A Night at the Movies with the TCD Gang

[shoreline99 137]

Just getting caught up, so forgive the backtrack. We saw this guy last week when we were in EPCOT at the Mexixo Pavilion. Something is *way* off with him, and he had the same two dogs with him.

 

Here's an interesting sight.  A guy with two dogs.  He also was puffing on an electronic cigarette, but he put it down when he saw me with my camera. His e-cig is in his hand.  And he's also wearing two Magic Bands.  This guy definitely was up to something:

 

 

 

 

 

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

The end of another great TCD day!  Happy to hear your report will keep going.

 

I'm glad you liked it, and that you want to see some more.

 

I'm sure others think our stroller is huge.  It's a sit and stand.  It works for us.  Anyway.  I will say just from knowing many friends will littles, many people do not take their little kids places alone.  Thus they rarely use a stroller, thus they have no idea what kinds are easier.  I have my kids by myself all the time and we go all over the creation.  So I know how to pick a stroller folks.   :)  On our last trip we saw someone on the boat with a jogging stroller that you had to TAKE THE WHEELS OFF TO FOLD.  I saw no tag from a rental company and they where coming from the GF and seemed clueless so I'm pretty sure they were on site guests.  A. Why would you ever own a stroller you had to take the wheels off to fold in the first place  B.  Why on earth would you take one to Disney World.  Ours folds flat and I have a "stroller bag" so all the junk that is in the bottom I put in there and easily take it out when we fold it.  It works great.  My mind is always blown by people who do not plan for these sort of things.  Having to unload six pounds of mess from your stroller every time you fold it up and having to take the wheels off is the kind of thing that can ruin a trip in my opinion.  Lessening the difficultly when traveling with toddlers always is a win!!  

 

I have always focused on what a pain those giant strollers are for other park guests, but never thought about the hassle they create for the folks pushing those monsters around. 

 

Disney really ought to do something to limit the size of the strollers these rental companies are renting out.  I don't think there's ever been a trip to Disney where I haven't seen someone struggle to get a stroller folded.  And, I never understand why people wait until the moment they are supposed to board the bus to start with the stroller folding process.

 

And I realize the stroller discussion is over, I'm just slow.   :)

 

You have a good excuse, so join in when you can!

 

Bonus Content!  :dance:

 

Yup.

 

Bonus Content!  :dance:

 

We heard you the first time.

 

Great sunset pictures only way they could be better is to be there. Bonus content even better!!

 

Yes, that was a nice sunset.  We each get only so many of those to see, so we need to treasure every one.

 

 

Just getting caught up, so forgive the backtrack. We saw this guy last week when we were in EPCOT at the Mexixo Pavilion. Something is *way* off with him, and he had the same two dogs with him.

 

Really?

 

Did one of the dogs have the Cone of Shame?

 

I guess CM's are too scared of the guy to tell him only one dog per customer.

 

TCD

[shoreline99 137]

Yes. One had the cone of shame, and they weren't very nice either.

 

We were in the glass shop in the Mexico pavilion (which isn't very large) and our kids were watching the artist work, and he was just sort of hanging out in there kind of like he was hiding with his dogs in the pavilion.

 

Something was definitely off about him, and he had that same jacket on as well. My wife and I both wondered what his deal was.

 

 

Speaking of dogs, the worst abuse of the 'therapy dog' waiver was a woman we saw drag her obviously not happy pooch on the tomorrowland speedway with her. It was a corgi of some type and did NOT want to be there. They got on and off the ride in front of us and the husband was very rude to a little girl that asked them about their dog.

 

I guess it takes all types.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Yes. One had the cone of shame, and they weren't very nice either.

 

We were in the glass shop in the Mexico pavilion (which isn't very large) and our kids were watching the artist work, and he was just sort of hanging out in there kind of like he was hiding with his dogs in the pavilion.

 

Something was definitely off about him, and he had that same jacket on as well. My wife and I both wondered what his deal was.

 

Jeez.  That's kind of disturbing.

 

From what I understand, the ADA prevents Disney (and all other businesses) from questioning a person's need for a guide animal. 

 

Which opens the door to this kind of strangeness.

 

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Let's move on.

 

We are now up to Saturday, February 14th.  This visit was kind of planned. When the oldest TCD DD headed back to school at Auburn in January, we agreed that she ought to pick a weekend in between then and her spring break to come home for a visit.

