Gabrielson - August 2006

Cast of characters: Marjorie (43), Gary (50) and Brynna (18)

August 5, 2006

Our first park day was a fairly busy one. Gary and I took off for Animal Kingdom, it was on early magic hours meaning it opened at 8 for resort guests. We got our vouchers redeemed for annual passes and quickly walked to Expedition Everest in Asia. After getting fastpasses and tucking them away, we got in line for the coaster. Wow, it was too fun. Lots of twists, turns, backwards travelling, in the dark, and a yeti! He was fairly creepy too. Once we got off, we headed to for Kali River Rapids as we were sweating like you wouldn't believe and it was only 9:15! Got drenched and I mean wet. Nothing stayed dry but it was like having your own personal air conditioning for awhile. Then back to Everest to use our fastpasses for yet another ride. Then we did the Safari, always a favourite, even saw Simba!

We had arranged to meet up with Brynna this morning at AK, but she was having trouble getting a few more days off so she had to go to MGM and try. We did meet up for lunch at Flame Tree BBQ where I had a real good chicken salad. From there we left the park, had to pick up some stuff at the drugstore, then went back for rest at the resort. Gary and I walked around a bit and then he had a swim, while Brynna met up with a few friends and went to Epcot. I then proceeded to snooze for a bit while Gary was working on the computer. He woke me up for this incredible rainstorm, never seen rain like it! And being from BC, that's strange. Brynna came in shortly after and we got ready to go to dinner. Ended up at Downtown Disney for Wolfgang Puck's Express Cafe where we had nummy pizza.

We tried to get standby tickets for La Nouba but there weren't any decent cheap ones so we'll try again later. Instead we got in the car and went to MGM. Brynna “backdoored” us onto Coaster so we bypassed the lines totally. That was fun! Met her friend Meredith too. Then we headed to Tower of Terror and got on pretty quickly, it was almost 10 and the park was gearing down to close. Love that ride, I think it might be my favourite. After that we went to Fantasmic which was an awesome light, water, laser show. I very much enjoyed it and the music. Once that was done we got the car and headed back to the resort and more sleep. Think we're doing Epcot tomorrow.

August 6

Oh my achy feet. Seems like we were walking so much today but I forgot the pedometer so I can't calculate how many kms I actually walked, I'm sure it was in the thousands.

Gary and I woke up early again and went to Epcot this morning, to take advantage of early magic hours, meaning 8 instead of 9. Got our fastpasses for Soarin' then did the ride itself. This is a way cool ride and great way to see lots of California, we could even smell oranges in the orange groves! It's a flight simulator and we were all in "hang gliders". Then we did Spaceship Earth, a nice relaxing trip through time and we of course enjoyed the air conditioning as well. Then off to Test Track to pick up fastpasses for later when Brynna was with us. Unfortunately she was having an off morning with an upset tummy so Gary and I let her sleep on. We had a mid-morning snack and then we meandered around the grounds of Epcot for a while, took a few pictures and enjoyed a small breeze while sitting on a bench.

We left Epcot and returned to the resort where I dropped off Gary and picked up Brynna. We were off to the outlet malls. I purchased a better walking sandal that hopefully won't give me any more blisters. I also got some capris and a t-shirt and Brynna grabbed a few tank tops and some discount books. We weren't very enthusiastic shoppers. Wait til I get to World of Disney though!

Once we were back to Port Orleans, we freshened up, picked up Gary and went back to Epcot. We proceeded to use our fastpasses from this morning to do Soarin' with Brynna this time. Then we decided to go over to Norway and ride their Maelstrom log ride to kill some time before our dinner reservation.

We had dinner at San Angel Inn at the Mexico pavillion. It's a really cool, dark restaurant overlooking a small stream and there's a small volcano at the back of the room. Gary and I had great margs and we all had really good food for dinner, some sort of platter with an amazing steak on it as well. We were so full after we could barely move. But we did. Moved our wobbly bodies over to Test Track where we managed to use the fastpasses from this morning as well. Fun ride, except for the bedhead hair you get after tearing around the track outside.

Brynna wanted to get back early to go to bed as she has an early shift in the morning. We brought her back and then caught a boat to Downtown Disney. Gary had spied some dvds he wanted at Virgin last night so we walked over to the get them. It was still so hot this evening, it was hard to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. It did get cooler though but not much. We grabbed a bus back to the resort, time for sleep........

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