AgtSpooky's Hangout

When my buddy charityflint came over on Sunday she brought along her photos from our Disney trip back in January for me to copy. I went through them yesterday and thought I'd share a couple of them.

Charity is very proud of this picture, of both of us wearing our Mickey ears because of the funky way the background turned out from her LED lights and the lights of Epcot behind us. I gotta admit, it's pretty cool!

And then this one totally made me laugh. All eight of us on the trip are big Avengers fans, so when we found out the Morocco part of Epcot had shawarma we HAD to eat there:

And you know what? It was really darn good! So thank you, Iron Man, for introducing me to new food. ;-)

And you know what else? I just realized as I was typing this that I'm wearing my Disney shirt today! LOL! My subconscious must have been at work this morning when I opened my closet. :-)

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Well we've come to the end of my Disney vacation posts. [sniff, sniff] Today we finish up with Downtown Disney and Hollywood Studios.

Downtown Disney is a shopper's and foodie's paradise, and we took advantage of both! There's this massive World of Disney store there with every kind of memorabilia you could possibly want. I ended up with a sweatshirt, a couple of t-shirts and a few other various things I picked up for folks at work.

Oh and I made a new friend:

We were mainly there to have dinner at Raglan Road, an Irish restaurant. I must have subconsciously remembered this when I was packing for the trip, because I brought my Ireland t-shirt!

Look at that happy group, ready to put some hearty food in our bellies. :-) While my fish and chips weren't outstanding, the parmesan and truffle french fries appetizer and my raspberry meringue dessert were delicious. And the Irish step dancers performing were wonderful.

The next day, our last, we were off to Hollywood Studios. I'd been looking forward to this for three reasons: Star Tours, Rock N' Roller coaster and Tower of Terror. And i'm happy to say I wasn't disappointed by any of them!

First up for the day was Rock N' Roller coaster. Got in the front car twice in a row and loved it! It was a bit rough at times, but I loved the speed and being in the dark with all the blacklight and of course the awesome Aerosmith music.

Tower of Terror was next. Only got on it once (the crowds were nuts that day!) but it was worth waiting for. I had no idea that the car actually moved out of the "elevator" through the haunted hotel. I thought it just went up and down. I had to laugh when my friend told me that the ride originally didn't have seat belts! But when the doors opened and the Disney employees were sprawled all over the floor they rethought that decision. :-) Despite my love of roller coasters, I'm not big on drop rides so I was a little nervous. But it ended up being a lot of fun! I liked when the doors opened and you could see out over the whole park.

We hit Star Tours next and I couldn't wait. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a HUGE fan so I was chomping at the bit to get on. The outside of the ride is really cool, set up to look like an Ewok village with a massive AT-AT. The 3D virtual reality ride itself was fun! There's like, 65 different combinations so you can go on it multiple times and have different outcomes. On ours we ended up on Tattooine pod-racing, then Boba Fett was chasing us through an asteroid field and then Darth Vader himself in his Tie Fighter was shooting at us. Neat!

Of course it lets you out right into the gift shop and it took every once of self control not to drop a couple hundred dollars in there. :-) But I restrained myself and only got a t-shirt and two action figures. Then I almost got trampled when I went outside:

Let's see, what else did we do there? Oh, we went on the wildly popular Toy Story Mania ride. What a hoot! It's no wonder the Fast Passes for that sell out within an hour of the park opening. Then we saw the new Legend of Captain Jack Sparrow, which featured the most realistic looking 3D hologram of Johnny Depp I've ever seen! We also did the Studio Backlot Tour where they had the spaceship from Flight of the Navigator (love that movie!) and also a Snowspeeder from Star Wars, among other things. There was more shopping and eating, of course *g* and we ended up timing it perfectly when we left, as it started to rain right as we got back to the hotel.

We ended our Disney adventure with a fancy birthday dinner for charityflint at the Wilderness resort, at Artist's Point. Yummy! I had sea scallops and herb spatzle and cream of mushroom soup, followed by black raspberry ice cream for dessert. A perfect end to a perfect vacation.

It was hard to leave Disney behind (and the weather!) so I've got my fingers crossed I get back down to Florida soon!

Hope you all enjoyed my vacation reports and thanks for all the lovely comments!

( Shall we end with a few last photos? )

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Welcome back to day three of my Disney World vacation posts! Today is all about Epcot.

