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Animal Kingdom and Hotel Hopping

On our second full day at Disney World, we headed out to Animal Kingdom, which is a Disney version of a Wild Animal Park/Zoo.

It primarily focuses on the importance of habitat and animal conservation.

The Tree of Life has 325 animals carved into its bark

The first thing we did was run over to Kilimanjaro Safari, but the line was already a little long, not horrible, but enough to warrant getting a FastPass for a little later. To kill time we went on the Pangani Trail, “a self-guided walking tour of native African wildlife.”

As you walk down the trail you see Hippos…

My picture of the hippo pool was photo bombed by a baby duck...

An Aviary…

Meerkats…

And 2 families of Gorillas…

After we finished the trail, it was time for the Safari!! This was something I had really been looking forward to since planning the trip.

Just as we were pulling out of the loading area, our car was held up at this sign.

I only mention the sign because it made me laugh...

Apparently, there was a giraffe on the road. As the safari takes place on an actual Animal Preserve, they will not attempt to move the animals off the road, but instead wait for them the move along on their own. After waiting about 10 minutes we were on our way.

The safari takes though through the animal preserve where you will see lots of different animals. The highlight for us though was the Giraffes. You see, the same Giraffe was still there, just next to the road opposed to on it.

When we drove by, she was very curious and wanted to get a closer look. I was only about 6 feet away from her when we went by. It was so cool!!

Another highlight was the brand new baby elephant that made its debut that week…

There were so many wonderful memories on the safari, Matt and I really enjoyed it. Please check out all photos in the gallery, I would post them all here but this blog is going to be long enough already!!

After the safari we headed to the Maharajah Jungle Trail, another exploration trail but with an Asian theme. The main attraction here was the Tigers.

 

But we also got a kick out of these….

Rodrigues Fruit Bats. They are gigantic and please keep in mind that there is nothing between me and that picture… No glass, nothing. Matt was less concerned and more interested in trying out for the next Monster Movie… 

 

After that we head over to the main (only) roller coaster in the park, Expedition Everest.

It is pretty cool. You go up the mountain only to find that the Yeti has destroyed the track, so they send you down backwards on a different track than you went up. It was pretty cool, although there is a second half of this story, but that’s for another blog.

The main reason Matt and I had come to Disney World was to run in the Expedition Everest Challenge that Saturday. As we were going to be running through the park in our race, and were going to have a private after party in the park, we left the park around 12 so we could explore elsewhere…

We decided it would be the perfect time to explore one of the other hotels. I wanted to check out Wilderness Lodge, a mountain cabin themed resort. We never made it into the lodge itself because the grounds were so beautiful. We ended up on the shore of the lake where we found a bike rental.

We decided to rent bikes for an hour to look around.

(Side note: With AAA, this ended up costing about $16. It was a great, cheap side thing to do outside of the parks.) We rode around, got completely lost, but it was beautiful. It felt good to be doing something besides walking.

After riding around, we were going to head back to the hotel and rest for a bit before going the Magic Kingdom that evening. A quirk of the Disney Transportation system is that you can’t connect hotel to hotel, you have to go to a park or Downtown Disney first. So, Matt brilliantly suggested that we use Magic Kingdom to connect back to our own hotel and hop in the park to get FastPasses to use that evening! And that worked perfectly!!

Next up, Magic Kingdom and how it compares to Disneyland in my mind….

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By Jessica
July 22, 2010

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The conversation every couple has…

Wife: What do you want for dinner?

Husband: Whatever you want.

Wife: I don’t know what I want. What do you want?

Husband: I don’t know, whatever you want to eat is fine with me.

Wife: If I knew what I wanted, I wouldn’t ask you what you wanted, I’d tell you what I want. Do you want me cook something or go out?

Husband: Either is fine.

Wife: What do you want me to make?

Husband: Whatever you want.

Wife: If I knew what I wanted to make, I’d make it.

Husband: Want to go out then?

Wife: Sure, where do you want to go?

Husband: I don’t care!!

Wife: Just pick something!

Husband: Fine, Panda Express.

Wife: Not that…

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By Jessica
July 21, 2010

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EPCOT Part Deux

After the tour and some lunch, we were heading back into the World Showcase for our first Kim Possible Mission. If you are not familiar with Kim Possible, she is a cartoon super spy who saves the world with help from her friends (also spies, of sorts) all while attending high school. You can sign up to help her on a mission in 6 of the 11 countries. Our first mission was in Norway.

We're Vikings, what do you know, the terrors of the sea...

What they do is give you a “Kimmunicator” (a stripped down cell phone) that will give you clues, then you go on a scavenger hunt though that country to collect the clues needed to solve the mystery. You can also use the Kimmunicator to trigger certain things, like raising a flag, sending smoke signals, or even trigger a distant camera to take your picture.

Using smoke signals to communicate on our mission

It is definitely a fun way to tour the countries. We did two, Norway and France.

