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Day Three – Wednesday, January 18 – Bulges,
Monkeys and Pizza
Up early, put on the coffee and step out to the balcony. It’s
cold and windy. The forecasted high is 62. No shorts today… and
probably a sweatshirt.
We left early and made it to the Animal Kingdom (AK) by 8:20
. I had some shopping to do at the Rainforest Café (RFC).
For anyone that read my October report, you know my belief that
anything with a monkey in it is funny. For that reason, I picked
up a ‘Monkey Pen’ at the RFC for a friend and co-worker
who shares my opinion. He liked his pen so much, he’s asked
me to pick up two more. He has two developers on one of the projects
he manages that he refers to as his ‘Code Monkeys’.
They were each getting a pen. The pens were $7.99 each and had
a monkey eating a banana on them (you’re chuckling, aren’t
you?). I’m supposed to get a 10% discount with DVC here but,
somehow, the total came to $10.65 with tax. Not that I’m
complaining mind you. The CM then wrapped the pens in about 30
feet of that wrapping tissue they use. Then she put that wad into
a large plastic bag. I rolled the whole thing up and stuffed it
into the front ‘pocket’ of the pullover jacket I was
wearing. It’s one of those pockets that has a zipper and
Velcro closures and sits about belly-high. I also had my ticket ‘wallet’,
cell phone and glasses in there.
When we walked through Security (the area for folks without bags)
there were two female CMs there - one in the Security uniform,
the other in normal CM attire. They stopped me. I raised my arms
and said “No bags”. She said “That’s one
heck of a bulge you’re sporting there”. Now, normally,
I would’ve taken that as a compliment - a huge compliment.
Unfortunately, I knew what she was referring to. I pulled out the
contents of my ‘pouch’ and she said, “That’s
all?” I patted my stomach and said that at least part of
that bulge was me.
We entered the park and got to the rope drop just a few minutes
before opening. We walked back, with just about everyone, for a
ride on Kilimanjaro Safaris. We boarded in no time and had a great
safari – maybe the best ever. I’ve heard tons of stories
about the animals being out when it’s early, late, cold,
warm, hot, etc. I’ve ridden this in all types of weather
and could never pick up a discernible pattern. Well, today we were
on it early. It was sunny and pretty cool. I think we saw more
animals than ever before. There was one cheetah laying down watching
us, another walking around; giraffes eating from trees; the baby
elephant walking with and *under* his mother; white rhinos dining
on a bush not 30 feet from our truck; both lions sitting up and
awake. It was great.
We exited the Safari at around 9:30 and decided to try for the
Festival of the Lion King (FotLK) show at 9:40 . We walked down
to Camp Minnie-Mickey and… I had forgotten how far you have
to walk to reach the theater. Anyway, we managed to walk in just
after the ‘pre-show’ had begun. Because we were late,
we were seated in the dreaded Giraffe section. I hate to ‘Baaaa’.
Looking around, the theater was only about half full, but during
the show so many people arrived late that the Giraffe section was
packed. This is one of the few shows that I really enjoy.
After the show, we decided to try for the 10:20 Flight of Wonder
(FoW) show. We’re certainly not touring AK with any regard
to the proximity of attractions. We got to FoW just before show
time. Barb led me to a seat on the left-hand side, about 2/3 of
the way back. After almost being decapitated by Rodan during a
previous show, I was wondering if she was doing this intentionally – figuring
the double indemnity clause would kick in if I was killed by a
Condor/Vulture while at Disneyworld .
The show was very good. They seem to change it a bit each time
with new and different birds doing new and different things. They
brought out a parrot that sang entire verses of ‘Camptown
Races’ and ‘Doggie in the Window’ - very impressive.
This time, instead of a Condor/Vulture, they brought out a large
hawk and had him swoop low over the audience. On the return trip,
he came right at Barb and caused her to duck. Hah! That’s
what she gets for trying to set me up. When they asked for a volunteer,
I shot my hand up and was chosen to stand with a dollar bill in
my outstretched hand. The host actually asked for a $20 but I didn’t
just fall off the turnip truck, you know. When the bird flew out
to get it, he actually nipped my finger a bit which had me daydreaming
of the lawsuit against Disney. Let’s see… nipped finger
equals emotional distress, loss of appetite, loss of marital services… Nah,
never mind. The bird did bring back my bill, only know it was covered
in bird saliva which for all I know is a known carcinogen. I’m
going to make a buck off this yet.
We thought it was too cold to take a turn at Kali River Rapids
so we decided on one more attraction before leaving AK. We walked
through Asia heading for Dinoland. We stopped and I took some pictures
of Expedition Everest. What an impressive structure. They really
did a nice job here. The ride wasn’t running (but would be
later in the week). Dinosaur had a 20-minute wait so we tried It’s
Tough to be a Bug (ITTBAB). We walked right through into the lobby
and were in the theater in 2 minutes. It’s always enjoyable
in spite of the screaming kids.