 

Presidents' Day weekend made sense, so we bought her some plane tickets, and planned to hit Disney for a day trip while she was home.

 

The twins didn't think they'd come home for that weekend, and we didn't think they would either, especially since Twin #1 had paid us an unexpected visit just the week before.  But, Mrs. TCD lured them with the promise of some home cooked meals and laundry service, and the next thing we knew, the whole gang was back together!

 

So, we had a nice family dinner on Friday, and debated whether we ought to get up early and try for a rope drop on Saturday.

 

Saturday was supposed to be a cool morning, and the girls chose to sleep a little later.  So, it was 9-ish before we headed east.  This being Presidents' Day weekend, we knew we would be in for some crowds.  I went on-line on Friday night, and booked us all the same three FP+'s for the afternoon at the MK on Saturday.  I was also able to snag an early dinner reservation for the Plaza.  That would never have happened before the implementation of the cancellation charge policy.  So, that worked in our favor.  That left us with a very solid afternoon/early evening plan- we would hit the MK in time for the Festival of Fantasy Parade, visit some attractions, eat dinner at the Plaza, and then enjoy our ration of three rides.  That left the morning open.

 

The oldest TCD DD had not yet seen the remnants of the sorcerer's hat at DHS, so we decided to start our day there.

 

And here we are:

 

 

There ain't much hat left:

 

 

 

While in this area, the twins noticed that the line of guests waiting for the Chip and Dale meet and greet was very short.  Mainly because the chipmunk's were on break.  I think they are their favorite characters to meet, so they decided to join the line.  That worked out well, as they only had about a five minute wait for this:

 

 

We saw and heard several large tour groups in the park today.  There goes one now:

 

 

The wait times for anything good at DHS were horrendous.  Again, we expected this.  The only reason we came was so big sister could pay her last respects to the hat.  And, she also wanted to see the new Starbucks.  But, I'm going to try to downplay that.

 

We felt like we needed to do something here at DHS other than just look at the hat and Starbucks.  We tossed around some ideas, and one of the twins suggested the animation class.  They did that a lot during their college programs last fall, but I hadn't been in a while, so I thought that sounded like a great idea.

 

The animation building wasn't too crowded, and we arrived just in time to get in line for the 12 noon class, which meant only about a 15 minute wait.  Not bad for a busy day.

 

Here's a TCD tip- if you want to draw a particular character, they have a clipboard hanging out by the line where they list who the animators are for the day, and what characters were drawn during each class.  They won't repeat a character. The twins were hoping to draw Baymax, but he was already on the list from a previous class:

 

 

We got Pooh:

 

 

I always say I'm terrible at drawing, but I am always surprised that my drawings here are never totally awful.  I think I did pretty good today:

 

 

And so did the girls:

 

 

I texted this photo to Mrs. TCD and asked her to choose which one was best:

 

 

I knew she would say that they were all good, and she did.

 

But feel free to judge, if you wish.

 

On the way out, I admired this piece of art in the gift shop.  It's the Disneyland castle.  Note how the artist made it taller than the faint image of the Matterhorn you can see there to the right. Those Disneyland people sure are sensitive about their itty bitty little castle, to the point that artists apparently are afraid to paint it the way it really is:

 

 

If you think you might be interested in purchasing that work of art, you may want to take a look at the price tag first:

 

 

And, why are they trying to sell a painting of Disneyland's castle here? 

 

Good luck with that.

 

Next, for research purposes only, I took my oldest DD into the Starbucks for a look-see,  It definitely looks like a Starbucks alright:

 

 

Here are the latest specialty cupcakes available for those who wish to waste their money on such things:

 

 

Some of the items on display didn't look too dusty:

 

 

I'm pretty sure there is nothing different available here than at the other Starbucks locations in the other WDW parks.

 

The theming in this new Starbucks is well done. We are supposed to be in a trolley car garage-see how they put some fake electric wires up there? :

 

 

The twins did not come into the Starbucks. They wanted to get something from Starring Rolls. They each got a cupcake there, and we met up there.  This was our view:

 

 

As we took our break, the conversation somehow turned to the topic of Bill Cosby, and how there was a bust of him on display in that area where they have Walt Disney's and other famous stars' busts on display.  We all wondered if good old Bill was still there, given the recent revelations about him.  We agreed that we should go and check.  So we headed that way.

