I wanted to walk over to Mouse Gears in Future World to do some shopping, but on my way I stopped inside the Mexican pavilion to take a couple of pictures.

I really love this pavilion because it’s basically all inside and it feels like a Mexican market at night.  Living so close to Mexico and San Antonio (which has a similar feel) most of the merchandise doesn’t really tempt me but it was fun to look around.  They had some really neat World Showcase Mexico t-shirts you could buy that I was actually tempted to get, but I resisted.  That’s something unique to look for when you are shopping in World Showcase.  Most countries seem to have one or two shirts that indicate which World Showcase pavilion they are in at Epcot.

After my walk in Mexico I left and started making my way over to Mouse Gears.  This is a huge shop in Epcot in Future World.  I actually like this store better than the Main Street store in Magic Kingdom.  I stopped to take this lovely picture of Spaceship Earth at night:

I wandered around inside Mouse Gears for a while.  I was really tempted by this little stuffed animal of Lady from Lady and the Tramp:

One of our cats is named after Lady and this stuffed animal has the cutest expression!

I also took a couple of pictures of the Valentine’s Day and St Patrick’s Day Mickey and Minnies they had and considered buying those to decorate with, but resisted.

I did however pick out these things:

A beautiful black shirt with beading on it that says Walt Disney World

Salt and Pepper shakers of Lady and the Tramp

OK, so I don’t put salt and pepper in them, they are only for decoration… but my reason for picking these (they have a good variety of salt and pepper shakers) is that we do have our cat named after Lady, and I wanted to display these on my bakers rack in my Tuscan decorated kitchen (although Lady and the Tramp takes place in America, there is that famous spaghetti scene as well as the song Belle Note) so they would fit right in!

This nice blue tote bag

I have a very crowded sewing room at home with not a lot of storage and so I have taken to using bags to organize all my fabric and supplies for my crafting.  Disney always has promotions going on where you can get blankets, watches and bags for a discount price when you purchase $50 worth of other things.  That bag was in this promotion for $13, and the cheapest bag other than this one I could find was $20, so I jumped on the offer.

After spending too much moola, I headed back to our Illuminations spot to rejoin DH.  So most of our trip we were not cold at all, actually it felt really good!  However with a body of water and a light breeze and cooler temps at night, both DH and I got chilly sitting next to the lagoon in Epcot.  DH said he was freezing and he is never cold.  So, if it is in the mid 60’s at night in Epcot, you might need a jacket to wait around the lagoon.  (we never needed one at night in Magic Kingdom)

Soon Illuminations started!  DH did try to stream it like he had streamed Wishes the night before but was not as successful.  I did however take audio for your listening pleasure!

(if you are having a hard time playing the above audio, try internet explorer)

I love the sound track to this fireworks show, so I hope you enjoyed it too.

Don’t worry though, a video will be coming up in a few weeks!

After Illuminations was over we followed the masses back to the bus stop and quickly made our way back to Pop Century.  We were hungry again, so we stopped at the food court to have this:

Chicken Parmesan for me

Pepperoni Pizza for DH

We used 1 quick service credit and paid for the pizza OOP

DH also got me another one of these:

Oreo Cupcake, but this time it’s a vanilla cake!

I didn’t eat it until we got back into the room.  Imagine my surprise to find out there was a tiny dollop of chocolate center!  It’s probably in the chocolate one too, but it’s not much so you can’t taste it or see it.

The first order of business was to ride Soarin’! Now, this is my absolute favorite ride in all of Walt Disney World (and all of Disneyland Resort too for that matter). Later we have a great video to show you that I think will explain it better, but I will give you the short version.

Imagine a screen that is large like IMAX. Then you sit in a hang glide kind of seat (with a seatbelt) with your feet dangling and it glides you up and towards the screen and you fly over parts of California… complete with a light breeze in your face and wonderful scents to match!

For instance as you fly over orange groves you get the scents of oranges. It’s just an amazing ride.

I also love the soundtrack that was written for this ride. In fact, in keeping with my new obsession with audio recording, I really couldn’t wait to make my own audio recording of Soarin’. It’s actually really quite awesome because the reactions of the people around me make the recording even better… so get ready to sit with me as we ride Soarin’!

http://mouseventures.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Soarin1.mp3

(if you can’t play the audio, try internet explorer)
Wow! That was exhilarating! One of DH’s favorite sounds in all of Walt Disney World? The seatbelts unclicking all in unison at the end. Did you hear it?

By this time it was nearing dinner time and we decided to bypass Sunshine Seasons food court in The Land (where Soarin’ is) for now and go see what we could eat in World Showcase. I had been hearing good things about the bakery in the France pavilion and so we decided to go check it out.

On the way I took this picture of the “upside down” waterfall by the Imagination Pavilion:

On our way to France we stopped at the UK for a minute and DH made his first call to the red phone booths. He just had a brief conversation with the girl who answered and then revealed himself to her. She was absolutely dumbfounded. It was really funny!

