The Last Trip: An (Eastern) Fantasy Food Adventure-Bonus Feature, Pam & Her Mom Pt 2 Sept 17 the end

Actually... That's true!

How I feel when I'm at Disney plays a pretty big role, too.

Well hopefully now that you've been sort of often you will actually slow down and take it easy.

:hug: That's okay. You deserve to be spoiled a bit. :)

Thanks! :blush:

Yep! But what I don't have... is the DVD!

Do y'all have Redbox up there? :confused3 Amazon?

:sad2: Shows how much I remember.
Better see it again.

Yeah, I should probably see it again and I've seen the first one three times now.

Yes! I forget that, that's possible.

And very simple as well.

You shoulda posted those.
"As we waited for our photo, the PP kept shooing people away until we were finally alone."

Yeah, except the way I removed people, you would have a gal whose legs were removed in the first one. Her lower torso in the second as well as part of her friend's body, then she is gone, but her friend's head is floating in thin air. By edit #4, the head and a random couple taking a selfie did disappear in full. Then I cut out some shadows and a girl's feet. Then I took out her torso, and another woman. The last two pictures, it could have looked like the PP Photographer shooed away people.

Ah, okay. From the photos... they look enormous.

The photos are deceiving...

Sweet kittens :love:

They are. I just wish we could get them potty trained. :faint:

I don't think anyone said but pimentos are mild peppers. I just had pimento cheese for the first time last week and its pretty tasty. I made mac/cheese with it last night. Costco sells a big tub of it.

Huh. That's interesting. Perhaps we could eat in the bar and try it.

The new mission space is quite nice. It goes over earth instead of into space and you get a tour of the world if I'm remembering correctly.

I'm looking forward to trying it.

I personally found a lot more choices at the F & G booths than this year's F & W. I'm looking forward to the Christmas booths again.

I was thinking last March how nice the F&G offerings were and it was much more manageable than F&W. There are so many booths, you can't hit them all!

How sad about that gorgeous furniture. I would have definitely taken it if I lived anywhere closer.

Well, she says she wants to get it out of there before our trip, we'll see if that actually happens. :rolleyes1

When we flew down I'd always bring butter and end up taking some home too. It hurts me to pay grocery store prices when Costco is so much less.

I have too many other things that I'm bringing along, butter is just too much to deal with,

If you need I could pick up stuff or take you to the store?

I've already placed our grocery order. We need for it to be waiting for us at Bell Services when we arrive. But thank you for the offer. We have a sort of large list, and I don't want to take time out of our vacation to do shopping.

We had so much fun with you and Fran!!!! Time really did fly by! I'm sad that my new favorite ride is all the way across the country :sad: that really is the best ride ever :teeth:

It totally is! I'm looking forward to riding it on Sunday!

Can't wait to see you in a couple weeks :)

Yes definitely.

I think I'm off the 25th,

You do not want to see us on the 25th. It will be a long day and I will be tired and cranky by the time we get to WDW. I just want to make/eat dinner, take a bath and go to bed.


Now this is totally doable in the evening, as long as I don't drink too much wine at our French lunch that afternoon. It might be better to plan another day.


We've got FP+ at DHS that morning and then we are planning to head back to the room for a nap. We have a dinner reservation at Morimoto Asia, would you like to join us?


We have a Tusker house Rivers of light package that evening. We're planning on spending that afternoon in AK. We'll probably have a slow morning in the Villa

The 31st I must see Hanson at Epcot. I missed them last year and I was devesated. But their first concert is at 5:30 I think and only half an hour.

We could hang out earlier in the day and you could head over to Epcot when we have our dinner.


Our DME leaves at 1PM, so probably not the best idea. :laughing:
 
Well hopefully now that you've been sort of often you will actually slow down and take it easy.

Et tu?
First Liesa and now you!
Okay! Fine! I'll slow down (a little).

Do y'all have Redbox up there? :confused3 Amazon?

Redbox gone. Not sure if Amazon dot CA does that.

Yeah, I should probably see it again and I've seen the first one three times now.

Three..... :sad2: I need to up my game.

Yeah, except the way I removed people, you would have a gal whose legs were removed in the first one. Her lower torso in the second as well as part of her friend's body, then she is gone, but her friend's head is floating in thin air. By edit #4, the head and a random couple taking a selfie did disappear in full. Then I cut out some shadows and a girl's feet. Then I took out her torso, and another woman. The last two pictures, it could have looked like the PP Photographer shooed away people.

Easily remedied.
"As we waited for our photo, the PP kept chopping people up until we were finally alone."
 