 

On the way there, I decided I ought to take a photo of this statue. I've passed it a million times, but never stopped to look at it or the plaque next to it:

 

 

Here's the plaque.  It's interesting in that it describes what they were going for here at Disney's Hollywood Studios (or Disney-MGM Studios as it was originally known) :

 

 

Michael Eisner.

 

Remember him?

 

This plaque says that the park was opened on May 1, 1989. Which meant its 25th birthday was last year.  Do you remember the big celebration they had to commemorate that?

 

No?

 

There wasn't one.

 

Sadly, they apparently didn't want to call attention to this dysfunctional and inadequate little park.

 

Next, we found Bill.

 

A bunch of teenies were there taking a photo with him with their selfie stick:

 

 

That one photo right there shows a lot of what is wrong with our society.

 

Here's Bill:

 

 

That guy's career sure came to a sudden and shameful end in a hurry, didn't it?

 

Bill's neighbors are Opie:

 

 

And Mrs. Potts:

 

 

It's interesting that these busts were all sculpted by different artists.  Some of them look weird.  Like Mrs. Potts',  That really doesn't look like her to me.  And the artist chose to depict here when she was really young.  I think she is more well known for the work she did when she was older.

 

This little area in DHS is kind of odd.

 

Back along this wall, they have plaques commemorating the inductees into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame:

 

 

This plaque explains things:

 

 

There are only 13 plaques on display:

 

 

The first plaque is dated 1984, which is 5 years before the park opened:

 

 

The last plaque is from 1996.

 

I am pretty sure that this statue represents what we know as an Emmy award:

 

 

The organization named on that first plaque apparently has something to do with the Emmy Awards, and it appears that they have continued to induct people into their Hall of Fame, but Disney doesn't display their names on plaques anymore.

 

I wonder why?

 

I was glad that none of the TCD DD's wanted to take a selfie with creepy Bill's bust.

 

Twin #1 chose good old Walt as her Valentine:

 

 

That's pretty much all we did in DHS, although I do have a few more photos to share, which I will do in a mini-update before we move on to looking at photos from our visit to the MK.

 

TCD

[GaDawgFan.....Kelly 799]

Love that you had all your girls together. I've always thought you and Mrs. TCD have done a good job with them, but their obsession with Disney Starbucks is concerning.

 

Glad Twin 1 picked Walt. He's much better than Cosby. 

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Love that you had all your girls together. I've always thought you and Mrs. TCD have done a good job with them, but their obsession with Disney Starbucks is concerning.

 

Glad Twin 1 picked Walt. He's much better than Cosby. 

 

Like most college kids, the TCD girls are under the spell of that satanic Starbucks mermaid.  It's Disney's fault that they let that evil empire into their parks. 

 

Yeah, Bill Cosby turned out to be a total creep.

 

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

I ran out of room in that last update, so here's a mini update to finish up my DHS photos from our 2/14/15 visit.

 

Here's two more hat photos.  Yes, I know you've seen enough, but soon there won't be anything left, and you'll wish you had seen more:

 

 

 

If you've been to Hollywood Studios, you've surely noticed this little gift shop just as you enter the park.  It's called Crossroads of the World:

 

 

Well, did you know that it's a copy of a building that still stands in Hollywood, California today?

 

It's an office complex, and here's a link to it: http://www.crossroadshollywood.com/

 

Here's what it looks like (you will note that this one is missing a giant rodent on top of the globe) :

 

 

I've already mentioned this, but it seems that every building you see in DHS has a real-life counterpart back in SoCal.  I never realized that until recently.

 

We left DHS here and headed to the MK bus stop to hop over to the MK.

 

TCD

[DaveInTN 3,247]

 

For our ride photo, Twin #1 said we should make like Elsa casting an ice spell. I would say that I nailed it:

 

 

 

 

If you go through life looking like that, you will NEVER nail Elsa. 

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Today is your lucky day, as I have time to add another update.

 

We left off with our exit from DHS to hop to the MK.

 

There were a few people waiting for the MK bus, which is a good thing.  It means the bus didn't just pull away.

 

We joined the line.  It was a good thing we did when we did, as right after that a huge school group came up.  They were all trying to get to the MK, and it was clear that they wouldn't all fit in one bus.  An Epcot bus pulled up as we waited, and the teachers had a discussion amongst themselves about how they could take that bus to Epcot and then the monorail to the MK.  About half the group left to do that.  We wished them luck.  I think they would have been better off waiting for the MK bus.