We walked around to France and ordered this from the bakery:

(2) Ham and Cheese Croissant
Ham and Cheese Quiche
(these were toasted)

And for dessert:

Napoleon and Apple Turnover

We paid OOP for the ham and cheese quiche.

We couldn’t find a table outside so we walked into the shop where they have some tables set up as overflow.

I can’t remember eating here before so this was a new meal for us. The ham and cheese croissant was DELICIOUS! The croissant was buttery and flaky and the cheese and ham perfectly complimented each other. I think that DH’s quiche also pleased him just as much.

The napoleon was really large and really good, although just a bit too whipped cream like for my taste (I don’t like whipped cream) and DH seemed to like his apple turnover too. Overall this was an excellent meal, and a different meal that you would usually think about eating on vacation in Disney.

We left the France pavilion after eating to wander around World Showcase until it was time to find a seat for Illuminations (and yes, I mean a seat!)

We stopped at Morocco to see Mo Rockin. They are a fusion rock band with a Middle Eastern sounding twist and they also feature a belly dancer. The music is quite entertaining. Here are some pictures I took:

And some video DH took:

After Mo Rockin we just kind of wandered around World Showcase. We stopped in Italy for a few minutes in the shop that sells wine and other things. There is some beautiful glass work made into wine stoppers and things that is in Mickey shapes that you can only find in the Italy pavilion in Epcot. It’s really unique looking. I took a picture of the wall of candy in the shop:

Something I would love to do one time is to buy candy from every country in Epcot and bring it home to sample. It would be a unique souvenir.

It wasn’t that late yet, but DH wanted to try to Ustream Illuminations like he had streamed Wishes the night before and he wanted a good spot. There are two benches between Norway and China that have a pretty good view and go fast and so we walked over to them and staked our seat.

How was Illuminations and what did we do to pass the time while waiting?

Find out next week!

So after our ride with the animals and shopping excursion we hiked over to Asia to the Royal Anandapur Tea Company.

I wanted to try the frozen chai tea latte.  This cart does not have anything on the dining plan at all, so you have to pay OOP.  They have lots of hot and cold tea varieties and some frozen ones like this one.  Here is the picture:

The picture doesn’t look like much but both DH and I loved it!  Also, the straws in Animal Kingdom are still paper and they DO NOT have lids due to animal safety concerns, so be prepared for that.

Since I don’t do roller coasters and DH doesn’t like to go without me (he has done it before though) we did not ride Expedition Everest but we did wander around and take video and I took this picture:

As we rounded a corner on our way out of Asia I stopped to take this lovely picture of Everest:

It’s probably my best use of the iPhone camera and it currently resides on my phone background.  Later DH sent it to a bunch of people he works with.

I also took this picture to show more of the detail of Asia.

So next we took a seat on a bench on Discover Island to take a short walking break.  We were having a grand time just taking in the people walking by.  For some reason we had gotten caught up walking with a lot of people and just taking a minute on that bench was a nice reprieve.  Soon, the people started to disappear too, so maybe people were in the stage shows, or some were already leaving the park as it was basically lunch time.

We were getting hungry by now but wanted to take in another attraction before lunch.  So, we headed around the corner and walked into the queue for It’s Tough to Be a Bug.  This is a 4D show based on the movie It’s a Bug’s Life.  Also, the theatre is actually inside the tree of life!  You can’t see from our far off picture, but the tree of life has tons of carvings of different animals in the “bark” and you get a closer look at them as you traverse the queue.

You reach the wait area inside the tree and there are all sorts of fun movie posters on the wall with a “bug” spin to them.  They also play Disney music for you but with a bug spin… like “Beauty and the Bees” sung by bees!  It’s really cute.  I won’t show you the show, you just have to experience this one and I don’t have audio, so just take my word for it… its really entertaining!

After the show we headed to Flame Tree BBQ for some grub.  This is a fantastic counter service as they sell really good BBQ… and this is coming from a Texas girl!  Here is what we ordered:

1/2 Chicken – served with baked beans and coleslaw (me)

Ribs and Chicken Combo served with baked beans and coleslaw (DH)

Chocolate Mousse (both of us)

We used 2 quick service credits.

You can get either regular or hot and sweet bbq sauce at any of the various condiments bars throughout the seating area.  We got one of each kind.

The meat here is so good!  Its flavorful and seasoned well and not at all dry… nice and juicy!  The ribs are tender and flavorful and delicious.  The beans are tasty as well.   I tasted the coleslaw and while still not a fan of it deemed that if you like coleslaw then I think you will like theirs.

The other great thing about eating here is the view.  Just walk down behind the ordering pavilion and wind your way down to the water.  This was our fantastic view!