They are. I just wish we could get them potty trained. :faint:

Kitties learn pretty fast don’t they? Of course I’ve never had baby kitties, they’re always past that stage.

Huh. That's interesting. Perhaps we could eat in the bar and try it.

Its worth trying that’s for sure. In the mac/cheese it was soooo good.

I'm looking forward to trying it.

You still get to play with all the buttons which is always fun. I was pleasantly surprised.

I was thinking last March how nice the F&G offerings were and it was much more manageable than F&W. There are so many booths, you can't hit them all!

Mom was full after three booths. The onion/cheese tart from the cheese booth was huge and really good according to her. I didn’t get full because most of my options are desserts. There did seem to be more booths this year, and a new section with drinks called the light lab I think. Unless I didn’t see it before.

Well, she says she wants to get it out of there before our trip, we'll see if that actually happens. :rolleyes1

I’m really shocked it didn’t get snapped up by someone on Craigslist.

I have too many other things that I'm bringing along, butter is just too much to deal with,

What’s on the list?

I've already placed our grocery order. We need for it to be waiting for us at Bell Services when we arrive. But thank you for the offer. We have a sort of large list, and I don't want to take time out of our vacation to do shopping.

Sounds like a good plan.

It totally is! I'm looking forward to riding it on Sunday!

I’m so jealous!


You do not want to see us on the 25th. It will be a long day and I will be tired and cranky by the time we get to WDW. I just want to make/eat dinner, take a bath and go to bed.

Fair enough. What time do youget in? I really dislike the time change coming this direction. Going your way is so much nicer.

The 27th:

Now this is totally doable in the evening, as long as I don't drink too much wine at our French lunch that afternoon. It might be better to plan another day.

We can play this by ear.


We've got FP+ at DHS that morning and then we are planning to head back to the room for a nap. We have a dinner reservation at Morimoto Asia, would you like to join us?

What time is dinner? I have to get up at 3:30 for work so must be home and asleep by 10.

I could join you at DHS?

The 31st:

We have a Tusker house Rivers of light package that evening. We're planning on spending that afternoon in AK. We'll probably have a slow morning in the Villa

We could hang out earlier in the day and you could head over to Epcot when we have our dinner.

This sounds like it will work perfectly.

Our DME leaves at 1PM, so probably not the best idea. :laughing:

Packing day already? No fun!

I was just looking at the calendar again and the 26th and 28th I’ll be working but not late days. I could come out for dinner either of those as well.
 
Hey there - been a while since I posted since we were in Italy (rough life I know). I was trying to figure out from your ticker - looks like we are going to miss eachother by a week or so later this month...right? We are coming in on November 4th, I think you will be gone?

What about next August? I know you have a cruise planned with a few days before or after at WDW. What are the dates? I think we are moving our August trip up by one week to avoid Labor Day weekend, but can't remember what your dates were. (IF you don't want to post the dates - PM or e-mail me...) Would love to meet up with you and Fran if we happen to overlap next summer. Not that we need to plan that YET.
 


I know that I owe many of you a visit (and reply) to your TR, but I just wanted to share with you all because it’s not the kind of diatribe that I want to post on FB, but I need to share somewhere and since it’s Disney related I figure I can share it here. Normally I report on things that happen in a chronological order, but then you wouldn’t hear about this for a few months and it wouldn’t help me with my trauma (which now it’s basically all good for us, but was stressful while it was happening).

First a little background, we play in a Community Concert band that rehearses every Tuesday night. One of the things Fran and I brought to the band when we came back to the group in 2001 was the tradition of playing at Disney every year. We’re not in charge anymore, but even though our Conductor is somewhat anti Disney, he has to admit that most of the people in the band like that tradition.

The other thing is that when we are at home (not traveling to WDW) and I talk about our day trips to the park, it includes “loading the scooter”. I don’t always bring mine, but Fran can’t go to the parks without hers. When I say “loading the scooter” this is what I mean, minus the cat (of course).


x17DL1008DIS01.JPG


So here is the ONLY picture I could find of our vehicle to show you what the lift looks like. In this picture the scooter is actually disassembled inside of the car because on long road trips, Fran prefers to have it inside the car because she is nervous about driving 80-90 mph with it on the back.

x17DL1008DIS02.JPG


So enter yesterday morning. Our vehicle is the “equipment truck”. We transport the plastic bin that has all the folders of the band’s music so everyone has their folder backstage and no one forgets their music. While the band is onstage everyone in the group puts their empty instrument cases inside our vehicle, backpacks, purses as well.