 

There's one of the Disney buses wrapped with a Disney Infinity Marvel Superheroes wrap.  I don't know what Disney Infinity is, but the bus looks cool:

 

 

We ended up with about a 10 minute wait for the bus.  We made it on fine, and then the driver did his best to get that entire school group on.  They all wanted to go, so they packed in tight.  We are talking like three kids standing across an aisle, packed in so there was absolutely no space between them.  They still didn't make it.  We were seated in the back row, so it wasn't a problem for us.  But, it took forever for the bus to unload when we got to the MK.

 

As we headed to the bag check, we passed these unfortunate guests waiting in line at the MK ticket windows.  It was 1:42 pm at this point.  Not the best time of day on a holiday weekend to be showing up at the MK to take care of a ticket transaction.  And, these folks probably all passed the ticket booths at the Transportation and Ticket center on the way to get here and stand in that line:

 

 

When we got to bag check, I ended up being across the table from a woman not from this land who had 4 bags.  And she was one person ahead of me, so I had to wait while the not-so-speedy but very old security guard searched not only those four bags, but the actual bag this lady had on her shoulder.  What the Fort is that all about?:

 

 

The last few times we've been to the MK, they had a little construction wall up in front of the wall below the Train Station.  We weren't sure why, but today we could see what they've been up to:

 

 

Do you see what they did?

 

That little fence is new.  No more sitting on the wall for photos:

 

 

If you've been keeping track, this was the third weekend in a row that we visited WDW.  And we were blessed with clear, cool weather for each of these trips.  Just look at how blue the sky was last Saturday:

 

 

I already mentioned that for this trip, I didn't try anything fancy with our FP+ reservations.  I knew it would be busy, and after the failed hacks the week before, I didn't want to take any chances with messing up the three FP+ reservations we were entitled to, so I kept it simple and just reserved all three FP+'s as a group of four.

 

When we got to the MK, though, I wanted to see what I would be offered at this time of day on a busy day with the blank MB's I've used before.

 

I scanned the first MB at a kiosk, and got this message:

 

 

Something was wrong, but I didn't know what yet.  I could only scan one MB at a time, and the system would only give me one FP+ for each of those MB's.  The times and attractions did not align, and it clearly was more trouble than it was worth, so I ended that experiment.  But, that was not the last FP+ trouble we had on this visit.

 

As I mentioned, it was just past 1:30 when we arrived.  The twins wanted to go and get a Dole Whip float, and my oldest daughter wanted to do some shopping.  We were then going to meet up on Main Street to claim parade spots a little past 2.

 

As we headed in, there were some primo spots right outside of the Emporium, near the big clock, so I offered to sit and save those  spots while the girls went off on their little missions.

 

My parade spot gave me the perfect view of this elaborate scrim which covered the jewelry store and theater on Main Street:

 

 

That thing went up right at the beginning of January, and it looks like it will be there a while longer.

 

It almost looks 3D, but it's not:

 

 

The girls all made it back in time before things got too crowded, and we had our spots for the parade.

 

It was only 2:30 at that point, so we had some time to wait yet.

 

Today was our lucky day, because WDW had been invaded by baton twirlers, and they were all going to march down Main Street before the parade.  And here they come:

 

 

Is it cold where you are today?

 

These girls were happily marching down sunny Main Street USA in those little outfits just 5 days ago.

 

They're lucky it wasn't as cold then as it is today.

 

I didn't know baton twirling was so popular.

 

There were groups from everywhere.

 

Here's a group from Mississippi:

 

 

And this group is from Ohio:

 

 

This one's from over in Bradenton, but they were followed by another Ohio group:

 

 

These girls got fancy and had round batons.  I've never seen such a thing:

 

 

That was a lot of baton twirlers, wasn't it?

 

Well, they were just getting started.  They were coming as far as the eye can see:

 

 

The procession wrapped up with a huge group from Florida, whose banner said they were the National Champions.  They also were the only group with cardboard hearts and stars:

 

 

There were lots of them:

 

 

They finally ran out of baton twirlers, and things returned to normal.

 

But not for long.

 

This lady came strolling down the street and stopped right in front of us.  She flirted with the men:

 

 

And talked non stop.  She was very funny and entertaining.

