Hey, You Lions Can't Do That! This is Disney! A Frozen Harambe Trip Report! NEW 8/27!

[AAshleySEG]

I definitely think being at Animal Kingdom at night is one of the huge draws for Harambe Nights - it is so pretty. And that is a lovely picture of you two on the bridge! ... like holiday card pretty

The food all sounds really good - glad that you thought it was! Bummer about the rush at the beginning.

Also, while I agree with you that it is great your seats were padded and had a back the fact you had "premium" seats and had to look at the screens a lot because your seat wasn't elevated above those tall people in front row just seems off/wrong - but glad you enjoyed it anyway. Seeing it with a live orchestra must have been amazing

Aww shucks! Thank you so much! We really like that photo!! We may have to use it for something special!!

Yes, you can absolutely tell that I am not fond of food right? Who believes that longer than a second...no one. In all actuality, didn;t think about it at the time, but one we were given our seats we could have left them. Jeremy left to go get drinks and bring them back, so I guess I could have gone back outside to get more food and eat it out there before the show started! I am kind of glad that I didn't though, because man, I was glad to eat a whole bunch when we got out to the dinner portion!

Yeah, the positioning of the "premium" seats were not that great. They even left the first two rows empty for reserved VIP guests. Which could have been either guests of the celebrity, or looooong time castmembers, or things of that nature. So really paying for premium seats when they really weren't the best you could get anyway was silly on our part. Lots of people were complaining about it...openly...which was kind of irritating while we were sitting there, waiting on the show to start.

 

[AAshleySEG]

Harambe nights looked amazing and great idea to get the premium so you both had seats with backs ... A major plus at a longer show. Too bad it all started so quickly and you had to Hoover down your appetizers and drinks though ... If start time was 7 pm I wonder how soon they let guests in the event? Animal kingdom at night looks beautiful and loving this bug lights so adorable : ) So hoping they continue the event through November for our upcoming trip, but if not will be there next summer with our grand twin girlies : ) I keep looking daily to see if Frozen events and harambe nights with extend like a crazy person wanting to give disney more special event money$$$$ ... Frozen seems possible since they already did one extension for that, harambe nights I haven't seen any current info.

I really wonder what time they started letting guests into that area only because by the time we got there tons of people had already eaten and had their faces painted and all sorts of things that we kind of missed out on because we arrived maybe 5 minutes before 7:00, which was the actual start time of the event.

I loved all of the details of Animal Kingdom lit up at night! There were so many fun things to look at and just gave me another new perspective on that entire park in general!

 

[AAshleySEG]

So for our very own One More Disney Day, Jeremy and I decided that we wanted to have sort of a character palooza to see just how many characters we could meet in a day. It was all pretty random and sporadic in how we did it too! We also wanted to get everything we could out of that Memory Maker!

We got up and dressed, we knew we wanted to hit up Magic Kingdom first, and we didn't necessarily want to get there at rope drop, just right around opening time! So what were our Disneybounds???? Well, we went pretty classic with our character day and decided to do Walt and Mickey!

Our first stop of the day was the bus station at Kidani Village!! We were excited are raring to go!

We chose Magic Kingdom as our first stop because it seems to be the park with the most potential characters to meet! Our rules were pretty much that we didn't want to stand in a super long line for anyone, we wanted to keep moving! We were going to pretty much do a lap around and then head out and hit up somewhere else!

We made it to the park and inside right around 9:00, which was great! Our first stop on the list was Tinkerbell! We decided to take some better photos of our Disneybounds while we were waiting in the super short line!

I think we maybe waited for about 5 minutes then we were next up to see Tinkerbell! I love this meet area!! It is just so fantastically themed! It was our first time being in here!

We finally got to meet her! She was so much fun! She loved all of the sparkly accessories I had on! Neither one of us had ever met her before, so this was definitely a treat! You would think with as many times as we had been to Disney World that we would have, but there were a lot of first time character meets for us today, and Tinkerbell was only the beginning!

