Jan 2010 Disney Trip Report: Post I

Well I am back… the after Disney trip blues have set in majorly so what is a better relief then to relive the memories. Back when I was planning this trip I went through so many, many questions. I can quite frankly be the most indecisive person in the world. I kid you not I went through so many flip flops and changes in dining, resorts, flights, car rentals, etc then I care to even share. Yes I need a support group…

Every year, except one, Jeff and I have traveled to Disney World for our anniversary; this would be our third trip using our DVC membership. I won’t bore you with the details on planning the trip; suffice it to say that can all be read about in my pre-trip report.

In the end several decisions were made literally just one to two weeks before we left. Seven months previous I had booked us five nights at a 1 bedroom at the Boardwalk Villas, and a few months later two nights at the Polynesian. However, just two weeks before we left I booked us our first night at Pop Century, finally decided on the Dining Plan for our stay at BWV, and booked the Backstage Magic Tour (here after referred to as the $200 tour!). Talk about some last minute planning. By the way, during that time I also changed our airline flight, for the THIRD time. Was it all worth the money? Did we have a good time? You will just have to continue reading to find out.

Saturday 1/23/2010

Our nine day trip started at 7PM Friday night, that’s when work ended for me at dear old AT&T, and I was free! Nothing feels better then knowing you have nine wonderful days in front of you. Earlier that week (yes the SAME week) I had traded with a co-worker to have Saturday off instead of having to schedule day of vacation for Saturday, which relieved a lot of stress. Uniquely enough for us our flight that Saturday was not in the wee hours of the morning, or Friday at night, but was a leisurely 3:05PM flight. It allowed us to sleep in, relax and slowly pack our bags in a much more orderly fashion then usually occurs.

Once we arrived at KCI airport we did our usual bag stop and swap (we park in the garage, run the bags upstairs, and while I guard the bags Jeff takes the car to the economy lot). Suffice it to say I have not seen the economy lot now for several years. We had decided this year to pay the $10 for Southwest Early Bird, and ended up with A23 and A24. I am still not overly thrilled with having to pay $10 for something that used to be free… but oh well its better then paying $50 for bags. The flight itself was smooth, and normal for Southwest, on time. It certainly wasn’t uneventful as I had a seat partner that was quite honestly the most talkative gentleman I have ever meet, a very nice guy who seemed to have traveled everywhere around the world.

We had no problems retrieving our luggage (the wait was a bit though), and Alamo again was a great experience. No waiting in the long line! We went to the kiosk, declined the insurance and we were on our way. I felt pretty good about snagging that $105 rate for 9 days too, no I am not gloating. Okay, maybe I am. :P

We picked up our blue Hyundai compact, no remote locks or cruise control, but it had Sirius! It was basic and it worked. As exiting the garage I remember commenting about the spiral exit ramps, similar to our walking ramps at Truman Sports complex, ah the warm fuzzies of arriving in Orlando!

So you are wondering why we took a picture of a luggage box? We just thought it was funny that someone had to buy new luggage to possibly haul home all their souvenir purchases :) Thank goodness I have not had to do so... yet

*A photo of the five story Rubik's Cube. Don't leave home without it.

Soon afterward we pulled into Pop Century and approached what would be the first test of this trip, the dreaded yet hopefully optimistic test of the online check in system. In August, we had stayed for free dining, and had opted out of online check in, only to once again not receive the requested king bed room. The cast member had mentioned that with online check in we would have had much better odds. So I tried it. Did it work? Does Mickey have two ears? It did. We checked in quickly (no wait), got our requested king bed room, in the 70’s building (building 10). A sprinkling of pixie dust! Little did I know that more was coming!

We checked out our room, got settled and decided how to finish out the evening as by this time it was only about 8:30PM. As we had to both pick up Jeff's AP and upgrade my two day ticket we figured Downtown Disney would be a great place to start out. Since we were close to the bus stop, and figured Downtown Disney parking would be horrendous at this time of night we decided to use the bus. The bus was there the second we stepped in line. Our luck with Disney Transportation from last year was holding on strong!

