Nrthwnd

Canadians shouldn't cruise with Royal Caribbean, for now.

"Of Space And Colour" City of Colour

New avatar here. Found it somewhere on the net. Liked the "tranquility" of it, and kept it on file. Here it is, just in case I once again, suddenly decide to change avatars. (o;

^ I think those characters are more tied to the Land (Grizzly Gulch) itself, rather than just the attraction. With all the animated bears in Disney's movie vault, I am sure they have scoured them all to see what 'bears' could fit in GG. And Kenai and Kona were it. (I am supposing.)

^ Yay. And to all of you TPR members born on January 1st.... HAPPY BIRTHDAY EVERYBODY!

Pin trading and buying. It had to be pin trading and buying. Fortunately, I have gotten out of that racket and stuck with only a couple of pin series in the Disney parks collections. (Go Scary Teddy in NBC!) Yep. Gotten a bunch of them over only a few years. Then I went cold turkey, lol.

^ From our visit there with the TPR Tour in Sept.2012, the bears that were seen on Grizzly Gulch were to me, 'non-descipt' bears. That is, they didn't look anything like the bears in Brother Bear, nor did they look like any of those from the Country Bear Jamboree in WDW and TDL. So I don't think either of those attractions were "in mind" when they were building this one. Of course, they may have purposely done it, knowing there'd be a comparison of some kind.

Barq's Root Beer

Woo hoo!

So here's the list of all the movies we saw in 2013. Some are a blur. Others were exceptionally memorable. And only one, I went to a second time in the movie house. The Hobbit, Part 1 Les Miserables Escape Planet Earth Jack The Giant Killer OZ The Great and Powerful The Croods Olympus Has Fallen Oblivion Iron Man 3 Star Trek 2 The Great Gatsby Epic Now You See Me Monsters University The Lone Ranger Man of Steel Pacific Rim Despicable Me 2 Elysium World's End The Butler This Is The End Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 Thor The Dark Hunger Games: Catching Fire Frozen Dallas Buyers Club The Book Thief Frozen (again) Whew! Well, here's to another year full of films and movies we love (and some times hate) to watch.

So - at the end of this trip report, I want to sum it all up by thanking a lot of people who helped me through this trip. To Robb and Elissa, thank you so much for another unique tour. And for Olympic Looping Coaster, too! To my room mates Fran and Terry - thanks for sharing my stress and rooming habits. To Ginny, who took care of me when I needed it, and didn't give me no fuss. BearHugs! And many thanks to the two Medical Centres' Staff (Thorpe;Europa) who also took good care of me. (o: And to everybody on this tour - what an intense whirlwind of stuff we saw and rode! Great to see a lot of you again, make new tour friends, and make this TPR Tour as different as any of the others we've done, yes? Next year, I go back to Scandinavia and repeat most of the 2009 TPR Tour there. Can't wait till June, but in the mean time.... HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY! And have an Awesome 2014! And remember Miles - "We'll always have Infusion".

A New Years Mug First off, this mug is not for the current NYE. I got it, at the Disney Store locally, for when the calendar clicked over to....2000. But it's all I got for now. And at this time, I would like to wish everybody a Happy New Year and best wishes for 2014 to all. What year is Mickey looking into? Well, the 2 - 0 looks right... But it's followed by another 0 - 0. Oh well. HAPPY NEW YEAR Everybody! And here's Disney Store logo on the bottom of it. And it's Made in Thailand!

Eep. Just noticed outside, several neighbours on the sidewalk, chatting. But... Everybody has either greying or white hair! The whole block's getting old!!!

Finally getting around to listening to my cd of the original Broadway cast of First Date. Am enjoying it so far, and somewhat sadly, as this coming weekend is it's closing shows. It sounds like a really good original musical that will be closing too soon, before it's time. In the mean time, there's this cd.... Buh bye "Chuck." And Krysta, a SMASHing good voice, lol.

Soundtrack of broadway cd of First Date Also sadly, closing this coming weekend. Definitely an original musical that closed too soon. Ah "Chuck", we hardly knew ye. And Krysta, too. (o;

^ "Build a wall of Starbucks Cups and they will come." Or something like that.

Once Despicable Me opens, that facade will look great with all the lights/decorations on it, over the holiday season. As only the minions can do it.

^ I have too, in the last few years of Christmas. But I was sort of getting bored with not changing them. So - they'll all come off this time... And new charms will take their place, lol!

^ We always tried to have an afternoon meal at the park's Blue Bayou, and generally, the food was wonderful. But also pricy. But we knew that in advance, so we did it anyway.

^ Noted for next visit, thanks Neil!

^ And it's not just the dive (or as I like to call it the Mini-ME element, as in Manhattan Express?) that makes this one truly unique. It starts forward, where the others start the cars going backwards into the vertical lift. These cars head onto a turntable, which then turns them around 180' to face the other direction, tilts backwards (somehow) and the lift begins. Then, the car heads into a barrel roll and where the other UTs have another landing ramp at this end (and then tilt down, so the cars go backwards through the two barrel rolls), this element puts the car again forward, into the rolls and then into the station. And faster, I was told by others who had ridden the original versions. Including myself, woo hoo!

I think the Ultra Twister at Rusutsu Park in Sapporo Japan, stands as a great example of: A) Where to put it where you have to work (walking uphill) to get to it. B) Put it amongst lush green plants and trees, almost totally hiding it from the rest of the park. C) And make make sure it's unique enough, and this is the one with the DIVE part in it, so us coaster crazies will go out of our way to get to it. Not wierd, and not really out of place. Just almost...out of sight. And here's my little video of it with all that green around it... [coastertube]http://www.themeparkreview.com/coastertube/play.php?vid=MVI_2487_c6ke[/coastertube] It really looks like somebody just put this together in their back yard! Here it is - amongst all the lush green plants and trees. And here it is - back of the park. You can't see it from the first level. And it's quite the walk up to it. But soooo worth it! (o:

Disney & More just posted a "final end-of-year look" at current construction, of "Ratatouille". And the second photo shows they are starting to work on the entrance (and signage) to the attraction. And then thy'll cover it up, until The Opening, LOL. The current view of what's going on. Close up on the entrance and sign to the ride. (Thank you Disney & More for the photos)

Oooo, I just these kinds of magnets! Raised, embossed, whatever. Sexy and touchable.

Fixed. And I share the same sentiment. Its on an old Disney Store mug for the year 2000. But hey - I tried. Cheers!