HERE is the 360 panorama DH took of our eating area:

After our delicious lunch we headed out to Dinoland USA.  We actually do love this land… well we love the Dinosaur ride area better over the fun fair side, but we still like it.  I HAD to take these pictures to make another point.  The Turkey Leg is a traditional Disney treat, so when you enter Dinoland you can buy one here:

And then you can walk directly over to a nearby merchandise cart and buy this t shirt!

Amazing huh?  These t shirts were everywhere, but I had to show how loved Turkey Legs are at Disney.

So we were gearing up to leave Animal Kingdom as it was near 3pm, but we wanted to ride one more ride before we left, so Dinosaur it is!  As we were nearing the line, a really nice guy (fellow guest) gave us two fast passes good in about 5 minutes.  So, we took a bathroom break and then went in to ride it.  Thanks random guy for some Disney magic!  That’s one nice thing about Disney, you feel the Disney magic yourself and if you can you want to shower it upon other guests like that guy did with us.

Some of you who have ridden this ride (or just refuse to ride it) know what I mean when I say it is scary!  It isn’t a roller coaster or anything, but it’s dark and jerky (purposefully!) and the whole theme is a little unsettling and fun at the same time.  I myself took a couple of years of going to Disney before I would actually ride it.  You are arriving at Dino Institute where they are going to take you back in time in your time rover to see dinosaurs.  However during the pre-show this guy hi-jacks your trip back in time and sends you to the point when the asteroids start to hit the earth to get this one certain dinosaur to bring back with you.  Take a look at this video to see the entire ride.

I know it’s a video, but this ride is really that dark!  I know some people my age who still don’t want to ride it.  This is the first time I rode it without working myself up over the darkness and general “scariness” of it.  Still, I think everyone should ride this ride!

So now we were ready to leave Animal Kingdom and move on to our next park.  But to close out the blog today we are debuting our next Day in a Park series…  All that DH did while we were in Animal Kingdom was take video, so I hope you like it!

A Day in Animal Kingdom

We hope you enjoyed this latest edition to our own videos.  Next time we are in Disney World (this fall!) we have plans to produce more for you.

Stay tuned to next week to see where we go next!

See You Real Soon!

Those are the new Art of Animation value resorts being built.  They start opening up buildings for reservations in June 2012.  They will be similar to the other value resorts, with giant icons and such, but will be themed to Disney animation movies, like Little Mermaid and Lion King.  I am personally excited to stay in them as we are value resort people for the foreseeable future.

DH took some pictures of the giant foosball guys:

We decided to have breakfast at our park destination this morning instead of the resort.  So off we went to the bus stop for Animal Kingdom!

So I know a lot of people have expressed disinterest in this park… and I have to admit if I was going to pick one park to not visit on a particular trip, this is the one I would pick.  But regardless of that, it’s still Disney and I still love it.

So we entered Animal Kingdom about 20 minutes after opening time.  We stopped to take a picture of the pretty birds in the oasis before you reach the icon of the park:

And then you come out of the greenery and you see this:

The tree of life!  Every morning I was texting my Mom a picture of the icon of the park we were visiting and she shared with me that while we were having a mild sunny beautiful Disney day it was pouring rain in Houston.  We need the rain, but we were happy to not actually have to slog through it ourselves.

We headed straight for Pizzafari for DH to eat breakfast where he got this:

Bounty Platter – scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, french toast, breakfast potatoes, and biscuit

This is becoming his standard breakfast, lol

It was standard fare.  The scrambled eggs were good, but tasted like they came from powder mix.  The potatoes are always especially good and seasoned well (I tasted a few for him)

Next, we headed to Africa for my breakfast.  We stopped at Kusafari to look for a cupcake.

Well, here is some good insider info.  They don’t technically sell the cupcakes until 11:30am.  They have other breakfast treats you can buy, but not cupcakes.  Well, DH asked the girl at the pick-up counter if we could order one and she said yes they had gotten them out (which meant out of the freezer to defrost).  I went to the order girl and she herself had to check with the pick-up counter but they let me order one.  I went with the zebra cupcake

This cupcake was really top heavy!  The icing was like heavier whipped frosting (maybe it felt heavy because it was still chilled?) and the zebra pieces were like little tiny thin candy bars… very tasty.  The cake was a vanilla cake that tasted box cake like.  It was just an overall good cupcake.

HERE is a review from Disney Food Blog.  You will notice that mine looks different from their pictures and I think the icing was a little different too.  This blog also confirmed late last year that they don’t have them every day either, so just ask!

We had kept our water bottle from the day before, so DH filled it up at the water fountains near the bathrooms in Africa.  The water from those fountains was really very tasty!  It kind of tasted softer to me, so if you like water like Evian, give this water a try.

So now it’s finally time for a ride!  The first one was going to be Kilimanjaro Safaris.  This is an amazing ride!  I mean really… because it’s REAL animals in the ride, not animatronic ones!  It seems to me that you see more animals out in the morning, so ride this ride when the park opens.  So you get on a ride vehicle and they take you through an African wild reserve called Harambi and you truly get to see all types of African animals like giraffes and lions and many many more.

