Disney World - April 2007

Our journey starts at 30th Street Station, an iconic building in Philadelphia, and one I'd never yet been inside. It is massive, and massively gorgeous. We were green to the whole process, so it took some figuring out, but we actually got our bags checked and our tickets printed out and were good to go after a bit of waiting. Not to mention a ride to the station courtesy of SuperFriend Bridget.

One of the lovely statues inside the station.

It's a really long train ride, did I mention that? I was fortunate to get two seats on one side to myself (more leg room) and Steph and Tristan shared a pair across the aisle. They were small enough to sleep across the seats! I was not so lucky, but thankfully no pictures exist of me.

We arrive in Disney World at our hotel! Tristan chugs apple juice IN Disney World, while watching Disney Channel! It doesn't get better than that! Awwwwwwwwww yeah.

It's late in the evening when we get settled. We don't hit the major parks, instead opting to get dinner and check out the DisneyQuest building, a sort of interactive place with small rides and games and such. Here's proof we were there. A great assortment of classic arcade games, but otherwise not terribly exciting.

Bright and "early" the next morning, we make it to the Big One, Magic Kingdom. Chip & Dale are there to greet us! Gimme five!

Right on! We got an autograph book right away, and all the characters either "sign" the book or stamp it (see Chip signing it in the previous photo), and then pose for pictures. It's a nice little system and while some of the lines were long, it was never horrible.

Pluto is awesome and Tristan looks like the demon child, and it's gotta be hot in those costumes!

The Castle! I regret I didn't get the top of the spire in the picture, but a lovely shot nonetheless.

We saw the Little Mermaid was hanging out, so we got in line. She's lookin' good!

She pretends to want to tell him a secret, instead opting to...

Land one on his cheek! This picture was taken by Disney photogs, and they'd give you a card with a code and it was all online, so you could check out all the pictures they took of you (and buy them if you want) or just grap a screen shot for free. Especially nice in this instance, as I missed the actual kiss with my camera.

Tristan and I cruising. We totally won that race.

Buzz!

Stitch!

Donald! In a nice restaurant where you could reserve a table and have guaranteed characters come direct to your table. It was nice, the food was actually pretty good (parmesean mashed potatoes?! who knew!) and...

There was a train that rolled right through the restaurant! It was one of the trams that runs through the park system and it would slide through the upper level of this floor of the hotel where the restaurant was located. Sweet!

Goofy! I totally didn't realize until after I did it, but I think I almost accused Goofy of touching Tristan inappropriately. Before I took this, he had his left hand on Tristan's body, pseudo-hugging him. I was looking at his RIGHT hand, which was partially covering Tristan's face in the picture. I tried to let him know that, but I said very cryptically "watch the hand there, Goof!" - which caused him to very sarcastically move his left hand off of Tristan and cock his head into that sort of "ta-da!" pose. Incidentally, that caused his right hand to slightly come off of Tristan's face, and all was well. And then I realized what I'd said. I should have apologized, but Goofy was gone. My bad, Goof!

Pluto picked up a napkin and spun it in the air and danced! Tristan did, too!

Mickey signs the book!

Mickey!

Minnie! Watch the hand there, Tristan!

Pluto again! He's everywhere!

We went to Epcot the next day and it rained, HARD, for a bit. We were in the gift shop waiting it out and Tristan grabbed these stuffed animals and ASKED for me to take his picture. Ok! One of the first times he's asked for it.

Epcot had a kick-ass aquarium and a big tank filled with cuttlefish. Cuttlefish are freaking awesome. Those eyes are insane!

I said awesome. I must have taken 30 pictures of them. They're ridiculously aware of you looking at them, it's freaky. It was kinda hard to get a good shot, they kept turning away!

Wicked awesome. Those arms around the mouth on the front of their body, like a head that moves in 8 separate sections. They look like little dogs, almost. Like Zero the red-nosed ghost dog, floating through the air!

There was a lot of Finding Nemo stuff in and around the aquarium, including Bruce the shark!

Oh, but you're only halfway done!! Check out the rest.