 

She had to step out of the way when the Grand Marshalls for the parade came by.  The twins were impressed that the Disney Ambassadors were in this car.  That is some kind of a big deal:

 

 

After the car passed, our street performer lady came back out, and kept us all laughing.  You can see two of the TCD girls laughing in this photo, but that is not why I took this photo:

 

 

Nope, I took that photo because there were two kids down the street in costumes. The girl was dressed as Mary Poppins, and the boy as Bert.  You can see them better in this zoom on the last photo:

 

 

There seems to be more and more costume wearing going on in the parks.  Disney encourages this by asking guests to show their Disney Side.  That is not always a good idea, as we shall see in an upcoming post.

 

For now, though, it was time for FOF.

 

If you doubted my claim that we have seen this parade more than anyone, here's further proof that I am right.  Here we go:

 

 

I have the parade sequence memorized.  First up is the princess float, led, as always, by Belle and the Beast:

 

 

Cinderella was spinning at the wrong time for me to get a photo of her, but we did get the Frozen girls:

 

 

The week before, the Mime only had two dancing girls with him. Today, he has four:

 

 

The TCD twins distinguish which side of the street we sit on for the parade as the Flynn side or not the Flynn side.  Even though we were not on the Flynn side, Flynn acknowledged the girls, which made their day:

 

 

You can tell that today was officially cold because Ariel had her flesh colored body suit on:

 

 

That little green dot you see way up on that too tall float is Peter Pan:

 

 

Next up was the Brave float, which seemed to have the full dance troupe with it:

 

 

That puts us at the photo limit.

 

We will start out the next update with some more parade photos, and then we will move on to some more interesting things.  Like some adult guests in strange costumes, and other fun stuff.

 

TCD
 

[Family of Bears 98]

Your Pooh Bear has a startling resemblance to my baby, so your drawing is the cutest.

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

 

s

 

Ahhhhh!!!! We've had snow squalls on and off all day.  I think I'll just stare at this for a while...

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Your Pooh Bear has a startling resemblance to my baby, so your drawing is the cutest.

 

Really?

 

I'm sure he looks a lot better than that.

 

Ahhhhh!!!! We've had snow squalls on and off all day.  I think I'll just stare at this for a while...

 

It's a nice sunny day in Florida again today, but a bit colder.

 

Still, that beats snow squalls.

 

Enjoy that photo all you like.

 

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

It's time for an update.

 

We left off right in the middle of last Saturday's FOF parade.

 

After the Brave float comes the Sleeping Beauty crew.  Minus the princess.  Aurora was robbed by this parade.

 

As usual, the fairies were out front:

 

 

I made like a creep and tried to get photos of what was under their dresses.  As I mentioned earlier, there was a guy who was arrested at a local mall here for this type of thing.

 

I don't think he was trying to get pictures of wheels, though.

 

I see some Segway looking stuff under this fairy's dress:

 

 

 

But, there's something more than Segway wheels under there:

 

 

Yup, these ladies have lots of wheels:

 

 

 

I guess the dragon isn't allowed to breathe any fire near the scrim on Main Street, because we got none:

 

 

But, even without fire, the dragon is a cool thing to see:

 

 

We did get a little puff of smoke:

 

 

It may be my imagination, but I think they are trying to hide the dragon pilot lately.  Look how high that cover is lifted:

 

 

The guy in the bird costume wagging the dragon's tail still had the lame wings:

 

 

Dwarf time:

 

 

The bubble machine on the Pinocchio float was working overtime:

 

 

Donald and Daisy were together for Valentine's Day.  Isn't that special?:

 

 

Actually, it's not special.  They're always together on this float.

 

Today, the Chipmunks did not bail early, so they were there with Goofy:

 

 

Mickey and Minnie's balloon inflation problems appear to have been fixed:

 

 

After the parade, it was time to check on the status of the mess in the hub.  Not much has happened around this area in three weeks:

 

 

And that's ridiculous. They have a huge area blocked off, and have done virtually nothing in the enclosed area.  In the meantime, guests are getting pushed, shoved, trampled and worse on a nightly basis for the fireworks.  As they say:  Bad Show.