We left AK and waited about 10-minutes for a Wilderness Lodge
(WL) bus. We had a 12:30 reservation at Whispering Canyon . We
were a few minutes early so we spent some time looking for the
Hidden Mickey in the lobby fireplace. Now… I found this
last January and I remember it was in the ‘pink stone’ area.
Think I could find it this time? Nor could Barb. Did someone steal
it?
Our server at Whispering Canyon was an Asian girl named Miri.
It was her first day and she seemed a bit tentative engaging in
some of the shtick. We did get to hear some Critter Calls – one
little girl, about 4, was going to give us a frog call. As the
entire restaurant waited for “Ribbit, rabbit”, she
said “Hoppy, hoppy”. Priceless. I had a bowl of chili
and a stacked sandwich. I thought about having the skillet but
didn’t think I was hungry enough for it. Barb had a grilled
chicken sandwich. Everything was good. We enjoyed it but, I think
because it was only half full, that it took away from some of the
boisterous times I’ve heard about. We did see a waiter for
a nearby table come out of the kitchen with about a one-gallon
glass of water with an 18” straw shouting “OK, lady.
Here’s your water. Now get off my back.”
From the WL, we boarded a bus to Downtown Disney (DD) for some
shopping. We visited most of the usual haunts but tried to find
what we needed in World of Disney to take advantage of the AP discount.
We wound up buying some antenna toppers, a plush Simba for the
grandson (which we realized was a plush Nala after we got home),
and a new globe for our collection. The funny thing was that, as
we were paying, we both felt the globe was familiar looking but
we couldn’t remember if we already have it. Uh, oh - a senior
moment. It’s time to bring photos of our globe collection
to Disney with us. Damned, damned senility! I also caught the sign
at the checkout that gave us a nice lithograph (16 x 20) for $10
if we spend over $75 (we did and I got it).
I deviated from my time-honored tradition of buying a golf shirt
on each trip and, instead, bought a black, collared sweatshirt
(zipper neck) with a Mickey on the chest. We asked about buying
ears but were told we’d have to have them embroidered at
the MK or the Christmas Shop. We chose the Christmas shop and for
$7, and 30 minutes, we had ‘William’ embroidered on
the Grandson’s first set of Mouse Ears. A tradition is born.
It was about 3:30 when we caught a bus back. I called Stephen
and he gave me good news – he had recorded ‘The Jack
Bull’ for me. It’s a movie (made for HBO) that I’ve
seen once and have been trying to find. When I get home, I’ll
copy it to a DVD .
While on the bus back, we had another interesting conversation
going behind us. As we passed Old Key West, a girl asked what that
was. One of her friends said “That’s our hotel” while
the other spoke long and authoritatively on how that was “where
Disney houses its workers. It’s a nice place to live but
they only pay them, like, $1.50 an hour.”
We exited the bus at the first stop, the Swan, and walked back
to the BW. We just chilled for a while and headed over to Epcot
at about 5:30 . We caught some of a British Invasion set and Barb
said she’d like to try for a ride on Soarin’. I tried
to explain that, at this late hour, the Standby time would be long
and there would be no FPs available. She was having none of that
and, like most wives, she must be obeyed so… off we went
to the Land. Soarin’ had a 60-minute wait and no FPs. Hah!
Barb asked if I thought the wait was really 60-minutes. How would
I know? I suppose I could walk past everyone in line until I got
to the person that was just boarding and ask how long he had been
waiting. Yeah, I got a little testy. Just another speed bump on
the highway of marital bliss.
We checked around the food court for something for dinner but
nothing really appealed to us. We were hoping for a late breakfast
here tomorrow but, when I checked with a CM, she said the only
thing open for breakfast was the Bakery (for pastries)… and
maybe the Electric Umbrella but she’s not sure.
We left the Land and headed to Imagination where we took in a
showing of Honey, I Shrunk the Audience. Mercifully, we came in
at the very end of the pre-show. Please bring back True Colors.
HISTA was as good as always but, I have to admit, it’s getting
a bit stale for me.
It was making that transition from chilly to cold so we decided
to get some Spoodles take-out pizza and head back to the room.
Barb hit the take-out window while I went down to the Screen Door
to buy us some Cokes. When I came out, Barb was waiting for me.
She had a pager and said it would be 20-minutes for the pizza so
she handed me some plates, napkins and plastic utensils to bring
up to the room. I brought them up and had no sooner cleared some
room on our table when Barb came in with the pizza. We ate most
of it while we watched ‘Lost’ (I’m hooked) and
called it an early night.
Things I Think I Think - I think the Safari
is better when it’s cooler… no hotter… no early… I
think I missed a golden opportunity for a double entendre when
a CM complimented my ‘bulge’. I think I could spend
a ton of money at the World of Disney. I think we’ll need
to take photos of our globes before the next trip. I think that
the more authority one uses in explaining something, the more likely
it’s wrong. I think Barb needs to accept my assessments of
Soarin’ wait times. I think I hate being sucked in by a cliffhanger
TV show – but ‘Lost’ has sucked me in.
Day 4...
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