Disney World in 2009

We had a wonderful trip at Disney with my parents and my youngest sister, Jenny. On our first day we went to the Magic Kingdom and went on some of the classic rides, such as Pirates, Jungle Cruise, and the Haunted Mansion. Since one of the best things to do in Disney is eat, we had lunch at Pinocchio's (where I satisfied my craving for chicken strips and fries!). We also went on a few attractions that I'd never been on before, including Winnie the Pooh and Micky's Philharmagic. For Dinner we went to Ohana, at the Polynesian Resort, which had great food, but really slow service. The smoked turkey and marinated shrimp were both wonderful and the dessert bread pudding was incredible! So good in fact that we got the recipe to make it at home. The only bad part about the bread pudding was that it was made on the same planet where Macadamia Nut Cookies are also made, which apparently caused a ruckus amongst the chef who learned Reena had a nut allergy. There were NO nuts in the bread pudding.

The next day we went to the newly dubbed "Hollywood Studios" (formerly MGM Studios) where we went on my new favorite ride: Toy Story! It's similar to my old favorite ride, Buzz Lightyear, but even better because it has more accurate aiming due to the rapid fire and the computer screens.

For dinner on the second night we enjoyed a German Buffet in Epcot. I ate way too much, but I had to try all the different potato dishes and all the desserts :)

When we made it to the Animal Kingdom on the third day there were a lot of new additions that Reena and I hadn't seen before. We hadn't been to Disney since 2002, so it was almost 7 years since our last trip! We cannot not go another 7 years without getting back to Disney.

The best ride in Animal Kingdom is Expedition Everest. The Yeti on the ride is great. My favorite part is when he rips up the track up and sends the cars flying down the hill.

For dinner we went to Boma, which is Jenny's favorite place to eat. It's another all you can eat Buffet (our third in three days!!!). Boma has some really good soups; their seafood curry soup was really, really good.

Day four was our first day at Epcot, for something other than just eating. Epcot is my favorite of all the parks in Disney. I like almost all the rides (even the Land, with the 9 lbs lemons), and the food is amazing. Where else can you get Mexican, Italian, French, German, Moroccan, Japanese, and other variety of different foods within walking distance of one another? The new ride Soarin' was a surprisingly fun ride, but my favorite ride at Epcot is still the Norway ride!

After lunch at Mexico, Reena went to relax back in the hotel; I decided to go into Innovations, where I found a new college football video game. I think the game was a prototype of some sorts, and if I knew what it was I would definitely buy it to update my old version of NCAA football. It had all the college teams, but instead of the Maddin style of play, it had the feel of NFL2K (which is far superior in game feel to the Maddin games). I played as Nebraska and dominated LSU! Speaking of LSU, since we were in Disney during Mardi Gras, when all of Louisiana shuts down, LSU fans were everywhere!!! One such fan even told me when I started the video game that LSU would crush me...I showed them :)

Since it had been a long time since I had been to Disney, there were a lot of rides that had been revised. Some revisions were awful (most notably Alien Encounter becoming Stitch escapes), but others were good. At the end of the Spaceship Earth they added a feature where you get a little cartoon about life in the future. Reena and I got the best one that there is! Our "future selves" were skiing and got hurt by being ridiculously unsafe and skiing over a cracked cliff edge, which collapsed under our added weight. Fortunately, robots in the future got our medical alert signals and came to heal us right away. Our future selves recovered by drinking hot chocolate and after, we got back on our skis and went onto some ice that was noticeably cracked, right past a sign that said "thin ice"! The robots who healed us chased us over the ice and that was the end of the cartoon. It was very amusing.

On our last night in Disney we had dinner at the Flying Fish with my parents and Jenny. It was sad that we had to leave, but we all had a great trip. I can't wait to get back to Disney; Reena and I are already planning where we want to eat :) And next time we will have our son with us!