We had fastpasses for more but it takes about 45 minutes to complete a mission and we had 6 other countries to look at before the parked closed!

There is so much to talk about in each area; they are all beautifully themed with characters that would be the most appropriate.

Belle and Beast in France

Jasmine and John Stamos.... err Aladdin in Morocco

The dedication to architecture and style were wonderful.

Morocco

Mexico

 
One of my favorite things was that all the Cast Members in a country were all actually from that country. I could never do it justice by writing about each one in a blog, it really needs to be experienced firsthand.

After getting a little more than halfway through the countries, the heat and sheer size of the park caught up to us and we took a second to chill in an Italian courtyard next to the lake and some gondolas, just to rest our legs.

A few minutes later we heard a whistle, laughing and applause. Our curiosity outweighed our exhaustion and we dragged ourselves over to where it was coming from. And we saw this guy…

He was one of the street performers (they have them in every country, I believe). He was a mime of sorts (not sure what else to call him), only using his whistle to “speak”. He was awesome. So hilarious!! He involved the whole audience in his various antics and had a little girl be his assistant. She didn’t quite always understand him with the whistle but she did a great job! In the end he juggled a grand total of 5 soccer balls!

This guy was my favorite moment in EPCOT and let me tell you why. He loved what he was doing. You could see it in his face, he was never happier than when he was doing his act. He easily could have the attitude of “I’m just a performer for people at Disney” but he was loving it! He smiled at everything and laughed at the little girl’s confusion over what he was whistling for her to do. It didn’t matter that he has done this act a thousand times before probably, he was in the moment and enjoying it, and that came out through his performance. I loved it!

Around this point it was time for our dinner reservations in Germany’s Beirgarten. It is an all you “care” to eat buffet with about 14 different types of meat and 5 different kinds of potatoes. One of the risky things we knew walking in was that it was family style seating. Meaning that we would be seated with up to 6 other people we didn’t know. Out of the 6, we only talked to the 2 gentlemen seated immediately next to us. They were students in helicopter school, one originally form New York, the other from the Cayman Islands. We had a great time talking about the parks, comparing Disneyland to Disney World, comparing food in LA, NY and Orlando. NY guy apparently ate at the actual Soup Nazi place and it was as good as Seinfeld said.

Along with dinner there was a floor show, different German music and instruments. There was toast to special events including one to Matt and I for our anniversary. Everyone got to raise our steins full of various beverages and sing “In Munchen stadt ein hofbrauhaus, ein, zwei, zuffa! ” (I believe it means, “In Munich town there is a tavern, one, two, bottoms up!”) to toast Matt and I. It was a lot of fun!

After dinner we wandered around some more, saw the rest of the countries including China where we saw replicas of the terra cotta warriors.

Matt trying to lead the army

We were originally going to watch the nighttime show in EPCOT, but I had read that since it takes place right as the park closes, it is a nightmare to get out of the park afterwards with everyone else. Given the facts we were exhausted and were relying on Disney shuttles back to the hotel, we decided to skip the show and head out. We took the long way, stopping at the few shops we wanted to come back to before leaving. We got to the park entrance right at dusk, so everything had a beautiful pink glow.

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By Jessica
July 17, 2010

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EPCOT – Part 1

This was the park I think Matt and I were both looking forward to the most. It was also the only park that we had decided we were going to spend the whole day in, opposed to park hopping. So I was very excited about going and Matt was too, in his own way.

We got there just after the park opened and were greeted by a security guard who serenaded us while searching through everyone’s bags.  This was the first of several times that we were shown how much fun all the Disney Cast Members have. Everyone was having so much fun with their job! Then it was on to the park gates. Don’t worry, this won’t be a play by play of the whole day, but I mention this detail purposefully. This is where Matt and I were first fingerprinted. Yes, fingerprinted. When you use your park tickets, they scan your finger to make sure it is you that will always use that ticket. It was kinda crazy!

From there we began exploring. The wait board said that Soarin’ was only a 5 minute wait so we ran over there to find out it lied, try 45 minutes, but while we were there we made our reservations for the Behind the Seeds Tour later in the day. Then I ran off to try Test Track before the line got too long.

Test Track was fun, the premise is that you are the crash test dummy testing out the safety features in the car. The acceleration test at the end is by far the best part of the ride. What the ride showed me though it how cool the Cars Land ride at California Adventure will be when it’s done. I think the theme and driving through Monument Valley will be much more entertaining overall.

Thanks to the Single Rider line, I was on and off in less than 15 minutes and met Matt back at Innoventions. We were wandering around and came across this:

Now you have to understand, I am a weather geek. Had I not married Matt I would be in the Midwest somewhere on a research team chasing tornadoes. So this was awesome!! It was also quite amusing to Matt who had fun teasing me that will all of my research (I had a binder full of information and spreadsheets) I missed that the Weather Channel had something in EPCOT. Basically, they run you through a storm simulator (they spray you with water and blow air on you with a fan…), destroy a street and have you rebuild it, storm safe, as best you can. Then they see if you were able to rebuild it to withstand a storm by running it through the simulator again. It was fun, not quite as cool as I had hoped for, but educational and a fun experience.

