A Foodie Celebrates 40 TR (Sept. 28-Oct. 7, 2012) About This Page:

[shnewell]

On our way out of the park, we stopped at Mouse Gears to do some shopping. I’m not a big Vinylmation fan, but I noticed some NFL-themed ones. They were mostly for the Oakland Raiders, which seemed odd since we were in Florida, and the Miami Dolphins, which made more sense. After lots of digging, I found a New England Patriots one. David was off in another part of the store, so I quickly purchased it as a surprise for him. Then I realized that I had completely lost him. I walked all over the store before we finally found each other again. I gave him the Vinylmation, and he thought it was really great. We then purchased F&WF tshirts for both of us and a Mickey ringer tee for David.

Having exhausted the remainder of our Disney gift card balances, we headed to the AKL bus stop. We waited about 15 minutes for a bus. We got off at Jambo House. David loves Beach Club, but misses the soaring lobbies of WL and GF, where we had spent the most time on our trips before we purchased DVC. He really enjoyed the beauty of the lobby at AKL.

We got checked in on club level, and they gave me yet another birthday button. This CM had beautiful handwriting, so I started wearing this button instead of the other one with the weird “n” in my name. The concierge lounge is on the 6th floor, but we were on the 4th floor in room 4431.

We found our room and the first thing I did was throw back the curtains and go out on the balcony to see what I could see! There were giraffes and ostriches right outside of our room! It was breathtakingly cool.



We relaxed a bit in the room, and I got caught up on my trip notes. About 10 minutes later, I walked back out on the balcony to discover that a baby giraffe had made its way to our part of the savanna. I ran back into the room to grab my camera while squealing, “Oh look, it’s a baby one!!” David got a laugh out of that. Here are some more photos I took over the course of our stay:









I went down to Zawadi Marketplace shortly after 3:00 for pin trading with King Pin. He was a really tall guy dressed in native African dress. To trade with him, you step forward on to the red carpet in front of where he is standing. I didn’t see anything I was crazy about, so I chose to trade for a pin from his grab bag. I got a neat Mad Hatter Vinylmation pin. While I was in the shop, I remembered that I was low on contact lens solution, so I picked up some in the gift shop, then headed back to the room. We then went up to the concierge lounge, where we enjoyed some hot tea, scones and cookies.

Our original plan for this evening had been to have dinner at LTT and to bring our Halloween costumes to MK with us and change after dinner. But we were feeling nice and comfy at AKL and weren’t feeling like rushing to get ready to head out the door to MK anytime soon. I pulled up my Disney Mobile Magic app and found an open ADR at Sanaa at 5:10 p.m. We snapped that up and I cancelled the LTT reservation.

We got cleaned up and took the van from Jambo House to Kidani. We checked in about 15 minutes early for our ADR, and the restaurant wasn’t open yet. This was fine with me because it gave me a chance to get lots of good photos from the overlook while we waited. Soon our buzzer was calling us inside, where we were led to a window table. Yay! Our server Kim was from Alvin, TX, just a hop, skip and jump from where we live.


Sanaa Dining Room


View from our table

This was our second time to eat at Sanaa, and we were really looking forward to a return visit. The bread service had changed and you now got all 5 breads and choice of 5 sauces.



We learned that, unlike in Indian cuisine, vindaloo is not the spiciest kind of curry. In African cooking, durban style is the hottest. David loves spicy, so he ordered the Spicy Durban Chicken and Lamb Vinadaloo with Basmati Rice. I had the Beef Short Ribs and Spicy Durban Shrimp with Basmati Rice. It was all amazingly delicious.


Lamb Vindaloo, rice, and Durban Chicken


Short ribs, rice, and Durban Shrimp


Hidden Mickey on our table

I was so full, but they brought me a free slice of chocolate cake for my birthday, so how could I turn it down?! When they brought the dessert, some drummers came to our table and played drums and sang to me. It was a great and unique birthday celebration.





When we returned to our room, we found birthday chocolates, yet another birthday button and a note from the concierge staff on our bed. Disney birthdays are awesome!!!