Now I don’t have pictures for you… I can do even better, but not on today’s post… if you return next week, we are going to premiere an exclusive video that DH (a professional videographer) put together that he calls A Day in Animal Kingdom.  It’s a new addition to our Day In series so come back to see it next week!

Saying that… to make up for lack of pictures this time, I will post a video of Kilimanjaro Safari so you can see how amazing it is!

Let me also share my first audio recording.  Remember this audio recording DH took the day before?

Well, that gave me an idea!  Being such a new iPhone user I was not aware of the full extent of the features and it took me until this moment on the ride to realize it… I can take audio!  Now, you have to know that you can go to live365 online radio and do a search for “Disney” and for free listen to some truly amazing online radio stations that play Disney park audio 24/7 and the quality is really good.  The audio I have taken is not about the quality of the recording… it’s special because it allows you to really hear what I heard.  To actually sit with me on rides and attractions… so please keep this in mind as you begin this audio journey with me though the rest of the entire report.  The audio may not always be stellar, but this is the audio from our actual trip which makes this all so much more real!

While on Kilimanjaro Safaris they play a little radio, which has become some of my favorite audio from Animal Kingdom.  It also became my first audio of the trip and here it is for your listening pleasure:

So we went to find “our” spot.  This is our personal preference and a lot of other peoples too as it was crowded.  We like to find the area by the lamppost just outside Casey’s Corner.  The cast members create a natural walk path with tape horizontally across Main Street and you can stand just behind the tape and not have anyone directly in front of you allowing you more viewing room.  This is the idea anyways, and usually when there is a parade, we do a good job of getting this spot because we reserve our spots (with our bodies!) about 1.5 hours before parade start, which means good spots for parade and fireworks.  This time since there was no parade we didn’t bother to get to Main Street that early and so our spots were a few people back from the line.  Anyways, while we waited I went and looked around the shops to formulate what I wanted to buy later.

While waiting for fireworks I took this picture of the castle all lit up at night:

It does change colors from pink to blue to yellow to purple too I think, I just happened to catch it at pink both times.

At approx. 7:45 the Magic Memories and You castle show started.  Here is the picture I took:

But to really understand you NEED to watch this video:

The projection mapping they are doing these days is really an awesome effect and it means they can change it more easily too.  In fact here is this year’s Valentines version of this show if you want to see it:

You can click the link at the start of that video to jump to the “new” part, so you don’t have to watch it all over again.

So this show lasts about 10 minutes and then 5 minutes after it’s over Wishes starts.

DH had been preparing and announcing on our Twitter that he would be live streaming Wishes.  He was so excited to try this out.  It’s not great quality as we were operating on a 3G signal, but this is what we streamed that night:

This is one of those fairytale fireworks shows.  On 4^th of July when Houston puts out their fireworks, I usually am not impressed because this is what I am used to!  It just spoils you.

After the fireworks ended we decided to exit through the shops (that’s a tip for you… the shops go all the way through so you can travel through them instead of with the crowd on the street).  We did however stop and buy a few things:

A Mickey and Minnie salt and pepper shaker set that is Thanksgiving themed.  I love to buy these salt and pepper shakers to decorate with.

An insulated “hot or cold” mug.  These remind me of tervis cups and mugs.  I drink a lot of coffee at home (I work from home) and I actually like to use insulated mugs because they regulate the temperature better.  I wanted a good Disney one, but most of them are marked not dishwasher safe.  This one was!  And it was good for cold too (although I guess they all technically could be used for both?)

See!

We made our purchases and then went to the bus stop.  This was the crowd!

So I know the line looks really long, and who wants to wait in that after a long day at the parks… but you would be surprised at how quickly Disney can move the crowds.  They bring 2 busses at a time every 5 minutes or so and people get back to the resort quick.  We waited maybe 5 minutes for a bus?  Don’t be scared of the lines J

We had eaten dinner earlier at about 5pm and it was now about 9pm, so we were hungry again.  We filled our refillable mugs with sweet Gold Peak tea and bought this:

Chicken Parmesan with salad (already had dressing on it) and breadstick

Breadsticks with Marinara

The cast member that checked us out let us get the breadsticks with marinara as part of our meal instead of a drink since we had the mugs so we didn’t have to pay OOP or use a snack credit.  Seriously, I think the application of the dining plan is up to each individual cast member who checks you out!

The chicken parm was good.  A little dry, but flavorful.  The salad was really good and the breadsticks were soft with a good garlic flavor.

I picked this up for dessert:

Oreo Cupcake!

This was chocolate cake with a light whipped frosting and two Oreos strategically placed in a popular mouse ears formation J  It was really good!  The cake was box cake taste and the frosting wasn’t too sweet.  The Oreos were a nice touch.

We were sufficiently tired at this point and so made our way up to our room got ready for bed and promptly fell asleep.