I've never been to Epcot, so this was all new for me, as you can tell by my "I FINALLY MADE IT!" photo taken as soon as I walked through the gates:

We hit the rides right away and the first stop was the all new, redesigned Test Track, which had just opened back up a few weeks before we got there. Loved it! Give me anything with speed and I'm so there. :-)

Next stop was Mission Space, the most intense virtual reality ride I'd ever been on. You actually pull G-forces on this thing! Really enjoyed it, but not a ride I'd get off and get right back on again. Best thing about Mission Space was that it lets you off in the gift shop, and that's where Mike and I scored our R2-D2 Mickey Ears!

Not to be outdone, charityflint soon scored her own pair of ears, and they actually lit up!

Let's see, we also went on Soarin', which everyone raves about and I have to admit, it was pretty darn cool. I loved how you could actually smell the pine and oranges and feel the "breeze" in your hair. After that we went to The Seas for the Nemo ride and then Turtle Talk with Crush, which was hilarious. We also went on the ride that takes you inside the Epcot ball. I liked the funny video at the end with your own face in it.

One of the highlights for me, though, was meeting Chip and Dale! They are my absolute favorite characters, ever since I was about 5 years old. My parents gave me this book, "Chip and Dale paint Donald Duck's House" and I swear it was at that moment that I realized I wanted to go into art as a career. And I still have that book! So I nearly had an attack as we came around a corner and there they were, walking right in front of us! Needless to say, I had to get a photo with them:

Oh! Can't forget our lunch stop. All of us in our group are big Avengers fans, so when we found out that Morocco served shawarma we were SO there! "Shawarma later?" Ha! And you know what? It was really darn good!

We took a break later in the day and went back to the hotel to relax for a bit and go swimming, then we all went back to Epcot later that night to see the Illuminations fireworks and laser light show on the water. We had the best time! We decided to eat and drink our way around the world. So at each country someone bought a snack and a drink and we all shared. Man, we had churros, and egg rolls and pot stickers, a giant pretzel, quiche, bratwurst, a funnel cake, sushi, and even croque monsieur. Not to mention about six or seven alcoholic beverages. :-) The only country we didn't get to before the Illuminations show started was Canada. Bummer! LOL! Just like the fireworks show at Magic Kingdom, the one at Epcot was just as good. It was the perfect ending to a perfect day!

And that's all for today! Come on back tomorrow for Animal Kingdom!

( More pics back here! )

Morning, everyone! Hope you all had a good weekend. Me, I came down with a cold on Friday night. Not surprising, since I spent a week down in Florida in 80 degree weather only to come back home to snow and temperatures below freezing. [sigh] Thankfully it hasn't progressed beyond a sore throat and a few sniffles.

So as promised, here's the first of my Disney World reports. I thought I'd start off with where we stayed - The Wilderness Lodge.

Wow, this place was gorgeous! And huge! You really felt like you were up in Canada or something, out in the woods, in a log cabin. Here's a few pics from our balcony, overlooking the pool:

While the resort itself was large, the rooms were the size of postage stamps. In fact there was only room for two suitcases to be out, so two people had to completely empty out theirs and put everything in the dresser drawers and store the suitcases in the closet.

In my room it was myself, charityflint and her husband, and Charity's friend Shari. The room was made for a family - mom, dad and two kids - with one queen bed and…bunk beds. And guess who got the top bunk?

I called it my playpen. I hated being up there. I really felt like I was six years old. It was a pain to keep climbing up and down and I was too tall for the bed. But because there were guardrails all around, my feet couldn't even hang over the edge, so I was constantly cramped up with my legs. And the mattress was like cement. I was not sorry to put that bed in my rearview mirror when we left!

But the outdoor spaces were great. The pool was really nice and I'm glad we had a chance to go swimming. The resort had a dock at the far end, which allowed us to take boats to and from the Magic Kingdom and also the other resorts. The sunset on the lake was gorgeous. Good restaurants at the lodge, too. From quick service to family style to high end. And we ate at them all! I'd definitely stay at the Wilderness again, but only with 2 people to a room so it wasn't so cramped. But we did have an adjoining room with the other four people we went with, so that was nice.

And that's all for today! Come back tomorrow for pics and reports from The Magic Kingdom!

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The time for my Florida vacation for charityflint's birthday is finally here! I'm heading over to her house after work to spend the night so that we can go to the airport together in the morning.

The weather forecast is awesome - upper 70's during the day for all seven days we're going to be there, and no rain! Keep in mind that I'm leaving behind nearly sub-zero temperatures with negative wind chills. Give me the sun, baby!!

I'm taking my camera and my computer and hope to post some pics while I'm down there, so keep watching my LJ for a photo of me wearing my very first pair of Mickey ears. Hee!

I'll see you all back here on February 1st!

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