DisneyWorld 2008

Fair warning - this post is going to be picture heavy. You can click to enlarge any photo or just go to my Flickr site to see these and all the pictures I took on vacation.

We arrived at the Contemporary Resort at DisneyWorld on Thursday evening, February 7th, after a nice trip out on Continental (both of us were upgraded to Business class - YEAH!). There was a cheerleading competition being held and the plane was full of skinny high school girls which was interesting.

First stop was Magic Kingdom Friday night and since the park was very crowded, we didn't do many of the rides or shows. We took the train around the park, walked through the shops on Main Street and headed over to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. We took the river boat ride, ate dinner and then waited for the fireworks.






We saw Princesses:

Whoever thought up the idea of the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique is a marketing genius - there were little princesses all over the place! I can only imagine the amount of money spent on princess gowns and hair extensions!





We saw Pirates:
Along with heavy marketing of Pirates of the Caribbean - Jack Sparrow was everywhere!











We saw parts of the Electronic parade twice!

(if you can't tell, this is part of the Little Mermaid section)








And the fireworks:
We actually saw the Magic Kingdom fireworks 3 times. The first was Thursday night from the 4th floor observation deck at the Contemporary Resort. They were impressive but we could not hear the music that the fireworks were timed to so it wasn't as impressive as seeing them in the park. We were able to do this Friday evening. Then on Sunday evening, the best show was from the top floor of the Contemporary Resort in the California Grill where we had perfect seats and could see everything along with the music which they piped in.





Then on Saturday evening, Fred's company chartered a bus and took us into the backdoor of Epcot so that we could have dinner in Norway and dessert in China (likely combination!) The dessert was served on a reserved section of the lake's edge where we could see the Epcot fireworks that evening. Very impressive and heavily ladened with environmental messages which I find amusing given the amount of fire they were putting out for the show! Since the group assembled were all environmental engineers, it made for a lively discussion.





Sunday was spent at Animal Kingdom where we made a bee-line to the African safari ride to get fast-passes. It was a lovely sunny day and we enjoyed the park's many animal exhibits and the safari ride (though a bit corny, they did have good animal exhibits). We also went to the Finding Nemo stage production and Fred's favorite Disney show/ride which was "It's a Bug's Life" found at the base of the tree in the center of the park. And of course, the parade through the park which was very well done. After dinner at the resort's restaurant, we were very tired campers!





Monday was spent at Epcot where we crashed a space ship with the help of Gary Sinese at the Mission Space ride, saw Nimo again at the Seas exhibit (MINE! MINE! MINE!) and got shrunk at the "Honey, I shrunk the audience" 3D show (which wasn't as good at the bug one at Animal Kingdom.) We then headed into the World Showcase and made it all the way around the lake. It was a lovely day but we were tired by the time it was all over. It was nice that the monorail ran back to our resort so it was easy to get back.




We returned home on Tuesday, coach (ick) with a plane full of similar skinny high school cheerleaders. It was a great trip, very relaxing and fun!

till later ~~ Dene