A couple photos from Downtown Disney. One of the broomstick's from Fantasia.

Waterfall at Rain Forest Cafe.

Fulton's Crab House

We did a little shopping, but as our main goal was ticketing we headed the Guest Relations soon after arriving. After waiting a few minutes we stepped up to the cast member of all cast members, Sean. Rarely have I had such a good experience. First we picked up Jeff’s AP, without a problem. Our next point was the upgrade my 2 day ticket to something more useful.

Flashback to August again, Jeff and I had booked the free dining promotion and were both given 1 day tickets, that weren’t used that trip. One of those 1 day tickets we upgraded to a 2-day ticket to get the $75 gift card (another story in itself). So, we had a 1 day ticket and a 2 day ticket. I had researched online and pretty much came to the realization that both tickets couldn’t be used for 1 (multi-day) ticket. That’s were pixie dust #1 comes in, Sean set it up so that both tickets could be used towards one 8 day hopper, with the difference being only about $67. (saving us basically $80) So we asked the question, how much would an AP upgrade be? Turned out only about $100 more (with our DVC discount). Not bad, so the big question? With a 12 month expiration could we make the AP work for both this trip and next January?

Sean, who must have been feeling like the Blue Fairy at this point, Instead of setting the expiration for 12 months out, he set up the expiration for the same date as Jeff’s, mid-February. Sure only 2-3 week’s difference, but that sealed it. I have never had that experience with Disney before, and I don’t expect to experience it again, but wow.

Okay maybe I should expand on how big a deal this is for us. Had the expiration been the NORMAL expiration we would have been in a quandry next year. The AP would expire on the 1st or 2nd day of our trip most likely in 2011, requiring that I would have to buy another $300+ ticket. THAT's the big deal. Sean saved us basically $400 in a 10 minute period. See why I love the guy?

So on that high, we headed back to the bus, and guess what bus was pulling up right as we hit the bus stop? I was waiting for the other shoe to fall, truly. Yep the Pop bus, we headed back to our room for a good nights sleep before a bright and early morning!

Sunday 1/24/2010

Sunday, Sunday Sunday! What a glorious day. It truly was a beautiful morning. Today was Busch Gardens day, but also check in day for Boardwalk (BWV). We woke up early, about 7:30AM, and were headed for BWV about 8:30 or so. Yes I had set up online check in for BWV too, but I wasn’t testing my luck!

When we arrived there was no line once again, and once again my requests were meet, at this point I didn’t quite realize how well though. Fourth floor, not handicap accessible. So after picking up all our necessities, we headed back out to our car for our trip to Busch Gardens in Tampa.

This trip was unique in that we visited both Busch Gardens and Animal Kingdom within a few days of each other. It is relatively obvious that Animal Kingdom is attempting to be a copy of Busch Gardens. I might love Disney but that’s a fact. In some ways Busch is better in my opinion. The theming while not as emmersive as Disney is done well, the animal exhibits are great, and the roller coasters are amazing. Disney has a few aspects that are better, but personally, for an animal park, I prefer Busch.

A lion topiary at the entrance to Busch Gardens Africa

So we began our journey to Busch, stopped at McDonalds for a quick breakfast, and ended up arriving probably about 10AM or so. Jeff had an old Gold Pass, but I had to purchase a ticket, and again thanks to the dis boards, I used my Southwest Rapid Rewards for a 20% discount. Our first stop was at the coasters. One of my favorites, Scorpion was our first stop, as a rare survivor for the 1970’s Schwartzkopf influx of coasters in the country; it still is a fun little ride. Smooth (for when it was built), and no shoulder restraints! YEAH! We then hit Kumba and SheiKra, skipping Montu this trip. All three coasters were complete walk ons, and we rode both Kumba and SheiKra in the front row!