When we left we ran straight into the Jammitors, a wandering percussion group that played on trash cans and, well, each other.

Finally the World Pavilion opened (it opens about 2 hours after the park does)!! And we could really begin exploring! First we walked through Canada and then the UK. All the countries are just beautiful to walk around.  Of course you can never full represent all of the countries (Apparently, Canada is only full of loggers, native artifacts and flannel), but they do a nice job of giving you a taste.

A street in the UK pavillion

Speaking of taste, in all of my research one thing was clear. You must eat at Le Cellier and you must have the Cheese Soup. Problem: Le Cellier is booked 6 months in advance and we decided to do this trip 3 months ago. I also read that if you ask very nicely, you might just find a cast member who is willing to give you the soup to-go. So I tried it and you know what, they did!

Not only that but the Cast Member, Rob, saw it was our anniversary and tried to see if he could find us a table. Sadly, he couldn’t, they were apparently all-booked, opposed to just mostly booked. But I was so impressed with his offer to even try! Oh and the soup, it was amazing! Very sharp and tangy. So good I didn’t mind eating hot soup out in 92 degree Florida…

Now at this point we had to leave the World Pavilion to run back to make our Behind the Seeds tour. Behind the Seeds is a guided tour you can take through the greenhouses of EPCOT where they grow the fruits, vegetables, and herbs for the parks. They are also an agricultural research center using the newest methods. Now, you can take the boat ride through them, “Living with the Land”, or you can pay a little extra for the hour long tour.

Our tour guide, Alisha

Alisha showed us all the different techniques they use for growing the produce for the parks. One of the coolest, I thought, was growing brussel sprouts in mid air. They are hanging from a conveyer belt and every minute or so go through this channel that will spray them with a nutrient solution to keep the root moist. Crazy.

Behind the hanging brussel sprouts there is the aquaponics tank, a fairly new area of agriculture.  The kale is growing on top of a tilapia tank, in the water. They feed each other in a natural cycle. They do not serve either of these in the parks due to its experimental nature, instead they feed it to the animals in Animal Kingdom.

There are a lot more photos of the tour, and EPCOT, in the Walt Disney World album of our photo page. I wish I could tell you everything but this post is long enough already!

Next post, how Matt and I helped save the world, dinner in Germany and my favorite moment in EPCOT.

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By Jessica
July 16, 2010

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Introductions

Since Matt introduced himself, I guess it’s my turn!

I’m Jessica, although pretty much everyone calls me Jess. I work for a local University helping primarily graduate students navigate through the bureaucratic red tape surrounding getting a Master’s degree that no one tells you about. I have a BA in Psychology with a focus in Developmental Psych, but my true passion is weather. Seeing as we are located in Los Angeles, the city of no weather, there weren’t exactly a lot of meteorology programs for me to choose from so we went with the back-up plan. I still dream about storm chasing one day though and watch the Weather Channel for fun (I’m a geek I know). I am also a theater geek with a love for musical theater. Other than that, I love cooking but especially baking. I bleed Dodger blue, in case you couldn’t tell. I love to play Ultimate Frisbee and geocache with Matt. I love taking photos. Oh, and yes, I am a Disney Nerd.

I am extremely eclectic, although some would say I’m more “random”. Expect lots of various blogs from me on pretty much anything that goes through my mind in a day. The first several are going to be very “Disney” focused but that is primarily because we just got back from Disney World for the first time!!  After that, we’ll see. I hope you enjoy it! 🙂

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By Jessica
July 16, 2010

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Hello World

Well, in what hopefully is not portentious, I lost the first copy of my first post. So here we go again.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve put “Hello World” into a program, it’s the standard first item you learn to display on the screen when you learn a new programming language. I thought it was appropriate when it was the default title of the first post, given my programming background.

Matt Ragnar Run

My name is Matt, I’m married to Jess (see the About Us for more on that), and I’m a computer technician with a B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science. I’ve also had the privilege of teaching college classes part-time, but am currently waiting for the state budget to allow such things again. I’ve also done some freelance web design and just finished my latest site for Magnum Land Clearing, Inc. I enjoy playing any sport they’ll let me (Dodgeball this Thursday!), but my favorite is softball. I’ve returned to running in the past year (I ran Cross Country and Track in high school) and now have a half and full marathon under my belt, as well as being part of a 12 person relay team that covered 200 miles in the Southern California Ragnar Relay (Hi Ragnarites!). You can keep track of my running (or make fun of it) at (http://my.nike.com/disciplev1. Jess and I enjoy geocaching and travelling for weird reasons across the Western U.S. (and recently Disney World).

Expect blogs from me about whatever is on my mind (which can be quite random), as well as regular updates on my sports teams. Hopefully you enjoy!

Posted in Matt General.

By Matt
July 4, 2010

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