Because we are driving our vehicle “backstage” we have to go through a separate security check than the other band members. Currently it’s no different than it was for all the band members who parked in a “Visitor lot” and showed their ID at the walk in gate. In the past (after 9-11) they used to put mirrored viewers underneath the car and did a much more comprehensive check. Now they don’t even bother to look at the car. Anyways we were told not to drive onto the lot and just wait where everyone else waited, but when our show coordinator joined us, he led us through to backstage like we had always done in the past, but we always did it on our own and the coordinator met us backstage.

There was a tram waiting for the band because we were backstage at Disneyland and our band would be playing at Disney’s California Adventure. The tram would take the band members (who walked from the Cast gate to the performance area) over to backstage DCA while we drove. We parked behind the tram and watched trumpet players who were trying on their outfits for the Christmas parade where they would be “nutcracker like” trumpets and they tried their trumpets with their “heads” and such to make sure that they were all correct and in the right “bin”. It was kind of cool, in fact there were a few of them who knew our conductor and told us to say “hi” to him!

After a while the band members passed security and came to load the trams, and our contact told us that we would be heading out soon and going over to DCA, The trams took off and started to follow them. I would have had pictures, but they aren’t allowed backstage, we turned out of the parking area to follow the Tram and heard this scraping noise. We thought we must have picked up one of the barriers on our turn, but that didn’t explain the scraping noise. We stopped once, but went on and still heard the same noise. We hadn’t gone more than 5 feet when I said, “I need to check what’s going on”. When I went around to the back of the car, the scooter lift was on the ground. I grabbed the lift key from Fran and tried to get the lift to go back up. I heard the mechanism turning, but it didn’t move.

A Disneyland employee came by to help us, but we couldn’t get the scooter to move (it turns out the battery was dislodged when the scooter fell to the ground.) We put it in neutral and put it off to the side in the Arts Showcase area. Fran said, “we have a concert to play” and started to drive as the lift arced and sparked while we drove to the location we needed to be at. Lucky that we’ve done this many times in the past and I know the route!

Our talent coordinator met us with a golf cart halfway there and guided us to where we needed to park. We didn’t have time to deal with the dead lift, so we just opened up the car and let people put their cases in there. They got the folders out and the show went on. Our friend Jenny was in the audience (#sheLiveHereNow) and she took this photo when we went out to take the stage.

x17DL1008DIS03.JPG


We played our concert and everything went as good as we could have expected.
x17DL1008DIS04.jpeg


x17DL1008DIS05.jpeg

Once we were done, we needed to give the SUV a safer way to drive back to DL backstage. So between a couple of our friends (Naked Jim, Leonard) and another one of the talent coordinators they thought they had it tied up, but it wasn’t secure enough. We drove back to the DL side scraping all along the way. We changed out of our concert clothes and Fran figured out that the problem with her scooter was just that the battery was dislodged, so with that solved, we just needed to keep the lift from scraping on the ground. They gave us the option to have AAA come deal with it, but Leonard was brilliant and with a tie-down and a bungee cord that I found in the car, he came up with this solution.

x17DL1008DIS06.JPG


My scooter was already in the car, and with and incredible game of Jenga style feat, we got Fran’s scooter inside the car along with all our instruments and the music plus four humans.

So we decided that we all needed a drink and where better to do that than DCA? We ended up having drinks and a bunch of appetizers to recharge before we rode a few rides, ate some ice cream and then called it a day, but that’s the stuff for a future update!

Once we finished our day at Disney we drove back home 15 miles on surface streets, at 20 mph on streets with a speed limit of 35-40 mph. We had our flasher on, and eventually made it home with minimal scrape-age. In hindsight we actually really lucked out. Imagine if the lift had given way while Fran was driving 80 mph on the freeway. That scooter probably would have gone flying and potentially could have hit another vehicle!

Monday morning our friend Margaret came over with all her tools and she was able to remove the lift from the back of the car.

While we were removing the lift from the car, we could smell smoke and the sky started to darken. Then ash started to fall from the sky. We wrapped things up just before the entire skied started to fill with smoke and we went to have some lunch since none of us had eaten yet today. On our way back I posted this photo of the fires in the Anaheim Hills.

x17DL1008DIS07.JPG


If you’re clued into social media for DL, I’m sure you’ve seen photos. The fires are 15 miles east of the park, but it’s still crazy scary with all the smoke. Many houses have been destroyed and it’s really sad. We’ve been hiding inside our house with the AC on to avoid the smoke. The sun was blocked with all the smoke and our whole house had this red hue inside from the sun blocked smoke in from the windows.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better.
 