One of the steam trains at Busch Gardens. All four engines were built by Crown Metal Products

I was depressed that the sky bucket ride was down due to weather (it was rather windy) this trip, but instead we opted for a ride on the train. Like Disney, Busch runs true steam engines, and like Disney they have a total of four. However, they are not true originals, and are certainly not as well maintained as Disney’s. (In fact I think Worlds of Fun, our home park, maintains its steam engine better) In fact, even MUSEUM pieces are not as well maintained as Disney’s! Jeff then spent a good hour talking with the engineers, which is a tradition of his as he is an engineer of our steam train here in Kansas City.

A tiger topiary in the Jungala Section.

A white tiger in the Jungala exhibit

I thought this was sweet. It reminds me of my cat back home. Only much larger.

We headed back to the car to pick up Jeff’s camera before heading back in for some good-natured meandering. One of my favorite experiences of the trip was the animal wax mold machine. Several, several years ago Jeff had seen a similar wax mold machine at Sea world (this was about 20 years ago), but hadn’t seen anything like them again. We had heard Busch had added this experience and after discovered several wax mold machines decided to try to the tiger machine in Jungala. Amazingly the wax tiger made it home all in one piece!

Anyone up for lunch?

This golden eagle is tearing into his lunch with gusto.

We also spent quite a bit of time with many of the Animal exhibits in the Nairobi section, and the new Jungala section. The new Jungala section replaced the old Congo, and I really liked the new Tiger enclosure, and was surprised that Busch had a white tiger, which if I am correct, are pretty rare! We didn't make it around to the Edge of Africa (home to the African big cats), and was a bit disappointed, but after hoofing it around the park, we were absolutely exhausted.

We were also extremely hungry having subsisted on that early McDonalds visit for many many hours. Soon before leaving we headed for Zambia Smokehouse. We had eaten here when we visited about three years prior, right after SheiKra had opened and remembered it being excellent. It was still quite good this time around, but not as good as either of us remembers.

It was closing in on 5PM by this time, and as both of us were tired, and had received our room ready text message several hours before, we headed for the park exit. It was a beautiful evening, as it had been a beautiful day, as we rode the tram back to our car and headed back to Orlando…

On the way back we got to catch our Bay Lake RV park sign once more (we had recently bought into the Bay Lake Tower DVC resort at Disney and thought the name similarity was funny). We stopped at a rest stop quickly and before we knew it the Mickey electric pole came into sight. This was our first time staying at an EPCOT resort so we weren’t exactly sure where to head, so we followed the signs, which worked perfectly.

Once we arrived, and discovered the self parking lot, we parked (had a great space!) and walked towards the villas wing to find our room. Now I had studied the layout of BWV before we had left and felt pretty comfortable with where everything was. Problem being nothing is EVER like it looks like on a map. The “F” shaped building wasn’t “F” shaped at all, but had hallways upon hallways that seemed the meander all over the place. At this point I was starting to feel like those horror stories about never ending hallways was coming true. I had never gotten lost in a hotel before… well obviously there is a first time for everything.

We finally found a stairwell up to our room (it turned out later on we found one two doors down from us!) and found our room 4119, it was our first 1-bedroom villa so the excitement was mounting. Well it turned out our room was huge! Well huge compared to where we had stayed before. Pictures don’t do it justice, and it appears so much smaller in photos. Looking out from our balcony we appeared to have what would be a great view of illuminations, and the room was clean and completely renovated. Overall we had picked BWV for the low points (Standard view rooms are some of the lowest point values), and I personally had wanted to stay at Boardwalk for some time. Jeff was less then amused with the theming though, he just is not a pastel, floral kind of guy (who is?) but by the end of our stay both of us ended up greatly enjoying the space and location!

I figured I should share a couple of pictures of our villa. Here is the living room portion.