We changed into our Tron costumes and headed for the MK bus. By now, it was really raining hard. I thought ahead and decided to put on my swimsuit underneath my costume so if I got wet in the rain, I’d have something that would soak up some of the water. We waited a long time for the bus and when it finally came, it was almost full with guests from Kidani Village. Thankfully, they sent another empty bus directly to Jambo House about 2 minutes later. We arrived at MK around 7:20 and it was a full-on gullywasher by now. I had not wanted to wear ponchos because they would cover our costumes, but there was really no choice. We had paid extra for MNSSHP, so we just put on our smiles and made the best of it.

There was a funny moment at the bag check. We had identity disks in our backpack, and the security guard who looked through our backpack was very confused at first when he pulled them out. He started to say, “What are these?” But just as soon as he started to ask, he looked at us more closely and realized we were wearing Tron costumes, so he let us through.

It’s hard for me to describe how hard it was raining. This was not just your typical Florida pop-up thunderstorm. There was water pooling in some areas and rushing down sloped walkways. We went first to Space Mountain, which was a walk-on and got a ride photo with our identity disks. I don’t know why David looks like he’s trying to de-rez me.



From there, we went to HM and had to wait only about 5 minutes. The CMs had on spooky make up, which I thought was pretty awesome. By the time we had finished visiting the 999 happy haunts, the rain had let up considerably. It was still sprinkling, but we no longer needed ponchos. However, it was still extremely wet, and we couldn’t find any characters out anywhere. Trick or treating had all been moved inside, and the lines were long. Moreover, none of the CMs seemed to know what the backup plan was in case of rain, so no one could give us any idea where to go for candy (we just had to stumble on it ourselves), and our map became totally useless.

We headed toward Fantasyland. PP was a 45 minute wait, so we headed for Pooh, which had only a 20 minute wait. Though we had ridden this since the refurb of the queue, we had never actually been through the new queue, so that was fun.

By now, it was almost 9:00 and Hallowishes was supposed to be at 9:30, so I decided to start looking for a good viewing spot. We had come back to the hub through Tomorrowland, and I figured the Tomorrowland Terrace would be full already, especially since it was covered, but we decided to walk over and check since it was so close. To my surprise it was almost totally empty! We stopped for a Photopass picture, then grabbed a front row table on the terrace. We used our ponchos to cover up the wet chair seats, and all was great.

Because it was raining so hard, I didn’t bring my good camera with me. We just depended on our iPhones for pictures, which means that the nighttime photos are not great.





The Villains dance party couldn’t go in the rain, but the villains eventually came out for meet & greets under the terrace. However, the line was already crazy long when we got to the terrace, so we decided not to wait on line. We waited patiently for the fireworks. And we waited. And we waited. Finally, they began around 10:15. This was probably my favorite fireworks show I’ve ever seen at Disney. It took my breath away!





Of course, by the time it was over, it was almost time for the second parade. We headed toward Liberty Square to look for a viewing spot and ended up standing on a ledge across from the Hall of Presidents. However, a CM soon shooed us away, since they didn’t want guests standing on a wet stone ledge. The parade was also delayed and I was frustrated, so we decided to just head back to AKL. But as we walked down Main Street toward the exit, I saw a front row viewing spot, just outside the confectionary, so we decided to stay. The parade was supposed to start at 10:30, but didn’t begin until 11:15. The biggest reason I wanted to see the parade was the Headless Horseman, but he didn’t ride that night.











We finally caught the bus back to AKL (geez, that’s a long drive!) and fell into bed.

Day 7 Recap:

The weather today was...hot and humid, with evening storms

The best thing today was...checking into AKL

The worst thing today was...MNSSHP in the rain

The funniest thing today was...”Oh look, it’s a baby one!”

Today we tried...pin trading with King Pin
and the result was...a Mad Hatter Vinylmation pin

The most magical moment today was...the birthday drummers at Sanaa

F&WF Booth Total: 24

Up Next: I want them to have a wonderful life and only one bad day