What would the next day hold? This was a super busy day with big changes in schedule.
Stay tuned to next Wednesday to see what Day 3 holds

See You Real Soon!

They use your park ticket to quickly “register” you and you get a key card and 5 spell cards.  You also get a map.

You are randomly assigned a quest in one of the lands in the MK.  We got Main Street!  There are several story lines in each land that you may get and it’s all random.  Here are a couple pictures of the video screens we had for our Cruella Du Ville/101 Dalmations story line.

However, to explain it all much better, you should watch this video:

So there are a lot of those spell cards out there (80 something I think) and they are collectible.  Each time you go to the park they will give you 5 more!  The more you have and the longer you play the stronger your spells are supposed to get.

Also, if you leave the park and return a few days later, you can get more spell cards and simply pick up where you left off!  It doesn’t time out like Kim Possible in Epcot.

We really enjoyed ourselves with this game.  There were a lot of people that would gather behind you as you played because they had no idea what it was.  As of this publishing, the game is out of testing and is officially open, so especially if you have kids, and even if you don’t, make sure to sign up and get your Sorcerer cards!

After playing the game on Main Street (and dodging a short dance parade) we headed out to Adventureland which is where we were assigned to battle more villains in the game if we so chose.

I stopped to take a picture of this light post on a bridge.

And to take a picture of the castle starting to change colors as it got dark outside.

We played another sorcerers game with Aladdin in Adventureland.

In between playing the game in Adventureland we jumped onto Pirates of the Caribbean.  So how many people have I met that don’t know this was originally a ride a LONG time before all those great Johnny Depp movies?  Well, a lot!  So for everyone, whether you LOVE this ride to pieces or this is truly your first exposure, please watch this awesome video which starts you in the queue and takes you through the ride.

So, just so you know… this is a boat ride.  And a very dimly lit one too (so stick with the video though the dark scenes)  All Disney rides that take place in a boat have a “Disney dark ride water smell”.  It’s a distinct smell and the more you ride these types of rides at Disney, the more you like the smell.  So, if you know what I am talking about, you just practically smell it when you watch that video, right?

There is a short dip in the dark after the “intro” part but it is not scary at all.  They have added in movie references in the past several years (and some references like the dog with the keys at the end were put into the movie) so it’s completely in tune with the movies, including Captain Jack Sparrow animatronics.

This is one of those Disney classic ride.  And I will give you a tip… if you find yourself in Disneyland in California… that one is the original ride and it is much improved over the shorter Disney World version.  We usually do end up riding this ride first every time we go to Magic Kingdom because it is one of our all time favorites.

So after our ride, and completing our Aladdin story and saving the kingdom once again, I decided it was time for a dole whip.

Okay, so for those in the know who love them like I do you know what a treat this is…

It’s a pineapple soft serve that is delicious!  And it’s made by the pineapple people (Dole).  They sell these in a few places I know of including Disneyland (Adventureland), Hawaii (Dole Plantation) and the Polynesian Resort as well as Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World.   They sell several varieties including just chocolate and vanilla (which aren’t technically dole whips, just soft serve).  They have at times I THINK sold orange and strawberry flavors too.  I didn’t see those this time though.  You can get a dole whip just plain pineapple, you can get a pineapple/vanilla swirl and you can even get your soft serve float style, in Dole pineapple juice!!

Now, I love these things and almost always go for strait pineapple soft serve or pineapple soft serve in the pineapple juice (float style).  Any of the above are a snack credit.  This time I wanted less tartness though, so I went for a pineapple/vanilla swirl.

It was really good!  The vanilla softened the tartness a little and balanced the flavor.  If you find yourself not liking the strait pineapple or not a big tart flavor person, give this one a try!  DH didn’t partake of any as he is not as big a fan as I am.

See, we didn’t purchase park hoppers (which costs about $55 per person add on) originally.  We could have stayed at Hollywood Studios, but only for another 3 hours because in January they close things early (7pm that day) and we wanted to have enough time to enjoy other things.  So as it stood our options consisted of entertainment outside the parks for the evening (and the next).  We had talked about park hoppers but DH stood firm on mini golf before we left.  I also stood firm that if we were going to buy park hoppers we had to use them at least twice while we were there so we didn’t spend $110 on 4 hours of park time.  So, DH took pause at a bench about half way to the boat dock and decided that he would rather head to Magic Kingdom or Epcot.  We made the decision to add the hoppers on and went back to the ticket booth at Hollywood Studios to upgrade.  So, keep this in mind… you can add those hoppers on later if you want!

With hoppers added to our tickets now, our plans changed!  We decided that we wanted to alternate our night time entertainment as much as possible so we headed to Magic Kingdom.  To get there from Hollywood Studios you have to take a bus to The Ticket and Transportation Center and then take a boat or monorail from there to the Magic Kingdom entrance.

While on the bus DH was remembering how he needed wi-fi to download the UStream app to his phone.  He looked up online all the places on property he could get free wi-fi and among that list was the Contemporary Resort.