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Oh my goodness, how scary! I haven’t seen anything, I’m totally out of the news. Have they found out what started the fire? Houses burned??? This is so sad :(


Glad the concert itself went well but the stress of the lift breaking is too much. What are the chances that would happen on that day? :faint:
 
Oh no. I read about the fires and wondered how close you were to them.
Hope they end soon and don't get any closer.
Glad your friends were able to MacGyver :thumbsup2 a temporary solution for you to get home.
 


Ugh, what a nightmare with the scooter lift! Hopefully you can figure out what is going on with it. Glad the concert went great! I wish I could have been there to see it!

Stay safe and inside!

Jill in CO
 
Et tu?
First Liesa and now you!
Okay! Fine! I'll slow down (a little).

Alison.... we have a mission. :)


Hey Mom.... please, pretty please can I'z go with you to Diznee?? I be a good wittle kitty!

on long road trips, Fran prefers to have it inside the car because she is nervous about driving 80-90 mph with it on the back.

Fran is smart. Be like Fran.

Fran said, “we have a concert to play” and started to drive as the lift arced and sparked while we drove to the location we needed to be at.

THE SHOW MUST GO ON!!!

They got the folders out and the show went on.

See?

If you’re clued into social media for DL, I’m sure you’ve seen photos.

I did! We had a few weeks of that up here this summer too. For a few days running, Portland and Salem had the worst air quality it the WORLD. No lie. Worse that Beijing. Stay safe!!
 
39 days for me!!!!

And now it's even less! :banana:

YAY!!! I hope you can clean that off your plate before you leave. Not having to worry about that would be nice! That and the kitty potty training.

It would be nice, but still no bites yet.

I will always lament the loss of my beloved ToT, but am excited to ride this one too. I will be sad at the eventual demise of the FL version, but hope they keep for a while anyway.

Well since Ellen is becoming a Guardians Roller Coaster, I think that ToT is safe for a while there.

Awwww, I LOVE Figment. And would't even mind riding that on my trip. Been a long while.

Last time I did it was with Jim and Alberto. I thought they would have fun in the after area.

Love it when I spot them.

The Guardians ride is full of them!

WHAT!? WHERE HAS THIS BEEN ALL MY LIFE?!?! That just shot to the top of my list.

It's very good, but filling. The nice part is that if you don't eat the cone, and I don't care much for it, it's also very figure friendly! :thumbsup2

I Neeeeeeeeeeeeeed these tips!

I actually got them the day that we rode, but you were having a crisis back with your mom or something and skipped the ride. April.

I've walked past that last time and wondered how it was. Looks like a fun place!

I like it, as long as it is not too hot out.


And now it's only two weeks!

Baby Groot is the best, period!

::yes::

Wow. I didn't know the redesign meant turning the whole building on its side, too.

:rotfl2: I don't know why the DIS did that to my picture. It's not that way when you look at the actual URL.

Much appreciated! Nice to see how the queue is designed.

The Imagineers knocked this one out of the park!


It's so cool!

I like the low-tech plan graphics.

That's Rocket's specialty!

I like your mom.

Hey, your mom and I have the same ball cap!:thumbsup2

You were on a roll....

Aw, crap. And here I thought she and I were simpatico. And then it was lost. :crazy2:

But I coulda told you it wouldn't work, she eats things you wouldn't even dream have nightmares about!
 
Oh my goodness, pretty stressful with the scooter and the lift but like you said, luckily it didn't happen on the freeway and have it go flying!!!

Have been following the fires closely this weekend, so sad :( It was a horrible forest fire season here in BC this summer (I think the worst on record). Eventhough the fires were mostly far, far up north from Vancouver (think 6+ hours away for the most part) the smoke drifted down the valley and we had a thick, smokey haze for over two weeks (even downtown at the port!) Can't imagine how bad the air quality must be for you folks so much closer to the fires. Praying they can all be contained soon.
 
Et tu?
First Liesa and now you!
Okay! Fine! I'll slow down (a little).

Sometimes you can enjoy things a little more when you slow down to savor the moment!

Redbox gone. Not sure if Amazon dot CA does that.

Huh.

Three..... :sad2: I need to up my game.

I'm still fuzzy on the plot of the first one after seeing it three times.

Easily remedied.
"As we waited for our photo, the PP kept chopping people up until we were finally alone."

:laughing:

Kitties learn pretty fast don’t they? Of course I’ve never had baby kitties, they’re always past that stage.

