March 17-22 2012 DLR trip report!

[Bret92]

I was quite thirsty at this point..or maybe I was hungry? I don’t know, but either way, I wanted to stop at Schmoozies and get a Dynamic Duo, which ended up being quite delicious. Under these extraordinary time constraints (I want to finish this before I leave for Disney World in 2.5 days), I don’t quite have time to look up what was in the drink. Delicious, nonetheless.



While I was drinking my smoothie, we made our way through the Animation building, looking at the Character Close-up and the Sorcerer’s Workshop. I really do enjoy spending some time in this building, but I did find myself spending less and less in it this trip in order to get in some more pictures.







Mike n Sully to the Rescue was next, and we got right on as usual. It seems as though no one likes this ride, but I still say it is really fun and enjoyable, and as you can tell, Morgan agrees or else we would not go on it as often as we do. We got out and noticed that the Disney Dance crew was about to start and this would be a good time for me to get a video of Mickey bustin’ a move. It seemed like this time around though, Mickey was with the crew of rejects and it left me wondering why these cast members were in this role, but oh well, video down. I just watched for Mickey anyhow.





We thought it would NOW be a good time to go back for a World of Color fastpass in hopes of getting into a different zone, so off we went and it turns out, we were in the blue section of the later show this time. Oh well, we’ll try again next time. After that disappointment, we needed a nice mood lifting ride and Soarin’ is right there so we figured it would be a good time to use our fastpasses.





So, when aren’t we hungry? I promise you, a lot of time went by before this because it is now lunch time. Morgan got some food from Boardwalk pizza and pasta and I basically just got meat on a stick. The pasta, we had the previous August so we knew it would be a reasonable choice but the beef that I got was very reminiscent of some turkey meat loaf that I had been making on and off for the weeks prior to this vacation so it was kind of a let down. Overall, it wasn’t bad, but I think I would choose something a bit different the next time around.

[Bret92]

We saw the Aladdin musical at 2:20pm and as I said before (or at least I think I did), it is a must see each time we go to the park. Right now, I cannot remember if it was this show, the previous show, or both that we had a different Genie, but I like our “original” genie better, but it is nice, either way, to get a different mix sometimes. Next up, we decided to walk across the entire park (as we tend to do for some reason, all the time) and use our California Screamin’ fastpass. I do get motion sick from time to time so those last bumps before picture drop really do get me every time.





I don’t know if it was just because it was hot, or if it was because it was busy, or because Morgan makes us walk back and forth through the entire park all the time, but we decided it would be a good time to get in some relaxing and try to get a few pictures of us, that I think turned out pretty alright. We were underneath Silly Symphony Swings, so we had a pretty clear view of the rest of the park across the water, and there was hardly any foot traffic under there so it was quite a peaceful half hour or so and for anyone looking to relax in DCA, definitely a great spot to do so.









Our reservation for Wine Country Trattoria was coming up so we had just a little bit of time to do a couple attractions so on our way over, we stopped at the Golden Zephyr, and it was running as pretty much a walk on, so we rode. Even during busy times of the day, Ariel seems to be a walk on so we took the chance and sure enough, we were on in less than 5 minutes. There were the couple of rides we had time for and then we headed to Wine Country for our 5 o’clock reservation.









I must say that I very much enjoy the relaxing outdoor atmosphere of this restaurant and my only complaint happens to be with service that we didn’t get. Don’t you worry, it was only the fact that we weren’t brought any bread until the second time that I asked for it. What can I say, I love bread. However, we decided that our server was just trying to save us from yesterday’s bread because it seemed to taste very dry or stale.





The rest of the meal, however, was quite good. We started with a breaded seafood platter. There were mussels, calamari and some sort of bean. I found most of it to be kinda chewy but it was still pretty good. The pasta was delicious and handmade, the shrimp were delicious and the only thing I could say about my main dish was that it was maybe a little bit too oily, but that is going to happen when you choose scampi. Morgan enjoyed hers very much as well, but the pasta in her dish was obviously not handmade and something you would be able to get from a grocery store, but it did not make hers bad, it just was not as delicious as mine. I actually am looking forward to going there again since I love my carbs.

[Bret92]

I guess neither of us were hungry for a dessert from there. I don’t know about you, but I can always go for some ice cream. We went to get a swirl cone instead. As we ate, we made our way over to listen to and ride heimlich. It was amusing, as always, but not one of those rides you go on because you have to. It’s made for killing some time. From there was a nice ride on ToT and then I made the mistake of waiting for a little while to get a few pictures while Morgan went to learn how to draw another character at the Animation Academy.












The Hollywood Tower Hotel by BretJMiller, on Flickr

From there we went for a walk to and around Paradise Pier to decide if we were going to watch World of Color that day, and we decided against it. Instead, we walked right back over to ToT to get one last ride in and left for the day to make our way over to Trader Sam’s for one last time before our trip was over.




An empty Pier by BretJMiller, on Flickr

This time around, we didn’t have room for anymore souvenir cups so we elected to peruse the menu a little bit more. I went with the Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Rum, and Morgan got the Piranha Pool. They were both pretty good, and I’m willing to bet that just about any drink you can get from there is delicious. Which is also what I am starting to think about the food. We decided to try a couple more of the appetizers. They were both delicious. I’m not a big fan of flatbreads, but we had the pork flatbread and I thought it to be good, a little sweet with the barbecue sauce, but it worked with the little bit of pork that was on there. Morgan only tried one piece - she didn’t seem to like it because of the barbecue sauce was just so different. The Ahi poke was our second dish, and it was really good, but hard to eat at times. We didn’t realize right away that the tuna was sitting on top. Both of us thought it was tomatoes or something of that nature at first until we really started to taste it.











After taking our time to eat and drink, we almost decided to call it quits for the night, but decided to spend a little bit more time out and head over to Disneyland. We didn’t do much, just got a dole whip, caught the end of the second show of Fantasmic! and headed into Pirates for the last ride of the night.

















We made our way back for some much needed sleep until we would wake up for our last full day of the trip!