For the moment, we were going to skip over Mickey, we thought it would be easier if we tried to hit him up on the way out of Magic Kingdom! So we kept forging ahead! We knew we just wanted to grab something quick for breakfast and eat it on our way to the next character! We popped into Main Street Bakery and got our usual croissants and a bottled water to share! Our next stop on the list was going to be for Merida. Usually she has a pretty decent line, so we thought we would just eat our breakfast while we were waiting in it. Wrong! When we got over there, there was only one family in line! We put the pastries in our backpack and prepared to meet Merida!

She was so nice and fun to talk to! She said that she really liked my hair and that it was curly liked hers. She told me that her secret was to wash it in the Firefalls! We said our goodbyes to Merida and grabbed a table right outside of Cosmic Ray's in the shade to eat our croissants! That turned out to be a really lucky decision. While we were eating we saw Alice over doing meet & greets with some people. If we would have gone before we ate, we would have only met Alice. Which is not a bad thing! But since we waited until after we ate, we also got to see the White Rabbit!!

She was very interested in my watch because it was missing a few numbers! We talked about how I must always be late except for things that started at 1:00, since the only number on my watch was 12! We are already up to 4 characters and we just barely started! Onward we go!! Our next stop was over at Pete's Silly Sideshow to meet the World's Most Amazing Curiosities!

We walked inside to find that none of them had a wait at all!! They were all just ready for us! We first went over to see Daisy Fortuna and Minnie Magnifique!

Seriously, we are beginning to wonder where all of the July Summer crowds are? This entire trip we have not really had to wait long at all for anything! I'm beginning to think people are starting to read online that it is better to go in the Fall and now they are skipping the summers! I guess we will know in a few weeks! We walked out and straight back around to the other side of the sideshow to meet up with the Great Goofini and Astounding Donaldo!

Fun thing about Goofy! He totally knew who I was dressed as! He picked it up right away! It makes me happy when the characters pick up on our Disneybounding! We left the Storybook Circus area and took a right into New Fantasyland and Ariel's Grotto! This was the longest line we waited in all day, and it was only about 10-15 minutes total!

This was another first for us! We were starting to rack them up and we just started! Ariel was so beautiful! She looked so lovely and she was also very sweet, definitely interesting though! She asked us how long we had been together and where we met. Jeremy told her "Outback Steakhouse". She then said, "I have heard that they have a nice seafood buffet, I may have to try it sometime." I was like, what! No! You can't eat seafood!! Poor fishies! What about Flounder! What about Sebastian!! Of course I didn't say any of this out loud, but I was totally yelling it inside my head! We left Ariel, and started walking over toward Gaston's Tavern!

We saw that he was out and doing greets, when we walked over though, his line has been closed so instead of waiting around or coming back, we just decided to skip him for this time. Instead we went into his tavern and grabbed ourselves a Le Fou's Brew! By the time stamp on the receipt, it was only 10:24 am!

We sat down at a table to cool off for a bit and have a nice frosty beverage! We both really like the brew, I know it is not a lot of people's favorite, but I really enjoy it! So what time is it now...selfie time!

Before we left the tavern, I did get a photo of Jeremy in Gaston's chair! This was Jeremy's first time actually being in the seating area of the tavern! So he got a chance to look around. Before he had only been in to grab and go!

Our next stop was going to be over by the castle! We wanted to go and see the Fairy Godmother! On our way there we noticed the Tremaine Sisters riding the carousel! We never did see Lady Tremaine though, she must have been off to the side somewhere! Who knows, we were going to see the Fairy Godmother! Jeremy was apparently trying to earn some brownie points with her because she asked each of us who our favorite characters were, and of course he replied that she was his favorite...Oh Jeremy! Kiss up!

We finished our photo op with her and she Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo'd us right on our way! We took a right and started heading down the right side of the castle walkway and past Sleepy Hollow...ooh man am I looking forward to that pumpkin waffle sundae at the Halloween Party!