I think they're starting to learn now that they have migrated to the Master Bathroom.

Its worth trying that’s for sure. In the mac/cheese it was soooo good.

Well I looked it up and you can order the full restaurant menu in the bar so that works if we can't get into the regular restaurant. We have a couple evenings with no plans, except maybe head to Disney Springs for dinner.

You still get to play with all the buttons which is always fun. I was pleasantly surprised.

I haven't heard anything about it, so I'm looking forward to being surprised.

Mom was full after three booths. The onion/cheese tart from the cheese booth was huge and really good according to her. I didn’t get full because most of my options are desserts. There did seem to be more booths this year, and a new section with drinks called the light lab I think. Unless I didn’t see it before.

We tend to go three or four booths, get full, ride something dark where we can nap, and then hit another three or four booths.

I’m really shocked it didn’t get snapped up by someone on Craigslist.

Well we did get an inquiry on the table last night. They wanted to know the dimensions.

What’s on the list?

1 loaf of white bread, wonder or Webbers
1/2 gallon of whole milk
1 pound bacon
Dole light Caesar salad kit
New York Bakery Texas Toast
1/2 dozen eggs
4 Yoplait Light yogurt (blue) strawberry & Peach
6 pack Thomas's English Muffins Original
smallest pack of real butter (sticks)
smallest pack of kraft singles
1 3 liter chardonnay black box
2 64 oz V8 original
4 2 liter bottles diet Moutain Dew
2 6 packs diet mtn Dew 16.9 oz bottles

Sounds like a good plan.

Yeah, I get a text when they drop it off at Bell Services, and once we get to the resort, I just call them up and they deliver it right to the room.

I’m so jealous!

You should have seen how long the FP line was! It went all the way to a Bug's Land and back to the entrance, plus it used all the queue outside. When we got off the ride the FP line was all the way down to the main street of Hollywoodland!

Fair enough. What time do youget in? I really dislike the time change coming this direction. Going your way is so much nicer.

Our plane lands at 5:45, so it will probably be 7:45 before we get to the resort. I'll need our luggage before I can start cooking though.

We can play this by ear.

I'll try not to have too much at the French Lunch! :laughing:

What time is dinner? I have to get up at 3:30 for work so must be home and asleep by 10.

I could join you at DHS?

Yes, you could join us at DHS, dinner is at 7:30.

This sounds like it will work perfectly.

OK, let's call that one a plan!

Packing day already? No fun!

I was just looking at the calendar again and the 26th and 28th I’ll be working but not late days. I could come out for dinner either of those as well.

It looks like we may be spending both those evenings with Magdalene and Michael. We have a dinner reservation for four in Mexico on the 28th. On the 26th Fran and I are planning to go to Trader Sams in the evening. M&M have a RoL scheduled, but Michael mentioned something on FB yesterday that they might blow that off and come drink with us. I'm tagging @Flossbolna so she'll see this and maybe chime in. I'm sure the wouldn't mind if you joined us.

Hey there - been a while since I posted since we were in Italy (rough life I know). I was trying to figure out from your ticker - looks like we are going to miss eachother by a week or so later this month...right? We are coming in on November 4th, I think you will be gone?

Yes, we cleared this up on your PTR....

What about next August? I know you have a cruise planned with a few days before or after at WDW. What are the dates? I think we are moving our August trip up by one week to avoid Labor Day weekend, but can't remember what your dates were. (IF you don't want to post the dates - PM or e-mail me...) Would love to meet up with you and Fran if we happen to overlap next summer. Not that we need to plan that YET.

And this one too.....
 
Oh my goodness, how scary! I haven’t seen anything, I’m totally out of the news. Have they found out what started the fire? Houses burned??? This is so sad :(

There was one up north that was way way way worse, but as of this morning 24 houses in the Anaheim fire or Canyon Fire 2, had burnt down.

Glad the concert itself went well but the stress of the lift breaking is too much. What are the chances that would happen on that day? :faint:

Well we did figure out that it's at least five years old...

Oh no. I read about the fires and wondered how close you were to them.
Hope they end soon and don't get any closer.
Glad your friends were able to MacGyver :thumbsup2 a temporary solution for you to get home.

Well the air has shifted today and it's icky up near the foothills. We will probably get more of the smoke when we go up to La for band reheasal tonight.

I was so relieved when Leonard got the thing to hold and we didn't ruin our whole day and skip Disney.

Ugh, what a nightmare with the scooter lift! Hopefully you can figure out what is going on with it. Glad the concert went great! I wish I could have been there to see it!

