Mousefest 2006 - Animal Kingdom
In search of the Yeti My Fastpass (and ticket)
After arriving in front of Everest where there were literally hundreds of Mousefest participants milling about, I finally began to keep my eyes peeled in earnest for Deb and Linda, as you will remember at the beginning of the morning I took advantage of Lindas offer to get my fastpass, so now we had to meet back up, I knew that Deb had some additional stuff she was carrying, and besides that I figured she probably was getting stopped a lot along the way, by Mousefest attendees who wanted to meet her. Since folks who had been coming into the park all morning had been grabbing fastpasses for this meet, fastpasses in our group were ready for use at widely varying times, finally one of the folks in the group went and mentioned this situation to one of the cast members and they said that the earliest fastpass in our group would suffice as a time for the whole group, at that point a large portion of the group went to ride. I stayed behind with a few others and noticed that a few others were slowly trickling in as well, since it had been evident as early as the Kilamanjaro Safaris meet that some of our fastpasses would not be good for some time, a lot of these folks just had taken a few minutes to grab a bite or do other things before this meet began, as big as our group was it probably was a good thing that we ended up riding in two groups as I'm sure we added quite a bit to the congestion in this area (as the pictures below make evident). It wasn't too much later when Linda and Deb arrived and shortly after Linda handed me my ticket and fastpass we got the second group together and headed on in to the attraction, I noticed there were quite a few members of the LTAD community http://letstalkaboutdisney.com/PODCAST/index.php on my train.
Above: almost everyone in this photo is a Mousefest attendee, far in the back I can see Dave Marx (of Passporter), Mike Scopa (of Mouseplanet and WDW Today), Amy Stoll (AllEars.net), more to the mid ground I see Fred Block (MagicMeets.net), Tim De Vine (The Magic and Pixels), a bit in front of Fred and Tim are a gaggle of podcasters including Mike Demopolis, Lou Mongello, Ray from the Bare Necessities, conversing with Bill from the Mickey News. Near to the front I see Jack M. of Allears.net, Bea from NC, and All Ears Nets Gloria from Miami(if you use that link scroll up two profiles as there was no "a name" link for glo).
Below: Although I got a few more Mousefest attendees in the photo below, I'm afraid that the only ones whom I know by name are the same ones from the photo above
Above: two faces not noted in the outdoor photos above are Matt Hochberg and Marissa, also in the train the front side of Jack M (we only saw the back of his head outside).
Below: Several LTAD folks in this shot, Mike ready for the front row of the train, Cindy in the middle row, Kemo and Blackjack Joe in the foreground (it looks like Ray probably is behind Kemo in this shot).
Above: Yes it is hard to get a good picture of the Yeti!
I poked around in the gift shop at the exit of Everest for a few minutes after the ride, by the time I got outside most of the Mousefest attendees had dispersed. Still, were right there at the exit including Amy Stoll and Deb Wills, I think Mike Scopa was there too and Will Cad. Amy's inner ear had been messing with her balance for a bit after the ride and she had paused there to regain a little bit more balance. Members of the All Ears Team were going to get together for lunch, since I've written some articles for the All Ears Newsletter, I was invited so when Amy asked if I'd lend her a hand on the walk I naturally agreed, at some point as we were gathering ourselves to get going I stepped out toward the main walkway to take a last look at something before we got underway, I think Amy thought for a moment I was going to leave her stranded there and she exclaimed "I need You!" and then almost immediately laughed and said something like "well that was rude of me, no please or anything, just Come here", it then became one of the stories of the trip, and I heard her sharing it with folks at a few other meets (which is why I feel safe sharing it here, though if Amy wants to add anything or tell it in her own words I'd be delighted to replace my abbreviated version of the story with hers, she tells it much better than I do )
Below: This picture was taken at the exit someone was showing off a really cool WDW 25th anniversary watch even clicking on the slightly larger image doesn't resolve it that well so heres a link watch.jpg to a close in crop from the much larger original.
Lunch with the other AllEars.net team members was delightful, we rarely get to
gather in one place like this and it's oh so much fun when we do. One slightly
sad note at the lunch, my Mini disk recorder, which had been going all morning
got dropped, the disk popped out without stopping to write a table
of contents so when I put it back in the MD player it registers as a blank
disk. I still have hope of finding someone who can edit a mini disk
table of contents so I can get that great Killamajaro Safaris audio but
as for right now the status of that audio is up in the air.
Since most of us were going to the studios for the afternoon
meets over there I figured I'd get a ride with one of the other team
members (and had told Carlene of the possibility that morning). Since I had
walked in from the parking lot with Amy and Mike I had asked them if I
could ride over with them (not sure of exactly when,
I may have asked them at Everest), so when Mike came in
towards the end of our lunch we (like pretty much everyone else)
headed off that way.