The Kitchen

After having our luggage delivered, and cleaning the whirlpool tub (with dish washing detergent) we made our plans. In actuality before the trip I figured we would relax this evening at the resort. That was also before we decided on both of us having an Annual Pass. Now going to a park for an hour or so didn’t seem like such a bad idea! So instead of heading to EPCOT or MGM we decided to visit what is almost always our first park of the trip, Magic Kingdom.

So first we have to figure out how to GET to the bus stop. I took a look at the map on the villa door, which ended up being much more helpful the then map provided by the Boardwalk and found the stairwell I had missed just two doors down. Aha! It was a quick jaunt to the bus stop (LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION!) and what bus pulls up right when we get there? The Magic Kingdom Bus. If you are keeping score this is the THIRD time in a row the bus pulled up right as we arrived at the stop.

I forgot to mention that on our first night the bus driver to Downtown Disney had announced us to the whole bus that we were celebrating our anniversary; throughout the trip we had pretty good luck with the buses and their drivers. This time the driver really knew his stuff and took the curves in the big old bus like a true professional. We stopped at Swan and Dolphin before finally arriving at Magic Kingdom.

Not heading the advice on TouringPlans.com we had decided on visiting the park that was not only NOT recommended, but visiting it on a day that had a crowd calendar of 8! Was it packed? That is an understatement. Luckily, we hit the park right during Wishes so the lines at first weren’t too bad. We decided to check out Space Mountain to see for ourselves if the rehab made the ride any better. It posted a 20 minute wait, but was pretty much a walk on. Overall I have always liked Space Mountain, but after riding Disneyland’s I had so much hope for the rehab at Disney World. After reading the reviews, my hopes were dashed. The Queue lines received some updates, and the ride itself is MARGINALLY better (a little darker and maybe a little smoother), but overall a let down compared to the California version. As we exited Space Mountain the park had just closed and late magic hours just had begun so we headed next to TTA. Not to start a trend but I was SO disappointed with the spiel. I love this ride for its simplicity and the “Now approaching Mickey’s Star Traders” or “paging Mr. Morrow, Mr Tom Morrow” they need to change it back. Now. Yeah I know it won’t happen, but still.

From aboard the TTA we did make more the one realization (besides the bad spiel) that the park was insanely crowded. So we flirted with just leaving at that point. Instead of leaving I had an excellent idea (like usual) how about using a snack credit on the Dining Plan (remember that?!) to try… a DOLE WHIP! The illusive Dole Whip, like the illusive School Bread had been on my list of things to try for years. I love pineapple. Jeff actually needed some cajoling. To use the Dining Plan.

Did you even remember at this point that we even HAD the Dining Plan? Exactly! I was hesitant to add it, and was wondering at this point why Jeff was resistant to USE it! Who knows? The dole whip was good though, twisted Pineapple and vanilla ice cream. Jeff had a Root Beer float that he thought was quite good too. So after finishing off the last bits of our snack we decided to forgo the crowds and head for home.

We headed for the bus stop and had about an eight minute wait, not to bad, and our first stop was the Boardwalk! YEAH! After a quick walk to our room (by this time we thought we had everything figured out) Jeff decided to try out the spa tub, and I followed soon after him (not together get that thought out of your head), it was wonderfully, luxurious, as we only have a basic tub back home. Ahhh… I can remember it now.

After being soothed and bathed, we headed to bed. On quite possibly the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in, and had a good night rest.

Monday 1/25/2010

Originally Monday was going to be our first foray to the Magic Kingdom. Even though we had visited the night before we decided that was the plan for today too. We slept in until about 9AM and weren’t even out the door until close to 10AM. Jeff and I decided a few years ago that our vacations will be VACATIONS. After all we have now been to Disney over a dozen times. Today we decided to drive to Magic Kingdom, and even at about 10:30 the parking lot was dead, we literally had no need to take the tram to the TTC, but did anyway (it was there), and went directly for the monorail. The monorail ended up being overally crowded the entire week as it appeared the ferry was down the whole time. Not a problem, we were soon at the Magic Kingdom.

