The Dragon is Coming to the World

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Lasolimu
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Re: The Dragon is Coming to the World

Post by Lasolimu » Thu Feb 08, 2018 11:11 am

ktulu wrote:
Thu Feb 08, 2018 11:02 am
My youngest daughter and I jumped in line when it said 240 minute wait at the end of the evening, we waited around 90 minutes. So if you plan on closing down AK, keep that in mind! Oh, Pandora is really cool at night!
Yeah, we'll probably close it down the first day, but the second we're booked for the Starlight Safari at AKL after dinner at Boma. Seeing Pandora at night and trying food at Satuli Canteen is why I plan to book that fastpass for late in the day, as an excuse to head back over there. I'm not sure if we're going to want to see Rivers of Light at all, I enjoyed it when I saw it in May, but I'm not sure if I really care to see it again, it all depends on what my boyfriend wants to do.



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Lasolimu
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Re: The Dragon is Coming to the World

Post by Lasolimu » Mon Feb 12, 2018 12:00 pm

Got all of my fastpasses booked today! I know some of the things we got booked don't really need fastpasses, but I tried to think about where they'd be most useful. Looks like my suspicions were confirmed that Toy Story Mania will be closed during my trip to get ready for the Toy Story Land opening, there were no faspasses available any day after April 8th. It's not a big deal for us, we can ride it in California whenever we go to Disneyland but it does make our fastpasses for the 3 remaining rides that much more valuable on our half day in Hollywood Studios. I also noticed that the Magic Kingdom hours for Tuesday no longer show it closing at 6:00, I guess whatever they had anticipated happening that night has been cancelled.

In any case, just 60 more days! I just need to get the ring ordered and finish paying the package which should be pretty easy to do.



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Re: The Dragon is Coming to the World

Post by Lasolimu » Sun Feb 18, 2018 7:40 pm

Pretty much everything is set now, I ordered the ring back on Tuesday and submitted the final payment for the package back on Wednesday. All that's left to do is wait...wait for the base ring to arrive so I can pay that off and get the customizations I want for it, then wait for that to be done, then wait for the day we finally leave.

I've been kind of considering buying breakfast at Be Our Guest for someone that can video the proposal, his sister just got engaged on Wednesday and his family was sad they weren't allowed to record it. I know we'll have pictures for sure since I'm doing it with a photopass photographer, but video would be fun too.



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Lasolimu
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Re: The Dragon is Coming to the World

Post by Lasolimu » Mon Apr 09, 2018 3:31 pm

I'm in the final stretch now, flying out Friday night! I should have everything ready to go, just need to pack and go have a great time.



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Re: The Dragon is Coming to the World

Post by WEDFan » Wed Apr 11, 2018 6:31 am

Lasolimu wrote:
Mon Apr 09, 2018 3:31 pm
I'm in the final stretch now, flying out Friday night! I should have everything ready to go, just need to pack and go have a great time.
I'm envious. Have a great time!



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Re: The Dragon is Coming to the World

Post by Lasolimu » Mon May 07, 2018 11:58 am

Wow, what a vacation, what a crazy life altering vacation.

April 13th: Nothing much happened, this is the day we fly out and it was a red eye. The plane did arrive about 40 minutes late though. I did online check in and got our room number at Pop Century.

April 14th: We landed that same 40 minutes late or so, picked up our bags and caught the Magical Express. We got to the resort about 6:00 AM and went straight to the room. My partner went to bed and I got ready to catch a Minnie Van to the AP event at Disney Springs. I bought a few things before heading back to the resort. After that we got lunch before heading to Hollywood Studios for the rest of the day. Dinner was at 50s Prime Time Cafe and it was just as good as last time. We ended our day watching Fantasmic, and we both agree that DLRs is so much better.

April 15th: Our first Animal Kingdom day. We started with breakfast at Tusker House before the park opened. The weather forecast was predicting rain so we tried to focus on attractions that would be impacted by the rain. It rained off and on for a couple hours, but we kept expecting more because of the forecast. The highlight of the day was definitely Flight of Passage, it makes me sad they don't have anything like it on the west coast now. We tried Satuli Canteen for dinner and weren't really impressed. At one point we were sitting with an icee to help cool off and was talking to a CM about stupid questions CMs get.

April 16th: EPCOT day 1, we skipped breakfast and decided to use most of our snack credits eating around the world at all of the festival booths. We got something at most every booth and basically did all of World Showcase. Some food items were better than others, but that's to be expected. We had dinner at Yachtsman which wasn't as good as last year. They seem to have forgotten how to cook steaks, not a good thing for a steakhouse. We ended the night riding Test Track. Apparently, the brakes at the end and my partners loose pockets were a recipe for him to lose his phone on the ride. The park was actually closed when we got on the ride so we were shooed out pretty quickly before we could check the car. We stopped in at Guest Relations on our way out and were told of the policy to turn lost phones off when found so we called it a few times to see if it was off, it wasn't. Rough night for him, but he bought some tea beforehand and had a cup which knocked him right out.