Stay safe and inside!

Jill in CO

Yeah it definitely made for shaky nerves at the concert!

Alison.... we have a mission. :)

I choose to accept it! ::yes::

Hey Mom.... please, pretty please can I'z go with you to Diznee?? I be a good wittle kitty!

Cute, he wouldn't have a very good time.

Fran is smart. Be like Fran.

::yes::

THE SHOW MUST GO ON!!!

She insists that she did not use this phrase. :laughing:


Yup.

I did! We had a few weeks of that up here this summer too. For a few days running, Portland and Salem had the worst air quality it the WORLD. No lie. Worse that Beijing. Stay safe!!

As I said above now it's hovering over the foothills so Arcadia, Monrovia and Pasadena are getting the brunt of it today.

Oh my goodness, pretty stressful with the scooter and the lift but like you said, luckily it didn't happen on the freeway and have it go flying!!!

Yeah in retrospective, I could have been much worse.

Have been following the fires closely this weekend, so sad :( It was a horrible forest fire season here in BC this summer (I think the worst on record). Eventhough the fires were mostly far, far up north from Vancouver (think 6+ hours away for the most part) the smoke drifted down the valley and we had a thick, smokey haze for over two weeks (even downtown at the port!) Can't imagine how bad the air quality must be for you folks so much closer to the fires. Praying they can all be contained soon.

Yeah, it's just terrible. With all the rain we got there was tons of plant growth. It died in the summer heat and then just became kindling.
 
@franandaj didn't you get my email? I kind of suggested something along those line I thought? :confused:
:goodvibes

I did. And it came in while we were on our way to Disney. You had quite a bit to say and I guess I focused on the part where you thought a pound of bacon was a lot to order! :rotfl2: Within about an hour or so of reading your email, all the hell above broke loose, and I really haven't had a chance to sit down and reread the email.

I posted the picture of the smoke on FB yesterday and Michael was commenting, and he mentioned that he heard we had a "drinking date", so I assumed you had mentioned my talking about TS to you...

She does not mind at all and would love to meet @Pinkocto!

Great! If it works out she can join us that evening!
 
Well here we are just a little bit over two weeks until our WDW trip. I think I’ve taken care of just about everything besides packing. I’m in the process of figuring out what my wardrobe scheme will be and what I to bring along. Everything that needs to be ordered, has been: Owner’s Locker, Groceries, no magic bands, etc….

I’ve left a lot of this trip open for spur of the moment stuff as you can see from the schedule below.

z17FW1006Schedule.jpg


Here’s what our trip looks like in a nutshell.

Day 1: Travel Day. Now that we’re flying Southwest, we don't have a direct flight. Our layover is short so we won't have time to get lunch in the terminal so we're going to have to brown bag it. Once we arrive at the resort and our bags arrive, I will have packed spaghetti in the suitcase. Also in the suitcase will be my own personal sauce. Those of you on FB may remember that I made a giant vat of sauce a few months ago, and then froze it in 14 two person servings. I'll toss one of those in a thermal bag next to the spaghetti. That combined with the salad kit and Texas Toast I ordered with our groceries makes a balanced dinner. After a hot bath, I'll be ready for bed!

Day 2: Today's highlight Tequila lunch at La Hacienda! If we are up to it, we'll head to Trader Sam's that evening. Nothing says kicking off the vacation like Tequila for lunch and Rum for dinner!

Day 3: French Lunch today. I have no other plans in case they are just as generous with the Wine pours as they were last year. We can always motor over to Disney Springs and grab dinner at a QS if we're up to it.

Day 4: Today starts with our Strawberry Soup fix and FP+ in MK afterwards. For dinner we have our first DISmeet in Mexico with @Flossbolna and her soon to be hubby.

Day 5: Our FP+ are all at DHS in the morning. I’m completely prepared to go this one alone if Fran won’t get up. If she does come with me, we'll most likely head back to the room to rest afterwards, and hopefully today we can meet up with @Pinkocto sometime this day. Dinner will be at Morimoto Asia.

Day 6: I’ve nixed the plans to go to AK in the morning, instead we will have a leisurely breakfast in the Villa where I make us something with bacon and eggs, might be French Toast, might be actually bacon and eggs, we’ll see how I feel that morning! We have a Mediterranean Lunch that afternoon, but we also have the potential for a DISmeet before the lunch with @chunkymonkey. We may have a snack or two around WS before our lunch. We can always take the leftovers home! No plans for the evening so far, we may check out another QS at Disney Springs.