 

They really haven't done much of anything in the enclosed area:

 

 

Now, we will head over to the fireworks viewing area they've been working on in front of Casey's Corner for going on a year.  They installed some sod in the past week, and there are flower beds and light posts in place:

 

 

This looks very nice, but all of the landscaped areas do not provide any new space for guests to fit:

 

 

The area over there on the other side of the bridge has been created by filling in part of the moat- it does provide some new square footage for guests to squeeze in for the fireworks:

 

 

This looks like it will be done soon, but you can see that the bridge still needs its permanent railings, and more landscaping needs to be done.  I question why they installed so many lampposts in this new area- it seems like they have way more than they need, and those big cylinders on them, which I assume are speakers, are going to block some guests' views of the fireworks:

 

 

This all looks like it will look great when it's finished-it's very fancy.  You can see that there is a new sign posted in this photo:

 

 

Here's a close-up on that sign.  Note that the Fireworks are sponsored by Pandora Jewelry:

 

 

Also note that they are calling this the west fireworks viewing area.  I assume they will call the area on the other side of Main Street, in front of the Plaza, the east fireworks viewing area.  Is the average guest going to know which side of Main Street is east or west?  Isn't that why they usually name areas after Disney characters, like the seating areas in Fantasmic, and the areas of the parking lots?

 

There is a good bit of new space that has been created by all of this, but I am not sure why it took so darned long or if it's enough:

 

 

Apparently, you will need a FP+ to enjoy most of this new space:

 

 

You can see that it will be nice:

 

 

 

That's enough photos of the new fireworks viewing area.

 

The west one anyway.

 

I'll have some photos of the east side in the next update.

 

Along with those adult guest in costume photos I mentioned earlier.

 

TCD

[DaveInTN 3,247]

You're right about the impact the walls are having on fireworks crowds.  They are lucky they haven't had a tragedy.  

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

 

But, Mrs. TCD lured them with the promise of some home cooked meals and laundry service, and the next thing we knew, the whole gang was back together!

 

 

Home cooked meals and free laundry service -- they would lure many a college student home!

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

 

This lady came strolling down the street and stopped right in front of us.  She flirted with the men:

 

 

And talked non stop.  She was very funny and entertaining.

 

TCD

 

 

That lady is Victoria Trumpetto, the Main Street Choir Director.  Yes, she is very funny.  http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2010/05/the-characters-of-main-street-u-s-a/

[Beckers 1,136]

If you go through life looking like that, you will NEVER nail Elsa.

That's hilarious and disturbing (the picture and the comment). Actually it looks like you are trying to feel up Elsa instead of making it snow...

[GaDawgFan.....Kelly 799]

The hub just needs to open already!!!

[ependydad...Doug 176]

Here's the hub from yesterday.

[sherryberry 35]

I still have not seen the FOF parade yet. I guess we're always back in the room (or tent), napping, at that time!

[GaDawgFan.....Kelly 799]

I still have not seen the FOF parade yet. I guess we're always back in the room (or tent), napping, at that time!

That's usually us, but it's worth watching.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

You're right about the impact the walls are having on fireworks crowds.  They are lucky they haven't had a tragedy.  

 

They didn't wall off half of the circle in the middle of the hub until after you left.  So, on a busy day, it's worse than what you may have experienced. 

 

I think I mentioned somewhere above that I witnessed an argument that almost became a fistfight. It is sheer stupidity that they have so much walled off at one time.

 

Home cooked meals and free laundry service -- they would lure many a college student home!

 

Yup. It works every time.

 

That lady is Victoria Trumpetto, the Main Street Choir Director.  Yes, she is very funny.  http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2010/05/the-characters-of-main-street-u-s-a/

 

That's right!  You mentioned her in your trip report, didn't you?

 

I've seen her before, but this was the first time we had any interaction with her.  She is very good.

 

That's hilarious and disturbing (the picture and the comment). Actually it looks like you are trying to feel up Elsa instead of making it snow...

 

You may have noticed that I didn't respond to Dave's comment, and I am not responding to this one either.  Let's move along.

 

The hub just needs to open already!!!

 

Agreed.

 

There is no way what they did should have taken them a year.  Ridiculous.

 

 

 

Here's the hub from yesterday.

 

Thanks for sharing those.

 

It shouldn't be long now.

 

That AstroTurf looks like it will be nice to sit on.  For the first couple of days, anyway.

 

I still have not seen the FOF parade yet. I guess we're always back in the room (or tent), napping, at that time!

 

You need to see it.

 

That's usually us, but it's worth watching.

 

Agreed.

 

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Update time.

 

We left off looking over the construction walls at the west Fireworks viewing area.

 

This is the view not looking over the walls.  Pretty sad:

 

 

This outdoor seating area for Casey's is pretty nice, and may be a good place to watch the fireworks from once those darned walls come down:

 

 

I was standing in this place waiting for my oldest DD to return from a pit stop.  While waiting for her, I received a text from her with this photo:

 

 

She ran in to these two on the way in to the restroom, and knew that I would need a photo.  Well done.

