001 · 08-10-2011, 10:57 AM

The day was going so great and then...the scooter. Well, at least it happened during a time when you could have lunch while you were waiting for them to come to replace it, so not a lot of time lost.

Lady Divine is divine, but I can see why Abby would not want to get too close to her, she is a bit creepy looking at the same time and after Abby probably noticed that she almost took your hat off with her stilt and didn't want to take any chances.

Smart girl!

Oh, KRR is my youngest DD's FAVORITE ride ever! She would go to AK every day just for that ride. It is not my most favorite as I don't like to get wet either and I usually wear jeans or jean shorts in the park as we usually go during cooler times of the year (Nov or Feb) and the feeling of wet jeans is not enjoyable, but I bear it for her (and usually have fun b/c we are doing it together). I have gone on many times with a poncho to get off soaking wet! LOL. Our last trip dd and I rode it non-stop about 15 times! My dh and oldest dd rode it 2 times and got wet and decided that was enough. The line was not long at all so we just kept going and we were lucky that we never were not getting wet, but we sure had fun laughing at the others who did! Well, my dh told my other dd: "when they get soaked they will stop". Sure enough on our last ride we were the ones that went down backwards and I had on my poncho and got SOAKED!! It was our turn to be laughed at! LOL...I told my youngest dd, that I was done and luckily it was close to getting our ADR at Yak and Yeti (which we sat close to the door and FROZE from being soaked). Your TR reminded me all of that.

My dd and I had a great time together even though we got soaked.

And I totally agree with you about the lines at KRR...they are so weird. They have always seemed to merged at different spots within the line and I have never understood that myself. Our last time we had FP's for the ride, but the stand by line moved so fast that it really didn't matter. Probably b/c it was getting a little chilly in the day and we were one of the few crazys willing to take a chance of getting soaked!

As for the heat, we live in lower Alabama so I know what you are talking about. Often times it is 94 degrees here, but feels like 102 degrees with the humidity. The humidity is what kills us, but for the most part we are use to it. I guess we have lived here so long that I actually prefer it to the cold (I know call me crazy, but once I'm cold, I just can't seem to ever get warm). The cold effects me much more.

Can't wait to see how the rest of the day comes out at Dinoland etc. If I remember right, you all are fans of Primeval Whirl which scares the tar out of me. lol