If you know Disney World, you know the Contemporary Resort is super close the Magic Kingdom. It’s the resort where the monorail runs right through the lobby!

Once we got to the Ticket and Transportation Center we hopped on the resort monorail line.  Ok, let me take a moment to let you know what is actually at this TTC place.

Buses to various places on property, Animal Kingdom & Hollywood Studios and probably the water parks and Downtown Disney too (sorry I don’t know all of them!)

Resort Monorail Line (stops at TTC, Polynesian Resort, Grand Floridian, Magic Kingdom, Contemporary, then back to TTC)

Express Monorail Line (stops at TTC and Magic Kingdom only)

Epcot Monorail Line (stops at TTC and Epcot station only)

Ferry Boat to Magic Kingdom

If you stay off property and you have a hotel that “buses you to Disney World” they will probably bring you here and pick you up here.  That means that if you want to go to Hollywood Studios that day that means a bus from off property hotel to here, then another bus from here to Hollywood Studios and the opposite to get back.  It’s a lot of time traveling, and those off property hotel buses run less frequently (in my experience) so a late night escapade to Downtown Disney might not be possible without a cab ride back to your hotel.  So, that’s another reason we like to stay on property better, not so many unreliable transfers and more overall reliable transportation.

While on our first monorail ride of the trip DH recorded this:

Doesn’t seem like a big deal to you?  Well, they also sell these t-shirts:

Seriously, us big Disney fans love this recording!  Why?  I am not sure, it’s just so… DISNEY!

So my favorite Disney transportation IS the Monorail… it’s like a ride in and of itself.

After a few stops we arrived at The Contemporary.  It was about 4:45 and it had been a lot of walking and a few hours since lunch, so we decided to check out The Contempo Café quick service for an early dinner while DH used the free wi-fi.

The Contempo Café starts selling dinner items at 5pm, so if you want those heartier items be sure to wait.  We did not really care about that though so we ordered just before “dinner time”.

The way it works at The Contempo Café is you can look at large HD video screens to see the full menu, and then you order your hot food from smaller touch screen monitors where you get a receipt.  We placed our hot food order and then walked to the self-serve bakery to pick out dessert.  Then you take your receipt from the touch screen kiosk and your bakery items to a register where you can pay and get your drink cups.  They hand you a buzzer and when it goes off you can pick up your food at the pick-up counter.

This is what we had:

DH’s meal

1/3 lb Angus Cheeseburger – served with choice of cheddar, American or Pepper Jack cheese

served with Green Bean Salad or House Chips

He had Cheddar cheese on the burger and House Chips

AHHH! I tried to get him to not order a burger… I reminded him of our quest to NOT eat burgers with our quick service plan. We are supposed to be showing all of you that quick service in Disney does not mean meal after meal of burgers…. But he wanted it and who was I to deny? However, when I asked him for a rating he gave it a 3 out of 10 (remember the earlier burger was an 8 out of 10). Well, I told him not to get it!

My meal

Spice Crusted Mahi – topped with citrus-apple slaw on a Kaiser roll

served with Green Bean Salad or House Chips

I had the House Chips

Oh, WOW! This was the absolute best quick service meal of the entire trip!! See that bread? It’s different than the out of a bag burger bread DH had. It tastes like freshly made bakery bread. I really don’t like cabbage so coleslaw is usually out, but that citrus-apple slaw was a perfect complement to the fish. Mahi is really good anyways, but the spices on this one made it extra tasty. Oh, and those House Chips were really fresh made in house. They were thick cut potatoes fried up!

DH’s Dessert

Dulce De Leche Cupcake

My Dessert

Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Cupcake

So we shared these two cupcakes. The frosting on both is kind of thick and sweet frosting

The Dulche De Leche cupcake was a huge disappointment. There was a caramel filling which was good, but the cake itself was very dry and tasteless. Here is a review that gives me hope we just had a bad batch or something.

The Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Cupcake was really good! This was definitely a box chocolate cake but it was very moist. The filling was a liquid chocolate flavored with raspberry flavor and it was delicious! I haven’t heard of anyone talking about this cupcake online (as of this writing) so I think this must be a seasonal flavor for Valentine’s Day. What time of year you go to Contempo Café depends greatly on their cupcake selection.

There is not as much frosting as you think on these cupcakes as you can see from the linked review above, so don’t let that scare you away.

Oh, and unless I state otherwise we basically drank Gold Peak Sweet Tea the whole time. Since Coke bought Gold Peak Tea you can get it all over the parks now and we think it is very tasty! Also, for all you Dr Pepper fans out there, Disney has a deal with Coca Cola…. So NO Dr Pepper is sold anywhere on property… sorry, DH HATES this.

So while we were eating DH got photos uploaded to photo stream and the UStream app downloaded to his iPhone and the account set up. We were set to go! He made plans to live stream Wishes from Magic Kingdom and started tweeting about it.