So if you have been keeping count! We have met Tinkerbell, Merida, Alice, the White Rabbit, Daisy Fortuna, Minnie Magnifique, The Great Goofini, The Astounding Donaldo, Ariel, and the Fairy Godmother!! Who would we meet next, stay tuned for Part Two of our Character Mania!!...Don't forget...It's Insania!!

 

[MidnightParade]

Best One More Disney Day EVER!!!!!!!!

LOVE LOVE LOVE this idea! Soooo much fun!! I love Fairy Godmother! She is awesome!

Love your Disneybound too! That is a fantastic idea!! And you both look great!!

Favorite pic so far though is Daisy. I love the closer up pics, seems more personal and less standing next to a character. Oh and I like Jeremy and Gaston's chair. that's number 2 so far!

 

[disney meema]

Oh my goodness you certainly did have a charachterpalooza WOW !!!! You really made great use of your memory maker and I don't think I've ever seen so many pictures taken ... Way to go and you both look adorable : )

 

[AAshleySEG]

Best One More Disney Day EVER!!!!!!!!

LOVE LOVE LOVE this idea! Soooo much fun!! I love Fairy Godmother! She is awesome!

Love your Disneybound too! That is a fantastic idea!! And you both look great!!

Favorite pic so far though is Daisy. I love the closer up pics, seems more personal and less standing next to a character. Oh and I like Jeremy and Gaston's chair. that's number 2 so far!

We had so much fun, and this day was just starting!! We had no idea that we would see so many characters in such a short period of time, it was definitely exceeding our expectations!

I agree with you! I love the Daisy pic! I only wish that they would do more close up photos, I think I have one more during the day that is close up like that, and it is another one of my favorites!

 

[AAshleySEG]

Oh my goodness you certainly did have a charachterpalooza WOW !!!! You really made great use of your memory maker and I don't think I've ever seen so many pictures taken ... Way to go and you both look adorable : )

Yeah, we were just getting started with all of the characters! We still visited two other parks!! I am so happy that we made it a priority to use the Memory Maker to its full potential! At first I definitely thought it was expensive, but now I am very happy with our decision to get it just because of how many photos we ended up getting of the two of us together over those two trips!

 

[AAshleySEG]

When we left off we had just passed Sleep Hollow! We decided to go straight ahead where we ran into Princess Tiana! She is ALWAYS so much fun to talk to, becuase we both love us some food! We had a really nice chat about everything that we ate last night at the Harambe Nights Event!!

We waved goodbye to her and turned to go toward Frontierland, we passed right by Chip & Dale, but they had a super long line, and it was in direct sunlight, so we were like, no thank you, and moved along! We ducked into the pin trading shop. It was really just to get a minute or two of air conditioning and to also get around the families and groups that walk at a snail's pace and stretch out to take up the entire road!

For a short restroom break and character line check, we walked over to Splash Mountain. The line for Woody and Jessie was pretty crazy too! So instead we just started making our way back to Adventureland instead!We had heard about a new Magic Shot that they just started, and OMG, I Wanted to have it!!!

Across from Pirates of the Caribbean, Jeremy stopped to speak with a Photopass Photographer and he happened to have exactly what we were looking for! Guess who it was!! My little green buddy Pascal!!

That pretty much made my day right there! We could have easily been done and I would have been a happy little princess, but we weren't even close to being done yet! There were no characters out in Adventureland when we went by there, so our next move was to walk back down Main Street to see Mickey before heading out to a different park!

Now...to preface this whole experience, you should know that I think a Mickey that talks is a little creepy. It is so strange to me, I have not been able to wrap my head around it yet, we had even been putting off meeting Talking Mickey because it was just really strange for me to even think about.So, back to the story...and Go! We got into the little staging area and there was this cool vault, and the dial actually turned! I wonder if there was anything inside?

So when we made it up to meet Mickey, the first thing he asked me was if we had seen that old spooky mansion over in Liberty Square...I told him yes that we had! He told us that when he was over there he had seen some ghosts that were hitchhiking! He said he had an idea that we should stand like those ghosts in our photo! Then on the count of 3 we should say Creeeepy... So, 1....2....3....Creepy.

