Disney World (Part Two) - April 2007

They have a great safari ride and I got this and the next shot while in motion, from the vehicle! Not bad! Baby giraffe!

Baby elephant!

Another shot Tristan asked for, and I am happy to oblige - by this sorta Buddha statue at the end of one of the Asian-themed sections.

Baby gibbon!

They didn't have a whole lot in terms of primates, and the gorilla exhibit was kinda crappy, but they had a lovely island full of 3 siamangs! Awesome!

Siamangs rule. I kept waiting for them to sing, but it didn't happen and I wasn't brave enough to do my imitation amongst the crowds. Woulda been funny to see their reactions, though.

The next day we hit the Hollywood Studios park, where there is a lot of movie and TV stuff, shows and rides. And face painting! Check out the Red Ranger.

We knew there were Power Rangers, and Tristan is slightly obsessed with Power Rangers, and he got his fill on this day! He was super psyched! They all came riding in to blasting music, on this souped-up car. He got to meet them all.

Red Ranger was first, and he noticed right away Tristan had his face on - he pointed at Tristan and pointed at himself. Red Ranger to Red Ranger. Right on.

Red Ranger thumbs up!

Red Ranger signs!

Red Ranger poses! They'd all sign the book and then do this wanna-be karate style move and then nail a pose, usually different every time. And ask the kid to pose, too. Sweetness.

Pink Ranger!

White Ranger!

Yellow Ranger!

Green Ranger!

There were a TON of characters at this park, and we almost found them all... it's Woody! I loved his pose.

And here's an Army man, also from Toy Story.

I don't even know who this kid is. Tristan did.

Again... uh... I don't have cable TV. Hugs all around!

JoJo and Goliath, apparently!

The Incredibles!

That creepy Mr. Robinson dude!

Chicken Little! Abby game him a really, really long hug.

Mike Wazowski! And Sully! No autographs from them. As you might understand.

A one-handed Tristan, sliding down a leaf slide, part of the Honey I Shrunk The Kids playground set.

And riding the giant Ant.

Back to Magic Kingdom, we spied Mary Poppins riding the carousel! We got in line for her autograph, but Tristan mysteriously started to not want to take any more character pictures. I guess he'd had enough and we slipped out of line. While in line, I made a remark to one of the Disney staffers managing the line about the costumes being air-conditioned (I was kidding) and then she said "what costumes?" and I didn't get it. At first. Yeah, yeah, these aren't "characters". Right. Wink, wink.

We stuck around for the fireworks and saw the castle get a lot of light changes, so I tried to get all artistic.

I just love this picture of Steph reaching back to man both controls of the ride, since no one was sitting in the back. You can't even see Tristan, seated to her left.

These were on the last day, when we went back to Animal Kingdom and hit the dinosaur section. Tristan is an archaeologist!

Climbing up the big rope maze thing.

Driving the rusted-out jeep.

Mother and child! And dinosaur!

Step-father and child! And dinosaur!

Family, with Tree of Life!

Close-up! Both taken by Disney photog.

Once, we wound up in some fake Disney "studio" somewhere and got to create our own photo at a computer station, and then added on our own graphics... Tristan pretty much chose them all, and this is how it turned out! Nice!

We were pretty pooped after our time at DW, but fun was had by all. Even the food wasn't outrageously priced. The train ride back wasn't as much fun. I had apparently left our return tickets on the train we took down - but I figured that out about a minute after the train left the station after dropping us off in Orlando. (Why they gave us both sets on departure, I'm not sure - that's not how the airlines do it!) We went through this whole process of them trying to contact the train and have them look for our tickets, which they say they never found, yadda yadda yadda, so we had to re-purchase return tickets and apply for a refund. And to top that off, our train was majorly delayed, which we didn't know until we arrived at 11 am for our noon train. And it got delayed until about 6 pm (after SEVERAL false rescheduled departure times). So we were sitting there for-freakin'-ever to get on the train, and it got even more delayed on the way back, so that we got home around 8 hours after we were supposed to. Thanks to SuperFriend Bridget for taking us back home, too. And I finally got the refund (minus $80 in application fees) about 3 months later.