Day 7: We are definitely having a leisurely morning on this day, another day of bacon and eggs, but we’ll have whatever format that we don’t have on the day before. I really enjoy my leisurely breakfasts in the Villa, especially since it’s hard to convince Fran to get up and get motivated early in the morning. By this point in the trip, she will be rebelling to getting up early and I will have laundry to do, plus I can start on TR stuff while the laundry is washing/drying. We have afternoon FP+ at AK along with Tusker House dinner for the Rivers of Light package.

Day 8: This is our last full day of the trip and normally I leave this day with no plans, however it was the only day of the trip that I could get a Flight of Passage FP+ so we’re going to AK that morning. We still don’t have plans for the rest of the day. Maybe I can convince her to try the Nomad Lounge that day and that might lead her up to an eventual reservation at Tiffins….

Day 9: Our flight leaves at 4:15 so it stands to reason that DME will pick us up around 1PM. If we can checkout slightly earlier than the real check out time (11AM) we can check our bags and still have some time to head over to Disney Springs for some QS lunch before catching the bus to the airport.

So that's the plan for now! I'm sure it will change!


So the month of June was an interesting one. Pictorial evidence shows me that we were out at the parks quite a bit, but some of these days I’m not exactly sure why we were out there! I’m just going to give you my best approximation of what we did for those days….

And here we are starting out with one of those days. All I can tell you is that we ended grabbing lunch (or more like a snack) from the Bengal Barbeque. They had a special Pork Belly skewer which was a limited time menu item (however it’s still on the menu now) and I wanted to try it. I had to laugh when I ordered it, the gal behind the counter told me that it was “kind of fatty” and did I still want it. I was kind of thinking, “well I sure hope it is, that is the beauty of pork belly!”

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It was pretty good for fast food pork belly. I’d probably order it again. I also got my go to skewer, the bacon wrapped asparagus. This is always yummy!

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They also had a ahi tuna spring roll. It was OK, but they had jalapeno peppers hiding in there! By the time we finished the two skewers I was too full to finish it. I took the tuna out, ate that as sashimi and Fran finished off the spring roll. I doubt that I would order it again.

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I wanted something sweet to end out our little snack so we stopped at the Jolly Holiday on our way out and I got this Mickey Macaron. So good, but really full of sugar! I could feel my head in a sugar rush.

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Fran asked me to get her something so I chose this Cheshire Cat Cookie for her. She seemed to like it, she ate it all.

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Then we went over to DCA so that I could have a ride on GotG. I believe that these were my second and third rides on it and I got the Jackson 5 song yet again for one of the rides. I don’t remember which song I got on the other ride, but by this point I’d had two of the six.

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And then we went back home! It was a fun day with some good eats and nice to get a few more rides in on one of my new favorite rides.


About a week later we were back out in my happy place again. This evening we were planning on attending a swanky party and had planned well enough in advance to book a room at the Grand Californian. Of course our room was not ready when we arrived so we decided to get ourselves something to eat. Since we were celebrating, I started off with my favorite drink!

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Fran had a Margarita.

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I ordered the Breseola (which I’ve only had on the Wonder until I found an Italian deli in Long Beach that sells it) and it was the weirdest presentation, I did not expect this. It was good and I still ate all of it.

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Fran ordered this wedge salad with beef strip loin and shared it with me since my portion was so small. This was really good!

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There was this special dessert they had just for the day, or maybe the offered it for a couple weeks, and I think it had real gold leaf garnish and it was served with a glass of Chateau Yquem. For those in the know, bottles of this wine can sell for $200-$500 for half a bottle and that’s at retail stores! We enjoyed the dessert, but probably wouldn’t be forking out the money for it on a regular basis, but I was glad to have tried it.

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We headed back over to DCA and I got in line for GotG figuring that since we didn’t have anywhere to go, I might as well amuse myself while waiting. Fran went somewhere into some store to look for something and while I was in line I got a text that our room was ready. I decided to bail on the line, find Fran and go get settled in our room.

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We had a pool view, but since we were just here for the night, I really didn’t care.

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More importantly we had to get all dressed up for our swanky night out!

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The alcohol was flowing!

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There was a hot band playing

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And we had some pretty good food as well!

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We had a great time and were so glad we didn’t have to drive the half an hour or so home because it was late when we left and we both had a few of those Moet Minis that you may have seen in one of the pictures….:rolleyes1


The next day….