April 17th, the life changing day: Our first day in Magic Kingdom started with a pre park opening breakfast at Be Our Guest. My partner really wanted to sit in the west wing, so we did. We had dinner plans there another day and figured it would be unlikely for a party of 2 to be in the west wing. Breakfast was good, but I wouldn't do it without the dining plan, $25 was rather high for it. After breakfast the park wasn't open quite yet so we discussed what to do and went over to get ready to ride Peter Pan first thing. We were some of the first on and the line was already 60 minutes when we exited. We then did a few more fantasyland rides that we didn't need fastpasses for before heading to Seven Dwarves Mine Train. And that's when it happened. I saw the photopass photographer I was looking for, with absolutely no line. We had our photoshoot looking up at Beast's castle, then after the initial photos, I reached into my bag, grabbed the ring, and proposed. He said Yes! Well, he didn't actually SAY yes, but gestured excitedly and nodded, which is good enough. We continued about our day, but when we were on people mover, it hit him that he didn't have his phone so he couldn't excitedly tell everyone what had happened. We picked up some "Happily Ever After" buttons to celebrate since I've heard all of the other marriage/anniversary/engaged buttons were rolled into that one and played a bit of Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom. We went on Splash Mountain, the ring box got destroyed, but it didn't matter because the ring was on his finger. Throughout the day we periodically called his phone to see if it was turned off, but it never was, however, on our way to dinner at Ohana we stopped at the TTC to check lost and found there, and they had his phone in perfect condition! They just never turned it off which is weird, but he could finally tell everyone the good news. Dinner was fantastic, and we were actually there long enough to see the fireworks from our table, just like I originally planned before adjusting from the time period where they listed a super early closing time for the day. When we got back to the room, I had ordered flowers, a toast package, and a couple Beast plushes to be delivered to the room. He was so surprised by it all, he had no idea any of it was going to happen.

April 18th: Second day at EPCOT. We started the day by catching the bus to Hollywood Studios so we could take the boat over to the Boardwalk for breakfast at Trattoria al Forno. What a great breakfast it was, and the characters were fantastic! It was a bit of a slow day for us, we focused on Future World so we were in and out of buildings all day. In the afternoon we found ourselves sitting in Innoventions thinking about what to do for dinner, and we ended up walking around to Japan to eat at Katsura Grill. It was actually good because we kept hitting entertainment in the different countries that we had missed before. At the scenery around Katsura Grill is amazing, best part of the Japan pavilion by far.While we were eating I picked up a fastpass for Test Track, my fiancee wanted to try again without letting it eat his phone, and it didn't this time! We decided to book fastpasses for Illuminations and so that's how we closed the day.

April 19th: Magic Kingdom once again. While we were sitting at breakfast at Trattoria al Forno we talked about breakfast for this day and that it was quick service. We looked at each other and I instantly opened up the app and checked for breakfast times at Be Our Guest. It was wide open so I booked and placed our order right then. So that's where we ate, we sat in the Rose Gallery this time. We took the opportunity to get some more engagement type photos in different places. Our first Magic Kingdom day was focused more on Fantasyland and Tomorrowland, so this day was focused more around Adventureland and Frontierland. Another easy day doing whatever we wanted to do. We had an early dinner booked at Be Our Guest so we did that. We sat in the Ballroom, completing our seating trifecta. After dinner we had a bit of time before we headed to the "Happily Ever After" dessert party. The desserts were good, and we had garden viewing of the show. It was a fantastic close to another good day.

April 20th: More Animal Kingdom and last day in the parks. We did most of what we wanted to do in Animal Kingdom the first day there, so this ended up being a clean up day. We had another fastpass for Flight of Passage so we did that again. The fastpass line for Flight of Passage feels awkward, we were telling each other that we kind of felt like we were walking backstage. There was actually a private tour that entered the line in front of us and they went through a door in the queue, kinda making it feel even more backstage. Fairly early in the day we headed over to Animal Kingdom Lodge because we had a dinner reservation for Boma. We ended up sitting over at the Mara because we had our resort mugs and that's where some magic happened for us. CMs had consistently commented on our buttons, generally asking how long, to which we'd say how many days. This one CM cleaning tables at the Mara asked us about them and we thought that was it, but a few minutes later, she came back with some "Just Engaged" buttons which she said were a little heteronormative so she made some adjustments. She had found some crayons and drawn top hats to tape over the bridal veil, it was so cool! As soon as she showed them to us I made sure I had her name and immediately sent an email to let management know how amazing she was. Dinner at Boma was great once again, but we both ate too much, that's just the problem with buffets. But after dinner we had really special plans, we walked over to Kidani Village for the Starlight Safari. This was the single most amazing tour I've ever done on any Disney property. For those that don't know, you're loaded into a truck and taken out into the savannahs around Animal Kingdom Lodge and each person is given night vision monoculars to use. It was incredible, if you ever get the chance I highly recommend it. It was the best way for us to close such an amazing vacation.

April 21st: We spent a couple hours at Disney Springs before we needed to catch the Magical Express back to the airport and fly home. Getting home was nice, but it's still sad to leave, especially after everything that happened. We are planning on returning late November 2023, but for now wedding and honeymoon plans.

Speaking of honeymoon plans, it looks like we're going to be doing a Disney cruise of the Mediterranean. I've never personally been interested in cruises and was looking at an Adventure by Disney, but it looks like we can do a longer cruise in Europe for the same cost as a short adventure stateside so that seems like a good compromise. I started looking at some of the port adventures and that really sold me on the cruise idea, I'm really excited now!



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Re: The Dragon is Coming to the World

Post by delsdad » Wed May 09, 2018 8:48 pm

Congratulations !

Good choice on the cruise. While I haven't done the med, we have done 7 Caribbean and one Alaska cruise, all with Disney. They will make sure you have a most magical honeymoon! The Magic is an amazing ship too. The piano bar in particular is one of my favorite places on the Disney ships.



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Re: The Dragon is Coming to the World

Post by Zazu » Sat May 12, 2018 10:57 am

We just got home this morning from Disney Cruise #29, and some of those were Mediterranian cruises, so feel free to PM me with any questions you have.

"That's Captain Zazu"



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