The 2010 Birthday And Music Parade Trip

Well, I'm all packed and ready to go. And so is Donald. He's complaining already on where I'll put him in my bag (read the blog).

The one thing I forgot to mention is that our trip coincide with WDW's monthly pin trading night, which will be this Friday night, at the Contemporary. They usually release a very limited edition pin just for the night. So we are in luck and hope to be there for this. I also brought a very small number of limited edition pins that I might use for trading if I feel like it. We don't plan on spending too much time at this event because I'd rather be doing the evening stuff at MK.

Anyway, I have to finish doing last-minute stuff. My next transmission will be from the Most Magical Place on Earth.

Zz.

Greetings from the Most Magical Place on Earth!

We got in to Orlando close to 1:00 pm, got our luggage, and drove straight to our resort at Jambo House. The room is very nice. But of course, the view is spectacular. We, in fact, have a direct view of Kidani Village across the savanna.

We had lunch at The Mara. Strangely enough, we've never eaten there before, and the food was EXCELLENT for a counter service meal. I had the African stew, which was served inside a nice, crusty bread, and my partner had chicken pita, which was delicious. Here's the African stew. I think it is similar to the one you get at Boma, which is fine with me since I love that stew.

This is the Mara quick service restaurant/store.

We then went to Epcot, which is in the middle of its Flower and Garden Festival.

We did Spaceship Earth, Test Track, and this one, which is the Sum of all Thrills.

... cont.

Here are more sights around Epcot and the Flower and Garden Festival.

We decided to just chill out at our resort this evening and enjoy the sights. It's a gorgeous evening so far and we just don't want to leave from the balcony of our room. Luckily, we bought food from a nearby Winn Dixie, so we're all set to just sit back and relax.

Zz.

Oh? Then could you tell me what's all the stain and crumbs all over the kitchen are?

Zz.

Good morning!

Sunrise at the Animal Kingdom Lodge.

Today, we will head out to AK in the morning for the birthday breakfast at Donald Safari Breakfast at Tusker House. The birthday boy still doesn't know anything about this. So hush! Don't breath a word!

Zz.

BTW, before we entered Epcot yesterday, we redeemed our voucher for "Give A Day, Get A Disney Day". Being passholders, we of course opted for the Disney Hat pin set. Full pictures can be found at my blog entry on this.

Zz.

We had a fun birthday day yesterday. Most of the day was spent at Animal Kingdom.

The day started off with Donald Breakfast Safari. We got to take a "family" photo with Donald before we entered Tusker House. Here, we are standing in line waiting for our turn to have a picture with Donald.

I'm a bit disappointed with this because this is the ONLY time we got to meet Donald. He isn't inside the restaurant during our meals.

Still, it was a very good breakfast buffet. The food was rather good and we stuffed ourselves to the gills. Mickey and Daisy and Goofy stopped by our table. Here are Mickey and Daisy.

The birthday boy, who is a big Donald fan, got his birthday cake at the end of our meal. It was, of course, a chocolate cake!

After our meal, we did It's Tough To Be A Bug, and then went on a 2-week safari.

We were also early in line to see Finding Nemo - The Musical and got very good seats.

The whole gang then went back to our resort to chill out a bit. We were just in time for the afternoon feeding of the giraffes.

We then went to the Contemporary for the Pin Trading Night. Huge crowds of crazed pin traders. But it was nice because we got to meet up with many of our friends and familiar faces. It is scary because we now see so many familiar faces of pin traders, and they're beginning to remember us as well!

In any case, we got the limited edition pin that they released that evening, so we're happy.

Today, it will be the "Musics Parade" part of the trip at the Magic Kingdom.

Zz.

I don't know. This was my first Pin Trading night attendance.

Zz.

Started the morning by watching some hot air balloons floating over Kidani Village. I don't think they were right over the resort, but they looked close enough.

We then headed over to the Magic Kingdom. We did Pirates, Splash, Haunted Mansion, and of course, Thunder Mountain Railroad.

By then it was time to stake our spot for the school bands parade. We were right on Main Street.

While waiting, we were serenaded by the Dapper Dans.

There were 3 school bands parading that afternoon, but the one we were looking for was for the Lyons Township.

We then stayed for the 3 o'clock parade!

We're now getting ready to head out to Epcot for the evening.

Zz.

We didn't come up with anything, because we were too busy trying to spot her. We staked both side of the parade route because we didn't know which side she would be on.

Still, her mother managed to run after the band, and when she spotted her, she yelled, "Smile Ally! Your mom loves you!" while she was about to snap her picture, which got a snicker out of her band mates!

In any case, we got her picture and a video. So this video editing challenge for me will be quite interesting.

Zz.

We started yesterday at DHS. It looked crowded even 1/2 hour before the park opened. This is us waiting for the rope drop. I'd say that 90% of all of these folks were rushing to Toy Story Mania as soon as the rope dropped. So were we!

Here we are at Toy Story Mania.

I had an OK score, 144,000.

We then went to Tower of Terror, which had a wait time of 13 minutes.

Rock 'n Roller Coaster had a 50 minute wait, which I didn't care for. So we went to the Animation Academy. This time we got to draw.... the Little Green Alien! I'll snap a picture of it later. We then went to the Great Movie Ride.

Walked into a few stores and snapped a picture of a kitty.

We had dinner at Boma, which was fantastic as usual (I got my coconut seafood soup, which I love!), and then went to BLT for the evening. This is the area outside of the main lobby towards the pool area.

The view of BLT's pool area at night from high up.

We went to the Top of the World lounge to view Wishes.

We also got to view the electrical water pageant as it made its way from Bay Lake into the Seven Seas Lagoon.

It was a long but fun day.

Zz.

Spent our last full day at Epcot today. It was HOT and HUMID. Didn't spend that much time outside. We did Soarin'.

Y'know, the standby line for Soarin' was excruciatingly slow this morning. The line was NOT that long. However, it just didn't move much! At first I thought maybe they only had one theater running. But no, they had both! The line just moved so freaking slow, way slower than I remember it before, and I've done this attraction A LOT!

We also spent some time listening to the Voice of Liberty at the America Pavilion. It was very good, and we got front-row seats to hear their clear voices.

We are back at our resort to cool down. Will do dinner at Downtown Disney this evening.

And oh, here's the Little Green Alien that we drew at the Animation Academy yesterday.

Zz.

Spent the evening at Downtown Disney and had dinner at Wolfgang Puck Express. They changed the menu! My favorite Asian chicken pocket is gone! I ordered the grilled vegetable sandwich, and it was highly disappointing. The "grilled vegetables" are nothing more than small, diced veggies (very little of what I can see of them), topped with mounds of arugula. I love arugula, but I was expected large pieces of grilled vegetables. It tasted OK, but I would NOT recommend getting this sandwich.

Walked through the Christmas store and World of Disney. At this point, I think the Disney merchandise is getting to be rather boring. There's not much of anything that looks like it would be a good buy. Nothing that comes close to, say, the Easter Donald from Hallmark.

We pack our stuff tomorrow morning and check out of our AKL room. We think we will be spending the day at DHS before we leave for the airport mid afternoon. This vacation is almost over. Our next trip will be in August for this year's Pin Celebration event.

Zz.

We're almost packed and ready to leave our room at AKL.We plan on spending the day at DHS. Not sure how much we will do since it is going to be another very hot and humid day. Our plane is late in the afternoon, so we have plenty of opportunity to do other stuff.

This will be my last transmission from the Most Magical Place on Earth. I'll post more report after I get back.

Zz.