As we were walking out and waving bye to Mickey, he said, and oh..."Hurrrryyyy Baaaaaack" So this experience was cemented in my mind as being Creepy, like what the heck!! The first time we meet him he is gonna be all creepy, which is exactly what I expected! It did come out as a pretty cool photo though, so it was worth it!

After creepy Mickey, we headed out of the Magic Kingdom and hopped on the bus to Animal Kingdom! It didn't take us very long to get over there at all, our first little stop was to see how long the wait was for Dug & Russell! At the time it was really long so we decided that we were getting a little hungry and went to grab some lunch instead first! Wouldn't take too many guesses where we decided to stop!

We got 2 Pepperoni Pizzas with Caesar salads! I also think I had a bottled water and Jeremy a Coke!

We went to the room at the end of the hallway and when we first got in there, we were the only ones in there. By the timestamp on our receipt it was 12:34 which was prime lunch time or so I thought! We didn't have to wait in a line at all to get lunch, so we were pretty happy about that!

Done with lunch we knew we wanted to grab some dessert!! What better time than now for another cupcake!! Yay cupcakes!! We walked over to Africa and stopped over at the Kusafiri Coffee Shop, they had 3 different types of cupcakes, but we chose to get the Cotton Top Tamarin Cupcake!! Theo the CM posed for me as he was giving it to us through the window!

Wait Jeremy, don't eat it yet, we need to find some shade to stand in!! This cupcake was HUGE!! But man, was it delicious! It was probably the best cupcake we had of this trip!

When we were finished eating our wonderful cupcake, we decided we wanted to go over and try to find Rafiki!! We knew that he would be over at his Planet Watch and so we went to board the Wildlife Express Train. When we got on, we decided that it had been almost 6-7 years since we had been over there!! That is a pretty long time, so we were due for another trip on this train! We hopped off the train and walked inside to get in line for Rafiki, it was a pretty short line, they were getting ready to give him his "5 minute break" So we took the opportunity to take some shots while we were waiting!

A few short minutes later he was back, and it was our turn to greet him!

On our way out and while we were heading back to the train we saw that Chip & Dale had a really short line! They must have hurried over at Magic Kingdom to get over here this quickly! They must have some sort of secret tree tunnel or something! Anyway, we were glad to see them! We had a pretty awkward Chip & Dale experience at Star Wars Weekends, so this one TOTALLY made up for it!! They were awesome, we had lots of fun with them!

We made our way back on the train to Africa, and then started walking over to Asia, where we were hoping to meet up with some more characters! As we got over to Upcountry Landing we saw that it was about time for Baloo to be there, so we were 2nd in line when he arrived!! He really loved Jeremy's tie! I guess they don't get a chance to see many guys wearing ties in the parks...lol

We had heard that King Louie was going to be there too, but we never did see him! Oh well, we moved along and went back over to get in line for Dug & Russel! The line was moving pretty quickly so this time we stayed there, plus it was in the shade, so that was worth it too! The Cast Members here LOVED that we were dressed as Walt & Mickey! Even Dug & Russel loved it too, Russel did ask me where my Mickey ears were though!

It was time for us to head out of Animal Kingdom. Since we had an extra day, we were going to need to go and get a new room, I had to make a separate reservation for that last day. We were still staying at Kidani Village, but this time we were in a Savannah View instead of a standard view. That was the only option when I was trying to make my res with DVC online! Works for us! Before we officially left Animal Kingdom though, we stopped for a Photopass in front of the Tree of Life! Too bad that ugly Go Away Green wall was in the background!

Still keeping count? We added Princess Tiana, "Pascal", Mickey Mouse, Rafiki, Chip, Dale, Baloo, Dug, and Russell! That is 9 more characters for us!!

We still had a whole half day left!! Where would we go next after checking in at Kidani?? Or would something cause us to get off track??? Find out in Part 3 of Andrea & Jeremy's Character Mania...because it is still totally Insania!!