 

And What the Fort?

 

Speaking of What the Fort, this young lady emerged from Casey's as I stood there people watching:

 

 

Unfortunately, she put her hand up just as I took the photo, so you cant see the whole get up.

 

When I saw the twins a bit later, they mentioned that they had seen her to.  But, they didn't get a photo.

 

They did, however, say that we had seen this girl before.

 

I asked where.

 

They said she was the girl with the blue cat ears that we saw on a previous trip.

 

Here's a photo from that previous trip:

 

 

Do you see how she has an Anna doll there?

 

Well, look what she's holding in the photo of her in the white dress.

 

As I said, What the Fort?

 

Anyway, next on the agenda was an early dinner at the Plaza.  We had just eaten here a couple of weeks earlier, but my oldest DD wasn't with us at the time.  When we put this trip together,  was able to snag an ADR for the Plaza the night before, so we went again.

 

While waiting for our table, I took some shots over the construction walls at the east fireworks viewing area:

 

 

They clearly are not as far along with the construction on this side.  If you look over to the left in this photo, you'll see that some wire mesh is laid out there waiting for some concrete:

 

 

There was still a lot of dirt on this side:

 

 

 

In my opinion, once this side gets done, the view from here will be better than the view from the west side.  Imagine the fireworks over the castle from here:

 

 

That crane needs to go:

 

 

We didn't have long to wait out here:

 

 

Sorry, but I have no food photos.  We put away our electronics when we got in, and we enjoyed a great meal.  Twin #2 had the meatloaf again.  The other girls had club sandwiches, and I tried the steak sandwich, which was excellent.

 

After dinner, it was finally time for us to start using our FP+s.

 

Our first one was for the Haunted Mansion.

 

We found a quite frightening scene there upon our arrival.

 

The FP+ return line stretched almost all the way to Columbia Harbour House:

 

 

I'm not sure if you can see the wait time posted over the standby line, but it says 70 minutes.

 

For the Haunted Mansion.

 

Remember, this was the Saturday of President's Day Weekend.

 

Not a great time to visit the MK.

 

But, we had FP+'s so we were good.

 

The standby line began way back here, far away from that 70 minute sign:

 

 

After the entered the line, guests had to double back and wind their way through a bunch of switch-backs before even getting to the gate where the wait time was posted:

 

 

We were still waiting:

 

 

The lady in front of me was wearing the same sweatshirt that I was wearing.  This is the back of it:

 

 

Her husband made a comment to me along the lines of "They got you for $50 too, huh?"  I said yeah.  I didn't have the heart to tell him that Twin #2 had bought my sweatshirt in the CM damages store for $10.  All that was wrong with it was a black smudge on one sleeve that came out with a little Tide To Go.

 

It was 5:28 pm when we arrived here.  By 5:31, we still weren't to the scanners:

 

 

After a couple of more minutes, we made it to the scanners. The FP+ line was so busy, that they had us walk around this area, which I've never seen done before:

 

 

We got a good look at the hearse as we walked by:

 

 

At least we got a good view of the mansion from here:

 

 

We also could see the pet cemetery pretty good:

 

 

You can't see him too good in this photo, but Mr. Toad is up there on the hill where he belongs:

 

 

Look at this shot- pretty good if I do say so myself:

 

 

I thought that it would take us forever to get into the stretching room, but they let the FP+ line go while the regular folks stood still.  It was just a couple of minutes before we were waiting to go in.  The sun was hitting the tombstones just right, and I got some good photos of them all:

 

 

 

 

I could even see the newer ones they added up on the hill when they added the interactive queue:

 

 

I think part of the hold up on this ride was that it appeared that they were only using one stretching room.  When we came out of it, there wasn't anyone in the loading area, which is quite unusual lately. 

 

After the ride, we stopped to look at the pet cemetery.  I never noticed that round sign in front of the cat before:

 

 

What the heck is that thing?  I see that there's a number 9 in the middle of it?  Is it some kind of cat satanic symbol?  Is it from the Starbucks people?:

 

 

Next on the agenda was a ride on Space Mountain.  But, there was no need to hurry as it wasn't even our return time yet.  Plus, if we rode that right away, we would have a long wait to use our third FP+.  So, the girls decided on a detour. 

 

We will be heading there next.

 

TCD

[DaveInTN 3,247]

Plaza steak fries......mmmmm.