So we get to go right into the theatre.  It’s the first show of the day (they didn’t start until 1:30pm) and we sit middle frontish.  Here was our view of the stage.

I have to admit that the stage is pretty awesome looking.

They bring out the guy to rile us up and get us excited (so the warm up guy?)… then the real host guy comes out.  He introduces the judges (yep, there are judges).  Then the 3 contestants come out.  Then the host tells everyone that he has a special surprise, Scotty McCreery (the last idol winner) is here.  I thought it would be a video, but the real deal showed up!

The contestants were also in the dark because they looked totally shocked too.  The host took a few minutes to talk to Scotty and then they moved on with the show.  Here are the three contestants that competed.

The guy contestant won our show.  He actually sang a Scotty McCreery song!

After that we wondered over to the Animation courtyard to decide what to do next.  The Little Mermaid is one of my favorite movies of all time.  Probably because it’s the first movie I can remember seeing in the theatre as a little kid.  Even though it gave me my first memorable nightmare (Ursula is scary to a 5 year old!) I still have a soft spot for the movie.

So at Hollywood Studios you can see a show with live actors and puppets called Voyage of the Little Mermaid.  It basically uses various “4D” techniques to tell the story of the movie in about 15 minutes.  Here is a fantastic video you can see of the show!

After watching the show we looked at the time and realized it was nearing 4pm.  I wanted to check out the shops down Hollywood Boulevard and we had plans to play mini golf and then go to Downtown Disney after for dinner.  Of course the Pixar parade was going on and so that prevented us from getting across the street, so we just took a seat from afar and watched it go on by.  Check out a closer view than we had!

Personally this is not my favorite.  I think someone should tell Disney that Carnival uses that song to advertise their cruises!  In fact we didn’t make it a goal to see really any afternoon parades since we wanted to spend our time on other things.  I did take this picture of The Hollywood Brown Derby restaurant/Starring Rolls building to show you the wonderful architecture they use.

One thing about traveling in January, there is not a lot of flowers out, except in the hanging baskets.  We love other times of year like the spring because of all the beautiful plants!

After the parade passed us by we crossed the street and went into the shops looking for Hollywood Studios specific merchandise.  We stumbled across a wall full of Dtech items.  That would be Mickeyfied things for your technology… like iPhone cases and iPad cases, and laptop bags.  As new iPhone owners we were looking a lot at their cases.  However, I didn’t want a snap on case as I have already had one of those that broke on me and that was basically the only kind they had, so we didn’t buy any.

As we were leaving I took this picture of the light posts/hanging baskets (my new picture obsession).

DH took this awesome panorama picture in the area right as you enter the park down Hollywood Boulevard.

So at this point we headed out of the Studios not to return this trip…

He stopped next outside the shop and took this picture to send to our friend Robin:

Phineas & Ferb were out taking pictures! Even though DH is in his 30’s he still likes cartoons and this is one of his favorites.

We walked around a little waiting for our fastpass time to come up and DH downloaded a 360 panorama app on his iPhone and took this first panorama picture.

So, more of those to come!

We decided to take a ride on The Great Movie Ride next because we still had time until our fastpass was good.  You know the big building behind the big Mickey Sorcerer hat that looks like Mann’s Chinese Theatre?  Well, I know we don’t have any pictures of the outside, but see that picture with the big Mickey sorcerer’s hat at the end of Hollywood Boulevard?

Well, there’s a ride in the building back there!

Here is a panorama that DH took while we were in line inside.  That giant screen is where they entertain you with movie clips before you actually get on the ride.  This is one of the awesome things about Disney queues… they are also meant to entertain you!

So this is a ride though the movies!  It’s pretty awesome I think.  If you want to take a peek at what it’s like, just watch the two videos below.  You are riding in a very long car through the movie scenes.

We also got the gangster scene (ie the gangster takes over the ride) but there is another alternative that I don’t want to spoil if you have never ridden it before.

My favorite scene has got to be Alien.  See, when I was younger that scene scared me.  Then a couple of years ago we used our Netflix to rent it and I realized that the movie is not scary, it’s actually kind of silly!  So now I like the scene in the ride for sentimental reasons.

After exiting that ride it was finally time to ride Toy Story Mania!  This is the golden ride of Hollywood Studios right now because it is an awesome family ride that is new to the park.  This is what happens.  You walk through a queue with big giant toys from Andy’s room which make you feel like you have shrunk small enough to play inside one of Andy’s toys.  You get a pair of 3D glasses (don’t put them on yet!) and wind though a midway tent and down to the ride vehicles.  Here are some pictures:

You get in the ride vehicle and put your 3D glasses on.  The ride vehicle takes you through various screens and you pull the ball at the end of your firing gun.  It depends on what scene you are in as to what you are throwing with your gun… it could be pies, darts, rings, etc.  When you pop the water balloons for instance, you feel a little sprinkle of water… its quite amazing!  At the end you get your scores.  Here were ours:

And yes, I lost

Oh, and why was the fastpass so golden?  When we returned right at 11:25am to ride, there were already no fastpasses left!  And we are traveling during value season, so during busy season, fastpasses are usually gone within an hour or two of park opening.  The queue is amazing to look at and there is a cool interactive Mr. Potato Head in there to see, but it is so hard to wait over an hour for a short ride, so I recommend the fastpass!

