As The Story Continues

Another day in our Walt Disney World vacation. Actually, I'm not updating our trip today. It's been a couple days since my last trip post. The holidays are a busy time. The princesses and I are making a trip on Wednesday to the Big Apple. Much excitement and planning has been going on to prepare for the big day. Sleeping Beauty suggested I give her new gal pal Giselle a call about what to do. I've seen G's latest and I don't think I'll be contacting her for any insight into what we should do in Gotham. The ultimate goal is to return home without any incidents. Besides, this isn't my first trip to NYC. However, it is the first time I've taken Princess 2 and that in itself is cause for concern. Anyway, I'll resume our WDW trip report when we return from our day trip to NYC. I'll also throw in a recap of that trip as well. As I said, the holidays are busy!

We Join Our Travelers ...

11/17/07-Day 2-Epcot. We started our day at the Princess Storybook Breakfast in Norway. The girls enjoy seeing all their favorite characters. I enjoy seeing all the good looking Norwegian boys working there. Mulan traded shoes with princess #2. It was really cute. I tried goat cheese for the first time. Wheww! It's definitely an acquired taste. After breakfast we headed over to the Land pavilion to catch a ride on Soarin'. Princess #1 decided she wanted to ride Mission Space first. I headed over to the Land with #2 to pick up fastpasses for Soarin'. While we waited we rode on the Living with the Land boat ride. The greenhouses are interesting. Princess #2 loves that ride so much she rode it again solo. Her first attraction by herself. She was very excited. We enjoyed lunch at Sunshine Seasons. I had a great sandwich and a fabulous piece of cheesecake. We hopped over to The Seas to check out the new Nemo ride. The ride itself was cute but I thought the queue was great. You enter at the beach and slowly wind your way down underwater. It was so neat to look up at the ceiling and see the underside of a boat complete with anchor. It really felt like you were underwater. We stopped to see Crush after the ride. By the time we finished it was time to ride Soarin'. What a great ride! My only regret is that we didn't get to ride it again on our trip. We decided to take the monorail over to Magic Kingdom. On the trip from the TTC to the Magic Kingdom we got to ride in the front car. It's always fun to ride with the driver. The park looked beautiful with all the holiday decorations. We headed to Tomorrowland for a ride on Space Mountain. We grabbed some fastpasses and headed to the TTA and Buzz Lightyear. Princess #1 went to Stitch. We took a ride on the Jungle Cruise and It's a Small World. After a quick spin on Cinderella's Carousel it was time for our fastpass for Space Mountain. What fun! We headed back to Epcot for dinner at Le Cellier. Oh my God!! I had the best Filet Mignon I've ever tasted. I don't think I'll be able to eat another steak again. It was cooked to perfection. The pretzel bread is to die for and the cheddar cheese soup is divine. Follow all that up with a piece of unbelievable chocolate cake and it was perfection. We dragged our worn out feet to the bus after another successful day.

Day Two-Animal Kingdom

11/16/07-Our first day at the theme parks was Animal Kingdom. It was surprisingly cool. Of course, we were not prepared for the weather. It gave us a reason to do a little shopping. The park was decorated for the holidays. The Christmas tree in the entrance plaza is huge and decorated with African themed decorations. It definitely puts you in the holiday mood. The crowds were not heavy. I knew this wouldn't last for long. Our first stop was Expedition Everest. The queue for this attraction is so well themed. For the first timer I highly recommend going through the stand-by line once to experience all the amazing things in there. The Fastpass line is not the same. We ended up riding Everest at least three times before leaving the park that day. The princesses hit Primevil Whirl in DinoLand twice. We saw Finding Nemo-The Musical. It was so well done. The actors were really good and the puppets are simply amazing. A definite must-see. We enjoyed a great lunch at Pizzafari. I would say it was the best pizza in all of Walt Disney World. Even the chocolate cake was great. We walked right in and placed our order with no wait in line. Something else I knew wouldn't last for long. We headed on over to Kilimanjaro Safari after lunch. It being so cool out I thought we would see more animals. There weren't as many out and about as I thought there would be. I guess it was to cool for them. We did see the lion on his back on the rocks. Reminded us of our beloved prince, Spot. After our safari we enjoyed the Pangani Forest Trail. We spotted a few Hidden Mickeys and almost witnessed two Meerkats ambush a rabbit. They missed him by a tail. The gorillas were beautiful. They truly are amazing creatures to behold. We went to the Tree of Life for "It's Tough to be a Bug" and caught the tail of the Jingle Jungle parade. Then it was time to head to the Beach Club resort for dinner at Beaches and Cream. Princess #1 enjoyed the 'No Way Jose' and I enjoyed the 'Milky Way Sundae.' They were heaven. Photos of our first day are available for viewing on my flickr site. Go to www.flickr.com and search for SleepingBeauty's Sister. In all it was an enjoyable first theme park day with the prospect of many more to come.

Let the Reporting Begin

Here we are, folks! The long awaited trip report. I won't cram everything into one post. That would just be silly. Let's draw out the excitement for as long as possible, shall we?

We arrived in Orlando on 11/15. Our resort for the first portion of our stay was Old Key West. I usually pick this one because of its central location. This trip, however, we couldn't stay there the entire time. We would have to switch to Saratoga Springs. I was less than happy with the thought of moving during our stay. We enjoyed an evening at Downtown Disney on our first night. We ate at the Rainforest Cafe and played at Disney's Days of Christmas. We enjoyed some Goofy's Glaciers after that huge Volcano we ate for dessert. Hey, you're only in Disney World once a year. In my opinion the Rainforest Cafe is not worth a trip. The atmosphere is interesting but way to loud. The food was not very good. Even the brownies in the Volcano were a bit dry. Our server was very attentive, a small plus. Christmas is definitely in the air. All the shops were decorated for the holidays. They were even playing Christmas music (with a Disney twist) at the bus stop. Personally, there's no better time to be at Walt Disney World then the holidays. After a long travel day we went to sleep excited to start our vacation. First park of the trip, Animal Kingdom.