Casey's Corner

Me in front of Casey's Corner

As you probably have guessed I really love Magic Kingdom, I love reading the plaque above the two tunnels “Here you leave beyond the real world and enter a world of fantasy… etc” Love it. We walked down Main Street, and we had already decided our first stop would be for some food, we were both quite hungry and it was time to put to REAL use that ignored Dining Plan. Our first stop was Casey’s Corner. We had first tried this last year, and Jeff loved it, and I enjoyed it enough. I had heard about the change in the buns, but overall there wasn’t much difference? I again had the corn dog nuggets which were good as usual. I still get a kick out of the toppings bar too! Who knew that sauerkraut and onions could be included in a toppings bar?

Anywho… after leaving Busch before riding the train “one more time” and with the train being down by the time we arrived at MK last night our first ride of the day was already assumed, the WDW railroad. I still can’t get over how clean those trains are! I worked at the Worlds of Fun railroad as conductor this last summer and people are so messy, gum, wrappers, LEAVES LEAVES and MORE LEAVES. Yuck. Not a speck of dust on the Disney trains though; the brass is shinned, not even a bit of flecked paint. I still can’t get over their quality.

A photo from the Winnie the Pooh Ride.

This may seem very strange, but its again part of the Winnie the Pooh Ride. This section if from the dream sequence.

Another photo from Winnie the Pooh.

We ended up riding the train around almost two full circuits and finally exited at Frontierland station. We stopped at Big Thunder and grabbed a Fast Pass, and then headed towards Fantasyland and Mickey’s Toontown Fair. Jeff and I are not big Toontown fans, but we had to grab a few photos before Toontown is bulldozed out of existence. Our next stop was back to Fantasyland, we caught the tail end of a Saxophone roaming jazz band (probably from the Princess and the Frog movie), and decided on Winnie the Pooh as we hadn’t rode that for a few years. It was cute, but I was really looking out for Mr. Toad and didn’t see him! (there's supposed to be hidden in The Pooh ride as a tribute to Mr. Toad’s wild ride). We then headed to the Pooh playground near by for a shot of the 20,000 leagues under the sea tribute, and headed back out to head for Liberty Square. Only we didn’t make it there for a while. A smallish marching band, ala Music Man came out and we had to stop and watch. They were quite talented, and very entertaining!

Finally we headed for a visit with 999 happy haunts at Haunted Mansion, that is one ride that never gets old. We also ended up hitting Big Thunder, Pirates of the Caribbean and finally Jungle Cruise rounded out the rest of the visit. A lot of people have commented how Jungle Cruise now has a “set” script, and commented how that would negatively affect the ride. Having been a conductor on the train here at our park in Kansas City (worlds of fun) and having what was a “set” script, and then changing it, without any comments from the staff, I can attest that the jungle cruise skippers do basically the same thing. They hit the major points (It’s the backside of water!) but still embellish. It was a great time as always.

Big Thunder Mountain!

You might want to document this moment in time. Not only did Jeff take his camera ("precious") with him on a roller coaster, but also took photos on the ride!


The Bride from Haunted Mansion.

Madame Leota from Haunted Mansion.

These folks really got the "point" on the Jungle Cruise!

Some head hunters from Jungle Cruise.

This photo says it all!

It was closing in on about 4PM at this time so we decided to head out. This is what I love about both DVC and long 9 days vacations, we only spent 4-5 hours in a park at one time. We headed the monorail, and took the express monorail back to TTC, and back to our car. As we drove back to BWV we stopped at the Hess station for some soda, chips and snacks and then found our amazing BWV parking space. First row, first space! The car stayed there for the next few days.