Lunch is over and we have the afternoon in front of us! What next?
Stay tuned for next Wednesday
See You Real Soon!

DH stopped to take some pictures of the big icon outside our buildings… the Mickey Phone from the 1970’s!

Those are really big foosball guys you see leading up to the icon.  The entire courtyard between the 70’s buildings was like one giant foosball table and you are the size of the ball.

We stopped at the Pop Century food court to get DH some breakfast.

Bounty Platter – scrambled eggs, potatoes, biscuit, cinnamon french toast sticks, sausage, and bacon

We used 1 quick service credit

We went out to the bus stop and waited a short time for the bus to Hollywood Studios.  We arrived about 2 minutes prior to official open time but they let you though the turnstiles to a certain point on Hollywood Boulevard.  We took some pictures:

At the end of Hollywood Boulevard is my favorite place to get cupcakes in all of Walt Disney World, Starring Rolls.  What better time for cupcakes than for breakfast?  I used one snack credit to purchase this little (or big!) beauty.

Red Velvet Cheesecake Cupcake

I invite you to click HERE to read a good review of this magical cupcake!  It was really delicious.  I have made Starring Rolls for breakfast a tradition when we go to Hollywood Studios.

I also bought a bottle of water OOP since we had gotten rid of our water bottle from the prior day not realizing we would not have our camelpack.

While I ate my delicious breakfast DH took our park tickets and ran to get us a fastpass for Toy Story Mania.  What’s fastpass may you ask?  Fastpass is a magical invention where you run your ticket though a machine near the rides that offer you a “reserved” time in line later in the day so you don’t have to wait standby.  There are a few rules.  You can only hold one fastpass at a time.  If your wait time is far out, you can sometimes get another fastpass at a certain time (and that first fastpass will tell you when).  Once your time window has opened up you can go to the fastpass entrance and basically walk on the ride.  See, the idea is that you already did wait your turn to ride.  From the time you ran your ticket through the fastpass machine until the time you could return, you waited to ride the ride!  You just reserved your return time.  Fastpasses are FREE for everyone who has park tickets (and after all how did you get into the park?)  So never, never think when you are in a standby line and people seem to go in front of you in another line that they paid to get that right, they just used a system available to every park guest.  (Universal Studios does charge extra for their version of this).  There are of course only so many fastpasses in a day and popular rides run out fast, like Toy Story Mania.

Here are our Toy Story Mania fastpasses:

And they are just like gold like DH tweeted after he got them!  You will see why later.

See at the bottom you can kind of see how it says we could get another fastpass for another ride that offered them at 11:10am?

So, gold in hand we were ready to start our day at Star Tours!  Star Tours is a Star Wars simulator ride where you also wear 3D glasses.  Here are pictures from the Queue:

This one is a picture of the giant HD screen recently installed.

Last year they reopened Star Tours with a total of 54 possible experiences!  Wow that’s a lot of different rides to have.  Check out THIS website if you love all things Star Tours or Star Wars to get the skinny.

And while I am at it, THIS website is great to explore if you are a big Studios fan.

See all the crazy fans out there!

Next we stopped in at The Writer’s Stop.

This is a great little shop by Sci Fi Dine in Theatre that I didn’t even know about until just a year or so ago.

They sell various souvenirs, books, and coffee and pastries including these:

And the infamous Carrot Cake Cookie

Read THIS review to learn more

I didn’t have one this trip, but I did last time and they are truly yummy!

With no set plan in place we veered off towards Muppet Vision 3D.  DH loves the Muppets and always can’t wait to see this show.

Just as you enter the building part of the queue look to your right and you will see this:

Look down and see the mat?  Pick it up and you will find this glued to the floor!

Just a little Disney magic to make you smile!

We continued on to the preshow room and took a few pictures of the funny props

OK, so I don’t have audio of this show (we hadn’t started that yet), but I can direct you to a video of the preshow video.  That’s right a video within a video.   They play this preshow on the TVs above your head in the preshow room.  If you love the Muppets you will love this!

My favorite: Sam the Eagle: Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it is my honor to present to you… Mr. Mickey Mouse!

Rizzo the Rat: [singing to the tune of the Mickey Mouse Club March] Oh, Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da! Hi there, welcome to my park, how’ya doin’…

Sam the Eagle: Wait a minute! You are not Mickey Mouse! You are a rat!

Rizzo the Rat: Rat, schmat! Besides, they’re tourists. What do they know?

We truly LOVE this show as we are big Muppets fans!