 

[TNS_Tinkerbell]

AAshely, Loved your post and I watched your video and it was super cute.

I liked the music, very fitting, I have never head a Good Life, cut like that.

I look forward to your future trip report, you guys seem to have so much fun and are very cute!

Cheers!

 

[katt789]

What a fantastic way to spend a day!! I love it! Character meets are so much fun and you guys ROCKED them, wow!!

Also LOVE the disneybounds, that's a REALLY good idea and I totally might steal it for a future trip

 

[disney meema]

Wow you did really have a character mania adventure ... Amazing! Now I am inspired by you to see if we can take even close to that many pictures and make as much use of our memory maker that you two did : ) Wow just wow!
You had asked me in an earlier post if we would do a travel report or just have fun and not do it ... I haven't thought about doing a travel report since I've never done one before. Now thinking about it maybe it would inspire another couple with their first non kiddo or grandkiddies trip to see us on our first couples trip for the over 55 club peeps. So maybe I'll do a TR?
We return from 2 weeks at WDW just in time to head to Las Vegas to pick up my Mom from California who doesn't want to fly and wants a to bring her dog along, so my sister is meeting us in Vegas with my 84 yr old Mom : ) She's spending Thanksgiving through New Years with us here in Utah since she hasn't been here for the holidays in several years, and she loves the idea of Christmas in the snow with us. So any woo if I end up doing a TR it would be in January after the holidays and when we return from taking her back to Las Vegas for home ... And a few days to go into a much needed post WDW Holiday coma after a busy 2 1/2 months of travels and company : )
Quick question do you use photobucket or something similar to post pictures on this site?

 

[jane2073]

Character Mania...because it is still totally Insania!!

The only time I have heard 'insania' rhymed with 'mania' is from the song 'Mickey Mania' from the 1980's. So awesome if that was what you were going for. Still cool if it wasn't.

We Disney Bounded Frozen when we went to DHS last Saturday. I did Anna, my Husband (who has nearly white hair) was Elsa and my daughter was Olaf. We had so much fun and now I want to do it every time we go!

 

[Disney9.9.10]

I just got all caught up. What a great start to your trip!

You were so productive with your characterpolooza! Wow!

I love all of the Frozen stuff happening lately! Delicious cupcakes, Olaf everywhere, special shows, it's great.

Harambe nights looks like it was a great experience. It must have been so great to see AK after dark.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

love the idea of a character meet day for an extra day - especially if you feel like you got done what you wanted to the previous days!

You guys look great in your Disney Bounding - I especially like yours ... I mean, I don't recall ever seeing a picture of Walt in shorts

Man you are doing so great in meeting so many characters with not much wait! That is funny though that you got Ubber Creepy Mickey when you were worried about Talking Mickey being creepy (I am actually worried about the same thing). Feel like we need a name for Creeper Mickey - Mikhail?

 

[MidnightParade]

So much Insania!!!!!

I love that pic of you eating the cupcake!! lol

I love that Mickey talked about the Haunted Mansion and did the hitchhiker pose! Hilarious! But agreed a little weird considering it was kinda creepy when you already thought he was creepy! Poor Mickey!

I had never heard about the Pascal magic shot before!!! That is awesome! Love it!!!!

 

[AAshleySEG]

AAshely, Loved your post and I watched your video and it was super cute.

I liked the music, very fitting, I have never head a Good Life, cut like that.

I look forward to your future trip report, you guys seem to have so much fun and are very cute!

Cheers!

Thank you so much!! I hope you get to read the rest of them too!

Yeah, we love that version of "Good Life", it is by the same guy who does all of the African versions of songs, he even did a "Let It Go" as well! His name is Alex Boye! He does Africanized Tribal Versions of bunches of popular mainstream songs!

I am glad you are looking forward to the next TR! The next full one should start about September 22 or something like that, although I do have a special surprise Mini TR that I should be able to start on next Monday! I am thinking about just adding it to the end of this one!