I didn’t have that much to drink the night before…..because I wasn’t going to miss out on a rope drop opportunity to actually go through the queue of Guardians of Galaxy! I got there before the park opened and they hadn’t even started letting people into the park. There was a good sized line formed in the Esplanade, so I got in there with everyone else. Pretty soon after they let us inside the park (this was before the official opening time) and people began to scatter, but there was a definite steady stream of people heading over towards Hollywood Land. They stopped people at the Hyperion Theater at the end of the street, and the queue formed. I was about even with the snack cart where you can buy bread, fruits and such.

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The queue behind me kept growing as more people entered the park, I didn’t look back to see how long it was. Just before 8AM they started walking us over to the ride.

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You don’t see a wait time like this often.

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They had us walk through the entire queue which was both tedious and cool.

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On the outside of the building, the queue featured the most strange plants that the imagineers could find, and they had little placards in English and some other language describing them. Also you can see the people who were behind me in the line still streaming into the actual queue area.

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I thought this was a cute touch!

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And then you enter the show building, but I showed you the pictures of the queue that I took on this day in the last update!

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They didn’t have the ride photos up and running yet, so I didn’t get to take one. I went back to the room to wake Fran up and we had to pack up our stuff and check out of the hotel.


[Continued in Next Post]
 
[Continued from Previous Post]

We left the bags with Bell Services and I wanted to get another ride on Guardians. We ran into some friends that had also stayed the night. The wife also used a scooter and didn't want to go on the ride, but her husband did and was reluctant to do it alone, so we rode together.

They had a lunch reservation so we said goodbye, and we could have gone home at that point. But I'm going to make this up, it's my TR and the date and time stamps for these photos don't support what I'm about to tell you, but if I told you there were exploding helicopters you'd have to believe me, right?

I just happened to meet up with Pinocchio and Gepetto.

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And then we went back to DCA for some ice cream. Fran got this cone with cookies and cream.

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I got Mint Chip with a waffle bowl coated in chocolate and rainbow jimmies. I realized while I ate this that I'm not a fan of the chocolate coated bowls or cones. It's just too hard to eat because the layer of chocolate is so dense that you almost break the plastic spoon.

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But that didn't stop me from trying! And this finished it up for today.


Our last trip out in June was about a week later towards the end of the month. There was an artist showcase going on and we were curious to see his latest work. We have three of his pieces hanging in our living room and wanted to see what else he had come up with.

After meeting with him, we decided we were hungry and wanted to try another new QS. In honor of the release of Beauty and the Beast, Pinnochio’s Village Haus has been transformed into the Red Rose Tavern. It got a menu change and some new decorations.

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That’s a little bit hard to read, try this version.

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Most of the offerings were pretty standard, so we decided to go with the most unique one which was the Poutine. I’m sure the Canadian in the bunch will object to them calling this Poutine. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad.

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We also got one of these Rice Krispie Treats.

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Like Gaston, the Imagineers used antlers in all of their de-cor-a-ting….

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After our lunch we decided to stroll through the newly reopened walkway from Fantasyland to Frontierland.

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Fran thought this sign was cute.

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And then on the way out, I just couldn’t resist taking another spin on the Guardians Ride. I think by now I had been on three or four of the six scenarios/tunes.

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And that wraps up our random trips in June!
 
Day 6: I’ve nixed the plans to go to AK in the morning, instead we will have a leisurely breakfast in the Villa where I make us something with bacon and eggs, might be French Toast, might be actually bacon and eggs, we’ll see how I feel that morning! We have a Mediterranean Lunch that afternoon, but we also have the potential for a DISmeet before the lunch with @chunkymonkey. We may have a snack or two around WS before our lunch. We can always take the leftovers home! No plans for the evening so far, we may check out another QS at Disney Springs.

YAY! I will PM you my number just in case, or you can always FB message me too.

Your night at the GC looks like so much fun! I love these short staycations where you can kinda just get away. We do that a lot in NYC!
 
I heard about the fires right before jumping on the boards tonight and I wondered if the 2 of you were ok. My dad was a forest ranger and he spent many summers out west (we lived in Maine) fighting fires and I know how scary they can be. Also we have a trip planned the same time as you next Sept. we will have to meet up. (Though I have been playing catch up and maybe you didn't mention that trip on this thread lol). I am so jealous of your trips to DL lol. When we want to get away for a weekend we head down to Kansas City which is only about 2 1/2 hours away.
 
You'll be boarding the DME as we are arriving!

June trips look like a lot of fun! I'm sad we aren't doing Disneyland next year since Light Side seems to have been cancelled for 2018. Maybe by the time we go back - GotG won't have as horrible lines. It seems very enjoyable.
 

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