We headed back up the room to relax, I read a little bit and then decided to watch one of th DVD’s I had brought with us, The Last Samurai. Since we were in a re-modeled room, with a brand new flat screen TV we found out that they probably never fully hooked the DVD player up the TV so it took us about 30 minutes to figure that out (actually it took Jeff 30 minutes or so to figure out I didn’t help to much!), I watched about the first hour and then we decided to head out early for our 8:05PM at Akershus.

Details in the hallway carpet. I love the mickey on the roller coaster!

We ended up getting a little lost trying to find the lobby (who knew the lobby was on the 2^nd floor? Maybe that big button on the elevator that says LOBBY should have helped us there). We stopped at main shop at the Boardwalk and Jeff finally found the watch he had been looking for, that he had seen the previous year. It was closing in on 7 or so he decided to think about it while we visited EPCOT.

The Boardwalk at night, shot from near the EPCOT entrance.

On entering from the International Gateway the first stop was the France Pavilion.

Another one of France.

And now for something completely different! The Morocco Pavilion.

This was our first walk to EPCOT and I found it much quicker then I expected. We stopped in a few pavilions to shop and look around before heading to Norway. We decided to check into our ADR (Advance Dining Reservation) since there was a pretty significant check in line. Once we had checked in, we waited just a few minutes before we were called.

Now I was a little anxious at the point, as this was our first ever character meal. I felt it would feel odd to be two adults, without kids at what I had always thought was a “kids” thing. Truth is it was a little weird at first, but I enjoyed it. It is our quest to eat around the world at EPCOT, and the last two we had left were China and Norway. I always love trying the ethnic foods, and I was more then a little worried that because of the characters the food would be “dumbed down”. It might have been a little but it was still quite good.

We first started with the cold buffet, I love seafood, Jeff loves cheese, a match made in heaven. The cold salads (tomato, shrimp, etc) were quite good, as was the cheese and cold salmon and cod. There are very few seafood options I don’t like so I was happy.

Jeff really liked all the cheese options especially the caramel goat cheese. It was a bit of an unusual flavor but very good.

For our entrée’s I had the mustard glazed salmon, Jeff had the beef tips. The Glazed salmon ranked as a 5 out of 5 for me, I loved salmon, and the mustard glaze added a unique but wonderful flavor. Jeff enjoyed his beef tips, and I tried them, the taste seemed somewhat similar to a stew, but had a great flavoring to it.

Last was dessert, our favorite part of the meal, they had changed the trio of desserts obviously a few months ago, as I believe it used to include school bread (still on my list of things to try!) instead we had rice pudding, apple crisp and chocolate mouse. The apple crisp was excellent (though I never paired apples with Norway), the rice pudding had a unique texture and took some time to get used to, but was still good. The chocolate moose, was well… chocolate, can’t ever go wrong there.

Ariel (Little Mermaid)

Snow White (she seemed a little odd...)

Aurora (Sleeping Beauty)

Cinderella

While working on our entrees the princesses all came through, they all seemed to stay in character, and while I was really hoping Mulan would be there tonight, (she is one of my favorite characters) we ended up with Belle, Cinderella, Snow White, Ariel and Aurora (from Sleeping Beauty). Lucky enough we had a few cast members around who were able to take our photos. It was a unique experience and I am glad we tried it.

Would we return? I would rank the restaurant as a 4 out of 5 overall, but the overall cost $37.95 per person makes it daunting to pay out of pocket. Plus with EPCOT having so many different and unique dining options, we may make it back but it might be awhile. I still wish that they would offer either one of the meals without characters to make the meal less cost prohibitive. In this case we had the Dining Plan, and that made Akershus actually a great value.

While finishing up with the characters and moving to dessert, Illuminations went off, so as we left, the park was already closed. It was rather surreal moving through a empty World Showcase, as we headed for the Intl Gateway and then the Boardwalk. On the way back Jeff also had decided to purchase his watch, as there were only two left. Afteward's we headed back to our room, relaxed a bit, and went to bed.