 

[AAshleySEG]

What a fantastic way to spend a day!! I love it! Character meets are so much fun and you guys ROCKED them, wow!!

Also LOVE the disneybounds, that's a REALLY good idea and I totally might steal it for a future trip

It was one of the most fun things we have done in a while! We really enjoyed characters hunting! The sad part is that there are still more...LOL We had the whole rest of the day to find more of them!

We had such great comments from everyone that day on our Walt & Mickey! It was definitely the most talked about look of them all while we were there. Especially people mentioning Jeremy's tie! Well, characters mentioning and giving him the thumbs up for wearing the tie! I would love to see what you guys do with Walt & Mickey!! Make sure to put it in a TR, so I can see it!!

 

[AAshleySEG]

Wow you did really have a character mania adventure ... Amazing! Now I am inspired by you to see if we can take even close to that many pictures and make as much use of our memory maker that you two did : ) Wow just wow!
You had asked me in an earlier post if we would do a travel report or just have fun and not do it ... I haven't thought about doing a travel report since I've never done one before. Now thinking about it maybe it would inspire another couple with their first non kiddo or grandkiddies trip to see us on our first couples trip for the over 55 club peeps. So maybe I'll do a TR?
We return from 2 weeks at WDW just in time to head to Las Vegas to pick up my Mom from California who doesn't want to fly and wants a to bring her dog along, so my sister is meeting us in Vegas with my 84 yr old Mom : ) She's spending Thanksgiving through New Years with us here in Utah since she hasn't been here for the holidays in several years, and she loves the idea of Christmas in the snow with us. So any woo if I end up doing a TR it would be in January after the holidays and when we return from taking her back to Las Vegas for home ... And a few days to go into a much needed post WDW Holiday coma after a busy 2 1/2 months of travels and company : )
Quick question do you use photobucket or something similar to post pictures on this site?

It really doesn't take long at all to stop for Photopass Photo, we always skipped the ones with the super long lines and just went for the ones no one was really using! That way...the super long line always formed after we used it...HAHAHA

I would love to read a TR by you! You trip sounds like so much fun, you are going to be there for such a long amount of time! I wish that we could do that someday! I don't think starting it a while after you went would be a big deal at all! I would just have to make sure that I took extra good notes, because I might forget details, but it totally sounds like you could do it! No pressure though!!

And yes, I use Photobucket to post my pics to the site! I also have Flickr but have not used it for Disboards as of yet!

 

[AAshleySEG]

The only time I have heard 'insania' rhymed with 'mania' is from the song 'Mickey Mania' from the 1980's. So awesome if that was what you were going for. Still cool if it wasn't.

We Disney Bounded Frozen when we went to DHS last Saturday. I did Anna, my Husband (who has nearly white hair) was Elsa and my daughter was Olaf. We had so much fun and now I want to do it every time we go!

Oh my Gosh! The Frozen family Disneybound sounds awesome!! I am glad you guys had fun with it!! We really enjoy doing them!! It is sort of addicting now, because it is now sort of in my planning for what characters we are going to Disneybound as on our future trips...LOL

Thanks for reading along!!!

 

[AAshleySEG]

I just got all caught up. What a great start to your trip!

You were so productive with your characterpolooza! Wow!

I love all of the Frozen stuff happening lately! Delicious cupcakes, Olaf everywhere, special shows, it's great.

Harambe nights looks like it was a great experience. It must have been so great to see AK after dark.

Woohoo all caught up! I didn't realize at the time that we would be able to get as many characters as we did, and we saw some others one too, just weren't really willing to stand in their lines at the time....or wait on them to get off of the Carousel...

The Frozen stuff was definitely fun to get into! We went back to Hollywood on our last day and did a few more little fun things, I don't want to give them away though, but it should be in the next TR post!!

Animal Kingdom after dark was really cool! The food was phenomenal! The entertainment was also great! It was definitely a fun time! So glad to have you here and reading along!